Parks and Recreation Commission - Regular Meeting

We're good.

Danny going to be here.

Do a quick test. Can you guys all tap your mics?

Test, test. I don't want to break them. We're probably going to get sued now.

Just be careful. A lot of new faces up here. Am I in the right room?

I know. Young bodies, young and energetic.

Hopefully. Hopefully.

OK. Good, go.

Ready?

Yes.

Meeting is called to order. Before we get to item number one on the agenda, it's a pleasure to introduce our new Ag Commissioner, Jessie Fowler. Welcome, Jessie. I should say welcome back.

Thank you. It's wonderful to be here, and I look forward to working with everyone here.

Absolutely. Thank you, Jessie. I'd also like to introduce our newest Ag Commission member, Derek Delfino.

Welcome, Derek. Thank you. I'm excited. Yeah. Thanks for having me. A little background on me. My name is Derek Delfino. Like Dave said, I'm one of the owners of Delfino Farms at EO Vineyards. Just excited to be on the commission during my time here. Hope to not only preserve our ag and timberlands, but help those two industries thrive and reach a level that I think we all know they're capable of reaching. So thank you.

Excellent. Thank you, Derek. Welcome. Okay. Let's get on to item number two, adoption of the agenda and consent calendar.

We're going to go with item number one because we do not have an official chair.

Oh, details.

Yeah, details. And we need to do that first.

You passed the first test, you notice.

Oh.

So let's get to item number one, the election of the chair and vice chairman for the Ag Commission.

I'd like to make a motion. I think based on your experience as vice chair, your tenure on the board, I think it's the natural choice to nominate Commissioner Bolster as the chairman. And since we need a new vice chair, I think it'd be a benefit to the county at this time if we gave livestock a little higher profile. And so I'd like to nominate Commissioner Nielsen as vice chair.

I'll second that.

Very good. We have a motion and a second. Verna?

Yes, you do. I'm gonna go ahead and call roll. Yikes. Commissioner Jones, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Tong, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Mansfield, how do you vote?

Yes.

And Commissioner Draper, how do you vote? Aye. And Commissioner Delfino, how do you vote? Yes. And Chair Bolster, how do you vote?

Aye. Yes.

Mansfield, I'm sorry. No, I got it.

You didn't call me.

Oh, but you're the vice chair, and you can fire me. Nelson, I'm sorry. How do you vote? Aye. Thank you. Okay.

After we gave the kennel people a lot of love, now we.

I'm so sorry I did that.

Well, thank you, Chuck. Very good. Do I get a pay raise or what?

If you move to the other side of your property, I can get you a few pennies.

Very good. Thanks, guys. Okay, now on to the approval of minutes. Item two, approval of minutes and our consent calendar. I need a motion.

Aye. Second. We'll let Mr. Jones have it.

Okay, we have a motion and a second. Myrna?

Okay, and you can vote for all because you can do. Call for the question. Yes, call for all.

Okay, very good. Those in favor of the motion?

Aye.

Aye. Very good. Okay, motion passes. Next item is public forum. Myrna?

Public forum is the opportunity for members of the public to address the commission on subject matter that is not on their meeting agenda and within their jurisdiction. Public comments during public forum are limited to three minutes per person. The commission chair may limit public comments during public forum. And then I will also, are there any people in the board that would like to speak?

Any comments on items not on the agenda?

And, Chair, I do not have any hands raised out in the gallery.

Very good. Thank you, Myrna. Okay, let's move on to item number three, administrative relief for ag setbacks, for an agricultural setback. Myrna, do you want to introduce that?

This is item 26-1352. This is ADM 260098. This is Aloe Agricultural Setback Administrative Relief from Agricultural Setback for Single Family Dwelling Assessor's Parcel Number 093-032-016-000. And this is LaVita from the Planning Department.

Very good, ma'am. Are you the applicant?

No, I'm from the planning department. It should be recording.

I tested it.

Jesse, are you or Tom presenting the item or are we ready for planning?

You are. Oh, it is. Okay. Sorry about that. Good afternoon, Ag Commission. My name is Ladiva. I'm with the Planning Division. Through Administrative Permit ADM 26-0098, the applicant is requesting administrative relief to reduce the required 200-foot setback. from adjacent parcel to the west, APN 093-032-015, to permit the location of a proposed single family residence through building permit 0393282. Please let me know if you have any questions, and thank you in advance.

Thank you. Tom?

Good afternoon. So as Myrna said, and Little Diva said, this is a planning request for administrative relief from the required 200 foot agricultural setback for the listed APN from 100 feet to 100 feet. I think most of that was covered by those two. The parcel acreage and description was already given. It is in an agricultural district, Somerset. The land use is rural residential. The zoning is limited ag 20. There are some choice soils on the site, shaver course, sandy loam, 15 to 30% slopes in a small portion that we'll look at a little bit later. This here is just an area map showing you where it's located out towards the Grizzly Flat area. You can see between Busby's Cellars and Salute, kind of in the middle of that. That gives you a gross overall area. As we come in a little bit tighter, you'll see the area map here where we've got the parcel outlined in blue or turquoise and the location of the building site located in red. We already covered the parcel number APN 93-032-016-000, 20 acres. We notified 18 adjacent parcels. Again, it is in the Somerset Agricultural District. You can see it outlined in pink there. The zoning, again, Limited Ag 20. You can see some of the other zoning around there with Limited Ag 40 below it, 20 next to it, and RL 10 to the right. Land use, rural, residential with most of those around it, natural resources below it. So here's our soils map. As you can see in the northern portion of the top portion, there's some choice soils. Those are the, again, the shaver coarse sandy loam, 15 to 30% slopes. The vast majority of the site though is goalie lands. And I put the definition in there because we've never seen that before. And it's just goalie soils are not considered choice soils. They have low suitability for cultivation or construction due to severe erosion hazard. broken topography, and rapid water runoff. The topography ranges from 2480 to 2600 feet in elevation. Again, another map, just the same map of the proposed dwelling site, just showing where it's going to be. Mayor Mrakas, This is a map that came from the applicant site depicted very well, where the setbacks are going to be, you can see there in the lower left where the 100 foot setback is for the building site and where their proposed building location is. This was part of the application process that shows the proposed road or the existing road that's in there, turnout locations, where the pad's going to be, and you can see the setbacks that they have proposed there. Zooming in a little bit more, you can see that most of the setbacks that are there are going to be all right. It's just the one setback there that's at 123 feet, which they are requesting for 100 feet at this point. As you can see here, this map just is going to show you the property to the west that is 397 feet from the proposed building site. And then for whatever reason, I didn't include the other building on the east side, but that one was 128 feet roughly to that building. And just working through the site a little bit, this is coming in on the site. You can see the proposed building structure down there by the pine tree and the two containers. This is coming into the proposed building site. This is the building pad looking southwest. You can see it drops down into the canyon there basically on all sides. looking a little bit to the southeast, again, off the nose, just to give a better view of what we're dealing with here in the topography. Just again, zooming around the property so everybody can see what it's look like and what they're dealing with. Tom? Yes.

This is in Ag District?

Yes.

Okay.

Fair play, Ag District.

It was in the Somerset Ag District, according to the maps. Am I, was I reading something incorrectly? I don't think so. Yeah, it's up Grizzly Flat Road. We can verify that, though. I'll go back and check.

Yeah, okay.

This is looking west in the pad. You can see it sloping up, down, and then back up again. With some of the brush, it's hard to see what's going on, the topography. And then back around to where we started. Okay. Moved up to the nose of the slope just so that you can see a little bit further down into the canyon and how it drops off rather steeply. These are the soils here on the backside that would be the non-choice soil, the Goliad lands. The owner's property line, the southern portion, runs basically where, if you look into the right-hand side of the picture there where that trail is that's cleared, it's roughly right around there and goes up to the top of that hill. And you can see the steepness in there and the rocks. And again, back about where we started. Another picture just again showing you how the topography, how it does drop off and then rise again. This is back up towards the top of the property. To the left there at the top of the picture would be the choice soils. So for discussion, a site visit was conducted on July 20th, 2026 to assess the placement of the proposed single family dwelling. Staff recommends Approval of the request project setback being reduced to a hundred feet from the Western adjacent parcel, 09303201500. And staff believes that three of the four findings that the agricultural commission required to make by resolution number 0792007 and adopted by the board of supervisors on April 17th can be made.

Can't read it on here, so we'll switch.

No suitable building site exists on the subject parcel except within the required setback due, but not limited to compliance with the other requirements of the general plan or other county development regulations. The parcel is constrained for building sites due to topography. The site is predominantly made up of 15 to 30% slopes and severely drops off to the west, east and north from the established building area. The proposed building site utilizes the existing plateau for building. The proposed non-compatible structure will be located on the property to reasonably minimize the potential negative impact on adjacent agriculturally zoned land. The placement of the dwelling minimizes potential negative impacts to the adjacent agricultural properties as much as possible. The dwelling is located in the southwestern portion of the property, which is made entirely of gullied lands. Portions of adjacent parcels are similarly comprised of gullied lands. Placing the dwelling in this area minimizes the potential negative impacts to adjacent agriculturally zoned lands. Number three says, based on the site characteristics of the subject parcel and the adjacent agriculturally zoned land, including but not limited to topography and location of agricultural improvements, et cetera, the commission determines that the location of the proposed non-compatible structure would reasonably minimize potential negative impacts on an agricultural or other production use. And... Due to steep slopes limiting building space, the proposed design places the dwelling on the site's existing natural flat area, the portion of the site with no choice soils. Locating the home in this area minimizes negative effects on neighboring agricultural properties, as they are all non-choice soils in these Gold League areas. Number four, we met three of the four, so we didn't have to address number four. And we have to also, Staff also recommends that the applicant comply with the resolution number 079-2007 Exhibit A of the Board of Supervisors pertaining to the adoption of the criteria and procedures for administrative relief for agricultural setbacks. Questions?

Let's bring it back to the Commission for questions.

Bill? No.

Tom, there's no, I assume, given that the site, there's no agricultural production in the immediate area.

Not in the immediate areas. We look through here, if we scroll back to, well, we can see it just about, you know, scrolling through the site, you can see there's adjacent to the southwest properties. But if we come back up here to... This site there's no agriculture there there's a there's a home to the east and home to the West as you can see there. But down the goalie areas there's not even up the park on the Hill, there's nothing up there as well.

Thanks Tom and yes it is an agricultural district very good is the applicant here tonight. Jim any questions or comments or.

No, I do not at this time. Oh, sorry. My name is Brian Ello. And I live in Sacramento, California. And I've been actively part of the community up here. I have a lot of friends. I love the wine world up here. I've been involved in it in some way for the better part of the last two decades. I'm also a wine blogger. And I finally decided I'd like to spend more time up here with my friends and be part of it. And this property seemed like the right opportunity to do so. And this is what... I fully intend to have the most minimal impact on the environment of this area and the property itself, leave it largely undisturbed. I'd like to place the smallest possible structure up there and be able to immerse myself into the region.

Very good, Brian. Appreciate that. Welcome to Somerset. Should we call for the question?

I don't see no problem.

Should we call for public comment first?

Public comment, Myrna.

Now taking public comment on item 261352. 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 star nine 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 there's nobody in the meeting room and I do not have any hands in the gallery, so.

Very good, thank you, Myrna.

Back to Tim. I don't see really any problem there in the surrounding land is being done on it and I'm good with it.

Is that a motion?

Okay, I move to go with staff's recommendation and for approval of this.

Do we have a second?

I'll second.

Motion and a second, Berna.

Commissioner Tong, how do you vote? Aye. Commissioner Mansfield, how do you vote? Aye. Commissioner Jones, how do you vote? Aye. Commissioner Delfino, how do you vote?

Aye.

Commissioner Nielsen, how do you vote? Aye. Commissioner Draper, how do you vote? Aye. Chair Bolster, how do you vote?

Aye.

Thank you. Motion passes unanimously.

OK, moving on to item number four presentation on creating a tourism business improvement district. Pleasure to introduce Carl Roboto. Carl is the chair of our El Dorado County Seed Citizen Committee and also board member David Spauer. Thanks guys for taking the time today. Appreciate that. So just a little background very quickly. Carl seed you had this presentation at your seed meeting. What two months ago?

Yeah,

Okay. So to some extent, the discussion's already started, but tonight we're taking the opportunity to take a view from 30,000 feet, the concept of a tourism business improvement district and what that may look like. So with that, I will hand that off to Carl. We also have Maya Kitt joining us on Zoom. Yep. Okay.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Congratulations, and congratulations to our new commissioner from the economic development side. So glad to have you here. Carl Roboto, 41-year resident of El Dorado County. But who's counting? Last year, the Strategic Economic Enhancement and Development Committee, affectionately known as SEED, developed an economic strategy summary for El Dorado County. I'm just going to give you a quick context, and then I'll turn it over to Mike. Turn over to Maya. As part of our work, we identified several key principles that we call resident or community-centric approach to economic development. I think it's a key concept to recall. Those principles included viewing revenue as a tool to support quality of life, making community participation a cornerstone of economic development, focusing on quality of place over quantity of growth, providing target industry support aligned with local values. We also identified a very wide range of economic development objectives that we wanted to take a look at. But one of those specific initiatives was to develop and support stable long-term funding for the El Dorado County Visitors Authority and countywide tourism efforts. Tourism in this neighborhood has become incredibly competitive. The counties that surround El Dorado County have been very aggressive in how they fund, manage, and promote tourism. Many already have tourism business improvement districts or wine districts in one form or another. And they provide dedicated funding for destination marketing, visitor education, and destination management activities. As we sit here today, El Dorado County is at a significant competitive disadvantage. And I make that assessment as a tourism industry consultant for the last 35 years. For a variety of reasons, we believe it's important to establish this long-term stable funding mechanism and one that can support responsible tourism, strengthen the county's identity, and include clear accountability and performance measures. And it's particularly important given the challenging budget situation that El Dorado County faces today and will for a foreseeable future. As part of the seed economic strategy, we identified tourism as one of the industries that can generate meaningful near-term economic benefits to the county through increased visitor spending, tax revenues, and employment. With that in mind, our seed committee and we're working with county staff has taken the initiative to foster the development of this comprehensive tourism improvement district and provide some sustainable funding. The goal is not simply to create another tourism organization. The goal is to create a more sustainable industry supported model for tourism in El Dorado County, one that brings all the different parts of the sector of tourism together. And you'll hear more about this as we unveil this. To help us explore that opportunity, the county has retained Civitas. Civitas is a recognized leader in the formation of Tourism Business Improvement Districts. And today we have Maya Kitt here from us from Civitas to provide a brief overview of the TBID process, where we stand today and so forth. Next Thursday at our next seed meeting, we are presenting a conceptual framework for a new El Dorado County Visitor Authority, and we begin to put structure to this idea. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Maya, who will be presenting via Zoom.

Thank you, Carl. I'll go ahead and share my screen here.

Maya, we'll, oh. We have your presentation and we'll do it for you.

Okay, sure that works.

If you're able to share it, go ahead.

Okay, I can do that. Okay, thank you so much, Carl, for the introduction. As he mentioned, my name is Maya Kitt. I'm an account manager with Civitas. We are the leading firm in all things tourism funding. We've been in business for 30 years now, helping destinations all across the country set up their specific funding mechanisms. So I'm looking forward to delivering more information about them to you today. And I've been with the forum for over four and a half years now. So just kind of laying the groundwork here in terms of destination funding, as many of you might know, destination funding really falls into And that's either private streams of revenue, which would include memberships, private grants, event revenue, things of that nature, and sometimes even voluntary districts, which take the form of a two party contract agreement. But then the other bucket is going to be your. And really what we found is that 92% of destination funding falls into the public bucket. This is going to be your untethered tax allocations, meaning that they're not for any specific use or tethered tax allocations that have certain limitations that the fund can be used for. But the one that we'll be talking about today are the assessments down there at the bottom, otherwise known as Tourism Improvement Districts, known as TIDs. And so although these assessments, and you'll hear me say later on in the slides, are initiated by the private sector via a petition, they do have to go through a local government process, which counts them as a public funding mechanism. So that is the bucket that they fall into. What is a Tour of Improvement District? So essentially, it is when a group of tourism businesses will come together and they will opt amongst themselves to pay an assessment. And that would take a form and the way that they initiate that is via a petition. But ideally, a group of businesses come together and decide on a certain assessment amount that they're comfortable with paying into. This can include, you know, your traditional lodging is the most common where it would include hotels. They may also include short-term rentals or Airbnbs. But even more, what we're seeing more and more often is districts including businesses beyond lodging. So it might include wine businesses, tourism, agricultural businesses, recreation, and things of that nature. So The mechanism that's available to you in California allows for all types of businesses to be assessed. But a group of tourism businesses will come together. They'll choose to pay an assessment initiated by a petition. The assessment itself is collected by the local government. In this case, it would be the county. And then the county would then collect those assessment funds and remit them to a managing authority. destination marketing organization. And usually if there is not already an organization in place, then we would take the steps to, at the same time as the formation is happening, create that new nonprofit organization that would be consistent of a board that is made up of those assessment or business owners that are paying into the assessment. And the types of services that these districts fund are normally your traditional marketing and sales. We've also seen some districts use their funds to support sports initiatives and attracting sporting events. The law also gives the authority to use the funds for capital improvements such as convention center creation or expansion or the creation of sports facilities as well. And we've also seen on the rise districts using their funds to implement workforce services and transportation. Just a few industry stats here. There are 226 of these districts in place worldwide with the most recent U.S. formation happening in Loveland, Colorado, just a few months ago. The most typical way in which the assessment methodology is used is a percentage of gross revenue, either room revenue or gross revenue on a certain sale, usually taking the form of a percentage. Another 43% are using a fixed dollar amount or a flat fee And you can see there are a small portion of them using a fixed rate based on number of hotel rooms for those that are using traditional lodging businesses in their district. And some are also using a 1% fixed rate per occupied room per night that varies by ADR, but that gives you at least a little sneak peek into the methodology that is being used amongst the districts. You can see that the range in which the districts raise is pretty vast, with the lowest bringing in just $10,000 and the highest bringing in $47.2 million. That highest one is going to be that of San Diego, their tourism marketing district, And in total, these districts together are raising $811 million and they exist today in 26 states across the country. We do our very best to make the distinguish, the distinguishment between taxes and assessments. A lot of times folks get them confused and link them together, but they're very different.

And for these reasons, I will go over right now.

So unlike taxes, which have no defined term, The assessments themselves are in place for a specific term length. So the statute available in California allows for up to five year term upon formation and up to a 10 year term upon renewal. And those assessments can only be in existence for the specified term in the plan. Unlike taxes, which are government managed and imposed, assessments are payer managed and payer approved. So you heard me say before that these assessments are initiated by the private sector via a petition. They do go through that local government process, but because the assessments themselves are required by statute to benefit those businesses paying into the assessment, that is the reason for why they cannot be diverted for other government priorities. So Unlike taxes that have no benefit requirement of those that are paying into taxes, assessments do. That statute that's the benefit nexus at the core, the principle of the statute, businesses that are paying into it must see the benefit returned to them. And in this case, it would be an increase in demand and visitation to those tourism businesses paying into the assessment. And then for that reason, of course, taxes, government has varying priorities. So that's the reason why taxes are diverted at government discretion. But for assessments, they have that legal accountability to the district plan. The statute itself requires a plan that outlines the key parameters of the district, which would include The term length, how long is the district in place? It would include the rate at which the assessment is being levied. It would include the types of businesses that are being assessed. And then, of course, the boundaries and the services and the way that the governance is going to be managed. So all of those key parameters would be outlined in that required district plan as required by statute. And so that legal accountability really provides for the reason as to why the funds cannot be diverted. Here on the screen is an example of a few case studies that are using this mechanism specifically for their wine districts, their wine regions. Here in California, we've got several wine districts, there are now six in existence, all using different ranges of assessment rates. You can see here, they range anywhere from a one, one and a half to up to a 2% assessment with budgets coming in as low as around a little under 350,000 to as high as 1.7 million. So you can see there that this is at least an example against that Destinations are using this funding mechanism specifically for their winery sector, and they're using their funds for marketing and brand awareness, of course, and business improvement programs, special projects, and some advocacy and community and industry engagement programs. Here is a case study example of a specific another rural destination, Lake County. This was established in 2019. They just went through their recent renewal. They are assessing their lodging properties. So this includes traditional lodging and also includes short-term rentals. They're assessing them at a 2.5%, bringing in just over half a million dollars to support programs such as digital marketing, extended PR efforts, destination branding, visitors map, and additional collateral. So again, another example of another rural destination that is taking advantage of this mechanism. Mammoth Lakes is another interesting case study and one I wanted to include here, particularly because they are using the assessment in a very creative way in which they're assessing different business types. So you can see they were established in 2013, bringing in a budget of $6.5 million, pretty large for their size, but it's purely because of all the different types of businesses they're including, and they're also assessing them at different rates. You can see their lodging, they're being assessed at a 1%. ski resorts and golf recreation being assessed at two and a half percent of ticket sales. And then they've even got retail and restaurant using different tiered structure there. So you can see it's not only a mix of different business types, but even a mix of different assessment methodologies with varying tiers across the different business sectors. And really just wanting to show this case study as an example to just how creative a destination can become with their particular funding mechanism. Palisades is an interesting case study specifically because it is the first district that was created to support purely transit services only. So it was established in 2018, bringing in a budget of just over $1 million, assessing at a 1.5% on lodging, also assessing daily lift tickets and Palisade Tahoe Pack products. And again, the programs for this particular district, they had a need for providing transit services across their tourism attractions, and so this district specifically funds that service. And here, just as at a glance, a summary page that includes more information on other rural destinations that are taking advantage of the district and the mechanism showing that rural counties are forming these districts now. Amanor just formed theirs last year. And that would be specific to their lodging district. And really, even at a small assessment base, you can bring in anywhere to $200,000 to $400,000 for your dedicated tourism operations. And showing that a single district can serve multiple industries such as lodging, retail, restaurant, wine, ag, and other business types. So in terms of the phases that we have ahead of us, so While we are doing the work to do both phases, the first phase is obviously going to come first and going to be the focus here. And what this first phase includes is in step one, which we've kind of already gotten into would be establishing that steering committee really is the seed committee, who is leading the effort in terms of being able to help us craft a district that is going to be supported by the various industries. It's really a matter of trying to determine and gauge which industries are interested and would be supported in this mechanism. So it's really a feasibility process. So in order to really understand what each industry is going to bring in, we are going to get our hands on the data necessary for lodging that would be transient lodging taxes. For any other business sector that pays into sales tax, it would be sales tax data to start projecting what those annual budget and assessment scenarios might look like and really starting to put together those draft bones of a service plan that would become the eventual management district plan and circulating that with the stakeholders providing education on the process, much like what we're doing today, in order to really socialize what a prospective El Dorado County tourism business district can look like. And really at the end of that, kind of after we circulate a proposed plan with the stakeholder community, implementing their feedback that we retain during the outreach process, we would create a funding plan. So it would compile our findings and include the analysis of the feasibility of either scenario, whether we're doing peer lodging or hybrid of a tourism business improvement district, that report would include really the feasibility of each scenario and then a formal recommendation insofar as next steps to accomplish formation, which would come in phase two. And it would be concluded here in phase one with a formal presentation on our findings and those, of course, recommendations as to next steps. Phase two, upon completion of the feasibility and should the county elect to continue with formation, we would then step in to guide the process to do so. So again, much like what we started in the feasibility, getting that group together, identifying what that specific scenario was identified or was decided upon, excuse me. And then we would start finalizing the required management district plan to really detail out the rest of the requirements as required by statute. We would then also build consensus for that plan, making sure that it is approved both by the committee and then, of course, approved by the county, since it will have to go through a local government hearing process to be approved. But once the plan is in a great place and finalized and approved on both sides, we would then roll into a petition process as required by statute. The statute would requires that the petition be signed with be signed by more than 50% of the business owners that are proposing to be assessed weighted by assessment so it's not by number majority it is by majority in terms of waiting by assessments you can think of it as one dollar one vote so long as we meet meet that petition threshold we can then begin the local government hearing process at the county And then that would require three stops at the county level, a public meeting, a resolution of intention, and then, of course, a resolution of formation that would be adopted during the final public hearing. There are noticing and mailing and publishing requirements associated with each of these stops at local government to which we would ensure that all those documents are drafted and approved in a timely fashion. But those timing requirements allot for at least two months at the local government process for those hearings. So we would help guide, of course, the committee through those hearings and work directly with the county liaisons to ensure that the process is taken through in a timely manner. And of course, benefits the industry. This really creates a predictable funding mechanism that's controlled by the businesses paying in. It would not be subject to political changes at the county level as a collaborative process. Two, there's an organizational structure. It creates the capacity where none exists currently across wine, ag, lodging, and recreation. If we were to go for something as of a hybrid nature and really builds upon that collaboration framework. So we're meeting with the seed committee. We're bringing groups to the same table that share a same stake in tourism. And then finally, of course, there's direct investment. So this district can implement grant programs and sector-specific funding that goes right back into the industry and their needs and really just creates what the county desperately needs is that collaborative process and an organized voice around tourism. And then, of course, benefits to the county. This tourism promotion resumes, so you would have that dedicated funding without needing to pull from general fund expenditures to promote tourism. The mechanism itself drives increases in transient lodging tax revenue, excuse me, transient occupancy tax revenue. So more visitors means longer stays, which would include, which would create more lodging tax revenue collected at the county level, less county overhead. So because it's private sector led and is really resting the DMO in terms of the management, it would reduce the administrative burden on the county and staff. In terms of collection process, the county would be able to retain an administration fee to recover their costs for being that collecting arm. And then finally, that infrastructure framework, it creates a structure funding for traffic management, maybe shuttle services, and that visitor infrastructure that is so desperately needed here at the county level. This is a sneak peek into your neighboring jurisdictions, includes Elk Grove, Anaheim, Rancho Cordova, Sacramento, Folsom, El Dorado, and Placidville, really just showing the range in which the TOT rates and their total rates of guests check out at checkout. So this would include what guests are paying in terms of transient occupancy tax and a TID if the destination has one. And you can see for the totals along the side, El Dorado falls really at the bottom level of the pack, meaning that you do have opportunity and room room to grow in terms of increasing your total checkout rate. Really just sneak peek into what other destinations are charging at this point in time. So that concludes the end of my presentation. You have my information here up on the screen should you need to follow up with me directly. I'd be happy to answer additional questions that don't come up today, but I'd be more than happy, of course, to stop share now to answer any questions that might have come up.

Very good commission questions of Coral or Maya.

Yeah, I have a question. Could you speak back on what it takes to pass the petition through again? She mentioned it, but is it every business that's upon the assessment gets a vote or is it a larger business has more weight?

I'm going to let Maya get into the specifics of that. She can address that. Go ahead, Maya.

Great question. So the petition gets sent out to every business that is proposing to be assessed in the district. In terms of the petition threshold, to meet the petition threshold, you need signatures from business owners that represent more than 50%. of the assessment revenue. So like I mentioned before, it really comes down to $1 one vote. So it could be, you know, if you have 100 businesses, it's not necessarily you need 50, more than 50 of them to vote on, you might only need the top 20 to vote on to reach that more than 50%. assessment threshold. And it really goes back to that benefit nexus. So those businesses that are benefiting from the assessment are benefiting in proportion to what they're paying in. So larger businesses will be paying in a larger amount. And I think that's the reason for the intention there in statutes.

And as Dave mentioned, you're seeing a 30,000 foot level here. You're going to see a lot more detail. Everyone will see a lot more detail in a variety of meetings coming forward. And in fact, I do want to mention that both Dave Spahr and Christine Nunez are both here from the committee. So if you run into them in the community, you can grab them and they can answer any questions you might have.

Grill them.

But no, this is the beginning of a process.

Yeah. So this is a tax on business.

Oh, it's an assessment on buyers.

It's an assessment on the businesses that would then be passed on to the visitors.

Like the hotel tax, when you stay at a hotel, you're paying that county or city's TOT as part of the state.

Except when it gets collected, it gets into a separate fund that can't be spent by the municipality. It can only be spent on the tourism marketing efforts that everybody agrees to.

And there is no mandatory participation.

There is mandatory participation. There is mandatory participation. You go through a voting process.

So really the only opposition would be you don't want to pass it on to your consumer. I don't want to charge my consumer.

There's so much case study on this and so many examples of how this has worked. We have had one in South Lake Tahoe where I lived for years. And it works incredibly well. And I think we just went through a renewal process a number of months ago. And so it's a very familiar mechanism within the state of California and many, many jurisdictions, including many of our competitors, are doing this.

With regards to the lawsuits, among other TIDs in California, what do you guys see with that?

I'm going to let Chris, I'm going to let Maya respond to that. I don't know that any of them have been, I don't know the status of any one that has changed anything. Okay, Maya may have some more information on that and I'll let her address that.

Yeah, that's a great question. So most of the lawsuits that are filed against tourism improvement districts have to do with the way in which the services have been implemented and threatened the DMO's tax exempt status. There's an attorney that goes by the name of Corey Briggs that goes after districts that are using the services in a way that provides direct services to hotels, to individual hotels or individual businesses and is going against the 501c6 corporation codes tax exempt mission purpose, which is to promote a common industry or business industry as a whole. And sometimes when these districts get formed, DMOs kind of creep into providing particular services to businesses. And so what we do is we try to craft the districts in a way and provide additional consulting beyond district formation to ensure that the way that the services themselves are implemented are implemented in a way that, again, protects an organization's tax exempt status. Now there's another lawsuit that is on the horizon down in Santa Barbara that has to do specifically for the wine districts. And that's a separate matter. That's a First Amendment issue that has come up. Essentially, there was a case that had ruled that public dollars cannot be used to support private speech. And there are opportunities in the process for us to ensure that this district, whichever which way it is created, is created in a way that would not make it appear as though there are public dollars being used for private speech. An example of this would be For example, in statute, there's a requirement that the annual report associated for the district that's due every year is approved by local government. So that would be an example as to a government involvement with the district. It goes through, I mean, the district itself goes through a local government process. So that's another opportunity for us to argue that this is protected from First Amendment violations. Another thing that we could do is in crafting the board structure of the eventual destination marketing organization, we could craft that board structure in a way to give a county commissioner or other jurisdictions ex officio seats on the board so that it looks like government participation in there as well. So that would be one of the most recent ones that has come up. But our firm is working with multiple districts to ensure that they're meeting those types of opportunities to protect their districts from that suit that was filed recently.

I want to remind everyone, we are just in a feasibility stage. We have not gotten to the end of that. This is gathering information, doing analysis work, presenting that information back to all the groups in the community. And we're really at the start of just, is this feasible? Is this idea feasible?

Is this just mainly to promote or to help get hotels, tourism?

No, it's designed to help all the elements within El Dorado County. Wine, ag, outdoor recreation, you know, a variety of all these sectors need to participate. So it's designed to help everybody within the county.

Is this a West slope focus or is there an actual location, you know, some outline you want to create where you highlight or the district is this area or is it all West slope?

It would be all right now. It's intended to be all West slope. Yeah. Yeah. It's not going to Tahoe's out of it. It's not a Tahoe thing. It'd be West slope from, you know, the, you know, the, the, the cusp of the mountains all the way down to.

So Tim, I think that's a good question in terms of, you know, why is this relevant to the Ag Commission? So last year, because of budget issues, the board was forced to cut the funding for the County Visitors Authority. And I didn't bring one tonight. I should have. Talking to Jessie last week, she, in her office, she has a copy of the first Farm Trails and El Dorado County Visitor Guide up on the wall that was created in 1986 by an infamous meeting of Dick Bethel, Ed Delfino, Jack Sweeney, myself, and one other. uh rebel jack sweeney as chairman of the board of supervisors provided forty thousand dollars in 1986 money uh to start farm trails organization and that evolved over the years to the farm trail visitor guide that beautiful guide that we had right up until last year so uh part of the obviously our interest as an ag community is we create a visitor's authority that's going to drive tasting room visitation it's going to drive visits to our christmas trees and farms from a geographic standpoint obviously apple hill is a very strong agritourism entity but north county christmas tree farms south county fair play they can use all the agritourism tourism promotion that that we can generate and again relevance wise the board of supervisors uh is the as part of the process from early on in the process and as a recommending body to the Board of Supervisors, you know, we need to be involved in that process where we're going to recommend to the board to pursue this process. And when it's finally approved, there's a pass-through mechanism and I believe there's a five-year renewal process, Carl. So in five years, it will come back to the Ag Commission for recommendation to the Board of Supervisors. So that's why we're hearing this item tonight.

Good questions. This is all good stuff.

Amador's got two.

Yeah, and really, my background briefly is I've been a tourism industry consultant for a long time, and that means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. But one of the things that I study is the competitiveness of regions. And I've worked in just about every one of them in California. And we eliminated our funding for the visitor authority, which was funded previously through the Chamber of Commerce. And since that time, we don't even update a website, you know, for our county. You know, the Lake Tahoe Visitor Authority has what it does up in Tahoe, which is a pretty big operation. But over here, we don't even have, we have nothing. And that puts us at a big competitive disadvantage, all sectors of the tourism-related economy. And that's why the Seed Committee looked at this and recommended it in our economic development strategy. We've got to find some stable funding. And it's not going to come from the county. It's going to come from the industry and the participation. And it can't be from one. It's got to be everybody. We've really got to work on developing a coalition. And, you know, to get everybody's voice in, to get everybody's support in. And it's only that way that we're going to be able to sort of be as competitive as we can be. And I also want to mention that part of that is educating people when they get here to take care of the place when they get here. So it's not just, you know, drive more, more, more. It's educating people. We all have challenges with impacts, whether it's traffic, crowding, trash, so forth. And we've got to be able to educate people. And without that voice, we're kind of on our own.

And with some of the funding from the TBID, that education and mitigation that we had done.

Mr. Chairman, the Board of Supervisors have had a similar presentation or this same presentation? Not yet.

Not yet. We're starting at the bottom up. Yeah.

We're down to 29,000 feet.

That'll happen, but we're not there yet.

Could Visit El Dorado be the DMO or would you have to create it? So it could be seed, it could be anything you want.

You can make it anything we want.

Just not Delfino Farm.

Yeah, yeah. No, in fact, that's a great... I was going to say... You know what? I think that's a great idea. Yeah, Visit El Dorado is a great phrasing for a great name for a place. I think that's fabulous. Good idea.

So, Carl, you've been involved in a couple of these on the strategy side of it. Many of these. Many of these. And then Civitas takes over. I think in Temecula, the board approved their five-year renewal last year or this year.

Yeah, I personally worked with the Temecula Wine and Vintners Association on their strategic plan. I worked with Amador County. I'm working with all these competitors, but here I am trying to help out El Dorado County. But But yeah, there's plenty of this is not terrain. There's plenty of checks and balances to make sure everybody has a voice to structure a board that has representation from everywhere. And to make sure, you know, it all moves forward collectively in a way that works for everybody. And there's mechanisms if it doesn't to, hey, we need to fix this or change that or whatever.

And that's part of creating the structures. There's a board of directors for the business improvement district.

Not only board of directors, but advisory committees. So we can get as much community input into the organization as possible. You know, I anticipate three or four different advisory committees, maybe one in marketing, one in special events, a couple others. And I think that's that. Yeah, we're trying to build a new model that is inclusive of everybody, brings the disparate elements of the county together, and then has a unified voice in what El Dorado County is and promotes and so forth.

Is this a replacement for Apple Hill? No.

No, this is a replacement for the El Dorado County Visitor Authority that was funded through the Chamber of Commerce. And that funding came primarily, well, all of it came from El Dorado County, which eliminated their funding in budgeting a year and a half ago.

In these initial stages, what resources would Civitas use to A, determine the list of businesses to be polled for their participation? And then part B, what would they use to determine the $1 one vote?

Good question, Chuck, and I know what it is, but I'll let Maya handle it.

Yeah, that's a great question. So we'll have to work directly with our local government liaisons to get our hands on the TOT data that is paid to, or at least on the lodging side. And then starting to identify, of course, business lists. We can use business licenses. When it comes to the sales tax data and projecting budget scenarios for businesses that pay sales tax, we would have to go through a couple more steps because there are obviously additional limitations on accessing sales tax data. So If the county wanted us to handle all of that, we would have to go through some steps in terms of passing a resolution to give us authorization to view aggregated data. But if, of course, the county was comfortable doing it on their own, then we could just lean on them for support. But that's kind of up in the air right now. But those would be the additional steps that we'd have to go through.

And keep in mind, every individual's information is confidential. We'd only see aggregate amounts. And from there, we can project this scenario, that scenario, whatever it is.

I have another question. So have there been any kind of study to look at the tourism, the challenges of tourism, and specifically in El Dorado County, such as lodging? You know, this seems like throwing money at a problem when you don't understand where the fundamental problems are.

I think the broader problem is the lack of revenue for the county. This county has not approved a lodging property since 1995. And transient occupancy tax is a key piece of county is an important part of county funding. So it's even beyond just the lodging industry, it's a broader county funding piece. And so that's where from Seed's perspective, we've looked at it and said, well, look, the lowest hanging fruit in economic development is in an industry we already have, but don't collect. And so can we make that tourism industry more productive by providing sustainable funding for tourism promotion and awareness and all the things that that would encompass? This process would outline a plan on how those dollars are spent. you know, and how things are promoted and how they are measured. You know, what will be the success measurements? What will be the KPIs? What will be sort of, are we successful or not? What tweaks do we need to make moving forward? And so I think that's, the problem's bigger than just lodging in my view.

And I think the lodging is a huge problem. I would say with these tourism, you want people to come back. And the problem is as people arrive, they spend the vacation here. Maybe they don't have the best day. Maybe they have logistical issues with their lodging.

So there's no question. I, as I mentioned, I live in South Lake Tahoe and the unincorporated part of the County is Myers. And I watch zillions of people drive through every day. And Myers has no way to collect transient occupancy tax. millions go to the city of South Lake Tahoe. And this is a chronic problem in a lot of different areas of the county. And that's a bigger issue that we're recommending the county supervisors look at with a supply and demand analysis for lodging in the industry and a much kind of bigger strategic approach to all this. But it's definitely an issue.

Great question, Kevin, and there's a couple of people in the room who have detailed information who could provide an answer tonight, but we have to leave before 10 p.m. We'll have their presentation maybe October or November.

Yeah, and again, thank you all. I'm sure we'll be back. This effort will be back. I want to invite you to the seed meeting next week where we'll begin to unveil that Visit El Dorado project. model. How's that? Thank you, Carl.

We're just putting ideas out there. In a statement of the obvious, with the challenges of the wine industry right now, the timing is very good, obviously.

Thank you. I appreciate it.

Thank you, Carl. Thank you, Maya. I appreciate it. Thank you all. Very good. Moving on to staff update on legislation and regulatory issues.

Chair, could I also mention that I did send you one public comment on that, and it was attached, and you all got it.

So that process-wise.

But other than that, it was just a presentation.

Public comment? Questions and public comment? I see Mike. He's rustling back there.

Hi. Hi, Pam Harris. I'm owner of Harris Family Farm, Pollock Pines, and president of Apple Hill Growers. I think this initiative is well needed in this county. Clearly, in lieu of the lack of funding and the disbanding of our Office of Tourism, I think it's time. And I think it's gonna be helpful for all of the business interests in the county. So I think this first step is a really good step. I think they've got a good committee, the seed committee, that it's gonna come up with some more definitive approach. And that's something that then will come back. And I think it's a good investment. We just hope that the county is able to provide. There's obviously some county support that's going to be needed in this process to get some of the data that's needed for analysis to move forward. So hopefully we'll have that support in this effort. So we would support that. Thank you, ma'am.

Christine Noonan and I'm the marketing chair for Apple Hill and the last 10 years actually. And I kind of get irked when people say Apple Hill doesn't need any more marketing. It's actually one of my pet peeves because I think we're a huge brand and we need to now get to the next level. It's like saying South Lake Tahoe doesn't need any more marketing. So I'm highly for this. I know I have that kind of red flag thing when assessments happen. are talked about on my customers or it's not a tax, but those kinds of things. But correct me if, I don't know if Maya is still there, but she told me that the studies show that seven to $1 go back to the businesses. So you will see if it's done right, which Carl will make sure that we will see a lot more revenue from this. And that is my hope is that the wine industry and the growers can kind of go more into spring, go more into spring, in those other months and we could really become a huge tourism destination, which is my dream. So highly for it.

Thank you, Christine. Good evening, commissioners. Michael Rinaldi, Farm Bureau. First of all, I want to welcome our new Ag Commissioner and our new commissioners again. So I'm just here since we're kind of starting anew with some new players to remind us all that the powers and duties as outlined in our County's zoning ordinance identifies this ad commission to advise the board on all matters pertaining to agriculture. And of course we've heard how significant this opportunity is to agriculture. What I'm asking is for the commission to make some recommendations to the Board of Supervisors to support this concept. Because there's a whole lot we still have to figure out in this process. And so a simple ask to support the concept, we know enough about the concept now. We know what other regions and other counties are doing. I would ask you to ask the board to direct their staff to engage in the outreach process so that we can determine the appropriate scope on this and the components that go with this. And of course, this challenges us to determine what that scope is. That I do believe will be one of the hardest parts because if you don't get that scope right, the value proposition to the industry becomes much, much harder. You might think that convincing the industry to support this might be the hard part. I think it's the scoping. And then return, a recommendation after that scoping to the Board of Supervisors so they can do their part in this process. So that is my ask, as simple as I can make it. I'm not here to repeat what I wrote in my public comments. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mike.

Good evening, Chair, members of the Commission. David Spahr, Vice Chair of the SEED Committee. I've had the pleasure of working with Civitas on four improvement districts when I worked for the city of Sacramento. All those improvement districts have done extremely well. The most interesting one is Midtown. We would have a lot of people come to Sacramento and say, you've done such a good job with your redevelopment dollars, putting them back into downtown and Midtown. Can you share your secret with us so we can do the same thing in our city? The funny thing is Midtown was put together by Paragary. There wasn't any city involvement in that improvement district. It was all businesses that got together and did it. In the city of Salinas, they did a downtown improvement district, all businesses. And then the Destination Marketing Group, our Convention and Visitors Bureau, which I served on for five years in Monterey, we would fund them from the county $4 million of our TOT, would collect $8 million a year. That $4 million would help us compete very, very well with other parts of California and a lot of other states, Washington, Oregon, so on. We had... the thought that the government, the county, could start take funding away from the Convention and Visitors Bureau. So the CVB said, we're gonna put together a destination marketing organization, hire Civitas, put it together and they generate another $4 million. So their total budget is $8 million today. With that, they do some very interesting marketing, and they do traffic analysis. So during Car Week, which has happened this week, they put up traffic maps so people can learn how to get around Carmel, Pacific Grove, and Monterey during a very busy weekend. Another thing that they did that was fantastic is unfortunately you had a very, very bad snow year about seven years ago. And so the destination marketing group started marketing the Bay Area. In that one weekend, the county generated over a million dollars in net new TOT tax. because they diverted the skiers that would have gone to Tahoe because there wasn't any snow to spend a beautiful weekend on President's Day for three days down in Monterey and Carmel. They just have the ability to do that because they have smart people in their destination marketing organization that know their businesses, they know the tourist patterns, and they know where to put that money to make it work hard for them. I would encourage you to look at the same opportunity, ask the board of supervisors to do the same thing and see if this is a large opportunity for us, all of us, or a small opportunity. But to move it forward, I think, is a giant step. Thank you.

Thank you, David.

Good evening, commissioners. I'm Lexi Boger. I'm here with my co-founder of Our Egg Economic Development, or Economic Generator and Germination, doing economic development for the county, Lauren Hernandez. And just wanted to say we are so thrilled to hear this presentation. We've been attending SEED all year. We've been with a California Jobs First grant-funded project to do a Working Lands Economic Development Master Plan this year. We are about to release it next month. Much of this topic is something that is really, I promise, Dave, I won't get into the weeds on it, but I'm happy to say that will be being released next week and really co-supportive of a lot of what you heard here. So we really... encourage this concept to come forward, wrap our brains around it. Like Mike said, the details and the scope really matter. Kevin, the lodging is a huge thing. We don't need any more tourists if we have no place for them to stay where one-day visits turn into value-driven multi-day stays. So some of those things we're really looking into sharing the data on that. But anyways, thank you guys for hearing this. And from our perspective, we really appreciate appreciate this coming forward and see all these efforts dovetailing between the commission, SEED, our work, the county, and Civitas. So thank you.

Thank you, Lexi.

Appreciate it. I have a quick question for Carl. So it's, Christine said something about 701 goes back to your budget, right? 701, yeah. Oh, no. Okay, I was just saying. So when I'm looking at this at a glance, you know, it says Amador County's annual budget is 200 grand. So that means they're bringing in 10 million gross revenue. No, no, I'm saying actually, I'm more talking about budget. So that's what they brought in gross revenue, Amador.

Yeah, you know what, Derek? As we get into this, we'll have more ROI data to show, but most every, and this is anecdotally, so bear with me, most every T-Bid that destination that I've been involved with, and I've been involved with dozens of them, have a good positive ROI on the T-Bid dollars collected. The leverage is huge. And see, that's one of the hidden benefits is leverage, because it's not just lodging, it's lodging plus outdoor recreation. plus ag, plus whatever else we pull in. Think of the leverage lodging gets on its dollars. Think of the leverage Apple Hill gets on its dollars with other participations. That's a leverage we don't experience in this county. And that's why it's one of the kind of the hidden invisible hands of benefit that we get is we can do things collectively Okay. That one industry segment alone cannot do because they just don't have the money, the reach and the oomph to get that done.

Yeah.

So there'll be, there'll be, I'll make sure we get some information on ROI in our discussion.

When you look at that number, like Apple growers alone could, could dwarf that number. You know, it's, it's not the go be.

And what happens as, As the economy grows, so do these budgets. So while we've done nothing, all these other communities in California have seen their dollars grow. And what it's done is changed the competitive equilibrium of tourism competition in this state. And we're over here. Okay, we're over here while all these other, South Lake Tahoe, where I live, the dollars, you know, it's crazy, you know? And so I'll make sure we have some of that information moving forward.

Great point.

Carl, while you're up there, for example, Temecula, that's a wine improvement district that's specific to wine, not broader participants like lodging, wine only. Okay.

But they have an ability, they also partner with Visit Temecula. And so the leverage is there. They just have it in a different format. We're a small county, so it's easier to kind of put it all together and do it that way. And frankly, one of the things we do need, my observation as somebody living in Tahoe looking at the West Slope, is we need more dynamic of working together. You know, we need to break down as many silos as we possibly can, have more common vision on tourism, some of those things. And this is a great opportunity. Everybody's got to meet every month. And you hear from all the different sectors of the economy. And I think that's a sidebar benefit that I think is absolutely crucial. And it's absolutely crucial because that's where the creativity comes from. The creativity comes from the synergy of everybody getting together. You experience it with Apple Hill or with the wine guys. When you get together, you get ideas flowing. Now let's leverage all of that in a much bigger way. Makes us much, much more competitive than we are today. Thank you.

Thank you, Carl. No online comments, Berna?

No, I don't have anybody out there right now.

Okay. Mr. Chair, since this was an agendized item, would a motion of support to the Board of Supervisors be appropriate?

We can't endorse a concept?

It's only a presentation. Okay. There's no motion to be given.

Okay. Well, we'll stay in touch with the SEED team, and when that's appropriate, we'll do that. Very good. Okay. Now, legislative update.

All right, good evening. First of all, I just want to let everybody know that this is my second day actually in the office. So I'm still working to bring myself up to speed on a lot of these concerns and some of these topics. So first of all, I thank you to a lot of the industry that has reached out to me and supported me. I really appreciate that. I mean, again, I was here before. So some familiar faces, some new faces. I'm very excited to work with you all. I would also like to acknowledge the work that Leanne Mila, my predecessor, did before. And I'm going to do my best to do as well and kind of pick up where she left off and hopefully be able to help you as well with some of these concerns. That said... I did not have a lot of time as I was going through my security awareness trainings and everything else to really dig deep into because I did watch one of these before and I saw she seemed to cover like a lot of assembly bills, that kind of things, just to kind of bring you all up to speed. I have a few things I could go through here just to let you know. I'm pretty sure you all know how it's going in the grape industry right now, so I don't need to cover that. Afterwards, I was just going to ask what kind of items you'd like to see me bring forward, what kind of information you're more interested in. Are you more interested in getting bills? Are you more interested in the just trends that are being more seen statewide with like information coming out of CDFA, obviously you're all in the industry. So you're hearing things from a grower level, but do you want to hear more kind of a higher level regulatory level? Just what would you like to see? So that said, just a few... Little things, which is if you have bees, the apiary registration fees to CDFA is now effective. So make sure that you go to their website. They're the ones collecting the fees. And do register. It is retroactive. So these fees wouldn't be for 2026. They'd be if you had bees in 2025. They are levying late fees, and nobody wants that. Then the other thing is a Japanese beetle. That's another guy that we trap for. It is... of on par with like the glasswing sharpshooter as far as something we don't want in the county and i just want to give you an update as far as sacramento has been having an ongoing small infestation for many a year and 2026 they still they found 42 beetles in rancho cordova 84 in roseville to an elk grove so that's new uh the roseville one i believe is only a year or two old so it's ongoing there. Um, and then as far as the, um, high path avian influenza, we're clearly between migratory season. So not a lot of issues there, but I, our, our department's always a resource. If the, if anybody who has poultry are, um, livestock are interested in more information, please reach out. New World Screwworm, still nothing to date in California, which is fantastic. And the cases that were in Texas and New Mexico, they've almost eradicated those. Of course, that's what they've found, but just the same. It's Very encouraging that they've been so on top of it. And then I'm pretty sure that Leanne brought forward Senate Bill 1327, which has to do with electric vehicle service equipment. That was a bill that was going to take regulatory authority away from the counties and basically because we are an arm of the state and they're going to take it away from the state. So that bill was fortunately kind of put on ice. Another bill has come forward also by raise. It's Senate Bill 969. We're actually pretty neutral on it because they listened to us, which was fantastic. So we did have so much support from the industry. And basically this is, it's much easier. It's just monthly data basically to the state who can then give it to the Energy Commission. So that's pretty much what I have for right now. Do you have any other questions for Mimi pertaining to current events? I will say for Glasswing Sharpshooter, that's an ongoing topic. And... There's been a lot of changes recently as far as detections in the state and funding and everything else. I would really like to do a town hall with industry and then also just with residents since it's mostly in a residential area where we have our infestation. And this is all preliminary. I've just had like a three-minute conversation. That's about it with UC Extension. Bring them in because they're the ones that are actually doing the research. Can talk a little bit about the actual impact should glassy-winged sharpshooters expand their territory and become established. So that's just preliminary heads up on that. So that said, any feedback from you, what you'd like to see from me, any questions for me?

Just pointing out, Corey's been holding down a Ford on glassy-winged sharpshooter, and because of Costco, I think it got even more challenging.

Corey's been fantastic. Really appreciate her.

Yep. Yep. Any questions, Commission?

I just, anything that's relevant, important to us. And, you know, there's going to be some statewide things that are, and even, you know, some nationwide. I mean, the New World Screw Worm is... an issue but not not so much for our state and hopefully it stays that way and i know quite a bit about it just because um and so they've opened the border they're opening in just one place right now and so there's just going to be a trickle of cattle coming in from mexico and and uh they've got a pretty good handle on it right now but But anyways, just things like that. And maybe you hear from the Farm Service Agency or that might help growers and livestock people in the county. That's all I can say.

Very good. Boring other business. Just one last comment, one last tribute to Greg Boger and Lloyd Walker. Just a great honor for all of us to pick up the ball, particularly after those two gentlemen have retired. My dad was with Lloyd Walker at Aerojet back in the day when Lloyd was an Aerojet legend. Uh, hats off to Lloyd for a great career here on the I commission. And of course, uh, Greg's, uh, legendary 47 year run. Um, I dare anybody to match that. Um, and I, I think personally, maybe for the four of us, um, who are taking on new roles tonight, um, the legacy that, you know, we're all passing on here and, uh, Eddie was proud of you tonight, Derek. And I know your dad is, and, uh, The Jones clan, 80 or 82 is when you guys showed up. 81. So obviously one of the great El Dorado wine stories. And of course, my dad's history with Apple Hill. I think we're all proud to continue our family's legacy. So very good. And we appreciate you all being here tonight. Thank you, gang. And the meeting's adjourned.

Way to go.