Board of Supervisors — 2022-08-16

Good morning and welcome. This is our first meeting coming back after our summer break, restored and rested, refreshed. And I'll call to order this August 16th, 2022 meeting of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors here in the Santa Barbara Hearing Room. Madam Clerk will you please call the roll?

So move.

A second.

Second.

Any further discussion? Madam Clerk.

Motion passes unanimously

And now we have our CEO's report, CEO Miyasako.

Good morning Chair and Board Members I have a quick announcement and then we also have a presentation this morning under CEO's report so for my quick announcement as part of Child Support Awareness Month the Department of Child Support Services is hosting the Santa Barbara County Family Resource Workshop on August 25th. This interactive virtual workshop is free to the public and will focus on family law issues together with legal aid, the Legal Resource Center and the Family Law Facilitator. The workshop will provide an overview of agency services a discussion of available resources and a question-and-answer session help participants better understand the legal process for details about joining the virtual workshop again August 25th please visit our website at www.countysb.org backslash 166 So I hope people can attend.

In addition, under our CEO's report we have a presentation from the Central Coast Community Energy. As you know we are a member of this organization and Ashley Watkins, our division

chief of CSD will kick it off. Good morning Chair Hart, members of the Board. As you know Community Services Sustainability Division has played a key role in supporting your board's decision to bring community choice energy to our region and our department coordinates closely with Central Coast Community Energy staff to make sure that we're taking advantage of all of the benefits associated with being a member So I'm pleased to report that your board's decision to join Central Coast Community Energy is really paying dividends and helping meet the aggressive goals that your board set to reduce emissions 50% by 2030, and ultimately achieve carbon neutrality.

I wanted to point out a few key achievements before turning the presentation over Jenna Espinoza, she's the manager of customer accounts and services. So just a few stats from the recent operations boards meeting in fiscal year 21-22 CCCE distributed over $300,000 through their Electrify Your Ride program to community members to help offset the costs associated with purchasing electric vehicles and start installing EV charging stations, and even buying electric bikes. I just got my $500 incentive for purchasing a rad bike. And a portion of those funds are for low-income residents. General Services has also been working closely with Central Coast Community Energy, and we will be receiving $90,000 to support the installation of 22 electric vehicle chargers at county sites And also 150,000 incentives to purchase 30 EVs.

They've also provided $150,000 in incentives to help local developers of affordable housing build all electric homes in Santa Barbara County and then finally the Sustainability Division has received a $100,000 grant to support our Climate Resilient Santa Barbara County Campaign which is an education campaign to empower residents to take action on climate change. So overall, I'd say a pretty good investment and we're hoping to see even more returns over the years. And with that, I will turn it over to Jenna Espinoza.

Good morning. Thank you for having me this morning. I will jump right in Next slide, please. So by way of reminder and introduction for anyone who may be attending as a community member and new to hearing about Central Coast Community Energy, we are one of 23 community choice aggregators serving over 11 million customers in the state of California. In 2002, Assembly Bill 117 was passed establishing communities purchasing power and their right to choose where their electricity comes from.

So more than 200 cities and counties throughout California have chosen to participate in community choice aggregation. Nearly 50% of Californians at this time are served by community choice aggregators. We were formed to support local government's goals in meeting climate action initiatives, provide residents and businesses with more energy options and ensure local transparency and accountability. And of course drive economic development the way that it works is We provide an opportunity for communities across the Central Coast to join together, to purchase their electricity.

We buy the electricity and then we partner with both Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison to deliver the energy over the existing transmission lines The poles, wires and the entire grid. And then those agencies do continue to provide meter reading and billing for customers. So the experience for customers is very seamless. We do a lot of work on the back end to collaborate and integrate with both of those investor owned utilities.

Next slide please. We serve 33 city and county agencies across the Central Coast for over 400,000 customers. Geographically we are the largest CCA in the state of California and we represent a very diverse community. And I'm pleased to announce that a 34th community has elected to join our agency The City of Atascadero voted unanimously to join our agency and we look forward to their enrollment in January of 2024.

Next slide, please. We are governed by two voting bodies, our policy and operation boards. These boards are made up of city managers, mayors, council members And county executive officers. The County of Santa Barbara holds a permanent seat on our board and then smaller communities, those that have less than 50,000 people or a population of less than 50,00 share a rotating seat with other you know regionally close smaller communities.

We are also supported by Community Advisory Council, which is a grassroots volunteer position that helps us to stay connected with people who represent a variety of different industries across our service area. Next slide please. So as an agency, we started service to our customers in 2018 and we have gone through very rapid growth and we have accomplished a lot.

offerings. We bring all of our customers in at our default offering called 3C Choice, but we provide a choice to those customers who want 100% clean and renewable energy so they can opt up to 3C Prime. Over the last year our enrollment in 3C Prime has increased by 40%. And I'm pleased to share that does more recently include some of our largest customers and we do have some of our member agencies considering opting up to 100% wind and solar energy at this time.

We've also, since January 2021 increased our enrollment by 25%, bringing us to that position of geographically the largest CCA in the state And we have offices in Monterey and San Luis Obispo. Since 2018, we have provided over $50 million in customer savings. And we received an S&P A rating. This rating was just renewed a second time this summer. Next slide please.

Our primary mission is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as rapidly as possible. And the way that we are doing this is fast tracking our energy procurement to 100% clean and renewable by 2030, which is 15 years ahead of California's goal. We have a midway goal of 60% of our energy coming from renewable sources by 2025. The next slide will show you how we plan to do this.

I'm ready for the next slide. Okay, so the graph on the left shows the status of our long-term contracts. So every time that we enter into a long term power purchasing agreement it is for the purposes of bringing new source of clean and renewable energy onto the grid. So we only secure power purchase agreements with new projects So the graph on the right shows that the 14 contracts that have been executed at this time, which are a variety of solar and storage programs. Solar only wind geothermal and battery storage.

And this year we hit a major milestone. Our first power purchase agreement reached commercial operation in March of 2022, bringing 4% of our load online. So that's the Slate Solar and Storage Project in Kings County. It's a very large project. We entered into the purchasing agreement with a number of other agencies This project will provide 67.5 megawatts of energy and 135 megawatt hours of storage on an annual basis, and this is a 17-year contract.

So this is one way that we can provide stable rates for our customers as entering into these long term purchasing agreements. And then July of this year, our second project was completed. This is for 2.25% of our load and this is the Mountain View Wind Repowering Project where wind turbines were replaced with more efficient newer technology down in the Palm Springs area.

So at this time we're contracted for $1 billion in long-term solar plus storage contract And have joined with other CCAs to advance these types of RFPs. Next slide, please. One major accomplishment that we We're able to bring to the table in 2022 is changing the way that we set our rates for our Pacific Gas and Electric shared customers. So this graph shows our history of setting rates over time so you can see in the beginning, we started with providing customers a rebate of 3% and then 5%, and that was a rebate they were receiving at the end of the year.

And then in 2020, we switched over to providing a discount on a monthly basis so that customers knew exactly what they were paying for their energy. And we continued that model of taking the IOU, the investor-owned utilities rates and applying a discount all the way until March 1st of this year for our PG&E customers. And at that time, we launched our own rate setting process. It's called Cost of Service where we analyze what is the true cost for us to serve these customers and our goal in this is providing more stable rates. We are able to set our rates and change them less frequently And gives the Board of Central Coast Community Energy more control over our rate setting, instead of just taking a reactionary approach to the rates set by the investor-owned utility.

For our Southern California Edison customers, they began service with us in over the course of the fall October 2021 through January of 2022. And so they have been on an investor-owned utility minus 2% rate setting structure And our board will be examining, moving them over to cost of service at our annual meeting in September. That'll be a discussion with the hope of being able to provide that service to our customers in SCE's service area starting in January this coming year.

Next slide please. A snapshot of your community, your community is at 96.57% enrollment as in all communities the leading category is residential but you do have nearly 6,000 commercial customers and over 1700 agricultural customers. We have provided over $50,000 in Electrify Your Ride program funds to the community And as Ashley shared, $150,000 for electric vehicles in addition to $92,000 for electric vehicle chargers.

Next slide please. One of the great values and benefits of our agency and our hyper-local focus is that we reinvest a portion of our revenue into rebates, incentives, and grants to help all members of the community move to an all electric future. So this fiscal year, we have dedicated 4% of our operating revenue which is $14.1 million into these rebates, incentives and grant programs Our most popular program is Electrify Your Ride, which I'll go into in more detail on the next slide.

And then I'll just walk through a couple of these programs very quickly. This year we fully subscribed the school bus electrification program at $1 million dollars, fully subscribed to agriculture electrification program as $600,000. We launched a new residential program in just the last couple months called Electrify Your Home Which provides rebates for heat pump technology. This is up to $3800 for water heaters, $3500 for space conditioning and up to $2000 for panel upgrades And this year we also launched our member agency services, which is allocating 2% of our revenue, which is $7 million this fiscal year.

Specifically to supporting our member agencies, which are the 33 cities and counties who form our JPA. And so this funding is for programs and also for technical support. To help those agencies electrify. So through this, this is how through this program that we supported the county's fleet electrification. Next slide please. Just a quick overview of our most popular program. We have allocated $2.8 million this fiscal year to help communities electrify their ride, so this includes incentives for electric vehicles, e-bikes, emotorcycles. For income qualified customers it can also include plug in hybrid vehicles and then of course also the electric vehicle charger and any panel upgrades and electrical readiness that is required Chargers next slide please.

Also, since we last presented to you, we launched a vendor registry where we're encouraging all local. Businesses to register with our registry so that they can be aware of any outcoming RFPs or RFQs. This can be things as simple as marketing agencies, or special event spaces. So we really are encouraging our local businesses to register for this so that we can work together and keep even more of our revenue in the community.

So that concludes my update and I'm happy to take any questions.

Thank you very much, Ms. Espinoza and also Ms. Watkins. I would note that this is part of the CEO's report so this is not agendized. I think next update we might like to have this agendized. So that means questions but really no discussion, no action items. We could get this agendized in the future. I also wanted to mention how exciting it is our goals were to save consumers money and to reinvest dividends in our community. And so it's really exciting to hear how that is happening, and CEO Miyasato serves on the managing group and Supervisor Das-Williams on the policy group, and I know it's a lot of time and energy but well worth it, and so Supervisor Williams?

Thank you. It's been an honor to serve and I have gotten very involved, I'm now the Vice Chair and serve on three committees. The Risk Committee which makes the recommendations of what purchases to make both renewable and non-renewables and the Executive Board as well as the Policy Board as you mentioned. So we've been giving presentations both out to the community and to our employees on these incentives. And one question came up is, okay if we're at towards the end of one cycle of Electrify Your Ride should you still put in your application now? And will you be accepted either in this cycle or the next cycle? How does that work? That was the only question I wasn't able to answer last week.

Yeah, it's a really great question. So we are approaching the end of our fiscal year. It'll end September 30th and It appears that one of the measures in that program will not continue into the fiscal year. And this is dependent upon final guidance from the board at our annual meeting in September, but we anticipate that the electric bikes will not roll into the next fiscal year. So if someone wants to receive a $500 rebate for an electric bike or if their income qualified $1,000 for an electric bike And an additional $100 for purchasing from a local bike shop, then they would need to buy that bike by September 30th and submit their application before October 15.

Any other measures like an electric vehicle, electric motorcycle charger? Those types of things the customer should not experience any disruptions in the program as we move from one fiscal year to the next.

That's great because we're seeing a lot of interest. People are excited that we not only provide incentives for electric car purchasing, but the labor and parts for charging infrastructure. And you know that there is even higher incentives if your lower income. So lots of opportunities to own an electric car out there right now. Thanks so much.

Supervisor Hart?

You know, the benefits are so striking and the case is so obvious for customers to do. I'm struck by the 4.4% of people who aren't making this choice. And is there any outreach effort that's being done to communicate with those folks about what they're missing out on?

We have been talking about doing a concerted effort. I think that those customers fall into a couple different categories. Some customers wanted to take the wait and see approach, so I think they would be very interested in hearing all of our accomplishments and seeing some numbers at this time now that we've been able to establish a track record in the community And then there is also some concern that CARE and FARA customers have, those customers who are on reduced payment programs. That they don't always realize that they'll continue in that program and that they don't need to submit any additional documentation or paperwork. So I think that's an area that would be really beneficial for us to reach out and let them know Whether they're a customer of ours or the investor-owned utilities, their participation in that program is not affected.

Well thank you I think it's a great idea to communicate with those folks because you're right I could see where somebody might be cautious initially but the case is so obvious now that if they hear that I think they might change their mind

And Supervisor Nelson, just checking in because I can't otherwise see. Did you have any questions you wanted to ask?

No thank you.

All right and we do have one member of the public who would like to speak on this item. Madam Clerk? Chair

Hartman and members of the board that is correct. We have one request to speak on this item and we are going to remain here in Santa Barbara for Ethan Shenkman. Ethan?

Madam Chair and County Board of Supervisors, this particular issue with the utilities is extremely disconcerting especially with the increase of rates since the mudslides that have been reported in the press as to what impact and liability that has been distributed among the public. I have a quote here from Anne Rand. The hardest thing to explain is this glaringly evident, which everyone has decided not to see Anne Rand.

The Social Security Act says the right of any person to any future payment under this title shall not be transferable or assignable at law or in equity. And none of the monies paid, or payable, or rights existing under this title shall be subject to execution, levy, attachment, garnishment, or other legal process, or to the operations of any bankruptcy or insolvency law.

No other provision of law enacted before, on, or after the date of the enactment of the section may be construed to limit, supersede, or otherwise modify the provisions of this section except to the extent that it does so by express reference to this section. Nothing in this section shall be construed to prohibit withholding taxes from any benefit under this title, if such withholding is done pursuant to the request made accordance with Section 3402 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 by the person entitled to such benefit or such person's benefit representative payee.

The Office of U.S. Inspector General list of waivers, exemptions and exclusions where specific cities, counties, state DMVs and other government agencies and utility companies are not otherwise listed. This can be found at Waivers dot ASP. So these utilities is currently collecting from the handicapped and the disabled, the convalescent and the infirm, the elderly people who are otherwise to be exempt from these excessive fees or you know competitive pricing that doesn't apply to the rest of the populace.

I think that I've said everything I need to.

Thank you for your comment.

All right thank you And

that concludes public comment on the CEO's report.

And so Madam Clerk, announcements for today's meeting.

Chair Hartman and members of the board, I do have a couple quick announcements this morning. We posted an addendum to today's agenda on Friday August 12th amending the agenda to add administrative agenda item number 45. Administrative Item Number 45 is from the Sheriff Coroner's Office in the Probation Department it is to consider recommendations regarding a fourth amendment to the agreement with the California Forensic Medical Group CFMG WellPath for the provision of medical and mental health care services This addendum was posted online and has been made available to the board and the public.

Additionally, I have a brief announcement on administrative item number 20. Administrative item number 20 is from the Human Resources Department. It is to consider recommendations regarding performance-based salary adjustment for the county executive officer. Prior to the board acting on this item in accordance with government code section 54953 subdivision C3, County Executive Officer Mona Miyasato's salary information shall be summarized verbally.

County Human Resources recommends that the Board of Supervisors approve a performance-based annual salary increase of 2.5% effective August 22nd, 2022 start of pay period 19-2020-2022 based on the CEO's performance in the past year by adopting this recommendation the Board of Supervisors approves an annual salary increase of approximately $324,847 Lastly, I would like to remind the public who are participating in our meeting today of the board's updated methods of public participation.

For the Board of Supervisors' methods of public participation and to provide public comment on general public comment or an item on the board's agenda please see page 2 of the agenda. Members of the public can attend meetings in person, both in the Santa Barbara Board Hearing Room Chambers as well as the Santa Maria Board Hearing Room Chambers. Please note the board is following all local and state guidelines and are no longer requiring face coverings indoors. If you attend the board meeting in person, you will no longer be required to wear a face covering but please be advised that the Public Health Department is still strongly encouraging all county staff and members of the public to mask and socially distance themselves in crowded areas.

I would also like to remind the public that if you require any special accommodations, please contact the Clerk of the Board to make that request preferably on the Friday prior to the board meeting. Individuals that would like to provide verbal public comment virtually may do so via Zoom by registering in advance via the link available on page 2. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing important information about joining the virtual meeting.

Once the chair has announced the item you want to comment on, please join the meeting with the information provided in the registration confirmation email. You will be placed on mute and until it is your turn to speak. The Clerk of the Board will call you by name. When removed from mute, you will hear a notification that your line has been unmuted. If you are using a touchtone phone, you may need to press star 6 to unmute yourself.

Again if you're using a touchtone phone, you may need to press star 6 to unmute yourself. Each person may address the board for up to 3 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 805-568-2240. And that concludes my announcements for today.

Thank you. So with that we'll turn to our administrative agenda. I have the public having pulled items 7 and 22 through 26. Do any board members have any items? Seeing none,

Madam Clerk? And Chair Hartman, members of the Board, we did have an additional poll from the public on A35.

Thank you. And would you read A7 into the record?

Chair Hartman and members of the Board, Administrative Item No. 7 is from the Behavioral Wellness Department. It is to consider recommendations regarding a resolution for the designation of Dignity Health DBA Marion Regional Medical Center Crisis Stabilization Unit CSU as Latterman Petra short LPS 5 1 50 150 facility and first amendment to agreement BC 21-0 8 4 for fiscal years 2021 through 2024 And we have one request from the public on this item, and we are going to zoom for Lynn Gibbs

Miss kids

Lynn Good morning, Chair Hartman and Supervisors. NAMI Santa Barbara County has been pleased to follow the development of the Dignity Health Crisis Stabilization Unit as an LPS facility and an important piece of the continuum of mental health. Crisis stabilization units are points of triage. A significant percentage of those served can avoid inpatient hospitalization.

Not only is stabilization provided, but psychiatric assessment, referrals to community-based care and linkages with families. For those who do need inpatient placement they can get started on effective medication right away before they transfer to a hospital bed. We feel this project represents just one element of an enhanced partnership between Behavioral Wellness, Marion and Cottage Hospitals regarding crisis care in mental health. And we're grateful for that. Thank you.

Thank you Ms.

Gibbs. And turning to A22 through 26 I understand that Dr. Heller wants to comment but we can read all of them into the record at once.

Chair Hartman and members of the board, that is correct. I will now go ahead and read administrative item number 22 from the Public Health Department. It is to consider recommendations regarding a City of Buelton Animal Services Revenue Agreement for fiscal years 2022 through 2027. Administrative Item Number 23 is from the Public Health Department to consider recommendations regarding the City of Goleta Animal Services Revenue Agreement for fiscal years 2022 through 2027 Additionally, Administrative Item Number 24 is from the Public Health Department to consider recommendations regarding a City of Lompoc Animal Services Revenue Agreement for Fiscal Years 2022 through 2027.

Administrative Item Number 25 is from the Public Health Department to consider recommendations regarding the City of Santa Maria Animal Services Revenue Agreement for Fiscal Years 2022 through 2027 and lastly, Administrative Item Number 26 is from the Public Health Department To consider recommendations regarding a City of Solvang Animal Services Revenue Agreement for fiscal years 2022 through 2027. And we do have one request to speak on those items and that is Dr. Lee Heller who is here in Santa Barbara.

Good morning Chair Hartman and members of the board. It's been a while since I've been here in person. Um, I was actually coming this morning for the resolution honoring Owen Bailey who was a very dear friend of mine and I won't speak during that item but I also wanted to speak to these contracts so as you might remember several of us were here remotely in April during budget workshops to express concern about the cost increases to the contract cities for animal services I have spent the last two months listening and talking to some of these city councils and their staff, and they are pretty unhappy.

Costs are rising while services have gone down. And they are looking pretty seriously at alternatives which could have significant consequences for us trying to provide services to ourselves because if we lose these contract partners, we lose the revenue that makes it possible for Animal Services to serve the unincorporated areas. It's hardly surprising that they are so unhappy. One of the things I learned last week during the Guadalupe City Council meeting is that only five of the nine animal control officer positions are currently filled, so that's close to a 40% vacancy rate which is nearly twice what the county is facing in other departments. So you can imagine that the contract cities are not getting their needs met because we're so understaffed.

So what I'm asking for you to do is obviously in addition to voting for this item, is to support central HR and public health and rapidly staffing up to provide the services that the contract cities and the county as a whole need. And that the cities have paid for. And I want to thank the public health leadership for recognizing and responding urgently and creatively to the situation including the establishment of the Animal Services Advisory Council This is a way for these contract cities to participate in and feel heard as we try to restore a program that has been significantly gutted. So I'm just asking for your support and encouragement of public health as they try to address this issue, thank you.

Thank you. Supervisor Lavanino?

Thank you and I think we can take this as a moment to thank you Dr. Heller, to make the announcement to anybody whether you live in the city of Guadalupe Santa Maria or any other districts if you'd like a job with the county to please go online. We are recruiting for a number of positions. Big sheriff contingency here today. So that department, every department. So if you think about it, if you're out there and you're considering- Sheriffs,

planners.

Planners, there's everything. Park rangers,

animal control officers. You have

whatever your interests, there is a career for you at the county. There is a career for you at the county to become part of the county family.

The county is a wonderful place to work.

So thank you for allowing us that 30 second plug.

All right, and item A35. Madam Clerk would you read that into the record please?

Chair Hartman and members of the board. Administrative item number 35 is from Supervisor Hartman it is to consider recommendations regarding a contribution of $35,000 for Santa Ynez Valley Senior Citizens Foundation formerly the Buellton Senior Center Meals on Wheels senior nutrition program and we have one request to speak from the public on this item and we are going to zoom for Pam Genco.

Yes, good morning supervisors. Thank you for I just want to say thank you for considering this. We we just appreciate all the time and energy and effort that you put in looking over at the programs for for our Valley and the whole county and we just really appreciate your time. Thank you.

And thank you for taking the time to comment today. So that concludes our administrative agenda except for the resolutions, so I would like a motion to approve the agenda including the A45 that was added late.

So moved, including the late inclusion. Second.

And Madam Clerk roll call vote?

Motion passes unanimously.

Okay that takes us to our honorary resolutions and Madam Clerk would you read item A39 into the record please

Chair Hartman and members of the board, administrative item number 39 is sponsored by Supervisor Williams and Supervisor Hartman. It is to adopt a resolution honoring the memory of Owen Bailey. And joining us today in person we have Brian Troutwine and on Zoom we have Linda Kropp. And I'll go ahead and read the resolution into the record. Whereas Owen Bailey served as the Environmental Defense Center Executive Director for nine years, and whereas Owen was raised in rural Connecticut surrounded by forests. He graduated from the University of Connecticut where he met his wife Lori.

Whereas after years of travel, he and his wife settled in Los Angeles where Owen realized he most wanted to make a difference through advocacy He started as a volunteer with the Sierra Club and before he left, he was the Southwest Advancement Director. And whereas Owen moved to Santa Barbara to become EDC's Executive Director in 2013, he was recruited due to his work to protect Ocean Dunes and Hearst Ranch and to defeat a proposed liquid natural gas project offshore Oxnard.

He brought the same passion and skill to EDC And whereas Owen immersed himself in our community and was beloved by all who met him. He listened, he offered support and he taught us how to be effective advocates. His integrity was unparalleled and when Owen spoke you believed. And whereas Owen Bailey passed away on June 24th in his home after a long battle with cancer.

Owen is survived by wife Lori, children Benjamin and Nicola and by his brothers Martin, Hugh and David. And his parents Patricia Palmer and David O'Bailey. And whereas our community will be forever grateful for the time we had with Owen now therefore it is hereby ordered a resolve that this Board of Supervisors honors the memory of Owen Bailey passed and adopted today.

And Supervisor Williams did you want to make some remarks?

Sure. First of all, I'm just thrilled that Brian will say something today. He was taking care of all the logistics at the Celebration of Life for Owen so he didn't get a chance to say something. So I know his connection is strong and glad that he's going to be able to say something. If you're a public health staff, you know that I'm a big fan of Tolkien and Owen was too. His father read Tolkien to him every year the whole series every year once a year.

And I think, like myself, Owen got a lot of his strong sense of justice and also his environmentalism from this among other sources. The really awesome good guys in the Lord of the Rings are cryptically referred to several times as Servants of the secret fire, servants of the flame imperishable. And that is roughly in Tolkien's cosmology to the god breathed or god song spark that enables life to continue and to unfold.

And so I call Owen a servant of the flame imperishable because he yearned to make a difference. nature and the environment with the sacredness that I think it deserves. And he was very brave and endured a very debilitating sickness, and continued to work and continue to be a joyful father in the midst of all of it.

I have some remarks but maybe I'll go after you Brian if that's okay?

Linda Kropp would like to say a few words before I speak.

Absolutely, Linda.

Thank you and good morning. Thank you so much for acknowledging Owen this morning his contribution to our community and its recent passing. Owen was bigger than life He had a huge heart and a wavering commitment to the community, and tremendous passion for doing what is right. He works to protect natural resources, prevent climate disruption, ensure clean air and water for all, provide a voice for disadvantaged communities, guarantee public access, and demonstrate respect for people of all cultures and backgrounds.

In particular I want to mention Owen's dedication To the effort to transition our county from fossil fuels to renewable energy. He fought Phillips proposal to bring dangerous oil trains through the county and Exxon Mobil's application to truck oil on Highway 101 and Route 166. He was a leader in the effort to prevent new onshore oil drilling, including projects that would threaten our county's precious drinking water and to protect our coast from the risks of more offshore oil development.

He supported the county's commitment to procure clean energy, as was just the topic of discussion this morning. So he would have been thrilled to hear how successful Community Choice Energy is. Owen's relationships and influence reached far and wide. It will definitely take a village to carry out his vision for a clean healthy equitable and vibrant community.

Know that EDC is committed to helping advance his vision and look forward to working with the community. And thank you very much for this acknowledgement.

Thank you. Good morning, Chair Hartman and Supervisors. I'm Brian Troutmine, Senior Analyst in Watershed Program Director at the Environmental Defense Center. Thank you so much for honoring Owen Bailey by passing this resolution today. Owen was an incredibly effective leader at EDC for the past nine years. He was a brilliant strategist, supportive colleague and an articulate communicator about the importance of protecting our land, our ocean, and our climate for future generations.

He was a passionate, charismatic, and inspirational leader. And he was also ridiculously funny. He never missed an opportunity to drop a pun or crack a joke, and even when the odds seemed stacked against us, he could lighten the mood in an instant. By passing this resolution acknowledging all that Owen did for Santa Barbara County, you will be helping carry forth his work to protect clean air, clean water and a healthy community for our youth the underserved and really for everybody.

Thank you for passing this resolution honoring Owen Bailey and ensuring that his legacy lasts long into the future

Thank you. And I would like to add, I served on the EDC board when we recruited Owen to that job. He represented a place of joy in a world of fact and many of the issues he spent his life working on are deeply sobering with powerful interest to contend with And the temptation is to say nothing can be done and turn away. But his joyous, zany, goofy manner drew people to him. And if there are sides we all wanted to be on Owens because he inspired, he gave our efforts meaning and he made work like play.

And because of this, he in the teams he spearheaded unlikely though it was prevailed. Owen was ill with cancer for several years and the amazing thing is that he addressed his illness as he did all of his projects. With openness, sharing what he was going through and inviting others to be a part of it. He spent the last of his life force staying alive to see his children Benjamin and Nicola each reach important milestones in their lives, and making an important speech to encourage others to throw themselves with renewed vigor into the causes he devoted his life to. And with positivity even suffering the ravages of cancer, he wrote poetry about the pleasures he still found in life and nature.

Almost every picture ever taken of Owen is with a big smile and a merry twinkle in his eyes. He was exuberant about the possibilities of life, even and maybe most especially when the going was hard. The place of joy in a world of fact that I believe captures the essence of Owen. Thank you. He'll be missed Madam Clerk, A40.

Chair Hartman and members of the board administrative item number 40 is sponsored by Supervisor Williams it is to adopt a resolution of accommodation honoring Judy Weisbart for her service on the County of Santa Barbara Commission for Women and joining us in person today we have Judy and I'll go ahead and read the resolution into the record Whereas Judy Weisbart has served and worked with dozens of organizations, individuals and businesses throughout the county and abroad for over 35 years. She has helped organize many large community events in Santa Barbara such as the Women's Festivals and Martin Luther King Day celebration. Whereas during the pandemic, she was known as Santa Barbara's Queen of Masks because of her work as the face covering community coordinator for Project Santa Barbara County Mask Network.