We spared no expense. Hey guys, this is my review for Jurassic Park. This is actually the first film I have seen in a theater since theater started to reopen. So obviously this review will be about the movie and then at the very very end of this review I'm gonna just talk about my experience in being in the theater, but this film is a classic film This is one of Spielberg's greatest films in terms of just a great Hollywood Popcorn fun blockbuster and it's also probably the scariest film in terms of its content in terms of how he Displays the content the film follows dr. Grant dr. Sadler and dr. Malcolm as they were invited to Hammons Island where he has recreated dinosaurs and he is trying to make his own theme park when I watch this film as a kid I remember enjoying a lot of the dinosaur aspects I remember just enjoying the general fun nature of it But having read the Jurassic Park novel finally just a few years ago and then re-watching it again A lot more of those Michael Crichton vibes about the idea of chaos theory about the idea of evolution The means and why the dinosaurs were destroyed why dinosaurs and humans would not work even if they were Institutionalized like this a lot more of those elements come more into the fold watching it as an older self the idea of playing God The idea of controlling animals that can't be controlled trying to economize certain species like for instance We've had dogs as our loyal companions for a long time, but that's because it took a long fucking time We've had them since the Egyptian age basically institutionalized dogs. You can't expect natural-grown predators and just animals that have never interacted with the species like ours before to all of a Son be like, yeah cool put us in offense They were used to having free reign because the genomes that they are using aren't just hey, these are dinosaurs with completely Brand-new brains. These are dinosaurs that are having their genealogy their history the genetic Entire identity being passed along from these Mike with these mosquitoes and they're being morphed in with amphibian DNA Which is why they are able to breed and as mr. Malcolm says life Finds away. This film is a great look at the idea of what man should and should not do the idea What is too far for entertainment perspective? What is too much in terms of security? What is too little in terms of what you actually should be able to do with? Certain animals and certain species in life in general and like I said this film is a great fun time to watch Don't get me wrong, but all of this stuff really really came out watching it this time especially also having read the Lost World where Michael Crichton really talked a lot about the idea of why extinction is just a way of life on this planet how Things will happen Species will die no matter what sometimes they're accelerated. Sometimes it's just natural progress It also proved to me why Malcolm is by far the best character that he ever made he never made a character as entertaining and as unique visceral as Malcolm was every other character that Crichton's ever written is kind of like a you could like switch them back and forth in and out even with the film Interpretations, but Malcolm has always been a unique character and sure you kind of got blasted to uselessness and Jurassic World too But going back to the actual film itself Everything is well shot. Everything is well put together the characters have arcs There is moments of fun human nature Terror there's a lot of scary parts in this film that still get me to this day for instance when what's it when they're getting into the Ventilation shaft in the kitchen and the raptors are in there and she gets her leg in just before the raptor jumps up and then obviously the visual aspect of this film is something to talk about because For the most part a lot of these shots still stand up to today especially the t-rex when the t-rex is first introduced that mixed between vfx and Actual physical giant goddamn dinosaur head really worked Well the shot that doesn't work as well in my opinion as much as it did before is when we first see The Brachiosaurus when we saw that as kids in the 90s 2000s even the 2010 that shot still looked great But watching it for the umpteenth time on a big screen It has an age well, but it's just this one shot. That's it Everything else is a fantastic blend like I said between practical and vfx. It was a great Amalgamation it was cool way to see these Creatures that we had only just seen in textbooks and history books See them come to life see them have their own sort of identities the whole Business with the raptors and the hunter guy that's still one of my favorite scenes is when he goes out And he thinks he's got it But then you remember Grant talking about how one was always a diversionary and there was always two others coming around the Side live a girl that's still one of my favorite parts in this film And then there's one other scene that I didn't really catch on to as much as a kid But I definitely see a lot more now is when Hammond is talking about how he started in the whole idea of entertainment business Where he had his own little flea circus. It was the illusion of it with the Mechanical moving parts whatnot that it still gave the illusion to children and even to adults that the fleas were actually doing these Things they would make themselves Believe what they were do what was happening in front of them was real then Lord Dern comes in and tells them like this Is still an illusion but now it's such a strong illusion that you are now fooling yourself You can't keep these creatures here You can't expect to make this a thing and that was such a good aspect of the film which Jurassic World kind of took a giant shed on I have come to realize that I was far too Lienian with the first film the first new film It was really just cool to see all that stuff again But admittedly rewatching Jurassic Park rereading the books has definitely Kind of just it's definitely not as good as I thought it was when I first saw it but Jurassic Park is still timeless It's a classic Spielberg film. I really wish you would do something on this scale again Obviously, that's not exactly in the cards right now because of corona and everything But I would like to see him do something on this scale I think that he's just kind of done and he's like I'd like to do character dramas now character dramas are a lot Easier than trying to rig a giant goddamn t-rex to run after people so in the end I'm gonna give Jurassic Park a seven out of seven. It's a classic movie It's a fun fun movie and it's one of the best Spielberg films He's ever made in terms of just like a blockbuster. It's like read the books There's a lot of things in the first book that have actually somehow been in every single movie even Jurassic World had Parts from the first book the whole aviary with the pterodactyls That was in the first book. Also the t-rex is a goddamn killing machine He's chasing after them with more determination than Freddie Jason and Michael Myers all put together and then I said I would talk about the theater experience Admittedly, I will do this in a different video more in depth But it wasn't bad the theater staff were really friendly. Yeah, you have to buy your tickets online as far as I know which It's a kind of a pain in the butt for depending on how good you are that's I've just never had good luck with apps Otherwise, I thought the experience was pretty smooth There's not a lot of people which I can kind of understand people are gonna only slowly go back to movie theaters because of this whole thing And we'll see how long this lasts and then this is also for us Canadians like for you Americans I have no idea what's going on for you There's two girls who are in the theater who were on their phones a bit But since we were so far apart because of the spacing it didn't bother me too much And then they eventually got into it the raptor jumped up I heard them scream so I don't even know if that was the first time they'd ever seen the movie Definitely first time they'd ever seen it in theaters. It was definitely mine, too But obviously there's gonna be some kinks. There's gonna be some things we're gonna figure out It's weird just going into a theater and seeing a complete dead zone and then coming out. I watched it on a Friday night Hell, I just watched the dark night At in the IMAX and I came out to this theater Parking lot and it was dead. It was just totally dead. Just so bizarre. Anyways, that's all for me guys I hope you enjoyed this video If you did leave a like and if you're interested in more subscribe and stay tuned because I will be doing a Video about the theater-going experience right now. Anyways, that's all for me. See you guys next time Thanks for watching the video My name is Knitz and you might remember me from the animated cult classic TV show undergrads It's been a while, but I'm happy to say the click is finally getting back together in an all-new movie Thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign But we are still asking for your support to see any and all updates about the upcoming undergrads movie Be sure to check out and like the bring back undergrads Facebook page and with any luck. We'll see you guys soon


All right, so today we're going to be talking about a California state benefit for the dependence of veterans, but I want to note that I'm actually from the county veteran service office, and we process this benefit for the dependence of veterans out of the county office, even though it is a state benefit. So I want to talk a little bit about what the county veteran service office does essentially when a person comes back home after serving in the military. They might have sustained injuries or experience some trauma in the military. They have to navigate the benefits that they have earned from the VA. They might have earned education benefits, health care benefits, or vocational benefits, and it's not automatically given to them. Sometimes they'll have to fill out forms or get into contact with the right people. And so the county veteran service office is here to help veterans as they navigate the federal VA system. Of course, our goal is to provide our veterans with the best possible chance for success in our community. We help veterans and their family members apply for a lot of different benefits to include federal, state, and local benefits. Today, specifically, we're going to hone in on some on a specific state benefit, which is the college tuition fee waiver. But in addition, veterans come to our office to get help connecting with health care, vocational programs, housing, and disability compensation from the federal government. This is how you can reach the county veteran service office. We're co-located in the DOS benefits and resources hub located at 2 Goff Street in San Francisco. We're open Monday through Friday from 9am to 12, and then again from 1pm to 4. Please note that we are closed for that lunch hour. You can also reach us via email. And in fact, the two best ways to turn in your application packet for the college tuition fee waiver is going to be either dropping it off in person at our 2 Goff location, or getting PDF copies of all of your documents and emailing them to SFCVSO, which stands for San Francisco County Veterans Service Office, at sfgov.org. I've also included our website, which I'm going to show you in just a moment because there's some key information on the website about the college tuition fee waiver program. And this is what it looks like. So if you go to your internet browser and you type in sfgsa.org forward slash CVSO, which stands for County Veterans Service Office, you're going to see our website here. And just under the kind of main banner there, you're going to see a menu of services that we offer for veterans and their family members. You're going to see a menu for the college tuition fee waiver, which we'll talk more about today, and then other resources in the community. If you were to click on the plus sign next to the college tuition fee waiver for dependents, it opens up a sub menu that looks like this. So on our website, it shows the email address that you can reach us at. So links to checklists. So these are really helpful when you're going through the checklist and seeing what are the documents that I need to gather to make a complete application. A lot of folks think that they submit the DVS 40 form, which is the application form, and then that's it. But in fact, think of this as your admissions packet for college. So you do have a form you have to fill out with your basic information, but there's a number of other documents that have to go in to make it a complete packet. And that's what we're going to talk about in more detail today. But if you want to go on to our website, pull up the checklist, and those are really helpful guides for when you're collecting those documents. On our website, there's also a fact sheet and then some of the supplemental forms that you may need in order to complete your packet such as this VSD dash 020 VSD dash 021, etc. The application for the application form is also available on our website and a couple of other forms there. So let's get into the actual benefit. I've got two logos up on the screen. One is our logo, the San Francisco Human Services Agency, the County Veterans Service Office falls under this. This is our parent agency, but I also have the logo for CalVet, which is the California Department of Veterans Affairs. This is the State Department of Veterans Affairs, not the federal, which is the US Department of Veterans Affairs. And the reason I have that logo on there is because this is a state benefit. Again, it is processed through your County Veterans Service Office, but I want to make sure that you guys are understanding of the difference in terms of benefits. The VA offers tuition benefits for the veteran. These are known as the GI Bill. The benefit that we're talking about today is different than the GI Bill. It's not for the veteran specifically. It's mainly for the dependent, meaning the son, daughter, spouse of the veteran. All right, so one important thing to note is that this is a college tuition fee waiver. A lot of people conceptualize this benefit as the state is going to be handing money over to your college to pay your tuition fees. It actually doesn't work like that at all. No money is exchanged between the state and the academic institution. There is a law that was written into California state law that says if you qualify for this benefit, the university, the Cal State or the community college must waive your tuition so they do not get reimbursed for this. And I like to bring that up because it's important that we're getting everything right when we're applying for the benefit. If something is wrong in your application and worst case scenario, you're not qualified for it, but we're accidentally telling the college that you are qualified for it. You will be on the hook for that money in the end, because again, the state is not, doesn't have like a pool of money to reimburse the colleges. So something important to keep in mind. That's why in the title of the benefit, it's the college tuition fee waiver. There's four different plans under this state program plan A, B, C and D. At the county level in your county Veterans Service Office, we process plan A and B. So those are the two plans that we're going to be focused on. If you're interested in learning more about plan C and D, go ahead and go to the CalVet website to learn more about that and you can work with the state and they can process that. But I would say the majority of our students, like 90% of our students are applying under plan B and maybe about 10% of our students are applying under plan A. So we'll talk about both of those today. Another important thing that I want to note upfront is that the college tuition fee waiver covers your academic year, which is typically two years. So an academic year typically starts in the fall. So it'll start, let's say in the fall of 2023 and it'll end in the spring of 2024. So when you're filling out your DVS-40 application, please note that when it asks for your academic year, it's actually asking for two years. What fall session are you taking and what spring session are you taking? A lot of our students will just put in the present year, so the 2023, and we really need to specify because you could potentially be applying for the 2022-2023 academic year and we don't want to mix this up. So that's an important thing to note when you're filling out your form. Another important thing to note is that typically an academic year does not include the summer session. So it is the responsibility of each student to verify with your academic institution what year the summer session belongs to. So contact your admissions officer at your school or your financial aid office and ask them. And please understand that many schools do not waive the tuition for summer sessions. This benefit is mainly being applied to the fall and the spring in terms of waiving your tuition. If a school does accept the college tuition fee waiver to waive your summer classes, that is up to the individual school. It is not written into law that they have to accept this to cover your summer session. If you can't reach someone at your academic institution to be safe, I would just note that if you're planning on taking summer sessions, those are likely going to come out of your pocket. The college tuition fee waiver may not apply. Let's talk about what the responsibility is of the county veteran service office. Again, this is the state benefit. What is our role here? While we are responsible for processing your complete application process packet, excuse me, and approving or denying your waiver in accordance with the law. What that means is that unfortunately we do not get any discretion when it comes to approving or denying the application fee waiver. You know, we have students who come to us with really extenuating circumstances. And in most cases, it's not a factor of whether we want to approve it or want to deny it. We are simply processing the packet in accordance with the laws and the regulations. If we mess up and we accidentally approve your application packet or let's say someone in my office says, well, this person had a really compelling story. So I just went ahead and approve their application packet. We're going to get in a lot of trouble and unfortunately the college may end up charging you tuition fees retroactively. Again, it's a waiver program. We do not have a bank of money that we use to cover the cost that the college is and neither does the state. So if your packet is not correct, it is the college does have a right to go back and charge you tuition fees. So that's why we're having this workshop. We want to make sure to get this right. We want to work with you in order to make sure that when we're processing these packets, we're doing it correctly. It's our responsibility to accept all of your documentation. If you're applying for plan A and plan B, please do not send your application to the college. Please do not send your application to the state. Send it to the county. That is our sole responsibility in accepting those documents, checking them over with you and making sure that you're ready for that approval letter. Schools responsibilities are kind of minimal here, but it's important to note that each program within your school determines whether or not they accept this waiver and how they're going to apply it. And I say that because we get a lot of questions such as, well, can I use the college tuition fee waiver for this extension school? Or can I use the college tuition fee waiver for business school or law school? We don't have the answer to that specific question because it is up to the individual academic institution as to how they accept the waiver, how they apply it. Let's say you're planning to go to UC Berkeley, for example, and do you want to know if the waiver is going to be able to apply to law school? What I would do is two things. I would get in touch with your admissions office, your financial aid office and ask them. But I would also contact UC Berkeley law directly and say, you know, does your specific program accept this waiver? And if so, how do you apply it? Because they might give you an answer based on their individual program that we don't have for you here. And again, the county has no power to compel a school to accept this waiver. Even if we issue you an approval letter and you take it to the school, they might still deny waiving your tuition based on how they apply it. So we always ask the students, check with the academic institution and the program specifically before you apply, before you go through the House of Applying. Because once you get that approval letter, once we issue the approval letter, we don't have any way to compel the school to accept it after that. So check with your school, open that communication up early and keep it going. I think that's the main point on this slide. So let's go forward and talk about which plan should I apply under. Again, I said this before, but I'll say it again, I would say about 90% of our students are applying under plan B. About 10% are applying under plan A, but we're still going to go through each just to make sure that you understand the differences between them. So the eligibility for plan A, you must be the unmarried child of a wartime veteran, and that veteran must be totally disabled, 100% disabled due to a service-connected disability. Or the veteran could also be totally disabled due to service-connected disabilities at the veteran's time of death. Or the veteran could have been a person whose death was officially rated as service-connected by the VA. The child, again, the unmarried child must be over 14 years old, but under 27 years old in order to be eligible for plan A. Unless that child also served in the military, unless they are also a veteran, and then the age limit would be from 14 to 30 years old. So really specific eligibility requirements here. Again, this is the reason why the majority of our folks are applying under plan B, but we'll go through them because this does apply to some of our students. Plan A can also be applied to the spouse of a wartime veteran who has been rated 100% disabled by the VA, and there are no age restrictions for the spouse. The unmarried surviving spouse of a wartime veteran who was totally disabled due to service-connected disabilities at their time of death or whose death was rated as service-connected by the VA. Again, no age restrictions for spouses. There is age restrictions for the child. Or an unmarried dependent of a veteran who's been declared missing in action, captured in the line of duty, or forcibly detained by a foreign government. With plan A, the student also has to sign a VSD-20 certifying that they are not receiving VA Chapter 35 benefits. So when I say VA Chapter 35 benefits, I'm talking about a federal U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs benefit called Chapter 35, which is also going to apply to the dependence of veterans, not to the veteran themselves. This is not the GI Bill, right? If you're using this state college tuition fee waiver and you elect to receive plan A, you cannot currently be receiving the Chapter 35 benefit from the VA. That changes for plan B, though, and we'll go over that in just a minute. But let's talk a little bit more about plan A and what's required to provide a complete application packet, okay? So the beginning of your journey on creating your application packet is always going to be the DVS-40. This is available on our website, okay? The DVS-40 application is not the end-all-be-all, though. In addition, you have to compile a complete packet, which should include a PDF copy of either the student's birth certificate, or if it's the spouse applying the marriage certificate. And I'm going to say this a couple of times. The student's birth certificate, your name, the name of the student on the birth certificate, it has to match every other document that's required in your application package. If you've had a name change, you will need to provide court order showing us the legal name change occurred. And it's the same thing for the veteran. So we run into issues, unfortunately, when the veteran, it's common for us to run into the issue when the veteran is a woman. And if the birth certificate, the mother's birth certificate, or I'm sorry, the name of the mother on the student's birth certificate has the maiden name. And then later, the veteran changed their name. We will need the court documents showing the legal name change. So again, every name on the birth certificate has to match every other document in the package, including the application. And you'd be surprised I've had folks who parents who like missed, forgot, or I don't want to say forgot, but maybe never realized until they looked at the birth certificate that their kid's name was different. And so they're putting one thing on the DVS 40 application. But then when we get the birth certificate, we're like, Well, this is actually your son or daughter's middle name.  Right. So it does come up. Make sure the names match. We need a PDF copy of the student's unexpired government issued ID card. Another issue that comes up is when the parents are applying maybe for the student, they say, Well, he's just a high school student, right? He's a senior he's 18 and he doesn't have an ID card or he only has his school ID card. Unfortunately, again, we have to go by the book and that student is probably going to have to make an appointment at the DMV and get their very first ID card. A passport would also be sufficient in this case, but we cannot accept a student ID card like from your high school. It also has to have a picture of the student. The VSD dash 020. This form comes with your plan a packet. This form is available on our website and the student has to sign that form, not the veteran. I have these first four documents underlined because these are what is required of the student or the applicant, I should say. And now we're going to get into what is required of the veteran as a part of the plan a packet. The veteran's most recent disability award letter from the US Department of Veterans Affairs, it must be dated within a year of when you're submitting the application.  Unfortunately, we cannot accept that they have to go back to the VA and request a recent copy of the disability award letter. The reason for that is because the VA does the, the, the veterans disability rating can change from year to year. And so we want to have the most recent letter. The veterans DD 214 our veterans are going to know what that means, but for students or others on the call, this is your veterans discharge paperwork from the military. If the veteran is deceased, we do need a copy of the death certificate. Again, all of these make a complete college tuition fee waiver application packet and all of the names must must match on all of the documents. If any of them don't match, then we need court order showing the legal name changes. I think that's it for plan A. It's going to be very similar for plan B, but let's get into it and go through it one by one for plan B. So this is the eligibility for plan B. It's a little bit more lenient, I would say, than plan A in order to be eligible for plan B. Well, with one major caveat and we'll talk about that. To be eligible for plan B, a child, you must be a child of a veteran who has a service connected disability service connected disability. This is much more lenient than plan A because it doesn't say 100% permanently and totally disabled. It just says the parent has to have a service connected disability that rating could be 80%, it could be 70%, it could be 50%, it could be 10%. It could even be 0%. And yes, the VA does issue 0% disability ratings in certain circumstances. So this really opens up the field for a lot of veterans and their family members. Of course, if the veteran has been killed in service or has died of a service connected disability, you would still be eligible. And in terms of the threshold of having that 100% service connected disability rating is not as high for plan B. One thing that is very different between plan A and plan B is that plan B is an income based program. We're not talking about the veteran's income. The veteran could be a millionaire. We're talking about the student's income. In order to be eligible for plan B, the student must have an annual income that is less than the annual national poverty level. For academic year 2022-2023, that's $14,097 as shown here on the screen. I think I have it updated in a couple of slides, but for academic year 2023-2024, it's $15,225. So it goes up a little bit every year. The student must prove that they did not make more than the national poverty threshold. Okay, that's a big difference between plan A and plan B. Plan A, we don't need any of your income documents because it's not an income based program. Plan B, we do. Wartime service is not required of the veteran. Again, the important thing is the VA disability rating. There's no specific age requirements and no prohibition against using chapter 35 benefits in conjunction with plan B. The required documents are similar. I have this middle section here highlighted because this is the main difference between plan A and plan B. Again, plan B is income based. It's based on the student's income. And so as a part of your application packet, in addition to the DVS-40, the birth certificate, the student's unexpired government issue ID, the student is also going to have to submit copies of their IRS tax form 1040 or what we call a letter of non-filing from either the IRS or the state franchise tax board. We'll talk a little bit more in detail about this because a lot of people get hung up on this specific bullet point. We still need the veteran's disability letter. It has to be recent. We still need the veteran's DD 214 or death certificate if the veteran is deceased. And again, all of the names must match. Let's talk a little bit more about this income verification because it's very important. So verification of income, we're essentially asking for the student's tax documents. If the student worked and they made less than $15,000 in the year 2022 and they're applying for the college tuition fee waiver for academic year 2023-2024, we need the tax documents showing that that individual worked and didn't make over the $15,000 threshold, right? And the way that we determine this, the way that we have to determine this is we look at a line in your tax documents that says annual gross income. So if you have tax documents or if you've seen them before, you'll have to go down to, I want to say it's line 11, but I might, I think it's changed sometimes from year to year, but there's a specific line on your income tax forms and it says annual gross income. That is the number that we must go off of, okay?  There's a lot of lines in your tax forms. I'm not a tax professional, but the only one that matters for plan B verification is the line for annual gross income. If it's more than $15,225, we must deny your application. We do not have any leeway in that. If it's under, then you're good to go, okay? If you submitted your tax documents to the IRS electronically, we need the confirmation sheet that says that the tax return was accepted electronically, okay? So it's actually two documents you'll have to submit. You'll have to submit the 1040 as well as the verification that the 1040 was accepted electronically. And then if the student did not file taxes because they didn't work and they weren't required to file taxes, not just because they chose not to file taxes, then you can also submit the letter of non-filing from the IRS or from the state franchise tax board. There is a line on the DVS-40 that asks for AGI, annual gross income. It must match exactly what's in your tax forms where your tax form says annual gross income, whatever is in that line. It has to match what you write in the annual gross income field on your DVS-40. If it's different, we're going to send it back to you. There's a second line on your DVS-40 that asks what is the value, in other words, the dollar amount of financial support that your parents give to you. It's important to note that if we add the line on your DVS-40 for annual gross income and the line for value of parental support, and it's over the $15,225 threshold, we will send it back to you. So doing a little math here, what that means is that let's say the student made $11,000 in 2022 and they're applying again for the academic year 2023-2024, and they write $10,000 in the value of support from the parent. That's over the $15,000 mark, okay? So we're going to send that back to you. Now, the funny thing about the parental value of support line is we do not require any financial statements to prove that number. So in most cases, if I see that a student made $11,000 on their annual gross income and then they write $10,000 in the value of support line, I'm going to send that DVS-40 back to the student and say, go ahead and lower that value of support dollar so that both your AGI and your value of support do not equal more than the $15,000 threshold. It's as simple as adjusting your DVS-40 to say that, okay, you can't change your AGI, right? That has to match your tax forms, but you can change your value of support. You can lower it and say, well, actually, my parents only gave me $2,000 in support and so that keeps you under the $15,000 threshold. We could move forward with your packet. Let's talk about some other forms that might be required for your college tuition fee waiver packet. The VSD-021, this is for students whose veteran parent cannot sign, most commonly used if the veteran has passed away or if the veteran and the student are estranged from each other. Bottom line, a lot of folks get confused and think this is the benefit for the veteran. And it is in some way, but in reality, the benefit belongs to the student. It is the student who should be applying. It is a student who should be gathering all of these documents. And ultimately, even if the veteran did not want to grant this benefit to the student, we would still override the veteran's desire at that point because we do consider it to be the student's benefit. If you're the stepchild of a veteran, you're still eligible as long as you became a stepchild prior to your 23rd birthday. We do need copies of your parent's marriage certificate and we still do need a copy of your birth certificate. And then there's a specific form that you have to fill out that's also available on our website. And similar to adopted children, you are still eligible as long as the adoption occurred prior to your 23rd birthday. We do need a copy of the adoption orders. Denial letters. Let's talk about them. We never want to issue denial letters. What we'll do in most cases when we find that, you know, your application was filled out incorrectly or it's missing some documents. We don't automatically issue denial letters. We'll always try to get back with you and say, hey, you're missing this document. Can you please resubmit it? So in that sense, it's not like your application for admission to college, right? If you mess something up in those applications, you just get denied. With us, we're always going to try to work with you. There are specific situations in which we must issue a denial letter, though. Most of the time, it's because something is blatantly wrong. Like, you know, the student's age limit is really far over where it should be or the student's income is really high and they're applying for Plan B, right? And in those cases, we are required to issue denial letter. And on the denial letter, it will specifically state why you were denied and it will even then give you options for appeal. We try not to issue those whenever possible. Another thing that does exist is a retroactive college tuition fee waiver. This is applicable in a scenario where if you notice the eligibility requirements for Plan A and B, they all require the veteran to have a service-connected disability rating, right? Again, whether that be zero or 100, it depends. But let's say the veteran doesn't have their VA disability rating yet because they've never applied for disability compensation. First thing I would say is welcome to the county veteran service office. That's what we do here. We help veterans apply for disability compensation. We want to get that veteran appointment with our office right away so that we can help them in that process. But even after we submit all the documents to the VA so the veteran can get service-connected and get a rating, it still takes the VA some time to decide on that veteran's claim. And so they created this thing called retroactive college tuition fee waivers so that while your veteran parent is waiting for the VA to decide on their pending claim, you can still submit your application for the college tuition fee waiver as long as we get all of your complete packet during the academic year that you're applying. We can hold onto it and then once the father or mother is approved and becomes a disabled veteran with a rating from the VA, we can retroactively approve the student and get the student veteran, I'm sorry, the student's tuition waived. So let's say you get an approval. You have a complete packet and we've looked it over and we're approving it. You'll get an email and it's based off of what email you put in your DVS 40 application and this is kind of what it'll look like. It'll say congratulations. You've been awarded the fee waiver and it'll have this attached letter. And in that letter is a one time code that you take to your school and then once it's used at one school, it's no longer valid. So we ask that you keep the code private and only share it with your college admissions office. This is what the letter looks like when you click on the attachment. It'll kind of look like this. This is an example code. And this is kind of what the letter will look like. And again, you take this to your admissions office. We do not take it to your admissions office for you. So please don't forget that final step. If you've done all the work up until this point and you forget to take your letter to the admissions office, your tuition will not be waived. So don't forget that final step. A denial letter will look like this. Again, it's going to have a checkbox next to the reason why you were denied. And then at the very bottom, it'll give you options for how you can appeal your denial to the state. I know we went through that really fast and it was a lot of information. So I want to open up to questions. And let's see. So I've given everybody the ability to unmute themselves so you can go ahead and ask your question or go ahead and write it in the chat and I will answer the question. Okay, thank you. So, Melanie asked, do you pay master and PhD and MD? Melanie, this is such a great question. We talked about it in the beginning, but I'll go through it again. So it is the responsibility of your academic institution to determine how they apply the college tuition fee waiver and if they apply the college tuition fee waiver. So for those of our students who are interested in these advanced degrees, we don't want to dissuade you from going after that. But you really need to have a conversation with the college that you're trying to get into or that you've been accepted to and specifically with the program and ask them, do you accept the CalVet college tuition fee waiver? And if so, how do you apply it? The reason that you have to have the conversation with them is because it is up to the individual academic institution. We cannot compel an academic institution or a specific program to accept your waiver. So one college might accept it, one college might not, one program within a college might accept it, and one program within a college might not. So you could call up UC Hastings, for example, and say, do you accept the college tuition fee waiver for your law school? And they might say, yes, actually the law school does. And then you might call them up and say, do you accept the college tuition fee waiver for a master's in business? And they might say no. So it's up to the individual program. And I really want to emphasize this. We do not have a list of who accepts it and who doesn't or what programs accepted and what programs don't. Our general guidance is that if it's a UC school, if it's a Cal State school, or if it's a community college, then they should in one form or another accept the college tuition fee waiver. But it could change from year to year. And so do not rely on your county veteran service office to tell you which schools and which programs accept. You must contact the school directly. Thank you for the question, Melanie. So, yeah, that answers the second question Melanie had, but Chiara is asking, because I work at school and I didn't file and I make less than 15,000, but I have my W2 that proves I only made around 4,700 from working at school. Let me look in the chat. I just I want to make sure I'm understanding the question here, because I worked at school and didn't file. I'm assuming this is a situation in which the student is saying they didn't file taxes because they worked at their school. So, Okay, if I'm understanding the question correctly, there's a student who did earn income, maybe less than $15,000, but did earn income and did not file taxes last year. So I'm not a tax professional. I can't tell you whether you was required for you to file taxes or not. You know, just because you, I think a lot of folks think like why didn't make that much so I didn't have to file taxes and I can't respond to that in some cases that's true in some cases it's not true and the person's mistaken. But what I will say is that for a complete application packet, you need to have one of two things. You need to have proof that you filed your taxes, or proof that you were not required to file taxes. So if there is a situation in which you're saying I didn't make that much money so I wasn't required to file taxes and therefore I didn't. That's fine. You just need to submit the proof from either the IRS, or the state franchise tax board that says, you know, John Doe or Jane Doe did not file taxes in the year 2022, because they were not required to file taxes, and we will accept that and we can move forward with your application packet. Because I'm a dependent on my mom's taxes still. And so I just didn't know because I know for my application, I think me and my mom ended up sending her 1040, because it shows that I'm a dependent. And I just didn't know like, oh, should I also send my W2, which shows that yes, I was working, but I didn't file nor make over 15,000. So the state is very clear with us on what we can accept and what we can't accept. We, we please do not send your veterans tax information to us. We cannot accept any veterans tax information, even if it is for the purpose of proving that you were a dependent. The only two things that we can accept is either the students proof that they file taxes or a letter from the IRS or the franchise tax board that says that you were not required to file taxes. For whatever reason, it could be because you were dependent. It could be because you didn't make any income could because you didn't make enough income for whatever reason. But we do need that letter. Again, this is not something that we're allowed to kind of put the pieces together and make a judgment call on the state is very clear with us on what forms we're allowed to accept and what forms were not. We cannot accept the parents tax documentation. So my advice would be, call up the franchise tax board, make an appointment with them, and let them know that you need a letter of non filing. You can also do this on irs.gov. And you can request a letter of non filing through the federal government to, but one way or another, if you did not file taxes, we need proof that you didn't. You weren't required to and we can't accept your parents tax documents as that proof. I will, I will say one caveat. And I'm kind of hesitant because I feel like it kind of sends the wrong message. So I want to be really clear in how I state this. There was a memo issued that states that if you live in California, because the governor is allowing an extension on folks filing taxes. The way that that affects us and our processing of this benefit is that technically speaking, we don't need your tax documents right away if you're applying for plan B, right? Because plan A, you don't need tax documents period. But let's say you're applying for plan B. There is a form that we can have you fill out that you're essentially certifying that you weren't required to file taxes. And that you can produce the proof that you weren't required to file taxes as soon as we ask you for it. But because the governor is not requiring people to file taxes right away, we're not going to require that proof me right away. But in that memo, I think it says something along the lines of come October, which is the new tax deadline, you will need to submit those documents to us. So my preference is to give you the information up front so you know what documents are needed. But Kara, we can talk offline about that that separate form and you can look it over I can explain it to you in terms of what it means legally because if you say I'm going to sign this form and I'm going to get the waiver for the tax documents right. And then come October, the state tells us know you now you need to go back and collect all those tax documents and you don't have the documents. Again, your tuition might be waived and then they'll go ahead and apply it right back. So we don't want to put anyone in that bad situation. But it is potentially an option and I can talk to you about that offline Kara. Melanie has another question she has. Can you combine fast, tell grant unsubsidized loan and California tuition fee waiver. If eligible does excess money go straight as refund to student subsidized loan scholarships. Okay. It's, it's there's to my knowledge there is no. There's nothing preventing you from applying for the CalVet college tuition fee waiver and fast and Pell grants and loans. But to your question of, does the excess money go straight as a refund to the student. That's a question for your financial aid office again I want to emphasize the CalVet college tuition fee waiver is not. There's no money being exchanged it is a fee waiver. So the way the law is written is that if you are eligible for the waiver, your institution will waive your tuition. The, the state is not actually giving money to the college to pay your tuition. And so in that sense with the college tuition fee waiver there's never going to be a situation where there's excess money to be given to the student because there's no money exchanged. There's just a law that says if you're eligible, if you apply if you're approved, the college has to waive. They're essentially just taking the hit on that money the college doesn't get that money from you doesn't get it from the state right. But in terms of like, let's say your tuition was waived through the college tuition fee waiver but then you also got fast and Pell grants. And somehow those were applied to like your student account. You'd have to talk to your financial aid office and ask them what happens to that to those funds. I would definitely recommend that you get in touch with them. So I just put our email or department email in the chat. So if anybody has any more questions after the program, we can go ahead and submit them to me and I'll forward them to Elena. Thank you. And actually, let me see. Can I just share the website since we have a couple more minutes. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Because it's such an important. Oh, does it show on your screen? Yes. Okay. Like, never sure if it's sharing or not. So this is our website and you can, there's a very long URL here, but all you have to do is type in SFHSA.org forward slash CBSO. There's like a shortcut website, right? This is what it looks like when you first log in or when you first go to the website. And then if you expand this section here, college tuition freeware for dependents. There's checklist for plan B. So it talks about your DVS 40.  There's some detailed information here about the tax information. And there's detailed information about the letter of non filing. There's even some instructions here on how you can obtain a letter of non filing from the state franchise tax board or the IRS. So I think that would be really helpful for some of the folks who had questions. And then it breaks it down into what documentation is required from the veteran. And then this is again the income threshold for 2022 2023 for 2023 2024 it's 15,225. So print these out, use these as guides when you're building your application packet. I think it will make the process go a lot smoother. There's also a checklist for plan A. And then any of the forms, the additional forms that you're required to submit those are also listed here. If your parent, the veteran is interested in getting disability compensations from the VA, and they have not done so yet. They can schedule a virtual meeting with our office. They could book that meeting on their own by clicking this link and then clicking file for VA disability compensation and choosing our next available dates and times. And then all they have to do is put their name, email address, and then their appointment is set and we can get them started on that process. If you have additional questions, you can also go onto our website and click on college fee waiver. This is a 30 minute session between you and one of our veteran claims representatives, and they can follow up and answer any additional questions that you might have. Excellent. Thank you so much, Elena, for this very informative and important presentation on the benefits for veterans and their families. We would like to thank everyone for joining us today. Again, before signing off, I would like to remind everyone that slides of the presentation and the recording will be available and we'll be sending them out shortly. So thanks again, and the presentation is concluded. So thank you so much.


re it gets to our streams, before it gets into our groundwater. And so some of these systems, yes, we'll have to, even if they're billing like for like, we'll have to do some modifications. If you're planning an upgrade, meaning more bedrooms, then you will need to look at and we'll treat you as an upgrade in somebody that comes to us from even outside the burn area, looking at what your, excuse me, what's your septic will have to size, whether it's adequate sizing for that or whether or not you'll have to do some improvements to that system to adequately address the larger number of bedrooms. Yeah. That's well, thank you for that explanation. I appreciate it. That's all the questions I have for now, Mr. Chair, and thank you for your patience. Thank you. Any others, any other questions from the board? I don't, as a supervisor, Coonerty, I don't have any questions. I just want to make a couple of comments before we get to a motion. And the first is I want to appreciate staff's work on this. I think I appreciate the way with both the PG&E and temporary power, as well as the ADUs. We've been adaptable to people's questions and trying to meet their needs, where they are to help them rebuild. I do support piloting a program in the last chance area to see if we can help them rebuild under the class K option. And hopefully I can add that to a motion later on. Finally, I know that there was a tremendous desire for us to waive all the fees. And I want to appreciate the staff's effort to significantly reduce the fees and reduce the costs on people. There is a trade-off that we're making, which is to by charging fees, we create capacity to get people through the system faster, so that they can get back into their home sooner. And so we're trying to have that balance between having the resources available to help people, but not having the resources be so much that it precludes people from being able to rebuild. And then finally, as we move forward, I appreciate that we're keeping the unpermitted structures with the county or rebuilding of unpermitted structure with the county. I do think there's evidence that if we make our, if we make it too complicated, people will rebuild without permits. And so again, it's a fine line of trying to make sure people are rebuilding in safe, environmentally compatible ways, but also and having them go through the system and be in our system. And so as we move forward, we're gonna have to try to find that right line in order to meet our goals. But I wanna thank staff for their work on this. They've put in a lot of time and effort over the last couple of months to not only respond to concerns, but to build a system going forward. And I think they've brought forward a good proposal. Okay, thank you. Open it up for public comment. Yes, my name is Don Harris. I'm a long-term resident of last chance, 45 years. I was the last chance representative on the Alternative Building Standards Committee back in 78 to 80, which was the precursor to this. And I wanna, everything I've heard today has been very, very favorable, I find that the real purpose of that, the spirit of it was not so much, it was hippie housing, I guess, but the principle was simple living that we were beginning to do too much of the earth. So could we live in a simpler way, smaller, simpler, not less safe, but simpler, and use less resources and do less environmental damage. And that was the intent. It was never any particular set of rules. It was a continually changing thing depending on what needed to be done. It would be different now than it was then. What I've heard here is reasonable. I find, I look forward, and a number of us due to working with you to make this work for us and for everybody, because I think there's great benefit to come from looking at fresh ways of doing things. I wanna particularly stress a favorability toward compost toilets. I have 40 years of direct experience. At the time we pressed for that before, it was somewhat theoretical and it was a little bit unknown how it would work on a broad scale. Well, I've had two of them for 40 years, and I've learned a lot about it. They're much more widely used now around the country largely by public agencies. And there are things, they couldn't even be improved. There's management questions, there are a lot of things that are gonna have to be worked out. But one thing I can say, as an incidental, the fire, which had burned everything, it burned both of those compost toilets to the ground, and there was absolutely nothing left in or out of them. So that's one positive. Anyway, thank you for your attention and we look forward to working with you. Thank you. My name is Becky Steinbruner. I live in rural Aptos. I'm grateful that my area was not threatened by the fire and my heart goes out to all of those who have lost so much. I appreciate the county's planning department taking a fresh look at this with the Class K and the Shasta County ordinances. And I encourage the board to adopt it as the last chance community as a trial for this, what I consider very progressive and compassionate and realistic ordinance. So I really like that the ordinance from Shasta County begins with the purpose to support the people's constitutional right. Article one, section one, to protect and preserve and enjoy their property while not harming anybody around them or the environment. That we all need to take to heart. And I appreciate that very much. I want to ask how tiny homes would be accommodated in this. They're not technically not like an RV, but it is a tiny home. What about people bringing in tough sheds as an ADU? They're put together, they're very quick, they're relatively inexpensive. How would this allow for things like that? I wanna say that this county really needs to re-institute the building and fire code appeal board that was taken away from the people who had done very good work in giving people an appeals process before a board of construction industry professionals that was taken away and now your board is that appeal board. That makes no sense. So let's please re-institute the building and fire code appeal board appointing very knowledgeable people like perhaps the man that just was here to help people find ways alternative that are safe, habitable, and will do no harm, but are different than what the code would make them do. I encourage you allowing Forleaf to take more of this burden rather than less. Hearing that the county planning staff is familiar with the relationships and things is all well and good, but you've just verified in approving the $6.2 million contract with Forleaf that they are comfortable with local things. We have heard that the county planning staff is overburdened. We have heard this county wants to support affordable housing, that is outside of the fire. Let's let them focus on that and these experienced Forleaf people expedite. Thank you. We have two web comments. Okay. The first one is from Malaya Powell. Thank you board of supervisors for considering these measures for assisting those homeowners in the burn zone rebuild. I'm a resident of the community of last chance. Those of us whose homes have burned need all the help we can get. We asked the board of supervisors to implement all three of these plans for rebuilding non-conventional homes in the burn area. I asked that the board work with the affected communities to create a limited density ordinance that works for our communities. Last chance is a unique community that has been a part of Santa Cruz, approximately 40 years. We are caretakers of our environment and we care deeply about the forest in which we live. Our community was sustainable and self-reliant for 40 years.  Excuse me. The second comment, I'm gonna start the timer on because it's kind of long. It's from Forest Martinez McKinney. Board of supervisors, thank you for considering the rebuilding complexities faced by the victims of the CZU lightning complex fire. I'm pleased to see your staff working extensively and taking a detailed approach. Please continue to direct staff to collaborate with residents as we work to craft of flexible regulations and affordable fees for rebuilding. As a lifelong resident of the last chance road who has lost everything, I attest to the unique and endearing character of our community and the individuals who reside there. Over the decades, we have faced policies that prevented our legal status. Despite those challenges, we have built a strong community who has stewarded the land and we have contributed wholeheartedly to the vibrance of the Santa Cruz County. Most residents of last chance have spent their careers contributing to nearly every trade and profession in Santa Cruz for generations, including healthcare, education, construction, administration, engineering, public service and the technical trades. In the wake of the CZU fire, I am reading language from the county that offers hope for a fresh and nuanced approach to our dire situation. Compassion and patience on both sides of the counter will support best possible timelines and results. This is truly an appreciated step in the right direction. I am writing to support adoption of an alternative rural owner built buildings to ensure rebuilding meets the minimum needs for safety while allowing residents to return to their homes. Many counties already have adopted versions of this code and Santa Cruz County should follow their lead for rebuilding in the CZU fire zone. At the same time, I am concerned by the staunch opposition of your staff to alternative means of waste processing while many sites and land owners will choose to implement a more conventional means of waste disposal such as septic tanks. A small minority would consider alternatives such as composting. Home composting systems were not ambiguous and while not ambiguous are used in many places both in California and internationally. While unconventional, this is a progressive and innovative approach that should be explored in detail and nuanced in its application for low density, rural residents within the current footprint. I am requesting that the board direct staff to remain flexible and open to exploring the benefits and applicability of composting toilets. As a county who provides itself, who prides itself on being at the forefront of sustainability, we owe it to ourselves and future generations to remain open to this concept. In summary, our community has thrived for multiple generations and will again. I would caution the county not to deem our community undevelopal as these parcels have been inhabited for many years. These homes have survived the 1982 and 2016-17 storms with more access, reliability in the San Lorenzo Valley. Further, our community survived the 89 earthquake with no damage. Policies designed. Three minutes. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, no other comments or we'll bring it back to the board. This is Supervisor McPherson. I think I would like to move the recommended actions and provide some additional direction that the Office of Response Recovery and Resiliency conduct additional research into the Fire Area Improvement Reconstruction Program, as I think it's called. Approach and report back to the board with more information as to its feasibility and utility for implementation. I don't know the timeline on that, but I would like to, I think it'd be important to have a report back on that and also to approve the development of the, was it quote, limited density owner built rural dwellings ordinance or rural areas that meet certain criteria and report back to the board regarding the criteria to be met for approval of that. I'm not sure how the timeline on that that the planning departments had plenty to do, but those are two additional directions that I would like to put into the motion for approval of this and thank you the planning department for its thorough review and proposal that it's brought to us today. I'll second. We have a motion and a second with the revisions. Yeah, this is Supervisor Coonerty and I'd just like to add if it's okay with the maker and the second that last chance be a be considered for a pilot for the limited density owner bill for rural dwellings. I accept that. Well, thank you, Supervisor Coonerty. I'll call for the vote. Yeah. Supervisor Leopold. Aye. Friend. Aye. Coonerty. Aye. McPherson. Aye. Chair Caput. Aye. The motion passes unanimously. We should take a little break here before we go to item number 15, right? And then we have closed session, correct? Yes. Do we take a 10 minute break or do we go straight into the closed session? Okay, so we could take a 10 minute break go into closed session and then come back at 1.30 for the last item. Is that what you prefer? That'll be fine. Okay. I don't know how long the COVID item is gonna take. I don't suspect that we have a very long agenda. So if the board is willing to just finish the items on the agenda today, then we take a 10 minute break before we go into closed session. You know, I just... Yeah, I think we have about probably 30 minutes total for the rest of the agenda. So why don't we just continue on with the agenda and then we'll take a 10 minute break and then go to closed session. Okay. So the next item then would be the item 15. Okay, so we'll go right into 15? Yeah, we'll go through, we'll go through. Power through. Okay, presentation, item 15, presentation and status report on the coronavirus relief fund programs as outlined in the memorandum of the County Administrative Officer, CRF status update attachment A and update attachment B and C. Thank you. Hi. All right. Good. Almost afternoon. I believe Christina Mallory is gonna start us off at this presentation. Okay. Yes. Good afternoon, Chair Caput, members of the board. I'm Christina Mallory, your County Budget Manager and I'm here in the chambers there. There's Eric Friedrich, one of our senior analysts who's championing this coronavirus relief virus fund project and working closely with the departments as we administer the program. So I believe we have a PowerPoint coming up. Yeah, it's up, Christina. Oh, I can't see it. Christina. Oh, there it goes. Now I see it. Okay. So we're just gonna give you, next slide. We're just gonna give you a brief background, an overview and give you an update on each of the categories and the spending on the NC if you have any questions. So as your board may recall, in response to COVID-19, the federal government passed the CARES Act. It was about $150 billion and created the Corona Virus Relief Fund, which we commonly know as CRF, to states in large cities to assist with the financial impacts of the health pandemic. The state of California received $9.5 billion and they chose to allocate $1.3 billion to counties and cities within the state as part of their budget process in June. When that was passed, our county received $27.7 million of that funding. And the expenses are to be used to address the financial impacts. They have to be necessary expenditures incurred due to COVID-19 and that we're not accounted for in our budget at the time that we received the funds, which was during the 1920 or the 1920 budget. And all the expenses incurred have to occur between March 1st of 2020 and end on December 30th. So are the immediate costs that were incurred March through June of this year were about $6.7 million. And due to the receiving of the funding, we were able to reimburse ourselves for our costs associated with our disaster service worker costs, public health and medical costs and the costs incurred setting up social distancing compliance. And then we had about $20.9 million left over, which your board, we gathered information from the departments and your board adopted a plan in August as a part of the budget for costs for July through December. And we've been providing your board updates each board meeting on the outcome of the progress. So we have been filing our state reports. We filed our first report in September. This was the cycle one report with the state. That was for the March through June costs. And then we filed our cycle two report at the beginning of October. And those were for costs for July through September. Now, one of the things that did occur is we received a report from the state the beginning of October before we filed our cycle two report. And they let us know that they anticipated based on their original guidance to us to be in compliance that they wanted all of our expenses the majority of them spent by the end of September. We knew this, but we also knew that we had a plan through December. So we, when your board adopted the plan, we had a backup plan in the event the state was going to ask for this type of compliance. And so we used our public safety costs as eligible expenses to claim the funding. So that way your board can, we can stay we can stay in compliance with what your board approved with the funds that were allocated through December and not be in jeopardy of having the state claw any of that back. And they accepted our report in October and we'll file our final report make any minor changes and adjustments as needed. The beginning of January and that will be our cycle three report. And now I'm going to turn it over to Eric and he's going to go into some of the details. All right, thanks Christina. I'm happy to take over from here. The CRF program is sectioned into six program categories as defined by the state. We'll be presenting a high level progress of each category and reporting on some highlights of the various projects and programs when within each section of details on the individual projects or programs can be found on attachment A of the corresponding board memo. So this is an overview of how the CRF funds were distributed amongst the six categories. The CRF plan is designed to support, augment medical and public health efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus, provide targeted economic support to local businesses and nonprofits, enhance county operations in terms of social distancing and provide some reimbursement for county costs for disaster response. We'll start with medical expenses. This category supports the county's efforts toward testing, contact tracing and targeted outreach. As of October 31st, CRF funds in this category are 76% spent or encumbered. Some highlights of this category include strategic partnerships with Salud Palajante and UC Santa Cruz to increase testing. UCSC is providing lab space. Salud is doing contact tracing and case investigation. Within the county, we now have 49 case investigators and 14 contact tracers. The CRF funds are also used to target outreach and education to the Hispanic community. As the data has shown, a disproportionate impact to these communities. I'd like to take a moment to show you an example here. My commercial is airing down in South County and was provided for by CRF funds and with our community partners. For public health expenses, this category supports the shelter and care operations including non-congregate and isolation quarantine shelters. It supports the food distribution, including partnerships with Second Harvest and it's the local match for the Great Plates Program. Lastly, this category is home to the county's efforts in PPE and sanitization efforts in county facilities. Funds in this category are about 54% spent. Some of the health programs include the continuation of the shelter and care operations which currently has 681 residents. It's helped support the Great Plates Program which has provided over 109,000 meals to local seniors and other qualified individuals. We've installed a hands-free body temperature scanner at the county jail to fortify the jail from outbreaks. We've doubled our cleaning and sanitation services to county parks which has the father of an almost three-year-old who thinks Leo's Haven is her dominion. That's really helpful. And we've distributed over 260 cases of PPE to county staff and to county facilities. The payroll category is designed to reimburse the county for payroll expenses related to disaster service workers, administration, and unemployment costs all due to the pandemic. While it doesn't look like much is happening according to the progress bar, it is our intention to draw down these funds in their entirety by December 30th. The county has deployed over 500 DSWs since March. The 2021 CRF plan estimates that we'll be able to reimburse $936,000 in DSW costs. And we believe we're on track to even exceed that number. And then also special reimbursements for our unemployment costs which also looks like that might be an overprescribed program. Just a reminder, as Christina mentioned, this is the category of which we were able to draw down all of our CRF funds from the state using the public safety line item. Moving on to social distancing compliance. This category has over 70% spent for supporting operations and compliance with social distancing guidelines. This includes supporting our remote work staff and revamping our recreational programs to be virtual as well as establishing distance learning centers to support students and families. Here you see on the picture on the right is the reception area of our ISD department which for a while was doing its best impression of an Amazon fulfillment center as we received numerous amounts of equipment to support over 500 county staff who are now working from home. The economic support category, over 92% of the over $4 million set aside for this category is out in the community supporting over 120 local businesses, nonprofits and community health partners. These funds also support a local rental and housing assistance program helping families who are struggling financially due to the recession caused by the pandemic. 93 businesses have been awarded funds. All of our core and cultural services nonprofit partners have been helped out and over 400 families have been supported with this program with many more to date as that program is really finding its stride. Distribution of almost $950,000 in community health partnership grants are also included in as part of a partnership with the Santa Cruz community ventures who are supporting families who are isolating in quarantine. Lastly, we have other expenses with just one line item and has to do with an enhanced fingerprint processing due to the large number of extra help staff we brought on to support with our shelters. In summary, we've spent 60% of our CRF funds to date with two months to go. Most programs were on track to be done by December 30th and CEO staff is continuing to monitor and report progress to the board. Recommended action is to accept and file this report. And with that, myself and Christina Mallory are happy to answer any questions. Chair, I just had a couple of questions. First of all, thank you for the presentation. I wanna just commend all the staff who've worked on this because it's a lot of money, $27.7 million. And although we know there's a lot of need, what we have seen nationwide is a lot of communities who haven't been able to get the money out the door. There was an article in the Washington Post just the other day which said there was a county that put aside $20 million for rental assistance hoping to help out 5,000 people. And so far they've only been, they got thousands of applications but they've only been able to help out 200 people because they created a system that they couldn't actually move the money. So it's a credit to the staff to actually come up with good ways to spend the money, to meet the needs of the community and also be able to move this money out into the community in ways that will, whether it be critically needed rental assistance, small business assistance, whether it be recreational support, whether it be cleaning that playground at Shana Claire Park or the new kinds of recreational programs that are out there and just the tools that we need here at the county to make sure that we can still provide services to the public in some way. And being able to move so many members of our staff to work, be able to support them in working at home is also a great benefit.  We maybe even sometimes improve their work environment. So these things are all critically important and it's great to see where this money has gone to and I just appreciate the efforts to get it out there to people. And I hope when we get the report on December 8th that it really shows that we're on target to use every penny, because I think it's gonna, that's, we shouldn't waste any of that money. So thank you for your work. Thank you. Anybody else on the board with questions? Yeah. Supervisor McPherson here. Thank you. This is complex and widespread and very costly. It's amazing how we're able to get a grip on where the funds should go. The way I read it, there's about $6 million left to be spent. Is there, do we have, what are the target, are there any main targets or what's gonna get the majority of the remaining funds at this point? How do we see it? I mean, we were saying another report's gonna be by the end of December and that's two weeks away. So where are we headed in the next couple of weeks or where is that gonna be focused? I can address that. So your board did allocate a plan to spend all of that money and we've been meeting regularly with the departments and we're assured even though the expenditures don't reflect as far along as some of them would like, they have obligations there in the works and we expect that we will spend the money as allocated. So we don't expect to have any funds left over. It's our goal to spend every penny and make sure that the money goes where your board has allocated it. Okay, thank you very much. Your job well done too. There's some very trying circumstances. Mr. Chair. Yes. Right, I just, I'd be remiss to point out that we've done a great job in providing relief both to our nonprofit partners as well as to small businesses and renters. But as we head into another lockdown for many more months without additional support coming from the federal government there's gonna be tremendous pain in this community. And I'm hoping that there's a recognition that if you don't support local governments and nonprofits and small businesses and families through this you're creating incentives for dangerous behaviors and just pure pain on people. And so one hopes that the new administration and Congress will get more relief to people soon. Yeah, we hope so also. We're anticipating as you know we don't have any funding in the budget for any additional cost in support of COVID-19 for January through June. So we are anticipating and hoping that the new administration will finally, the legislature will pass the additional funding that they have discussed in the past and send it out to the counties. And then we can come back to your board and allocate that funding. Okay, thank you. Supervisor Friend or? No, thank you Chair, there's nothing additional to add. The public, you want to say? Open with the public, open it up now to public comment. Thank you, Becky Steinbrenner, my resident of rural Aptos. Thank you for the report. These numbers are dizzying to me. And I really want to thank you for the good verification of where it is all going and how much is left. I did read in the report that when staff found out that the county's expenditure was only at a 60.5% at early October that somehow a bunch of money was able to get sent to the public safety. I'd like to know what that paid for. Well, how did you justify? Was that for the beach patrols? When the beaches were closed, what public safety was funded with that added expenditure that was put in in order to keep the money and show that we had spent 75% of the 27.7 million. Hearing that going forward, we won't have any money after December 31st. I'm wondering what is going to happen with all the homeless people in the hotels that the county has rented? What will happen to the transitional age youth in trailers at the Seventh Day Adventist camp? What's going to happen with those people who have been given services and suddenly were out of money and they're back on the streets? I want to ask too, I'm aware that the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds has a contract with the county for emergency and disaster relief. There is currently the Crescetti building is full of tents, empty tents that are set up just in case we need them for COVID. How are we paying for that? And why are we paying for that? And will that be used or will that go away at the end of December too? I really want to thank Mr. Randy Morris for his exemplary work, getting the great plates delivered program often running in this county. That whole program came as a surprise to most county government and with a very short timeline to get it up and running to qualify for the money. And he and his staff did it. It has continued to operate. And as you can see it has provided a wonderful service for a lot of the county's elderly fixed income, people who are not comfortable going out. And it has helped the restaurants too that are struggling and continue to struggle. So I really want to thank him for his excellent, excellent work. So I am interested in what will happen with all these laptops that the county has bought with the CARES money. Will county staff be allowed to continue working after COVID at home? It seems like an efficient way, better for the environment, less driving. And thank you for your work. Thank you, Becky. Okay, any other comments? We have no web comments. Thank you. Bring it back to the board for either comments or a motion. No, just again, an appreciation to the staff and hope that the legislature of the Congress can work with the Biden administration to get us more funds to help us out because we're gonna be in this for a while. I make the, I move to accept and file this report. Okay. We have first and second. I'm sorry, I missed who seconded. I think it was Coonerty. Thank you. Well, okay, so let's try this again. Supervisor Friend. Hi. Thank you. Coonerty. Hi. McPherson. Hi. Chair Caput. Hi, motion passes unanimously. Should we do 16, consider the final appointment of Natalie Gabbard to the commission on justice and gender as an at-large representative who has experienced incarceration for a term to expire April 1st, 2024. I move approval. Okay. Do we have any questions, comments from the public? And we don't, none on the web? We need a second. Then we're open for a motion. We have a second. That's Coonerty, that's second. On the roll. Supervisor Leopold. Hi. Friend. Hi. Coonerty. Hi. McPherson. Hi. Chair Caput. Hi, motion passes unanimously. Welcome aboard Natalie Gabbard. Number 17, consider final appointment of Ashlyn and Adams to the commission on justice and gender as an at-large representative of the LGBTQ plus community for a term to expire April 1st, 2024. I would move approval. Any public comments? There are no public comment. Call the roll. Supervisor Leopold. Hi. Friend. Hi. Coonerty. Hi. McPherson. Hi. Chair Caput. Hi. The motion passes unanimously. So we have. Now we'll take attendance. Well, no, we have one more item. We have one more item that was an addenda to the regular agenda. I could read it in for you, if you'd like. Which is item 17.1, consider approval and concept of ordinance amending Santa Cruz County code section 4.06.070C relating to cannabis business tax rates and making SQL findings as outlined in the memorandum of Supervisor Leopold and Coonerty. There's a board member printout and ordinance and the amendments. And I think Supervisor Coonerty was going to open it up. Sure. Thank you, Supervisor Leopold. Just very briefly, we've had a long day. As many people may know, I have held firm on not wanting to lower cannabis taxes. One of the promises made during legalization was that there would be funding available from the legalization to fund other priorities. However, in this particular two limited circumstances, I think it makes sense. One is this distribution tax where we're not collecting any and it's actually causing businesses to locate in other lower tax jurisdictions. And so we end up losing out on other cannabis revenue taxes, I think is a problem and needs to be addressed. And the second one is to extend the slightly lower tax fee for a year because it did take people a long time to get through our permitting process. And so they never got to experience the benefit that we intended in the first place. So with these two, these two, what I consider tweaks to our system, I'm hoping it gives our cannabis businesses the opportunity to continue to grow and create jobs and revenue both for themselves and for the county. Thank you. We just add that this distribution tax rate is the same that they have in the city of Watsonville and we could have all the cannabis businesses locate in the city of Watsonville, but I think we want them in the unincorporated areas as well. So I support these changes. They are modest, but they will have an impact in our future revenue in a positive way, even though it's lowering these rates. Mr. Chair, this is Supervisor Friend. I do have some questions if now would be appropriate. Yes, absolutely. This is a tax related fiscal item, but my colleagues did not list some sort of fiscal impact can we say how much we're currently collecting on the distribution and what one percentage point would equate to on manufacturing and cultivation? Hi, this is Melody Serino, Deputy CAO. So currently for last fiscal year we collected about $105,000 from the distributors based on data provided from the Auditor, Controller, Treasurer, Tax Collector's Office. Our cultivators and manufacturers last year gave us about $1.8 million in tax revenue. So a 1% change to delay that 1% increase would be about $18,000. So just, and this all is all general fund money. So about $120, $125,000 in estimate is what we'd be losing. That's total. Well, and look, if I could just add, part of it is whether we would lose the businesses completely if we keep our tax structure at 7% while neighboring jurisdictions are at 0% and it provides an incentive for people to move their other operations to the lower tax jurisdiction. This is a way to prevent that and create a lesser incentive for people to do that. That is correct.  I mean, I have some concerns about, I mean, generally speaking, I think from an ideological standpoint, the board doesn't normally take the position that lowering taxes to zero will increase our overall tax revenue. We have never taken that position on anything else we've done. The cannabis industry generally speaking over COVID has not been an industry that's been impacted in the same negative way that say hotels or restaurants or other businesses are, but we're not proposing like a reduction in TOT or some sort of tax holiday for others. So I do have concerns right now. I mean, in a large part of today was talked, was we spoke about from the unions and others challenges to general fund costs. And we know that there's money directly brought in and what we don't know as you're bringing up is whether this would have a positive impact. I mean, my sense is that it wouldn't. So I have concerns about it. I definitely have also don't really understand when we were already not increasing the cultivation of manufacturing until 2022 why we're just presupposing it should be dropped another year. I mean, it seems like the kind of decision that you would wait to make closer to 2022 as opposed to this far in advance you would just push it up until in another year. I mean, it already wasn't set for another 13 or 14 months to be raised. So it seems odd to not raise it for 25 or whatever months it is now when we don't even have the additional data of whether there would be an additional challenge in 2021. So I feel like it's just lacking on the information that would be needed for me to support this. I mean, it feels like it's supporting and this is just my own personal view on this that it's supporting this industry over programs and employees based on the money that would be lost. So I don't think I can support this item today but I do respect and understand where my colleagues are coming from on this viewpoint. I'll just make a brief comment that to conflate this with other industries that don't share the same emerging nature as the cannabis industry is to mixing the apples with the oranges. And the question about putting off the increases it was our policy goal to create a lower tax environment to help these businesses establish and then raise the taxes. Through our own change of regulations and slow processing of permits, we're not getting the benefit of allowing those businesses to establish and people are making decisions about where to make their investments based on what things look like and both the distribution tax change and the modest change of pushing back this on a year has an effect on people where people cite their businesses. And I completely respect that supervisor Leopold but under the same logic if our surrounding jurisdictions were to lower every other tax that we have from distribution, cultivation, manufacturing to zero I mean ostensibly we would face the same issue and based on the same logic then this board would be arguing to do the exact same thing. I just don't think like I said to have a start of the conversation that strikes me as a race to the bottom I'm not supportive of Watsonville's actions to have the zero percent. I don't think that was good and I don't think we should make our public policy decisions based on what a neighboring jurisdiction makes we should do it for what's best for us. And in my sense, I just don't think that this is the right policy but I do completely respect where we are coming from on this I just have concerns about the standard that it sets moving forward. Your point, I hear your point. Okay, any other comments or questions from the board? I wanna ask the public. Okay, open it up to the public. Yeah, hi. Good afternoon. My name, can you hear me okay? Yeah. My name is Terry Sardinas and I am a local resident of Santa Cruz. We have a regenerative farm. We are a cultivator and distributor in Santa Cruz County. As a distributor and cultivator I really urge you to reduce this tax rate. As a business, Bird Valley gets taxed twice. We get taxed for cultivation and then get taxed again for distributing our cannabis. Bird Valley Organic at the moment distributes for the top brands in our County and represent, represent Coastal Sun, Santa Cruz, Cana Farms and WAM, the Women's Alliance for Medical and Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana. The farms represent produced regenerative cannabis at a price which is affordable to consumers. Cannabis has always been about compassion and it is our combined shared ethos as a business to be able to promote and sell affordable cannabis to consumers. This in turn reduces our profit margins but helps patients and customers. We are not just serving Santa Cruz County but all of California and we are therefore competing with cities and counties for the best wholesale pricing. Retailers and consumers are also looking for the best prices in a very overtaxed market. Other municipalities have figured this out and have since made changes. We wish to stay but at the high tax rate it's forcing us to look for other options. We are residents of this county and employ 11 people who would have to commute to another city or county for employment. In your 2018 and 2024 strategic plan it says your mission statement is to have an open and responsive government to County of Santa Cruz that delivers quality data-driven services that strengthens the community and enhances opportunity. Please consider lowering this tax rate. It allows us an opportunity for growth and it makes us competitive in a market that is very highly competitive. Thank you for your time. Good, thank you. Bye. Hello, how are you guys doing? My name is Manny Alvarez. I'm actually her partner. I'm a co-founder for Bird Valley Organics. I believe our partner summarized it well. The message we want to drive home. Taxes are a touchy subject, especially when it entails a displaced medical industry entering into a new cost-heavy recreational industry. When Prop 64 passed a few years back it put pressures on municipalities to adopt regulations and decide tax structures and rates. Throughout that period of time of figuring things out we've lost hundreds of good standing operating companies that couldn't make it through the start of costs alone while the ones that did make it barely are left today still trying to recover from those costs. I'm happy to say that our company is one of those still standing along with our distribution license there are eight others in the county currently, eight. I'm happy to say that out of those eight companies or the nine distribution companies we're actually the only distributor that distributes for other brands and not just our brand. So we're literally the only distribution company you have in your county left. When Melody Serena was talking about those fiscal numbers that sounds very, very familiar to the checks that we write every single month. Actually pretty much adds up to exactly what we've paid this county. So I think she's talking about bird value organics. I urge you to please lower your taxes. Our farm is located in Watsonville. We have a good relationship with the city of Watsonville and to say that they're the only ones doing this I'm happy to announce that they're not the only ones doing this. Santa Cruz County is one of three left in the state to have exuberant rates. I don't know who you guys are talking to or what's going on here but something really needs to change because we're here to try to make a difference and stay in our county. We love Santa Cruz County. For us to be looking at other places it's just asinine at this point. Tech structures are exuberant. It's way too much, costs are way too much. It's a competitive market. We're competing against the black market as well. That's what people don't say, right? People are not talking about the black market but that's also something that we're competing heavy because of these tax structures. Thank you. We have two web comments in regards to this. The first one is from Matt Groves. My name is Matt Groves. I'm a cannabis business owner in Santa Cruz County. I'm writing in support of these tax amendments. Santa Cruz County is already one of the highest tax jurisdictions in the state. And this is further exasperated by A, the reduction of tax and other jurisdictions and B, Santa Cruz cannabis tax scheduled to increase further from 6% to 7% in the year 2022. The gross receipt tax hurts not only our bottom line, it also impacts our top line revenue growth because consumers are dissuaded and by excessively high prices, turning to the illicit market and B, business and lower tax jurisdictions can offer a more competitive pricing. The city of Watsonville has a much more favorable tax with manufacturers paying only 2% gross receipt tax and distributors paying 0% taxes. If the Santa Cruz County does not make changes to their tax structure, they will see many of their largest cannabis businesses relocating to Watsonville and other jurisdictions in order to remain competitive. The second one is from Darren Story. As a member of the County cannabis community, we sincerely appreciate any assistance with creating a competitive environment relative to other jurisdictions within the state. As we prepare for federal legalization, we can expect operators to become progressively efficient. High taxes create a huge burden on us as we attempt to create viable businesses with all the economic advantages this carries. Since the voters adopted California recreation legalization, Santa Cruz County is the only jurisdiction whose taxes have increased. Every other single licensing municipality has moved to lower taxes and make their operators more competitive. Just this month, traditional agricultural hotbeds, Ventura and San Joaquin counties voted in cannabis licensing with extremely aggressive tax schemes. In addition, Sonoma and Mendocino counties moved to allow 20-fold increases in canopy while simultaneously lowering taxes across the board. For Santa Cruz County operators to remain in the county, grow their businesses and put further pressure on illicit operators, we must create an aggressive and competitive tax environment. Thank you in advance for your diligence with this matter. And that's the end of public comment. Chair, I'd be willing to move the recommended actions. Okay. Second. We have a first and who was the second? Okay. Thank you. I'll call for the roll, Supervisor Leopold. Aye. Friend? No. Coonerty? Aye. McPherson? Aye. Chair Caput? Aye. Motion passes what, four to one? Yeah. Okay, thank you. And that is actually the end of the meeting. I think we're gonna take a 10 minute break before we do closed session. And there's nothing to report out, I don't think. All right. 10 minute break, okay? Sure, 10 minute break, there's nothing to report out for closed session. Yes. Okay, good. Thank you. Anything reportable out of closed session? No, nothing reportable out of closed session. Okay, then I'll just say that the next meeting will be December the 8th at 9 a.m. here.