Board of Supervisors — 2025-06-03

Good morning everybody. It's my pleasure to call to order this meeting of June 3rd, 2025 of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors. Madam Clerk please call the roll.

Abstain.

Okay so we have four ayes and one abstention CEO's report, Madam CEO.

Good morning Chair Kaps and board members this morning I am pleased to share with you another video from our county's 175th anniversary series it features videos that highlight the history of Santa Barbara County and are played on channel 20 throughout the week and are highlighted in our monthly county newsletter on CSB TV YouTube page and on our social media channels in both English and Spanish. This morning's video highlights the origin of the county of Santa Barbara how the boundary lines were created and how the name came to be So let's watch.

Welcome to Santa Barbara County, a place with immense natural beauty and rich history founded in 1850 as one of California's original counties. Join us as we acknowledge the 175th anniversary of the county of Santa Barbara. In this video, we focus on the origin of the County of Santa Barbara. How the county boundary lines were determined and how the boundary lines have changed since. Plus, the story behind the county's name.

The origin of the name of Santa Barbara County actually dates back to 1602, believe it or not. The exploratory expedition of Sebastian Vizcaíno. He was tasked by the viceroy of Mexico to explore the coast of Ulta California So Vizcaíno was traveling up the Santa Barbara Channel on December 4th, which was the feast day of St. Barbara. Hence he named this general area The Channel after St. Barbara. St. Barbara was a young woman who had lived in Asia Minor during the third century. At that time Christianity was outlawed in that area. Her father built a tower for her but when he went on a trip unbeknownst to him She had converted to Christianity. And so had a third window installed in the tower to represent the Holy Trinity. She was discovered by the local authorities and the authorities condemned her to death, and it was actually her father who executed her.

Right after the execution he was struck by lightning even though it is said that the skies were clear that day. She had been martyred for her faith. Her feast day was December 4th hence the name of the channel Santa Barbara. For most of the history of the county, I would say the population center was here in the general Santa Barbara area and there's any number of reasons for that. One, the Presidio was founded here in Santa Barbara then four years later you had the founding of Mission Santa Barbara And so the colonists would naturally be congregating in sort of this area.

California had been ceded to the United States in the aftermath of the Mexican-American War and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. As the Constitution was being worked out, the organs of civil government were also being organized. A committee was established to split California into counties and to name them. And after some changes, the original 27 counties of California were established by the legislature in February of 1850. The original Santa Barbara County also included today's Ventura County. You have to remember this was way before the automobiles So if you were living in the Ventura area and had to get up to the county seat of Santa Barbara to do county business, it was really difficult. The only two roads were the Casitas Pass Road which could be at least torturous and then you had the road along the coast which oftentimes was flooded out by either storms, high tides, rock slides etc.

It took roughly even under good conditions about six hours to get from Ventura to Santa Barbara So he had this growing agitation that maybe, you know a new county was called for. In early 1872 the assembly of the legislature passed to have a new county formed which we know today as Ventura County and it officially came into existence in January of 1873

Santa Barbara County is not unique in being divided to form new counties. In fact, over the past 175 years of California's history the number of counties has more than doubled growing from the original 27 to the current 58.

If you could once again thank our communications manager Kelsey Butita for that. That concludes my report.

That's amazing. I think we should get that out to the schools. Awesome. Okay, Madam Clerk are there any announcements or changes to the agenda please?

Chair Capsa and members of the board I do have a few announcements this morning. Administrative item number eight, there is a salary announcement for administrative item number eight. It is from the Behavioral Wellness Department regarding contractor on payroll services agreement renewals for Fred Burge MD, Mohamed Salman Alhaq MD and John Ancy Annis MD for fiscal year 2025 through 2026. Prior to the board taking action on this item government code section 54953 subdivision C3 The Brown Act requires a legislative body to orally report a summary of the recommendation for final action on the salary schedule, or compensation paid in the form of fringe benefits of a local agency executive as defined in Government Code Section 3511.1 Subdivision D during the open meeting in which the final action is taken.

And during Administrative Item No. 8, the Board has agendized to execute agreements for services of contractors on payroll Dr. Burge's total contract compensation for the period of July 1st, 2025 to June 30th, 2026 is in an amount not to exceed $154,000. And lastly, Dr. Anna's total contract compensation for the period of July 1st 2025 to June 30th 2026 is in the amount not to exceed $30,000.

And 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 two 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 2 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 Madam Clerk now we'll move to the administrative agenda any board members have pulled any items I have a couple already A19 pulled by Supervisor Nelson, A25 and A29 pulled by myself. Any others? Nope, okay. Madam Clerk any members of the public have requested to pull these items?

Chair Kaps and members of the board we have one request to speak from the public on A3.

Excellent all right so now I will entertain a motion to approve the balance of the administrative agenda except for that the items I just mentioned A3, A19, A25 and A29. So moved. Second. Okay, all those in favor please say aye. Aye. Motion carries. All right let's go to our resolutions please Madam Clerk

Chair Caps and members of the Board, Administrative Item number one is sponsored by Supervisor Caps. It is to adopt a resolution of commendation honoring Yanaris Munoz as the June 2025 Employee of the Month for Santa Barbara County and if Yanaris can please join us at the podium? And anyone else that you would like to join you now go ahead and read the resolution into the record.

Whereas Yaneiros Munoz exemplifies the county's organizational values of accountability, customer focus, equity and inclusion, innovation, trust and ethics. And whereas Yaneiros Munoz models the transformative behaviors of collaborative problem-solving alignment with the county's vision risk taking data driven decision making and strategic thinking And whereas, Yanaris joined the Behavioral Wellness Department in 2012 before being swooped up to the Office of Emergency Management in 2019 following her leadership in the Joint Information Center for multiple disasters including the Refugio Oil Spill, Thomas Fire and the 1-9 Debris Flow. During these events, Yanaris worked to ensure that emergency alerts and public information were accurate, timely and in both English and Spanish.

She worked with county partners to create the unique mass alerting generator, MAG, to support bilingual alerting moving forward. And whereas once with the Office of Emergency Management, Ineres took it upon herself to become a leading expert in emergency alert and warning practices, policies and systems, leading a transformation of the county's alerting practices with enhanced policies based on national best practices and lessons learned. Customer focused training prescripting dozens of bilingual emergency alerts and constant collaboration with private, local, state and federal partners.

And whereas Yanaris has led the development and upcoming implementation of Genesee's EVAC, the biggest change in community disaster information sharing Santa Barbara County has implemented since 2015. Project leadership included the coordination of 20 agencies to review and develop over 1400 data points. She is providing training to over 500 public safety staff to prepare for the launch of the newly developed 535 emergency zones. Now therefore, be it hereby ordered and resolved that this Board of Supervisors recognizes Ineris Munoz as the Employee of the Month for June 2025. Passed and adopted today.

Thank you so much. I am sincerely grateful and moved by this honor. A couple of folks reached out to me once they learned that I was selected for Employee of the Month, gave me a couple of tips to take my time and to Just share a little bit about me and what I value including being bestowed with this honor. It's been an amazing journey, 13 years with Santa Barbara County. I think some of you know that I started with behavioral wellness with the psychiatric health facility.

I learned a lot but what it means to serve our most vulnerable populations and the individuals that tend to be the most impacted during emergencies and translating that to the Office of Emergency Management. In this journey in serving our community, I've learned that public service is baked into my DNA. I love what I do and that's why I continue to stay committed to this work but I am shaped by the people who have supported me along the way. I actually still remember my first emergency was the refugio oil spill One of my first tasks was developing a press release and they told me to walk it over to the CEO, and I didn't know who the CEO was.

And then that's when I encountered CEO Miyasato. But to come from that point to being the administrator for the alert and warning system for Santa Barbara County And now supporting the implementation of Genesis and working with so many different agencies, stakeholders. It's been an absolute honor. Absolute honor. There are many people here as well as remotely who are watching and I want to thank them because they have shaped me into the professional I am.

have helped me understand what it means to be a public servant. And I've encountered so many folks along the way, and it's a testament that many folks from all over the county, all over the departments reached out to say thanks. It's great to see this acknowledgement. So thank you again. I also want to give a special thanks to the Office of Emergency Management team.

They're my ride or die. They've been with me through thick and thin, and I would not be here without them. Thank you.

And I know we have the director of that office, Director Kelly Hubbard on Zoom hoping to weigh in here.

Yeah,

there

we

go. Thank you chair caps I just wanted to emphasize nurses work on this project for Genesis is just 1 of many things she's done that's amazing for our county but Genesis is probably 1 of the largest changes in our. Communication path to our residents during emergencies since ever bridge, which was about 15 years ago. So it's a pretty big change in how we provide information to our community hopefully and massive improvement and I think what the biggest consideration in this is she got every single public safety agency in our county to work together on this including our state and federal partners who have joined in.

And I just wanted to share one quote from one of our agencies who said, sent a very grateful email after her training last week and she said. She was particularly grateful that the city fire and sheriff came together for the exercise. And that while the three agencies may have started off a little rocky during the exercise, they had good relationships but we ended each session with smiles and most importantly, a renewed sense of mutual respect and teamwork. And I think that quote is just reflective of what Unaris was able to do through this project to bring our entire county closer together for future disaster response so thank you.

Congratulations. We'll move on to the next administrative item, please.

Chair Caps and members of the Board, Administrative Item Number 2 is sponsored by Supervisor Caps. It is to adopt a resolution in recognition and appreciation of Celesta M. Bileci's distinguished service to the University of California at Santa Barbara's arts and lectures in Santa Barbara County. And joining us in person today we have Celesta Bileci. I will go ahead and read the resolution.

Whereas Celeste has served with distinction as the Miller-McCune Executive Director of UC Santa Barbara's Arts and Lectures for 25 seasons, leading with extraordinary vision, commitment and passion that has profoundly enriched our community. And whereas throughout Mrs. Bileci's tenure, Arts and Lectures has grown into a dynamic and internationally acclaimed cultural powerhouse bringing global performances and programs to the Santa Barbara community. And whereas she has transformed the cultural landscape through her tireless efforts to present world-class artists, leaders and innovators to our community. And put Santa Barbara on the map as a vital hub for the performing arts and public dialogue. And whereas Mrs. Bileci's deep belief in the power of arts and thought provoking conversations has earned her the admiration and respect of colleagues, artists, patrons and residents alike.

And her warm and engaging style transforms her audience into a community. And whereas as Miss Bileci steps down from her esteemed position, she leaves behind a legacy at Arts and Lectures. An organization that is thriving, resilient, inclusive and poised to continue its mission well into the future. Now therefore be it hereby ordered and resolved that this Board of Supervisors of County of Santa Barbara does hereby commend Celestia M. Bileci for her outstanding leadership and her unwavering dedication to elevating the arts and ideas within our Santa Barbara community. The board extends its sincere appreciation for her 25 years of distinguished service, passed and adopted today.

Thank you so much I was very surprised when Laura offered this again because I felt like I was just in front of you last October, getting the leadership award up in Santa Maria so I'm very touched by the county board of supervisors to receive this resolution and When I was up in Santa Maria last fall, that was before I announced I was retiring. So for me this is very special to be in front of the five of you because I announced I was retiring the week after I was there and here now I'm at the very end and within two weeks of this and I do want to say how much I love Santa Barbara County. I am not leaving. I will be here. I'll be sitting with you in the hall I do want to thank and acknowledge some people before I step back though.

There she is, Elyse right there who's our Director of Development. But also the community Santa Barbara is amazing we couldn't do what we did with Arts and Lectures if people didn't come so folks have come out all over the years and we try to do lots of different things I want to start by saying thank you to all of our donors. The access for all mantra that arts and lectures has adopted. That's really what we're about, access for all so that everybody can sit at the table to enjoy the arts and that has been really what I've been trying to push forward over the last 25 years and I'm really proud of should be endowed hopefully by the time I leave here at the end of June. And that was been something I'd really committed to over the last year.

But I wanna thank the university also for their support and what we've done for students, my husband and son who I adore John and Alexander who could not be here today. My son is on that Dos Pueblos incredible baseball varsity team that does rocking it and we play for the state tonight. So they're doing that and I really wanna thank Sarah Miller-McCune I carry the name Miller McCune, Executive Director. You all know how great Sarah has been to the County of Santa Barbara and the things that she does. She couldn't be here this morning so I just want to acknowledge that one person who's done so much for Santa Barbara. So thank you Sarah Miller-McCune and I want to thank Laura. I want to thank Laura Capps because she has been a great friend to arts and lectures and I want to thank you Laura.

Thank you so much for being a friend to me and to the program and I know that you will be there always Thank you Board of Supervisors and thank you for the support you give the program and helping us make the arts accessible to everybody in our county. Thank you.

I wanted to just add Celeste is sort of a one name person in this town, right? She just everyone knows Celeste and the 25 year you said Santa Barbara is amazing. And you're right but you have and your team have made it more amazing by the culture by the enrichment by the way in which you've strengthened the fabric of Santa Barbara. But the thing I like most about you as you'll be up there at that packed house in Arlington or wherever it might be with some incredibly famous renowned person and you're just real. You're just Who you are and it helps create this environment that we're all just having a conversation. And we're all just in it together and not this sort of famous person, an audience but you really create that bond so we're going to miss you but I know you're going to be around and congratulations to your son and thank you for being here.

Okay thank you will move on to administrative item number three.

Chair Kaps and members of the board, administrative item number three is sponsored by Supervisor Lee. It is to adopt a resolution of commendation honoring Jody Thomas upon her retirement as the Carpinteria City Librarian. And joining us in person today we have Jody Thomas and I will go ahead and read the resolution. Whereas Jody Thomas has served as an extraordinary city librarian and community leader, blending her personal passion with professional excellence. Sparkling as a beacon of public service rooted in compassion, accessibility, and inspiration. Offering every patron her time, her insight, and often the perfect book recommendation. And whereas with more than two decades of experience in library systems including the Montecito Library Santa Barbara Public Library and the California State Library, Jody brought unmatched knowledge of library operations policy programming and staffing while also serving as the leading voice on national issue issues such as banned books digital equity LGBTQ plus inclusion and literacy access.

And whereas Jodi was instrumental in guiding the historic transition of the Carpentria Library from a Santa Barbara County branch to a city-managed community library. Under her tutelage, the library tripled usage, increased circulation and evolved into a modern civic hub filled with books, digital resources, computer access and vibrant programming for all ages.

And whereas her career has been marked by an unwavering commitment to social justice exemplified by increased Spanish language and digital literacy programs, elevating and emphasizing marginalized voices with the CARP Reads program, and uplifting and amplifying diverse voices both on the shelves and in the halls of the library. Ensuring that every visitor from shy children to isolated seniors feel seen and supported. And whereas Jody's signature warmth, quick laugh, steady presence and sincere kindness traits grounded in her broad experience and values have made the Carpentry Library a place where all feel welcome safe and connected. Her thoughtful leadership has earned the admiration of staff the gratitude of the public and countless well-deserved halos for Jody Now therefore be it hereby resolved that the Board of Supervisors of the County of Santa Barbara does honor and commend Jody Thomas upon her retirement for her outstanding leadership, profound impact on the Carpinteria community and her enduring legacy of service and learning passed and adopted today.

Good morning Madam Chair and members of the board, especially Supervisor Lee. I'm so honored and privileged to work for public libraries throughout my career and at the state level locally and at the state level. The Free Public Library is arguably one of the most American of institutions Libraries, public libraries in America address community needs in real time. They support vulnerable populations.

They combat isolation and what is being called a loneliness epidemic. They provide resources and exposure to early literacy. They respond to crises They bridge the digital equity gap by navigating online forms and applications, teaching people how to use those devices and helping people avoid scams and frauds in particularly seniors. And they provide access to lifelong learning and enrichment as you are well aware.

Studies have shown that for every dollar invested in libraries, between $2 and $10 in direct and indirect benefits is created. A 50 to 500% return on investment. I ask you now to fund public libraries with dedicated funding. What we see nationally is the libraries that are most successful have dedicated funding like fire protection districts and water districts.

Libraries shouldn't have to fundraise to provide services. So this is my last call out as my role as a librarian here and I would be remiss if I didn't make the request. I'm very passionate about public libraries, I think they serve you and the community well. We are your social justice arm of government And I want to end here by thanking you all for your service and what you do and the impact that you make for all of us in the county.

And thank you for this honor.

And before we go to Supervisor Lee, I know that our former supervisor Gail Marshall requested to speak

Yes, Chair Kaps and members of the board we have one request to speak on this item and that is former Supervisor Gail Marshall. Gail? Welcome

Good morning Madam Chair members of the board it's an honor to be here to support Jody this morning She is the very essence of a modern-day librarian And this is a parody that three of us did for her at a retirement party last night I'm not going to do it again although It was great Our modern-day Carpinteria librarian Jodi is a scholar, a mental health professional, a social services rep, an inspiration partner, plumber.

She's funny, welcoming, a visionary and as an aside she managed the budget and ran a library without enough space or staff. Jodi made our new community library into the place that most Carpenterians feel is the center of the universe We will miss her a lot. We were so fortunate to have her as our first Carpinteria community librarian, so we will not focus on our loss but our extreme good fortune to have partnered with her for three years.

We're wishing her the very best in her retirement. Now, as a post-grip I would be remiss. In general the modern day librarian in Santa Barbara County does more and more with less and less while our communities continue to regard the library as essential in the same category as street repair and public safety. As a board you are preparing to finalize the 2526 budget please keep libraries in mind thank you

Supervisor Lee.

Julie, I just want to say thank you for everything you have done. You have been an inspiration, a role model, a gem to our community. You have taken our library to what it is today, the center of town, the foundation of what we Carpinterians love everything so thank you for all you do. I'm very happy for you and Doug and your whole

family here.

So I'll see you around town and thank you.

Thank you so much. Okay.

Now we will move, I believe that's the end of the resolutions and we will move to the administrative items that have been pulled by the board.

Chair Caps and members of the board, Administrative Item 19 is from the County Health Department is to consider and approve the adoption second reading of an ordinance amending fees for environmental health services related to solid waste.

Supervisor Nelson.

Yes, thank you Chair Kaps. I was just looking for a roll call vote so I could be consistent with my earlier position on this item.

Thank you. Sounds good. No discussion let's just have a roll call vote please. Oh yeah thank you.

I'll second.

Okay

Motion passes 3-1-1

Okay. When we're ready,

Chair Kaps and members of the board, Administrative Item Number 25 is from the Fire Department. It is to consider recommendations regarding an independent contractor agreement with Southwest Strategies LLC for development of community education and outreach products.

Thank you Chief for being here. I know Director Hubbard is remote but I pulled this just because as I have a background in these outreach campaigns, I understand how incredibly important outreach is especially getting people to sign up for ReadySBC especially Barbara County Board of Supervisors meeting

Thank you Chair Kaps. I do have Stacy here and Kelly is actually not remote, she's on vacation. As the director of OEM, I like to tell her when we have blue skies she needs to take her vacations or maybe drizzly skies. She would love to jump on and help out and I'm going to tell her unless we really need her. What I've done is I've gone back and looked at the procurement process specifically, and then maybe Stacy can address the deliverables on the project and how we're now adding another project to the originally bid agreement. So it was a competitively bid project that was put out late last year And then we had two bidders on the project and then they were scored with a panel.

And the points were totaled and then the award was given to Southwest Strategies just based on a multidisciplinary panel, not just the county of course in this case it was a collection of cities and the county as well because of the outreach as you mentioned.

And just in terms of, I guess deliverables and maybe Ms. Silva can speak to that but I know our one of the one of the objectives is to get people connected to our emergency services which we just honored the staff person who helps work with that so and our rates are you know we have a lot of room for improvement but could you speak to the deliverables of this project?

Thank you Chair Kaps, members of the board. Yes first I do want to address that none of our proposals came from a local firm so although it was put out the proposals that we did receive the one that was selected is out of California but we did not receive any local proposals for this effort The deliverables for this started out with a train the trainer. We know that individuals within our communities that are disproportionately impacted by disasters have trusted partners that they tend to go to.

And we wanted to tap into that resource and figure out how we better leverage those existing relationships in order to improve our resilience throughout the county by getting those individuals to be better prepared, and having them register for alerts. And getting information that will enhance their capability withstand events of disasters. So that's where this, this initially came from and that includes some outreach specific listening sessions that they've done within targeted communities including bilingual listening sessions in Santa Maria, Quiama mid-county in the Lompoc and San Ynez Valley and then also in the South County so those listening sessions were conducted including There were specific invitations to organizations serving those populations within our communities.

Additionally, there was a Spanish and mixed echo session that was held in the North County as well trying to ensure that we gain a better understanding of what it is that our community actually needs in our messaging in order for them to take action so outreach materials, making sure that the feedback that we receive as to what information they need and what's going to make them take action is actually put into the materials that we develop.

And so that is the other component and I believe you may recall we launched some AM radio stations this also includes developing messages for those radio stations And the addition, which brings us before you today. As you're aware we are getting ready to launch Genesis EVAC as a countywide platform and with that there's going to be a requirement to educate our community on how to utilize that system, how to get to know and become familiar with it and so this additional project that we've added to this, again that brings us here today is to provide public service announcements around the Genesis platform so that our community knows how to engage with it and what the benefit is to all of them.

Provide those public service announcements in both Spanish and Mixteco that will be played on the radio station. We know that that is most common how they get their information. And then of course developing the designs and the graphics to promote the use of Genesys throughout our community.

And on that, thank you for that explanation it's helpful is are there metrics of you know we're in the deliverables I didn't see it in the materials that were presented but are they on the hook to get us to X number of enrollment in these services? I would suggest that they should be With that amount of $275,000.

Yeah chair caps members of the board that's definitely something that we can look at with them. The focus is really building that resilience within our community which does include ready SBC And we do set a metrics for that every year. So I will circle back with our team and with our PIO Jackie Ruiz who's also on vacation, and we'll figure out what that metrics is and how we can inform all of you and continue to report on our achievement towards that.

Okay, and I'll go to Supervisor Harmon soon but I just want to make a broader point as with department heads here. I know it's impossible to get absolute coordination but I see so many kind of outreach campaigns we should be doing outreach where our whole goal is to serve the public engage the public but I feel as though when these come across in the form of contracts It's kind of too late for us to have much influence over them and say are you working with, I mean for example B-Well does a lot with the mixed eco community already. They're working with Promotoras.

Is this coordinated through Kelsey who has such a talent in how to do these campaigns as we witness all the time? So I just want I just want to make a quick comment on this. I know that the board has put out a plea that there could be more coordination so that a new firm you know not local doesn't have to sort of start from scratch every single time and do these listening sessions You charge for excess when you're a consultant and we can really, I think streamline and get some of these costs down. So I would always want to look at a contract if you ever gave me the time in advance to do so because again, I just come from that background of having done these kind of things myself.

Chair, that's a good suggestion and Kelsey does have a public information team pit crew that meets. And so I think putting this on the agenda for future meetings so that's where they would coordinate and let people know hey heads up we have these needs And then they could better coordinate within the county. That would be a great, that's a good suggestion. Yeah because it

could be honestly happening at the same time focus groups with same community that we're, I mean these communities are hard to reach so when we do reach them we could potentially be double dipping on a few different messages to try to engage and then A, that costs less money and B, it's more effective for the people that we're trying to reach. Okay point made Supervisor Hartman?

Okay. All right. Supervisor Nelson?

Yes, thank you Chair Kapsen. I was just going to reiterate what Chair Kapsen said. You know social services and public health have done a lot of work in these areas as well. SYNCAL Health others so it just seems that we should be piggybacking on them wherever possible and Don't know if we could just make sure that there's an addendum on this contract for some deliverables so that we can actually hit some targets. They're kind of breeze through the proposal and saw that there was definitely some room for some additions there, and so I hope that we can hold the contractor accountable to doing those things.

And then my other question would be when we have these proposals. You know, getting to Chair Kaps' concern about locals. Where does the local contractor find this RFP? You know when we publicize it I mean where are do we have a portal countywide that people are looking at? Do all departments feed into? a fire department emergency services question or maybe a broader county question. I don't know if CEO might be able to help us with that too, but is there a really easy place for people look on the county website to see RFPs that go out you know on a regular basis?

General Services just happens to be in the audience for another item so why don't we have them answer the question

Supervisor Nelson through the chair just from the procurement standpoint we do have public purchase which is a countywide website vendors register and we do have it on our website under the procurement page on how to register and you know then you get access to all of the solicitations countywide.

Registering sometime might be a barrier of entry. Is there is it available just to be up there publicly, the list of proposals you have to get become a member first?

You do have to register as a vendor but then and you do select like Santa Barbara County you can select different commodity codes And then you do get notifications of solicitations once they're posted

yes Might be nice to find a way to get it out there kind of beyond that wall a little bit to make sure it's more public facing just so you know somebody may not want to go through the vendor process and might be concerned about that initially but if we're trying to remove barriers so that people can maybe want to become a vendor in the future, that might be a way to sort of then understand a little bit better what the county may or may not be offering out there as far as RFP is concerned. I know in my questions about this item only two firms responded Which seems very small for you know, a pretty generous contract here at public funds. So you know I would hope in the future we saw lots of competition because that hopefully drives prices down and better quality and so getting that out there more you know because it you know I've been here for Quite a few years now and I don't even know where to find that.

So, you know, and I'm one of these people up here that's supposed to be making some of these decisions so if I can't find it, I'm guessing a lot of other people can either. And so trying to make that a little bit more forward facing on that probably goes to my longtime grievance with our website in general but maybe there's some other ways to get this accomplished so that more and more vendors especially local vendors can find these materials. Thank you.

Okay, well I don't mind supporting this with those questions. Thanks for answering some of them and I hope just again going forward we can put an emphasis on local and put an emphasis on coordination so with that I will move to support staff recommendation.

And I'll second it.

Okay all those in favor? Aye. Motion carries next administrative item please

Chair Kapsa, members of the board. Administrative item number 29 is from the General Services Department. It is to consider recommendations regarding updates the county environmentally preferable procurement EPP policy and practices.

Thank you. Yeah, I pulled this one as well. I had an interest and I appreciate that this is moving forward and now we've become will become policy. We haven't updated the procurement policy since I think 2017 maybe Director Lagerquist can you just speak a little bit more to what we're changing how this came about the engagement? What were what we're accomplishing here today with this new policy?

Chair Capps, absolutely. So yeah the EPPP is the Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Practices Policy it's been around since 2017 you know a lot of folks didn't even know it existed and so you know we wanted to update it put a little more teeth behind it and encourage more you know green environmental purchasing of materials things that we purchase less packaging And then other type of environmental stuff that we buy, so more greening if you will.

Thank you, and I know I went and spoke to those across departments who do procurement about this. And so I understand that there is a network of information but how are they utilizing this new policy? And what's the plan to make sure that the people who are actually making big purchases know that this is the new policy?

Absolutely yeah we're looking at a getting the word out there through we're working with Kelsey as well to get this out to all the departments so they're aware of the policy. We do annual training with all the different departments through our procurement division and train them on you know different practices and this will certainly be one of those topics