Board of Supervisors — 2022-12-06

Supervisor Caps?

Well, thank you Chair Hartman and to my new colleagues. I like the fact that it was a school bus in your dream because I came straight from our schools to be here and it means a lot to serve with you Chair Hartman. It's not a bad thing to have doubled our female voices up here, I would say. And I want to also thank Governor Newsom for quick action in making sure that we literally didn't skip a beat between Supervisor Hart's impeccable service And mine, which starts today.

In addition to hopefully his calm and collected demeanor up here I'm off to a good start by hiring two of his team members Chris Henson and Daniela Aguirre so I'm off to a great start and ready to serve not just the second district but every single person in this county. I want to thank CEO Miyasato and her team for the last For a long time, I've had some preparation for this job. I call it supervisor school. Done many, many meetings and gotten up to speed and thank you for the time that's taken. I feel really ready and fired up, ready to go. And ultimately, I just want to get off to a great start with my colleagues here who are all in partnership. And I have been religiously watching from home as you do your work up here And I can't wait to support the things that you really care about.

And I can't wait to improve what we do here for our county. I know that you share the belief, that I fervently believe that we're all up here because we're trying to make people's lives just a bit better and local government is absolutely the best way to do that. And I know that each and every one of you does that every day. And i can't wait to just join the team and thank you for having me.

I should add that there will be a ceremony at the first of the year that we'll get to more celebratory. But now it's down to business, and the first item of business is the minutes from November 22nd and November 29th. May I have a motion?

So moved.

Second. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Pass unanimously. CEO Miyasato do you have a report today? No report this morning chair.

Madam Chair, I believe it is time for closed session.

All right, I guess I had on my script that you were going to describe any changes to the agenda but we can go directly to closed session. County Council?

Thank You madam chair members of the board in closed session today we have one item of existing litigation under government code section 54956.9 And it's Bolthouse Land Company, LLC versus all persons claiming a right to extract or store groundwater in the Kiama Valley Groundwater Basin. It's in Los Angeles Superior Court and we also have public employee appointment under Government Code Section 54957 Agricultural Commissioner.

And that'll be about an hour and 15 minutes so I expect we'll be back somewhere in the window between 1015 and 1030. All right. Welcome to our December 6, 2022 meeting of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors here in the Santa Barbara Hearing Room. As you can see we've got our full complement of supervisors up here. The governor appointed Supervisor Capps to her position she was sworn in yesterday there will be a celebration the first year when all the new Judges and various people elected take the oath of office, but we had important work to do and so she's on board now So with that we're returning from closed session County Council. Would you please report out?

Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the Board. The board met in closed session on two items. The first is existing litigation, Bolthouse Land Company LLC versus All Persons claiming a right to extract or store groundwater in the Keoma Valley Groundwater Basin. And the second was public employee appointment for Agricultural Commissioner. The board took no reportable action.

Thank you. Madam Clerk,

do you have announcements for today? Chair Hartman and members of the Board, I do have a couple quick announcements this morning. A memo was received requesting that Administrative Item 25 be continued to January 24th, 2023. This can be added to the balance of the administrative agenda. 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. Please be advised that the Public Health Department is still strongly encouraging county staff and members of the public to mask and socially distance themselves in crowded areas.

Individuals that would like to provide a verbal public comment virtually may do so via Zoom by registering in advance via the link available on page 2. If you have any questions, please contact the Clerk of the Board's Office at 805-568-2240. That concludes my announcements for today.

Thank you. And do any board members want to pull any agenda items? I would like to pull A5.

Yeah, I was actually looking for a continuation on A9 and A25.

All right. So Madam Clerk, do we have any members of the public who'd like to pull any items?

Chair Hartman and members of the board we have two requests to speak on administrative item five. All right so would you read that into the record please? Chair Hartman and members of the board, administrative item number five is from the district attorney's office. It is to consider recommendations regarding an agreement with Serco Data Analytics LLC. This item requires a forfeits vote. CEO Miyasato?

Chair Hartman and supervisors in speaking to the department last night there is some changes we would like to make so we would like to withdraw the item and come back next week but if your board would still like to have questions on that you can entertain that. We have Mr. Soderman here from the DA's office and also Mag Nicola online.

All right, and I would like to let the two public members speak as well. Supervisor Williams do you want to speak before or after public comment?

I'll just express my question. My big one is why we wouldn't have a data and information from this integratable into our essentially system-wide Understanding of how well we are doing as an institution and as a justice system in representing all peoples.

I'll add my comment as well. Um, I had an opportunity to speak with our new IT director And he was talking in general about how important it is that as systems are developed Internally that they be able to communicate externally with other partners and so for me It would be really important that he have an opportunity to look at this system and see how well it does Interact interface with with other systems so

I'd just like to echo appreciation that this is going to be given more time. I looked through it and had a lot of questions, mostly speaking to the broader goal of this work especially as it fits into a lot of work that's happening with racial justice and I didn't quite see that in the materials thus far. I'd also like to know which other counties this consultant has worked with and how that's gone. I think it's really important to always have those benchmarks. I see it in other items and so I'd love Thank you. Supervisor Nielsen? Yes,

thank

you Chair Hartman. You know I got a chance to pull this item and call the District Attorney-Elect to talk to him a little bit about this and as we're all aware you know the DA's office has been asking for a couple budget cycles someone to help them with their data so that they can plug in to the whole system wide evaluation and dashboard. So I do think this isn't necessarily the solution for the entire criminal justice system when we take a look at it with that dashboard but it's definitely going to be the way I see is connection to get the information that we need from the DA's office and move it through the process to eventually integrate with the entire organization. So you know my questions were answered, I'm gonna likely be supportive of this if this comes back next week but that was my understanding

Yeah, and I would just like to piggyback on your we want systems where you enter data once. And maybe some of it is only appropriate for internal but to the extent again that it communicates well with other systems that were developing and that we have a process where it goes through our IT director I think is important.

I can't, Chair Hartman. My understanding is that they've been asking for an employee to do this for some time. They haven't been able to find that person or we haven't been able to get the funding. This is now just bringing in a contractor to do that, some outside organization. So it's solving a goal that we've been looking for for some time as what I see.

Thank you. All right. Public comment?

We will go to Zoom for Adrienne Gallivan to be followed by LaWanda Pruitt.

My name is Adrian Galvan. I'm a member of the Office of the Public Defender's Racial Justice Committee. The California Racial Justice Act of 2020, now codified as Penal Code Section 745 was passed with the legislative intent to remedy the stark reality that race pervades our system of justice Discrimination undermines public confidence in the fairness of our system of justice and deprives Californians of equal justice under law.

Through the Racial Justice Act, we no longer accept racial discrimination and racial disparities as inevitable in our criminal justice system. The Racial Justice Act makes clear that this discrimination and these disparities are illegal and will not be tolerated in Santa Barbara County, and the state of California. A United States Supreme Court justice has observed the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to speak openly and candidly on the subject of race, and to apply the Constitution with eyes open to the unfortunate effects of centuries of racial discrimination.

To that end, the Racial Justice Act was passed with the intent to ensure that individuals have access to all relevant evidence including statistical evidence regarding potential discrimination in seeking or obtaining convictions or imposing sentences. It is against this backdrop that the district attorney is now seeking funding to build an internal data dashboard without transparency or accountability.

Transparency on data collection and data sharing is crucial in being able to identify and focus on where the problems exist in our system, and how to address them in a meaningful way. We know that racial and ethnic disparities exist in our local criminal justice system. Black and Latino people are disproportionately arrested and incarcerated in Santa Barbara County.

Disparities exist in decisions about whether to book someone into custody, in decisions about whether someone is placed on pretrial supervision, and disparities in the types of sentences that are handed down to people The Office of the Public Defender's Racial Justice Committee is committed to ensuring transparency, equity and accountability. The Office of the District Attorney's budget revision request should be taken off an administrative calendar so there can be further robust comment and discussion.

Thank you for your time and attention this morning.

Next we'll move on to LaWanda Lyons-Pruitt, to be followed by Pam Flint Tambo.

Good morning Chairman Hartman and Supervisors. LaWanda Lyons Pruitt representing the Santa Maria Lompoc branch of the NAACP. We are dismayed, disheartened, disappointed To see this item on the agenda and believe. This internal database request is contrary to your commitment to racial justice, especially after the May 25th 2020 brutal murder of George Floyd.

So just two and a half years later here we are and we want to go internal rather than being transparent. Interestingly, I googled this company and I found the exact template that is being presented to the board at classer.ca.gov. It is the exact same template. I think in the spirit of your commitment to racial justice Anything with internal is disingenuous.

It is not in sync with your commitment to racial justice, transparency, community equity and fairness. Penal Code 745 is about disparate treatment and to request an internal Our database implies that our district attorney and other district attorneys throughout California are going back to the playbook. We, the public deserves to know if race ethnicity and or national origin is the basis for conviction and or higher sentence An external database informs the public and is accessible. And we have no problem with an external database, we definitely have a problem with an internal database.

Penal Code 745 is about justice, something that we continue to wait on. Thank you.

Thank you. Our last speaker Pam Flint Tambo

Good morning, and thank you. Today I'm speaking for myself because there's not been a sufficient time to get approvals from the CLU Santa Barbara and the League of Women Voters Santa Barbara boards that we sometimes represent Seven of our collaborative work group met this morning and discussed our concerns with the DA's request for funding the Sekiro data analytics data dashboard. So I was really pleased to hear the comments that you made this morning, so I've scratched half of what I was going to say to you and say thank you. I think we need to take some time.

We've been working with a paid consultant to have our public safety departments better collaborate with each other for more than a year now. So this proposal seemed to be a move away from that process and back to those silos that we've talked about having in the past. We believe that it's important that data be shared with all public safety departments and the public And this is a national trend, so it's not something real unique in Santa Barbara. We're trying to keep up with the Joneses I guess around the country.

We believe right now that supporting this particular dashboard is a move in the wrong direction backwards not forwards. So we're pleased that you're planning to delay this request and perhaps wait until the consultant and all the public safety departments Have had the opportunity to review how this data dashboard will complement the other departments dashboards and provide a better information system for our community. And improve the criminal justice system we have in Santa Barbara County, so thank you.

Thank you.

Chair Hartman and members of the board, we have no further requests to speak supervisor Williams.

I just move that we table this for another date and look forward to the adjustments that the DA would do to this item, especially those in regards to its integration with our dashboard system as a whole for the county and transparency to the public.

So CEO Miyasato, we'll withdraw this. We don't have another date. Is that correct?

We can confer with the department to see what the date whether we can make next week or if there has to be changes to the contract and we can come back then not until January. But just I want to just on behalf of the district attorney's office and DA elect Sobernack, I don't think the intention was not to share the data. I think we worked for the department last night And additional language that we intend to add would be with completion of the analytics and dashboard, the DA's office will work collaboratively with other criminal justice partners on implementing an external facing integrated So I think that was always the intent, the first step was cleaning up their data. As far as to racial justice issues, I think Chief Deputy Magna Colla is on the line today or you can wait for Attorney-Elect, DA-Elect, sorry, Savarnak who could probably be at a future meeting unfortunately couldn't

I don't think we need anything more but my question really goes to a motion to withdraw or a motion to continue It's a motion to withdraw. Okay, and so I

think Motion to withdraw but I'd I think you know, I'm glad we're moving faster these days as an institution But I think this take will take more than a week So I you know that that I do would not view it as a positive thing to see this on the agenda next week

All right, so we have a motion may have a second Second. All in favor of withdrawing this motion to reconsider at a future date, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimously. A-9 Madam Clerk.

Chair Hartman and members of the board, Administrative Item 9 is from the Planning and Development Department. It is to consider recommendations regarding the GSR LLC new agricultural preserve contract Santa Maria Area 4th District. Supervisor Nielsen.

Yes, thank you Chair Hartman. I just pull this item and I'm actually asking for it to be continued to next week This is an act reserved contract in my district. It's The ownership is a successor to the Greco company and they're gonna be just decommissioning Some oil operations on the property. I want to understand that a little bit better before I move forward with The contract, I want to see how that potentially might impact the agriculture operations on that parcel.

And I know that often we're trying to get these Williamson Act contracts finished by the end of the year so I think just another week wouldn't hurt and I've talked to County Council and I think that's acceptable if I understand correctly.

Madam Chair, Supervisor Nielsen. Yes, that's correct

Okay,

so I think what we just need at this point then is We're going to pull a 25 I gather we still have we do we have to read that into the record or can? We just we're going to continue A9 and a25. I think we can just include that in the motion for the balance of the agenda So the motion would be then to continue A9 to December 13th and A24, A25 to January 24.

That's going to be my motion to approve the balance of the agenda with those continuations.

All right. May I have a second? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes unanimously. That brings us to item A24. Madam Clerk, would you read that into the record please?

Chair Hartman and members of the board, Administrative Item 24 is sponsored by Supervisor Hartman. It is to adopt a resolution of commendation honoring Deputy Chief Probation Officer Kimberly Sheen for over 10 years of dedicated service to the County of Santa Barbara and over 25 years of service to the justice system. Joining us here in person we have Kimberly Sheen and her family. If you will join us at the podium I will now read the resolution into the record Whereas Kimberly Sheen was born in Athens, Greece growing up in a variety of countries overseas and ultimately moving to California during her high school years. She attended California Lutheran University receiving a Bachelor's of Science degree in Administration of Justice. Deputy Chief Sheen went on to graduate with her Juris Doctor from Santa Barbara and Ventura College of Law and is a member of the State Bar.

And whereas she began her career in the field of probation with this Ventura County Probation Agency, serving in a variety of assignments during her 25 years. She played a key role in launching a recovery classroom program assisting youth to remain in their home and community While getting the treatment they needed. She joined the Santa Barbara County Probation Department in 2012 as a probation manager with oversight of the Santa Barbara Adult Division and in 2017 was promoted to Acting Deputy Chief Probation Officer, and in 2018 to Deputy Chief Probation Officer.

serving in the adult, juvenile and ultimately in the Juvenile Facilities Division. And whereas during her 35 years of service Deputy Chief Sheen worked to strengthen justice partner collaboration expanded housing and employment options for justice involved individuals launched the department's pre-trial assessment and supervision programs and expanded treatment opportunities for youth in custody Her goal of elevating community, family and justice-involved voices continued throughout her career.

And whereas Deputy Chief Sheen volunteered her time over a decade to Santa Clara Legal Aid and is looking forward to returning to this pro bono work in her retirement. She plans to teach at local community colleges, helping to share her experience and knowledge with those interested in the field of probation and community corrections. And whereas Deputy Chief Sheen is looking forward to spending more time with her wife Erin, son Leo, and going on road trips to visit daughter Cameron in the Bay Area. She is excited to assist in transitioning a new deputy chief into the department while continuing her work towards the implementation of a new commitment program to the Juvenile Justice Center.

Now, therefore be it ordered and resolved that this Board of Supervisors recognizes Kimberly Sheen for over 35 years of dedicated service to the field of probation with the final 10 years to the citizens of Santa Barbara County and the Santa Barbara County Probation Department. And extend her best wishes for a fulfilling enjoyable and rewarding retirement passed and adopted today.

Chief Heitman.

Chair Hartman and supervisors. A little over 10 years ago as a Deputy Chief Probation Officer, I sat on an interview panel for probation manager and had the pleasure of interviewing Kim Sheehan. Kim was from Ventura County Probation Agency at the time and was looking for an opportunity to grow and develop her potential. And I was looking for a manager who could see criminal justice reform as an opportunity.

Brendan Bouchard once said, remember when you knock on the door of opportunity it is work who answers. I think I can safely say that was very true in Kim's case. Kim joined our team and from the start every opportunity was accompanied by a crazy amount of work. But Kim rose to the occasion and shared her passion and spirit of innovation with those she worked with.

Most notably, she saw the opportunity that Zero Bail presented during the early days of the pandemic and worked closely with the court and the other criminal justice stakeholders to utilize a newly implemented pretrial assessment and supervision program to assist the court during a challenging time while improving our local public safety outcomes. She also recognized the potential that leveraging housing options had for our clients. and partnered with HCD and other partners to expand and enhance housing opportunities that have made an incredible difference in the lives of so many.

She has proven herself to be fiercely loyal, dedicated, committed, and resourceful as well as calm in a storm. I think everyone would agree that the probation department in recent years has not been a place of calm and quiet and instead often involved stormy conditions We've worked through so, so many reform-driven changes to the law program modifications and funding streams and new initiatives. And Kim has been key to many of them.

She's worked long hours and capitalized on challenges ensuring that they were realized as opportunities with careful planning and creativity. And in the process she often found herself balancing our vision for implementation With the difficult realities of workload change fatigue and resource limitations. Kim understands that delicate balancing act. but she's also driven to improve and innovate.

She ensured that the department's mission to protect and serve were effectively balanced. With over 35 years of service, Kim has been an exceptional public servant who has embraced and understood that probation is all about opportunity and the balancing act between hope and accountability. I'm better for knowing Kim and having had the opportunity to work with her And yes, that opportunity sometimes involve more work on my part as well as hers.

I want to thank Kim's family, Aaron, Leo and Cameron for all the time that they shared her with us. And the many, many after hours calls that they endured. But most importantly, I want to thank him for all that she brought to our department, our community and our partnership. We would not have been able to accomplish so much with so little if it weren't for her tenacity and dedication. She is so very deserving of every opportunity that retirement can afford her.

Thank you, Chief Heitman. First I'd like to thank your board and CEO Miyasato and her staff for the leadership and support for so many challenging justice related initiatives and legislative changes over the past years. I'd also like to acknowledge and thank our Justice Partner agencies and other county departments such as HCD, the chief had mentioned we've really done some excellent Launching new programs, initiatives and I'm really grateful for so many inspiring people and partnerships here in this county.

I'd also like to acknowledge and thank the men and women of our department for their engagement and dedication and continual flexibility. We ask a lot of them we ask a lot of you And you continuously step up and pivot, adjust and conform to numerous ways of legislative changes that significantly have changed how we do our work especially over the last few years. There are truly so many awesome bright smart caring officers and support staff in this department.

And so much gratitude to Tanya, Chief Heitman. Thank you for the opportunities I've learned so much from you this past decade and your mentorship and your friendship means so much. Thank you. My family, my parents who modeled work ethic and their amazing careers in public service My children Cameron and Leo for their love and understanding when I was running late or falling short.

And their patience in listening to the many many life lessons and cautionary tales I shared along the way. To my wife Erin for being my biggest champion and my softest critic. Thank you. This has been an amazing, fulfilling career. It's given so much to me. I've learned a great deal about people, about myself and also about privilege and access and gratitude and gratefulness. It's been an honor. Thank you.

One thing I've learned is that probation is a very tight knit family and I see some long faces out there. They're going to miss you, we all are. Supervisor Williams your light is on?

Yes, I just wanted to thank you not only for your years of service but the fact that you don't want to leave us behind. If you're going to move on to interest young people into a career in public safety it sounds to me like you want to stay part of the county and probation families and why I want to thank you so much for that.

All right. Turning to the next item on today's agenda, general public comment. Madam Clerk, do we have anyone who submitted a form to comment on items not on today's agenda but within our jurisdiction?

Chair Hartman and members of the board, we have no request to speak for general public comment.

All right, turning to departmental item number one. Would you read that

into the record please? Chair Hartman and members of the board, departmental item number one is from the Community Services Department. It is a hearing to consider recommendations regarding proposed county-wide fee adjustments for Santa Barbara County Parks and Services.

And Director Chaption? Sure. So we've read departmental item number one on county fee adjustments into the record and we're ready for Mr. Bailey going to introduce the team, Director Chapshin behind you.

Thank you Supervisor, members of the board. Yes my director George Japson is right behind me. Today he'll be hearing a presentation on our 2022 annual fee adjustment before we get started I want to thank Sherman Hansen and his team, Lynn Semenza, Susan Isbell, Vanessa Solis and Sharon Zertuchi for the good work on this. I also have Park Superintendent Jeffrey Lindgren up here and I will hand it over to Sherman Hanson who's got nearly 30 years of Parks He has over 30 years of parks operational and administration experience. So Sherman, you're up.

Thank you, Ryder. Good morning Chair Hartman and members of the Board. As Ryder said we are here today to discuss community services parks division recommendation for fee modifications. Today we're asking that your board adopt a resolution adjusting county park fees for special events, day use park facilities, aquatic programs and camping fees. And also the establishment of some new fees which is our resolution and also determine if the resolution is exempt from CEQA per the statutes listed above.

We were last before your board in December of 2019 to update park fees and as we know things changed in March of 2020 with the pandemic shutdown which closed both our campgrounds in April and May of 2020, which is the main source of parks revenues. However, upon reopening we've seen record number of visitors for these last two and a half years. And as Ryder mentioned I started with the parks in 1990 and I've never seen the parks this busy so what that tells us is that we were able to capture new customers and hold on to them.

What we've seen is while Halama always remains strong, Kachuma Tent and RV sites off season occupancy levels have increased between 10%-30%. And the cabins have also seen an increase of 20 to 40% at Kachuma. Despite the fact we've not adjusted our fees for the past three years, we do benchmark fees annually. This is the first time in three years that we've actually seen other benchmarking agencies start to adjust their fees.

Some of our other agencies we benchmark against are the County of Ventura, the County of San Luis Obispo, California State Parks, the City of Santa Barbara and as well as some of the private parks in our areas. Out of the approximate 200 fees that we have, staff is recommending we update 73 of them which means relieving about 127 unchanged. We're recommending to increase 64 fees which is primarily in our camping parks. The establishment of two new fees for our North County athletic field usage and also the elimination of seven fees.

Parks fees help to offset the operational cost of our county parks and facilities. Parks Division generates approximately 46% of its operating fees from charges for service. As you can see from the chart up there, it's about $8 million. Of that 8 million, approximately 7 million is camping fees and then an additional 1 million from our day use group areas and special events.

The charges also show we receive $1.7 million in concession revenues, which makes up about 10% of our budget and is mostly driven by our restaurant concessions, Hooked Cafe at Kachuma Lake, the Halama Beach Store, the Boathouse Restaurant in Roroboro, and we're hoping to soon be open Elwood at Goleta Beach. Our general fund contribution is approximately 23 percent or 3.9 million So if you look at it this way for every 1 million in general fund revenue received Park generates more than $2 and I'm sorry every one dollar general fund revenue parks generates more than two dollars in charges for service or concession fees Parks also receives an additional $2.5 million in earmarked maintenance funding, which I'd like to thank the board for as someone who spent many years out in the field.

When I first started we'd actually use nails so now it's nice to be able to actually do some very large maintenance projects. So we appreciate that funding. As noted in a previous slide, we are recommending updating approximately 70 fees. These next few slides will highlight some of these recommended changes. Staff would also like to point out that we are not recommending any changes to our day-use large group areas as these facilities are used mostly by local residents as an economical way to enjoy our parks.

In this slide, we note fees to our sports fields for Waller and Orchard Community Park. Staff is now recommending a tiered fee schedule for field usage as there's more demand due to traveling teams and just the growth in North County. The new policy gives preference to the local youth and sports groups. And allows us to take into consideration field usage as we know 8 or 9 year olds practicing soccer for an hour do not have the same impact as an adult game on a Sunday afternoon.

Staff, we also would like to recommend establishing tournament fees and then security posits for groups just to make sure that they have a little stake in the game for using the fields. We do not anticipate any significant revenue increase. This is more of a policy change for us. We now have a written use policy and we also do not anticipate any increased cost to our local youth sports.

The slide also notes a decrease in our junior card fees. Due to the program being shortened from a three-week program to two-week program, this better aligns with what other County Junior Guard programs are on the South Coast. Our staff has noticed over the last few years that even though the participants sign up for three weeks, most of them do not attend all three weeks of the session due to family obligations. This will also allow us to our junior guards usually are more or junior guard instructors usually more experienced guards. This will give them an opportunity to get the newer guards on and get them trained for the beaches in the pools before they jump into the junior guard program.

This slide shows recommended changes to Cochuma Lake Recreation Area. Staff is recommending to increase camping fees on 10-15% on average With exceptions, the extra vehicle overnight fee going from $10 to $15. Staff is also recommending the elimination of the pet entry fee as benchmarking showing that many campgrounds are moving away from a pet fee. Staff is also recommending reservation fees be increased from $8 to $10 as this better aligns with benchmarking research and also helps offset the cost of our online reservation system and credit card processing fees.

Staff is estimating these fees will increase revenues by approximately $470,000. This next slide continues to show recommended changes to Kachuma fees. Staff is recommending to eliminate the off-season rate for cabins, as the last two years demand for cabins at Kachuma remained strong in the off season and currently occupancy rates in the off season are similar to those of Halama which does not have an off-season rate.

Staff has also recommended increase the group camping fees by a minor amount. These fees have not been raised since 2015. Finally, staff is recommending to eliminate the daily and yearly RV storage fees and increase the monthly fee to $90. Benchmarking research shows average monthly fee between 90 and a hundred dollars. And for the past two years has actually been a waiting list so we have not been able to even use the daily fee. Benchmarking also shows no other facility offers a yearly discount and our online payment software actually does not support a yearly discounted fee. So it turns in from a online process to a manual process because staff has to go in and override to enter the yearly fee.

We estimate these changes will increase revenues by about $46,000 per year. This next slide shows staff is recommending updates to Halama Beach fees not pictured in this slide but similar to Kachuma staff is recommending the extra vehicle overnight fee go from 10 to 15 dollars and also the elimination of the pet day use As with Kachuma, the staff is recommending the single-family campsite fees be increased by 10 to 15 percent and cabin fees be increased by 5 percent.

As with Kachuma, the group camping fees have not been updated since 2015 so we are recommending an increase of abalone point fee to $300 given its close proximity to the water and starfish code be increased to 275 per night. We estimate that updates in these fees will produce approximately $150,000 in revenues. Our final slide about fee changes, staff is recommending to increase the courthouse garden wedding fees from $900 to $1,000 per wedding and the mirror room fee from $400 to $500.

Even with these two increases, these two wedding venues are still among the least expensive in the county. I'd also like to give a shout out to our special events team. The wedding venues at the courthouse have been named the top wedding venue for two years in a row in Santa Barbara. During this shutdown, we went from zero revenues to now we're back up to 300-400 weddings per year and about $300,000 in revenue and the special events last fiscal year 21-22 brought in almost $550,000 from zero the year before so big shout out to our special events Staff is also recommending we increase the Lompoc Veterans venue fees from 400 to 600 for the auditorium and 200 through here for the bank room. These fees now mirror the other two similar facilities in the Lompoc Valley.

As noted earlier, the Parks Division still needs general fund dollars to maintain current levels of operation. While staff estimates the proposed fee adjustment will generate an additional $700,000 per year it will still not meet the county's full cost recovery policy as a department has determined that to set fees at full cost recovery would be cost prohibitive to the public.

We did present this to the Park Commission on October 27th, and they unanimously recommended that the Board of Supervisors approve the fee adjustments. If approved today, the new fees will take effect January 4th, 2023. Thank you for your time, and Ryder and I or Jeff are available to answer any questions you might have.

Supervisor Nelson?

Yes, thank you Chair Harmon. First I just wanted to acknowledge that it seems like the maintenance You know some people are always concerned about that, but it really has been an investment because we've seen our facilities used at a greater rate which is bringing in additional income. So I just want to kind of get a pitch out there for maintenance because you know in the past some of our facilities were pretty dilapidated and so people wouldn't necessarily want to travel And so even though it's not sexy, maintenance can have a return on investment and we're seeing there in our parks department. So I wanted to just really acknowledge that and the leadership of the Parks Department and the board to continue to invest in our deferred maintenance backlog especially within our parks because it impacts so many of our neighbors and our communities as well as our visitors.

I wanted to reiterate or make sure I heard it right these proposed changes will not impact the fees that are currently charged for youth sports programs

Yes, that is correct. Basically what we have done now is we have a written policy on field usage but we're not planning on increasing the fees we charge our local sports groups that use those fields.

Thank you. And the reason why I'm asking that is in part because I don't think cost recovery should be the goal of parks, right? We're trying to bring up, you know, everybody pays their taxes. Those should go towards quality-of-life investments like parks and so I don't think that should necessarily be the goal of parks is for cost recovery. You know we obviously need to cover costs and address those needs The cost recovery I don't think should be the same kind of goal it is in other parts and other services that we offer, especially since parks are often something that's available to those who don't have a lot. I used to be a teacher in Lompoc and when I always ask on the first day of school where everybody went for the summer? I was always shocked that most of the kids in the Lompoc Valley that I taught never left Santa Barbara County.