I will now call the February 25th, 2020, regular meeting of the Board of Supervisors to order. Will the clerk please call the roll. Supervisor Leopold, friend. Here. Coonerty. Here. McPherson. Chair Caput. Here. If we can have a moment of prayer or silence and the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you. Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and the dear Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, in this moment, the 13th of August. If we have any revisions or changes or laid items. Yes, we have one addition. On the consent agenda, item number 46, there's additional materials, revised attachment, C replacement packet page 400. Thank you. Okay. And do we have any board members that wish to pull consent items to the regular agenda? We have none. Do we make a comment on the consent agenda now or do we? After we hear comments. After. After. Okay. That'll be fine. And let's see, a public comment. And now's the opportunity for members of the public to address the board on topics that are on today's agenda, consent items, closed session agenda, and topics that are not on the agenda, but are within the jurisdiction of the board. If you cannot stay later to speak on regular agenda items, you may address those items at this time. How many plan to actually speak? Okay, not too many. Okay. You'll have three minutes and the timer will start. Go ahead. Thank you. Good morning, Kevin Collins. I live in the Santa Cruz mountains in Long Pico Canyon. As some of you will probably remember, I've been following the issue of Pacific gas and electrics tree removals for two and a half more years now at this point. They're showing up with a new, more aggressive approach this year. I was listening to the Public Utilities Commission meetings yesterday. They announced they were going to spend $500 million to cut trees outside of their right-of-way in this calendar year, and an extra 1 million, I mean, 180 million to do what they refer to as their normal trimming. So that's $680 million in a single year to knock down trees. Last year, PG&E replaced 340 miles of the outdated obsolete conductor that runs through their high-fire threat districts. They have 25,000 miles of cable in those districts. I've showed you this before. It's my little shell and tail, if I can get it out of here. This is the conductor on my wire, on my road. It's full of splices. The staff of the commission referred to this wire as obsolete. It's widely understood in the utility industry that you don't use fragile junk like this, especially not in a forest. This stuff is all over the city of San Francisco. It's in downtown Santa Cruz. It's everywhere.  And that's the PUC for you. It's the handmaiden of PG&E and the other big IOUs. So I want to remind the county that the standard for clearance around power lines in the high-fit fire threat districts in the code remains at four feet. All the rest, the 12 feet, dirt to sky, all that was a guideline adopted without any environmental review by the commission in 2017. These are photographs of a very large Douglas fir felled next to Lompico Creek. This tree presented no threat whatsoever to PG&E circuits. This is what they're doing now. I'm gonna leave this with the board so they can look at it. This is an example of their new aggressiveness. They're showing up with all kinds of subcontractors who don't know what they're doing. This company is called South Bay Tree Care. They blocked Lompico Road with several trucks. They had fragment all over. I walked through that with an associate and took photographs of the site. This is a report I wrote, which actually explains why utility circuits are causing wildfires. It's not that difficult to understand. And I can't walk away from this, so you're gonna hear more about it for me in the future. Please stand, hold the line with them. Thank you very much. I was asked to speak on behalf of the Valley Women's Club this morning. I should have mentioned that. Thank you. Good morning. The clock is running already. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Becky Steinbruner. I'm a candidate for second district county supervisor. I wanna thank, I'm grateful for all of the road repairs, storm damaged repairs. I'm seeing on the consent agenda moving forward. That is excellent news. And I applaud the public works staff that's making that work. I want to bring to your attention also that I'm very happy to see that there is the Equal Rights Amendment support from your board in two separate consent agenda items, number 30 and 32, presented by different members of the board. I'm glad you support that. I have a little bit to say about that in how it is inconsistent with what your actions are. But before I do that and run out of time, I do wanna also point out on item number 41, that this county is awarding nearly $4.9 million in a contract to encompass. This company is a nonprofit that the residents from Estates Drive have come to you many times with evidence, clear evidence that this nonprofit has broken terms of contract for a grant. And you haven't done anything. CAO hasn't done anything. And now we're giving them almost $5 million more. I really think they need to be investigated before we grant them any more taxpayer money. I understand what they're doing with this money. I'm briefly reading it. I don't understand why they can't provide it to the jail. But I really would like that investigated. Number 44, this is something I keep seeing and I've never seen before. Asking you to pay old bills over a year old. This one on number 44 includes substantial amount of money to Janice. I've seen and heard people from that work there coming and asking for your help and investigation because they are treated so poorly. I don't agree with this practice of paying old bills. It does not make these providers accountable. So please don't agree with this. Finally, I want to address what I wanted to say about how I support the Equal Rights Amendment and I'm glad that you do in voice. But what you are doing here with not allowing the members of the public to take consent agenda items off was clearly done aimed at me and Marilyn Garrett to women. I have the Public Records Act request information and I'm almost out of time. I'm not sure this is from Rachel Dan. I'm not sure board members will say no to the people's request of taking it off. If you're aiming solely at Becky, then sure it might save some time at meetings. Maybe Zach will decline her request to pull items. What are you really doing and what do you say you're supporting? Thank you. Thank you, Richard Arnold, Chairman, Supervisors. A lot of people aren't aware that you've been working for decades on a stealth government as it created parallel government. Actually working with the Red Chinese, the World Bank and doing most of your activities in a cog, which is a Council of Government. Time Magazine came out and under the American Malvin and it said that Alan Dallas and John Foster Dallas held a meeting specifically where world would be policed by an international army, navy and air force. They'd have a world currency and quote, politically the most important assertion that the main duties now performed by local and national governments would be carried out only by international authority. We also see that Willie Brown by an AP Press carried out that he asked for the public, darn it, I don't have it here, but he asked for the research in Sacramento to get rid of the 400 and some cities and all of the counties in the state of California. These, the regionalization has been going on. There are copies of figures such as this icon here with the California Bear and all it has is all these regional agencies which are rapidly taking over the authority and the control from the people. It turns out that Mr. Coonerty went to the very school and the London School of Economics where they pulled this on England and England just finally got out of Brexit and they're resuming their nationality. These people up here are going exactly against it. It includes CIA former head Leon Panetta who actually was accused in 1982 that he would be welcoming the communists. The underground communists are very much in key with this particular plan and they've been used. There was a meeting held over at the Loud Nelson Center. This is a proclamation that was served out there. The man that was honored was a subversive espionage agent. There's two plaques in honor of him that this board still praises and likes. He's an espionage agent and known as a communist enforcer. There are other people that attended here.  We find that both Leopold and Mr. Friend have attacked members of the Grange where they had to meet out by the beach. This type of intimidation where people have to be scared because his communist enforcer is their hero, Sheriff Jim Hart, nor the DA will prosecute or look to him. In fact, the prosecutors and these two supervisors endorse each other. There's not a word about it in the line newspaper, The Sentinel. Thank you. Hi Marilyn. There is a feeling with good evidence in the community that people don't feel represented and I feel like that's true and that the corporate interests are the ones that are represented like Verizon, big developers. And I wanna give sources here of evidence people can look up which you have received repeatedly over the years. You know the dangers of wireless microwave radiation to the environment and to people. So this is take back your power.net, Dr. Magda Havas on YouTube videos on radiation exposure, Dr. Barry Trower. We have 4G antennas all over and in the public right of way due to your leadership, Mr. Friend, as your aide told me, 13 radiation emitters in a square mile freedom of our day Valley McDonald when it was approved about four years ago as the zoning administrator. Do you know anywhere else in the county where there are 13 of these in a square mile? No, and I know you're proud of it that you got those in but you didn't disclose certain things to the public. You didn't tell them that there are many studies showing ill health due to proximity to cell towers like increased cancer incidents, diabetes, people experience insomnia, fatigue, feelings of depression, heart irregularities, memory loss, et cetera. You didn't tell them that there was no choice in this that they were 24-7 going to be exposed to microwave radiation. Everyone, all the plants, all the animals, you didn't tell them that wireless technology is a huge factor in the demise of the bee population and we can't live without our pollinators. You didn't get informed consent from anyone. No informed consent to be exposed mandatorily to 24-7 bodily microwave radiation trespass on top of all the other exposures. No consent. We don't consent to violation of our health and human and constitutional and privacy rights. These are surveillance meters. It needs to stop. And tomorrow there's a meeting here in this room for an appeal, an approval of the Verizon Seventh Day Adventist campsite cell tower. And I agree with Becky.  Sounds like hypocrisy to me. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Caput, members of the board. I am Jillian Ritter, the first district commissioner and co-chair of the Santa Cruz County Women's Commission. I'm here today with my co-commissioner, Sheila Delaney to thank you for items number 30 and 32. Thank you, Supervisor Leopold, Supervisor Friend, Supervisor Coonerty for your support for the Equal Rights Amendment. We really appreciate you taking our recommendation and placing this item on the agenda. I'm also here with my other hat. I'm an appointee of Bruce McPherson's to the Women's Commission, but I'm also past president of the Valley Women's Club. The Valley Women's Club is in support, strong support of anything that we can do to finally get the Equal Rights Amendment ratified and through. So I have a letter for the board. Good morning. My name is Debbie and I'm living in Soquel. I'd like to address the cell tower issue. I had an email exchange with Supervisor Leopold about this about two years ago and I'm in favor of the technology and the tower. From roughly carpos to the summit and Warf Road to Fairway along Soquel Drive, there is little to no service. It's unreliable at best. I work from home and calls consistently drop. I must be about a mile away from home to work from home. I once had a family emergency and called my home from the city of Santa Cruz and there's a record of my six call attempts and there is no record of the calls being received or even hitting the other end. I tried two different cell phone numbers. There are 2000 plus students across Soquel Elementary, Main Street Elementary, Mountain Elementary and Soquel High School and in case of emergency, students with cell phones are unable to reliably call their parents. On days when traffic is a nightmare and you're looking for alternative routes through town, Google Maps is useless. At the 41st Avenue Safeway Pharmacy, you can't call your health insurance to discuss medications or denial of coverage and you can't send a picture of a router or modem ironically from the inside of Best Buy if you're looking for advice on a purchase. I'd like to say that I think 5G is coming and I would like for Soquel not to be left behind as it already has been for 1X, 3G and 4G. Thank you. Thank you. Caroline Edeland from Scotts Valley. I want to thank the gentleman on the Board of Supervisors for addressing the ERA. I hope that it will pass what's on the agenda. By identifying problems, you work towards solutions and options to address these challenges. The ERA is only part of the intersectionality of race, education, employment, civil justice, government laws and regulations, finances, poverty, inheritance, religion and gender. And until these are addressed and people are equal, there will always be others and I hope we can work towards those solutions so there are not others. Thank you. If we have no more comments, we'll go to the consent agenda and do we have any comments? Sure. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair and my fellow Board members and folks here today. So just a couple of items to comment on. Item number 21, which is a report back on the utilization of the Homework Bound Program. I just want to make clear that since we're in a crisis of homelessness and this is an effective and relatively inexpensive method to provide services to people and get people back into connection with families where they'll have better support that we need to spend down these dollars in their entirety by the end of this fiscal year and then include this in a budget item going forward. We want to make sure that these funds are utilized. Item number 32, which is the Equal Rights Amendment which several people talked about. I just want to thank my appointees to the women's commission who brought this item forward and to our attention and to all the people across the country who are advocating for this important change to bring our constitution into compliance of basic fairness with the rest of the world. And then finally on item number 48 which is the mowing and trimming contracts by Public Works. I just want to thank them for bringing this forward. This makes a big difference in the rural areas for safety and visibility of oncoming traffic and pedestrians, bicyclists. And so it's just an important thing that is not often recognized but makes a big difference when we're able to do it and do it effectively in our community. Thank you, thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to second the concern with the Homework Bound that item number 21 that Supervisor Coonerty mentioned. Diversion is really one way to effectively address homelessness and we look forward to a more systemic improvements in the future. This is a huge problem in our county and every county in the state and really throughout the nation that we're continuing to try to address as best we can with the funds that are available. On item number 34, I just want to thank my colleagues for supporting this nomination of Tim Gontroff who is here. He's our County Zero Waste Program Manager to the Statewide Commission on Recycling Markets and Curbside Recycling. This is a huge issue statewide and we need someone with local expertise that he has to represent us in the state for that matter in this commission. And as the representative of the board to the California State Association of Counties mentioned this to our Board of Directors several times. This needs to be addressed on a statewide basis. It's an environmental disaster waiting to happen if we don't really address it as soon as possible. I don't know that we're realistically that we're gonna be able to get to it on a statewide basis this year but we all will be continuing the effort to do that. On item number 42, the Mental Health Grant Funding. I'm glad to see this additional $2 million for mental health funding that will help with staffing and mobile services. The public really agrees we need to do more in our mental health outreach and services and that the occurrence of drug addiction can contribute to the homelessness. One thing I'd like to ask, and maybe I could get an answer, a short answer possibly, if this is a three-year grant, how do we anticipate being able to maintain these services in the future? I guess it's an unknown. I don't know if anybody might be able, from health services or I could ask them later. In this homelessness issue, usually a third of that population is identified in need of some behavioral health treatment and so it's a real serious issue but I'm glad we have a grant of sorts but I just am concerned about carrying on and that's probably an unknown. Yeah, actually this is an incentive grant from the California Department of Health Care Services and it'll be done in partnership with our clinics division. So our clinics division also oversees one of our clinics, the Homeless Persons Health Care Project and all of the services that we provide that are MediCal covered services will be reimbursable after the time of startup. So you may recall that going into this fiscal year, we put in dollars for HPHP to have a mobile outreach clinic and that mobile clinic is being built or outfitted right now and these grants allow us time to, as you know, when you start new programs, you often don't have them fully ready at the start and you're not able to recoup all of the revenues that you need to but many of these services will be services that are billable under our federally qualified health care center and particularly on the mental health and substance use disorder side under our IBH clinic or integrated behavioral health services. Okay, thank you. That's a real critical element of our homeless issue in general. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Appreciate that. I'd like to address items number 47, 50, 53 and 55 regarding road repairs. I want to thank the Department of Public Works for diligently working on getting these storm damaged roads repaired. I know the residents in these areas have been patiently waiting and we worked out time extensions with the federal agencies. On that note, I really want to make a special thank you to our public works director, Matt Machado and his chief deputy on overseeing the road issue, Steve Wiesner and their team on our congressional representatives from working with FEMA and the federal highway administration to secure this funding to get the project started. I still get calls, I'm sure we all do especially in the rural areas. Hey, come on, I've been waiting for years since the storms of 16, 17. Please come in and help me get something done and it takes a long time. We've got hundreds of millions of dollars of road repairs that need to be done and it's no laughing matter for sure. We are getting to it as fast as we can but when we have that big of a project or oversight that we have to address we're getting to the most heavily traveled roads as quickly as we can and some of them do require or have available these federal funds which will pay for 80% of it and so sometimes it may not seem like it's worth the wait but it's necessary to wait so we can get that support from the federal government and these repairs. So we'll get at you in time for those in the rural areas out there we're going as fast as we can and I think our public works department is doing a fantastic job and then something that's not on the agenda I wanna just say that we opened, had the ribbon cutting for the Felton Library on Saturday phenomenal 2,000 people showed up it is something else to see and with the adjacent discovery interpretive park next to it it is just a classic example of how a library can be a cooperative interpretive center for the park next door and the people of the Center Runs of Valley greatly appreciate it and again I wanna thank the voters who supported that library measure some years ago in 2016 it's gonna make a huge difference for that community thank you very much. Well thank you chair good morning just a couple items that I wanna comment on one I'm glad to see us moving on item number 26 moving forward with our climate action manager position I appreciate the work of the CAO and our personnel director to get this job listed so we can be prepared for the changing nature of the climate and it's an impact on our infrastructure on item number 30 and I'll include 32 it's probably no surprise that there are multiple members of our board who wanna support the Equal Rights Amendment if you look at on today's agenda there's a lot of work in support of women we're gonna have an item on our regular agenda about the starting the commission on justice and gender I think our board has been attuned to these issues I really appreciate the ongoing work of our women's commission who has spent years doing great research on the issues affecting women and young girls here in our community it has been instructive in terms of programs and now with Virginia finally taking this action to be the 38th state to ratify the ERA hopefully we can move forward and ensure that our constitution reflects our values and our values are women should be treated equally and hopefully this can move through and this isn't a partisan issue it can move through and be the first change of the constitution in many, many years I look forward to seeing that happen and I appreciate the ongoing work of our commission on item number 38 I wanna recognize our probation staff for their work in soliciting new funds for this community correction youth reinvestment grant particularly like the work supporting families as well as the individuals in the system I think that goes a long way to addressing concerns and will help reduce recidivism and make our community safer on item number 42 the health services agencies work to go out and find another $2 million this work has been mentioned is very critical mental health services and resources for mental health services are greatly needed and I appreciate the innovation that we're gonna be trying to put into place here through this behavioral health integration incentive program and I appreciate the work of our staff also trying to think about how we could pull down money from the federal government to help pay for our programs not only for our programs here at the county but for nonprofits it's really creates a more stable funding system and I appreciate that work so thank you for that on item number 45 the human services department continues to deepen the work of the core program I'm glad we're seeking these funds they're gonna help with our community based partners and help ensure that the goals of core which is to be a data informed evidence-based funding program that can really make a difference in the lives of so many people here in Santa Cruz County is well resourced and well supported and so I appreciate the ongoing work of the department on last I'll just say there's two items involving public works one is the Schultes Road bidding that's going out you know constituents up in the summit area are always concerned about the roads the staff has done a tremendous work that there's gonna be a lot of work going on up in the summit area this year and I appreciate the hard work that the staff has put in to help them make that happen and lastly on the Live Oak parking program this is an ongoing work that we're doing to try to figure out how to make this a great program that's sustainable and that meets the needs of the community as well as the Coastal Commission and so we're involved in a conversation with the Coastal Commission now to make some changes here that I think will benefit the community and I appreciate the work of Matt Machado and the work of the public work staff to help us figure out the issues and make sure that we get it right so. Thank you chair I'll just briefly comment on item 30 and 32 since most has been said but just to thank the women's commission for not just bringing the item forward but also to make a statement that this is long, long, long past time to becoming reality and so elections do have consequences and I appreciate what happened in Virginia it's clear that they'll still need an extension but I think that this is something that it's almost shocking that we here we are in 2020 and such a thing hasn't actually been formalized in the Constitution. On item 38 I'd like to echo my colleagues' comments and thank the chief probation officer on this item with Pajaro Valley Prevention and Student Assistance chair Caput and I were recently at an opening of their new facility in Watsonville it's a remarkable facility if you haven't had an opportunity to go there and it's an organization that does outstanding work for youth in the South County that really don't have a voice and if you talk to some of the students down there that have received PVPSA services it really is life changing for many of them and to see the county investing with this due to the grant funds or the creativity from the probation department I really appreciate the fact of the impact you're making on South County youth that may not know the name of you or the organization but the fact that you're putting this much money in because of a grant that you're able to receive is actually a remarkable input impact on youth in the South County so I appreciate that. Thank you. Mr. Chair. Sorry I just forgot one thing which is and it's based on my colleagues' commentary which is on item 47 I'd like to add additional direction that we direct the chair to write a letter to the relevant federal agencies and our federal representatives thanking them for the extensions on the storm damage repair projects and looking forward to further cooperative efforts in the future. Okay. Okay my comment would be let's see page item number 18. I think there's a typo or a mistake on page 101. The date I think should state October 13 and 14, 2019 not 2020. Is that correct? Page 101 it's a mistake right? Just one moment please let me get to, just one moment please let me get to page 101. Okay. Supervisor perhaps you could finish your comments and I'll review that and then come right back to you. Okay. Okay it's item 18 right? Page 101 at least. Okay. I'll give you a time. Anyway on item 30 and 32 it's not the subject that I am concerned about but the process. If we don't have extending the ratification deadline there has to be some kind of deadline I think 37 and a half years is a little bit long. So anyway I have a problem with the wording extending the ratification deadline for changing the constitution of the United States. That could be for any subject. So if it was worded to start over the process I might go for that.  The 27th amendment to the constitution was proposed in 1797 and it wasn't ratified until about 1989. So time limits were not placed on amendments to the constitution until 1919 for prohibition seven years and then for the Equal Rights Amendment. There is nothing in the original constitution that requires a time limit and there's nothing that prevents an extension if a time limit is imposed and not met. It's interesting to me that the only amendment that they wanted a time limit on was the one to do with women's rights. I think that's a little interesting. So I know that there may be arguments before the Supreme Court on whether that's valid whether that if you extend then the states that decided to vote for rescission would also be allowed to vote for rescission. So I know that Justice Ginsburg has said maybe we should just start over. In the initial push for the Equal Rights Amendment was actually very largely supported by both parties. It was not a partisan thing. At the moment everything has become so partisan that I doubt if we could get an Equal Rights Amendment passed. When I was a child, my grandmothers both told me the minute you can register to vote, register to vote and vote. Neither of them were allowed to vote until they were in their 50s. So I'm really tired of not being included in my country's constitution. Now that would be true for any subject or any topic if you don't have a deadline. So that's the only problem I have. And like I said, if I wanna start the process over and present it like it was back in 1982, well it was extended to 1982, it started in 1979. So anyway, I'll be voting no on 30 and 32 because of the wording extending the ratification deadline because that would be true for any amendment to the constitution. Okay, thank you. Supervisor, there is a typographical error on pages 100 and 101. Those documents were submitted by an attorney from the public. Those are not county documents, they're not our documents. So we took them in and filed them. But I think you're right, the correct date is October 12th, 13th, 2019. And that will ultimately not be a bone of contention in the litigation. Thank you. Okay, we'll have action on the... I would move the consent agenda as amended and just say that in the fight for equal rights is an ongoing struggle. And the fight for civil rights is an ongoing struggle. And when we place arbitrary time limits on trying to bring equality to this country, we are really limiting what we can do as a nation. So I would urge your support. I hope the rest of the board will support it. It's incredibly important that our constitution recognize women as equal in the eyes of the law. And it's hard to believe in 2020 we're still having this discussion. Second. Thank you. Do we have a first? Do we have a second? That was a motion and a second. Okay. And we'll call the vote. All those in favor, well, I'm for the consent agenda except for 30 and 32. Okay. So anyway, all those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Okay, pass it. And let's see, let's turn to the regular agenda. We have appointments to the advisory bodies, items seven, eight and nine. Are there any questions or comments from board members or the public and then. I would move approval. Second. And I'd just like to make a comment that these next two appointments at seven and eight are addressing one of the most volatile issues that we're facing at this day and age on certain services program. So I appreciate their efforts to come forward and being at large representatives and a district representative of the well. Okay. And if it's okay with the maker and the second, I'd like to add additional direction that now that we have all but one of the seats filled that there be a meeting of the commission within the next six weeks of this commission. I'll second that. Good. Is that an amendment to it? I think that's a suggestion of a friendly amendment. Okay. That's acceptable. I would accept it. Okay. Just as a point of clarification, we voting on item seven or are we combining these items? Because you announced seven, eight and nine. Well, we're doing seven. Are we doing them separately seven? They should be separately. Yeah. Okay. This would be the appointment of less gardener than right. Yes. Okay. We have a first and second. You need to get public comment. Public comment. The appointment of less gardener as an at large representative to the syringe services program advisory commission for a term to expire on February 11, 2024. Okay. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposition? We have none passes unanimously. Number eight, consider the final appointment of Patty King to the syringe services program advisory commission as an at large representative for a term to expire February 11, 2024. We have any public comment? I'll move approval. Second. We have a first and second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposition? None passes. Number nine, consider the final appointment of Lamont Adams to the workforce development board as an at large labor and pre-apprenticeship representative for a term to expire June 30, 2020. Okay. That's not very long, right? But anyway, any public comment? Any comments by board members? I move approval. Second. We have first, second by Leopold and friend. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposition? There is none. And then we go now to number 10, consider an ordinance repealing chapter 2.118 of the Santa Cruz County code and adding chapter 2.126 to the Santa Cruz County code to establish the commission on justice and gender and schedule the ordinance for final adoption on March 10, 2020 as outlined in the memorandum of the County Administrative Office Officer. Ordinance establishing the commission. Any comment? Well, I think Ms. Colburn is here. The public first. Oh, I think Ms. Colburn's gonna make a presentation. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You're gonna make a presentation. A brief one. I take your time. Okay. So good morning, Chair Caput and members of the board. I'm assistant CAO Nicole Colburn and I'm here this morning to introduce an ordinance to establish the commission on justice and gender. As you may recall, in December, 2017, the board convened a 24 month advisory task force on justice and gender to identify the unique needs of justice involved women and their families. By this past January of 2020, the task force had met 18 times, made two presentations to the board and recommended 13 actions to reduce recidivism for justice involved women and to help prevent intergenerational cycles of incarceration. A lot of work remains to oversee the recommendations of the task force to address the trauma caused by domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking and incarceration and to continue to better respond to and meet the needs of these justice involved women. In response to the task force's recommendation to establish a commission on justice and gender, we worked with the county council's office to prepare the ordinance on today's agenda. The commission will consist of 15 members who have experienced related to gender-based violence. I'm gonna mention who those commissioners will be just briefly and it will be these officials who will be the first to enter their designees. So the sheriff corner, the district attorney, a representative of the superior court, the chief probation officer, the public defender, the superintendent of the county office of education, the director of health services, the director of human services. We have several agency representatives, one of which is from Monarch services, a second from the Walnut Avenue Family and Women's Center, the court appointed special advocates. And then finally, the commission will most likely be targeting a target population to address some specific issues during the course of a year. And so the board would then appoint a representative from an organization representing that target population. The commission also consists of three at large representatives. One is a survivor of gender-based violence. A second is a representative of the LGBTQ plus community. And lastly, we have a representative of the Latinx community. We've limited the commissioners to 15 so that we can ensure a quorum because that's been an issue in the past for the prior domestic violence commission. And that will also allow us to successfully work to ensure the successful work of the task force recommendations. So with that, we would recommend that the board take the recommended actions before you and that is to consider and approve and concept the attached ordinance and to schedule a second reading and final adoption of the ordinance on March 10th. And I'm happy to answer any questions. Sure. Supervisor Leopold. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for the work, Ms. Coburn, on putting together this ordinance. And I appreciate the work of the task force and all the work that it did and the recommendations and the serious way that this board considered that and it moving forward on this. The only question I had was on the purpose of the commission, it doesn't talk directly about ending intergenerational incarceration. And that was one of the key themes of the task force. And I think it would be, it's worthwhile to keep that as a focus. A lot of the work that we did with the task force was to look at the trauma that children face seeing their parents arrested, the difficulty they face in growing up when they can't connect or actually touch their parents while they're incarcerated, the effects of the foster care system and everything else. And since we know that half the women in jail had parents who were also in jail, it seems an important folk guide not to lose in the creation of this commission. That is an intention of the commission. Well, it might not be explicitly stated in the ordinance. We didn't mention it in the staff report and I'm not sure we can make changes without coming back for a second reading. What I would recommend in this instance is that you could adopt the ordinance as it is today. And then I could, if you wanted me to, if you would order it for me to come back with the changes and updates to the county code in a month or so, I could add that in and bring it before your board with other miscellaneous changes. That would be great. Thank you. Great suggestion. I appreciate the work that you've done and I look forward to our board unanimously adopting this. We both, yeah. We'll open it up to the public for comment. Anybody would like to speak? But we have one, okay. Thank you for your report. My name is Becky Steinbruner. I live in the second district. I was here when the original report by Dr. Green was given and it was really hard to hear. So I am happy to see this moving forward and I think it's very positive. I just want to remind the board and the coming commission that the mantra for that group was nothing about us without us. And I'm concerned, I'm happy to see there are three at large people, representatives that would include a survivor of domestic violence, someone from the LGBTQ community and the Latina community. I frankly think this is not enough of the people who are actually in the trenches with, who have experienced this. And to encourage and enable that population to be able to participate in these commission meetings, I ask that they be held at a time of day when people who maybe have recovered and are working would be able to attend. And therefore I think that these meetings should take place in evenings so that people can attend who are working. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments we have done? Bring it back to the board. I would move the adoption of the recommended actions and ask that our county council come back with some minor changes during the next review. Second. Okay, we have a first and second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposition we have done? And that takes us to the biggest part of our agenda today. The presentation of 2019 Employee Recognition Awards has outlined in the memorandum of the County Administrative Officer. 2019 Employee Recognition Award winners. Thank you, Chair Caput. This item is a special ember that the Board of Supervisors established to recognize and show appreciation to employees for their outstanding accomplishments while working with the county. The criteria for the recognition include the following from an employee or group of employees. Those employees or groups of employees who solve an extraordinary problem for the county or who successfully implement an innovative idea or who do an outstanding act which deserves or brings recognition to the county from the public or who perform their work in a manner that deserves special recognition. Each board member will present awards in one of the five categories of government. Board members will come down and stand at the microphone as employees hear their name or the name of their team announced. They should come up to the front and join the supervisor. And at the conclusion of the awards, there will be a reception in the hall adjacent to the chambers. Everyone is invited to stay through the entirety of the presentation of awards and join us for the reception. I'd like to now ask Supervisor Coonerty who will be presenting our first awards in the category of general government. All right, well, thank you. This is always an exciting day because we get to honor the extraordinary people who serve this community working for the County of Santa Cruz and so it's a great honor for us to be a part of it. I'm in general government and so my first for the bronze award, I'd like to invite up Angel McGanya. I get embarrassed here. So Angel is a custodian with the general services department. He consistently goes the extra mile to make sure that staff who work in the office, he's assigned to have a clean and comfortable place to work. He has a great attitude, is detail oriented, thinks outside the box and it's a pleasure to work with. In addition, Angel takes great pride in making sure that other staff are taken care of. Angel's been described as being a perfect example of someone who is dedicated, engaged and inspires others to do their best. Congratulations Angel and thank you for all your hard work and I'm happy to present you with this award. Next for the silver award, I'd like to invite up the members of the cannabis compliance enforcement team. Come on up. So let me read all their names here. So we have Steve Carney, Heather Presley, Jason Finnelli, Sam Laforti, Michael Sopernor, Vicent Sharma and Fred Gomez. This is a team that's worked over the past year to ensure that legal cannabis businesses are complying with the regulations that ensure public health and safety as well as manage enforcement of actions against illegal operators here in the county. Working together, this team has established standardized research methods and inspection checklists, instituted quarterly compliance checks and created an abatement process and provided educational outreach. Additionally, they've also established excellent cross-departmental and agency communication channels with county departments and local agencies. This team has been identified as a great example of innovation and continuous improvement to optimize county operations. So I'm delighted to present them with the silver award and I'm so happy to see all these departments working so collaboratively together to serve our community and thank you all very much. And finally, for our gold award, this is the electronic permitting team and I'll ask all those members to come forward. So line up over here, please. So on this team, we have Silbiano Cruz Hernandez, Darlene Samaquiz, Kelly Chasey, Chafee, sorry. Maitreya Maier-Erez, Greg McClain, Robert Calesiano, Amy Willebanks, Marty Heney and Tom Malokian. McConnian, sorry. The electronic permitting team was a cross-departmental collaborative team effort to develop an online system to process and issue over-the-counter permits in the planning department. These types of permits include re-roofing, water heater replacements, minor electoral alterations, air conditioner unit replacements and other minor permits. Issuing these permits used to require time-consumering and frustrating in-person process. But with the implementation of this new system, permit applications can now be completed and issued from a home computer in only 10 minutes. The number of users in this new online system is increasing each day and this team's work has greatly improved the customer experience and efficiency. Congratulations and congratulations on getting the gold award. There you go. Great, thank you. Thank you so much. Supervisor McPherson will now be presenting the awards in the category of health services. First of all, I'd like to congratulate each of the winners but this was highly competitive and we have over 2,000 employees that serve our 175,000 plus residents of Santa Cruz County and each and every one of you are valued and you've really done tremendous work to make Santa Cruz County a great county to live in and to service the people who live in it. I am in the health services agency category. We have a tie for the bronze medal and maybe both of these individuals will come up here. Jessica McElvaney and Kennedy Costner. Costner, congratulations. Jessica is a senior analyst with clinics and has provided the ability through the data and focus to grow our medication-assisted treatment outreach within the county communities. At a staff resource level, Jessica is regularly recognized as providing a vision for how we might use data to drive equitable care throughout our county. She prioritizes the needs of our patients and teams who support them, supports those using our electronic health record system and helps to streamline systems so that they are serving our patients that have more time and directly serving our patients. And while her individual accomplishments and skills perfectly complement our patient-centered services, she is also developing a site specialist team to build on our industry-leading successes and exponentially grow our ability to improve client services. It's a lot to do for your family. What are you doing, your spare time? Yeah, all right, yeah, all right. Jessica is an extremely valuable reflection of the county and the role model for all of her, with her focus and initiative. I am pleased to present Jessica with the Bronze Award today. Kennedy Kosker, as one of the longest-employed members of the Health Services Agency, Kennedy stands out with his infectious enthusiasm, positive spirit, creative approaches to solving problems before they emerge and unselfish service to anyone around him. Kennedy is the single webmaster for the public and internal staff for the agency of 600 positions, as well as the go-to resource for capturing and spreading news about internal staff and operations. He is a creative system and software designer for new solutions to support public health. Clinics, mental health and environmental health, and is also the go-to resource for any public event, quietly sprinting behind the scenes, setting up audio and visual equipment. Kennedy also manages elements of our physical and digital site security systems from electronic door access and badges to various camera systems. Finally, Kennedy humbly works to create an inclusive and welcoming culture across the agency through innovations like the HSA Intranet yearbook, site and the spearheading employee lunch events. I am happy to present Kennedy with the Bronze Award today. We now go to the Silver Award. Thank you very much. The Silver Award is to a team, the members of the occupational therapy team, including Shannon Holmes and Susan Fisher, who are here. This small two-person team has changed the paradigm around therapeutic services that allow people to remain in independent living environments while improving their basic life functions and social skills. It is rare to find scenarios where the community members who are experienced in serious mental and physical health stresses repeatedly and voluntarily prioritize their health needs. And yet our occupational therapy team continues to create a safe and supporting environment where our patients consistently choose to engage in treatment week after week and are not only present, but active and excited, you can tell. They like what they do. That's great. Shannon and Susan also run our integrated illness management recovery groups, which provide illness management recovery coping skills for clients through which they have directly improved the lives of many in the community. Additionally, this team proactively supports county case managers by improving access to care for patients to other providers. Please join me in congratulating our occupational therapy team for their Silver Award. The gold award in the health services category goes to Brendan Brenner, excuse me, Brendan Brenner. Brenda is an emergency medical services program lead and a senior health services manager. In this role, Brenda has committed herself personally and professionally to humbly and proudly serve every member of our county. She led the way this year with coordinating care and resources to support most vulnerable populations in our community during the unprecedented PG&E public safety power shutoffs. Additionally, Brenda worked throughout the year to implement a patient-centered county-wide ambulance contract. Another example of Brenda's tireless leadership and commitment to service was her extraordinary support during the Kincaid fire. Brenda played a leadership role in navigating the delivery of ambulance and healthcare resources to support Sonoma County. Please join me in congratulating Brenda on her accomplishments and her gold award in the health services category. Thank you. The advisor, Caput, will present the awards in the category of human services. Human services category, Jennifer Kaley, recognizing Jennifer Kaley for her outstanding contributions to the county of Santa Cruz. As the Human Services Department organizational development manager, Jennifer has worked tirelessly to design and implement the department's mentorship program, entering its third cycle in March of this year. This program provides opportunities to develop cross-program collaboration, increase opportunities for professional growth, and contributes to positive staff morale. Jennifer's passion for this program is evident in the detailed development of the program structure and plan, as well as her recruitment of mentors and mentees. In addition, she uses a continuous process improvement model to ensure that the program is working well and always seeking input and feedback. Jennifer has successfully implemented an innovative idea that will positively impact the Human Services Department workforce for many years to come. Please join me in congratulating Jennifer on her bronze award in the Human Services Committee. She is a senior social worker in the Human Services Department and is the project lead of HomeSafe, a program to prevent homelessness among victims of elder and dependent adult abuse who were referred to adult protective services. The HomeSafe program tackles one of the most difficult and complex social issues facing our county, I agree with that, and homelessness by identifying those at risk of housing loss and connecting them with financial assistance and providers who can support their long-term housing needs. Whitney has exhibited critical leadership throughout this project, supporting adult protective services to implement new innovative solutions resulting in more seniors and dependent adults remaining housed. And I recommend Whitney for her hard work and I'm happy to present her with the silver award in the Human Services category. Kathy Stowell. Kathy has served as senior social worker and family and children services for many years and recently showed her dedication to going the extra mile for foster youth to ensure their well-being. Several years ago, Kathy worked with a foster child and continued to serve as a positive adult connection with this young person through the years. Last fall, this young adult had a severe emergency while living several hundred miles away from his community. Kathy partnered with the current social worker as well as a former foster parent to support this young adult to return to the community and access needed services. That's quite a complicated procedure, right? Kathy's partnership and understanding of the circumstances that this young person was facing made the critical difference in ensuring they successfully transitioned into a more stable situation. I'm very pleased to present Kathy with the gold award in the Human Services category. Thank you. I figure somebody needs to give a speech. I'd like to share a little bit about more specifically what happened and what I was involved with was a drug intervention for this youth and this experience turned out to be the most profound experience of my career as a social worker. I'd like to acknowledge Dina Oscarra in the third row, the former foster mother who is completely committed to this youth to this day and we were a team in pulling off this drug intervention. When we initially were planning this, we thought it would be a two to three day experience. It turned out to be a 12 day emotionally and physically exhausting ordeal. There were many, many barriers from every turn from the beginning. The youth ended up instead of detoxing in a treatment center, she detoxed with Dina in a hotel. There was an ambulance ride, two trips to the emergency room and the youth encountered transphobia as she identifies as being transgender. This overall experience has actually evolved into something bigger than just the intervention itself. For me personally, it has inspired me to work towards changing how we respond to youth who are struggling with substance abuse. I've been meeting with my director Keith Bostick and my hope is to create a collaborative protocol with the Substance Use Disorder Services Specialists to have a joint response to be a team. I also have a meeting scheduled later this month with Assemblyman Mark Stone. Many of you know that he has been extremely involved with legislation over the years to better the lives of our foster youth. These youth need to feel both emotionally and physically safe when they enter drug treatment from day one. My hope is to ultimately develop legislation and funding specifically for the LGBTQ non-minor dependents, the 18 to 21 year olds. They need to be able to enter treatment day one, feel safe and to be able to embrace recovery. And the last six months have been over the top extremely challenging for this youth and what I have been telling her from the beginning, it's not just about one day at a time, it's sometimes five minutes at a time. Thank you. Supervisor Friend will now present the awards in the category of justice. So I have the honor of presenting the justice awards and in the bronze category, it's shared by members of the human trafficking investigation team, including Kenny Besk and Joe Hernandez. The human trafficking investigation team expanded their scope and scale of community awareness in 2019 with their first ever human trafficking symposium in March. The symposium included attendees representing law enforcement, social services, health services, mental health services, education and numerous other partners, including business and community groups. By providing education to the symposium, there are over 300 community members who are now able to identify potential victims and participate in prevention, intervention and advocacy efforts to address human trafficking in Santa Cruz County, which most people don't recognize is a major issue here. Currently the human trafficking investigations team is working to identify partnerships and resources to address the short, mid and long-term needs of human trafficking survivors and deploy a cohesive streamlined response for this challenging issue. I'm pleased to present this team with the bronze award in the justice community and also to acknowledge Mr. Hernandez here who used to work at Santa Cruz police and did this exact work there and then came over to the district attorney's office to continue this work. So thank you, Mr. Hernandez. Now on the silver award shared by members of the sheriff corner accreditation team, including Sergeant Patrick, Dr. Stephanie Fiore, Lieutenant Paul Ramos, Detective Dakota Clark, forensic technician, Genevieve Reilman, corner detective, Wesley Grant, corner detective, Naomi Silva and corner detective, Wendy Ram. In 2019, the corner division of the sheriff's office successfully applied for and received accreditation through the international association of corners and medical examiners. The corners unit worked diligently throughout the year to ensure that over 230 national standards were in place in their policies and procedures in order to receive this prestigious accreditation. This unit conducted the demanding accreditation activities while also ensuring they met their busy day-to-day responsibilities. The efforts of the corners unit reflect the sheriff's department's commitment to high standards and a high level of service to the community. And I'm happy to present the silver award and the justice category to this team. Congratulations. They're silent today. Thank you. You guys have a very difficult job. I mean, this is one half of the sheriff's office that people don't always like to think about, but it's a remarkably difficult and powerful job. The work that they do also, the compassion that they show for people that are suffering from a very difficult situation in their life. When you encounter people, it could be at one of the depths of their days and you always do it with compassion and grace. And those of you that select into this work, we just can't thank you enough for the work that you do. Congratulations on the technology. And there's actually a tie in the gold award. So for the first section of the justice category, I'd like to welcome up members of the Probation Service Center Planning and Implementation Team, including Andrew Davis, Sarah Jamison, Yolanda James Sevilla, Deputy Alfonso Retz, Deputy Armando Baltazar and Deputy Deborah Voith. The Probation Service Center Planning and Implementation Team led the effort to co-locate treatment and supportive services in the first ever Probation Service Center. This center was designed to ensure process improvement and innovative practices that contribute to the well-being of the justice-involved population and public safety. The team engaged planning input from probation staff as well as county and community partners to ensure an inclusive planning process. To date, the Probation Service Center has served over 200 individuals by providing immediate assessment of needs in connection to providers. This model increases collaborative partnerships across the county as well as increases public safety and I'm proud to present the Probation Service Center Planning Implementation Team with the gold award in the justice category. Hello, everybody, Armando Baltazar. Just want to say thank you. Our team want to address and indicate and pretty much notify the Board of Supervisors, County Administration Office, community corrections for their guidance and support. We appreciate all the support that you've been given the Service Center. Special thanks to Fernando Giraldo for his leadership and his vision and for community safety through supervision and support for successful community reintegration for probationers. At this time, I'm going to have Debra Voys, my partner, share a testimony. Good morning, everyone. Got to put my glasses on. Good morning, everyone. I can't see you all with my glasses, but I can read, so that's most important. I'm very proud and honored to be here and part of this Probation Service Center team. It wasn't done by just the few of us up here. It was a collaborative effort. And I want to bring in the voice of one of the many individuals who are making use of the Service Center to build a positive life for themselves in our community. Now I will read exactly what he wrote. I am 50 years old and enrolled in a number of classes at the Probation Service Center, also known as the PSC. I want to tell you who I am. I've not always done what I was supposed to do, which is how I found out about the services here at the PSC. I have been helped and encouraged by all the staff and my probation officer. I come to the center on a daily basis, whether it is to access services at the center or just to say hi to the staff. My first visit here at the center was very surprising to me. I felt very comfortable since day one. Over the years, I have never seen or heard of a program like this. When I needed help in the past, there was no place like the Probation Service Center, so I had to try to find the services by myself. The center is open to help us change our lives for the better. This program has given me self-worth and the opportunity to get my life back on track and stay focused by giving me certain tools that I've learned, like computer and job skills and life skills for my future. So this team is just the tip of the iceberg. Doesn't the probation officers, system partners and probationers contribute to these ideas and hard work and planning for the center? We especially want to recognize our community partners who are here in attendance. I'm gonna call their names and please stand up. Felipe Hernandez from Sorbrity Works, Jose Murillo, Health Services Agency, Lady Andaya, Volunteer Center, State of Nevada, Alaya Veltier, and Phoenix Bedoya Comfort Presolution, Ismael Cruz, County Office of Ed, Will Bosler, and Ophelia Ramirez, Leaders and Community Alternatives, Yutron Kibabu, Mentors Driving Change for Boys, Men and Hands, Marie-Lou Alejandres, Barrios Unidos, Corey Brinks, Rose George, Christopher Greer, Alma Lopez, and Rebecca Zalona from Encompass Community Services. And a special thanks to the community providers working in custody, Mid County, Watsonville, Volunteer Center, Monarch Services, New Life, Gemma, County Office of Education, First Five, Positive Discipline, and Encompass. As you can see, this was a collaborative effort. It was teamwork. This recognition is for the providers. We're excited that we're working ahead. I know our chief has a vision, and we wanna have something similar that we have here in North County, be brought to South County. So I'm excited personally that we're gonna be able to serve our community out of South County with the similar services. We're driven to public safety, reducing recidivism, and teamwork. I mean, the service center is the providers. We're there for support, structure, but I'm excited that we're here working together. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Leopold will now be presenting the awards in the category of, oh, I'm sorry. We do have one more. We had a tie in the gold award in the justice category. This is shared by members of the focused intervention team, including Sergeant Billy Burnett, Deputy Randall Hopp, Deputy Ryan York, James Russell, Jennifer Deegan, Jeffrey Goodyear, and Laura Hernandez. The focus intervention team, or FIT, is a partnership between the Sheriff's Office and County Behavioral Health. FIT was formed to increase access to behavioral health services, protect community safety, and enhance community stability for justice-involved individuals suffering from mental illnesses and substance use disorders. This team works to provide increased access to services that promote community wellness, and since its inception in January of 2019, 19 people have completed the FIT program. The FIT model is unique to California and paves the way for a new style of mental health oversight for individuals that pose challenges to the community. Please join me in congratulating the FIT team with the shared gold award in the justice category. They're speechless, so you can just give them a hand. I'll move on to the next category. Congratulations. Supervisor Leopold will be presenting the awards in the category of land use at this time. It is always a special day to recognize employees within the County of Santa Cruz. The work that you do every day is felt by so many people here in Santa Cruz County. It's nice to recognize some, but we're very fortunate to have a great staff of over 2,400 employees here at the County of Santa Cruz. In the land use category in the bronze award, there's a tie, so I'm gonna call up the first team, which is the members of the near-term housing amendments team. With that catchy name includes Stephanie Hansen, Susan Icy, Daisy Allen, Annie Murphy, and Natisha Williams. In response to the ongoing housing crisis and in partnership with our board and the Housing Advisory Commission, this planning department team worked to develop a package of code amendments that could create a regulatory path for generating new housing units in innovative ways. Some of these code changes included revised accessory dwelling unit regulations, farm worker housing solutions for our agricultural workers, housing allowed on public facilities land in certain situations, and the creation of a permanent room housing combining zone district to allow converted older motel units to continue to serve as housing. These regulatory changes are a significant step towards helping to combat our county's housing crisis. Thank you for your service, and I'm happy to present you with this bronze award today. On behalf of our team, we'd like to thank you and all the supervisors very much, and I just wanted to acknowledge our department's director, Kathy Malloy, as well as Payah Levine, assistant director and Julie Conway, our housing manager who provided a lot of support for this project. So we have the other award winner in the bronze category, which is the team you want to go to if you want to have a party, the special events team, which is Jessica Beebe, Annie Morris, Mary Chavez, Margaret Ingram, Kathy DeWild and Jennifer Mead, please come forward. The special events team went above and beyond this year to bring outstanding recreational opportunities to our community. In 2016, County Parks provided eight special events for the public enjoyment. In comparison, the Parks Department finished 2019 with 58 publicly promoted special events. That doesn't even include the one that they held in January for 500 people at the new Chanticleer Park. They included 40 different activities, 11 outdoor movies and seven large community events with exercise classes, pop-up playgrounds, bird watching and pop-up farmers markets. Thank you for your hard work. We know that we enjoy our recreation and I'm happy to present you with the bronze award today. Okay, we're onto the silver award. This is for Tim Gontroff. Tim's achievements in the field of recycling and solid waste are not only commendable but remarkable. He has authored various environmental protection laws and ordinances that have been copied by local and state agencies, including drugs, drug and sharps, EPR laws, the straw ban and the first law of its kind to emit small disposable toiletries in hotels and motels. Most recently, Tim proposed and developed a 25 cent fee on single use disposable cups. Additionally, the County Zero Waste Plan, also authored by Tim, received an award in 2019 from the California State Association of Counties. Tim's efforts helped protect our natural resources and support change to positively impact our climate. I'm proud to present Tim with the silver award. I just want to acknowledge our team and public works, our director, Matt Machado, and the supportive leadership of the Board of Supervisors. Without all of you, none of this would have been possible. Thank you. The final award in the land use category is the gold award and that's gonna go to Mark Strudley, the County's flood control division manager, led the way to successfully resolving a 53 year old problem that involved addressing flooding issues along the Paaro River. The project to rebuild the Paaro River levees have been stalled in the feasibility stage with the Army Corps of Engineers for many years. Mark was able to work with the Army Corps and legislative offices to get the project out of the feasibility stage to change state mechanism related to funding and to form a joint powers authority to assist with local funding and oversight of the project. Additionally, Mark's work freed up access to $100 million in funding for this important project. As... That's more than worth it, more than one whoop. As a result of Mark's diligence, the plan to rebuild the Paaro River levees to increase the level of protection from a 10 year storm to a 100 year storm can now become reality. I'd like to thank and commend Mark on his outstanding efforts and happy to present him with the Gold Award. Thank you very much. This award is very much appreciated, but it's equally strange to be up here receiving an award for a project that's been around for 53 years that has involved so many staff and elected officials over the years to try to get this thing moved forward. I would be remiss if I didn't thank Supervisor Caput as well as Supervisor Friend. Supervisor Friend is also the chair of our Zone 7 flood control district, which is one of the sponsors for this project. Couldn't be without their assistance and leadership with our advocacy, both at the state level and the feds to get this done. And I will also add to the description that was provided that the project was just awarded $1.8 million in federal funds from the Army Corps of Engineers to start the design. So this is a big step forward for this project. We've had so many people involved over the years. I can't begin to mention how many people's shoulders I'm standing on, but I would also be remiss if I didn't thank my two staff in Zone 7 because while I along with others are feverishly hunting for more money to build this project, Rusty Barker and Antonela Gentile are hovering in the background making sure the existing levies don't break, which is just as important as what we're doing in trying to build new levies. And I should also extend a huge thanks to Congressman Panetta, as well as assembly members Mark Stone, Robert Rivas and Senator Bill Monning, all of whom have been instrumental in helping us with our state and federal advocacy and securing funding for this project. So thank you very much. Are there any members of the public who would wish to comment on this past item? And you have an opportunity now if you'd like to say anything. I don't see any hands. So we will now recess for 20 minutes to accommodate the reception that the board will have out in the hallway, I believe out here. Is that correct? Yes. So do I need to? So we reconvene at 11 o'clock. Yeah, and please we'll return at 11 o'clock. Is that correct? Item number 13, we're scheduled a closed personnel and litigation session to be held at the conclusion and we'll now have closed session with the conference, with legal counsel. There will be a report after the closed session, right? Yes. Yes, okay. And then we'll reconvene here right after the closed session is over. Okay, do we open it up for any public? No, we already had public comment on closed session earlier. Thank you. We have a, excuse me, we have a report on a closed session. Thank you, Supervisor. The board of supervisors in closed session has authorized the county to file litigation against parties that will be named later. Okay, do I need to open it up to the public if they want to speak? No. No, okay, thank you. And now we will go to consider a report on continuous process improvements initiative known as Primo. We'll attend a project, we'll have a presentation, right? Yes. And after the presentation, I'll announce where we're gonna go. We'll have a presentation before the project showcase where we interact with all the different Primo projects that have been going on for the past year.  Oh, sorry. So we're gonna start with our recap, talk about the demonstration projects in general, really focus on some lessons that we've had over the past year. Then we'll go over to some logistics and overview of what we've gotten into the community room with the project showcase, we'll recess and we'll be down in the room to interact with all the different team members and then finally we'll be discussion and board action down into the community room. So if the new process improvement is one of the cornerstones of the CAO's office overall work plan, it starts with the strategic plan, the operational plan, performance center initiative and the process improvement. CPI is a workplace philosophy that's really focused on the incremental improvements to business processes. That's data-driven, focused on customers and how it comes. And it's all about empowering employees and innovating within their workflows from day-to-day experts who do the work. Thank you. The most common approach to CPI is known as LEAN, and LEAN is all about finding and eliminating pain points within specific business processes. In Primo, which is the staff here, our job is to look to integrate CPI and LEAN countywide through all of our business practices. And how are we doing that? Well, we're doing that through a three-pronged approach. First is with leadership and practitioner training, so teaching employees and leaders how to lead and how to actually use the tools and the approach and strategies of LEAN. Next is consistent communication, creating awareness and employee engagement around the program. And lastly, and what the focus of this presentation is, is on demonstration projects, which are the tangible experience and learning how to use LEAN in the county. So these are the projects that you'll be interacting with today. This is from our first cohort that launched about a year ago. There's a wide and diverse group of folks here from all different government sectors. Shortly after we launched our first cohort, we were approached by the whole person care group, and they also wanted to get in on the action. And so we launched a second cohort with whole person care a few months later. The unique thing about this second cohort is not only is it county employees, but it's also consistent employees of our community partners and service providers as well. So they're all speaking the same language. Of the 14 active projects, about half of them have completed their projects or at least completed their first gen, first generation project. And we've had over 50 total green belts in the training, of which about a dozen or so have received their green belt certification. What all of these projects have in common is they've all been trained to use the DMAIC process. DMAIC stands for define, measure, analyze, improve, and control. We define a project by understanding its scope and really taking a deep dive in how the process is actually working, not what it's supposed to do, but how it's actually being done. We look at measures and take baseline measurements to really understand the health of the process as it currently exists. We take all that data and analyze it and ask critical questions about why are we doing the things that we're doing and how come it is the way it is and can we do better? Once if you're diligent with the first three phases of the DMAIC process, the improvement phase actually comes in very natural and improvements tend to emerge organically. And a lot of times it's about implementing and piloting improvements and seeing if they make an impact. And when they do make an impact, creating some control measures to make sure we don't revert back to the old process. Along the way, teams are using a wide variety of tools. We've listed out here just some of the more popular tools that have been used by all the different project teams. These tools are designed to really help turn over rocks and understand what's really going on within a process and help use critical thinking in order to find better ways to get the job done. And we wanna pause and say that these projects are demonstration projects and that we are learning how to use lean in the county. And throughout the course of the past year, the COO's office, we've had a chance to really engage with all the different project teams throughout the course of the year and have conversations with them about how's it going? What are their challenges? What are their needs? And throughout the course of those conversations, what our takeaway has been are these three main themes, which is one, is recognizing the importance of how to scope a project. Second, understanding the organizational readiness before you start a project. And lastly, understanding the champion's involvement and their role in the overall project. And I'll do a quick deeper dive in each of those three. So project scoping. What we found is that there's a natural instinct when you start a project to say, we can take it all on and we can really swing for the fences. And what we found is that vague and broad scopes, it just takes too much time and too much energy and they're not scoped appropriately to the time resources that they have to actually work on the project. I like to use a baseball analogy in that instead of swinging for the home run, we should be batting for singles. And that you'll always get another at bat and there'll always be another generation of a project to get going. So you might make a little improvement now and build off that momentum and make another improvement later and build off that momentum and make another improvement later. So moving forward, we're gonna be offering better guidance and better training on how to appropriately scope projects to the resources that they have so that they can continue with positive momentum. Organizational readiness. And what we mean by that is that there is a prerequisite before you start a project within a team and within a work area, within a department, within a division, that there needs to be a sense of employee trust and engagement and a sense of healthy conflict and a focus on data and results. And without those elements, projects can be extremely difficult. When you're going through a project, a lot of times you are turning over rocks to really understand why we're doing something. Why are we doing this step? What is this step necessary? Does it need to be done? And when you ask those questions in an environment where you don't have that trust and that healthy conflict and that ability to look at the data and the larger picture, those issues can really cause a lot of static and a lot of conflict within a team. In fact, we've had a couple of teams that have really had struggled where they've found really great projects for the great scopes and they've really done some good work on measuring and analyzing what's going on. But as they've rolled out their improvements or rolled out different ideas, they've met a lot of pushback and so they've caused some delays in their projects. So moving forward, we want to provide resources to teams as a prerequisite before they start a project around self-assessment of their team and self-assessment of their workplace and of their organization to see if they have those cultural attributes that are needed to really start a project. And lastly, project champions. When we first started this whole Primo effort, we did offer would-be champions a one-day training and then follow with that up in seven or eight, nine months later and with a second training and we just realized that just wasn't enough and we have a lot of eager and ruling and energetic project champions and project champions by the way is the ultimate owner of a process. It's the person responsible for the outcome of a process and what their job is in a lean environment is to be supportive, is to guide, is to help break down barriers, help to address challenges and help the project team move forward with their project. And what we would have found is that project champions were willing to do this but they just didn't know how. And so we were gonna be investing more time and more resources and coaching our champions and making lean leadership a part of our everyday management and leadership style. So with that, just wanna give a quick view of what's on the horizon of what we're looking for in our second year. We're looking to expand our practice and realizing that green belt level training isn't appropriate necessarily for everyone in the county but we do feel like we can expand the practice with some specific tools and specific approaches for more general county staff to use. We wanna work on culture, we wanna offer training and workshops on how to help build some of those organizational readiness attributes that are needed around accountability and trust and healthy conflict. We wanna build on the expertise of our green belts. They're gonna be continuing working on the next generation of their project, their next at-bat for that single. We wanna continue to support them and support them as they become mini consultants within their work areas. And lastly, we wanna work with our champions as I mentioned before and offer them more support and more training on how to be better leaders in a lean environment. With that, I'm gonna pass this off to Rita to talk about our project showcase. Thank you, Rita. Good morning, Chair, supervisors. This second part of our study session consists of a project showcase which will take place downstairs in the community room and will provide the board and the public an opportunity to engage with the project teams. You'll learn more about the specific work of the project teams, their improvement efforts and their experience with process improvement. You'll hear about the Lean Six Sigma process improvement tools and principles that were placed in action and hear about achievements and challenges faced along the way. So the community room downstairs has been set up with four stations, stations A, B, C, D. At each station, we have three visual boards describing the project process improvement and the board and the public will circulate through the stations and guided groups. At each station, you'll hear a brief overview of the project about two minutes and we'll have time for questions and discussions with the project teams. And we will be letting you know when to rotate between stations. Once the groups have visited each station, the board will reconvene at the designated seating area. You can see it on the screen off to the right for public comment and closing remarks. We will provide the board with, we are providing the board with packets once we leave, they have a list of the teams that will be presenting and a layout of the room and a designated station where we would like you to begin your first rotation. And these handouts are also available downstairs for the public as well. Does the board have any questions before we move on to the second part of our study session? Thank you for the presentation. It sounds like there's some good efforts that are, and just learning that's coming out of this process in year one. I just wanted to ask you two questions. One is you talked about lean leadership and how to sort of inculcate that into the work that we do all the time. And I'm not sure if it's a question for you or for our CAO about our leadership academy and what do we do around lean leadership skills within the leadership academy? I'm not sure who would best answer. Still morning, good morning supervisors, Elisa Benson, assistant CAO. Right now we don't have a specific class on lean leadership as part of the academy. We have as a team started discussing as we reevaluate the curriculum every year, adding that to it. One of the, some of the specific things that we're looking towards around projects is finding that balance between standing ready to support teams when they ask for it and what proactive steps our champions need to be taking to sort of encourage them to come, the teams to come to them. It was one of the things we want to move more towards is what I would call sort of visual management or dashboards and sort of bringing that practice to more work groups just so they're looking at data regularly, talking about data and then figuring out how do they make changes. Some of our departments and work groups already do that as a part of standard practice and it's just continuing to sort of expand that. And lean just has a very specific approach around it, but we are talking with Melody in particular around how to cross over or sort of bring all the threads of these initiatives into the leadership academy. Well, I think it makes sense to have all these parts harmonized in some way. The other question I had is about organizational readiness and just saying, I wanted you to say a little bit more about that is it, I could see the problem of sort of trying to take on too much, right? I mean, you know, we want to fix the permitting process that's probably not going to happen in six months, right? But the question I wanted to ask is when we say organizational readiness is, does that mean that the departments, but there may be some departments that aren't putting resources into this or aren't listening to the changes, what does that readiness really mean? It really is about the culture within that particular work area and whether the employees themselves have the trust amongst one another and have trust with their management to say, well, we're going to start this journey on this project and we may be looking at specific work and how work is actually being done and maybe being asked to change. And it's what's really about a change management view and really understanding that we're all going to get through this to the other side and where we've seen hiccups around this have been around, you know, not having that sense of trust in one another or a sense of you and I can have a healthy debate and discussion about whether or not a step in a process is really needed or not. And without those recipes, those conversations can become difficult to the point where it stalls the project because you can't find some resolution. So how do you work to resolve that issue? I mean, do you have to just wait for someone to retire or is there interventions? Yeah, we are exploring training curriculum and workshops to help foster and break down some of those personal barriers and help, yeah, I guess we're foster, better trust and better healthy conflict. And so we'll be offering those resources as well as offering resources around as they mentioned sort of self-assessment. So if a team says we really want to look at this process, this might be a big project, well, we can provide them with here's some tools to assess if your team is ready to actually take this on beforehand. And if not, then we can direct you over here to work on this first. And I guess the next question would be is this talked about at the department head meetings about creating this culture? It is, it's a regular topic. If our yearly department head retreat where we actually devoted our last retreat, this was the main topic. We actually had someone come in and speak about their experience in another county leading this efforts. And then we talk about it in our department head meetings as well. It really is about changing the culture of the organization as well as getting departments to release resources as well. And that's one of the big difficulties, right, is how do you implement something new while you feel like you're not, don't have enough resources to do your job as it is. But I think it is possible and it is ultimately it's about inspiration, getting departments to, department heads to inspire their staff to really want to do this. And I think most employees of course do want to do this. They want to serve the public in the best way possible. A good example of this and is at the state level, what's going on with real ID? I don't know if you've seen the, I've been following, us policy nerds follow this stuff, right? And read all the articles and journals. And so real ID, as you know, was a disaster when it came out through DMV. And a good example is my wife more than a year ago went to get her real ID. She had filled out all her paperwork, had online, she made an appointment and still stood a couple hours, more than a few hours out in the sun. And still it was a disaster, right? And so a few weeks ago, I went without an appointment to Capitola and it took me 45 minutes from two hours to 45 minutes. And a friend of mine just did it last week and went to Selena's DMV and it took 35 minutes to get a real ID. And if you just look at the improvements that the governor Newsome has done, they've done exactly this. They actually implemented process improvement at DMV. And right now the whole way that it's organized is so much more a fast and efficient and pleasant versus just a year ago. And so that's a real world good example of how the governor, by appointing a manager who believed in this process and actually implemented it, made changes that are really quite impressive at the state level and what they're doing right now at the state and DMV is really impressive for us to look at. Thank you. Always being a singles hitter, not a home run hitter. I really appreciate your analogy. But it's pretty much follows up on that. Where do you get the pushback? Is it the concept or the funding limitations that we have, we have to live with them? So do you go into it like this is how much we have and if so, if you wanna add something, you might have to take something away or how does that, what's the mindset? I mean, we do have realistic funding limitations. So you have to live within those. Is that one of the pushbacks of, well, we should get more of somehow or? I think the approach is that within Lean, you are taking a bit of a risk in that you are investing time and resources now that will be made up later because you've had more now a more effective and a more efficient process once you've gone through a project. And so that's really where we are working with our champions and working with project teams on making sure that scopes are focused and so that we don't have projects that are lingering for months and months and months at a time. So you dedicate a lot of resources in the front end and that gets made up and really in the back end. Can I add one other thing to that? And this is where Eric touched on the scoping is when we interacted with our project teams often, they really wanted to go big and sort of going big and doing it well does take a lot of time. So part of it we were giving them, I don't want to say permission, but to scale it back to sort of, yeah, go ahead and we'd rather have you try something more quickly that's maybe not as big a scale and get practice and sort of and have people see the result, have them feel that experience of, wow, we didn't do that thing that way and the world didn't fall apart. I mean, because that's part of the thing that we're dealing with is that concern of we've always done it this way is for whatever risk perception that people have, if we make a change, are we gonna encounter something we didn't expect? So we're sort of saying try and do smaller, lower risk changes so you get practice with it and it's more around, again, what Eric said, change management and maybe scaling too big and so we're just trying to sort of pull it to go with what you think is gonna, that quicker, smaller win and then we'll move from there. I'll add to that though at times it's gonna take more resources. So we're trying to do this within existing resources whenever we can, but the DMV change that I just made was made with additional resources. They actually brought in extra computer people, they brought in process people, consultants from outside and it wouldn't have been possible if they had just said DMV, do this on your own. They couldn't, they were so busy as it was. So we're gonna have to look strategically and with the board as well as when do we put additional resources somewhere to get a big jump ahead in terms of our ability to serve the public. And just like what Carlos just described, when we brought in, it's in the staff report but we didn't hit on it in the presentation today. In December we did bring back our consultants who are master black belt trainers to meet with each of the teams, to sort of help them assess where they were given the beginning and sort of their work through six months and help them sort of narrow their focus and really drill into the ideas that they had. So it's, I mean, to that extent, we did supplement the existing resources with outside perspective and expertise. And I just, I guess I'd add, I think obviously this is all really great. I can't wait to like get down there and see hands-on. But I also think in terms of the board and setting priorities and allocating resources and more fluid discussion between us about, well, if we do this, we can't do this is always okay. And then the second part is I know in my five years here, I thought when we approved some small projects, they were relatively small and then they've, they grow into these massive efforts that I never would have contemplated them becoming. And so being able to work with us as we get board direction on what the scope is and how can we get something to good enough and get it implemented and then see where we go from there versus a two-year process and community meetings and this and that and this and that that then takes on a life of its own. So let's have that conversation more often. Okay. So we're ready to reconvene downstairs and we'll go right into the different modules or what are they called? I don't know what you're calling them. Group. Stations. So you each have, we didn't, we decided we weren't gonna have you all count off one, two, one, two, one, two. So it's actually three, three groups and Rita has assignments for you. Okay, so and we will not come back up here after. No, we won't. That's correct. So we'll go to the three stations and then after that we'll reconvene downstairs to take public comment and we have a setup for you folks downstairs at the very end. So it's in the basement and it's, you can't. In the new community room. Yes. Yes. Okay. And we will take action on the item down there. Right. Okay. Thank you. Just to say this enough, but thank you for everything that all of you do. It was just a remarkable amount. You know, it's interesting that we're doing this on the days of employee recognition because obviously you're all leaders in making the county work better. When you hear, when I heard the time savings that we might experience, whether it be parks or ISD or the information about linking people with services more effectively, it's the kind of work that we need to have going on. I'm glad that we have a process where we can actually look at these pieces and understand what we could do to make it better because we're the arm of the government that doesn't print our own money. So we have to, we have to always figure out how we could be as effective with the resources that we have and having people work together and struggle with some of these things. I'm sure some of these things are a struggle. You start off doing one thing and then you realize you got to do another or you realize that the task is pretty big and that you have the sort of determination to see it through, to address the big questions. And by this process actually inform us better about what's going on. I mean, when Park says we grew by 476% but we've only grown the staff by less than half, we can see what those problems are really clearly and to think strategically about how you allocate those resources better is a benefit for everybody in the community. So thank you for the work. Thank you for sharing this and it's great to be in this room. I don't think I've ever had this bright in this room before. Whenever I eat here. I wanna just thank, it was a great day to do this when we recognized some of the employees for their top honors. And as I mentioned then, we've got 2,400 employees that are just top notch overall. And I hope you've spread that word to your colleagues in whatever department they may be. And this has really brought to fruition what the intelligent capacity is of this whole group of people and every person in every department that we have. This is, the county government is complicated. We're dependent on state and federal funding for a lot of these issues. But what really gets me is the diversity of what is being presented here, obviously with the different departments. And to see what you're doing and to really, the bottom line is to save time and to improve understanding for the resident that comes in to find out how long it's just gonna take or what do I have to do? And you're getting back to them in a timely manner. It's just, it just can't be overstated. I feel like I'm on a lineup up here. But so I'm driving out across the street in the jail. But, but I, this is truly impressive. And I just hope that we can let the public know and I think we're continuously trying to do that of what we are doing and what you are doing to make improvements to our service, to our residents become a reality. It can't be overstated. I just really appreciate what you're doing. It's really a pleasure to talk with each and every, well, most of you today, but I hope you understand what we're trying to do. And I really wanna thank really our CAO, Carlos Palachios for getting this ball rolling in the first place. It really has, I think, and what is really impressive to me is that every employee I talk to, are you enjoying that? Yeah, I feel like I'm, well, not wanted, but I'm being listened to or I have an idea and yeah, it could become a new policy, form of our policy making here in the county. So thank you for everything that you do. It's truly, truly impressive. Let me echo everybody else. It was really exciting and for every one question I got answered, I probably had like 10 more, so I'm hoping to continue. Hopefully this is just the beginning of the conversation where I can hear more about the work you're doing and if you bring candy and treats, that always helps. But one, let me just say, I really appreciate it. I thought the insights that you all gathered either intentionally or unintentionally were really good. I also liked the fact that there were a bunch of people who said, we tried this and it didn't work or we're doing this and it's not what we expected. Every year before budget hearings, I meet with the department heads, I ask them all, like, what are you gonna tell me that you've tried that hasn't worked and failed and what are you gonna do? What are you gonna do next year that's a risk that might not work because if we're not taking risks, if we're not failing, we're not learning, and so I wanna really take a moment and honor the people who said, this isn't how it turned out or we're gonna either change course or we're gonna try something new. And then finally, I think as an overall observation, one of the things is to have as many conversations with us as we're trying to implement policy that affects people's lives on the ground, the leanest thing we can do is to not do things that don't have an impact. So to the extent that we can think about things or react quickly when we're not getting the outcomes we want, don't make you go through a six-month-year process in order to come back to us and say, oh, we need to change it, like, let's adjust and move quickly. And so to the more iterative conversations we can have, I think the better we will be in the long run, and I look forward to a lot more conversations with you all. Thank you. No, thank you for everything you do. You have a big responsibility. If something doesn't go right, people will complain immediately and sometimes they take it out on the supervisors. We all appreciate what you do. We can't do anything without you. And what I'm impressed by is when we do get various concerns or complaints brought to us, that we actually get them to the right place to talk to the right people. And we can't, basically, we can't do anything without all your help. And like it was said, we have 2,400 employees and we're representing the county as best we can. And I'm actually very proud of the way we represent our county. And hopefully we don't micromanage you because there's five of us. Maybe, I don't know, which one of us is the worst one as far as making your job? You got a chance here to, you know, complain. But anyway, thank you very much. Okay. Chair Caput, I just wanted to say on behalf of the County Administrative Office how proud we are of working with you and calling you our co-workers in this process, all of the teams that have worked on these projects, very difficult to do. But I really am thankful for your enthusiasm and your professionalism in undertaking these projects. So thank you very much. I'm very, very proud of all of you and all the work you've done. With that, we're just gonna have a motion to accept and file the report and direct the CAO to return in June, 2020 with a progress report. Okay, any public comment though? Okay, we had our chance. So we have a motion and a second and all those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? The pass is unanimously. Our next meeting takes place on Tuesday, March 10th, 2020 beginning at 9 a.m. at the board chambers. Thank you.