Board of Supervisors meeting and ask the clerk to call the roll. Good morning. Supervisor Leopold. Here. Friend. Here. Caput. McPherson. And chair Coonerty. Thank you, and I'm going to ask you to join me in a moment of silence and the Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice. Mr. Palacios, do we have any late additions or deletions to the agenda? Yes, we have a couple. On the regular agenda, item 10, there's a revised attachment, page 151. On regular agenda, item 11, there's a revised attachment, A, packet, page 185. On the consent agenda, item 66, there's a correction, the item should read, approve amendments to two contracts for tenant-based rental assistance services, housing authority, to increase by $60,000 for a total of 181,875. On item 69, there's a revised attachment, packet, page 1159. Thank you. Great, thank you. And now I'm going to ask my fellow board members if they have any items they'd like to pull from today's consent agenda. Yeah, I'm going to pull 63. So that is for the public, that's the approve an allocation of $3.5 million in low and moderate income housing asset funds for the purchase of APN 04822109 by mid-pin housing and authorized the planning director to negotiate a final affordable housing agreement. Okay, so we will make that item looks like 20.1. It'll be heard this afternoon. If anyone is here for that item and would like to speak to that item, you're welcome to do so during public comment if you can't come back for that item. Does anyone else have anything they'd like to pull? Okay, seeing none, let's move on to public comment. This is an opportunity for members of the public to speak to us about a couple of different things. First, they can speak to us about items that are not on our agenda today but are within the purview of the Board of Supervisors. That's public comment. Second, they can speak to us about items that are on the consent agenda. Third, you can speak to us about items that are on our closed session agenda. Or four, if you can't stay because you have to get to work or you have another obligation and you want to speak to us about one of our regular item agendas, you can speak to us now but you won't be able to speak to us when that item comes up. I'd ask if you're interested in speaking to us during this part to please stand up and get in a line and we'll have you come forward and talk. I don't know whether I should say your honors or whatever but I just wanted to make a brief statement about plastic. The item before you today isn't the last item you'll see about plastic. I don't want to preach to you about information that's fairly widely available, the film Blue, there's many other sources. It's everywhere. It's not just at the surface. It's at 3,000 feet. We've already just proven that and it's all over. If we don't start asking grocery stores and other places to replace the plastic with other devices, we won't get anywhere. And it will still show up on our shores and it will be ugly and so forth. And the fish will die. I just don't want to go into all the information that's readily available. All I want to say is it's very important. You can do something about it. I've heard that there is a grocery chain for instance in England that's already done without plastic. Thank you very much. Thank you. My name is Tony Crane representing a group in Aptos, California in objection to the second story program. It has come to our attention that County Council has requested that you not speak to our community due to the threat of a lawsuit. We have not made any such explicit threats. If we had in the beginning of this debacle two years ago or you have misinterpreted anything we have said recently, you can disregard that thought. That burden of fixing a problem you created should not be put on the fixed income retirees and young families in our community. If we thought our best action was to file a civil lawsuit, we would have done that a long time ago. In fact, we believe it is not necessary. We have not been collecting evidence for a lawsuit. I'm just doing your job for you. You have sworn to uphold the law and I don't believe you are doing so. In lieu of a civil action, I have simply reported the crimes that we believe have occurred and that I have represented to you in the last several meetings and I've given that information to the district attorney. I've been presenting the evidence we've possessed in meetings to you two minutes at a time to remove any chance of plausible deniability. These are extremely serious issues that you have disregarded. I assume at the recommendation of County Council. In my estimation, they have made several errors along the way, including one email in which it appears that a member of County Council intentionally provided misleading information to the zoning department in the midst of a zoning violation investigation. So let me be clear. We have not and do not intend to file a lawsuit against the county at this time. I stand here before you simply as a witness to and have credible credible evidence of acts by County and encompass employees that I believe amount to crimes against the taxpayers of California and especially the citizens of Santa Cruz County. So any directive from County Council not to communicate with a witness to a reported crime would be unwarranted and possibly obstructive. Thank you. Good morning supervisors. Mr. Palacios. My name is Mike McConnell. I'm the division director for adult services for the Human Services Department. We wanted to thank you for your proclamation recognizing June as elder abuse awareness months. I have a couple of our key partners with me that will speak after me from the district attorney's office and sheriff's office. As the proclamation states, there are fewer than one in 24 reports of elder abuse and neglect that are actually brought to the attention of adult protective services or law enforcement. Last year in Santa Cruz County, about 1500 reports were made to adult protective services. I'm not stellar at math, but I think the actual numbers are probably much higher than that. And we just wanted to thank you for the proclamation and also for your consistent support of programs aimed at preventing and stopping elder abuse. Thank you. Thank you for your work. Good morning. Todd Loverty. I'm a lieutenant with the sheriff's office. Again, technical mic. We just wanted to thank you very much for your proclamation and the help that this does to raise community awareness for this very serious crime. Thank you very much. Jeff Rosell, district attorney. I just wanted to say that elder abuse is something that we deal with on a daily basis. Ed Brown, who you'll hear a few words from to my left, deals with it in our office along with several other attorneys. And we just want to thank you for the support that we feel and that the citizens of our community feel. And you have a commitment, as you always have, from the DA's office to provide education to assist in investigation and the prosecution of these cases. I just want to thank you very much. I'm Ed Brown and one of the prosecutors that prosecute these cases. I want to thank the board for the proclamation. Also thank the community for the information we get the banks, the neighbors, the stores that bring the information to us that let us prosecute these cases. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your important work. It's critically important that we have a great team that helps us protect seniors from abuse. And I appreciate all the different departments that provide that service. Good morning. Dagmar Leguillon, La Selva Beach. I'm here because I support the ban on the sale of plastic bottles. Mr. Leopold, I heard you last Friday on KZSC's Bushwackers. Thank you for taking my call or my text on the air. I understand you support the ban on the sale of plastic bottles. But that you needed more community conversation. So here we are. And just a few facts to set the stage. You may already, this might not be new information for any of you, but I find these facts particularly startling. 12 million tons of plastic is dumped in the ocean every year. Of the five top pieces that are found on beaches, plastic bottles exist in the top five. Every minute one million plastic bottles are sold throughout the world. And the most frightening of all statistics that I've come across recently is that by 2050, that isn't 30 years. If any of you have children in elementary school, they'll be 30 or 40 years old starting their family. And guess what? There's going to be more plastic in the ocean than fish. So I have a question, both for the board and for the audience. I'd like to see a show of hands who supports the ban on the sale of plastic bottles. And my second question for the board is what are the action items that the board is looking at? So start with a county wide ban. First of all in the county buildings and events and then for further on. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, and just to let you know, in my three minutes, that was three million plastic bottles that were sold. Thank you. It was two minutes. Yeah, they need to vote it. Normally it's three. Mr. Alexander, please. Thank you. Good morning. That was startling. My name is Bob Morgan and I'll just follow up what the lady said regarding plastics and looking forward to your August 6th plastic reductions proposals that have been proposed by the county to come to review. I also want to say thank you for offering the Association of Counties Challenge Awards, recognizing different departments in the county. And in particular, I want to recommend Zero Waste headed by Tim Gancharov as a very good recipient of that county challenge award. And I wish Zero Waste team good luck. I also want to comment on the approved contract for DUDEC to begin the EIR process for the sustainable plan. I'm representing Sustainable Soquel in thanking you for beginning that process, that contractual agreement with DUDEC. We believe in the sustainable plan. We think it is an excellent document and we want to thank the Board of Supervisors for beginning the EIR process to get this sustainable plan regulated on the books and law. Thank you very much, supervisors. Good morning supervisors. I'm Helen Ewan Story. I'm the Assistant Director for the Community Action Board and I definitely support a plastic bottle band, but I'm here this morning really to thank the Homeless Action Partnership, Continuum of Care for recommending and hopefully very soon your board for proving on your consent agenda this morning three homeless emergency aid program contracts with our agency. So building on CAB's successful existing programming, we're very excited and honored to be able to expand our rental assistance to avoid eviction and homelessness, programming to an additional 50 to 70 households throughout the county. In addition to serving additional 25 per year homeless and accompanied at risk youth and young adults in achieving their housing, employment and educational goals with our collaborative partner County Office of Education. And we're very excited to launch the Watsonville Works Experience Program in collaboration with our partner City of Watsonville Public Works to provide work experience for homeless residents of Watsonville and to provide that work experience, the housing and stability supports all at the same time as promoting the health safety and really the beautification of the City of Watsonville. So thank you so much for your confidence in CAB in delivering this impactful programming. And we want to thank you also for supporting effective solutions to homelessness equitably throughout the county. Thanks so much. If you could restart that, I'd appreciate it since you got it down to two minutes, Mr. Chairman. Please go ahead. That's outrageous. You've been building a parallel government and it's been attacked on local government for a long time and you know it. The founders of the country had studied various systems government throughout history and they found that the United States is not a democracy, never was, never was intended to be. We just pledge allegiance to the Republic. I can go through Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson who talks about turning into dictatorships. John Adams says remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes itself and murders itself. James Madison, it's been incompatible with personal security rights. It has been shortened its lives as it has been violent in its death. And of course we have programs throughout the county that Zach Friend and Sam Farr belong to as their hope for democracy. Any educated person in the United States knows democracy is evil. The same person that's a media consultant on there has various people at his broadcast. One of them includes Minnie Bendoka who is co-chairman of Leon Panetta's California Forward who wants to get rid of 80% of the governments and you know it. Sam Farr, the speaker on here, lied on KSEO. He lied before Democratic meetings and he lied before this lady here when she was a member of the Watsonville Council and he said he didn't know anything about Agenda 21. Yet he wrote the front page saying he would introduce Agenda 21 throughout the area. Agenda 21 is anti-American. It has to do with regionalism and you are guilty of that. You've been expanding regionalism which is no more than Soviets. And I'd like my extra five minutes, Mr. Coonerty. No, everyone's getting the same time. No, thanks. You're amazing. Next speaker please. Hi, my name is Alyssa DeKiewog and I have the privilege to be the clinical and program manager of the Gemma Transitional Housing Program. We decided to come here today because we know that reducing recidivism, gender responsive programming and addiction are really hot topics these days. And so I brought with me here a woman who can speak a little more closely to what her journey has been like with those three items. Jessica Postler. Hi, I'm Jessica Postler and I am a resident at Gemma approaching my graduation date. A year ago if you had seen me in this building it would have been for a very different reason. I was lost in my addiction and I was out committing crimes to support my drug habit. All of that has changed and although I put in the work the Gemma house gave me the structure support and a safe place to work on my recovery. I felt shame and guilt for the way I behaved in my addiction. The ladies at Gemma have helped me work through that and become a healthy member of our community. They have encouraged me to build my sober support network through NA, volunteer my time to help the less fortunate with the food not bombs program, and cheered me on when I interviewed for the position as a manager at a local spa. Gemma's helped me to completely turn my life around and I know there are hundreds of women like me in our community that need this program and I'm here to show you that the funding that you have offered has really changed my life and could change the life of others. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Great story. Good morning. Jim Helmer, San Lorenzo Valley resident. As you enter into your budget hearings next week, I wanted to make a first off, I would like to congratulate the board and the RTC for the Highway 9 Complete Streets study in SLV as well as the passage of Measure D. Highway 9 is often closed due to mudslides, trees down, car crashes, and we have essential streets that border Highway 9 that are your responsibility like Bear Creek Road, Jamieson Creek, Alba Road, Felton Empire, and others. And most of these roads are very steep. They've been carved into the sides of mountains. And in 2016, we had eight feet of rainfall on those roads. And in 2018, we had another six feet of rainfall. Essentially, it's critical. It's critical that our tow ditches are maintained every summer and our culverts and head walls are opened to provide for free flow of water. I commend our Public Works crews both locally as well as Caltrans for the good work they do. But as you enter your budget hearings, I would ask you, is there a possibility for new funding, dedicated funding, for summertime tow ditch cleaning, not only in the SLV area, but certainly in the Soquel Hills and the Coralitas Watsonville area? The last point I'd like to make is the San Lorenzo Valley or the Ben Lohman Park. For years, it was a great tourist attraction and swimming venue. And all I ask on these hot summer days, is there a way we could open up the river again for our feet and our dogs and for just generally cooling down? Thank you. Hi, my name is Mimi Snowden, and I'm here to talk to you just briefly about the cannabis ordinance. I spoke last week. I have been very negatively impacted by growing around me. And I would just hope, and so have my neighbors. So I would just hope that if you are planning on giving permits for cannabis growing, that you would allow people that border the agricultural properties that have residences or residential property. They need to be notified. Not being notified is really not okay. There are other issues that occur with cannabis growing that make life very difficult for a lot of us. The smell, the generators, the pesticides possibly, the lack of knowledge on some of the cannabis growers. We had to grow next to us illegal last year. We were told it was legal. They left their trash. They lived in trailers.  But if you were going to get it, you would probably want some kind of notification before they were granted a permit. So I would ask that you consider that when you decide to pass that amendment. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning supervisors. Catherine O'Day would save our shores. I have to imagine you saw the front page news yesterday regarding the study of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute published late last week about the extent of plastic pollution, really a crisis in our beloved Monterey Bay. It states among other stunning facts that in parts of the Bay there are more swirling microplastics than in the Great Pacific garbage patch. The study makes our local need to mitigate plastics very real. We are not talking about a non-visible, non-measurable, much-hyped, way-off shore phenomenon. This is, we are talking about the reality in our sanctuary. Santa Cruz and Save Our Shores has been at the forefront of the fight to stop offshore oil and gas exploration and drilling in the establishment of our National Marine Sanctuary. We therefore cannot sit back idly and allow the sanctuary, our community, work so hard to establish and protect from fossil fuel. Now be polluted by one of the most ubiquitous fossil fuel products, plastics. The irony is tragic. Don't let this community down when action is most urgent. You signaled interest in taking bold action back in February when you passed a director of requiring the DPW to bring you recommendations regarding plastic pollution mitigation upon which you could act. We know you received the recommendations and we know they were broad and reflected the input of your commission on the environment and other agencies and organizations with which you instructed DPW to consult. We also know action has been delayed from May to June and now until August. Please don't let these delays to act continue. Nothing less than our marine environment, our sea life, our human health and climate change mitigation is at stake. We continue to have faith in you. Please act. Thank you very much. Good morning. My name is Ali. I'm speaking on behalf of surfrider Santa Cruz but also on behalf of the Monterey Bay which doesn't have a voice, millions of sea creatures that cannot talk to you. I am also here in support of limiting our plastic production in Santa Cruz and what we allow to sell. I'm told that we're looking for more community support and I'm actually excited about that because I know this community and I know that we can pull people together and prove to you that this is what we want. We're a very tourism driven place and to me I see the excitement of people coming here and seeing a different city, a city that's ahead of everywhere else and a city that educates them on issues like this. I'm very confident that we're going to pull the community together so I'm really hopeful that you guys will also listen to us and make things happen because that's where the power is. We've always been really ahead of the rest of the country and the rest of the world and we're starting to kind of fall behind. The things that we want might seem radical but they're not. They're the way of the future. The world is heading toward limiting plastic production and we can be a really major part of that and we should be because of where we live. Thank you. Good morning Chair Coonerty and board members. My name is Ashley Blake O'Drager. I'm with Oceana. I'd first like to thank you again for your November action to prohibit single-use plastic toiletry bottles in exchange for reusable options as well as the progress that you're making towards eliminating single-use plastic bottles on county property. As expressed by others, hopefully that initiative will go county-wide. In light of the studies that were just shared conducted in Monterey Bay it's clearer than ever that microplastics are a pervasive problem. They're in the bellies of the tiniest plankton to the largest whales and they're literally contaminating our waterways, the air that we breathe and our own health. In recognizing that you had previously taxed the Department of Public Works with coming up with a range of recommendations for some priority single-use plastic products but that those recommendations have not yet been agendized for presentation and discussion at a public meeting yet respectfully request echoing the comments of others that those recommendations receive a presentation and the opportunity for your thoughts and comments from the public at your first available meeting in August. I also wanted to mention it's my understanding that you have already supported two pieces of legislation, SB 54 and AB 1080 that are making their way through the Capitol. So I want to thank you for supporting those bills. Oceana's belief that those pieces of legislation should they be signed into law will begin to set some high standards for single-use plastic policies in the state and hopefully that will inspire action nationwide but given that Santa Cruz County has a tremendous environmental legacy we believe that you shouldn't be holding off to see what happens with that legislation hopefully continue to support it but also continue to move forward with taking action on other single-use products here that are pervasive in our county for the benefit of wildlife, human health and our economies as well. So thank you very much. Good morning. My name is Becky Steinburner. I'm a resident of rural Aptos. I sent your board a communication light last night asking you to pull three items from the consent agenda. Number 43 you must pull because if you don't you'll be violating state law in the Brown Act by not publicly discussing Mr. Palacio's pay increase. Do any of you plan to pull this? All right, I see no action and I'm quite appalled that county council will allow this to occur but you will be violating the Brown Act by passing this and consent agenda. It is not public discussion. So I will move along. It is quite a good transition into what I'd like to talk with you about and that is your policy that you adopted almost a year ago wherein members of the public can no longer pull consent agenda items that they feel merit better public discussion. We are beholden to you to do it for us. I have written your board on many occasions. I have written individual supervisors on many occasions. The answer has always been no with one exception from Supervisor Caput. This began with recommendations from Mr. Palacio to reduce public comment and make board meetings run more efficiently. In March of last year, there was a subcommittee that included some of you, Supervisor Coonerty and Supervisor McPherson, along with County Council. That group met again in May and Mr. Palacio came up with recommendations. Your board adopted those recommendations. With the addition, thank you Supervisor Leopold for asking that there be a report back to your board six months on the effectiveness of them. That report has never come. I have filed five Public Records Act requests to get information and I just want to point out, reading from one in an email from Rachel Dan, Supervisor Coonerty's an analyst to Mr. Coonerty commenting, I guess if we're solely thinking of Becky, then sure it might save some time and maybe Zach will decline a request to pull items. I think we should think about the other fact that the frequent fliers that staff is trying to quell are women, Marilyn and Becky primarily, and this is an all-male board. The optics aren't great. I'm not just so sure that these changes will make much of a positive difference and may just generate a negative perception. Thank you. Thank you. So what I read was just this. So I'm going to start right here. Hi, my name is Rachel Spaulding and I'm just picking up from where Becky left off and I'm going to start at the beginning of the email from Rachel Dan to Ryan Coonerty. Recommended action number three makes it seem like staff can change the policies and procedures with regard to board meetings without board approval. This can't be right, but I would like to ask about it. If this is the case, then I think that recommendation should be removed. It's worded in a way that makes the direction difficult to understand. Number two recommendation says, approve attached policies and procedures changes, but we don't see the attachment. If it's adopting the Rosenberg rules, that's one thing and I don't see a big issue with that. But if there are additional recommended rules changes, then I think we should know what staff will be recommending before we put this out there. I'm a little uncomfortable that they are putting your name on this, though they are careful not to attribute the recommendations to you or Bruce. In general, I guess this is okay, depending on the specifics, but I wonder about unintended consequences that we aren't thinking of that maybe cause this change to be more trouble than it's worth. For example, they are pushing this issue of not letting the public pull items and instead making the public go through the board member. Board members are then in the position of having to triage consent item request and be the one to make people unhappy if we say no. I'm not sure board members will say no, so what is the benefit in the end, except making it look like we are less accessible to the public. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Edgar Ross. I'm from Scotts Valley. I'm a guy at Monterey Bay Aquarium, docent at Henry Cowell. I collected this and some more stuff that wouldn't fit on the tray. In the 20 minutes, it took me to walk from the end of Highway 17 to here on Ocean Boulevard. There's lots of stuff here. Lots of straws, as you probably guess. Paper cups are not actually paper. They include a plastic liner. That's how the coffee doesn't melt through and come into your lap when you're driving. These things were reworked maybe 40 years ago. They didn't like the pollution of these things and they thought that if they created a version that would break up into little pieces, it would be better. But what they realized is that the little pieces are still plastic. They're still non-digestible by anything.  I'll remove this because it looks like trash. Thank you. Good morning, members. It's heartbreaking for me to bring this back up again on 26 for the consent agenda, the abandoning of tobacco flavors. I am an ex-smoker at the same time, so I quit smoking myself. I think it's a choice we make. It breaks my heart as well to see all this business going to the internet sales and to other counties that other people benefit from. As of today, I might lose one of my businesses in Santa Cruz, which is I've been there for 10 years and I've always done the right things, followed all the rules, seen tobacco shop, not a smoke shop. So please reconsider this if you can. Pick and choose and ask the CHPs and the police departments on who runs the best clean shop in town. Please consider. Thank you. Marilyn Garrett. I've been coming here almost 20 years since I retired from teaching. And our purpose in speaking is to advocate for public health, the well-being, community quality of life here. How? Try to bring forth facts on adverse policies and impacts from big development and corporate policies. I've been focused on wireless technology. Your obligation, why we have government, is to protect the public and the community well-being. But what are you doing instead? Supporting big development, corporate interests, and you don't want to hear from the public. Why are you here? If you don't want to hear public input and take it into consideration and adjust your policies accordingly. Your censorship of the consent agenda items is outrageous. Outrageous. I watched a Nevada County Board of Supervisors meeting the other day. What a contrast of listening to the public. There was an appeal case of a cell tower. The appellant had 30 minutes, so did AT&T. You need to go back to the other policy. And Ryan, you did this when you were on the Santa Cruz City Council. Two minutes for everyone. There's a lot of assault, war, demeaning of women, demeaning of whistleblowers in this country. And we need more people to speak out and give you direction in the public interest. Thank you. Good morning, members of the board. My name is Andres Saria. I'm here representing thousands of families that are part of COPA from our 18 institutions from Scotts Valley all the way to Watsonville. I'm here to speak on item number 63 that was pulled for this afternoon. All across the county, I've been hearing numerous stories about congregations shrinking because of the affordable housing crisis. Families overcrowding up to four or five families in one household. Teachers that are not able to afford to live in this county because of the housing crisis. We're here to support this allocation of funding because we believe this is part of the solution to start addressing the affordable housing needs. We support this allocation of funding. That item number 63 allows and that we hope that this afternoon you do so as well. Thank you. Good morning, gentlemen. Stony Brook and I'm here on behalf of your veteran's liaison to our Human Services Commission. I want to mention that on Thursday, June 6, marked the 75th anniversary of D-Day, the Allied invasion of Europe to liberate world from Nazi domination. 156,000 troops, 6,000 vessels, and 11,500 aircraft participated in the largest amphibious assault in history. Although the war in Europe continued for another 11 months, this marked the beginning of the end of World War II. On that single day, Santa Cruz County lost one of our sons on D-Day. Army Sergeant Carl N. Riggs, age 24, and a graduate of Watsonville High School. He was a paratrooper and easy company, 506 Parachute Regiment, 101st Airborne. His infantry squad company commander and first sergeant were aboard a twin engine C-47 en route to England from their drop zone. The plane was damaged by any aircraft fire over Normandy and crashed with the loss of all 22 soldiers and crew. Overall, Santa Cruz County lost 97 residents in World War II in combat and other causes and hundreds more were wounded or traumatized. We consider the county population at that time was approximately 47,000 people for the whole county.  Please remember and honor the sacrifices of these men and women of our nation. Thank you very much. Thank you. Real quick, Stoney, if I can get that name of the Watsonville High School graduate, make sure his name's on that memorial in front of the Watsonville High School. You can submit it here and then I'll get it. Thank you. Next speaker. Good morning, board. My name is Rafael Hernandez. I'm with the Monterey Bay Economic Partnership. I just wanted to make a couple of comments on the allocation to midpen. As you may know, Monterey Bay Economic Partnership works on different initiatives. I'm working the housing initiative, which supports housing at all different levels, close to transit, close to services and work to prevent sprawl. I don't need to elaborate on the housing context in which we all work and operate in which you make decisions in. I just wanted to say that given that we want to use every tool available and have every opportunity to work toward the issue that is central to almost all issues. When you think about healthcare, education, workforce development, housing impacts those. I used to be a teacher and I worked with housing because I realized whether I wanted to or not I had to deal with housing because before a student wakes up to go to school, she wakes up in the housing situation before an employee wakes up to go to work. Same thing, the housing situation is there and that impacts outcomes, impacts the economy, et cetera, et cetera. So I just wanted to say given that context and given what we know and hear all the time about the housing situation, I just wanted to say let's make sure we have every tool available, every opportunity to deal with this situation that impacts us on all levels whether we're aware of it or not. Thank you very much. Thank you. So we have a final speaker. I haven't even talked to you guys at that bottom. You know, it's very disrespectful. This is my victory hat from the threat from down below. People that are coming down from below right in the political system just a corruption. You're imposing an arbitrary rule. I want to be able to remind California residents, man we're good we're good Americans. It's a constitutional republic. You need to respect our brown rights, right and restore it. This is shameful. We might as well just get rid of the county who did the do nothing, right and let Carlos Palazzo exert him will save money because he's imposing all this arbitrary rule and you guys are following his guidance. You know the American public we, hey this unscripted reality that people are watching my activism I want to be able to share members of the public we had a victory today, the American public I took on the whole establishment in Santa Clara County on EBT being oppressed by the whole system the whole corruption and I prevailed. Election Code allows for members of the public to come up in here and to engage in vehement protests we have a right to bring our political props and to challenge the system and to keep it accountable. Listen I'm not embarrassed in my humanity you know I'm not embarrassed in my humanity because you guys want to sit here and pose this arbitrary rule and totally disrespect the American public I find it very shameful you know I had good things to say but you know it's very shameful man. I want to be able to share members of the public that we have a new heavyweight Mexican champion and I'm proud of that being American born Mexican and I won my victory as an American then respecting my constitutional rights and I want to be able to tell people that you know I'm trying to get back home because I'm in political exile right and I'm wearing this hat a member of the public bought this after one of my activist friends bought this so I can sport it and I appreciate that I appreciate the members of the public's prayers, emails the support and helping me out and I appreciate Gary Arnold looking out for me. He's a good man thank you. Thank you that concludes public comment I'm going to bring it back to the board unless there's anyone else who was waiting to speak okay I'll bring it back to the board for action on the consent agenda these are items 22 through 91 with the exception of 63 and I'll ask board members if they have any comments. Supervisor Friend thank you chair good morning just a couple of things I appreciated the work that the parks commission did in regarding to the parking lot work and that we're going to be seeing that item through on item 35 on item 65 it's nice to see the sustainable plan going forward hopefully this process will move in a more expedited fashion moving forward I know it's a priority of the board on item 77 on the Salva Beach library facility thank you for everybody both from the council and the county that worked on getting this lease agreement done we're very much looking forward to the construction of that new library the community down there is very excited about those possibilities on item 83 thank you to public works on continuing to stand top of the storm damage even with some of the changes at the federal level to know that we're moving forward to what we can do especially out on trial goals will mean a lot for the residents that live in the rural areas. Lastly on item 87 I know this is a deferral regarding the shared mobility of mobility as the service just to continue to express our concerns about scooters which I know are currently banned within county code but I think that it should maintain explicit that way I think that a lot of the communities that have these shared mobility services specifically the scooters have a lot of safety issues a lot of kids are getting hurt and I have concerns with other communities that have done it I don't think that that's something that we should allow here so when that comes back in August I'll be looking for that explicit on that regard. Thank you. Thank you chair and good morning there are a number of items here on the consent agenda I won't comment on all of them I'll comment on a few of them that I feel are important on item number 34 which is the report on the preliminary recommendations from the justice and gender task force I appreciate the work of our county administrative office with the task force I think as we heard from the testimony this morning during oral communication that providing safe housing for women who are coming out of jail can really make a difference and turn around people's lives and so we need to continue to work on this issue to have these options if we want to lower recidivism and be a safer community on item number 35 this is the issue of the parking lot and the parks commission I was glad to see that the park commission was able to weigh in on this I think they came up with a a reasoned set of recommendations I'm glad that it's something that we can do and it meets a lot of different needs which is providing more space for people here from previous testimony but also making sure that there is some ongoing support for our parks department which is always in need of resources and is very valued by members of the community on item number 41 I appreciate the work that my colleagues supervisor McPherson did to work with the city of Santa Cruz on our UC Santa Cruz growth plans response I think it's very important that when we look at impacts both on campus and off campus that those off campus impacts also include in the unincorporated area in Live Oak we have seen an increasing number of students who live there and you can always tell when the school year is over because the mattresses come out and everything else but the impact of university growth is not just a city issue it's a county issue and I just want to make sure in the work that goes on I like the idea of hiring someone to help do organizing around it I think that's critical and I appreciate the work by my colleagues on item number 58 which is a resolution approving a grant application to the state I want to thank the parks department the farm park is a park that was promised to the community over 20 years ago we've been working very hard to build all the pieces of that park I know the parks department is very committed to that and I think that with the investment that we've made with the community is made that it should be a very attractive grant application and I have high hopes for its success and given the recent success that the parks department has had in grants I'm cautiously optimistic on item number 62 and 63 I would just point out that these are two important items oh no not 62 and 63 62 and 65 these are two very important items items in which we know that there's going to be a lot of input from the public they both involve the planning department one is around our public safety and hazard management general plan amendments and one about the study session on what's going to be going into the EIR for the sustainability update if we're going to be successful in looking at both these issues it's going to be important for us to think about our agenda on the 24th to make sure that we have time to actually go over these issues sufficiently and I just want to put that out to the department that we need to be prepared for that because I think that what we heard from community members is they're ready for us to move forward with the EIR on the sustainability update and I don't want to push off having that discussion before we start that process on item number 72 I want to thank Public Works for their work on Main Street this has been some work that's been long time coming and I appreciate the efforts of the department to make sure that this safety improvements can be made for the school and the neighborhood it really makes a difference and then lastly on item number 87 this is another deferral this is our second deferral for the shared mobility and mobility as a service I look forward to a robust item on August 6 the community is very interested in looking at the shared mobility opportunities and we've seen the success of jump bikes and I hope that on August 6 we have a chance to really talk about that with that very good, yes I had some items that I'd like to comment on number one is the number 26 on flavored tobacco I've heard from so retailers in my district are concerned about losing revenue from the sale of menthol cigarettes as well as other non-tobacco products that customers buy when they come into their offices or their stores to buy cigarettes I agree that if we ban these products it would be ideal if nearby jurisdictions considered doing the same so that we don't really create an unfair competition I'd like to give additional direction on that issue to the health services agency to work with the other jurisdictions in the ban on county and possibly adopt having those other cities possibly adopt a similar ordinance and report back to us say in January of 2020 I think that would give them enough time to do that on item number 40 I want to thank U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein for recommending additional federal funding to address the homelessness issue we need a greater investment to supplement the local and state funding for what is really a national program it's everywhere you go on item number 41 that's been mentioned I want to thank my colleague supervisor Coonerty for bringing this item to the board I'm happy to support it on UC SC growth we have an obligation in this community and throughout the state of California to educate Californians in our university system and UCSC is a big part to play in that work to really uphold the UC world class research institution that it is but we also are a small community and with finite resources and I think this gives us a voice with the university to help shape what the future looks like and how we mitigate the impacts whether they be in housing, water transportation and I'd like to say that as the university has grown and has had a substantial impact on our county no question about it that they have really come forward and done some really great work on reducing their use of water I mean they have thousands of more students and they're using less water than they did 20 years ago the metro service of which I'm a board member that's half of our ridership that goes to UCSC and they pay a portion of that to have that increased ridership so UCSC has tried and succeeded in being a good partner with this county and we just want to make sure that when they are looking at this growth that is going to be going up or going throughout the UC system that they have our voice and concerns about how they address particularly housing and its impact on this community on this county in the future but I think that they have done some positive things as they have grown so we shouldn't forget that it is with us and it's going to stay with us and it's going to grow so we just have to see how we can make that impact as less severe on the rest of the community as possible and number 44 who lives in my district and public works department she's been stellar, she's been fantastic and working on several items in the public works department and I just wish her well in her retirement I'd like to see her come back from time to time and give us some advice I'm sure she'd like to do that but in number 51 our new health officer Dr. Gale Newell we look forward to meeting with you and working with you in the future and congratulations there's some serious issues health related as we know and we're going to be discussing some of them today and later in the day I also like to mention on item 64 and 5 the sustainable Santa Cruz county I'm glad to see the environmental review coming forward that this has been a work in progress for 4 or 5 years and it's going to be a real critical element in how this county grows in the future and lastly on items 85 and 6 storm repairs I'm very glad to see the contracts awarded for storm repair in Bola Creek and near Scotts Valley as they have been throughout the county our public works department has been under the gun we've had some benefits of course with measure D and SB1 being upheld from the states to get additional revenue but Santa Cruz county has also been at the high of the storm and several of these storms that have happened in the last 4 or 5 years and some of them we have half of the road repair work that needs to be done in the state of California or in our county I know a lot of people are frustrated that there's damaged roads and potholes in front of their streets and so forth but we're trying to address what we can as quickly as we can with the most heavily traveled roads for the safety of the travelers in our county public works really everybody in that department from Matt Machado the director on down Steve Wiesner in charge of the deputy in charge of the road repairs I think they should have a real big thank you from all of us for directing what we can do with what we have in monetary resources as quickly as we can it's a huge job but we're getting it done road by road pothole by pothole thank you for your patience but thank you to the public works department for staying with this thank you thank you I'll just comment on number 62 that concerns the Watsonville regional airport and I don't know it's not clear and it will be brought up August 27th and September 24th but two mile radius around Watsonville airport we have the information on what change are we looking for Mary Carlos you got any idea I'm sorry I don't have information on that it is coming back it is scheduled for August 27th and we will be sure and get that information here you go these are changes to this is David Carlson from the planning department these are changes to bring our county code and general plan policies in compliance with the state of California airport land use planning handbook but we're changing the noise element it involves changes to the noise element and changes to the land use element and changes to one chapter of the county code to incorporate the requirements of the handbook into the county's policies and ordinances is that going to restrict the the airport from having flights it does not involve restrictions on the airport it involves restrictions on land use around the airport thank you is that your only comment okay and then I just have a couple comments on the items today on item number 35 on the AB 109 contracts I want to appreciate the probation department's real driven being driven by outcomes and adjusting contracts accordingly I'd like in the future I would like to I would like to I would like to I would like to I would like to I would like to I would like to I would like to I would like to count against the contracts I would like to stand the although it should include some data on the contract obviously we can see how they did not only not only how they plan to go forward but how they did coming into it really great impact on children and babies in our community. And I wanna, I'm becoming a model around the state and I really look forward to the report that we're gonna have in September around this. And actually, sorry, and item number 41, which is the UCSC growth and measure you. This is really a commitment that we made after the voters overwhelmingly approved measure you to say that when we look at the potential impact of 10,000 new students on campus, that we are going to advocate for reduced impacts and traffic water housing in all the ways and make sure that our voices heard among policy makers in Sacramento who are really driving these decisions. So now I'll look for a motion on item number, on the consent agenda with the exception of item number 63. I would move the consent agenda as amended. Okay, a motion by Leopold and a second by McPherson. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? That passes unanimously. We're moving on to item number seven, which is a public hearing to consider ordinances amending Santa Cruz County Code chapter 7.128 and 13.10, to relating to non-retail commercial cannabis regulations and making findings of exemption from CEQA schedule the ordinances for a second reading and final adoption on June 25th, 2019, and take related actions as outlined in the memorandum of the CAO. Mr. Fordy? Yeah, go for it. At the April 23rd Board of Supervisor meeting, staff stated that the last 10 months of code implementation have revealed the time consuming nature of the use permit process. And this process is taking much more time than it was expected, especially for our existing commercial agricultural operators. Staff identified various areas of county code which can be perceived as creating difficulty in the process and sought input on the board, or from the board on various recommendations. Our recommendations included the incorporation of a nursery and processor license type, aligning canopy and definitions with the state regulations, removal of general eligibility restrictions, increasing the cultivation area in the CA C4 and M zones and removal of cultivation size limits in the CA zone for indoor operations. These recommendations were incorporated into 7.128 and 1310 for the board to review at the May 14th reading. And these were provided to the Planning Commission for review at the May 29th meeting. While incorporating recommendations, staff identified a need for additional terms to make the modifications to code work. So we added several terms to the definition section and modified the canopy definition to mirror state regulations. We've proposed incorporating a nursery license type to allow for immature plant growth, genetic development and cloning so that growers don't have to pay state license fees based on mature plant canopy for nursery operations. These types of operations have to meet the eligibility restrictions in the TP and RA zones that the board has previously approved. Cannabis processing was previously included but the activity of processing was not defined. To process cannabis means to dry, trim, store and package. Processing is allowed as part of cultivation operations but we're proposing to allow processing to be done at an independent offsite facility. We're proposing to incorporate a processor license in the CA C4 and M zones as staff has identified this as a gap in the market. Currently we have multiple outdoor growers cultivating cannabis who are not processing cannabis on site due to financial costs associated with complying with fire code. They are shipping all their cannabis offsite and out of county, which is increasing stresses on our roadways and decreasing tax dollars for the county currently. Originally eligibility restrictions were put in place to protect the local market but we're proposing to remove the registration requirement based on only 2% of registrants applying for a use permit and just over 10% have completed the pre-application process at this point. We're proposing to increase the cultivation area in the CA zone by differentiating the cultivation area from the canopy. This increase does not apply to the coastal zone and the canopy is the mature plant area or the flowering area where the cultivation area is the immature and mature plant area. This additional space will provide cultivators an extra 1.2, an extra 1.25% of the land for a single operator or up to 2.5% of the parcel size for multiple tenants. We're proposing something similar for the C4 and M zones by providing additional space to cultivators to maintain sufficient immature plant stock to maintain continuous flower operations. This is in line with other jurisdictions and with state code. We're proposing to allow development in the CA zone of existing impervious areas as long as the area was permitted or legally non-conforming. This development would not have a cultivation area limit tied to the size of the parcel similar to how cultivation size is not limited by parcel size in the C4 and M zones. This would allow redevelopment of existing infrastructure and hardscape while restricting any takes of agricultural soil. The goal is to eliminate pressure on the C4 and M zones while preserving agricultural lands. We're proposing to change all use permits to level three for existing buildings in the CA, C4 and M zones and allow crop conversions in the CA zone to be completed via a level three review. This will decrease processing time for use permits by up to three months. Now, prior to the May 29th planning commission meeting, staff prepared a revised version of the use charts in 1310 based on board concerns expressed at the May 14th meeting. The revised use charts include a permit level of three or four for all cultivation sites in the CA, C4 and M zone parcels which are currently a level four, five or six review. A review level four includes a public comment period of 21 days to provide feedback. All cultivation sites which are adjacent to a park or a parcel with a different zoning and have a home will be subject to the level four review under the proposed version. Now the planning commission recommended this version and this is what has been provided to the board in the attachments. Questions? Any questions? Seeing none, let's open up for public comment. Is there anyone in the public who'd like to comment? Please line up if you're going to comment today. Good morning. A Darren story with Santa Cruz County Cannabis Alliance down in South County, a group of 20 farmers working on getting streamlined and getting these operations up and running. I hear I mentioned quite a bit about increasing tax revenues but it's not really about that. It's about increasing jobs and economic vitality. It helps to reduce crime, keeps kids off the streets and really just adds benefit to the community in general. I was down in Greenfield yesterday at a processing facility there. They built it from scratch. They provided 350 jobs to the local residents and it's going pretty well. At another facility similar to that up in Mendocino they were able to rehabilitate the Fetzer winery which had been in disarray for over a couple of decades. They now have 286 people on staff. They're continuing to make improvements. None of these are new buildings. They're just rehabilitating existing agricultural buildings and providing jobs, doing it right, doing it correct, working with the community, all the stakeholders, neighbors, you name it. Just trying to create a new business and a new industry and we'd like to do the same thing here in Santa Cruz County. We've been trying to do this for over three years. In the meantime, the people in Greenfield and Mendocino are already up and running and providing quite a bit of jobs. Right now we have about 50 people on staff. We'd like to create a processing facility that would be similar to these facilities, keep all those jobs and the economic vitality here in Santa Cruz County and hopefully some tax revenue as well. That's always nice but it's not the main point. Thanks. Thank you. Hi, Pat Malo. First, let me say thanks for going forward with these changes. It's really going to help at least the folks who are still struggling to make this work in the commercial ag zoning. But we've got a bigger problem. I think that all of you are aware at this point that we had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of registrants, folks who were interested in going from what was legal medical businesses now into this new state system of regulation. And we've done absolutely terrible about getting those folks in. And some of them weren't community members. Some of them left. Most of them were community members and are still here. And my big problem with that is that we've actually pushed them into now not as criminalized but a criminal channel. And now we're spending all this money, which we should be spending on thrive by three children, unmet needs in the community on enforcement. So it's kind of just where did we go forward or backwards. And the main issue that it's not just these folks who now have to figure it out in this criminalized channel, it's that we took the whole Santa Cruz mountains. And what used to be by 7.126 legal gardens are now illegal. And we have no protections for the environment, no protections for the people who are going to use those products and no tax revenue at all off of any of those things. So we can sit here and celebrate the changes that are long overdue and necessary for a certain number of folks, but we really need to get moving on everything else. Or all we're going to have is illegal cannabis in Santa Cruz mountains. And that was not the goal. And Ryan in your district, Bonnie Dune, only has illegal cannabis at this point. It's not a success. So thank you. I'm really sorry. This is my hometown. I wish that all you guys knew what it was like to have this happen. Thank you. Good morning. I'm Marie Pasquale. I have over 35 years experience in the highly regulated food and agricultural industries for major companies on the East Coast and the West Coast. Over the past 21 years, I've served as the leader of many of these companies as either president or CEO. I'm honored to represent our company HQP Incorporated or High Quality Products. I'm extremely proud to serve as CEO of HQP in an exciting new legal industry. We are a highly respected and highly established license cannabis cultivator and license distributor located in Mossland in California in the county of Monterey. I am here in hopes the Board of Supervisors will favorably consider amendments to Santa Cruz County's cannabis regulations. Our company supports the amendment to increase allowable cannabis space in pervious areas based on the discretion of the cannabis licensing official. While HQP currently operates our business in Monterey County, our company has an asset purchase agreement for five acres in Santa Cruz County. In order to maximize the company's investment, our business plan calls for redevelopment of these impervious areas in the commercial agricultural zone. Currently cultivation in Santa Cruz County is limited based on parcel size, two and a half for parcel size for single occupants or 5% for parcel size for multiple occupants. The proposed amendment will change, will not only have a change in limit, but based on parcel size up to the discretion of the cannabis licensing official. High Quality Products has many young and energetic workforce that will provide a future foundation for our company. We currently employ a total of 67 employees, about 40 of those or 60% of workforce commute from Santa Cruz County to Monterey County. Our team members commute five days a week and because we are a cultivator, we have several team members who cultivate during the weekends. The amendment to increase allowable cannabis space in pervious areas would solidify our business decision and not restrict our investment on the built on the Santa Cruz County. The benefits of operating the Santa Cruz County for our current employees will allow for shorter commute, reducing the congestion on how he travels highway as well. So thank you very much. Hi, Robert Kidiyama, Kidiyama Brothers. And I just wanted to speak today. I did wanna thank the supervisors. I think since the last meetings in May, there has been a change in attitudes by the county towards trying to move the process forward as far as applicants. I wanna, I appreciate that. I also support the recommendations of the CLO. And I think the CLO is really working now to create a sustainable cannabis business in Santa Cruz County. The main message that I wanna talk about today is we're not concerned, if we can get through the process, we're not concerned about competing against Mendocino or Monterey or Carpentaria because I think they're all pretty much gonna be on a level playing field. But I've been going to a lot of different seminars where they're talking about the future. And in the future, when no one knows if it will be legally, federally legal, but there's a good chance. And we know very well about competition from offshore. So I've just heard that there's gonna be 50 to 100,000 hectares of cannabis not gonna be grown in the Savannah of Bogota. And I do know about competition from Bogota and from Columbia. And I just want you to know that, make sure that all this effort we're putting into to build a cannabis industry in Santa Cruz is in just a short-term blip with a lot of effort. But that five years from now, it doesn't exist because we over-regulated, we over-taxed, and we put too many restrictions that we could be competitive on a world market. I think Santa Cruz has the potential to have a very good, profitable cannabis industry if we grow a good quality, clean product for a local market. But I just want to make sure that we are able to have a business for a long term. Thank you very much. Okay, it's Mimi Snowden again. You already spoke to this issue, so... Can I have a question? Can I just know what a level four is? What the kind of level in order to get permits? Sure, we'll ask the planning department to ask that question. That's fine. Good morning, board. My name is Robert Singleton. I'm the executive director of the Santa Cruz County Business Council. Just want to say that our organization considered a lot of these changes, reviewed them, and just want to say we support the direction that your board is moving, and I'm making it easier for local business owners to bring their products to market, to make the process easier to conform to, and ultimately just to make it so that more people are helping to produce and provide community and economic vitality here in Santa Cruz County. Obviously, we think there should be a lot more done in terms of helping to facilitate these businesses and allowing for more legal access and more legal ability to start your business to get permits and get up and running, as that would cut down the black market and help generate more tax revenue, but this is a step in the right direction. So just saying support the changes. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Josie Roberto, and today I'm speaking to you as a member of Community Prevention Partners, and we do appreciate what the board has done, and the proposed changes, we do support that. And with that said, there is a strong need for local, non-retail cannabis businesses to be rapidly licensed and participating in the regulated market. Regulation benefits our whole community. It decreases youth access, supports responsible cannabis businesses, protects the environment, and brings in tax revenue. So we also support the proposed public notice hearing at a level four for adjacent properties that are residential to the CA zones. And we also support an annual review process that also gives the public a chance to bring any concerns in at that time as well. The current reviews process through planning, as you all know, had not been entirely effective and inadvertently promotes an illicit market. So even with the recommendations today, we still have barriers in the licensing program and the planning department in order to meet this goal of the 75 licensed businesses. We needed to continue to identify, clearly name, and address barriers to participation in the regulated market, or else we will continue to have the opposite of what we intended and want as a community. We urge you to use these accordingly reports from the Cannabis Licensing Office to assess incrementally if the shifts in this ordinance are working, and then be able to adjust accordingly in a timely manner and ensure that this system is working and that we're on track to meeting these licensing needs. We all stand for well-being of youth, of the environment, of neighborhoods, and of local individuals to be financially sound enough to meet their needs and stay in Santa Cruz. So policy is one of the best tools to achieve that impact, but it only works when the regulatory system is designed to protect the community it's working for. Thank you. All right, thank you so much. Mayor Longara, the last statement I wanna pick up on that it only works when the regulatory system protects the community. And as I'm looking here, that you're asked to make a determination of exemption from CEQA, California Environmental Quality Act would disclose if this is harmful to the environment or not. And I think CEQA is vitally important to any big projects or developments in here too. I've heard that some cannabis growing, they use rodentinsides or different pesticides on the crop. That's really environmentally damaging. Any way you look at it, the way it gets into the larger environment, the use of waters and other question, what's happening to the terrain. So I think this should be changed to say that you require CEQA, California Environmental Quality Act criteria to be met. That's, I think it's vitally important. That's my point, thank you. Thank you. This will be our final speaker, anyone else? So Chair Coonerty, members of the board, Kirk Schmidt appearing again addressing new only as to existing greenhouses on CA land. I support the changes that have been made, particularly the changes dealing with license registration to open it to a broader group instead of restricting it to preregisterance and also the changes as to zoning. There were some minor errors that were cleaned up by the Planning Commission two weeks ago. And I appreciate that. However, there was one remaining error that I, which not noticed until now and it deals with the definition of greenhouses, which is definition of age. This is in your proposed zone. And this is a new definition. And the word used is just incorrect. It says, constructed of glass or an opaque material which allows natural light to enter. Opaque does not allow natural light to enter. The correct word would be translucent or transparent, much like government should be transparent instead of opaque. So I request that you make this one minor change to definition age. And last May, 2018, when you approved this ordinance, the first time it came back for the second reading of the following month and it was bifurcated so that that portion of the ordinance that was not within the coastal zone could go into effect at that time. And I assume that this will be the same procedure at this occasion. Thank you very much. Thank you. That's our final speaker. I think I'll first turn to planning and ask you to quickly review the implications of a level four permit, as was asked. A level four permit is an administrative permit. There is however, public noticing on two different occasions. The planning director or the staff is the decision making body, but level four permits are appealable by anyone and they would be appealed to the zoning administrator. Great, thank you. Now, are there any other questions from my fellow board members? Maybe staff could just address the issue about the definition that was just brought up by our last speaker. Anybody want to give it a shot? I guess you drew the short straw. Yes. The term opaque was put in maybe incorrectly, but we thought it was correct because we used opaque to mean a material where light can come in, but you can't actually see directly through it because some greenhouses are made of a material that you can't see through, but it allows light to come in. So I will leave it at that. Okay. I don't know whether the council wants to weigh in. My impression was that it matches the definition in state law. I was just trying to find it. Perhaps we could move on and I'll see if I can find it. Okay, are there any other questions or comments? Two questions for Brown. I'll be just brief on the comments. I think that my position on this is pretty well known. I appreciate the fact that the planning commission attempted to or did come back with additional noticing adjacent to residences. I still don't actually think it goes far enough. I mean, I think that we should recognize just in general on the noticing that you'll now for overwhelmingly on cannabis related issues in Santa Cruz County, you'd have more notice if a vacation rental was in your neighborhood than if a cannabis grow was occurring. And I just think, I mean, that's a policy decision the board can make, but we should at least be honest about the fact that this noticing, especially at the administrative level, really rarely changes the outcome with conditions and probably doesn't make that much of a difference. But with that said, I mean, I think that it's an attempt to at least provide information to neighbors that weren't getting it before, immediately after the last vote, we did receive a lot of concerns from people that way. I also think that this is a larger expansion on cultivation policy than it's actually been presented. It's really been proposed as de minimis, but it's actually larger than that. I share Mr. Kitty Amos' concern about international competition, but I share it in a slightly different way, which is to say that one of the reasons that we have so many of these underused greenhouses is because of the issues that were brought up. My concern about allowing for the construction even on impervious locations is that it should the market collapse, as by the way has been predicted by a lot of people that come to before the board, then we'll be stuck with the exact same situation. We can't deregulate our way out of that situation on international competition because there's a lot of other elements on labor rates, which is the number one drive on that that the county has no impact on. So realistically speaking, if you don't want the entire Pajaro Valley to look functionally different in the next five years and then the next five years after that, which is to say that you'd have a lot of new structures that serve no value, then you would want to be pretty restrictive on what you can allow in these constructs, and this construct doesn't allow that. So I just can't support it. I understand why staff is going that way. I respect the concerns from the community about the black market. I think a lot of the comments have been self-fulfilling prophecies. I mean, asking for regulation allowing, then you create a regulatory framework, then asking for deregulation because you don't like what the regulation is, a difficult policy-making process, but it's a fluid process. Even if it's a bit opaque sometimes, it's a fluid process. But anyway, I'm not supporting it, and I think that there's more that can be done. I know that this issue is gonna continue to come back to us, and I think unfortunately the only thing that's gonna continue to come back to us is more and more loss of regulation and protections for neighborhoods in these agricultural areas. And I'm just concerned about what that'll mean for the Valley moving forward, but I guess time will tell how that pans out. Thank you. Supervisor Leopold. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for the comments from members of the public. As everyone knows, we've spent a lot of time talking about this business, this industry, the change in laws and trying to come up with something that actually worked. I respect my colleague's comment, although I don't agree because just this weekend, I went down to the Kitty Yama Brothers Farm for the Gerber-Daisy Festival and it was a great event and I recommend everybody attend that festival whenever it gets put on. But you could just see the acres of green houses that sit empty and thinking that that could be used in a successful way here in our county is a good thing. It helps a local business, a local farmer, people who've contributed to the community to continue doing what they know how to do, which is grow plants with flowers and contribute to the economic base of our county. We could live in fear of the future and say, let's not do anything because we might be challenged in the future with international trade and so therefore we shouldn't do it. I don't agree. I think that the balance that is struck here, which is not going into agricultural soil but using areas that have already been disturbed or which there might already be impervious surface is a good balance. That is gonna be a business decision by farmers and landowners about whether they wanna make investments in their property, whether we want them to redevelop their spots, whether they wanna invest in new technologies. And I think that's worthwhile. And I think that it will be no surprise to any of us here that over the next five years we're gonna be doing a lot of recalibration because a lot of our policy has been driven by the unknown, fear of the unknown. And as this state regulatory structure reveals itself and we try to fit in with that and it's clear what the market looks like, we're gonna need to recalibrate. That's not necessarily deregulations. I would argue that's effective policy because we shouldn't just stay the way we think in 2008 or 2018 if we know more in 2020 or 2028. We're gonna know a lot more about this industry. We're gonna know about its impact. We're gonna know a lot more about its economic contribution to the county. We're gonna know a lot more about what's happening nationally or even internationally. And we'll have to make changes to that. That's what we do, especially in an area which we don't have any previous regulatory experience and which there are so many differences county to county, state by state, country to country. So I think these are reasonable changes that don't open the door too wide but allow good commercial activity to go on. The addition at the Planning Commission to deal with those commercial ag properties that adjoin residential or park properties is a balance. And I think that's a good balance and notification is important. And there's a lot of vacation rentals in my neighborhood. They all get those same blue cards that people will get now if they adjoin a CA parcel that is gonna have cannabis. So I'm not exactly sure that they're gonna be less regulated than vacation rentals. It's pretty light. That's a couple hundred dollars. It's a form. For some people you fill it out once and that's it. The folks here have to go through a tremendous amount of investment. They have to clear a lot of regulatory hurdles. They have to be overseen by not only the local authorities but the state authorities and they have to pay a tremendous amount of taxes. And so I don't agree there but I understand the point that he's making. He just wants to make sure we have a well-regulated industry. I think this is well-regulated and commercial ag is a policy choice that we're making which makes sense that plants grown in the places where we've designated for plants to be grown. So I would move the staff recommendations. So we have a motion. Well, second. Second, was there any other comments? Yeah, I just would like to, this has been a work in progress for and we're still progressing. So to speak and we still have a long way to go maybe but I do appreciate working with the agriculture department, county agriculture department. I know that we have worked to try to stay independent and make our own rules as far as possible but there's also some, we have to recognize some state regulations too as we move along. But I do support the level four proposed sites near parks and residential areas. We have, we really, this has been an effort to strike a balance between lowering the barriers for the cannabis industry and also protecting public safety and providing some public notification. And I think this is this meet that, what we're proposing meets that balance. I do also support the loosening of restrictions around pre-registration because I think that's been a tremendous stumbling block that we've had. We set up a program really in a way that was designed to give our local growers an advantage but it doesn't seem to have worked out that way to achieve the result that we were seeking. So I do support what we're moving toward. I remain concerned about the medicinal marijuana aspect of this and us having that be available but we'll continue to work on that I believe. And I also, I know that there are some concerns about, especially in the mountain areas, which is a lot of my district in Santa Rosa Valley, they would like to have a commercial license but there's many, many concerns, public safety concerns regarding fire, roadways and so forth that is going to be very difficult for us to meet some of those requirements I think to make that happen in a general response. But in general, I do support what has been proposed and I thank everyone for their patience and working with this and I really do appreciate the office of our licensing officer too. Thank you very much. Senator Caput. I think everything's been mentioned here. Excuse me. I think all the arguments have been mentioned. I guess what bothers me is this never stops. We keep backing up and we keep saying we're going to get rid of another restriction and we're going to get rid of this, we're going to keep, we've written some rules and we finally have to enforce them and I do understand the state requirements exactly if you could just clarify it for me here. We're allowing, we're going with the state regulation on this, are we? We're aligning with various pieces of the state regulation specifically with the nursery license and with the processor license. We're not adopting other portions of the state regulations by any means, we're just aligning with them on those two aspects. So if we're not, anyway, let's go ahead and vote. Okay, well, before we vote, I wanna ask did we figure out this definitional question? I find that the state law uses the word greenhouse, I can't find a definition for it. I suggest that since we are trying where we can to be consistent with state law that you give us the authority to be consistent with state law. I would add that to my motion. Is that okay with the second? Okay. I'm supportive of the motion and I'm gonna call the vote. So just to be clear, the motion before us is the staff recommendation with the additional direction for County Council to make sure our greenhouse definition is compliant with state definitions or consistent with state definitions. Okay, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? No. Sorry. Okay, so that passed three to two and we will now move on to our 1030 scheduled item which is the Santa Cruz County Board of Directors flood control and water conservation district, zone five. And I'll ask the clerk to. Sorry, it was three to two with supervisor friend and capit voting no. Now we're moving to zone five and I'm gonna ask you to call the roll. Do you wanna call zone five roll? That's right. Director Leopold. Here. Friend, capit, McPherson, and Coonerty. Here. Are there any late additions to the agenda today? No, they're not. Okay. So any additions, deletions, or corrections? Okay, let's move on to item number one which is oral communications. This is an opportunity for members of the public to speak to us about items that are within the purview of zone five but not on today's agenda. Good morning, Becky Steinbrenner. I have a request. I try to attend these flood control meetings but it is always somewhat of an enigma to me what zones cover what areas. They are never described in your agenda and it would be very helpful to members of the public if they could understand what these areas, these specific zones are. I would like some clarification. I believe that zone five covers Capitola. Is that correct? Thank you. So to that end, I would like to discuss with you a recent appeal that I brought before your board regarding a cell facility that will because you didn't take action to stop it, it would be built in the flood zone. It will require a block of concrete, basically seven feet high. And I want to make clear that the building itself will not be flood proofed as is required by the 50% significant improvement rule because of changes that were made in the project description. That concerns me especially with the rise in flood levels as climate change models are being predicted. And I really think that your board and the planning director need to take a look at these policies and make sure that the public will be protected in the event of increasing flood in the riparian zone. Thank you very much. Thank you. That concludes public comment. I'll bring it back to the board to move on to item number two which is to approve zone five minutes. I'll make a motion to approve in a quick comment that to director Machado that we had talked about the possibility of coming back with consent items associated with zone five. I still haven't seen that happen. A number of these items appear to be things that could be on a consent calendar. So just I'll move the recommended action on the minutes with that additional comment. Second. So we have a motion and we have a second. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. That passes unanimously. Item number three is as the board of directors of the Santa Cruz County flood control water conservation district zone five accept and file the third quarter report for the fiscal year 2018 and 19 zone five expansion construction revenue as outlined in memorandum of the district engineer. Thank you chair and directors. Matt Machado the zone five district engineer. The item before you is the zone five expansion construction revenue for a third quarter. The recommended action is to accept and file this report and I can answer any questions you may have. Any questions from board members? Any public comment? Seeing none.  The recommended action. Motion by Leopold second by friend. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. That passes unanimously. Item number four is as board of directors of the Santa Cruz County flood control water conservation zone five consider a resolution accepting unanticipated unanticipated revenue of $56,000 into the Santa Cruz County zone five budget as outlined. Thank you. Thank you director. Thank you chairman and directors. The item before you is revenues that resulted from increased plan review and permit processing application fees for land development projects in zone five. The recommended action is to adopt the resolution accepting and appropriating unanticipated revenue of $56,000 into Santa Cruz County flood control and water conservation district zones five expansion construction budget. And with that I can answer any questions you may have. I'll move to approve. Well hold on is there any public comment? Seeing none I'll bring it back to the board. We got a motion by Caput. Second. Motion. Second by friend. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. That passes unanimously. On item number five which is as the board of directors of zone five consider accepting and approving the proposed budget for 2019 2020 zone five and its own five expansion construction budgets as outlined in the memorandum of the district engineer. Thank you chair and directors. I do want to highlight a few items in our budget and our proposed budget this year. Under our zone five master plan update we've shown a proposed budget of just $70,000. We are hoping to get a better number for you. And as part of our final budget we will be recommending that number to go to $670,000. We'll be pulling that additional $600,000 from our capital reserves. We believe that that's gonna be a budgetary number for the master planning effort. We hope to bring an item to you in the next three months to release an RFP for that effort. This is a critical effort for zone five so that we can better understand our deficiencies and look at a better streamlined process for development in the area. And so I just alert you to that. It's not shown here in your proposed which is okay, we'll bring it as part of the final but I think it's a critical item to share with you. With that the rest of the items are fairly consistent with prior year and I can answer any questions that you may have. The recommended action is to accept and approve the proposed 2019-2020 zone five and zone five expansion construction budgets. All right, are there any questions? Seeing none, is there any public comment? Seeing none, come back. Chair, I'll just say I look forward to this additional item being brought forward. I think it will help get some clarity for development projects. Because right now it's a one-off thing and we don't always know and it creates a lot of lack of clarity about what's going on. So I look forward to that item. I would move the budget though and the recommended actions as suggested here. Motion by Leopold. Second. Second by Friend. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? That passes unanimously. That adjourns our zone five meeting. We will now come back to our regular Board of Supervisors meeting and we will take up item number eight which is a public hearing to consider confirming the established benefit assessment service charge for County Service Area 12 wastewater management for fiscal years 2019-2020 as outlined in the Director of Health Services. Good morning, I'm John Ricker, Water Resources Division Director in the Health Services Agency. We're recommending that you adopt the service charge reports for the CSA-12 fees which support various activities for management of on-site sewage treatment systems, septic systems in the County. The fee levels are unchanged from previous years. We're recommending $6.90 for CSA-12, $18.54 for the San Lorenzo Valley CSA-12A and a range of $101 to $501 for the non-standard systems. We're recommending that your Board open the public hearing to hear any comments or protests, close the public hearing and adopt the attached resolution approving the assessment service charges for CSA-12 and I'd be happy to answer any questions. Great, are there any questions? Let's open the public hearing. Thank you, Becky Steinbruner. I live in the rural area. We have a septic tank and system and I really appreciate this service to the County's rural residents because it maintains good water quality in our system's water, in our County's waterways. This is especially critical in the San Lorenzo Valley where Santa Cruz City takes some of it, it's a good amount of its potable water supply and is looking to expand its place of use delivery of water to the mid County area in water transfers to come up with a regional solution for groundwater overdraft in the mid County area. So I'm very supportive of this service and I wanna thank the environmental health for making it happen. Thank you. Thank you. Seeing no other speakers, I'll close the public hearing. Bring it back to the board for action. Second. Motion by McPherson, second by Leopold. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, that passes unanimously. Moving on to item number nine, which is the public hearing to consider County Service Area 48 and County Service Area 4, fire protection assessment service charge reports for fiscal year 19 and 20, adopted resolution confirming the service charge reports for CSA 4 and CSA 48 as recommended by the Director of General Services. Let me ask, does anyone have any questions? Let's open the public hearing. Anyone like to speak? You know, I just want to one question on CSA 48. Just wanna point out that there's gonna be some real financial challenges coming for that and a measure that just barely lost several years ago, but that's something that I think is gonna need a good look at and maybe they would be commenting on that briefly as well, but County Service Area 48 in particular. Thank you. Now we'll open the public hearing. Thank you, Becky Steinbruner, resident of rural Aptos. I really support County Fire and I really want you to fund it. I understand what we're talking about today is just cost of living increase, but you've gotta fund it in a good way because this County residence, environment, tourism, all depends on good fire safety and good fire protection. 108 million, Proposition 172 brings in so much money, 18 million dollars every year. That was supposed to go to fund some of County Fire. Zero goes to County Fire. Measure G, the half-cent sales tax was sold to the voters last fall when we were all worried about fire as funding fire. I've submitted a Public Records Act request where that Measure G money will go, zero will go to County Fire. Now this has gotta stop and I understand that you're bringing something to the voters with a paper ballot to increase things, but I'm here to ask you as a rural resident, please fund County Fire in a sustainable way. There's plenty of money coming in.  That's what I'm asking. Thank you. That closes the public hearing and I'll bring it back to the board for action. Move approval of the recommended action. Motion by Leopold. Second by McPherson. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, that passes unanimously. Moving on to item number 10, which is a public hearing to consider the 2019-2020 benefit assessment service charge reports for various County service areas, approve the engineering reports for CSA 9A, residential lighting and adopt a resolution confirming the benefit assessment service charge reports as outlined in the memorandum of the Deputy CAO, Director of Public Works. Thank you, Chairman, Board of Supervisors, Matt Machado, Director of Public Works and Deputy CAO. The item before you is a public hearing. This is with regard to CSA 9A. It's a residential lighting district. There is a bit of a change this year and it's a really good one, it's a positive one. The engineers report has increased the scope of services to include additional pedestrian safety improvements. And so the report here is for your approval. It does include a public hearing. And so the recommended action today is to approve the injures report for CSA 9A, residential lighting, to hold a public hearing to hear objections or protests, if any, to the proposed 2019-20 benefit assessment and service charge reports for various County service areas and following the public hearing, adopt resolution confirming the benefit assessment service charge reports for various County service areas. I will add that this report does not include an increase. There is no increase to the assessment. This is just a scope modification. I can answer any questions you may have. Any questions? I'll just say I wanna express my appreciation to Mr. Machado and the public work staff who have seen this through. This change will really help out in something that we hear about all the time, which is safety lighting for crosswalks, and which could be very expensive in which we have resources that we haven't been able to tap until an engineering report was done. So I know this was on your list when you came here and you've been dogged to make sure that it gets done and I'm glad we're at this day. And I have a number of constituents who will be, who I just spoke to on Friday night who was saying when's it gonna happen and are very excited that we're finally making, moving forward on this. So thank you for that. Good, thank you. Thank you. I'll open up the public hearing. Seeing none, I'll close the public hearing and bring it back to the board for action. I will move approval of the recommended action. It's got a motion by Leopold and a second by Friend. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? That passes unanimously. Moving on to item number 11. It's a public hearing to consider the 2019-2020 benefit assessment charge reports for Sanitation County Service Areas 2, 5, 7, 10 and 20 and adopt a resolution confirming the 2019-2020 benefit assessment service charge reports as outlined in a memorandum of the Deputy CAO and the Director of Public Works. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Board of Supervisors. Again, Matt Machado, thank you for the introduction. I will just add that for all of these various CSAs for these sewer districts, we are proposing a moderate increase. It's a CPI increase of four and a half percent to keep up with the cost of doing business in these sanitation districts. With that, the recommended action is to open the public hearing and hear objections or protests, if any, to the proposed 2019-2020 benefit assessment service charge reports for Sanitation County Service Areas 2, 5, 7, 10 and 20 to close the public hearing and to adopt resolutions confirming the 2019-2020 benefit assessment service charge reports for various Sanitation County Service Areas. And with that, I can answer any questions you may have. Any questions? Okay, I'll open the public hearing. Seeing none, I'll close the public hearing. Bring it back to the Board for Deliberation Action. I will move the recommended actions. Motion by Leopold, second by McPherson. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? That passes unanimously. Moving on to item number 12, it's the public hearing to hear objections or protests, if any, to the proposed 2019-2020 benefit assessment rates for County Service Areas 15, 18, 26, 42, 58 and 59. Consider submittal of all ballots for the proposed assessment and continue the public hearing to June 25th, 2019, to allow for tabulation and certification as outlined in the memorandum of the DPSCAO and the Director of Public Works. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Board of Supervisors, again, Matt Machado. Thank you for the introduction. The increases as proposed in these CSAs are driven by the people. When the people request additional services, we support them in their request of increases. That is before you, and as you outlined, the recommended action is to open the public hearing to hear objections or protests, if any, to the proposed benefit assessments for those listed CSAs. To request a submittal of all ballots for the proposed 19-20 benefit assessments for those CSAs and to continue the public hearing to June 25th, 2019, to allow for tabulation and certification of the ballots. With that, I can answer any questions you may have. Any questions? I'll open the public hearing. Seeing none, I'll close the public hearing and bring it back to the Board of Deliberation Action. I will move the recommended actions. Motion by Leopold. Second. Second by Friend. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? That passes unanimously. Item number 13, as Board of Directors of the Davenport County Sanitation District, a public hearing on proposed ordinances amending the district code to establish the 2019-2020 Water and Sewers Service Charges Schedule Public Hearing on August 6th, 2019, to consider the service charge reports and take related actions, as outlined in a memorandum of the district engineer, Mr. Adler. Good morning, Mr. Chair and Board of Supervisors. Kent Adler, Assistant Director of Special Services with the Department of Public Works. On April 23rd, 2019, the Board set today as the date of the public hearing to consider an ordinance which establishes the Water and Sewer Service Charges for Davenport County Sanitation District that will become effective on July 1st, 2019. The Water Service Charges are being proposed with an overall 4.4% increase with an individual maximum of 4.5%. The Sewer Service Charges are being proposed with an overall 4.2% increase with an individual maximum of 4.8%. The increase is necessary to adequately fund the maintenance and operations as well as capital improvements for the districts. For the district, we're recommending that the Board takes the following actions and there's a number of them. Number one, open the public hearing to consider the ordinance 8, number 89, amending district code Title III, Chapter 3.08, Article III, sections 3.08.160 through 3.08180 for Water Service Charges and ordinance number 90, amending district code Title IV, Chapter 4.08, Article III, sections 4.08.160 through 4.08180 for Sewer Service Charges and close the public hearing. Two, approve in concept ordinances number 89 and 90. Three, schedule the ordinances for final adoption on the next available agenda. Four, set Tuesday, August 6th, 2019 at 9 a.m. or thereafter as the date and time for a public hearing on the service charge reports on the service charge reports and five, direct the clerk of the board to publish the notice of public hearing once a week for two weeks prior to the hearing and the newspaper of general circulation and I'm available for any questions. Thank you. Are there any questions? Seeing none, I'll open the public hearing. Seeing no one to speak, I will close the public hearing. Quick note to folks who are waiting, we're gonna do item number 14. We're gonna take a 15 minute break and then come back and do the remainder of the items this morning. So if you wanna take a little bit longer break, feel free right now, but so on item number 13, I'm looking for a motion. I would move the recommended actions. All right, we got a motion by McPherson, a second by Leopold. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? That passes unanimously. On item number 14, this is the board of directors as the Freedom County Sanitation District, public hearing consider 2019-2020, Freedom County Sanitation District sewer charges reports and resolution confirming 2019-2020, sewer service charge report as outlined in the memorandum of the district engineer. Mr. Adler. Good morning again. On May 19th, 2019, the board approved the 2019-2020 service charges for the Freedom County Sanitation District and set today as the date of the public hearing on the 2019 service charge report. In order to complete the 2019-2020 sewer service charge proceedings, it will now be necessary for the board to open the public hearing, take testimony, consider objections and protests. If any, to the sewer service charge report and at the conclusion of the public hearing, adopt the resolution confirming the sewer service charge report for the Freedom County Sanitation District and I'm available for any questions. Any questions? We'll open the public hearing. Seeing no one, we'll close the public hearing and bring it back to the board for action. Recommended actions. Motion by Leopold. Seconded by Friend. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? That passes unanimously. We're now gonna recess to 1120 where we'll come back and continue our morning agenda. I think there's a couple people here. We're not gonna get to that to the end of this. Is that right? Unless we got lunch coming in. Yeah. I just wanted to say I want to, I think Joe all until he got it. Yeah. Good afternoon, everybody. I'm gonna call the meeting back to order. I do want to announce that the air conditioner is broken so it's hot in here. It's not just the potential debate we're about to have but it's actually a short of air conditioning so they're working on it and hopefully it'll improve in a few minutes. So we are gonna consider the only item on our agenda for this afternoon, which is consider the 2017 to 2019 biennial report and presentation of the Syringe Services Program, SSP, and direct the Health Services Agency to return in September and December 2019 with reports as outlined in a memorandum of the Director of Health Services. And we have Mimi Hall here to present. Thank you. I'm very pleased to be here and thank you Chair Coonerty and honorable members of the board. I'm here with our intro. Hold on. Do you have your... I'll go closer to the microphone. Is that better? Yes. Okay. Good afternoon. I'm here with our interim Health Officer, Dr. David Geller Ducci and also our Director of Nursing who also oversees the Syringe Services Program in our Public Health Division, Jen Herrera. And we will be, as the board may know, we have a requirement to come to the board biennially with a report on our Syringe Services Program. And I'd like to start off by telling the board that we've worked really hard as a Health Services Agency, particularly over the last year, to strengthen our program and our services, to capitalize and leverage all of the other services that we have expanded over the last couple of years, ranging from whole person care, integrated behavioral health, drug medical expansion, and our medication assisted treatment program to create a situation in which the Syringe Services Program is truly something that is a gateway to the other services that we provide. And we feel like we've made great strides in that. And the other thing that I wanted to mention is we find ourselves in a situation today where as a new director, I look back over the years and I see that the operations of our program has slowly been sort of limited and constrained year after year. And we hope that we can turn the tides for that and ensure the board that we have the capacity, the interest, and the ability to provide excellent oversight for this program and use it as, again, a lever to enter people into recovery and healthcare. So with that, today, you'll be hearing the general overview that you will receive today is the background of the County Syringe Services Program, the recent opportunities that I briefly spoke of just now. An overview of our program, Dr. Geller-Ducci will be going over the relevant programmatic data. And then finally, we will end with the recommendations that we have as an agency for your board to consider. And I'm gonna go ahead and turn it over to Jen Herrera. So as a reminder, there are four ways to lawfully provide syringe services in California. The California Department of Public Health may authorize syringe services programs anywhere in the state. City and county governments may authorize SSPs in their jurisdiction. Physicians and pharmacists may provide an unlimited number of syringes without a prescription to anyone over the age of 18 and syringes may be prescribed. HSA's Syringe Service Program received its authorization through the county. A Syringe Services Program provides clean syringes and safe disposal of used syringes. They have existed since the 1970s. In the 1980s, they became more widely available, playing a central role in dramatically reducing HIV infection among people who inject drugs. SSPs are one piece of the harm reduction paradigm for promoting health and safety with people who use drugs. And it's never just the syringes, it's always part of a system of care. The program is at the intersection of multiple epidemics. It is a well-known evidence-based intervention to prevent HIV and hepatitis C. Research indicates that it is also an effective strategy to prevent overdose and other infectious diseases, such as wound botulism, hepatitis A, endocarditis, and skin and soft tissue infections. The core purpose of the Syringe Services Programs is to create a safer and healthier community by reducing the risk of exposure to infection and disease and by acting as a gateway to integrated services. Accessible clean syringes and supplies allows person who inject drugs the option of using clean equipment with every use. This reduces the risk of sharing and reusing equipment, which reduces the prevalence of disease and infection in our community. By being accessible, the SSP is a gateway for services for a population that does not typically engage with health and social services. In this operational period, the landscape of our health systems has evolved on the federal, state, and local levels. The opioid crisis and the state's HIV getting to zero strategic plan has led to the following funding priorities across HSA and the community. Whole person care, drug, medical, organized delivery system, integrated behavioral health, and medication-assisted treatment. Since 2017, HSA has increased integration of these broad-reaching initiatives. This new capacity created an opportunity to optimize SSP as a venue to reach populations who are homeless, mentally ill, and struggling with addiction. Populations who otherwise would not access available health and social services. In February 2019, the SSP was reorganized from a standalone part-time program to operate within the Public Health Division's Communicable Disease Unit. Collaborative planning resulted in a new multidisciplinary staffing structure, which includes public health nurses, public health staff, and certified addiction counseling staff. With these changes, the program's metrics and performance indicators are being evaluated for sustainable, continuous quality improvement. The evolution of the SSP during this operational period supports an improved gateway to healthcare, treatment, services, and support. Even with HSA's expansion, there are many barriers for people who inject drugs to access services, some of which include the stigma-run substance use, personal trauma, being isolated, lack of trust in the system, not being ready for change, and the inaccessibility of health and social services. It is difficult to outreach to this population, since some have not accessed healthcare in years. The Syringe Services Program creates opportunities to connect persons who inject drugs with health and social services. People access SSP to reduce harm to themselves and the community. With this action, they have a shared responsibility to contribute to a safer environment. The SSP builds rapport with participants in a safe space, providing education, referrals, and warm handoffs to various services. It's not just the syringes. The SSP supports an effective system of care. Santa Cruz Program has three components with very specific goals. Distribution and collection has a goal of reducing the risk of exposure to infection and disease in Santa Cruz County through safer injection practices. Safe disposal has a goal of eliminating syringe litter in public spaces through proper syringe disposal, and enhanced referrals has a goal of linking participants to clinical, behavioral, and social services when they determine they are ready for change. For distribution and collection, the HSA divisions partner to provide one-for-one syringe distribution and collection services at the Emmeline and Watsonville Clinic locations. For safe disposal, HSA has partnered with the Department of Public Works to increase coordinated and ongoing syringe disposal in the community and maintains three sharps kiosks throughout the county for public use. The program also provides free personal sharps containers and safe disposal education for all SSP participants. For enhanced referrals, the program maintains a multidisciplinary staffing structure and coordinates with clinics, IBH, and other services for streamlined referrals. The program also provides on-site rapid HIV and hepatitis C testing, as well as on-site NARCAN training and distribution. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, boards, board members. I'd like to go over some of the data that we've collected through the SSP, and I obviously won't read this entire chart to you, but some of the key takeaways I believe are, we've seen about 7,500 visits across the county for SSP services. This encompasses about 870 individuals. We think, we know that the majority of these patients go to the Emmeline Clinic, although the Watsonville Clinic also sees quite a few. Most of these patients are male, most of them inject heroin, although 50% of this group also use methamphetamine, which is a significant issue as well. Our kiosks actually have been quite successful in terms of collecting syringes, and as you can see, there's been a 300% increase over the last two years, or three years rather, and so that continues to be a significant source of return needles, but when you look at what happens at our SSP sites, the two sites, you see that there's a pretty close match between the number of syringes collected and the number of syringes dispensed. In fact, in 2018, we actually collected more syringes than we dispensed, and so I think what that shows between the two slides is about 900,000 needles. Obviously, since we've only distributed 600,000, that there is a significant source of other needles out there in the community. Over the years, we've seen a gradual decline in the number of clients that come to our services, but the number of syringes distributed has actually increased, and this might seem to be a curious relationship. The reason for this, we believe, is something called secondary exchange, and this is a phenomena where one person may go on behalf of many other people, bring their syringes in on their behalf, and collect syringes back, sterile syringes back on their behalf, and so we may find more of this kind of proxy relationship happening. We believe that this continues to be an important thing to do, because these are people that would otherwise not necessarily come themselves to the site to get clean syringes, so we believe, from a safety perspective, in terms of preventing disease, that it's important. However, we do lose the opportunity to actually interact with the individuals and the social services that we wanna hook them into, the mental health, the clinical services, vaccinations, and testing, so there's a little bit of a double-edged sword. We do believe that secondary exchange is important, but also need to find ways to increase access to patients that otherwise would not come to us directly at the two clinic sites. Looking at HIV, fortunately the numbers are relatively low, but these are newly diagnosed cases over the years, and as you can see, there's been a gradual decline.  That is probably an artifact of not only new infections, which we believe continue to happen despite our efforts, but also our improved detection techniques. Now that we have more access to the folks that inject drugs, we're able to test them and identify infections that otherwise would not be identified, so part of what you're seeing here is that artifact. There we go, hepatitis C, kind of a similar situation here, and it would appear on the face as though the program itself is not working because it looks like infections are going up, but I again wanna stress that what we're actually seeing here is increased detection and not necessarily new infections. So it's important that we identify people with hepatitis C so that we can make sure that they get the appropriate treatment. In some cases, there's actually a cure for this, but that can't happen unless we know that they're infected. For hepatitis B, we are seeing again a similar trend to downward trend. There are relatively low numbers. As you may know, back in the late 90s, hepatitis B vaccinations became routinely available to adolescents, so I think in the blue bar, what we're seeing mostly here are patients that did not get vaccinated for one reason or another, and as the older age groups, of course, probably acquired their infections and never did have an opportunity for vaccination, so that is a service that we offer. And then finally, you may remember back in 2017, we had a significant hepatitis A outbreak, and you can see that hepatitis A would happen every once in a while in the years prior to 2017, but in 2017, this outbreak was clearly amongst the group of people who inject drugs, and I think what's important here is that in the orange bar or the yellow bar, rather, is that this is actually a disease process that is so communicable that it broke outside of this kind of traditional risk group, and so when we think about vaccination, we obviously are concerned about the health of people who inject drugs, but this is also an issue that affects people who are outside that community and the general public, and my last slide here is what we call an epidemic curve that shows, again, the sort of smoldering infection rate for hepatitis A, and then this rapid increase that happened in June and July of 2017, and again, mostly in the PWID group, but as you can see, that's the orange bar. The blue bar shows infections in people who are not PWID or persons who inject drugs, so you can see how it transferred from one group to the next, right? And then the blue bar, the blue line that you see there actually represents the vaccinations that we performed at the SSP, and this is, I think, a good demonstration of how the SSP is kind of the tip of the spear in terms of managing these kinds of outbreaks because as we increased our vaccinations, the PWID group went down, as did the people in the non-PWID group, so I think it's an important public health avenue to reach people that otherwise are very difficult to reach. During this operational period, we received feedback on the SSP from the Civil Grand Jury and the SSP Advisory Group. We've used this feedback to develop our recommendations for the program. In 2017, the Civil Grand Jury published the following findings and recommendations in its report on the SSP titled Sharper Solutions. The findings include that the SSP currently operates without a budget or permanent staff, which hinders the success of program goals. Limited hours, space, and staff hamper referrals to counseling, treatment, and support programs reducing the number of people receiving assistance. Some injection drug users don't travel to SSP sites, thus preventing them from receiving assistance from other health programs. The recommendations from this report include that HSA should devote more time and resources to community outreach to promote rehabilitation and counseling of SSP clients. HSA should implement a mobile needle exchange unit to increase access to SSP services. And HSA should post hazardous waste signs with a single contact number for advice or reporting available 24-7 in areas where syringes are commonly found. On April 30th, 2019, the SSP's advisory group provided the following recommendations, which align with best practices noted by the California Department of Public Health. This includes increase accessibility of the SSP, maintain secondary exchange, ensure dedicated resources for the SSP, improve awareness of current law that prevents criminal prosecution for possession of syringes and associated materials, transition to a needs-based distribution of syringes, increase accessibility of syringe disposal kiosks, utilize the Citizen Connect application to report syringe litter, and formalize the advisory board membership. Given this feedback, we recommend that your board direct the HSA to implement the following recommendations to the Syringe Services Program. Expand SSP hours at the MLINE campus in Watsonville Health Center up to 20 hours per week as staffing resources become available from collaborating programs. Incorporate SSP into the Homeless Person's Health Project Clinical Field Services. Collaborate with the California Department of Public Health to complete a study of syringe litter to be conducted in Santa Cruz County and return to the board by September 24th, 2019 to report on the findings and provide recommendations. And use the results of this syringe litter study to develop a pilot program to reduce public syringe litter using the Citizen Connect application and return to the board by December 31st, 2019 with a proposed plan, implementation, and evaluation for the pilot program. Thank you, Jen, and Dr. Gilarducci. With that, I would like to end our presentation by summarizing that the focus of our Syringe Services Program is, as Jennifer Herrera mentioned, three-pronged. The primary focus is to ensure that we reduce the risk of exposure to diseases that can be experienced by persons who inject drugs. The second goal or the second prong of our program is to focus on syringe litter, regardless of the source of syringe litter, and it's clear to us that much of the source of syringe litter comes from outside HSA's program. We feel like public safety is an important and we see ourselves playing a role in overall syringe litter, regardless of where it comes from. And then thirdly, we really do focus on engaging the community and its stakeholders. We've had a lot of discussions internally among staff about methods where we can more efficiently communicate to the public, to our stakeholders, and also to those who utilize our services. We recognize that we can learn a lot about how to improve our services and how to reduce the community impacts of those services by talking to the people who avail themselves of the services that we provide because they provide the most information on how we can best both meet their needs as well as serve the needs of the community. So with that, we have these recommendations before the board and I will say that these recommendations do fall short of best practices and we do recognize that. We make these recommendations based on the funding, the capacity, and the staffing that we have at this moment. I would like to add that in the governor's budget that's been proposed, there is funding specifically for HIV, STDs, and Hep C and it's an ongoing allocation to local health jurisdictions and there's also $40 million earmarked for communicable disease control and we haven't put those into our budget request for this year because it's not finalized. The budget will be finalized on June 15th. The governor has 12 days to respond but there is a potential source of funding for us to expand services if the board would so allow and three of those funding streams for HIV, STDs, and Hep C will be ongoing allocations. Thank you. Thank you. I want to open it up now for board member questions. I mean, I have a lot of questions and comments so I mean, I think I could, maybe let's tell what, let's wait and hear from the public. So if you are interested in speaking today, I ask you to please line up if you can and we'll have, we'll take testimony. Please do, yeah. Dear supervisors, my name is Richard Schellberg. I live in the Soquel. I'm a member of John Leopold's district. Lived here in Santa Cruz since 2002 and love living here and I'm really concerned about where we are today. We have the numbers on number of homeless people here varies. I think the count is up for debate but roughly the number of chronically homeless people here has gone from 54 to 62%, just a data point. There's roughly 40% who have mental issues, 40% who have persistent drug issues and these numbers don't change. 30% of these people visit jail at least once a year as well. So I mean, I'm bringing this up because in context of the program here, it matters because these are the customers for this program largely. Now, I have a question on the objectives for the syringe program. In the mission statement that's available online, there are really just two objectives, not three. So I was a little bit surprised today. Maybe the documentation needs to be updated but it's about to avoid the spread of disease and to address the concerns around syringe litter. That's it. So I don't know where the additional objective comes from. I would strongly recommend that you add an objective though about rehabilitation and providing a way out of drug use. To do that, you need to close a massive loophole that you have in this program. The thing that you guys call the secondary exchange, it's not working. The only way for that to work is to have professionals who are trained, who are out there and can provide services that cover all three objectives. Assuming that we have those. Having someone, I can, okay, I'm sorry, I. I appreciate it, thank you. And we got your emails earlier. Thank you, my name is Jennifer Hastings, Jen Hastings and I'm a family practice physician practicing for over 20 years in this community. I'm currently at Encompass Community Services providing MAT and I work at the Health Improvement Partnership. I just wanna state my support for the syringe program that the county is proposing. I would love to see it move closer to best practices. The comment that was made about treatment is incredibly important and one can never force treatment. That needs the principles of harm reduction and engagement which was the third piece. And so with engagement of both users and our community I think we could move towards success but I encourage our community to work together and that the principles of harm reduction are incredibly important. They follow principles that are working towards evidence-based practices, decreasing the spread of disease, increasing healthy behaviors but we can't do that with force. Thank you. Hi, good afternoon, my name is Gabrielle. I am a constituent of John Leopold's.  So the team asked me to take a look at a practice that's been happening recently and that is a third party non-profit group going to the syringe services program and signing up as clients and getting hundreds of needles under the open secondary exchange provisions. So the question was, is that permissible under the health and safety code? I determined no. Is that permissible under the SSP's own policies and procedures? No. There's only two ways that a syringe program like that can be authorized. One is by the state and one in a county such as this is by the county board of suit providers and there has been no authorization by this board for a third party group to be passing out needles. And the code makes it very clear that it has to be both the board and the health officer not just the health officer unilaterally. It's also not permissible by the SSP's own policy. Clients and SSP participants is not defined but obviously that would mean IV drug users or close friends and family. So some suggestions to close this loophole so it doesn't happen again. The policies and procedures could be amended to add a cap on the number of syringes given out of secondary because we recognize there will be situations where there needs to be a secondary exchange so limit that number or explicitly state that syringes can't be picked up and distributed by a whole unauthorized group. And then also on page 12 of the syringe policy there's a list of reasons for termination of participants. So that could be amended as well. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, my name's Sharon. I'm a 43 year resident of Santa Cruz County and I'm a constituent of Supervisor McPherson. First I want to thank you all for this presentation. I know that was a lot of hard work and I fully support the county in expanding its syringe services program, increasing the hours. If you can get more staff, I'm happy to hear there's possibly more money allocated for that. I think it's extremely important that clients that come in here get the wraparound services that are available. The window of opportunity, when an addict wants to get clean is so small. I'm in long-term recovery from addiction. I was blessed to have somebody to talk to to hold my hand through that time. And she was a long string of people that helped save my life. And when I was in treatment, I read something alcohol and drugs gave me wings and then they took away the sky. That might not resonate with everybody but I finally saw that somebody knew how I felt. And addiction is complicated and can't be summed up in one sentence but it gave it words. And I've been graced with over 27 years clean now. I'm comforted in knowing that if a client came here for syringes that that little window of opportunity opened up that someone could say, here, come on, let's get you in treatment. Secondary syringe services run by volunteers cannot offer that. And I took a look at the Santa Cruz County Harm Reduction Coalition Facebook page and saw a post that said, addict is hate speech to oppress drug users. Those are not the people you want handing out syringes that are to people that are suffering out there. That narrative and delivering needles is assisting them in suicide on the installment plan. And I don't talk about this from judgment. I talk about it from experience. That's it, thank you. Hello, board members, my name is Gus Guzman and I've been a heroin addict for 15 years and lived here all my life. I was part of the, well, I'm part now of the MAP program.  I was part of that. And the accountability part, you give one needle, you get one needle back. You know, you give five, you get one back. I hear that, you know, and I don't know where this comes from, but that the needle exchange promotes drug use. And 15 years of me using, I never once heard anybody say, well, I saw a needle program, I'm gonna go use some heroin.  But it worked. Before I was involved in that needle exchange program, I got diagnosed with hepatitis C, you know, and I wish I had that long time ago. Maybe I wouldn't have gotten it. But, you know, it's time that the county that you get involved in this addiction, the potential for spreading diseases is really big, you know, I believe in the program and, you know, I hope for the best for this county. Thank you. Good afternoon. My observation of the SSP is that in order for it to be successful in its primary mission, which is to stop the spread of disease, two things must happen. The program must be as transparent as possible, and addiction must be taken seriously. To date, neither has happened. The program policies last published revision was five years ago, despite their own requirements that they'd be updated annually. You guys said nothing. The SSP claims that they are unable to physically count collected syringes. I dislike those who say they can't do something. One for one is a non-starter for me. Figure out how to do it.  Should be easy for you. I've got a GED, and I can think of half a dozen ways to do it safely. Include the public at every opportunity before making changes to the program. Has anyone reached out to the neighborhood surrounding the Emeline Clinic regarding expanded hours? If an opioid addiction is a health crisis and treated as such, secondary exchange must be eliminated from the program's services. I would cite that the recent example of the Coalition Roadshow and the death, misery, and destruction they were allowed to create, addicts need to be seen in a clinical setting by healthcare professionals who are subject to local oversight. Period. Hello, my name's Carol Paul Hamas. Thank you for listening to my comments. I'm a retired teacher and high school principal. I ran two environmentally focused high school programs in Santa Cruz County. And in the course of our study, we would take kids, high school students out to the beach to do beach cleanups routinely. 1