Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, Madam Clerk, roll call.

Supervisor Chavez.

Here.

Supervisor Magsik. Here. Supervisor Mendez. Here. Supervisor Pacheco.

Here.

Chairman Bredefield. Here. All present, thank you.

Good morning and welcome to the Tuesday, June 16, 2026 meeting of the Fresno County Board of Supervisors. We'll begin with the invocation and a flag salute. The invocation will be led by District 4. After the invocation, please remain standing for the flag salute.

Okay, I don't think is Pastor Ed forced to sign. There he is. Okay. Come on up. Lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance when you get done. Okay.

Heavenly Father, we come before you today in the name of Jesus Christ. asking your presence and guidance over this meeting today. Lord, you're the giver of wisdom and the source of all truth. We ask that you would lead the supervisors and all who serve Fresno County with clarity, with courage, and compassion. Help them to seek the good of every resident, especially the most vulnerable, and to steward the resources of this county with integrity and with justice. Grant them unity where there is division, understanding where there is disagreement, and peace in the midst of pressure and challenges. May their decisions reflect the heart for righteousness, mercy, and humility. Protect those who live and work in Fresno County, our families, our first responders, our schools, our businesses, our farms, and even our fields. Bless the community with safety and opportunity and hope. Above all, may everything said and done here today be honoring to you. We entrust this meeting, our leaders, and even our country in your hands, God. We pray this prayer in the mighty name of Jesus Christ. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, liberty of which it stands, one nation under God, invisible, and liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Agendas are on the back table for anyone wanting to follow along. Madam Clerk, the first item, please.

Item number one, approve agenda. Mr. Chairman, members of the board, members of the audience, item number nine is deleted from your agenda.

Okay, is there a motion and a second to approve the agenda? All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Passes unanimously.

We now move to item number two, approved consent agenda, item numbers 35 through 81.

Okay, these matters are routine in nature, usually approved by a single vote. Would any board members like an item removed from consent for discussion? Supervisor Magsik.

I need to pull items 45, 73, and 75, and I just need to recuse myself because of the Levine Act.

Okay, anyone else?

Mr. Chairman, Supervisor Pacheco would like to pull items 45, 73, 38, and 11s on regular. He'll be recusing himself on item 11.

Okay, thank you. Any other members? Would any members of the public like an item removed from consent for discussion? Seeing none, is there a motion and a second to approve the rest of the consent agenda? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimously. Item, oh, I'm sorry.

Those items, considered items that were pulled will follow item five. We now move to item number three under the Board of Supervisors presentation, retirement plaque to Stanley Dolan Library Department, 23 years of service.

Okay, and the library's here to present.

Good morning. Sally Gomez, library director and county librarian. We're excited to be here to honor one of our longtime staff members who's in retirement happily now, Mr. Stanley M. Dolan. To say a few words about Stan is his most previous supervisor, manager of support services, James Tyner.

Good morning, supervisors. I'm honored to be able to talk about Stan. Just to give you a little bit of background, around 2002, Stan and I first met. We were working at the Gillis Library over on Fruit and Dakota. For those who don't know, it's a medium-sized library, but it's very busy. It's in a very urban district. uh... low-income area but uh... it serves a huge purpose and there's a great need in that area and that's where Stan and I first met as you work together in the library we were both library assistants at that time that's the frontline people you learn to rely on each other for your skills and we learned right away that Stan was excellent at history huge background knew tons of information on history and he was able to really help kids find homework uh... he was excellent at it and we were able to rely on him for those kinds of things uh... also In 2002, the early days of the Internet and technology, Stan has always been great. Before he joined us at the library, he worked helping set up video arcades for areas, and he used that same tech knowledge and skills with people to help us at the library. So a lot of times you get people in there who don't know how to use computers, don't know tech, and Stan was always one of the first at the line to help them through. The other thing I want to talk about with Stan very quickly is technology. There's a service that we do in libraries called Reference. And what that is, simply put, is questions. People come in with questions. We help them find it. And there's an art to it, how to ask them to get what they need. And it's pretty intricate once you get into it. And Stan was always one of our experts, so much so that over the years, Stan trained other librarian, librarian workers on how to do reference. And to this day, we have some of the videos that he's done and recorded on our line to train other staff. So he's always been amazing at those things. And we were honored to have him work with him fast forward a little bit for several years he served as the lead at the Fowler library he was the face there helped countless families countless kids everything from programs helping them find homework materials once I was in Fowler for something and I mentioned that I worked at the library and they asked me if I knew so he's just everybody there knew him he did amazing things there and one little story I'll tell is For those who don't know, one of the things we do now offer for the library is digital books. And it's become one of our heaviest checked out libraries. And in the early day, everybody wanted to use it, but nobody really knew how. And Stan, with his knack for tech, was able to train thousands of patrons on how to download those things. He was able to train other staff. So he was a huge boon. I've always been honored to have him. And then finally, in his last year or so, he joined me again. I'm over support services now. One of those things is the government documents department. A little bit about the government documents. We deal with local documents, state documents, and federal documents that come down to us. Stan was in charge of organizing, keeping, going through all that information, getting things like as simple as driver's handbooks to the public and the libraries and more complicated things, working with contacts on a federal level and a state level and keeping our information in compliance with the government. So we were honored to have him. He did a fantastic job. So I can't say enough except one last thing and I'll end with this. He also makes one heck of a espresso, so.

Stan, would you like to say a few words?

Yeah, just real quick. I'd like to thank the people of Fresno County, the library and the Board of Supervisors for giving me an opportunity to do something I really enjoyed for a very long time. Thank you.

Thank you. Any comments from the board? Any comments from the public? Okay, Ms. Stanley, please step forward, receive your plaque, and take a photo with the board.

Mr. Chairman, members of the board, the individual for item number four was unable to make it, so we will be mailing the plaque to the individual. We now move to item number five under the Board of Supervisors, presentation of retirement plaque to Jeffrey Hooper, Sheriff Department, 26 years of service.

What's that?

That was better. Good morning, Board, Mr. Chairman. I'm here with Sergeant Hooper. Sergeant Hooper has dedicated more than three decades of his life to law enforcement, exemplifying an unwavering commitment to public service and protection of our communities. Jeff began his career in 1992 as a reserve deputy with the Yellow County Sheriff's Office. He later joined the Selma Police Department, where he served from 1996 to 1999, before being hired by the Fresno County Sheriff's Office in 1999. Over the next 26 years, Jeff served in a variety of assignments, including patrol, incident command team, canine handler, and for 10 years, including one of those years as a SWAT team canine handler. adult compliance team, a training officer, a drone team member, and off highway vehicle team member. His versatility and professionalism allowed him to serve effectively in each role, earning the respect of his peers and the community alike. Jeff was one of the original area four deputies when the sheriff's office transitioned to the 24 hour coverage up in area four. He was also among the first deputies assigned to the drone team when it was established. Jeff promoted to deputy four in 2021 and a sergeant in 2022. As a sergeant, he served in patrol in the court services. He also held a collateral assignment on the recruitment team, helping recruit the future of our department. Throughout his career, Jess' loving wife of 31 years, Megan, has been there by his side. And together, they have raised two adult daughters who are extremely proud of him. With a law enforcement career spanning more than 31 years, Sergeant Hooper's legacy is one of compassion, leadership, steadfast dedication. His contributions have left a lasting and valuable mark on Fresno County and beyond. Jeff, congratulations.

Thank you, Board, Sheriff's Department, Captain Purcell, everybody else that's here. It's been a wonderful tour, so to speak. Just a kid from Nebraska. When I graduated, I did the D.A.R.R. program back then that got me into law enforcement. I did a few ride-alongs, and I was hooked. So I've been doing this ever since. I came from Sacramento. I got hired with Selma, and then I got picked up at the Sheriff's Department in 99, and I never looked back. It's been a pleasure working for the citizens of Fresno County. I've been in one day. I've been in Coalinga and all the way up to Huntington Lake with the dogs. I've been all over the county in one day and all over my career. It allowed me to help raise my girls. I do have one other girl that's in New Zealand right now. She couldn't make it. But it's allowed me to afford the raising them safe, secure. And I just want to thank everybody. This was unexpected to hear all of that. Thanks, sir. Thank you, sir.

I appreciate it.

Any comments from the board? John, did you, where you going? Oh, just, okay, okay. I wanna say congratulations. Thank you for your service. It's never easy putting on the uniform every day and protecting this community, and we are grateful, and many people who never say thank you, believe me, they're very grateful. Wish they could be here and say thank you. We appreciate it. Any comments from the public? Excellent, great. So you wanna come on up and yeah, have your family come up too.

It's like a community.

Yeah, I already looked. There's none.

We now will take up all items pulled from this morning's consent agenda. The first item is item 38, auditor, controller, treasurer, tax collector, pulled by Sue Reiser Pacheco, adopt a resolution approving September 10th and 11th, 2026, sale of tax defaulted properties that are subject to the tax collector's power to sell and authorizing the tax collector to reduce the minimum bids on certain previously offered properties in specified circumstances.

Somebody here to present and you need to recuse not on this.

I haven't missed a comment.

Oh, okay.

I'm sorry Oscar sea otter controller treasure tax collector here to answer any questions on the item board this this is the first step to selling properties for auction so One of these properties is a church in my district and And I want to make sure that the auditor makes every effort possible and reaches out to the church because I don't want this coming back to us later as to how we could sell a church property for a, I believe it's a smaller amount of money. So I'm simply here. I pulled this item to bring attention to it. and to make sure that our auditor, controller, staff makes every effort possible to resolve this issue before this church property goes out to auction.

And we have, apparently there was two people that were involved with the church. One died in 21, the other died in 24. There's an executor to the estate, and we tried contacting this individual. We got a hold of him in April, but not having got a hold of him since, we also looked at the state... the State Department and Secretary of State, and they are still certified as a non-profit. There's three officers listed on there. We're going to reach out to them as well. I talked to Paul Dictils, the assessor recorder, and he's going to go out there and knock on their door to make sure that this is okay. And I have the authority just before the tax sale to go ahead and pull it if they come in with certified funds. Hopefully, the assessor can look at 2019 that they didn't file an exemption on, and they can reduce that down to the $2,000 range instead of $3,000-something that is owed right now.

Okay. That's all I needed, Mr. Chairman. I simply wanted to bring this to our attention and hopefully avoid a headache down the road.

Any other comments from the board? Do we need to go out to the public on this as well? Okay. Any comments from the public on this item? Okay, I'll bring it back. Is there a motion?

Mr. Chairman, I would make the motion to accept the item as is.

All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimously.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We now move to item number 45, pulled by Sue Reiser Pacheco-Magzik due to the Levine Act. Approve and authorize Chairman to execute retroactive amendment number two to agreement number 22-249 with Fitzgerald, Alvarez, and Chumo, a professional law corporation for alternate and defense services effective July 1st, 2022, with no change to the term of July 1st, 2022 through June 30th, 2027. Is there staff here?

I can speak to this if there's any questions in my office.

OK. Any comments or questions? Yes. OK, we'll hold.

Oh, then we're going to have.

Correct. So what do you suggest? OK.

For the materials.

He took them both. I stay?

Yeah. Mr. Nerley? I don't have a presentation. I'll answer any questions you may have.

Any comments? Well, let me go out to the public first. Anybody from the public wish to address this item? Okay, I'll bring it back to the board.

Motion to approve.

All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimously.

I'll wait for Sue.

Make sure you have the minutes. Clearly... Documented, Bernice, because I'm sure they'll use this on me going forward, yeah. Looking to throw anything, so.

Okay, next item, please. Yeah, yeah.

We now move to item number 73, pulled by Sue Iser, Magsic, and Pacheco due to the Levine Act. Approve and authorize Chairman to execute a retroactive revenue agreement with the City of Avenal for dispatch services for the City of Avenal Fire Department through the Fresno County Emergency Medical Services Communications Center.

Good morning, Board. I'm Joe Prado with Fresno County Department of Public Health to answer any questions you may have.

Okay. Any comments, questions from the Board? Any questions or comments from the public? Bring it back. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Passes unanimously.

I'll wait for...

75.

OK. We now move to item number 75, pulled by Supervisor Magsig, due to the Levine Act. Under administrative policy number 34 for competitive bids or requests for proposal, determine that an exception to competitive bidding requirement under AP 34 is satisfied and a sole source suspension competition is warranted.

Chris Bump with Public Works and Planning. This is an agreement with AC Electric. I'm available to answer any questions.

Any questions or comments from the board? None. Any questions or comments from the public? Seeing none, I'll bring it back. Is there a motion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Passes unanimously.

Mr. Chairman, that concludes all consent items pulled from this morning. We now return to your regular agenda, which is item number six under Chairman Bredefield, adopt resolution approving the month of June as traditional nuclear family month in the county of Fresno.

Okay, the way we will do this is people will speak first. We will allow 15 people from each side that supports versus does not support this resolution. You will have one minute to speak. We will go first with those who oppose it, 15 people, one minute, and then we will have 15 minutes, 15 people, if there are 15 people here, one minute each, then the public portion will be closed and I will bring it back to the board where the board will have comments and we will see where it goes from there. So please state your name and your comments.

Always difficult to get this. Oh, I think the timer's showing the wrong time. It's showing three minutes. Now it's at two. Good morning, Board. My name is Bree Walker, and I'm a constituent to Supervisor Magzig's district. Today, I've come to speak directly to him. Supervisor, last month, you asked a number of practical questions about our particular agenda item. I appreciate the facts and figures approach you seem to demonstrate, so please allow me to provide some facts and figures on this proposed resolution. The resolution claims that the traditional nuclear family has been the bedrock of society since the creation of the world. This is false. Throughout the entirety of recorded and pre-written human history, the traditional mode of existence has been the extended family. where multigenerational family units that include cousins, in-laws, and other relations lived in the same property and shared childcare. This is true for hunter-gatherer societies, medieval peasants, and early American settlers alike. The concept of the nuclear family did not exist until 1908 when famous psychologist Sigmund Freud coined the term nuclear family concept to explain why little boys wanted to sleep with their mothers. The use of the term spread through Freud's students, but was always used to describe the source of personality disorders and sexual dysfunctions. In the 1950s, the term evolved to describe a crisis, the isolation of the family. Please vote against it. Thank you.

Thank you.

My name is Madison Neal. I'm a transgender woman, a Fresno County resident, and a PFLAG board member. I work here, I pay taxes here, I belong here. And this resolution is asking this board to officially disagree with that. This document calls people like me anti-family. It asked the county to put its official seal on the idea that my existence is a deviation from God's design. And it was brought forward again by a supervisor who has made targeting the LGBTQ community his career while poverty, housing, and healthcare go unaddressed. This is not governance. This is hateful demagoguery. This is one man's obsession with a community that has never done him or anybody any harm. To the other members of this board, to support this is to support something that goes against every foundational value of our democracy. You have the power to stop this nonsense. I say to you, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing. We are watching. We are voters. We are your constituents. Whether you want us or not, vote no on this resolution.

Thank you. Let's hold the applause for both sides. Let's just let people speak. Go ahead.

I just wanted clarification on what exactly even this is, because I swear to God, who's on the board, this is the goofiest thing I've ever seen. Like, seriously, are we going to, like, have Clark Gable is the greatest BD's appreciation next month? Are we going to get together in September and all do the hand jive? Like, this is a term from the early 20th century. And I'm glad that it was brought up because of Sigmund Freud to explain why boys wanted to sleep with their mothers because I know there's a psychologist on the board of, there's somebody on here. proposing this and voting for it that knows what the origin of the term is. So that's very interesting and I think Freud would have been very pleased with that. Have a great day gentlemen. This is goofy.

Hi, my name is Vicki Young and I live in Mr. Bredefield's district. I am coming to oppose the traditional nuclear family month because I think it's ridiculous. It's like saying we're going to acknowledge that Saturday and Sunday are the weekend. This is our cultural norm. I grew up in a traditional family. at least until the age of five when my parents were divorced. And then it was nontraditional because I had divorced parents. But it didn't mean my family was all that much different from 50% of the other people that got married. And as I've grown up, I have found that people that love their family and love their children can do just as much good or just as much evil to their children as a regular heterosexual person, which I am. Thank you. Thank you.

Reverend Tim Kutzmark from the Unitarian Universal Church of Fresno. Just because someone speaks these words does not mean they are true. Just because someone writes these words does not mean they are true. Just because some of you may vote for these words does not mean these words are true. I lift up the words of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.

Hello. My name is Kalia Metcalf. The language of this proclamation is purposely inflammatory and inaccurate. If you allow this proclamation to go forward as it currently is, then you're setting into the record falsehoods and cruel statements that have no place being part of the official record. Extensive studies from major health and psychological organizations find that no significant differences in the emotional well-being, cognitive development, or behavioral adjustment of children from nontraditional family structures. Decades of scholarly consensus supported by the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics confirm that children of same-sex parents are as psychologically healthy, happy, and well-adjusted as those raised in opposite-sex parents. Children from same-sex households frequently demonstrate high levels of academic achievement. Comprehensive analysis, such as the Cornell University's What We Know Project, shows us that overwhelmingly scholarly data refutes past assumptions that a mother-father binary is strictly required for healthy child development. Let's have a month where we celebrate family in all of its varied forms. That sounds great, as long as all families and their myriad of iterations are welcome. Thank you.

Thank you. Good morning, Reverend Simon Biasel with the Big Red Church. Blessed is the mom who takes her children and flees for their life. Blessed are the grandparents who raise their grandkids so that their mom can make it through nursing school. Blessed are the men who welcome their adopted daughters into the safety of their home. Blessed is the woman who endures IVF, and blessed is her wife who gives that baby her name. And woe to the poisonous, the slimy, and the lukewarm self-righteous hypocrites, for they will miss out on joining the family of God.

Thank you.

Good morning, board. This is Alfred Aldredi. Supervisors, colleagues, community members, I stand before you here today not to diminish any family, but to ask a simple question. Who gets to be seen?

Who gets to be celebrated?

Because when we declare one month for one kind of household, we aren't just making a proclamation, we are drawing a line. And on the other side of that line, there we place a single dad working double shifts, a grandmother raising her grandkids, two moms at the PTA meeting, the foster child who's finally found stability in the blended family. That doesn't fit the 1950s script. This resolution isn't about honoring family, it's about narrowing family. And in a county as richly diverse as Fresno, narrowing is not leadership, it's erasure. Let's call this for what it is, a continuation of a pattern we've seen too many times from this dais. From the author, Supervisor Bredefeld, has a documented history of targeting LGBTQ families. Thank you. No. No small dick energy.

Okay, my name is Tracy Cisneros. I'm a constituent of Supervisor Bredefeld, but I'm not here to speak to him today. I'm here to speak to the rest of you. This proposed proclamation declaring June as Nuclear Family Month is problematic for countless reasons. While many people see it as an obvious attack on LGBTQ plus community, its language sends a message to many other members of this county that their families are somewhat broken. I want each of you to consider how you're going to choose to be remembered. More than 40% of households in this county are led by single parents. More than 30% of county residents don't even identify as Christian. Thousands of children in this county are being raised by grandparents, extended family members, guardians, foster parents, and other loving caregivers. Those families are part of your constituency too. When you vote on this proclamation, what message will you be sending to them? What will you tell their families who feel somehow less deserving of recognition? How will you be remembered because we intend to remind everyone whether it's a discussion about your legacy or whether it's about your aspirations for future political office. Thank you.

Good morning.

Before I begin, am I allowed to direct any questions to the board and receive answers or just my statement?

You can say whatever you want. Doesn't mean you'll get a response. Okay.

All right. My name is Angela Barrett. My mother-in-law is a product of Gary's definition of a nuclear family. However, her father was closeted. He was not indoctrinated. This caused extreme family trauma. My son is a product of your definition of a nuclear family, as is my husband. I am not. Does this make me less qualified to support his development? His godmother, my husband's sister, who was raised by the same nuclear family as my husband, will be starting her own nuclear family with her wife, because a nuclear family is defined as two parents. That is according to Merriam-Webster, not Gary Bredefeld." Your proposal is divisive and exclusionary. You know what is not exclusionary is pride. What is next? Are you going to propose February be labeled as White History Month, March be labeled as Men's History Month? You cannot erase people. What resources are you proposing to offer nuclear families who are under attack?

My name is Jolene Siebert from Reedley, California. I'm speaking in opposition to approving the month of June as traditional nuclear family month in the county of Fresno. There is no need for a traditional family month because every month belongs to a traditional nuclear families, which are many, many, many of the families in this county. That is what traditional means. It is customary. The Board of Supervisors represents all of us, your constituents. Special months recognize smaller, more vulnerable or special groups that you have recognized, such as Mexican American and LGBTQ constituents. Keep June Pride Month. Support all families.

Thank you.

Good morning, Cynthia Reese, member of Fresno County. You know what? I believe families should be celebrated, but celebrating one type of family should never diminish another family, right? June is Pride Month. It is not about claiming special status, placing one group above another. It exists because our people are Americans. spent generations fighting for the simple right to live openly, safely, and equally. Pride is a celebration of equal rights, a recognition of hard-won progress, and a reminder that every person deserves freedom to live authentically without fear. When the people hear this proclamation, they're not going to hear that it's a celebration of families. They're going to hear that their families are somehow less worthy of recognition. They will hear that they don't fully belong. Whether that's the intent or not, that's the impact. LGBT people are not outsiders. They are neighbors, coworkers, friends, parents, children, family members. They live here, they work here, they raise families here, and they belong here. The question before you is not whether families matter because they do. The question is whether Fresno County will choose to embrace all families or just more than others.

Thank you.

Good morning supervisors. My name is Keegan Davis. I was born and raised in Fresno. I'm a husband, father of two, mental health clinician and in six months I'll have a doctorate in clinical psychology. On paper, my family is who this resolution means to celebrate, or at least the title of it. But before I started my family on my own, I was raised right here in Fresno by my two moms. And six years later, they also had my sister. She's a Berkeley Law graduate and an attorney in this county. The resolution reads like a research paper without a bibliography. As someone about to finish a doctorate, I can tell you if I turn this in, I would either fail my class or they'd laugh me out of the classroom itself. It also calls the nuclear family God's design. That's a religious belief, not a finding. And this county has no business stamping its seal on who's God designed whose family. What does this actually do? I celebrate June every year, have my entire life. It's an inclusive month. So if we want to celebrate all families, that's great. Please. There's 60,000 children that are hungry in this city. That's what we should focus on.

Thank you. Okay, let's not do that. Go ahead, sir.

Go ahead, ma'am. Good morning, supervisors. My name is Michelle Elichty. For the record, I've only ever been abused, neglected, and abandoned by the traditional nuclear family, my traditional nuclear family. I oppose this traditional nuclear family month resolution and ask each of you to vote no. No one in the LGBT community is promoting any of the nonsense and rhetoric included in this resolution. It feels like Fresno County is wanting to promote conflict and division, especially between the LGBTQIA plus community and the traditional nuclear family community. Supervisors, choose inclusion and assimilation and understanding of each other and love as demonstrated by Pride Month.

Thank you.

My name is Caitlin Bulger, and I have one of the traditional nuclear families you claim needs special attention. Mom, dad, three kids, we're exactly the type of family you claim needs protection, with some notable exceptions. I am an openly queer woman and the very proud parent of two queer children, and my family is no less valid than any other. This blatant attempt to overshadow Pride Month shows just how little you truly care about families. LGBTQ individuals need the support of both their families and communities. to ensure the safety of this and future generations. Traditional families have never come under attack. Queer families have and continue to. The absurd assertion that the LGBTQ community is trying to indoctrinate children is demonstrably false. What we are doing is showing children that who they are and what they are is okay and that they are loved no matter what. There are countless children out there who truly believe that they are better off dead than being gay or trans in no small part due to communities proposing and passing this kind of motion.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Caitlin Rowan. Gary, I just wanted to come up here and let you know I imposed this legislation that you're trying to pass, but I also want to let you know that I am an advocate, I'm here, and I am not going to let up on you. Personally, and I also want to let you know that you are violating the Brown Act from what I have researched by doing the 1515 without Doing a sign-up sheet or anything. So I'm not going to let up on you. I'm going to keep coming at you and hard Okay, thank you Last person

Good morning, Chairman Bredefeld, members of the board. My name is Riley Telford, SEIU chapter president. And I'm just here today to say that I'm just disappointed. We're here to govern, and we're bringing in culture wars into county government. And I'm highly disappointed that meeting after meeting, all I keep hearing is culture wars being brought into the county government instead of just taking care of the business of the county. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we're going to have, if it continues, you'll be asked to leave. We're going to hold the same standards to everybody who speaks. Next, the people who are supportive of the resolution. Again, please state your name and your comments.

Good morning, supervisors. My name is Heidi Bond. I've lived in the Central Valley my whole life. I'm here today in support of Supervisor Gary Bredefield's resolution recognizing June as traditional nuclear family month in Fresno County. The traditional nuclear family, a married mother and father raising children, has long been the cornerstone of our society. For generations, it has provided love, stability, guidance, and support, helping to raise responsible citizens and building stronger communities. Several states, including Texas, Tennessee, Indiana, Alabama, have already recognized June as traditional nuclear family month. Fresno County now has the opportunity to do the same, affirm the importance of family faith commitment with the values that have strengthened generations of Americans.

Thank you. Thank you.

Good morning, supervisors. I wanted to point out a little hypocrisy here. There's over three months and 28 days where we're supposed to be celebrating what someone's sexual preference is. I stand today in strong support of declaring Nuclear Family Month in Fresno County. The nuclear family, mother, father, and children is the bedrock of stable communities. lower crime, better educational outcomes, and generational prosperity. It's not just tradition. It's proven by mountains of social science. It is deeply hypocritical for anyone to claim they care about families while undermining the very structure that creates the healthiest ones. As a father of three children, I have watched the opposite being pushed onto my children. I want to thank Supervisor Bredefield for bringing this forward and continuing to support traditional family values. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning, supervisors. My name is Molly Anala. I am in support of this resolution. Growing up in a two-parent household significantly increases the likelihood of success. Research indicates that children from two-parent families are generally more likely to experience positive outcomes in various areas, including education, economic stability, and the reduced likelihood of incarceration. Supervisor Chavez was recently quoted in the New York Post stating that, quote, nobody is against traditional family values, end quote. Yet here we are with dozens of people here speaking out against this resolution. And since you said that nobody is against traditional family values, Supervisor Chavez, does that mean you're going to vote yes on this resolution? Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning, Chairman Bredefeld, members of the board. My name is Diane Pierce, and I am Mayor Pro Tem of Clovis. I'm here today to support the resolution to declare June Traditional Nuclear Family Month in Fresno County. We have a diverse county, and not all families fit the definition of this resolution. But that should not preclude us from acknowledging what is best in terms of raising children in the healthiest possible environment that provides the best outcomes. People come up to this podium all the time on a variety of issues and talk about the importance of following best practices. Well, history and statistics show the best practices for families is a mother and father raising the children. Data from developmental psychology and family studies show that mothers and fathers bring unique, balanced strengths to a child's life. We should be celebrating and encouraging that. This resolution recognizes that the nuclear family is the ideal for a successful society and has been essential in building the prosperous foundation Fresno County has enjoyed. Celebrating what works and pointing people toward it is a positive thing. Thank you. Please support this resolution.

Thank you. If you keep doing that, you're going to be asked to leave. Show respect as they showed respect for your side.

Good morning. Andrea Shebaglian. Supervisors, the traditional family nucleus is the strongest foundation for a myriad of truths. The data is there. My sister is an open lesbian. I have friends and former bosses who are gay, many of whom are more kind and more thoughtful and daring and funny and even smarter than me, and in many ways, probably even better humans. I was raised by a single mom on a single income with no sense of religion. My dad has been married three different times with three different children. I have alcoholism on both sides. I know addiction, dysfunction, and brokenness. With all these hard truths about family dynamics, the facts remain. The traditional family nucleus is still our strongest foundation. Yes, it is broken, and it is for this very reason that Fresno County should focus on the traditional nuclear family with efforts to both support and promote it. As the resolution states, the traditional nuclear family is under attack. Supervisors, do not see this as a vote against a particular people group, but rather see your yes vote as what you apparently already know.

Thank you. Good morning, council members and Fresno County. My name is Dennis McCord. I'm here to ask you to vote yes on this resolution to make June traditional nuclear family month. And I'm reading and listening to many of the arguments on the other side. They can be turned against the very thing that they are saying, exclusionary, oppressive, bringing your religion into the public square. Let's face it, secular humanism as a religion has failed our society. And we need to reassert traditional values and establish the fact that God has created a man and a woman to be married and to bear children. This is the pattern from the beginning of history. And I would just want to ask those on the other side to understand we are all broken. We all need a savior. We all need healing. So to say that someone's broken, I'm broken. Let's humble ourselves and let's submit ourselves to Almighty God and recognize that Jesus Christ is Lord of Fresno. He died for our sins and he rose from the dead and we'll all be held accountable on the day when he returns. Thank you so much for this resolution. Thank you.

Good morning, Chairman Bredefield and Board of Supervisors. Thank you for this opportunity to speak on this issue. In a time of increasing family diversity, a nuclear family month can serve as a reminder of the traditional family's role model in our society, also providing a counterbalance to the trends that some view as undermining family structures. A dedicated month can encourage community events, workshops, discussions, and also strengthen family bonds, promoting family-oriented activities. It also can provide a platform for sharing resources and support networks for families, enhancing community cohesion and support systems. And for these reasons, I'm asking the Board of Supervisors to support the resolution. Thank you.

Thank you.

My name is Bill Scott. When I was in my 20s, I fell in love, got married, started a family, in that order. I don't have any children from another mother. My wife doesn't have any children from another father. In September, we'll celebrate our 50th anniversary. I never got a free phone, free food, help paying my mortgage, forgiveness on anything. I've never quite qualified for any government program, except the program where I pay taxes for all those others. I've never had a celebration or a thank you. So I hear someone wants to introduce a traditional family month to celebrate my way of life. No one's offering me any money. I'm not being taken out for dinner. I don't even get cake and ice cream. But look at all these people that are all upset that the county just wants to say thank you. Well, I want to say thank you to you for thinking about me. The only thing I would change, if I had to say, is make it the month of July, because people like me are strong patriots. To have this associated with the 4th of July would be like icing on the cake I didn't get. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. Thank you, Supervisor Bredefield, for bringing up this great topic of traditional nuclear family month. Families are the whole point of life when you think about it. Our churches remind us of this. Charlie Kirk reminded us of this. And we instinctively know that we need to replace ourselves. I've been married for 54 years. I have three children and four grandchildren. I couldn't figure out why I had so many friends that had sons and daughters in their 30s and 40s that weren't getting married. I realize we just don't emphasize marriage and families like we should. Let's celebrate nuclear families. Let's make it the gold standard to attempt to achieve. There are lots of ways to accomplish this, but a mother and a father in the home makes life easier, more productive, and more economical. Families are like many governments in a good way. There's an executive, a strong leader, lawmakers. We give our children the rules to live by, and a judiciary. We help our kids understand right from wrong. Families make a stronger fabric of life and a stronger community. Please pass this resolution. Celebrate traditional nuclear Family Month. It is very necessary.

Thank you Hi, I'm Cindy Fukuyama and I want to focus on something that I hope will bring us all together for a moment Every one of us in this room All came from a nuclear unit Two men or two women cannot produce a child, even medically. It takes sperm from a male and eggs from a female. That cannot be denied. Are nuclear families perfect? No. I myself have been through a divorce, raised a couple kids. It's not easy. And we know the divorce rate, and we know all the ills, like the other woman spoke of, that befall all families. But this is why we need to support the nuclear family. They are worth fighting for. Strong nuclear families build strong communities. Strong communities build strong states. Strong states build a strong nation. Our country has been celebrating Pride Month for 57 years. I think it's time to also celebrate the nuclear family.

Thank you.

Good morning, chair and members. My name is Jonathan Keller. I'm the president of California Family Council. We're a state-based public policy organization representing thousands of churches and millions of Californians across the state. I rise today in strong support of the resolution. A society cannot truly celebrate everything at once because some things point in opposite directions. We can honor what holds families together or we can honor what pulls them apart, but we cannot pretend they are the same. They are actually opposites. This resolution chooses the side of faithfulness. It honors the mother and father who choose to stay dedicated to each other and to their children and raise the next generation together. This is not a statement against anyone. It's a statement for something, the oldest and most enduring institution in the world woven into the very fabric of creation itself. Even here, there are lots of wonderful alternatives to Pride Month, but ultimately today, Fresno County can choose to light a candle instead of cursing the darkness. We can tell our families, all of our families, you matter here. Thank you.

Okay, anyone else from this side? We had 11. Okay, then I'm going, are you coming up to speak? Okay. Okay.

Joseph Day, I'm here to support the resolution. I think it's been abundantly clear over the past several decades that government interference in the family has done damage. And I just wanna congratulate you because this is an opportunity for government to do some repair. So thank you very much. I'm in support of this resolution.

Thank you. Anyone else? Okay, with that, I will close the public portion and bring it back to the board. Who would like to speak? OK, Supervisor Magzik.

So Chairman, there's a lot of statements that are made in here, many of which I support. But I need to kind of preface some of my comments by saying I am the product of a broken family. So my parents divorced. And, you know, I had many I have people out there who I call kind of my pseudo moms who took care of me, which I really appreciate. And I have people on both sides of this particular issue who spoke in favor and against. And so, you know, for me, I'm I'm one who counts myself as also very much broken. But I have been saved by grace. And I do believe that there is a perfect design. I believe there is something there is absolute truth. we need to recognize those things but in in this resolution there are a number of whereases and I assume as I've looked up like the statement that children from motherless homes are more likely to develop emotional issues personality disorders like narcissistic personality or borderline personality disorder I assume your staff as you put this together you were able to source a lot of this stuff so can you kind of just talk a little bit about the impact of to kids where these statements are made and where those sources kind of came from?

Yeah, I will tell you that I had my staff look at this. They gave me research studies that back up the statements that we made. I wouldn't have put these statements out unless they were backed up by research. And so it's very clear, and I think it's also common sense, that children growing up without a mother or growing up without a father has adverse impacts on them. And so, yes, supervisor, we did do the research and can provide that to you if you request it.

And for me, I'll wait until I hear from comments from my colleagues. There is a small modification that I'm going to make to the or suggest that we make to the resolution, but I'll wait until I hear other comments as well.

Sure. Go ahead, Supervisor Chavez.

Thank you, Chair. First of all, I want to thank everybody that came up and spoke. I think oftentimes we are reminded of a term that we need to see each other more in each other. I think that helps humanize who we are. And I always like to bring things back to what this is about. It's about people. And I want to thank all the 100 plus emails that our offices got. you know, on both sides of this conversation. But for me, it's very simple. I don't think anybody here is against family values. And, you know, one of the speakers mentioned that I was quoted in some media source. And I stand by that. And the reason that you saw a lot of the folks come up and speak previously is because a lot of those folks have actually been kept out of this definition of what a family is. And that's why they're so passionate about that. And I think all of us have a personal story to share, whether it's a family or a close friend that happens to be LGBT. And the challenge that I have with this resolution is not the reference to the family values, because I think a lot of us are lucky that we grew up with two parents, we grew up in a home, but not everybody is lucky in our community. And statistics show what that really looks like for our folks, especially in the foster care system. And I'll share with you, as I've gone through many years ago and becoming a foster parent, I sat next to gay couples that were willing to open their loving home and provide a safe and healthy environment for our children. and that's not recognized in this resolution right because nobody nobody is blessed uh all the time or very few of us are who have been born in a community and or a family uh you had everything that you needed a lot of you shared some of your stories with addiction with abuse and and to me that's what this is really about because when we talk about the language words are powerful and the messages that we send here from the diets mean a lot to people And I can tell you from going out to the Pride Parade a couple of weeks ago, I didn't see any hate or division or people trying to alienate other folks. I think it was very inclusive. And I really also don't think that anybody that was not gay that attended the event, all of a sudden decided to turn in an application and see if they would let him become gay. And I think that's what a lot of us struggle with, that we seem to think that being gay in our community is a choice, and it's not a choice. It's who you are. And I know that's difficult for people to accept, but I really do believe that God makes us all different for a reason. We have that Praise up there in God we trust and I believe that and I believe that it's only God that can judge us. We'll all one day meet our maker and it's not going to be a group of politicians or a board of supervisors that renders judgment on us. It's only going to be God. And so. You know, Supervisor Bredefeld, you and I have gone through this conversation. It seems to be kind of the tradition in June where we have this conversation. And again, nobody is against family values. What I am against is the potpourri and the medley that were interjected here with regards to referencing the LGBT community pushing their values on folks. or our transgender community, you know, I don't see that in Fresno County. I don't see that in our community because to me, they've been really respectful and inclusive and they invite everybody. And they've even, you know, had some local elected officials change their heart because of conversations that they have. And then also the reference in here with regards to abortion and that decision. And one of the values and principles that I've always admired about my conservative Republican friends has been this reluctance to allow government to come into our lives. Maybe that's a libertarian sway of mine. But with this resolution, we're inviting government to come into our bedroom, to come into our church, to come into our medical offices and have those conversations with our folks. And I'm not comfortable doing that. And if we're going to be pro-life, we're going to be pro-family. You know, our Republican friends in the House of Representatives, we just got an update, cut $200 million from the women, infant, and children programs. Why do we have to be pro-life only when women are pregnant? Why can't we do that when they have children? And we have a lot of families and people that need help and support. I want us to be consistent with that. The last thing I'll say with this subject, because I do want to hear what my colleagues have to say, is as we're going through the conversation about marriage, Traditional marriages, the statistics show that they have a divorce rate of anywhere from 42 to 45%. That's almost half of marriages that don't work out. We've all been there and been guilty of that. And here's a statistic for gay couples. their divorce rate is only anywhere from 10% to 30%. So they actually have a higher success rate of marriage, probably because they had to fight so hard for people to just accept who they are and who they are with and who they should love and who they should marry and who they should be with. so i'm not comfortable voting on this to support this uh supervisor bretta felt if this was narrowly focused on family values and the true family values and broadening that definition i would be open to support him but not with the language that's in there that i really do believe alienates a lot of people like what do we say to the single mom that had a divorce the abusive father and now is a you know raising two, three children, having to work two, three jobs, I don't want to send that message from Fresno County that we don't accept and acknowledge and respect them. And so for that reason, I'm not going to be supporting this resolution today.

Supervisor Pacheco? Supervisor? You want me to say anything, buddy? You want me to go first? Yeah, I'll do it. At all of my colleagues, it's widely known, I say the least up here and have done that for 12 years. I generally, I try to listen, be respectful, and then only speak when necessary. I think that has to do with kind of our upbringing on a farm. We just do our work. And I think when Supervisor Mendez and I came here, for 12 years, we just did the public's business. And we kept politics for the most part out of the boardroom. And what I've come to know over the last several months, as I make an attempt for higher office, supervisor's one of the highest offices, maybe there's state education's the same, where it's a nonpartisan office. and you don't put a label by your name, you just come here and you do your work and you govern. We're here for better roads, public safety, make land use decision and improve the quality of life. And we're stronger when we work together and focus that and don't put labels by our names for all of the people in Fresno County. And being here, as a lot of people said, Fresno's a pretty diverse county, and we represent people from every walk of life. And I've spent the last 12 years, and I want to leave on that note, that I'm here to bring the community together, to not divide it, to not define it, and to just do our job. And I would agree, Supervisor Bredefield, in an ideal world, maybe we'd have one father, one mother, and one family. But Supervisor Chavez said it best, half of those ideal families end in divorce anyway. And that's just life. And we don't live in an ideal world. And through no fault of their own, there are single parent families that do the best they can with their situations. And one of the speakers said it best, some are by choice and some are by consequences. And as much as we want to control our lives, we can't control everything, but we got to do the best with what's been given to us. So I would simply say we're a diverse country, we're a diverse state, and we're a diverse county. And we have more than one kind of family. And families come in many, many shapes and sizes. and we should be caring for one another and not proclaiming one family is superior over another so i i support june as family month we just shouldn't have the audacity to define what that family is or is not. Love defines the family and it's not the definition of a nuclear family and I just wanna leave it at that and would hope that we can, go back to the way it was. You know you're getting older when you reflect and look back. But I want to go back to just governing and get the politics out of the boardroom. And maybe we can do that and maybe we can't. But I don't see how this improves the lives of anyone in Fresno County or how it lets us do our job any better in doing our core duties. And it just gets everybody upset. Thank you.

Okay, Professor Mendez.

I think there's been some good points brought up. One which I truly believe in is that there are single moms and single dads doing the best they can to raise their children. And you also have, in today's world, a lot of situations where the mom and dad don't live together anymore, but they have joint custody. and the kids are going back and forth, you know, and that's kind of a full-time job for the court to keep that monitored, and hopefully, you know, if there's not a lot of, you know, complaints from one parent or the other, you know, that's just part of how society is, and I think, I don't know what Supervisor Magsik was gonna say, but I'm sure he's got something that I think if it was changed, I think could, could help, you know, bring us together on, on the where is, you know, so, you know, Brian said he doesn't speak a lot. I speak less because I like just getting to the point, you know, but there's a, I think it's sad though, that we have people that are so thin skinned anymore that just any little thing, you know, just sets them off.

Okay.

So anyway, just go ahead, Gary, and I know you haven't talked yet. No, that's okay. No, I'm good.

Okay. Nathan, did you want me to speak first, or did you want to make a... Okay. Okay. So I want to thank everyone for being here today. This resolution was inspired by similar efforts across the nation and in my view reflects the values and concerns of many families here in Fresno County. I want to be very clear about what this resolution is and what it is not. This resolution doesn't take away anything from anyone. It doesn't prohibit anyone from celebrating holidays or any other event. It doesn't restrict anyone's rights, nor does it prevent anyone from living life as they choose. What it does do is recognize and celebrate an institution that has served as the foundation of civilization for centuries, the traditional nuclear family. And there's a reason societies throughout history have recognized the importance of strong families. This is not simply a matter of tradition. It's supported by decades of research. Study after study has found that children generally achieve the best outcomes when they're raised in stable homes with both their mother and father. Researchers and government agencies have linked family instability and the absence of a father to higher rates of poverty, behavioral problems, school failure, juvenile delinquency, substance abuse, homelessness, and youth suicide. None of this is meant to diminish the extraordinary work of single parents, parents that share custody of their children following divorce, grandparents, foster parents, and others who often make tremendous sacrifices for their children in their care. Many children raised outside of traditional family structures grow into successful and productive adults. We recognize these families and the critically important role they have in raising healthy children. But we also recognize that the traditional nuclear family has been foundational in our society from the beginning of time. The nuclear family has provided the necessary structure, financial stability, emotional security, and role models to help develop healthy children. Strong, healthy families are one of the greatest predictors of positive outcomes for children and one of the strongest safeguards against many of the social challenges we face as a society. If we're willing to celebrate causes that strengthen our communities, then we should also be willing to celebrate the institution that has done more perhaps than any other to raise healthy children, reduce poverty, and provide stability for future generations. This is why states like Tennessee, Florida, Indiana, Arkansas, and Alabama have initiated similar resolutions as the one before this board today, and I have no doubt more states are going to follow. Over the last several years, I've heard from countless mothers, fathers, grandparents, and community members who feel their traditional values are increasingly being dismissed, marginalized, or treated as outdated. Many of these individuals are concerned about the messages being promoted to children in schools, libraries, and other public institutions. Parents want to remain the primary decision makers in their children's lives. They want to know what their children are being taught, what materials they're being exposed to, and when sensitive subjects involving sex, gender, and identity are being discussed. Too many people feel that expressing support for traditional family values now comes with the risk of being labeled intolerant, hateful, bigots, or racist simply because they hold a different viewpoint. That is unacceptable and should concern everyone. In America, freedom of speech involves the freedom to express traditional values just as much as it includes the freedom to express progressive ones. Parents have every right to be involved in decisions affecting their children, especially during childhood and adolescence when young people are still developing, maturing, and trying to understand who they are. Yet in school, they can profess to be of a different gender. And by law, parents don't have to be informed. Parents should be the primary authority in their children's lives, not governmental agencies, school bureaucracies, or social justice activists. Today we're witnessing young, innocent, and impressionable children being inundated with destructive messages of gender ideology, that there are more than two genders and there are only two, That transgenderism is to be celebrated rather than treated by mental health professionals. Or that it's okay for boys dressed as girls to compete in girls' sports. It's not okay. And none of this is acceptable. Sadly, we're also witnessing a growing effort throughout California to normalize transgender ideology. The idea that children can change their gender and that questioning this insanity is somehow outside the mainstream. It's not. Children often experience confusion, insecurity, and uncertainty as they grow and mature. That is a normal part of childhood and adolescence. Encouraging life-altering decisions such as placing children on puberty blockers or surgically altering their bodies before a child has reached maturity is something many parents rightfully oppose. It's outrageous and it's insane. That is why it is so important that we continue to stand up for parental rights, biological reality, common sense, and the traditional values that have helped strengthen families and communities for generations. That's what this resolution is all about. It's about acknowledging that traditional family values still matter, values that include teaching and fostering respect for others, self-respect, ethics, morality, personal accountability, and the importance of being a productive member of society. It's about recognizing hardworking mothers, fathers, and grandparents who are helping raise the next generation in the critical role they have in raising their children. It's about supporting stable households, strong communities, and the principles that have guided families for generations. Most importantly, it's about ensuring that people who hold traditional values for their families and their children know that their voices matter, too, and they will be recognized every June in Fresno County. And with that, I understand, Supervisor Magazine, you wanted to make something, and I wanted to address Supervisor Mendez's concerns about including other families that are not listed. Go ahead.

Yeah, so looking at the resolution as it's written, I would want to strike one of the paragraphs, which is the fifth whereas down, where it speaks to the LGBTQ lifestyle. And the only reason I want to remove that out of there is if this is a traditional family resolution, I think the resolution is cleaner, specifically talking about moms and dads, the benefits of being raised in a traditional family environment, which I can appreciate, again, as someone who comes from a divorced family. And for me, really, it comes down to identity. And I think all of us are trying to figure out our identity, and that is so important. But that fifth paragraph, which starts, I think, on line between 22 and 23, I would just strike that one that one paragraph and keep it to speaking specifically about the nuclear family.

I have no problem with that. We will take that out. And addressing your concern about single mothers and fathers and grandparents, because of course we celebrate all of these folks who are working hard and raising children. I would like to add, if this is acceptable to Supervisor Mendez and everyone else who supports this, this paragraph. Whereas single mothers and fathers, grandparents, foster parents, and those parents that have joint custody of their children are critically important to raising healthy children and are recognized for their sacrifice, hard work, and devotion to their families and children. So they're included in this as well. And I would like to make a motion to approve this, yes, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, go ahead.

I appreciate that removal of that language on there. I think that was like the inflammatory. The only concern I have with that is that it doesn't recognize what we just heard from a lot of folks, LGBTQ couples. that are raising children and are doing it in a very successful manner. We had the gentleman that spoke up and talked about himself going to school and having two moms. Would you be open to recognizing that, codifying that by language here, or is that not an option?

No, I would not accept that. Hey! All right, take them out, please. Whoever's yelling, have them removed. Out. Goodbye.

Get outta here. Get outta here. Goodbye. Right.

Go ahead. I just wanted to put that on the record, see if that was a consideration. I understand and respect your opinion. And when I'll say this, and let me just close with this, as you guys are working through the language, because I spoke up about this during the library conversation of those people that threatened our librarians and did what they did. And you might not feel comfortable speaking about it, but I will because I feel it's wrong. Regardless of the differences that we have up here, we need to be civil and we need to be more collegial with us, with ourselves. I think there's enough hate going on in the world. And it was not okay what happened to my colleague as well, where he got threatened online, a threat on his life. That is not okay. And Supervisor Redford, you and I spoke a little bit about this, that shouldn't happen. And so I just ask the members of the public, regardless of what happens today, this is a disagreement on policy. It's not a personality issue up here. So please be respectful and please show respect to the people that came up and spoke because I think a lot of people had some great points. For me, I'm just not comfortable supporting anything that doesn't encompass what a nuclear family means because I think with the shifting world that we have, I've seen a lot of success stories come out of gay couples that have, you know, raised children in a very successful and healthy environment and have gone on to be doctors and lawyers. And for me, for that not to be recognized is a deal breaker for me.

I understand. So I'd like to make the motion, if there's nobody else who wants to speak, that we take out the paragraph that you allude to, Supervisor Magzik, and we add the paragraph that I just outlined, which addresses the concerns by Supervisor Mendez.

I'll second that.

Thank you. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Motion passes three. Thank you.

We now move to first.

Ready to move on.

We now move to item number seven under Behavioral Health. Proven authorized chairman to execute the Fresno County Behavioral Health Services Act Integrated Plan 2026-2029, which will be submitted to the California Department of Health Care Services and the California Behavioral Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission.

We'll give a second, let people leave. Just wait a moment for Supervisor Mendez. Okay, Susan.

Good morning, Chairman Bredefeld, Supervisors, Susan Holt, your Behavioral Health Director and Public Guardian. With me today also is Division Manager of our Department's Planning and Quality Management Division, Ahmad Barami. The item before you today is regarding our Behavioral Health Services Act Three-Year Integrated Plan. Our board and members of the public recall that we have had the Mental Health Services Act since 2004 when the Proposition 63 was passed by the voters of California. That was a millionaire's tax. It's 1% of personal income for every dollar over a million dollars. In 2024, Proposition 1 changed that Mental Health Services Act, and it is now rebranded as the Behavioral Health Services Act. It was narrowly passed by the voters of California. It rebranded it for behavioral health due to the integration of substance use disorder. Like our department's name, behavioral health is recognizing both mental health care and substance use disorder care. The rebranding of the act changed that as well with an inclusion of the ability to utilize those funds for substance use disorder services. More importantly, it changed how we use those dollars from that millionaire's tax. Under MHSA, until July 1, coming up ahead, we had five categories to spend the money according to a plan developed in partnership with our stakeholders. That now is three more narrowly prescriptive categories under the Behavioral Health Services Act. Those categories are full-service partnerships, which we've always had. It's our highest level of outpatient care. But now they'll have specific identified evidence-based practices, which they must operate to fidelity. And we cannot any longer pay for housing of persons served in those programs in that category of money. And the reason for that is that under BHSA, 30% of that millionaire's tax goes to housing the persons who are eligible for behavioral health services under BHSA. So that's a new requirement for us to spend money. We already allocate MHSA dollars currently to pay for housing, But it's shifted into a different bucket, and it's more expansive. In that bucket, we can also use up to 6% of that subset. strike that we can utilize up to 25% for us next fiscal year that would be six million to partner in the development of additional housing inventory and so you will have seen that reflected in the plan because for the people we serve we know that access to housing is a real barrier and then the other category is the behavioral health services and supports which is sort of a catch-all for for everything else Bear in mind that the Behavioral Health Services Act dollars are about 19% of our overall revenue that we receive. But importantly, another element of the Behavioral Health Services Act is that it is not just about those dollars anymore. BHSA came with sweeping regulatory changes and we include all other revenue sources in the integrated plan. And yet to be released is the Behavioral Health Services Oversight and Accountability It's called the BOADER. They like to pronounce all the acronyms. Pardon me for not recalling. It's the report, Behavioral Health Services Outcomes and Accountability Report, which we have not yet seen released by the state. So we're building on our plan, and then we will reconcile the data collection and reporting on that. So that's a brief overview of your BHSA integrated plan. We did fulfill the requirements to engage all 27 required stakeholders. We've been in close communication with your county administrative officer, and I'm happy to entertain any questions you may have.

Any questions, comments from the board? No? Any questions or comments from the public? Okay. Yes, Supervisor Mags.

So with Kind of the changing of the Misha funds out there that we used to receive. We actually have less. We have less discretionary dollars. But we do have an opportunity to apply for a pot of money from the state, which you kind of alluded to. So With your presentation, I want to make sure the public is aware that when it comes to behavioral health resources that we used to get and then our opportunity to have kind of local discretion that was impacted. So can you talk about that briefly? And what kind of a loss in dollars? I think it's somewhere between 4 to 6 million a year, but you can you can talk a little bit about that.

Thank you so much for the question. So as you would see reflected in the plan, and I appreciate Supervisor Magsig highlighting, another important change in that recategorizing of those dollars, I neglected to mention that the state under MHSA took 5% off the top for state-directed activities. Now they take 10% off the top. And so that's a reduction to us of 5%. And our projections for next fiscal year is about $5 million difference. It's complicated to say how many dollars exactly because this is by far the most volatile revenue source that we have. So, for example, prior to this fiscal year, our projections for MHSA were $70 million. I don't know if it's AI or if it's something else. I'm not an investment expert, but millionaires ended up doing fairly. So we had to revise our projections to 96 million. So you see big swings in the amount of money that comes to the department. And in fact, we see projections of about 105 million for next year. But because of that 5% extra that the state is taking off the top, it is less money available for local activity. Further, the state is taking a portion of that extra 5% specifically to do statewide mental health prevention activities. There are no longer specific mental health prevention dollars in local control under BHSA. And sadly, we did have a number of our contracted programs that were at the end of their contract cycle, and we had tough decisions to make to fit everything into the new categories, and a few of our prevention-related programs did need to sunset because of that. It's very impactful.

Thank you. Is there a motion? Is there a second? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. No, any opposed? There are none. Passes unanimously. Thank you.

We now move to item number eight, under human resources, conduct a public hearing on the status of the county's vacancies, recruitment, and retention efforts in the hiring process pursuant to California Government Code Section 3502.3, formerly known as Assembly Bill 2561, and accept staff's report on the county's vacancies, recruitment, and retention efforts in opticals, don't know why I'm struggling with that, in the hiring process in accordance with the same.

Good morning, Board. Hollis McGill, Director of Human Resources. So today I'm going to be discussing our recruitment and vacancy efforts in light of Assembly Bill 2561. This legislation requires that we report out to you once per fiscal year the status of our vacancy and recruitment efforts, paying special attention to bargaining units whose vacancies exceed 20%. Now our current vacancy is currently at, our vacancy rate is currently at 14%, which is down from 16% in 2022. There is a slight uptick from last year, which was at 11%. So we're still doing okay at 14%. Now the following efforts have been made to make our recruitment efforts much more efficient. So we've shortened our recruitment filing periods, we've expanded our reinstatement from one year to five years, and we're also allowing for additional names to be referred for employment consideration. So we are making some efforts on that. To attract top talent, our recruitment team continues to highlight the benefits of working for a public agent, such as our zero-cost health insurance plans, our deferred comp match, our very generous annual leave plans, and our HR recruitment team probably attends around 18 recruitment fairs a year, so that is something that we're also doing to attract talent to the county. Now while our overall vacancy rate is 14%, we do have one bargaining unit that is exceeding 20%. So that is the Public Defenders Unit 31. So their vacancy rate is at 23%, but it is down from 28% from last year. So we are moving in the right direction, and we do have some pending salary increases coming up, so we feel that that will make an impact on vacancy rates. Now, a good example of a success story or several success stories is our partnership with departments and the engineers for Unit 42 in Public Works and Planning. Last year, their vacancy rate was 34%, and this year it's 13%. So we can make a difference. And also, I want to say with our correctional officers that our vacancy rate is currently at 3.8%, which has been amazing. So that's been a great partnership with the Sheriff's Office and with our ESD team. So that's really the status of our vacancies. I'm here to answer any questions or if there's any units that want to come up and speak to.

OK. Any questions or comments from the board? Let me go to the public. Comments from the public?

Yes, I was just hoping to hear the status of vacancies within Unit 3, which is the social workers, as well as other units within DSS, which are Units 4, eligibility workers, job specialists. Thank you.

So for Unit 3, we are currently at a 14% vacancy rate, and Unit 4 is a 14%, almost 50%.

Okay, any other comments or questions from the public? And I'll bring it back to the board. Is there a motion? All those in favor, say aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimously.

As mentioned earlier this morning, item nine was deleted. We now move to item number 10. Under public health, receive presentation from the Department of Public Health on future public health funding updates.

Good morning, Chairman and fellow board members. I'm Joe Prado with the Fresno County Department of Public Health. And so today I'm doing the future public health funding presentation. This is a legal requirement by state statutes. And so I wanted to bring you up to speed on kind of what have we been making investments in. And I am going to expedite the presentation and really focus on the last two slides here. So we receive approximately $6 million a year, and 70% of that $6 million has to go towards staffing. And so we exceed that 70% every year. So we do make a heavy investment in our staffing here. And just some part of these requirements is kind of let you know what's happening with mortality data What are the leading causes of death in Fresno County when we looked at from 2021 to 2024? Cardiovascular disease has gone down about eleven and a half percent and cancer rates have gone down about three point four percent these two diseases are usually the top two on a consistent basis from year to year and And next here, I just want to point out the top reportable communicable diseases. Very consistently, we see chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis as the top communicable diseases, and we are seeing valley fever at a higher rate than we have in previous years. And something about that is just we're really focusing in on its increasing conditions. What we're kind of seeing is melanoma within our mortality data is actually increasing at a high rate amongst males. So you'll start to see a little more education around skin cancer from our department and start focusing in on that education component with all of our assets and resources. Next, in morbidity, we're seeing a higher case of valley fever. So again, you'll see more education, more outreach really focus on these two in these coming years. What I want to draw your attention to is a community health improvement plan. So your board usually hears a lot about community engagement and stakeholder engagement. This is kind of the result of that. We've went out and really listened to the public about what are the health conditions they're concerned with. We showed them all the health data. And so here are some top three items that we've landed on as a community. Priority one, physical activity and nutrition. Priority two, equitable access to health care. And priority three, with our Department of Behavioral Health, Mental Health, and Substance Abuse. So public health doesn't do everything in all these areas. This is where we'll work with our hospital, our community-based organizations, our behavioral health partners to address this throughout the year. And challenges like physical nutrition, food, the reductions to SNAP-Ed, we're going to work with those challenges that we have on just really creating a good nutrition curriculum within the department and still utilize our existing resources to get that information out. Strategic planning, we have gone through that process here through 2024, and we really are able to really focus in on those limited dollars that we have. And we've landed on these five key focus areas, community health improvement, public safety and health promotion, emergency preparedness and response, information technology, and workforce development. Every division, every program within the department will be focused in to make sure we are all working towards these goals as an entire unit. What I really wanted to focus a little more time is an innovative investment that you made as a board during the COVID response. We had ARPA dollars available, and your board funded the first $5 million for a county information exchange. This was in collaboration with Fresno County Superintendent of Schools, and we are now moving towards implementation. The first phase of implementation is a focus on suicide prevention. We have infrastructure in place with hospitals to be able to identify an algorithm where any child with suicidal ideations will actually then there will be an email sent to a school district that is participating with us here. And we have five school districts participating right now for implementation by fall of this year. At the end, by fall of this year, we could have 70% of all school-age children receiving an alert, and it will go to a care team at the school district. So it's another way to support our children that express suicidal ideation. So excited about that moving forward in fall of this year. The next piece of the county information exchange is what we told your board during that allocation is we saw a huge opportunity to where as we make investments, how are we ensuring we're not duplicating services? And so what you see on the board here is actually a social services circle, behavioral health, public health, and education. Right now what we see is millions of siloed investment, no data-driven understanding of return on investment, inefficient care coordination. With the information exchange, think of an IT platform where you could see now who is servicing a particular client. You could see if there is a social services social worker. Is there somebody in a community-based organization? Do they have a public health nurse? So maybe we could have too many people servicing one particular family. In this diagram here, you see this dotted square here. I'm calling this the investment square. When we came together, the human services departments, we put something on the board. And it was, how much are we all investing in care coordination services, patient navigation? We all called it a little bit different. When we put that on the board, that was a $300 million investment. And out of that $300 million, we had 70 to 80 contracts, and we have multiple databases. But none of the databases actually communicate with one another. So how do we know we're duplicating services? We don't. We don't unless we are able to do the deep dive. We're creating the IT platform for us to be able to see that now. We could see where duplication is happening. But we're also going to see in this circle here in the center, we're going to see outcomes. Maybe we don't need to fund 100 programs. Maybe we just need to invest in 50, 10 programs to actually get the results that we need. That is going to be the benefit of us sharing data amongst the county departments, but also with our education partners. With our education partners, if we're able to now get absenteeism data, maybe you didn't see a benefit in a mental health outcome, but a benefit of them attending school. So this is, I think, something that is going to really help us manage our resources more efficiently throughout the county, and it is all predicated on making sure we are able to share data amongst the county departments and with our partners outside. Department of Public Health, we are taking the first step. We're issuing an RFP, and it's going to be mandatory for community-based organizations to actually feed into this information exchange so we can manage our resources more efficiently and really document those outcomes. So that concludes my presentation. Available for any questions.

I want to ask a question about Valley Fever. Now, is that a specific test? I know I'm asking you a medical question.

Yeah, it's a diagnosis from a doctor with certain test results being provided. So it is documented and reported to the health department.

Right, but it could be something else similar to Valley Fever and treated and the treatment works.

Yeah, so with the diagnostic codes, the doctor has done the differential diagnosis and evaluated it and has landed on valley fever. There are other symptoms that may look like valley fever, but it is the doctor making that determination that it is actually valley fever.

Any other comments or questions from the board? Any comments or questions from the public? If not, I'll bring it back. I understand we need to take a vote on accepting this report. Is there a motion? Okay. Motion Supervisor Mendez, seconded by Supervisor Chavez. All those in favor, say aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimously. Thank you.

We now move to item number 11, public works and planning. Consider adopt negative declaration based on initial study number 8544 including conditions of approval for amendment application number 3866 and find that the proposed rezone of subject parcels totaling approximately 1.26 acres from C-6 zone district to M-1 zone district is consistent with general plan and county adopted Roosevelt community plan.

Madam Clerk, remind you I'm going to recuse myself on this. It has to do with when I transferred money from one account. It may have doubled some things up, and I don't want any issues. Thank you.

Thank you, Supervisor Pacheco. Go ahead.

Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. Tawanda Mutunga with the Department of Public Works and Planning. Before you this morning is amendment application number 3866 and initial study application number 8544. This is a legislative item requiring final action by your board. The applicant is requesting to rezone two vacant parcels totaling approximately 1.26 acres from C6 General Commercial to M1 Industrial. The application was considered by the Planning Commission. The Planning Commission voted unanimously 5 to 0 to recommend that your board approve the rezone and adopt the negative declaration. However, as noted in your board packet, department staff requests a correction regarding three recommended conditions of approval originally forwarded to you by the Planning Commission. These three conditions were included in error, and staff recommends that they be deleted. The first one is condition number one, requiring a site plan. adherence to a site plan which is inappropriate for a legislative reason. Specific details will be addressed in the current mandatory site plan review process. We also request in condition number two be deleted which mandates an SPR prior to permits. This is already a standard code required process for any development in an M1 industrial zone. And the last condition we are requesting to be deleted is condition number three, which was requesting a 36 to 42 foot dedication along South Maple Avenue. South Maple Avenue is classified as a local road in the general plan, and the existing right of way is considered adequate. Additionally, the parcel sits entirely outside of the city of Fresno sphere of influence, making the request invalid. The city of Fresno has been notified of this determination. Therefore, staff recommends that your board approve the rezone, adopt the negative declaration, and specifically delete conditions of approval number one through three to ensure that the final ordinance accurately reflects and cleans up and doesn't have any encumbrances on the M1 zoning. I'm available for any questions, and the applicant is also here as well.

Thank you to our staff for the presentation. I don't have any questions. I'm very familiar with the, my office has been working with the applicant. Everything has been addressed and I'm comfortable with staff's recommendations, so I'll make a motion to adopt those.

Okay, let me, any other comments from the board? Any comments from the public? Okay, I'll bring it back. There's a second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimously.

And that was Supervisor Mendez who made the second?

Yes, Supervisor Mendez with Supervisor Pacheco recused. And we'll wait for Supervisor Pacheco to come back.

I'll read the item into the records, Sue Reiser, if that's okay with you. Item number 12 under Public Works and Planning, consider an appeal of Planning Commission's Dial of Variance Application number 4174 and Director's Review and Approval number 4780, proposing to allow creation of a two-acre parcel and an eight-acre parcel from an existing 10-acre parcel in AA-20. zone district and to allow two existing residents to remain on resulting eight acre parcel. And if your board chooses to grant appeal and overturn planning commission style variance application number 4174 and directors review and approval number 4780, it would be appropriate to A, make the four required findings specified in section 860.5.060.D for approval of a variance stating the basis for making those findings. And B, make the four required findings specified in Section 846.5 for approval of director's review and approval application. And C, approval variance application number 4174 and director's review and approval number 4780 with conditions of approval and additional condition of approval as recommended by staff.

Supervisor Mendez? I just got a question before you start. For the Planning Commission, this was an automatic rejection, correct? That's correct. Okay. I just want everybody to know that.

Okay. Let me just ask. Do any board members need to report any ex parte communications they've had on this matter?

Nope.

Okay.

Okay. Good morning, Chairman, again, to the Department of Public Works and Planning. This item comes to you on appeal of the Planning Commission's unanimous denial of variance application number 4174 and Director's Review and Approval number 4780. The subject application is proposing, excuse me, the subject parcel is a 10-acre parcel zoned AE20, and the applicant proposes two, the proposal is twofold. First, they are seeking a variance to split an existing substandard 10-acre parcel into two separate parcels. One parcel is approximately two acres and the other parcel is approximately eight acres. Second, the applicant intends to build a new single-family home on the newly formed two-acre parcel while keeping two existing homes on the remaining eight-acre parcel. According to the applicant's submitted findings, their desire is to be closer to their parents to assist in the upkeep of the property. The item went to the Planning Commission with staff recommendation for denial. The Commission voted unanimously based on staff's recommendation of 8-0 to deny the variance and the concurrent DRA. In reviewing the merits of the variance, staff was unable to support three of the four mandatory variance findings. The director's review and approval is integrated into the variance application. If your board determines that the variance findings can be made, you may grant the appeal, approve both applications, and direct staff to apply the standard project notes alongside a mandatory condition requiring development being compliance with the site plan. I'm available for any questions you may have at this time.

Okay, I'm going to now open the hearing to receive, well, first of all, does the board have any questions?

This is my district, Mr. Chairman. If the applicant wants to say something, but I'm prepared to make a comment once they're done.

Okay, I'm going to open the hearing to the public. The appellant is here. Yes? Okay, you have five minutes to present, if you want. You don't have to, but you have five minutes if you'd like.

My name is Omar. I just pretty much want the American dream for my family. My parents have a 10-acre lot, just like Pacheco, Supervisor Pacheco. I know you mentioned that you had a ranch, the ranch life. Like that's what it is. It kind of boils down to my parents like, hey, I got 10 acres lot. I would love to see you and my grandkids grow up, build your house, build your forever home. My business right now is growing. And right now I'm struggling a little bit because I'm an auto transporter. And it's kind of hard to trust some of the yards where I park my semi and then also my trailers. We all know Fresno. We all know the struggle that comes with Fresno, which is being, for us, the biggest struggle is finding a good lot so they don't steal the cats, the Cadillac converters. I already came across the issues already twice, and it's just, it's getting to the breaking point where I just have to park my setups where I live at. That way I know I can transport my customers' cars the way I pick them up. And it's just getting to the point where I'm like three cats away from the point of just break. And I just want to give my family the opportunity to just grow up next to my parents, help my parents out for the crop, help my sister out for the crop and all that good stuff.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you.

Any comments from the public in favor of the appeal? Any comments against the appeal from the public? Okay, one person.

Good morning, board members. Radley Reed. Yes. Board members, in my opinion, there is no legitimate or legal way to grant a variance that creates new substandard size parcels, except for the home site provision that I'm sure you're all aware of. But in this case, the applicant is not requesting the variance under that particular part of the code, And the acreage does not meet the minimum requirements anyway for that part of the code. So if you decide to go and on your own step out and decide differently from staff and differently from the Planning Commission, then you're going to need to make some findings. And I'd just like to talk about two of them, the first and the second. So the first is that there are exceptional or extraordinary circumstances or conditions applicable to the property. The applicant has listed two circumstances. One is the desire to continue agricultural productivity and the other is to care for elderly parents. Well, in keeping in mind that the extraordinary circumstances and conditions are attributes of the property itself and not the personal circumstances of the owner, then the fact that there are already two homes on the site or that the property owner wants to take care of aging parents and continue farming do not constitute exceptional or extraordinary circumstances of the physical nature of the property. So those reasons can't be used to make the finding. With regard to finding two, that the variance is necessary for the preservation and enjoyment of substantial property rights, one is listed as improving farming efficiency and the other protecting family property. and I entertain the idea that improving farming efficiency, protecting family property are not, through parcel splits, are not a right enjoyed by the applicant.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. I'll close the public portion, bring it back to the board. Supervisor.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to state for the record, I do not know the applicant and have never met or seen him until today. Lucky for him though, I am elected by the people and I don't represent Mr. Bradley Reid. As the supervisor in that area, I do believe I see a little irony in this that we discussed the family and this is a family issue today. It is to preserve a small family farm. It's to help take care of his ailing father. And as he stated, the American dream, I live across the street from my parents. That's a way of life from where we come from. As Supervisor Mendez said, according to the strictest adherence of the law, the Planning Commission doesn't have that authority because it does not comply. but given the graces of the people of Fresno County, we have the ability that we can have the exception to the rule. I believe that all four findings can be met. I have met them for the reasons that I have described here as well as others. And again, I will make the motion to grant the variance and to let this proposal move forward with everything of staff's recommendation.

And the second by Supervisor Chavez. All those in favor say aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimously.

We now move to item number 13 under Public Works and Planning. Presentation from the Department of Public Works and Planning regarding county service areas, water works districts, and special district operations and infrastructure.

All right. Good morning, board. Chris Baum, Special Districts Manager with Public Works and Planning. Here today to make a brief presentation on special districts in general and then also focus on the county maintained special districts, what we've been working on, what challenges we face. So for just special districts in general, they have four distinguishing characteristics. They are a form of local government and they have a governing board and then they provide a specialized service to a defined boundary. One of the key characteristics that really determines how they're operated is whether they're dependent versus independent. All of the systems that the county operates are dependent systems. They're governed by the county with the board supervisors as the board for those. On the other side are independent districts which have their own operating board, own governing board that's either elected or appointed. Typically the difference is they operate much more autonomously and those would be community service districts or irrigation districts. Correct, it's in all of them. So for the ones that we operate, the Board of Supervisors is the governing body, but all of those districts are established to be financially independent. And that's either through fees, assessments, or grant funding. We have 130 unique special districts budgets that provide a variety of service. The most common ones or the most highlighted ones are water, sewer, and then approximately 100 miles of roads that special districts themselves maintain. The first of those were formed back in the 1960s, and it kind of grew to that 130 district number until about 2010, where we started moving away from creating additional ones. So as I mentioned, the main services that we provide to get more attention are water and wastewater. We have 22 water systems and 11 wastewater systems. All of those are permitted and regulated by the state, and then they're maintained 24-7 by our team of 13 water and wastewater operators. And I wanted a map here just to show the geographic spread of where those districts are. They're over by I-5, then all the way up to Shaver Lake and a little bit beyond that. And then the major challenges that we face, and these are similar to any special districts, any small systems throughout the state, really. They're all small systems with aging infrastructure. Typically, our systems are less than 100, sometimes as few as 10 to 12. And then, as I mentioned, the first districts that were formed were in the 1960s, but that doesn't necessarily mean the first infrastructure wasn't already there before that. We also face difficulties with water quality. We're stuck with what we're pulling out of the ground, and if we have compliance orders, the cost to treat that can be especially high, both for capital projects to get that dealt with, but also for a higher long-term operational cost that ends up having to be passed on to the residents, again, with relatively small economies of scale to pass that cost around. And then we also face very costly processes to actually increase the rates. We have to go through Proposition 218 regulations, and those include rate studies, engineers' reports that can have a significant cost. And for certain systems, especially small road systems, the cost to go through this process at times can be several years' worth of the revenue they're bringing in just to increase their annual revenue. So again, going back to the rate setting process, we follow Proposition 218 regulations, which is a constitutional amendment passed by the voters in 1996. And when we look at that, we look at certain components like operation and maintenance costs, reserve needs, inflation, capital replacement. And we look at a variety of needs of the type of connections, what that system is included as. I know it's been brought up before, but what triggers these Prop 218s, typically financial need is the number one factor, but there's also factors with funding opportunity that may be out there to speed up that process, as well as pending projects or completed projects, and then level of community involvement can dictate that as well. For community involvement, we try to have citizens' advisory committees in each of our districts to act as a liaison between the community and the county. Ideally, all of them would have it, but that's not necessarily the case because it is based on community volunteering to participate. And one of the key factors there is that's not a decision-making authority. They're just an advisory committee. We do try to have routine meetings, whether it's through the CAC or the community. We find that community engagement tends to be highest during Prop 218 procedures or during projects, and outside of those times, involvement can drop off considerably. But we do have digital presence for each of our districts individually on the county's website as well. So this is just kind of a breakdown of recent and upcoming Prop 218 processes that we had. In the last several years, we've been trying to make up and gain ground to get these done. The most recent one was at the previous board meeting, and we have two other Prop 218s that are wrapping up at the next one. As I mentioned, the triggers for which ones kind of get done first does change. So these are the upcoming Prop 218s, but not necessarily in any specific order. And then one last thing I wanted to highlight is just the ongoing grant funding. As I mentioned, the costs with these small systems to do projects on their own can be very prohibitive. So a lot of times, infrastructure projects especially rely on funding. We've had a lot of success with the state's Division of Financial Assistance for O&M subsidies, technical assistance, and then projects themselves. as well as the Department of Water Resources for construction, and then the County of Fresno through ARPA projects was a big benefit to a lot of our systems, as well as the community development block grant. That being said, that is my presentation, if there's any questions.

Supervisor Mendez? Since this is an informative deal, I'm gonna inform the board a little more here. Almost all of these were started because of people wanting to build. and not having a water system. And when did Darren start Collegian?

82 maybe?

Yeah, but it started in the 60s, and Darren, like he wanted control of stuff, so a lot of these CSAs got started in the 80s and 90s. He's actually my favorite supervisor of all time, but still, this is something that he did. Now, all the road CSAs were done in the same way. People put these little I call them subdivisions, unincorporated areas. And that was part of doing it. They had to form a CSA. And I think, I don't know, Bernard, you can tell me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it a deal where the developer can vote it in? Because it was one person owned it originally, then they voted in. and they didn't have to get everybody else bought those parcels, and it was on their deed that they were now in this CSA. I hate CSAs, and I hope when me and Brian leave, nobody ever talks you guys into CSAs because they're... They're just horrible deal. We always happen to manage them, because we manage them. And then everybody gets a little ticked off when we have to raise rates, go through the Prop 218. And it's hard enough to be a CSD. A CSD, the people are in control of it. But we've had problems with certain CSDs in the county, too. So it's not a fix-all deal. So I just wanted to say that, just helping throwing out more information.

Any other comments? Yes, Supervisor Meng.

Yeah, so I appreciate Public Works bringing this forward and talking about it. Recently, I've had a number of CSAs, waterworks districts, and... other county-controlled entities that have had to go through rate increases. And I know that in some cases, when it comes to water, there was some relief that was provided. A couple meetings ago, we did, there was an increase that was needed for sewer. At a mobile home park in the front area and some of these increases are substantial was driving a lot of this is cost of power cost of people insurance and and regulations which are which are brutal so We need to, I think the county needs to be paying closer attention to the areas that we are managing. A lot of them, there's more development that needs to take place. I look at Millerton-Newtown, which only about a quarter of it's built out. based upon what they can build and a lot of the systems that the county took control of back in you know 2010 those systems aren't operating as we had hoped and so there's additional systems and improvements that need to be made But then there's other sewer plants up at Shaver that the county maintains that are very aged and they need additional revenues to make upgrades to those facilities. So this is a sticky wicket. I don't have a good solution. for how to fix this, but if people don't have sewer or water, their homes basically become worthless. And many people cannot afford the rates that need to be charged because they're in very small districts and any, a well that goes out and a new well that needs to be drilled can be very prohibitive. So this is something we need to, this needs to be a front of mind issue, especially for those supervisors who represent the more rural parts of Fresno County, which three of us do. So thank you for the presentation.

Any other comments from the board? Any comments from the public? Okay, this item was just to receive a presentation, so no motion necessary. Next item, please.

We now move to item number 14, Board of Supervisors Committee Reports and Comments.

Any committee reports? No. No, none.

We now move to item number 15, Board Appointments.

Any board appointments? No, no board appointments.

We now move to item 16, public presentations, along with closed session public comment, items 18 through 34.

Okay, any comments from the public on any matter not on this agenda or any comments from the public on closed session items 18 through 34? Go ahead.

It's all yours. Thank you, Chairman Bredefeld and members of the board. And I'll be brief. Good morning. My name is Riley Taufer. I'm the Fresno County President of SEIU Local 521. I'm here today to raise a concern about government transparency and the misuse of the county's special salary upgrade or SSU policy by the Chief Probation Officer. The issue is straightforward. The chief used the SSU policy twice to effectively place a supervising juvenile correctional officer into the role of an assistant deputy chief probation officer without a competitive process as required by the civil service ordinance. This was not a fair or transparent promotion process. It bypassed at least 15 to 20 other qualified employees who had more experience, skill, and or education. the chief may attempt to allay your fears by claiming an exaggerated immediate need existed. As a 20-year senior employee at the juvenile justice campus, I attest that no such urgency existed. On both occasions, these decisions were made in secret and announced only after a seven to 10% lifetime pensionable salary increase had already been awarded. And the violations didn't stop there. The employee also received benefits not authorized by the SSU policy that include a management title, a take-home vehicle, and allegedly management time off. The SSU policy allows only a salary adjustment for temporary duties, not a title change or additional compensation. The chief attempted to shield his actions from scrutiny by deliberately withholding the promotion announcement until the day after a labor management meeting with SEIU representatives, whereas these concerns could have been raised and directly addressed or discussed. After nearly 10 months, these concerns remained unresolved. because we had to file an agreement on this initially a while back. I'm almost done, sir. Just 30 seconds, promise you, promise. To make it 15. 15. So I ask, do county policies apply to everyone or only to non-management employees? I respectfully ask for only three actions. One, suspend all use of SSUs unless approved by the Board of Supervisors. Two, direct the CAO and personnel to direct it to investigate these violations and ensure future SSUs use is transparent and compliant. And then lastly, I'll offer to meet with SEIU and county representatives to correct this process going forward. Thank you. And then I just brought just some information just for you to review, just to substantiate the claims that I have brought forward.

Thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

Good morning Chairman Bredefeld and members of the board. My name is Karen Franconi. I am here today to express a concern about the proper use and alteration of the County of Fresno seal. Recently I saw a flyer for an event that occurred this past June. On that flyer the Fresno County seal was prominently displayed but the coloring of the logo appeared to be altered. My understanding of county policy is that the official seal cannot be used on marketing or publicity materials without prior written consent from the county. Furthermore, I would think that modifying or altering the official colors of the seal would be prohibited. Because county policy restricts the use of the official seal in any marketing or publicity materials without prior written consent, I am concerned about how and why this logo was used. I would like to ask if the county authorized the use and alteration of its seal for this specific event. I have brought copies of the flyer to hand to the clerk of the board for your reference. Thank you for your time and for looking into this matter.

Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Yours?

Good morning again, Supervisors. I just have a short statement for our folks who are moving on to seek other public offices. I know Supervisor Pacheco, Supervisor Mazgik, I also saw you on the ballot. And I just wanted to bring up kind of a touch on something that Supervisor Pacheco said earlier, that in nonpartisan offices, like the County Board of Supervisors, it is really important to focus on helping our constituents. I heard a lot today about families, but again, I didn't hear anything to address the increasing population of unhomed children in the county. I didn't hear anything to address the presence of guns in schools, specifically access within a family household to guns. I didn't hear any plans for addressing other than the gentleman who spoke for public health, suicide increase, risk and suicide in children, especially in our elementary school and middle school age children. When county time, when staff time is taken up with political and partisan matters, it not only looks bad, but it is a genuine theft of the dollars that I pay as a taxpayer, the dollars that my boyfriend pays as a taxpayer, and the rest of our community. And I want to ask the folks who are moving on to seek a different office what you think about the legacy you'd like to leave behind. It is one thing to follow somebody who is a grandstander. I'm sure, Chairman, you know my feelings on you. I'm sure I can guess your feelings on me. But it feels deeply inappropriate to use this platform that you have instead of to focus on your practical matters, to focus on culture wars. It is very disappointing and it will follow you. The current political climate will change. We've seen it time and time again. Our country goes through times of great discussion, debate, and turmoil, and then returns to kind of a business as usual. During those business as usual times, your constituents will remember how you voted on these matters and whether you played along with the bread and circuses, with the buffoonery, with the grandstanding and the theatrics, or whether you focused on the mission of your elected office to use our tax dollars wisely. Thank you.

Thank you. Yes, sir.

Good morning. My name is Aaron Bass. It must be hard to be a good supervisor on this board. I say this because I look around and find it hard to see a good supervisor, especially in you, Chairman. I don't appreciate that you make being a veteran part of your political appearance. I am also a veteran. After we swore that oath, we were part of a system that fought for the freedom of the people of this country. The people. not just the ones that look like you or think like you. You all swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States and California. In case you forgot, the US Constitution guarantees the fundamental rights of all American citizens. The California Constitution guarantees a fundamental civil rights for all residents. All of us. Again, not just the ones who look, think, or act like you, or how you think they should. The only thing nuclear about this county is you, Chairman. Have a good day.

Thank you. Next item.

Item number 17, County Council, reports from previous closed session.

Yes, board. I do have one report out from a prior closed session. On May 12, the board in closed session unanimously approved settlement in CF versus the county. On June 8, the settlement agreement was fully executed, providing for payment by the county of $425,000 to the plaintiff. A copy of the settlement agreement is available in the county council's office. I would not expect any report outs following today's closed session, so you may adjourn following the session.

Okay, the board will go into closed session. Is there a motion and second to adjourn? All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Passes unanimously. We are adjourned.