APCD Board Meeting of January 15, 2026

All right, Chair Julian we're ready to go whenever you are.

I am ready.

Chair Julian will start us off.

What's that?

Chair Julian will start us off first.

Okay we will be docking late arrivees but since you don't get paid anyway sorry yeah that's PTO

Chair Julian, can you hear us? I don't think they can hear us. Chair Julian, I think we're experiencing some technical difficulties. I see your mic on but we can't hear you. Can you hear us in Santa Barbara?

We're on air here, so.

Oh, can you hear us?

Yeah.

OK, Chair Julian, we're ready to

go whenever

you

are. OK I am ready. Call the meeting to order of January 15th. The Santa Barbara County Air Pollution Control District Board of Directors will occur please call roll.

Director Lee. Here. Director Capps. Director Hartman. Director Nelson. Here. Director Lavagnino.

Here

Director Silva, here. Director Clark, here. Director Pierotti, here. Director Mosby, here. Director Rouse, here, Director Patino, here Director Brown, here and Chair Julian,

Thank you. The first item of business is election of chair and vice-chair for the 2026. And who's going to handle that?

I can kick us off. In your board packet, we had a list out for the previous 10 years of the chair and the vice-chair. For 2025 as we know, Julian was the chair, Lavinia was the vice-chair. We as a board have historically rotated between a Board of Supervisor and a City Council. And tradition is to move from a vice-chair position up to chair just as reference historically for our agency.

And so Steve was the vice chair?

Yes.

How do you like being chair, Steve?

You just found out about it.

I forgot I was vice chair all year so yes, I will go ahead and accept chair and then don't we normally do city right? Do we do north and south or

does it matter? It

doesn't matter. All right so let's leave it open for Vice Chair. Anybody interested?

I would be curious if Mayor Brown might be interested That is solving?

I'll second that.

We call it voluntold here so I'll make them actually the motion to for the 2026 year to have Director Labonino as chair and Director Brown as vice-chair.

I'll second that.

Okay, that's yours Steve.

All right so I guess we'll take a roll call on that please.

motion passes unanimously

all right Well Mayor Gillian, Director Gillian thank you for chairing last year. Appreciate it. All right so we will now

Closed session, item D1. Conference with Labor Negotiators Government Code section 54957.6 District Designated Representative Aaron Arlen Janay Employee Organizations Engineering and Technicians Associations Service Employee International Union Local 620 and Unrepresented Employees Management and Confidential

Okay we'll now adjourn to closed session And do you know how much time do you think we're thinking about? 15-20 minutes okay

Okay,

we're back. We are back. We're now reconvening from closed session. Ms. Richardson can you please report out from closed session?

Good afternoon. In closed session today, the board conducted a conference with labor negotiators under government code section 45957.6 with the district designated representative Erin Arlen-Ginay. The evolved employee associations were ETA, SEIU Local 620 and Unrepresented Employees Management and Confidential and the board took no reportable action.

Outstanding okay so that takes us to

Move to approve. And I'll second.

Okay, Hartman and Silva. Clerk please take a roll.

Motion passes unanimously.

All right that takes us to the approval of the administrative items. Madam Clerk, was there any administrative items pulled by the public?

There was no administrative items pulled by the public. Okay

do any of my board members wish to pull any items from the administrative agenda? Anybody from Santa Maria not hearing or seeing anybody? No.

Motion to approve.

Motion to approve from Silva. Second Hartman. Can I get a motion, please? I mean can I get a roll call, please?

Inter Levineau. Aye Motion passes 10-1

All right, next item is the Director's Report. Sarla and Janae can you give a report to the board please? If

I can find it in my notes here. Here we go. All right, I'll keep this brief. Last week the CAPCOA Board had the opportunity to do our annual retreat and we were joined by representatives of CARB. We had Steve Cliff, the executive officer and I think three or four of his deputy executive officers as well. We were able to spend a solid day with CARB talking about the Air District priorities and CARB priorities going into the new years This is basically a great opportunity to try to align our focus and our resources so we can efficiently implement some key initiatives. Of particular interest for Santa Barbara, I'd like to mention three items. The first one is CARB's Landfill Methane Gas Regulation in November 2025 they modified their methane gas regulation they incorporated a lot more reporting and tracking requirements that will apply to the landfills in Santa Barbara County.

District staff are now working with CARB to determine the most efficient way to implement the changes. We have an existing MOU for the regulation that was in place prior to the November meeting, we're going to need to modify that MOU and bring it back to your board There's a lot of interpretation of the regulation that's passed that we need as districts across the state better understanding of how best to implement. There's going to be a 15-day packet with minor modifications to the regulation, CARB will be circulating shortly and that's definitely with the MOU something we'll be bringing back to your board for more discussion when we know more about it.

Another program discussed was a satellite methane program. CARB has released satellites to help assist with evaluation of methane plumes throughout California. Methane plumes originate, once again from landfills as well from oil and gas activities. When a leak is detected, CARB contacts the local district and then we work with the local source Thank you very much.

The state's divided into three areas. San Joaquin is one of the three and they're getting half of the funds, and then the other half is going to be split basically between the north and the south area. For Santa Barbara County we're considered to be in the southern part of the community engagement program. Districts are concerned about community engagement grants and how we can ensure that we're there and helping with the messaging so we're working with CARB to provide some oversight and review and input on the community And the last item that we discussed with CARB, I wanted to mention here is a roadmap to reducing air toxics. This was a bit of a surprise to us in the past we've been trying to get some attention from CARB on some toxic air contaminants that we wanted their assistance And they've just said it takes a lot of time and resources for them to go through an air toxic control measure.

Fortunately, they have a little bit more time on their hands now that the waivers aren't in place and they're able to focus on reducing toxic emissions. So they're going to be working with CAPCOA on developing strategies to efficiently reduce cancer-causing toxic air pollutants statewide. They're going to develop a roadmap that outlines strategies, capabilities or goals, to, I talk so loud.

Oh, I'm sorry. Steps needed to achieve these goals including resource needs, organizational improvements and innovative partnerships. CARB's on a pretty quick timeline they wanna bring this roadmap to their board for consideration by the end of this year. So we'll definitely have more to talk about as we figure out exactly what's included and what the Air District's role will be.

The last item I wanted to mention is our air quality sensors for schools and non-profits in government buildings. These sensors are a great resource during times when we are impacted from smoke of wildfires or burns. The data is uploaded to the fire and smoke map, that's EPA's fire and smoke map and provides a regional and neighborhood level picture of current air quality conditions. Funds for this program were secured through CAPCOA as well as the federal IRA grant And they must be used by June of this year, June 2026. So it's a use-it or lose-it situation that we're under.

To date we've distributed news releases, issued e-blasts, had direct correspondence with local schools with the postcard. We also are sending letters to principals and administrators of local schools We're working with preschools, daycares and other local government partners. Our Clean Air Ambassadors when they're out in schools are also one of our lessons plan is associated with these low-cost sensors so they're able to share the opportunity for schools to partner with us as well but we've only been able to deploy 20 of these sensors So I'm asking for your assistance. If you have any leads to schools within your jurisdictions or government or nonprofit organizations that you think would be interested and available to host a sensor, send them our way.

We don't want to lose these funds. Thank you. That's my report.

Director Silva.

Just a follow-up to that, is it possible to get this in the digital format too? To make it easier to distribute and how of the lose it how much are still on the table like how many sensors would you say we still

130

so we've done 20 of 150 yeah okay yeah we've got work to do thank you

if we don't use them we have to put them all in one spot that's gonna be a problem yes super hypersensitive there okay do we have any public comment on the director's report

Chair Lavagnino, we did not receive any public comment on the director's report.

Okay thank you Ms. Arlen-Janet. So that takes us to H. Now it's time for members of the public to speak on items that are not on today's agenda. Did we receive any requests to speak on items not on the agenda today?

Chair Lavagnino, members of the board, we did receive one public comment from Amanda Clark from Coastal Blooms Nursery. Okay

Amanda. Good afternoon.

Amanda can you turn on the mic?

Good?

Perfect.

Thanks so much for your time. My name is Amanda Clark, I'm the compliance manager at Coastal Blooms Nursery which operates cultivation processing packaging manufacturing and retail locations within Carpinteria and Goleta. I am here to respectfully request the board to direct staff to conduct the promise review of the cannabis permitting programs costs and effectiveness since the rule 210 amendments became effective on July 1st 2024 From January through July of 2024, we worked closely with APCD staff on the development of these amendments which significantly increased duplicative cannabis permitting. During that process, we requested consideration of permit waivers for operators that already hold odor abatement plans approved and enforced by planning and development given the overlap in regulatory scope.

APCD instead adopted a cost recovery permitting program This was unexpected for coastal zone operators who have been subject to robust odor control requirements for more than seven years under the county's Cannabis Land Use Ordinance and Licensing Program. Our odor abatement plans are professionally certified by engineers, reviewed by county consultants and then approved during land use permitting and enforced throughout the life of the project.

At the time of Rule 10 At the time Rule 210 was implemented, APCD committed to coordinating with Planning and Development to minimize duplicative review and costs and to conducting a one-year program review with the Community Advisory Committee. To our knowledge no Community Advisory Committee meeting has been scheduled to evaluate the program's actual costs or outcomes.

Based on our experience obtaining three APCD permits, two under the amended rule, fees for comparable permits have increased by approximately 300% without a corresponding increase in regulatory scope, complexity or demonstrated environmental benefit. We are not aware of any additional odor oversight being provided by APCD beyond what planning and development already requires and enforces.

We respectfully ask the board to direct staff to complete the promised review and to either demonstrate how this program meaningfully improves odor management or provide permit waivers for operators whose odor control is already fully permitted and enforced by planning a development. Thank you.

Thank You, Amanda. So normally we don't comment on public comment but I for one would like to ask it to be agendized for a future thing because

For some background at our February 2024 community advisory council meeting, the CAC took action to recommend rule 210 be forwarded to your board for consideration and approval. They also took a second recommendation that we report back on the overall effectiveness and impacts associated with our cannabis permitting process. So, and this was based on industry's representation at the CAC meeting and the concern about adopting a fee for post-harvest cannabis operations.

We did decide to go on cost reimbursement process for the cannabis permitting to ensure that industry was not overpaying or undercharged for their services Staff coordinates with county P&D and other agencies, other lead agencies if they have odor plans due to the need to try to remove any duplication in that process. And we also work to coordinate on our inspections. My staff is currently calculating the cost associated with the cannabis permit program as well as the effort that we've done and will be reporting back to the Community Advisory Council If you'd like, I can follow that with reporting back to your board as well.

I mean, we're not agendized for today but I mean, I would request that. We can talk about this offline too so that we don't hold up the meeting and we're not talking about something we weren't agendized for but I appreciate your explanation and I think we're on the same page as just bringing more information back to the board. Great.

All right.

Thank you. Next item we're moving to section i, discussion items. Kirk please read item i1 into the record please.

Discussion item I1, appointment of the district board members to the following ABCD committees. Executive Committee, Hearing Board Nominating Committee and South Central Coast Basin Wide Control Council. Appoint district board members to the following air pollution control district committees. Executive Committee, Hearing Board Nominating Committee and South Central Coast Basin Wide Control Council as specified. One select three members of the board to serve on the executive committee during calendar year 2026.

Two, select five members of the board to serve on the Hearing Board Nominating Committee during calendar year 2026. And three, appoint one board member to serve as a primary representative and one board member to serve as the alternate to the South Central Coast Basin-Wide Control Council during the calendar year 2026

Okay so why don't we take these in three steps? So three members of the board to serve on the Executive Committee generally Chair, Vice Chair and Past Chairs. So we'll have Director Brown You took the, okay you didn't know that it was going to, you were also gonna be on the executive committee. So myself, Director Brown and Director Jillian, are you okay with that? Everstone?

Yes sir I'm good thank you. Okay so let's talk about, let's go to number two. Five members of the board to serve on the hearing board nominating committee who is on that now or who generally does that?

You have representatives from each of the Board of Supervisor Districts. So you have for first, you have Lee for first, Pierotti you're for the second district, Hartman's third, Nelson's fourth and Patino's fifth.

Okay are we all good with those still or does anybody everybody's good? Director Patino?

That's fine with me.

You're good still, okay very good. I'm good. Good so then let's go to South Central Coast Basin Control Council we need a primary and an alternate who's on there

now? Director Perotti is the primary and director Silva's the alternate

you want to stay that way are you good everybody good okay so is it clear to the clerk what we have

It is clear, we just need a motion and a second.

Okay and we're good with the way it's okay can I get a motion?

Motion to approve slate as presented.

Nelson seconds.

All right we got a motion in second let's do a roll call please.

Motion passes unanimously.

Okay, excellent. You know I didn't ask for public comment on I-1 but I didn't see any. Are we good?

We received no public

comment

on item I- 1.

So let's go to discussion item I-2. Clerk please read that item into the record.

Discussion Item I-2 Clean Air Fund Program Update. Consider recommendations as follows, one receive and file a presentation on the clean air fund program update and two approve and authorize the district air pollution control officer to implement projects utilizing the clean air fund in the Buelton community not to exceed $60,000 within five years by entering into agreements with the Buelton Union School District and a contractor to be determined to develop an interactive educational outdoor air quality exhibit at the Santa Ynez Valley Children's Museum in Buelton, subject to review and approval by district council risks management and auditor controller.

All right we have a presentation today by Planning Division Supervisor Jim Fredrickson.

Hi Jim.

Hi good afternoon Chair Lavignino Congratulations. Oh wow, thank you. And board members today we're here to provide an update of our district's Clean Air Fund program that began almost seven years ago uses settlement funds to finance a variety of air quality projects located throughout Santa Barbara County. We're also here to seek Board approval to use $60,000 in clean air funds from a recent settlement payment for two projects in the Buellton community That will specifically benefit children and will be discussed later in this presentation. Next slide.

The Clean Air Fund Program was established by your board in March 2019 to give the district flexibility to implement projects that provide positive community health benefits but don't meet traditional grant guidelines such as our Carl Moyer program. Since that time, your board has approved the use of clean air funds for eight projects. Three of those projects in the 2020-2021 timeframe And five Lompoc projects in 2025.

In 2020, $100,000 was approved for the second cycle of our Landscape Equipment Electrification Fund or LEAF program. The district issued 28 vouchers to commercial landscape businesses and 436 pieces of electric landscape equipment were funded. In 2021, $300,000 was approved and an agreement executed as part of the California Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Project or CALEVIP Described in detail on our board letter.

Two electric vehicle charging station projects were funded locally, including four DC fast chargers at both the City of Santa Barbara Park and lot number 10 known as the Ortega Garage.

Jim? I'm sorry can you speak into the mic?

Oh move this up? Well, I'm not Shaq.

Santa Maria just has a hard time hearing.

Sorry about that. Should I start over from the beginning?

I meant the acoustics in Santa Maria. It's hard to hear when you're remote.

What? Sorry, just kidding. Okay. Let me just...I'll start over with that one bullet. $300,000 was approved as an agreement executed as part of the California Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Project or CALEVIP described in detail on our board letter Two electric vehicle charging station projects were funded locally including four DC fast chargers at both the City of Santa Barbara parking lot number 10, known as the Ortega Garage and also at the Travelodge Motel in Santa Maria.

Approximately $100,000 in unutilized Cal EVIP funds are to be refunded to the district this fiscal year and reused next fiscal year for board approved Clean Air Fund projects Also in 2021, $100,000 was approved to establish and implement the Clean Air Rooms Pilot Program. Over a one-year period nearly 800 indoor air purifiers were distributed for free in Guadalupe to local residents, a senior center and an elementary school. Next slide.

In June 2025 the board approved the use of $325,000 in clean air funds for five projects in the Lompoc community The first project will improve indoor air quality at the Lompoc Family YMCA, which has a current membership of more than 1,000 teens and 300 adults. The Lompoc YMCA currently operates this facility as a clean air center during periods of natural disaster and provides free shelter, showers, food and water to the community.

An agreement was executed in November 2025 with the Lompoc YMCA and the district committed up to $20,000 to maintain their five heating ventilation and air conditioning systems or HVACs and replace approximately 300 high-efficiency air filters over a five year period. The second project will improve the indoor air quality at the City of Lompoc Dick DeWeese Community and Senior Center. Approximately 1,000 adults use the center weekly for exercise and dance classes weddings church services and training courses The Dick DeWeese Community and Senior Center is an ideal location for a clean air center where residents could congregate during wildfire season when smoke impacts cause unhealthy air quality.

Execution of an agreement with the City of Lompoc is still pending approval in February by the Lompoc City Council. The district will commit up to $40,000 to maintain their 10 HVAC systems and replace approximately 320,000 high efficiency air filters over a five-year period. The third project will improve the indoor air quality at the Lompoc Boys and Girls Club, which supports hundreds of children through sports, recreation, art, education and meal assistance programs.

The Boys and Girls Club is an ideal clean air centre for Lompoc children in the case of smoke impacts from a wildfire. An agreement with the Boys and Girls Club was executed yesterday The district committed up to $50,000 to install and maintain two new energy-efficient HVAC systems and also replace approximately 90 high efficiency air filters over a five year period.

The fourth project is to improve the indoor air quality at two Lompoc elementary schools by replacing their 60-year old classroom furniture with new ultra low emitting formaldehyde composite wood classroom furniture. An agreement was executed in December 2025 with the Lompoc Unified School District and the Air District plans to spend up to $200,000 to fund the replacement of wood Thank you.

Organizations in the Lompoc community, which has already begun. As future outreach events occur in Lompoc they will be shared with your board through the Public Outreach Update Board Letters. The district has a dedicated outreach budget of $15,000 for this overall effort. Okay we now shift our focus to the city of Buelton shown on this aerial map In August 2025, the Santa Barbara County District Attorney reached a $620,000 settlement against Central Coast Agriculture which operates a cannabis processing facility located at 8701 Santa Rosa Road shown on the left as a bright green rectangle on the map.

Central Coast Agriculture illegally operated at least 16 diesel generators to power refrigeration units storing frozen cannabis as illustrated in the photo on the bottom right. 260,000 of the settlement was awarded to the district and 25% of those funds are proposed for two Clean Air Fund projects in Buelton. The first project is with the Oak Valley Elementary School part of the Buelton Union School District highlighted as yellow square. The second project is with the Santa Ynez Valley Children's Museum highlighted as a small red square in the middle.

The Oak Valley Elementary School is an ideal location to improve indoor air quality and become available as a clean air center during wildfire season. On weekdays the school serves 400 elementary students, 100 adult staff, 20 preschool students and 140 additional elementary students as part of the Boys & Girls Club after-school program The district proposes to provide up to $20,000 to maintain 38 HVAC systems for a one year period and also fund the semi-annual replacement of 70 high efficiency air filters.

The Santa Ynez Valley Children's Museum is a partnership with the City of Builton and is scheduled to be open to the public in 2026. The mission of the museum is to provide educational, open-ended play in an outdoor setting for children. The district's goal is to partner with the museum to do a call for projects to design and build an interactive educational exhibit that can be part of the museum and engage children on the importance of clean air.

A total of $40,000 is proposed for this project. A conceptual layout of the Santa Ynez Valley Children's Museum as shown on the right. The district envisions a hands-on, creative type of exhibit similar to our Catching Air exhibit shown in the lower left that the district installed 10 years ago at the Santa Maria Valley Discovery Museum. Catching Air teaches the concept of air movement by allowing people to insert and redirect small light objects into these floor-to-ceiling pneumatic tubes.

I recently visited the museum and Catching Air is still in operation, very popular, and based on my firsthand experience it's very enjoyable to play with. This table provides a summary of the two proposed Clean Air Fund projects with their estimated costs. If one of the projects is not fully implemented, the funds may be redistributed to the other approved project.

The total expenditure for both projects combined is not to exceed $60,000. Next slide. Here are our recommendations to the board. Receive and file this Cleaner Fund Program Update. Approve and authorize the Air Pollution Control Officer to enter into a Memorandum of Agreements with the two proposed built-in project partners, not to exceed $60,000. The memorandum agreements would be subject to review and approval by District Council, Risk Management, and the Auditor Controller.

And next slide. That concludes my presentation. Happy to answer any questions.

Questions from our directors? Director Nelson.

Yes, excuse me. Thank you Chair Lavinino. So once we expend these funds what is our balance in this program? I don't have

that number off the top of my head.

Do we have a range at all? Just kind of help me out. We still have a couple hundred thousand left? Yeah,

we do. What

do we have?

And well I don' know the exact number.

It's in the hundreds of thousands.

Yeah and it would be something we consider within the budget that we're working on right now.

Just curious on what this leaves us with for future projects. Yeah. All right, thank you.

Any questions from Santa Maria? No, so thank you. Okay do we have any public comment on this?

Chair Lavagnino members of the board we did not receive any public comment on this item.

Okay so can I get a motion

and second? Motion to approve expenditures as approved into respect. Second. Great. We got there all right Roll call, please.

Motion passes unanimously.

Jim you're not done yet. You're back up We have some further items.

You didn't want a resolution, you didn't want to be recognized by the board but I definitely wanted to take the opportunity to recognize you. Jim will be retiring in March after 35 plus years of experience working for the APCD I think he's done just about everything planning. From what you've seen here today from emissions inventory, the ozone plan, rural development grants program and incentives our Clean Air Ambassadors Program and he's been a mentor for a lot of staff recently as he's been the supervisor so I just wanted the opportunity for the board to recognize Jim for all of his dedication, for cleaning up the air in Santa Barbara County and really contributing to our agency and allowing us to operate very efficiently. So congratulations Jim on a great career and we'll be looking for you soon on the road.

Thank you. It's been an enjoyable ride. Aaron has been the best APCO. I've worked under like five or six APCOs. Aaron's been the best, so you're in good hands. Great. And great staff too. The management team is top notch. Awesome. What are

you going to do in your retirement?

I'm looking forward to not thinking about work. Nights, weekends, insomnia. Oh yeah, make a note. Don't forget that tomorrow. Yeah, so not having that hanging over my head. That's the first thing and I told my staff you know my primary goal is actually to exercise a lot more and you know I want to shed like 100 pounds and look like Steve.

Chair Labanino? Yes. Yes, he's more than welcome to continue helping with our food bank in Guadalupe. He stands out because he's a little taller than most of the people there but he really fits into the community of Guadalupe and we appreciate his efforts and APCD's efforts for going out and reaching out to our community so thank you and good luck in your retirement sir.

Thank You Mayor Julian I appreciate that I'll definitely come visit you

yeah okay great

All right, and with that this meeting is gonna be rebroadcast on Sunday January 18th at five o'clock on Santa Barbara County TV channel 20. And we are adjourned our next meeting is one o'clock on March 19th

all right thank you