Board of Supervisors — 2024-07-16

Too many.

Good morning, everybody. It's Laura Capps and I would like to call to order the July 16th 2024 meeting of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors. Our chair, Lavinino is not here today as well as board member Nelson. Madam Clerk please call the roll.

today and Vice-Chair Caps will be our acting chair today.

Thank you.

Move approval.

Second.

All those in favor say aye. Aye motion carries okay our CEO could you please provide a report thank you.

Supervisors this morning I don't have a report we would like to give an update on the lake fire but that can be done as part of your administrative agenda item 832

Excellent. And Madam Clerk, are there any announcements or changes to the agenda? I believe there are some.

Vice Chair Caps and members of the board, I do have a few announcements this morning. We posted an addendum to today's agenda on Friday July 12th adding administrative item number 32 to the agenda. Administrative Item Number 32 is from the County Executive Office. It is to consider recommendations regarding the ratification of a proclamation of local emergency caused by the Lake Fire.

This addendum has been posted online and made available to the board and the public. Additionally, we received a request from the department to withdraw departmental item number one from the agenda. Departmental item number one is from the planning and development department. It is a hearing to consider recommendations regarding the Babbitt appeal of the Planning Commission approval of the Skybird residential alterations case numbers 24 APL 8 of 21 LUP 292 and 22 BAR 187, this is in the first district. Please be advised the appellant formally withdrew their appeal on July 2nd 2024. Copy of that withdrawal letter is included with this items associated documents online.

And it's also available for inspection in the Office of the Clerk of the Board. I would like to note for the board that we have no request to speak on this item, so the board may take action on this withdrawal of departmental item number one before proceeding to the administrative agenda if they so choose or they can wait till we get to departmental item number one.

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

Thank you so

Madam Chair I'd like to pull 824. Excellent And it doesn't require a separate vote. I just wanted to say something and then the other items that and then Madam Chair, we have a number of items on our agenda today that require a four fifths vote and we only have three people here so I would move that items A4, A11, A12, A19 and A25 be continued to our next meeting

I'll second that.

OK,

all in favor of that motion and vice chair cast members of the board that is being continued to Tuesday August 20th

any the next meeting? So whether we have a special meeting or not.

OK so we have a motion to carry it to the next meeting. All those in favor. Hi. And then I would go ahead.

Oh Madam Chair. I would also as we're cleaning up our agenda then move that we withdraw item D1

Excellent. Is that a motion? A second?

Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Okay, so

engaged, but they'll probably have a new team come because it's been the time out after a certain amount of time. So then the north zone will probably have another federal team come in. But the bottom state side which is where the people are is looking really good. We do anticipate that there's going to be a few weeks of suppression repair in that area from all the bulldozers and hand lines.

And that's pretty much it for me, I'm going to turn it over to Kelly for a little bit more about evacs and stuff.

Good morning Chair and Supervisors. I just wanted to first, and I see Supervisor Williams looking closer so what we've tried to do yesterday on the evacuation is pull essentially on the southwest side the evacuation as far as close as we could thank you. Just doesn't want to move with me. Moves really, you know what? Can I walk over there and they can hear me OK? OK.

So easier so we try to pull the evacuation orders as close as we could to the fire perimeter where it was safe to do so. And thank you to the community for their patience in us trying to describe these areas that are in a wilderness that has no roads. Raquel Zeke from Sheriff actually helped us With Google to get go mountain on Google Maps to help the community figure out what we were trying to describe. So, Thank you and then we tried to cut as much as we could out and make it safe. We had to maintain some roads up here in the order but we're trying to make as much as we possibly can that is safe to do so open to the community and to the private businesses these areas will continue for potentially a little bit, we're going to continue evaluate but I just want to make sure It's easiest if the community goes to the map to really see what is open or not open.

We're trying to describe these areas as best as we can with verbiage and we appreciate everyone's patience, but we're trying to bring it up as close as we can that's safe to do so and will continue to do throughout this week Additionally, I just wanted to point out we did step down the county call center as of last night. We weren't getting as many calls. Residents can still call 211 if they have questions or concerns and if we see a big uptick, 211 calls us back and says hey we're still getting a lot of calls and we'll open ourselves back up in the call center but we weren't getting a lot of calls but we want to make sure the community is still getting the information they need Additionally, we added two damage report forms on ReadySBC.

One is actually a link to the Agricultural Commissioner's Office where they are collecting information with the USDA and FSA, Farm Services Agency, and that's to help us get any federal grants and loans that we can from the USDA for our agricultural partners. That would include our vintners, our growers, our cattlemen, any of those partners that might have been impacted We're collecting that information.

And so we need to collect that information. Neither of these forms are guarantees that will get funding available or grants or loans, but we need to collect that information to make the justification and so encouraging our community members to fill those out to get Lastly, and this is a little bit of a plug for Sarah and her team on our animal services. Please remember as we open up these areas to pick up your pets that might have been dropped off with our local shelters as well as our horses and our cattle and all of the other emus and whatever else we evacuated. We evacuated some interesting pets this time or brought them food so if you evacuated them out please remember to pick them up as soon as possible, to bring them back home once we open up those areas.

And that is all I have unless there's additional questions. Thank

you. Supervisor Harmon?

I just had a question when we talk about containment can you elaborate more what that means

Absolutely. Yeah, so when you see the map of the fire it's got a very rugged not linear line around it and usually it's in black or red. The red usually indicates open line so it doesn't necessarily mean that it's active like burning fire but they don't have secondary line around it yet. So either a hose line, a bulldozer a hand crew so they still keep it red on the map. Black usually indicates that it's good.

They obviously still have crews in there to monitor it as wind and RHs change and stuff, that can change and you could get significant changes because of that. But usually they don't change the line to black until they're pretty confident in that number. So although we're saying it's 38% contained, most likely it's a lot more than that but to be safe and to be confident in the number they don't change it to black line which means it's cold until there's you know couple days that it's wind tested and stuff like that.

I just want to add to that, apologies because our evacuation map does not show the operational red or black lines that the fire department utilizes on their mapping. So please understand this looks like all black line on the fire perimeter. That's simply the fire perimeter. It is not the containment red-black lines that Garrett is referring to. Those can be found on Cal Fire or the federal NC web website.

Thank you. And then as far as this fire, we're demobilizing. We think we're in good shape but we're still cautious that the winds could kick up something could happen?

They're anticipating the weather that we have today is going to carry through till probably about Friday Friday we're going to see some increase in temperatures and lowering of RHs, so relative humidity. So they're on the south side they're trying to get as much work done between now and then as they can and taking the weather as an opportunity to get in there and really get it out. So

it's not as hot not as windy even up there?

Correct. It still At the higher elevations, the RH is not recovering like the lower elevations at night. So if the moisture goes up quite a bit at night with this regular weather pattern that we have in the north in the higher elevations of the fire it's not recovering as well at night so although it's not actively running It's still a little more vulnerable. Again, the southern side of the fire is managed by a different team right now. So what they're doing is they're making sure their side of the fire is out and they're augmenting the north with their needs.

Again it's a federal team so there's a little bit different mission that the state and the federal government has but it's more It's a lot more strenuous work in the north side where they're having to put crews in to some very remote and steep, steep places. And it's still pretty warm and dry back in the backcountry.

And would you just summarize how many acres and how many people were working on this? Yeah. And I'd also like to know from animal services how many How many animals were evacuated? I get a lot of in my office questions about that. So would like to clarify for next time, you know what it is that people need to do because there was some confusion initially. I realize we haven't had a big fire for a couple of years and so all of us were a little rusty on exactly what the terminology meant.

And so So anyway, we have to continue to reeducate all the time on this issue.

That's right. Well I can give you the acreage as of today so it was 38,653 acres that's far as like as far as I've seen it's the largest fire in the state And then I can give you the resources that are assigned today. And like I said, they're starting to demobilize so the numbers have probably come down a little bit but we're still kind of at the height. So as far as fire engines there's 220 engines 43 water tenders 12 helicopters 59 bulldozers 106 hand crews and it's about 3267 personnel Total so and that's between the north and the south zones combined.

And one reason I mean that's a huge investment of people, of equipment, of funds. And you know over 90% of fires are human caused and so we don't know that the cause of this one but if it's within that 90%, it's probably human caused and I've tracked some of the other causes of fires That we've experienced. Sometimes it's dragging chains, people have a trailer they don't look at how the load affects that the chain drags throw sparks and we get fires.

I've been evacuated once for one of those shooting that can spark a fire welding that was the sack of fire And I have come to the conclusion that we need to do more to educate people. I know at the beginning of fire season, we hold press conferences. We sometimes have expos, but I would very much like to see the PIO of the county and the fire department get together and think about what we can do up front with fire season to get a public relations campaign going about, with slogans and just in people's minds.

And I don't know you know if people are found responsible are they liable?

Yeah, so usually when it's a state or federal fire they do go after cost recovery. And so I don't know and every fire is different and unique in everybody's circumstances with financially is different but I do know that the state and the federal government both try to go after as much as they can for reimbursement from the person.

Yeah, and if there's private damages are they liable? for private lawsuits as well?

I'm not sure on that one, sorry.

Anyway, I think we need to drive home more responsibility and less negligence. We are in a different era now and the consequences are just huge and there were firefighters injured in this and it all comes down to human negligence There's no reason for this. So I want to do more to educate and I hope you'll come back with the PIOs working together and figuring out what more we can do so that everybody understands their personal responsibility to prevent these wildfires.

Absolutely,

thank you. And Sarah?

Hello, good afternoon. Is it afternoon yet? Feels like it

but

yeah so Animal Services this was for me the first experience in North County and the way that it operates is slightly different so there was some learning curve one of the most amazing things was we initially launched mutual aid So that people could connect with their neighbors and resources near them. And there was over 120 responses to that, and the offers of assistance outweighed the request for assistance easily three to one.

Speaking to the community, the resilience, the teamwork, the effort and care that our community demonstrates for each other. For their work, their livelihoods as well as for their families and pets. We were able to delay using The Elks Rodeo Grounds for several days When that was open, we ended up housing just 16 horses there and were able to facilitate connections between community members for a lot of the support that was needed. And we also worked very closely with the agricultural department and Mel there and coordinating Large animal, large volume of large animal evacuations in the sense that we had ranchers with 100 and 200 heads of cattle that needed to be moved. And the Cattlemen's Association and the Agricultural Department worked amazingly well in coordinating all of those things.

There was, I think the big story at the EOC was a couple of ostriches that everybody knew about the ostrich is they are fine. We were able to access them, make sure they were fed. One of the fire departments out of LA actually assisted in keeping them fed as well because they were stationed right there. We had 15 dogs and cats come in that were evacuated primarily into the Lompoc Shelter. Many actually came in through Santa Ynez Valley Humane initially since that was the closest to them so we worked making sure that they were housed and resourced as well.

And I think a big point is with your small animals you can go to some point and drop them off in the emergency. With your large animals, you wanted us to be sure to call animal services because you had this network and so we had to go through you and not just try to drop off horses.

Yeah, and one of the things that works differently is with Earl Warren. We have a partner that has the MOU with them and so we can just open that we can activate that partner. And with Earl Warren out of commission well unavailable for this event and the San Maria Fairgrounds unavailable for this event, we had to use a little bit different tactic and wanted to make sure that our resources were put where they were needed the most during the different phases of the event

Well, it sounds like you really had to scramble to find all these private partners and make the links. And I think you did a terrific job and again wanted to emphasize your recognition of the community for stepping up and the people who help also with evacuations. It's really when that happens to you and it's really frightening. And so when people step up, it kind of calms everybody down and makes a huge difference.

Thank you.

Yeah, Director Hubbard. Thank you Chair and Supervisors. Just two other things that I want to point out that CEO Miyasato reminded me of. We have made a request for WERT and BEHR so Watershed Emergency Response Team and BEHR Burnt Area Emergency Response. These are the teams from the federal state government that come in and evaluate the watershed and impacts to the watershed, potentials for impacts to values at risk which could be our lakes, our rivers, our streams but also private property and they help us evaluate what those risks might be as we move forward and get into the next rainy season or whatever it might be. So they come in and help us with those evaluations. We made that request. They don't come in until fire is out. So I'm going to go ahead and open it up for questions.

We're going to start with a couple of things. First, we want to make sure that we have all the information that we need. Typically so it's gonna be awhile before we hear back but the request is pending and it's been pushed up to the state. So I just wanted to recognize that will be going through that Additionally, I failed to point out my own website in registration. So ready? SBC just encouraging residents who maybe haven't registered yet

Thank you Supervisor Williams.

Yeah I just wanted to understand if you can characterize at all the, you know when you have a map of a fire there are areas that burn entirely and there are areas that burn partially and that can make a big difference in terms of I want to ask you about the ongoing risk in the next rainy season for sliding and flooding. So can you characterize at all how much has experienced sort of a total burn versus a partial burn, and whether there's been any assessment? And since I didn't give

Yeah, unfortunately I don't know the answer. I know that from the reports I got this morning on the north side of the fire when the weather changed and it wasn't in alignment it got real dirty so the fire when it was in alignment the first couple days it burns pretty clean. It burns everything As things change in the topography and the weather change, it doesn't have the opportunity to burn as clean. So I don't know exactly where that is on the map. I know that there's a bunch of islands we call islands in the middle that didn't burn.

But I do know that in the northern area of the fire, there's quite a bit of dirty burn or not clean burn. So all that, I'm sure... And

in this case, dirty is good, right?

In that it's not a total burn. I wouldn't say either is good. Burn is burn. What I mean by dirty is it's not like there's a lot of stuff. It requires a lot more mop up. It requires a lot of crews to get in there and really scratch out the things that are not burned, where as when it burns clean, there's not a lot stuff to kind of go back and readdress. But it really depends on topography So I don't know, I haven't seen a map that actually shows how the fire did but I'm sure those products are out there.

And the BEAR and WERT report would help give us that direction on how severe the burn was in various areas if it was more severe in certain areas what is the associated higher risk when we start having rains? That's what those reports will help us identify.

And especially since the chief is here, I just want to thank everyone that is responding to this emergency. You know my constituents have faced you know a lot of fires and floods so they're particularly Thank you so much for being here. I'm very aware of your work and really thankful even though it's well north of their residents or somewhat southwest if you're we're talking about Michael Yaman's but that doesn't stop them from

Thank you. I just wanted to also express that gratitude, just driving up here seeing all the Cal Fire. I don't know it must have been like 16-17 trucks but all of the massive effort that's gone into this and Director Hubbard, thank you for acknowledging the need to sign up for ReadySBC.org and last we checked just 14% of our residents had signed up mostly predominantly in South So I think this is a good opportunity to make a plug to increase that participation in the most basic way that we can all get prepared.

Yeah and we'll do an update. Typically, unfortunately disasters tend to increase registration so we'll check in and see how that's gone but the more we can promote it the better.

ReadySBC.org Thank you.

And if I could just finally say I want to thank not only the firefighters and our staff Cal Fire and The Forest but there is a whole team of people behind them I'm going to take a moment and thank public works. Kristen himself was at the EOC with Walter, so thank you. Animal services, Sarah herself and her staff. Public health had a lot of folks including our Our JIC manager went into general services on logistics, Skip and his folks. The assessor staff on GIS, the sheriff, and we also had members of the City of Santa Barbara and the City of Goleta participate and help us out. It was difficult to get people in it was a holiday week weekend so thank you and obviously to...

Oh and thank you and DSS also as far as our Red Cross partners and folks who came into the call center and thank you to Kelly and her staff. So thank you very much

Excellent, thank you. Okay, Madam Clerk I believe.

I'm just going to add one more because they had 65% of their staff there which was the first five. They're not that many staff only seven but four out of the seven were there. We had

many various departments come in planning and development first five all the departments who have GIS helped us at some point so there was quite a few more it's hard to keep track of all them but we'll make sure to get a list over to provide our thanks to them

Yeah, so I apologize for those I didn't mention. Sorry, Wendy.

Excellent. All right. Thank you for that update. Madam Clerk, I believe now it's time for general public comment given the large number we will be limiting the time to two minutes and at this moment also be closing public comment for those who previously signed up. You're in but it's closed for any additional. So two minutes each please

Vice Chair Capps and members of the board, we have 17 requests to speak on general public comment. We are going to begin on Zoom with Lillian Whelan to be followed by Harper Hall-Border. Lillian?

Hello, good morning members of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors. I'm Lily Whelan representing Gen Z's for Bees a group of local young beekeepers from across Santa Barbara County. We would like

Lillian your audio just went out. We did hear you but your audio just cut out. Is this better? Oh there you are, yes.

We would like to express our concerns about the current beekeeping ordinance and propose necessary revisions that would better support beekeepers and promote environmental sustainability in our county. We believe that the existing restrictions are disproportionately stringent, and do not fully consider the positive impact that beekeeping can have on our local environment and agriculture.

Currently, the ordinance states that hives must be at least 600 feet away from the nearest residence which unfairly impacts urban farmers and beekeepers. However, the Santa Barbara City Ordinance allows apiaries to exist 30 feet away from the nearest residence. Additionally, Ventura County recently updated their Beekeeping Ordinance to allow hives 10-50 feet from neighboring properties depending on the size of the property and presence of flyaway barriers, and 100 feet away from residential properties.

The City of Los Angeles allows hives only five feet from lot lines and 20 feet from streets, and in San Diego County the hives only have to be 35 feet from dwellings. These laws in other areas of California highlight the strong restrictiveness of Santa Barbara County's rule that bees must be kept 600 feet away from nearing residences. After getting input from the Santa Barbara Permaculture Network Santa Barbara Agriculture and Farm Education Foundation, and the Santa Barbara Beekeepers Association. We feel that it makes the most sense to decrease the required distance from nearing residences and roads to be more similar to the ordinances of other California counties and cities. Thank you for considering our recommendations. We look forward to the opportunity to discuss these proposals further and contribute to the future of beekeeping in Santa Barbara County.

And we will now go to Harper Hall Porter, to be followed by Karen Hauenstein in Santa Barbara. Harper?

Harper's on a separate Zoom.

Hi. Can you hear me now?

Yes we can Harper, please proceed.

Okay good morning members of the Santa Barbara County Board of Representatives I am Harper Halbedeer, also representing Gen Z's for bees. I'm here to advocate for change in the Santa Barbara County beekeeping ordinance from a student's perspective. As students we know the incredibly positive impact that hands-on learning experience with beehives can have. Additionally hives provide an opportunity for young community members to engage and address some of the most pressing issues our world faces right now regarding the environment.

By changing the Santa Barbara County Ordinance to be the same as the Santa Barbara City Ordinance, we believe that we can better support the efforts of existing beekeepers and also inspire a new generation of environmentally conscious individuals to participate in this important practice. We are committed to working collaboratively with the board to address any concerns and ensure that the revised ordinance reflects a balanced approach to beekeeping. Thank you for considering.

We will now go to Santa Barbara with Karen Hauenstein, then we will return to Santa Maria with Leanne Wolever. Karen? Hold on just a moment. There we go. Please proceed.

Okay. Good morning, members of the board. Thank you very much. I want to echo the concerns of the beekeepers, the young beekeepers that have already spoken today. We do need a more representative beekeeping ordinance. Please make sure that it is not unfair and used as a partisan tool like the ordinance that was brought by you, Joan. You brought an ordinance where you accused me publicly of cockfighting.

You accused me of criminal acts along with people that you called Experts, you trouted experts in front of this dais and you had those people say that I was lying about the cockfighting. And that somehow I was involved in this horrendous act. We need to understand that what is said on this dais if it's not investigated thoroughly It's just people's opinions.

So you determine how you feel about what's presented here based upon that. So we've got a lot of people's opinions like we heard a lot of opinion from a man named Dennis Buzanich and I have a lot of interest in what Dennis Bozanich is doing today. I also have a lot of interest in what retired California Highway Patrol Officer Xavier Spencer is doing today, drawing his pension in his retirement.

Thank you very much.

We will now return to Santa Maria with Leanne Wolever to be followed by Sherry Foster. Leanne?

Hello board, how are you? Anyway, I also want to thank all of the fire departments, CAL FIRE and all of the services that were used to fight the Lake Fire. Thank you so much for your service. I wanted to say that my name is Leanne Wolver. I'm the chair for the state in New California. I know you know that. I know probably a lot of people out there don't know what it is.

It's a movement of the people, We The People. We are constitutionally based. Our foundation is the U.S. Constitution. So you'll probably hear more about us as we go along. But anyway, this comment and I know the person that made these comments is not here but I know since he was the chairman, he speaks for all of you. So this is concerning the June 25th Board of Supervisor meeting.

He talked over 10 minutes about his thoughts and how we were wasting our time talking about election integrity. We had 17 speakers who spoke in the morning and six speakers in the afternoon about election integrity I don't think any of them felt that they were wasting their time as the comments that were made by the chairman. We want the best for our voters in our county. Remember, you were elected by the people. You're a public servant for the people. If the people want to question your intentions about election integrity like you did with the 22 County offices about performance and financial audits with 17 of your departments we all have that right to do this.