Parks and Recreation Commission - Regular Meeting

We did. It's turned off. Okay. We're good to go. I'm just gonna do a roll call real quick. Commissioner Walker?

Aye.

Commissioner Nielsen?

Aye.

Commissioner Bolster?

Here.

Commissioner Tong? No. Absent. That's why I was doing it. Commissioner Draper?

Here.

Commissioner Mansfield? Pleasure. And chair Boker?

Yep. Here.

Thank you. K.

So for the record, we have who's here. Thank you.

Okay. Now do you need another motion for adoption agenda? Yeah. You guys need to do Okay. Is there Second. Okay. Moved and seconded. All those in favor, aye. Aye. Opposed? K.

Okay.

Alright. Do you have an announcement to make? You have

a Sure.

To give?

I'll go ahead and, we're gonna drop down to public forum. We're now taking public comment on public forum. Individuals will have three minutes to address the commission. Public comment will be taken first from those participating in the meeting room and then from those participating through Zoom. For those participating by Zoom, please make sure you unmute yourself when called upon. If you are joining the meeting by phone, press 9 to indicate a desire to comment. If you are joined by Zoom, press the raise hand button. To indicate a desire to comment, please voluntarily state your name for the record.

K. Do we have anybody?

I have no hands in the from the participants, so you're good to go.

Is there anyone in the audience who cares to comment? They didn't run. Let me bring it back to the board. To

the from agricultural setback for proposed pool first assessor's parcel of number 043550067000. And are we hearing from Eric, or are we hearing from?

Myself. Erin. Erin was outside.

Okay. Thank you.

Great. Yeah. Okay.

Good afternoon, commission. Erin Mallett, planning services. So this isn't kind of a simple one. Through administrative permit ADM twenty six nineteen, the applicant is requesting relief to reduce the required 200 foot agricultural setback to a 166 feet from adjacent parcel APN 043550066 in order to permit the proposed pool location. Planning services supports the ag department's recommendation, and I will defer the rest to ag department staff. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Aaron. Tom, are you this is yours?

Okay. So he covered to

next

able

little So get pertinent parcel a information

bit number that was read 10.01 acres. It is in an agricultural district, the Camino Fruitridge land use designation is agricultural lands with plant agricultural 20, PA 20 zoning. All soils on the site happen to be choice soils, 15% to 30% slope, sites long and 9% to 15% slopes. This here is the parcel as you can see the parcels around it are roughly 10 acres. You can see the developed area in the middle.

We'll zoom in here a little bit, but this just gives you an idea of what the surrounding parcels look like. And this is the area map for who we contacted. 26 adjacent parcels were notified. Again, the Camino Fruitridge Agricultural District. Again, PA 20 zoning. You can see those areas there. The parcel outlined in blue. Land use again, the parcel outlined in blue agricultural lands. Again, the choice soils, you can see that it's mostly choice soils and with 15 to 30% slopes and nine to 15% slopes. Most of it's relatively steep.

Topography rolling from roughly 2800 feet down on the bottom sides, corners up to about 2,950 at the top in the middle where the buildings are. So this is where I thought we were a little while ago, but this is the site here. I've outlined the proposed area for the swimming pool with the circle. We zoom in a little bit closer. You can see that it's developed right now with landscaping and a lawn.

This here is pool craft design for the pool design area. I'll zoom in here a little bit, but you can see where they're requesting to the north roughly a 166 feet to reduce the setback to. All the other setbacks are over that 200 foot setback. Here we zoomed in a little bit more so you can see the pool area and the lawn, the one hundred sixty six, seven inches to the north. The others are 400, 500 and then two twenty to the south roughly.

Walking through the site, this is looking west into the lawn area landscape area where there both the pools proposed. You can see there in the background where it quickly drops off and gets rather steep. Again, moving over a little bit just to see a little bit more of that slope. Looking back a little bit to look south southerly, not quite as steep as it is on the west side, but still significantly significantly steep. Just another view. Again, another view of existing conditions looking south.

This

here is the the fence line for the pool. This is not the property line. The property line here is the southern property line is on the left hand side down in the tree line. I think it's roughly 129 feet if memory serves correctly. So it doesn't look that steep down there, but again we're quite a ways away from the pool and the developed buildings and this would be encroaching on existing agricultural choice soil, so development there would be extending the footprint of the developed area.

Looking southerly, again, the fence line is rough the property line is roughly a 126 feet to the south in those trees. And I scroll through one. This is just looking east, again showing you some of the slopes in the background and to the right there just shows some of the southern property line with the trees. They're clearing some there. This here is turnaround looking back up because I thought it was pretty important because as you look down the slope to the south, it doesn't look that steep. But when you turn around back and look up to the existing buildings, you can see how steep it is here. So to move that pool anywhere else starts to get tricky and you're gonna require more construction.

But it would also be closer to the property line if you moved it, Right? I mean, it'd be worse than

Away from the existing development. Yeah. Again, just another picture showing you the slopes on the eastern side of the property line. This year we move up towards the north of the property line looking west on that steep hill that drops off to the slope, the northern property lines here to our right. I assume we're gonna sweep around to there.

We look there, we can see the property line to the north, the existing drain quarter see the 19. First continuing down and you can see in the background it starts to drop off rather steeply there as well to the east. This here is at the property line looking back at the house. The proposed pool site is on the other side of the house, so therefore the house is going to buffer anything that's going on at the pool from the existing properties to the north. And so a site visit was conducted on 03/25/2026 to assess the placement of a swimming pool and staff recommends approval request for the project setback being reduced to 166 feet roughly from the northern adjacent parcel.

As staff believes that three of the four findings that the agriculture commission is required to make by Resolution 70 nine-two thousand and seven and adopted by the Board of Supervisors on 04/17/2007 can be made. Number one, no suitable building site exists on the subject parcel except within the required setback due, but not limited to compliance with other requirements of the general plan or other county development regulations. So as I've kind of discussed, the parcel is constrained for building sites due to the topography. The site drops off to the west, east and south from the existing buildings. As this parcel is entirely comprised of choice soils, the proposed pool site eliminates any reduction in agricultural uses on parcel because the pool site will be placed will be replacing existing landscaping.

Number two, the proposed noncompatible structure will be located on the property to reasonably minimize the potential negative impact on adjacent agriculturally zoned land. The placement of the pool minimizes potential negative impacts to the adjacent agricultural properties as much as possible. The pool is proposed adjacent to the previously permitted single family dwelling. Accumulating all development in one area minimizes the potential negative impacts to adjacent agriculturally zoned lands. And number three, based on the characteristics of the subject porcelain, the adjacent agriculturally zoned land including but not limited to topography and location of agricultural improvements, etcetera, the Commission determines that the location of the proposed non compatible structure would reasonably minimize potential negative impacts on agricultural or timber production use.

The existing residential buildings immediately north of the proposed pool area will buffer the northern parcel from pool activities limiting negative impacts to any agricultural uses in the future. So we met three of the four skip through the four and we're also recommending that the applicant complies with the REBS solution as I said before seventy nine thousand two hundred and seven Exhibit A of the Board of Supervisors. Any questions? So if we scoot back, are you asking if all the agricultural lands adjacent to?

The surrounding parcels look like they have no agricultural

Tom, this is the Camino Ridge subdivision. Correct? Correct. This The applicant says yes.

This is off of bark oh, and they are in the did I not put the agricultural district in there?

So there's your agricultural district there. So it's basically a large lot subdivision. So what this is.

Show them, is there any adjacent

Oh, was that the question? Sorry about that. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

The partial that they're asking setback for

So if I go back here, there's one of the better aerial maps there, and you can see that the center one outlined in blue is the house. This developed area here that I'm kinda circling now is where the house exists, drops off into the trees here, drops off there. The one to the north is developed there as well.

Is that the one they need setback relief from, Tom?

That's the one they need setback relief from.

So your development is roughly in the same area. Correct?

Yes. Both parcels would, I would say, marry each other, reflect the same building that's going on. There was no agricultural to that northern parcel. The sites were built. There's a home here. There is an existing, I'm gonna say, structure here. I took pictures of it, but it it looked bigger than a garage, but maybe it's just a garage. And then there's a pool in the middle of the two. So very similar development.

And the and the pool would be put into the green area on the on the applicant's parcel behind the house.

Right. Yes. Pool.

Buffering the

Yes.

The ag parcel if they did so choose

to.

Yes. It's really on the footprint of the of the existing property with the house and the yard and whatnot. Right? Mhmm.

It's just substituting a yard area for a pool. Landscape for

a pool.

Landscape for a pool.

Yeah. Landscape for hardscape.

Okay. Any any other questions? Is the applicant here? Do you have any comments you'd like to make or add to the presentation? I'm available to answer any questions you might have. Okay. Does anyone have any questions of the applicant? None? Is there anyone else in the audience to address this? We're on Zoom. Yes.

Okay. Now taking public comment on this item, individuals will have three minutes to address the commission. Public comment will be taken first from those participating in the meeting room and then from those participating through Zoom. For those participating by Zoom, please make sure you unmute yourself when called upon. If you're joining the meeting by phone, press 9 to indicate a desire to comment. If you are joining by Zoom, press the raise hand button to indicate a desire to comment. Please voluntarily state your name for the record, and I do have a person on Zoom that would like to talk.

Okay. Go ahead, Jade.

Good morning. Or it's not morning anymore. Good afternoon. I'm Jade Beaker. I am the contractor. So I'm with Pool Craft. And my question is, if if this gets approved, first, I would greatly appreciate it. But if it does, I know that it was requested for a 166 foot variance. Is there any leeway with that, you know, five feet here or there? It is such a large property, and sometimes when you're putting a pool in in real time, stuff does need to be adjusted and maneuvered. Is there any leeway other than that one sixty six feet? Do I get one a 161 feet? Does that make sense?

Correct. Yeah. The this is Erime from Planning Services. You know, the setbacks differ from, the zoning ordinance to the ag setback. The ag setback is from the water itself where the zoning ordinance is from the bond being. So is that kinda what you're I mean, would that give you is that different looking for? Because the number, you know, the number requested is the number approved, and and, you can't substantially waiver from that approval without rereviewing the request.

Okay. Alright. Well, my initial request was for an additional 50 foot, not a 50 foot setback, but a 150 foot setback. But if I'm if I have to go through the process process again, I'll just make sure I stick to that 166 feet.

Well, we've always worded them no more than a 166 feet, so you could go less, but not not a 180.

Correct. I mean, is this a design that you definitely wanna pursue? Because we could continue this item to get revised plans if there is a substantial difference that you wanna propose instead of Mhmm. You know, going with the proposal, revising the building permit, and having to go through this process again, we could continue it to another hearing for the ag department to reevaluate a new proposal.

Nope. That's okay. If if what if you're giving me 166 feet, I will gladly accept it. And if I have to move the pool back or forward or shrink the pool a little bit because, again, in real time, the plan looks fantastic and it works. But in real time, sometimes things do need to be moved counterclockwise or clockwise or

Yeah.

No. We understand that.

Shifted. So but if if my max is one sixty six, then I'll just make sure I adhere to that. I was just wondering if there was any leeway five feet, you know, forward or back or to the side.

Yeah. Like, Lee and the ad commissioner stated, you can go

You could go to one eighty. You could go

to one eighty, but you couldn't go to, like, one or one fifty without Okay. Reevaluating it. And but, again, that's from the water's edge for the ag Mhmm. And bond beam for the permit. So there is that leeway there.

Well, if you're willing to give me a 166, I will gladly take it.

Okay.

Thank you.

And there are no more comments on Zoom.

Alright. Bring it back to the board for comment or a motion.

Yeah. Procedural

question. Does does the board have any authority to make a alternative motion to or is that a bad precedent to send?

Yeah. I think it's within your authority. I mean, it was you know, if the ag department is in agreement, claim is in agreement.

Do what, Chuck?

If you make the if you make the findings that, you know, a greater setback or a greater reduction has the same effect.

So what begs the question. You mentioned water versus concrete. So there is a distinction there. So it's if the pool is built in such a way as the surrounding concrete, obviously, is surrounding the water. So the concrete can be built farther into the

Correct. Yeah. There would yeah. The concrete could be built closer.

It's the water

not It's the water itself is the incompatible use.

Yeah.

I mean, I guess the one question would be, is it still within that hard landscaped area? I mean, that might be the finding that as long as it's within that, you know, that retaining wall, that's already a defined, you know, use area. I don't know. But but it is up to the commission.

Do we know where the one sixty six is in that, lawn area,

Push it one way, but I went with the one sixty six just because of what it said. You know, another nine feet, I think it shows that they're on the map, nine feet, you're gonna be on the garage. So you've gotta have some setback off of the building to start building the pool itself. So that was the assumption I made.

I think that what's been placed in front of you is what you're being asked to Yeah. To make a you know, it's not your recommendation. It's your determination.

Well, I think what Chuck was saying well, could you give them an extra 10 feet if they needed it or something? Or I don't know. What were your what was your thought?

Yeah. But from from looking at this, it doesn't look like that really exists without getting into a building. And Yep. I think, you know, one fifty probably probably does need further staff review. Yeah. Okay.

Well, they're willing to go with the one sixty six. So so is there a motion?

Well, I'll I'll move that we accept staff's recommendation to approve the setback relief to a 166 feet.

K. I'll second that. K. It's been moved and seconded. Please call the roll.

Commissioner Draper, how do you vote? Aye. Commissioner Mansfield, how do you vote? Aye. Commissioner Bolster, how do

you vote?

Aye.

Commissioner Nielsen, how do you vote?

Aye.

Commissioner Walker, how do you vote? Aye. And chair Boerger, how do you vote? Aye. Thank you. The motion passes. Perfect.

Alright. Thank you. Good luck. I hope you make it in the 166 feet.

I will absolutely make it work. Thank you very much, everybody. I appreciate your time and consideration.

K. Just a second. Okay. Thanks, Erin. You're not staying for the rest. I take this floor.

This one over here.

I'm just No. No. No.

I I have to leave. But Oh, no. If you just give me one moment and just thank mister Walker for everything he's done for the county. We we do appreciate you.

Okay. Well, we could while you're here, we could jump that up.

Are you gonna go right into that one?

Sure. Why don't we just do that? So yeah. Let's jump to the to the last one from Lloyd's letter of resignation from the ag commissioner after a few years.

31.

31, you counted him? Okay.

And he agreed to stay on until we find a replacement.

Yeah. Well, the other thing would he would stay on until we get the replacements figured out.

Till he walks out arm in arm with you.

Yeah. Right. Right.

How many days?

How many days?

Well, let me just say a few words. It's been an enjoyable time for me. Do you hear me? Yeah. Okay.

And I remember I started when Ed Delfino was ag commissioner, and I can't recall all of them between, but there were there was quite a few ag commissioners. And and I think we kind of supported all of things as it went along. And I think it's time for me to take care of my health and and sort of fade off into the into the night. Although, as I mentioned in the letter, I am available if it if you can't get the thing filled in a short time period so you're not left with a with a. So and I look around, and and I I look at the folks that were there, and I look at Tim.

And, you know, Howard was on the the commission for a long time. And

And you you two were on in the on the track team at at El Dorado.

Yes. Yeah. We we go back a long ways, and and I even had dark hair at one time. So so so tell Howard that I'm joining the As you As much of as a retirement than farmers can do.

I'll do that, Roy. Okay. Well, same same here. It's been a I've worked with Lloyd since since we started our wine business. It was the first vineyard we we bought grapes from back in the nineteen seventies and continued all the way through. And, it's been a really remarkable experience, and we really appreciate Lloyd's sound judgment in in all the, issues we've had to go through in the ag commission. So and I'm sure we'll have more things to say about him down the road, but, let's just

So Lloyd's official departure is when we fill the seat in June or July. Yeah. Whenever. Thanks. We'll have to bring a bottle of Walker's Infidel to celebrate.

We still have some of that. Yes. Okay. Thank you. You have something to say, man? Sure. I

better do, and I don't wanna get in trouble. Now taking public comment on item two six zero five seven zero. Individuals will have three minutes to address the commission. Public comment will be taken first from those participating in the meeting room and then from those participating through Zoom. K.

Good afternoon, commissioners. Michael Ornally, Farm Bureau. You know, I try not to miss an opportunity to thank all of you for your service. I know that this is time away from your operations, but this is really important business. But a 31 run is really something. I mean, way to show leadership. And, you know, Lloyd, you exemplify the kind of leadership that is done not by loud voices but through your actions and your conduct. We appreciate that. Thank you for your service. Thank you.

Okay. Any any other comments? If not, we'll come back to this board and Lloyd, we'll probably see you at the next meeting nonetheless. But Yes. But the party. That'd be great. Okay. Well, let's

Did you wanna vote on that? No. I'm sorry.

Thank you, ma'am. Yeah.

Okay. Our next item is two six zero five six eight. This is agricultural department recommending the commission receive and file a presentation on glassy winged sharpshooter eradication efforts, and this will be led by Corey Larson.

Good evening, everybody. So I've given you quite a few glassy wing sharpshooter updates over the last many months, but this is the official update that I gave to the board of supervisors back in February. So, I will have some updated numbers that they did not get for you today. To start with, I wanna give you a little bit of background and context, on our glasswing sharpshooter program. Like every almost every county ag department, we do a pest detection program.

So in El Dorado County, for the early detection and eradication of serous agricultural pests, every year, we put out a thousand traps each detection season. So our detection season runs generally between May and October. We put out flies that target invasive or traps that target invasive fruit flies, spongy moss, Japanese beetles, many other things, and, of course, glossy winged sharpshooters. In October 2024, we found two glassy winged sharpshooters on a trap in El Dorado Hills. The picture you see is a glassy winged sharpshooter trap.

This particular trap was one that we found 10 sharpshooters on, and that was after our initial find. This is some pictures of what the glassy winged sharpshooter looks like. The picture on the top left is the egg mass. When they lay their eggs, they do it underneath the leaf cuticle, usually on the bottom of the leaf. So the originally, it just looks like little water blisters on the bottom side of the leaf.

As they mature, they become a little bit more visible. And once they hatch, they leave a very distinguishable scar on the leaf. So even if you don't find the egg mass when it's, before it's emerged, you still know that they've been there because of that scar that they leave behind. Top right picture is a nymph. They got those ugly red beady eyes.

They haven't developed their wings yet. All the bottom pictures are the adult glassy winged sharpshooters. They're about a half inch in length once they're full grown, which is fairly small. But as far as leafhoppers go, it's on the larger size of leafhoppers. They are sap sucking insects, so they put their piercing mouthparts into the plant, and they suck the plant juices.

That's how they feed. The full glassybean sharpshooter life set cycle takes about two months from the time that the eggs are laid through the five nymphal stages, until the adult they reach the adult classy winged sharpshooter. Once they reach the adult stage, they'll spend many months feeding and hopping from plant to plant. They're pretty good flyers, which is a problem, and then they'll start laying eggs again. So we generally get two generations per year.

Some warmer climates will get up to three generations per year. Each female glass moving sharpshooter will lay many, many egg masses, and each egg mass can have 10 to 20 eggs in it. One of my inspectors brought one in the other day that she found, and I think it had, like, 40 eggs in it, which was not fun to see. But luckily, she found it, so we killed it. The biggest issue in why we're targeting glassy wing sharpshooters is because of its ability to vector Pierce's disease.

So Pierce's disease is caused by the bacterium Xylella fastidiosa. Xylella fastidiosa is a bacteria that clogs the water conducting vessels in grapevines. Its symptoms is usually starts by mimicking drought stress, so it'll cause leaf chlorosis. It'll cause the fruit to shrivel and die. A lot of times, you'll see leaf drop at the petiole.

So just the leaf will drop, but not the stem. So they call that, like, match sticking. And then new canes will immature, irregularly. So some will mature faster than the others. Some won't mature.

When Pierce's disease before the link between glassy ring sharpshooters and Pierce's disease was discovered, the Temecula Valley wine region lost about 25% of their grapevines in the first three years. So it will kill grapevines in about two to five years is what they say. So I think the average is about three years. Because the glassy winged sharpshooter feeds is large and it feeds much lower on the grapevines than most sharpshooters, it gets into the vines much lower, and that's why it is hard to prune those infected areas away. And you can't you can't treat Pierce's disease by just federal practices.

There's no cure for Pierce's disease. There's no treatment for Pierce's disease at this point in time. And the bacteria that causes disease is readily prevalent in the environment.

So just eliminating this glasswing structure won't eliminate the disease if they've already infected the vine? Is that

So the disease is in the environment, but the sharpshooters that occur in the environment are so small that they can't infect the vine in a way that will spread the disease. Because the sharpshooter is so large, it feeds lower on the vine and infects it in a way that you can't get rid of the disease. So if you're normally pruning or it's infecting the leaf stems, those will naturally fall off, or you'll prune them away. But if it's feeding below that area that's gonna fall off or get pruned away, now your vine is infected, and you can't do anything about it because there's no other treatment or cure for it.

The infestation at this point is still limited to El Dorado Hills?

Yes. And I'll show you a map so you can get a better idea of where we're doing our treatments. The other issue we have with glasswing sharpshooters is that it will readily feed on over 300 different species of plants. So you walk into any garden center, big box store, any plant you see, they love it. If we're fighting fruit flies, you just target the fruit, the fruit bearing plants.

You're dealing with Asian citrus psyllid, you only have to worry about the citrus trees. With the glassy winged sharpshooter, everything we see, we have to treat. So it's it's a huge undertaking. And the other thing with the glass of green sharpshooter is it's the county's responsibility to deal with it. We don't get help from the state or very minimal help.

Have you seen any sharpshooters on any of the grapevines in people's backyards or anything?

Yes.

Oh, you have? Yeah.

Backyard grapevines. Yeah. We've seen quite a few. Yeah.

Do you do you feel that

we can win on this?

I think we can. I think we're making progress. It's gonna be a long term fight. Solano County is on year five of their eradication, and they've only had one find in the last six months to a year, which is

And they had a problem.

And they had a problem. So it will take time, but we're getting there. So, on this map, the areas in the bright blue, that's the Southern California area that is infested to the point where it won't be eradicated. That's where it was initially found. It was probably brought to California on landscaping material from the East Coast.

I started my career in the ag commissioner role twenty years ago in Orange County, so my job at that point was inspecting nursery stock that was being shipped to Northern counties to make sure it was free of plastic and sharpshooter. Now I'm on the other side, and I'm inspecting nursery stock that gets here to make sure it's free of glassy winged sharpshooters. So it the Southern California region is where a huge amount of landscaping material is grown, which is an issue because they're fully infested with class wing sharpshooter. But all of those nurseries are regularly inspected, regularly treated. All the material is inspected before it leaves, and then it's supposed to be inspected when it gets to our county.

In El Dorado County, we inspect everything that comes up. Not every county does that just based on how many shipments they get, but we do. And then, again, we do the detection trapping. So every year, we put up traps and make sure that we haven't missed anything, and that's how we found our current infestation. Now that we do have an infestation, we're in our eradication mode.

So the first step with eradication is we just throw out a huge amount of traps. We do delimitation. So we put traps everywhere within, I think it's a half mile of the original find, and we keep adding traps out, once we find more and more just to see how far the limits of the infestation goes. We're doing biocontrol agents, which I'll show you a little bit more on that, and then the biggest part is urban treatments.

Quick quick question. Uh-huh. The Solano County infection, was that in an urban setting similar to ours, or was that in one of their agricultural

That was in a urban setting similar to ours. So it was in Vacaville.

Okay.

It was I think it's Browns Valley, I think it was.

Okay.

I actually went out there and followed their treatment team around for a day once we found our infestation. It's a older development. They didn't have quite as much host material as Serrano does, but it was, like, a residential area. Of the five counties doing erratic testing right now, it's us, Solano, Kings County, Stanislaus, and Santa Clara. Santa Clara is the newest infestation.

We have the distinguished I don't know how to phrase this, but we are the farthest north. We are the largest, and we are have spent the most money. And we will probably continue to be that.

What is the move how how do they spread? I mean, do they fly and they can

They they do fly. They're good flyers, but more than likely, they're moving on plant material.

Really? So they're basically staying where they are on the plant material in these residential areas? They're not, like, flying up to, Gold Hill or something?

No. I don't think they would fly that far. I think that from what I've read, the scientific literature is they'll fly up to maybe a few 100 feet at a time, and that's mostly based on, like, the population density of whatever they're feeding on and then, just based on what host material is around. For some reason, they love crape myrtles, and I I'm not sure what that is about, but Serrano is filled with crape myrtles everywhere. They usually overwinter in citrus, which there's not a lot of citrus.

There's a few backyard trees, and then grapes, of course, they love. And then there's some other plants, fotinias, privets, stuff like that, that they really seem to gravitate towards. But, really, anything that they can get their proboscis into, they're gonna feed on it and lay their eggs on. So

Serrano's like Disneyland.

Yeah. Probably landscape maintenance crews probably can move them if they're bringing brush from side to side. Or

I feel three. I feel like that's probably a good pathway for movement. CDFA does not particularly agree with us. They if it was an Asian citrus psyllid, they make green waste movers sign compliance agreements about moving green waste.

Mhmm.

With glassy wing structure, they don't do that. So we're taking it on our own to pepper any landscapers that we see with literature about covering their loads, not moving green waste off properties, that kind of stuff. Because as I'll show you on the map, it started in Serrano, and then we've had these little pocket infestations at Town Center, South Of 50 in the Blackstone community and the 4 Seasons community. And I'm thinking, okay. If you're a landscaper in Serrano and you're taking your lunch break at Town Center at McDonald's and then you're going to do some more landscaping in 4 Seasons or Blackstone, to me, that makes sense that that may have been the movement. I have no idea. I can't prove it.

Yeah.

But

Have you, you inspect all of the, nursery stock that comes in. Have you found any sharpshooters on any of the nursery stock coming in?

We have not. Okay.

No. I think, historically, the only thing we found are dead egg masses, because they spray everything that gets treated. Okay. A lot of our nursery stock has grown in those blue areas that she has on her slide. Yeah. And so they are in a quarantine area where they have, like, netting up, and they spray them with are they using what are they using now for?

Admire or one of those?

Usually, they have to use well, it depends on where it's being shipped to. If you're going to, like, Napa, they make you use seven. But, usually, it's either imidacloprid or carburil.

So

But they get treated. They have to be treated within a certain time period before they're shipped. They get checked on that end. Some counties don't check every plant, but we do. We check every shipment that comes in. But do we miss some?

And, I mean, there's always the chance that someone's, you know, visiting visiting Kern Kern County and sees a great deal on landscaping plants, just loads up the back of their pickup and starts driving at five or ninety nine and starts planting. So those are the issues that we have. I was at a, Pierce's Disease GWS board meeting, so they have, like, a lot of funding for research and stuff that goes through the state. And the board members asked every ag commissioner representative from the five counties that are doing eradication. Like, well, how did your infestation start? Nobody can pinpoint it. There's you know, it's hard to say.

Well, hopefully, you're on the top of it.

We're trying. Let me just run through these last slides. You guys know wine grapes is a huge threat, so we're trying to stop it for that. So our quarantine areas so the CDFA determined that we need to make a quarantine. So the quarantine area pretty much does all of El Dorado Hills, a little bit of Rescue, a little bit of Cameron Park.

It's much bigger than our actual treatment area. So this is our treatment area, the little pink outlines. Below 50 right below 50, that's our town center. Close to the Sac County line, that's the 4 Seasons community. And then further down near Latrobe Road, that's Blackstone. We've done treatments in those areas. And since we found our initial finds, we haven't found any more glassine retributors in those areas. We're gonna continue monitoring them for at least the next year, if not longer. And, hopefully, we knock those out, and it will stay that way. But Serrano, we continue to find sharpshooters.

So we're continuing to treat, and we will keep spending as much money as we can to treat as much as we can.

Be being that we're right on the border with Sacramento, there's been contact with Sacramento's office, and any maybe prospecting traps on the other side of the border to make sure we don't have a Yeah. Cross border situation?

Yeah. I speak regularly with the Sacramento County, deputy commissioner who's in charge of detection and that sort of stuff, and, the commissioner herself, Leanne, has regular contact with. They do have traps up along that line. David, their deputy commissioner, is probably gonna come out like I did with Salon County and shadow our treatments just to in case it gets to that point, they're ready to go. We have regular meetings with CDFA, and we invite neighboring counties to participate in those meetings so they're aware of what's going on, where we're finding things, and what we're doing to keep.

The South County Act Commissioner did send us a a a picture of a cyclone fence with, lots of structured traps all the way along and trying to catch up with.

Keep your pest in your county.

Found funding for you.

Have you had cooperation from the homeowners, or are you getting pushback?

I'll talk about that a little bit. I'll kinda skip through this part. We we do reach out to the homeowners. We've had two public meetings. One was in January 2025. The other one was in January 2026. Yeah. We sent out 20,000 postcards to residents. The first meeting, we had a 150 people participate. The second one, we had two people participate, and one of them was supervisor Turnbull.

So not a great turnout for those. We have reached out to, 3,700 residents with consent forms by door knocking, mailing onto them, often multiple times. We've gotten about 1,500 back, so we've not heard from over 2,000 people. So it's not great. We're still trying to come up with other ways to get people to respond to us, But we need to have consent forms on file at this point to treat their properties.

At this point, it is voluntary. The problem is every house we don't treat is a reservoir for the glassy winged sharpshooter to repopulate the area. People have refused, but we've only gotten, like, a 150 refusals. It the biggest issue is the people who just won't respond.

She we Corey had somebody work overtime all day on a Saturday just to go knock on doors to try and see if people would be home during on the weekend. It didn't get much better response.

Yeah. So we are doing treatments. The treatments are really fast. It takes, like, ten minutes. We are working with Neighborly Pest Management to do the treatments. That's who our contract is with. They're really great to work with, very professional. They have done a lot of glassy winged sharpshooter treatments for other counties, so they are really experienced in these kinds of treatments. And we always have a biologist from our staff on-site during the treatments, so they're monitoring the treatments as well. We're doing two different kinds of treatments.

So we're doing systemic treatments using MERIT two f with which is imidacloprid. So it's the same active ingredient, like, in Advantage Flea Control. We inject that into the soil at the base of host plants. It takes four to six weeks for the plants to absorb it and translocate it out to the very tips of the plants. And then as soon as a sap sucking insect feeds on that plant, it will die.

So that treatment will last anywhere from, like, nine to twelve months into the plant. So that offers us really good long term control. The other treatment we do is called Altus. It's a foliar treatment, so we're literally doing a normal spray treatment. People are more concerned about this treatment, but it's considered more pollinator friendly, so it targets sap sucking insects. So people who are concerned about the honeybees and stuff, it's supposed to be more friendly for those. But we're always on-site. If it's windy or, you know, kids are out running around, we cancel the treatments. We'll reschedule them for another day.

Of course, 03:00 in the morning, and Cora's working on a Saturday.

Yeah. I've done that. Again, biocontrol agents, they're teeny, teeny, teeny tiny wasps. They target the eggs of the bois. We had released 6,500 of them. I just got a shipment of them today, so I have a thousand of them sitting in the office that we're gonna release tomorrow. They are microscopic, almost. They're, like, a millimeter in size. They're tiny. They're stainless, and they target the egg masses.

So they help, but they won't eradicate it on their own. And then here are my old numbers for 2025, but for as of today, we have treated 1,074 residential properties. And then we've done a lot of common areas, roadside vegetation, parks, that kind of stuff. As I said earlier, we've done 3,700 consent forms. We've gotten over 1,500 back, a 150 refusals. And the biggest number is treatments. We have spent over $2,900,000 on just treatment costs.

In what time

period? Since in just over a year. And since our entire department budget is about $3,000,000, that's kind of a lot of money. 2,000,000?

Oh, that was 3. No.

You've been managing more money than I do.

I have about about $1,000,000 left, and I will definitely spend all of that by the June, if not sooner. And then we'll have to get more money to keep going throughout the rest of the year. And that's all emergency funding from CDFA.

So we've been doing the snow dance in our apartment. It hasn't worked downtown River Hills,

but yeah,

we need a goal

Yeah. To help. Okay.

That That's it.

Anybody have questions? Or very good report. Thank you.

Wish you could be happier. You guys should see what she gave to the board because it looks really good.

Oh, good. Yep.

And it would give you guys an overview, and I think most of you guys see it.

50% response rate actually isn't too bad. Positive. That's more than you

would me. I need better.

Well, of course.

She's having to stop working really hard, so. Yes. So do you have

Do you have traps up in our agricultural areas? I mean, like, I have traps on my vineyard that monitors this as well. I mean

Yes. So we have traps out all year round in the Eldorado Hills for our delimitation, and then we're gonna we do our regular, detection traps May to May to October, and we're gonna keep doing that. So for most other counties, they're shortening the season for the GWSS regular trapping to, like, June to October, but we told them, no. That's we're not doing that. That's not okay. We're we're keeping ours where it is, and you're gonna keep paying us to do that because we're we're not okay with that. So

And we've had that trapping line out there. As long as I twenty four years in the department, we've been hanging west twist traps Right. All over the county. Right. So that will continue.

Yeah. I think I've got three or four on on mine alone.

Yes. I mean, we have staff that just run some of the vineyards. Yep.

And they will it will trap the glassy wings, sharpshooter as well. Yeah. Should they fly into it? Yeah.

They they're the yellow traps that you see.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Anything else? Okay. Of course. Thank you very much. Carry the.

Yes. I can. Okay.

Okay. Let's see. What else do we have?

We have item number 260569. Let me make sure there aren't any people that wanted to nope. No hands out there. And that's for the ag lodging update, and Karen will take over for that.

Alright. Thank you. Good evening. Corey's pulling up a PowerPoint, but, I just wanted to give an update on ag lodging. I'm sure I know some of you have been directly involved, and all of you may have heard, staff's been working on ag lodging and a lot of questions surrounding that. You know, what is it? What is it going to be? How does this match with some of the other things, the efforts the county is doing on VHRs, vacation home rentals, ADUs, and those types of things. So I wanted to give you an update, let you know where we're at.

Would you just introduce your title? Sorry. So

Yeah. Yeah. So Thank you for that reminder. So I'm Karen Garner. I'm the planning and building director.

And you've been working on this program?

Leanne and I have been working to together on on this. So yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So I'll start off, in fact, with, on the next slide, the actions that have been leading up to this.

And, actually, as we were doing some research, we found there was a a board item back in 2017 that talked about enhanced agritourism opportunities. And so we're kinda looking back at that to see I I don't think much ever actually went into effect. It was a discussion, and it sort of went nowhere at that point. But we're looking back at that discussion at that time to see if there's some things we can pull out of that. In September 2024,

the

myself and Leanne were directed to work with the ag community on an ag lodging model. And in July 2025, both of us met with several representatives to discuss ag lodging. I'm gonna go over the outcome of that conversation in just a moment. And then shortly thereafter, about a month later in August 2025, the county, administrative officer and with the budget ad hoc committee provided the board some information regarding revenue generating options. And one of the ones that was mentioned was this idea agricultural home stays or ag lodging as a a way to boost county revenues.

So when Leanne and I talked to an ag group back in July, We talked about if we had some ag lodging opportunities, what would be the outcomes that we wanted to see, what are some of the problems we would wanna avoid, and if there was any other issues we wanted to look at and explore further. So I'll talk about the outcomes first. Increased transient occupancy tax or or basically hotel tax was one outcome that we'd like to to see, also increased sales tax and property tax. So we recognize, for example, that you wanna go out to taste wines in Somerset area. If you want to stay overnight, you're gonna have to travel at least all the way back to El Dorado Hills or Folsom.

There's no convenient, lodging opportunities unless there are things like vacation home rentals or ag lodging. And so, you know, we think it's important to provide those opportunities because once you have people, and can sort of capture them in the area, they might not only do wine tasting, they'll hit up local restaurants, maybe do some other activities as well. Other outcomes, performance based outcomes, so, being able to measure and really look at and make sure that it's a positive effect that we're having. One of the key wins was, of course, to preserve ag land and its viability. Having ag lodging is not at least the the feedback was not intended to, replace true ag operations, but to supplement income, support ag operations.

In fact, we had conversations about really, doing things that, encourage more investment into ag. Another outcome was whatever, program is put in place that there's clear qualifications, things like checklists checklist and matrix so that people can clearly understand what they can and can't do, but then also have some flexibility, not be so rigid, because we know there are unique situations out there that need to be addressed. We would want it to support other industries and create jobs, again, you know, restaurants, recreation. We'd want another outcome is less pressure on our farmers to sell or change from ag use and even increase the value of ag land. Another outcome was to create a pathway for unpermitted or, long standing structures to be used for ag lodging.

And then also if you, do have a permitted accessory dwelling unit or ADU on your property, is there an opportunity to use that for ag lodging because the restrictions and rules in place for ADUs might not work for ag lodging. Another outcome was to consider those who are leasing ag land and make sure that they can benefit from the program as well, not just the owners of the land, and then make sure we have consistent messaging on this to combat misinformation. Problems to avoid that were identified were to make sure we're not creating a competitive environment or potential conflict between ag landowners. And I think that's especially important when you're looking at if someone does choose to have ag lodging as an example, but maybe the next door neighbor does not and wants to continue ag operations without any worries of of, you know, having lodging facility next door, make sure we address that. Another problem to avoid is buffers, recognizing that most ag properties are larger, and so the buffers that are we use for vacation home rentals, you know, maybe something different is in order for ag lodging.

Again, make sure there's no substantial impact on neighbors, and wanna make sure that the approach doesn't discourage investment. And one, idea, behind that was just to keep it simple. If it's too complicated, too lengthy of a process, people aren't gonna wanna take advantage of that. And then one idea to explore further, is to you know, this idea of of combining some of these things. So we've got, you know, branch marketing, winery ordinance, vacation home rentals, ADUs, ag lodging.

The thought was we don't necessarily want someone to be able to combine all those things and and really have a lot of different things going on on a property, none of which are truly ag issues. So, you know, we don't wanna have special events and lodging and, marketing events and an ADU on the property. No specifics on exactly where that line is, but I think that's something we, again, wanna explore further. So some of the models that we've looked at, one in particular is in Santa Barbara County. They call it an agricultural enterprise ordinance, and it's been in effect for about a year and a half.

It took them I think it was about five years to put it together, and it really addresses more than just ag lodging. It it is it would be akin to if we were to combine our branch marketing and winery ordinance and ag lodging all under one ordinance. And then it also even includes, low impact camping, and I'll talk a little bit more about that, in a bit. So I was at a conference earlier this year and and got to speak directly to the folks in Santa Barbara County that put that ordinance together. And I I think it's a good model for us.

There are certainly some differences. Santa Barbara County, as I'm sure you know, has much larger ag operations, larger acreage, and so some of their regulations and rules reflect that larger acreage. But there was a lot of good that, good things and lessons learned, learned from their mistakes, if you will, that I think we could apply here in El Dorado County. And then Placer County just recently, the board, this is just a couple, a few weeks ago, voted to, spend about, $550,000 on what they're calling their agriculture agriculture resilience initiative. Most of that was grant funded, and and this effort includes a lot of different things.

They're doing, economic analysis and looking at ag land conversion risk assessment, ag land protection prioritization, preservation of and incentive structures. But they are looking at housing needs, and they are looking at marketing and tourism. So they're just kicking that off. It it it includes some things we're not necessarily looking at right now, but it's it's I kind of prefer to be a little bit behind where they are and, again, learn from their mistakes and as they go through that process. Alright.

So what is next? Leanne and I are are gonna be talking to a few groups. And next week, I'll be talking to the economic development, the seed committee about this as well. But we'll be going to in front of the board and talking about this with them and seeking their direction on little more defined of where we wanna go with this. So, you know, we can we can do sort of a simple change where we just add, ag lodging, you know, look at our existing ag lodging that exists in our zoning code, make some tweaks to that, and, you know, allow for a little more flexibility than maybe what's in there right now.

Or we can do something a little more comprehensive again akin to the Santa Barbara model where, you know, rather than have ag lodging ordinance over here and ranch marketing here and winery and, you know, pulling it all together under one ordinance, I think that would simplify it. But, of course, that effort probably take a little more time, so we have to weigh, the pros and cons of that. There are some environmental considerations, CEQA. We have the ability to make some changes under environmental documents that have already been done. So an example of that is we already have ag lodging as a a use in our zoning code.

It's just outdated. It it there's never been a program per se that's been matched up with that zoning code, so, we can tweak it. That the analysis that was done when that was put into the ordinance back in the last comprehensive zoning code update, that environmental analysis took that into consideration. So as long as we're not doing something above and beyond what was assumed there, and and I'm I'm talking about things like how much traffic is it gonna generate and how you know, air quality effects and things like that, the environmental effects. We're fine.

If we were to do something significantly different than what was looked at before, we would need to do another environmental analysis. And that would take a lot more time and, frankly, a lot more cost. Environmental review is not cheap, and it's not something that we have money sitting around waiting for. We'd have to determine where that funding comes from. So that will be one of the things that plays into this as well.

We'll talk to the board about outreach. So once we get some direction from the board, I think that's when we really kick off doing outreach to, not only the ag groups, but, you know, those that have any interest, you know, those that live out in the ag areas, and really make sure we understand on some of these issues where they where they are comfortable. So things like was talking about setbacks. We could change the way we do setbacks. And in our current vacation home rental, the setbacks are measured from property line to property line when we're talking about distance between two properties that have a vacation home rental.

That might not make sense for ag land when you've if you have two forty acre parcels next to each other. So do we look at setbacks maybe from any sensitive uses to the proposed ag lodging use? So someone's got ag lodging on their property. If your next door neighbor's house is a 100 feet away, maybe that's okay. But you don't want a situation where they're probably right next to each other on either side of our property line.

So we can consider things like that and get feedback, what people think is is reasonable. As was mentioned before, we wanna create a pathway for conversion of accessory dwelling units, or something. We'll be asking the board if they want us to do this pathway for accessory dwelling units to be converted to ag lodging or, unpermitted structures. We know they're out there. We're we're not actively pursuing enforcement.

But if someone has a structure like a a barn that they converted and they're renting that out, it's never been permitted through our building division. It makes me nervous to know that, you know, someone converted a space for a living and is renting it out, and it's never been inspected before. It's probably okay. But we actually had, not that long ago, just a few months ago, in Tahoe, it was VHR that burned down, and it was an illegal VHR. It was when we had actually had on our radar screen and had code enforcement had sent notices out to.

And because of the wiring that was done that had never been inspected, it was obviously bad wiring, and it burned down to the ground. We don't want those situations. We do have a model, we call our amnesty program, that we, use for other structures that creates this pathway that if you voluntarily come forward and say, hey. I've got this, structure that I built without a permit, we create a pathway to get it permitted, give people time. It includes doing an inspection just to make sure there's no immediate life safety things, like faulty bad wiring.

And so long as it kind of passes that initial life safety, review, then we'll give them time to come in with a set of plans and get that structure permitted. And then with ADUs, it's a little trickier. There's a lot to research there. But if you had recently built an accessory dwelling unit, you probably took advantage of state codes that would not have required you to pay all the fees that you would normally pay for a dwelling unit. And it's the state's way of encouraging affordable housing.

The intent, even though it's not required by the state, the intent was affordable housing. You're talking long term longer term rentals, not vacation home rentals, short term rentals. So there's some considerations there, but we're going to ask the board, do you want us to explore ways that people could if they built something that was an ADU, but maybe they really meant for it to be more of like ag ag lodging that we create a pathway that may include they're gonna have to go back and repay those fees, like water connection fees and traffic impact fees that they may not have been charged, but again, create that opportunity to do that. There is a lot of sometimes confusion and a little bit of overlap between things like vacation home rentals, ag lodging, and ADUs. All these efforts were are are you know, I'm talking to staff, and and we're gonna try and be very clear about where that overlap is and where there's where they are distinct to make sure it's clear.

Ultimately, at the end of the day, if we do come up with ag lodging program, we're making a few, minor tweaks to our vacation home rental. Just clear information that's out there. You know, again, checklist or a matrix that says, I want to do this thing. I can I can do it with ag lodging, or I can't do it with ag lodging? I can do it through a vacation home rental, or I can't.

So people can see if they know what it is they want to do on their property, see what that pathway is. Again, I'll be sharing this information with our economic development committee next week. I've tentatively scheduled April 28 to go to the board with this request. I'm gonna do my darndest to get there, but with deadlines, I think I've got two more days to finish up that staff report and get it out. So wish me luck on that. With that, love to hear any questions, feedback that you have.

Karen, what what do you

envision the process after you go to the board? What is the process from there?

The process will be, first and foremost, outreach, because I think there will be some issues that, you know, we want to get feedback on. We may think we know the answer, but, you know, never, should make that assumption and wanna go out and and get feedback on, again, things like setbacks. You know, what are people comfortable with? And, again, Santa Barbara had a great model on that. They did some surveying as well, not just, you know, going to meetings, but sending out surveys that people can answer to make sure we get that feedback.

From that feedback, then we can begin to craft what ag lodging ordinance would look like. We then would go back to the board and do what's called a resolution of intent. That's a requirement that says, hey, board. We're gonna create this ordinance, and here's more specifically what we think the components would be. So, you know, it's almost like a draft draft ordinance at that point.

That would then we take the time to, you know, draft it up and then sort of go around and and make sure this is what everybody, you know, agrees on before we return to the board with the final request.

So I know historically, after being a veteran of all the growth wars and general plan updates and so forth, historically, I know the ag community, we've remodel that's been very successful from the 2004 general plan update through the ordinance up recent update updates of our two ordinances, the winery and ranch marketing has been the working group model where we have two supervisors meet with us, planning staff and the ag stakeholders. And we go through those gory details of the ordinance, and that process has resulted in ordinances that the board has voted on and accepted. So I my observation is it's a model that works, and and and we certainly should should look at that because ag lodging is gonna be a critical critical piece for the ag community going forward given the struggles of our wine community, the vineyard industry, our our newest latest winery foreclosure, the Charles Mitchell winery in South County, one of our legacy wineries that at one point, he was Charles, I think, was selling seven, eight thousand cases of wine. The bank now owns that. And so anybody that's been down a fair play in the last, gosh, the last six months or the last year, it's it's a ghost town.

And and I think ag lodging is gonna be a critical piece in preserving those ag lands out there in in the in the entire county for that matter.

Yeah. Thank you.

Okay. Any other question? Your definition of ag lands for ag lodging, does it include all categories of ag lands in the county?

That is a good question that we have talked about.

It it would

Leanne, you remind me of some of these conversations. Some of the smaller, the residential mix, you know, ag what is that zoning that

So ag zoning, what we talked about is there's ag zoning that gets right to farm protections that is allowed really the production agriculture, Apple Hills mostly. It's AG, planned ag in LA. RL also allows, agricultural production, but it's not and you can, in some instances, do the winery ordinance. There is some maybe ranch marketing, but it doesn't give you the right to farm protections. It doesn't give you all that.

So, I think that's still to be seen. I think right now, we're looking at the Ag zone lens. And currently, our and I I apologize for stepping out. One of our, dogs, for our large animal trapper, it was in distress and needed an emergency vet appointment. So I'm I apologize for that.

But our you know, right now, our current ordinance, you have an egg homestay where the the person has to stay inside the house where you're you're staying, or you have, like, lodging where you gotta qualify for the Williams and Act contract. Most other counties, including Santa Barbara, they have a I mean, Santa Barbara's, like, a 40 acre minimum, which represents their and they have no special events. Not allowed. But they do allow that that lodging and things like that. I think that a lot of them have that income ratio.

We are more permissive than most. I hear out there, you know, that we're not, but I had staff do kind of a deep dive, and Amador County allows it in their district. Well, if you look at their district that they allowed in, it's that area, and we're all familiar with it where all the wineries are. They're all around each other. So if you have special events there, you don't really impact anybody.

So I I think kinda going back to your your question, you know, it's it's a question we've had too and might be another good one to do outreach on. I mean, I think at a minimum, for sure, the the zone properties that have the right to farm, for sure, it would apply to them, whether it would apply to rural lands. Maybe it's only some of a certain size, or maybe it's only some that, you know?

Could still qualify for a Williamson

Act. I

know that's a that's a tough one. Yeah. I think that we've batted around because there's a lot of RL around that's mixed in with RE five and which is residential estate.

What what we're we we wanna avoid are some of the issues we've had with the ranch marketing where, you know, we say that you've gotta have a five acre minimum viable viable crop, and they come in at 4.99999 of somewhat viable crop or not really viable crop. That puts us in a you know, Leanne certainly and us, it it's it's just

Well, they never harvest a product. They do no marketing events.

Again, the the focus on this is really to help true agricultural operations. And yeah.

Your your question is how the land's zoned, not the what you're growing. Or

Right. And

I think looking at what we have going on currently and trying to make it so, you know, there's stuff going on that that isn't causing problems, isn't an issue, is helping the growers, bringing in income so that they don't have to turn to alternative things. How do we get them on a legal pathway? And then on the other end, get TOT into the county to help us.

Any questions from the audience? I'm sure Mike might. Mike?

Jeez. A reputation. Commissioners, Michael Ornally, Farm Bureau. I do appreciate the update. It is a subject that is, on the minds of many folks in agriculture, particularly those who are struggling.

I think commissioner Draper asked a really good question. You know, when our general plan and our comprehensive zoning ordinance update was done in the 2015 time frame, there were three or four categories of agricultural lodging that was designated on agricultural lands. But I've been saying this everywhere. I have an opportunity. Even lodging in the rural areas that's not on agricultural lands is still helpful to agriculture.

Because if somebody visits the community and they and perhaps they went, mountain bike riding and they were hate they had the opportunity to spend a night. The probability of them going to Apple Hill or going to a winery is there. And so, when we accommodate lodging even off agricultural land, so long as it meets the standards, that is helpful to agriculture. It's also helpful to to to, recreation, which is a large pillar of our economy. So I think it's important as we move forward, particularly in the near term, to understand that study that was done in '20 in in 2015 so we can understand what fall what can fall within the environmental work that we've already done, already paid for.

And then outside of that, it helps you to determine then what is the scope of anything else. Because if you don't get that first piece, it's hard to determine what the scope of a larger or even a pared down version of another environmental environmental work. So that's really vitally critical in my opinion. I wanna make a comment on the vacation home rental. You know, in Tahoe, having an owner on-site is the gold standard in Tahoe.

Now it it it it's rare because their parcels are smaller, and vacation home rentals tend to be in a residential area. But it's the gold standard because if the owner is present on the property, they're more likely to know rules of a bare box. They're likely to know the rules of parking on the street so that, snowplows can do their job, the rules of a hot tub, noise, and they're more considerate with what's happening in their neighborhood. Here on the West Slope on larger parcels, you know, any any ordinance that has language that you must occupy the owner must occupy a room in the house completely eliminates any opportunity for a detached unit, which is a large majority of so the property owner could actually be living on-site, not in a room, but living on-site where a a vacation home rental was providing supplemental income. And they have that same utility of being present and knowing what's happening.

Ex auxiliary dwelling units. You know, we used to call them granny flats. It was adopted with our original general plan. And that ordinance has been difficult for the county to maintain because as state law has come about necessitating ADUs in additional housing options, The the position that's put El Dorado County is, you know, we started with that, and now we have to make sure that those ordinance remained aligned with the state. And that's no small task, I think, for our planning department, and I just don't wanna overlook the significance of that.

But granny flats is a really you know? I mean, how many of us know someone who had a elderly parents living in a granny flat on their unit and still participated in the family farming, still brought know how to the operational aspects of farming, but eventually, we all pass. Now that unit is was built and intended for one use, but now cannot be used in another income generating fashion. That just that that's just the wrong vector for a healthy agricultural community. So, you know, I I I wanna say, I understand that there's complexities with auxiliary dwelling units.

It's important that they meet the life and safety aspects, but they're a very important part of this of this equation. I do appreciate the comments on the process. You know, the the economic committee seed has created, I think, three members to be an ad hoc to participate in this process. I think your commission has identified two members to participate. It would be really helpful from a process standpoint as we have done successfully in the past to see those two committee ad hocs working together with staff.

And it certainly benefits staff when you get to the point where you're bringing a recommendation to either this commission, planning commission, board of supervisors, that you now have people who participated in the process sufficiently enough that they understand why not all things can be done at one time. And so it can benefit staff by saying, we agree that should be done, but we also acknowledge it can't be done today, or it can't be done within the scope of an environmental study or the scope of our budget or any budget. So I I I do wanna encourage that process. It's worked before, and it is beneficial to staff when it's done correctly. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Mike.

Anyone else? If not, any any more questions from thank you very much, Ken. Appreciate all the work you're doing. Thank you, Ken. Keep us posted. Yeah.

Thank you,

Okay. Thank you. Keep keep me posted on that. I don't I forget about it. Okay. Leanne, do we have any staff update? Sorry.

I got so sidetracked by oh, it's good.

The

Department of Pesticide Regulation just released their yearly update on well testing. And for 2025, they tested 32 wells in El Dorado County. Their their report is online. It shows every county in the state. Amador had positives. We had no positives of the pesticides that they test for. They test for, known groundwater polluters. And so that I thought that was pretty exciting. I was gonna reach out to the water agency if see if somehow that might help them with their low threat waiver.

Did they check for nitrogen as well?

I no. It's just the pesticides. It's pesticides. And it's usually the groundwater polluters. Atrazine, you know, things like that.

Couple legislations that I wanna let you know about. SB twelve thirty two, that's Alvarado Gill's Mountain Lion Bill. That's the bill that would update 40 o eight zero seven in the fish and game code in regards to mountain lions. It I I'm not very optimistic that it's gonna make it through the process because it is asking for it would ask for a significant amount of funding to have more positions within California Department of Fish and Wildlife. They would take on kind of the model that we do.

I meet monthly with California Department of Fish and Wildlife with the sheriff. It would require them to meet monthly with counties to update them on what's going on, you know, what's going on around their counties. It would have them hire more human wildlife conflict biologists. So there's a lot of funding that would go on with it. There would be probably some free, what's it called?

Hound hound work to tree and free, kind of thing going on. But I think with the funding, way the state budget is right now, I I think that's gonna probably hamper that one. Just another one I thought was interesting. This is really a weights and measures bill is AB seventeen ninety three. This would it's it's the way that it's written.

This bill would enact the Californians for Common Sense Act to require a merchant for this is all about pennies. Right? For a transaction paid with legal tender to determine the total price of goods or services by rounding to the nearest amount divisible by five as specified. The bill would define legal tender as all coins and currencies of The United States. And it would there were rules that we promulgated, by the commissioner of financial protection if this one makes it through.

DPR. Right now, this one isn't really gonna affect you guys, but the only pest control bill right now that is really going anywhere is AB twenty three eighty. That would raise, authorize the board of supervisors of any county to raise the maximum registration fees for a pest control business from, up to $75. So so that it could potentially raise fees for pest control businesses. We just updated our fee resolution, and this would be going.

So I don't anticipate that this would happen very quickly if it did happen. Chris Flores from Sacramento County pushed to have this one go through, so she got, upon to to take it on. Other than that, I really don't have a lot. We've lost a staff member, and we have been, she had a baby and decided to stay home and be a mom, which is pretty exciting. But we've been hiring for that position, and the agricultural commissioner's position is is open right now and will close at the end of the month. More to come because usually there is a panel that includes some of you guys, and I'm I'm working with HR on that.

So I'll keep this I'll keep you updated. Yeah. Appreciate it.

And that's all I have. Okay. Correspondence? No. Nothing. We have two items already for the Mamie. One of them is a big one. So

Okay. You'll you'll You'll see it coming. To us.

We haven't got a site visit yet.

So Okay. Okay. Alright. Okay. Very good. Thank you. And with nothing else, we're adjourned.