Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

No.

And we are unmuted.

Good morning, El Dorado County, and welcome to the Board of Supervisors' regularly scheduled meeting of June 23rd. It is 9 AM, and I'm going to go ahead and call this meeting to order. I would like to invite Chaplain Mark Saget of the Sierra Chaplaincy to please come forward and join us for the invocation. Right on the other side.

Oh, at the front. OK. Well, good morning.

Good morning.

Would you please join me in whatever way you feel comfortable? Almighty God, we bow before you today with grateful hearts for the freedoms and opportunities we enjoy in this country. And with reverence, we thank you for the privilege to live within the boundaries of El Dorado County. We ask for your divine wisdom to rest upon this board of supervisors, give them the insight to navigate the challenges we face as a community and the courage to make decisions that are fair and just. We pray for our county staff, our first responders, and all who work to make our community a better place to live. May we all be good stewards of the resources entrusted to us. Bless these deliberations today, and may their actions reflect a deep care for every citizen they serve. In your name we pray, amen.

Amen. Thank you. Madam CAO, would you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance?

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're all slowing down, speeding up. That was rough. That was good. All right, I'd like to at this time call on our assistant county council, Janet San Pedro, to go over the virtual participation guidelines.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Supervisor Turnbull has informed the board clerk that he is unable to attend today's meeting in person due to having recently undergone a medical procedure that now requires him to remain home while he recovers. The minutes for today's meeting should reflect that this constitutes just cause under government code section 54953.8.3. allowing Supervisor Turnbull to participate remotely in today's meeting subject to the following. First, I would like the record to reflect that as required by Government Code Section 54953.8.3 , there is a quorum of the members of the Board of Supervisors physically present here at the notice meeting location. Second, I would like to note that as required by government code section 54953B2A, all votes taken during today's teleconference meeting must be by roll call. Third, as required by government code section 54953.8.3A2, I request that Supervisor Turnbull keep his camera on during the meeting to allow him to participate by both audio and visual means. If Supervisor Turnbull needs to stand up or leave, I request that he ask the chair for a quick break. And finally, pursuant to government code section 54953.8E, I would like to ask Supervisor Turnbull to disclose whether any individuals 18 years of age or older are present in the room with him. and if so, to describe the general nature of his relationship with any such individuals.

Okay. Mark Treat, my assistants with me, and then also my grandson is here. Jay.

Okay. Thank you, Supervisor Chernbu. Madam CAO, are there any changes to the agenda that was posted on June 17th? No. Thank you, Madam Chair. Okay. Thank you. All right, I will move on to the consent calendar. Are there any consent calendar items that my colleagues wish to comment on or pull for discussion? And I will start with you, Supervisor Turnbull, online.

No changes.

Okay, thank you. Supervisor Vierkamp?

No changes.

All right, thank you. Supervisor Ferraro?

No changes.

Well, you guys are going to be smooth today.

Uh-oh. Supervisor Parlin? Yeah, just a quick comment. Thank you to Greg Boger for his 47 years of service on the Ag Commission. That's really appreciated.

Yeah, I will present that to them at the next Ag. At the next Ag meeting. Yes.

Will that be his last? Or is he going to...

I BELIEVE IT IS. I'M NOT SURE. HE HAD KNEE REPLACEMENT SURGERY. WE'RE WORKING ON THAT. I THINK MERN IS PLANNING ON HIM BEING THERE AT THAT MEETING.

WE DID IT FOR CHUCK BUCKY.

WE DID IT FOR WALKER AS WELL.

OKAY. YOU TOO. THAT'S ENOUGH. AG IS IMPORTANT IN EL DORADO COUNTY.

YES, IT IS. VERY IMPORTANT. all right um I also have no items to pull or comment on at this time so we'll go ahead and open this up for public comment on all matters on the consent calendar public comment on closed session items will also be taken at this time so to be specific because this is a big agenda We will now hear public comment on closed session items one through six and item 70 and 71. We will also take public comment on consent items, numbers seven through 28 and 30 through 56, including the item you were just talking about, number 69. Please identify which number or numbers you will be addressing to the board today. And I would like to call on clerk of the board.

For public comment, each speaker will have three minutes to address the board. A timer will alert you when 30 seconds remain, and again, when your time has ended. We'll begin with comments from individuals present in the boardroom, followed by those participating via Zoom. If you're joining via Zoom, please ensure you unmute yourself when called upon. If you're joining by phone, press star nine to raise your hand. If you're on Zoom, use the raise hand feature to indicate your interest in speaking. We ask that you voluntarily state your name for the record before beginning your comments.

Good morning. Are there any members of the public that would like to address the board on closed session items or consent items? Please come forward. Okay, seeing nobody in the room, may we go online, please?

Not taking public comment from online participants. Not taking public comment from Natalie Lane.

Melody Lane, founder of Compass to Truth. I'm addressing consent item number 23. I object to the reappointment of Chris Payne to the local enforcement agency independent hearing panel since he is ineligible to serve on any board committee commission or panel due to repeated evidence of his violation of my First Amendment rights, the Brown Act, and his oaths of office. On June 30, 2020, and on July 16, 2024, two unrebutted affidavits were submitted into the BOS public record, resulting in the eventual removal of Chris Payne from the Parks and Recreation Commission and the Planning Commission. HR Director Joseph Carusco also received a letter advising him of his obligation under Senate Bill 807, that California law requires documented complaints such as these be investigated and retained in Mr. Payne's personnel file for a minimum of four years. In the event of a lawsuit, the county may be required to produce these records. It is significant that David Livingston was a witness to Mr. Payne's egregious violations of his oath and the Brown Act, particularly during the February 3rd, 2020 Parks and Recreation Commission meeting. Furthermore, Mr. Livingston evidently colluded to obfuscate the facts and committed fraud as corroborated by staff member Vicki Sanders. Fraud in its elementary common law sense of deceit is the simplest and clearest definition of that word. Any actions by any public officer either uphold the constitutions and rights secured therein or oppose them. If you move forward with the reappointment of Chris Payne, then Mr. Livingston and the entire BOS become culpable and liable by stepping outside the limited scope of your delegated duties and authority. You lost any perceived immunity of your office and you can be sued for your wrongdoing against me personally, privately, individually, and in your professional capacity as can all of those in your jurisdiction. If once they are notified of wrongdoing, they fail to take lawful actions to correct it pursuant to their oaths and their duties. If the county fails to act and correct the matter, then you condone, aid, and abet those criminal actions and further collude and conspire to deprive me and other citizens of their rights guaranteed in the Constitution as a custom, practice, and usual business operation of your office and the jurisdiction for which you work. George, this is particularly relevant to your position on this panel.

Thank you. There's no additional public comment.

Okay. I will bring this matter back to the board and ask Ms. Dawson to read the item into the record.

Approve the consent calendar with the following comment made by Supervisor Parlin. She wanted to thank Greg Boger for his participation on the Ag Commission.

Thank you. I'll bring this back to the board for further deliberation or action. Move.

Second.

There's a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion on the motion? May we have a roll call vote, please?

Supervisor Turnbull, how do you vote?

Aye.

Supervisor Ferraro, how do you vote?

Aye.

Supervisor Parlin, how do you vote? Aye. Supervisor Vierkamp, how do you vote?

Aye.

Supervisor Lane, how do you vote? Aye.

Motion passes 5-0. Okay, thank you. We will now take public comment on the rest of the agenda, excluding the public hearings of which we have several. So the specific public comment that we'll be taking now is on items 57, 59, 64, 65, and 66.

For public comment, each speaker will have three minutes to address the board. A timer will alert you when 30 seconds remain and again when your time has ended. We will begin with comments from individuals present in the boardroom followed by those participating via Zoom. If you're joining via Zoom, please ensure you unmute yourself when called upon. If you're joining by phone, press star nine to raise your hand. If you're on Zoom, use the raise hand feature to indicate your interest in speaking. We ask that you voluntarily state your name for the record before beginning your comments.

Chair, could I ask for some clarification on an item? Sure, yes. I meant to ask yesterday. Again, I failed. But item 58 is a hearing, but it's under department matters.

So we will be taking public comment on item 58 at the hearing time. But we don't know when that is. Right.

So this is a unicorn. We don't normally, hearings usually are time-specific because they're noticed in the paper and stuff. So if someone were here to hear this item, they have no idea when we're going to hear it, correct? Pretty much. Okay, even though it's a hearing. That's the part that I'm like, That was confusing.

Yeah, it is a little bit confusing.

Now hopefully nobody will be here for that one because it's very straightforward and I think we're doing great.

I think that's what the thinking was, but Ms. San Pedro, did you want to?

Yeah, I believe the notice was, it was not for a time certain. It was noticed for 9 o'clock or thereafter. Okay.

Good question, though. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, good question. Thank you. Ms. Dawson, did you open, did you? Where are we sorry we're ready to take public comment for anybody in the boardroom and perfect is there anybody in the boardroom that would like to comment on any of these public. Please.

Welcome good morning. Thank you. I want to be clear. I'm speaking on item 57. Is this the appropriate time for that? This is. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. So good morning, Honorable Chair and supervisors and staff. My name is Maya Schneider. I am the Executive Director of Business and Strategy for Marshall, but today I am here on behalf of a coalition of firefighters, healthcare workers, and volunteers, dozens of volunteers, who coordinate fire safety in their neighborhoods across the county. They all came together to create the El Dorado County Emergency Preparedness, Healthcare Access, and Wildfire Prevention Initiative. On May 6th, we delivered over 15,000 voter signatures to the elections office to place this initiative on the ballot. And we were notified last week that we did qualify. funds from this initiative will provide operational support for the 12 fire districts in the county sustainable funding for the nonprofits who do fire prevention planning and capital dollars for modernizing our health care facilities and meeting state mandates for seismic standards. County staff have expressed some concerns to us about the costs of administering this tax. The language of the initiative expressly allows for the county to be reimbursed for the costs of administering and operating per the CDTFA rules. Any residual costs such as overseeing the Citizens Oversight Committee or letting the RFPs for nonprofit contracting are expected to be de minimis. We did research other counties across the state and could not find any examples of counties that were being reimbursed for those kinds of costs. On behalf of the El Dorado Ready Coalition, we encourage the board to move to go ahead and put this initiative on the ballot without delay so that it can appear on the November ballot. I also want to personally thank the elections office staff who were the consummate professionals, very helpful during this whole process, and we are very appreciative of their service to the county. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Good morning.

Good morning. It's good to see your smiling faces. Laurel Brimple, Eldorado County Chamber, and I have the honor of serving as the chair of the campaign for Eldorado Ready. The chamber endorsed this measure early on as an opportunity to to enable fire districts to actually have some financial relief. The history shows that when they've brought measures to the ballot, because they're normally parcel measures, they don't pass, they fail, reliably fail. The fact that this is dealing not only with 12 fire districts, but the Fire Safe Council and Marshall and Marshall who needs to do retrofit upgrades for earthquakes that we don't have, is a whole other story, but we're hopeful that this will move forward today. One of my frustrations is because of the way we have public comment right now, people will be calling in voicing what we understand to be misinformation. because of the way the comments are made now, we're not able to, we wouldn't get into a back and forth anyway, but we would be able to be participating in your discussion after your discussion. So, we will actually be kicking off our campaign. Hopefully with your passing this today, we'll be able to move forward with our informational educational campaign in a more expedient fashion. So I would strongly encourage that your consideration be to move this forward today. Thank you.

Good morning.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Board of Supervisors. Tim Cordero, and I'm here today speaking on item number 57, which is the El Dorado Ready initiative. I am a full supporter of that and endorser of the endeavor. And, you know, with the funds that would be derived by this, if the citizens were to approve it, there's some key facts that come into play with that with the enhancement of our ability to do vegetation management and wildfire preparedness. This board has taken tremendous steps over the last few years to develop and support that arena within the county. And this, through the nonprofits, would just give them the ability to expand and do additional work that is much needed in that arena. As far as Marshall Hospital, that is the only hospital that we have on the west slope of El Dorado County. And it's a key... thing for our citizens to have access to that health care and you know the board has worked tremendously with the JPA over the last couple of years to meet the needs on the pre hospital 911 system and any reduction in capacity or service level that would be able to be provided by Marshall without this additional funding. That would have a significant impact to our pre-hospital 911 system. And on the fire department side, I mean, as Laurel said, yes, we have a very, the fire departments have a very poor track record on getting property tax assessments passed. It's just not something that's been very palatable. As work continues in this county to really streamline the effectiveness and efficiency of our fire departments, one of the outliers that's always part of the discussion with mergers and working together is that financial piece and the need for additional revenue streams. This is not the silver bullet. This does not fix it all, but it is a step towards that direction of helping to mitigate some of those challenges that come into play. You know, I just really hope that the board will move forward with putting this on the ballot. You know, as citizens, let us have the choice to do we want to support this or not, but I would ask for your full support. Thank you.

Thank you, Chief. Are there other members present in the room that would like to address the board at this time? Okay, seeing maybe one. Welcome.

So this is the time to talk on number 64, right? Is that correct? That's correct, 64, yes. So you're proposing what I'm assuming is a financing infrastructure district for the Costco ahead of the project being approved. That's basically taking the responsibility of that corporation from paying their for the traffic that they're gonna create on that interchange. Interesting enough, that's what they did for Walmart. This county was always more self-reliant. We didn't believe in taxpayers paying for other people's businesses to be successful. We passed a lot of laws and policies on that basis. I would encourage you to read the big box swindle. It really explains how these corporations depend on taxpayers to pay for their, they can't compete with mom and pop because mom and pop has to pay all of the taxes, all the infrastructure, all the things that they have to do to do a project. where these people partner with government, which is taxpayers, to be successful in theirs. So in that way, Missouri Flat, it was really interesting. When Walmart came in, we were in the fury of coming up with a new general plan. And since that hadn't happened yet, they did pass what was called Measure B, which required that new commercial development should be entirely responsible for funding new improvements necessary to maintain the level of service standards that were required in each area. This is right out of the book for the Missouri Flat Financing Plan, what I just read to you. And this was to be in place for 40 years. What happened is Walmart came in, The county agreed to just take their sales tax to be placed for 40 years into an account that would pay for the road infrastructure. Well, that would have taken 40 years to actually implement, and so the... players that be ended up taking 30 million dollars out of the Transportation Commission, they gutted out DOT to help improve the interchange at Missouri Flat, and you're still $100 million short on improving that interchange for the capacity that's coming with all the new development, which is gonna be put, Caltrans has already said they don't believe that we're gonna be in cars, they're not gonna pay for any of these things, but It didn't work. Walmart paid like 14 cents per square foot. Fire department, that was their biggest impact of what they had to serve. And therefore, I was doing projects for small mom and pop industrials. They charged them the cost of it was taking for Walmart's fire departments to service Walmart. So they had huge assessments for the fire department because of Walmart not paying for their impact. They were only given a one-time fee. So I don't even know why you're considering this when Costco should be paying the full amount.

Thank you, Sue.

And lastly, you have to show how these projects that you're going to come up with to mitigate actually mitigate the project. Thank you.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Good morning, Madam Chair and esteemed Board of Supervisors. I'm Mindy Danivaro, and I'm a resident of this county. In addition, I serve as the Executive Director of Philanthropy for Marshall, and I am here to speak on behalf of Item 57, Eldorado Ready, I think it's vital for us to preserve the health system that we have here in our county. This is one way to do it. As someone versed in philanthropy, this is a way that we can support our fire departments, we can support our health system, and it can take the burden off of philanthropy and do it in a way that is respectful to our community members, our patients, our residents. and protect us from both fire and the untoward result of a closed hospital system. Health systems around the country, rural hospitals are closing. This is one way that we can ensure that we have the best service possible to the residents of this community. So I'm here to speak in behalf of item 57, and I thank you for your interest and your listening. Thank you. Thank you.

Good morning.

All right, thank you all. I'm Jonathan Russell, a longtime resident of the county, born and raised in Placerville. My children are born at Marshall Hospital, fourth generation in the county, and I'm here to express my support of item 57, which is Eldorado Ready. And I prepared a statement for both the directors as well as members in the audience here. As a representative of Marshall Hospital, I believe this initiative represents an important investment in two of the most essential services our community depends on every day, emergency medical care, as well as fire protection. Rural hospitals across California and the nation are facing unprecedented financial pressures, rising labor costs, inflation, regulatory requirements, workforce shortages, declining reimbursement rates, and increasing demands for services have created a challenging environment for independent community hospitals. In recent years, we have witnessed numerous rural hospitals reduce services or close altogether. Those closures serve as a reminder that access to local health care cannot be taken for granted. Marshall Hospital has been a cornerstone of this community for generations. It was built by the people of El Dorado County and continues to operate, serving as a lifeline for the residents of our communities. Marshall is more than a hospital. We're a critical safety net provider that stands ready 24 seven, 365 days a year. We care for our neighbors during their most vulnerable moments, provide emergency services, specialty services, and support the health of our entire region. We're also one of the largest employers in El Dorado County, providing approximately 1,500 jobs and generating hundreds of millions of dollars in economic benefit through wages, purchasing, and community vendor partnerships. The strength of Marshall Hospital contributes directly to the strength of our local economy and our quality of life. El Dorado Ready initiative is not simply about funding organizations. It's about preserving critical community infrastructure. It is about ensuring that when a family faces medical emergency, quality healthcare remains available close to home. It is about protecting services that define the safety, resilience, and well-being of our community. If we value local emergency response, if we value access to independent community healthcare, and if we value the economic and social benefits that these institutions provide, then we must be willing to invest in their long-term sustainability. I respectfully request, ask the Board of Supervisors to support the Eldorado Ready initiative and on a personal level to encourage residents throughout the county to consider supporting it as well. This is an investment in public safety, healthcare access, economic stability, and the future of Eldorado County. Thank you.

Thank you. Welcome.

Good morning, it's nice to see all of you. My name is Lenny Pitani. I've lived in El Dorado Hills for 25 years. I'm here on item 64. I'll talk about benzene and all the cancers it causes at a later date when it gets closer to Costco, making a presentation. But I want to talk to you about mitigation of traffic. I went to both the Oak Meadows and the Cameron Park CSD question and answers with Costco. They could not answer questions. They cannot mitigate traffic. When asked is there gonna be 20,000 cars a day, we don't know. 30,000 cars a day, we don't know. 40,000 cars a day, we don't know. Why would you want to approve a project that you don't even know how many vehicles are gonna be there? And they said there is no way to mitigate this problem. My other concern is getting Caltrans involved when traffic backs up onto the freeway, and it will if it's as busy as I think it will be. I think Caltrans should be involved too. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Are there other residents here in the room that would like to address the board?

All right, may we go online, please? Not taking public comment from online participants. Not taking public comment from Debbie's iPhone.

Good morning. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Debbie Manning, Eldorado Hills Chamber of Commerce. We are pleased to see this finally. Oh, I'm sorry. Item 64. We are pleased to finally see this on the agenda after years of requesting this item. While we are supportive of this agenda item to identify methods that would ensure if proposed Costco is approved and begins operation in El Dorado Hills, a portion of the revenue generated is deposited into a special account dedicated to El Dorado Hills 95762. We believe the scope should be broader than road improvements and maintenance alone. beyond Costco's responsibility for traffic mitigation. All the road improvements and maintenance are critically important to our community. This dedicated funding could also help address other community needs, such as increased law enforcement support, reopening the senior nutrition program, or restoring other projects and programs that have recently been reduced or cut by you, the Board of Supervisors. El Dorado Hills will bear the direct impacts of this project if approved, and it's only appropriate that a portion of the revenue generated from our community be reinvested back into our community. Thank you for your consideration on behalf of the El Dorado Hills community for moving this item forward for discussion. Thank you. Thank you.

Now taking public comment from Linda Campbell.

Linda Campbell, Good morning everyone, Linda Campbell, El Dorado Hills. This is on item 64. It's in addition to the comments and concerns I sent via email. My written comments were based on the assumption this funding would be leveraged to expand impacted roadways and let costs go off the hook for the extensive impacts they will cause if not required to mitigate them prior to any approval. If that assumption is incorrect and this will really be used just for maintenance, then any financing district created should clearly define the distinction between maintenance funding versus CIP project funding, excluding the latter. If, in fact, this is being considered to mitigate CIP project funding for impacts from the project, then it would likely take decades still to accomplish all roadway improvements needed, even with this reserved funding of our sales tax money. some of which were not even included in the traffic analysis for the project. I appreciated the reminder from John Davies' comments that a development agreement is not being proposed, which is a way for us to obtain agreement and track delivery of conditions with the applicant. It might be helpful for us as lead agency to recommend this to the applicant. I know that an economic or financial impact analysis was requested for the project at delivery of the final EIR and think that would be a key piece of information for staff to analyze. Since we do not know when or if the applicant will release that, then could staff even begin anything without it to determine if there will really be a benefit? Another consideration for the supervisors to evaluate is the level of effort and amount of time required by staff to produce a proposal for this. Knowing that the project is not yet approved, and if approved, will still take some time to build, What would be the priority for this to be done versus other work in progress? Since staff resourcing is one of the reasons that the public is being denied opportunity to engage on non-hearing agenda items, I think this is an important factor to determine when providing guidance today. Finally, I would like to simply restate my concerns about the impact of this project on all roadways across our area. I think the timing for this discussion is somewhat premature, and I am still hopeful that all significant mitigation will be required for any project approval. It is not just the nuisance of traffic. It is about safety for our citizens and children, which I know had been the focus of a few campaigns. Will our general plan and its protections for our county be a focus and approval for the project? or is the lure of estimated treasurer of sales tax more important? Since an infrastructure financing district could be implemented only through a two-third approval vote, it will be crucial to ensure all data elements are provided and reviewed in advance, including the controls and portion that will be dedicated to this fund. Thank you for your consideration, and I look forward to your discussion later.

Thank you. Now taking public comment from Kara Sathert. Can you unmute yourself, Kara?

There. Sorry. I thought it was unmuted. Can you hear me now? Yes, we can. Okay. Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chair and supervisors. My name is Kara Sather, and I serve as the Relationship Manager for Marshall Foundation for Community Health, which is the philanthropic arm of Marshall. Our local nonprofit hospital and healthcare system. Oh, sorry. Obviously, I'm talking about item number 57. But in my role, I meet with community members every day. I sit in living rooms and coffee shops and businesses and community events to understand what they care about and what concerns them with regards to healthcare in our community. And when I talk about Eldorado Ready, what I found is that when people understand the reality behind this initiative, including and especially the state mandated seismic safety requirements that are facing hospitals across California, they really understand how important this measure is for our community. Many people, you know, they're surprised to learn about these requirements, that there is no exceptions made for hospitals on a slab of granite versus a major hospital in the Bay Area. And they understand that, you know, Marshall's already invested more than $70 million to meeting these requirements and that without these upgrades, portions of the hospital could be forced to close. And for a community like ours, this is not an abstract issue. We're the only hospital serving Western El Dorado County where our families and friends go for a heart attack, a stroke, a traumatic injury or medical emergency. Without our emergency department, many residents would face travel times of more than an hour to reach emergency care. This is also about investing locally. Marshall employs more than 1,400 people and serves as a critical part of our local economy. The funding generated by this measure would stay here in El Dorado County, support emergency preparedness, wildfire prevention, emergency response, and healthcare infrastructure. With more than 15,000 county residents signing the petition, I respectfully encourage the board to allow the voters of El Dorado County to consider this important investment. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you.

Now taking a comment from Siri Nelson. Good morning. Can everybody hear me okay? Yes, we can.

Thank you very much. My name is Siri Nelson. I'm the president and CEO for Marshall. I'm speaking on item 57. First of all, I'd like to apologize for not being there in person. I am actually recovering from COVID, which brings me to my gist of my public comments. Since I've had the honor and privilege of being the CEO of Marshall, we have weathered some major storms and catastrophes in this community, one of which was the COVID pandemic. And Marshall stood there at the front lines of COVID, supporting this community, doing the right thing. And that's what we want to keep doing in the future. The other events that we've had, and I'm sure everyone can speak to this, is the danger of fire. I will never forget. the devastation of the Caldor fire, the impact it had on our community and the impact it had on me personally. I wasn't affected by the fire itself, but definitely by the disaster that happened. And I still have PTSD from it, frankly. And so I would like the Board of Supervisors, I'm urging you to go ahead and place the ballot initiative on the ballot today. It's not just good public policy. It's also good business. All of the sales tax revenue that will be raised from this initiative will be spent in El Dorado County. There is a significant economic impact on the positive side for the county. And I thank you for your time today.

Thank you. That was my robot voice. It kind of was. It was weird.

Now taking public comment from Melanie Lane.

Melody Lane, founder of Compass to Truth. I'm addressing the fact that item number 58 was put under department matters that we don't know when they're going to be heard, any time during the day, which essentially is a violation of section 54954.3 of the Brown Act, the public's right to testify at meetings. How can they testify if they don't know what time it's going to be heard? You know, the Brown Act also says care must be given to avoid violating the speech rights of speakers by suppressing opinions relevant to the business of the body, by leaving it ambiguous as to what time this item is going to be heard is clearly suppression of the public's right to comment on any of the subjects on the agenda. I'm just reminding you that the preamble to the Brown Act says the people and delegating authority do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people do not yield their sovereignty to the bodies that serve them. The people insist on remaining informed to retain control over the legislative bodies they have created. It's a reminder that you've consistently acknowledged that you are suppressing the public's right to participate in these deliberations by basically not letting them know, giving them proper notice as to when they can participate. basically speak on an agenda item. This is something that you really need to get your act together on. Again, you've taken an oath of office to support and defend the Constitution and the rights of the public. So again, you're clearly in violation of it and even county council acknowledge that it's very confusing and you know you're doing wrong. Get your act together.

There's no additional public comment.

Okay, thank you. We'll go ahead and move on in the agenda. We'll go to our first time certain hearing not to be heard prior to 9 a.m. And this is item number 60. I'll go ahead and open the public hearing and call on the clerk of the board to read the item into the record.

Item number 60 is a hearing from Air Quality Management District recommending the board acting as the AQMD Board of Directors approve and authorize the chair to sign a resolution adopting the fiscal year 26-27 recommended budget.

Thank you. I'd like to welcome Mr. Wilson, who's the program manager for the Air Quality Management District.

Welcome. Good morning, Chair Lane, board members. I'm Scott Wilson with the El Dorado County Air Quality Management District. We presented our proposed budget at a public workshop at the regular meeting of the board on Tuesday, July 9th. At that time, your board did not provide any direction to us to make changes to our presented proposed budget. California Health and Safety Code requires a two-week period between public hearing at which the proposed budget is presented and the public hearing at which the board adopts the budget. We're here today to request that the board adopt our AQMD fiscal year 2026-2027 recommended budget as presented. And Rania Surya, our air pollution control officer and I, we're here to answer any questions that you may have at this time.

Excellent, thank you for that. Are there questions or comments from my colleagues? just like to clarify when did you say the preliminary was presented i thought you said tuesday july 9th i'm sorry june 9th i want to make sure the record's clear okay thank you tuesday june 9th i knew i was behind but not that far thank you very good catch okay if there's no other questions or comments by the board we'll go ahead and open this up to public comment And we did not receive any written comment on this item. Madam Clerk, would you please open this up?

We are now taking public comments specifically on item 60. For public comment, each speaker will have three minutes to address the board. A timer will alert you when 30 seconds remain and again when your time has ended. We'll begin with comments from individuals present in the boardroom, followed by those participating via Zoom. If you're joining via Zoom, please ensure you unmute yourself when called upon. If you're joining by phone, press star nine to raise your hand. If you're on Zoom, use the raise hand feature to indicate your interest in speaking. We ask that you voluntarily state your name for the record before beginning your comments.

Thank you. We'll go ahead and ask, is there anybody in the room that would like to address the board on item number 60? Seeing none, may we go online, please? Now taking public comment from online participants.

There is no public comment.

Okay, thank you. I will go ahead and close the public hearing and bring this item back to the board for deliberation and or action.

Madam Chair, I would move item 60 for approval. Second.

Thank you. There's a motion and a second. Are there any comments or discussion on the motion? May we do a roll call vote, please?

Supervisor Parlin, how do you vote? Aye. Supervisor Ferrero, how do you vote?

Aye.

Supervisor Vierkamp, how do you vote?

Aye.

Supervisor Turnbull, how do you vote?

Aye.

Schweizer Lane, how do you vote? Aye. Motion passes 5-0.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Rania.

Thank you.

Okay, we'll move to item number 61. This is an item not to be heard prior to 9.30 a.m., and this is our auditor-controller. Madam Clerk, would you please, I'll go ahead and open the public hearing, and if you would read the record into the item.

or the item into the record. Item 61 is a hearing from the auditor-controller recommending the board adopt and authorize a chair to sign a resolution for the appropriations limit for fiscal year 26-27.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. I'd like to welcome our auditor-controller, Mr. Harn.

Good morning. In 1980, the Constitution was amended where We have to show compliance each year with the GAN spending limit, the records before you indicate compliance. So I would ask you to take public testimony.

Okay, great. Are there any questions by my colleagues? Okay, we'll go ahead and open this up for public comment. Ms. Dawson.

We are now taking public comment specifically on item 61. For public comment, each speaker will have three minutes to address the board. A timer will notify you when you have 30 seconds remain. And again, when your time has ended, We'll begin with comments from individuals present in the boardroom, followed by those participating via Zoom. If you're joining via Zoom, please ensure you unmute yourself when called upon. If you're joining by phone, press star nine to raise your hand. If you're on Zoom, use the raise hand feature to indicate your interest in speaking. We ask that you voluntarily state your name for the record before beginning your comments.

Are there any members of the public in the room that would like to address the board on item number 61?

Seeing none, may we go online, please? Now taking public comments from online participants. Now taking public comment from Linda Campbell.

Linda Campbell, El Dorado Hills. I just want to make note that I thought that the information provided on the agenda item was really good and it was complete and it didn't leave any questions lagging. for me, so I definitely would recommend approval. Thank you.

Thank you.

There is no additional public comment.

OK, thank you. I'll go ahead and close the public hearing and bring this back to the board for action.

Madam Chair, I'll move item 61 for approval.

Thank you. There's a motion and a second. Any discussion on the motion? Roll call vote, please.

Supervisor Behrkamp, how do you vote? Aye. Supervisor Turnbull, how do you vote?

Aye.

Supervisor Ferrero, how do you vote?

Aye.

Supervisor Parlin, how do you vote? Aye. Supervisor Lane, how do you vote? Aye. Motion passes 5-0.

Okay, great. Thanks, Jill. We have a little bit of a break here before our next public hearing. So I would like to ask Madam CAO, would you like to move to maybe item 59?

Actually, I was thinking maybe item 58, Madam Chair. We've got our staff here in the room ready to go.

Okay, perfect. Let's do item number 58. This is the airport fee hearing, Madam CAO. Well, let me go ahead and open the public hearing and call on the clerk to read the item.

Item number 58 is a hearing from airports, a division of the chief administrative office recommending the board one, adopt and authorize your chair to sign a resolution establishing an updated airport division fee schedule to approve updates to the board of supervisors policy F10 county owned airports, regulation, security, and leases. Three, designate the assistant chief administrative officer as a county airport's director. And four, provide conceptual approval to make minor amendments to Title 18 of the county ordinance code.

Thank you for that. And I'd like to welcome our assistant chief administrative officer, Ms. Schwartz and her staff. Welcome.

Thank you. Good morning. I'll be fairly brief on this item, but I did want to take a quick opportunity. I know some of you have not had the opportunity to meet our new airport operations officer, Dale Lesby. So I asked him to join me this morning. Also here to answer any questions as we go through this item. I just really want to commend Dale and our other airport staff member, Audrey Brand. The energy that they have brought to these airports is just fantastic. And the ideas and we're just really, I think, seeing a... kind of a shift in how we are operating our airports. Both Dale and Audrey are pilots, you know, so they really have a deep understanding and a vested interest in our airports, and I think that has really made a difference, and they're just really a pleasure to work with, and we've already had a couple of events at the Placerville Airport. We're strategizing to get something out at Georgetown, so there are a lot of exciting things happening at both airports, so... Thank you for indulging me for a minute just to kind of give that quick overview. We're here today, if you remember back in January, we brought forward some revised templates for our ground leases. And at that time, we acknowledged that there were going to need to be some changes made to policy F10, simply to bring it in alignment with the changes that we made to the templates. So that's what is before you today. They're fairly minor changes. The biggest area that we changed is obviously the lease provisions section, so that this now aligns with our current templates. And then we just did a little bit of cleanup. We took out some sections that really were unnecessary and... really just address all those questions so i'm not going to go into it in detail i know we have a kind of a limited time frame but primarily it's just again bringing it to making we clarified that the maintenance around the hangers that was an issue with the lease that conflicted with the policy we also had some questions around when a lessee would have to pay an application fee So we tried to clarify that. So as an example, in their existing lease, they have a 10-year lease with two 10-year options. We're not saying you're going to require an application at each of those option periods. It would just be at the end of that 30-year period when you're doing a brand new clean lease that we would be looking for a new application fee. So we clarified that. we also did some cleanup around the, for businesses, kind of what we were looking for when a commercial lease comes in, we tried to kind of streamline those requirements. So for example, the, Old policy required a recent credit report. We did pull that out just because that was kind of subjective. We didn't really have criteria noted as to what we would be looking for in that credit report. So we just added some more defined criteria to try and make that process a little bit easier as well. um again pulled out there was a section on fueling that's really not a necessary section in a policy i'm not sure why that was in there so we went ahead and pulled that out again just to give us flexibility sometimes our pumps do go down or you know we want to maybe look at adding another type of fuel i just didn't want to have to bring back a policy um to make those changes so that's primarily it and in a nutshell with the f-10 policy the other item that we're bringing back is the fee schedule when we brought the templates forward we added a two and a half percent annual increase for both our ground leases and our county owned hangers so this fee schedule incorporates that two and a half percent increase as well as that we added a couple of fees our film monitoring fee so we've actually had a little bit more interest in film companies coming out and utilizing the airports for safety reasons it's important that we have a staff member there when those film companies are out there So this is just simply the hourly rate for our staff person to be out there. And probably the biggest change, and this is we're trying something here. So we did lower our commercial ground lease rates. And I know that's probably counterintuitive to, you know, where we are trying to increase revenues out at the airport. But part of the thinking here is this is kind of an economic development incentive we would really like to see more commercial activity at the airports in particular a flight school that would be something that would just really bring young flyers you know just bring bring more activity and more interest in our airports and we had heard from some folks that they just weren't willing to essentially double their costs with that commercial rate to bring something like that to the airports. So we are recommending to go ahead and reduce our commercial rate to be in line with the private rate. And we kind of like to try that for a couple of years and see, you know, does that provide the incentive that we're hoping for and bring some more commercial activity to the airports. We'd love to see more mechanics. I mean, there are a lot of activities that, you know, could really benefit the airport. So that is one recommendation that we are making. It's basically kind of nets out the increases, the two and a half percent increase. basically nets out to the decreases in the commercial rates. We only have four commercial folks between both airports at this point. So it's not a large impact, but is something that we are recommending. We removed our oil disposal fee because we were able to get a grant, work with environmental management, and we now have a grant. So there are no longer any fees associated with our oil disposal. So we were able to take that off of the rate sheet as well. This rate sheet would be effective beginning July 1st. So we're trying to kind of get that in line with our lease schedule and then would allow in January for the two and a half increase to the county owned hangars as well. So that is essentially briefly what we're bringing forward with you today. In addition, our ordinance code has just some very minor changes that we will need to make to make sure that we bring all three into alignment. For example, the ordinance code still requires the credit report for commercial operators so we would need to strike that out of the ordinance so just some very minor things which is why we are requesting that conceptual approval to go ahead and clean up the ordinance as well so with that if you have any questions dale and i are both here and happy to answer.

All right, well, great. Thank you for that presentation and welcome, Mr. Lesby. I can tell by Ms. Schwartz's voice that she is excited that you're out there and we're in good hands. So thank you. Is there anything you would like to add to the presentation at this time?

I'm just very excited to be at the airports. I'm grateful for this opportunity. Laura's been amazing to work with and the two supervisors that have come out to the airport. We're looking forward to growing the airports, increasing the economic activity, and the amount of planes we have there. So it's a bright future for the airports in El Dorado County.

Yeah, that's great. I feel that. Questions, comments from my colleagues?

I want to see if there's any public comment first. I'm not sure if anybody's here for airports.

Any questions or clarifications at this time before we take public comment?

I just thought your enthusiasm sounds great compared to what it was, you know, months ago. Welcome, Dale. I originally questioned the fee reductions. Like, well, how are we going to make more money? But I like the creative thinking and I think it's certainly worth a try. Positive. Thank you.

Okay. Seeing no other comments from the board, we'll go ahead and open this up for public comment. Ms. Dawson.

We are now taking public comments specifically on item 58. For public comment, each speaker will have three minutes to address the board. A timer will alert you when 30 seconds remain and again when your time has ended. We'll begin with comments from individuals present in the boardroom followed by those participating via Zoom. If you're joining via Zoom, please ensure you unmute yourself when called upon. If you're joining by phone, press star nine to raise your hand. If you're on Zoom, use the raise hand feature to indicate your interest in speaking. We ask that you voluntarily state your name for the record before beginning your comments.

Are there any members of the public in the room that would like to address the board on this item?

Seeing none, may we go online, please? I took in public comment from online participants. I took in public comment from Linda Campbell.

Hey, everyone. Linda Campbell, El Dorado Hills. So I guess my question is specifically on the policy F10 updates. So I know that there was a recent grand jury report that came out again that that defined that. I did see updates on it in regards to revisions to lease requirements. But then the second thing they asked for was more definition on the airport director or operations officer. I only kind of saw one change in that area. So I guess my question is, Is the update to F10 now covering the items within the grand jury report, or is there going to be a subsequent update to refine or fulfill those requirements? So that's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you.

Not taking public comment from Chris.

Good morning, Board. I just have a quick question in terms of this, the running of the airports. Are the airports an enterprise fund? The reason why I'm asking is because of the economic potential that the airports, Placerville Airport has in terms of what I believe is hopefully with the new staffing is going to be obtained. That self-sustaining business model where essentially we provide or would provide all of the services necessary in order to be able to have a sustainable entity, the airport, We're above the fog line. We have property that is out there that's never been developed. We have the taxiways and the runway length necessary for jet. It seems like this effort that you're talking about today would work generally within the notion of an enterprise fund. But am I wrong? I guess that's my question. Thank you.

Thank you.

There is no additional public comment.

Okay. Thank you. I'll go ahead and close the public hearing and bring this item back to the board for further deliberation or action.

Yes, I can address the public comment. So in regards to job specifications, those aren't something that we typically put in a policy. So we've kind of defined the airport director a little bit in here, but we would not have specifications for the operations officer. That's just, you know, again, if you want to make changes to those specifications, it becomes very cumbersome to put something like that in a policy. So we are not planning to address that through the F-10 policy. And yes, the airport is an enterprise fund, so we do have a little more flexibility in how we handle fees and those types of revenues.

Thank you, Ms. Schwartz. Any other questions, comments, or action?

Yeah, comment. This is so exciting. I look how far we've come about four or five years ago. This room was packed with angry people. And Laura, you were up here with me, and at the time, Supervisor Thomas. We had a couple of those in one year, and it was a lot. And the fact that the board realized that we really need to change things up, take serious action, and make a concerted effort, consult with the FAA and all of that. This has just been an amazing lift to turn something around. That was just... woefully neglected for years. So Dale, you're lucky you got here on the good time part of it because, wow. Well, and you actually were here in the room with us, though. And so you saw that. And that's probably why you are so enthusiastic about all of this, I bet, because it was a lot. So thank you for, you know, the creativity. I'm excited. If we could get a flight school, you guys, that would be huge. And I'm still, like, rooting for a fly-in at Georgetown. because last time we had those they were so So anyway, do you want to make a comment?

Sure, I'll just add to that. I think a lot of credit obviously goes to staff, but also the ad hoc and the users, and you're one of them. I had the fortunate opportunity to be in Texas a couple weeks ago, and my nephew is a pilot, and we flew into a couple small airports, flight schools, pilot lounge, and they were smaller than our airport. They run a shuttle to the hard eight barbecue. If you ever have that opportunity, you got to go there and shuttle over to the hard eight barbecue. So these are the things that you're working on and talking to, to make our airports successful and make our, our users successful and open the door to that success. So thank you very much. Really appreciate it. I'll be supporting this measure.

Absolutely. And if there isn't further discussion, I'd like to go ahead and move this item.

Okay, there's a motion and a second, please. Second?

Second.

Thank you. There's a motion and a second. Any discussion on the motion? Okay, seeing none, may we do a roll call vote, please? Supervisor Parlin, how do you vote?

Aye. Supervisor Behrkamp, how do you vote?

Aye.

Supervisor Ferrero, how do you vote?

Aye.

Supervisor Turnbull, how do you vote?

Aye.

Supervisor Lane, how do you vote? Aye. Motion passes 5-0. Thank you very much.

Thank you. We'll go ahead and move to our 10 o'clock time certain item number 62, which is the Eldorado disposal interim year rate increase. Well, we'll go ahead and open the public hearing and ask the clerk to read the item into the record.

Item 62 is a hearing from Environmental Management Department recommending the board consider the following regarding material recovery facility and solid waste collection rates for waste connections of California doing business as El Dorado disposal. One, find that a 4.12% consumer index increase to the existing material recovery facility and solid waste collection rates Both residential and commercial is in accordance with the interim year rate setting process. Two, adopt and authorize a chair to sign a resolution adjusting the residential and commercial solid waste collection rates. And three, adopt and authorize a chair to sign a resolution adjusting the material recovery facility rates by 4.12% effective July 1st of 2026.

Thank you for that. I'd like to welcome Mr. Warren, the Director of Environmental Management Department. And do you have someone else, others with you? And staff, let's say. Welcome everyone.

My staff are watching.

Oh, they are? Okay. Yes. All right.

Good morning, Chair and members of the board. Good morning. Jeff Warren, Director for Environmental Management. I'm here today to present the proposed rate increase for Eldorado disposal related to the material recovery facility and the solid race collection rate areas for franchise areas A, B, and C. This is a request for an interim year rate increase. And under the franchise agreement, interim year adjustments are calculated based on the 85% of the change in U.S. City average garbage and trash collection consumer price index from December to December. or based on projected changes in disposal costs. These adjustments are subject to a minimum of increase of 1% and to a maximum of 6%. In March of this year, Eldorado Disposal submitted its interim rear rate application for 2026, requesting a 4.12% increase to the MRF rate and to residential and commercial collection rates in franchise areas A, B, and C. of all management retain crow lp to independently review the application and crow is confirmed that the requested 4.12% increase complies with the intramural rate setting procedures outline both the franchise agreement and rate setting manual. Their analysis supports the proposed adjustment and Mr. Eric Nyland from Crow is available today on Zoom to address any technical questions that your board may have. Under the current franchise agreement, the board does not have discretion to modify the rate adjustments unless deficiencies are identified. Staff reviewed both the application and the analysis and have found no deficiencies. Based on the review, staff recommends the board approve the 4.12% rate increases outlined in the franchise agreement and rate setting manual.

Thank you, Mr. Warren. And he did mention that Mr. Nyland is joining us via Zoom if we have specific questions for him on the report. Are there any questions or comments from the board at this time?

No.

Okay, I'm not seeing any. We'll go ahead and open this up for public comment. Ms. Dawson.

We are now taking public comment specifically on item 62. For public comment, each speaker will have three minutes to address the board. A timer will alert you when 30 seconds remain and again when your time has ended. We'll begin with comments from individuals present in the boardroom, followed by those participating via Zoom. If you're joining via Zoom, please ensure you unmute yourself when called upon. If you're joining by phone, press star nine to raise your hand. If you're on Zoom, use the raise hand feature to indicate your interest in speaking. We ask that you voluntarily state your name for the record before beginning your comments.

Thank you, Ms. Dawson. Are there any members of the public in the room that would like to address the board on item number 62?

Seeing none, may we go online, please? Not taking public comment from online participants. Not taking public comment from Chris.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this item. Normally, I have a lot of complaints, and I'm typically in the chambers there going up to the podium and speaking about why I believe my service should be better than it was. But this year, I want to just say that things have changed out in the Patterson Ranch area of Diamond Springs. We now have pickups. at the bottom of our hill, rather than three quarters of a mile at a group location. How did that come about? It came about through a lot of discussions with El Dorado Disposal and in terms of the receptiveness of trying to do something special. And now because of those discussions, my service has improved, I'll say 100%. I do know that there's never a perfect system. And obviously, I'm a little surprised that they're not coming back asking for a fuel surcharge. And I was just wondering in terms of fuel costs, what Elder Elder Disposal has seen and is because it's so the risk associated with the world's fuel supplies in terms of our gas costs and diesel, especially. And also I was wondering whether or not

they foresee any any changes in in our rates since a lot of people are in fixed income thank you thank you there's no additional public comment okay thank you i'll go ahead and close the public hearing and bring this item back to the board for further discussion or action madam chair i will move staff's recommendation item 62. Okay, there's a motion.

A second.

And a second, thank you. Is there any discussion on the motion? May we do a roll call vote, Ms. Parlin?

Yeah, I just want to just check in. I haven't actually been over to the facility in a while to check in with you guys. And maybe we should do that, because I am on the Environmental Services JPA. And we just had a presentation by, and I was trying to look up the name of the organization that's doing the implementation of SB 54. And they were talking about making sure that we are all made whole and if we need any equipment or anything, we're supposed to be gathering that information to get our money. And that was just at our last meeting a couple weeks ago. So maybe we should touch base afterward because we definitely want to, in the spirit of SB 54, increase our recycling rates and all that. But the burden is not supposed to be on local jurisdictions. So let's talk and make sure we're getting our money from the manufacturers. So that was all I really wanted to add in. It just dawned on me. It's like, oh gosh, we had a meeting and I haven't reported out and blah, blah, blah. So we should do that.

Good. Now I'm glad you got that in. Okay. Any further discussion on the motion? Seeing none, may we do a roll call vote, please? Supervisor Turnbull, how do you vote?

I'm going to vote no on this because I have some concerns, especially with the facility. There's been some issues and stuff that, so I'm going to vote no on this.

Supervisor Parlin, how do you vote? Aye. Supervisor Vierkamp, how do you vote?

Aye.

Supervisor Ferraro, how do you vote?

Aye.

Supervisor Lane, how do you vote? Aye. Motion passes 4-1 with Supervisor Turnbull voting no.

Okay, thank you. I know for myself, Supervisor Turnbull, it would be great in the discussion to kind of hear what your thoughts are if you do have concerns like that so that we're all hearing it correctly. Just a thought.

Well, I totally understand. And one of the issues that I have is, especially with the high cost, especially at that facility, a lot of people are dumping along roadsides and stuff. And I appreciate that. That's the reason why I'm voting no on that.

Yep. Now is not the time to explain that.

I understand that, but you asked me that question, so I'm going to answer it.

Well, I'm asking you to share that during the discussion time. All right, we're gonna go and move on to item number 63, which is also the Environmental Management Department. This is the Tahoe Truckee Sierra Disposal Interim Year Rate Increase. I'll go ahead and open the public hearing, call on Ms. Dawson to read this item into the record.

Item 63 is a hearing from Environmental Management Department recommending the board consider the following regarding the solid waste collection rates for Tahoe Truckee Sierra Disposal Company doing business as Tahoe Truckee Sierra Disposal. One, find that a 6% increase to the existing rates is in accordance with the interim year rate setting process. And two, adopt and authorize the chair to sign a resolution adjusting the solid waste collection rates for the Tahoe Truckee Sierra Disposal Company.

Welcome back, Mr. Warren.

Thank you, Madam Chair, board members, Jeff Warren, director of environmental management. This is the last rate increase that I'll do today for you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Today I'm bringing forward the proposed 2026 rate adjustments for Tahoe Truck East Sierra Disposal, otherwise known as TTSD. These rates are subject to Proposition 218 and all property owners in the mandatory service area have been notified of this hearing. The request before you is a 6% increase consistent with the current ordinance and franchise agreement. questions that are related to vacancy exemptions and other rate structure issues will be addressed at a later date this year will be renegotiate the franchise agreement and bring that back to your board for approval. It's important to note that TTSD did not request a rate increase in 2025. They made a decision recognizing the participation drop when the rates were higher and while planning for the transition to mandatory service. May 19th, 2026, your board approved revisions to the solid waste ordinance that formally established mandatory service in the TTSD area that became effective June 18th, 2026. In May, 2026, TTSD submitted its 26 rate application requesting a 6% increase for residential and commercial collection services. Because service is now mandatory, the residential single can rate was reduced by 6.09% while adding enhanced residential services. The cost increase you're considering today is directly tied to the cost of collection while customers simultaneously benefit from both expanded service and lower single can pricing. As required by County Ordinance 8.42.180, 1,876 notices were mailed on May 7th, 2026 to all property owners and customers in the TTSD service area. These notices clearly outlined the proposed rates and explained the Proposition 218 protest process. The protest period remains open until the conclusion of today's hearing. A majority protest would require 50% plus one or 939 valid written protests. And as of this morning, to my knowledge, the clerk of the board has received only 37. The Proposition 218 process ensures transparency, fairness, and public participation. And without a majority protest, the board has full legal authority to adopt these rates. Seeing that there's no majority protest at this time, staff recommends the board approve the rate increase of 6% to be effective July 1st, 2026. TTSD was unable to make it down this morning, but I have all three of their members on Zoom for any particular questions you may have for your board.

Okay, thank you, Mr. Warren. I'll bring this, ask my colleagues if you have any clarifying questions or comments at this time.

I just appreciated that you noted that the whole thing about the quarterly will be coming back. Do you know when-ish that'll be coming back to us?

We're hoping to start that up in August.

Okay, because I know we've gotten quite a few emails asking about that.

That's correct, and that's why I wanted to make sure that was clarified, because we do need to segregate what the purpose of today is for. It's to approve the rates that are what the current ordinance and the franchise agreements reflect. So we do need to make changes, not only to address those issues, but just to update it from 2015, since the last time it was fully done.

Perfect. Thank you. Other questions, comments? No? I have one, Mr. Warren. In the staff report, it states that TTSD has lowered the single-can service rate by a little over 6%, and then it further says, and added enhanced services to the residents. Can you describe what those enhanced services are?

The enhanced services, I would probably leave it to TTSD to fully implement or explain that as their services, but that was the additional green waste pickups allowing more, I think before that was limited to the, it's like a three yard green waste container. They've upped that to a six yard. They've increased their punch card services to allow people to bring more yard waste into their MRF, including some of the bulky item pickups that are available to the residents up there. So the whole part was to bring these enhanced services to help keep things like roadside litter, people disposing things on the side of the road, the bulkier items to help provide a means to get those in the proper disposal areas.

Excellent. Thank you. Supervisor Lane. It does look like, um, one of the, um, the staff has their hand raised to provide some comments. Okay. That would be great.

Tahoe Truckee, uh, staff person. Go ahead.

Hi. Hi. This is Ray Labadee at Tahoe Truckee Sierra disposal. And maybe just to add a little color or to respond to your comment, supervisor blame is that indeed, um, The main rate, the highest runner rate, the single can rate that affects the most customers is proposed to decrease by 6.09%. And then the other rates that are proposed to increase by 6%. Those are the rates for additional services or optional services above and beyond single CAN service. So if a customer might want to subscribe to two CAN service instead of one CAN service, that rate is proposed to go up by 6%, as are things like extra CAN or some of the additional services that customers might choose to participate in. But the main rate, the base rate is going down by the 6.09%. And then within that, we've also added above and beyond what the current service offering is to subscribers to basic service, the single can service. They also have available now twice per year bulky item pickup where they will pre-schedule with our office items. two times a year to be able to leave out larger items that will pick up curbside with advance notice. We've modeled that after the programs that we offer in the neighboring Placer County and Town of Truckee areas that we service. And then we've also expanded and given more flexibility to the defensible space green waste programs, if that helps.

Yeah, that does help. Thank you, Mr. Lavity, and glad that you were able to join us online. Okay, thank you. Are there any other questions or comments? Okay, seeing none, let's go ahead and open this up for public comment.

We are now taking public comments specifically on item 63. For public comment, each speaker will have three minutes to address the board. A timer will alert you when 30 seconds remain and again when your time has ended. We'll begin with comments from individuals present in the boardroom followed by those participating via Zoom. If you're joining via Zoom, please ensure you unmute yourself when called upon. If you're joining by phone, press star nine to raise your hand. If you're on Zoom, use a raise hand feature to indicate your interest in speaking. We ask that you voluntarily state your name for the record before beginning your comments.

Are there any members in the room that would like to address the board on this particular item? Okay, seeing none, let's go online, please.

Now taking public comment from online participants. Now taking public comment from Jay.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

Great. Thank you. My name is Jay Gidebski. I own a cabin in the Meeks Bay Avenue area of Tahoma. I was one of the ones who objected to the mandatory service. What I really want to see is this exemption that Placer County has codified so that we're not subject to negotiations every contract that comes up. I'm a seasonal property owner in Rubicon Bay on the West Shore. My family's owned a small summer cabin in the Rubicon Bay since the 80s. We have no ability to occupy that cabin in the winter months. So to be required to pay for garbage service when the cabin can't be occupied is absurd, frankly. Especially when the garbage service in Placer County for those homeowners, they have that exemption for the winter months. So I think it's, you know, in regard to fairness and just, well, just fairness, we need to have that same exemption afforded to us and codified so that we're not subject to this every contract negotiation. I will leave it at that. And I know I respect, I appreciate that you guys are going to look at negotiating this kind of language into the contract, but it needs to be codified. Placer County codified it in 2021 to offer that fairness to homeowners. So I would just ask that you guys do the same for us and just make it a non-issue going forward. Thank you.

Thank you.

There is no additional public comment.

Okay, thank you. I will bring this item back. It was reported by Mr. Warren that there were 37 protest votes received, and I'd just like to ask the clerk of the board if we've received any additional protest votes as of right now.

No, we have not.

Okay, thank you. I'll go ahead and close the public hearing and bring this item back to the board for deliberation and or action.

Would you like to take this one, Supervisor Lange, since it's in your district? Or would you rather I'll take it if you would like me to take it?

Go ahead.

OK. I move that we approve this as recommended by staff.

And I'll go ahead and second that. So there's a motion and a second. Is there further discussion? Roll call vote, please.

Supervisor Ferrero, how do you vote? Aye. Supervisor Turnbull, how do you vote?

Aye.

Supervisor Vierkamp, how do you vote?

Aye.

Supervisor Parlin, how do you vote? Aye. Supervisor Lane, how do you vote? Aye. Motion passes 5-0.

All right, thank you. We have two, we're doing great on time. We've got two department matters, neither which are time certain. We can take like a five minute break if you would like, and then come back and do the department matters 57 and 59, or we can move right into them. Do you have a strong feeling? I know you guys already moved on.

Yeah, sorry. It's okay, we're good.

All right, let's just go ahead and get started. It looks like, well, which one do you want to take first? So we've got 57 or 59. It looks like Health and Human Services is wandering in.

Yeah, we do have staff here to present on 57, but we also have, I know, interest in the room on 59. So you could probably...

I think there was an earthquake or something. Somebody's registering their opinion. Dang, that was a loud alarm.

Let's go ahead and just take them in order. Let's take item 57 and then we'll take item 59. We'll go ahead and call in the clerk of the board to read item number 57 into the record.

Item 57 comes from the Elections Department recommending the board, one, accept the certification of petition signatures for initiative measures titled Emergency Preparedness Healthcare Access and Wildfire Prevention Sales Tax Initiative. Two, take one of the following actions regarding A, Order the initiative measure to be submitted to the voters at the general election to be held on November 3rd, 2026, or refer the initiative measures to the appropriate county agencies for report pursuant to election code 9.111.

So is there anybody that's going to present this item? I don't see Ms. Webster in the room.

Madam Chair, as I sit on the Marshall Hospital Board, I will recuse myself from this item, so I will leave the room.

Okay. Okay. I apologize, Madam Chair. I had let her know that it would happen after the 2 o'clock hearing. So I forgot about that.

So I mean, we have the item before us. It's very clear.

can you present maybe sure yeah it's it's um pretty simple in terms of um under the elections code the the signatures have been gathered and certified by the registrar of voters so you have two options at this point um under the elections code and then you do have kind of a little third hybrid option that i can present to you so number one is you could just simply take the action to order that it be on the november ballot number two is you could delay that action and ask for a report that would come back to your board no less in no greater than 30 days so that would be your july 21st meeting and there are a list of items in the staff report subjects that you can ask staff to study and then there's kind of a catch-all at the end that says or anything else the board would like to know You do have a little bit of a third option, which is if you would like to just go ahead and move that the item gets, you know, order that the item get placed on the ballot today. But then if there is some information that you would like staff to gather and return with, we could certainly do that. And then in that case, you wouldn't be bound by the 30 day period, because you've already taken your action to order this to be on the ballot. Once you direct that it be placed on the ballot, we staff county council will prepare the ballot language and that'll return to you. I believe in the July meeting as well.

Okay. Thank you very much for, for laying out those options. And I do see that our register of voters has joined us online. Ms. Webster, sorry to throw you off on that item. Thank you for being nimble. No worries. You're welcome.

Thank you.

Is there any information you would like to add to the CAO's comments? I don't know if you heard, but she basically laid out the three, possibly four options that we have before us. Would you like to add anything to that before we ask clarifying questions?

No, I have nothing else to add. She did a great job in laying that out. If it does move forward to the election, the Elections Department will make the resolution with the 75 words or less question by the E-88 date, which is August 7th. August 7th. Okay. Okay.

That's helpful. To my colleagues, are there any clarifying questions or comments you'd like to make at this time on this item?

No.

No? OK.

So yeah, this is a clarifying question. Basically, this is going to end up on the ballot no matter what, correct? So really, the report is To your point, CAO, the hybrid item or idea of go ahead and say put it on the ballot, it's going to end there no matter what. But I think we all have a lot of questions about what's in here and the impacts to the county and all of that. So then is that what the purpose of the report is for? Because it's like why do we get to ask for a report on a lot of our questions if it's the signatures say it's going on the ballot no matter what. I just, sure.

I think, and you know, County Council can obviously jump in, but for other citizen initiated initiatives, petitions that don't include a tax, the board would have another option, which is to just simply adopt the ordinance or the proposal as is. So that's not an option for you here because this would impose a special tax. And so under our constitution, the board does not have the authority to do that. So I believe the option of delaying the decision to put it on the ballot and asking for a report applies more when a body is deciding whether they should just simply adopt it as proposed or put it to the voters. you might want to gather more information before you make that decision. Because if you do such a study and you determine that the impacts to the county are going to be minimal or the benefits are going to outweigh the impacts, you might want to forego the costs of taking it to election and just simply adopt to the ordinance as it was proposed. So that's why, you know, that's not really an option in this case, as I've noted. So I don't believe in talking with county council that you would have an option to not put this on the ballot at this point. It's just a matter of timing.

Okay. But we can still ask for a report with all of our questions.

So you certainly could. Okay. That helps. Yep. Good clarification there. Other comments, questions?

I was the same line. I don't suggest we put it on the ballot now, but request a report on what the obligation to the county is going to be on this and whether fees are going to be reimbursed or not.

Yeah, I would totally support that as well. We've heard it stated multiple times that the cost to the county could be, I think the word they used was de minimis, and I would like some analysis on that as well. What is it going to cost us annually to administer the funds? I understand that we're getting, within the language of the measure, we're getting reimbursed for the state of California's fees that they would charge, they collect the sales tax, then they pass through to us the portion that is ours, and there's a fee to do that. Within this ballot measure, that is reimbursed, but you are asking several of our departments to get involved every single year to determine what those amounts are going to be and then disperse the funds. There are costs to doing that, and at this time, that ordinance does not speak to reimbursing county for that. If it is de minimis, I would like to know that. If it's more cumbersome, we need to know that.

Yeah.

So I like where we're headed on that. Okay. So are there any other questions or comments at this time? Ms. Webster, are you good? Yes, I am. Okay. Yes. Okay.

Okay.

So then is this now when we discuss what we want in the report besides just that or?

Yes, we could take any direction on that.

Okay. Are you guys ready then? Because I have a couple things. I made a list. So in addition to that, the potential loss of revenue to the county or whatever it is, because the county, in my mind, quite honestly, was not included in crafting this, and therefore, you know, the county's input wasn't included, I guess, I will just say here and now, I think this could have been crafted differently. so that some of these impacts aren't going to be realized. I'd also like the report to explain, because I've heard this and I don't know where this is explained, but I would like to understand, my understanding is there's like a cap on how much a jurisdiction can have for a sales tax, and we have cities within the county. And so how does that work with adding this? What's left? um for the each jurisdiction you know how much more could they do this could impact jurisdictions if they wanted to do their own sales tax they might not be able to it might not leave any margin um and that's a little bit concerning um and then the the way that the the what is it the revenues the first year is so easy to understand and so clear and then it got a little muddled from there and I've had several people read it and go back and I think it'd be nice in the report if we could just have like an example you know some suppose you know suppose we make this much in the tax and how will it be distributed so we can actually see it would be nice, because I tried creating my own spreadsheet, and then I kind of made a mess. And so it would be nice to see what we think each of the entities that are going to get funding. I think there's some confusion about what kind of nonprofit organizations could be receiving these funds also, maybe explore that and put that in the report so we understand what we're talking about, how many different types of organizations are potentially going to be applying for this money. Because that's going to be, I believe, a burden on the county to determine where that goes. And if we have a bunch of organizations after pot of money um what are we going to do with that that could be um and then another thing that you know there's this section two here called findings and um i believe there's some inaccurate information maybe misleading information and one statement actually has conflicting information in it and I thought findings were more factual, not opinions. So I would like the report to kind of like go through and highlight those for the public to understand. Because again, I think if the county had been included in creating this, it would look a little bit different.

Is that the conclusion of your list at this point? I think so. Okay. Anything you want to add to that?

Anything that's specific is more generally what is it going to cost in personnel hours and the cost of the county to manage? And then, of course, are there any funds that are going to be reimbursed to the county?

Excellent. Mr. Turnbull, did you have any questions on this?

Yeah, I think I support this. I think it would be good, but I got some issues, especially that it's like we need to dive into it a little bit deeper, especially when it comes to some of these nonprofits, if they're going to be able to apply for this. I've got some concerns with that. I think it's basically my personal opinion. I think it should be more supportive to the ambulance program and our firefighters and our fire departments, especially the rural fire departments that are having a hard time struggling right now. So that's some of the concerns that I have.

Thank you for sharing those. Other comments, questions at this point? You know, one of the items that I just wanted to highlight is the fact that the Cal Tahoe JPA that manages the ambulance company up in the basin was excluded as one of the recipients of some of this funding by accident. when we brought it to the attention of the folks that were putting together this ordinance or this sales tax question, they said, well, the ambulance companies are run by the fire departments. And in our case, that's not true. And so I know that that was not done intentionally, but that is a problem, at least up in the basin. So staff was, several recommendations on things to analyze um do you want a recap of those or do you have a recap you could share i've been writing a motion um

Well, it looks like Kim. Is your mic on?

It's hard to hear.

Yeah. Oh, sorry. I have written a motion with what Supervisor Parlin. And then I think we have one more piece that County Council would like to add. So... Can everybody see that? Yeah. Okay, so it would be order the initiative measure to be submitted to the voters at the general election to be held on November 3rd, 2026, and direct staff to return with a report on the following. I think I did miss, I was typing when Supervisor Parlin talked about looking at the findings and the recitals.

Yeah, it just, I believe there's some inaccurate statements in here. There's one statement I think has conflicting words within it. One of the findings and maybe misleading information that I think really should be explored and pointed out.

Okay, so what I've got is what is the cap on sales tax for jurisdictions? How much would this leave under the cap for the county and cities within the county? Examples beyond year one of how much revenue would be generated and how much would be distributed to the entities? That would actually require us to work with the proponents a bit to understand maybe their schedule for issuing bonds, because that would affect the debt service and the formulas there. What types of nonprofit organizations and how many would be eligible? What are the costs to the county to administer the provisions of the measure and an analysis of the findings presented in the text of the measure? I think so, yeah. And then we would like to add some language about returning to the resolution.

Yes, so on the board's motion, if you could add language to say directing staff to return at the next regular meeting with the ballot question and resolution.

So that's our mid-July date? Is that... Yes, thank you, July 21st. Is that satisfactory to staff to have that ready by then?

Yes, as our registrar voters indicated, the last date is August 7th, and so we would obviously want to come before that date.

Before that, perfect.

Okay, thank you. And then what's on our screen? Are we supposed to be seeing your draft motion? I think we're not. We're seeing your screen. Yeah, what do we, I think CAO has it. Are you sharing? How better, thank you.

Okay, would you like to move forward with action? All right, so moved. Okay, there's a motion, is there a second?

Second.

Okay, thank you. There's a motion and a second. Is there further discussion or clarification on the motion that's before us? Seeing none, may we do a roll call vote, please?

Supervisor Ferrero, how do you vote?

Aye.

Supervisor Parlin, how do you vote? Aye. Supervisor Turnbull, how do you vote?

Aye.

Supervisor Lane, how do you vote? Aye. Motion passes 4-0 with Supervisor Vierkamp accusing himself.

Okay, thank you. and supervisor of your camp hopefully you are heading back into the room or do we need to take a short break to reassemble let's reassemble okay let's break to until uh 10 45 so just a few minutes

George is back.

Okay. All right. We are back from a short break and we're going to take on item number 59, which is our health and human services, the opioid settlement funding. I'd like to call on the clerk of the board to read this item into the records.

Item 59 comes from Health and Human Services Agency recommending the board, one, approve the allocation of the opioid settlement funding from HHSA for the opioid remediation services to the county's following departments. A, Eldorado County Sheriff. B, Public Defender and District Attorney's Office. Two, make findings that the provision of the opioid remediation services provided by the Eldorado County Community Health Center Marshall Medical Center and Tahoe Alliance for Safe Kids are in the public's best interest. The ongoing aggregate of work to be performed is not sufficient to warrant addition of permanent staff. Three, approve and authorize a chair to sign funding out agreement with the El Dorado Community Health Center. Four, approve and authorize a chair to sign funding out agreement with Marshall Medical Center. It's a six, but it should be five, it looks like. Five, approve and authorize a chair to sign funding out agreement with Tahoe Alliance for Safe Kids. Six, authorize a purchasing agent to execute amendments relating to funding out agreements and authorize the HHSA director, chief assistant director, or behavioral health director to execute programmatic, administrative, and fiscal documents related to the funding out agreements.

Thank you, Ms. Dawson. I'd like to welcome Ms. Collinsworth, who is our Director of Behavioral Health. Welcome.

Hi, good morning, Madam Chair and Supervisors. I am Justine Collinsworth. I am the Director of the Behavioral Health Division within Health and Human Services, and I'm here to report out on the Opioid Settlement Funds Award Update for the 2026 to 2029 funding cycle. So I'll start with giving a brief background on what the opioid settlement funds are. So there was a major national class action lawsuit against major pharmaceutical manufacturers, distributors, and pharmacies. based on the over-prescription of opioids, which caused a mass crisis across the United States. As a result of that, the defendants are meant to pay out large sums of money to various subdivisions of the settlement across the United States. The state of California is set to receive up to $4 billion over the lifetime of this payout. El Dorado County is a subdivision of those funds and will be receiving funds over time The funds are not distributed on a regular routine basis. They are distributed based on the defendant, basically what they were found guilty of and how much they have to pay when they have to pay. So with that said, I just do want to make clear that none of these funds that we are proposing are awarded to grantees are coming from general fund, and there's no net county cost to this. We can go on to the next couple of slides. Thank you. We can go to the next one to the strategic framework. So given the variable nature of these funds, when we're being paid, how much we're being paid, And given that we need to stay within the framework that was set forth by the Department of Healthcare Services, DHCS, who is issuing the money to different subdivisions in the state of California, HHSA came to the Board of Supervisors in 2024 with a clear strategic framework to guide how HHSA and behavioral health is dispersing those funds. We took in lots of stakeholder feedback in order to put together a really comprehensive document that was then approved by Board of Supervisors in September of 2025. We really worked hard to balance what the allowable uses of these funds are based on guidance from the Department of Healthcare Services versus our local values and needs and what we want to focus on here in El Dorado County. You know, recognizing that sometimes our local priorities differ from that of the state of California, so we were really mindful to ensure that we listen to our constituents, we listened to stakeholders. to come up with a clear strategic framework. So as ongoing cycles progress, we knew what our priorities would be. One thing I'd like to note is that we do not promote any type of needle exchange and we are not supporting any programming that does any invasive type program like that. The framework also does guide us in ensuring that we have a competitive procurement and fund disbursement over a three year cycle, which helps give some clear direction to the not always clear disbursement cycle of the opioid settlement funds. So if we move on to the next slide, there were four board approved high impact abatement activities. And that's what were put forth, what was put forth by the Department of Health Care Services as allowable funds. And so the four areas that were approved by the board as priority focus areas were to expand substance use disorder treatment and infrastructure within El Dorado County. to support justice system diversion, to enhance youth-focused prevention and education surrounding substance use, and to provide naloxone access, which is more commonly known as Narcan, which is available to reverse immediate death due to opioid overdose or poisoning. So for this most recent cycle, if we move on to the next slide, thank you, Kim. We issued a competitive RFQ in June of 2025, and we received submissions through July of 2025. At that point, there was a cross-departmental evaluation in which all submissions were scored based on submissions qualifications, and their plan as an alignment with the high impact abatement activities. There was a qualified list that was published in October of 2025. And now we are proposing to award grantees based on alignment with high impact abatement activities. And again, in alignment with the board approved strategic framework. So our proposed grantees are as follows on the next slide. which include the El Dorado County Sheriff's Office, leading with their SHIELD program. They have officers that visit. I think they aim to visit every school campus across the county. I know from my own experience, my kids don't know I have anything to do with this, and they were so excited when the officers were at their school last year. Also, the El Dorado County District Attorney worked in conjunction with the El Dorado County Public Defender Office to come up with ways to apply for these dollars to support Proposition 36. Marshall Medical Center is continuing to support Prop 36 placement of services and same day access to substance use disorder services. We have the Tahoe Alliance for Safe Kids specifically providing youth prevention and peer support outreach in the Tahoe area. And then we have El Dorado Community Health Center COB, Bethany Collins, Continuing with their steps program and their mobile medication unit, which is really changing the way that residents, you know across our wide geographic landscape, were able to access services. COB, Bethany Collins, So, in addition to granting the bulk of the funds out there is also, we also retain some hhs a directed funds which we list on the next slide and so. Per the approved strategic framework, we retain some costs or we retain some money. Primarily that's been used to ensure that folks that are in need of urgent substance use disorder treatment like inpatient recovery type services are able to find placements. It's very limited what we have here in county. So oftentimes we have to look outside of the county to place folks when they need this level of care. We are also looking at how some of these funds will be used to support capital development of the future treatment-focused interim housing location. That's going to be at 340 Road. And one of the things I'm actually most excited about is that we are working with an established children's vendor here within the county to lift up building a children's outpatient substance use disorder treatment clinic, which is something that's been missing in our continuum of care. And so we're really excited that we have a partner who's working with us to lift that up. So those are the ways in which we've tried to honor the strategic framework through the competitive procurement and lifting up the board-approved priority high-impact abatement activities at this time for this award cycle of the opioid settlement funds.

Okay, excellent, thank you. Questions, comments? Not seeing any. I'm curious, when you wrote that there's a portion of the funds that the department keeps, can you give us an idea of how much that is?

Sure. So over the entire allotment within the strategic framework, 10% of the whole pot is for our administrative overhead of administering the funds. About 10% is for us for our own programming. And then we do like to retain some in the coffers in order to lift up other priority high impact abatement activities that we're hoping to lift up.

So that's somewhere like around $300,000 or roughly? 10% of the 3 million?

So the figures vary over time, right? Because we receive, as I was mentioning, we receive these disbursements at irregular cycles. So what we're offering, what we were budgeted to do right now is this 3.6, which would ensure that we have enough in the coffers that are going to the build of the new location, plus trying to lift up the new outpatient substance use services for youth. So I don't want to give an exact figure on something because we are looking at kind of the overall disbursements that we're receiving, not just the 3.6.

Gotcha. I remember when we talked about this a couple years ago, and we talked about kind of trying to smooth it out because the settlements we were getting were erratic. Exactly. So, yeah, all that's coming back. That's exactly why we're doing it. It's coming back.

You know, of course, nothing can be simple. And so it depends on the defendant, what they owe, when they have to pay. Some of them have specific rules about them, like they must be spent in X amount of time or on X specific thing. So luckily, our fiscal and admin teams are really tight on those, you know, knowing exactly what needs to be spent once so that we're staying in line with those regulations. So I don't know that there's an exact figure because it kind of ebbs and flows over time based on the erratic nature of the payments.

Got it. Okay. I recall that. Excellent. Thank you. I'll bring this to the board for further deliberation or action.

I support all of these destinations for the funds, especially, you know, think of the public defender and the DA funds. Prop 36 is a state responsibility still not being funded by the state. So it's luckily, fortunately, we have this money to supplement these programs.

Agreed. Would you like to make a motion?

I just want to say one thing. I think it's great that we're using this money, especially to make the children aware of what's going on and what drugs can cause. And I want to just reach out and thank the SHIELD for all the hard work they have done.

Thank you, Supervisor Chernbu.

All right. Make a motion to approve item 59, items or subsections one through eight.

I'll second it.

Okay, good. Okay, great. There's a motion and a second further discussion.

Madam Chair, I will be abstaining from the vote on this since Marshall Hospital is a recipient of the funds.

Some of the funds.

Oh, yeah, they are, aren't they? Mm-hmm.

Gotcha. Okay. All right, gotcha. May we please do a roll call vote?

Supervisor Parlin, how do you vote? Aye. Supervisor Ferrero, how do you vote?

Aye.

Supervisor Turnbull, how do you vote?

Aye.

Supervisor Lane, how do you vote? Aye. Motion passes 4-0 with Supervisor Vierkamp abstaining.

Thank you. Thank you. Oh, geez. Okay. Okay. I'm pausing here just for a very brief moment. We do have an 11 o'clock time certain, but it's 1059. So we'll just have a brief pause.

So I remember when Supervisor Novosel used to get out her, what was that? Was it the Jeopardy clock sound or whatever? And she would play it while we would have one of these one or two minute things. It was really funny.

Yeah, Jeopardy, Jeopardy.

Is that what it was? Jeopardy, huh? Yeah. And it seemed funny that she always almost had it right there ready.

Yeah. Like, okay. She had a premonition. All right. It's 11 o'clock. So we'll go ahead and work with item number 64, which comes from supervisors Ferrero and Turnbull. And I'd like to ask the clerk of the board to read this item into the record.

Item 64 comes from Supervisor Ferreira and Supervisor Turnbull recommending the board direct county council and the chief administrative officer to identify methods to assure that if proposed Costco is approved and begins operation Eldorado Hills, a portion of the revenue would be deposited in a special account dedicated to road improvements and maintenance. Written public comments received by 4 p.m. on the day prior to today's meeting were distributed to all board members and included with this agenda item.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Supervisors Ferrero and Turnbull, would you like to take over?

Yes, thank you. Greg, you can go ahead and take the lead on this. Thanks, George. You're welcome.

Okay. Thank you, board members. First, I want to actually kind of recognize and apologize to Supervisor Parlin. This item includes District 4. Oh, I saw that. Yeah. And as you know, because of the Brown Act, we can only talk to one other supervisor, and Supervisor Turnbull and I have been talking about this for quite some time now.

I appreciate that. I just want to acknowledge that. Yeah.

So as you all know, Costco Corporation is proposing to build a warehouse, store, and gas station in El Dorado Hills. This would be located on Silver Valley Parkway, directly north of US 50. The application for the Costco project is currently in the final environmental review process and is expected to be heard by our planning commission sometime in the fall or winter of this year. This proposal today has nothing to do with the approval of Costco, and supporting this today will have no relevance to the future approval or denial of Costco, of the application from Costco. What we are proposing today is that a portion of the taxes collected from Costco be deposited in a special account dedicated to road improvements and maintenance in Eldorado Hills. Eldorado County has never seen a project like Costco before. This project, if approved, will likely help the county's budget for years to come and provide an added retail convenience for our residents. However, there are significant impacts that will be experienced, and some are unmitigatable. The impact that Costco will create will be experienced in El Dorado Hills and El Dorado Hills only. The county will benefit from the revenue that Costco will provide. However, the impacts will be experienced by the residents in El Dorado Hills. Today, we are asking for approval to direct staff to explore how we can partition part of the sales and property tax collected from Costco and dedicated to a special fund that will be used in addition to annual road funds to increase maintenance and improve infrastructure to the roads in 95762 zip code. Again, these funds would be in addition to the funds we already receive by the county. Approving a dedicated infrastructure fund for Eldorado Hills Costco aligns perfectly with Eldorado County's established precedent of ring fencing tax revenues to mitigate severe hyperlocal infrastructure impacts. And these impacts can either be caused by disaster, mother nature, or man-made. By dedicating a portion of Costco's generated revenue specifically to the 95762 zip code, the board would not be creating a new exception, but rather applying the same equity already granted to other districts. Using the exact logic applied to other districts, the proposed Costco fund should be approved based on four unmitigated localized pressures. Number one, the local impact. The 165,000 square foot store and 32 position fueling station will inject approximately 10 to 14,000 additional trips into El Dorado Hills. Unmitigated traffic volume. The 2026 draft EIR explicitly acknowledges that standard baseline traffic mitigation measures are physically insufficient to fully offset the massive influx of regional traffic pouring into the Costco store. This traffic will not only be coming from US 50, but all the roads within El Dorado Hills, including Green Valley, Silver Valley, Bass Lake, Latrobe. It's gonna affect all the roads in El Dorado Hills. Number three, regional benefit versus local cost. While the entire county will benefit from the general sales tax boost and physical costs, including the physical costs, including congestion, gridlock, broken asphalt, and aesthetics of the structures are entirely concentrated within 95762 zip code. And lastly, the fiscal backstop. With Eldorado County's general road maintenance revenues facing long-term declines, creating a dedicated account to ensure this massive commercial driver pays directly for its own structural footprint, protecting the county from future deficits. We know you are probably a little skeptical about this proposal, but we ask you to consider doing the right thing and what is fair for our districts. El Dorado Hills is identified in the general plan as a community region where significant development has been identified to occur. Having this distinction creates higher traffic volumes and a condensed population that overuses our roads on a daily basis. However, the annual funding for road improvements and maintenance has been proportionate with other districts. Today, both Supervisor Turnbull and I are asking the board to direct the CAO's office and County Council to establish a Costco infrastructure impact account to ensure a baseline percentage of project-generated sales tax and property tax is retained within the 95762 zip code to mitigate unmitigated impacts that El Dorado Hills will experience if this project is approved. We ask that we direct the above offices to report back to our board before the application is put in front of the Planning Commission. And I just want, This is also an opportunity. Over the years, Eldorado Hills has experienced so much development. And I think there's still a lot of deficiencies in our existing roads. Roads that should have been widened per specific plans, like Silver Valley should have been widened due to the Eldorado Hills specific plan. We've got intersections that, quite frankly, unsafe. And there's not gonna be any TIF funding or CIP to repair these roads or make them safer. So this is an opportunity to correct existing road deficiencies caused by development that maybe should have been paid by development at the time over the last many years. We currently do not have the funds to correct these problems, but we do recognize that these areas exist. And then I just want to address some of the public comment we've received. We are not, this is in no way trying to take away any responsibility on behalf of the developer at Costco to fulfill their road improvement mitigations. It's really just creating a safety cushion for the area. And I want to reiterate that Costco should be paying for every cent that they're responsible for, for the impacts that they're going to create. um but those impacts are going to be localized close to close to um close to the store but as i said earlier there's lots of you know there's intersections up on bath lake road that you know traffic is going to increase on these roads and and there's intersections that need to be approved improved and then lastly um there's going to be i mean this this area is zoned for commercial it's it's approved for this use um it's right next to the freeway but there's going to be hundreds of homes that are looking down on this and and i just think that um you know there's nothing we're going to be able to do to mitigate that and we're trying to encourage costco if it's approved to um make the building more aesthetic instead of a big gray box and build something that will fit into within our design standards that we're trying to create. But regardless, these hundreds of homes are going to be looking down on this building. And I just think it's the right thing to, you know, throw Eldorado Hills a bone for this project if it's approved. Yeah. That's all I have. George, you have anything to add?

I agree with you 100%. Thanks for taking over on this. There's a lot of infrastructure that has to be done in El Dorado Hills, and a lot of this stuff is 10, 15, 20 years out, especially on the CIP. And it mostly impacts District 1 and District 2. And there is some in District 4, too. So I just think we just got to get ahead of it. And I don't support Costco either way. You know, I'm very neutral on this. I'm not going to support. I don't know if it's a good thing for our county or not a good thing, but. I think it's good that we get ahead of this and make sure that we get the right, this sales tax that's generated, to make sure it goes into the road improvements, especially the southeast connector, that one bottleneck that's down there off of White Rock and Latrobe Road. So there's a lot of things that have to be done, I think, but this money can go into this particular account and help with our road improvements, because especially with the funding, DOT is not getting the funding that we really need. And also the Transportation Commission, there's no federal grant money or federal money that's going to be coming very little to El Dorado County. So we need to get ahead of this. So.

anyway thanks greg for all of that appreciate it welcome thank you to both uh both of you supervisor ferrero and supervisor turnbu i'm sure that there will be some questions and some good discussion around this so i'd like to ask my colleagues to please ask questions make comments now would be the time okay if i may uh there's a lot to digest on this one

especially with um potentially the precedent setting of it you know we all represent areas in our uh in this county and uh and i'll throw out apple hill for one a lot of people come from all over the region including these folks are going to probably go to costco and It's probably one of the lowest revenue generating things in the county, but one of the highest impacts, especially in District 3 and so forth. And obviously, it goes up the hill as well. Our Crystal Basin recreational area, Tahoe Recreation is another area. So I hate to go down this road to any strict formula. We rely on our department heads to put the numbers out there based on some priorities. And I think that works pretty darn well. i wouldn't be opposed to that we make a priority order list of some of those bottleneck areas but they should include entire county because they do exist in these areas for our other districts as well i think it's a great concept to think but the general plan was settled in a court And it was very controversial, and the infrastructure for where most of it was settled on is in the west end of the county because it's flatter, and the infrastructure was there. I totally sympathize with folks wanting not only to look down on the Costco, but it's zoned commercial just like the business park, and all those folks up on those hills are going to look down on it. None of us were here when the general plan was debated. Actually, I was here. I was involved as a fire service. I still have tapes of all the hearings for some crazy reason. And it was the best we could come up with, again, as the court approved it. So I think we need to have a regard for the totality of the county and not try to bifurcate it. If that's a cityhood maneuver someday, which it looks like it's going to go that way, then that's how it gets bifurcated. And I'm reluctant to nail it down to the penny on sales and property tax without some discussion about, you know, we identify and we've talked about them numerous times, those areas or those road segments that need some help. And I think they need it today, not even without Costco going in. So I'll start with that.

Well said. And I agree. precedent and setting, it's problematic. And I'm of the mind in the general plan, developers are supposed to pay for their own impacts. That's the way it's supposed to be. And I guess we haven't seen the EIR yet for it, so I believe that will all come out in that too. So this is a little bit difficult to get our heads around, number-wise and all that. The Silver Valley interchange was put in, I believe by a developer, you know, funded it ahead and it's getting reimbursed. I don't know if it's done being reimbursed. Did we finally make the final payment on Silva Valley? We're still paying on Silva Valley interchange. So there's that. But I also, we've talked about this many times over the years since I've been on the board when we were doing some economic development, feasibility, sustainability, whatever those assess, you know, evaluations and parts of the county. And it became really clear that we want to be careful and not do this parceling thing. I do like the idea, though, of making a list of the existing deficiencies because there is zero funding mechanism for those is my understanding. And that's because, you know, in the past it was – fees weren't being collected, big enough, large enough, fast enough, whatever. So those would be good to look at. And then, too, maybe looking at it, you know, the board has the policy of – what is our budget policy is to put general fund dollars into road maintenance. So maybe, you know, we could make sure that that policy, when all this happens and we have those sales tax dollars in the general fund, go there and we look at some PCI numbers and start bringing that up, you know, county-wide too. And I'm just mindful of how long it took us to undo the MCNFP, quite honestly. That was a long time. hard-fought battle to unwind that. It wasn't in the best interest, I don't think, of the county as a whole. And along those lines, too, I'm very sensitive to the tribe funds that come into the county. You know, that was money that was... hard fought to get that away from being allocated to a very finite area it took I don't know how many iterations it was even before I got on the board I started on that battle to make it now it's a county-wide funding mechanism that we use to leverage for grant dollars and emergencies and that kind of stuff. And one of our fundamental budget, I don't think it's a policy so much as a philosophy though, is always to maximize flexibility for the board and spending so I don't want us to get pigeonholed into something so I do like the idea though of staff exploring this and looking at you know what our reality is what are things that make sense for the county as a whole um and we're all hyper aware of the cityhood effort we just are um so um but we need to make sure that we don't go down this path of every project that comes in or things coming in that were, I mean, honestly, I didn't list it out in my, but I mean, I could see Tahoe, Tahoe could make a huge pull for funding because of all the DTOT, you know, so, and we got, we got away from that actually. It's taken a lot of years to unwind some of these. So, but I don't think that there's any harm in exploring it, if that makes sense.

Yeah, that totally makes sense to me. I just first want to commend you, Supervisor Ferrero, for also being such a new person to this position. And you've just really shown your leadership skills to Supervisor Turnbull, the partnering of that. I think it's really great. i want to thank you for being proactive and thinking out of the box and i think a lot of times in government we get stuck this is how we always do it and this is you know very creative one of the things that we have done in tahoe to deal with road maintenance and snow removal was we increased the transit occupancy tax so we didn't take away from what the county was already getting but we did with the voters' approval, increased the TOT by 4% and dedicated that to snow removal and road maintenance. In that vein, I'm just thinking out loud, with regards to El Dorado Hills, maybe you would also consider analyzing putting forth a voter initiative to increase the sales tax in that zip code, or however you identify it, by 1% or 1.5%. PB, Lupita D Montoya, and dedicate that funding for what you're looking for, for the road improvements, so that you know the county still. PB, Lupita D Montoya, benefits and has the general interest of the whole county but something specifically could be generated, maybe an Eldorado hills that doesn't take away from the county but addresses what you're trying to address no.

All good ideas. Regarding a sales tax, I mean, it's the county's responsibility to maintain the roads in El Dorado Hills. I wouldn't support a sales tax increase for El Dorado Hills roads. These projects down there have been approved over the years, and quite frankly, the roads are still deficient, and the developers probably should have paid for them. And I'll go back to like the Eldorado Hill specific plan says Silver Valley supposed to be four lanes all the way to Green Valley It's not and how old is that agreement 37 years old? Bass Lake Road is supposed to be widened into four lines. It's not and now we have you know intersections that Hollow oak in the end the Safeway gas station. They're not even safe You actually have to pull out on the Bass Lake. You have to pull on to the dirt to make a right-hand turn And there's just a couple of a couple examples I'll go back to saying again, we've never seen a project this scale before in the county. So I think it's different than anything else we're talking about. Apple Hill, there are major impacts up there, but they're short-lived, you know, a couple months a year. We have, you know, there was an MCNFP, and I know this is different, that was a district involving many businesses, but the same concepts could be applied for one store that is going to cause so much impact in El Dorado Hills. So yeah, I appreciate the transient occupancy tax. I mean, I think we still infuse South Lake Tahoe for road funds, for snow removal, for snow removal equipment, in addition to what the TOT charges.

Oh, yeah. That was a requirement. Yeah.

It was. We do. And I mean, look at that. Those are man-made. I'm not man-made, Dara. those impacts are caused by mother nature. Whether it's fire, we just allocated eight and a half million dollars to Volcanoville for the settlement funds that are used to bolster the roads there. And that was caused by a natural disaster. In Tahoe, it's mother nature that causes storm. What we're doing in Eldorado Hills is not natural, it's manmade and it's approved by the county. And I think the county should PB, Harmon Zuckerman, step up and and fulfill the obligations that I think we have for for our area. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, George, you have anything

No, I just I think there's a lot of it. Let's go back a little bit. The last board meeting when I asked that question, how many more homes in Toronto is going to trigger four lanes and Bass Lake Road? So this has been an issue for a long time and everything done. White Rock Road has not been widened. There's issues there, even though they're saying that there's funding there to be able to do this. I just got some concerns with this here will help them, especially some of these projects be completed, especially when you're talking about traffic mitigation. And the traffic in some of those areas down on Latrobe Road and in those areas there are You know, I mean, it's hard. It really is. People are having a hard time. Traffic is backed up, especially down at the school down there. John Adams Academy, there's been issues there. Carson Creek, there's issues going to be there. So some of this fun to be able to use that to be able to mitigate these problems that we're going to have in the future. And we need to get ahead of it. And that's the problem we've been playing catch up for all these years. We should have took care of this a long, long time ago. So anyway, that's all I really have to say at this time.

I just want to point out also this item today, this is for us to conceptually approve having staff look at it. So that's all we're asking. Supervisor Parling, your list, we could very easily put together a laundry list working with DOT of what needs to be improved and what impacts we should be looking at. And again, I just want to really make sure as we move forward with Costco and it's probably going to come before us, we need to darn well make sure that the impacts that are caused by the store are taken care of before the store opens. And this has nothing is totally separate. So

Well, and it is separate, but I think that it's easy when people start talking about, and to your point about, you know, the four lanes on, let's say, Bass Lake or something, that is in our CIP, and we are collecting fees. And, you know, there's a time, that's the timing triggering threshold issue right there that we are always talking about, always second guessing ourselves if our fees are high enough. to collect for the future. I mean, that's our constant annual, if not more often than annual discussion. So, yeah, I agree. I think it's smart to explore this and DOT will definitely be in the mix of it all. And, you know, I think also having some of those forecasting things so that we can see what should be funded by the tiff versus the developer versus it's the list of deficiencies i think to me makes the most sense yeah i mean you look at like bass lake road yeah there's not enough development that can occur up there physically to pay for that road to be widened are you sure about that do you know how many units are left out there maybe we need to have a chat

there's a lot of units left i don't know um but even even if we didn't widen it make the intersection safe yeah and that's that's one of those existing deficiency projects that should have been already that should have been done so yeah um yeah like i said i mean is there any more discussion otherwise i'll make a motion to conceptually approve this and

Yeah, I appreciate that Greg, you know, been around the board and county long enough and Raphael back me up on this. If we could build a better mousetrap, we're all for it. Usually by the time we collect enough fees based on what the formulas say. we end up with two lanes because the formula never hits the threshold.

But yet, guess what? We've got plenty of traffic.

And again, it's all objective or subjective. And who's sitting in it? And that's a tough one there, too. If you're sitting in it, you know, you've had enough. We've got to always understand that in the urban areas, it's going to be worse than it is in the rural areas. And a lot of our rural areas, including the basin, being environmentally sensitive, wasn't built to handle all this. So there are going to be some really tough things to deal with in the future. But I am all about we can... design something better and dedicate to meet some objectives. And I think that's what you're getting at. Great. Let's do it. And that also makes it easier for our DOT to know what needs to be done.

Yeah, I just want to circle back really quick to the points that I was making, but also to let you know, I have absolutely no problem with analyzing it. I think we need to know what our options are and what the possibilities are. I mentioned sales tax, and you kind of dismissed that. But in this report, it says a portion of the revenue be deposited in a special account. What revenue are you thinking of?

Combination of sales and property tax generated from Costco.

But you wouldn't... Well, would you... pursue at least analyzing what could be generated if you added to the sales tax in that area and use the difference and kept the county whole? I mean, would that at least be something you'd be willing to look at as opposed to just dismissing it?

I don't think we get a lot of support on that, first of all, because like I said, I mean, this shouldn't be on the shoulders of Eldorado Hills.

Well, it would be on the shoulders of everybody who goes to that. To Costco. To Costco. And you're admitting that everyone's getting it.

You're talking about sales tax entries just for this. Just for that, yeah.

Yes.

I don't know how we do that, but it's certainly, I wouldn't rule it out.

Okay. All right. Further discussion?

Well, I don't think that in my mind we shouldn't approve this the way it's written, though, because this actually says to set aside some money and stuff, and I would rather have this be a staff explorer options and bring it back to us. I would not support it the way it's written, because this actually says you know, a portion of the revenue deposited in a special account, I'm not really sure that's the best way to go. So I think that, in my mind, it would be better to direct staff to explore options. Explore instead of assure? Well, just explore options for funding road deficiencies, maintenance, whatever, in that zip code or however you... CAO, how should we word this so it makes sense, you know, to explore things? What is the... Or county council, I don't know which is... Because we might not put money in a special fund. We might instead, you know, just allocate or I don't know what we would do.

Well, a special fund just means it's going to be partitioned. It's going to be held in a different separate account aside from the general fund dedicated to infrastructure improvements and maintenance in El Dorado Hills.

Yeah. And I don't even think we should say that yet. I think first that we should let staff bring back options for us, you know, where to do it. Maybe it should instead go into the road fund allocation every year instead and have a priority. I don't know. I think there's several ways to do it.

Right. One of the things we could do, because my understanding, this request isn't by any means to take all the revenue from the costco project right it's it's a portion of it right it's a portion of it and um just some of the things coming to mind as you all have noted we do have a policy about providing additional discretionary funds to road maintenance and that is in board budget policy b16 so we could explore something like a combination of what you all discussed as identifying priorities and objectives, and then we could look at potentially increasing the goal in that board policy based on some of the projected revenue from the Costco project. In that way, we might be looking at projects more countywide, but certainly assuring that a portion of that does get to El Dorado Hills where it's impacted. So that is something we could look at. So if you wanted to say, rather than a portion of the revenue be deposited in a special account, you could say a portion of the revenue is dedicated to enhancing you know, road maintenance and infrastructure, something like that. Rather, so you're not, it's opening the discussion up for other ideas rather than just establishing an account.

Right, for the impacts of the project, road maintenance and infrastructure in El Dorado Hills. I mean, of course, the county is going to benefit from this regardless, financially. Right. but we're here and we know that the money is going to you know can enhance the road fund in general but the intent today is to keep a portion just for el dorado hills in addition to the regular funds so i don't want it to go all i mean i think we're kind of wasting our time to say it's unless it's unless it's actually partitioned to be dedicated to el dorado hills

Well, then I won't support it. I think it needs to be looked more at countywide prioritizing a list and all that stuff. We really, I think this should be more a broad exploration so that staff has the opportunity to put their heads together and bring back options to us that, you know, we could, and one of the options could be a specific fund, but I want to see other options too on how we could do this.

So if I could make a suggestion to change the language to say a portion of the revenue be dedicated to road improvements and maintenance in El Dorado Hills. That does not exclude us from coming back with a plan to talk about the totality of the projected revenues and how that might also be used for road maintenance and infrastructure problems in the rest of the county. But I think what Supervisor Ferraro is looking for is some assurance that we are looking at those specific impacts to El Dorado Hills. And I think we can do that by developing the list and the priorities. And yeah, I think we could do both.

That's fine. Yeah, I would support that. But yeah, without, we wouldn't even be coming to you today for the last, speaking for the last hour, for an hour, if this wasn't about dedicating funds to El Dorado Hills. But I'm fine with looking at other things too. But timing, I think is going to be of the essence. You know, I don't know. Precisely when it would go to the Planning Commission. Karen, I don't know if you have any idea when the final EIR is going to be completed. But this has to be decided before any decision is made by the Planning Commission, I think.

On the actual approval of the project. They can be parallel. Yeah. Let me see if I can try a motion that we recommend the board direct county council and the chief administrative officer to identify, excuse me, to explore revenue opportunities for a special account dedicated to road maintenance and improvements in El Dorado Hills and other revenue opportunities countywide. Does that work CAO to what you were thinking?

if it works for you, I thought you were trying to get away from the account.

I was trying to get away from that. That's the thing. But I'm saying we can explore both. Okay. We can explore both.

Okay. Yeah, without a separate account. I mean, I wouldn't even want to...

Yeah, and I don't like having a separate account. I like having priorities, and there is a nuance to it.

We already have priorities, and we have a CIP list. I mean, I'm sorry. Well, you don't, though, because it doesn't really get funded.

It's odd when the chair is the one who makes the motion, because then I have to manage this. Well, I was looking to the CAO to make the motion.

So I have a... maybe keeping it a little bit more simple with what is already in the item so i would suggest you could leave the the wording just as it is but you would strike the phrase deposited in a special account so that it would read a portion of the revenue be dedicated to road improvements and maintenance in renault hills And then the last sentence would say rather than the account will be in addition to any other available funds, you say the funding will be in addition to any other available funds. That leaves it wide open for us to come back with, I believe, a whole range of ideas. And we would be looking then at that point potentially for... how these revenues might also be used and leveraged more specifically for projects countywide as well. So, cause we haven't had that discussion. There is the option that this money could just, we could just do nothing. This money would just flow into the general fund, just like any other revenue. But if there's a desire for the board, if we're feeling like maybe you want to use some of this funding or all of it to improve our road maintenance goal, that's something that we can explore and come back with options on. So perhaps instead of saying we have a goal of providing $5 million in discretionary funds to the road fund every year, maybe we increase that number or we modify this policy slightly and then That way we can ensure a portion of that comes back not only to El Dorado Hills, but that all of this revenue generated might be more directed toward those activities if that's a shortfall.

I just like the word better explore revenue opportunities, not a portion of the revenue, because I think a portion of the revenue locks us into... whatever that revenue is. And I'd still like to see some in addition to, you know, some add-ons.

So I think that actually becomes a much bigger question if we're talking about exploring a sales tax increase. I'm not even certain we could increase sales tax in one zip code. I think it might be jurisdiction-wide, but we could look into that.

But to me, that is a... Well, we do it.

Well, you do it in the city.

Not the entirety of Elvira Hills. You... Your suggestion was just for Costco alone. Is that even legal?

I doubt it, but we'd have to explore that. I think that it probably has to be jurisdictional boundaries, so a city or a county or an incorporated area.

Did you write up what you're suggesting? Did you? Mm-hmm. Okay. Can you read it again?

Sure, I'll read the whole thing. Supervisor Ferreira, well, so it would say... direct county council and chief administrative officer to identify methods to assure that if the proposed costco is approved and begins operation in el dorado hills a portion of the revenue be dedicated to road improvements and maintenance in el dorado hills nine five seven six two districts one two and four the funding will be in addition to any other available funds for general road maintenance okay is there anybody that would make that motion

I will. Okay. Supervisor Parlin, is there a second?

I would support that.

Okay. Supervisor Ferrero, is there any further discussion on that particular motion?

I'm probably going to go with the motion, but I just would caution all of us. SB 35 is encroaching into all different areas throughout the county that's going to create impacts as well. They definitely have on State Route 49 or Pleasant Valley Road. Looks like maybe now in Cameron Park. So we just have to be a little bit careful on how we dedicate things to make everything go around. And I certainly get it. And that's discussion to have, too, with Costco on mitigation for their project.

Yeah.

I'll let the team do that.

Further discussion? Seeing none, may we take a roll call vote, please?

Supervisor Parlin, how do you vote? Aye. Supervisor Verkamp, how do you vote?

Aye.

Supervisor Ferraro, how do you vote?

Aye.

Supervisor Turnbull, how do you vote?

Aye.

Supervisor Lane, how do you vote? Aye. Motion passes 5-0.

Okay.

Thank you all for your work. Thank you.

Good work. All right. Let's move forward to item number 65, which is our 1130 time certain this comes from the planning and building department code enforcement of hazard trees. in Grizzly Flats. May I please call on the clerk of the board to read this item into the record.

Item 65 comes from Planning and Building Department, Code Enforcement Division, recommending the board direct staff to initiate enforcement actions to remove hazardous trees in Grizzly Flats community that pose a risk to county right of way.

Welcome, Ms. Garner, our Director of Planning and Building. Glad to have you here. Thank you, Chair.

I also want to let you know that Mark Egbert from the El Dorado Resource Conservation District is here, and he helps me greatly with this particular item. And if you have questions, he may be the one to answer. With that, staff is requesting that the board provide direction to initiate enforcement actions to remove hazardous trees in Grizzly Flats, and in particular ones that pose a risk to the public right-of-way. In other words, tree falls, it could land on the roadway. Although many hazardous trees were removed shortly after the Caldor fire five years ago, more trees have continued to deteriorate or die. For the past few years, the El Dorado Resource Conservation District has had a grant-funded program offering the removal of hazardous trees at no cost to Grizzly Flats residents. To participate, the residents should simply need to complete a right of entry, allowing contractors that the RCDE has contracted with to enter the property and remove the hazardous trees. Despite significant outreach efforts, participation in the program has been relatively low. Per RCD of the 891 parcels within the Grizzly Flats area, 207 of the parcels did complete the RCD program and have no hazardous trees present. Another 341 have hazardous trees, but they do not have strike potential to the road. So in other words, They fall down on the property, they're not gonna fall down into the public right away. However, there are still 343 parcels that have one or more hazardous trees that have strike potential to a public road. The reason for low participation is not really clear, though at least one likely reason is that people have moved away and possibly multiple times since the fire. And so it's very difficult to contact them. And frankly, some of them have struggled to get by since the fire. And so that's what their focus has been on. Again, to date, the RCD has limited the program to the Grizzly Flats area because this was the most populated area affected by the Caldor fire. However, RCD will release the funds to other areas on October 1st and already has a waiting list of property owners interested in the program. and in fact they anticipate they would probably quickly use up the remaining funds with that wait list to strongly encourage residents to take advantage of the program and address the hazardous trees staff recommends initiating code enforcement action to be clear the goal is to connect property owners with to connect property owners that do have hazardous trees on their property to the RCD and take advantage of the free program. That is priority number one. But to ensure that the hazardous trees are addressed, staff is asking the board for direction to begin proactive enforcement. And typically, as you know, code enforcement is conducted on a complaint basis. There have been some exceptions for certain types of activities. And of course, code enforcement can take action on items that are immediate life and safety issues. So given the short window to take advantage of the RCD program, staff proposes a short timeframe for code enforcement action. Should the board provide direction as requested, staff will immediately work with the RCD to outreach to the 343 parcel owners. The first outreach will be a courtesy letter informing the property owner of the impending code enforcement action. And again, encouraging them to participate in the RCD program. The letter will include both the website link and phone number. And I just want to make note the phone number on the draft sample letter is incorrect. We'll get that corrected. We'll add the website link as well and any other information perhaps directly from the RCD to include with that letter to make sure people are aware of that program. Staff will work with RCD and track any inquiries or responses received. And then for any property owners that do not respond, a notice and order will be sent out around October 1st. It gives the property owner 20 days to respond. A notice and order is not required, but it is a typical first step when we do code enforcement. And it also allows the property owner to request a public hearing should they choose to do that. The next step would be around October 21st, where code enforcement would begin mailing a notice to abate. Staff recommends giving property owners 10 days to respond. The next step would be for staff and RCD to finalize an abatement list. So anybody who is not actively pursuing the RCD program, we'll put them on a list and get that finalized. Make sure, I anticipate there's gonna be some one-off situations in there as there often is. you know, where a property perhaps is bank owned or things like that, we might have to pursue a slightly different path for those. Once the list is finalized, the county must seek court approval to abate the properties. If the court approves, the site would need to be physically posted 24 hours before tree removal can begin. Once abatement concludes and all costs are tallied, including administrative costs, an item will be brought to the board requesting a lien on affected properties. The liens can be paid off at any time, but must be paid off if the property were to sell prior to that sale being finalized. We recognize this is a short timeframe, an aggressive timeframe for code enforcement action. However, the property owners have had over four years to remove trees. Um, we'd also like to get those trees removed before winter, um, as they've become an increasingly more, uh, brittle and so forth. Um, it is, you know, uh, of course, more likely that a tree could fall probably in high winds or rain or snow. And then you know, even with this aggressive timeframe, I want to point out, you know, it does take us into the beginning of winter with our timeframe. So depending on whether that may affect, you know, when we can actually go out there and abate the trees. And I also want to mention that we don't take these code enforcement actions lightly. We recognize how devastating the fire was on residents and how difficult it's been for them to rebuild their lives. But given the timeframes that have occurred and the program that's available, we believe it's time to move forward with some code enforcement action. So with that, I'm happy to answer questions. Or again, Mark Egbert is here if you have questions specific to the grant funding that his organization received to do the abatement.

Excellent. Yeah, really good. Supervisors, do you have questions, comments?

They have some questions. Let's go back a ways to Team Rubicon when I put that program together to try to mitigate a lot of the problems they have with the trees out there. And the residents weren't working with them very well. They weren't even allowed to even be on their property. And there's been some issues out there with other residents and stuff that told certain people not to even work with Team Rubicon. And this has been an ongoing problem for a long, long time, especially when you're talking about the safe and welfare of these residents that live in this area, especially when it's talking about our roads. The biggest thing I think what a lot of people are concerned about, because let's go back a ways to the ROE when the state wanted the reimbursement. And I think that's what these people are kind of afraid of. I think they're worried that it's going to end up costing them anyway, no matter what. But I know there's a problem, but I think we can work this together. And I think, I don't think 10 days is a little bit short, especially when a lot of these residents don't live there anymore in that area. And it's pretty hard to get ahold of them, Karen. So I would like to extend that at least to 30 days instead of 10 days. That way we get some response because a lot of these people, you know, sometimes it takes a while to get their mail. You know, if they live elsewhere, it could take five to seven days. By that time, you know, you get it, open it up, and it's already passed. So I think we need to extend that from 10 to 30 days. I would like to see that done. And I have posted this, and Mark, thank you for everything you have done with the RCD because you've done a great job. And I posted this on my newsletter all the time about this free program. And you've got to understand it's free. It doesn't impact the residents in Grizzly Flat at all. It's free, totally free. So I would like to see a lot of the residents to cooperate and talk to their neighbors and stuff and tell them about this program to help this so we can get this done and mitigate it. So that's all I'll have to say right now. I'll let you go ahead and take that away if any other people have any other questions.

Thank you, Supervisor Chernbu. Are there other questions of the board?

Yeah, I do. This is the hardest part after any of these catastrophic fires. It really is. We're seeing it over and over again in the state where folks just move away. They don't want to live where their community was burned down and devastated. And they leave the property behind. and we're responsible for you know public safety on our roads so i totally get what we're trying to do thank you to the rcd for you know providing this opportunity what i'm trying to figure out in my brain is how do we get a hold of those folks that have left I mean, they basically just put California in their rearview mirror and went forward. And I know that, I'll be honest, I am terrible about opening mail that looks boring and government-like. So I've asked this before in the past on other issues. Is there anything you think that we could put on that envelope, on the envelope, to get their attention, you know what I mean? To make it not a boring government-looking letter, and also not look like a scam, or I mean, what can we do? Because that's all they're gonna be getting. We don't have a mechanism to make phone calls, correct? Do we have?

We probably can get at least some phone numbers, but again, you know, if it was a landline or something and they didn't update some of their records, you know, we'll try every method that we have available to us. But certainly, yes, we are not required to use the, you know, Oring County emblem envelopes. We can come up with something, you know, a little more creative.

I think that could help just a wee bit. And then to Supervisor Turnbull's point about the 10 days versus he wants to do 30, help with that timeline again. Do we have that much time or can we speed things up to accommodate that? Because honestly, if somebody gets this alarming letter and has a phone number on it, I know I've gotten in the past an alarming letter from the county and I called right away. So you don't want to dilly dally on something like that. So I don't, you know, 30 days might be too long, honestly. But again, it's all about them opening the letter. That's the critical part I think is getting their attention. So, but do we have enough time in your timeline? Cause you're making it really tight, right? For the funding purposes is 30 days going to work.

Yeah. So, I mean, as it is right now, you're, you're, kind of into basically mid-November at the earliest to remove trees. One thing we can do, because we talked about doing just the courtesy letter now, the thought was that since the funding is available to do the program for free until October 1st, that's kind of our time period for this courtesy letter. We could move up that notice and order a little bit earlier than October 1st, funding would still be available but we can again if we get some people contacting us because of that notice and order we can then direct them to say hey you know take advantage of this free program and if you do then this notice and order will you know be removed and that way it's not slipping into December yeah timeline because that's worrisome too This is so hard.

Yeah, I think another thing needs to be done to move the fire. Colorado County Fire Safe Council, I think, needs to reach out to Grizzly Fat Fire Safe Council to put pressure on them to go door to door to implement this program. I think it would be very helpful if they would get on board and do that.

Madam CEO. Yeah, I did just want to note that after in the proposed enforcement process, after the first notice, there is a minimum of 20 days that the homeowner has to request a hearing. So that additional 10 days that I think Supervisor Turnbull is referring to is after an optional notice in order to abate. And the director can correct me if I'm wrong. So I think we do have a minimum of 20 days already built in. Okay. and i think there would be a concern about bumping up against winter and and those kinds of things and i want to emphasize all these efforts have been tried over and over again and that's the reason that we've brought this to you so staff have been working very hard to contact folks and to get people obviously that are there to opt in and certainly um those that are there we could i imagine go door-to-door try to make more personal contact as well i think our bigger challenge is the people that we just can't get a hold of yeah

And maybe relying on the residents that are still out there, they might be in touch with folks that have moved away and asked for their help too. That's all I can think of. It's really a challenge. I know it is.

I just have one question. So it sounds like RCD has already gone out and indicated where the hazard trees are. And the funding, the grant funding that they have, if every single person responded, that grant funding would cover all those trees?

That might be a question for Mark, who's coming up now.

Hello.

Hello. Hello, Mark Egbert, District Manager for the Eldorado Resource Conservation District. And to answer your question, yes, we have set aside currently just earmarked $500,000 just for the remediation of hazardous trees in the community center of Grizzly Flats. and the grant funding that we do have can be used on a voluntary program. It cannot be used for any type of regulatory compliance or any code enforcement compliance. So that's why once the abatement order is issued, then the RCD has to leave. Yeah.

Do you think that the residents might respond more positively proactively if they got this letter, if there was a section on the letter where you could say, I give permission and they just fill it out, sign it and send it back to the county, do you think that that would speed up or make it easier to reply?

Yeah, I think that's a great suggestion. I know they do have a form. In fact, I, just for my own reference, printed it off to take a look. It's pretty simple, two-page, two-and-a-half-page form. Most of it is just filling in their name in a few spots and then signing and dating it, and that either can be emailed or mailed back to the RCD. That's basically the form that gives them then the permission to, you know, right of entry.

And Council is very familiar with RCD, right of entry agreements. We've worked with them for many, many years and a big difference between a voluntary approach and some other type of programs like with phase one, phase two, that was happening and some of the mistrust or lack of response is our approach to it is that it is a voluntary program and we hold harmless and indemnify the landowner. A lot of times the municipality just has the opposite relationship and so forth. So it's a voluntary agreement. It could be terminated within one day. There's no cost to the landowner. It's a one-page agreement. It allows us to go in there and mitigate the trees, but also to mitigate the fuels. And our vision for the rest recovery of Grizzly Flats and the entire community really, and everyone affected by Caldor, is for future resilience and long-term recovery and mitigating the fuel as part of our program as well. So we've been working with the county, the Environmental Management Department, OES since day one to ensure that the appropriation of grant funds and the timing and the readiness for the landowner to participate in this program was in line with their recovery process. When they were ready to participate and have us on site to talk to them, we worked with... You have the communications list that we've done over the years working with... the Georgetown PUD to use their mailing, using the county, putting information in the tax bill, simplifying it as much as we can, branding it to say that this is a voluntary program, there's no cost to you, we're not this other program, please enroll. And just to, I know Karen went over the number of acres, to put this in perspective, The parcels in Grizzly Flats Community Center that have no hazardous trees of the 207 parcels, or the 207 acres, that represents 45 parcels. The number of 341 acres of hazardous trees with no strike zone potential represents 34 parcels. The number, the 343 parcels, I'm sorry, acres with hazard trees that could strike the road represents 31 parcels. if on average that is about two point quarter of an acre per parcel we're looking at anywhere between 8 and 15 acres of current level of participation that's like one days of work for our crew so did i get that wrong no you had it right i was just uh with uh taking parcel uh acres into parcels you know so if you take the acres and you look at the parcels our problem is the number of right of entry agreements there are a lot of hazardous trees out there that we don't have roes for And we are ready to work. We're open for business. We're ready to work. We are not going to go away even after the abatement is over at some point. We're still going to be here. We're still going to be vested in the long-term restoration. And the deadline that Karen was referencing, that's the deadline to submit the right of entry agreement. We'll still be working on those parcels if we need to, right? So we're not going to stop work on September 30th. We just needed to have a... a deadline so we knew where we stood.

Understood. Yeah.

You know, I got a question for Mark. Hey, Mark, have you reached out to Grizzly Flat Water Agency about that flyer that we're going to combine with their bills and be sent out to all the residents?

Yes. And they have all the information. They've got all the documentation to include all that information in that effort, for sure.

Okay. So has that been sent out yet? Do you know?

I don't think they have sent that out yet. Okay, all right. With the El Dorado County Water Agency, the Georgetown Public Utility, or I'm sorry, the Grizzly Flats Public Utility District has sent that out. That was sent out a couple months ago.

Yeah, that's what I was asking, yeah.

Yeah, that was sent out a couple months ago. All right, thanks.

Wait, did you say 31, only 31 parcels with all these trees?

31 parcels that we have right of entry agreements that have strike potential to the road. So there are 343 parcels that have trees that have potential that can strike the road. But that's, I'm sorry, 343 acres in the Grizzly Files community equates to 31 parcels.

So there's 31 people we need to get a hold of.

31 parcels have signed up.

Oh, how many people do we need to get a hold of?

I'm getting my numbers. 110 parcels. And we only have, out of 110 parcels, 31 that have signed up.

So what's that, 70-something? So we have 70, okay. Okay. I'm just trying to get the numbers and acres and trees and all this stuff. It's like, okay, how many people are we trying to get a hold of? So it's like 70. Yeah. Right?

Yeah. Yeah, 79.

And we really need the folks that are still there in Grizzly Flats to help us get a hold of those folks that have left. I mean, I really think that's our bottom line. People keep in touch with folks.

Yes.

Okay, are there any further questions or comments of the board?

Yeah, Madam Chair, for council, can we not declare some level of emergency and get in and just abate these trees? Because it's going to damage our infrastructure. And then obviously it's a potential threat to the public. And I'm talking about every tree, but the ones that we've identified are This has gone on way too long, and if there's any legal way we can bypass not getting somebody's permission, in our vegetation management program in Elrota Hills, we set it up to where if they don't respond and they don't abate, we had a contractor that went in and abated it, and it went on their tax bill. I'm not saying we need to do that. We got the funding to do it, but there's got to be a way we can do that. Because again, this has just went on too long and it's just causing, in my mind, a potential extreme emergency for our roads as well as residents.

That's a great question. I will note though that even with the Caldor Fire Proclamation of Emergency, as Mark noted, we still had to get right of entry agreements with the property owners in order for, I think, the state to do the debris removal. That being said, there is what you alluded to, which is a summary abatement process, which is where we would go to court and basically get what is essentially a warrant to enter the property without the property owner's consent and abate the safety hazards presented by these hazardous trees. So that is another option for code enforcement. If you are not able to go through the typical notice and order and then you issue a notice and abate, they could explore looking into a summary abatement.

I suggest we go down both avenues. I can't imagine a judge not writing that order. And that way, we've only got four or five months left on the grant. We're going to be stuck dealing with the issue after that.

Yeah, I agree with you, Brian. I think one of the biggest issues is when I think Governor Newsom lifted the Caldor emergency, and that's kind of impacting what's kind of going on right now. So if it was still in place, that emergency still would take effect, but it's not anymore because he lifted it.

I want to be clear on sort of the catch-22 that we're in, in that if we do the abatement— then we cannot use the free money because it is now a code enforcement action that the county is taking. The only way the free money can be used is if the owner voluntarily signs up. And so that's unfortunately the catch 22 that we're in. And Mark has, you know, cause I've think bugged him a couple of times now to, you know, is there any way we can change, go back and request a change to the parameters of that grant funding so that we can use it, you know, understanding that it's still trying to get to the same goal of removing these hazardous trees. but he has checked that. So not saying I'm not gonna reach out and bug somebody again and see if we can somehow do that. Because unfortunately, when we abate the trees, the county, if it comes down to that, we have to sign a whole separate contract with some tree removal company. We have to pay for it upfront and then hope we get reimbursed down the road with the lien on the property.

Madam CAO. Yeah, I just wanted to add that the summary abatement process that Ms. San Pedro referred to is an option and it's outlined in the staff report. So we can go, it would work similarly to the vegetation management ordinance in El Dorado Hills and our own defensible space ordinance. have that and I think that's kind of the crux of what the department is asking for today is to, to be able to move to that point if we've exhausted the abilities the free program so that we can go in and forcefully abate the hazard that as Karen noted the costs would be an issue so if we get to that point we'd likely have to come back and have that discussion about you know where that funding comes from um hence the importance of as supervisor parlin noted you know getting having the community help um you know collectively to abate these hazards by reaching out to your neighbors and and letting them know you know that the free program is available in addition to the efforts that i know the rcd and planning building department have already embarked on so okay can we outline that

in the letter we send these people to say you know take advantage of the free program an hour you're going to get we're going to do it anyways and you're going to pay for it it's going to end up on your property yeah it's a public safety issue so we should be proactive about this mark who's the grant through and

So the grant funds were originated through the governor's forest management task force, through the emergency forest recovery teams that were led by the private landowner working group. The funding, the Eldorado, the Caldor was identified as the first emergency forest recovery team in the state of California, and Caldor was the first pilot program. With that initiative, action item 1.12, that initiative allowed Forest Service and CAL FIRE to allocate funds to the RCD for Caldwell Recovery, which included, we've done thousands of acres around the community center of Grizzly Flats. We've done a lot of work along Mormon Immigrant Trail, up along Highway 50, as you know, we reopened Sierra Tahoe, all through that initiative, Action Item 1.12. there are a huge list of landowners still waiting for assistance and they're signed right of entry agreements and they would like us to go to their property and mitigate those hazardous trees and do reforestation. But we've committed to the request and leadership and the needs of the community in Grizzly Flats to retain some money to stay there until we...

This is crazy. Yeah. But so if we declare the emergency, we get the court order and it says that the funding could be or if the judge will put this in the order that. Due to the extreme emergency. we can, we're going to put it on their tax roll, but we're hiring the contractor and he's, I don't care. You got grant money to do this project. And so we're sort of just going around it, but it's the job gets done. It's either that, or we take some money from somewhere to fund this and just get it done. Quit fooling around. But I mean, it's sort of like tricking the grant. You got somebody already lined up that can do the work and it, the intent of the grant is being met because you're taking the hazardous trees out. We're just utilizing RCD to do it.

So perhaps if I may suggest something, I think what RCD is trying to do is to get them into a voluntary program opt-in, right? That's why you're sending the courtesy notice and you have that deadline. I think it's at that point where they don't, sign up for the October 1st deadline, that now it becomes the code enforcement process. And at that point, what staff is currently outlined is the typical notice and abatement process that we have. But one option they can do is to go straight to court and do a summary abatement. The question then becomes the cost of that, because then that would basically be going to court, getting a warrant, then having staff or the county perform the abatement, incur that cost, and then that cost can certainly be placed as a lien on the property at some other point to be recovered by the county when the property gets sold at some future date.

I didn't probably explain it very well, but that would be the process that we pursue, but then hire RCD to do it. RCD's got the funds to get the work done immediately. I mean, it meets the intent of the grant because that's what the grant's for.

Except it's now a code enforcement issue as opposed to voluntary.

We're going to run out of time if we don't make a decision.

I think we're complicating it, though. I mean, the director has lined out that we are trying to get people to voluntarily go into the program. If they don't, we start the abatement process. And, you know, it'll eventually get done.

No, I understand. I get it.

I think to Brian's point, we're going to have to... Let me know if I'm understanding you right. We will have to pay for those services in advance and get reimbursed through the lien process. Well, your suggestion is have RCD do the work on our behalf. When we get to that point. Yeah, but you can't. When we get to that point.

RCD can't.

Well, we got to put it out to somebody. Why can't they?

So the grant funds cannot be used on that. RCD as an entity, you know, under Division 9 of the Public Resources Code, we are non-regulatory, non-enforcement. Our mission statement is to promote stewardship of natural resources through a voluntary approach. So we would just need to make sure that we are operating within our jurisdictional authority to do the work under that enforcement action.

Yeah, and Ms. Garner, when I've worked with you on abatement projects, because we've had a few, you have a list of contractors that are pre-qualified ahead of time.

Do you have that for tree removal services? Code enforcement does not for tree removal. There are other, I believe, DOT and possibly our facilities have contractors. contracts for tree removal that we may be able to tag on to which would definitely be helpful because otherwise we're starting with an rfp and starting the procurement contract process and that takes a lot of time so we're hoping to tag on to an existing contract that another department has got it okay all right are we ready to move on this item yep may i have a motion

So I think the action would be then that we direct staff to get the letters out and get back to us after the 30-day period. And we're going to have to then take another action one way or another.

So the motion would be to recommend the board direct staff to initiate enforcement actions to remove hazardous trees from the Grizzly Flats community that pose a risk to county right away.

Correct.

OK. Is there a motion? Is there a second?

I'll go ahead and second that.

Thank you, Supervisor Turnbull. Any discussion on the motion? Roll call vote, please.

Supervisor Turnbull, how do you vote?

Aye.

Supervisor Parlin, how do you vote? Aye. Supervisor Vierkamp, how do you vote?

Aye.

Supervisor Ferrero, how do you vote?

Aye.

Supervisor Lane, how do you vote? Aye. Motion passes 5-0.

Okay, great. We are going to go into closed session. This will be a working lunch for the board. Madam Assistant County Council, do you wanna enter this item into the record?

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. The board will now recess into closed session for items. Are we gonna do one? One through six. One through six. And we might have a report out.

And there's item 70 and 71. I'm sorry.

And also 70 and 71. Yeah.

Perfect.

Okay. Thank you. We will be recessed.

Let me go ahead and leave. Hang on.

Did Supervisor Turnbull sign back on? Thank you.

Mm-hmm.

Ready? Okay. Welcome back El Dorado County to our regularly scheduled board meeting of June 23rd. We are at our time certain time allocation for open forum. We will now take open forum comments. Open forum is a time to comment on any item that is not on today's agenda. Ms. Dawson.

Madam Chair. Yes. I'd like to do a report out of closed session on one item. We can do that for sure.

Thank you.

The board met on item number 70 in closed session and by a 5-0 vote, the board unanimously appointed Corey Larson as acting agricultural commissioner sealer of weights and measures effective June 27, 2026. The compensation for the acting assignment will be set in accordance with section 1209 of the salary and benefits resolution for unrepresented employees. Thank you.

Thank you. Sorry to have missed that. All right, let's move over to open forum now. Ms. Dawson.

For public comment, each speaker will have three minutes to address the board. A timer will alert you when 30 seconds remain and again when your time has ended. We'll begin with comments from individuals present in the boardroom, followed by those participating via Zoom. If you're joining via Zoom, please be sure to unmute yourself when called upon. If you're joining by phone, press star nine to raise your hand. If you're on Zoom, use a raise hand feature to indicate your interest in speaking. We ask that you voluntarily state your name for the record before beginning your comments.

Are there members of the public that would like to address the board at this time on non-agenda items? Please come forward. Welcome.

Thank you. Good afternoon, board members. My name is Ginger Luzada. I'm a resident of El Dorado County. Before you are copies of a letter written up by Robert Paul Preston, the governor pro tempore of New California State. Yesterday, June 22nd, this board was served this letter as well as a county registrar of voters, Linda Webster, and a sheriff, Jeff Lykoff. Notice and request to be heard. Dear Supervisors, Registrar, and Sheriff, the purpose of this notice is to ask for an opportunity to address the entire Board and or to present a claim contesting the certification of any election results at the next regularly scheduled meeting of the Board of Supervisors. I am also requesting the Board direct the Registrar of Voters to respond to the request for information below. I invite your attention to California Election Code Section 16100D, which states in part, any elector of a county, city, or of any political subdivision of either may contest any election held therein for any of the following causes. Section D, that illegal election. votes were cast. Again, letter D, that illegal votes were cast. The factual basis of my request is that it is common knowledge that there has been a flood of illegal aliens in the state of California, its counties, cities, and school districts. These non-citizens have apparently been allowed to register with the Department of Motor Vehicles. With that registration, these non-citizens have been provided with voter registration and election ballots. It is also common knowledge that investigative reporters have discovered that some illegal alien non-citizens have in fact voted. Providing these non-citizens voter registration and election ballots gives you, the members of the Board of Supervisors, and you, the registrar of voters, the legal basis to set aside the election and deny its certification due to the number of illegal voters as set forth in California Elections Code 16100, specifically subsection D. These incontrovertible facts gives you, Sheriff, not only the right, but the obligation to investigate voter fraud. If the Board of Registrar certify the election, they will be committing a felony.

Thank you.

Thank you. My name is Roger Lozada, also resident of Eldorado County. Welcome. Thank you. The chair and state senator for Eldorado County, New California State, 51st State. So I'll begin off where my wife left off. To the board and to the register, would you please provide me and the person who served this letter on you the process and identify all officers, employees, and volunteers engaged in the collection and counting of ballots, including the disqualification of ballots and voter verification. As a voter in the state, as in the server of this letter named below, we object to our votes being diluted by the votes of those not legally eligible to vote. We also object to any compounding of a felony by certifying the election results. Notice a reason not to certify any election, June 20, 2026. Thank you for promptly responding to this letter and giving me an audience with you to constitutionally redress this grievance pursuant the Bill of Rights, Article 1, yours truly, Robert Paul Preston. Now, this letter was given to you, this board, but not just El Dorado County Board of Supervisors. All of them down, all 58 counties, we were active. We also gave it to the Register of Voters, Linda Webster, and also Sheriff Jeff Lykoff. Now, we are not after you folks. You have been sandwiched, put in this position where you have to decide either to certify or not to certify. It is, lost words there, Sharon, the election at the state level, she needs to correct this. The DMV, they should have never allowed aliens to register to vote. That was on the governor's shoulders. Now, it's up to you, board, to do what's right. I know to do what's right is hard, but you have to do what's right. When you ran for office there, Mr. Brian Verkamp, I was the gentleman who wrote the question at the plaza downtown hall, what are you going to plan to do with elections? How do you plan on protecting them? The crowd laughed because they all felt that the elections were all secure, 100% secure. They're not. They're absolutely not. Let's be truthful. So we need to secure elections, okay? This board, you guys decided to become a board member because you want to help your community. It wasn't for the pay, I hope not, because I get, it wasn't for, I hope it's not for the accolades, the name on the title here or whatever, because you want to help your fellow citizens. I live here, my family lives here, my children and my grandchildren live here. I'm a patriot, I love my county, I love my state, but in order for us to protect it, we need to start protecting out the ballot box. Thank you.

Thank you.

My name is Lon Uso and I apologize if you can't hear me, I have stage four carcinoma. I also have an application with you guys for a change of zoning on my property. When I did this, I was assured by two different code enforcement officers and by the planning department staffer and others that a code enforcement issue on my property would be told until that hearing was heard. Imagine my surprise when I got this this morning. It's a code enforcement action telling me that I have to start tearing down my buildings. I have to start tearing down my buildings. So I called the code enforcement officer. He said, yes, I was ordered to send that out. I said, by any chance, was Lori Parlin in your office a few days before you were ordered to do this? And he said, well, it might have been a coincidence, but yes, she was here. She was here. I'm sorry, but there's something morally wrong here. When you use your office as a cudgel to beat up on somebody that opposes you politically, yes, I made a very bold statement that I would spend up to $100,000 to prevent Lori Parlin from ever being elected again. But that does not allow this to happen. This is not just amoral, but it is probably also illegal. Because you all know that you're not allowed to go before any staff member and to insist that they use their position to affect somebody that you don't like. I'm just hoping that there are three people, three people... on this board that have the moral character to stand up to this person who has been doing this on a regular basis. And you all know it. You know that she's doing this. This makes not only her office, but your entire board. suspect. I'm sorry. I have nothing but respect for the rest of you. Nothing but respect for the rest of you. I'm hoping that you will come together and stop this. Stop this, please. I have no idea how much longer I have to live. I'm not going to leave an 80-year-old woman with this on her head because I pissed off a politician. Help me. I beg you. Help me. And it was a promise, that $100,000. It's in the bank. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Welcome.

Good afternoon, supervisors. My name is David Bartolotti, and I'm here today because I believe El Dorado County has created two different standards of property rights for two different groups of citizens. In one part of the county, short-term rental owners can operate under one set of rules. In another part of this county, particularly on the west slope, property owners are subjected to a 500-foot buffer requirement that effectively deprives many of the ability to use their property in the same manner. The question I ask today is simple. Why? What legitimate government interest justifies treating citizens differently based solely on where they happen to live within the same county? If a 500-foot buffer is necessary to protect public health, safety, and welfare, then why is it not applied equally throughout the county? And if it's not necessary elsewhere, why is it necessary here? The Constitution demands more than arbitrary distinctions. It demands equal treatment under the law. The Fair Housing Act and California's fair housing policies recognize that local governments cannot use land use regulations to create unnecessary barriers that disproportionately affect certain communities or classes of property owners. Government must be able to demonstrate that its restrictions are based on facts, evidence, and legitimate public necessity, not assumptions, fears, or political convenience. Today, I am asking this board to produce that evidence. Show us the studies. Show us the data. Show us the findings that prove a 500-foot buffer is necessary on the West Slope while substantially different standards are acceptable elsewhere. Because if that evidence does not exist, then what remains is a policy that appears arbitrary, unequal, and fundamentally unfair. The people of El Dorado County are not asking for special treatment. We're asking for equal treatment. We're asking for transparency. And we are asking our government to justify restrictions that affect property rights, economic opportunity, and the ability of families to make lawful use of their homes. History teaches us that some of the greatest injustices began with governments believing they could treat one group differently than another for reasons that seemed acceptable at the time. The lesson of history is not that government is always wrong. The lesson is that government must be accountable. Today, I respectfully ask this board to revisit the 500 foot buffer requirement, provide evidence supporting it, and explain to the citizens of this county why equal property rights should depend on a zip code. A right that exists in one neighborhood but disappears in another is not a right at all. It's a privilege granted by government. The citizens of El Dorado County deserve to know whether the 500-foot buffer is based on evidence or whether it is simply a line drawn on a map. And today I'm submitting the studies, the reports, the data used to justify the 500-foot buffer.

Thank you.

And I'll be submitting this to the clerk.

Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am.

Ma'am, did you wish to come forward?

Barbara.

No, okay. Are there other members of the public that would like to address the board now on non-agenda items?

Welcome. Hello, my name is Barbara Rogers, and I'm the mother of Kelly Rogers, who sadly passed away on March 1st of this year. I didn't want to do this. Okay, I'm here to honor my son, and the reason I'm here in front of you today is because my son was very involved in not only the planning and building of Joe's Skate Park, working alongside of Joe Stancil Sr., Carl Borelli and other distinguished citizens of our community at that time in the Rotary Club. My son had a little shop out at the park and then moved on to Main Street and went on through Main Street and sadly had to close the shop in 24. Kelly was very instrumental in stepping up after Joe's was closed due to a horrific event. and the Board of Supervisors had to close the park because there was no supervision. There was no guidance. Kids took over the park. They called themselves the SBC gang. They were a bunch of kids on bikes, and they beat the heck out of a young man coming out of the Boys and Girls Club at that time on Armory Drive. Kelly worked alongside the PD, Sheriff's Department, the Office of Education, Carol Martin with the Youth Commission, as well as with the Board of Supervisors and other organizations in the county to bring together the kids to teach them to respect what was given to them And they were very successful. And they had to stand in the likes of Jack Sweeney, who was a tough cookie at that time to convince to open that park. So my point of being here today is not only to honor the memory of my son, who I believe I did this at the city because he was on the Parks and Recreation Committee there, but to also honor let you guys know that we would like to have a memorial skate fest at chose skate park later on in the fall to honor, not only the memory of my son, but also to raise funds for skate healing hearts, skate MD that works with kids with, um, disabled kids, special needs kids, and also drug and alcohol addiction. I know I have to go through the Parks Department, but I did want to come here and speak to you guys and let you know what my plans were and my grandkids and hoping we'll have your support. So I thank you for your time. So see you. Bye.

Thank you. We are deeply sorry for your loss. Other members wish to come forward? Welcome.

Got snow? How are you doing? Ken Greenwood here from the Triple Junction, I like to call it. No to town and country, please and it's going to be coming up sometime in the future, I imagine, and it is the wrong thing for the right place or the right whatever it's it's not a good project. y'all seen my trees before. Here we have the promise of efficient government, good governments by the Board of Supervisors, listening to their constituents, giving them ample opportunity to comment on virtually every hearing and board or whatever they call it, department matters, etc., That's this. And it's kind of like what the wireless telecommunication industry showed us with their cell towers. But really, this is what we're getting. And I call it the shaft. It's nice and green and pretty, but it's just not shaped right. It just promises reality. You need to listen to us. We're, you're here for us. We are a representative democracy or a republic, if you will. And I hope our input is as important as yours. Because with the new policy that's been enacted, the promise was this, this is the reality. Don't think it's a good thing. Finally, notice for hearings and stuff. I think that we need to expand out to 1,000 feet minimally, two to three parcels out in extremely rural areas, all roads leading up to an application site, Those should be posted with notices so that people understand what's coming at them. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Are there other members of the public that wish to address the board now on non-agenda items? Okay, seeing none, may we go online, please?

Not taking public comment from online participants. Not taking public comment from Sue.

Hi. I still oppose the way you're doing your agendas and public comment. It's very frustrating. And I'm going to say, when you discuss any item, there's usually a staff report that explains the intent of the item and gives the public a better vision of what the item is really about before they come up and make a comment. Example today is that you had a comment we had to make at 9 o'clock. and then we had to wait for 11 to hear what the problem was with the um what the item was and the problem that was number 64 there was things that were not on the legistar that what supervisor fierro read was not on the legistar so the public really didn't have the opportunity to speak to that um decision that was proposed to be made on that item so um i think um And that actually is a violation. If you don't have enough information on your item, when you try to, and you've only given the option to basically write about it, you can't, you know, there's 70 items on this agenda and we're given three minutes. And it's sad that you've basically, you're cutting out the public. You're also cutting yourself off from historic public knowledge. There's a lot of people the people that comment have a lot of knowledge and history with the County that could give you basic information that might help you make a better decision, but it seems like you don't want to hear it. You've already made up your mind about most issues. You feel like you, we know that you have staff explain these things to you before the board of supervisors meeting. So we don't have that same opportunity to understand what you're doing. And then it kind of just sets the public aside through the whole process. So, um, In that discussion, there was a question asked, and I was wondering if you could answer this. Does the Missouri flat financing plan still exist? Because I see, I asked because I've seen that the county is still using that fund to fund projects on the agenda. And what I wanted to bring up is the whole reason that that project didn't work is because they were supposed to create a bond over all of the developments in that district, but they never created the district to actually collect bonds from those developments. Instead, it was just take sales tax for 40 years. It was supposed to pay for the infrastructure and it never did. But I would like to know where that is in the loop right now. And if you want to solve a lot of these problems that are happening with transportation, I would suggest you just take number two out of both paragraphs of TCXF that allows the... offset mitigation to a future date. Thank you. Thank you, Sue.

Now taking public comment from 525.

Hi, this is Leo Bennett-Koshon. If my call in is spotty, I apologize. The cell towers are having a bad time and To me, it's kind of a metaphor because it'll say no service. And, you know, this is open forum, otherwise public comment. And I feel, unfortunately, we're evolving towards public supplication. I urge you to consider improving, as you're hearing from everybody, the demonstration that you're truly listening.

You're going to go dark now for a quite a bit of time.