UnGovr Transcript
iHow this transcript is madeUnGovr transcribes the official recording with automated speech-to-text, separates speakers by voice, and matches voices to the seated roster. Names and attributions are AI estimates and may contain errors.Verify any quote yourself: click anywhere in the transcript and the official video jumps to that exact moment, so you can check any quote against the recording.0:00 – 0:0317 turns
Okay, good morning everybody. Welcome to the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors meeting for September 23rd. It's a pleasure to have you all here and it's my honor to call this meeting to order. Madam Clerk please call the roll.
Roll call, called by Clerk of the Board
Show transcript
but will be joining us momentarily any minute
Okay next up is approval from the minutes from last meeting.
So moved.
Thank you, Supervisor Nielsen.
Second.
Thank you, Supervisor Lee. All those in favor please say aye.
Aye.
Motion carries. Okay now we need County Executive Officer's report.
There is no report this morning
Chair. Madam Clerk are there any announcements or changes to our agenda this morning?
Chair Kaps and members of the board, I have a couple quick announcements this morning. An addendum was posted on Friday September 19th 2025 adding administrative item number 31 to today's agenda. Administrative item number 31 is from the county executive office it is regarding the adoption of a support position for legislation on coroners and in custody deaths AB 1108. The addition included in the addendum has been posted and made available online to both the board and the public. If there are no requests to speak on this item, the board may add it to the balance of the administrative agenda. I do believe we have at least one supervisor pulling this item so we can wait to add that to the balance 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 boards 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 2.
If you have any questions, please contact the Clerk of the Board's Office at 805-568-2240. Again that number is 805-562-2240 and that concludes my announcements for today
Okay thanks so much. That sounds good we'll move to the administrative agenda any board members like to pull any items from the agenda? I can tell you what I have so far. Supervisor Leven, you know.
Madam Chair I'd like to pull A11 please not for a separate vote just for a highlight.
Okay and I have oh go ahead.
Yes 15 21 and 22. All right 15 21 22
supervisor Lee. A9 and A20.
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No, just A9 and 20.
So let's just review because I had some that were previously pulled so let's make sure we got them all set. A9, A11, A15, A20 still or no? Yes. A21, A22. Yep. And still A31? No. Okay. All right and any have any members of the public Rick holding administrative items.
Chair caps and members of the board we have no request to speak from the public on the administrative agenda.
OK I think we have enough from the board so we will entertain a motion to approve the balance of the administrative agenda except for those items they just spelled out
so moved
second
okay, we've got a motion in a second all those in favor please say aye aye motion passes All right, now we're to the portion of the agenda that many of you are here for which is which are the resolutions presented. Madam Clerk when you're ready let's move to our first administrative item number one into the record.
Chair Caps and members of the Board, Administrative Item number one is sponsored by Supervisor Lee. It is to adopt a resolution proclaiming the week of September 29th 2025 through October 5th 2025 as American Institute of Architects AIA Architecture Appreciation Week in Santa Barbara County and joining us in person today we have Michael Holliday, Principal Architect And Matt Grise, AIA Santa Barbara President. And if you can please make your way to the podium and I'll go ahead and read the resolution.
Whereas more than 175 licensed members of the American Institute of Architects, AIA practice in the Santa Barbara area where they serve the public interest through their concern for and understanding of sustainable design practices Energy conservation, accessibility for people with disabilities, urban planning, historic preservation, affordable housing and sensitivity to the relationship between nature and the built environment.
And whereas Architectural Foundation volunteers guide public tours of the history and architecture of Santa Barbara, provide children the opportunity to sketch local architecture with Kids Draw Architecture, work with teachers to establish a built environment education program, BEEP, in Santa Barbara's public schools and provide scholarships to county students. And whereas Santa Barbara's architects have worked diligently to preserve the architectural heritage of our community through service on local architectural review boards, various public outreach and education efforts and service projects. And whereas the AIA Santa Barbara chapter has produced in a an annual design awards program to recognize and promote high quality architecture and design and commercial residential educational and institutional work throughout our county And whereas the AIA Santa Barbara chapter has produced architectures, an annual inspirational and educational tour of noteworthy residential and public projects focused on high quality design and showcasing the application of sustainable and green building practices and affordable housing projects.
Now therefore be it hereby ordered and resolved that this Board of Supervisors of the County of Santa Barbara does hereby designate the week of September 29th through October 5th as AIA Architectural Appreciation Week in Santa Barbara County, and commends the American Institute of Architects and the Architectural Foundation for over 160 years of preserving and enhancing the architectural heritage of Santa Barbara County passed and adopted today.
Madam Chair, members of the board. My name is Michael Holliday. I'm a local architect. This is Matt Grice, AIA Santa Barbara president of our chapter and we're honored to receive this resolution on behalf of the AIA this morning for the 2025 Architecture Appreciation Week for Santa Barbara County We have a similar one for the City of Santa Barbara. So Roy, we really appreciate you stepping up and doing this.
Truly the inscription on the Santa Barbara County Courthouse rings true for all of us here today. God gave us the country. The skill of man has built the town. I love that Santa Barbara is probably one of the most beautiful places on the planet and we get to enjoy it every day. We want to thank you for this resolution, and we'd like to invite all of you on the board and the greater Santa Barbara community to join us for the 2025 architect tour exhibit next Saturday.
October 4th from 10 to four it's a downtown tour of eight projects that are sort of been selected. Some are on State Street, some are custom residential projects that demonstrate Santa Barbara's outstanding innovative and sustainable architecture so thank you again for this resolution and Supervisor Lee we our firm recently completed Linden Square Right downtown Carpinteria, so if you haven't been there We'd love to have you guys come down and on us to see what can happen when some great You know get some creative design in a downtown area. It's kind of created a whole new hub for Carpinteria, so Thank you so much. Thank you
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I
just want to say Linden Square has become the center of town and very impressive about your work So thank you
Okay, thank you so much. I concur on Linden Square. Resolution number two.
Chair Caps and members of the board. Administrative item number two is sponsored by Supervisor Caps. It is to adopt a resolution proclaiming the month of September 2025 as National Preparedness Month in Santa Barbara County and joining us in person today we have Jackie Ruiz and Stacey Silva. And I'll go ahead and read the resolution. Whereas National Preparedness Month reminds local community members that preparedness starts with you, and whereas when individuals take responsibility for preparing their homes, businesses, families, and communities, the chance of survival in return to normalcy following a disaster is greatly increased.
And whereas the Office of Emergency Management and partners encourage everyone to make an emergency plan, build or refresh their disaster supply kits, register or update emergency contact information at www.readysbc.org for emergency alerts and engage in community preparedness training opportunities. And whereas Santa Barbara County Public Safety Agencies launched a countywide emergency zones map to assist the public in understanding where emergencies protective actions apply. Maps can be viewed at www.readysbc.org backslash emergency or by downloading the Genesis Protect app on mobile devices And whereas during September the Office of Emergency Management and partners have engaged the community through tabling events, public education presentations, social media outreach and reminders in training for staff on their role as disaster service workers.
And whereas we may not know when the next disaster emergency will confront us so we must remain ready together we can make Santa Barbara County a safer and more resilient place to live and visit Now therefore be it hereby ordered and resolved that this Board of Supervisors of the County of Santa Barbara does hereby acknowledge the month of September 2025 as National Preparedness Month, pass and adopt it today.
Chair Caps, members of the board. We would like to thank you for taking a moment of your day to recognize September as National Preparedness Month. The discussion internally and what wound up being the theme for the national month was preparedness starts with you. It all begins and ends at this local level with us as individuals. As an operational area which includes our city partners and our non-profit entities, throughout the month of September we have taken the opportunity to do tabling and education events at farmers markets.
Library education and outreach and presentations in both English and Spanish. Reminders to not just our county staff but to staff throughout the operational area, city partners as well of their role during emergencies And a lot of community disaster education at existing events throughout Santa Barbara County. As mentioned in the resolution, we want to of course encourage our community to take time and prepare themselves by registering or validating their emergency information at readysbc.org And more so we were very excited during the month of September to launch our Genesis evacuation platform.
This allows us to break the county using a lot of opportunities in two zones, emergency zones and we're calling it our emergency zones map. This is not an alerting tool this is a information resource to help our community So this month and today we encourage everybody to download Genesis Protect, which is available through whatever store you happen to get your apps from.
And make sure that when you download that, you enable your location settings. That allows the platform to notify you in the event that there is an emergency protective action within the area that you are. So if you're at the grocery store as long as you have that enabled, that Genesis app can alert you. Again it does not replace our emergency notifications. That will still be done through readysbc.org But community members, if you'd like more information or you're curious where your home lies. You can go to readysbc.org forward slash emergency type in your address and it will help you identify your zone so with that again as September is Coming to an end, we want to thank you and thank all of our county partners and departments that are here today for assisting us in preparing our staff and our community to be more resilient during disasters.
Jackie or Chief? Thank you.
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Well I just wanted to add as I've said before in these hearings that my understanding is only 14% of people have signed up for ReadySBC.org so the math, the odds are someone in this room has not signed up for ReadySBC.org and certainly Many people watching have not signed up for ReadySBC.org, so the most basic way to plan for a disaster is to know what's happening and that's the most basic way to do it. So if people could just increase those numbers by signing up it takes about 45 seconds. ReadySBC.org Thanks Okay moving on to resolution number three
Chair Capps and members of the board. Administrative item number three is sponsored by Supervisor Capps, it is to adopt a resolution acknowledging the interfaith initiative in Santa Barbara County and joining us in person today we have Mohamed Khan, Frank Benelis, Ivor John and Dr. Seda Hamdani. And if you can please make your way to the podium. Now I'll go ahead and read the resolution. Whereas Santa Barbara County is recognized as a beacon of multi-faith harmony, where diverse faith traditions increasingly weave into the fabric of everyday life enriching the social cultural and spiritual life of the community. And whereas the residents of Santa Barbara County celebrate the vibrant tapestry of beliefs that characterize our multi-faith community fostering unity understanding and open dialogue among people of different faiths and backgrounds And whereas by embracing a wide array of faiths and cultures, Santa Barbara County cultivates an environment that values diversity, promotes a sense of belonging for all individuals, and strengthens the county's distinctive identity as a place of inclusion and respect.
And whereas in alignment with the principles of peace, justice, and equity, the Interfaith Initiative encourages the community to pledge itself as a multi-faith county. committing to non-violence, access to essential resources such as education, healthcare security and technology and to treating all individuals with fairness compassion and respect. And whereas the residents in leadership of Santa Barbara County aspire to uphold truth rationality and ethical decision making in public and private life acting with justice and compassion while celebrating the diversity of faiths cultures and lifestyles that enrich the lives of all county residents Now therefore be it here by order to resolve that this Board of Supervisors acknowledges and supports the interfaith initiative of Santa Barbara County, and encourages all residents to join in fostering a community grounded in mutual respect understanding and harmony among diverse faiths and cultures passed and adopted today.
Thank you very much Supervisor Caps and The Board, we're honored. And as faith people and our Jewish board members couldn't make it today so I want to start off by saying Shana Tova to all those who celebrate Rosh Hashanah and may it be a sweet year for not just the Jewish community but everyone. We'll start out with a prayer, multi-faith prayer. That's what faith people do.
I'll start out with Spanish. Dios
mi corazón anhela por ti Toda la gloria es tuya Mi Dios
God, our hearts here and for you. We're hearing for peace all glory and praises to you. And in the original language of Jesus, peace be upon him, the language he spoke in Aramaic. All glory and all praises only to you, God. And in Hebrew Blessed is your name for eternity. And in Arabic,
Bismillahirrahmanirraheem Alhamdulillahi Rabbil alameen
In the name of God, the most compassionate, the most merciful. All praise and thanks is only to you, the Lord of all the worlds. God we thank the board and the supervisors. We ask you to bless the Santa Barbara County. We have a beautiful resolution promoting love, harmony, peace and compassion. Now God bless us with the second heavy lift which is to implement it Again, I thank the Board, Supervisor Caps and the whole board. You just set the policy for what we want in this county. Now I'd like Ivor to say a few words.
This is
our board. Thank you, Brother Mohammed. My name is Ivor John as Chair Capps and members of the Board it's a privilege to be here. I've been a board member of IFI for over 10 years and today and in that time I've had the privilege of working with some inspiring and caring faith leaders and lay people in this community. Today we begin a new chapter with Brother Mohammed's leadership And there's no better way to begin it from my perspective than to have this resolution passed and have the support of you, our supervisors in moving forward with this. So thank you all very much and thanks for the really good work you do for our community in general. Thank you.
0:20 – 0:258 turns
Frank is really humble. He's one of my greatest allies, so Frank been here in Santa Barbara forever. I'm honored to have him on my board
Thank you Board of Supervisors, especially Supervisor Capps for this resolution. I just don't want to go over the same thing that the other folks have just said but I would like to say that it's more important today about what we're set off to do than at any time in our country as far as I'm concerned so we welcome all residents of Santa Barbara to be a part of our organization thank you
Good morning. My name is Saida Hamdani. I want to thank Supervisor Capps and the Board for making this resolution possible. I'm speaking on behalf of my husband, Jamal Hamdani who I feel is with us today in spirit. He was passionate about world peace and creating a nonviolent and equitable world. He founded the nonprofit World Harmony Online in 2001 He believed that we could change the world for better once we had created the change within ourselves. And he asked that we each start that internal change by taking the World Harmony Pledge. This pledge involves commitment to five basic principles. Number one, give to others what we want for ourselves. Number two, make rational fact and principle-based decisions.
Number three, speak the truth I would like to begin by congratulating the Board of Supervisors on this important initiative. I would also like to congratulate the Board of Supervisors for their leadership and commitment to County of Santa Barbara. He would be so proud that our county is a leader in the march to world peace and truly the first World Harmony County in the country. Thank you.
Thank you again, we appreciate it. Just if I have one minute, our good friend Thippo LaLama is always in support. Thippo can you say a word? Sorry folks.
I'm just simply, I'm a Tibetan Buddhist and I just came here to join the support for the moment. It was great work made hard for the Human rights, and also great support for a lot of especially this time. This time is very uncertainty time and fear, a lot of fear, distractions. And this time all the community people need help with harmony and unity And I really appreciate Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors and people of Santa Barbara. And here the moment and their team, they're working hard for the harmony in team. I wish all the best and all the world peace and more will be better in peace. Thank you very much. Thank you.
And this was especially for him. Actually we should
give it to the supervisor.
Well thank you. Thank you so much. That's beautiful, thank you. Well thank you so much I I want to thank the members of the Interfaith Initiative. All of the resolutions are beautiful and meaningful, this one is particularly meaningful to me. I believe there's so much compassionate interfaith work that goes on every day in this community what makes the headlines Globally, nationally is the division between religions. But what is far more pervasive and overwhelming is the connectivity between faiths, the commonality between faiths that happens all of the time.
And the commonality between those who don't, aren't of a particular faith as well. And that's the way that I was raised and I'm so proud of that tradition. Proud of my father who was a religious studies professor and raised me to have pride and respect for people of all different faiths And what you've done with this interfaith initiative on your own volunteer time to build bridges, break bread, have interfaith services to keep that going especially now. So thank you so much really appreciate it.
OK
let's move on to the next one. Thank you for being here.
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Chair Kaps and members of the board, Administrative Item number four is sponsored by Supervisor Lee. It is to adopt a resolution of accommodation honoring Kristen Hughes as the Central Coast Medical Association CCMA 2025 Physician of the Year in Santa Barbara County. And joining us in person today we have Kristen Hughes Whereas Dr. Kristen Hughes joined the County of Santa Barbara Health Department on February 16th, 2016 as a staff physician and was promoted to Chief Physician of the Franklin Healthcare Center in 2024. During her tenure at Franklin Health Center she has advanced team-based care and did so with enthusiasm, energy and vision. Dr. Hughes led and implemented an ambulatory pediatric residence clinic and ensured patients with diabetics were screened for diabetic And whereas her combined passion for medicine and physical activity also led her to pursue the UCSF Champion Provider Fellowship addressing nutrition, physical activity and chronic disease prevention in children.
This fellowship helped her address upstream determinants of health such as the social and environmental factors that shaped well-being. And whereas in addition to her clinical responsibilities, Dr. Hughes has remained highly engaged in the community participating in school activities and representing the clinic in various forms. Dr. Hughes' service to the underserved has been a cornerstone of her career and reflects her deepest values as a physician.
As a volunteer in Haiti, Africa and Central America she witnessed firsthand the devastating impact of preventable diseases. And this reinforced the extraordinary value of immunizations and public health infrastructure. And whereas Dr. Hughes embraced the importance of service which led her to become involved in advocacy work across many sectors and online platforms. Her focus is intentional and her belief it is essential for physicians to extend their leadership beyond the clinic walls Becoming advocates and partners in the community to address the broader social, economic, political and environmental factors that influence health services. And ultimately her heart and mission to serve the most vulnerable in our own local community inspired her to join the County of Santa Barbara Health Department And now therefore be it hereby ordered and resolved that this Board of Supervisors of the County of Santa Barbara does hereby acknowledge resolution recognizing Dr.
Kristen Hughes for 2025 CCMA Physician of the Year Award, passed and adopted today.
Good morning and thank you very much. I wasn't supposed to speak actually, Dr. Preciado was supposed to be here but I'm very honored that I can step in and say a few words on behalf of Dr. Hughes. It doesn't take you long to recognize greatness especially when you're encountering that on day-to-day basis Dr. Hughes stepped into her role as Chief Physician with passion, dedication but also with the ultimate purpose of providing quality care as well as leadership to our team and it's not a secret that in challenging times such leadership is very much needed and very much appreciated However, as the saying says a prophet among his own people sometimes is not recognized and it's something that I didn't know until the recognition by CCMA of her long history of dedication and devotion to the career as well as to the communities and her volunteerism work.
that she has done. So while she was recognized by her peers last week, I am so happy that we recognize her as one of our team members and one of our physician leaders that is going to take us through these hard times. So congratulations Christian.
Thank you Dr. Hammami And thank you sincerely for this recognition from the board. I'm so honored. It is truly, truly an honor to serve as a physician within the Santa Barbara County Public Health Department which for the past 100 years has provided essential safety net care to our most vulnerable community members. I am privileged to work alongside dedicated colleagues and staff who labor tirelessly to advance our mission to prevent disease, promote wellness and ensure equitable access to care.
Thank you all for your support in this endeavor, in these endeavors.
Okay thank you so much. Administrative item number five
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Chair Caps and members of the Board, Administrative Item Number 5 is sponsored by Supervisor Hartman and Supervisor Nelson. It is to adopt a resolution of accommodation for the participants in the successful implementation of Workday financials in Santa Barbara County. And joining us in person today we have Mark Garcia, Workday Support Organizational Program Manager and the entire Workday Implementation Team. And if you can all please make your way to the podium.
Whereas the County of Santa Barbara embarked on a comprehensive initiative to innovate its business processes and enhance public service delivery through the selection and implementation of the Workday Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP software by retiring our legacy financial accounting system FIN. which was developed in 1995. And whereas this multi-year project required dedication, perseverance and outstanding collaboration from the project team steering committee department representatives vendor partners and many others throughout the organization to ensure the projects vision and goals were met And whereas the project team overcame significant technical and logistical challenges throughout the implementation period, demonstrating a commitment to innovation and a steadfast commitment to the county's mission and values.
And whereas after four years of collective effort, the successful launch of the financial accounting phase of the Workday ERP system marks a significant milestone for the county with the continuing goals of improved efficiency, streamlined processes, enhanced data security, and reporting capabilities. And whereas the county will continue to endeavor on implementing human resources, payroll and other modules to strive for consistently providing better service for the residents of Santa Barbara County. Now therefore be it hereby ordered and resolved that this Board of Supervisors of the County of Santa Barbara does hereby extend its sincere appreciation and commendation to all who contributed to the successful implementation of Workday Financials and recognizes their exemplary service and dedication to this transformative project passed and adopted today.
Good morning.
They say it takes a village to raise a child healthy and successful. And I think as you saw, it takes a village to make great change. So I just want to take a moment and thank everybody. Thank you to the board for all your work and your guidance in our support as we endeavored through this large project. We want to thank the CEO and her office for our guidance and helping this large multi-department project work towards one better county and one bright future. That was wonderful.
I want to thank our steering committee. I think they are all here today, but they are sitting in the back. They have reached in as necessary to help provide guidance but basically let the project work through its path and then the project team as you saw just countless people putting in hours of dedication to design test and teach and help build our future And then the county as a whole, we had people from every department doing testing, doing training, providing feedback and just showing resilience in how to build a new way forward and work to make things successful for everybody.
They say that all change is hard at first and messy in the middle but beautiful at the end so we're grateful for all your support to help us get through the hard times to get to the good stuff. So thank you so much.
Supervisor Hartman.
I just wanted to add my thanks to everyone. This project really demonstrated that the people who worked on it, it's not just a job. It was a calling and it took many countless overtime hours and the ongoing pressure. It was unrelenting for months and months and months. And we see that. We appreciate that. It's going to make a huge difference for our county in allowing us Thank you very much. Thank you.
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Yes, thank you chair caps and members of the board we will begin with administrative item number 9. And just for the record again I wanted to announce the administrative items pulled by the board was administrative item number 9 1115 2021 and 22 okay. Administrative item number nine is from the Community Services Department and the Public Works Department. It is to consider recommendations regarding a Union Pacific Railroad UPRR public pedestrian at-grade crossing agreement for the Santa Claus Lane streetscape improvements and beach access project, and this is in the first district.
Supervisor Lee?
So the reason why I pulled this, I just want to acknowledge the hard work that Director Chris Netton and Mostafa has done to complete this. I just want to acknowledge the hard work as well as the team at SBCAC for collaborating with county on this so it's an amazing thing for the community to make this happen. So I just wanna give them the props wherever they are.
We have a motion and a second.
Chair Kapsa, members of the board. Administrative item number 11 is from the Community Services Department it is to consider recommendations regarding a budget revision to support the Santa Maria Park Ranger for Santa Maria Riverbed Patrol and there is a four-fifths vote required on this item
Thank you madam chair and I know I've talked about this a couple of times every kind of every time it comes up but it's because it's. It was such a high profile problem for North County, I mean every time he drove across the bridge would look out we'd see a whole nother city out there in the riverbed and just to kind of put into perspective for people didn't understand how large it was or over a 100 encampments over 120 people were moved into services The number that just shocked me was, it was 150 tons and I had to figure out how much that is. That's 300,000 pounds of trash and hazardous waste, dozens of animals that needed to be rehomed.
And all of this was done in a humane manner. And it was carried out by Director Armas' team Great leadership, especially with Joe Dysbonic. They handled everything talking to each individual because each individual there is for a different reason. They sat down and talked to each person trying to figure out what the best path forward for them was. It wasn't easy.
It wasn't even our jurisdiction. I want to remind folks that we have spent money on a problem That legally belongs to another county, but when everybody from our districts drive by they don't care whose responsibility it is. It's in our backyard we got to fix it and so big shout out to the team I'm very much in support. And what I really like about this is, as we have seen that happened in Lompoc Riverbed as well, is if you don't have that ongoing maintenance and the eyes on it so that it doesn't get repopulated again, you're going to end up in the same position three or four years down the road and all the money and time energy we spent trying to house those people just kind of goes by the wayside. So I'm very supportive of this. I also want to thank the city of Santa Maria for making a ranger available It's gonna be money very well spent.
So I'd move it when we come to that.
I want
to be your second there. This was a huge effort that, you know, I think lent a lot of people in the community really thankful that actually they're seeing their government be responsive to a problem. You know, a lot of people see things and say somebody should take care of that and things never do change but I know in Santa Maria Valley there's a lot of thankful people for the work we did there And I do want to thank the City of Santa Maria for being a great partner on this. I think this shows that when we work together between the municipality and the county, that we can get a lot done for our community.
I am still concerned about the fact that this is in another county And this agreement is between the city and the county of Santa Barbara, yet the jurisdiction is a county to the north of us that I see that are not necessarily participating in this contract. Director Armas, I don't know if you wanted to give us a status report? I think at one point San Luis Obispo County was interested in participating but I don't see them as part of this agreement so it would be helpful to know what the status is for Sloan County. Are they potentially participating in this in the future?
You know, all along I think Steve and I have always felt like yes it's a different county. They have a responsibility to keep it from being populated but we know that there are people and so that's why we think we've definitely taken the lead in the lion's share of the funding to this project at this point but now that we made this investment you know it really needs the San Luis Obispo County to be engaged and making sure it doesn't get repopulated so those dollars aren't wasted.
What's the status on San Luis Obispo County's involvement?
Supervisor Nelson through the chair, thank you for the question and thank you to first of all to you and Supervisor Lavanino. Your leadership here really allowed us to carry out this project in a very substantial way and achieve the results and the statistics that the supervisor shared with the board. Relative to San Luis Obispo, I would note that we've had a lot of discussions. They're not yet ready to assign a comparable agreement that includes the County of Slough. However as noted in the report before you this is only through the current fiscal year so we hope that we can continue those conversations and hopefully persuade them that it's advantageous should this continue into the next fiscal year
Well, again it is their jurisdiction that we're doing ongoing enforcement in. You know they say and I think the board letter that there's overlapping jurisdiction here. I mean I think we're being generous with calling overlapping most of San Luis Obispo or sorry Santa Maria River is in San Luis Obispo County. I think some of the lines actually go through some of the backyards in the city of Santa Maria. So there are some parcels there that are owned by county flood control and by the city of Santa Maria. So we acknowledge that we have some responsibilities with that as well as the fact that they are our people But we definitely need the San Francisco County's help. And I just wanted to publicly just call them out to say that, you know, it's if we need partners here, it is your jurisdiction and love to see at the table to be a financial as well as a physical partner.
We'll share that with slow and see if we can reach some mutual agreement.
Thank you.
Supervisor Harmon.
Well, while we're giving kudos to staff what was learned in Santa Maria has now been applied in the Santa Inez River in Lompoc and Director Armas I wonder if you would just describe what you've done there?
Thank you Supervisor Hartman through the chair. You'll recall that when we briefed you on the status of the Santa Maria Riverbed, we indicated that we hope that we could follow that model elsewhere in our county and as Supervisor Hartman has indicated, we have applied this in the Santa Ynez Riverbed. We've been working very closely with the City of Lompoc including the Lompoc Police Department and the City Manager's Office. We've also had good coordination with the County Sheriff's Department, so we're attempting to not only deploy the usual resources that we deploy within our county but also marshal the resources of the city and the sheriff's office They've both been very cooperative and they both indicated that with a reasonable planning, they'll be able to assist us in keeping some eyes on the river there for the very reasons that Supervisor Lavinino mentioned.
We want to make sure that when an area is resolved that it's not repopulated and we're making some headway there. It's an expensive proposition. We've been through about five phases and we have a final phase to tackle in the near future.
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Great. Okay, I believe we do have a motion on the floor and a second. So all those in favor please say aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you Director Armas. Next up is administrative item number 15.
Chair Caps and members of the Board, Administrative Item number 15 is from the County Executive Office. It is to consider recommendations regarding a contract renewal for countywide security services provided by Triumph Protection Group and there is a four-fifths vote required on this item.
Yes thank you Chair Caps. A few different things with this contract that I had some questions and concerns about. The As a process on the process side, you know this came to us that there was an RFP that was done for these services but in our board letter and our attachments none of the backup information on those other procure those that also applied into scoring. So you know we were asked to approve these things At least for myself as a supervisor, I want to see that information because I think that helps us approve it. If we don't know what the prices were or how the process went, you know, we're not able to provide the proper oversight so this is just kind of on our process side, not specifically just under this contract but across the board for all the departments that bring things to me in board letters, I'm going to want to see that because I think that's really important for us as the body who eventually has to make the decisions and be accountable for those decisions to have that information You know we do trust staff but we want to look, we want to check the math and so I did ask for those numbers.
I just got them all up on the dais. I have some questions about some irregularities and some of the scoring system here so I'd like to see if we can actually continue this item till the next meeting so I can dig into that. You know, Warren staff or my colleagues. I want to do this for a process not because I necessarily approve of this contract or not. I do have some concerns about the contract. I have voted against in the past but this right now is on the process side. I want to make sure that those numbers are right and appropriate and that we've gone through the proper process here.
And the other question I had on this as well is With this contract, I know we're talking with some of our employees about potential cuts in some of our departments. Do we have flexibility in this contract if we do move forward to potentially make renegotiate or reduction of services in the future to right size our future budgetary needs?
Supervisors on some of the procurement issues that have Mr. Lagerquist come up, but on that one the contract does have a 30-day termination for convenience or non
appropriation Okay, thank you that I appreciate that for all are in part okay? That's really helpful I just think because you know it's got to be comforting for the rest of the organization knowing that as we're looking at cuts in some places and renewing contracts at The same time that we might be able that we have that flexibility
I just missed your last request for the rest of the board's information. So this went out to bid in June and there was a contract that was awarded. Was there, there was an interim contract that was awarded from? No. Okay maybe I misunderstood.
Triumph is the incumbent. So so I guess to answer your question yes there's flexibility in the contract I mean we can add services we can scale back some services
All right, well I'm gonna ask for it to be continued. I think I have some questions. I've got the scoring sheet that from on the procurement side, I think there's some irregularities there just on a quick glance. I'm doing this on the fly. I just got the information while I was up here in the dais. Just so that we you know have done the proper vetting. I like to ask them those questions and it's probably best that I don't ask them publicly.
So I think if my colleagues would support me. If I don''t use an urgency of approving this today If we can continue to, you know two weeks from now. Our next board meeting I would appreciate the indulgence by my colleagues. Supervisor Harmon?
Is that true that there is no urgency a delay wouldn't matter?
Supervisor I'm looking at the contract of the contract start date is September it's today so there was a bridging contract I have to ask, I don't know if Afong is here to find. Is there an issue if we don't take this action today?
We would have to do some kind of a bridge contract for the next couple of weeks then.
Do you want to at least trail this until the end of the meetings to clarify that whether it has to be approved today or not. If it does then I'll dive in deeper publicly with the numbers that I'm looking at but I prefer to do that privately so.
If we could trail this and I'm sorry, I'm not as prepared. My assistant who worked on this is on military leave so we can get that information to you at the end of the day.
Okay do we need an action to trail it? Okay sounds good. So we'll move on to administrative item number 21 20 excuse me
0:49 – 0:5415 turns
Chair Kaps and members of the board, administrative item number 20 is from the Human Resources Department. It is to consider recommendations regarding management classification and compensation refinement. And Supervisor Lee?
Yeah I just want to say I understand how we got here but I believe that if someone makes the agreement to come to work on certain terms we should live up to it people make life decisions based on terms that are presented to them so I'm be voting no on this item So
if
we do a roll call.
I'll make a motion to move staff recommendation.
I'll second.
OK let's do there's any other questions or comments
Roll-call vote Passed 4–1
Show transcript
Motion passes 4 to 1.
Okay let's move to the next one which is A21
Chair Kaps and members of the Board, Administrative Item number 21 is from the Human Resources Department. It is to consider recommendations regarding the Employee Benefit Insurance Program Renewals for calendar year 2026 and there is a four-fifths vote required on this item.
Okay that is Supervisor Nielsen.
Yes thank you Chair Kaps. Director Schmidt I was going to ask you to come forward for a moment. This is the approval of our health rates, health insurance and the rest of public may not be interested but I know a lot of our employees are and you know Health insurance is really expensive in the county for our employees and I know that you guys are working on that, and I thought it was an opportunity because I've been asking questions behind the scenes on that. And I know not necessarily with this contract but you have some things in this year's budget that you're going to be doing to look at our numbers and are there better options that are a benefit to both the taxpayer and to our county employees? So if you could share that, I think that would be helpful.
You know, us on the dais as well as those that are watching to know what human resources is doing on that front.
Certainly, Madam Chair and Supervisor Nelson. The item that we have in our work program for the year is to conduct a comprehensive benefit analysis hiring a consultant to perform an in-depth analysis of our benefits program under PRISM Health and assess its effectiveness and cost efficiency and competitiveness and identify opportunities for improvement And that may include looking at the CalPERS health program. It may include looking at self-insurance and it may include other sort of independent fully insured options.
We don't have any reason to... PRISM Health was selected years ago in order to leverage the employee pool through, I mean the employer pool through PRISM I want to start by saying that we are committed to achieving cost efficiencies for our program and a good benefits package at a good rate. We have no reason to think that's not the case, but just for due diligence and because health care across employers in our county but certainly It's significant. We think for our due diligence, we're going to do that program. We're also looking at plan design changes with our labor organizations and we will continue to talk about cost savings that might result from that and then to engage with our labor groups who all have to agree with that on how we might use those cost savings to defray the cost increases to the county and to employees.
Okay, well thank you. I think that, you know, I hear from my own staff and I know other county employees that are always concerned about the cost of health insurance and also know it's an issue on how competitive we are on hiring people in this county but I think a lot of people will come in our salaries are often competitive but then they look at the benefits and they realize that they can't afford not only housing here within the lack of, you know, insurance benefits. That all comes at a cost and, you know, we don't have a lot extra dollars right now for that type of thing but what we can do is we can go out to bid. You know I think we should be an attractive client for insurance services and I think we need to make sure that we're doing everything we can to go out on the open market and try to get the best price possible for our employees so we can give them the greatest amount of services.
So thank you Christy, appreciate that work and I'll go ahead and make a motion to approve this item.
Okay we got a motion. Do we have a second? We have a motion and a second all those in favor please say aye. Aye. Motion carries Okay I think that brings us to the end. We have one more, that's right 822 excuse me.
0:54 – 0:578 turns
Chair Kaps and members of the board administrative item number 22 is from the human resources department it is to consider recommendations regarding building and safety classification and compensation changes Supervisor Nielsen.
Yes, I pulled this item in part to vote for roll call vote on this one. I voted against this when we discussed this and in closed session on whether we're going to do that redesign some of these classifications and the corresponding increases So I wanted to be consistent and also vote publicly for that. My concerns are, um, I think that we have issues in that department that are more than just or at least with the building safety side on getting projects through and pay may be a piece of it but I'd like to see some other changes there before I could support paying more for the product that we're getting right now.
There, so it's something that I've been very vocal that I'm concerned about as far as you know, getting things through the process in Santa Barbara County. It is a problem that we need to continue to highlight. I didn't believe that paying more for those services solves that and I know that there are some other issues out there I would like to ask for a roll call vote.
Roll-call vote Passed 3–1
Show transcript
Motion passes 4-1
Okay Yeah, we have one Did I hear correctly did we have one that was pulled by the public or no
and know that we do not have any polled by the public
okay
chair caps
So but we do have public comment. So that's what I was thinking about. Let's move when you're ready to public comment. I believe we have about eight requests to speak
0:57 – 1:027 turns
chair caps and members of the board. That is correct. We have eight requests to speak in general public comments. We are going to begin on zoom with Lee Chang to be followed by Judy Stowe Lee
Hello. Hi Chair Capps, members of the Board of Supervisors, members of the public I would like to thank you for giving me a brief moment of your time. My name is Leah and I'm a third year college student at Westmont I am a political science and psychology double major, and this semester I'm beginning a new fellowship intern program with Kingdom Causes as a Government Lane Fellow. Our goal this year and for the next few years is to create a three-year action plan to end child sex exploitation in Santa Barbara.
A vital part of this process is to gain insight from local government officials, which would include the Board of Supervisors. Earlier this morning I sent out emails to you all hoping to find a time for an interview your experience and insight is crucial to our action plan and we really have a heart for the children who are being exploited and we want to make sure that our three-year action plan is going to be as effective and efficient as possible.
So yeah, I look forward to hearing back from you guys and thank you for your time.
We will now go to Judy Stowe then we will return to Santa Barbara with Kelly Mendesh.
Hi, my name is Judy Stowe and I live at 546 Mills Way in Goleta. I'm a long-term resident of the City of Goleta even before we were a city. I am raising concerns about the noise that's going on at The Cove. I'm kept awake at night. I'm not getting my sleep and a 76 year old, I'm needing my rest. I need this city to take action to control what's going on with the noise ordinances with screaming loud noise going on loud music unruly behavior in the code So please, please, please hear my concern.
I appreciate you. Thank you.
We will now return to Santa Barbara with Kelly Mendesh to be followed by Branny Thomas.
Good morning, members of the board. My name is Kelly Mendesh and I too am a resident of Goleta. I'm here today to discuss the new Cove student housing which is part of unincorporated Santa Barbara County and it borders the North Campus open space. I am speaking on behalf of myself and my neighbors in the Fairways condos. We live directly across the Devereux Slough from the Cove. From the first night that the students moved in we have been stunned by the noise coming from the residents of the Cove. Do you know how loud partying adolescents can get? We do. We know now it's deeply impacted our sleep and our peace. Our formal and informal appeals to the Cove management have been met with the attitude that tenants have a right to enjoy their new homes, and that we need to get used to it.
I lived here when Sierra Madre Village student housing was built by UCSB. It was close and we were worried that it would be loud but those students had been lovely quiet neighbors year after year. We've never had a single complaint. But the Cardinal Group chose to build upscale student housing even closer to our quiet neighborhood and then marketed it for its proximity to Isla Vista and its sociability.
And now that we are demanding that they enforce certain courtesies from their tenants, they are unwilling to take any actions. They encourage us to call the sheriff to enforce noise ordinances. We have done that but it doesn't sit right with us. What an unsustainable waste of law enforcement resources. We are begging you as our Board of Supervisors to demand that the Cove management at the very least enforced current noise ordinances with their tenants with clauses in the lease that contain real consequences for noise infractions and it isn't just the human residents that are being impacted by the noise and light coming from the cove. The North County Open Space Nature Preserve is home to so many wonderful birds, mammals and reptiles. We want to be stewards of this special place to provide an environment that encourages endangered species such as the snowy plover to nest and mate.
I don't think it's a huge leap to make that if the noise, the commotion, the light, the litter bother us they're bothering the wildlife as well but the wildlife cannot speak up The units are built. We understand they aren't going away, but as citizens we ask that the business who stands to profit handsomely from these homes be held responsible for the nuisance that they have created. We have many possible solutions and we look forward to working with you to continue the conversation. Thank you.
We will now go to Byron Thomas to be followed by Sierra Leverett.
1:02 – 1:096 turns
Chair Capps and other board members, I just want to thank you so much for the work that you have been doing and the decisions you've made that help protect those who are vulnerable to exploitation in the county. My name is Byronnie Thomas and I work as Interfaith Collaborative Leader as a part of the Human Trafficking Task Force for the county. And it was fitting that you had the resolution honoring that interfaith initiative. In my role Gathering faith community members to help fight exploitation and we have an initiative called STAND. So I just wanted to make you aware of it, and We love acronyms so S is see something say something we do education so that people know what human trafficking looks like in our county and There's a lot of myths surrounding human trafficking.
So we're trying to dispel those myths Then we have T which is take action We all can't do everything, but we can all do something. So it's equipping our community members with ways that they can take steps to help fight this exploitation. Then we have A, accept responsibility and that's something we can all do as a community for what's going on on the backside of the postcard of Santa Barbara. And then N is to network and collaborate. We've been so fortunate to work with so many people doing good work that we have the District Attorney's Office, Noahs Anchorage, STESA, North County Rape Crisis Center. There are a lot of people doing really good work and so we want to network and collaborate and you all are part of that and we thank you.
And then N or D, excuse me, is designate a representative. If each faith community has somebody that's the liaison between Interfaith Collaborative and their faith community we can have more people doing their part to fight this so I just ask that you continue to make decisions that help protect those vulnerable to exploitation and I thank you for your time You will now go to
Sierra
Leverett, to be followed by Jeff Schaefer. Sierra? Chair Kaps and members of the Board of Supervisors I'm a senior at Westmont College majoring in political science. Two years ago I had the opportunity to go to Ecuador and work with victims of sex trafficking so from there human trafficking has been heavy on my heart and mind and that's what brings me today Like Lea mentioned, I'm currently working in a fellowship with Kingdom Causes where we are developing a three-year action plan to end the commercial sexual exploitation of children and youth in Santa Barbara or Seseki.
We aim to address the urgent issue in our city by collaborating with key government agencies businesses and nonprofits in order to collect data and engage with efforts already being done and determine what action steps need to be taken in the future This is an ongoing process that we would love your support and for you to be closely involved with. My fellow partner Leia sent out emails like she mentioned this morning, so we would love to set up interviews with you and hear directly about your insight concerning the child exploitation and how to address that.
And someone from my team will be here each month to keep you updated and further ask for your support in how you can support us moving forward. We can't do this without you, and we know you want to protect our children just like we do. I thank you guys for your hard work and for your time and look forward to being in contact with you in the future. Thank you.
We will now go to Jeff Schaffer to be followed by Violet Grace. Jeff?
Good morning. Chair Kaps, members of the Board of Supervisors, good to see you all. My name is Jeff Schaefer. I'm with Kingdom Causes. I am here to represent a population you've heard from my other speakers. Our kids are local kids that are at risk of, or who are currently being sexually exploited. And so many of you know that I've worked within the homeless arena for a few years and when I started working in that arena there was no professional case management. There was no coordinated entry system. There is no vulnerability index, the way of getting the most vulnerable into housing with the correct services at the beginning.
But over 1520 years has all been developed and it's not perfect that system is not perfect, but it's working there are gaps in it. But at least if you're experiencing homelessness in any one of our regions right now. You can probably find a case manager when it comes for some of our children that are being exploited there are a lot of amazing agencies are doing amazing work across the county. But I can say clearly that there is not a single point of contact case manager for our kids And for me, as I look at systems and I began to understand that being a part of the Human Trafficking Task Force is something that I felt pretty strongly needed to be fixed which is why we've designed this three-year action plan. So usually when trying to tackle a major issue, I think in three years because I think that we have to start something, we have to prove it, we have to capture data, we have to have transparency and accountability That's one of the reasons why we will be coming here every month to represent what we're trying to achieve and we hope to have your involvement.
I can give you some data just based from Noah's Anchorage, and so a lot of you know who Noah's Anchorage is. They have a youth shelter. They also do youth outreach. They a lot of the kids that are across the county are coming to know as Anchorage right now so what we're talking about is helping kids across the county. But they have 71 individuals in 2025 in which they did a first responder ID tool, which means that they suspected that these kids were at risk of being sexually exploited 14 were at high risk 24 medium risk with 19 suspected child abuse reports being done So I think the data itself, and that's only who we know about.
So the data in itself kind of expresses that this is something we need to look at and do something about. So this strategic plan as you've seen, I've learned a lot over the years, and I'm trying to involve everyone from business leaders, faith community leaders, we've got high school students, we got college students, we got non-profits We're going to create a three-year action plan in Santa Barbara City that we hope to replicate. So please respond to the emails for these interviews as soon as you get them, that would be really important for us to get your insight, get your involvement and get your partnership. And for members of the community if you want to learn more you can go to www.safesbc.org or my email is jeff.shaffer at kingdomcauses.org as well.
Thank you for your time.
We will now go to Violet Grace, to be followed by Karen Hauenstein who is our final speaker. Violet?
1:09 – 1:144 turns
Good morning Chair Kaps and Supervisors. My name is Violet Sophia Grace Hauenstein. I live in Lompoc Valley. I'm here today because of a conflict you have allowed to develop in our schools here in Santa Barbara County. Right now I am anxious and afraid to perform my physical education class at Vanderburg Middle School There is a problem with allowing boys to be Pacific, humans with XY chromosomes into the girls' locker room at our school. While I was changing my clothes, I was noticed by three students. One of them is a boy who identifies as a female. He is not a female. He does not have XX chromosomes.
It is a fact that boys having XXY chromosomes often behave more aggressively than females. This boy body shamed me and started a conflict with me in the locker room. This embarrassed me publicly and personally. My other female peers witnessed this, and they were visibly uncomfortable and so was I. Now I feel like girls are being watched and humiliated by a boy when we are undressed. This is a violation of my personal and civil rights. We are not in a public place, we're changing our clothes. Why is this being allowed at all? It hurts me and other female peers. I wanna know what this Board of Supervisors is going to do about the fact that I am anxious and afraid. It seems like you don't care about my privacy. What about my self-esteem and my body image?
I'm not trying to be political or rude to him and you guys, but this really needs to go back to the way it used to be. I feel like I'm not being protected by my rights. I feel like there's no rules. Thank you for your time and consideration.
And we will now go to our final speaker Karen Hauenstein
Good morning, Chair Caps and supervisors. It's unfortunate that my daughter had to make that statement that she wrote herself after her experiences. I am here today speaking about the fact this county has been housing male inmates who identify as female inside our jails with biological female inmates. These individuals with penises are showering in full view of female inmates and it's, this is just sick.
There are so few of these trans or transitioning or conveniently protected, confused individuals. I would like to know from Bill Brown himself why they cannot be housed individually? I have interviewed several women who were housed with trans people who have penises. They report that they feel sickened and ashamed of the entire experience When you hold women captive and force them to view penises they do not want to see, isn't that sexual abuse?
I do not care about the fact a liberal majority pushed through illegal laws in our state to push their strange agendas. I care about our rights. For the same reason a man has the right to say he wants to look like a female, women have the right not to look at naked penises in jail. Stop being corrupt to allow this hypocrisy. Is the custody staff laughing at the disgust and frustration shown by the females in custody who have to witness this issue?
Or are they similarly disgusted? Please instruct Bill Brown to disallow the opportunity for men to expose themselves to female inmates in custody It is sexual abuse. We need to stop being abusive. Okay, on the flip side if I want to claim I identify as a man, is Bill Brown gonna throw me into a jail pod with a bunch of men? You think that's gonna happen? Then why is this happening to the female inmate population?
I feel that we're just abusing them more. Should identified abuse be tolerated at all To continue shaming female inmates this way is certainly wolf pack mentality and behavior. Be sure to go to Coast Audits on YouTube if you know of similar abuse, please report it. Thank you.
And that concludes general public comment for today.
1:14 – 1:175 turns
Okay thank you for everybody. Supervisor Hartman?
Well, just in public comment I wanted to acknowledge that we had a wonderful event on Sunday with the Animal Care Foundation and celebrating our County Health 100th anniversary. And this was in benefit of our shelters and animals and three of our supervisors were there and our CEO and it was a sold-out event and it was really really great And thank you to Lee Heller who really took the helm in organizing it.
Just for the public that's watching, I think it's important to point out that we don't control the schools. You're a former school board member and if you could kind of...I think this is something that would have been better off and I think we all know that At a school board meeting to address that. We have no jurisdiction over the school system, so first I ever heard of it and there's nothing actually we can do about it.
And we can't operate the jail either.
Okay with that we will take a short break and we'll head back in about 10 minutes, Okay we are back and we'll move to our first departmental item number one which is the fourth quarter budget status update.
1:17 – 1:262 turns
Yes Chair Kaps and members of the board, departmental item number one is from the County Executive Office. It is a hearing to consider recommendations regarding fiscal year 2024 through 2025 fourth quarter budget status report.
Thank you Chair Kaps, members of the board I'm Paul Clemeni your Budget Director Today I'll be updating your board on how the county ended fiscal year 24-25 compared to the adjusted budget. If I can get the slides to move, there we go. We look at how each department in the general fund ended the fiscal year and if they had a variance of $300,000 or more positive or negative as compared to their budget we include an explanation in the report.
Special revenue funds are required to end the year balanced so they don't typically have any reportable variances in this report although we do discuss the social services year-end issues on an upcoming slide The general fund ended with a positive variance of $14.7 million, driven mostly by general revenues at 16.2 million and a handful of other departments with positive balances partially offset by sheriff and public defender ending negative at 4.4 million and around $400,000 respectively.
I'll touch on each of these departments in the coming slides. General Revenues is the department where the general funds discretionary revenue is recorded and includes property taxes, transient occupancy tax, sales tax and more. It ended this fiscal year with a $16.2 million surplus, or about 4% of budget. The surplus was driven mostly by property taxes, TOT tax and interest income coming in higher than budgeted.
Assessed value growth came in at 5.5%, on an assumed 3.75% in 24-25. And tax fines, forfeitures and penalties came in higher than anticipated as well. contributing to the $6.4 million surplus in that line. TOT came in 4.5 million dollars more than budget this year due to both strong year-over-year growth as well as the increase of the tax rate halfway through the fiscal year from 12% to 14%.
And interest income continues to outperform projections, coming in 3.5 million higher than the 6.5 million budgeted due to the higher rate environment. We do continue to watch interest closely however as just a few years ago it was only bringing in between one and two million dollars annually sometimes less so it's been pretty volatile over time and can change quickly Cannabis tax revenues came in about $900,000 under budget for a total of 5.2 million dollars on a budget of 6.1 million consistent with the quarterly projections we've been providing all year.
The shortfall was mostly due to operator attrition with less licensed cultivators than the prior year. The shortfall was covered with prudent reserves and does not impact the overall general reserve or general revenue's positive variance. We had three operating departments that ended with positive reportable variances, including probation at $1.5 million, CEO at $650,000 and general services around $500,000.
The probation and CEO variances were mostly driven by salary savings and general services savings were in large part driven by less spending than anticipated on maintenance and janitorial services. The Sheriff's negative $4.4 million deficit, 2% of their adopted budget as discussed at the July 15th hearing was driven mostly by overtime costs that were not offset by salary savings has often happened in prior years due to greater success during the fiscal year filling positions in 24-25.
This deficit was what remained after releasing the full $2 million Proposition 172 set-aside held in general county programs, as well as three and a half million in additional general fund dollars that were used to cover the 2425 impacts of the jail medical contract increases and the DSA side letter increases that were approved last year. The size of this deficit came as something of a surprise at year-end because there was about 3.3 million dollars in budgeted grant and other revenues that weren't received during the year because eligible expenses weren't incurred in the programs funded by those revenues Because most of those revenues were appropriated into the salaries and benefits object level, and our budget is controlled at the department object level.
It masked overspending of salaries and benefits in other programs. At year end when it became clear those external revenues weren't going to materialize the size of the problem became clear. One of the recommended monitoring practices that we'll be implementing with the Sheriff going forward is to include in our quarterly operational review meetings with them specific tracking and estimates of the expenditures related to outside revenue sources such as grants, to better identify issues earlier in the year.
Other recommendations include conducting a custody deputy new higher cost analysis to get a better idea of the costs and practices driving those costs for onboarding and training new custody deputies in order to better estimate costs in future years. Re-budgeting more realistic salary savings and overtime amounts, which will facilitate better transparency and budget monitoring throughout the year.
And conducting a review of overtime coding practices in the department, which we have already referred to the Auditor Controller's Office and is underway now. We believe these recommended measures will help with our monitoring and reporting, and catch large issues earlier in the year. But ultimately it is still incumbent on the Sheriff's Department to manage costs within their adopted budget.
The public defender ended the year with a deficit of $431,000 just under 2% of their budget Like the Sheriff's Department, their issue was driven by higher than budgeted salary and benefit expenditures in certain programs that were masked at the department-wide level by unspent appropriations related to budgeted grants that ended up being delayed. Similar to the sheriff, we'll be asking the department to regularly monitor and report to our office on expenditures against outside revenues like grants and bring budget revisions as necessary if it becomes known that certain revenues won't be received in the current year to help remove the masking issue.
Finally, as reported on July 15th, Social Services ended with a $1.58 million deficit. They closed the fiscal year balanced by depleting much of their remaining fund balance, as well as using some of the $3.4 million one-time general fund monies that had been allocated in the current 2526 budget. While this helped them close last fiscal year, the use of these monies which had been planned for use in Fiscal Year 25-26 further exacerbates the budget issues they were already anticipating this fiscal year and is part of what they will be addressing when they come to your board on October 7th with proposed measures to balance their current year budget.
As of quarter four, 513 of the county's 4,767 adopted funded positions were vacant and 11% vacancy rate. This is similar to the vacancy rate for most quarters during the fiscal year. The departments with the highest rates of funded vacancies include the County Executive Office at 22%, the Clerk Recorder Assessor's office at 17% and Behavioral Wellness at 17%.
Both CEO and the Clerk Recorder Assessor are holding some of their positions intentionally vacant due to future budget uncertainties, such as in the case of the recorder a continued decrease in recording volume. Departments with the lowest rates, 6 to 7%, include County Council, Public Defender, Treasurer Tax Collector and Fire. Unused funds due to vacancies return to the General Fund or the associated funding source at the end of the fiscal year unless authorization is given otherwise.
As part of budget strategies to address projected future year deficits CEO staff will continue scrutinizing vacant positions and consider eliminating or freezing certain positions to balance upcoming budgets. We do typically end the year with some savings in the general fund, which is often the source we use to fund capital projects or other one-time priorities in the upcoming budget year.
In this case, we are recommending that the $14.7 million in savings from fiscal year 2425 be put towards the construction costs of the Northern Branch Jail expansion. We continue to look at every balance we have to help identify cash on hand that we can put towards construction and reduce the amount that we will need to borrow through debt issuance. The less we have to borrow, the lower the ongoing debt service costs.
As we've discussed previously with your board it's estimated that every $14 million will reduce ongoing debt service by a million dollars. We will further discuss the larger fiscal outlook and strategies to address it in a few months when we bring our five-year forecast. Here we have the recommended actions to receive and file the fourth quarter report, and make the CEQA determination that this fiscal report is not a project. Thank you.
1:26 – 1:3632 turns
Thank you to our budget director and team. Supervisor Hartman?
With regard to the sheriff's, the corrective actions I guess I'll term them. To review the overtime coding practices through the auditor wasn't that a KPMG recommendation? I seem to remember that there were difficulties in tracking The activities and a recommendation to do that. So how is this going to be different? And what do we know, what do we hope and expect?
Supervisors, I don't have the KPMG recommendations in front of me. But one of the recommendations was how can you tie overtime better to actual activity so that we could track it? And we always know it's because of the same things we've talked about when they're understaffed, when they have people coming on newly in the training etc., but what your board is asked to do For many years and we've tried, Nancy Anderson tried I think as well is working with the Sheriff's Office so that we could get a clearer picture of it. I think that's still difficult at times but the issue recently is because the overtime costs were so large much larger than what we would have expected. We've asked the auditor to do a review of their payroll accounting And we hadn't done that before to go specifically to look at time cards, to see how pieced together what some of the issues were.
If there are MOU changes that have to be made if there is just practices that have to change and I asked the auditor here is I don't see Ed, I asked if he could be here to tell us about the progress of that audit. But I think the difference this time is we have involved the auditor to help look more specifically and in a more detailed way to help us unearth what other changes may be appropriate.
I mean, as you noted this is an ongoing issue that we can't quite seem to get our arms around and I'm glad we have a new strategy but I think it's important to hear from the sheriff or the Sheriff's Department about their views on this and what they need to make this more transparent for all of us.
I had a question about overtime. Are you asking that? OK, I just want to make sure I understand the question then the numbers because I know in June we approved kind of to use Supervisor Laveny-Neal's phrase over a barrel an additional 5.9 million for overtime for the Sheriff's Department is this 4.4 in addition to that or absorbed by that? See my question Mr. Clemente
Chair Caps, 4.2. You're talking about the July 15th that sort of right at fiscal year end action that we approved? Yes. This is not on top of that. That budget revision that you approved.
Thank
you. The budget revision you approved at that time gave us the appropriations they needed to be able to continue the fiscal year and close. Okay. We didn't transfer some of that revenue over because it was coming from general county programs, we held it there but it let them end the year with this negative 4.2 so it's not on top of that. The action you took allowed them to close the fiscal year
Okay, so we're still talking about the same challenge which is not tracking overtime properly. Correct. But it's somewhere in the ballpark of four to five million dollar
challenge. So they went 4.2 million over budget overall. Their overtime budget, I don't have that number, is quite a bit over their budgeted overtime. Yes. To the tune of, I want to say 14 14, $15 million over their overtime budget. A lot of their salary savings from vacancies covers that but this year they ended up with a pretty big negative still even after salary savings.
Okay. Yeah, CEO Miyasato?
I know that the assistant audit controller is on his way here but I didn't realize Hope was here. Sorry Hope if you're here as well but the CFO from the Sheriff's Office Hope Vasquez is here if you have questions.
If anyone would like to speak to this, that'd be great. Thank you. I'm sorry, what was the question? Just that I'm trying to understand the discrepancy between sort of the action that was taken in July versus this discrepancy but maybe.
That's Hope's question.
It's about the audits. Just about the audits. I think that was the question that Supervisor Hartman.
Unfortunately I don't know the status of the audit. That would be the auditor controller.
But I guess it would be helpful to know how do we track What officers are doing and how do we track over time within the Sheriff's Office? How does that compare to other departments? Why can't we get more visibility and clarity about this because it continues to be an issue year after year.
Supervisor Hartman through the chair, so The larger issue is the fact that we do have the structural staffing deficit. We have positions that are post that have to be filled 24-7, and if we don't have the body then we have to place an overtime body in that place. We do not have enough staffing to have a relief factor in our jails or in our patrol sections so That's the underlying problem with the overtime is that if we don't have enough people to cover relief factor, then we are going to have to pull people in overtime. You can't have 4.4 bodies for a 24-7 post.
This board has spent a lot of money to recruit new custody deputies. And that's
actually part of the problem unfortunately is that we had a lot of unproductive assets last year Which are people who are on our books that we're paying for, that are either in training or in the academy. So while they are in those positions, we are paying for them like they were a regular position. However unfortunately they're an unproductive asset and cannot fill a post position So until they become a productive asset, which I was just having this conversation with Katrina.
As soon as they become a productive asset that we will see that drop in overtime. We had the same thing happen in the past when we had hiring freeze back and I think it was 07-08 where we got hit a couple years later with this same type of thing where we had a lot of overtime due to the unproductive assets that we had where we were hiring a lot of people. We just unfortunately did not have productive assets too.
I appreciate the big picture. I think what we're talking about here is drilling down to how things are actually coded and accounted for, and I think we're asking for improvements, and I think those improvements have been requested again by previous audits by KPMG so maybe we need to hear from the auditor and that would help shine more light on this.
I am Ed Price, Assistant Auditor Controller. Sorry I'm a little late to the party on this one. We have an audit in process to look at the data. I just was talking to my audit manager on the way up here We've got the data in and I'm just starting to do the analysis on it. But to your point is to see what the coding structures are doing, what they're actually telling us when trying to get some benchmarks to see what we can actually learn out of that data. And I think going forward there might be some opportunities in coding structures changes perhaps as shares might be able to put in to help us track a little bit more what's really causing all these great variances and discrepancies.
And if I may, how do you establish benchmarks?
We'll go back and probably look at other entities to see how they're coding their time and how they're also processing and see what averages are and so forth in the local jurisdictions surrounding us.
So other law enforcement apples to apples.
Try. Although custody is not always that easy and it's a little bit like apples and oranges at times, but we'll try our best to see if we can find some other comparables out there to give us at least a sense that we're in the right ballpark or
not. And how long do you think this will take?
It'll probably be another couple weeks before we get to that point. We just got the data I think we got the last piece in yesterday and so they're now just starting to do the analysis work today
And if I may ask the CEO, how will the board learn of this? Will it come as an A or D item?
It's at your request. What would you what your preference would be right now? It was just a internal review by the auditor and it's really what you'd like to see
Yeah, I personally again because this is an ongoing issue would like to understand it in more detail So I would like to have it come back to the board. Although that isn't typical in this case. I think it's merited
Yeah I agree, I just think we're looking for a sense of urgency to curtail an ongoing issue if it's related to the auditing and coding. Certainly we understand we've devoted a lot of funds towards understaffing issue. We certainly don't need to be convinced that that's been challenged for many societal and other issues underlying issues but if there's also some technical ones that can be resolved we'd like I just would like to hear a sense of urgency around We do have under sheriff Bonner who's been wanting to speak. He's joining us by zoom.
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Can you hear me? Yes, I can't turn on my looks like my videos turned off but I am available via video if it's turned on.
Thanks for being here.
Yeah, so I just want to clarify there are as was pointed out your board and CEO's office have worked with us. To incentivize hiring an it was incredibly successful to the point we hired almost 100 sworn deputies during the last fiscal year. And as CFO Vasquez pointed out, that is a double-edged sword. It's just we have occasionally and this was one of them experience where it was to that point that it not only Erased the salary savings but far exceeded it, right? You have 100 people who for almost a year were unproductive assets. What that means is we're paying them to train.
But we're also paying another deputy on overtime to do the work that that asset would hopefully eventually do. Last year was one of those years Essentially you just, you can't correct it. There's no way to correct that piece of it that you have that many people in training and that you're having to backfill that many people on the positive those people are coming off of training and our hard vacancy rates are as low as they have ever been so there is a light at the end of the tunnel as it relates to that specific to the challenge Timecard code.
You know, we utilize the same time card system that everyone including your teams do within the county system and that is fine for telling you that we are having somebody come in to maintain minimum safe staffing in the jail or on patrol right? These are the staffing levels that are necessary to ensure community safety Deputy safety, inmate safety and compliance with applicable laws including the Murray settlement.
What it doesn't the system doesn't allow reasonably is to tell you whether or not that overtime was caused because somebody wasn't training because they called in sick or they were on vacation or out on military leave That's the challenge of, you know we've been working with the CEO's office trying to drill that down and we can do it. Our CFO Vasquez has done a great job of showing what are the drivers of that overtime but it's not direct. It's more of an indirect right? We're taking totalities of information putting it together and showing what is causing that overtime.
What I think we all want to be able to say is okay when Craig Bonner worked a piece of overtime. Why? What caused him to work that overtime on that day? What I can tell you through the time card code in the existing system is that it was to maintain minimum safe staffing levels, either again on patrol or in the jail. I just can't tell you through the existing system if that was caused by a person that was in training, on vacation, military leave, FMLA so on. So that's what we've been working on trying to be able to provide the CEO's office budget team, et cetera.
I will tell you that we have made a lot of progress. We've worked with the DSA to refine MOU language that was causing overtime. Again, we both came together found that it was in the best interest of both We are looking at not only the budget but also their employees, minimizing the amount of mandatory overtime that they're having to work. And this is something that we continue to do meeting with them trying to drive down that overtime. You know, we're looking at and have been looking at scheduling you know anything at all that is a driver of overtime and trying to bring it under control. And again, we are continuing to work with CEO's office with the auditor team members to have to work less overtime.
But at the same point in time, we're having to do all of that in balance with ensuring community safety, deputy safety and the safety of folks that are in our care and custody. Thank you.
Thank you under sheriff. I just wanted to make sure because you let me go before you so it's Supervisor Nelson, did you have?
I do but I think Supervisor Harmon did you want to?
I just had a quick question is the audit for custody and law enforcement or just custody that the auditor is doing?
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My understanding is what we're looking at right now was for custody, but we can expand it if you'd like to everything. It seems like that would be appropriate this point because it sounds like there might be some filling going across both sides of that spectrum there so we'll do that. Then I had a little bit more time probably into the project but I think it's well spent under this circumstance.
Supervisor Nelson?
Yes thank you Chair Kaps. You know something that's kind of attached here on the overtime is And I think it's maybe comes out through the audit, but it's how people combined their vacation time with their work time. And is that what becomes the overtime at that point? And I think that that's something I don't want to actually don't wanna single out the Sheriff's Department. This could be happening throughout our organization and that's why actually I hope of the auditor's office looks that not just in public safety, but all of our offices that might have any overtime that how that's done because it seems that the system that's in place right now allow somebody to use overtime to fill up their schedule and then work in that overtime. So it actually increases the amount that we're potentially paying somebody when it really should be that they should work first, and then they should top up with overtime would be my assumption.
But it seems like I don't want to call it an abuse if that's a common practice but it does seem like something that needs to be curtailed especially as we look at high overtime costs. You know, maybe back in the day when that was once in a while type of thing. But we have a huge cost, huge overruns and that's something that we can do to tighten that up. I think that could go a long way in all our departments not just public safety. So hopefully you guys are looking at that is what I'm looking
for. Supervisor Nelson through the chair. We are looking at that. Some of it I think might be MOU specific issues that we're addressing. We'll have to look at that but different opportunities to see how the organization at large will start with share. Thank you.
I just do want to confirm what's under Sheriff Bonner said that he's right. Our existing system is difficult than for us to track specifically why the overtime occurred and as Supervisor Nelson did, did they actually work the overtime or was it because of the way they were coding the card? Because with MOU allows So I want to thank the Sheriff's Office for trying to do their best and we encourage them to continue even with the system that we have. But I also want to clarify that, we've asked the auditor to look at this this year rather than having us looking in the past because we understood overtime occurs and they need constant staffing but as the board letter says sheriff employees coding over a thousand overtime hours in a single fiscal year jumped from eight employees in 2019-20 to 55 Supervisor Nielsen.
Did I, maybe I missed that. Was that in the board letter? Are you reading from that? Yes
it's in the board letter. It's on page 5.
Okay so you said there was actually an employee that and I guess I just overlooked it that did over 2,000 hours of overtime? Yes okay. I think that that's troubling and so It needs oversight. I think those are the outliers that we need to look at and go, what's happening there? Because maybe there might be great explanation but I think that is something that is working 2,000 hours is typically normal so they work 2, then another 2, and another 500. That's hard to imagine.
I want to Make it sound like somebody's doing something wrong. I just think we just need to look at it, that's where the auditor comes involved to actually take a really clear unbiased look at the numbers because again many of these people are doing heroic work and I don't want to disparage them but at the same time we need to get our arms around the costs.
Other questions comments? Well, I did just have a general comment because I'm not sure if it's clear necessarily to the public. As we move into a different season, I was fortunate to start on this board when things were a little more flush and we actually had excess, not too much but now we're moving into a much different scenario and so I just wanted to kind of get your take Mr. Clemente and you know when there are deficits like this In one department or two departments, what happens to the others? How do we prepare? What kind of goes through your planning and what should we be thinking about as a board when we get reports like this. What is the impact on the other departments?
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Chair Caps, so in this situation when it's general fund departments like this and we have at the general fund level a you know surplus that we ended this year with what it's doing is it's taking you know our surplus is less. It's less by four million-ish dollars than it otherwise would have been had the sheriff ended with a balanced budget And that 17, 18 million we would have had instead of the 14 million that we've ended the year with would have gone into likely other projects or in this case we probably would have been recommending the full 18 instead of the I want to start by saying thank you to the Board of Supervisors for this opportunity.
When you look at it holistically, it is forcing us to find more money in other places for that ongoing debt service than we would otherwise need to when a department ends this much to the negative in the general fund. So the impact on other departments are likely going to be some more belt tightening than otherwise would have been needed in the future.
Okay thanks for spelling it out, thanks for the sobering information. Any other questions or I guess we can ask Supervisor Hartman?
I was ready to make a motion but I guess we have public comment first.
Yeah thank you Madam Clerk are there any comments from the public? Chair Kaps and members of the board we have no requests to speak from the public on this item okay I'll take your motion.
Yes, so I would move A and B in today's board letter staff recommendation with direction that the auditor look at both custody and law enforcement and that it come back to the board either as an A or D item in the discretion of the CEO.
I can second that all those in favor? Aye. Motion carries Okay great, thank you for our budget team and to the Sheriff's Department and to our auditors. Let's move to departmental item number two response to the grand jury's report on food vending we've had a very prolific grand jury this
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year Chair Kaps and members of the Board, departmental item number two is from the County Executive Office in the County Health Department. It is a hearing to consider recommendations regarding responses to the 2024 through 2025 Grand Jury Report on food vending.
Okay Dr. Mami
Good morning Madam Chair and Supervisors. Yes, we have the privilege of presenting our responses to the Grand Jury Report. Today I have with me our Deputy Director for Operations Lars Seifert who is going to delve into the more technical aspects of the findings and recommendations. On June 26th 2025 the Grand Jury issued a report entitled Unpermitted Food Vendors in Santa Barbara County. I want to begin by thanking the Grand Jury for highlighting food safety as an important public health priority in our county and their recognition and awareness of the risk of foodborne illnesses that is associated with improper and unsanitary food handling.
The report focuses on unpermitted food vending from pushcarts, food trucks and pop-up restaurants which have been at an unprecedented levels in the county and across the state posing a threat to public health. These unpermitted food vendors also have an economic impact on our local permitted businesses such as mobile food trucks and brick-and-mortar restaurants. Today your board will consider the proposed responses to the Grand Jury Report which includes four findings and five recommendations.
The board is required to respond within 90 days of the date of the report release, which will happen to be tomorrow September 24th and the letter is included in your board packet today. In terms of providing a little bit of background, the California Retail Food Code and Section 1619 of the Santa Barbara County Code specify requirements for proper storage preparation and handling of food sold from vendors. To demonstrate compliance with these requirements vendors must obtain a food handler's card and a health permit from Environmental Health Services at county health.
which as you know we refer to as EHS during this presentation. EHS conducts annual mobile food vendor inspections within the unincorporated county and incorporated cities, and more frequent inspections are conducted if a complaint has been filed by a member of the public or if a vendor has received a prior violation. Most recently, the State Legislature has passed two sidewalk vending laws SB 946 and SB 972 in 2018 and 2022 which also changed the portions of the California Retail Food Code. The cumulative effect of these bills decriminalized sidewalk vending and limited the ability of local jurisdictions to enforce state regulations. This has had the effect of disincentivizing street food vendors from obtaining the necessary health permits.
The Grand Jury Report highlights these and other issues that County Health faces in ensuring food safety practices are followed, including ineffective penalties for unpermitted food vendors and the difficulty of regulating vendors that frequently relocate to avoid these penalties and the impoundment of their food and items. With that, I'll hand it to Lars to walk us through the first finding.
Over the next few slides, I'll highlight each of the grand jury's reports findings and recommendations and the proposed responses to each that would be provided by your board to the grand jury. Finding one of the report states county health ability to inspect mobile food vendors and enforce food safety regulations has been limited by the small number of inspection personnel currently employed in its environmental health services division We recommend that the board agree with this grand jury finding.
The recent rise in unpermitted food vending has been a staffing challenge, adding burden to our inspection team that often must respond after hours and during weekends. EHS is the reinforcement agency for food safety throughout the entire county including both incorporated and unincorporated areas, and we've based our staffing levels on the need to inspect all of the permitted businesses.
However, I will note to date that this has not limited our ability to address mobile food vendors when needed. EHS has been able to rely on overtime efforts to conduct inspections to ensure food safety regulations are being adequately enforced. So along with this finding the grand jury has recommendation one The grand jury recommends that the board provide county health with sufficient funding to hire additional inspectors, to facilitate more frequent inspections of mobile food vendors and to enforce compliance with existing food safety laws if violations are discovered. To be implemented by July 1st 2026 While we agree that county health needs to routinely evaluate its ongoing level of effort for food safety compliance, we have been able to effectively use overtime hours and leverage local partnerships with city code enforcement and law enforcement to conduct more frequent inspections of mobile food vendors which has resulted in some successes over the past six months.
As such, County Health does not recommend hiring additional EHS staff at this time which would not be supported by our current health permit fees. We will however continue to leverage local partnerships with cities and law enforcement agencies to provide targeted inspections of mobile food vendors countywide. EHS will continue to utilize overtime to conduct after hours and weekend inspections when needed And also notable, I just want to point out that we have also begun a partnership with the California Highway Patrol as well. To discuss their involvement with food vending enforcement and they've agreed to collaborate with us in certain areas to enforce the California Street and Highways Code as well. So EHS will continue to monitor this situation with vendors and leverage local partnerships where possible and with the State California Highway Patrol.
And conduct additional enforcement where we identify hotspots for unpermitted food vending. Finding 2 of the Grand Jury Report states that there is no established process by which the public can report on permitted mobile food vendors to county health, thus making enforcement of food safety requirements more difficult. The County does disagree with this finding but acknowledges that increasing public awareness and ease of reporting is essential to effective enforcement and we appreciate the Grand Jury pointing this out.
We do currently have well-established channels through which the public can report on permitted food vendors. For example, EHS does provide public phone numbers, email addresses specifically for submitting complaints or concerns including those related to mobile food vending operations. These channels are monitored regularly by staff during business hours and complaints are tracked and promptly responded to in accordance with our public health protocols similar to any other food safety concern or inquiry we receive from the public.
For this finding, the grand jury recommendation states the Grand Jury recommends that the Board of Supervisors direct County Health to establish a tip line for the public to report information about mobile food vendors who are not permitted to be implemented by January 1st 2026. County Health agrees again with the importance of approving public access to report concerns related to unpermitted street vendors and finds that there's still some room for improvement.
In response to this recommendation, County Health will establish an additional online reporting tool by January 1st 2026 and this will also include advertising the existing EHS phone line and online reporting form to make sure that the public is aware of these reporting options The new online reporting tool will support more timely and efficient enforcement actions by enabling the public to provide information directly from a mobile device regarding the location and operation of unpermitted street food vendors. This is always a difficult thing with unpermitted street food vendors because the locations times change, and so having that information available to staff gives us a chance to respond to those concerns.
We are currently piloting this online reporting form and should have this available to disseminate to the public in the near future. For finding three, the grand jury found that county health efforts to conduct inspections of mobile food vendors have been negatively impacted by safety concerns for inspection personnel. Again, while the county agrees with this finding we do have EHS inspectors that are trained public health professionals who routinely conduct physical inspections of both retail food businesses and permitted mobile food vendors out in the community as part of their normal duties.
These staff members are equipped with the knowledge, protocols and experience necessary to perform inspections safely and effectively under normal conditions. EHS is also coordinated with the CHP, Sheriff's Office and local law enforcement in certain areas including the cities of Santa Barbara, Lompoc and Santa Maria to support staff during inspections when appropriate.
While safety challenges may occasionally require enhanced support such as law enforcement, they're not universally present and this has not prevented the EHS team from continuing its work. County Health does remain committed to providing a safe work environment for staff and will continue to assess risks and collaborate with the appropriate agencies as needed.
Associated with this finding, there are two recommendations. One is for the Sheriff's Office and one is for County Health. The first is directed to the Sheriff's Department and we've collaborated with them on the response. Recommendation 3A states the grand jury recommends that the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office delegate deputies to accompany county health inspectors so that the inspectors with the support of law enforcement can safely enforce permitting and inspecting in the unincorporated areas of Santa Barbara County And in the incorporated areas where the sheriff's office is contracted to provide services.
This recommendation has been implemented already, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office currently provides law enforcement support to EHS and this support occurs at pre-planned inspections in the unincorporated areas of the county and also in the cities where the sheriff's office is contracted to provide law enforcement services. The on duty area supervisor is also made aware of standby requests and can provide additional assistance as needed.
The second part of this recommendation is similar to the first. It states that the grand jury recommends the board direct county health to partner with municipal law enforcement agencies so that health inspectors, with the support of law enforcement can safely enforce permitting and inspecting within incorporated municipalities. This recommendation has also already been implemented. County and health inspectors routinely coordinate with city law enforcement where resources are available.
In the City of Santa Barbara, for example, county health has partnered with Santa Barbara Police Department on joint enforcement efforts in high traffic areas and after hours operations. These partnerships are pursued on a case-by-case basis and continue to be strengthened as staffing and municipal support allow. And these are important partnerships in our enforcement of food safety laws.
The fourth and final finding states, food trucks and carts are often not located in proximity to restroom or hand washing facilities for staff and customers as legally required which poses a significant public health risk. The county partially disagrees with this finding. It does pose a significant public health risk, but as far as our permitted mobile food vendors, they are required to have access to approved restroom and hand washing facilities unless otherwise exempted by EHS. So this is part of what we look at when they're operating procedures and to allow them to have a health permit to operate.
I think the difficulty comes when it's an unpermitted vendor and they're not following many other food safety laws as well. So for this final recommendation then, the grand jury report states that the board should direct county health to focus inspection and enforcement efforts on mobile food vendors who operate without proximity to appropriate hand washing or restroom facilities.
County Health respectfully requests that this recommendation not be implemented. While we agree that access to restroom and hand washing are a critical component of safe food operations, EHS does prioritize enforcement efforts based on the severity of potential public health risks more broadly. Major food safety violations that we've seen include unapproved food sources, improper food storage, inadequate temperature control or the sale of high risk foods at unpermitted locations. And these present a greater risk of foodborne illness and remain the primary focus of our enforcement activities.
That said, we do respond to all public complaints involving unpermitted food preparation and sales including where a lack of hand washing in restroom facilities are observed or reported. And when we identify those, we take appropriate enforcement action in those instances. So directing EHS to prioritize restroom and hand washing enforcement may reduce our ability to also focus on these other food safety violations that may pose a more immediate threat to public health.
I'll now turn it back to Director Hamami to go through the recommended actions for your board consideration today.
Thank you, Larson. We recommend that your board take the recommended actions listed A, B and C which include adopting the responses to the grand jury report, authorizing the chair to sign the response letter and forwarding it to the presiding judge of the Santa Barbara County Superior Court and determining that these actions are not subject to CEQA. With that, we thank you and thank the grand jury. And we are open for questioning. I also understand that from the sheriff's office, we have Commander Grissini with us in case there are any questions to the sheriff's office.
Great. Thank you, Mr. Seifert. Questions from the board? Supervisor Lee.
So I have a question. Does the county have a policy where we don't disencourage our employees from patronizing these unpermitted vendors?
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Supervisors of the Chair, we don't monitor or encourage behaviors one way or the other for employees in their off hours. So no there's no policy like that.
Supervisor Hartman? Well, following up a little bit on Supervisor Lee's point. I think education of the public is really important and I think there's more the county could do and it's not as expensive as some other things. Our environmental health goes out there. It's often members of the public who are antagonizing them in their enforcement because they don't really understand the issue so I think we need to consider more what we can do on the public education side of it. We did create a task force that has been, I think very successful And I'm eager to find out when it will report back to this board. But one of the big successes is working with CHP, at least in my area 246 and 154 are really I know that there are areas of tremendous abuse by these pop-up food restaurants and really unsafe.
And the CHP has authority within their right of way that doesn't depend on the law that's been changed by the legislature, so it's a very valuable tool. I know that Ventura County has been wondering how we've gotten our CHP to be so active So we're really grateful for that. So I guess the big point is when is the task force coming back to report to the board? And at least in what you presented, didn't see any mention of that made to the grand jury which I think is one of the reasons again why we can agree with so much of what they've said.
Supervisor Hartman, through the chair. Thank you and we have received direction from the board as part of this setting up a regional task force and we're working with the CEO's office on timing of when we could return to the board with some of the actions I will say as part of that direction there was direction to also Develop some public education and messaging as well. And we're currently working with the county communications officer on trying to develop some of those outreach materials because I do think that is important in educating the general public
One final question, could you talk about confiscation? I noticed that was mentioned but not really elaborated
Thank you, Supervisor Hartman through the chair. Yes one of the tools that we've been implemented with being able to partner with local law enforcement sheriff as well as CHP is to have that law enforcement present there so we can actually compel either a voluntary discord of adulterated food or also conduct impoundment. Just over the last six months with these kind of enhanced partnerships and with city code enforcement, and the fact that the board has raised awareness of this issue. We've been able to do impoundment actions throughout the county particularly in the North County area as well as the San Ynez Valley.
Just an estimate just since February of this year I think we've impounded over 5,000 pounds of meat and unsafe food products from unpermitted vendors So it's a huge, huge effort and one that I thank your board for supporting and helping us get there with these partnerships. It has been a success in that way and we find that you know Making it making it so they continue to you know, if just seizing operations is one thing but basically not being able to set up again having to restock or rethink Being out there is I think beneficial for the public and the community.
And what about equipment?
We have not impounded equipment at this point in time That's one of the things that way I think we're looking at through The task force that has been established is to see what options are available and what resources would be needed to do equipment
Just one final comment. I'm really grateful to the grand jury because this is an issue that we've identified and they validate that, and I think many of their recommendations are right in sync with what we've been learning so right on Grand Jury.
Supervisor Nelson?
Yes thank you Chair Kapsch and yeah I want to acknowledge that you know The issue with sidewalk and street vending is more than just the public health, but you guys are one of the tools that are probably the most appropriate to deal with it. Because I do think there's a lot of other issues surrounding it that are a little bit harder for us to wrestle with. These pop-up businesses are using public property for their business and they're often not only Are there concerns about the food safety but also traffic safety, customer safety, disposal of waste and really with the unfair business practices that creates. There's so many people in our community By property or, you know, or have a business that they go through all of our hoops or as many of our hoops is I can to try to be compliant.
And, you know, it's very expensive and it's difficult for them to look across the street and see somebody that just flies in the face of all those things. I think environmental health for taking the lead on this. Again, it's not totally you know there's other pieces of our community that kind of touch this but we thank you guys for being a lead on it because I think you guys are getting your arms around it.
We have seen to go down I know that there's other potential I appreciate the work that you did and I appreciate the work the grand jury did on this to keep it on top of mind. And I'm committed to providing you the resources you need to be able to get your arms around this issue. Thank you.
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Well, Supervisor Nelson brought up the word resources and I just want to make sure we speak to sort of prioritization of resources. While I know that of course no one is in support of bad meat or open flames or public spaces being used improperly, I do want to note that when the grand jury took this up, we were in a very different climate on our streets and This is predominantly an immigrant issue, and there's a lot of fear out there.
So I just want to make sure that we keep things in balance. And if you could speak to that Dr. Hammami just in terms of public health and all of the challenges people not necessarily going to doctor right now immigrants using food vending for survival I just hope that we keep perspective. I'm sure you are, but I just hope you could speak to that balance that I'm sure your department is doing. I note that the L.A. County has paused enforcement of food vending given ice raids etc.
Yeah, I know it's sorry. I know it's unusual for a director to refuse any extra funding from the board however we don't think that this is what is needed we certainly this is a complex problem as Supervisor Nelson mentioned that has so many different entities that need to be involved in this and also we do understand that while our focus is the safety of anything that is served to the public and we look at it as a public health this is truly our Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Not only health safety, but public safety and adhering to proper channels are things that need to be addressed. And yes there are so many other things that we're involved in but yet this is also something that we keep a track on.
Okay thank you Supervisor Hartman.
Yeah, I appreciate your comment and I think that is well stated. What we're learning about the pop-up restaurants is that they're largely controlled by a few operations working out of Orange County in L.A., and they're very exploitive of the labor that they use. And that's why there's a concern about human trafficking. They're also competing with Latino restaurants and they also have many Latino employees. In my area, the Santa Ynez Valley one is really struggling to keep in operation because the food truck is right there And that happens, we heard again and again in Santa Maria that that happens within their city. So when we talk about balance I think it's important that people play by the rules and I think this is something that's being exploited not for the benefit of the immigrant community but the benefit of people who are taking advantage of them from a few small company, from a few very A few companies with a lot of resources making a lot of money off their backs operating out of LA and Orange County.
Madam Clerk, any members of the public that wish to speak? Chair Kapsa, members of the board we have no requests to speak from the public on this item.
Okay with that I can take a motion On the grand jury's report and our response.
I'll make a motion to accept the staff recommendation with some of the direction that was given by the board that I think staff already mentioned that they're already working on.
Second.
All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion carries.
Thank you.
2:16 – 2:185 turns
Okay with that I know we are prepared to go back to item A15.
Yes let's, if we could go back to item A 15 that would be helpful before we break for closed session.
Great.
There was a slide that was handed out to you and I think the clerk is it was publicly posted in available and Mr. Lagerquist maybe you could just talk about what this slide says?
Can I speak to it just before we get started? Because it's an issue I went back and forth with the staff. I got the information on the dais in 30 seconds, I saw something that was an outlier, and I brought that up. I haven't had enough time to spend on the rest of the presentation. If I spent five minutes, I might find more. And so I don't feel comfortable moving forward with it personally. The rest of the board is fine with it, that's fine. I know you're going to give an explanation that if you take out the outlier that I identified, it's still gonna lead to the incumbent. But I don't think I have the information right now to be able to make a decision right now. So that said, I'm typically against this contract in part because I actually am not completely against this contract.
I do think there's some places that we need to have security services in the county. I think we've gotten a little bit too robust with it. As a general philosophy, I voted against this contract last time. You know, I'm not a big fan of the metal detectors in the admin building and I do think that we should have security. I think we should have a presence there and I think our security is cheaper than having a sheriff's deputy or police officer in some of these locations that I think are important when we have sensitive issues.
I think our security contract with Hope Village and some of our homeless services are great values to the county. So, I do support some of this contract, some of it I don't. I think that maybe that's something we need to look at as we look at potential cuts in the future of employees on whether that's still valuable or not. One of the questions I asked of staff was Do we know if security stopped any known threats? And I believe the answer is no, that there was not any known threats that they have stopped to this point.