Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

We are unmuted.

Good morning, El Dorado County. Welcome to the Board of Supervisors regularly scheduled meeting. Today is August 18th and it is 9 a.m. I would like to welcome Pastor Chris Scott to please come forward for this morning's invocation. Good morning, sir.

Good morning, board. Will you please join me in prayer this morning? God, thank you for the opportunity that we have here today to join with the matters that are heavy on our minds and our hearts for El Dorado County today. Thank you that you've made a space and a place for us to be able to discuss these things and have active, loving, caring conversations about it. Thank you that you've blessed us with such a beautiful place to live. Thank you that you have given the people in this room hearts and minds to care and lead it, but also a concerned community who also care for it too. We pray your spirit of unity would come into today and that every conversation would be held under a beautiful banner of unity in deciding what is best for this county going forward. We ask for your ongoing blessing in everything that we get to do here in El Dorado County and that you would lovingly guide us and lead us into all things. It's in Jesus' powerful name we get to pray these things together. Amen. Thank you.

Thank you, Pastor. Supervisor Vierkamp, would you please lead us in the pledge? Yeah, would you please stand, please?

Hand over your hearts. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic Thank you very much.

Madam CAO, are there any changes to the agenda that was posted on August 12th? No, Madam Chair, thank you. Okay, thank you. All right, I'll look to my colleagues with regards to the consent calendar. Are there any items that my colleagues wish to comment on or pull for discussion? I'll look to my right, Supervisor Verkamp. Excuse me, Supervisor Ferreira.

Yes, Chair, I'd like to pull item six for an explanation and discussion, please.

Okay. Supervisor Parlin.

I just want to make a quick comment. I think there were three or maybe four different donations on the consent. And I just wanted to thank the members of the public for making those donations to the programs that they think are important to the county. Just really appreciate that.

Nice. Thank you, Supervisor Parlin. Supervisor Veerkamp.

Yes, I would like to abstain from voting on item 29. And then I'm sure there'll be some members that want to speak to item 17. We will not pull it. We'll handle it on consent.

Okay, thank you. And Supervisor Turnbull.

Yeah, I just want to make a comment on item 28. It's been a long time coming, especially trying to turn left out of that, the Cameron Park Lake. and this traffic gets backed up and stuff. And I had the cross crossings, the pedestrian crossing increased from 24 inches to 48. So there's more visible, but it's very dangerous in that part of that section there. So thank you DOT for recognizing and fixing that problem.

Okay, excellent. And then as far as my own comments, I would like to comment on item number 17 and thank Laurel Brentbaum for her many years of service to the Chamber of Commerce and to wish her the best in retirement. All right, we'll now take public comment on all matters on the consent calendar, including item number six that was pulled. For those of you who may be here for item number six, we will take public comment on all of the closed session items, numbers one through three, and all of the consent items, numbers four through 46, including item number six. We'll take public comment now. But item number six, I think will fit best on our agenda after we handle the VHR program issue. So it'll probably be around 11 a.m. for any of you who might be here for that item. Okay. Ms. Dawson, would you please open up the public comments?

For public comment, each speaker will have three minutes to address the board. A timer will alert you when 30 seconds remain and again, where 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.

Okay, we'll first hear public comment from those of you who are in the room. Again, closed session items one through three, or the consent calendar items four through 46. Please come forward. Good morning.

Good morning. Good morning, supervisors. My name is Greg Hansen, and I am the founder and president of the California Civil Defense Institute, a 501c3 tax-exempt public interest organization helping Californians fight abuse of government through public records, social media, lawsuits, and public policy. Our mission is simple, helping Californians fight government abuse, expose corruption, and build a better California. Our vision is a California where citizens are free to live, raise families, build businesses, and thrive without abusive government standing in their way. We believe that California should be the best place to live, raise a family, work, build, and thrive. That requires a government that obeys the law, respects citizens, empowers business, protects civil liberties, and answers to the people it serves. That is why I'm here today. Over the last several months, we have submitted extensive public records requests concerning El Dorado County and its EHR,

Yeah, which item are you discussing specifically? VHR? Yeah. Okay, thank you.

That's not a consent.

It's next. That's our next section of public comment.

Okay, my misunderstanding. I thought you said that was open for comment now.

We're going up to item number 46, so yours will be the very next section.

Okay, so you want me to wait? Yes.

Yes, please.

Thanks, Greg.

Thank you, sir. other comments from people in the room on closed session items one through three or consent items four through 46. now would be the time for 17 also if you have public comment yeah it's on consent like now come on up or we're gonna move on there goes brandon okay there we go good morning

Good morning, Chair Lane, Supervisors Brandon Sanders, Sierra Division Government Affairs for PG&E. As a Centurion member of the Chamber of Commerce, meaning we have been active for over 100 years, I couldn't miss this opportunity to thank Ms. Laurel. She has been a mentor and a good friend. We've traveled the country together, learning all about economic development and various opportunities we brought back here to the county. And I just didn't want to miss an opportunity to say thank you to Laurel. She's an amazing person, and I wish her all the best in her retirement. Thank you.

Thanks, Reiner.

Thank you. Good morning. Good morning.

Hi, Adam Anderson. I'm a business owner, WealthGuard Advisors on Main Street. Also, I own a building on Main Street and I'm involved in the rafting community also. And I just want to thank Laurel Brent Bum for her mentorship to me as a new business owner in the community and how she helped me so much and to understand the inner workings of this county and how to be more successful in my work and just made me appreciate what the chamber does and what she's done for this community. And I'd just like to publicly thank her for her years of dedication to this community and to our county.

Thank you. Thank you, Adam.

Good morning. Good morning, Debbie Manning, Eldorado Hills Chamber of Commerce. So what a lot of you, I'm sure Brian remembers, Laurel and I weren't always friends. Laurel and I were both extremely and still are very competitive. But what we learned probably 20 years ago was together we were stronger. And for that, I thank her. I thank her for her leadership. I thank her for all she's done for this county. You know, to retire and still work shows her commitment not only to the chamber, but to El Dorado County. There aren't many people who care the way that she does. And while she is retiring sometimes, I don't think she's going away. And I am very grateful for all she's done. And I'm grateful to call her my friend. Thank you.

Thank you, Debbie. Thank you.

Good morning.

Good morning, Ed.

Good morning.

Ed Manansala, El Dorado County Superintendent of Schools. I'd like to comment on Laurel. I would like to highlight Laurel. You know, in 2013 was my introduction to El Dorado County, actually in an interview. And on that interview panel was Laurel. And that was my introduction. And right from there, from 2013, her voice and her presence, it was very clear she was a champion for the 30 plus thousand students in El Dorado County. And not only that, but the manner in which she surrounded a high level of just support and partnerships and belief around our children. And it wasn't just about the business community, it was the manner in which she connected all industries and fields. I think about leadership El Dorado, and the hundreds of leaders that she has impacted. And it wasn't about Laurel. It was about this county. And you are all fellow leaders. And when you recognize a leader who is exemplifying humility and just a commitment that in many ways is just unmatched, we become inspired by that example. So with that, just want to extend a very special thank you to Laurel and all that she has done on behalf of the educational community and all our partners throughout. I love Laurel's comment. I might not be getting it perfect, but this morning I thought of her when the sun was rising and it's just that idea of today is going to be a great day in El Dorado County. And that is something, that just rings from her and well beyond retirement. So on behalf of us all, thank you, Laurel.

Thank you, Ed.

Thank you.

Good morning, Mike. Good morning.

Good morning, supervisors. I'm Mike Kobus. I'm a local businessman, all-around good guy. I started my business about 30 years ago, and I was not a member of the El Dorado County Chamber because I kind of felt that it was messed up, you know, and one day a gal... What was her name? Jeannie Hall came to me and said, you're not a member of the El Dorado County Chamber. And I said, oh, that group, they're all messed up. At that time, I was a member of the Shingle Springs Cameron Park Chamber of Commerce. And they were kind of you know, pretty happening back then, you know, but I got introduced to Laurel and I met her and I remember her telling me, you know, I'd really like you to become a member of the chamber, you know, and why don't you give it a year or so if you don't like what's going on, you know, no problem, you can move on. So I joined the chamber and became friends with Laurel and I got involved. I became a member of the board. I was president of the Chamber of Commerce, I think, in 2008 for a year. And during that time, Laurel and I, we became really good friends. And like some of the other folks here said, she became a mentor of mine. Whenever I had an issue or a problem, I'd go and I'd seek her advice and say, hey, what do you think about this? What do you think about that? And she always, you know, in a few short sentences was able to tell me and give me the right direction. So she's done a great service to this county. I really appreciate her mentorship, her friendship, and her dedication to doing what's right for this county. So thank you very much.

Thank you, Mike.

Thank you. Good morning. Good morning, Leonard.

Good morning, board. I've had the opportunity to work with Laurel for many years now, and I could just say that as much as it takes the collaboration of agencies and the planning commission and the board of supervisors to facilitate projects getting approved and constructed and what have you, you cannot replace the impact that someone like Laurel has with respect to advocacy on your behalf. And I've been able to experience that over many, many years now. And also the ability that I've had and the opportunity I've had to work with a wonderful board of directors at the chamber. And that has been in and of itself just a pleasure to be with those individuals and work under the tutelage and leadership of Laurel. I just cannot tell you how much of a blessing she's been, not only to myself, but with leadership and all of the different years of leadership that she's facilitated and let out on with respect to those individuals that work for me and my employee that have gone to leadership and learned from them. It's really someone that has had a huge impact, not only on myself, but obviously on the greater community. And I just want to wish her the best in retirement. And I could tell you as a chamber board, we're pursuing who's going to fill Laurel's shoes. That's a challenge because they're big shoes to fill, and she's much appreciated and much loved. So thank you very much.

Thanks, Leonard. Thank you.

Good morning, Sue. Good morning. Sue Vandalinder, El Dorado Disposal, longtime county resident and longtime friend of Laurel. I wanted to talk about Leadership El Dorado because I think Leadership El Dorado was something Laurel was so passionate about, is still passionate about. And I know it made a huge difference for me when I came into a leadership position in the company I worked for and just being connected to different people within the community and really understanding what was important in our community. And that course really helped me and it helped many of us understand local government. So I just want to thank Laurel for all her many years of service and for being so passionate about Leadership El Dorado. Thank you.

Thank you, Sue.

Thank you. Good morning.

Good morning.

Dolly Wager, business owner in El Dorado County. I have the honor of being the longest standing board member ever on the Chamber of Commerce. I came in in 1997 or 98, was president in 2002. I went through three different directors of the chamber, three different CEOs. Everything changed when Laurel came in. We became... They became a stable force for the community. The political advocacy that the chamber and that Laurel pursues is unprecedented in this County. She has been a leader. She is everywhere. You find any group she's involved with it. She has got the connections trying to replace Laurel. You could take three people to do it between the political advocacy between the relationships in the county, and then also running the business of a chamber. She's been a tremendous, tremendous asset to this community. You can always get tears out of her. And I guarantee she will be crying when she comes up here because she can never stand up without crying. As a board member, as a community member, we are so grateful to have had her. We are glad that she is staying connected and we intend to keep her connected in some way in this community because we can never lose someone like her. Thank you. Thank you.

Good morning morning Krista. Good morning, honorable members of our Board of Supervisors. Krista Campbell, Rainbow Orchards. I only have one word to say, and that is agriculture. I want to acknowledge Laurel for supporting agriculture over the many years in our county. Our small ag businesses, our agritourism. In fact, Laurel is the one that promoted the saying, agriculture is our culture. So thank you, Laurel.

Thanks, Carissa.

Thank you.

Good morning. Good morning. Sol Nisbet. I'm a business owner. Been on the chamber of the board, the El Dorado County Chamber Board, since about 2014. And been involved with our Divide Chamber of Commerce for 20 years. Hard to believe. I first heard Laurel's name back in 2006 when a gentleman recruited me to become part of the chamber of the Divide Chamber of Commerce. And I could not... Thank her enough for all of the support she's given us over the years at the Divide Chamber of Commerce and, of course, all of El Dorado County. Three words come to mind, and that is collaboration, partnership, and community support. And she's been a champion of that. So I'm very proud to call her my friend, and I wish her the best.

Thank you, Sol.

Thank you.

Good morning, Michael.

Good morning.

Good morning, Mike Ornale. I can't look back there or I'll join her in bawling. I want to thank Laurel for her partnership with our Farm Bureau and more importantly, her personal and professional leadership. And so I'm just here to add to the thank you, Laurel, for your long service. What a track record. Thanks.

Thank you. Good morning.

Good morning, Kirk.

Morning.

Thank you, Brian, for putting this on the agenda, by the way. Kirk Bone, my hat right in this particular point as president of the county chamber, I want to thank Laurel for her fierce, unwavering advocacy. And... As you will see, she's sitting back there right now in her regular chair. And that chair probably can never be filled the way it has been for the last 26 years. Matter of fact, maybe we could put a little label on there saying the Laurel Brent Bum chair. So anyway, thank you.

Thanks, Kurt.

Thank you. Good morning.

Good morning, Mindy.

Members of the board, Mindy Jackson. Currently, I am the chair of the subcommittee in the chamber at the Economic Development Corporations, and I wanted to talk about that a little bit. and leadership, class two, the best, which I still have connections that I'm using today, even outside of my professional life. So it was an amazing program. Economic Development Corp, under the leadership of Laurel and Dr. Vicki Barber, I'm going to talk a little bit about what maybe you didn't know they did. It's some behind-the-scenes work with the Office of Education and Child Care Development. They supported employment. In other words, there was a time where we identified what employment was needed and then how to develop the curriculum to make that happen. And we did that with the county. So that was, many years ago it was childcare. There was a lack of childcare, and there were people that needed jobs, so we developed childcare curriculum to make that happen. So just a little piece of something maybe you didn't know about. I agree with everything everyone has said here. The connections are amazing, locally, regionally, nationally. She's quite a loss to the county at this point. Thank you. Thanks, Mindy.

Good morning. Hi, I'm Kathleen Dodge. I'm the film commissioner for El Dorado County. And today I want to thank my boss, my boss, Laurel Brentbum, for all these years. I want to say that Working in her employee made me better. She allowed me to do the job I needed to do. And as I listened to everyone here, I know that we all experienced that gift of sitting at her desk and she made each and every one of us feel like our problem was the biggest, most important problem. And there were many times where things occurred and I could go into the office and speak to her or cry or cuss, whatever it took. But it allowed me to do my job and do my job better. And every success that the Film Commission has had during the 32 years has been her success. Because without her, we couldn't have kept going. I love Laurel Brenbaum. She's a wonderful human being, and it was an honor to work for her. Thank you.

Thanks, Kathleen.

Thank you. Are there other members of the public that would like to come forward at this time? Ms. Brenbaum?

Save that chair, Leonard.

Cheers.

Yeah.

Good morning. Good morning. Brian, thank you. I do have a request. Can we save this video because I could use it for my eulogy? It has totally been, you know the cliche, if you love what you do, you don't work a day in your life. I haven't worked a day in my life in 27 years. This community and the Chamber of Commerce are my passion, have been my passion, will continue. I will continue to be the mama bear in protecting the Chamber of Commerce and its mission. I'm still working. November 1st is official, official. They say that I will be done. But I truly have been blessed to have been able to serve our members and our community and partner with people like you to make sure that we help El Dorado County to thrive, not survive. So I thank you. I thank all of you. And on to my next adventures. Thank you. Thank you all so much.

Thank you, Laurel. I think we've got to go to people online, and then we'll close this item out.

I'll run the meeting, but thank you for your help. It's okay. May we please go online and hear from the public that would like to speak on closed session items 1 through 3 or consent items 4 through 46?

Now taking public comment from online participants. Now taking public comment from Linda Campbell.

Good morning, everyone. Linda Campbell, El Dorado Hills. First, I wanted to say thank you, Supervisor Ferraro, for pulling item number six. I had sent a written comment on that. Just to summarize, I was grateful the auditor controller gave me a call to chat through it real quick. I guess I do still have concerns. Primarily, I want to hopefully ensure you have some more information so that you can make an informed decision today on if you're going to approve or not, because it will be utilizing county resources to pursue it. Basically, we don't know the very specific purposes for it. If it's expanded roadways that wasn't in the original CFD, then I think it'd be important to understand exactly what those are. Some of the roadways were a requirement of the specific plan, final EIR, that haven't really been done. So in short, I guess, is the developer themselves repaying the bond or are liens going to be against current or future homeowners in order to repay the bonds themselves? Anyway, so I look forward to your discussion later. The other item I have actually looking through it was item number nine. It's the Office of Wildfire Preparedness and Resilience. So I was looking through this one and the agreement itself states that it's going to be used to work with homeowners. But I find it interesting it's through Title III of Secure Rural Schools. There's no reference to cleanup around schools. So is the maintenance of schools and, you know, fire preparedness, those kinds of things, is that included in some of the projects that would be funded through this? I think that would be helpful to understand. So thank you. Thank you.

There is no additional public comment.

Okay, I'll go ahead and bring this item back to the board for further deliberation or comments. Ms. Dawson, do you want to read the item into the record?

Approval of the consent calendar with the following changes. Poll item six for discussion. Supervisor Vierkamp will abstain from item number 29.

I did have a comment I wasn't sure how Laurel's item was going to go but she is still here and I think most people know that Laurel and I have had an interesting relationship over the years but I think that we've grown to have a really healthy one professionally and personally and I remember the day when district four didn't have anyone on the charter review committee and we were struggling and the charter review committee was struggling and Laurel was sitting there in the room and I looked down and went that's the right person to be the district four rep we took a break I went down on break and said hey would you be my district four rep on the charter review I thought our job was going to drop but But, you know, it is about relationships and understanding everybody's strengths and what they bring to the table. So I just wanted to point that out. And really thank you, Laurel, because that charter review committee was struggling until you got on there. And you showed them how to actually run a meeting and do things thoughtfully and clearly. And we had a good result from that. So I just wanted to, and I'm glad you're still here in the room, but thank you for that. I really appreciate it.

Other comments, questions before we vote?

I just want to say, Laura, you know, it's been a pleasure, you know, to get to know you better and some of the things and some of the events. And thank you for all your support, especially like Grizzly Flat, the issues with the post office and for the ribbon cutting that went on out there. And then, you know, the Title 25 homes and all your support. So I really appreciate it very, very much. Thank you.

Thank you, Supervisor. Other comments?

Certainly. Laurel, I think I've probably known you the least amount of time as probably anyone in this room, probably about four years. But it was clear when I... started my campaign, all fingers pointed to you and they said, you gotta go meet with Laurel. And I appreciate you welcoming me. I appreciate you including me in Leadership El Dorado. That was a fantastic opportunity for me to learn about things that I didn't know about that existed in the county. It's very clear you're an institution in this county and you're gonna be hard to replace and we're gonna miss you. And thank you for all your support.

CAO Henneke, did you wanna add something? I think it's Phillips now.

Oh, sorry. It was Henneke when I met Laurel. And I do just want to say Laurel has been a constant throughout my 24-plus year career at the county. And I have so appreciated our relationship over the years and really want to, as many have acknowledged here, her leadership Eldorado program and the many, many county employees that we've been able to send through that program and the networking opportunities it provides and just really appreciate that. And thank you for all your service.

Supervisor Vierkamp, you want to bring us home on this one?

Yeah, boy, I can't say it any better than all of you did. Laurel, your heart has been for El Dorado County, and I know it still will be. My whole almost life here. especially career and then through the elected positions, you've been there. And it doesn't matter what the topic, you're there. And right now, obviously, there's other issues going on and there's other ballot measures and so forth, and you're involved because you believe in this area. You know, we talked about the agriculture. We talked about business. everything, all that. And that's, I just can't stress this enough. And on behalf of the County Board of Supervisors, it's not millions of dollars, but that you've, you and the board have brought to El Dorado County, but it is a certificate of recognition and appreciation for all your years of service to the El Dorado County Chamber of Commerce in El Dorado County. So I'd like to give you that. And thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Chair, if I could on a separate issue just because I forgot while we're doing this is item 13 moving forward with the new classification of the sheriff's emergency call taker. I just wanted to do a shout out and thank the sheriff's office for getting creative. and working with HR and bringing this new classification up hopefully will address our concerns with the dispatchers and that critical need that we've been missing. And it's neat to see departments thinking out of the box to fill holes. So just wanted to shout out on that.

good call out on that okay if there's no further discussion uh cao phillips thank you um i just i do have a little bit of an answer to um ms campbell's question about item number nine so the act is called the secure rural schools and community self-determination act and it was enacted after there was a quite a loss of revenue for schools through the decline in timber production So that act mainly provided funding to schools, but there is a section under it where a small amount of funding comes to the counties. And so that's the portion that we're dealing with here today. And our county ordinance does not, we have no jurisdiction over state owned property, which would be schools are kind of quasi state owned. So shorter answer is this wouldn't include work being done on school property because we don't have jurisdiction.

Thank you for that clarification. If there's no further comments, a motion would be appropriate at this time.

I'll move to approve. I'll second.

Okay. Thank you. There's a motion and a second. Any further discussion on the motion? Okay. Seeing none, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Okay. Motion passes 5-0. Thank you. We will now take public comment on the rest of the agenda items, excluding our public hearing item number 52. So to be specific, we will now take public comment on items 47 through 51. Mr. Hanson, did you want to pick up where you left off? Okay, all right. Are there anybody? Oh, Ms. Dawson, will you please read this?

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. Welcome back.

Good morning again, board. Michael Rinaldi, Farm Bureau. Not here to repeat what I said in my submission, but I do want to support that broader principle that I did mention in my letter to you. So first, the vacation home rental ad hoc. actually number two, because there was a number one that focused primarily on the Tahoe area, Supervisor Ferraro and Supervisor Turnbull. Focusing on the West Slope, these are items that are in your zoning title, I'm sorry, yeah, your Title V, the Business and Professions Code. Then you have your ag lodging. This is a collaboration between the Building and Planning Department and the Agricultural Department. This is an activity that focuses on the existing uses already studied and currently in our zoning ordinance, but the definitions are effectively unusable. And so there's work to define those, and of course that would need an addendum to our targeted general plan zoning ordinance update, a significant effort. I just wanna mention that those items previously defined have already been studied. And so it would seem like getting on with that effort is really important and it relates to the topic that you have for vacation home rentals today. And I will try to tie that Accessory dwelling units have existed in our general plans since inception. And of course then there was a time when state law intercepted the ordinance and those changes had to be accommodated. But many of the issues that exist today that we will not hear from because that's not the agenda item today relate to ADUs. you know, there needs to be a policy discussion about that. And that item operates on a separate track with your long range planning group. So the point I'm trying to make here is you've got these three activities that are heard by the board at different times that have a relationship with each other. And from a policy standpoint, it's not the most effective way to make policy changes. And so while I deeply appreciate the efforts of the ad hoc committee whose item will be heard, we have significant work to do. There are regional trends that are not being studied. There are TOT numbers from your treasurer tax collector's office that I don't feel is being appropriately accommodated. We really need to factor that in. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Thanks, Michael. Are there other members of the public that would like to address the board now? Please come forward. Good morning.

Good morning, supervisors. My name is Sean McCabe. I'm also here to talk about the West Slope VHR. We have owned and operated a vacation rental home in El Dorado County in the town of Strawberry, Twin Bridges, since 2014. Our occupancy has shrunk from 14 to six over the last 10 years. And it's adversely affected our ability to rent that property out to the family size that typically goes I understand when Measure T was passed in Tahoe, a lot of that had to do with the impact on the existing residents that live there and what happened. I used to live in Myers when I was a kid, so I understand what it's like to live around a bunch of vacation rental homes. The impact to the surrounding community is significant because the lack of rentals has affected the workers that rely on that micro economy that happens up there. So like, I don't know if anybody knows Squirrel, who owns the Strawberry General Store. His business has fallen off precipitously. Our cleaner, she's getting a lot less cleaning. It's not just from our home, but the other homes in the area. And while Measure T obviously is more surrounding the partiers and the people going to Tahoe to do that kind of stuff, in the West Slope, I believe it's a lot more families that are going to do that. So very simply, we would just ask that the plus two gets added back in that was taken away last year. And then the one thing that's been a little confusing to me since it's been enacted was the change of the child age to age six from 12. I posted a public comment yesterday. All of the rental agency sites, Airbnb, VRBO, Booking.com, they all use 12 as the delineation line for what a child to adult is. So when a family and grandparents go to rent a home for the weekend and they say, all right, well, we've got two parents, four kids, and two grandparents, and the kids are age 2, 3, 7, and 12, two of those kids are being included as adults, but there's no way to delineate that in there. So it's adversely impacting the ability for us to rent at a frequency, and quite honestly, just to be able to afford to keep our homes. And a lot of those homes that are being rented are just second homes for families, and people are trying to subsidize their costs. And I think, as you all know, we survived Caldor, thankfully. But, you know, our... We had to go on the fair plan. We went from $1,700 a year to $17,000 a year for our insurance. That's just an expense that we're having to eat. So I don't think anybody here is trying to make these huge, profitable businesses. We're just all trying to survive and keep our family cabinets and be able to subsidize that. So thank you for your time, board. Appreciate it.

Thank you, Sean.

Thank you. Other members of the public that would like to address the board on items 46, seven through 51. Good morning.

Hi, Adam Anderson. I was really here for Laurels, but I saw that BHR was on here and this has been something that I've had a lot of experience with. And since I'm here, I'd like to share my experience with this. But back in 2008, when we had the financial crisis, the housing financial crisis, Airbnb was not well known by most people, but I did Airbnb in my house and it helped us to keep our house during that crisis moment of time. I gotta say, Most of the people I know, very few are conglomerate. I'm buying these things and buying them up. And this has been the rumor out there. And I've talked to the Debbie Miller, who is the head of the real estate board for the county. I asked her point Blake, how many houses in this county have been bought by corporate entities? Zero. They are primarily people like this brother, this man we just talked to that said that he's just like trying to make ends meet. Now, when we have fire insurance that is quadrupled, gone through the roof, I work with a lot of people in their retirement in this county. And I'll tell you that they're having trouble keeping ends meet. And to have some kind of side hustle that they could have to help... bridge the gaps. And some of them aren't even having the side hustle as far as they're renting a part of their house out or renting the house out. It's having their neighbor has one and they're able to turn over the rooms for them. And they're making a couple of hundred extra bucks a week doing that to make ends meet. So it is an important part of our economy. And I got to say, although it's all online these days and it's cyber-ish and that's maybe scares some people, But boarding houses has been the bedrock of El Dorado County's economy since it was founded. And it's an important part of our economy. And I just wanted to emphasize that, you know, I'd rather have someone next door to me running an Airbnb that keeps it nice because they have an incentive to make sure it's nice than to have a deadbeat renter. Because I just went through trying to evict a squatter out of my house that I couldn't get out, ruined it, made it horrible for the community on the frequent flyer list for Edso because of the trouble they brought there. I'd much rather have someone that's coming here with their family, enjoying our... environment here in el dorado county leaving the cot dollars for us and um and leaving and uh thank you for your time and listening to my comments on that thanks thanks adam thank you good morning laurel brump i'm el dorado county chamber of commerce uh i'm speaking to the vhrs uh everything has to have parameters and everything has to have rules

And we understand that. But when you're considering the changes that you're wanting to consider to the VHR, you've heard these comments. This is a benefit to our community and it's a benefit to the homeowner. I would encourage you to make, when you're looking at these changes, to make them as least restrictive as possible. Yes, parameters, yes, regulations, yes, rules. and make a way for those to be enforced. But don't make them a prohibitive action that's going to be the detriment of the property owner. Please think of being as flexible as possible and as least restrictive as possible in your decision making. Thank you. Thank you, Laurel.

Thank you. Please hold your applause and those kind of comments. We don't want people to feel that they can't make comments that might be other than what we just heard. So thank you for that respect. Please come forward.

Hi, my name's Blake Ingram and I'm here in support of the VHRs and STRs. I'm a resident of Supervisor Turnbull's district off Oma Ranch in Fair Play. And me and my wife, Joan, moved up here a little over four years ago, thinking this was gonna be our dream home. We bought a property with two houses on it. We're from Los Angeles and my wife had a hair salon and COVID killed her business. we were able to sell our house in LA and make a good profit and thinking that that would be the money we'd invest and use that for, you know, living our lives out, you know, both with the intention of working from home. So with the intention of buying the property, it was listed as an income property, potentially two houses on it, a main house, nice shop for me to work out of. Uh, I'm a digital nomad and we moved up here and started work on the, uh, what we were thought was going to be the Airbnb. And it's a permitted guest house. It was permitted in 1987. And I did, you know, some lovely work. We were like, became friends with a lot of winemakers, winery, and they were so excited. Like, oh, we need more places up here for people to come. People drink and drive. Unfortunately, we just had a fatal accident on Fair Play. It was due to somebody drinking at a winery that, you know, who, I don't know all the details, but it's to the point that, you know, if we had more lodging for people coming up, could stay over, stuff like that. Point is that me and my wife become good friends with Lexi and Lauren and other people who are supportive and have some good backing on this. We're discouraged. We're at the point now where we were thinking about selling the house. Unfortunately, the real estate market isn't even where it was when we bought the house. We put in all this work on this property. I massacred two and a half acres, took out 32 trees so I could get fair plan. Now I'm hearing that the fair plan is gonna raise 29% in October. It's going to become unsustainable to live here, you know, and that's sad. Like, and we want to give back. I'm the president of the Motherlode Trail Stewardship, who's a local nonprofit that, you know, I'm building, proposing to build 22 miles of trails out of Trail 8, Fleming Meadows. working maybe Goldwell Park, doing that, doing some private projects, maybe at Boger Winery, stuff like that. I want to give back. And now I'm feeling I might have to move because we can't sustain it. My wife's driving 45 minutes down to Lifetime Fitness to cut hair. And, you know, back and she's terrified in the winters driving because of the sun going down and black ice. And what became, you know, the first year here, so much excitement and love for the property now has become like a money pit, like, you know, we don't see a way out. So we're hoping that we can get some support for you guys and some understanding. And I would love to invite Supervisor Turnbull for some context to walk to my property and maybe give me some context of why my guest house can't be, you know, we live on the property in the separate house, but appreciate your time. Thank you.

Thank you. Good morning.

Good morning, supervisors. My name is London Litza. I'm a wife, a mother, a small business owner. Like many of the others that just came up, I'm in the same position. I'm a gardener, a homesteader. My family has been trying to build a life here. I want El Dorado County to be a place where families can work, build businesses and use their property responsibly and thrive and not be limited. That's why I'm here today. Newly obtained public records show something concerning about what happened to HHRs after the board changed the ordinance in October of 2024. Before that change, HHRs operated under county business licenses and paid TOTs. The county knew about these businesses, licensed them and collected their taxes. We were trying to do and we're doing the right thing. There were 111 active HHR business licenses before the ordinance change. Then ordinance 5209 changed the rules. Existing HHR operators were required to get new permits through planning, building and planning before business licenses could even be renewed. It was a mess. Building and planning didn't have all the documents in order at the time. today according to the county's own report there are only 45 active hhr permits that's 66 fewer businesses nearly 60 percent and we're in that those numbers don't prove that every one of those businesses disappeared because the ordinance but when but when nearly 60 percent after the rule drops after the rules have changed the board should be asking why and considering it I'm one of those people caught in this transition and it has been detrimental like the others have mentioned. It has been incredibly hard for us to make a living. I just want to raise chickens, raise my babies and provide a cute getaway for couples. My property has a residential dwelling that the county has recognized for decades. In 1998, the head of building and planning recognized it as a residential dwelling, reconfirmed it in 2023. It's non-conforming residential dwelling. It's not an ADU and it's not a guest house. There's this giant gray area. It existed before modern building and planning, and it has vested rights. My family has lost approximately $90,000 in business revenue. The county has pursued approximately $25,000 in fines and fees against us for those fines that ultimately had to be eliminated. I still don't have a straightforward path to getting a permit, and I know I'm not the only person caught in this. There are good changes in the ordinance before you. Removing the HHR clustering restriction is important. but it doesn't protect the people who are already operating under the previous system when the rules abruptly changed. If someone had an HHR business license, was registered for TOT, paid their taxes, was operating before this new ordinance, there should be a clear transition process and room for them, subject to reasonable health and safety requirements. That process needs to recognize existing residential dwellings that the county itself has already determined are legal, non-conforming, older, beautiful homes with character. The county created this gap, sorry, and was unprepared for what it created. Please don't amend this ordinance again without fixing the people who have been left behind the first time. Families are forced, sorry, families are being run out of this county. A few of you probably have sons or daughters my age and imagine if this was happening to them. Thank you.

Thank you. Good morning.

Good morning. My name is Jeremy Kadurka. My family and I own and operate a vacation home rental in Coloma since 2012. We operated in good faith, paid our TOT taxes, complied with county regulations and received zero complaints from neighbors. Our little home brought in about 20 or 30K a year for my parents, not a lot, certainly not a grand corporation. We're incredibly grateful for that income, and we're proud to share our incredible area with visitors who then spent money at our restaurants, rafting companies, wineries, shops, and other local businesses. And over the years, we hosted thousands of guests and received hundreds of five-star reviews. Then, with little warning, the year my mother retires, we lost our ability to operate the rental. Not because of a compliance or a safety violation or anything we'd done wrong, but simply because our existing, what was a granny flat built in 99, was now reclassified as an ADU. We didn't receive streamlined permitting, we didn't receive reduced fees or the incentives intended to encourage the instruction of new ADUs to alleviate the housing crisis in California, as was the purpose of that state mandate. And because we had the granny flat built before that, I believe we should get some sort of grandfather in for the VHR, things just like she was talking about with giving having some sort of way forward for people who have been operating in good faith working hard providing taxes at the county to have a transitional way to operate and with good licensure um Looking over the changes to the ad hoc committee created the other day, I was really excited, especially with recommendation number three, allowing detached gas houses to be used as vacation rentals. But then I realized that doesn't help me or most of the people with these problems. While the recommendations you put forth are perfect and exactly what we need, Because it only says for detached guest houses, that doesn't include all of us who are now ADUs or in some sort of different name language in the thing. So we really got to make sure that a detached guest house or a quote unquote ADU built before 2023 when all that extra streamlined state mandates came through, we have a way forward. That's all we need, just a way forward. I'm asking you to grandfather structures like ours and any other quote unquote ADUs that were operating in good standing before so we can continue operating in good standing now. The summer season's over. Our primary rental income has been lost for the year. That's 30K out of my parents' pockets. They just retired. They're not going to make it if we don't get this fixed and get it fixed now. Thank you.

Thank you. Good morning. Hi, Supervisors.

Thank you so much for listening to us. My name is Cherry Edwards and we live in Kool. And I'm sure that you guys are tired of these conversations almost as much as we are. I think that the Ad Hoc Committee did a great job. There are a couple of blatant errors. They say that detached guest houses are allowed. If you go to the PDF included in the agenda today, it says guest houses are not permitted to be short-term rentals. So we have, again, we have a very messy thing. I think we've all gotten into the weeds. We need to look at this high level. What do we all want? You want taxes. We need to increase the number of available rentals in our area. It is a huge issue for the local people to have places to come and stay. So to increase taxes, it's real easy. Look at Placer County. We don't have to reinvent the wheel. Let's look at how other counties in California allow short-term rentals in J-80Us, which have a full kitchen, which right now are not allowed. ADUs, which have a full kitchen, guest houses, all that the committee addressed was hosted rentals, people living in your house. That applies to a tiny drop in the bucket. So you're going to have 50 more people staying here. That's not going to have an impact. We need to look at the bigger picture. ADUs with full kitchens, huge demand for those short-term rentals. JADUs, permitted with a full kitchen. Fabulous, the best Airbnb rental, bringing money to our communities. And the state of California, on their website, allows counties and cities to regulate those now. So I'm saying, let's look at what we really want. We want tax income and we want to increase the number of opportunities for visitors to come and stay in our county. We don't have hotels here. We need our short-term rentals for money, for our community, and for the people who vote for you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Good morning.

Good morning, Lexi. Good morning.

Honorable members of the board, Lexi Boger, District 3. I was going to say all of that, but they just said it. So I will summarize. I was going to ask for some clarity in your discussions on the difference between a guest house and an ADU. They're not an ADU. The restrictions on ADUs for affordable housing did not happen until after the state passed ADU legislation in 2018, which offered streamlined permitting processes. The state has a definition of what constitutes an affordable housing restricted ADU, and it's anything built after 2020 or anything built using the streamlined processes made available. Those constitute very few of the county's detached units that we're talking about here, and they're already counted in the housing element. What changed was a few years ago the county changed its definition of ADUs to include all detached units regardless of when they were built or the intended rental use of the owners. So this is not a mandate by the state, it's a choice of the county. The rural reality is that having a short-term rental is actually a way for young families working people or retired folks who are land rich and money poor to afford their fire insurance and their mortgages. But we've traded an actual affordability mechanism for the appearance of affordability on paper in the form of our housing element. And for a red county, I'm shocked at how often its citizens wish we could default to the regulatory schemes of the state of California. I mean, I'm a liberal, but I think I'm conservative adjacent here. which is weird for me. But we are asking you to please retract this government overreach, let people make money from their own property, and reclassify these units to reflect the reality of what they truly are. On TOT, a little side note, independent rentals constitute 89% of the TOT and dropped 17% after these changes, according to the tax collector's data. This is the people's budget and it is your fiduciary duty to steward it. This hit to the people's TOT coffers is policy induced and it can be policy fixed. Please act now. It is directly under your control to reinstate these citizens' incomes and repair our lagging revenues, stream and help offset our deficit and keep more layoffs and cut services at bay. It takes strength and maturity to be willing to admit that this wasn't perfect the first time, and we believe that the ad hoc's revision effort is a show of that maturity, and we really applaud you for it. So big thank you to the ad hoc, and thanks for listening to us today.

Thank you.

Thanks, Lexi.

Good morning again.

Hello again. Hey, Greg. Hello again, supervisors. My name is Greg Hanson, and I am the founder and president of the California Civil Defense Institute, a 501c3 tax-exempt public interest organization helping Californians fight abuse of government through public records, social media, lawsuits, and public policy. Our mission is simple, help Californians fight government abuse, expose corruption, and build a better California. Our vision is a California where citizens are free to live, raise families, build businesses, and thrive without abuse of government standing in their way. We believe California should be the best place to live, raise a family, work, build, and thrive. That requires a government that obeys the law, respects citizens, empowers business, protects civil liberties, and answers to the people it serves. That's why I'm here today. Over the last several months, we have submitted extensive public records requests concerning El Dorado County and its VHR and hosted home rental programs. Those records are coming back. And with each production, we were learning more about what happened behind the scenes, what county officials knew, when they knew it, the problems they anticipated, the consequences they later discovered, and the people who were harmed anyway. the county changed rules governing existing businesses. Owners who had operated openly, obtained county licenses and paid county taxes suddenly found themselves caught in a new regulatory system. People lost income, properties were trespassed, violations were issued and businesses were disrupted. And now you're changing the ordinances again. There are some improvements in what is proposed, but if this board continues adopting policies that lack common sense, ignore the people affected by them, and leave citizens to absorb the consequences of the county's mistakes, understand what comes next. We operate a government accountability project in this county that generates more than half a million views every month and it grows every month. We will continue obtaining public records. We will continue publishing the liabilities, the corruption, the bad actors, and the unfair policies and ordinances. I'm also committing an additional $10,000 a month toward expanding our marketing efforts, publicity and outreach throughout El Dorado County. When people search for El Dorado County, they will find the public records showing how their government operates. When people search for the supervisors responsible for these policies, they will find the records exposing those decisions. And when people search for El Dorado County's VHR policies, they will understand exactly how these ordinances have affected ordinary property owners and lawful business owners. If the county continues to push, we will push back 10 times harder. You will face organized owners, sustained social media exposure, extensive public records investigations, and lawsuits where you are liable. This will be a coordinated effort like you have never experienced before. That's the path, but it does not have to be the path. These owners are not the enemy. They are mothers and fathers, homeowners, entrepreneurs, taxpayers, small business owners. They employ local businesses, vendors, contractors, landscapers, tradespeople, and support the local economy. These are some of the best people in the county who make El Dorado County work. They love this community. They have invested here, and they want you to help them thrive. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. Good morning. My name is Clara Sorenkov, and I'm also here to talk about the VHR stuff. On the official county website, it actually lists five specific strategic focus areas, but the one that I wanted to focus on was the one labeled thriving economy. It's detailed lists out there on our website, attract and retain businesses, stimulate entrepreneurship and diversify the local economy. Emphasis is placed on creating a business friendly environment, streamlining the permit process, supporting small businesses and leveraging economic development incentives. This is a wonderful objective for the county to have. I fully wish that it was something that all of the people in the county felt was accurate. It isn't something that feels accurate often if you are a small business owner, if you are a homeowner. And the thing that makes me so sad as I sit here and listen to the comments of all these people that have come up so far is that they aren't even asking to have a thriving economy. As we state on our county website, they're asking for survival. They're asking to just make ends meet. They're asking for the bare minimum And yet somehow we're advertising on our county website to any incoming people that want to know what our county is about, that we're thriving and it doesn't feel that way. We're taking away opportunities that people should be able to make money on their own land to help encourage entrepreneurship within the county. And I just encourage you guys to look at that and to make this an actual objective of the county. Something that if I have somebody I know who wants to move to this county, I can point to this and say that it's accurate instead of giving them the warning of, well, that's not really true. You might want to watch out for this, this, and this. If you want to be an entrepreneur in El Dorado County, you might want to look elsewhere. And that's a sad thing to say to people and a way to stand when this should be the objective of our county. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Good morning. Good morning, members of the board. Lauren Hernandez. I'm a resident of Shingle Springs, was raised in South County out in Somerset. And I'm also the co-founder of the Eldorado Economic Generator and Germination, which is a mouthful when we go by egg. And you received some analysis from us. And so I'm not going to get into that. But my background is in public policy. And so that's really a lens that I come from. But today, I really want to speak to you as just a person in this community. And that's really... what I think leads this work that we do. For us at EGG, economic development means creating an economy at the local level that meets the needs of people who live in this community and need an economy to work. Top of mind for me, I have a daughter who's five and she just started kindergarten this week. And why that's relevant, because I'm reflecting on George, where I grew up in your community, I went to Pioneer Elementary School. And when I was there in the 90s, the student population was about 800 in the district. Today, it's under 180. So what does that tell us about our economy? El Dorado County is not a place where families can live and make a living. I was fortunate that my parents, when I was raised here, lived and worked in this community, but those opportunities are shrinking. Back then, in the 30% or so of people who were working, people in this county worked in this county. Today, it's closer to 70% have to commute outside of the county of our workforce here because there are not jobs or ways for people to make a living. And the greatest opportunity that we have right now that is easy and nimble and that you are hearing from people today is to be able to host people in our rural community, on the land, and supporting our small businesses. The data that we shared with you shows that primarily thousands of local people who are local people. These aren't outside corporations. They are local families who are earning a modest way to supplement their income and support their families right here. Things that our economy in traditional jobs are not providing. So we can either be thoughtful in our process and our policymaking here. We live in California, one of the most regulated, I'll say the most regulated state in the nation. And here in El Dorado County, we are being more restrictive than the standard that the state is setting. And it's ultimately being harmful to local people trying to make a living here. So we need to be thoughtful about that. The other thing in my background from public policy is that process matters. And from what I've seen in this process, I think there is intent that has been genuine. But I don't think we're all having the same conversation. When we look at the guest houses today, the county has a very specific definition of guest houses. And from the people that you're hearing from today, this is not going to address that issue of the detached units with a kitchen that is larger than 600 square feet that was built before 2020, 2018, that timeframe of people who had an opportunity to support our economy and no longer can do so. Thank you. Thanks, Lauren. Thank you.

Good morning.

Good morning. Good morning, Chair and Board. I am not a VHR owner, but when I'm reviewing everything you're putting forward, and I spoke to a supervisor yesterday, I find some real shortcomings in there. So when you guys write these policies and when the departments are writing, put yourself in the position of the owner and the possible person that's going to come rent that place. So when you go on VRBO and you look for a residence, I have... Three families come in with me. We have a multitude of kids. So that three families typically constitutes of six adults. We don't know how many kids. There's no way to label that. But I start looking on there and I say, oh, not available, not available because I can't find a home that lists possibly 16 beds that I would need. So in certain cases, people skip right on by. They can't find accommodations that they need because we've labeled everybody and code enforcement goes out and looks at you. You get two per room. You get two adults per room, two adults per room. So in a typical house of four bedrooms, you get eight. How many families where there's four families who are traveling, just adults? They come with kids. So a better way to look at this is to look at the sleeping accommodations. There are four-bedroom houses that really can sleep 16. When you stay in a hotel, what do you get? Maybe two queens. There's four adults. Maybe you get a queen with a sleeper sofa. There's four adults. So we're really limiting our ability to attract people from the outside and come here and stay. So there is one rental I'm very familiar with, and you guys all know my connections with it. Families come there, and I see every family, because I'm there doing landscape work or not. They come with families. They're from the Bay Area. They love our rural setting. They love to go to the river. They go to Tahoe. But if we limit occupancy based upon strictly bedrooms and age groups, I can only imagine Kevin Hart showing up saying, give me your birth certificate. That kid's 13 years old. Is that one 11 years old? Is that one nine years old? That's not the way to do business. Let's make it easy on the operators. Let's make it easy on the potential clients to come here. So if I go on, I'm looking for 16, that's 16 real beds I can have, not eight adults and unlimited kids. And I don't know why we put that limit in there. The occupancy is the people. And the comment was made, well, it could happen, where I said take it all the way up to minors, but I would just have a raw, real number attached to that. And that can be observed by when the fire marshal comes, he checks your gates at your swimming pools. He checks there's access. Everything's made safe. Let him go through, see what's proposed. We want to have 16 here. He understands, hey, this is a safe environment. There's access and egress. That's what they look at. They set occupancy in all of our settings. They set it in the movie theaters, the restaurants. They come in and set that. Why not involve them? They're the professional. No offense to you up there in the board or the different people that work in the county. They're not the professional. They don't have the tools and the training to make that educated decision. So let's rely on them a little bit and bring them into the equation because they will tell you, fix the lock on the gate, make sure the driveway is accessible. So again, I appreciate your time. And the ad hoc committee, George and Greg, have done an excellent job. Thank you. Excellent job. I want to praise them for that.

Thank you. Good morning.

Good morning.

Hi, good morning.

My name is Paula Kudurka, and you already heard my son talk about our house in Lotus. In 2014, we went ahead and put our house on Airbnb and VRBO. We went to the county. We got all our permits, the TOT tax, the business license. That was in 2014. When we built our house, it was labeled as a second dwelling on our property. Hence, as everybody already has spoken, there's been a a difference in the terminology of what the board has adopted for second dwellings versus ADUs. That's our dilemma. I'm not gonna rehash everything that people have already said. I support all that. My concern is the timeline. Started coming to these meetings after we were red tagged by Kevin Hart, in September of 2025. Here we are almost a year later and we haven't gotten anywhere. I mean, yeah, there's been the ad hoc committee, there's been some progress forward, but we're still not where we need to be. Our businesses have been taken away from us. The local businesses have not been supported. We've missed our opportunity to draw revenue this year. My concern is, There's going to be a change in leadership and supervisor for in November. Are we going to have to bring the new person up to speed as to what's going on? How is that going to impact us? I just would request that the board meet some kind of a deadline quickly so that we can all get our lives back in order again. Thank you for your time. And I appreciate everything that you've been doing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. Good morning.

Good morning, Gordon. District 3. I'm not going to repeat what I said. I submitted an email, and I think you guys all saw that. I just want you to just take to heart everything that everyone so far has come up here and said, and let's try to reduce the regulations. It's stifling our economy. It makes business difficult to do in this county, and quite honestly, it puts us at an economic disadvantage compared to everybody else. So thank you.

Thanks, Gordon.

Thank you. Are there other members in the room that would like to address the board? Okay, can we go online, please?

Not taking public comment from online participants. Not taking public comment from Tara M. Tara, do you want to go ahead? You need to unmute yourself. Chair Lane, would you like me to move on to the next? Yeah, we'll circle back. Now taking public comment from Kewin Sungawa.

Sorry. I have my recent name change on there. It's actually Quinn Meager. I own a VHR slash house that I actually live at a lot of the time in Strawberry. Similar to Sean's comments, like Squirrel and Carilla are struggling, who are members of the community that we know well, partly because of this reduction in capacity, which makes it more difficult for the families who visit Strawberry to enjoy the lovely place that it is. I'm not going to repeat what everyone else said. I agree with most of what people were saying. I have a comment that I posted in an email to y'all about my specific situation, which was interesting. We started to finish a basement that was designed to be finished by the previous owner. put a lot of money and time into it. And when we went to get, like, we have new rooms, like, permitted and everything by the county. But because of the setback rules, like, combination of, like, all the regulations that are in here make it so that I can't actually update the occupancy on the VHR after putting all that effort into it. So now in a... four bedroom house, we are limited to, I think, six people, which is a bit excessive and makes it kind of comical to have the whole building that large with only six people in it. When a whole family, a couple of families could be enjoying our property. And when we're there with our friends, we have plenty of people come up and people are able to enjoy and actually enjoy having the people in the community. And it helps support Squirrel. We're buying drinks and uh, food and stuff from the station. And yeah, just wanted to echo all of those things that like the lattice of regulation creates lots of weird edge cases. So the more flexible that it could be so that people can update things to the reality of what the County says is a building is that would be great. Um, cause right now I can't submit a new application because of the setbacks. Um, Anyways, thank you for all the effort into this. I know it's not easy running a county, but appreciate your time. Thanks.

Thank you. Now taking public comment from Rachel Karklin.

Hello, my name is Rachel Karklin and good morning, the board. My house is at the end of South Upper Truckee Road in South Lake Tahoe, and it's two acres property. It's our second house. I had my permit for short-term rental since 2004. The renewal notice would arrive to my mailbox regularly every January. And each quarter, I have been sending my TOTs to the county. I worked hard. I had 4.9 rate on my rental platform. In July 2018, I have received a letter from the county's tax collector office. It was an 11-page letter, half of which page was in red and I wanted to show you on my camera, but I tested it. It's hard to see for you, but it's outrageous. It looked like initial draft for something very new. I wasn't able to figure out what this is about, and I called the office. I was told the new process, this is 2018, the new process for VHR applications is coming. I asked in which way it will affect the existing permit holders. And it was told that the county is still figuring it out. And this was summer 2018. I have never got another better explanation and expected that if I'm sending my quarterly TOTs regularly to the county, continue renting my house, somebody will contact me to tell me if it's wrong. No one called or emailed me. In 2021, I was told that I cannot rent it anymore, and I applied to be put on a wait list. In August 2021, the Board of Supervisors approved 500-foot buffer zone, and I was removed from the wait list because I was sandwiched between two properties, new rentals. The main reason for trying to reinstate my VHR is that my family loves Tahoe and loves the house, and long-term rental doesn't give me the option to come ourselves. In 24, I hired a lawyer. He communicated with the county, and they never responded to his communications. And this is my chance just to see if my VHR, 15-year-old VHR, can be reinstated. Thank you very much for your time. And I apologize for my difficult speaking.

No need to apologize. Thank you.

Now taking public comment from Linda Campbell.

Linda Campbell, El Dorado Hills. Lots of great information is being shared. It's nice to see everyone speaking up about this. I don't have a lot of additions, although I will say I think that my one primary thought is that the owner should live on the property as we're talking about things like that. I appreciate Lexi getting up and talking about the ADU designations, the definitions that are done. I think that could be improved. I know the attachment for all of the items. I think one speaker got up and said that was pretty confusing. I agree. Take a look at what we want, what things would be of benefit. But after reading through everything and then seeing those definitions, it didn't seem to totally align for me. Also, I think that Mr. Rinaldi, when he got up, the correlation to other ordinances, so the Agenda item itself had mentioned that code enforcement data and other county codes were reviewed as part of the committee, but yet in coming back now, one of the follow-up actions is to do the analysis against the other ordinances like agricultural lodging and ranch marketing. I think it would have been really helpful to make sure that that was all done and wrapped up as part of this presentation just to make it a lot easier so everybody knows because there are some factors in ranch marketing that may or may not be appropriate for the BHR stuff. So with that, I would say anything that can be done to expedite and streamline any adjustments for the next hearing would be great for the people in the county that want to be able to have their VHRs. So thank you for all the work and I look forward to the discussion. Thank you.

Thank you. Now take a public comment from Cameron Bauer.

Hey there, can you hear me okay?

Yes, we can.

Good evening, chair and supervisors. My name is Cameron Bauer and I'm an active member and a small business owner here in El Dorado County. I want to thank everyone who has worked hard to put the current ordinance together. I know it's a major challenge in balancing the community's interest with the ability for people to rent their homes. But I'm here to talk to you today about with any large policy, some things can go unforeseen. To no one's fault of anyone involved, sometimes individual situations slip through the cracks and end up being treated inequitably. simply because they weren't anticipated. Some individuals are genuinely struggling because of the VHR ordinance implementations over the past few years. People who relied on the guidelines in place at time to make real investments and who, due to procedural limitations, didn't have the same opportunity others had when the ordinance was officially administered. Because of this, I'm asking the board to direct staff to create a narrow appeal process. This isn't a request to approve any specific case individually. It's a request to improve the ordinance so a fair appeal path exists for circumstances that don't fit the standard model. Right now, the only recourse for someone in this position is to submit a claim to the county or make a complaint to entities who don't necessarily have any ability to provide a solution because of the ordinance. An appeal process would give people an actual chance to be heard and allow the county to provide a legal and fair way to respond. The rules in this ordinance exist for a good reason, to keep balance in the neighborhoods. And I totally respect that. And I think a narrow appeal process wouldn't really change the spirit of that. The county's existing short-term rental base is large enough that a small number of one-off exceptions would have virtually no effect on the community. But on a personal level, I can tell you the impact is significant. Some of these individuals worked a large portion of their lives to build these investments and threw something out of their own control. They can no longer rely on the framework that was in place when they made them. I phrase this with Supervisor Brook Lane and Supervisor Greg Ferrero. I'm really appreciative that we have members of the board who can be reached out to and I'm very thankful for the system. I've been advocating for a solution for about two years now, and I know others have too. I would really appreciate it if the board could set aside dedicated time to push this forward as the consequences continue to impart financial hardship. The county has a real chance to do a lot of good for individuals by giving them a voice. I hope we can move forward to that.

Thank you. Now taking public comment from Melody Lane.

Melody Lane, I'm addressing item 51. As most of you know, I am a former member of the 2025-26 civil grand jury. As such, I took the same oath of office that all public officials take to support and defend the Constitution. I also took an oath of secrecy. While there are certain things I can't share, there are some issues with this grand jury report that you and the public need to know. First, you will note that there are 15 jurors surrounding Judge Schlossberg in the grand jury photo. However, things are not the way they appear. When all the alternate jurors had been exhausted, only 13 juror names were listed in the report who completed their term. When the grand jury falls below the minimum 12 jurors, it is automatically disbanded. Such was the case in 2013 when 14 jurors all quit at once. That was the first time in EDC history that a grand jury report was never issued. I was largely responsible for that. After my interview, I invited the grand jury to attend a Taxpayers Association meeting where Supervisor Jack Sweeney was caught red-handed discussing confidential grand jury business with the entire group. I'm submitting two news articles with this transcript so you can read them for yourselves. Secondly, the grand jury operates independently from the county under the general oversight of the Superior Court. Just like you, jurors are expected to follow the law, rules of procedure, and code of ethics. Accordingly, I exercise my rights under penal codes 918 and 919C, which mandates the grand jury to inquire into the willful or corrupt misconduct of public offenses committed by public officials. of every description, and that includes law enforcement, county council, and the district attorney. Soon thereafter, I and another juror were subjected to overt threats for exercising our legal duties. Any reasonable person will view those threats as jury tampering. Subsequently, three of us met with Judge Schlossberg to discuss the legal implications. For the sake of our personal safety, two of us submitted our resignations. Afterwards, the judge invited me to put my grand jury recommendations in writing and hand deliver them to his office. I later delivered a second letter to Judge Schlossberg for his eyes only. Lastly, it is evident by the final grand jury report that Judge Schlossberg ignored all of the evidence and my recommendations, making him complicit in abetting government corruption. I understand he stepped down from the Superior Court and returned to family law. Until such time as this board takes their jobs and government corruption seriously, the grand jury will remain a toothless paper tiger and a waste of taxpayers' resources.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Now taking public comment from Rich Gammas. Rich, can you unmute yourself, please? Chair Lane, would you like me to move on to the next? Please. Now taking public comment from Manvir Bola.

Good morning, Chair and members of the board. My name is Manvir Bola. I'm a homeowner in Pollock Pines. I appreciate the work that the VHR committee has done and support many of their recommendations. I do have concerns with the proposed changes to the 500 foot buffer. specifically excluding properties over five acres. Basing this exclusion of five acres seems arbitrary. Why is five acres the magic number? There are plenty of large lots in the county that are one, two, three, four acres that have significant separation between neighboring properties. I respectfully request that the buffer be scalable based on property size and not moving forward with solely a five-acre threshold. In my opinion, a better solution would be to keep the 500 foot buffer and just change the way it is measured. Currently the buffer is measured from property line to property line. If this was changed to measure from home to home, the actual structure being measured would determine the separation. And I feel like this would be a much more fair way of implementing this process.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Now to gain public comment from Steve W.

Hi, good morning. Thank you for the ad hoc committee looking into this HR permitting changes. My wife and I have been homeowners in public pines for 14 years, lived there full time for half of that time. And since 2019, I've had a VHR permit up there. We love the area. We were hoping just to be able to break even and just maintain a property that we could enjoy and our kids and families could enjoy. However, since the change in ordinance, I have submitted public comments and letters to all the board members back in December. We have lost over 70% of traffic and guest visitors in and out of our cabin, making it extremely difficult to maintain. As everybody has said before, it increases insurance and all the other costs related. That 70%, not just taken from our business, but transient occupancy taxes, as other people have mentioned, tourists, visitors to the area, all of those things, have had a dramatic impact, and it's just making it very difficult. We also obviously have cleaners that we employ. We've been using some people for yard work. Those people are not getting their business. So regarding the... The changes, obviously separating the West Slope from South Lake Tahoe is a first primary step. I request they restore immediately the plus two occupancy standard on the West Slope. And as someone else has mentioned, with the children ages of 13 and above would have an immediate impact on our business. I do feel for the ADU people, I would jump on that bandwagon and request those that should be grandfathered in that had previous permitted area. That does not apply to us, but I think that's a very realistic and reasonable requirement. So one regards staff recommendation talking about scheduling safety inspections. My only request there would be if they're guests on property, Obviously, that would not be ideal. And then also, we'd like to see a written notice from the county of the details of those inspections. It seems pretty arbitrary just to say a security inspection. But again, overall, I want to thank the committee for the work they've done and agree with everyone else that has commented positively on those changes that we'd like to see. Thank you.

Thank you.

Now taking public comment from Richard Gamiz. Richard, it looks like you're unmuted, but we can't hear anything. Okay. It looks like you've tried to log in as another. Let me try that one as well. Now taking public comment from Rich Gamiz.

All right. Can you hear me?

Yes, we can. All right.

My name is Rich Gamiz. I'm calling regarding the BFP. the VHR buffer amendment. I live at 2760 Hay Ranch Road next to Serene Ranch and their illegal event center and VHR. My property is one of those shown on the buffer zone as an example. How coincidental. Most of these people up here complaining about receiving violations aren't legal by county ordinance. They probably never were legal. Some of you may not understand what's going on here. The whole problem and where we are today is caused by only a few individuals. These people will be mentioned in just a minute. To the people that are talking about how this is affecting their income, VHRs are never meant to be a business. It is for supplemental income. Just so you know, corporations are buying properties, and one of them is my neighbor, Clara, who spoke earlier. Her husband, Sergei, and Todd Story, who got up there and blatantly lied and said he's not involved in the VHRs, or does he own one? He owns the one next door to me, as well as the event center. These people are partners. And by the way, 16 people in a four-bedroom house? Come on. We have for at least five years now been dealing with this nuisance. We have spent the last five years being bombarded by parties, DJs, speeches, screaming, loud music, traffic every day of the week, and especially on the weekends. We have had threats from the property owners and assaults against my neighbor from one of the property owners. We have spent five years in these meetings. Working on the ordinance to get it to where it is today. An ordinance that the county and the community agreed upon. We have spent over $15,000 of our own money having studies done and fighting this only to be here today doing this again. If we allow... the removal of the current buffer zones in our area for large parcels, five acres and larger. This will mean every house on my private road, every house on Gold Hill, every house on Cold Springs, just about every house in our community can be a VHR. The members of our community will be affected if this were to pass. The farms, ranches, rural community, lifestyle that all of us locals that live here desire will be gone. This will turn into a remote private area and the remote private areas. It'll turn into a playground for drunks, party goers, and ruckus behavior. Our county two-lane streets will be the brunt of the traffic. I would also like to point out that Jenica Group, who is a corporation, owns 11 of these, and they're the ones spearheading this to get this stuff changed. They are friends with the Board of Supervisors. They are buddy-buddy with them. They are all having dinners together over at the Revit Center. This is only brought upon by Lexi Boger and Todd Story to get these things changed so that they can open up a VHR next door. They have over $130,000 in fines that have gone unpaid.

Thank you.

There is no additional public comment.

Did we circle back to any of the people that we weren't able to hear or have they fallen off?

They did not raise their hand. Okay. All right.

All right, then we will close the public comment. I wish to thank everybody for their time this morning and for your comments. A lot of those will be discussed in the forthcoming item. I would like to suggest that we take a break until 1045. That'll give us a chance to reset the room and we'll be taking up that item next. VHRs. Okay, welcome back from a brief recess. We are now at the point in the agenda in which we are prepared to hear item number 50. And may I please call on the clerk of the board to read this item into the record.

Item number 50 comes from the Chief Administrative Office and Planning and Building Department recommending the board receive a presentation on the West Slope Vacation Home Rental, VHR, program ad hoc committee recommendations and provide direction to staff regarding potential amendments to the VHR ordinance.

Thank you. I would like to welcome Brendan Ferry, who's our Chief Deputy Director of Planning and Building, and also Jennifer Franich from the CAO's office. Welcome to both of you.

Thank you, Chair. Good morning, Board. We are here today to present to you recommendations from our West Slope Vacation Home Rental Ad Hoc Committee. So... We want to refresh your memory of the ad hoc objectives today, go over some public engagement efforts, present solutions that were identified for issues that the ad hoc heard on this topic, and then ask for some feedback from the full board. We are also going to go over some current VHR data and enforcement trends.

Sorry, go ahead.

Okay. As a quick introduction to this topic, we are going to be discussing short term rentals, which means 30 or fewer days. The county currently allows these and residential areas affording an income stream for owners and an alternative option for visitors to stay. But we have also developed a program with a specific set of rules that apply in recognition that this use can impact our neighborhoods. We are discussing today both whole home rentals where the owner is not present and hosted rentals where only a portion of the home or guest house is rented. And As you heard come up a little bit in the public comment, we considered in the past we've talked a lot about, you know, what kind of use is this? Is this a residential use or is this a commercial use? And the complicating factor with this is that it's kind of both. while other jurisdictions in California and across the country have outlawed short-term rentals completely. Our board, your board has in the past said, let's do the more difficult thing and come up with a set of policies and regulations to continue to allow these. So unfortunately we just, have to keep going back and trying to figure out if we can get our regulations exactly right. And this is part of the process that we've been going through recently with this ad hoc committee. So as a starting point, we wanted to provide some current data on vacation home rental permits. There are currently 746 active permits in Tahoe and 192 on the West Slope. So you can see it's a much bigger industry in the Tahoe Basin than the West Slope. As we know, it's much more concentrated in Tahoe, and there's also a higher demand for permits. There are 233 owners on the wait list for a VHR permit in Tahoe. On the West Slope, there are 17. And there are 27 hosted rental permits in Tahoe and 18 on the West Slope.

Jennifer, before you leave that, on the West Slope, 17 that are on the wait list, because we still have the buffer here at this moment, how many or which kind is it? split out?

We actually don't distinguish that on the wait list. So I don't know exactly that breakout.

Okay.

But we, you know, we have advertised that that wait list is open since 2021 when the board enacted the 500-foot buffer. So there has been, you know, quite a few years for folks to jump on that wait list if they are buffered out.

Okay.

And we, you know, for whatever reason, we haven't seen the demand to get on to the West Slope wait list.

Okay.

Thank you.

If the board chooses to enact some of the recommendations today, you'll see that the 500-foot buffer for hosted home rentals will go away on the West Slope. And so that really could eliminate the need to be on the wait list.

Yeah, and that's why I was asking. I was hoping to have that information so it can help us.

And I could try to follow up with my staff and find that out.

Okay.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Okay, so the board had five specific objectives for this ad hoc committee. The first was to focus review on the West Slope, to evaluate potential changes to buffer zones between BHRs, to assess the inclusion of both attached and detached structures in the program, to review code enforcement data, including the number and types of violations, and to ensure that this proposal, whatever proposal comes out, is consistent with our existing ordinances, particularly for accessory dwelling units, ranch marketing, and ag lodging. So while the board was very specific in the direction, there was also a lot of ground to cover in this ad hoc. In order to come up with recommendations, the ad hoc first went to the public for feedback. And similar to the public comments that you just heard today, opinions on this topic are across the board and vary from totally against any type of vacation home rental to have no restrictions at all. But most of what we hear is in between. So in March, the ad hoc held a listening session to receive feedback from the community. And we have a full summary of that attached to the item, but I just wanted to go over a couple of the major themes that came out. So one was just expressing economic hardship due to the changing regulations and red tagging. And request to provide objective and clear definitions and regulations so that the public can more easily understand what is required. We also heard frustration with inconsistent enforcement and enforcement methods. We heard about a need for reasonable pathways for detached units of different types. And this included comments on detached guest houses, accessory dwelling units, barns, and other accessory structures. We also heard about this idea of rethinking buffers for large parcels and considering differences in the needs of West Slope versus Tahoe. And there was also some comments about the overlap with the ag lodging and ag land diversification issue. and specifically for the West Slope overall, just providing for lodging for recreational and agricultural tourism. So I'm gonna go through some more public outreach, but I wanted to show that the ad hoc committee really considered this feedback and there are some solutions that are linked specifically to what was heard. So for economic hardship due to changing regulations and red tagging, overall the ad hoc wanted to loosen some regulations whenever possible, acknowledging that there are different issues on the west slope than in Tahoe. For the inconsistent enforcement and enforcement methods, we want to review the website, the guide and permitting forms for clarity and then clarify provisions for enforcement. And on that topic, I just wanna remind the board that back in 2018, I think kind of all along since then in this process, There has been an effort to establish rules and then in order to really address the biggest issues, which are noise, traffic, garbage, that we have been directed to just enforce the rules that are there. So while we did hear about inconsistent enforcement, enforcement methods, and we want to, you know, help communicate what those rules are as best we can. We do have direction to use that enforcement as a way to allow this program to continue.

And I'll just add on really quickly, if I can. Yeah, go ahead. You do recall that the board's prior direction from 2024, and then when we presented also last year and gave the program update, the board did direct staff and provided resources to do so to engage in a more robust code enforcement program for the VHR program in general. And staff has been... has delivered on that and been successful in that front. Mr. Bailey, the code enforcement manager is actually here and present. And if code enforcement questions come up later, I just wanted to let you know he is available and we can rely on him.

Thank you.

Okay.

I think we'll get through the presentation and then we'll start one by one.

Okay. Yeah, we do have some code enforcement data in here. So that might be a good time to talk about that. Okay, so again, we heard we need reasonable pathways for detached units of different types. This came up also in the public comment this morning. So some solutions allow detached guest houses countywide and remove the bedroom restriction on hosted home rentals countywide. I do want to note that as much as I think we can make the differences between the different units as clear as possible and we can work to do that. Some of these, the differences are for a specific reason. We have a matrix attached that includes definitions and rules for some of the accessory units and just kind of for the public's benefit. Some of these units are meant to be, you know, fully full dwelling units and others, other attached or other accessory structures are not really meant for human occupancy at all. And so while we maybe want to be as flexible as possible, there are also just some basic requirements for what is really a unit that somebody can use as a long-term residence. And then there's on the other end, units or just structures that aren't really meant for occupancy. And then there's in the middle things like guest houses that traditionally are meant, are just, you know, part of the residence, but meant for guests to come and stay. And so some of those structures are just more appropriate for short-term rentals than others.

And sorry, if I can jump in here one more time.

Go ahead and jump in.

Director Garner and I did exchange some communication this morning following up on Mr. Rinaldi's comment, which I thought was a good one, and I think Karen agrees. It probably would be helpful for us to develop a more robust matrix than the one that was just attached to the item today that could really include agricultural lodging, ranch marketing, et cetera, because these are... standalone programs. They do address specific and unique needs, but they definitely intertwine and interrelate. Some are governed by state law, some are governed solely by county ordinance, some are governed by both. And so I think that is something that we could commit to in our department is to produce that matrix and then go ahead and start attaching it when we do presentations on ag lodging, when we do presentations on ranch marketing, VHRs, we could include that standardized and it'll change because these rules continue to change. But that would allow the public and the board to see how these programs interrelate, interconnect and coordinate. We certainly do coordinate when we manage these programs. I mean, we work in the same department, we work on these items together. For instance, next week the board will hear an item on agricultural lodging on the 25th. And so that is forthcoming. And so we've certainly coordinated, knowing that presentation is coming with the item today. So I just wanted to add that context.

Okay, so moving on again, what we heard was rethink buffers for large parcels. And the buffers really started for addressing the Tahoe area. And I think they serve a couple purposes. One is just spacing out the use will will help with the effects to the neighborhood. It helps to not commercialize the neighborhood, which was one of the issues in Tahoe. They were, some neighbors were saying, I'm really surrounded by vacation home rentals and it's, you know, affecting how I, you know, how the way that I live and I, I want to live in a community. The other thing, thing that it addresses is the noise and traffic issue. And especially on smaller parcels, you're gonna get more of that just with, if there are more VHRs around you. So for the West Slope, the buffers maybe are, they're serving fewer purposes. If you had a five acre or greater parcel, then, the noise issues maybe aren't as intense. And I know there are topography issues in some areas, but just this idea of rethinking the buffers for our large parcels on the West Slope, that was one thing the ad hoc wanted to do is delete the 500 foot buffer. We also, again, heard there's just overlap with this ag lodging and land diversification issue. So as Brendan said, a solution to that is ensure that ag lodging, ranch marketing, VHR regulations, and I would add to that the ADU ordinance are all kind of working in sync. So the ad hoc committee also had a four question survey released to the public. And this was focused on the initial direction from the board. We received 363 responses to that survey. And the questions that were asked were about occupancy increases, additional allowances for guest houses and junior ADUs, and reducing the buffer size for large parcels. So we also have a summary of what came out of that survey as attachment E. But again, major themes, occupancy limits, deter bookings and restrict families. We heard that also today in public comment. Some rules are overly restrictive in general with no logical upside. And some of the comments especially centered on providing flexibility, inducing rules for kitchen appliances, number of restrooms, and square footage restrictions. And those all relate, again, to these differences between accessory buildings. We did look at that. We did try to look at can we use a different definition for guest house, et cetera. Sometimes it does kind of come down to if it's a larger guest house, but it doesn't have a full kitchen, it doesn't have laundry facilities, then it's not really a full dwelling unit. It can be used really as a guest house, and the intent is not to have somebody there permanently. So I hear what they're saying when it comes to that. It seems like very specific rules that don't need to be there, but we have to kind of draw the line somewhere between how we define these different units.

And I'll just jump in again. We did look to the state of California. They do not have a specific guest house definition. We originally thought we could perhaps expand our definition, which is housing our zoning ordinance. We were not able to do that. Our guest house definition is very specific. Some of it does work itself up into Tahoe and the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency or TRPA definitions. We had that conversation at the board a couple years ago in Tahoe, if you can remember. I'll just call it the sync conversation that we had in open forum. And so we really did try to do that. We really also tried to look at JADUs as an option. The state... against my knowledge of this, and I'll take some responsibility for not discovering this, but in January 1 of this year, the state did preclude junior accessory dwelling units from being used as short-term rentals. So that is in state code. We cannot allow JADUs. Regarding ADUs, there are specific ADUs built prior to some of the rule changes and some of those that were built afterward. I think the board does have discretion on some of those pre-new state law ADUs that you heard a lot about this morning to decide if you would like to rent those short term. They are prohibited in our own ADU ordinance, but there may be some exceptions to that if the board would like to to entertain that thought for those older ADUs that were permitted by the county that are inspected and could pass a safety inspection, all those kind of things. Obviously we have housing goals and HCD mandates for our RHNA numbers, et cetera. The ADU conversation is a much bigger conversation. It has implications. If we pull on one string, there will be effects on the other side of the balloon. So it's just, I want to provide that context. That is a conversation that we can have today. We certainly heard a lot of public comment about that. I understand the frustration. These definitions are specific for a reason, and that is frustrating for the public, and I totally understand that. But we can talk more about that in the board discussion.

OK. Quick question, Brandon. Would you see that as permitted secondary dwelling or ADU prior to the state law change? OK, so we'd have to spell that out, obviously. It may not have been a permitted ADU, but it was back up a permitted VHR, but it was a permitted ADU prior to that date.

Right. It would have either been a permitted ADU or a permitted secondary structure. I think our older ordinance was secondary structures, and then we changed it to ADUs, I think, in 2018.

Obviously, we have a lot of those old historical buildings that date back. Our short history. Right.

Yeah. We would want to be able to tie those back to a permitted activity. That would be my recommendation. Uh, I'll talk a little bit about code enforcement data later, but there were a number of structures being rented that I would consider to be very unpermitted tree houses, greenhouses, tents, those kinds of things that we, you know, that code enforcement did stop. And I think those are good for safety reasons. So I think we would not want to go so far as to something like that.

I think though, if you're, if somebody is paying taxes on that, whether it was permitted or not, that's proof that it was, it is a legal thing.

So let's not get too far into just that topic. We're going to come back to it.

Yeah, we're going to come back to it for sure.

No problem. Gives me a little break. Okay. So again, in the online survey feedback, we also heard that buffers are not as necessary on large parcels. We also heard that hosted rentals have fewer problems and therefore should have fewer restrictions. And then that too many VHRs impact residential character can push locals out and reduce housing stock. Also, like in the listening session feedback we did here, that enforcement has been inconsistent or difficult for the property owners. So similarly, some solutions for occupancy limits and the perceived deterrence to restricting families. Remove the bedroom restriction on hosted home rentals countywide. Restore plus two to occupancy on the west slope. And increase what we consider a child that doesn't count in those occupancy limits from five to ten years old. And I think there might be some further changes from the ad hoc, but we had discussed increasing that age limit to be a little bit more flexible with occupancy limits. We also here heard some rules are overly restricted with no logical upside. So again, loosening those regulations whenever we can while still protecting the character of the neighborhoods and then trying to be really clear in how we define terms and communicate expectations and regulations to the public. Along with that, again, we were asked to be clear about terms and we talked about that already. Hosted rentals have fewer problems and should have fewer restrictions. So again, removing the bedroom restriction on hosted home rentals countywide so that if you're hosting a rental, you can rent out all of your bedrooms instead of I think it's just two right now. And removing the 500 foot buffer around hosted home rentals as well. And then last, too many BHRs impact residential character, push locals out, and reduce housing stock. So we want to keep intact rules around safety, noise, and occupancy, keep buffers for smaller parcels, and make sure we are restricting ADUs if that's what the board would like to direct us to do. So I won't go over all of these again, because we just went over them, but in summary, these are the ad hoc committee's recommendations, at least as they stood when we put together the staff report and presentation. So we can discuss these now, or we can continue with the presentation and have the discussion at the end, whatever the board would like to do.

Any strong feelings on that? You wanna hear the rest of the presentation and then we'll go in one by one? Okay, let's continue through.

Okay, so you're gonna jump to me now. Thank you, Jennifer. And we're nearing the end, so we're looking forward to the board discussion. But the staff did want to take advantage if the board was gonna open up the ordinance. Staff did have some further clarifications and changes based upon the last year and a half of implementation. that we would like to make the some of these recommendations came from county council some came from code enforcement and some came from the admin staff and you can see those here on the slide i don't want to go through all of these but strengthening trash requirements for instance allowing bad actor local contacts to be decertified clarifying the revocation period to be one year, whereas now it's undefined, clarifying if physical changes are made to a property that a new permit would need to be applied for, Mentioning and allowing safety inspections to be conducted, that was brought up earlier. Sometimes VHRs are changed, bedrooms are added, basements are created and turned into bedrooms, for instance. We would wanna be able to do an additional safety inspection if physical changes are made to VHRs. Continuing on the list here, clarifying that operating, marketing, or advertising unpermitted VHRs is not allowed. Currently, it just states that operating an unpermitted VHR is not allowed, so we want to add a little more robustness to that one. Clarifying that VHRs cannot be permitted, excuse me, VHR permits cannot be obtained while outstanding code cases are active on a property. Currently we are not explicit on that. We are explicit on that in our zoning ordinance where we do not issue new permits to a property if they have outstanding violations. And we thought that only made sense to carry over into the VHR ordinance as well. And lastly, excuse me, I actually have one more after this, but clarifying that renewal materials must be submitted 15 days prior to a permit expiring. Currently, applicants can submit renewal materials up to 5 p.m. the day before their permit expires, and that puts staff in a pretty challenging position to try to renew the application by the very next day. So we are trying to prevent permits from expiring and giving my staff a little more time to process those applications. I think that only makes sense. One item that's actually not on this list that Mr. Runkle, our County Council recommended, and we do not get it on here, so I apologize, is just to clarify that vacation home rental enforcement can be conducted proactively. all the rest of code enforcement is conducted on a reactive or complaint-driven basis. The board did approve a strategic plan from code enforcement, I believe in 2024. that did make this clarification. So the direction has already been given. Mr. Runkle would like to strengthen that and just add a statement into the ordinance that allows it. And that is simply so that code enforcement staff can look at online listings and use our online platforms, our vendor like Rentalscape to do research and investigate, for instance, unpermitted VHRs. It's not for code enforcement staff to go look on properties. So just clarifying that proactive enforcement piece is the other one that's not on this list. And I think next slide. So here is some code enforcement data. This is only for the West Slope, just to clarify that. And this was done for approximately the one-year period following the new ordinance being implemented. The VHR Ad Hoc Committee did request this information from us. The reason for that was to try to determine whether the ordinance amendments were causing, you know, properties to be out of compliance right and you can see from this slide by and large the greatest number of reasons for these enforcements was that there was no permit 76 of those 182. the other 50 on there were for unpermitted structures those are for some of those things i listed tents greenhouses tree houses uh campers those kind of things so by and large most of those Properties would have been illegal all along It's just that what we did in 2024 was actually build a more robust code enforcement program and we discovered these So they had not been discovered to date So that tells me that the ordinance amendments them in and of themselves did not make these properties illegal it's just the fact that we simply had never discovered them before because We didn't have code enforcement staff And just to quickly address TOT on this slide, I know TOT has been talked about quite a bit, and I believe Ms. Boger did submit a chart on TOT to date, I think since 2017 or 2018. Thank you for submitting that. To me, I think what I, my belief and what happened in 2025 is that this board most likely recalls that the treasurer tax collector's office does collect TOT on illegal rentals and always has. I think Ms. Karen Coleman came to the podium and clarified that point. pretty clearly with Ms. Lane. Did you say illegal rentals? Yes. For instance, historically, an illegal rental may have been hosting on Airbnb. Airbnb would automatically collect the TOT tax, and I believe Airbnb sends the county one check every year for millions of dollars with very little detail attached to it. So we get a check that says, here's the TOT that was collected in your county. It doesn't say, here's how many were legal. Here's how many were illegal. And so I, I believe that by eliminating illegal VHRs, we did eliminate a portion of TOT. I think that's just a simple fact. And so that's my guess on where that gap in TOT went. Now, if you look at that chart, there's hotels on there, for instance. Their numbers fluctuate too without any rule changes. And so this is another point I'd like to make is that the VHR industry is influenced by... much greater things outside of our control, like the economy, like the weather. For instance, if it doesn't snow in Tahoe, we'll have less skiers. If we have less skiers, we'll have less VHRs being rented. And that's just a simple fact of this business. It fluctuates. COVID caused it to fluctuate substantially. And so there's market factors completely outside of our control that I just want to acknowledge. It's not a simple this point, directly links to this point here. There's a lot going on in this space. Okay, next slide. Okay, here's the one-off or special case slide. So you heard from some public commenters this morning. This is a new concept that we do need board direction on. This does not exist in the ordinance to date. Our ordinance is very black and white. You submit an application, our staff checks that application for completeness. If you can check all the boxes, you are allowed to pass go and move on to the next step, which is pay your fees and get your fire inspection done. If you can't check all the boxes for whatever reason, for instance, you're inside of a 500 foot buffer, the application is not accepted. We don't collect any fees and the application is denied. So if the board wanted to entertain a one-off or special case scenario in the ordinance, it would introduce a discretionary component into the ordinance where if they couldn't check all those boxes, An applicant may be allowed to submit sort of an appeal to that decision. That decision would have to go to a higher level body, something like Director Garner, our zoning administrator, something like that. they would have to meet certain findings, which we would have to draft and include in the ordinance. If a one-off or a special case VHR were to be approved outside of the normal situation or the normal process, they would have to meet the following findings, health and safety, and we would have to draft those with county council. That decision could also be appealed. maybe to the board, maybe to the planning commission, something like that. So all those details would have to be worked out. I think there's pros and cons to this. I mean, certainly I think some properties may have slipped through the cracks for one reason or another when the program or the rules changed. These are all unique situations. And I'll just say, having worked in this space now for a few years, I've not only grown much older, but- You don't look it. But every VHR is a different situation. Every single property owner is in a different situation out there. And we hear that, my staff hears that every single day. And we appreciate that. So this is something that has implications. This will create a new workload. This will create new processes that we have to figure out. And we really need board direction on whether you'd like us to go down this path or not. Next slide, and I think that's really all we have. We are really looking forward to questions and discussion from the board. And we do have one final slide just to show you if the board does choose to direct staff to entertain these concepts that we've presented today, we will return to the board for a first reading of the VHR Ordinance Amendment. That will include a red line version of the ordinance. We can certainly do some additional analysis and make sure that there's no further conflicts with ranch marketing agricultural lodging etc and then continue to communicate to The public not only VHR owners who you mostly heard from today but also Neighbors and those who may end up living next to VHRs so I think we will now turn it over to the board for your discussion. Thank you very much.

Okay, thank you. The way I'd like to do this is I'd first like to give the ad hoc committee an opportunity to chime in, and then I'll ask each supervisor if they have clarifying questions, something specific that they wanna make sure that they understand, because we're gonna bring it back for a full discussion. So initially, we're asking clarifying questions and then full discussion. If you would please use the buttons so that I can tell who wants to queue up, that would be great.

Am I limited to questions now? No, no, we're asking the ad hoc to please. Kicking it off. A lot to unpack. First of all, I just want to thank the CAO's office and planning and building, Jennifer, Tara, Brendan, Supervisor Chermbou. We've met quite a bit over this last almost a year. and had a lot of good discussions, especially want to thank the public that attended our public meeting and was in March that responded to the written survey and that showed up today to voice their feelings. We were directed by the board to focus on looking at some changes for the VHR ordinance on the West Slope. And we focused on the West Slope only. We didn't consider ag lodging. We didn't consider ranch marketing. Like you mentioned, those are separate things. All three of these policies, providing we get the other two rolling, they're all gonna have to work together and be consistent. So we focused on recommendations for the West Slope only, but there are a few items that might be considered on the East Slope also in Tahoe. And I'm just going to go down the line on our recommendations. I think we probably should focus on the ad hoc recommendations now. And when we're done discussing that, maybe after a vote, then we talk about staff's recommendations, just to not muddy the water. They're all very different.

That's a good idea.

So our recommendations as an ad hoc, as listed, is restore the plus two. So two per bedroom, plus two additional people. Remove the buffer around hosted rentals. And our thoughts with that, with the hosted rental, you have the owner living in a house with them, supervising the people. Currently, we're limited to two bedrooms. And if they have four bedrooms or five bedrooms, let's allow them an opportunity to increase their business. Um, we currently allow attached guest houses to be rented as via jars, but we don't allow detached guest houses. So we want to include both detached and detached, uh, to be rented, um, back to the, to the, um, So we've talked a lot about larger parcels that are on the West Slope and we recommend removing the buffer for parcels that are over five acres or five acres or more, just simply because of their size of distance. And that 500 foot buffer was instituted to create or to discourage clustering, primarily in South Lake Tahoe. And we're not gonna have a clustering problem in a rural area on the larger parcels. We talked about the age limits for Yes, that are exempt. And currently it's six and under six are exempt. And we talked a lot about that. We want to increase that age, but really didn't really have any concrete thoughts as to how old they should be or why. It was brought up to me yesterday, why don't we just allow all minors up to 17 years old to be able to stay in homes. But I got to say, there was a comment that was provided to us yesterday by Sean McCabe that talked about the rental platforms, VRBO and Airbnb. And according to him, and I think if we, my recommendation is going to have staff confirm that those platforms are 12, that they rent by, you know, 0 to 2, 2 to 12 years old, and then everyone after 12 is included as, I guess, an adult. But if that is accurate, what Mr. McCabe is saying, then I would recommend we increase that age limit to 12 instead of 10 just to make it very clean and no questions asked. The platforms use 12, and we can be consistent. And then there are a few things that we may or may not want to address as a county. Age limit, I mentioned that. Let's see, there's so many notes here. I think... the whole premise of renting ADUs is it's confusing. And I think everyone's confused, but if there is a way, and from what I heard today, there might be for ADUs that were permitted prior to 2020, or that did not apply for their permits through a state streamlined process, Maybe we find a way for them to allow it to be rented as vacation home rentals. It makes, to me, when you hear the public say, hey, I own... a parcel of land and I have a house on it that I live in and I have an ADU and I can't rent the ADU, but I can move into the ADU and rent the house. That to me makes absolutely no sense. So if there's a way to loosen up the restrictions on ADUs and still comply with the state law, then I think we should do that. Brendan talked about exploring exceptions and creating a narrower appeal process for one-offs. And we talked about this and I mean, I think we need to do that. There's people that, I mean, I know one specifically in South Lake Tahoe, he bought a piece of property in South Lake prior to the change in our ordinance with the intent on building a house to rent it out. During the course of his construction, we instituted the ordinance, which created buffer zones of 500 feet. His house was now built. He tried to apply for a permit, and now he can't get a permit. So he wants to rent it for a hosted home rental, but he's only allowed to have two bedrooms. So he spent hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars on this property. And I think it's worth exploring to see how many one-off cases like this are, and not really cases moving forward, but cases that were kind of caught in our process back in 2024 and creating the appeals process or just an exemption for them. And that's my thoughts for now.

Excellent, okay. Supervisor Turnbull, did you want to?

Yeah, I just want to say I want to thank everybody that's showing up on the town hall that day and all your input and stuff. And also the survey that we put out, it was actually really good. We had positive comments was 28, negative comments were 15, and neutral comments were 67. So there's a lot of things that Greg has talked about that we looked into. And I think that age limit of 12 years old makes sense to me, especially if there's other things that are adopted that age limit, we could do that. I think it'd be great. The biggest problem is too, is these people are having A lot of the wineries and things are out there. They're looking for kind of income to benefit their wineries to keep it in business. And the biggest problem is insurance. And you're talking about 29% increase. And these fire maps that we get from CAL FIRE, these different zones, impacts a lot of these people that live in these areas and stuff. And Grizzly Flat went from a 4 to a 10. That's three times... the increase in insurance now. And especially when people are trying to survive, I think that needs to be taken in consideration because it is unbelievable what's going on. And especially when you have these large wineries and stuff and the increase is going to go up, they have to have some kind of sustainable income to be able to survive and keep their business going because ag is a very, very important thing to our county. So we need to look at different things to be able to help them. And I think, Greg, we came up with some good solutions. And I think we can hopefully we can move forward. And I hope the board

uh looks into it a little bit you know too and i think accepts what kind of what we put in place so i want to thank you can i add one more thing yeah um it was a lot has been said about occupancy limits and it's been suggested why don't we just follow fire follow the fire marshals formulas for occupancies and residences i checked with other el dorado county fire and all the rata hills fire they don't they don't have a policy or a formula they rely on what we recommend so

Okay, let's go ahead and open this up to clarifying questions of either staff or the ad hoc committee. Does anybody want to kick this off?

I will.

How about if we start with Supervisor Parlin?

I wish somebody would go first, darn it.

Okay, so clarifying questions. I wanted to thank everyone, too, that sent in email comments. It really made it easy to see them written out and their thoughts behind it, so that was really helpful. But at the same time... it demonstrated in my mind that there's a lot of confusion about some of the topics still. So on recommendation number one, can you, And I'm talking to staff, I think, here. Tell me exactly what this plus two means. Because I went on VRBO last night just trying to... You know, I went all over the state. And I found it really confusing that different places in the state do different things on VRBO. One platform has different things. So I'm like, oh, no, does that mean that somehow each county's influence is in here? I don't know. But some of them did have... the 12, you know, age of 12, like Mr. McCabe said, but then I went on one here that's in Forest Hill and it goes children zero to 17. And then it asked me how many adults, and you know, you click your number, it asks, what's chirping?

I think there's a bird in our ceiling.

Oh my gosh. Oh, dear. It's pretty. We're bringing nature into it. There it is. I hope it's not distressed. But anyway, and then, you know, you click on the number of children. And then over here on the side, it literally has kind of what Todd's story, I think, was trying to say. I think I interpreted that correctly. But, you know, it actually shows how many rooms each... room has this bed this type of bed this you know how many people fit in each one so um is that how this is all being calculated and then this plus two on top of it i just felt that there was a lot of different ways to look at rooms and numbers and i think that that might be part of our confusion is i felt like with the comments too everybody was thinking something different and so maybe that's part of our problem with that particular topic because even vrbo to me has different numbers for different age groups and stuff so how how did we get where we are and are we clear because the comments were really scattered all over on that thing that's just one of my questions

Yeah, I think, so originally we thought about, well, you could have a studio, right, that you're renting out. So the occupancy for that should be two, even though there's not technically a bedroom. So it was decided we would do two per bedroom each for each, you know, by the building permit, permitted bedroom plus two. which at least gets, again, those studios some occupancy, but you're not overloading the unit with people. And then, again, excluding children from that occupancy limit. And then I believe it was a couple of years ago that the plus two was removed, and maybe Brendan can talk about that a little bit because I wasn't involved in that process at the time.

Yeah, I'd be happy to. So Jennifer's right. The county does track legal bedrooms and structures, and that's what's permitted. And there's a way to establish a legal bedroom. sort of after the fact, right? If you have a three bedroom home and you can build a fourth bedroom and get it inspected, permitted and inspected by the county, you can establish, say, a fourth bedroom. So there is a process for that. So our occupancy is based on two individuals for each of those rooms. So a four bedroom home, you'd have eight, four times two. And then our ordinance did have a plus two on top of that for things like I'm not exactly sure, people sleeping on the couch, people sleeping in a loft, people sleeping in a basement or on cots or on the floor, right? Something like that, just to allow some additional occupancy. And then like Jennifer said, we've always had this children, a child age, and right now it's five and under do not count. The ordinance is actually written that six and over do count. So it's kind of an inverse relationship. They're the same thing, it's just a little nuanced. As far as VRBO and the way that they count, and it's my understanding they do not necessarily adjust their rules for the counties. They're very large platforms worldwide, and I think it would be sort of an insurmountable exercise to incorporate each of the local jurisdictions' rule set into their platform. So I'm not exactly sure why you're seeing different

That's my question, honestly. I think we need to explore that. I mean, like the one I've got here in Forest Hill, it says three bedrooms, sleeps eight. Well, so and then it literally lists out the common area. So instead of having this vague nebulous plus two, it actually lists the common area here and how many people could sleep there. And I just feel that instead of having these, you know, because I did see some comments, I think, in the email ones that we got. You know, if you just say you can have as many children under 12 as you want. And they don't have to be in a bed anywhere. I mean, that could get a little unwieldy too. So I'm just trying to understand, you know, why am I seeing on this platform, very clear numbers, very clear beds, very, I mean, it's really clear what you can and can't do. But some places do say zero to 12. And then some say zero to 17. So, and that's all on VRBO. I didn't even try the other platforms. So I'm just saying, I think we need to really do a little more digging on this for clarity.

Can I just speak to that specifically?

Yeah, I just do want to clarify the ordinance as written says two per permitted bedroom. Right. So we can't control how somebody advertises their space when they go on VRBO. They can put on VRBO, it's a four bedroom house, but I have two rooms with two sets of bunk beds. We can't control that. What we can control is if we do get a complaint, a noise complaint, something like that, and we go out and we find you've got 12 people in a three bedroom house, then that's a violation. But we can't really control the photos and what people are putting online as to how many it sleeps. if that makes sense. But it is clear in our ordinance. It is two per permitted bedroom right now, period.

And that's the maximum. So if you're running your BRBO or your Airbnb, you can determine, you know, for your setup, how many you think actually will fit. So they could say that they only want four children total if they want it, you know, even though we maybe allow as many

as they want they can make the rules for their own um setup that and we just have the um the maximum in the ordinance and if i can just add on to what sue said that's what i was going to say owners do write their own ads on those platforms i'm not sure why vrbo would be structurally different depending where you're looking but the owners do draft their ads they place their photographs and their description of what they're advertising My staff does, you know, look at those ads and interacts with the property owner. So if they have an eight, if their occupancy is eight and they're advertising 14, we will ask them to change their occupancy to the correct number. So we can look at those ads, but that is the, that is owner driven. That is their product that they're selling.

Okay. Still seems really squishy, but okay. That's one. Do you guys want to build on to that one before we move on maybe? Do you have anything you want to add to that one before we move to a different topic?

No, we'll come back and really deliberate each of them individually, but this is clarifying questions.

Did that clarify?

That clarified for me. Did it clarify for you? Not really, but that's okay.

I think what I really would like is more not squishiness. I think that the squishiness is causing – because that's what I read in the comments, the email comments that we got that – Everybody was interpreting it a little bit different because of that. And so that could be why we have some confusion on it. So maybe we can hash that out somewhere. Another one that I had, let's see. Okay, so then for hosted, the number of bedrooms, you're seeing the cap right now, is at two. So you're suggesting to loosen things up on the hosted specifically, you would need one bedroom for the host to be in. So it's basically the total number of, of bedrooms minus one. Is that what you're actually suggesting then for a hosted?

I think we would have to mandate that one of the bedrooms be reserved for the owner, the occupant, the host.

Yeah, the host. Okay, that helps. And then I think... And then it's not really a clarifying question. I don't think, well, is it? I don't know. I had really hoped that we had focused in on the one-offs as a result of the changes and the new enforcement. And because the Kuderkers and the Wheelers are here, I've been talking to them for two years, wanting to figure out how to get their VHR potentially back. that they had before and with no complaints and no violations in permitted buildings is my understanding. So is there a way that we can focus on that? Because when we did the update in 20, was it 2021, I think it said in the staff report, we did the one originally with the clustering and all that in 2021, We allowed for folks that didn't have violations that were in permitted buildings in Tahoe specifically that go around. We let them have non-conforming legal VHRs. And we said through attrition, they would fall out over time with the buffers. And I feel like we didn't do that this last go round. And that's how they fell out. And I really would like a focus, like super duper high intensity focus on figuring them out before we really do a whole lot of new stuff. And how many of those do we have? I know I have two. And I don't know if I have others. I have two in my district. How many? Well, how many do we have though, Brendan, that people have said?

No, that's a tough question to answer. Like I said, each property is different. Right. And each of these, like Ms. Karkland, who called in a public comment on South Upper Truckee Road, had a permit originally when the treasurer tax collector was running the program.

Yeah.

She did not submit her paperwork when the program transitioned to our department, and then the 500-foot buffer was installed, and she was not able to obtain a permit. Now, she had a legal VHR all along. She just didn't conduct that next transaction.

Yeah.

And so is that a special circumstance? It could be. So they're all very different. The gentleman in Tahoma that Mr. Ferrero described, who built his home to be a VHR, got buffered out, has a hosted rental. He can only rent two rooms. Now, if you allow all the rest of the rooms to be rented, that will help him. It still may not give him a full VHR, but he has a hosted rental with maybe four bedrooms instead of two. Right. So they're all very different. There is a handful. I think each supervisor may have one or two, or I don't know how many. So that's why we raised the issue.

I think on that topic, I'd rather try to help people than try to knock down our economy and knock down their ability because we took we took away and then we didn't it sounded like when tahoe went and we worked with we didn't do it here so i'd rather be spending code enforcement time or staff county staff time helping people get to where they're supposed to be if that takes some extra time then limiting it and just finding and

go into the mat and thank you supervisor we'll bring it back and we'll discuss each one of these individually right now clarifying questions it's the one-offs i just feel like the one officer like i'd love to focus and get those behind us and i think that the folks would too So that's, I guess, if you want a clarifying question, it's like, why didn't we focus on those first? Because for Tahoe, we did. And we didn't do that this go around. And to me, it's been very frustrating. And I can't imagine my residents have been equally frustrated, I'm sure. And I haven't been able to do a darn thing to help them. And I've been wanting to. So super frustrated there. Yeah.

And is this, so are you wanting it to be focused specifically to those that were buffered out? Like, is it the application of the buffer that created the issues? Are you wanting to look at all of that?

Anyone that, if the audience could please just allow us the time to work through this. Thank you.

Anyone that had, you know, had been, and I want to be careful in my words because there had been folks, I believe, in the past that were under the impression, and remember, we've had a lot of changes over the years, and it has been confusing for folks. You know, when it was under the treasure tax collector, people, some people I have talked to were under the impression that, you know, I have my business license, I'm paying TOT, and they thought they were legal, and they actually weren't. But they thought they were because they had, you know, from the county document saying I can do this and they're collecting my money. So they thought they were legal. And they really actually weren't even then. It's just that then we updated things and started looking at them and we had code enforcement. Those are the ones. So it would be when we did the last, okay, October 22nd, 2024. Final passage, I think it took 30 days to take effect, probably, right? So 30 days from October, so November 22nd, 2024, my understanding is quite a few notices and violations went out. Those are the ones that I would like to focus on to see You know, were they actually operating in good faith? They thought they were legal because they had documents from the county. They were paying their TOT. They were in permitted buildings. They had no complaints or violations. That's probably a really small group based on your report here because your report kind of said, that a lot of them weren't in permitted structures, all these things. So I want to focus on those first, because we didn't give them that opportunity like we did in 2021 when we updated things in Tahoe. We gave those folks, we bent over backwards. And I know a few still fell through the cracks, they did. But generally speaking, we allowed so much to continue on because we knew it was a big change. And so I just don't feel we did this this last time. And I've been wanting for two years almost to address those. So I would like to do that before we make any other big changes. We haven't even fixed that. So and that's why I want to know how many of those were there. I mean, we should have numbers.

The board could decide to define what is not a one-off. I mean, you could look at it in both ways. If that's an easier way for you to think about it, all these things would not be considered that. If you want to hone in just specifically on that one issue, that would be for the board to decide.

I wish we'd had data. I mean, I am a little, I'll be honest, I'm a little disappointed there's not more data in all of this. We're supposed to be making data-driven decisions, and I wanted to see how many of them are there. Is there like six? You know, let's tackle those. ASAP, if there's 200, which I know there's not based on our data, but I'm exaggerating, you know, that's a bigger probably policy issue, but... are there really only a handful or two? I don't know. I know I have two, two, know sets of residents have been coming to me consistently and wanting to deal with this and i had to say i can't do anything i'm waiting for this ad hoc to be formed and i was waiting for the ad hoc to bring in stuff and the ad the one-offs were not addressed so i'm i'm i am frustrated to be honest so um so that there i don't know if that was clarifying question or comment but whatever that's okay

Yes, slide 12 with the code enforcement data does show, of all the cases, the reasons that they were found to be in violation. And as I stated, the vast majority had no permit or were in unpermitted structures. So to me, those would not be a one-off eligible situation, right? Right.

That's why I'm thinking it's a small number.

So I agree with you.

Okay.

All right. Supervisor Furr?

I'm going to back up to ad use. What type of ad use would be illegal to rent? Would be in Eldorado County, legal, legal.

And I may need to use are illegal now all of them. Correct. No matter when they're permanent or anything is that J ad use can no longer be rented a short term rentals per government code 66333. That's a state. Yes.

Okay, so no matter when they were built, right?

That according to the state code, unless council has other information, but that is our understanding.

And that just went into effect January 1st year.

So what ADUs, what circumstances would those be legal in to rent?

So they cannot be ADUs, which are known as 66323 units. Those are the ones that do take advantage of streamlining provisions. They get exceptions for setbacks and other things. So if someone took advantage of the state streamlining provisions and we permitted them, they would not be eligible to be rented short-term, period. City Council Chambers, ones that are not subject to the 66323 provisions, and these would be, I believe pre 2018 and I need to verify that date with Council would potentially be eligible. if they were permitted by the county as a secondary unit. I believe that's what our, in our zoning ordinance, we call them secondary units, not accessory dwelling units. We made that change to our ADU ordinance after the state made those significant changes in 2018. So I believe it would be that subset would be prior to that state implemented date change where we would have some discretion to decide if we would allow them to be run in short term.

and we would be able to create that list.

And we could, so I guess I would think about it where we could try to create a list by looking at building records, but we could also make the rule change, advertise it, and then that would be when an application came in, that would be the first determining factor by staff would be to check, is this an ADU that was built per streamlining provisions or not? Was this built pre this date? Did it have a permit from the county, et cetera?

That way you're only checking ones that are actually relevant because if they're not applying for a permit, it's irrelevant.

I would suggest that we do it that way.

I like that. All right, thanks.

Thank you. Madam CEO, I had you on here, but I think that you already asked the question.

Okay, so Supervisor Vierkamp, please.

Yeah, this unfortunately is a little mind-boggling. We sat in a strategic planning session yesterday with SACOG looking at the 20 arena numbers for 28 and how to get there. The consensus of the strategic planning group was can we have control over the state's limiting factors that are keeping us from reaching affordable housing or housing options and obviously the answer was no so how the hell do we get to our arena numbers let alone housing in our county that is needed we heard from a lot of people earlier this morning about their ability to keep income coming, which were obviously a heavy ag tourism County, as well as tourism County and up in Tahoe. And yet we replaced, we placing restrictions on ourselves. I think we need to get away from those. The state's doing a good enough job as it is, and we need to open up the ability for success. And again, don't, put the emphasis on code compliance other unless it's life safety or occupancy and those can be defined and emphasize success and how we can get to that. If not, we're not gonna meet any of the things that we're attempting to do for our local economy as well as our tourism economy i know we're going to bifurcate the ag tourism component but here those two are pretty closely related and you know when i read through the the the ordinance changes of the last few years we've made it more difficult So I think we're on the right track. I think there's some things moving in the right direction. We can clarify a few of those. But again, for me, it's simplifying, not complicating. The state's doing a good enough job of complicating it. So I'm ready to get to the items and move down them and get going.

Okay, great. Thank you. I have some clarifying questions. So first off, I want to thank the ad hoc committee. I know that you've had a lot of meetings. I wish the public outreach was a little bit more robust, but you've provided us with some good food for thought here. One of my clarifying questions is the definition of the West Slope and the Basin. So I just want to make sure that when I'm considering all that you've proposed here, that I'm thinking about the parts of District 5 that you would consider West Slope. So I'm thinking definition-wise, we're talking the top of Echo Summit, so like Phillips, Twin Bridges, Strawberry, Kibers, Whitehall. certainly Pollock Pines, and then everything West.

Like Echo Lake, that area.

Echo Lake would be included. That's the top. On the West Slope definition. Yeah, and I want to make sure I understand that because you do have... very clear West Slope only, and you've delineated that in the report, but you also have some that you're suggesting countywide. One of the ones that you didn't indicate countywide or West Slope in the staff report is the age issue. So were you intending that to be a West Slope only recommendation or was that to be considered countywide?

I think all of the recommendations that could be considered for county are all specific to the West Slope, unless you wanted to open that up to the East Slope as well. And kind of leave that up to your thoughts on that. You know, hey, it's a good idea, let's do that, or no. Then we can leave all these recommendations to apply to the West Slope, correct? Correct. I don't see why we can't.

Well, we were really clear when we created the ad hoc. Number one, focus the review and recommendations specifically on the West Slope region. So I was a little bit surprised to see things being mentioned countywide, and I can see pros and cons there, and we'll go there more when we have the discussion. I'm just trying to clarify because every one of your recommendations listed on page two of the staff report numbers one through eight, all on each single one say, is it West Slope or countywide, except for the one regarding age. So I'm just trying to get clarity if you wanted that to be considered.

countywide or if you are specifically talking about the west slope on that recommendation i guess george i i i can make it simple say all of these are west slope recommendations unless unless you specified otherwise well unless or unless you think they would apply would be beneficial to to the east slope sound like tahoe otherwise they can all apply just solely to the west slope

Okay. Also, along the lines of clarifications, you talk in here about... Recommendation number seven, revise restrictions on grills, fireplaces, and fireworks to strengthen and emphasize fire safety countywide. But I don't know what that means. Did the ad hoc committee have some specific ideas on what that means to revise restrictions?

I can try to go ahead. Cause I think there's some more of a staff recommendation. This did partially come from staff. Um, right now in our ordinance, there is a time to cure. So one really good amendment, I think the board made in October of 2024 is we do allow people to correct virtually anything before they receive a violation.

So if they have a- That's the 30 minute from the time of a complaint. Is that what you're talking about?

Correct.

Okay.

So if someone's listing an unpermitted VHR, we give them five days to just take that listing down. And that's in, there's a warning process, right? So that's great. They can take it down and go on their way. If we receive a complaint- we code enforcement staff will call the local contact immediately and say you we got to complain about pick pick something noise trash parking you have 30 minutes to correct it and we are on our way out there if they correct that within 30 minutes there is no violation so and that applies to things like fireworks and fires And so I think this came from staff as a suggestion that, we don't wanna let a fire burn for 29 minutes and say that that's okay. So one, I think to be very specific about this, the board could decide that for certain subsets of rule infractions like fires and fireworks, there could be an immediate, it could be less than 30 minutes where a violation could occur because of the absolute immediacy of the situation.

Okay, thank you for that clarification. That's one of the ad hocs recommendations that you're asking us to consider countywide. So I kind of wanted to get an idea of what that meant, what that looked like. And then to the ADU discussion, again, clarifying, if an ADU was built utilizing the California Government Code 66323, streamlined, go to the head of the class, get your permits faster, cheaper, with the idea, though, that it could not be used for short term. Whatever period of time we're talking about, I think we're going to clarify that in a little bit, but could, if I built an ADU utilizing those opportunities. And then my life changes and I decide it would really be advantageous for me to be able to use that as a short-term rental. Would there be a mechanism for me to pay the difference in the fees? Is there a way to undo? Yes, that's a good way of putting it.

I am not certain about that. I am not an ADU permitting expert. I apologize. I was looking to Director Garner.

Well, I'll add in. I mean, we can certainly look into it, but my sense is that it would be highly unlikely that you could unring that bell. And that's for a couple of reasons. you know, it's the function of not just the state code, but our county ordinance code that makes clear that those ADUs that are permitted in that manner cannot be rendered for a period of less than 30 days. And the second and perhaps more important one is that once we, you know, as a result of this system that we've set up for permitting these streamlined ADUs under state laws, we report that information, the permitted ADUs to the state, and it counts towards our RHNA numbers. So to build in a system, if we were to now, even if we could, build in a system where somebody could years later recharacterize an ADU as one that is something other than this state streamlined ADU, I suspect that that would create significant issues with our housing reporting. And I suspect that HCD would take issue with that change that we're no longer meeting our obligation to affirmatively further fair housing. So it's, I can't say definitively, but I can tell you, I think it would create a number of problems that might not be anticipated.

Gotcha.

So I think that if I think you were, I'd suggest that you were probably on the correct track and focusing on housing I'm going to maybe just use a generic term, second units, because that were perhaps built and permitted before or under a framework that predated the kind of formal ADU structure that was a function of state law as embedded in county ordinance. I think that might be the best area for you to look for additional flexibility in allowing rental of those units.

And the initial ADU... rules from the state? Was there a point in time that we can identify when that started?

Yeah, we could. I mean, our ordinance implemented and I think went into effect in November of 2021. But I think that we were maybe been a little bit behind the state law. So we could certainly look into that and come up with a, you know, a trigger date.

Okay, great. And then my final question is, Did the ad hoc committee along with staff, did you discuss the pros and cons of having two separate ordinances? It is starting to get confusing.

One for East, one for West, you mean?

We did not specifically discuss that. We have discussed that in the past. Even when we built in the hosted home rentals into the program in 2024, and we considered a separate ordinance there, I think we ultimately decided to put them into one ordinance for consistency sake. And I will just add that I tried to have some influence perhaps on the ad hoc recommendation for this consistency by suggesting that some of these edits could be made countywide just for consistency, like the fire example that I just mentioned. There is one that can only apply to the West Slope and that is to remove the buffer around hosted home rentals because there is no buffer on hosted home rentals in Tahoe.

Right, okay. All right, Supervisor Turnbull.

Yeah, I just want to ask a question, because we brought this up before on Title 25 homes. Could that be a big solution, especially with ADUs? Because you've got to understand, Title 25 only requires four inspections, where Title 24 is like 36 inspections. It has to be done. This speeds up the process, but not only that, it might increase our arena numbers too under the Title 25. Could we possibly adapt? this Title 25 program to help with our arena numbers, but also help with ADUs, which would be more efficient and speed up the process because these homes started in May. They started June 1st building these houses. We just actually had a celebration yesterday of two was completely built because there's less inspections. from the County that has to go out there. So I'm just wondering, can we, or can't we, or is it possible?

I would have to defer to council on that question. I am not prepared to answer that.

Okay. Yeah, we haven't looked into the interplay with Title 25. Maybe. Thanks, Karen.

Welcome, Ms. Gardner. All right, good morning. So I believe the question was using Title 25 for production of ADUs. And Title 25 has very specific requirements when you can apply that. And we have used it for disaster related areas. There are a few other exceptions, very remote areas that don't have all the services you can get elsewhere. For example, you know, like the Forest Service cabins, those types of things might be able to apply, but generally you can't apply Title 25, unfortunately, across the board in other areas. Thank you.

Great timing. Yeah, good question. Supervisor Ferraro.

That's one last thing. And I just want to address you and say, we weren't trying to take liberties with the East Slope at all. Some of these items we discussed, they might apply to the county, but we weren't, we're not trying to push that on you by any means. Just one question about the permitting for ADUs currently from here on out. If I want to build an ADU, are there two different paths for me to permit it? Or do I have to use the streamlined process?

No, I believe there are two different pathways. Okay. Okay.

Yeah, good question. Okay, so let's take each individual recommendation one at a time. Let's have a conversation about it. I think if we can certainly make a motion for each one, or we can go through the whole list, see if we have basic agreement, or if there's something that is an outlier and we could separate that one out maybe and have a conversation, but we'll just see how it flows. If my colleagues would be okay with that. So let's go to the recommendations. They're on page two of the staff report, or they're also delineated in the, PowerPoint. It looks like Ms. Vranich has the screen up for us. So let's go to item number one, restoring the plus two to the occupancy standard on the West Slope, which is currently set at just two persons per bedroom. Conversation around that. Questions? Comments?

I'm good with it.

I'm good with it the way it's written with regards to the West Slope. And, you know, I'm going to be very reluctant to agree to any changes maybe. Maybe there actually are two that I can agree to. But I really respect and honor the process that we went through to come to the recommendations that we did. The 13-member... all made up of residents, when they sat and they talked and we really kind of peeled the onion back, we agreed that there is a close relationship between numbers of people, which equates to numbers of cars, which equates to noise, increases in noise, which equates to garbage. You know, they all are interrelated. And so the group up in the basin really decided that even the people that were really for VHRs and would prefer to have the plus two, they agreed collectively that they could agree to not have the plus two. And I'd like to make sure that that gets maintained at least up in the basin. So I would concur with this one as well. If we move on to number two, remove the 500 foot buffer around hosted rentals on the West Slope. Conversation, thoughts on that?

I'm fine with it.

Fine with it?

Yeah.

Okay. And again, as was just pointed out, that is the case up in the basin already. So that would make sense.

And Chair, just so you know, when we do this, I'm the one that really pushed not to let go that buffer when we made this change in 2024. And the reason why is at the time, the hosteds were being fairly abused and And staff at that time hadn't really created a way to verify residency very well. And so I've been assured. I'm waiting for Brendan because I'm talking about him. It's all right. I've been assured by Brendan and staff that you now have, you feel a really ironclad way of determining residency for hosteds. And so that shouldn't be a concern anymore. And so I am going to support this, changing this now. And I am going to ask that the clerk add a statement in the record, because I am completely doing a 180 on this. But I think that it's just because staff heard our concerns and has addressed them. And Supervisor Lane has also assured me that in the basin, the hosteds are now doing really well and are the least of her problems. So, and you still feel strong that you can guarantee that residency, correct?

Guarantee? That's strong.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yes.

Pretty darn good.

Yeah. There's a process for verifying. Yeah. But it works. Yeah.

Yes, and that's exactly why I included that attachment to the item on the robustness of our HHR verification process. That is the process staff goes through.

Okay.

It's kind of like going to the DMV, as fun as that is. We do require, yes, two forms of identification, you know, current identification, not an old phone bill from five years ago. Yeah. That show that that owner lives at that residence.

Okay. Okay. So I think that one should help several folks. Good.

Okay. Let's move to then number three, allow detached guest houses along with attached guest houses, which we already allow, that they could be rented short-term countywide. I'll just add my two cents right here. That word detached actually got added here. at the DS, if I recall correctly, and that was never part of our advisory group's recommendation to begin with. So I think we're still being consistent with their desired outcomes by, I would support removing the word detached.

Other comments, questions? You mean countywide on that one? Countywide on that one.

That one, okay, gotcha. Okay. Yeah. Are there any other... Yes. Oh, no, I'm sorry. That's what the action is. We would be removing the word detached in the ordinance. So supporting number three.

We'd be allowing detached guest houses.

Right.

Yeah.

By removing the word.

Yep.

Yes. That's the way it's written. Yes.

And so are those fundamentally just a hosted then because they're a guest house? They're not a... Do you know what I mean? Like somebody is living in the main house and this is just the guest house, right? So technically they're hosted, right? Is that how they're permitted?

I don't know that that's the way they're permitted, but technically yes, that I think that is the way they operate is that this would be a detached sort of secondary unit that is rented.

Okay. So I'm thinking then with removing the hosted buffer, then depending on how all this shakes out, I could see that the guest homes could be permitted then as a hosted, which, right?

Originally, that's how we looked at it. It was like, there's not much of a difference between sharing a wall and having space between the two walls. Right. Okay. If it's not a fully, again, to me, it's looking at is it a fully contained dwelling unit versus is it a guest house that doesn't have all the amenities that you would need if you were living there full time. So that's something, I mean, we would probably need board direction on which way you want to go with that because I think you could consider those hosted rentals or you could say any detached unit we're going to consider that.

um as a non-hosted rental yeah i think a guest house would be my my staff just texted me and said yes those would be permitted as a hosted home rental okay okay i think that worked because then then we would have either yeah someone would have to be there and i think that that works really well yeah that's a good point like that okay and is that

truly how it's being implemented in the basin right now?

The guest house?

Guest house.

I would say yes, because they do not have a kitchen, for instance. So they need access to the main home, theoretically.

But aren't there some, I'm just thinking out loud here, there's some garages that have been built in the basin that are detached. And they built a full-on bathroom. You know, they could have like a cooktop. They might have a small refrigerator. I mean, they could be VHRs. And I'm recollecting that some have VHR permits that look like that. And I could be wrong, too. So I trust your staff 100%.

She texted me again and said, yes, those are hosted home rentals. So she seems certain. And I trust Melanie quite a bit. She's been running this program for a long time. I'm not going to absolutely say that we've never permitted a guest house as a VHR. I just don't know that absolutely.

But the intention of this is that they're hosted.

Yes.

Got it. Okay. I'm supportive of that too. Okay. Any other comments or questions around that one? Okay. Amend the 500-foot buffer provision to exclude parcels five acres or larger on the West Slope.

Comments, questions, concerns, thoughts? I don't support this one at all. I don't. You know, I don't know what kind of outreach was done. in some of these neighborhoods, you know, talking to folks that actually live in the more rural remote areas. But, you know, I just kind of asked folks when I was at meetings and at events and stuff, and they're like, yeah, you know, I could handle maybe one, but preferably none. And I did a lot of thinking about why I could see this being concerning in, um, so our larger, okay. So I'm going to, I am going to differentiate between our larger residential parcels versus our larger egg parcels. I do think they're different. And, um, for the, um, residential parcels, you know, when you live out more remote in, um, I have several neighborhoods, let's say, that have five or 10 acre estates, you know, and they have HOAs, they have road associations, they have firewise communities. I mean, they have that sense of a neighborhood of relying on each other, especially in our more wildfire prone areas. And so I just have concerns about lifting, this until we maybe do a little bit of a deeper of a dive. I, you know, to Mr. Gammons' point, he's like, I don't want to see Gold Hill Road become just a bunch of VHRs. Not that that would happen, but there is potential. You know, once someone does one, then maybe other neighbors are like, yeah, I'm out of here. And they sell it to somebody that's going to make it a VHR. And we just don't know what kind of conversion there could be. So, however, on the flip side, you know, I think that by removing the buffer on the hosted home rental specifically, that allows for our bigger ag parcels in places that Do you want the tourism? You know, they can, they'll be able to not have to deal with the buffer for the hosted because we found historically that when the property owner, and I mean the property owner, the actual owner lives there and has to deal with the problems, there just aren't problems. That's what we have found over and over again, last several years. So, and I would even, and I don't think it's in here specifically, Um, it's kind of not, my thinking was that, uh, if we want to look at larger, well, not larger so much as, um, ag par, I'm looking, I'm thinking of ag parcels because we're talking about VHR is not ag lodging. That's separate, but related. Um, I would want to look at perhaps even for the ag parcels having, um, I don't want to call them ADUs though, because I don't want to you know muddy the water the yeah but i just think that other buildings um other ag buildings perhaps could be used as rentals for tourism again because on ag parcels the primary use is supposed to be ag so you need that property owner living there but to supplement their income and increase the tourism it makes sense you know property owner ag venue, property owner living there, outbuildings, renting for people staying there. It just seems like that makes sense to me. And I'm not sure if that's in here exactly. So that's kind of where my brain was doing that, but keeping the 500 foot buffer otherwise. I don't know how to, I know.

I would suggest since the board will hear an item on ag lodging next week on the 25th, that perhaps that issue could be incorporated at that time.

So tell me this, because this has been our angst since day one of when we did the last one, the VHRs versus egg lodging. Are they separate, the same, different?

One could obtain a VHR permit on ag land. VHR permits are not precluded in any zoning district. So if you have a single family home, even on a commercially zoned lot, you can obtain a VHR permit. So an individual could obtain a VHR permit on ag land. So they're not mutually exclusive. However, the ag lodging program, which currently does exist in our zoning ordinance, by the way, could, for instance, rent more than one unit on a lot, right? It could rent different types of units than what may have to meet the high standard of being a VHR.

Okay, so... will the VHR ordinance then just like reference over to ag lodging then? Because remember before we didn't have our ordinances talking to each other and it did cause confusion. So I want to make sure that when people talk about VHR on ag property, that somehow it's either going to be dealt with in this ordinance or is that our VHR is going to be over and is there going to be an ag VHR category in the ag lodging?

No, I don't believe so. But we could add a reference to this VHR ordinance. We did, in fact, add a reference to the ranch marketing program. Right. And I forget which year, one of the amendments we made.

Yeah.

That says where there is conflict between the two, because there is inherent conflict where ranch marketing theoretically is to host events and VHRs preclude events. So there is conflict. We made very explicitly clear in the VHR ordinance that where there is conflict, the ranch marketing ordinance prevails. So we could do something similar on ag lodging if you felt that was necessary.

It's probably going to have to be somehow necessary so that we make sure they're referencing each other. Because, I mean, I can quote exact instances in the past. when our ordinances weren't cross-referencing each other, that there were mistakes made, quite honestly. So we don't want that ever to happen again. We have to cross-reference each other. So you're telling me that we don't want to talk about ag VHRs today? That's going to be an ag lodging.

I guess I was not specifically calling it an ag VHR. I just said one could obtain a VHR on an ag property. Yes. But I believe ag lodging will be complementary but separate.

Okay.

I think it will have a separate rule set than the VHRs. And Director Garner will be presenting that item to the board next week.

So anything in here today applies to ag properties also? It could.

It could.

well, they're not called out separately, so they are at this point.

So I think one way you could look at it is the VHR ordinance applies to anything that allows some kind of residential use, right? The ag lodging will apply specifically to selected agriculturally zoned lands and have additional potential uses and different types of uses. So the ag lodging would provide another layer, another requirement is that you have to meet certain, types of zoning and have other certain, you know, with, I don't know all the ins and outs director Garner is better prepared for that, but the, the VHR cast potentially a wider net on the type. It's kind of silent on zoning. It doesn't say these types of lands, but I think the underlying assumption is it's a residential use. So you, there has to be some kind of residential zoning involved. Yeah. I don't know if we want to consider being more explicit on that, but I think where it comes up is if we can reference, we could reference over somehow to the ag lodging ordinance, but I think it's more important in the ag lodging scheme to be clear about the lands it does apply on and that may be a statement that it does not exclude a VHR and that references back to the VHR ordinance.

Yeah, I agree. I just want to make sure that they're talking to each other because in the past they haven't. And we've consistently said that currently you could do a VHR on ag lands. But then if we're having this other conversation next week, we've got to make sure they all mesh. And today we're saying that, you know, even on ag lands, they could do a guest house, let's say. So they've got to make sure they all mesh together. To Mr. Rinaldi's point, they've got to work together.

Yes.

Okay.

Agreed.

So this is a weird one for me. I'm trying to imagine some different scenarios, and I kind of understand the diagrams, but A scenario that I'm playing out in my head is a large five acre plus parcel that has a residential home on it that the owners reside in. And then they have other buildings on the property that could be, they could get a VHR permit for. One, right? But it's weird because it's more like a hybrid hosted because the residential owner is in the home and there's other structures on the property that could be used as either hosted or VHRs.

Well, only if they met the definition. So if it met the definition of a detached guest house, then it could obtain a VHR permit. But if it was just a barn or a shed or something like that, it wouldn't meet that definition. So it would therefore not be able to.

Or it could be an HHR, a hosted home rental, right? If it met the definition.

If it met the definitions, passed a fire inspection, all those kinds of things.

But not an ADU, is that what you?

Not an ADU, unless we change. It could be just a house on five acres, right? Yeah. That's kind of how we pictured this.

Okay, and then show these examples that you showed, kind of show like the current parcel and then with the 500 foot buffer, all the properties it would affect, or it could show the location of where the primary house might be. There was a idea that came through in the public comment today saying, what if you did it from, not the boundary of the parcel, but rather the home itself where it's located on the parcel and apply the 500 foot from there. Is that a consideration?

We did talk about that. We definitely considered that.

And then we just kind of realized like the intent of the 500 foot buffer was for clustering and noise problems. And we're not going to have that on five acre parcels. And so that's why we kind of decided, well, let's eliminate the buffer on those parcels.

Five acres or more.

I'll just add there can be technical challenges if you use just the structure as the identifying feature.

You've got to get a tape out and start measuring. Yeah.

We talked about Google Earth and other options, bringing a surveyor out. Currently, we use the county's GIS as our tool, and I would recommend that we stay there as our standard metric. If we go to the home, the GIS tool cannot definitively pick up the edges of a home if there's tree cover, things like that. So measuring distances becomes pretty challenging between structures. So I think that's why we veered away from it. If I could add one other nuance to this already complex scenario, one thing I was thinking about as I was drawing this out after this item was published, and I think that Supervisor Ferrero and Turnbull intended for it to be carried out this way, is that even if we eliminate the 500 foot buffer on a five acre parcel in this action, if they had a neighboring parcel, say that was a smaller parcel adjacent, say a quarter acre lot has a VHR permit, well, their buffer would preclude that five acre parcel from obtaining a VHR permit. So I would just ask the board, would it be your intention that, and I'll have to verify with council that we can legally do this, but that the buffer would not apply in any way to a five acre parcel? Does that make sense? So the neighboring buffer wouldn't impact this larger parcel because I think the board's making a determination that because it's a large parcel, it inherently buffers itself.

So you're saying if you got the five acres next to a quarter acre, a quarter acre has a permit, the five acre could still get one. Yep.

If you want it that way.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that would be my preference. Yeah.

I'm not going to agree with this one. Because in my mind, it's more than just noise. It's about how many VHRs do you want your neighborhood to become. And the whole point of the buffer was to discourage clustering and And we did get a really thoughtful comment in an email. And this person really agreed with just about everything except for when it came to this 500-foot buffer because they live in a neighborhood of five-acre parcels. And she says she already has one VHR next door. And there's not a problem with having that there, but she doesn't want to be surrounded by them. And I think That's what we were intending when we did the anti-clustering is that even though these are big parcels, they're still neighborhoods. I mean, like I said, these folks have firewise communities, HOAs, you know, and they rely on each other. as a neighborhood um in the more remote the bigger the parcels when we have these catastrophic wildfires or anything else i'm you know i have snowmageddon coming to mind because we had that not too long ago out where these bigger parcels are those folks really benefit from knowing each other as a neighborhood so i really want to caution against Just this one, I think this is the only one I really had angst over. And then I'm really looking forward to tackling the ag lodging because I think that in my mind, that's really where our what's the right word I guess we need a break soon but I think that we can see a lot of benefits there for where we were trying to go with the ag lodging and tourism and stuff so I would really ask the board to reconsider this one and if you want to do it maybe let's table it and go out to some HOA groups of bigger neighborhoods and let's talk to them because I don't know if that opportunity was had and I can give you contact information for several of those.

I don't know, George. The majority of the public comment that we received at our meeting, I mean, it was to allow these on larger parcels. The people you're referencing, they've had opportunity to comment. They've had a few different opportunities to comment. And still the majority of the people want us to loosen the restrictions. So-

Whoa, I'm gonna say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. The majority of the people, what are you talking about?

The majority of the comments we've received.

So on the current VHR data, this is accurate, correct? You're talking about 746 active permits in Tahoe? That's correct. West Slope is 192, correct? Yes. All right, so you have Tahoe hosted rentals is 27, and on the wait list is 233. You go to the West Slope, There's only 18. And waitlist is only 17. So you're talking about not very many. Not very many at all. I don't even know why. I mean, this is one of the reasons why we put this together to help benefit some of the people to be able to help them be able to access and use their property because of what I talked about earlier about high insurance costs and the cost of everything. And so to help them so they don't lose their property.

Can I make another suggestion? So I own a condo in Truckee. Our condo association prohibits short-term rentals. So the neighborhoods like you're referring to, their HOA could probably form those and prohibit short-term rentals privately.

Madam Chair, can we just go to the next one? And we can vote on this one as we get a whole package because I'm going to support the committee's recommendation. So we spent a lot of time on this one. We've got more to go.

Okay. Are there, since we're on this topic before we leave it, are there any questions or comments that you have not already made or that you need an answer to?

Well, I, I don't think one listening session and a survey and the survey responses were mixed. And not only that, they asked a lot of questions in the survey. So I really don't think that those should be relied upon to make such a huge difference.

change in our county ordinances and so when we bring when we come back to this one we're going to try to see if we have consistency or support through through the other remaining ones we'll come back to this one yeah okay i i know i'm just saying i'm i'm just very concerned when we say that we had public engagement and i had

I had expected that the ad hoc would have a robust public engagement on something so big. And to rise or turn on these 17 wait lists, we don't actually know what they're waiting for. And it doesn't matter what's on the wait list. We're opening a door that isn't there right now. So I just want us to be really careful on this one. The others do make sense to me. I don't have a problem with them at all.

Okay. I feel like I should also note and not to complicate your decision making further, but we did want to let people know that this discussion was going to happen. But the only mailing lists that we had were those that had given us their email address as part of a comment from the listening session or something previous, which was a short list. or the current VHR permit holder list. So most of the people that got notified through just that email of this meeting were current permit holders.

Or people made comment, right? Public comment or sent in public comment? Or yes. Yeah.

That was, I think we only had like 12 or 15 emails from that group.

Okay, let's talk about unlimited bedrooms for hosted home rentals. This is being recommended countywide. Any thoughts, comments on this particular one? From the standpoint of the basin, again, there were some very lengthy comments and this was kind of like a, The biggest concern and the reason why we limited the number of bedrooms, correct me if I'm wrong, but my recollection was it had to do with illegal entire houses that were being rented and stating that they were hosted when the host wasn't on the property. So this was deemed as one of the ways to kind of not have this become an illegal attraction. The other thing was that there was It's part of our whereases in the ordinance that we wanted to make a way that homeowners could supplement their income, but without renting the whole house. So there was some thought that went behind this. If we decided to do this countywide, I'm just going to be honest, this would cure one of the issues that I have in my district. but I'm not sure that that's a good way to govern, to fix one problem and maybe potentially open up another one that was a big concern at the time. So I would be supportive of this one Going just West Slope? West Slope.

Just West Slope.

And then on the condition that we had some kind of process for a one-off that maybe the resident that has my problem could go through that process instead.

Yeah, we can go to the one-off later. Works for me.

We have some draft language for a one-off process that we can get to after we go through this list. Okay, perfect.

Let's move to increase the age from... to 12 it looks like per our discussion uh with regards to children not being counted towards the occupancy um and this is being recommended on the west slope only questions comments i'm comfortable with them entertain 16 but let's see what the committee recommended

So we put language on the screen here to, I think I heard you say earlier, if we could look at more of the platforms and try to make it consistent with the platforms, if there is consistency there. So I think the recommendation would be to increase the age and kind of come back with a recommendation based on what we find. But it sounds like it's 10 to 12, somewhere around there.

Yeah. we weren't really firm on the age we threw out a bunch of numbers but that's suggesting yesterday you know if the if the platforms are the majority of the platforms using 12 make life a lot easier for everybody but i guess what i'm confused on though is that this is okay the platforms use whatever age and they were different on different rentals but

This is saying do not count towards occupancy, whereas I was clicking on ones and literally they were counting it and I was putting in those age groups. So what does this mean? Like you can have how many...

It's the two times two bedrooms plus two. So the children wouldn't, if you had a three bedroom home, you could, your maximum occupancy could be eight. But if you implemented this rule, it could be eight plus 12 kids. It could be eight plus two kids. It could be whatever. Yeah. Children in this range wouldn't count. And the reason why the basin came up with the idea of six, again, this is a difference that we experienced in the basin that I don't believe is a problem here on the West slope, but we have entire, we have a come up for air, huge soccer tournament that happens every year. And we get entire soccer teams that drive up there and get, you could essentially have 12 eight-year-olds and a coach in a house. And it creates a lot of noise. It's not right. So that's why we were very specific. And we also believe that increasing the number of beds increases noise. It increases cars. It increases trash. So again, children under the age of six, which is how the policy currently reads up in the basin. Those are basically kids that really could either sleep with siblings or parents, but you start getting up into the, I mean, even nowadays, 10 year olds are kind of considered preteens and they're probably going to have their own bed. So we, in the basin, that's why we drew the line where we did.

Yeah. I think that this one is, Try it out, but if it becomes problematic, might have to dial it back later, which, yeah. Just keep monitoring it.

Okay. Revise restrictions on grills, fireplaces, and fireworks to strengthen and emphasize fire safety countywide. You know, we don't allow fireworks, period.

No, we don't.

They're banned from the basin. So I would... I believe that this is more of an administrative fix, as you pointed out. And so I would support it on its face value and be wanting to see how that language really comes back. Anybody else, questions, comments on this one? No, that's a good one. Okay.

Eight is a new one based on your discussion. So explore the potential for allowing for non-state streamlined ADUs to be permitted as VHRs on the West Slope and include options in the ordinance update if possible.

Yeah, and on this one, County Council, I just wanted to check in because my recollection is that El Dorado County in 2016, I think it was, waived has been waiving the TIF, I think it is, for ADUs. So I think that that should be another streamlining trigger we should look for, because if anything's been built since 2016 and taking advantage of that, That was intended for housing. That's different than the state streamlining. But my recollection was that that was to incentivize housing and it's been in effect since 2016, I think.

Yeah, that's a fair point. And I might just also note that focus on the state streamlined ADUs is a little challenging because the county's ordinance that largely mirrors the state process actually allows for ADUs larger than what the state is. So we kind of have this like second category, but my comments that I made a moment ago about the way that ADUs are viewed for purposes of meeting our affordable housing goals applies equally to those that are permitted as ADUs, even under kind of what we'll call the county system, as in they are larger than what the state streamlined provisions would, would allow. So I think, I think we can work with this guy, honestly, I think, and I understand what, and I think we all understand what you're focusing on would be those. Again, I have to use any, the only term I can use is just a generic one because to call them ADUs, I think conflates the issue, but we'll say second units that secondary dwelling units that were properly permitted as something other than a county or state accessory dwelling unit, which does have its own restrictions. I think I understand what you're going with there. So as far as then the motion, perhaps we say non-state or county streamlined ADUs, just to make clear that you're not affecting, if somebody comes, you know, tomorrow and they apply for an ADU under the county's ADU ordinance, you're not looking to allow those to be utilized as short-term rentals, which would be problematic under state law. I think you're focusing on, and one of the commenters had made note of it, this category of second units that were permitted prior to the advent of an ADU. They were permitted under a different scheme that didn't then contain the same restrictions on short-term rentals.

I think that's the gist I got from everybody too. Yeah. Yeah.

And this is being offered up as a West Slope only amendment. And I think ADUs have been a problem up in the basin because originally the state had to be on an acre or more. I think that, do I recall that correctly? And then we just amended that to be.

Correct. We eliminated that requirement. I want to say four years ago, something like that. And we followed suit.

Have we seen an uptick in accessory dwelling units?

Yes, because we went from zero to some, but it's a small handful. For instance, I think we have about three on our shelf right now. I can picture, however, our first step when they come to the county to apply is we tell them to go to TRPA because they need to obtain a residential unit of use and they need to comply with the coverage standards in the basin. And so sometimes that draws kind of a blank look on the owner's face and then we don't talk to them again. They don't come back. It is a higher hurdle in Tahoe to build an ADU. They are built, though. The city, for instance, has built a number of ADUs. They provide that residential unit for free as part of their incentive package to build affordable housing. They are not allowed to be used short-term, period, though.

Okay. All right.

I think it's best the way it's written at this point.

Okay, thank you for that. Let's see, return. Okay, that's not included.

Yes, so this is also a new one, trying to capture the kind of one-offs with some parameters in there. So return to the board with a process for considering VHR permit applications for operators whose VHR permits on the West Slope were denied or revoked due to county ordinance changes or had been operating a non-allowed unit but who had been issued a VHR permit from the county provided the unit is legally permitted and habitable structure. And state streamlined ADUs, again, would be excluded from this consideration. It's kind of long, but we wanted to- Yeah, probably state or county streamlined to be consistent. Thank you.

And then do we need to be specific at this time or will staff come back with a recommendation as to how that would be reviewed and approved?

You're asking about the process? I think we, if you would like to weigh in on that, absolutely. We would encourage that. I will just say I'll be working closely with county council as we draft the procedures. Like I said, they'll have to meet certain findings, so we'll have to write those findings. The higher level decision will have to occur either at our director level or something like our zoning administrator. I would suggest that these do not come to the board, for instance.

Right.

Right. Because there will be, there's also an appeal period to this decision, which will be built in that potentially could come to you or to the planning commission, depending on what council advises.

Yeah, I personally would be okay with leaving it to staff to come back with what you think is the best recommendation on that personally. Other thoughts on who should, if you have a thought on who should.

Just include the one office as well for the structures that were legally permitted prior to the date of the ordinance.

Is does that mean, I think that that might fall into the prior item if I understand what you're suggesting supervisor on those properly permitted second units, I think would fall into the prior one, as long as we've got it captured and staff understands.

I believe we do. Do you think we're covered the way it's drafted in the motion with what you're recommending?

I think the 80s are double covered between eight and nine.

Okay, non state or county streamline. Okay.

All right, so we really have it appears as though we have consistency on all of them and support with the exception of the five plus acres so. And then I want to make sure on the unlimited bedrooms. that it's West Slope, yep, on the West Slope, okay. Would somebody like to, perhaps we would consider a motion to approve one through nine with the exception of number four.

I'll move one through nine with exception of number four.

I'll second it.

Okay, there's a motion and a second. Is there further discussion on the motion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

Motion passes 5-0.

Okay. Do you want to come back?

Madam Chair, I will move item number four.

Okay.

Second.

There's a motion and a second on item number four. Is there discussion on the motion?

Would you guys consider tabling number four and doing more outreach to some of the larger parcel neighborhoods just to make sure that they're aware of what's going on. I'm not sure there was enough outreach done on something of this, this could potentially really change a lot of neighborhoods.

They can prohibit VHRs in their neighborhood.

And you're not wrong, but I have really rural areas that aren't as organized as an HOA. It might be a Firewise community, but they're still, in their minds, a neighborhood because they're on a road together, but they're big parcels. And I just want to make sure they have an opportunity to be made aware of this. I'm not sure how robust the outreach really was. I mean, I've, I've done my best, but I, I didn't see a whole lot of outreach out there. So it concerns me. This will be a huge change. And it really could change. And it'll probably be a cluster of neighborhoods that it'll impact. And it'll be hard to undo once it's done is the reality of it. So I would really like to approach this one just a little more cautiously.

Are we are we like a month or a month and a half out from seeing a red line version come back? Is that something we're thinking?

Yeah, that's likely we honestly don't have any sort of red line at this moment. And we always run those through council.

Yeah. So that's, it's going to be probably four to eight weeks out before we see the first reading of the red line version. Would it be acceptable if you could do some outreach between now and then, and you could.

I would like to see the county do some outreach, honestly. I mean, the ad hoc I thought was going to do that. They took on that.

We have a motion and a second. Wait, wait, wait.

No, I'm asking for clarification. What do you mean you did? What did you go out to neighborhoods?

We we brought people here.

That's my point though. We have a we can't.

We can't go knock on every door for everything we want to approve. It's up to us to know our districts and know what's there so.

And I think we can have this discussion respectfully. Supervisor Parlin is bringing forward a concern for her part of the district that she knows well. I agree you guys did good outreach. You did a lot of work in this regard. Yes, we can just move forward and vote on the motion, but if there's some kind of way we can figure out a happy medium... I'd love to do it. Otherwise, we can just throw down the gauntlet. So I'm wondering, you want the ad hoc committee to go out and do that?

I thought that was the point of an ad hoc, to go out and do engagement in the community. And all I saw was one listening session and a survey that was answered by 363 people that had mixed results and a lot of questions.

And I think this is where we're going to agree to disagree because I think the ad hoc is going to say, you know, we did our best. We tried our best. We reached out as best we could. I think that there's time between now and a first reading that if we get information that is contrary, that we can admit that into the record at that time. And we could always make a change at that time. So without further ado, are you any further comments? on the motion? Okay. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. Okay.

Motion passes 4-1 with Supervisor Parlin registering a no vote.

Thank you. Let's go ahead and take a 30 minute lunch break and we'll come back and we'll do the administrative changes and then we'll move forward with our Well, maybe we'll do our open forum first and then we'll come back to our administrative changes and move on with the agenda. Is there any objection to that? When you say administrative changes, you're referring to the hearing? No, I was referring to the cleanup changes that's also part of the staff report. They're on page three. Oh, we didn't get around to that. That shouldn't be long either.

That shouldn't be long. No.

No, I think we can fly through that.

Sorry, Joe.

All right, we'll come back at 1.30 for open forum and then a continuation of this item. Okay, thank you. Welcome back, El Dorado Hills after, El Dorado Hills, we were just talking about that. El Dorado County, we are back from a brief lunch break and normally we would take our open forum comments at one o'clock. We're going to go ahead and take those first and then we'll return back to item number 50. So open forum comments, 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 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. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, everybody's getting their money's worth today. Mike Ornalli from Lotus. I'll make this brief. My items for public comment today are about data. So there are times when your staff will provide you something like we saw this morning, point in time data. And I really think that it's incumbent on the board to ask your staff for trend data. so that you can see how the impacts of any ordinance change you might make or any trends in the industry might have changed. And so I'm asking that when there's an opportunity for that, I know you all have the opportunity to meet with your staff in advance before the public hearing or before the item is heard to please seek more meaningful and over time data. The second thing is gonna be very brief. I'm gonna give this to the board clerk for public comments. I just wanna put on the record that I'm soundly opposed to the public comment procedures that you've adopted. And I just wanna go on record of saying that. And I really hope you'll take the moment or two to read what I've submitted. Thank you and have a nice day.

Thank you. Are there other members of the public that would like to address the board in open forum? Please come forward.

Thank you. We'll go online, please. Not taking public comment from online participants. Not taking public comment from 390. Can you unmute yourself, 390?

I was pressing the wrong buttons there. Yeah, Karen Greenwood here from the Triple Junction, Long Sly Park Road, which still doesn't have any lane lines on it. I don't understand. Item 29, dare I say, I guess they've paid them off already, but the job isn't finished, and now they've repaved or micro-paved three miles down to Holiday Market from my house with yet another lair. It just doesn't make any sense. Let's get some lines on the streets so that people don't run us off the road like they've been doing for the last month and a half. Item two, no to town and country. Somebody cleaned up the western part of the Lincoln Highway there, but the eastern part is still one lane. probably could use a tractor going down there and cleaning up. I don't know who actually owns all that, but it is the outfall, suggested outfall for sewer water for the Town and Country Project, which will seriously compromise the historic highway there. Item three, Slide Park Road already said that. Item four, do we have flock cameras? If so, how many? Um, that seems to be a trending little thing now, and I'm kind of curious. So I would hope that district five to get back to me with respect to that. Um, and here we have the fifth anniversary of the Caldor fire, uh, damn near burnt down my house, uh, about 200, 300 yards away. Uh, house was covered with ash and it was just kind of ugly. Um, I think we're doing the right thing on that. Although my recent experience with the escrow inspections by Cal Fire on our behalf are less than satisfactory. The neighbor sold his house without doing any upgrading on the clearances around his house. And in fact, It's just an absolute mess. And the realtor said, oh, yeah, that's just a BS project. And it's stupid. Guess that's three minutes. So have a great day.

Thank you. Not taking public comment from Greg Hansen.

Hello again, supervisors. I want to start by giving credit where it's due. You made several reasonable changes today. That's great. But what concerns me more than any single VHR rule is what today revealed about how the county is governed. The public is watching aboard micromanaged details that often does not appear to understand, while major problems involving population decline, economic weakness, shrinking schools, poor school scores, regulatory burden, public trust, and county liability continue to grow. For example, Supervisor Lane, we had a policy based on soccer tournaments in Tahoe. Are you kidding me? Don't you want more kids in Tahoe? Don't you want those families spending money? Don't you want pizza parties and great memories? It wasn't too far long ago in the 90s where we would rent a cabin and fill it with three, four, five families and go skiing and snowboarding all week. Everyone thought that was a good thing. And now we're complaining about soccer tournaments? Supervisor Parlin, you repeatedly said that you needed more information and more outreach. Are you kidding me? It sounds like you want a different outcome, a different answer that supports your view. You all are the board of supervisors. It's your job to understand the consequences before you exercise government power over people's property, businesses, and lives. You can't keep regulating first, discover the damage, and then ask the citizens who are harmed to absorb the cost. Are you going to pay them back? Are you going to fix the lost revenue? Are you going to put the lost tax revenue back into the county coffers? Who is? Do I have to provide lawsuits to recover those damages, the liability the county continues to put themselves in? Why does nobody seem willing to fix the people or systems causing the problem? And let's talk about the elephant in the room, Karen Garner, Kevin Bailey, Kevin Hart. If county officials or employees are creating unnecessary liability, get rid of them. Manage the government. Earlier today, I tried to introduce myself to Kevin Bailey, offered my hand, and attempted to have a professional interaction. He refused to shake my hand in the very room that you're sitting in. He told me he refuses to respond to emails. Are you kidding me? That's the attitude toward a citizen that should concern everybody sitting on this board. If you want to govern the county, start by governing the bureaucracy underneath you. Right now, we have a system that's broken that says get a permit, pay another fee, wait, ask permission, hire somebody, appeal, pay again. That's not how you talk. That's not how you draw young families to this county. That's not how we have thriving businesses, how we pull people from the Bay Area to bring their money and their investments and their know-how because they want a place to enjoy the outdoors. This county does not need more government control. It needs competent government, accountable government, and a board that's willing to lead the county. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Now taking public comment from Cameron Bauer.

Hey there, thank you so much for all the information and discussions in the session before lunch. I just wanted to get clarification We did ask for a appeal process, but I didn't see that specifically mentioned on that word document we went through.

Cameron, we can talk about this. I'm more than happy to call you and give you all that type of information. Right now we're taking comments on items not on today's agenda.

Okay. All right. Well, thank you so much.

Thank you. Now taking public comment from Linda Campbell.

Hey everyone, Linda Campbell, Eldorado Hills. I just wanted to come on and say it would be really great if you would bring back an agenda item to modify the public comment periods and the coordination of it so that it kind of reverts back to where it was, where we had the ability to engage during the time of discussion rather than try to figure out other times. I did notice quite a few people a little bit confused again this morning on exactly which time they were allowed to speak or not. So anyways, it would be great if you'd bring it back, whatever Mike Rinelli gave you. Thank you for that. I agree in advance. So thank you. Have a good afternoon. Thank you.

Now taking public comment from Eldorado County citizen. El Dorado County citizen, you're unmuted. There's no additional public comment.

Okay, thank you for that. We'll go ahead and close public comment. And I'd like to return to item number 50 regarding the West Slope Vacation Home Rental Program. I don't see... All right, so I'll turn this back over to staff. I think we handled all of the recommendations of the ad hoc group. You indicated that there were additional staff recommendations that are listed on page three of the staff report that you wanted us to consider at the same time that we were making some of these other changes. So you want to go ahead and recap? I think we can get through them pretty quickly, but anything you want to add at this point?

Do you want to go through them one by one? We'll work on pulling it.

Yeah. I mean, I think we'll try to just as the format we did before.

So the first one is to strengthen trash removal requirements in order to avoid recent issues with enforceability of proper placement. And this is... Definitely an issue in Lake Tahoe that we've heard about, that there's problems with renters coming. They leave trash. And Brendan, let me know if I'm getting any of this wrong. They're leaving trash, but they're not always putting it in the bear box or they're leaving it out for too long because they're leaving before the trash collection day. So we would like to strengthen some language around that to make that a violation. Originally, we were looking at can we strike out during the rental period so that we can hold those VHRs accountable even if the rental period has ended, but there's some problems with that. So we think we can come up with some language that will just help rectify that situation.

That's right, yeah, to clarify the nexus between when renters check out, say on Sunday morning, and then the bear knocks their trash over on Tuesday morning before trash is picked up. It's still a violation of that renter not properly disposing of the trash, but because of the language in our ordinance that says during the rental period, code enforcement's had a hard time drawing that nexus. So if council felt more comfortable not deleting those four words during the rental period, but rather strengthening the nexus language in the trash, the trash language specifically.

Okay, questions, comments?

Okay. Okay, the next one would be to, and we talked about this a little bit already, but to clarify that vacation home rental enforcement can be conducted proactively, which is opposed to the way that we do code enforcement for other issues. And when we say proactively, we really mean being able to go look online at listings and make sure that what is listed, that they also have a permit and that it all that what they're listing as their advertisement is what's allowed by their permit.

Questions on this one? No? Okay.

Okay. Next, add a provision that a local contact or property manager who is found to own, manage, or operate an unpermitted VHR can be decertified from serving in that capacity for any legally permitted VHR in the county. Again, this is trying to address those bad actors out there. There are some local contacts that do get a certification. They're able to serve as local contact for multiple vacation homes in their area. And we would like to be able to decertify them if there's a big problem with one of their VHRs. We don't want them to then be able to be the local contact for other BHRs.

Questions on this one? Comments? So one of my questions would be forever?

We could put a term on it.

And then one of my concerns was just reading this is that especially if it's like a property manager maybe they are under the impression it's legal and they don't realize it's not legal. So do we really take away all of their permits for other ones? That seems a little, like maybe we need to work on that again.

Okay. We do have some individuals who continue to operate illegal rentals and they're very well aware of it. They also manage legal properties. These are egregious violations.

And are they property managers or are they local contacts? Both.

Both.

Okay. All right. Well, I trust staff on that one, but I think we might want to at least come back with a period of time which we get their attention, but we maybe don't.

I would say 98% of all those managing have good intent and are doing just fine. This is for a very select few who just do not care to play by the rules.

Gotcha. Okay. Other questions, comments on this one? Nope. Okay.

Okay. And kind of similarly, this one is to help us with the timeline. So clarify that the permit revocation period is for 12 months and that after that an applicant can reapply for a VHR permit. The question has come up with those that when there is a violation and it gets to the point where we are revoking their permit, can they turn around and reapply the next month? Are they out forever? So this is giving us that timeline where they have to wait at least one year.

I thought it was very clear in the current ordinance, but maybe I'm wrong.

So the suspension period is very well defined at six months. The revocation period is silent.

Okay.

Has no timeline.

Okay.

So we just want to mirror, not exactly because we're recommending 12 months, but because it's silent, we think right now it's an ambiguous decision. We've revoked your permit. How long is it revoked for? It could be one day.

Right. Okay. Good clarification. Questions, comments? Is everybody awake? Okay.