chair it's nine o'clock you're ready to start okay good morning on this January 26th at nine o'clock 2021 for to the meaning of the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors would you please call the roll yes Supervisor Koenig here friend here Coonerty here cap it yeah and chair McPherson here we will now move to item number two and before we have a moment of silence I'd like to acknowledge that the passing of a great person for our County Mr. Robert Bob Shepard he was a tremendous person who was a finance director for the city of Santa Cruz for 14 years he came to he worked with the county before becoming finance director and then he was a chair of the county oversight treasury oversight committee then he went into teaching at San Jose State and at UCSC from he taught up there for 1983 to 2015 and he was the founder and professor of the county up there and received some statewide excellence awarded for teaching and from the California Society of CPAs outstanding educator award tremendous accomplishment he was a tremendous person great family men and we're going to miss Robert Shepard he is a great public service force I don't know anybody else might have a comment with anyone if not we'll have a moment of silence and then respect the Pledge of Allegiance have a moment for silence okay I think we will now recite the Pledge of Allegiance I think it's appropriate to you can be seated as you wish recite the pledge I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all we will now go to item number three the consideration of late additions to the agenda additions and deletions to the consent and regular agenda Mr. Mr. Blasius do we have anything yes chair McPherson we do have a number of corrections and an agenda to the agenda on the regular agenda item number 12 there's a correction the item should read consider directing the planning department to explore a permitting process for tiny homes including movable tiny homes tiny homes on wheels and tiny homes on foundation in the ADU code amendments as legal accessory dwelling units has outlined in the memorandum of supervisor Koenig and supervisor McPherson there's also additional materials there's a revised memo packet pages 201 and 203 on the consent agenda on item number 34 there's additional materials attachment E ADM 29 form and attachment F grant information worksheet on item 40 there's a revised memo packet page 503 on item 51 there's a correction the item should read defer to February 23rd 2021 approval of agreements for CZU lightning complex fire emergency actions related to road debris removal ditch cleaning bridge replacement road reconstruction and culvert and guard rail repairs impacting critical roadway facilities and direct the public works department to return on or before March 23rd 2021 with administration status of emergency work closed out in final costs on each as recommended by the deputy CAO director of public works there's on this item there's also an additional materials there was a revised memo packet page 602 and then we have one agenda on the consent agenda this is item 53.1 this is to direct the chair to write letters to our state legislative delegation in support of Senate bill 74 the keeping California working act as recommended by supervisor Coonerty there's a board memo print out there's a bill text of SB 74 and there's a fact sheet to keep California working up that concludes the corrections and addenda to the agenda chairman person. Thank you. Okay we will move to item now move to public comment and before we we get there I would just like to make a comment of my own it's hard to believe that we might have a real debris flow crisis tomorrow or in the days following in the sunny day that we're experiencing right now without much wind but we expect a very heavy rainstorm with winds possibly up to 50 or 60 miles an hour tomorrow night. I just want to thank everyone involved for the reflow and evacuation planning this county has been planning for this. Well we hope this event may never come we hope it never does but we've been planning for months on how best to plan for this situation and try to target where the storm might hit. But I want to just I can't overstate how critical it is for people to evacuate after receiving a warning. The sheriff's department yesterday started I think at nine in the morning and went into the late afternoon to try to contact as many of the households I think there's 2,800 households with 5,000 people. Did you lose me? I'm sorry if you did see. We hear you we hear you talking. I'm sorry I'll get it back on and there's 5,000 people that were involved. The evacuation points at Sentiment of Valley Schools at Pacific Elementary School in Davenport and then at the Community Center and Scott's Valley will be available for people to come and park their cars or trailers there if they wish. The evacuation of animals with that will have going to the fairgrounds as a staging point for PG&E is at the Bramhill Showgrounds now. Our planning process has been significant and in I think it is the willingness of our residents to evacuate that will really truly save lives. We know it's a lot to ask to leave your home, especially if the debris flows don't actually materialize, but the conditions are there for it to happen. So we need to be cautious and prepared and I want to just urge anyone to adhere to the evacuation orders that they have received and we hope this gets past us as soon as possible if it all arrives. I can't overstate how much time and effort has gone into this from so many departments to make things safe for everyone should the reflow activity really take place. So thank you everyone for adhering to those warnings and those orders. We appreciate it very much. Chair McPherson, this is Carlos Palacios. I believe we skipped over item number four. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay, I was getting a little confused. I guess. Item number four, thank you. The announcement by board members of items removed from the consent agenda to the regular genders or anyone that wanted to remove an item. Let me see here. I'm sorry. Did I lose you for a while? You lost us for a little bit, but you're back now. Okay, I'm sorry. The storm hasn't hit. I'll just put it that way. Excuse me. I skipped over item number four. The announcement by board members of items they want to have removed consent to the regular genders or any item that you would like to have removed. Any board member? Okay, seeing none, I've made my public comment about the reflow. Are there any other comments from the public? This is the time for any person to address the board once during the public comment period, not exceeding two minutes. The comments must be directed to items on today's consent and closed agenda items yet to be heard items on the regular agenda topic on today's agenda within the jurisdiction, not on today's agenda, but within the jurisdiction of the board. We'll take public comments now up to 30 minutes, and if necessary, additional time for public comments will be allowed after we continue and today's regular agenda. Do we have any public comments? Good morning, Chair. And yes, we do. And I will just reiterate that we have on the slide in front of people who are watching through Zoom how to connect either by telephone and or through the Zoom app. We have five hands up. The first person is calling with a telephone number that ends in one nine nine nine. If you give me one second, I'll bring up the timer and you can start. Okay, so speaker number one nine nine. You will be asked to be unmuted. You have two minutes to speak. I'm unmuting you. Please expect accept the unmute and start speaking. The timer will begin when you start speaking. Good morning. My name is James Ewing Whitman. Can I be heard? Yes, we hear you. Thank you. Excellent. Good morning, everyone. I'm going to take the two minutes. I wish I had longer. You know, as part of the consent agenda, item number 17, approval of the reading by title of any ordinance considered for adoption that may appear on this agenda. And then it goes into some detail. I don't know. I'm questioning that. Nothing's really going to change. Item 14a that has to do with a closed conference with legal counseled threat to public services or facility, government code section 54957a. Who knows what you guys are going to be talking about. But I, as a concerned community member, would like to know more about this. I've spoken on many subjects in the past. With what's going on in our county and the nation in the world, there's a lot of troubling things going on. And I've spoken about the ICD codes where any two members who are chosen or elected could decide to imprison any other committee member or things maybe even worse than that. So with the limited time I have left, I've been involved with some service groups that provide films to the public to educate the public on things that are going on. And there were two community members from out of this county that traveled to this county to discuss some things. Now I don't know how many contact tracers they have in the Gilroy County, but in Santa Cruz we have 70. And there's generally less than seven people that speak in these counties for these meetings. And it'd be nice if we could have three minutes. So what they were saying and sharing with us is that the contact tracers are going to largely residences where English is the second language and they are getting these people to be tested. And I know looking at the information on the on the next speaker is Olivia Martinez. You have two minutes to speak. I am unmuting you. Please accept the unmute and start speaking. The timer will begin when you start speaking. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes, we hear you. Thank you. All right. This is Olivia Martinez. I'm the Region Two Director for SEIU Local 521. So I'm calling regarding Item 25 of the Consent Agenda. And I had sent an email to all the Board of Supervisors in December letting you know that the City of Santa Cruz had approved in December to extend the FFCRA sickly for their employees. And we were very grateful that they did that. Other agencies have done the same thing after we've asked them to do so. The county has agreed to extend the FFCRA sickly. However, we are asking the Board to approve it to be retro to January 4th. We've seen from the beginning of January 4th an escalation of members that have been COVID-19 positive or their family members.  And so we're hoping it's the right thing to do since we did talk to the county in December. And it took up until January 26th for them to make a decision to take it to you guys. So that's what we're asking. It would be grateful from our members that you do that to retro it to January 4th. Thank you so much. Thank you. The next speaker is a caller. If your number ends in 2-9-1-5, you will have two minutes to speak. I am unmuting you. Please accept the unmute and start speaking. The timer will begin when you start. Hello, this is Becky Steinbruner. Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you. Good morning, supervisors. I am also concerned about the impending storm. And I'm very concerned that evacuees from the CZU area are not being allowed to bring their animals to the Santa Cruz County fairgrounds. What are these people supposed to do? The Graham Hill showgrounds also are not available for animal evacuations because PG&E has leased it out 100%. A small number of spaces are available at Quill Hollow County Park, but that quickly filled. And now the Equine Evacuation Group is scrambling for places to put animals for people so they can't evacuate. If they can't evacuate with their animals, they may not. Now I want to know why is the Santa Cruz County fairground not available for these people? There is a 30-year contract between the fairgrounds and the county for times just like these. Why is that contract not being honored? I would like a response this morning because this is critical. I did write to Mr. Beaton and I copied Chair and Vice-Chairs McPherson and Koenig on that. I really need an answer, as does the public. I also want to speak to Consent Agenda Item 22, the County Fire Cow Fire Budget. The grand jury report urged you to cause Cow Fire to be more accountable. This budget report is not $85,000 for a steel building. It is not explained at all in the documentation. How will this serve County Fire and those who are paying a new benefit assessment tax, which needs to be adjusted, by the way, for the hundreds of homes in the County Fire area that burned, but are still now... Thank you. Our next caller is Carol Bejorn. You have two minutes to speak. I am unmuting you. Please accept the unmute and start speaking. The timer will begin when you start speaking. Good morning. This is Carol Bejorn. Can you hear me? Yes. Awesome. So in my past communication with the board about the governmental restrictions around stopping the spread of COVID, I've relied either on the law, the California Emergency Services Act, or science. So far, relying on the law or science has not yielded any change and a lessening of the governmental restrictions that are still being imposed on the people of this county. And it's been more than 10 months after the declaration, after the state of emergency by the governor, which was on March 4th, 2020. So today I want to change kind of my approach and just appeal to common sense. And in that regard, I want to speak to like what might be impending, I guess, as far as governmental regulations. And that is whether there's going to be a mandatory requirement for vaccination. So I'm curious, why would we need a vaccination for a disease that has a 99% recovery rate? And so I'm just going to repeat that so that everybody can think about that for a second. I feel like everyone is so caught up in the fear that they're not really... So here's the question again. Why would we need a vaccination for a disease with a 99% recovery rate? So with that, I yield. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is a caller whose number is private. If you have a private telephone number, you're being asked to unmute. You will have two minutes to speak. Once you accept the unmuting, please start speaking in the time where we'll start. Private caller. Okay, we'll go to the next speaker. The next speaker, and I am sorry I'm going to massacre your name, is Conception Vizcara. Your last name is Vizcara. You will have two minutes to speak. I'm unmuting you. Please accept the unmute and start speaking. The timer will begin when you start speaking. Good morning. My name is Concepcion Vizcara and I am calling in essence to be the voice of the unrecognized essential workers that we have out in the fields doing hard labor and having to deal with this terrible pandemic. With your permission, I would like to have somebody read it and then be able to translate. 2.6 million. Ahora mismo es la situación que estamos atravesando con COVID. No es suficientes trabajos y necesitamos extender la moratoria a los desalojos. Desafortunadamente no tenemos suficientes recursos para pagar el alquiler atrasado y el alquiler que sigue. En general, no tenemos suficientes salarios para cubrir todos nuestros gastos y desafortunadamente somos muchas personas que estamos pasando por lo mismo y es por eso que nos unimos para pedirles que se aseguren de que la ayuda para inquilinos llegue a las familias de bajos ingresos y que los salarios en este condado para los trabajadores sean salarios dignos para los que para lo que nuestra economía pueda mejorar para que podamos cubrir todos nuestros daudas como delegado del Consejo de Beneficios para Trabajadores de Santa Cruz. Estoy aquí para pedirle el nombre de los trabajadores agrícolas y otros trabajadores que nos defiendan. Gracias. En esense, although they agree with the eviction moratorium through January 30th, they're right now they're in a situation that they're going through with COVID. There's just not enough work and they need the to extend the moratorium on evictions at the end of this month. Unfortunately, we do not have enough resources to pay back rent and the rent that follows. In general, we don't have enough money. You can miss this car. You can continue speaking. You're getting the time for two speakers for the translation. Thank you. Thank you very much. Unfortunately, we're struggling just to make ends meet and having to pay the rent back. We don't have enough salaries to cover all of our expenses, much less just to get internet for our kids and to feed them. There are many people who are going through the same thing and that is why we are coming together to ask you to ensure the renters' aids gets to low income families and that wages in this county for workers are living wages so that our economy can improve so we can cover all of our debts. As a delegate of the Santa Cruz Workers Benefit Council, I am here to ask on behalf of farm workers and other workers to advocate for us, please. And thank you very much. Thank you. The next speaker is Jen Levine. You will have two minutes to speak. I am unmuting you. Please accept the unmute and start speaking. The timer will begin when you start. Good morning, Supervisors. Thank you for discussing Tiny Homes, item number 12. My name is Jen Levine and I'm a real estate and housing lawyer. I live in the Live Out Pleasure Point area and I'm the author of the Tiny Home Law Book called Building, Occupying and Selling Tiny Homes Legally. Excuse me. I've been studying Tiny Homes as a housing solution for seven years. What I would like to do is describe how Tiny Homes are used by families as ADUs. Tiny Homes on wheels are generally purchased for between $50,000 and $100,000, which means that if somebody finances them, they have an RV payment of approximately $350 per month. They're easy to set up in a family's backyard. Typically families, I don't know why it sounds so nervous, typically families will use them for their family use, for example, housing for their teenagers as an additional bedroom for a couple of years. If you have teenagers, you understand. Then when their teenagers grow up and leave home, they rent out their Tiny Home, creating additional housing for a few years, which also creates income for the homeowners. Then after retirement, people downsize and move into the Tiny Homes in their backyard and rent out their larger family homes. This creates housing for families as well as income for working families. Tiny Homes are a great solution for long-term problems, including housing and income for working families, which are both problems in our community. I hope you support this and thank you for listening. Thank you. Our next speaker is Bernard. Bernard, you were being asked to unmute. You will have two minutes to speak. Please accept the unmute and start speaking. The timer will begin when you start. Good morning, Chair Board. My name is Bernard Gomez. I'm here to speak on a consent item number 33. My thing is, the probation officer has requested for almost a double of the amount for a county's continuing agreements list. Right now, there's a big shift with the Department of Juvenile Justice Realignment, SB 823, the closure of state facilities, bringing our youth home that are out of the county. This item is requesting to continue to send youth out of county for ranch camp purposes. Now, my concern is, one is, the COVID regulations, there's other counties across the state that have stopped accepting youth due to those regulations or to the danger of it. However, Yuba County is still continuing and I'm just seeking to put a stop to that and keep our youth safe. There is a $4,000 a month expenditure to house each kid in that facility, so just thinking about what can we do with this money and reinvest it into this county is considered a site county when it comes to juvenile justice issues. So, we should maintain that our youth here at home closer to their families, figure out new ways, new opportunities, not just send them out for continued confinement and stress-related, just impacts that's going to happen. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is a caller. If your telephone ends in 8-0-4-5, you will have two minutes to speak. I'm unmuting you. Please accept the unmute and start speaking. The timer will begin when you start. Good morning. Can you hear me? Yes. Hi, my name is Ellie Black. I've been a speaker and put the comments for many years here and I'm wondering today if the council is aware of the article that is circulating our community now for several weeks, discussing the community foundation that appears to be running most of the services and actions that have been taking place since the pandemic began. There are some pretty strong claims in this article and myself and others have looked into it and it appears to be accurate. And if it is accurate, what does that mean as far as the citizen of this community being represented by the people who we choose in the elections to actually represent us? I'm wondering if this foundation has the best interest of Santa Cruz County residents at heart or if this is something that is a bigger picture and we are just being used as pawns in larger schemes. I certainly hope that our elected officials are acting in the best interest of their constituents, but I really have to question a lot of these things in there. These are being run by private foundations with anonymous donors. How do we know what the actual purpose is of all the actions that are being taken as many have already spoken about the logistics and the common sense behind this lockdown with killing small businesses and causing so many problems in our community based on an illness that has a 99% recovery rate. If this really makes sense, so I don't expect a response as usual, but I would appreciate a response if that's possible and I'm certain. The next caller is Steven. You have two minutes to speak. I am unmuting you. Please accept the unmute and start speaking. The timer will begin when you start. Steven, if you're still on, please accept the unmute. Okay, we're going to move to the next person is a telephone caller. If your telephone number ends and 1401, you will have two minutes to speak. I'm unmuting you. Please accept the unmute and start speaking. The timer will begin when you start. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. This is Marilyn Garrett. I'm excerpting from Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s website, Children'sHealthDefense.org. It's the topic, Big Pharma, Views. Join me in supporting Dr. Paul Thomas, pediatrician, a hero defending children's health. Dr. Thomas is leading the battle to practice ethical health care and evidence-based medicine, honor and form consent, and stand up against medical coercion at every level. Please join me in supporting his efforts. And what they did was compared from his practice in Portland, Oregon, integrated pediatrics, vaccinated children with unvaccinated children. Vaccinated children, he states, appear to be significantly less healthy than the unvaccinated. It is time to state this fact. Vaccines are not safe. Vaccines are associated with significant acute and chronic health issues in children, including asthma, allergic rhinitis, breathing problems, behavior issues, ADHD, respiratory infection, ear pain, other infections, the list goes on. The article has graphs comparing what he's stating here. And he says, it is unethical to administer an experimental COVID-19 vaccine that has no long-term safety testing without setting up a system to compare. Thank you. And Chair McPherson, that is the last caller that we have for public comment. Thank you. Before we get to the board members to comment, I think we can have a brief explanation of two of these items. The one on the animals. I know we opened a vaccination clinic there, and it's going to paint some of the way we are doing things. Ms. Coburn, I think you can explain what is going on at the fairgrounds as far as animals and so forth. Yeah, thank you, Chair McPherson. So it is correct that the animal shelter in Equine Evac are triaging the animals at Quail Hollow. They're asking folks to come there. There are a number of sites that they're redirecting animals to, one of which is the fairgrounds. The fairgrounds is serving as an overflow site for animal evacuations. The stables are open. They've received about 30 horses at Quail Hollow and redirected them to a variety of ranches. The shelter has also accepted some animals into its operations. So I would encourage people looking or needing help with evacuations to go to Quail Hollow or to contact the Equine Evac hotline. And let me see if I can get you that number. The number to call is 831-708-898. Okay, thank you. I hope that clarifies the situation. I know it's a moving target, so to speak, with the clinic that we set up there at the fairgrounds as well. So thank you for that explanation. There's one other item that was brought up. I think we can get a quick explanation from our personnel director on item number 25 on the emergency aid sick leave, Ajita Patel. Chair, give me one second and I will get Ajita on so she can speak to you. Very good. Ms. Patel, you can now speak. Good morning, Chair McPherson, members of the Board. On item number 25, this is a letter to go ahead and extend the Family's First Coronavirus Relief Act, and it actually will bridge the gap for any employees who needed to be off for COVID-related reasons from January 1 through the 26th. So as to Ms. Martinez's comments, it does serve the purpose that she was hoping for. Good. Thank you for clarifying that, and I appreciate some quick responses to some inquiries we had. Now I'll ask the Board if they have any comments on the consent agenda items they might want to pull or just comments on any item. Supervisor Koenig. Yes, I'd like to request to withdraw item number 27 from the consent agenda. Mr. Colligan has withdrawn his application to serve as my alternate on the RTC, and I'll be finding another candidate. Okay, so that would be withdrawn, okay. Anything else? Just a few comments. Item 26, I want to thank Tamiko Collins for volunteering to serve on the Civil Service Commission, and item 30, Michael Lamebach for volunteering to serve on the Commission on Disabilities. Item number 32, the Autothep Reduction Task Force. I have heard from a number of constituents that they're having their catalytic converter stolen, particularly off of Priuses, so I was glad to see this item on the agenda, approving funding for the Autothep Reduction Task Force. On item 41, approving the grant applications for the Farm Park and Chanticleer Park, I've heard significant concerns from constituents about not just building new parks, but maintaining our parks, making sure that we have sufficient budget to do that. The Parks Director has assured me that we will have budget to maintain these parks once created, so I'm glad to hear that. And on item 49, the right of entry agreements that will enable access to the rail corridor for our public work staff to begin pre-construction work. I have had assurances from the Executive Director of the RTC that that is really simply enabling necessary pre-construction work, such as geotechnical analysis, and it would be necessary for whatever kind of infrastructure we build on the corridor. Right. Very good. Thank you. Supervisor Friend. Thank you, Mr. Chair. A couple brief items. On item 28, I'd like to thank my colleague, Supervisor Coonerty, for taking the lead on this item. I'll let him speak more to it, but there's a lot of affordable housing funding coming from private trusts as well as from private companies over the hill, but some of that isn't really making its way or none of it is making its way over to our side, and so this is a letter to try and encourage participation over to the Santa Cruz County area as well. On item 44, which is funding regarding Aptos Creek Road, or specifically the signalization, the synchronization of the lights between Trap Gulch and all the way to State Park, I just wanted to thank Public Works for with everything else going on, working with our office to get that application into the Air Board. $400,000 is a lot of money to help that area out for synchronization. We've also been working in the First District as well to improve some of that synchronization. These really can make a big difference in ensuring traffic flow, so thank you to Public Works. On item 49, I'm going to have to recuse from that item. I live within 500 feet of the rail line, my principal residence, and so I have a financial conflict and will need to recuse from item 49. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Supervisor Coonerty. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a couple of comments today. First on item number 20, I want to thank the Parks Department for working to create some after-school programs for parents who are trying to manage jobs and teach in homeschools and everything else, and so I'm hopeful that these efforts will leave a little bit of burden and provide some good activity for kids who are in need of it. Item number 21, I want to thank Sam Laforte and the Cannabis Licensing Office. They have really stepped up and done both a great job in improving permits and in doing enforcement, and it was a big challenge. We put it on their desk and I appreciate that they were able to respond so effectively and to the benefit of our community. And finally on item number 28, as Supervisor Friend mentioned, you have some large companies that are trying to fund affordable housing as their industries have contributed to some of the affordability challenges in our area, and I think it's important that we start the conversation by reminding them that we are here, we are certainly impacted by the housing market in the Bay Area, and that by leveraging some of these dollars for some existing projects, we're going to be able to create some good affordable housing in our community. Thank you. Supervisor Caput. Yes, thank you. A quick note on the fairgrounds for the animals, for the evacuation area. The fairgrounds is always open for emergency situations, so I'm glad we cleared that up. PG&E, that's correct, they are out there in the renting space for a staging area when they are parking their trucks, they have many trucks out there, but they're still, they're not in the area where the animals would go. Okay, item 29, I want to welcome Vanessa Carter as the 4th District Appointee to the Women's Commission, and as Supervisor Koenig welcomed the appointment of Michael Lembach as the 4th District Appointee to the Commission on Disabilities. And then I want to make a quick comment on item number 41. It's good to see us that we are trying to get statewide park development and community revitalization programs. We're looking for grants and that'll really help out South County if we can get a little money down here in the South County also. And that's pretty much it. And I guess we're going to vote on everything. And is item 27 going to be pulled, which would be the request of Supervisor Koenig? Yes, it will be pulled. Okay, that'd be great. Okay, I'd like to make a couple of comments. Mr. Supervisor Koenig mentioned the coronavirus funding on item number 20. I want to thank all the departments for coordinating our efforts to spend $27.7 million. Our response to the pandemic has been, from our local people, it's been nothing short of amazing to me. We have different directions every 24 hours, it seems, from the Fed to the state and what's in and what's out. But the adjustment the people have made has been just fantastic. And I really want to thank everyone for making the effort, the extra effort to make this work as best we can. I am concerned about the certainty of our future support. There's a strong agreement among some lawmakers to provide direct support for local governments. We hope that happens. But until we get the funding to provide these services, it jeopardizes our responsibility as a county to respond. I would like to give some additional direction for the staff on the strategy for how to spend the estimated, I think it's $3.6 million in community support and equity grants portioned for future funding. I think that should return to the board for discussion before the contracts are proposed. That would go along with item number 20. Item number 21 also, Supervisor Coonerty mentioned about the cannabis licensing office. I was glad to see that we made some changes last year that are bearing some fruit of a high number of licenses in the industry that we have now on record. I think that I do think though that we should revisit the revenue projections we have for this year, this next fiscal year, 2021-22. Historically, we've missed the projections for licenses and fees. I'd like to perhaps as part of the solution make revenue targets more realistic. I just want to say that I think we should give a closer look on our estimates of revenues because we haven't hit the targets. I'm not sure we will if they're put too high again. I'd just like to revisit that or certainly have more discussion on that when we can get a more predictable pattern over the next several years. Item number 28, the affordable housing tech companies. It's all part of our housing crisis, meeting our housing crisis here. We have a lot of people going over the hill or have been previously to work in Silicon Valley companies. I think it would be proper for them to consider helping us. I think there's 30,000 cars a day that go over there on the commute period. I think the tech industry, it's impacted the affordability and availability of our homes here in Santa Cruz County. I really appreciate their taking a look at that and trying to get the Silicon Valley to pay more attention to us. Item 42 on the donation to the parks. I want to thank the community members of our own general services department for the contributions it made to our parks department. It's been a wonderful thing to see the investment in our programs and facilities at a time when they're needed. Most people need to get out as much as they can. Item number 45, again this is on road resurfacing projects. Public works for this. I want to thank them for their update and again to the voters who passed by more than two-thirds measure D in 2016. We're making a lot of progress on the road repair section of measure D and I think it's just critical that we recognize that. With that, I would entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as amended. Mr. Palacios, does that include 53.1 or is that on the regular agenda then? That includes item 53.1. Okay, just to be clear. Okay. The consent agenda as amended. I'll second that. And Caput, please call the roll. Supervisor Koenig. Hi. Friend. Supervisor Friend. Coonerty. Caput. Hi. Chair McPherson. Hi. The consent agenda is approved as amended. Now we will go to the regular agenda. Item number seven for a report, an update. We have an annual update from the Metropolitan Trans District or Metro. Alex Clifford will be making a presentation but as the member of Metro, as I have been for years, I just want to thank them for the cooperative effort that they have had with the Regional Transportation Commission in the recent years. It's been really great and very, very important and really some great results coming from that cooperative effort with the R&D. I'd also like to mention I think Mr. Clifford will be saying something about it. We have two big projects that are in the critical final stages or getting to those final stages of our community transportation that will meet our transportation as well as our climate goals. One is the downtown station rebuilding of the downtown station as well as the Perot Transit Center at the Soquel Avenue project across from Dominican Hospital. Also, bus on shoulder, which we'll be hearing about is critically important to help us in our commute times, reducing those commute times. Our investment in our transit system is critical for many reasons but not the least of which are the climate factors that will be mentioned, I'm sure, and the equity goals. So I'm really happy to introduce Mr. Alex Clifford, the CEO of the Transit District, to give us his annual report on Santa Cruz Metro. Thank you much Chair McPherson and Board of Supervisors and CAO Palacios. I appreciate the invitation to present to you the state of Metro on an annual basis. Let me just ask, am I going to share my screen or will the CTV people be bringing that up? You will be sharing your screen. Okay, let me go ahead and bring that up then and you can see that and then please do let me know if for some reason my slides are not advancing. I noticed something in a recent presentation where they weren't advancing. So again, I'd like to present the state of Metro and integrate into that a COVID update. I'm sorry if I could interrupt you before you start. If you could up in the left hand corner up top hit the play and that way it will show each slide individually. There you go. Thank you. Does that look a little bit better? Yes, thank you. Thank you. Sorry about that. I should be getting better at this by now. Yeah, so this is a little bit different presentation than normal, but this hasn't been a normal year in 2020 and flowing into 2021 and hopefully that advanced. So what does Transit look like in this hopefully upcoming post COVID environment? The struggle is that nobody really knows. We certainly have more questions and answers. There's not much history to draw from. We know a little bit about challenges in economic recovery from the Great Recession, which generally lasted from about 2008 to 2014. But certainly that was not the same as what we're experiencing with COVID, but it can tell it can give you an indicator of how long you can encounter an economic downturn. In 2009, there was the swine flu that that was a pandemic, but it never got this bad. So we didn't learn a lot from that, nor did we from the 2005 avian flu. But certainly we did learn a little bit about sanitizing techniques. And we were able to draw from that experience soon after the new year in 2020 to actually begin preparing for the arrival of COVID in our county by starting to bring aboard disinfecting products. So what do we want to do? We want to always do the right thing. Of course, you do. We do. We want to protect our customers and our employees. We want to take great care for the public trust, thoughtfulness, doing the right thing and trying to avoid costly mistakes. And as as we have experienced since probably about March of 2020, we think we're making some of the best decisions by participating in various state and national forums with fellow transit agency CEOs and various webinars to share experiences, things that work, things that didn't work, and to help each other integrate into our systems, things that that other agencies have proven work and avoid costly mistakes. So Metro's initial strategy is sort of divided into three phases. One is to restore the public and customer confidence in a safe experience when riding our bus. In order to attract people back, we think we need to also look at adding value. And then we're spending a great deal of time thinking about what does the post COVID transit service look like. So phase one, restoring the public confidence. So we joined APTA's health and safety pledge and this is a pledge of certain things we will do to help keep our customers and our bus operators safe and certain expectations that we have of our customers. These logos and of our representation of our commitment to safety have been placed on all of our buses and various collateral provided to us by APTA have also been placed on our buses. And then you've probably noticed as you see the buses going down the street that these, a number of our advertising spaces on our buses, the sides and the rear back of the buses, have been replaced with these messages, deliberately disinfecting, seriously sanitizing and serious about safety. Again, we're trying to communicate a message to our customers come on back. Our ridership is down way down and I'll talk about that in a few moments, but we really want to invite our riders back to the extent that they can come back and use the service and we want them to feel good about it and how safe it will be. So with that, one of the things that we did to protect our customers is we blocked off seats within our buses so that we can create physical distancing. And we also installed these clear plastic between row sneeze barriers. So if by chance you have somebody sitting behind you, you will have this barrier between them and potentially any airborne droplets. We did this on 100% of our buses. I know of no other transit agency across the nation that I've heard of yet that's done anything like this. There is no over the counter product and we have great talent in our maintenance group and they were able to customize every bus, every one of these clear plastic between row dividers. In addition to that, we every night when the buses come into the facility to be fueled, we have somebody that has an electrostatic fogger as you see on the left that is spraying disinfectant throughout the bus, all the high touch surfaces, the seats, the seat backs, the stanchions. So every bus that comes through the facility to be fueled gets disinfected each night. On the right, you'll see that we've added hand sanitizer dispensers to all of our buses. So as the customer boards the bus, they can dispense some hand sanitizer and as they're paying their fare.  We hired some temporary employees and stationed them at our various transit centers, Wasenville, Capitola, Scotts Valley and downtown Santa Cruz. And every time a bus comes into that facility, these folks jump on the bus, they have a bucket of hand sanitizer, they dip a rag into it and then they jump onto the bus and they quickly sanitize all the high touch surfaces, the hand straps, the stanchions, the back of the seats. Before that bus pulls out back into service, a bus may arrive, it may be there for a minute, it may be there for 10 minutes. So these folks have to work pretty fast. What does that do? Well, it tries to address the obvious. A bus every night gets sanitized, it leaves the shop the next morning sanitized. But the moment we start boarding passengers and they're touching surfaces, we can no longer make that claim. So the nice thing about our system is our buses all go through these various transit centers multiple times throughout the day. And so they're getting this additional disinfecting multiple times throughout the day. So it's a real nice edit feature again to help our customers feel safe on our buses. And then for our bus operators, for a while after COVID hit in this county, in order to protect our bus operators and still be able to provide service, we discontinued front door boarding and we went free ferris for a brief period of time while we took safety measures to protect our bus operators. So again, there are no over-the-counter products for something like this. Our talented people in our fleet maintenance facility constructed for every bus all customized these clear curtains. And what a bus operator does is each time they pull up to a bus stop, they deploy the curtain to protect themselves from airborne droplets that may be dispensed by customers boarding the bus. And so once we completed this retrofit of 100% of our fleet, we started boarding again at the front door and collecting ferris again. And then in addition, as you all know, the county mandated several months ago that people wear face coverings and they were very specific in their or the county health officer was very specific in their order that people waiting at bus stops, people boarding buses, people riding buses and bus operators must wear a face covering. So we have we've put together these notices to our customers, they're on the buses and we have empowered all of our bus operators to refuse rides. If somebody tries to board that bus without a face covering that operator can refuse the ride. If they get any pushback that operator will radio dispatch, dispatch will either send a supervisor or call it call the police or the sheriff to come help us out. So we're very serious about that. And then sometimes we experience customers who board with a face covering properly done.  If the operator witnesses that again, they're empowered to pull the bus over, ask that person to properly wear their face covering. If they do not, they follow the same procedure I described earlier. So again, we're very serious about keeping our customers safe and our bus operators safe. So then along about October, we thought, well, you know, think this is before Halloween, if you will, we thought things were getting significantly better. Remember, our county moved to through the state recovery color coding to one of the better designations.  We celebrated the things that I've described to you today. Come on back, ride the bus. You know, if you if your job has returned and you need to get to work, you need our service, write our bus. If you need to go to the grocery store, the doctor's appointment, write our bus for providing you a safe experience. So then phase two added value, which is an overlapping phase, which we are in today, the talk today, no matter where you are at is contactless, touchless, anything and everything. And so we're looking at that too. Now, we've always been contactless, touchless, to the extent that our customers have used our smart card, they can load value on that smart card, whether that be cash or transit passes, and they can bring it near the fare box and it'll electronically debit that card or acknowledge that it has a fare on it. So we've always had that. So we've made a big push to our customers. Please, to the extent you can, move away from paper, fare, media, cash and coin, move to contactless, touchless. In addition to that, in October, we launched our first smartphone application, the Splash Pass, and we're migrating customers system wide. Originally, that was going to be a pilot project for just Highway 17. But because of COVID, we advanced that to a system wide launch. We're also investigating a proposal we hope to bring to our board, sometime soon, to expand Wi-Fi. We have Wi-Fi today available to our customers on Highway 17 commuter buses, but we do not on the rest of the fixed route system. We think it would be great added value to extend that. The new technology for the automated vehicle location system that we're currently installing on our buses has that feature to be turned on. There is a cost. We will ask the board if they will approve that as soon as we accept that automated vehicle location product being installed on our buses. In addition to that, early this year, we hope to bring a proposal to the board to install automatic passenger counters on our buses. Now, these before COVID were something that we were thinking about because we like data. We like to be able to plan a system around data. We don't like anecdotal planning, and passenger counters tell us a lot about where people get on and off, and we can better plan our service. The neat feature about this with the smartphone application is that once we launch this, if the board approves it, the customer will be able to see on their smartphone application how many people are on that approaching bus. And if they are uncomfortable with the number of people on that approaching bus, then when the bus arrives, they can wave it on by and wait for the next bus. We're giving the customer the opportunity to make a decision on their own about their comfort level relative to the number of people on that bus. The board has approved redesign of our bus stops. They're going to get much smarter and much nicer looking. We've also added the chaos at Watsonville and Santa Cruz transit centers. Since we've closed down our customer service, the customer facing window at those two locations because of COVID, we added this feature so that people can in effect push a button, much like, if you will, a ring doorbell. And it has a camera and customer service will see that customer and be able to interact in real time with that customer. And then we talked about automatic vehicle location, predictive arrival that's currently in the process of being installed on our buses. On to the next slide. So phase three is the post COVID. And again, we're spending a lot of time thinking about what that looks like. We're evaluating, actually, we brought a proposal to the board this month for on demand service that's been delayed to be further discussed at the board's meeting in February. But that would create basically six microtransit districts near existing fixed routes in which we would do a kind of a door to door service. This is a pilot project we're proposing. And then as much as financially feasible, we're trying to restore service levels to pre COVID levels. This is important when the customers need to use our service, when their job returns, or they need to go to the doctor dentist grocery store, that service needs to be there for them. If it is not, if we if we cut service too much, and it's not there, they'll find other ways to do their business, or they may they may actually if they're transit dependent and we're not available, they may not have a job to go back to because they can't get to the job. So it's important for us to have the service there when they need us, as opposed to the alternate philosophy, which is wait until the demand is there and then put the service there. We don't agree with that. We think it needs to be there, even if we're running some empty buses for for a while while we come through the phases of recovery. Customers have told us through a post COVID survey that that as as they return, they expect better frequency on certain routes. So we're paying attention to analyzing that. We need to do better with on time performance. Today, on time performance has been very antidotal, some minor sampling with a human being going out there and sampling ridership on buses, and also our on time performance on buses. When we get these two products that I talked to you about earlier, the automatic vehicle location and the passenger counters, we'll be able to move into an environment where we plan our service and hold our service accountable by real data. That'll allow us between service changes to better plan route timing and and produce a bus service that operates more on time. Customers demand that we're going to do better in that respect. We're thinking we're rethinking the role and functionality and layout of transit centers don't have an answer there yet, but we're rethinking that. We're also rethinking the future of ticket vending machines, paper, fare media, cash and coins. And then as a supervisor McPherson alluded to earlier, we think bus on shoulder is a real nice added value for our customers working closely with the RTC to get that in place in a couple of years. And that hopefully will allow us to engage some new express service. Maybe we'll call it bus rapid transit BRT who knows to get passengers, customers from South County to North County to work in a very quicker way. I talked a little bit earlier about ridership being down. It is it is down significantly. This chart shows that ridership through about the middle of December. And it as you can tell, we've gone through a bit of a roller coaster ride. And when the governor issued the stay home order ridership plummeted again. Now, in the last couple of weeks, ridership has started to come back up a little bit. We hope that that will continue. But it is it is far away below what it should be. For example, on this slide, it shows that it's at about 14,000 trips in that particular week in December. And that same time last year, it should have been at about 53,000 trips. So we are way off our mark. But still, we like to see this going in the right direction. The yellow line simply tells you how many people were passing up because we capacity constrain our buses. We only allow, for example, 50 people maximum on a on a 40 foot bus. That results in us having to pass people up occasionally because our bus is full. So we track that so that we can make adjustments in our service as needed. Should we notice that we're passing up more people? There are too many people. We prefer to pass up nobody quite frankly. So moving on to the state of our budget, a little bit briefly, a couple of notes there. As of December 31, like you, our revenues are down. In our case, we're down about 1.3 million in revenues. That certainly is dominated by passenger fares. Since our ridership is down about 85%, there too means your revenues are going to be down. Also, we're not receiving the payments we would have otherwise received from UCSC, for example, because their students are not doing in-person classes and they don't need the level of service they normally have. Now, the good news is we've been managing, with a microscope, our expenses. And we've been able to manage our expenses down, saving about $3.2 million through the first half of our fiscal year. So net net, we're at a favorable $1.8 million. We need to continue to do that because we don't know how long it's going to take to recover from what's going on right now. Now, the state of the congressional funding, you all know that the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 was signed by the president. It's an omnibus bill that simply means multiple things are going on, budget, corona relief, other things are going on all at the same time and they all pass with one vote and they all get signed by one signature. Within that omnibus bill, there was the Emergency Corona Relief Act that now has another term. Congress is really good at starting out with various terms and abbreviations and acronyms and then later on they end up changing it and they did it again today. And so the newest acronym or abbreviation is Chrissa C, R-R-S-A-A. And then there was also the federal budget that was adopted. Now, those both have important things to us that I'll tell you about here shortly. So in the COVID stimulus dollars, what was at the time when the slide was drafted called the E-C-R-A and we would be allocated through their formula programs. At this time, we thought 12 million. Actually, we know that number a little better today. It's closer to about 13.5 million. This is similar to the CARES Act and the CARES Act, we were allocated transit emergency funding to the tune of about 20 million dollars. So these two funds combined become a reserve that we will use to try to survive the economic downturn. And we're desperately trying to do everything possible to avoid furloughs and layoffs at our organization. So far, we have not had to do that only because Congress stepped up in the CARES Act and now in this latest, a Corona Relief allocation specifically to help transit survive and to help us avoid layoffs and furloughs. So we've taken that to heart and what will happen is in the coming months, as we go through the economic roller coaster ride, in those months in which we don't have enough revenues to pay all our bills, we'll draw down on these funds to bridge that gap in order to avoid layoffs and furloughs and major service cuts. We hope that by the time we run out of this money that the economy has recovered and things are back to some semblance of pre-COVID funding and ridership and expenses. But we don't know. And to that end, we will also hope that the federal government will monitor this closely and create additional Corona Relief emergency funding for us. And then in the budget side, we have something called our transit authorization that's included in the budget. We also receive some money annually because we operate compressed natural gas buses. It's an alternative fuel tax credit. It's an extender, which requires Congress to renew it annually. That gives us about $300,000 that we'll use in our capital program. And then the FAST Act, which is again our transit authorization, funds in law, appropriates in law, a certain baseline of funding for transit agencies across the nation. And in the last couple of years, including in 2021 funding cycle, Congress plused up. They gave us more than the minimum, which was 198 million nationwide to our agency. That'll be about $205,000 additional dollars. And then they also did plus ups in the capital programs, bus and bus facilities, and LONO. In 2016, we got a LONO grant to buy three electric buses. And we hope to go for a LONO grant probably in 2022 or 2023. This year, we'll be going for a bus and bus facilities grant to build a new paratransit facility over near Dominican. So this plus up should help better our chances, we hope, of receiving that grant. And then I'd just like to close with our slide. All Santa Cruz Metro dedicated employees are frontline heroes delivering essential services. Mr. Chair, I'm happy to entertain any questions. Sorry, Mr. Chair, you're muted. Thank you, Mr. Clifford, for that detailed explanation. Transportation is the critical component of our lifestyle around here. And you've been able to adjust to 85% downturn in ridership through no fault of Metro's doing. But I, along with Supervisor Koenig, do sit on the Metro Board of Directors. Do I have any questions from the Board of Supervisors, Mr. Koenig? No questions. I just wanted to thank Director Clifford for the presentation and say I'm particularly excited about the automatic passenger counters and vehicle locators. I think those having that additional data is going to be crucial for, as you said, bringing back the service in a way that is efficient as possible and meets the demands of customers as best as possible. So really excited to see those technological updates. Thanks. Thank you. Supervisor Friend, any comments? No, Chair. I don't have any questions. I just have a brief comment. Thank you, Mr. Clifford, as always for this presentation. And I know that the district has considered sort of on demand and ride sharing options previously. And so I do look forward to hearing more about that as the time moves on. And one thing that the district may want to consider is actually doing sort of an annual State of the Metro District kind of presentation. You do have events. I know that you invite everybody too. But maybe this kind of presentation seems like it could be done well as a Metro sort of countywide thing. Re-invite all the various City Councils and stuff to participate in. Thank you. Good. Supervisor Koenig, any questions? Comments? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't have any questions. I agree with Supervisor Koenig about the importance of the real-time data and the efficiencies and, you know, better quality of service that we'll be able to provide our riders. And so I look forward to seeing that come forward. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Caput. Yeah, thank you. I want to thank Mr. Clifford for the presentation. And I know on the 91X I've used that before. Is that still running? I know in the summer sometimes it's not running because Cabrillo's not in session. But right now with Cabrillo's enrollment down and ridership down all over, is 91X still running at all? It is still running. We've made some adjustments to service, obviously, to try to respond to what level of service we can provide and match that to where the riders are. But yeah, we're still getting a decent amount of South County to North County commutes. You bet. Thanks. Thank you. Okay. I'd just like to close and saying you know, thank you from the board comments. Thank you for your efforts and adjusting to these crises that we faced from coronavirus, the fires, or whatever it may be. Thank you. I think Metro is ready to serve and do a better service in the future when we get back on track with reality or what it used to be like. So thank you very much. Are there any comments from the public? Yes, Chair. We have some speakers that are wanting to talk. The first person is actually, if before we call them, if you will give me a second, I will share my screen and put the timer up. Okay. Our first speaker is Monica McGuire. You have two minutes to speak. I am unmuting you. Please accept the unmute and start speaking. The timer will begin when you start. Hello, it's Monica McGuire. Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you. So Mr. Clifford, I'm wondering, would you please right now give full answers to the questions often asked throughout the year by the public, even if you've done them that at other meetings, but the public is not present at every meeting? And one of the ones that has come up a lot this year is, are you employing or buying smaller vehicles for the low ridership? And can you give any details about that choice, however you have made it? Since I know that question has been brought up quite a bit. And the adjunct need, of course, there is that smaller buses could actually allow for the rider and driver hours as options where they would go mask-free, that you could offer mask-free hours for the fuller to the population that would like that. Anyone who would actually ask the public our opinion would find out that a full third of the people who are wearing masks at work already suddenly 68 hours a day and don't want to be wearing it the extra, plus all the people who would be riding buses but cannot now because we can't wear masks. And it's better if you offer the ability for people who can't wear masks to be matched up with drivers, can't wear masks and or are willing to not wear them because of knowing that it's so much healthier to exchange healthy bacteria. And we've already tested our bodies so extensively with less touch, less shared breathing, less everything so that they'd be better off if they had that option as well. So we please answer those questions and or put it on the agenda for a future meeting as is supposed to happen when public asks questions like this. Thank you so much. We appreciate hearing. Hey Mr. Clifford, if we could if you could answer those questions at the next semester board meeting I think that'd be the proper place to do it. Next caller please. Thank you. Next caller is a person who's calling in on the telephone. Your number is private so I can't call your number out. If you have a private number and you are wanting to speak now is your time. You have two minutes. I am unmuting you. Please accept the unmute and start speaking. The timer will begin when you start. Hello. This is Marilyn Garrett. I used to ride the bus a lot. Now that we've been conditioned to think everyone's a biohouser than you have to be a certain distance apart. People are afraid to go out. I what's happening I think it's pretty obvious is that anything that benefits the the public is and small businesses are being destroyed by these policies and when you have policies of lockdown and restrictions this is the predictable consequence destruction and destruction of any type of representative government. That's where we're heading. Also when I heard Mr. Clifford talk about automated counters that's putting people out of work. Real-time data I learned that this automatic vehicle location involves frequencies of microwaves connecting to the 4G Verizon antennas that Zach Friend saw that there were 13 of these in a square mile in Aptos. So as the bus goes along the frequencies that are dangerous biologically harmful are kicking in and this people on computers and Wi-Fi it's more and more damaging microwave radiation. So it's very disturbing very unhealthy and while you and all over real-time data and vehicle location you're. Thank you the next person is also a caller. If your number ends in 2915 you have two minutes to speak I'm unmuting you please accept the unmute and start speaking the timer will begin when you start. Good morning this is Becky Steinbruner can you hear me? Yes. Thank you. I want to just point out that the paid ads on the sides of buses was a source of revenue for Metro and I really think that that the ad should be reinstated to bring in money for Metro. People really aren't going to pay attention to a sign on a bus saying it's safe what they really need to hear is some of this information that Mr. Clifford has put out like the people who jump on and quickly sanitize things that's what will build confidence and trust in building up the ridership so I encourage those paid ads to come back to help with the budget problems. I also am opposed to putting Wi-Fi onto the fixed route system there are many people who like Ms. Garrett and myself are EMS sensitive there are many people in this community that are and that would use the bus but would not use the bus if there's Wi-Fi fixed on the bus. As Ms. Garrett said there are plenty of nodes along the routes where people can and do use their Wi-Fi devices so please do not do that that is a violation of the American Disabilities Act and I am opposed to doing it. Regarding full buses having to pass up passengers when Metro is aware of that why not put in a follow-up bus so that those people who are being passed up will within five minutes ten minutes get another bus coming along with assurance that will also increase your ridership because if people are passed up repeatedly they're going to stop trying to use the bus. I also want to take a exception to your claim that you did not lay off anyone you did in fact lay off Mr. John Dowarty because of thank you and chair McPherson that is the last public comment. Okay I don't think we need any any action on this the next I'd like to just mention that the next board being out of Metro is Friday February 26th at 9 a.m. and it'll be a virtual meeting so it's February 26th at 9 a.m. if people have any questions that they might want to bring to Metro again Mr. Clifford thank you for your presentation and for Metro's adjustment to the ongoing circumstances that we have. We will now go on to item number eight that is a public hearing to this is a public hearing to consider accepting the coastal commission modifications ordinance number 5345 relating to county code section 1310.694 regarding vacation rentals adopt a resolution accepting the commission's modifications adopt ordinance based on the modifications and take other actions as outlined in the memorandum of the planning director we have a resolution of acceptance of the triple C amendments to 1310.694 D2A and exhibit a ordinance amending SCCC 1310.694 with CCC modifications amendments to 1310.694 CCC modification there's a strikeout underline the CCC report staff report the CCC staff report addendum and the CCC hearing correspondence it's included in the county letter do we have a presentation I would like to open the public hearing and who will be presenting. Good morning Chair McPherson this is Jocelyn Drake Jocelyn yeah thank you. Good morning it sounds like you can hear me yes we can thank you. Good morning good morning Chair McPherson and supervisors I'm Jocelyn Drake the principal planner with the planning department this morning's hearing is to request that the board accept the California Coastal Commission's modifications to the county's recently passed ordinance on vacation rentals as you'll recall back on September 1st 2020 the board passed ordinance 5345 amending the vacation rental provisions in chapter 1310 of the Santa Cruz County Code and those amendments adopted by the board include included lowering the caps in the designated areas and strengthening the code enforcement provisions chapter county code chapter 1310 implements the county's local coastal program and therefore the amendments must be approved by the coastal commission so just recently on January 13th 2021 the coastal commission held a public hearing and they agree that the amendments are in conformance with the county's local coastal program and they do implement the California Coastal Act however they took exception to one proposed amendment uh the commission the uh the coastal commission found that the numerical cap adopted by the board for the life of designated area or also known as the Lota does not reflect the current stabilized market in that the board adopted cap reduced the number of permits permitted in the Lota below the number of permits currently issued in the Lota so as the board may recall the the adopted cap by the board was 200 220 vacation rentals and 18 hosted rentals for a total of 238 short-term rental permits the coastal commission reviewed that proposed cap and they felt that a revised cap of 262 vacation rental permits and 18 hosted rental permits for 200 for a total of 280 short-term rental permits was more appropriate they felt this because the cap the amended cap the revised cap of 280 reflects the current number of permits issued in the Lota they also included an additional nine permit allocations for to allow for processing of applications that were placed on hold due to the moratorium last summer so i just wanted to point out that this numerical cap even revised at 280 would still allow fewer permits than the existing percentage based cap that is currently in effect in the Lota that 15 that we started with and as reflected in the current code so that is the recommendation and so staff is asking that the board conduct a public hearing and accept these modifications with passage of a resolution transmitting the acceptance to the coastal commission and a new ordinance that incorporates these changes which is the one change that i mentioned the change to the cap in the Lota as required by law acceptance of the amendments will return to the coastal commission for approval before going into effect and i'm available to answer any questions and we also have the planning director with us here today as well thank you thank you just for that presentation um are there any comments from the board before we open the public hearing uh i see any hand i don't see any hands raised okay we will open this to the public are there any comments uh from the public yes char it looks like we do have a couple of comments if you give me one second i will share my screen okay apologize okay our first person to speak is joe hall you are being requested to be unmuted you will have two minutes to speak once you start the timer will begin when you start hello and good morning my name is joe hall i'm a resident of live oak referred to in your staff report is the Lota thank you for approving the county vacation rental ordinance nine years ago it's made a big change in our neighborhood and most recently the step the board took a big step forward to reduce the cap on vacation rentals we've had nine years of experience and we know what vacation rentals do in our neighborhood what the cap recognized with the time it takes to enforce climate conditions on vacation rentals and residential neighborhoods they are basically businesses and their goal is to maximize return while neighborhoods goal is for people to live in one comment from the coastal commission staff i thought was interesting it was mentioned that the market for vacation rentals is stabilized well the reason it's stabilized was the county pass the vacation rental ordinance otherwise there'd be a lot more in our neighborhood the ordinance succeeded in that aspect during the discussion by the coastal commission members an idea was put forth by a member of the commission and that idea was that instead of lowering the number maybe shift more of them into hosted vacation rentals which are managed by the owners and we've had very few problems with i would hope your board would direct the planning department to consider a future amendment to the vacation rental ordinance during forth a new proposed cap of 220 which you previously approved and increase the number of hosted vacation rentals by a similar number this allows the coastal commission access but helps neighborhoods have less party houses because many of the bigger homes that's what they end up there's really no other way to describe it so anyhow in closing i would hope you would continue to look at putting a numerical cap that's lower you can enforce it people can live with it we're not asking to do away with it we're asking to something that can be more successfully managed in the neighborhoods thank you so much and thank you for considering thank you the next person to speak is a telephone caller if your number ends in two nine one five you have two minutes to speak i am unmuting you please accept the unmute and start speaking the timer will begin when you start thank you this is becky steinbrunner can you hear me yes thank you i was quite surprised to see that the coastal commission would um demand a higher number of housing stock be taken out of be removed from housing stock and put into um essentially a business a commercial business within the residential area i i i oppose this in all areas but i'm curious why they singled out the live oak area which had a cap but the Davenport area also has a lower number why was that that area not addressed um this makes no sense to me and i i support what mr hall said that using the hosted rental system would provide places for people to stay we have plenty of hotels even though many of them have been leased to the county for providing covid homeless shelter but there are plenty of hotels and that's what needs to be supported with transient occupancy tax taxes in commercial areas and not bringing these party houses to our neighborhoods so um please i i hope you do not support this because i think it's unacceptable and does a disservice to the live oak area thank you thank you our next speaker is carol the horn but i apologize but jorn but jorn the horn i'm gonna get your name right sooner or later you will have two minutes to speak i'm unmuting you the timer will start when you start uh yes thank you this is carol beyond can you hear me yes thank you awesome thank you um so i want to echo the comments of joe and brekkie um i am very surprised that the coastal commission came in with this higher number and i agree i think those a rental unit should be um more evenly distributed throughout other areas not just concentrated in one area um and and the bigger issue here too is um the coastal commission is an unelected body and they're essentially changing in ordinance so um i think we need to look really hard at that and make sure that the people of santa cruz that are paying the property taxes that have elected the board of supervisors that you all um represent us even in the face of an unelected body such as the coastal commission so that would be my uh recommendation or encouragement to you all is to really think about what your role is and how you are elected represent the people the coastal commission was not elected and so if we if you need to stand up for the people i would highly encourage you to do that i yield thank you thank you our next speaker is crystal you will have two minutes to speak i'm unmuting you please accept the unmute and start speaking the timer will begin when you start hi can you hear me yes thank you perfect my name is crystal cadillus i'm a representative of turnkey vacation rentals and i actually just have a question for the board um thank you for the presentation and i was just hoping to get an idea i know timelines are hard to pin down i just have owners on my end that i represent waiting for some type of solution so should this move forward today hypothetically what can we see in timeline as far as permits being reissued assuming they're in a zone that's not capped okay thank you and chair that is the last public comment we have on this item okay uh jocelyn there were some questions that you might be able to answer there um yeah um the question that i noted was why the um cap was recommended to be raised in the lota by the california coastal commission but not in the other two designated districts um which are um the salza and the dazda davin port and the sea cliff aptos area and the reason why is because um back um last summer and fall when the board adopted revised caps in the designated areas the caps um the new lowered caps they were all they've all been lowered over what the percentage rate um cap is that's currently reflected in the um vacation ordinance is however in the dazda and in the salza the caps were lowered to reflect the existing number of permits in those designated areas in the lota the live oak area the cap was actually lowered below the number of existing permits in the lota so right now as of a month ago when um this went to the coastal commission or a few weeks ago um the uh we had 253 permits vacation rental permits issued in the lota so that is um significantly higher than the 220 cap that the board adopted and that was that was intentional um to to um with the idea be that over time through attrition as um vacation rental permits were um relinquished and and weren't renewed or properties changed ownership that we would actually remove um a significant number of permits out of the pool of permit availability and that is what the coastal commission had an issue with is they felt that the current number of permits that are out there reflects the current stabilized market and we should cap it at status quo okay i think that answers most of the questions that were um is there any other there's no other comments from the public um i will bring it back to the board for consideration i i want to um repeat one of the questions another question raised by the public in which i've received a number of times which is uh if the board moves forward with this action uh as recommended today what happens to the vacation rental moratorium uh the moratorium is lifted when the new ordinance goes into effect great thank you you're welcome any other questions from the board members supervisor McPherson i'll make some brief comments thank you for the opportunity i think it's important to kind of reflect a little bit on the history here um as mr hall noted and he was a leader in our community for bringing this forward almost 10 years ago but the county went from a completely unregulated vacation rental market to a very very very controversial initial regulation of the market to an expansion of those regulations to where we are today and during that time the coastal commission had made it very clear initially they expressed concerns of any caps at all after extensive negotiation there was agreement on these percentage caps which by the way um were still very controversial both with uh some of the local property management associations and the coastal commission but this was what the agreed upon number was there were some supervisors like myself that thought that those numbers were still too high as time went on we continued to have two things happen one a conversion of homes that were used as long-term rentals uh both into vacation rentals and hosted rentals and and by the way um uh planning department did do a survey of hosted rental owners and asked them how many had had long-term rentals before the conversion and about one in five it said they had done a conversion so there's an unequivocal i think that's an under reporting because that's a self-reporting there's an unequivocal relationship between hosted rentals and the loss of affordable housing long-term stock there's an unequivocal relationship between whole home rentals and the loss of long-term uh rental stock in our community so the board decided um that we wanted to create additional regulations and restrictions additionally it was very hard to revoke permits when there were problematic actors which is disproportionately within supervisor conic's district and my district which are people that have had party homes and the planning department uh really is hamstrung uh under the current guidelines for revocation of permits there really isn't clarity on a process that enumerates how to revoke what's proposed today and what the board approved uh are by far the strongest additional regulations that have been proposed since the creation of the ordinance nine years ago it creates a very strong set of guidelines for revocation and expectation of behavior of those that own these properties it caps it at a number that is significantly below what could still happen uh should the percentage caps continue to exist i mean for that matter by a few hundred when all sudden done at least within the first and second district of what could potentially grow in the 15 percent uh the 20 percent numbers and so i think that and the coastal commission made it clear when our board took action it back in september based on community requests to lower the number beyond what is even currently uh existed in the first district that they would not support such an action i mean they were unequivocal about this and so it really wasn't surprising that a couple weeks ago they took the action that they had promised that they would take which is that they didn't want to see a reduction the fact that they were even willing to to meet us uh to see the reduction of the cap is where it is below a number that they had originally approved on a percentage that was below where they were comfortable being i felt uh is a good sign of them working with us on this issue i would be concerned by the way of this compromised proposal of allowing for growth and hosted rentals because we know for a fact that it reduces the affordable housing stock and many of those are used for long term rentals i recognize that they may be less problematic than the whole home rentals but there's also that other trade-off of the loss of affordable housing so uh that's a long i apologize for the long speech it's a long way to be just giving the history i think it's important for us to recognize we've come a long way from unregulated or regulated and this is a strong strong uh ordinances before us and as such i'll move the recommended actions by the second i'll second that any comment any other further comments i really appreciate your summary mr friend who's right on really the reality of it all and what has taken place uh these areas strict i guess you would say is as we could we could have hoped for and even more so than what the commission the coastal commission called for initially so uh i appreciate your overall explanation of the process mr crudin did you have a comment uh to or mr yo i i share your appreciation supervisor friend summary and issues and you know this is like many of the issues we work on it's a balance of competing interests and then it's also a balance of competing regulatory bodies there's us and the coastal commission who have different mandates and different roles and responsibilities and you know somewhere in there tends to be the compromise and i also appreciate the fact that staff has continued to work with us and the community to iterate and improve on this uh ordinance to continue to address changing market conditions and changing uses and changing impacts okay thank you i do not see any other further comment oh excuse me mr uh supervisor go ahead thank you chair um i just had one question um which is you know i it doesn't sound today like there's any support for sending a revised ordinance back to the coastal commission um but i did want uh you know just clarification if if that were to happen what would the process even be and what kind of delays would we see in the implementation of any ordinance um i i would have to check in with um with the planning director to see if she has any idea of what that would what that would result in as far as delays if you adopted a revised ordinance and we had to go back to the coastal commission um Kathy are you on the line yes i am um what i would anticipate is that the coastal commission would request some um deeper level of market analysis of the visitor accommodation industry and you know they would continue to have concerns about the market and overall access of um visitors to the coast to find appropriate accommodations um at times the coastal commission i i know not all the vacation rentals are um considered you know lower priced than hotels but some are and in the past the coastal commission have considered that you know uh availability to increase the spectrum of cost uh accessibility to members of the public so i think that it would um likely be you mean this this ordinance this effort has taken about a year and i think if we were to start over and and do another one it would take you know six to nine months most likely got it thank you one other question which um you know i've heard a lot of concerns about enforcement to date um you know how many vacation rentals so far um you know up to this point under the old ordinance have have been shut down for legal conduct in the county um either because they violated the terms of an existing permit that they had or never actually got a permit um i don't have the figures on how many um code enforcement cases we've had related to folks operating rentals without the benefit of a permit um off hand um when we do cite somebody who is operating without a permit the resolution is to apply for a permit and we've had permit availability up until the moratorium so typically people resolve that particular issue by getting a permit um since i've been here the past four years i'm not aware of us revoking a permit however we have heavily negotiated with permit holders to rectify the issues that um that have come to to our attention because we haven't had the strongest violation um policies and regulations in the ordinance um we've kind of you know used sort of our softer skills to resolve as many issues as possible of course there's a higher level issues that the sheriff takes care of you know noise violations and he'll bill issue tickets and things like that but for things that are in our realm uh we've usually been pretty successful i would say with the majority of applicant or of folks out there who have been bad actors on sort of a more mid-level through um through you know talking to them mediation things like that but with the revised ordinance as you know um we have some very strong language in our violation section which will give us a lot more ability greater ability to um to find a reason to cite a rental operator for a significant violation and we've laid out a process where two significant violations will require public caring uh for potential revocation and also will be grounds for denial of a renewal of an application um so i think that uh with these current revisions you'll see a lot more um enforceability um moving forward great thank you miss drake um i'll just comment that you know of course it's it's challenging uh coming in here and of course the only revision that the coast or amendment the coastal commission has sent back uh isn't the district that i represent and i feel like i'm really arriving at this point in the policymaking process where the cake has just come out of the oven it's baked um so you know and and i think you know we've i know this has been a process and many of you uh have heard through um you know especially supervisor friend um about issues um particularly related to enforcement um you know as miss drake said we have never revoked a permit um from any vacation rental holder at least uh to her knowledge um and you know ultimately we are going to have to make sure that um we strike a balance i mean and and uh enforce codes against bad actors um who you know really give a bad name for vacation rentals in general um you know i heard from actually some vacation rental owners that uh they also did not feel um adequately uh engaged in this process of revising the codes that we never uh that she never received notice that the county was updating these codes and didn't receive a notice from the planning department via um you know her contact information that's on record so you know there's there's i think there's a lot of opportunity to continue to improve these codes and i mean i think that we all recognize policymaking is an iterative process um you know i don't hear you know well i should say as director um maloy explained uh if we were to try to revise the organs at this point we're looking at nine to ten months of delay uh and i don't hear um support from any followed board members in doing that so uh i you know at this point i think the best way forward uh i i have to say is to implement the organs we have today um and really test out some of these um enforcement mechanisms that have been highlighted here i mean this is all new as you said that with just two significant violations someone could be required to come before a level five public hearing by the zoning administrator um so you know i would simply pledge to constituents um that you know i that my office will be an ally in making sure that significant violations are recorded uh and that the code that we have today is actually enforced um and furthermore as we continue to see issues with this ordinance um that i will also be happy to take the lead in helping to revise it and engage all elements of the community in doing so thank you supervisor i i understand your situation coming in at the at the last lap so to speak in this process but let me say that it has been an ongoing one we had public hearings on it we had input and then there's a somewhat of a conflict i mean part of the coastal act is to assure that the general public who do not live on the coast have access to it and that's part of this whole situation that's um that's developed from uh as the result of the 19 was a 1972 coastal uh act that was approved by voters of the california so it it creates somewhat of a conflict of its own on the planning process of what this county might want and what the county coastal commission which is enacted by law and are represented by many elected officials as well but so it's um it's a dicey situation but i i i really uh i want to say for the uh the board in the past and i know that supervisor crony realizes this that we went through a long process to get to where we are and we got some give uh more than that we uh we we took or we received more than we uh we gave out uh from the coastal commission so i um i think that uh it's as good as we're going to get for this time and i do appreciate that we certainly will uh take a continued look at this and uh i i understand your your comments supervisor konig and uh i think this is the best we can get at this point and uh we will keep an eye on it uh i'll entertain a motion chair there's a motion in a second uh the motion we'll speak with you and coonerty i'm sorry yeah it's been a long time yeah all right okay please call the roll supervisor konig hi friend hi coonerty hi cap it hi and chair macpherson all right now we we are going to skip to uh a scheduled item for 1045 and it's almost 11 o'clock but we didn't want to finish that item uh item number 13 uh its own seven board director special meeting the board of supervisors shall recess in order to permit the board of directors of san jacuzzi county flood control and water conservation district zone seven to convene and carry out a special meeting as outlined in the memorandum of zone seven board chair and that's that friend uh we have a memo of the zone seven fair a special meeting for today january 26 2021 and zone seven board of directors agenda january 26 2021 uh suppose let me start at 1045 but we're going to be closer to 11 uh supervisor friend would you please take over your zone uh seven one chair yes thank you mr chair i'd like to welcome everybody we're going to get the zone seven meeting underway we're going to for january 26 2021 our 1045 scheduled item will begin with a roll call from the clerk thank you director konig president coonerty here cap it here macpherson here colbertson billichick here non-voting members lucas i think she's here i see her online i'm gonna there you go thank you and non-voting member gonzalez thank you madam clerk we're going to move on to the consideration of later additions corrections revisions and deletions mr strudley are there any changes to today's agenda uh nothing i'm aware of your friend all right and thank you we're obviously thinking a lot about you up in the evacuation zone thank you for making the time to be with us today we're going to move on to item three which is oral communications this is an opportunity for members of the community as well as the board of directors to address this board on any item that's on today's agenda or is within the purview of the zone seven board each speaker will have no more than three minutes to address us i do believe that dr billich would like to address us first then i'd like to open it up for the community for an opportunity to speak during oral communications thank you chair friend first of all i would like to introduce violet lucas as a new non-voting member she was introduced at the last meeting but wasn't able to be here so i wanted to make sure that that everybody's aware she is present she is a lifetime resident of watsonville who lives in district seven and is very much aware of the flooding areas that we have in the levy so and then also i wanted to introduce and welcome councilmember aurelio ganzales also a non-voting member but i'm not sure if he's on or not but i wanted to welcome him to the group and then for uh bruce mcpherson i just wanted to welcome you as being the chair of the board of supervisors thank you thank you for all the welcomes and we appreciate your background photo there um is madame clerk is there anybody from the community that'd like to address us during oral communications we have one speaker so far i am if you give me one second i will share the screen and turn on the timer speaker with the tele who was calling in with the telephone number two nine one five you will have two minutes to speak i am unmuting you please accept the unmute and start speaking the timer will begin when you start good morning this is becky steinbruner can you hear me yes thank you um i i know that there is an agenda item number 11 on this morning's board of supervisor agenda that was not able to be reviewed and publicly discussed before this meeting that directly applies to this meeting so i'm curious if this special meeting will be able to take action given that there was no action yet taken on item number 11 to form the joint power authority i think that's a good move to bring um all of those um entities and jurisdictions together and to move forward on improving flood control for the zone seven areas again i do want to suggest that the zone seven and the new jurisdiction uh joint powers being formed consider doing some controlled flooding in the agricultural areas that are fallow to allow for groundwater recharge as i've mentioned before dr helen dolke at uc davis has done extensive research on this and it works it's a pahero valley area has had problems with seawater intrusion and the pahero valley water management agency is doing a stellar job to address it but this could be one more tool in the box that could help prevent seawater intrusion or push it back i hope you will consider this and have a public workshop with dr dolke as a guest thank you very much and director friend that appears to be the last public comment we have thank you madam clerk we'll move on to item four which is the approval of the zone seven board meeting minutes or is there any director that has any comment on the minutes before we open it up for the community um seeing none um is there anybody from the community that'd like to address us on this item chair i see no public comment on this item i will bring it back to the board for action is there a motion i'll move for approval second okay we've got a motion from director capet and a second from director billisich um um director konig i assume you may want to abstain on this item i'll abstain yes thank you okay then we'll do a roll call vote please director konig abstain coonerty hi capet hi micverson hi colbertson billichick yes thank you and we'll just pretend that i voted i on that item too i apologize chair friend it was a phantom call chair's vote uh and i'm worried about it all right so we're gonna move on to the action of the consent agenda while this is listed as item five it actually addresses items nine and ten on the uh consent agenda or would any board member like to speak to any of the items on consent um director capet you still have your your hand raised are you interested in speaking on the consent item or is that no i i'm sorry i shouldn't i should have put the hand down that's okay that's all right um is there anybody from the community like to address us on the consent items chair i see nobody from the community with their hand raised okay i would entertain a motion from the board i would like to make a motion to approve the consent agenda okay we've got a motion from director billisich a second uh from director mcpherson we've got a roll call vote please director konig hi coonerty hi capit hi mcpherson hi colbertson billichick yes and chair friend all right thank you thank you i get really sensitive when i don't move on to the the regular agenda item six is as the board of directors of the flip control water conservation district zone seven we're going to consider nominations for election of the zone seven board of directors chair and vice chair as outlined as a member of the district engineer mr strudley thank you chair friend members of the board um in conformance with the rules and regulations of zone seven the board uh typically elects and nominates uh the chair and vice chair person for the upcoming calendar year at our january board meeting which is what this item deals with the election is held by a majority vote we have had tremendous success in the administration of zone seven in addition to advocacy items with the existing chair and vice chair and staff recommendation is to continue to seat our our existing chair as the ongoing chair of the of the district and to continue to have our vice chair as director billich so that we have some great representation from the city of watsonville and i also just wanted to add uh as a strongly related but separate item that i didn't have a chance to get my hand up on during oral communications um we we did receive confirmation from the city of watsonville uh dr billich's continued appointment from the city of watsonville as our voting member and wanted to welcome re parker as a confirmed alternate voting member for the city of watsonville moving forward thank you mr strudley are there any comments from board members before we opened up for the community uh seeing none is there anybody from the community they'd like to address this on this item yes chair there's we have one caller thank you give me one second there you go okay caller whose telephone number ends and two nine one five you will have two minutes to speak when i unmute you please accept it and begin speaking hello this is bachstein bruner can you hear me yes thank you um i am very glad to hear that ari parker will be involved in this zone seven she is a strong advocate as is um director billich for the watsonville area those um communities especially that are very prone to the hazards of flooding along the pahero river so um i'm very glad to hear that ari parker is now um an alternate and look forward to future meetings with all of the board in tact and looking out for the best interests of those affected by potential flooding thank you thank you our next caller is monica mcguire you have two minutes to speak i'm unmuting you please accept the unmute and start speaking the timer will begin when you start hi there um monica mcguire yes asking that you again for ease as well as uh respect acknowledge that you know that the caller from telephone number two nine one five is uh bachstein bruner and the chances of being anybody else are very slim and that you honor her because she is calling and you can and she always adds so much um also the uh the timing and and such before asking for a public comment didn't allow me to get the hand raised so um there's just technical issues with the number of people still and um please keep allowing for that uh it does seem as though the questions that miss steinbruner raised in the first uh comment she made are things that could be answered and just again asking that you answer our comments and jokingly as uh mr friend talked about he doesn't like to be ignored it's obviously no one does so please do respond fully thank you so much and chair that appears to be our last public comment thank you madam clerk i apologize miss mcguire that we missed you on the oral communications thanks for that information um is there a motion to actually nominate um while there's a recommendation from staff i think formally uh the names have to be actually nominated for chair and vice chair so if there's somebody if there's nominations now would be the opportunity to do it from the board mr chair i'd like to make the nomination for uh mr friend to your continuous chair and mr bilch as vice chair second are there any other nominations okay uh we'll close the nominations and we'll move to a vote uh from the motion was from director mcfierce and the second is from director coonerty roll call please director conag hi coonerty hi cap it hi mcfierce hi colbert son bilich hi chair friend that item passes unanimously we'll move on to item seven which is as the board of directors of zone seven to consider approval of a joint exercise power of powers agreement by and among the city of watsonville the county of monterey the county of santa cruz the monterey county water resources agency the santa cruz county flood control water conservation district or zone seven to form the popper o regional flood management agency the indemnity indemnity agreement regarding the popper o river flood risk management project and take related actions is outlined in the memo of the district engineer we have the indemnity agreement the jpa agreement for this new body and a slide set uh mr strudley thank you chair friend members of the board for this item i'd like to uh defer to our district engineer matt michado who will present uh item seven in the presentation associated for it mr strudler i was i was in transition getting upgraded so i appreciate that i am i'm live now so uh thank you chair friend and directors of zone seven i'm going to share my screen here in a moment to uh to present a PowerPoint one second please okay everybody see my my screen okay thank you all right i'd like to begin with uh thanking the zone seven board of directors for their continued support of this project i'd also like to uh extra thanks to director capit for his continued community engagement uh also to director billis itch for her continued community engagement and to special thanks to chair friend for a strong and effective advocacy leading to all of this leading to some critical milestones this year which i'll share in a moment uh let's see here one second that didn't move did it there it goes can you see the second slide all right sorry making sure our technology is working here so share a little bit about history so back in 1949 the army corps uh constructed the current system that we have the levies that we have but as we all know uh even as early as 1955 we had significant flooding again we had flooding in 1958 and then another major flood in 1995 and then again in 1998 was significant flooding so we've had a history of flooding which has led to the need to do project development of a solution for this flooding we can see on this slide the the long history of planning with different alternatives and different processes i do want to take your attention to our december 2019 uh major milestone where when the director's report was approved by the army corps of engineers this gave us federal environmental clearance allowing us to begin design and secure federal funding major milestone uh that milestone which you can see december 12 2019 uh has led to securing additional funds for design work we did receive 1.8 million of federal appropriations in fiscal year 20 uh back in 2020 in february and uh most recently we received 2.815 million dollars of federal funds for fy 21 uh this does round out our federal funds needed to complete the design of phase one so major milestones uh and the momentum continues and so we've also seen some major milestones with our state partners uh our project does have a subventions agreement with the state of california this subventions agreement does allow a 70 percent match to our local share and i won't get into all the details of how that funding works specifically but i will share that the state has been a great partner uh and we see opportunity to even further increase those funding matches beyond the 70 percent our project is is such that it could qualify for even a greater uh match but that would require as you can see on the slide a water code fix which would be special legislation but we are striving that direction and we feel that there's a great path forward with uh with our state partners as well as with our federal partners so back to uh back to our our project specifics um the item before you today is our bahara regional flood management agency jpa adoption the formation of a regional flood risk management uh jpa has been identified as the most efficient and effective governance approach for reducing flood risk on a lower bahara river uh it would be a single sorry it would be a single purpose agency um best position to support flood risk reduction project implementation and ensure consistent long-term operation maintenance repair replacement and rehabilitation of the system and so that is a our decision today and so uh our recommendation is going to be to form this new jpa i would like to share with the board that later this year we envision pursuing a prop 218 rate assessment that will go to all the voters of of the affected area we would also begin design of the levies signing an agreement with uh with the army corps of engineers and we expect to complete our sequa our state environmental document later this year today's proposed jpa the bahara regional flood management agency would also uh act as the local sponsor uh they provide assurances to state and federal agencies for the operations and maintenance uh the jpa would be the finance and and lead for implementation and uh it would consist of the five member agencies those being the santa cruz county board of supervisors monorail county to city watsonville and your zone seven district and then also the monorail county water resource agency additionally the jpa would be a singular agency focused on flood issues and project delivery uh it would have preference with state and federal government to provide funding for to single governing as the local sponsor a jpa would be an efficient decision-making authority and a single jpa would have the ability to quickly adapt to changing conditions so a lot of benefits to having a jpa represent our project delivery we do expect um well there are some obligations as a jpa and i will quickly go through them at this time there are no financial obligations to member agencies that's initially that the case i would like to share that uh in the future we would be bringing back a funding agreement to each of our member boards including the zone seven board this funding agreement would be funded within our existing zone seven budget the obligation the jpa also would be to execute any cost share and other agreements with state and federal agencies and another obligation would be to pursue and adopt the identity agreement for watsonville our jpa powers will include the ability to acquire construct manage control maintain improve repair replaced and operate any infrastructure issue bonds participate in financing intern to contracts hire staff and perform all acts necessary to carry out the purpose of the agreement and the agency the proposed jpa would be composed as follows it would be one member of the board of supervisors one member of our zone seven board one member of the watsonville city council one member of the monoray county water resource agency and one member of the monoray county board of supervisors some highlights of how the new board will conduct its business it would require to meet quorum would require three fifths of board members of course majority of quorum to carry any action each member's vote would be equally weighted one interesting component is that the annual budget would require a unanimous vote of all members and and operating expenses will be established through separate agreement which we would bring back to to your board and to the other boards to adopt some of the next steps for the jpa is the administrative's tasks to set it up and then to fund through an interim basis by member agency staff we would develop a charter other guiding planning documents we would look at long-term staffing plans and we would at some point transition the operations and maintenance from the member agencies to the jpa the recommended actions before you today is to consider the joint exercise of powers agreement by and among the member agencies and then to consider the indemnity indemnity agreement regarding the bahar river flood risk reduction projects by and among the member agencies and authorize the chair to sign the indemnity agreement and staff is available to answer any questions that you may have thank you director machado just as one or two points of clarification here the slide deck said that one of the members is from the watsonville city council it's actually selected by the watsonville city council it doesn't have to be a city council member of the city of watsonville so just a minor but important change on that uh or notification on that and two there was an issue raised by member of the public as to whether uh zone seven could act in advance of of of the county board of supervisors on effectuating this agreement and we can we've got that authority and ability to we're just another member agency or party to this greater jpa are there any members of the board that have any questions on this right now please director conan yeah so in my understanding is today we're not actually agreeing to any specific project or simply creating the jpa as stated so i'm in the details of any project or something that would come before that jpa in the future so that technically is correct um the project is uh is fairly well described through the army core process and through our environmental documents uh but technically today our recommended action is to form the jpa and that is a specific action of its own great thank you yeah uh i have a quick question uh chairman friend yeah i noticed uh is there is there a set number of members on the jpa uh can we add one can we you know add two or chair if i can if i may answer that oh sorry please please do directly yes thank you and so uh the structure of the jpa is set by the jpa agreement itself and so adoption today would would set that uh the member agency representation at the five members as i described in the powerpoint so director cap it um the adoption today would set that structure up today okay so i don't know uh director friend it said either either or uh one from santa cruz county that would be uh district two you or an or district four that myself how do you feel about that but it also has under the zone seven appointee a position coming from either district two or four so in theory uh we could both if the respected bodies supported that serve on this jpa just representing either zone seven or the board of supervisors okay so that would we're talking about either yourself or myself not both of us is that correct no what i'm saying is that in we could both serve we would uh one would represent the board of supervisors as a board of supervisor pointy and one would represent the zone seven appointee okay uh that we're talking about two out of the five that correct right go ahead thanks man director cap it if i may uh the conversation the way the document and agreement has been written would be to have representation from your district so you and also representation from district two supervisor friend or director friend uh so our the way the document is written is to have both of your representation on the board from the start okay that's great and uh you know this project is so important that i wouldn't i would really not care if i was not included as long as we moved forward and got this thing approved uh we've been looking at this well my entire career on the board for 10 years and it's been discussed for 30 years before i even got on the board so i i'm just happy that we're going to do this and i just wanted to clarify you know uh the representation on the joint powers but thanks thanks a lot man any other director mcpherson yeah i could make these comments uh as well on item number 11 on our county board supervisors agenda but i just have to this has been a long time in coming it is uh well over the top i want to thank our county team especially supervisor friend and supervisor cap it our county administrative officer carlos palacios who's the former city manager of what's in mcpherson our department public works director michado as well as mark strudley for this work over the years especially to you mr chair supervisor friend you've traveled many times to washington dc to work on this and a collaborative effort to get our federal partners uh this is a long time in coming there's going to be one big issue in the in the future about uh approval uh from voters uh to support this uh it's going to be a real test but it needs to be done and uh i just hope this is an example of some things that are so needed since 1949 take a long time in coming but it's about time and i hope it uh it just results in a real project in the not too distant future so thank you everybody for your tremendous efforts to finally got this to this point and it's the best way to do this in a cooperative effort for that whole area in the pahora river so thank you very much and i'm i'm really excited for the people of the south county uh you need this protection and you need it dearly and i hope we all see this come to fruition and a great project in your future yeah i'll jump in there real quick uh supervisor friend uh and about four years a little over four years ago uh five years ago actually uh we did the bench excavation project which uh removed 350 000 cubic yards of sediment that was building up over the years and uh if we had not done that uh that was that was millions of dollars uh i believe it was over 12 million and if we had not done that uh when we did have the major rain that came in about four years ago uh it could have been a it could have been a big flood again we uh the flood uh the pahora river went actually to the crest but it never went over the crest of the levees and uh we also had because of the board of supervisors um there were holes in the the levee along uh coward road and uh riverside road and uh within uh 12 hours our board approved a two and a half million dollar project with the money we really didn't have at the time for uh granite rock to go out there and dump tons of rock to bolster the levee if it if it had broke the water i understand would have gone straight for uh senior village area and uh anyway i'm very proud of the way the board reacted to that and i'm very proud of uh the city of watsonville and the board doing the bench excavation project which reduced the risk of flooding on the pahora thank you for that um and thank you for the the kind words director mcpherson and also when you were state senator for supporting some of the funding on the prop 1a funds that we're now using for this there have been more movement on this project in the last 12 months than there were in the previous 60 and this creation of this jpa is while it seems like just a legal formality is actually a significant movement and uh an absolutely essential component toward the construction process as required by the state and federal government our partners on this i know directors or mr strudley will speak a little bit to it but we have some more good news that just came through the federal side uh was even announced today by congressman panetta so there's there's just this is there's a lot of momentum here and uh this is an essential next step i appreciate your comments on that director bill sitch i believe you had a comment yes i um i just want to thank um everybody that's been involved but especially mark and matt um you know getting that federal money and yuzak um and jimmy panetta that has been i can't tell you i when i was first on the council i remember having these conversations with san far and now to see it happen is just great to have federal dollars here and then to have the department of water resources our state money that's i mean it's incredible the progress this group has made but in addition to that city residents really appreciate um your strong advocacy advocacy for um the reduction in trying to get the money um to be re reduced for what they're actually going to have to pay the the rate and i know that they keep working on that working on that and i think you know we couldn't have better leadership working on that project thank you we are very intimately involved with the state on that right and how to see no with our elected delegation and the state department of water resources we got a great team especially now with senator layered who is the former director of dwr in that spot um there isn't a whole lot of depth there under other than i can say that that all three assembly member revis and stone and senator layered are completely in our on our side on what we're looking to do in order to make sure we can reduce the responsibility of the of the residents down there financially but thank you for that director bill says it is are there any other comments from directors before we open it up to the community for this item um i don't see any i will open it up to the the community anybody like to address this on this item yes we have a couple of people with their hands up our first speaker is bob you will have two minutes to speak i'm unmuting you please accept the unmute and start speaking the timer will begin when you start call her bob i know you had your hand up for some time you might have left us oh there you are no i don't i'm here this is bob cobertson i'm a director i'm a cobertson i'm a director so i'm uh muted on the regular director comments like my question is what will the jpa have a relationship to san bonito county and santa claire county where 80 of the watershed is and director i'm going to switch you over to the panelist we will get that question address in just a second well when we bring it back to the board uh are there any other you you had mentioned i believe madam clerk that there are additional public we have one more public comment caller whose phone number ends in two nine one five you will have two minutes to speak i'm unmuting you please accept the unmute start speaking the timer will start then thank you this is back a star burner can you hear me yes thank you um i also have the question that mr cobertson brought up what about the other um entities that are part of the watershed that drains in to and affects the pahero valley uh river and i i would like i will be interested to hear the board's response to his question i really want to thank again publicly uh the efforts of mr strudley i remember hearing that it was because of his good work that um i'm hearing something else here can you still hear me yes all right thank you there's interference um on your end i think um i remember hearing from i think it was congressman panetta and also the um the federal government agency the army corps of engineer that the reason they felt comfortable moving forward on this was because of the excellent work that mr strudley had done and presented so he's my hero and i really um i'm glad that he's on board with all of this and i want to thank supervisor caput for ensuring that there is representation on this jurisdiction from both districts two and four that's critical because both districts are heavily invested and involved by this project and both county district supervisors need to be on this i'm a little concerned that the what civil city representative does not have to be a city council member an elected official but i have full confidence in the current selection of director billisich having served on the city council and very act okay and that appears to be the end of public comment thank you chair uh thank you and there was a question from mr culbertson uh director culbertson to uh mr strudley yeah thank you chair friend director culbertson in response to your question about the representation in the upper watershed um that was accomplished through zone seven's participation as well as the county's participation as member agencies to the paro river watershed uh blood prevention authority it was a jpa that was established many years ago um because of this exact issue and the recognition of waters coming from elsewhere higher up in the watershed the jpa's jurisdiction is restricted in this case because we really want to focus our efforts and our leadership on the local projects here but the issues upstream are being well represented and dealt with through both the board of the the other jpa the flood prevention authority as well as staff's membership in the staff working group um so we can continue to respond to your questions related to upper watershed issues at the staff level and relay those to the staff working group of the flood prevention authority as they come up thank you is there i think it's now time to consider a motion is there a motion for the recommended actions yeah i can't hear you director capo we're looking for a motion now i'll make a motion uh dancy where you're gonna you're on mute yeah there you go yes i i was going to make the motion but it doesn't matter i think it's either either i'll go second let her have the first all right so director quick quick comment i just want to thank uh bruce leclerc for all the work he did uh before mark strudley uh came on board mark you did a great job and we're very proud of you but bruce leclerc did a great job also getting us to where we are okay thank you okay so a couple things directly if you're if you could mute if you're not actually speaking right now that's why we're getting the feedback thank you i still didn't actually hear a motion for the recommended actions although i heard a lot of conversation about who wanted to make it so director billisich if i think you wanted to do it but if you could formally actually make that motion that'd be great okay i will make the motion that we um approve this new jpa and um move forward okay also okay i'll assume that's for all the recommended actions correct director billisich yes all the recommended actions perfect we have a motion from director billisich and a second from uh director cappett a roll call please director conag hi coonerty hi cappett hi first son hi colbertson hi billisich hi chair friend hi great we'll move on to item eight which is as the board of director this is the program managers report as the board of directors is zone seven to consider the status report on the poprow river flood risk management project is outlined in the memo of the district engineer mr strudley please thank you chair friend the members of the board um as as chair friend mentioned earlier this this is a tremendously exciting time for this project uh we've reached tremendous milestones over the past year past year including the item that you just approved um so we thank you for your support for that item um on the federal side uh we have been making tremendous strides as chair friend mentioned and and district engineer machado mentioned we received our director's report last year along with an initial appropriation of 1.8 million dollars through the fiscal year 20 work plan that was an initial uh funding push to start the design work for the first prioritized reach of the project um and just uh after actually we developed the slide presentation which is why the slide presentation uh misrepresents it slightly at 2.915 we just received word um that we were awarded an additional 2.815 million dollars in design phase funding from the army corps in the fy 21 work plan so a huge thanks goes out to um the the ton of work that congressman jimmy panetta has been doing for us he and his staff have been absolutely fantastic and and fully behind this project um chair friend and uh director cap it in their advocacy for this project including their leadership on our trips to dc um as well as all the other tremendous support we get from uh director billet of such the city of watsonville our partners in monnery county has just been a huge group effort to get to this point but this is this is the funding we need from the army corps to start design for the first phase of this project we are entering the design phase this project is going to start getting designed that's that's huge um any any day now we're going to i wanted to have an executed design agreement to show you all today um that has not been possible but literally any day now we will be getting an executed fully executed design agreement from the army corps this builds upon your uh board's approval from uh last june for the chair to sign an executed design agreement um which we will have him sign as soon as a final version is ready from the army corps which again we expect it to happen any day uh the army corps has accepted our close out requests of our prior agreements um and with that request comes a credit of just above 3.3 million dollars which of extra costs of staff time that we have um provided birth from our county and monnery county um towards the project and those costs will be credited when we sign a construction agreement a part pta a project partnership agreement when this first design phase is finished so we won't see that credited money yet but we will see it credited um to the project when we enter the construction phase um we have been getting tremendous support from the army corps um probably not many of you or maybe none of you uh had the chance to look at the work plan issuance but we were we were top dogs in terms of um the most funding out of the work plan for the allocation so this is a big deal that's a great allocation from the work plan um we continue to work with our partners at the state um as soon as we have the project management plan and the design agreement ready from the army corps that will be funneled into our subventions agreement with the state of california again we have the capability through ab 489 to leverage our subventions allocation ahead of or in the absence of the army corps but uh if we were to exercise that it would present some risk to us um for continued investment from the federal side so we're not going to exercise that yet because everything has been moving so smoothly and successfully with the army corps uh we don't want to jeopardize the the federal investment to this project which is to the tune of about 250 million dollars um so we're going to continue on our path uh that we were typically