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 – 0:025 turns
Dude, are
you okay? You wouldn't believe what I was just thinking. I am definitely buzzed!
Yeah... I think I will take this and I will take that ride home. Smart man! Did you see how the dog was looking at me? If you need
to do something to feel okay.
Yeah.
0:03 – 0:032 turns
Good morning.
I'll call to order the December 7th, 2021 meeting of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors. Madam Clerk please call the roll.
Roll call, called by Mr Don Gilchrist
Show transcript
Roll-call vote 1–0 · 3 under review
Show transcript
Agenda Discussionitems moved / continued / pulled, click to expand
On December 2 with the continuation requests and the request is to continue this item to the December 14 Board of Supervisors meeting, if we can add that to the balance of the agenda. I would also 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 and 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 under their language settings.
Please note that today, December 7th 2021 the simultaneous Spanish interpretation is currently down for Cox cable subscribers in South County. But members of the public can turn tune into the CSB TV YouTube channel for live Spanish interpretation. That information is currently being provided through the TV scroll or will be momentarily. 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
0:06 – 0:085 turns
public comment on general public comment or an item on the board's agenda, please see page two of the agenda. Members of the public can attend meetings in person in both Santa Barbara and Santa Maria. Please note, on October 5th 2021, an additional County Health Officer order went into effect requiring indoor mask usage for everyone over 2 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 all the way under your chin. 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 two.
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 or remove 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. Each person may address the board for up to three minutes and this is at the discretion of the chair. If you have any questions please contact the clerk of the board's office at area code 805-568-2240 again that's 805-56822 40 That concludes my announcements today. Thank you.
Next item of business is CO's report. CO Miyasato, do you have anything for today?
Chair Nelson, no report today. I have some information about choice retorts but I'll wait till we get to the admin agenda. Great. All
right, the next time approval is administrative agenda. My understanding is we have a few items that we will be presenting and highlighting. They are A4, A9, A34, and A35. I don't think any of them need a separate vote. So is there any items being pulled by the public?
Chair Nelson and members of the board we have no request to speak from the public on the administrative agenda.
0:08 – 0:1323 turns
Okay, so I'd be willing to go ahead and take a motion for that motion would also include the continuance of item 822 December 14. So can I get that motion?
So I move we approve the administrative agenda including the continuance of a 22 December 14
second that motion. All right, need a roll call vote here.
Supervisor Hart,
aye.
Roll-call vote Passed 4–0 motion. All right, need a roll call
Show transcript
motion passes unanimously.
Okay the first item we're going to start off with today is Item A-9. Clerk will you please read that item into the record?
Chair Nelson and members of the board administrative item number nine is from the county executive office, it is to approve that the Board of Supervisors co sponsor the 2021 toys for tots drive with unity shop and seek participation by the Santa Barbara County employees.
Good morning, Chair Nelson and board members. We're here today to announce our continued sponsorship for Toys for Tots. The county is sponsoring this with Unity Shop and Marine Corps Toys for Tots Toy Drive. County employees and the public may donate new unwrapped toys and collection bins are located in the county administrative building in Santa Barbara and here in Santa Maria through December 10th so it's not a lot of time If you have your toy, please get it into the bins by December 10 collection boxes are also located at county fire stations and many sheriff substations. Tom read from unity shop is joining us I believe in South County today to officially kick off the toy drive and once he's done, I believe the board members would like to place their items into the box so Tom.
Let's see if
he's there and the Santa Barbara chambers.
He is not Mona.
Okay,
all right.
So he is not there but I know Tom's been has joined us every year on behalf of the unity shop so if the board would like to be officially kick off the toy drive and be the first to place their donations in a box that would be great and board members the boxes here in Santa Maria, and maybe we can have each of you go and put your toy in the box and then we can go to Santa Barbara and have supervisor Williams.
Okay, well before we do that real quick and one of the fun things that we do at the board besides the businesses is this toy drive annually. And so often various supervisors for the last few years have gotten toys that are have a theme to them. I'm gonna kick mine off today with my space Legos here as we in our county push towards greater commercial space action out there at Vandenberg Space Force Base. That'll be my toy to present today.
Supervisor Hartman. Yeah, my toy is a Caterpillar Excavator. It's a toy that I played with as a kid and um I'm particularly proud of this because I think it symbolizes the investments we're making in infrastructure in the county. I know the public works team over there is nodding their heads and going yes way to go Greg. Um but I particularly think this is important because uh I've been really associated with the 101 widening project for a long time in my career and this is a tool that's critical
Sure. Mine has more of a personal story my husband is a geochemist who's just retiring from his job that matches underrepresented students with graduate fellowships in the STEM sciences and so this is to get people interested in science,
right. Supervisor Lavagnino. Awesome, and then mine is it's not really a toy more of a skill but it's something that will last your lifetime and that is learning to draw so whether you're drawing a straight line a map or some caricatures now I got some pencils and looks like it would be a lot of fun
right
How you
doing Supervisor Williams?
I'm doing good. I don't know if I have quite as much political content in my toy as some of you guys, but I believe that playing should make you think and that the more you think in your play, the more you might think in the rest of life. So I picked a card game that is called Exploding Kittens. The description is it's like UNO except there are goats, magical enchiladas and dangerous kittens. And it is appropriate for ages seven plus.
Thank you. All right.
0:13 – 0:1513 turns
I'm going to
get a
picture
of
me
taking it out of the kids.
And we here at the staff table have ours, so we'll go put ours in right now as well.
Exploding kittens.
So once again those boxes are available throughout the county admin building here in San Maria and fire stations and sheriff substations, and please get those in by December 10. Thank
you. Thank you, Mr Chair, and it just occurred to me that I was looking at the time and my dad's over at the freedom monument. given his speech and I thought it was probably appropriate that we all thank all the veterans. This is December 7th, of course 80th anniversary of Pearl Harbor Day. Many individuals lost their lives that day but it also was the generation of the greatest generation that came after and gave us our freedom so I think it'd be appropriate if we have any veterans in the audience today to stand up and be recognized and appreciated for your service.
Thank you, Supervisor Lavinier. That was perfect. Moving along for the agenda, our next item is Item A4.
And Chair Nelson, members of the Board if we can get a motion to approve A9?
The motion had the entire board agenda.
0:15 – 0:207 turns
Moving on to administrative item number four. This is from behavioral wellness department, it is to consider recommendations regarding a memorandum of understanding with the city of Santa Maria Police Department for Behavioral Health Co response team BH CRT
to resolving you. Thank you Mr. Chair. I just wanted to pull this to highlight that this is something that for those who don't understand the term co response one of the problems that we've had In all of our communities is the mental health crisis has exploded, is that officers are sometimes are often called to situations that they're either not prepared for. They're walking into dangerous situations with people that are mentally ill without the proper training these can lead to.
10 standoffs and sometimes the worst outcomes that we can possibly imagine. So what we've tried to do in 2018, we started a co-response unit where a clinician is traveling with our sheriff's deputy. And so when those calls come in through dispatch, that is the team that responds. It frees up our officers to do what we pay them to do at same time. We diffuse a lot of these situations, many fewer people with mental illness are then incarcerated. And we find out that this is very cost effective and more humane way to deal with people.
It was a pilot program in 2018 with the county, we found it to be very successful. The city of Santa Barbara signed on in 2019 and now I'm proud to say that City of Santa Maria is also joining for three year pilot program in 2021. So I think today's a historical time and just really excited about this program.
Thank you, Supervisor Labadino. All right. Our
next item on the agenda is Item A-34. Madam Clerk, will you please read that into record?
So Nelson and members of the board administrative item number 34 is a resolution sponsored by Supervisor heart and supervisor Hartman, this to adopt a resolution honoring ASAP cats buns Kappa care for pause canine pals Santa Barbara County Animal Care Foundation. Santa Barbara Humane, Santa Anas Valley Humane Society slash DOG and Shadows Fund for their partnership with Santa Barbara County Animal Services and their dedication to saving and improving the lives of Santa Barbara County's companion animals.
And we have quite a few members joining us today receiving this resolution via Zoom. We have Dr. Do Reynoso and Gina Sonseri, Donna Peterson, Kimberly Swan, Jill Anderson and Lori Tremor. Receiving here in person we have Angela Yates, Jan Kayes Chris Harris, Janelle Ward, Linda Greco and Dory Villalon. And for those members that are joining us in person today if you would like to come up to the podium.
Thank you. Great
thank you and I will go ahead and read the resolution into the record. Whereas our local nonprofit organizations in partnership with Santa Barbara County Animal Services, providing provided during the coven 19 pandemic, the highest level of life saving support for companion animals access to affordable spay neuter and veterinary care. Evacuation support during disasters and safety net support to keep animals with their families. And whereas ASAP cats and buns work seamlessly with Santa Barbara County Animal Services to provide direct care and services for cats, bunnies, and guinea pigs In the county shelter system, and whereas care for paws works to reduce pet overpopulation keep animals out of shelters and improve quality of life for pets and pet owners.
And shadows fund gives hope and second changes to the most vulnerable shelter dogs provide support for behavior and enrichment programs and rescues at risk dogs in the county shelter system. And whereas Kappa, Canine Pals and the Santa Barbara County Animal Care Foundation provide critical funding for veterinary care supplies and program support for animals in the county shelter system. And whereas Santa Barbara Humane and Santa Ynez Valley Humane Society DOG provide sheltering and veterinary services transfer animals from the county shelter system and collaborate on key programs now therefore be it hereby ordered and resolved That this Board of Supervisors commends ASAP Cats Fund's Kappa Care for Paws, Canine Pals, Santa Barbara County Animal Care Foundation, Santa Barbara Humane, Santa Ana's Valley Humane Society slash dog and Shadows Fund for their partnership with Santa Barbara County Animal Services and their dedication to saving and improving the lives of Santa Barbara County's companion animals passed and adopted today.
0:21 – 0:259 turns
We have Dr. Do Reynoso.
Yes, good morning Chair Nelson and members of the board. Thank you Supervisor Hart and Hartman for sponsoring this recognition of the incredible partners we have in animal services. We are so fortunate to have outstanding partners and volunteers who share our burden, who share our mission to saving and improving the lives of animals in our county Today is all about the partners, and we hope to return to your board in the near future to recognize our volunteers. And here is Miss Angela Yates animal services director to share her appreciation.
Welcome associates.
Thank you. Chair Nelson and honorable members of the board, thank you so much for honoring our partners. They are always deserving of our appreciation, but never more than during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was no small feat for all of them to keep their shelters and services going during the past 18 months, but they didn't stop there. They pushed harder and there have been Herculean efforts on the part of all nine of these partners to not only provide services to the community during a time when they were struggling to provide care for their own animals, but also animal services at a time when we really needed their help. So I am incredibly honored and privileged to work with these partners. I'm humbled by their dedication and I'm grateful for them every day.
Thank you so much.
Supervisor Hartman and Supervisor Hart.
Sure, I just wanted to add in times long ago animal services was really in public health because it focused on protecting human health from rabies and other diseases, and we've really evolved to see non-human animals as our companions on this planet. And these partners have really stepped up to support families, to help keep pets in the house with veterinarian care training all kinds of services that mean that it's elevated the standard of care in Santa Barbara County to what people are demanding And the county could never, ever manage this on their own. It really depends on these partners and it's 24 seven and people are passionate and committed so we are tremendously fortunate to have them thank you so much.
Thank you for your time. community organizations, hundreds of people that are leaning in every day to look out for animals. And it just reminds me that these people have so much love in their hearts that they can give time and energy and financial support and really commitment to protecting animals across all parts of Santa Barbara County. And their passion and their commitments and their energy for this is seemingly inexhaustible because when we really needed their help Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the board. I just want to say thank you so much for your support during the COVID-19 pandemic. They stepped up more and more. There is no limit on what we can do together working with our nonprofit partners in the county government to protect companion animals because everybody has a tender spot in their heart for our animal friends.
This is a day to recognize
Yeah, I just wanted to give a thank you to these partners. Our ability to come through for our constituents and in our animals would not be possible without these partners most of them are volunteers and we really appreciate the time and love that you put into this.
Thank you. All right, now we'll come to our final administrative item. Item A35.
0:25 – 0:322 turns
Chair Nelson and members of the board, administrative item number 35 is sponsored by Supervisor Nelson. It is to adopt a resolution of accommodation honoring Thomas D. Fairam upon his retirement from the Public Works Department after over 35 years of dedicated service to the citizens of Santa Barbara County. And Tom has already made his way up to the podium if anyone else from Public Works would like to join him I will go ahead and read the resolution.
Whereas Tom favor and began employment with the Santa Barbara County Flood Control and Water Conservation District on August 11 1986, as a civil engineer associate to when the flood control district was its own department. And whereas, Mr favor him was promoted several times over the course of his career, and was appointed the deputy public works director In 1994, as the flood control district was merged with the Santa Barbara County Water Agency and became the water resources division of the public works department. We're now Mr favor him is finishing his career after 27 years of leading this division.
And whereas Mr. Farram led the Water Resource Division's response to numerous local, state and federally declared emergencies including drought, fire, flood and debris flow. And whereas throughout his career at the county, Mr. Farram has held paramount the best interests of the citizens of Santa Barbara County as they relate to flood control water supply and clean water.
And whereas Mr. Ferrum traversed both the state and the nation numerous times throughout his career to reduce state and federal red tape on projects constructed, and to turn over every stone in both capitals for funding to build flood control improvements that provide for public safety and quality of life enhancements to the residents we serve. Whereas Mr. Ferrum is the epitome of public service and has set a high bar and challenged those around him to do the same.
He is known as a straight shooter and all the communities that we serve. And whereas Mr favor him was able to achieve all of his professional accomplishments, while at the same time maintaining his ownership status in the Green Bay Packers. And whereas Mr favor him will retire on December 10 2021 after 35 years of faithful public service to the citizens of Santa Barbara County, and now we'll have more time to spend with his kids drew and Emily go fishing and travel with his wife Kathy. Now therefore be it hereby ordered and resolved that this Board of Supervisors of the County of Santa Barbara commends and thanks Mr. Fayram for his 35 years of dedicated service to the county, and wishes him and his family the best in his retirement. Passing adopted.
Oh, I'm Mr. Chairman borders a little Tom collect himself and kick it off here but thank you for honoring Tom Ferrum and his 35 exceptional years as just an outstanding public servant. I've had the pleasure of working with Tom for 33 of those years, and we serve shoulder to shoulder is executive leaders in public works since 1999. Today's resolution really touches on the major areas that Tom's career will be known for and I really want to focus on one particular area this morning if I may. And when it comes to, it talks about when it comes to working with state and federal officials to get funding or reduce the regulatory process so we can build our projects with funding and get the projects built sooner there's really no one better than Tom at that.
When I first became a deputy, Tom said, Scott you really need to learn about DC and how the federal process works so join me on a lobbying trip. And let's go to DC so I went to my first lobbying trip, and at the time, the number one priority for the county was the Santa Maria levy. Right. That's the six mile improvement project which was done a few years back, north of the city of Santa Maria so we get to DC and Tom goes hey we're going out to the Pentagon I said okay you know i mean because typically you go to Capitol Hill right, you know, think that's the place to be so So we head out the Pentagon, about a 20-minute train ride. We get through security. We walk for 35 or 40 minutes into the Pentagon, right? We go through multiple hallways, stairwells, through courtyards to get to this gentleman's office.
He is the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works and I think his name was James Woodley from Louisiana. Tom knew who else is going to know better about a levy Then somebody from Louisiana, especially New Orleans so he put his finger on that assistant secretary. Tom went into great detail. On the issues regarding the levy and the threats to the community here in Santa Maria. And I kind of thought it was the first time he had met with this gentleman now, he had been there a few times before we subsequent to that meeting. I think we met a few more times with that assistant Secretary of the Army fast forward to 2009 Ara comes up. The Assistant Secretary of the Army is number one project on his list is $47 million for Amazing, he finds people that can help us.
And we all know Tom Farrum is 109,000 people citizens of Santa Maria that live behind that levy today. They may or may not know Tom but thanks to Tom's efforts you know those folks as far as flooding is concerned the chances of that happening have been diminished significantly thanks to Tom s work and that's really just one story. across many communities in the county about how Tom has impacted the safety of County residents, city residents and the quality of life of people in the community. And he's tenacious about doing the right thing. He's consistent and his goal is to really protect people and improve the quality of life and it's been an absolute pleasure Tom serve with you.
I can't thank you enough for the 35 years of exceptional public service in coworkers and friends. It's been a fun ride. Thank you, sir.
0:32 – 0:383 turns
I guess we waive the three minute rule. Just today, Mr Chair members of the board. I want to thank you for this resolution honor to have served for the citizens of this county and for you. It's been rewarding. And as I said truly an honor. I want to thank CEO Miyasato and my boss Scott McLaughlin for your support and trust meant a lot to me. However, the truth is it wouldn't be possible without the men and women of the Public Works Department.
And especially the Water Resources Division, many who are here. Raise your hands. And many in Santa Barbara as well. They're the best and I thank them. Lastly, I want to recognize my family here. My dad Dave and Mary My dad's an electrical engineer, and I think when I said I was gonna be civil engineering. I don't know if he liked that or not but it worked.
My wife Kathy who retired after 33 years of teaching at Hana the school in Buellton including seven years as a principal, Kathy. My son Drew, he served for a couple of years on a service health tech crew and now works on power line safety for us through My daughter Emily, who she works for First 5 Santa Clara County. Giving our children the best start so maybe they can be a deputy public works director someday my daughter Emily.
And lastly my daughter-in-law Melissa who is a nurse studying to be a nurse practitioner working very hard. However Mr. Chair over the last 18 years she worked many shifts as a COVID ICU nurse So, join me in thanking her. I think you got the wrong up here today but I thank you again for this honor. It's been rewarding and I just look forward to the adventures ahead and as I mentioned all of you, this is my home. I'll always be here. Thank
Sure, let's kick it off. This is what kind of sucks about this job sometimes is that I've spent 11 years working with Tom now and this was typical Tom Bayram style totally deflect to his family to Others in the department. I can tell you, I want to piggyback on something Scott said and I'm not going to blow all my material I am emceeing Tom's retirement party later tonight so that's after a few cocktails so this is this is going to be the PG version but I think first off what Scott said was that Tom is the epitome of a public servant. And this is exactly, you know sometimes government employees get labeled as bureaucrats and those types of things. It's the guy that gets things done.
In the story that Scott said, I remember the first time I went to DC with Tom and I thought okay we're going to see Senator Feinstein, we've got to go see Congresswoman caps at the time you know we want to see the highest level people. And if you go with Tom, yeah we've got to spend our time doing that but most importantly you're going to be in some basement buried in the bowels of some giant bureaucracy but Tom knows the person that's in that very dimly lit building With all these books around them, and that's the person that is actually making the decision. That is then going to go to Congresswoman caps and so Tom was always in fact I remember when we were in the Army Corps of Engineers building.
And we were meeting with some staffer and Tom just happened to say hey this Colonel Gibbs is Colonel Gibbs available today and the guys like oh he's super busy there's just no way you're going to be able to get a chance And Tom's like, well just can you let them know I'm here? And next thing you know they ran down Scott, Tom and I and snagged us up and put us up there. But as a citizen of the city of Santa Maria, I think one of the things too that Scott talked about that's so important is there are so many citizens in this county whether it's Montecito, Santa Barbara or Santa Maria that have benefited from your service and don't even know it.
When Scott talked about the lack of the ability to protect us now from a flood The other portion of that is you saved thousands of homeowners. Seriously, probably millions of dollars in not having to buy flood insurance because they were no longer in a flood zone and most people in Santa Maria don't even know that, you know, and I can tell you as an elected official sometimes I got credit for this or a former mayor got credit for it, the credit goes But Tom, you did tell me a fib one time and I got to call you on this.
You told me that on my first, I think it was my first week as supervisor, you took me to Kachuma Dam and it was low, the lake was low. And you said don't worry, Supervisor, I promise you by the time you leave this thing will spill. So it's been 11 years. Well barely so unless it starts raining You got your job cut out for you. So I'm gonna let you leave without letting it spill, but it's been a pleasure and an honor to work with you.
You taught me a lot about how to do things in an honorable manner so thank you.
Thank you Supervisor Abena.
0:38 – 0:435 turns
Yeah,
I just want to add my voice to thank you Tom too. I've worked with him for many years and I've been on one of those trips to DC as well but the thing that I'm most impressed with in my district that Tom has been really instrumental in achieving is sort of a bank shot solution. You know at Goleta Beach we have had a terrible problem over time with sand going away from the beach. The beach has shrunk dramatically and Tom During the most intense time, I think probably of his career during the Thomas debris flow when decisions had to be made instantly about what to do to protect homes down in Montecito.
The call was made to take material out to Goleta Beach and put it into the surf zone a lot of cobblestone sand mud you know everything that had to be deposited and gotten out of those communities so that we could begin to recover Montecito and restore flood control capacity for future event that might occur And Tom got a lot of flack for that. There were a lot of people that were critical of that, people had different opinions but ironically those rocks held sand for the first time in probably 30 years and a little mini beachhead was created on Goleta Beach for the first time and the next year when material came down into the debris basins Tom said let's push that stuff out there onto Goleta Beach again And so the environmental community now has really gotten behind this solution and everybody recognizes, hey, this is what we need to do.
Thank you, Supervisor Hartman.
Well, it's obvious that Tom comes from a family that's guided by public service but he's in a class by himself. In terms of the county and the benefits you brought to us and I think particularly around emergencies trying to avoid them and then trying to recover from them and how enormously effective you've been in times when we're in great distress. And personally, you're the guardian of the water in our county. It's a public trust resource and you've taken that on and it's one of the most controversial issues but as others have said, you stand up to controversy. You do what's right even in the face of a lot of pressure.
And so I'm gonna miss you but I'm gonna imagine you with Kathy and Bora Bora
Great, thank you. Supervisor Williams?
Well the First District has a lot of historical flooding and debris flows and I just want to thank you on behalf of the constituents of the First District. Your vigilance before storms in getting debris basins emptied out and clearing creeks and waterways I am sure it has made a difference. It has made a difference for people's property and it is probably made a difference for people's lives.
And the dedication, I mean look you know one of those we remember Montecito but some people have forgotten that most of this the lower half of the city of Santa Barbara is also Subject to flooding and the dedication that you and your department have been taken to a multi generational project, the lower Mission Creek. Um, project is is really incredible. I mean you know we live in an age where people have a hard time thinking in the timescale of larger than 4 years let alone having you know this is a project that will take decades to complete and that that dedication is Just enormously important that vision of the long haul and the public interest in the long haul is special. It's, it's rare, and it should be cultivated and treasured and I want to tell you that I'm not alone here.
There is a sizable delegation of your fan club Here in the chambers in South County, most of them are folks that work with you all the time and can speak to your character and can speak to your dedication even better. Better than I can. I'll save some of the funny ones for tonight, but it has been an honor starting over 14 years ago working with you at COMB, the Kachuma Operations Maintenance Board all the way till now getting a chance to work with you and seeing all The expertise, the straightforward truth and dedication that you offer to the public or the county.
0:43 – 0:5011 turns
Supervisor Williams. And we have a full hearing room here today, some family and co-workers but also a lot of my constituents. I want everybody to know that this isn't a normal thing where the board does this. We have 4,300 employees. We appreciate all of them and their hard work. Many of them retire every year. But there's a reason why there's this much energy and thoughtfulness around Tom's services is because he is a special employee. He has definitely left A footprint on Santa Barbara County.
I don't know if you graduated in civil engineering or political engineering. But Tom really does balance his technical knowledge, his relationships. He's a constant working to invest in infrastructure and steward the assets of the county and protect taxpayers. And so, Tom you always be one of my heroes in county government and we will be missed it but I strongly believe that you've left us better than when we got here and The five of us as supervisors and the 450,000 constituents that we have owe you a debt of gratitude. Thank you, Tom.
So that concludes our administrative agenda at this time. We're going to go ahead and go to general public comment. General public comment is for items that are not on our agenda today And Madam Clerk, do we have any speakers?
Chair Nelson and members of the board. We have five requests to speak on general public comment today.
Okay before we go ahead and get started I'm going to close general public comment and just for everybody out there that's paying attention here. We have five public commenters that's about three minutes a piece so we got about 15 minutes there. We're gonna take a five minute break before beginning item departmental item one
Chair Nelson and members of the board, we are going to begin on Zoom with Maria Kessner to be followed by Justin Shores.
Welcome Ms. Kessner.
Good morning dear Board of Supervisors. Civil rights violations are through the roof in Santa Barbara County. Last week Thursday my disabled daughter and I were once again kicked off the MTD bus Because we asserted her right to not wear a mask and she's exempt from her federal and state mandates, and per county health order. We have been kicked off the mtb bus before this summer when she kept pulling her mask below her nose at the time I thought it was resolved with the mtv bus management since Miss Mary Greg and Mr bill Morris conceded during a phone call that we had been in the rights.
I then told them we will not be trying to accommodate them with masks because it caused confusion. This time, we boarded the bus without a mask and not until five stops afterwards did the bus driver notice my daughter was not wearing her mask and it got us kicked off the bus once more by a supervisor who called the sheriff on us. The sheriff was on our side and when we departed the bus both the bus driver and supervisor urged me to address the MTD management.
This is a violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the ADA, the Unruh Act of California and all mask mandates from federal to state to local health orders. This tyranny of civil rights violations has taken a strong foothold as employers in Santa Barbara County like Cottage Hospital, the Goleta Water District and Santa Barbara Unified School District are all engaging in illegal practices when their employees are requesting religious exemptions and accommodations for vaccine mandates. From requesting employees to show letters from spiritual leaders, to questions about their medical health. To forcing blanket accommodations rather than individual accommodations. Multiple inquiries about people's religious convictions which goes beyond a reasonable inquiry.
To reasonably accommodations like having employees pay for their own COVID testing thus resulting into having to pay out of pocket for the equipment or half their yearly income. The courts have ruled that the so-called reasonable accommodations are to be fair, sensible, appropriate and suitable. As Obama stated in 2020, don't underestimate Joe's ability to F things up. And I'm talking about the federal mandates that are now being thrown out by the Fifth Circuit and several other federal courts around the country. And I think this needs to have a priority for this board, people that are vulnerable, people that predominantly also are minorities. I'm helping currently three people that are Hispanic that need help with these religious letters.
And also because they're intimidated, English is not their first language as it is not mine but I've had years of advocacy for my daughter under my belt and things that we need to bring attention to this in this community civil rights are under attack and it's predominantly because of the federal mask mandates by the Biden administration thank you very much.
We
will remain on zoom with Justin shores to be followed by Dr. Amy Smith, Justin.
Thank you very much. I just watched a lot of the redistricting
stuff over the last few months. Representation
and I think the, the district lines are really important so i think that the new district map is potentially going in yesterday's really good. I will want to say I think Supervisor Lavanita was cheated, I believe there was a lot of Democratic Party involvement in this. If you look at ex parte communication between Turley and Rios all of it was with The people who wrote the map, because people and cause has endorsed Democratic candidates including a lot of the supervisors on the board.
The three supervisors who are endorsed by Democrats. They all voted for the lawyers who did the redistricting. So it looks so fishy I mean this is party politics at its worst. So, I just want to say it's very obvious. So Turley and Rios, all of their ex parte was directly with Democrat operatives. In fact if you look at the list of speakers for Saturday.
0:50 – 0:5714 turns
Justin we're losing
you on our
end.
Lastly, I just want to say I think that the fact that they allowed the commissioner to be off screen on zoom all time. Commissioner Rios, and she didn't let her cut lab bonito out of a job essentially. I think that should be looked at so thank you.
Thank you Mr sure.
We will now go to Dr. Amy Smith, and then we will go to Santa Barbara for Nancy McCready, Dr. Amy Smith.
I'd like to also discuss the civil rights issues
that we're
facing in our county.
I don't know if people are aware of the House bill nationally that passed, I think it was HR 550. That sets up a database to track the vaccination status of every single person in the country and that is going to tie into the passport systems that are being set up already such as in LA and then in our county, it's already happening Certain kinds of events, you can't attend without proof of vaccination. The Arlington Theater requires vaccination to attend an in-person concert. There's no that I was aware of. I was not able to get a copy of their policy from their very unhelpful manager that I spoke to yesterday but there's no accommodation for people for religious beliefs or anything so this is discrimination Pure and simple. We're creating two classes of people, the vaccinated and the unvaccinated.
And what is this vaccine accomplishing? Right now we're having more and more cases in the vaccinated despite the claims that from our health authorities in our county that it was a pandemic of the unvaccinated. That's not bearing out with the scientific evidence I know that they prefer to just repeat what the industry captured agencies say. But if you actually look at science, which is how science is done through the literature, the independent freely produced literature that includes perspectives from all sides not just those who are beholden to the pharmaceutical industry, you see that the rate of people who are vaccinated getting COVID is high. You also see that we have ways to treat COVID And we have people who have recovered immunity from COVID.
So these are two things that make it not an emergency and not a deadly, dangerous pandemic. And so the justification for changing our entire society where you don't need papers to cross the border from Mexico into the United States but you do need papers to go to a concert in LA to a restaurant And you'll be checked and if you do anything fraudulent, you'll be prosecuted and threatened with years of jail. So this is a very topsy-turvy situation that you all are ending up participating in I don't envy you. I know it's not something you chose to have to face. It's a very, very evil deceptive operation that is being visited that is challenging all of our rights And yes, let's remember that greatest generation and let's not be the least great generation ever.
That allowed every single one of the rights that people suffered died and risked everything for to be squandered and given to a small group of corporate oligarchs to enslave us all. Thank you.
Thank you Dr. Smith.
And we will now go to Santa Barbara for Nancy McCready. I have to put
my mask on, excuse me. At a risk of repeating myself, I'm gonna say, I think we should all be ashamed of ourselves that trigger 35 degrees for the warming center is way too low. I set my refrigerator at 38 degrees and it keeps my milk cold for a week and a half. You've got to understand that people are cold out there, they're cold now. And last night it rained and we're not supposed to open up the warming centers unless it's a 50% chance of rain.
That's crazy. I don't know how many people got wet last night but thinking about it, I feel really bad for them I'm here representing the Committee for Social Justice and myself today. And we have attorneys sitting in the wings just slathering at the mouth waiting to sue the county for this 35 degree trigger, and I'm hoping that this will not have to happen.
It seems like there's always a suit happening for something or another Anyway, the homeless themselves as we do outreach to them are speaking about safe sleeping areas based upon the safe parking program we have. And they would come in at seven at night and roll up in the morning at 7 a.m. in the morning and go about their business like they do in the daytime And either that, or we should go back to what we did before we had the warming centers and have a full-on winter shelter that would be open from December 1st to March 31st.
And that would work out a lot better because now the homeless don't know when or where the warming centers are gonna be opened up It's just crazy and so they just stay out there in their tents or sleeping bags or whatever, and they're cold. And it's not right to have warming fires out there because we have a problem with Fires in this dry desert of a place we live in.
So I just wanted to ask for help and trying to raise the temperatures back up to 40 degrees, and let's hope this happens and that we don't have to keep on working on this issue. Thank you. And that concludes public comment.
That's a public comment. We're going to go ahead and take a five-minute break before starting departmental item one, which is the Oasis project.
1:06 – 1:081 turns
Thank you. Thank you.
1:12 – 1:314 turns
We're gonna reconvene the meeting here. The next item up is departmental item number one, just before we get started I wanna make sure that those who want to speak in public comment to make sure you get your comments slip and if you're here in person on the box otherwise contact the clerk of the board's office if you wanna participate via Zoom or through the phone.
At this point we're over 20 speakers so we will actually be reducing public comment to two and a half minutes. I know many of you guys have been waiting a long time to speak on this, so i'm typically over 20 go to two minutes. I'm going to make it two and a half because I know it's an important issue for all the people in our community. So let's get two and Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the public.
Chair Nelson and members of the board departmental, excuse me departmental item number one is from planning and development department. It is a hearing to consider recommendations regarding the county Planning Commission's recommendation to approve the Oasis meeting center project case numbers 14 GPA 20. And this is in the fourth district. Right, thank you. Let's go ahead and start off with Director Plummer
Good morning, Mr. Chair members of the board as Miss Alexander identified in her announcement. This is a request for a conditional use permit and a development plan and other items that are necessary to implement that but for a senior center in the Orkut community It has been a long, winding road to get to this day today. And I know that the community and the applicant are thrilled to be here.
We have with us Shannon Reese who is the planner currently on the project. We have John Zurovich who has been overseeing the process and we have Mr. Jeff Wilson with us, Assistant Director. So with that, I would like to turn it over to Ms. Reese for the presentation and
thank you. Thank you Miss Plowman and hello Chair Nelson members of the board. My name is Shannon Reese. I am here today to present the Oasis Meeting Center project and the Planning Commission's recommendations for that projects approval. There we go. Okay, so this project site is located north of Clark Avenue west of Fox and Wood Lane and south of Orchard Creek.
It's indicated on the aerial image to the right in red and on the left we have the orchid community plan graphic for Keysight 17 or 18 shown on the left here And Orchid Community Plan, I'm going to be referring to throughout as the OCP just for clarity. The OCP identified Keysight 18 as being approximately 35 acres of open space and approximately 8 1⁄2 acres of that open space was identified as a potential site for future public park.
As well as an Orchard Creek trail segment and an additional two acres of creek restoration for that adjacent riparian corridor. To give some context to the development, to the north of the site as well. The area that is Keysight 18 and the Oasis property was part of the common open space area identified for the South Point Estates subdivision that was approved in 1979.
And this slide here shows the existing zoning and land use designations in the area. The Oasis site is in the southeast portion of Keysight 18, it's zoned recreationally and has a recreation and open space land use designation. And to the sites east between the Oasis property and Foxenwood Lane there's undeveloped open space that has a variety of zoning Including commercial zoning, recreational zoning and residential zoning.
To the west there's restricted open space and to the south their existing commercial and residential uses. So there are a number of entitlements that are part of this project I'm going to briefly describe them before going into environmental review for the project. And the main components for the facility itself, or the development plan for the site and then meeting facility conditional use permit.
A modification of parking requirements to reduce the proposed number of spaces from 229 to 143 and that's based on a study that was done of the peak parking demand for the site. Oasis overall is proposing a 200 person maximum cap for all activities and events. And any necessary staff for those events and activities would also be included in that 200 person cap.
The center's primary hours would be from 830 in the morning to 9 PM on weekdays, and staff would arrive as early as 730 in the morning. The building would be closed up at 930 in the evening on weekdays. The primary Oasis services and classes for seniors would wrap up around 4pm most days, and then the facility would be available for rental by non-Oasis programs in the evenings.
And a weekdays, or sorry weekends. The facility would be available for use from 9am to 9pm with that same closure at 930 in the evening and outdoor areas would be available for use from nine in the morning to dusk. As a part of that conditional use permit, they're also proposing 12 special events annually with up to five for Oasis special events and seven for non-Oasis programs. And so those Oasis member special events would be things like the Oasis Fundraising Gala or the Christmas Holiday Concert whereas the non-oasis special events would mainly be for fundraising efforts by other nonprofits.
And this is the proposed site plan just to give an overview of what the facility and outdoor components would look like. Development of the new facility consists of an approximately 14,000 square foot main senior center building and a 1,600 square foot ancillary building that would be for barbecue storage and arts and crafts. The main building would contain a large meeting hall, adjacent kitchen facilities, library, craft rooms Meeting rooms, offices and storage as well as restrooms.
For the project to be developed that obviously requires grading and construction of improved access roads. So retention in basin on site and the western portion of the site. And it also includes the construction of a section of the Orchard Creek Trail and bikeway both on the Oasis site and on the night parcel to the northwest So when the facility is open, the Orchard Creek public trail users would also be able to use on-site pedestrian paths and restrooms.
In order to facilitate the project there are a number of general plan amendments proposed And they're described in the staff report, as well as the resolution that's attached to the board letter. I'll go over them briefly here. So there's one textual change proposed to a Keysight 18 development standard to allow development on the Oasis project of the Oasis project on the land that's currently restricted to park recreation and open space uses The other revisions are mainly to graphics.
So to the OCP open space area map, they would remove the Oasis site from the designated open space area and on the PRT map, Park Recreation Trail Map, they would remove the Oasis property from the Keyside 18 public park site and reflect the proposed trail realignment that's proposed as a part of this project. The other graphic changes would be to the bikeways map in the OCP, to allow class two striped bike lanes along the Oasis driveway and to show the realignment of the bikeways on the site and on the adjacent night parcel.
And then lastly, the figure that's in the Orchid community plan for Keysight 18 would be updated to reflect those aforementioned changes. The project also includes a recorded map modification to modify prior conditions of approval that apply to the site as a result of the South Point Estates subdivision and also to reflect those changes on the associated recorded maps.
So if approved, Conditions 18 And 21 that are shown on the screen here would no longer apply to the oasis property. And additionally, the label stating that the oasis site is quote unquote open space and quote unquote not a building site would be removed from the associated recorded maps. The proposed project also includes applications for a lot line adjustment and a minor conditional use permit for an off-site directional sign for the facility.
The LLA is between the Oasis property and the Labarde corner commercial property that's shown in orange here, and that 0.12 acre triangle shown in red would transfer from the Oasis site to the Labarde parcel. For the signage, it would be located near the driveway entrance on Fox and Wood Lane of the or actually on the Labarde parcel though. And an easement for that signs location would be required prior to application for those zoning clearance to effectuate the minor conditional use permit.
Because the South Point Estates conditions of approval required that the development rights to the subdivisions open space be conveyed to the county, that was done by the developer when they provided the county deeds for the development rights to the eastern portion of the South Point Estates open space. And in order to complete the proposed project, Oasis has to acquire. The development rights to the property that it owns which are currently held by the county.
But at this time, the board is not vacating abandoning or releasing the development rights to the oasis property and general services will come before the board at a later date for consideration of the transfer of those development rights. This is a proposed trail dedication map being offered by the applicant. And after the final EIR was released, General Services Real Property Division was in continued negotiations with Oasis for additional trail segments related to the potential relinquishment of development rights by the county.
And ultimately, this is what Oasis has proposed. So there's 25 foot wide Orchard Creek Trail bikeway easement shown in black on site and then there's also a 14 foot wide extension of that easement or of the Orchid Creek and trail bike way onto the night parcel to the northwest And because of these recent changes, a staff has recommended some additional edits to the conditions for the project.
As compared to the Planning Commission recommendations just to address the timing of the trail offer timing of construction and bonding as well as the timing of the development rights issue and how that will be managed. And the conditions that are attached to the board letter include strikeouts and underlines to identify those proposed recommended changes, and also to provide a clarification to certain conditions.
Onto environmental review for the project. The final EIR for the project identified five significant and unavoidable impacts in different issue areas, so in aesthetics and visual resources impacts were loss of open space views and the resulting change to the semi-rural visual character of the Eastern Gateway to Orchid. And under biological resources, significant and unavoidable impacts were the fragmentation of habitat and wildlife corridors from new development as well as an increase in human activities in these areas.
Under land use was a change in the character of the site, because the scale of the development and for recreation and open space impacts that was related to amending the OCP to allow development on land that was otherwise restricted to open space and public park uses. Lastly, on transportation and circulation. There would be increased vehicle trips are significant that would result in congestion and safety and We've also attached an updated vision letter to the board letter and it addresses.
Those changes and also notes that the impacts resulting from the implementation of the Oasis project as amended would not otherwise result in a change in the levels of impact that were identified. In the analysis, and the final EIR so together the EIR and revision letter conclude that Even with applying feasible mitigation measures to those significant and unavoidable impacts I mentioned, and incorporating those as conditions of approval. The impacts can't be entirely avoided or reduced to less than significant levels.
And because of that, to approve the project, the board would need to adopt a statement of overriding considerations. And that's included in the attached findings to the board letter. CEQA guidelines also require that the EIR describe a reasonable range of alternatives to the project, that could feasibly attain most of the basic objectives of the project but would avoid or substantially lessen significant effects.
And so the EIR does that and it also evaluates the comparative merits of the alternatives for all of those that are listed on this slide. There's also a discussion of these alternatives in the project findings that are attached to the board letter. This slide includes a few minor revisions to the conditions of approval as compared to what was docketed for the board letter.
Essentially, the project agent had submitted a comment letter requesting that condition 56 of attachment 2A be removed because the project wouldn't need to prepare a public subdivision report and staff concurs and so we have struck through that condition accordingly on this slide. And secondly, Condition No. 56 of Attachment 2C had erroneously referenced an outdated set of plans so that excerpt of text has also been removed.
Oops we might be frozen here. There we go. OK, so the recommended actions are quite long. I'm not going to read through them here but just to give a summary on what's on these three slides that have the actions. We have updated the references to attachments 2A and 2C based on those revisions I just went over. And this first slide covers the findings for approval certification of the EIR and adoption of the general plan amendment resolution And this slide goes over the components of the general plan amendments that I had gone through previously with you.
And lastly, this slide covers the approval of the recorded map modification, the lot line adjustment, the major CUP for the meeting facility use The development plan for the site and the minor conditional use permit for the sign that completes my presentation. I'm available for questions as Miss Palman discussed, we have a number of staff here as well that will be able to answer questions. I know the applicant team is available.
I believe we also have representatives from CSD and the Parks Division, as well as a representative from the Public Works Transportation Division.
1:31 – 1:369 turns
Okay, thank you Mr. Reese before we get to some questions and it's probably best that we do some X part of pay disclosures. So this is the time when board members disclose any communications about the project that happened in advance of this hearing I want to go ahead and kick off and I spoke to First of all, I had worked on this in part during my time as chief of staff. But since I've been elected, I had a meeting on January 29th with Steve Labard about the project and at a meeting on March 8th with Joseph Borjas, Michelle Southwick and Lauren Gasser.
May 17th was in part of a meeting with OASIS and our general services department on May 25th I had an update meeting on the project with Joe Chaff and Michelle Southwick, June 17th. Also had another meeting with Oasis and the General Services Department of the county. And on July 1st there was a site visit with Joseph Borjas, Lori Tamura, Jeff Wilson, Marty Wilder, and Jeff Wingren which were all County staff.
And then I had discussion onsite on July 23rd with Lynn Knight, the neighboring property owner I've gotten multiple communications from members of the South Point Estates as well as, and most of that are all that's in the record as well. Supervisor Hart?
Yeah, this project has had a very long history and looking back my first ex parte communication goes back to December of 2019 where I met with Todd Wilson. And I met with him again, he's a neighbor on November 30th of 2021. He expressed his concerns about the project and it's long history with the development I also met with Chuck Williams who's also a neighbor who has concerns on January 13 2020 and most recently, I met with the project applicants representative is Lori tomorrow on December 2 of this year.
Thank you.
My history with this project goes back to when I served on the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission and this came through the planning commission, and had site visits and met with the previous Oasis executive director. I've had a number of conversations and emails with South Point residents. And I've had conversations with my planning commissioner now, John Park who talked about the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden and the role it could play as well as the programs that he leads for Oasis residents on hikes and that this could enhance That activity, and then I've also met with Mr.
With a site visit and most recently a phone call.
Okay, yeah this goes back a while so I was kind of just digging through. I've talked with many members of the community about this project including the applicants. This goes back to former executive directors people that used to were part of the team advocating back in the day Um, I also met and I don't have the individual's name. Unfortunately, I'll have to dig through for one of the South Point neighbors met in my office 2 or 3 years ago to discuss the concerns associated with that.
Um. I haven't actually done a walkthrough site visit, but I've driven by the location. Numerous times looked at the story polls and some other things on my own without anybody guiding me through just kind of getting a lay of the land. And I'll try to work on getting the exact name of the neighbor, but I have received also many emails from both sides pros and cons regarding the project.
Thank you. Supervisor Williams do you have any ex parte disclosures?
Yes, I met via Zoom and phone with both the attorney representing the neighbors in opposition Mark Titillo and Lori Tamora, the planner representing the Oasis Project yesterday.
Thank you. Okay and at this time now I'm going to go ahead and close public comment. So those people that are in public comment at this point, we'll get you here in a moment but we're at questions from the board. Supervisor Lavinio?
Thank You Mr. Chair so just a question if he could explain a little bit more of the special events condition. So it sounded like there's 12 events per year maximum 200 then Maybe I misheard, but I thought you said something about are those inclusive or exclusive of just oasis events as well. The senior center so is this just outside 12 outside folks? Or is it combined with whatever they want to do as well?
1:36 – 1:4117 turns
Chair Nelson, Supervisor Lovenino. I think this is best directed to the applicant and I believe it's part of their presentation as well
but
the maximum for events is also 200 and it would be more oriented towards specific fundraiser events beyond the normal scope of programming
Okay, oh so what you were saying is sometimes Oasis is going to have programming which doesn't exactly count as an event. Okay yeah so this is an event is anything outside the normal scope maximum 200 individuals and that would be limited 12 events per year
Chair Nelson, Supervisor Lavinia that's correct. Programming and events could both have up to 200 people but the distinction is that they have some sort of fundraiser element or they're beyond the normal programming.
Thank you.
Thank you. Okay, thank you Supervisor Lavinia. Supervisor
Hartman? And at least as I understand it can't be commercial is that correct?
Supervisor Nielsen, Ms. Hartman, yes it's not a commercial enterprise the events are focused on Boy Scout fundraising or some other fundraising program is what the event is for noncommercial.
Any questions from downtown Santa Barbara Supervisor Williams? No questions yet I have a couple questions.
This is for staff or Director Plowman. This project originally as proposed needs a general plan amendment, right? So at some point prior to this year when this came to the planning commission and then to the board there was another process that happened many years ago where that went to the planning commission to try to kick off the project. Can you speak to that process and why that was needed because again this thing is acknowledgment that it's as the core community plan is written now This application wouldn't fit, so they had to go a different route. And so can you speak to that for a moment?
Yes, Mr. Chair so when somebody wants to initiate a general plan amendment it's not like the other entitlements where you just submit that application. You have to go before and either director can make a determination or know if it's a controversial or higher level one staff will elevate it to a planning commission. So the original general plan amendment request initiation went before the county Planning Commission.
And that's in part because the county values open space so greatly, they wanted to make sure there was buy-in from at least a planning commission. Is that how that works?
Yeah. Supervisor Nelson. So this one obviously was initial request was in conflict with county policies and their community plan regarding open space. And so it wasn't just a simple request, maybe a minor tweak. The department felt that it would be important to elevate it to the Planning Commission level. So that was the purpose for that first initiation hearing
And I guess my next question is, there's been some discussion among the neighbors about you know who has the rights to that property for recreational development or to develop on that property and You know, looking at the grant deed of the development rights to the county. Maybe this might be a question for the Planning Commission or sorry for County Council you know who has that now? Who has that right? My understanding is at some point South Point Estates had that but eventually the property changed ownership and so that may now be in possession of somebody else
Chair Nelson and Supervisors, at some point the property I believe was owned by HOA or earlier owner and then Labarde the neighbor acquired it by a judgment quieting title by adverse possession in a court judgment. And then after that conveyed it to Oasis so currently Oasis owns the property there's still a grant deed of development rights in place where the county has control of some development rights but nothing is occurring related to the grant deed today.
So that grant deed has some things on there that says the owner, at which point was South Point, until they assign it or their successor at some point in the future could develop things like tennis courts, handball courts, baseball fields, swimming pools and buildings to facilitate those things.
1:41 – 1:448 turns
Yes, that's correct.
And the person that now possesses that are the group that now possesses that is Oasis for these two parcels
turn us and that's correct.
Great point clarify that thank you. All right. I don't know do we have
a presentation from an applicant
Chair Nelson and members of the board perhaps Jeff Wilson or someone from planning can explain I'm, I'm trying to figure it out myself to
see if it's something that's a quick three minute break. So while we figure out some logistics here and then we'll go ahead and have a presentation from the applicant.
I'm going to talk very, very fast.
1:48 – 1:481 turns
Thank you.
1:55 – 2:044 turns
Okay, now welcome back everybody. We have a few announcements from our clerk before we reconvene on this item.
Yes thank you Chair Nelson and members of the board I just wanted to announce for the public's purposes that we did just post online and made available the PowerPoint presentation from the applicant that is also available. We will be having more printed and available in the back of the room for those of you that are here in Santa Barbara and it has been distributed to the board thank you
And it's also available online on the county website. All right, so I believe we now have a lawyer tomorrow on behalf of the applicant. Welcome Mr.
Good morning, my name is Lori Tomura with Urban Planning Concepts here today representing the Oasis. And my apologies to everyone I thought I sent in this PowerPoint on Friday and anyways, I apologize. So I'm here to first thank the staff and your board for moving this project forward we have a local team that's been involved Tom Martinez, several engineers from Stantec and we also have on from our board from the Oasis is Joe Borges who is the attorney also for this project.
The speakers today will be me, Joe Sheaf, Michelle Southwick and Dolores Lewis. It's important to note that the Oasis Center is a nonprofit community resource serving the seniors in the Orchard area and has been looking for a new home over the last 10 years. This project was initially started in 2015 with their submittal to the county, and then an initiation hearing by the Planning Commission.
And many of the letters that have been filed to the board references that staff report But they make the error of not also referencing the planning commission's final action. Planning Commission's final action was to initiate this project, move it forward through the public review process because it is consistent with the ARCA community plan in the parks and rec section of the OCP. So if I could go ahead to the slides please?
So this is your, this is Keyside 18 as noted pretty large site. The areas in yellow. This is about 35 acres on the whole site. South Point is responsible for this area here, that's part of their homeowners association and what they work with. This area in yellow was part of the project but it was owned by South Point Corporation which was the developer of the site and when that corporation folded after the project was developed The land was abandoned. It didn't go to the Homers Association, and that's how Steve Labarde after maintaining the land for a number of years was able to acquire it. And so he acquired all of the yellow as well as the South, as well as the Oasis site. And that has been his ownership now for about 15 years.
He decided to donate this land through negotiations with Oasis, and now the Oasis have that acquisition. Go ahead. Next slide please. So this project is only in the OCP, the board approved Keyside 18 was identified as Orchard Creek Park 10 acres with sports fields picnic grounds outdoor gatherings baseball tennis courts restaurants bathrooms multipurpose trail.
The OCP also had a capital improvement plan and AB 1600 program for about $1.7 million on the county's collection of developer fees, this money was supposed to go to this land to develop an active recreation park not open space. Next slide. As noted by staff, the park is in this corner of the OCP. This is a chapter or a page out of the OCP, Orchard Community Park 10 acres active lists all of the uses and it would be through dedication or purchase. This is what the Planning Commission supported in 2015 and that's what we're bringing forward to you today.
Next slide. Orchid community will bring a new and improved access to the site, a parking lot recreational park senior center with restrooms being open to the public. Which the county would have had to build and a major section of the multipurpose trail. The project will serve seniors in the residents of your community and it's consistent with the orchid community plan goals next slide.
So we were supposed to be here last year. And this concern was raised that there were a number of easements that needed to be resolved between the project before it could be initiated. So over the last year, we worked very diligently to resolve the easements. And I'm just going to go real quickly. This particular easement was a historic easement for oil access to Keysight 21, and it involved a quick claim through termination of that easement litigation or not litigation but illegal action and that now has been taken off the record. It no longer exists. Next one.
There was an easement that would come down this driveway and serve Mr. Knight's properties here, Mr. Knight has quick claimed this easement and we have now established a new easement for access to his property so now we have cleared the title of that particular bike trail location next slide This is the easement, we kind of call it the gang easement because everybody uses that driveway. The county will use it, the Oasis will use it and Mr. Knight will use that easement and Mr. Labarge. So all those easements have been recorded are now in existence.
Go ahead. There are a number of other easements. We have a water easement to serve the site from Clark Avenue, we have an ADA access easement to bring pedestrians down to the site. We have some grading easements to allow for the driveway to be constructed and we also have a sewer easement and an access easement to Keyside or to lot 201. And then we have the trail easement.
There's access for the county to come down this driveway, this is the 25-foot access easement that has been established between Orchid Oasis and the county. And then we have Mr. Knight's easement that goes out and connects with the trail that's at the South Point site. So all of those easements have been recorded And so we have clean resolution to all of the concerns that I believe the county has.
And we're looking forward to moving forward with this project. On two other points, the Foster Road site is not available to us. It has California tiger salamanders and red-legged frogs. It's not an environmentally superior site. Let's just make that clear for the record. Over the last six years Oasis has been revising their project to accommodate the North Point neighbors concerns, obviously reducing the number of attendees, reducing the number events, reducing music outside as well as providing the ability for the events to end at night in time.
This project is of the public interest. It is in good zoning and practices, it's an infill project with public water and sewer and access, and it's consistent with the general plan. And it's going to save the county a lot of money because we're building what should have been built a long time ago. This is the public record. There's only half of it. This is stuff that's in binders.
I didn't print out everything. EIR negative deck staff reports conditions everything. We have done a very thorough analysis and the staff, the county staff has done very thorough analysis of this project we're here today to ask for your approval Joe or whoever's next come on up. Thank you and I'm available for any questions.
2:04 – 2:104 turns
I appreciate the enthusiasm of the audience. At the board, we have some different rules that we like to abide by so we don't actually do applause during these hearings. If you guys want to show support, you guys can wave your hands. That's one way for the board to see that and we can kind of keep our order moving forward. So thank you. Mr. Staff,
welcome. Okay. Mr Chairman, members of the Board, good morning and thank you for having us this morning. My name is Joe Sheaf, I've been a resident in Santa Maria for 25 years. I've been on the Board of Directors of Oasis since 2009 having served as chairman for five of those years. I have worked throughout my career with nonprofit organizations particularly while I lived here in Santa Maria.
I have been the Chairman of the Smooth Transportation Board President of the Noontime Rotary I've been on the Marion Foundation Board, the old Sheriff's Council Board and now Oasis. And I understand the financial needs of nonprofits how they go about getting their money through grants through fundraisers and things like that. And I have been involved with capital campaigns And a few of our board members have similar backgrounds and also serve on boards of directors as Board of Directors of public companies, both regionally and here in Santa Maria.
And I bring this up to demonstrate that we have a well-qualified board and are in a good position to take on this project. The Lewis Oasis Senior Center was organized as a 501c3 organization in 1984. It's run by a board of directors of local citizens and a well-qualified management team. We are self funded through operating grants from private foundations, successful fundraisers and tremendous community support.
The organization has run continuously since its founding and has never missed a payroll. The organization has no debt, and we survived the pandemic even when many private foundations directed their resources towards COVID-19 needs. I'm very proud to serve on the Board of OASIS and proud of everyone, the board members, Just some membership in general who have made this such an outstanding organization and one of the finest run nonprofit organizations in North County.
And I don't think there are many organizations like us in Santa Barbara County or in the state of California, and we take great pride in knowing that we provide a much needed service to our senior population as well as the community at large, and we do it well. The new Oasis Center will allow us to expand our services and provide a park-like setting that the entire community can enjoy.
We are also very much aware of our responsibility to be a good and considerate neighbor, and we are committed to being just that. Over time, we hope to earn the respect and trust of our neighbors and earn their membership in Oasis. Again, thank you and we ask for your approval of this
project. Hi, I'm
Michelle Southwick. I am the current Executive Director at the Oasis Center and want to make a couple of quick points. First of all we all know that it's cheaper and easier to stay healthy than to regain health so that is the focus of Oasis is to keep our community healthy our whole community and we do that through some amazing and high quality programming One thing we want to assert to you is what an asset we are to our whole community. Our COVID response, yes of course we reached out to all of our members every single one got phone calls to make sure what their needs were but we were also open for business for anyone in the community who needed us. We fielded phone calls from people who needed food and we provided through our food distributions contact list Thank you, Mr.
Chair and members of the public. I would like to start by saying thank you to all of our The same size or smaller than many of our homes that we're living in. We are providing services for 1400 people and for the community of Orchid, and I'm very proud of that. What we will continue to do with this new building is have access to more opportunities. Today, we had to close down classes because we didn't have space to zoom this meeting in and hold our arthritis exercise class. We won't have to do that with the new facility.
Our walking trails, our biking trails, there will be exercise stations, there'll be benches The one thing that I am super excited about and proud of will be the native plantings, the landscaping that we're going to do with a focus on drought resistant native plantings. So bringing in the wildlife into an area that if any of you have been down to see this spot it is brush and weeds and gopher holes. The views will be vastly improved and so will our community as a whole. And I ask you guys for your support today with approval for our project.
2:10 – 2:167 turns
Hello, my name is Dolores Lewis. My husband Jerry and I have been involved with the Oasis since the very beginning. Jerry's parents and friends were looking for a place where seniors could meet and socialize and they have programs that would benefit the community Seniors had been meeting in various places throughout the community and needed a place to call home.
And so Oasis was formed and organized, and it has been a great force in our community ever since. My husband was very involved Loved to organize barbecues, fundraisers, poker parties. That was his favorite and just getting people together. Unfortunately Jerry passed away last August but the thing that drove him in this last time with us Oh, the idea of building a new Oasis Center.
He worked hard to get us where we are now. He was kind of the behind-the-scenes guy but he accomplished a lot when it came to garnering support for Oasis. With your approval of this project his and my dream And that of many other Orchid seniors, the new Oasis Center will be fulfilled. I thank you for holding this hearing today and all of us appreciate all the thought and resources and research that has gone into this final project I thank you for holding this hearing and for your consideration of our project.
Please approve this amazing new opportunity for the Oasis community, thank you.
Thank you Miss Lewis Okay,
any questions from the board of the applicant on their presentation? Seeing none we'll go ahead and go to public comment. As I mentioned before, we're going to keep public comment to two and a half minutes.
And how many speakers do we have?
Chair Nelson and members of the Board, we have 21 requests to speak on this item. And we will begin here in person in Santa Maria with John Dorwan to be followed by Joe Dana, John. My
name is john door when I'm representing Lori and john Rudolfi owners of lot 67 of track map 13 345. The problem with the recorded map modification specifically is finding number three, no alteration of existing right interest or title. The open space on the recorded map incorporated by reference in all the deeds to the South Point estate lots shows notice and intent to create servitudes under California law to benefit the South Point owners for open space The problem with this project is you need the written consent of all of the South Point estate owners to alter their rights created under the existing recorded subdivision map. The required findings under your local ordinance, which was adopted pursuant to the State Subdivision Map Act is quote, the modification does not alter any right interest or title reflected on the recorded final or parcel map Comma lot split plot or lot line adjustment, unquote.
The operative word here is any. The problem with the staff report is it only looked at the subject parcel of development. The analysis in the staff report is only limited to the OASIS site. It did not look at the other related parcels on the subdivision map 13. 45, you have to go back and get the consent of all this South Point estate owners who are losing open space.
This is both a compliance issue under your local ordinance and the State Subdivision Map Act specifically section 66472.1 and a due process issue You are taking property rights without due process and without just compensation. I submit that somebody could have and should have gone to the South Point Estates owners, and gotten their written consent to proceed with this recorded map modification. Otherwise, property rights are being impaired.
This is a property rights issue. Thank you.
We will remain in Santa Maria with Joe Dana to be followed by John Burke. Joe?
2:16 – 2:229 turns
Chairman Nielsen and supervisors. My name is Joe Dana, and I am in favor of the building project sought by Oasis because Oasis is a cornerstone of the Orkut community that deserves both a new home and everyone's support. I work for the Orkut Union School District, and my office is just steps away from the Oasis Center. When you work in such close proximity, you notice a few things.
The first thing you notice is how much oasis does for local seniors and for the community at large, I see classes meetings exercise groups food distributions voting on election days my personal favorite is the ukulele class. It is quite obvious that Oasis is an important venue for learning, fellowship, good health and vitality in our community. You cannot help but be impressed.
The second thing you notice is that Oasis is a good and courteous neighbor. Oasis maintains its facility well It's very respectful in sharing a parking lot with the busy district office complex. And there's good communication between Oasis and our school district about activities and events happening on our complex. Now, Oasis has decided that it is outgrown its current center And commendably, it's been fun planning and fundraising for many years for a new home in a new location.
As for that new home I strongly believe that oasis with the first rate Board of Directors that has and the quality executive director, it has and Michelle Southwick will be a responsible custodian of its new center, as well as a good neighbor to everyone in its area. What it all comes down to is that the Orkut community and indeed the Santa Maria Valley is better off for having Oasis.
A new home will enable Oasis to continue its good and important work for many decades to come.
Thank you Mr. Jenna
We will remain in Santa Maria for John Burke to be followed by Candy Winterfield. Thank you, we will go to Candy Winterfield to be followed by Kenneth Andrews.
I'd like to thank everyone for giving me this opportunity to voice my opinion which is that Oasis is my new home I recently immigrated from Chicago, Illinois. So now I get to not fight the winters. Last name being Winterfeldt. The first thing that I ever found was an advertisement in the Sun paper for a yoga class at Oasis and have enjoyed those classes as well as bingo.
And I might try Mahjong but the other thing is that they have a travel club so I'm looking forward to going on a trip to New Mexico next fall hopefully COVID free To see the hot air balloon fest. I was shocked to find out that there's any controversy in developing this land, which right now is just dirt. And I'm very surprised to hear that it's an infringement on a subdivisions rights to open air because there's a six foot wall enclosing that open air.
So I don't understand how something across the street down the road is going to impact those people's rights. And today, I've learned that the zoning, the county there's old orchid, there's new orchid all of those things you know change is good but somebody has got to go first and that's a hard thing to do. So I just want to say thank you for the opportunity to hear me and I hope that you'll vote for this to take place because it's an oasis by definition, it's a renewal energetic place to be. Thank
you.
Our next speaker is Kenneth Andrews to be followed by Chuck Williams.
Thank
you this morning for this opportunity to speak to you. First of all, the first thing I want to ask you how many of you like music? We all do and our senior center has two groups that play and that's the ukulele group Thank you very much for liking our music and our choir group, and both groups are around 40 people in each group. Más o menos. We don't play outside, we play inside and these are people that come and are not professionals but love music and they love to sing and they love to play instruments.
My wife is the head of the choir And the last thing I want to say is she makes me sit in the back. Thank you. Thank you, sir.
Our next speaker is Chuck Williams to be followed by Bethany Brewington. Chuck?
2:22 – 2:278 turns
Good morning, Chuck Williams from Old Town Orchard. Seniors were encouraged to dress in green today to show support for this project and unknowingly beg you supervisors to take property that don't belong to Oasis or the county. Most are clueless to the corruption in this county We're going to The temporary traffic control on Clark Avenue is dangerous and poorly designed, and will work as more dangerous with the proposed $2 million roundabout in the middle of Clark Avenue just below Norris Street.
I remind you there are a lot of seniors, as you can see also a lot of school kids that you don't see and lots of alcohol in Old Town Orchard. Clearly this is just another bandaid for this shady project Being applied by this county. Oasis could have easily been completed on Foster Road with honest help from this county, who chooses to cover up the $500,000 mess planning commissioners created while overriding staff's original recommendation to deny this project.
Now South County Quick Pro Co help is here to help take more mitigated irreplaceable designated public open space in perpetuity that don't belong to the county. This is wrong and you all know it. I have heard, I don't know this but I've heard this is already a done deal and I assume it is. In my opinion this was and is clearly senior abuse using seniors to get this project approved is about as low as one can get. This comment was confirmed A good community project does not need precedent-setting community plan changes. This project is not at all consistent without the Orkut Community Plan amendments.
Nearly every parcel of Keysight 18 is targeted for development when this site is approved. Please deny this non-consistent shady project that is supported with an inconsistent OCP manipulated environmental impact report. Please help the Oasis, help them relocate on Foster Road today. You guys can do it. You have the horsepower to override otherwise there wouldn't be any county buildings on that property. Thank you Mr. Williams
Our next speaker is Bethany Brewington to be followed by Lisa Casillas Simason.
Good morning, Bethany Bronson here. I'm IT project manager with the County of Santa Barbara. I currently serve on the Board of Directors for Oasis as their secretary. I am an implant from good old North Carolina but I have to say I was welcomed with open arms here in Orchid Santa Maria by many members of Oasis. They welcome me and my son who's now Orchard Academy.
He is with the band and he got his interest With the ukulele at oasis. I have served, I've volunteered across this nation as a military spouse. Serving our senior citizens, it's a passion I have as well as serving our youth. And this Senior Center would be such a benefit to not only our seniors but the community as a whole, our students, you know, our youth. It would just be very well welcomed. My son walks, rides his bike to school along the road that is non-existent sidewalk right now which we would put in so I strongly, strongly recommend We support the Oasis Senior Center. Thank you all.
Thanks, Bethany.
Our next speaker is Lisa Casillas Simonson to be followed by Shiloh Flagg.
Morning Chairman, Board Members. My name is Lisa Casillas-Simpson. I'm here this morning to ask your assistance to secure a safe harbor for our Oasis Senior Citizen Center. The organization is a vital refuge, a sanctuary if you will, for our senior community. The organization lifts and empowers our lives each and every day We are here just simply to ask that you please recommend approval of the new building site for the new community senior citizen in Old Orcutt.
Thank
you.
Our next speaker is Shiloh Flagg, to be followed by Marty McGrath. Thank you. Our next speaker is Marty McGrath, to be followed by Julie Hall.
2:27 – 2:3512 turns
Mr. Chairman, board members. I've been a member here at Oasis since I arrived. I don't know who found me but they brought me on board was welcomed as Bettany found and I've been participating in Oasis for the last 12 years or so served on the board for five or six years, I believe and enjoyed that immensely. I travel with the group I exercise occasionally with the group.
I met Mr. Wolf who is also, I don't know if he's here today? He's planning on putting native landscaping in. Something that I think is wonderful he's, he's formerly with the Planning Commission he's into native plants. And he wants to help us develop our property into a preserve if you will, of sorts for local wildlife, including the bobcats and coyotes various and sundry that we might see wandering down through that beautiful valley.
Simply want to express my support for the building program. I look forward to your approval of it. Thank you all very
much.
Our next speaker, I'm sorry that was Julie Hall correct?
That was Marty McGrath.
Great thank you. This is Julie Hall. Our next speaker is Julie Hall to be followed by Irene Reynolds.
Hi, I'm Julie Hall and I'm a staff member at Oasis have been for over nine years but I'm here today to speak on behalf of our neighbor who could not be here. Both he and his wife are experiencing some very serious medical issues, and therefore I'm reading the letter from him, Alan Thiessen. My wife and I live directly across the street from Oasis and have for over 10 years. Next to Oasis is Orkut Unified School District Administration Office, Orkut Academy High School and Orkutt Junior High. Except during the COVID-19 shutdown of 2020, Oasis has been a center with day and night time activities. Oasis has never been a nuisance nor have we ever experienced any disturbances by lights, people, noise or traffic.
I can see the monthly community food distribution from my front window and know from personal experience, the good Oasis does for the community. They maintain the grounds and structure and they blend into the neighborhood. Due to serious health issues, my wife and I haven't been able to walk across the street and participate in the Oasis programming that hasn't prevented everyone at this center to call on us bringing food and in general be very kind to us and myself, my family and Barley, my basset hound.
Thank you.
Our next speaker is Irene Reynolds to be followed by Todd Wilson.
Hi, I've been working 30 years and I didn't know when I moved there that the Waste Center was going to become so important to me and it's got excellent programs which we all know and despite quality maintenance that building is sad. Sad linoleum, sad bathroom, sad parking lot We deserve better. For years, for decades, the volunteerism they have provided so much for the community and now it's time for you guys to give back and I don't know amend, revise but most importantly approve so that Santa Barbara County can be proud of what is being provided A big portion of their citizenship. Thank you.
Our next
speaker is Todd Wilson
to be followed by Steve Labarde.
Mr. Chairman and members of the board, my name is Todd Wilson, I live at 114 Wilson Drive orchid. I live at lot 20 of the South Point Estates subdivision. And I'm also chairman of Friends of Keysight 18, who stand opposed to the Oasis application on Keysight 18. We are not opposed to senior programs at all. We are opposed to the location. The EIR has identified that there is a superior site available.
Applicant's agent says it's not available. The consultant that we hired and paid for sat with the Planning Director in the city of Santa Maria, they await an application. The lot adjacent to the Foster Road site has been planted with mustard and strawberries in the past. The airport district actually is right now in the works planning a development agreement with on that property, and so a single salamander take is not a dead end on that project.
The applicant's agent requested a removal of a condition, RRM Condition 56 for the State Department of Real Estate. And apparently it's going to be stricken from the record. I asked the Board of Supervisors this unauthorized inaction would shield DRE of oversight responsibilities under the subdivision laws Lands law and implications involving the Subdivision Map Act. South Point Estate subdivision includes a number of first-time homeowners who deserve full consumer protection under the law.
Protections and benefits of the recorded August 1981 Grant deed of development rights are proposed to be conveyed to Oasis, thus extinguished valuable entitlement conditions of South Point Estate homeowners. Please reinstate condition 56. I ask that you give the fullest weight possible to Friends of Quayside 18 attorneys, Mark Shatillo and Anna Citrin. And in addition South Point Estates HOA Board of Directors without compensation approval of the Oasis project would represent a taking I provided each of you talking points memo with an estimate of just compensation or impairment of $4.6 million spread over 160 lots of South Point. Thank you so much for your time.
We will now go to Steve Labar to be followed by Doug Doherty, Steve?
2:35 – 2:416 turns
Chairman Nelson, Board of Supervisors. Thank you for this opportunity to speak today. I own the adjacent property to the Oasis Center and I think they're going to become a wonderful neighbor there. I was on the Old Town Orchid Revitalization Association for 10 years. I was a president for many of those years. We accomplished a lot of things in old town orchid and made it become what it is today. A great place during that time Even the county had a meeting there at the Oasis Center that I recall for the orchid revitalization where the community was invited.
I also am a member of the Marine Corps League, which we've met at the Oasis Center. I'm a member of the American Legion post-534 in Old Town Orchid that has benefited greatly over the years from the Oasis Center being able to use their equipment and their facilities and their services They're just a great organization. This is a perfect spot down there for them.
I probably know that five acres better than anybody on this earth because I've been so, been down there so much. I can tell you who owns that property right now is the Gophers. That place is overwhelmed with Gopher's. I got, managed to get a lot of them out. I was down there 15 years ago With my grandkids planting trees along the whole Orchard Creek plan, you can go down there and see daisies that I planted along the creek.
I went in there and I cleaned up the creek. I hauled trash out of that creek day after day. I've done so much down there and I could tell you well the whole time I was down there nobody came and offered to help me these friends of Keyside 18 were non-existent. I own part of Keyside 18. I know that Oasis owns part of Keyside 18, my neighbor Ken McCaleb owns part of Keyside 18 and Lynn Light owns part of Keyside 18. We all own a lot of Keyside 18 but nobody ever invited us to be friends with Keyside 18.
I just don't get the Their fences, you gotta look up the hill and their fences are six foot high. I've never seen anybody come out and look over to their fence to see what's going down there. And when you drive down Clark Avenue, you can't even see down below what's going on down there so the open space is really non-existent. So what's gonna happen if this project doesn't go through? The property probably will end up coming back to me but then I'll have to decide what to do with it Now if I was somebody like Alex Madonna up in San Luis Obispo, I'd probably say how about if I put a hog farm down there? So you know maybe we ought to take what we're getting here as one of the best things and the best features for this whole thing. It's something that's needed so much for the Orchid community to complete your orchid revitalization.
A great meeting place for the community thank you. Thank you Mr. Labarge
Our next speaker is Doug Doherty, and then we are going to Zoom for Sandy Mattson. Doug?
Good morning Chairman Nelson and Board of Supervisors. Thank you for considering this project today. My name is Doug Doherty and I am the former CEO of Oasis from about 2010 to 2020. A great project, wrong location is what Oasis has been hearing since we were told this time and again starting back in 2008 when the extremely gracious and patient work at Union School District asked us to relocate so that they could develop.
We heard the great project wrong location again in 2012 this time from the county as we were trying our best to look into a lease there next to on Foster Road, next to the food bank. And we heard great location or Great Project Wrong Location from about 13 other places in the Orchid area that we approached by the year 2014. Finally, we heard our first yes from the Labard family with their amazing vision and generosity.
We are a small community senior center nonprofit When the people of Orkut needed a place to vote in elections, we opened our doors. When people were looking for a place to train referees for youth sports on Saturdays, we were there. For groups like the Orkut Mineral Society, the Orkute Garden Club, Al-Anon, the list goes on. We have supported the community for over 60 years in Old Orkut. Even while our detractors of this project hired a team of attorneys to fight us, spoke against us publicly on the news and hung 100 foot long banner over our project site against our project that every person driving into and out of Orchid must read including our senior citizen membership. An attempt to demoralize Yet our light, our hope and our programs have continued to shine.
Our support of the community needs never wavered. When Orkut needed a space we were there. We hope now that we need a space Orkut will be there for us. Thank you very much. Thank You Mr. Dougherty.
We will now go to Zoom with Sandy Mattson to be followed by Laura McCosh. And for those of you who are at the Oasis Center, I have unmuted on our end. If you could please unmute. I see you did if and proceed with your comments. Thank you.
Sandy Madsen had to leave so we'll go into the next person.
Thank you it that would be Laura Mekosh to be followed by Chris Risk.
2:41 – 2:469 turns
Laura Mekosh is zooming in from home so can we skip to Chris Risk here at Oasis?
Yeah, we'll go to Chris Risk and then I will follow up with Laura McCosh. Thank you. Chris please proceed.
First thing I want to say is that I'm from New Jersey and I talk fast so bear with me please. The second thing is I'll start by telling you a few things that our Oasis is not. It is not just for widow people Although I came here first for grief support meetings is not just for folks who are bored or lonely, maybe far from family and friends. I have a best friend of 79 years now we phone chat every Tuesday for two hours but she lives in Florida so it's not like we can meet for lunch.
And it's definitely not just for folks who feel they have nothing better going on. This place is very proactive, we most certainly do not sit around quietly sipping wheat tea and calling each other dearie I can promise you that our oasis is about having fun and having a fuller life in the safe environment with lots of encouragement from Julie and Amy and Stephanie or the rest of the amazing team oh and lots and lots of coffee.
We come here for information, education, volunteering, creative activities. You can be here every day. We have a really nice library as well with books, music, movies and once a month book club. I joined Oasis back in 2006 having been widowed for several years. I was still more comfortable around other people. Something about all being in the same leaky boat.
We were learning to heal but also to laugh again. Some men confessed to never having cooked or done laundry before. My friend Rita burned up the engine in her new Toyota because who knew about engine oil? Here's what's wonderful. 15 years later, we're still here together every Thursday afternoon. Of course we eventually graduated out of our grief but having shared so much together, we are now friends for life.
The group is now called Yak and Snack which is what happens when you let guys choose a name. Another good thing is we've become our own Angie's list. We've learned to trust each other's recommendations and warnings in finding doctors, hairdressers mechanics whatever. Best of all we're not sitting home rusting in our recliners as the world goes by. Whether folks join OASIS for companionship, classes, travel, volunteering parties.
OASIS has you covered and if there's an activity you would like to see offered will be encouraged to mention it to the office they actually listen to us. One last thing and it's personal. My mother was widowed at 55, my three sisters and I all under 30 immediately brought her out from Jersey and moved into her life. She was never alone. We scheduled our lives around her appointments shopping meal visits even parties with our friends or mommy all the time we were so proud of ourselves. Well, after about a year of this she called us together and said listen I don't want you girls to take this the wrong way okay but sometimes you kids bore me to tears.
We were shocked we were really hurt what more did she need? We were trying to protect her from all.
Thank You Ms. Risk.
Oh okay
that's your time thank you for sharing your story.
And we will remain at the Oasis Center for Julia Hill and then we will go to Laura McCosh.
Good morning, Chairman Nelson and supervisors. I've been coming to Oasis since I moved back from Center Coast in mid-2010. I started by taking their yoga class. In 2014 after I completed my yoga teacher training, I started to teach the class when the previous teacher moved out of the area. I have experienced and participated in many activities and excursions provided by Oasis at a nominal cost I volunteered for food distribution and events.
It is an essential organization for many residents. Oasis has grown substantially since I arrived, it offers a wide variety of classes and provides an economical space for groups to meet. They are an integral part of our community. Their present facility is no longer adequate to meet their needs. It is not designed for the activities and classes they provide.
The site design of the new building will allow Oasis to continue to grow and to provide a greater variety of services to the community. I hope you can find approval of the project with everything that has been gone through, I've been here 10 years watching it as a positive action for the entire community Thank you for your time.
Thank you.
2:46 – 2:5111 turns
We will now go to Laura McCosh, to be followed by Anna Citron, who is our final speaker. Thank you. And Laura we have unmuted you on our end if you can please unmute yourself and proceed with your comments. Can you
hear me now?
Yes, we can. Thank
you please. Oh thank goodness. Good morning I'm Laura McCosh and I spoke at the last Board of Supervisors meetings for the Oasis project this January it'll be five years since I started teaching the Arthritis Foundation exercise class here at the Oasis. I have personally seen and heard from my students the improvements that this class provides We all know that exercise and socialization are two of the best things we can physically, we can do physically and mentally for our health.
But COVID coming along these days, we used to have about 50 participants. Now that number has hovering dropped down to about 20. The room that we use here at Oasis is only so large And Oasis provides group activities. With social distancing being the best preventative, many of our seniors just don't feel safe. I'm here to support the new site approval so we can keep our seniors not only healthy, strong but purposeful.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you Ms. McCosh.
And we will now go to our final speaker Anna Citrin.
Good morning. Can you hear me, we
can
yes we can please proceed. Good morning chair Nelson and supervisors on a citron with the law office of Mark should hello representing friends of key site 18, a group of orchid residents concerned about the land use and environmental implications of allowing development of the Oasis property. Simply put, Keysight 18 is the wrong location for this project to allow it the board must undo multiple layers of legal protection deliberately placed on this property to ensure its permanent protection for open space and recreation including amendments to the OCP modifications to conditions of two earlier recorded subdivision maps And the future vacation, abandonment or release of development rights conveyed to the county as a condition of those subdivision approvals without adequate public disclosure are planning can planning commission consideration of what benefits the county would receive in exchange.
In 2015, the planning and development recommended against initiating their proposed amendments. And we think they got it exactly right in stating that removing the open space designation from the subject parcels is not consistent with good planning practices or with the intent of the OCP. The Planning Commission did in fact recommend initiation of the amendments and that, of course is why we're here. But make no mistake, the project Oasis is proposing is absolutely not contemplated by the OCP for Keysight 18, and the proposed meeting facility and community center are well beyond the recreational uses envisioned for Orcutt Creek Park.
Suggestions to the contrary are simply not accurate. Our many objections to the project are stated in our written submittals, I'm going to focus on just one important piece and that is what differentiates CEQA from the National Environmental Policy Act which is merely an information disclosure law is CEQAs substantive mandate this provides public agencies cannot approve a project with significant environmental effects like this one five significant non-avoidable effects If there is a feasible, less environmentally damaging alternative. There is just such an alternative here namely the Foster Road Alternative which the EIR identifies as the environmentally superior alternative which was previously proposed by Oasis for this project before Key Site 18 was made available and importantly the county owns and controls the Foster Road site.
The lack of discussion around this site both in the staff presentation And to a certain extent in public comments is very strange and we would urge more discussion of this. The Foster Road site offers numerous advantages over Keysight 18, including its proximity to transit which is something that the Keysight 18 does not allow. Thank
you Ms. Cintron.
We urge you to deny this project thank you.
2:51 – 2:5713 turns
And chair
Nelson members of the board that was our final speaker.
Thank you, ma'am. That does conclude public comment at this time. Some an opportunity some closing response responses from the applicant tomorrow.
Thank you very much for the presentations that were provided by the supporters. And we recognize that there are several people in opposition to the project, it's important to note that these sites were not owned by the South Point Homeowners Association. They have the deed restriction on it and that's what we're here to talk about along with the county community plan.
This project is consistent with the community plan and I hope the board takes that seriously. It's hard to imagine that the OCP was approved in 1997, 25 years later, the commitment of that OCP was active recreation on this site. So think about it, sports fields, whistles, music parties, whatever would happen at that park maybe even a dog park. That's not what's proposed This is a very subdued development that meets conditions that were raised by the South Point and Homeowners Association, and I think will be a superior asset to that community. And we'll be able to address many of the concerns that they have.
We believe strongly that this is the right project at the right site and will allow the community to experience what should have been built a long time ago. Thank you so much for your time on this project, and we look forward to hearing from your deliberation and hopefully approval of this site. Thank
you. Mr. Moore, while you're still up here, are there any questions from the board? Mr. Moore, I'll make sure that opportunity. Thank thank you. And now to staff.
Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the board. So we're available for any other questions or comments you have. We do have some language. We wanted to clarify exactly on the events what type events they have so in the back scene while people were speaking, we worked on some language I'll hand it over to Ms. Reese and she can share it on hopefully we can pull it up on the screen. It's just a small change to the project description for the conditional use permit
Chair Nelson, members of the board. I can turn it over to Lori here but essentially Supervisor Lavanino had asked what those seven special events that were for non OASIS users what they would be like and we had mentioned that they would likely be fundraising opportunities for nonprofits and accordingly that text has been added there for clarity
And in our conversations with staff, we agree with that word change. So
thank you.
Thank you,
Ms. Tamara. Thank you, Ms Reese. Are there any questions from the board to staff? I know Supervisor Williams, you have a couple of questions.
Yeah, I think a couple of the key questions for the key sites, I suppose is what is this debate whether the intent I'm going to go ahead and open it up for questions. The first of the site was for recreation which it seems that the Oasis Center is very much in step with or open space could staff comment on that? I would like to understand. The idea of does staff feel You know, not that I'm offering it but the desirability of the Foster Road site and both from an environmental and from a practical viewpoint.
Mr. Chair Supervisor Williams So with regards to the, the key site he said 18. This site was originally identified as, as we saw in the presentations in the orchid tree plant is rec open space so the idea was it was going to be open space. With an identified perhaps recreational park that will allow for some variety of recreational uses. Could be picnic tables, could be something a little bit more.
That's really the intent. The Oasis Project is actually to proceed with their project and create an Oasis Center would provide some recreational opportunities as far as the multi-purpose trail through the site But it also requires that the open space be removed. And that's one of the general plan amendment request so that the site can be partially developed in a developed state. So there are community plan envisioned as open space, this Oasis needs a general plan amendment to facilitate what they're asking for and that's structural development on the site as well as recreational opportunities.
2:57 – 3:0912 turns
It's a different question. Okay, I want to make
sure then.
Well that was the first question. I guess the last question which is to the applicant, which is just if they could comment on the desirability of the alternatives including both from an environmental standpoint and from a practicality use for the public standpoint?
So the initial negotiations with the county for the Foster Road site was for a 99 year lease. And the county would still own it, the Oasis would be building the site and improving it as the and so an application was filed with the city of Santa Maria because that's where it's located. And on the process went through with environmental review on that site. While the project was being processed new staff came into the real properties division and came back and said we're only going to do a 20 year lease.
And, we're not going to be responsible for any mitigation for Tiger salamanders and Red Lake frogs. US Fish and Wildlife came in during the environmental review process and said we have to do off-site mitigation. And they were looking at about five acre off site for the two and a half acre development site for tiger salamanders. Right now, tiger salamander land is going for about 40,000 an acre.
So we had sort of a convergence of things leading us towards not moving forward with the project. Oasis would not own the land, it would go back to the county after 20 years or you might get an extension and we had to deal with off-site mitigation and the county would not indemnify the oasis if anything happened with tiger salamanders or red legged frogs on the property So what just ended up being an infeasible effort for a nonprofit to take on.
And that's why it is not a reasonable site for this property.
Supervisor Williams? No, that answers my question adequately. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Supervisor Hartman?
Oh, yes. I think this is for staff but if for some reason this project the Oasis Project did not go forward and we've made these changes to the various legal documents what would happen?
Chair Nelson and Supervisor Hartman I can address that and planning may have something to add. So today, if the board were to approve the project, the general plan amendment would take effect, and the language of that is pretty constrained so that even if Oasis didn't go forward if another project were to be developed in the future it would need to be similar type of development property action that's going to be taken at a later date is not occurring today. So the board still retains discretion over that piece at some later date.
So if I'm clear, then it wouldn't be a commercial development, it would have to be recreational and community benefit kind of development?
Mr. Chair, Supervisor Hartman yes that would be correct and that would have to come forward back to you because there will be a separate request.
Okay, any other questions from the board.
Okay, seeing no questions I think we'll go ahead and move to deliberations and since this is in my district. i'm going to kick it off it's a little unusual for the chair to go there first but um I don't think I heard it today, but you know oasis isn't just about a retreat oasis is actor actually an acronym which is the orchid area seniors in service. And I think that's really important here.
You know, what Oasis does is really important to my community being a represent. I think it's also very appropriate. I'm not sure about the color green but one of the things that I'm seeing from people here today supporting Oasis is they have buttons on right now to say I heart Oasis and I think they're quite appropriate because I think Oasis is very much the heart of ORCID.
It's the heart of ORCID as not only a meeting center But the level of service that the members of Orchid Oasis bring to the Orchard community. Orchids is very unique in our county In part because it's an unincorporated area, and the county is our municipal government. And so when you live in a city and you have a municipal government, they often provide services as part of the Parks and Rec Department.
They might have a senior center. Those are all things that are constructed usually with government dollars. Oasis is very much ORCiD because ORCID is often run by nonprofits Churches and schools. We are a community, and part of this is we often bring ourselves up by our own bootstraps. I think other communities might have come to the county and said, hey, we want a senior center.
Fund it, build it, go forward with that. And that's not the way Orchids approached this. Orchids approach is a very different way. They've walked in the door as an applicant, same kind of applicants that would maybe come to the county to do any other project. They've spent considerable amount of money going through this process. And it's a very Orchit thing to do.
And so I'm really proud of the project that we have here before us today. There's questions about whether, you know, I think nobody's denied that it's a good project. It's all about the location. You know, I'm the biggest property rights guy that I know and I've been concerned about that as well. I'm satisfied by looking at the documents that there was contemplation for the owner of that property and its successors. Okay? The owner of that property and its successors is Oasis And the uses on that property included things like swimming pools and buildings and facilities to serve those. The Orchid, a lot of people remember the Aqua Center. This would have been a satisfactory site for that under that grant deed.
And so while a senior center was never on here I think if somebody had come up with that idea it would have been PB, David Ensign — Herndon, he would have done play that I might get an option. It would have been going back to the organ community plan works for me plan as was said by Mr Mora back in 1997 I've told some people, you know, I grew up here in Orchid. I graduated high school in 1997 few things have changed opportunities have changed and I think if in 1997 If we would have thought that the Oasis Senior Center could be on that site it would have been in the community plan.
And that's what we have a process here today where we get to be a policy board their community plan although it's important to be faithful to it I think it gives us the opportunity as board members to look at it as a policy document and say things have changed, opportunities have been presented. And we're going to potentially take advantage of that. That's why it's taken a seven year process to get to the board.
You know, it's been a very complicated process. A lot of things unwind. Community plans are what we call general plan level part of a comprehensive plan so they're very difficult to change. And only the right projects get a chance to change and under these processes. I think of the Ways to Senior Center is the right project, I think it's going to be A great opportunity for not only the seniors but for the community as a whole is also going to be the gateway into Old Orchard One other things I'm really proud about orchid is if you if you drive up Clark now You know, people want to be an old orchid. It's a place to be and I'm really excited to see our seniors be right there with our commercial activity, our festivals, our car shows having the Oasis in proximity to that, I think really ties in the multi generational approach to what orchid represents And it's not just seniors, okay?
Little League signups, referee trainings. Those are all happening at Oasis and they've never said no to anybody in the community and I'm really excited about them hopefully with the approval of this project and the successful fundraising in the future to really be a symbol of the community that I love and many other people in the room out there so thank you. I will be looking forward to hopefully making the motion to approve this project after hearing from my colleagues.
Supervisor Labanino, then Supervisor Hartman.
Well thank you Mr. Chair and I actually want to congratulate you on getting this project to this point and working with all the individuals that...I don't think i've seen a more complicated land use, at least here in North County. There are so many layers associated with this project and it's super complex. And I know staff and all the people associated with this have really spent a lot of time and energy but I think it's a worthwhile cause as well.
I hear a lot of things during public comment, something that took me by surprise though was hearing from the attorney for Friends of Keyside 18 to push us to move to a tiger salamander habitat where we've known that there have been takings and lawsuits regarding this endangered species all in the name of environmental protection. That one caught me by surprise.
Maybe that's a first for me but I want to start by saying I don't disagree with the neighbors That there will be impacts. There always are and that's what happens when you eliminate open space, and that's why you know people move into places to have it open space next to him. But like Bob said that a surprise Nelson said, you know Orchid is a changing dynamic place if you pulled into orchid even though it's old town, it's completely renovated. It has become the place to be.
And I think putting the Senior Center right at the entrance to that is, it actually is a great project and in this case it's in the right spot. So you know, I understand there will be impacts but sometimes there's an overriding need in the community that exists that just makes your community a better place to live. And I think what we have to remember too with an ever-increasing senior population, this country and this county will need to put additional resources to properly serve them in the manner that we can all be proud of.
And honestly, I appreciate the fact that you go there and it's the best that we have right now. But I mean, I hope we get a new place before I start playing Marjan and learning the ukulele. So I believe the homeowners who are opposed, I'm hoping will eventually find that the Oasis Senior Center is going to be a friendly neighbor As was brought up many times today, the alternatives whether those are baseball fields, soccer fields, Aqua Center or maybe a hog farm would all be much worse.
So I'm going to be supporting staff's recommendation and I'm happy to help move Jerry and Dolores Lewis' vision forward.
3:09 – 3:143 turns
Well, the first thing I have to do is take exception with our memorable chair about if if government didn't do it, it wouldn't get done. I have to say that solving has a senior senator and is also inspired by oasis engaging on a capital campaign as well. Anybody who knows me realizes when we have an environmental document that says that there are significant environmental impacts, it takes a lot for me to think about overriding that.
In this case however I think there are significant community benefits And I think it's the programs for seniors. We, I serve on the adult and aging network and dealing firsthand with everything that Supervisor Lavinino mentioned we have a master plan on aging at the state and we all really need to get ready for this silver tsunami. I'll be there earlier than my other colleagues on the board but it's really something that affects the quality of life for all of us What's interesting to me about this center as well is that it is a community center, not just for seniors. And that involves people interacting from all ages and another thing and I really have to congratulate Karen Nelson for working with Oasis to get that easement because we're gaining a tremendous recreation benefit for the entire community including the neighbors with this trail system And I think that's really, really important we all have to keep moving.
Use it or lose it. I give everybody who will read it promise to read it a book called palaces for the people. And it talks about how important community centers are for creating connections that sustain people in times of trauma and difficulty and emergency. And many of the examples talk about heat, but I think COVID was another example where you've already been through it. And because of the kinds of relationships That are developed in centers like this, people look after each other they take care of each other they can withstand emergencies far better than when you don't have these kinds of places where people can get to know and like and respect and care for each other.
So for me, those are the overriding considerations. I think this is going to make Orchid an even finer place to be and I just want to congratulate staff. This has been yeoman's work. It has really been an extraordinary effort by our P&D staff and i'm so proud of them for doing it And everybody involved with the Oasis. I know it's been very difficult and it's hard to raise money if you don't have a place, you need a site.
So I think it's really going to take off now. And again Chair Nelson who got that easement that was really important for me that there be connectivity in a recreational benefit for the citizens of work at the public at large so I also will be supporting And have since it started at the Planning Commission many years ago.
Yes, thank you. Thank you Supervisor Hartman. Supervisor Hart and then we'll go to Supervisor Williams and Santa Barbara.
Yeah I want to agree with my colleagues. I think there's been a lot of work done by the Oasis team to answer a complex series of planning questions and when you step back from it all and you think about a community plan that was developed almost 25 years ago Things do change, and yet the core of this plan as it applies to this property was contemplating active recreation. And so when we start thinking about that and say does this apply to that definition?
I agree with Chair Nelson that I think had that been listed as an option at that time, it would have been included as an element to be consistent with that community plan. But what really impressed me is as Supervisor Hartman's mentioned, is the spirit and the approach of the Oasis program itself. The idea that they're trying to keep the community healthy by actively engaging and serving 14 hundred orchid residents with programs and services that's really important to any sense of community. And I think it's, it's as important as you know open space preservation in these two things aren't incompatible because the trail system will connect the services the programs the seniors to the open space that remains and make that active viable. Thank you Supervisor Hart.
Supervisor Williams?
3:14 – 3:1710 turns
Yes, I think that the neighbors that are in opposition have raised good questions. But I feel that staff and the applicants and the public have given good answers to those questions. And a statement of overriding considerations is an important element of how we go through these but I definitely feel that there are benefits In which we can make the necessary findings and approve this project.
Okay, so it's my honor and privilege to Make a motion to approve the recommended actions, along with the amendment to the project plan. To add the language that was discussed based on Supervisor Lavagnino's comment. I'll make that motion.
Mr. Chair just to clarify is that the revised motion from the PowerPoint
instead of
the board letter?
That's correct. It's the revised language yes thank you and i'll second that motion Thank you, Supervisor Lavenino. OK, let's go ahead and have a roll call vote.
Supervisor Hart?
Aye.
Roll-call vote Passed 4–0 motion Thank you, Supervisor Lavenino. OK, let's go ahead and have a roll call
Show transcript
Motion passes unanimously
Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Real quick I was going to take my liberty as chair to thank some people on this project. I want to thank Steve and Debbie Labard. If we can just wave it would be fine. Thank you. I think Lynn Knight, Michelle Southwick, Doug Doherty, Joseph Borjas, Joe Schaaf and the board members of Oasis, Tom Martinez I also want to recognize former supervisor Peter Adam staff, Jeff Wilson, Jeff Lingren, Marty Wilder, John Zorvich, Shannon Reese, Lori Tamura.
And I also want to especially recognize Mr. Jerry Lewis who passed as well as Lauren Gasser who was unable We didn't live to see this day, and I know both of them are up above looking at this very happy. And that's my only sadness here is that they weren't able to see this. So thank you everybody who has been a part of this. Look forward to cutting the ribbon in the future. Thank you. We're going to go ahead and adjourn for closed session. Ms.
Council, will you please read items for closed session? Can I get everybody be quiet just for a minute? Just for a minute. We got to close for closed session here, thank you.
3:17 – 3:172 turns
Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the board. We have three items on for closed session today. Two Superior Court cases. The first is Rancho La Laguna versus County of Santa Barbara. The second is Scott versus County of Santa Barbara. And we also have Eli versus County of Santa Barbara which is the United States District Court case for the Central District of California. And the time estimate is one hour.
Okay, we're going to go ahead and return back at 1 30 from closed session with departmental item number two.
4:29 – 4:379 turns
That's it. Okay,
welcome back. Madam Council, will you please report out from closed session?
Thank you Mr. Chair and members of the board. The board met in closed session on three items of existing litigation two Superior Court cases Rancho La Laguna versus County of Santa Barbara and Scott versus County of Santa Barbara and one federal case Eli versus County of Santa Barbara United States District Court for the Central District of California and the board took no reportable action
thank you Our
next item on the agenda is departmental item number two. Madam Clerk, will you please read that into the record?
Chair Nelson and members of the board, departmental item number two is from the County Executive Office. It is a hearing to consider recommendations regarding the 2021 annual report and accomplishments from the county's federal and state legislative advocates and the adoption of the 2022 legislative platform.
Thank you.
Good afternoon, Chair Nelson and members of the board. We'll just wait a few seconds here for the PowerPoint to come up and then we will go ahead and get started. All right, good afternoon. So it is today we are asking your board to receive and file the annual report for accomplishments for the 2021 from 2021 from our county state legislative advocate as well as our federal legislative advocate as well as adopt the County of Santa Barbara 2022 legislative platform recommended for your review by the Legislative Program Committee today. So before we go ahead and start talking about the 2022 legislative platform, we'll start with a report from our federal legislative advocate Thomas Walters & Associates. So I will turn it over to Mr Don Gilchrist for the 2021 annual report.
Thank you very much Chair Nelson, members of the board. I'm Don Gilcrest with Thomas Walters and Associates appreciate the chance to talk with you a bit about your federal legislative platform Uh, and this has been a productive year for your federal program. But we're not done quite yet. Congress still has a few things left to do before the end of the year.
So we'll report on where we're at so far looking back earlier in the year. The enactment of the American rescue plan in March was a significant accomplishment for the County. It addressed several of your highest legislative priorities, especially the establishment of the Coronavirus Relief Fund that's providing $86.8 million directly to the County of Santa Barbara for pandemic relief and recovery.
It had numerous other provisions in there that were important to the county, including direct assistance to individuals and businesses that were harmed by the pandemic. There was an emergency rental assistance program and other housing aid, as well as assistance to help prevent homelessness. And of course there was additional assistance for public health responsibilities which are so important to the county.
So many of you had a hand in helping to achieve this objective, as well as CEO Miyasato and her staff who contacted Congress directly and gave us the detailed information that we needed to make the case for this assistance Representative Carvajal, Senator Feinstein, Senator Padilla all gave strong support to this effort and were so responsive to all of our requests for assistance. We owe them a debt of gratitude.
Later in the year, the enactment of the bipartisan infrastructure legislation in November not too long ago address a number of the issues that the county's been working on for many years to seek this significant increase in federal spending. For infrastructure ranging from water projects to broadband to transportation. of new federal spending that's above the current baseline levels, and it provided a five-year reauthorization for the surface transportation programs. And it gave hefty increases for those programs as well.
The legislation establishes a program for bridge replacement, which is something that the county's been pursuing for several years $40 billion is included in the in the legislation for bridge replacement some of that will go out through. Uh formulas, some of it will go out through direct grants that the county can apply for. But in addition the surface transportation block grant program has a set aside for local bridges and the bipartisan infrastructure legislation increased that set aside from 15% to 20%. And that means there'll be around $1 billion going to local bridges from that program each year uh and that's something been really important to the county that we've been working to see happen for several years.
Now, there's still significant pending issues out there and particularly our focus is on the Build Back Better plan that President Biden has proposed. This is the $2.2 trillion package that's focused on climate change mitigation and the social safety net The House passed the plan just before the Thanksgiving break and Senate Majority Leader Schumer is seeking to get this all wrapped up here in December before the holidays.
There's only about two or three weeks left for them to get this done, so they better start having some action in the Senate very quickly if they want to get that done otherwise this is going to spill over into January. Another issue that we know will spill over into January is the annual appropriations process. The federal fiscal year started on October 1 with none of the 12 appropriations bills signed into law, so we're operating under a continuing resolution that will run through February 18th and that means that's at the top of the to-do list next year in January for Congress to come back and finish up those 12 FY22 appropriations bills.
But beyond that, I think the big issue for the county next year is going to be the implementation of the infrastructure plan. We want to make sure that the County Santa Barbara receives as much of the benefit from this historic legislation as possible and we've already started the process of reaching out to the federal agencies that are going to be implementing these programs to make sure that we don't miss any opportunities.
And there'll be other things that happen next year. I think we'll see some legislative activity on climate change mitigation and health care immigration reform. Of course, if there's anything related to the pandemic that is being dealt with by Congress, we're going to watch that very closely to make sure for any opportunities for the County of Santa Barbara as well as any impacts on your operations.
So we look forward to continuing to work with you in the coming year on the federal platform that you'll adopt today, and I'd be pleased to respond any questions you may have.
4:37 – 4:445 turns
Any questions from the board?
Yes, thank you. I think we're if we can hold questions to the end that would be awesome. We'll just continue with the report. Thank you so much. All right. Thank you Mr. Gilchrist for that update and will now move on to our state 2021 annual report. So I will turn it over to Mr. Clifford to give that update.
Thank you and hope you all can see me. I did want to echo first off Congratulations to Tom Fairam, as the I think only other Green Bay Packer fan that I know. But his qualities of providing assistance to the county and to our legislative program in Sacramento are invaluable. I always look forward to my visits pre-COVID to meeting with him and Scott in the Public Works Department to talk about county priorities at Sacramento. And we'll miss him and sorry I didn't get down there this year due to COVID.
So the California legislature recessed September 10th and will return in January. During the course of the 2021 legislative session, COVID had a significant impact on the legislative process as well as on legislative priorities but despite early predictions of a 50 billion dollar state deficit it turned out as the year progressed that the state continued to run A surplus, and we wound up with a budget passed in June that recognized $100 billion state surplus in California significant amount of that money went to coven related.
Economic relief and stimulus, but I think it's important to note that substantial part of that hundred billion dollar surplus was dedicated to important issues that are part of the county's platform. That we have been working on in the course of this year and many years. And those included economic development, arts and culture homelessness affordable housing wildfire and forest resilience water and drought resilience climate resilience energy and transportation.
A significant amount of that money was moved and move very quickly which meant that a significant amount of details as to the distribution of that money and how it will be distributed was left to be worked out with stakeholder groups, with budget trailer bills and with additional legislation next year. So we have been working closely with your departmental staff in the county administrator's office to follow how that money is actually distributed to ensure that the county receives its fair share for the projects that you have in your pipeline We were very, very, very pleased to be able to work with our legislative delegation on securing for the county $1,050,000 with the city of Carpinteria for the cleanup of the Veneco pipeline, abandoned pipeline that the county has been having to deal with the state fire marshal over and that money is in In the budget and we have been working with your staff in the process of moving that money forward.
As I mentioned, and we highlight in our report a number of distribution issues remained after the legislature actually appropriated funds one of those issues which is
we
are working on have worked on for nearly two years With your Department of Public Health remains an issue for next year, which is the 340 B program. The governor's RX initiative to change the state's drug purchase process has resulted in the potential loss of what we call 340B money, which the county stood to lose approximately 4.4%. $4.4 million. We were successful in convincing the administration and the legislature to backfill that money, but it is one of those distribution issues where we have not reached a successful resolution as to how the money will be distributed and the formulas proposed by the State Department of Health remain of concern.
We had a meeting with the director of the State Department of Health fairly recently to make our case for the county's backfill, to make up as much of the loss as possible. But we do remain concerned that the formula is under consideration could result in a substantial revenue loss to the county. We have been working closely with our legislative delegation at looking at a potential budget solution for next year either through the budget or through legislation and that's an ongoing project that will be continuing to work on I think if you look at our report, we touch on some highlights that show the breadth of the county's interests in platform issues in Sacramento.
We work on legislative issues from the Brown Act to telehealth, to clean energy, to abandoned oil wells, a fairly broad panoply of issues impacting the county. Forward now to the legislature returning on January 4th, to begin the second year of its two-year legislative session. The governor is preparing his 21-22 budget as we speak it will be submitted the first week in January.
Predictions from the state legislative analysts at this time indicate another potential surplus. The latest prediction was 31 billion dollars but that could change quickly as you know the California State Budget depends very much On a progressive tax system which depends very much on capital gains, the state did defer action on a number of budget issues such as transportation and energy funding till next year. And should the federal bill pass that Mr. Gilchrist mentioned we will be engaged in working on how the state Distributes those funds to local government in California, the legislature in its upcoming legislative session will be substantially impacted by an ongoing reapportionment process that is reaching its conclusion which could result in substantial changes and legislative districts and term limits.
I do want to take the opportunity again to thank the County Administrator's Office, Jasmine and everybody else in the County Administrator's Office and your Department of Heads who have worked with us very closely last year on a wide variety of issues of concern to the county and have supported our efforts in Sacramento. And I look forward to meeting with you and department heads as we determine priorities for the upcoming year. Happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you.
4:44 – 4:5311 turns
Great thank you Mr. Berg for that update and once again we'll hold questions till the end here. So now, sorry if we can go back to the PowerPoint that would be awesome thank you all right so that concludes our 2021 annual reports from our state and federal advocates Now we'll move on to the 2022 legislative platform that we are asking your board to consider today for adoption.
And this comes from the Legislative Program Committee, which is an advisory body that was established in 1991. The membership consists of two supervisors and we meet on a monthly basis open to the public. The committee's briefed on pending legislation of items of interest to Santa Barbara County and each year we adopt a legislative platform that focuses on targeted areas, priorities and issues that we like to target to advocate for.
So currently we have about eight, we have eight legislative principles. One of these principles is actually new added to the 2022 legislative platform. So their job growth and economic vitality, local control, efficient service delivery and operations, health and human services, fiscal stability, interagency collaboration, community sustainability, environmental protection. And the new one that we're proposing to add this year to the 2022 platform Is diversity, equity and inclusion.
Just a little bit about the legislative platform development process. We begin the process in about August of September of the year, and we send out the planks and principles to each of the department heads where they review to check for any updates or... And this is where we also identify any new planks for consideration. In October 2021 on October 4th this year, we brought forth the draft legislative platform to the legislative program committee for their review The input that we received from the committee was to come back to the legislative program committee after the ARPA discussions occurred in late October, as well as give the opportunity to the public to provide input on the platform as well. So county staff, we put out the draft platform via e-blast, as well as posted to our website and social media I'm going to go ahead and get started.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So just a couple changes from last year's platform. There was minor changes to the principles from the prior years, as I mentioned previously one new principle was added which is diversity equity and inclusion. And there was two new planks added this year. One, both from the county executive office one on cannabis state licensing taxation and coordination. And the second new principle that we've sorry new plank that we propose to add is on Brown Act and public access flexibility.
So some of the actions that we took after the Legislative Program Committee reviewed the platform in October, we asked the department heads to reconsider and revise their planks if needed after the ARPA discussions at the full board. And we also sent that out to the public to gauge their input. So our recommended actions today are to receive the annual report from both our state and federal advocates, as well as adopt the county's 2022 legislative platform and find that the proposed actions do not constitute a project within the meaning of CEQA. So with that I welcome any questions you may have. And I know Mr. Gilchrist and Mr. Berger also available for questions should you have any. Thank you guys.
Let's see, I had a question for
our state advocate. You mentioned term limits was something that you were following? I was just curious
on that.
Sorry, I had my view button on. Yes so term limits will have a substantial impact not necessarily immediately in the 2022 election cycle but a huge part of the State Assembly is termed significant part of the state assembly is termed out in 2024 including the speaker and any large number of senior members we're actually seeing A substantial, however, exodus right now of state legislators in anticipation of 2024.
So fairly recently Assemblyman Jim Frazier, Chairman of the Assembly GO Committee announced his resignation to take a job in the transportation area if he has his druthers Rudy Salas from Bakersfield Announced he's running for Congress, Kevin Mullen from San Mateo announced he's running for Congress to replace Jackie Spear. Mark Levine from Marin announced he's running for Insurance Commissioner.
Ed Chow of Los Angeles thought a judicial appointment and the governor appointed him. So yeah so term limits are major impact.
Thanks Cliff I wasn't sure if there was new term limit legislation that you're mentioning or now I understand that probably better. So as Williams have any questions for anybody?
I do not. I serve on the committee and most of my questions are answered.
I don't have
any questions, I just wanted to thank Mr Berg and Mr Gilchrist and Ms McGlinchey for all the great work that they're doing to represent us in front of the state and federal legislature and this really has been extraordinary year It's going to be interesting to see if we can repeat such great success in the following year. But I know with the capable hands of the folks working hard that will do our very best.
Thank you, Supervisor Hartman.
This is a question for Cliff. Could you talk about the budget surplus? This is the second next year. We're also expecting a state budget surplus. Is this coming from federal funds? Is this and I mean, I know there's a projection and then there's money that's beyond that. Why do we have that surplus? Because it's expected just to be one time, everybody only wants to spend one-time money so we can't rely on it for ongoing programs. So would just like to hear your thoughts about that.
Sure. Thank you, Supervisor. So I mean, I think the the infusion of federal money into California over the last year, a year and a half due to the covid pandemic and federal response certainly has helped in this part of it. Part of it. The significant part of it remains that the California state Budget is based upon a fairly progressive tax system which is slanted towards significant taxes on high earners, white collar workers and particularly on capital gains that come out of Silicon Valley. So I mean literally California in prior years has fluctuated between giant surpluses and giant deficits literally within six months. I think right when Gray Davis was governor He had a $12 billion surplus in January and a $20 billion deficit in the May revise, which helped fuel the recall against him amongst other issues.
So what we've been seeing is early on in the COVID pandemic, the State Department of Finance and the governor relying upon them projected a significant impact on state revenues in the negative but it turned out that most of the people who are paying taxes in California, continue to work from home and continue to make money so that that money has continued to roll in ahead of projections.
Federal funds remain an important part I think of you know the state getting a significant amount of federal assistance in various areas also those factors have all combined You know, $100 billion surplus in the current fiscal year and at the moment of projected surplus for the next fiscal year 32 billion.
4:53 – 4:5815 turns
Thank you, and I just wanted to say something else. I think our county is really well served by Mr. Berg and Mr. Gilchrist. I serve on the Ledge Committee with Supervisor Williams, and they're at all our meetings, and we see all the letters that they write every month. It's sometimes staggering, the meetings that they have, and how highly responsive they are to questions we have Going out and doing the research or setting up the meetings.
So, I just wanted to thank you it's a pleasure working with you both.
Thank you let me mention one other thing on your question of the budget. The extent that money is available for like say what let's call local projects we need to be looking and I hope to work with all of you I'm you know determining, you know capital outlay one time only kind of expenditures which are what are generally favored at the state level when you have a budget surplus so there's not ongoing out fiscal year costs.
And I do want to really thank the legislative committee members for working so closely with us both staff and members of the board your insights are invaluable in helping us figure out priorities and strategy and participating With our local legislators who are also fantastic in Sacramento. It's senator Lamont for example played a critical role and could he's play critical role on the oil pipeline money that we got on 3.40 be issue is assembly.
Assemblymember Bennett so I want to thank them and their staffs for you know working so closely with us.
He says I think you have Mister Burke. Sue has wins
Well, I just want to highlight that they're number one. I think Cliff's fiscal priorities are very much in order. Hold on
just a moment. I'm sorry we cannot hear Santa Barbara.
I am attempting to testing. Testing 1-2-3.
Doss, I think we can hear you now please try again thank you.
Well first I want to stand in very much agreement. Nope not yet. Can you hear me?
One moment Supervisor Williams.
Testing, testing.
You can ask the public to bear with us for a minute we're got a few technical difficulties we're going to work through.
If Supervisor Williams or the clerk of the board staff can please test a microphone.
Testing 123 testing,
we can still not hear you in the Santa Barbara or in the Santa Maria hearing room.
Yeah, I don't think there is any public comment. We're going to go ahead and make a five minute break while we work out the technical difficulties. And we'll be right back.
4:58 – 5:017 turns
you.
Doing a live test from Santa Barbara. Can you hear me, Santa Maria? This is a live test from Santa Barbara.
Chat testing, testing 123 we can hear you in Santa Maria. I think I might have said Santa Barbara sorry.
Wonderful will be live in about 15 seconds
give us one moment our chair just stepped away so I'll give you a call when we're ready to come back
wonderful alright
thank you.
5:04 – 5:0710 turns
Okay, welcome back. I think we resolved our issue. Supervisor Williams?
Thank you Mr. Chair. First of all, I want to be in strong agreement with the priorities that Cliff articulated. The millions that are at stake with 340B issue is really important for the county fiscally But I also think we should take advantage of, and it's not so much in here but I will be proposing something in our next committee because there is going to be a real push from what I hear the Governor on housing.
The lack of housing is affecting The equity of California, the quality of life of Californians. And obviously it's hurting the environment as people commute farther and farther distance and that counts for 60% of our emissions locally and there are similar stats for this state as a whole. So the governor what we hear is going to make a big push on housing and I think we need One as well and be a part of that.
Okay, thank you Sir Ezra Williams. Right any other any other comments? All right seeing none can we go ahead and get a motion on this? Oh so I'm sorry Madam Clerk is there any public comment on this item?
Chair Nelson and members of the board we have no request to speak on this item.
Back to the Board.
Yeah. So Mr. Chair, I would move staff recommendations A through C in today's staff report.
Any others? Can I get a second from somebody? Second for Supervisor Hart. Before we go to vote, you know, I just wanted to comment on the platform that reading through it, I saw it to be a document that was It was really about the nuts and bolts of county government, what's important to the residents of Santa Barbara County. So I just wanted to commend the staff that has worked on that and the legislative committee that's worked on that to make sure it's something that everybody can support. And so I appreciate that and we're looking forward to continue to advocate on behalf of the board in those matters. So Madam Clerk, can I have a roll call vote?
Roll-call vote Passed 4–0
Show transcript
motion passes unanimously.
Okay
next part next item on the agenda is departmental item number three and I'm clear when you're ready we'll go ahead and read that item into the record
5:07 – 5:172 turns
Chair Nelson and members of the board departmental item number three is from the county executive office, it is a hearing to consider recommendations regarding fiscal year 2022 through 2023 budget development report and proposed policies.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of the board will wait a minute for the slides to come up. Okay this item is essentially kicking off our fiscal year 22-23 budget development process with our most current projections and proposed policies that set the guidelines for the next fiscal year Today's report includes a budget development timeline, some comments from the expert and state outlook changes to our presentation for the forecast. The general five general fund five year forecast other major fund projections new budget development policies and concludes with them taking any board budget priorities as part of a discussion.
The annual budget process is laid out here. We're starting in December with our Budget Development Report and Proposed Policies. In January and February, the departments are working on their budgets and submitting them to the County Executive Office in February. In March we meet with the departments to go over that information. And then we have budget workshops that are being held April 11th, 12th, and 14th this year. In May we released the recommended budget And then we have a budget hearings and adoption on June 14th and potentially 15th of this year.
The economic outlook beyond the county is positive UCLA Anderson forecast indicates solid expected growth through 2023, and they noted California is likely to outpace the US as a whole. The LAO is confirming this with the $31 billion state budget surplus estimate that was noted in November. The intent of the forecast is to provide context for the budget development, identified demands for the coming years and key areas we know will need attention in preparing the budget. For the general fund, the forecast includes major budgetary components including discretionary revenue and labor costs based on current negotiations.
You will see that the main focus of the report is on the general fund where your board has the most discretionary authority. This report is different from what you have seen in the past. We really wanted to provide projections that best reflect what we see as likely impacting the general fund over the next five years, therefore there are specific focus on the known impact on discretionary revenue salaries and benefits policy commitments already in place countywide operational changes and fiscal plan mitigation efforts.
General Fund Department fiscal issues were requested and we will be evaluating those as part of the budget submittals. Significant issues that are typically $500,000 or more related to legislative changes, new statutory mandates, or issues outside department control that result in severe service level impacts or risk exposure to the county are noted and will be monitored.
As it relates to the general fund, discretionary revenue sources are relatively stable with a slight reduction of cannabis tax revenue. The forecasted numbers are based on what we know today and may be refined over the next several months. The recently negotiated labor contracts are incorporated in addition to the assumption that the retirement board will be reducing the rate of return discount from 7% to 6.75%, which increases pension costs.
The forecast also assumes that status quo service levels and no department expansion requests are included. The key elements we focus on for the projections include impacts from state and federal action, assessed values for property taxes and other tax revenues issues impacting the current year budget and ending fund balances. We also look at any known quantifiable changes in local program costs and revenues.
I'd like to start with the county-wide salary and benefit costs. This is county wide, so it's general fund and all other operating funds. Salaries are projected to increase 4.2% in fiscal year 22-23, primarily the result of negotiated labor increases. The forecast uses 2.5% in 22-23 and 2% in the out years. Countywide if they increased total $17 million in fiscal year 22- 23 and $56 million over the five year period.
Retirement increases two and a half percent while investment returns for SP serves top 25% at 630 21 retirement board is considering the reduction of the rate of return from 7% to 6.75%, which offsets some of the savings that would be achieved through the investment returns this in addition to the salary increases are lending to the increase That totals $4.1 million for fiscal year 22-23 countywide. Of note, the retirement board is considering their final proposed rates this week. We are seeing that those are lower than what we had available for our forecast so we will be adjusting those and providing those updates for the budget workshops.
Health insurance in general increases on average 5.7% annually, the increase is less than 1% in 22-23 due to lower than expected premiums in the current fiscal year. Here's a 10-year look at the major salaries and benefits categories just discussed. Five years of the past budget amounts, and five years forecast moving forward are shown here. Healthcare costs and salaries projected to increase over the five-year period. Pension costs shown a slight decrease in the final year of the forecast in fiscal year 26-27. This is a result of negative returns from fiscal year 19-20 being fully smoothed by 25-26.
Now we're going to focus more diving into the general fund starting with discretionary revenue. As part of your report, the five-year forecast and assumptions of all discretionary accounts can be found in attachment A of the board document just for your information This chart shows the general fund discretionary revenues over a 10-year period, five years of actuals and five years of forecast. The major discretionary revenue accounts are property taxes, sales taxes, transient occupancy tax and cannabis tax.
They're showing the increase over that time frame period. Property taxes make up 77% of the county's discretionary revenue. Assessed valuations this year, increases are primarily related to residential and commercial properties which are contributing to the assumed 4.7% increase for 22-23. In context in 2021, the actual increase was 3.9%, and we're estimating a 4. 7% increase for 21-22.
The growth in the following years is not expected to hold. So we've built in the growth at 3.7% in year two without the out-years going to 3.3%. Then, the net impact for general fund and fiscal year 22-23 is an increase of $7.9 million. Sales tax make up 4% of the county's discretionary revenue, good news. Retail sales return to pre-pandemic levels with emphasis on goods and online sales specifically.
We use HDL consultants project a 5.4% increase or 676,000 for 22-23. That growth is predicted to decline slightly in 23-24 and then reaccelerate to about 4% in the final forecast year. Okay, transient occupancy tax makes up 3.7% of the county's discretionary revenue. This source is highly dependent on tourism and availability of the lodging in the unincorporated areas.
We are seeing that revenues are rebounding to the pre-pandemic levels and you'll see with that travel in the central coast surging. An increase of 3.8% or 500,000 is projected for 2223 with steady growth about 3.5% for all the outdoors.
5:17 – 5:343 turns
Hey, cannabis
tax revenue is showing a bit of volatility from your from your enclosed last fiscal year collections total $15.7 million. While we were projecting to end the year at roughly $18 million. This is important because we use that projected $18 million to estimate our current year adopted budget number of 19 million which we now believe is likely too high. Quarter one receipts are indicating collections will be closer to about $16 million, leaving us at a current year shortfall of about 3 million.
Taking this into consideration the forecast assumes a 7% decrease for fiscal year 22-23 to have about 17.7 million dollars. The forecast then assumes this revenue will grow up to 21.1 million dollars over the next five years. We anticipate more data collected related to these receipts will help refine these estimates moving forward. We do have the Cannabis Division, we'll be presenting the quarter one cannabis report next week to your board to provide further detail in regard to the collection activity.
And now I'll take a look at cost changes and how those roll into a five-year financial forecast for the general fund. The board has adopted policies related to the strategic reserve growth and northern branch gel operations that have been taken into consideration for this financial forecast. The strategic reserve policy holds a reserve account at 8% of general fund operating revenues, the current balance is about 38 little over $38 million. We have built an estimated increase to keep the reserve at that 8% level with any kind of revenue growth.
The Northern Branch Jail Operations Policy helps to fund the operations in the new jail facility that opens this fiscal year. The annual funding level is $19.6 million for fiscal year 22-23. For this forecast, this is an increase of 2.2 million in 2022-23 and goes an additional 5.6 million in the out years. There are several operational changes that are also impacting the forecast. General liability and workers comp is once again increasing in premium costs.
This is not unique to Santa Barbara, this is happening across the state. Premiums are projected to increase approximately $5 million over the next five years. The board did approve an ongoing set aside of 500,000 in the current budget to help offset this trend. Information technology costs are related to software and hardware upgrades and improvements in teleworking costs.
These are projected to increase 8% annually, most departments will absorb these costs but we have some considered outside the department control that will be needed for budgeting. Funding for the continuation of co-response program has been assumed. Grant funding is expected to end in the next two years this year, the board approved setting aside $500,000 toward this program to help offset the grant loss. Departments are currently seeking other grant opportunities for funding which may reduce the final amount needed but the current cost of the program is $1.1 million and we have built that in.
The DSS CalFresh local share waiver sunset was delayed during the pandemic but is now coming to fruition. While this does mean a general fund contribution around $807,000 it will allow the department to draw down additional funding to help cover increases related to labor negotiated costs. Last year, the concept of the establishment IT department was discussed. Initial funding of a million dollars was included in the budget as part of the five-year forecast. Estimated cost for operations is anticipated to be needed once fully implemented so we've built that in.
Cost to provide services to several homelessness programs significantly funded through the ARPA funding are anticipated in 2526. The amount is estimated at $5 million However, CSD is seeking alternative funding that may reduce this amount over time. Project Clean Water Program anticipates increases in costs related to state mandated requirements for maintenance services. Do have a correction since printing on this one, this amount will actually be reduced approximately 300,000 which will help the general fund bottom line. This is a good example of forecasting involves refinement as we get better information.
The final two items listed here fall within the fiscal plan As previously mentioned, your board has already taken efforts to mitigate several of the anticipated increases today general liability labor negotiations and the CO response program are providing $3 million to help offset these costs. As we look at the next slide in a moment, you will also see a line item for previous year general fund deficit where it is assumed that there is a deficit. If there is a deficit in one year, we will be mitigating it through short term resources and then resolving it through planned use of future ongoing revenue resources available.
OK, this table brings all of the previous information to one layout for the general funds is new This is the incremental change in general fund ongoing revenue and costs over a five-year period. It's important to keep in mind that these are estimates based on the best information that we have at the time, and we will be refining the information throughout the budget development process. It assumes status cooperations for general fund departments and no expansion requests are included.
Kind of hard a little bit hard to see up on the screen but hopefully you'll have that in front of view as part of the document. I just wanted to go down at least one of the columns so we can, you can understand how how the table works. So under fiscal year 22 23 will just focus there. We have the ongoing revenue sources the first row. It shows discretionary revenue at $11.7 million. This excludes cannabis, we are not assuming any cannabis is going to be used for ongoing costs.
As we go down in rows on that column of 2223, the ongoing cost changes start with a negotiated and assumed salary increases. It's just for the general fund keeping in mind. We anticipate an increase of $6.3 million for negotiated and assumed salary increases. Pension costs are about 1.1 although we do anticipate that will be reduced with the new rates Health benefits are 17,000 strategic reserve growth about 1.6 million northern branch jail operations 2.2 million general liability workers comp 1.99 million it sgs charges 234,000 continuation of the co response program that's one of the grants that are ending 630,000 DSS CalFresh local share waiver 807,000. Next line is IT department operations you see that won't be we're not anticipating impact for that until 2324.
Homeless services cost that does not kick in until 2526. So we follow the, the row across under 2526 you'll see where that comes on in project clean water program costs as indicated that will be reduced to 300,000. For fiscal plan, the board approved prior year set-asides. That shows the total of the $3 million that your board has already taken mitigation efforts on in the 21-22 budget so that's offsetting those costs for a total change in cost at 12.88 million.
That brings us to the bottom line for the annual deficit or surplus. This is what we tend to look at to know where we're going to be over the five year period This currently shows a deficit of about 1.2 we know that's going to be less than that related to that change for the project clean water and likely some pension costs, but it does show within a deficit or what we're looking for is a zero or positive obviously.
However, if you look out to the five years we see a positive of 2.2 million dollars so over five year period we know that we can mitigate the issues that we're seeing in front of as we know them today it does help us too as we prepare for budget development to know what we if there is additional funding for expansion requests or new programs that may be considered So we take all of this into consideration and we update and refine this information as we get closer to budget workshops.
So the main takeaway from what we're seeing on that table is fortunately we have revenue growth that is helping to offset increased labor costs, it is anticipated there will be minimal GFC remaining for program extension and projects. We had departments have been told that they should be planning to conserve and assume status quo, general fund contributions. We may need to look at cost cutting and revenue generating initiatives as departments submit their budgets. Remember departments have not submitted budgets for our review yet.
And finally we would recommend based on this information that the board focus priorities primarily on one time projects or needs and avoid ongoing costs situations. Now we're going to touch briefly on the general fund unallocated fund balances. This is a question that board members often ask as we go into the new fiscal year. So, the general fund balance unallocated at what we know is 9940 account totaled $17.9 million at July 1st. $7.9 million is related to CARES Act reimbursement.
As you know, the funds historically have been used for one-time budgetary items in the next fiscal year. That's why we're presenting it today. But we do need to let you know that we do have two significant items that are impacting the availability of these funds. The first is advanced bridge construction activity that is estimated at $9.8 million that Public Works is initiating. These are temporary cashflow needs so we know that they will need at least this amount through fiscal year 2425 The funds do get reimbursed to the general fund, but they are temporarily unavailable for your board spending until that time.
The remaining balance of $7.9 million is earmarked currently for significant uninsured litigation costs that we've been advised of. Presenting that in a little bit more table accountant type form here. We've got a big beginning balance of the 17.9 million and less the temporary set aside for public works demand fridges, and the uninsured litigation costs is 7.9 has a remaining balance zero.
The other account that your board typically will look at for allocation is cannabis fund balance. 9815 account, the prior year carryover is 3.25 million. As you recall we've indicated that there is a current year shortfall that we're anticipating of $3 million. We have to use that from balanced offset that leaving a net of 281,000. You may recall that as part of the 21-22 budget though, your board set aside a prudent reserve of 4.7 so that's sitting.
So you have it in addition to the 28, that $281,000 there's 4.76 million sitting. Potential indicated the potential shortfall and because of this we would just recommend not allocating or considering allocating this until we get to June when current year collections are. To help visualize this, we have the beginning balance of 3.2 less than the revenue shortfall that we're anticipating for the current year for a remaining balance of 281,000 and of course we've got the prudent reserve that's set aside We just have about two more slides that are on the forecast piece. Paul Clemente, our budget division chief is going to go over those will stop and answer any questions you guys may have in regard to the forecasts and then we will move into the budget policies that are proposed.
Thank you, Nancy. So on this slide we see projected deficits and some of the other major operating funds. I'll talk about some specific issues in roads healthcare and mental health services on the next slide. But some general drivers of the gaps here are the following. Federal and state revenues not keeping pace with salaries and benefits and other increases.
This is the case in funds such as mental health services, social services fund, and IHSS public authority has projected growth in state and federal revenues that they use towards salary benefit increases and services and supplies payments don't keep up with the projected costs. If revenues do end up coming in higher than estimated, it will mitigate some of these issues and more will be known after the governor's preliminary budget in January.
Fees below full cost recovery during the forecast period. The small gaps we see in environmental health services and planning and development are a result of assumed fee revenues, not keeping pace with expenditure growth. These departments do review their fees annually and make adjustments where feasible to achieve full cost recovery. So as they develop their budget in the coming months, we're hopeful we see these gaps disappear.
Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the board. Their forecast assumes depletion of fund balances in the current year, leading to the gaps we see in the forecast period. But again more will be known in the coming months and if the revenue picture in both 21-22 and 22-23 improves it could help preserve their fund balances and mitigate these future year gaps Three specific issues we're monitoring that drive gaps on the prior slide are in the road operations, public health and behavioral wellness funds.
Public Works has been using a portion of limited fund balance to maintain the roads division operations at current service levels which has been a fiscal issue of concern for the past few years The department anticipates full depletion of the available fund balance by fiscal year 2324, which would result in service level impacts if not mitigated. More detail will be provided at budget workshops as we continue to work with the department to understand and mitigate this issue.
Public health has been anticipating 340 be pharmacy change for many years, which will be going into effect next month and impact their revenues. They've already taken steps such as transitioning away from an in house clinical laboratory to reduce costs. They're also developing plans to streamline organization, excuse me organizational structures And look at service delivery to reduce future costs, as well as increase patients and visits to increase their revenues.
The department also has available fund balance to help temporarily bridge revenue reductions as they adjust operations and as you heard on the item before this the state level they continue to advocate for a backfill methodology that will help recoup some of this loss. In behavioral wellness, costs are rising at a faster rate than revenues driven by the increasing utilization and costs of state hospital beds as well as other long-term IMD beds.
The department anticipates available fund balance could be depleted in the current fiscal year. And if sources of revenue such as 1991 realignment don't increase enough to cover costs, the department could face a one to $2 million issue in coming years. Staff continues to monitor this issue and advocate at the state level for additional resources, given the slow growth of 1991 realignment revenue compared to the rising costs of the IMD beds.
5:34 – 5:4023 turns
That concludes the portion that is related to the financial forecast and we will be moving into the budget policies. If you would like us to answer any questions now or proceed, we are happy to do so.
I just have a couple of questions on slide 31. The annual projected deficits for each fiscal year, do those accumulate over the five-year period?
So I understand right it's a it's this is accumulative if it was addressed in one year, it would zero out like social services for example, I believe you see a 5 million and 2324. If that's addressed, you wouldn't see the 5 million in now here's
so it starts out as a 10 million dollar problem grows to a $20 million problem. But if you arrested at the beginning, you prevent the road. Yes. Okay, that's important. And then you mentioned, or I think Nancy mentioned cannabis retail coming online and 2526 Did I misunderstand that?
Sorry, Chair Hart did you say cannabis?
Cannabis retail and I think I misunderstood.
Yeah we actually started including a portion of that in the current year so let Paul.
We do have an assumption in this adopted budget for some cannabis retail and then annualized going
forward. Something stuck in my
head. Was that on Nancy's slides?
That's okay if I know it doesn't matter. And then just thank you for highlighting the fact that we're planning ahead to fund the co response program, that's really important to everybody is super supportive of that we don't want to have a cliff when that comes so thank
I think it's back to slide 17. We're going to get back to some clarification on the cannabis. I think its total cannabis revenue will peak in 2025-2026.
Yes,
correct. For 2027 at 21.1. Thank you
Chair for that clarification. You are correct.
Any other questions from the Board before we go to the policies?
Okay
all right let's go ahead.
Okay. So for our budget about development policies for fiscal year 22-23 in general, same similar policies as 21-22 with the exception of six new components that I'll cover on the following slides Policy 1E would be transferring Project Clean Water, which currently exists as a special revenue fund into Public Works' General Fund Budget Unit. They already oversee the program in their department and this is more of just an accounting change. It provides a more clear accounting structure. 96% of the funding that goes to Project Clean Water is general fund contribution So it makes much more sense that it be a general fund within a general fund unit.
So this action wouldn't prohibit the ability to obtain any future state or federal funding, it's really just a more clear transparent way to account for Project Clean Waters operations and funding sources. This would affect public works and there's no fiscal impact Policy 3A1 would provide that no new ongoing allocations of cannabis revenue be made except for cannabis program support and or labor negotiated costs. It would also establish a 25% prudent reserve, this is something we have already built into the budget we discussed this past spring. This would formalize that reserve policy in the budget development policies Rationale here is what Nancy discussed earlier. Cannabis revenue collections are showing volatility related to the oversupply statewide.
The current projections this year are $16 million, 13 and a half million of that is allocated towards ongoing costs so it's already a large chunk of the current estimated revenues this year. And funds would make it so funds will be limited to primarily cannabis program cost increases or towards one-time expenditures. This would affect any department that receives cannabis revenue or would prospectively receive cannabis revenue.
Fiscal impact would be that there'd be limited ongoing funding available for general fund fiscal issues, program growth or other department needs.
Paul, can I stop you on this one for a second? I just want to make sure I understand the or labor negotiated costs. Can you so that's not labor across the whole entire organization. That's just labor related to that cannabis enforcement.
So Chair Nelson, what we did was so yes and yes. There are labor costs related to the current activity that's already that would have to obviously be covered which is so we would make sure that there's funding from this to cover that In addition to if any labor negotiated costs that your board wants to consider, we would keep it open for that as well.
So
part of the projections that we were including that general fund would have available is potentially and it's not much but cannabis would be a general fund source available for that if needed.
5:40 – 5:5223 turns
Okay. That's not a one-time cost, right? That's an ongoing...
That's an ongoing and we would really have to... It's just making it available, wording the policy in a way that it could be considered. It's not that it would necessarily be ideal. So I think it's just making it available should your board need it or want it.
All right. And there may be some... If the board has some resistance to that or doesn't want to formalize that, would that be an option we could look at?
Absolutely.
Policy 5D would be to set aside a minimum one-time amount of $5 million to create an uninsured litigation cost reserve. Currently, the county has some funds set aside each year for outside attorney costs but if there are legal settlements, uninsured legal settlements we must find those within the budget as they occur. So this set aside would minimize budgetary impact and potential service level impacts by keeping a reserve of five million dollars if needed.
As fiscal impact is a minimum $5 million reserve. Policy 5E would establish a working capital reserve fund balance to account for temporary loans for capital projects such as what Nancy mentioned earlier, the Public Works Advanced Bridge Construction Projects. Board has previously approved funding temporary cash flow to the advanced bridge construction projects.
Funds right now are pulled out of 9940 This policy would create a separate fund balance in general county programs to more clearly identify the purpose and use of those funds, be kind of like a rotating fund balance. They'd come in and out as the project receives its reimbursement they would reimburse back to the general fund. So the fiscal impact is as those funds are being allocated out there unusable for other purposes until they come back in.
Policy 7C would set aside ongoing $1.3 million annually for energy reduction upgrades to buildings, security improvements and roof replacements which allows for important facility improvements countywide. This funding has already been incorporated into the 21-22 budget in the spring This policy will just formally establish that this is what that funding goes towards. So no new funding is necessary, there's no fiscal impact to this in the 22-23 year as that 1.3 million is already allocated in the current year.
Finally, policy 7G determines if any new revenue generated by a project funded through debt issuance can be used towards the debt service payments on that project. Your board asked us last month when we discussed COP items to come back with this. There's a park project in the current list of potential COP projects that may generate new revenue And so we would look at that when it comes in. And if that's a appropriate use to put some of that revenue towards making those debt payments, which would the fiscal impact of this would be to reduce the GFC necessary to go towards annual debt service payments.
And then just looking forward. This isn't a this isn't a budget development policy for 2223 but more of a coming attractions over the next 12 or 18 months our department is going to be working on establishing countywide strategic initiatives, and then working to align department goals objectives and performance measures accordingly with those in the in The government finance officers Association has released new budget award criteria for the distinguished budget award which we submit our budget book for every year in 2324 they're updating those criteria.
We're looking at a variety of things, but in general it's to make for more accessible understandable budget. And and what they're looking to do looking to see in budgets is a is a more clear clearly identified board and county priorities and then how department goals and objectives and performance measures line up with those overarching strategic goals. So speak countywide impact.
And that's staff time to produce and align those budgets and that'll be for the 2324 budget book will be looking to do that.
And turn else and that concludes the changes that we have proposed for for the policies and happy to answer questions related to that.
Okay, questions from the board. Supervisor Avenue? Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I want to talk about the litigation anticipated litigation fund. So we already so we do have one litigation fund separate that and I always thought that that was for outside counsel and uninsured But apparently I and I mean, I think it was at its highest we're pretty close to $10 million in there but I think we had a really bad year and. We were anticipating spending like nine of that 10 million i'm just kind of curious where we are
no great questions supervisor lemon you know through the chair. So we do have a litigation reserve account. It is earmarked to very specific cases with a small portion amount set aside for outside counsel, which is turning out not to be sufficient. And so when we have multiple cases compiling at all at the same time it's definitely a challenge. So now we're having to look at other places take it from fund but unallocated So it would be prudent to have something where you're not having to take it from other places and have it set so that it just sits and is available.
We're not having to use unallocated, we're not having to impact other budgetary issues.
So there's not really a formula because it always seemed like the litigation fund was, I mean when times were good, it kind of got a little fatter and then it would go down. But it never seemed to have really any rhyme or reason to what was in there. Is there a way to have a formula maybe of some sort?
Supervisor Lavinia through the chair we work closely with County Council looking at all different litigation risks and that's how we fund it. And so that's how we made our recommendations this year.
So would this recommendation just be like a one, like in our first year we're going to put $5 million in just right off the top or is it something we build towards? Or what's the
plan? Supervisor Lavinio through the chair. I would see this because of the situation we're in currently. It'll be something we build towards but I think it's a prudent policy based on our situation.
Okay,
I agree thank you. Thank you Supervisor Lavinio. Supervisor Hartman
Well, as I look at the board priority focus areas you're listening to us. And it really reflects things all year long that we've discussed. I do want to mention one more and that- Excuse me.
So can we show that slide? I think Ms. Anderson was asking if there's any questions up to now and then we wanted to get into this other discussion but just if there are no other questions by the board we can just move to that other slide.
Okay. Do we have other questions? Supervisor Williams, do you have any questions?
I do not. I mean, I know that some of this are significant changes but I do think that we should use them at least for the next year or two to be looking at the realities that we are facing now. I don't necessarily think that all of those policies should be in place in perpetuity, but I definitely agree that for now it makes eminent sense.
Thank you, Supervisor Williams. And then my question kind of goes back again to the cannabis revenue so we're at 17 million now where we're budgeting our five-year forecast is basically over five years we can get to 21.1 and I mean that's acknowledging that there's gonna be more cannabis that comes online online over the next couple years. To me that seems Are we being very conservative in that? And then what's the thought process.
I know the market's gone down as well, so there's different more volatile inputs but where do we come up with that number?
I said it turned Nelson. I know we have Jeff Rappler a CEO over the cannabis division, he may be able to weigh in that they are really working towards having more available information from the treasure tax collector and from other agencies that they're now getting involved with I'm going to go ahead and open it up for questions. I feel like our numbers are probably what we know best now.
And without going in excess of, you know where we're at now we're at 19 million and looking at $3 million gap so we feel comfortable with it until we have more information that looks like
Turn Nelson and before Mr. Miss performance of purple speaks just to remind the board, we need to get a supervisor Williams we adopt these policies every year. So you can change the policies for the following budget year if circumstances change. And I think the one about cannabis is because most of the revenue of ongoing revenue is already committed by the board. And so we're saying you can't spend that excess we're seeing you can but as one time.
And was Miss Anderson said except for new ongoing allocations for cannabis revenue for either the cannabis program if your board wants an expansion of that, or should enter labor negotiated costs because some of that has been used for labor costs to implement things that we've already negotiated at your board has been discussing with our HR department. So those are the two exceptions. But because so much of the ongoing revenue is already committed, we're just saying for this next year any excess be used for one-time uses.
And did you want to hear from Mr. Frappal? Yeah I'm interested in hearing what we're seeing understanding what he's seen as far as projections go.
Chair Nelson thank you um real quickly on cannabis I think the numbers that we have in the forecast reflect our current information. As Ms. Anderson mentioned we are gathering more information and having additional data That will help us refine our projections that will be moving into the workshop. We do know a few things, you know we have heard your board last time we brought chapter 50 amendments talking about a user to lose a provision within Chapter 50.
That over the long term should that be incorporated in Chapter 50 would help to both stabilize and increase overall revenues in the long term. In addition, in the current year, Thank you.
5:53 – 5:599 turns
All right. Dr. Ms. Anderson?
Okay, if there's no more questions related to the budget policies, if we can go back to the slide. Thank you so much. So as Supervisor Hartman noticed, we did include some board priority focus based on the fact that we anticipate minimal GFC remaining I really for 2223. Here are some potential one time uses that we have your board has discussed, really over the last year on multiple occasions and so we've listed them here happy to take any other focus that your board would like us to include As we look at requests coming from departments over the next couple of months, it would be helpful for our process.
And intern Nelson and board members again these are just lists of things that we heard. And if there's anything on this list that you'd really like us to focus on towards budget development, it'd be helpful for us here now it doesn't mean that they will necessarily be funded but we will start looking at it and evaluating it would be helpful to us so if there's anything you would like us to take more time to look at cost out etc so that we can be ready as part of our budget development and be helpful for us to hear today.
Okay. So
I just wanted to propose one project for consideration, and that's lower Rufio road bypass. This is where they all sell fire was really the worst. And at the bottom of the road, there are it's very narrow there's two bridges. There's not a lot of capacity in the creek so that the bridges are likely to, it's likely to flood and be something like we saw in Montecito with boulders and a lot of debris. And that could be very challenging for safe evacuation from that area if there is a debris flow so there's been discussion, a smaller project of 2 million a larger project of 4 million that create. A bypass around two creeks to make for a safer exit there.
And we're shaking the trees for every other source of funding and it may well be funded, but I would like to get it on this list because I think it is critically important.
Okay thank you Supervisor Hartman. Supervisor Hart?
Well just an observation that the board priority focus items are really critical and each of us has our own specific focus on that, on that list and supervisor Hartman's addition is a really good one. But the budget policies you know prior to that are really smart and thoughtful but cumulative effect of those is to pretty much stop. Thank you Mr. Chair and I want to piggyback on that a little bit by
By highlighting know that just because we have excess, or we don't have excess general fund. I don't think it means we're in a different place. I think it means more that we've really set priorities that have used ongoing general fund through these formulas, and so we're really accomplishing over multiple year periods things that we all deem very important.
And so it does allow us a little less room in the sandbox to maneuver but while we're Kind of tackling the shiny thing of the day in the background. The jails being funded, the roads are being funded at a higher rate. Yeah, fire is more fully funded so I kind of like this where we find something because we you know this list broad priority proof board priority focus can be 5-6 pages long and I've got my own favorites on here But I think what's really cool is that we might not have that elbow room, but it's because not that we're in a worse financial position. I don't think I think it's more that we're spending the money wisely and we're putting it into these cubby holes that we know need enhanced resources. So things like co response and that are being actually taken care of homelessness and the things that we all have deemed very important so I'm excited about it.
You know, when I see like CIP priority list, I don't even know we for the first time ever, we actually knocked things up the CIP list so it's like I'd like to see what it kind of looks like now. It was the same list I saw for 10 years you know so we got to replace that boiler and this thing we never did it so it's kind of cool to check a few of those off. So yeah, even on the five year forecast, I remember we used to call these things the jaws And I was like, here's what our anticipated revenue is down here and here's where anticipated costs we're going to be. It was just like out into infinity just like we're never going to accomplish this and now I mean you look at five years and I know it's We're only doing the best we can. It's just a forecast, but show that in five years we still have a multi-million dollar budget surplus is pretty impressive.
So I'm very pleased with my colleagues that were doing this in an orderly smart fashion and we have capable staff that's keeping us focused on the things that are priorities so that we're just not jumping around. So, I'm very happy.
Thank you Supervisor Lavender. Supervisor Williams?
5:59 – 6:0510 turns
I made my comments, I think this is these are policies that are good for the moment. I hope that our the kinks that we have will be worked out and that next year we will not have some of these policies. But I think it's prudent in the meantime and I think it's a wake up call to some folks who have, you know, a lot of people have been assuming the county has a lot of money and while we have embarked on a lot It is not inexhaustible and so next year will be a year of trying to protect the gains we've made instead of perhaps further expansion of our capability.
Thank you. And this is my first chance at the board to be a part of this discussion, which is really exciting for me as kind of a policy and budget wonk to finally be up here to be part of this discussion. And so last year I got to vote on my first budget but all that work that went into that budget happened when somebody else was sitting in the seat. So this is really cool for me to get to see this. Really excited about these policies. Thank you for taking into consideration things like we talked about just within the last couple of meetings I'll make sure that we can find things to pay for themselves, which is always a priority.
One of the priorities I have and it's no secret is that we have all these things countywide that we need to spend money on not just want to but we need to. Things that benefit all 450,000 people that we represent. But we do have these communities like we heard from today from Orchid and Los Alamos and Isla Vista to have these communities that you know we are their municipality.
And counties are very funded differently than cities where cities rely much more heavily on sales tax And QT and other sources, you know we have all these responsibilities across the county. And it's hard for us to be able to find a spot to weigh the priorities of maybe a small community of only 1000 people versus everything else that's going on accounting and those things are very real and important to those communities.
And so, you know, We have the opportunity when things are We have a little bit more money to maybe, you know, strategically address those deals. But I'm always looking at what do we need to do to try to set up in the future so that we can have a system in place where there's going to be needs that are met or important to those communities in the budget? And so, you know, we are going to have a source of revenue in the future with retail cannabis that is very different than Almost any other kind of funding source that is really specific to unincorporated areas.
Not necessarily for this year's budget, but maybe in the future we can look at some options as a board on what that could look like and maybe potentially having some of the retail cannabis directed to the unincorporated area where it works generated to address some of those specific needs. Obviously You know, we don't do that with cultivation right we're not going to all the revenue you know.
In carpentry isn't going to go into covering a valley there's needs county wide that we're going to address with those things same thing in the. Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the board. I just want to say thank you to all of the commissioners for their hard work over the last couple of weeks. I know we've had a lot of issues with Santa Rita Hills and whatnot but I do think this retail cannabis revenue there's an opportunity there to potentially bring in some important revenue to those communities as well You know, with that new use also comes specific benefits to that community that can be pointed to. And so I think that would be helpful for the buy-in as well in the relationship between these retail outlets and the community that they are operating in it.
So just want to put that out there as maybe a future discussion. I know it probably needs to be vetted out considerably more but I do think this is something that we should consider as we start to ramp up those revenues. As Mr. Propolis said, as we learn more, we'll be able to adjust those cannabis revenue projections. I'm hoping that they're very light at this point because I think that we're going to have a lot more cannabis come online over the next few years.
Things are going to stabilize in the markets hopefully and then obviously these retail opportunities so that's just a suggestion from me. All right any other Oh, do we have any public comment on this item?
Chair Nelson and members of the board. We have no request to speak on this item.
Great right so do the staff need some direction from us? So just adopt the policy. Recommended action. I don't think we're looking for any significant changes where nobody's opposed anything from these baseline. Do you have my request that we had sometime in the future that we look at that? I don' know if that needs be part
Chair Nelson, that would probably be more along with our cannabis policies that come forward. So anytime we have a discussion about that could be brought forward rather than a budget item which is more appropriate. All
right so then I think we're good with the recommended actions if I can get a motion for that?
I'll move staff recommendations A through D. Second.
All right any further discussion? Madam Clerk will you please call the roll?
Supervisor Hart,
aye.
Roll-call vote Passed 4–0 move staff recommendations A through D. Second. All right any further discussion? Madam Clerk will you please call the roll?
Show transcript
6:05 – 6:163 turns
motion passes unanimously.
Okay great so that concludes that item we have one item left here let's go ahead take a five-minute break when hit that here at 315
Thank you. Silence. Silence. Silence. Silence. Thank you. What is going on over there?
6:21 – 6:235 turns
Sheila, what's going on?
What is going on over there?
Yeah.
Hey,
welcome back. Next item on the agenda is departmental item number four. Madam Clerk, will you please read that item into record?
6:23 – 6:3821 turns
Chair Nelson and members of the board, departmental item number four is from the planning and development department. It is a hearing to consider recommendations regarding the CLAFI appeal case number 21 APL 48 of the Planning Commission's approval of the Cresco California Mixed Light Cultivation and Processing Project. Case numbers 21 CUP6, 21 CDP118, and 20 RVP58. This is in the first district.
Okay, before we get started call for ex parte communication. Supervisor Lavinio.
Thank you Mr Chair I believe it's day before yesterday I had a Zoom meeting with Jim Youngson of Terrain Consulting Brian Robinson, Christopher Petro from SCS and then from Cresco was Sabrina Noah and Tara Stephan just talking about the project and some of the technology behind the odor control. And then I've received emails from the appellant.
Thank you.
Supervisor Hartman? On June 17th of 2019, I had an introductory meeting with Cresco's representative Tara Steppen and on November 19 to 21, I did a site visit with the Cresco team to see the facility and how they were planning to handle the issues with the neighbors.
All right, Supervisor Hartman
On December 1, and this was my only communication with the Cresco site visit with Jim Youngson, Sarah Noah, Tara Stephan and Chris of SCS. And we got a lay of the land what would be torn down? What would be constructed? Where would the parking go? How would the access to the site be changed on and very much on the voter control?
Okay, Supervisor Williams.
In November I did a site visit with Tara Stephan and Jim Youngston and other staffers of Cresco. I have not met with nor have I been approached to meet with the appellants. And to be specific that was on November 17th
All right, I had a Zoom meeting on November 10th 2021 with Sabrina Noah, Chris Petro, Anthony Thomas, Tara Steffens. I've also had communications with Cresco while they were applying for A cannabis retail license for the Orchard area, which they did not get. Nor do we talk about this project in any of those meetings. I also did a site visit with Tara Steffens and Kyle Hardy in 2019. Okay.
And now quick, I think we have some additional items we need to vote into record.
Yes, thank you chair Nelson and members of the board prior to staff's presentation. If we can get a motion to approve number of documents that came in afternoon on Friday prior to our hearing for consideration in today's hearing beginning with a public comment from Maureen Foley received Monday December 6 at 7 50am a public comment from Anna Carrillo Received Monday December 6 at 1157 AM and a revised PowerPoint presentation from the Cresco applicant received this morning Tuesday, December 7th at 1035 AM. And these were all over a page in length and in order to be considered as a part of the record we will need a vote to enter them into the record.
I'll make a motion that we move to accept all
late
arriving
All right, can we get a roll call vote on that?
Sorry, Chair Nelson and members of the board. That was a motion by Supervisor Lavinino and a second by Supervisor Hartman.
That's correct.
Roll-call vote Passed 4–0 Moved by Steve Lavagnino · Seconded by Joan Hartmann motion by Supervisor Lavinino and a second by Supervisor Hartman. That's correct.
Show transcript
Motion passes unanimously
Okay. Moving along, we'll start with the staff presentation. I understand we have Director Plowman?
Mr. Chair, members of the board, today we have the Cresco item which is a revision to an existing development plan, a conditional use permit and a coastal development permit. It's an application for canvas grow in Carpinteria. Today we have Gwen Beiler, who is here with staff. She's the planner for the project she'll be presenting in South County in the chambers. We have Travis Sewards, the deputy director and Joe Dargo supervising planner that are available to answer questions as well.
And with that I'd like to turn it over to Miss Baylor.
Thank you Director Plowman. Good afternoon Mr Chair and members of the board. I'll wait for the PowerPoint to be up and then I'll begin. Today I'll be presenting the CLAFI appeal of the Cresco California Cannabis Project. On September 1st, the County Planning Commission granted approval on September 13th Maureen CLAFI files an appeal. The 13.66 acre subject property outlined in white is zoned AG-1 and is located 140 feet south of Foothill Road My name is Barbara and I'm the Director of the City of Carpinteria.
The Ocean Oaks Existing Developed Rural Neighborhood, or EDRN, is 350 feet from the property and the La Mirada EDRN is 575 feet away. Arroyo Paradon Creek shown in blue runs along the northern edge of the parcel. Access to the site is provided by two existing access roads shown by the dotted red lines, one of which is from Foothill Road with the other from Via Real to the south.
This brings me to an overview of the project. As discussed in the board letter, some changes were made to the project after approval by the Planning Commission. These changes include a minor expansion of the nursery greenhouse reduction and grading new retaining walls associated with the existing stormwater basins and new landscaping. The proposed project is for 7.98 acres of cultivation, including 6.07 acres of mature cultivation in Greenhouse 1, 1.3 acres of nursery cultivation in the new greenhouse addition and 0.57 acres of processing and storage in the new processing building.
Greenhouses 2, 3 & 4 will be demolished and the new processing building and nursery will be constructed in this area. Hours will be from 630 a.m to 730 p.m. The project will have up to 75 employees with harvests year-round. Employees will use the access road off of Via Real. Existing stormwater detention basins will be deepened and grading for the basins and new development includes 6030 cubic yards of cut, 3950 cubic yards of fill, and 2080 cubic yards of export.
Landscaping will be planted around the new parking area and new processing building. Native riparian species will be planted in order to restore the environmentally sensitive habitat or ash buffer. Additionally, the applicant has volunteered to maintain a specific area of landscaping along Foothill Road on the neighboring property to provide further screening.
Odor abatement will include a new regenerative carbon scrubbing system inside the greenhouses. As detailed in the odor management plan, included as attachment seven to the board letter. The existing vapor phase system will be used as needed until the RCSS is operational and prevents odor from being experienced in residential zones, as required by Article Two.
The new processing building will be equipped with carbon scrubbers, vapor barriers and seals, and HVAC odor absorbers. An odor management specialist will be responsible for monitoring odor and abatement methods. The applicant will manage a community outreach list to provide information about the operation to interested parties. The odor management plan outlines a complaint response program that will be enacted in coordination with planning and development.
As part of the proposed adaptive management strategy, the odor management plan may be supplemented with additional technology in the future if corrective actions are needed. Here is a site plan showing the 13.66 acre parcel outlined in black. There will be 6.07 acres of mature cultivation in the existing greenhouse, shown in light green. There will be 1.34 acres of nursery cultivation and the new greenhouse addition shown in dark green.
And there will be 0.57 acres of freezing, curing, trimming, drying packaging and storage in the new processing building shown in pink. The new processing building, greenhouse addition and parking area will be located in the footprint of the three existing greenhouses that will be demolished. The existing stormwater basins on the east and south portions of the parcel will be deepened and employees will access the site from Vail Real and all other trips will access the site from Foothill Road.
Here's a view of the landscaping plan with the subject parcel outlined in black. Native trees and shrubs will be planted in the northern portion of the parcel, in order to restore the Arroyo Paradon buffer area located on the project side of the existing paved driveway that leads to the properties west of the parcel. Trees will also be planted around the new processing building and throughout the northern parking area.
The applicant is proposing to maintain landscaping that was recently planted on the neighboring parcel to the east along Foothill Road, to provide additional screening of the new processing building. This offsite landscaped area is outlined with a red dashed line. I will now present an overview of the appeal and staff's responses which are addressed in full in the board letter.
The appellant argues that the required findings are not supported by substantial evidence and identifies two sub-issues related to the project's alleged noncompliance with the coastal land use plan. For Appeal Sub-Issue 1A, the appellate argues that there is insufficient evidence to support a finding that the proposed project will not impact ESH And that the applicant must prepare a habitat protection plan.
Specifically, the appellant argues that the proposed project will or may already have impacts to ash because the avocado orchard located in the ash buffer area was removed without studying or mitigating ash impacts. The odor management plan includes a vapor phase system that may impact sensitive species and the detention basins will overflow into a royal paradigm resulting in discharge of pollutants.
In response, staff finds that substantial evidence supports the findings for approval of the project as included in attachment one to the board letter. The biological assessment which was peer reviewed by the county consultant analyze the project, including the removal of the avocado orchard located in the ash buffer area. The biological assessment confirms the proposed project does not involve impacts to ash and that a habitat protection plan is not required.
Regardless, the applicant voluntarily prepared a habitat protection plan on October 15th which further supports the findings for approval. Additionally evidence in the record supports that the vapor phase solution is not a health hazard or air quality pollutant. The new regenerative carbon scrubbing system is proposed to be the primary method of odor control.
Lastly, the detention basins will overflow toward an existing drainage in the southwest portion of the parcel away from Arroyo Paradon. County Flood Control, Project Clean Water, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the State Water Board, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reviewed the project and have no concerns. For appeal issue 1B, the appellant argues that the required odor management plan does not comply with the coastal zoning ordinance because it utilizes an odor masking system.
It will not prevent odors from being experienced within residential zones and it is not consistent with accepted and available industry-specific best control technologies and methods designed to mitigate odor. In response, staff finds that the vapor phase solution is odor neutralizing as supported by the odor and VOC sampling study included as attachment 21 to the board letter.
The odor management plan Which includes regenerative carbon scrubbers as the primary method of odor control in the greenhouses and carbon scrubbers in the processing building is required to prevent odors from being experienced in residential zones. A best available control technology analysis will be required if odors experienced in residential zones. In conclusion, staff recommends the board deny the appeal.
Make the required findings for approval. Determine that PEIR is adequate and subsequent environmental review is not required and grant de novo approval of the project subject to the conditions set forth in attachment two of the board agenda letter. This concludes staff's presentation and we are available for any questions. Thank you.
6:38 – 6:529 turns
Okay thank you Ms.
Baylor Any questions from the board before we go to the appellant? All right. I believe we have on the internet Elise Kosar Daily and Maureen Claffey.
Good afternoon, members of the board. Chair Nelson, thank you so much for the opportunity to comment on the Cresco project today. My name is Elyse Cosart-Dailey and I represent Appellants Marine Claffey, Foley Family Farm and Save the Arroyo Paradon Watershed. As Ms. Baylor outlined in her presentation, I think she did a pretty good job outlining the points of our appeal but I'd like to walk through them with you as well at this time.
I really want to place this project in context. This project is along the Arroyo Paradon watershed. The Arroyo Paradon Creek is home to quite a few sensitive and endangered species. It's been designated critical habitat for the tidewater goby, which is endangered by the Department of Fish and Wildlife. It's critical habitat as well for steelhead trout, red-legged frog, Cooper's hawk and a whole number of other rare threatened and endangered species.
What that means is that we should really proceed with caution here. Now The county, despite these very sensitive species has not conducted sufficient analysis nor has the applicant with respect to the biological resources assessment nor the habitat protection plan. While we appreciate the applicants gesture of completing a habitat protection plan though they contend they don't need one It essentially regurgitates what's in the biological resources assessment and has the same conclusions and mitigation.
There are three major concerns with respect to the analysis here, and the fact that there isn't substantial evidence in the record to support a finding that there aren't significant impacts, and therefore do not require extensive mitigation. The first is that the applicant didn't run the Santa Barbara South Coast riverine wetlands HGM model, which is mouthful. So I'll just say the HGM model and what that does is that was developed in conjunction with the county and it looks at the impacts of a project when that project is in the vicinity of a creek or watershed.
It looks not only at activities that are within the creek itself But that are on the creek banks, because as we know activity that happens next to a creek can have impacts on the creek. Not just activity that happens within that creek itself. It's particularly important that we run this model one because there's significant species here that are at risk of extinction and because cannabis production at this scale is relatively new in the Carpinteria Valley This is a new crop, and we really haven't analyzed all the impacts that it might have.
The other issue is that they really didn't examine what was going to happen during large rain events. We all know that climate change has impacted the severity of storms that we see. You can just look to the Montecito mudslides, which impacted this very location and while the detention basins are currently designed to withstand a 25 year flood event, we know from the science and the data that these events are going to happen much more frequently The detention basins drain away from the creek.
Were there to be a large flood or rain event that exceeded this 25-year flood event, the basins will overflow and that is likely to head towards the creek and cause impacts with respective pollutants in the creek which will in turn impact these threatened and endangered species. The final thing is, you know while there was an assessment of the health impacts, the public health impacts of the buyer system or an ecosorb which is used in the buyer system. There was no analysis of the impacts to wildlife particularly in conjunction with the location so close to the creek and to these sensitive species.
There's no analysis of whether both the smell and the chemicals that are released themselves will have any impact on plants and animals here. As we know, many animals are really sensitive to odor And likewise, there was no analysis of the impacts of cannabis smell itself. We're talking about more than seven acres of cannabis grow which of course is going to have an impact and going to have an odor and VOC emissions that come with it. That needs to be analyzed as well and without that we simply can't conclude that there will not be significant impacts to this very sensitive habitat Now, while we appreciate that applicants attempts to have a better vapor phase or pardon me odor mitigation system.
The carbon scrubbing system or the RCSS system simply isn't established with evidence that it's the best available technology. You know the modeling That is, was done by Cresco for this particular system. Does not conclusively establish that odor will not be detected in residential zones when the system is live. In an August 9th letter to the Planning Commission, Cresco's consultants were unable to complete an actual test of the RCSS system at the location Instead, they relied on projective modeling. And while that can give us a good idea, it certainly is not definitive.
The modeling shows that even with this system there will be nuisance odors and in technical terms it's 10 DT in terms of odor there. So that's a nuisance order. And the modeling system does show that that will reach residential areas and be in very close proximity to residential zones, given the fact that the technology is not quite definitive there. We can't definitively say that it's not going to reach residents' residential zones. And in fact, the evidence suggests that it will.
This is a violation of the coastal zoning ordinance. And staff doesn't dispute this in their letter to you as well. The other issue is that the evidence of course does not demonstrate the buyer system will not prevent odor in residential areas. Since the prevalence of cannabis grow has increased in the last several years, there have been significant documented odor complaints I believe between March 2020 and 2021. There were 363 odor complaints despite the prevalent use of buyers in Carpinteria Valley In addition, you know there's been an ongoing issue that you may be aware of with Linden Meadows and its proximity to the Everbloom grow. That grow uses the buyer system and there have been nuisance odors in this location. Linden Meadows is located about a mile from the Everbloom farm and in this case we have EDRNs that are approximately 350 feet and 575 feet away from this project.
So it's likely that they will also experience nuisance odors with the buyer system. In addition, you know this is a speculative technology. We love innovation but this has never been used before and what the Coastal Zoning Ordinance requires is best available technology here. We have a system that has been shown to be the best available technology and that's carbon filtration in sealed greenhouses.
The applicant admits in their analysis that carbon filtration is the best way to go, that it is the best available technology. There are other jurisdictions that require and utilize carbon filtration and sealed greenhouses as best available technology. And we even provided the applicant and the county with an analysis from an air quality expert Dr. Paul Rosenfeld who included Specifications from a vendor and information with how to create A effective, feasible sealed greenhouse with carbon filtration that will mitigate odor in a much more effective way serves as the best available technology and is accessible at this time. There's no waiting for that as there is with the applicant's proposed odor mitigation.
For these reasons we request that you deny the project in its entirety In the event that you choose not to do so, which I imagine you may not. We request that you make some reasonable changes to the project. One, at night with this odor mitigation plan that they've proposed. There won't be a significant amount of air movement and so the vapor or the smells essentially from this project will not be dispersed. So we request that the board condition approval to put some kind of cover over the greenhouse at night and require running of the carbon scrubbers at night to reduce the likelihood that there will be increased odors that won't be dispersed by winds at that time.
We also request that you create a monitoring program wherein a county representative goes out every time there's an odor complaint, if there are three verified odor complaints then you have the applicant revert to what we know is the best available technology which is a sealed greenhouse with carbon filtration Um, we request that you immediately discontinue the use of the vapor phase system or in the alternative study the impacts of the vapor phase system on wildlife particularly in the context of its proximity to the Arroyo Paradon Creek.
And we also request that you implement, requested the applicant implement some measures to protect the environment and the endangered species in the Arroyo Paragon Creek. Including a forensic review of the avocado orchard review and whether it impacted special status species. Looking into and running the HGM model and providing mitigation based on those findings. Expanding the detention basins to hold warm water in the very likely event, in fact inevitable event of a larger rain event monitoring
daily. Let me start interrupting you for a second here. You're a minute over right now on your presentation if you can go ahead wrap up. Thank
you, I appreciate that respectful reminder. And there are a couple of other mitigations that are included in our submittals that we request that the board incorporate into conditions of approval. Thank you so much for the opportunity to comment. I appreciate it.
All right, thank you and just out of fairness, I'll go ahead and make sure I add additional minute half to the applicant presentation. So at this time Would the applicant please come forward to
make their presentation? So go ahead. Give me one second, yeah there we go.
Welcome.
Welcome or thank you very much. It's been a journey to get here. Thank you to the chair, to the vice chair and members of the board. My name is Sabrina Noah and I represent the applicant Slow Cultivation Cresco Labs with me today on our virtual platform is our Regional President of the West David Gacom, our biologist David Wolfe and our odor expert Paul Schaefer in the room and also available to speak Nathan Eadie, Christopher Petro of SDS, our agent architect Scott Branch Council Olivia Marr and community liaison Tara Steppen I cannot tell if the screen is, the presentation advancing. There we are.
Cresco Labs is a publicly traded company on the Canadian Securities Exchange, and I'm asked to remind you that this deck does contain forward-looking statements. Cresco was founded in Chicago in 2013. We have spent the last eight years building a world class cannabis company which includes 18 production facilities and 32 retail stores and 2,900 employees. We are one of the fastest growing companies and one of the fastest new and best industries in the US. Our experience in the US provides us as the only applicant with national experience building and maintaining cannabis cultivation and production facilities.
In California, the U.S.'s largest cannabis market we have six facilities served by 300 California residents. We're extremely proud of our relationships with our local and state regulators and we strive to be the very best local partner possible. With me today, I'm going to ask Tara Stephan our community liaison to briefly address our commitment to our community and our employees.
6:52 – 7:033 turns
Thank you for your time. So my job with Cresco began right at the beginning of 2019 and since then we've done a lot that I've been really proud of, I want to share a few of those things with you today. We offer 36 hours of paid volunteer time to each of our employees that's reimbursable at their respective hourly rate. Our staff are able to use these hours at Cresco sanctioned events that are always family friendly or they're able to pursue their own passions at an organization of their choice. We have a heavy emphasis on environmental activations, which include a very valuable partnership with the Santa Barbara Channel Keepers.
We're part of the corporate watershed brigade and to be honest we are crushing it. If you want to look at their website we are at the top of the list for hours donated. During COVID, I was able to personally volunteer 100 hours of my own time between the food bank and the 93013 fund giving back when everything was shut down. And also during COVID we offered lunch catering to all of our staff seven days a week in Carpentaria actually on a national scale but in Carpentria alone this added up to more than $11,000 a month that was spent at restaurants in Santa Barbara and mostly Carpentria.
The most important thing about my role here is my accessibility to the community and there's to me, I have an open door policy I regularly speak with people all the time. The president elect for the carp growers organization as well as the Lou grant parent child workshop, and it's the relationships that I've been able to build with community members. You know the regular citizen up to the superintendent of the carp schools Diana Rigby we have a wonderful relationship.
I think the thing I'm most appreciative about with my role in Cresco is that they encouraged me not to get out there and to change people's minds, but to use my local resources as a Carpentria resident and as a mom to find ways to impact positive change. So giving back has just been the most beneficial part of my job. I look back and see all the beautiful things that we've done, but I'm also really excited about what we're able to continue doing in the future.
Thank you so much, Tara. Just very briefly a project timeline and history of how we got here today. We have committed to install significant landscape upgrades across Foothill. We're obviously going to spend a lot of time talking today about our carbon-based greenhouse scrubbers. We are grateful for the support of the Planning Commission with unanimous approval and very grateful for our numerous visits and positive votes from the SBAR.
What I'm very excited about with this project is that we are continuing an agricultural legacy. I think we pulled this quote from the County Commissioner, Agricultural Commissioners annual report and as you see when avocados were installed in 1938 when we have cult cut flowers come and then eventually moving to cannabis just shows the county's continuing evolution in the agricultural industry.
Slow Cultivation, doing business as Cresco Labs is a partnership of a corporate entity based out of Chicago but most importantly local ownership and local operators, local employees. What makes us best here is that we have the support of our national scientists, our attorneys, our regulatory experts compliance but coupled with that strong deep rooted local agricultural operator who understands how being a member of this community goes beyond your business plan.
We are proposing today modern purpose built infrastructure, taking existing 1960s greenhouses and modifying them. Rebuilding into these beautiful purpose built facilities that will control odor and allow us to be a thoughtful operator. As we've discussed at length, we've had extensive specific outreach to our neighbors. You can see our adjacent neighbors who received direct phone calls from Tara as well as the proximal neighbors who are aware and have her contact information. So we believe today we are presenting the best project and I'm excited to introduce Nathan Eady to the dais to talk about the details.
Thank you Sabrina, Nathan Eady representing Cresco. So to the interest of time I'll move pretty quickly here and then be available as always for answering questions. You know as Tara has done an excellent job of talking about Cresco spent immense amount of time interacting with the community It's one thing to talk to the community and listen to them. It's another thing to affect change on your project. So before we even got here today, Cresco had agreed to relocate 90% of their traffic, all their employees onto Via Real. That was something commonly requested by the community.
We also heard that aesthetics and making sure that the project fit in with both the agricultural and the residential components of the community were important. And so the entire new processing building has been designed to mirror the residential aesthetic of that portion of Carpinteria And then another common thing we heard was that the street frontage that most affiliate with the project but it's actually on a different parcel had been denuded as part of Caltrans replacement of the Royal Paradon Bridge. And so even though that's not on their projects parcel, Cresco committed to installing landscaping to rescreen this area of the public viewshed Not only is that conditioned as part of this project, but Cresco put their best foot forward and actually installed the landscaping already.
Here's a couple of before and afters about the improvements that were made when trees that were already significant in size were brought in and installed. Now to focus more directly on the appeal issues. So related to odor control, there's been a request to cease the use of the vapor phase for fears that it's either not working or may affect wildlife and then to use a more conventional form of carbon scrubbing.
The odor plan for this project already commits to phasing out the vapor phase odor neutralizer in 12 months or less. Basically, as soon as we can get the RCSS scrubbers here commercially proven out and ready to install. I do think that the next shipment of those for further testing are going to arrive in Carpinteria probably in the next two months And they should be commercially available for this project in about six.
We're struggling with the global supply chain issues, but things look like they're on track to have those scrubbers available in 2022. We did think about the system and follow-up that was suggested by the appellant, the conventional carbon scrubbing system. It's just yesterday's technology. It would require 90,000 pounds of carbon to be exchanged per year and all the trucks involved it would take to bring that in 10 times the energy.
At this point we'd really look forward to technology that can do a great job of odor control and is environmentally superior in almost every way. Related to that, siding. So one thing about how the project is being reoriented here because we are taking out greenhouses, this project will actually result in a net reduction of almost an acre of structural development because we are taking out greenhouses, replacing them with purpose-built infrastructure and putting in a permeable surface employee parking lot. Cannabis operations will actually get 100 feet farther away from the appellant's property and local residences versus the condition today.
The new processing building will be purpose built from the ground up for this cannabis use, including carbon scrubbing and negative pressure. So this is not repurposing an old existing agricultural structure. This is building something specifically for cannabis controlling odors etc. Cresco has committed to using the new RCSS scrubbers. We have already tested those once in Carpinteria, they performed between 81 percent odor reduction as an average and 87 percent peak. We gave a bunch of feedback to the manufacturer. They are producing the second generation units and like I said we're hoping that those will arrive in Carpinteria sometime in the next two months or so for the next batch of testing and see if we can get that odor reduction even higher.
Based on all the scientific data available, we did complete a complex air dispersion model. It's the best we can do if we don't have the products physically available to us. This is incredibly worst case scenario. This is one worst hour of odor experienced in the entire year as predicted by the computer and it still shows that detectable odors of 10D over T does not intersect with the appellant's residence or any of the residences on the north side of Foothill.
If they perform at 87%, the odor shrinks farther back into the properties and gets even better. And again, we hope that second generation units will perform even better than these initial test cases. On the biological issues. So we've listened to the, we've listened to the community was in a wildlife agencies with listen to the appellant. We have taken biology serious this whole time that the project application already has three separate biological reports which were peer reviewed by the county specialists and CDFW they all recommended approval of the project But in an act of good faith and compromise, there is a change that we're suggesting between the project that was approved by the planning commission of the board.
We will maintain the protection of the creek like we've always proposed so existing road and fence will stay there all native vegetation and the creek remains untouched. The Planning Commission approved the iteration on the left, which would have put in some native vegetation but retained an area for further agricultural operations. As a spirit of compromise what we're suggesting to the board is we'll go ahead and take out that remaining agriculture and convert almost entire acre of land from what was avocado orchards to now specific mix of native species that will match and complement the riparian corridor All other native vegetation will be protected in place.
And that's what the, what it'll look like and the native species that we propose to put in there. And then the other thing that the applicant asked for was that we provide a habitat protection plan. We still feel, and it was staff determination through the review and approval this project that a habitat protection plan isn't warranted under the PEIR criteria However, we voluntarily prepared one and submitted it anyway. And so we're amenable to having that. So there are a couple of significant points where we are willing and have offered to compromise with the appellant. We think the odor system is already putting our best foot forward in committing to back for the life of the facility.
But for the biology side, we've offered a couple of additional project improvements that we think show a good faith effort to continue on with these community solutions.
7:03 – 7:098 turns
Thank you, Mr. Evie. Okay so this time we're going to go to public comment and we'll go ahead and close public comment and I'm going to use my discretion have two minutes per speaker. Madam Clerk will you call the first speaker?
Chair Nelson and members of the board we have 10 requests to speak on this item and we will begin on Zoom with Peter DeGray to be followed by Liz Rogan.
Hey good afternoon Chair Nelson, Honorable Supervisors. My name is Peter DeGray representing Carp Growers an association of 10 members in Carpinteria Valley. Cresco Labs and all of our members take accountability and being good neighbors very seriously. Crespo's project is a great example of cannabis done right and done in a way that improves Carpinteria's whole farm belt The project's landscaping plan will enhance the experience of cyclers and drivers along Foothill Road. And environmentally, this farm will be the cleanest in the neighborhood. Cannabis regulations are far stricter than those in avocados or strawberries or flowers.
What we see is the county cannabis ordinance is driving substantial improvements all along Carpinteria's Ag Corridor. On the topic of odor, Cresco Labs is party to our local agreement with the Santa Barbara Coalition for Responsible Cannabis. We really appreciate the coalition working with our farms in order to comply with the coalition agreement each CARP growers member farm will adopt a model odor abatement plan and community guidelines that define how to grow cannabis in a way that's aligned with local standards Currently we're executing the work plan as part of that agreement including installing a network of meteorological stations, creating an odor incident reporting platform and proactive tiered response system for correcting nuisance odors.
Our members are all invested in this plan and are working in lockstep with the coalition to make it fully operational. For years, we have engaged in a solutions-based dialogue with the community to promote understanding and find common ground. All this work has resulted in building a better industry alongside our community partners. So I ask today please reject this appeal and as county staff recommends approve this excellent project put forth by a responsible farmer. Thank you very much.
We will now go to Liz Rogan to be followed by Tina Frontado.
Thank you so much board and chair for having me my name is Liz Rogan. I'm here to urge you today to deny the appeal, the appeal against Cresco as a longtime cannabis educator and advocate in our community Cresco, I have seen Cresco done do so much to support our local community, starting with hiring a director of community integration and stepping up to be a sponsor for the first major cannabis event here at the Veterans Memorial CBD educational events. They've showed their commitment to enhancing the community as a top priority. In addition, the many benefits of successful sustainable business brings to the health and wealth of our communities in terms of jobs volunteerism compliant best practices for cultivation commitment to quality and access for patients.
As you can see, they are willing to go above and beyond to meet your concerns. And these are a perfect example of good operators who we would like to keep in our community. I am urging you to deny the appeal and allow these good operators to continue serving our community. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
We will now go to Tina Frontado to be followed by Graham Farrar.
Hello Board and Chair, my name is Tina Finucci-Frentado and we've lived in this neighborhood for almost 45 years. We deeply cherish the country lifestyle. We moved into ag land. Ag did not move into ours which is why it's so important that we work at supporting our farmers instead of finding reasons to champion their demise. Our area is unique because of our farmland And the farmers that farm that land. I've been driving by the now Cresco Farm since I was 12 years old. I'm decades older now, however for the first time in those decades that area is now been transformed into a beautiful gateway to their Royal Paradigm Bridge. From the beginning of Cresco's farming almost four years ago, they have not only from the start reached out to all the neighbors but hired a full-time community and neighborhood relations professional to ensure all their concerns are heard and addressed.
They have truly implemented a work with model and are here to be great neighbors and community champions. Cresco is committed to giving back to Carpinteria and has continues to be instrumental in the philanthropic needs of our local organizations. Their steadfast commitment to our community outreach is truly unprecedented and beyond impressive, a watermark other farms will surely want to aim for.
I've taken the time to tour their farm and learn about the upgrades in advanced technology plan. And again, extremely impressed by their level of unwavering commitment to odor mitigation, visual pleasing landscaping, and most impressive And 100% welcome this new crop living among clean farming is a gift. And we support Cresco's commitment of developing top shelf practices and innovations for superior neighborhood and community relations. Thank you again for your time.
7:10 – 7:1511 turns
Hi, my name is Graham Farrar. I'm the founder of Glass House Farms, the pharmacy and one of the founders of Carp Growers. I am here to ask the board to deny the appeal of the Cresco project. Cresco has been a top-tier operator in the Carpentaria Valley since the beginning. They are one of the original members of Carb Growers and have always showed up with everything and then some at all the community events. They send people to all the events that we hold to clean their rivers I'm going to go ahead and turn it back over to you.
Everything that they can to deliver and be part of the community, and then they're now currently delivering on the latest and best odor control technology with the OAPs in the work plans that have recently been developed. So I encourage you to please deny this appeal and approve their project as staff has recommended and welcome another great farmer to the licensed and fully permitted side of Carbonaria Valley where the standards that we put into the ordinance can be enforced and implemented and get us out of the legal nonconforming paradox that we all want to be done with. Thank you very much for your support of the Cresco Project
We will now go to Anna Carrillo to be followed by Grant Cox.
Hello, good afternoon my name is Anna Carrillo and I urge you to uphold the appeal of the Cresco California Cannabis Cultivation and Processing Project Currently, this project and all other cannabis projects has a condition in their project description that states upon installation of the odor control system and quarterly thereafter for one year. Permit compliance staff shall conduct an inspection of the odor control system to assist its compliance with the requirements of this condition and the approved odor abatement plan. But unfortunately, this is not yet occurring for the one of the two fully permitted projects permitted in 2019 here in Carpinteria.
As P&D is unable to verify the source of the offending odor in the residential areas as required Until there is a technology to fingerprint each cannabis operation in Carpentaria, this project should not be approved. Also I've been told that once cannabis projects in the areas receive their CDPs staff will be able to know the offending party. But even with issued permits, that is currently not possible. It also is not happening through the business license renewal process where odor complaints were supposed to be considered during the annual business license renewal. The protection of Royal Paradigm Creek and the watershed is a paramount importance. Besides Cresco there are or will be four other cannabis operations bordering the creek.
With the number of cannabis operations already approved 20 and still to be approved 12 in our small area here in Carpinteria, there needs to be a dedicated person in the county in charge of managing the effects of environmental damage including air quality occurring in Carpinteria. Our old greenhouses using buyer's vapor phase technology is venting tons of EcoSorb into our air 24 7.
It is promising to see that Cresco was willing to use carbon filters with the hope of phasing out the vapor phase pipes. There actually should be a dedicated trail along this Royal Paradigm Creek from Foothill Road to the beach, there is a proposed trail on the mountain side of Foothill Road.
Thank
you. That's your time.
All right. We will now go to Grant Cox to be followed by Susan Meyer who is our final speaker.
Hello,
everybody. Can I be heard?
You
can hear you
okay. Thanks so much for allowing me to speak and on behalf of Cresco Growers. My name is Grant Cox, I'm the owner of Grant Cox Enterprises. I've been in Carpinteria since 1975. This is a very great small town to live in and one thing that I grew up in this town is being very thankful that everyone in this town we all usually treat each other like family. We communicate, we care about one another and being such a small town So much of each other.
I hope that we can deny this appeal for, I talked to a lot of people in this town for I know a lot of people in this town and a lot of people most of them are in support. of Cresco and all the cannabis farms in this area. And I've been very pleased too that, you know, the complaints about the smell seem to be going away in my mind. I live in this town, I drive past these farms 10 times a day and very rarely do I smell the cannabis as much as I smell skunks.
At the end of the day, I just hope that This can be appealed. The industry has done so much for this community and it's complied in gone above and beyond what we could imagine they would have done for this community, you know with my heart with this committee's heart that I represent. I really hope that we can appeal this and move forward, and we will never stop having respect for the ones who are not happy, and will do everything we can to never stop trying to do better for this community. Thank you.
7:15 – 7:238 turns
And we will now go to Susan Mayer, who's our final speaker.
Susan?
Hi, my name is Susan Mayer and thank you for the time to speak. I am a resident of San Luis Obispo County and I'm calling today because like our appellant This appeal, I support them in the efforts to actually comply with the ordinance regarding no odor off site. We became familiar with Santa Barbara's already installed vapor phase technology and actually use that in a way to understand how it would impact us in San Luis Obispo County. And I think really where the bottom line is, no matter how much beautification.
Outreach to the community that Cresco does, the bottom line is the best thing they could do for their neighbors is to provide clean air. And the ordinance itself speaks to the need to not have any odor off site to impact the neighbors and that's really where the bottom line will be. And so it seems like it's a combination between Not only the efforts as they are showing efforts to improve the technology, but also how do you enforce the ordinance? If there's hundreds of order complaints already than the burden is going on citizens. To actually be the enforcement for the odor complaints and I 2nd Anna careers comments trying to speak to all of the inspections that need to be taking place but It seems that the board's responsibility is then to take the, to enforce the odor complaints and the ordinances and try to actually make the bottom line that the community gets the clean air that they deserve.
And that the applicant truly follow through on that part of their commitment to the community. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
And that
concludes public comment. OK.
Now we're going to be back to the appellant for rebuttal. I'll let Ms. Elise Kosar-Daly know that Cresco went a minute over on their presentation. So I'm going to go ahead and give you six minutes out of fairness. And then I would request when Cresco comes up for the rebuttal to try to stick to the five minutes to keep equity there. Thank you.
I appreciate that. Thank you so much. Um, I wanted to address just a couple of points that were raised in the applicants presentation and actually in the staff presentation as well. 1st, in the staff presentation staff indicated that there was in fact an analysis of the destruction of the avocado orchard which was done without permits and prior to. During the application process before the county. Now that avocado orchard was not in agricultural use at the time, and it was serving basically as an extension of the riparian corridor and the environmentally sensitive habitat. So that avocado orchard was destroyed and what should have happened at that time was a You know, an assessment and analysis if there was any sensitive species there and measures being taken to not harm the species in that location.
In Ms Baylor's presentation she indicated that there was an analysis of the avocado orchard destruction in the biological resources assessment. And I certainly want to give her the opportunity to respond but in my review of the biological resources assessment, I didn't see any such analysis and I would. Um, urge the board to take a look into that and see if any mitigation is required with respect to that.
In the applicant's presentation, they talked briefly about looking into the carbon filtration system proposed by our air quality expert. And I do really appreciate and commend Cresco for taking a look at what we proposed. Now what I believe it was Mr. Eaddy indicated was that This system that was proposed would take significantly more carbon. Now, while that may be the case at least the vendor that was proposed by our air quality expert in fact is carbon regeneration so it would essentially be recycled. It wouldn't be carbon that was used and then destroyed.
They have a system by which they keep the carbon to a very high level and then it can be reused. So, in fact, it wouldn't result in the use and then. And then, you know, carbon becoming waste as part of this process. So I just wanted to clarify that point then with respect to the vapor phase system another point that the applicant made in their presentation was that there have been no issues with the vapor phase system with wildlife and.
You know, frankly you can't make that assessment without doing a study. I'm not sure where they got that information but in order to determine if there are issues with wildlife you'd want to take a look at impacts to wildlife how their behaviors change what wildlife are we specifically talking about? Are we talking about these smaller You know, animals that are in and around the creek. Are we talking about larger wildlife on what basis? Are they making that are they making that conclusion and you know.
So, so I wanted to raise that as well. The last thing is again while we appreciate the habitat protection plan that Cresco put together in that gesture it's essentially I reviewed it and it's essentially the same except for expanding that landscaping or that restoration area. We of course appreciate that effort and that gesture. But it doesn't really add much to the record in terms of the analysis or ensuring that conclusions, that minimal mitigation is required in order to offset impacts. So I wanted to just raise those specific issues and that concludes my rebuttal. Thank you so much for considering what we've raised to your attention and we really appreciate the time that you've taken to consider this. Happy to be here for questions, and we really urge you to be careful and make responsible choices with this.
You know if Cresco wants to make these efforts and be a model let's condition the project so that they really are a model of good grow and a good operator. Thank you so much.
7:23 – 7:338 turns
Thank you.
Okay, Nathan Eady representing Cresco again so I'll just spend my last couple minutes Moving beyond what was in the actual original appeal documentation, I covered that hopefully quickly and concisely in the previous presentation. But the appellant representative brought up some tangentially related requests that they ran by the board in the first presentation so let me speak to those a little bit. So there was a request to seal the greenhouse at night. That's actually the way the greenhouse already operates, so the roof vents almost entirely close at night and then the blackout curtain system closes as well. So the greenhouse gets as close to sealed as it is ever going to be during the nighttime hours And that's actually when the scrubbers which will operate 24 hours a day, we'll have the easiest time treating odor because they don't have as much airflow to treat the air exchange rate slows down in the greenhouse considerably.
In terms of monitoring and implementation of BACT, that's already in the odor plan. So as part of the model OAP that was developed in concert with members of the community like the coalition, Cresco has already committed to the universal odor plan which includes on-site monitoring and future BACT evaluation and the adoption of new technologies should new ones come out in the future that work even better There was a quest to stop vapor phase. Again, the odor plan already commits to that so 12 months or less assuming we can get the scrubbers sooner than that.
Protect species and the creek. Frankly, I just, I don't know what else what more we could do we are literally tearing down buildings and taking out avocado orchards so that we can put native vegetation back in without removing a single native tree shrub, you know, impacting the creek at all. So we've really tried to put our best foot forward and we think money is better spent installing trees and restoring habitat than just paying more rival experts to debate about it on paper.
And then expanding the basins, so as I mentioned before, as part of the deconstruction of three acres of greenhouse and their replacement with modern facilities, we actually lose almost a an acre of structural development Which is replaced primarily with the landscaping and employee parking lot, and the employee parking lot is impervious DG or equivalent permeable surface so we have a big reduction in runoff generating impervious surfaces.
Meanwhile, the basins are getting deepened and increased in volume so that we can bring that entire site up to a 25-year flood standard. So versus the baseline condition, the stormwater control and clean water treatment on this site is going to be far better than it is today. So we, you know this was a great project when we brought it to the Planning Commission. We've listened to the appellate and we think we present an even better project to the board, and we just hope that the appeal can be withdrawn and we can move forward.
Thank you.
Right, thank you Mr. Eaddy.
Back to staff, any additional comments?
Thank you, Mr Chair and Supervisors. I can provide some clarification in response to the appellant's comments. I want to acknowledge that permit compliance staff will monitor the project complete regular inspections and every odor complaint will be investigated. The odor management plan was signed off by a certified industrial hygienist and would be required to be improved if odors are identified in a residential zone And as required by the ordinance, best available control technology analysis will be required if the proposed technology does not effectively abate odor from being experienced in residential zones.
And the other comment I want to make is that in response to the appellant's comments about the avocado tree removal So no permits required for the removal of avocado trees. The project description in the biological assessment addresses the removal of the avocado orchard and the assessment analyzed impacts to trees. The biological assessment does require a tree protection plan because of the proximity of work to one oak tree, but no mitigations were identified for the avocado tree removal.
Thank you.
Mr. Chair and members of the board, I did want to respond to one of the comments made by Ana Carrillo. And that has to do with the inspections that would be happening for permitted facilities in the Carpinteria Valley. So we do have staff go out and make a determination as to whether or not the odor control systems that are installed are actually operating and functioning.
We have limitations on whether or not we can determine which grower has an odor that is reaching a residential zone because of the, you know, cheek by jowl situation we have in Carpinteria with all of the growers. We have been working to bring a consultant on that is going to help us try and make those determinations with some Level of accuracy. And so we're in the process of doing that it has taken longer than we had hoped, but we hope that we will be able to bring some this consultant on board.
To assist us with this particular effort, but it is particularly challenging challenging given the technology that's available to do that. But we do go out and inspect the facilities to make sure they are operational.
Thank you. Before we get into board deliberations here, let's go ahead and are there any questions of the Board of staff applicant early appellant? Mr Williams if you have any questions this be time to ask him and then actually from there you might want to. You're more than welcome to kick off the deliberations.
Then I'll just kick off deliberations then. I think that number one from The view of the whole community, I think it is important to indicate that there is more to do on odor control. Odor has significantly improved in the Carpinteria Valley over the last few years. But I will tell you that there are times, there was an odor event just a little more than a month back. There's times when the winds shift and temperatures spike and things get a little worse out there. And I think most of people in the community acknowledge that it's gotten better but I do think that it's important to do more.
is exactly what this project is proposing to do. This is an improvement of the existing infrastructure and a odor plan that is a significant step forward I don't think that we as a board can be in the business of picking vendors and that seems to be one of the last contentions between the appellant and the applicant. We have to insist on improvements Ordinance is technology neutral but where we seek a standard that does improve with time because the technology improves.
Updated greenhouse infrastructure, better technology and you know a willingness to look at whether the new technology that's supposed to be better Actually is better. I think that's what I get from the community as a whole not a preference for anyone technology just for they want results people carpentry one results and I believe that this will bring A measured level of improvement that can help residents.
Acknowledge what I think is also apparent to most carpentry ends, which is that this industry has become part of our community and a good part You know, instantly mistrustful of an out-of-town company. But Cresco has done enough work in the community To work their ways into the hearts of many. And I appreciate the community mindedness, not that that should have bearing on the appeal but I do think it is significant and important in a place like Carpinteria when we go through natural disasters or pandemics that we're pulling together as a community.
Back to the projects at hand, you know I think the improvement also for the riparian corridor is significant. We want all projects to do. And therefore, I urge my colleagues to deny the appeal and approve the project as is being proposed with the additional riparian buffer.
7:33 – 7:389 turns
Thank you Supervisor Williams. Anybody else up?
Thank you Mister chair and you know when supervisor Williams said, you know some of the stuff as far as community involvement should really be taken into consideration too much. I think it is an important aspect of it though because when things do go a little South or especially in this issue there's continual interaction between cannabis industries operators and the surrounding community. The more We have an operator that is willing to engage with the community and be proactive, and have relationships inside the community.
The better that's going to be because when something goes south or when an event happens it's good to have that community partnership built up. So for me, when I look at this with the habitat protection, the landscaping plan, the emphasis on community involvement You know, honestly the appellant I thought in this should be the other operators because the bar has been moved to a level now where if I was another operator.
And I'm like okay here's here's where the goalpost is now been moved to so and maybe in some weird way it's through these appeals. That I'm not really fond of but that they've gotten us to better projects along the way, which is maybe a byproduct of it that I need to learn about so. But I am supportive of this project.
Thank you very much.
It's really impressive that Cresco has done this at the bar as Supervisor Levinino said very, very high for other applicants. And that's exactly what we're looking for in the Carpinteria Valley and everywhere in the county of Santa Barbara is a high quality operator who's Employing local people and good high paying jobs, and is a strong corporate responsible actor in the community.
Thank you Supervisor Hartman.
Well, I agree with my colleagues. I think one of the things that you didn't mention is just the traffic and I think that's really important having lost my way trying to get there but for me it largely revolves around the new technology and traditional scrubber technology is really really energy intensive And this is Mr. ED said is 10 times less so, so this really offers us a way forward and and so that to me I want to be invited back and see how this works.
of the project and to deny the appeal.
Thank you, Supervisor Hartman and I will join my colleagues in support of the project and denying the appeal. You know this project is given and given and given some more it's definitely the gold standard i think it's not on accident That there was actually more people today in the hearing room, opposing a senior project and then this cannabis project. And I think that that's the hard work that Cresco has put into this and some people call Cresco and out of town operator.
They're really not on the Cresko group is a combination with the so called evasion which is the van ringerton family that's been in the Thank you very much. Thank you.
I will move staff recommendation to deny the appeal and uphold the project, and approve the project with the design that is being proposed today. The additional riparian buffer.
Is that sufficient? Can we get a roll call vote?
7:38 – 7:394 turns
Supervisor Hart?
Aye.
Roll-call vote Passed 4–0 move staff recommendation to deny the appeal and uphold the project, and approve the project with the design that is being proposed today. T
Show transcript
motion passes unanimously
all right thank you very much everybody for sticking with us this concludes our meeting of December 7th we will be back together for the final meeting of the year at December 14th at our Santa Barbara hearing room thank you