Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

All right, great. Good morning, everybody. This is the Board of Supervisors meeting for County of Humboldt, Tuesday, June 2nd, 2026. And it is time for roll call.

Thank you, Chair. Supervisor Arroyo? Here. Supervisor Bone?

Here.

Supervisor Bushnell? Good morning. Supervisor Madrone?

Present.

Chair Wilson?

I am here.

All are here.

We are all here. All right. We're going to salute the flag. Supervisor Abone, would you lead us in that today? Good job. All right, Kaylie, could you do the virtual attendance instructions, please?

Yes, Chair. This meeting is being conducted in accordance with the Brown Act and applicable state and local requirements. Members of the public may participate in person and or remotely as noticed on the agenda. For those participating remotely, public comment is welcomed and encouraged. To help ensure your voice is heard, it is recommended that you raise your hand at the start of the items you wish to comment on. If you're joining by computer or mobile device, please use the raise hand feature to indicate your desire to speak. When it is your turn, you will be unmuted by staff. If you are joining by telephone, please press star nine to raise your hand. When recognized, you may press star six to unmute yourself and begin speaking. Please state your name for the record before making your comment. The board asks that all participants conduct themselves with respect and courtesy. Comments should be directed to the board as whole and limited to the time allowed. And just a reminder, today's public comment is two minutes as noticed on the agenda.

Thank you very much. All right, we're now moving into modifications to the agenda, CAO.

Good morning, Chair Wilson. There's one modification today. Item D23 will be pulled in return at a later date.

All right, so on the consent items, D23 is being pulled for a later time. And with that, we're gonna go into the consent calendar. Is there anyone on the board here that wants to talk about anything that's on the consent calendar? Supervisor Arroyo.

Thank you, I'll speak very briefly to our Headwaters Board. I wanna thank Elizabeth Cameron and Rusty Hicks for their service on that board and note that there are openings available. So if you're interested in being part of a board that's really active in economic development, I would encourage folks to apply.

Okay, let's see here. I wanna note that we are adjourning in memory of Shelly Shaw today. We'll talk about that at the end of the meeting, at the adjournment, unless there's something I want to say about that this morning. And we have some appointments and letters of appreciation here. And then I think Supervisor Madrone was gonna mention an event in Orleans. DO YOU WANT TO DO THAT RIGHT NOW?

WELL, I WANT TO WISH THE ORLEANS COMMUNITY ALL THE BEST IN THEIR UPCOMING OLD TIMERS DAY PARADE, WHICH HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR DECADES UP IN ORLEANS. AND IT IS ON JUNE 21ST THIS YEAR. AND WE HAVE A RESOLUTION ALLOWING FOR THE TEMPORARY ROAD CLOSURE. AND IT'S A WONDERFUL EVENT. THE COMMUNITY ALL COME OUT, AND THERE'S A NICE PICNIC AFTERWARDS. SO CONGRATULATIONS TO THAT COMMUNITY.

ALL RIGHT. AND SUPERVISOR BUSHNELL?

Thank you, I wanted to say I want to send our condolences I guess to Waylon as he's navigating life right now without his wife and I had the opportunity to meet Shelly a couple times and just a really sweet lady and I just feel for him and his family right now I also want to Thank Ivan Brownell, Ryan Henry and Martin Morris for being willing to be appointed to the cemetery district in Fortuna. I really appreciate them and I really want to say thank you to Kelly Patton who was my appointment for the Fish and Wildlife Commission and also thank you to Jason Sells who is going to be replacing him and for being willing, as Supervisor Arroyo said earlier, we have a lot of boards and commissions. They rely on us appointing volunteers. It's very important for our county and the direction our county goes in. So thanks for all those folks that are being willing.

Great. We're gonna move, Supervisor Bone, and just a reminder, if you're online and you wanna comment on items that are on the consent calendar, please raise your hand as soon as possible. And Supervisor Bushnell has some more remarks.

Thank you. I'm sorry. And I also want to thank Nicholas Umbrella from Alder Point. The Alder Point County Water District is going through a transition there, and they don't have a quorum right now, and so he's being appointed in that seat, and I know that he'll do well there.

And we'll take it to Supervisor Bone.

I just want people to be aware that just on the consent calendar this week, there's over $7.5 million going to behavioral health. And I think the commitment DHHS makes to go out and get that money from the federal and state level to deal with one of the most extreme problems we have that's probably the head of a lot of issues we have is behavioral health. So I want to thank them. And as we move to our new behavioral health center and our navigation center and everything else, The money's an effort and care that's going in to trying to alleviate that problem or at least stem the flow is admirable.

So I just wanted to recognize that. Okay, I'll associate myself with those remarks. I just want to remind folks that if you have signs and you want to hold them up, please be thoughtful about people behind you and everyone needs to be able to see. So if you want to like, Be thoughtful about that, it'd be great. Thanks, and Supervisor Madron.

Yeah, in regards to what Supervisor Bohn said about the funding, it really is a great appreciation for all the hard work that behavioral health staff do. But I also want to thank the administrative staff at Behavioral Health and DHHS because for the last number of years, they have consistently brought these contracts forward in June before they go into effect July 1st. And that's a yeoman, yeowoman's effort to do that. It wasn't always that way, and I want to recognize that hard work to bring those forward in a timely manner. Thank you.

All right, we are ready to take this to public comment. Kaylee, is there anyone online that wants to speak to items that are on the consent calendar?

Yes.

Great.

Caller 9299, I will unmute you and you will have two minutes.

Hello, my name is Barbara Schultz. I'm in the West Coast Humane Society. I've been active for 20 years and I'm a former talk show host of Animal Advocate on Tame It for over nine years. I've lobbied, done outreach. Okay, hold on one second.

Hold on. Are you here, are you on right now to talk about things that are on the consent calendar or things that are general public comment?

General public comment.

Okay, we are on the consent calendar currently. So if you could hold your comments. So for those of you who aren't familiar with the structure of this, which, who would expect anyone to be? Just so you know, we're talking about things that are on the consent calendar, which is a host of items, and if you're here to talk about anything that's not on any other agenda item today, we have a time for that, and it'll be basically after the consent calendar. So... Please raise your hand online if you are here to talk about the consent calendar items. Is there any other hands raised?

There is not.

Okay, excellent. Now we're bringing it into the room. Those of you who are present to speak about items that are on the consent calendar, please step forward and give us your thoughts. Thank you.

Ken Swatsky, honored to be back here after seven months where you couldn't hear me because I was garbled calling in from Mexico. I'm here to speak on item 43 on the consent calendar, and that's for those of you in the room, if you agree with what I say, you're not supposed to clap, but sometimes when the supervisors like somebody or somebody retiring, they clap. So I don't know how that rule is actually to be enforced. The thing that we have here on item 43 is an agreement between our sheriff's department and our city of Blue Lake for law enforcement. And I went to the safety commission of Blue Lake and I brought that forward, thanking the sheriff for being willing and able to work with us. The City of Blue Lake has some major budgetary constraints. Otherwise, we're going with not the Platinum Plan, but the Bare Bones Plan, which isn't included with our animal shelter. Hopefully, in the future, we will be able to get more participation from our animal shelter. For those of you who know, animals are one of the biggest things I'm proactively in favor of, and I look forward to working with the Sheriff for another year appreciate the rates we get. They seem to be fair and equitable. And the sheriff's department has been having people, like last night, had a deputy attend our safety commission meeting, which hadn't happened in the past. And also, in our contract with the sheriff, they bring us all kinds of reports out for all the different sightings or things they take effect within the City of Blue Lake sphere of influence. So as you can see now, I have 26 seconds left and when you're speaking here on further items, watch your timer because you will be cut off, I believe, precisely at the time and so, Thank you for my opportunity to speak on the consent calendar day. Again, 43 items has been pointed out. There's millions and millions of dollars that go through on consent and a lot of this is the ongoing business of this particular board from time to time. Now as an example of how I'll be cut off.

For the record, that was your ability to cut yourself off, so that was great. Again, we're talking on items that are on the consent calendar.

What are they? Is the flock camera one of them?

No, no, no, no, that is an actual item. Yeah, there's agendas over there if you want to review those. Okay, now, we're going to, I need a motion and a second to get us through the consent items.

I'll make a motion anticipating that second, but I would like to make a comment after.

By all means, if you want to speak to your motion, you can do so right now. Okay, there's a motion to, and that is to pass the consent items except D23. Okay, is there any objection to unanimous consent?

I want to make a comment on the consent calendar.

Then by all means, please make the comment.

I also wanted to recognize with what Supervisor Bones said and the millions of dollars that go through on consent that measure O, which is county roads and public transportation that was passed by the voters a year ago. There's continuing to be tons of projects that are going through there to improve. our county roads right now is that construction time, and so you're gonna see a lot of pavement going down on those much needed improvement roads. And then also I wanted to recognize the agreement with Blue Lake and the sheriff. And most of you all don't know, but during the time when this happened, It was a much larger budget item, and the sheriff worked with Blue Lake because of their budgetary restraints to decrease that amount and still deliver those services, which is very much appreciated out there. And I just want to recognize his department and say thank you.

All right. Thank you very much. All right, so we have a motion and a second, and again, the next thing we're gonna talk about are things not on the agenda. So if you're online, this is a good time to raise your hand for that. So with that, is there any objection to unanimous consent? Seeing none, the motion passes 5-0, and we are now going to move to items Yeah, FLOC is on the agenda, for sure. It's coming up after, pretty much right after we do items that are not on the agenda, which is happening right now. So with that, we're gonna open it up to folks who wanna talk about things that are not on the agenda. We're gonna start online, and Kaylee, can you bring in the first person to do that, thanks.

Thank you. Caller 9299, I will unmute you and you will have two minutes.

Hello, my name is Barbara Schultz. I'm the founder of the Los Gatos Humane Society and former talk show host of Animal Advocate on KMUD. I have lobbied and outreach advocacy rescue primary intake diversion on a small scale and served on the Humboldt Area Foundation Committee. As a medical professional, Shannon Miranda's conduct fits the clinical definition of a sociopath. Our organization and myself have been a target in slanderous, malicious behavior, which has severely impacted our ability to work in the community, making it impossible for us to do our mission along with many other animal welfare organizations. While I understand the limitations the animal shelters rescues face today, there is no reason after this heinous behavior should Shannon allow to continue to operate now or in the future. Former Director of the Animal Shelter, Lieutenant Steve Knight, attempted to shut him down without restricted says. Support from the former District Attorney, Paul Gallegos, the Humboldt County Sheriff's Department knowingly, knowing Channing Miranda's history has been complicit by allowing him to operate for decades without repercussion. Director John Ford should not allow Shannon Miranda an option to comply that would not be given to any other person. Shannon killed thousands of animals, and I was maliciously prosecuted for taking a dog to the shelter. Though convicted on false evidence and lying statements, I received an acquittal upon appeal. Our dog Sparky was murdered with fentanyl, witnessed by myself on our property, and Deputy Aguilar made no effort to investigate and falsified reports and allowed other dogs to be murdered by the same criminal and didn't share the report with the animal shelter, an issue that has yet to be resolved. It is clear that those who commit heinous acts of animal cruelty, like Shannon Miranda and Josephine Regland, a scammed dog trainer that has been on the national news, are given passes while those who have dedicated their lives to the betterment of society are vilified by the Humboldt County Shores Department. Thank you.

Thank you. Caller 3035, I will unmute you and you will have two minutes.

Hello, caller 3053, Thomas Mulder here. Just want to confirm you can hear me there in the chambers?

Yes.

So a couple of things, I'll just following along. That was the first time I would say that it seems like things were cut off on consent that was non-agenda items. So there's some progress there. Maybe you guys sent your chair off to training. I don't know, but there's progress there as a follower. I would say as a constitutional person, it's really unfortunate that we continue to have, I know it's the chair's discretion, but continue to have comment limited to two minutes. um you guys are paid well over six figures you should listen to the public the public is the people that vote you in so it's really unfortunate you know hot button items they are what they are but some of your supervisors are the ones that bring those agenda items forward so it's just really unfortunate to see that continue to happen um i would say public works i would thank them they actually are following through on some reports of some road damage and brushing i might have called earlier today or called today and complained but tried the process that was presented by the director a couple weeks ago or maybe a month ago and it seems to be working out so please continue to brush our roads and keep them safe i'm really scared of this fire season coming ahead i look forward to following along today thank you for the opportunity to speak

thank you caller one zero one six zero one i will unmute you and you will have two minutes and just before you start i just want to mention uh we're not when we're done with public comment online and we bring it back to the room we're not going back so if you raise your hand after we end that public time uh online we're we just won't be going back thank you

Hi there. My name is Juliana Martin. I just want to confirm that you can hear me.

Yes.

Thank you. I'm here to ask the board to step in and restore the standard permit enforcement process regarding Miranda's rescue. The public expects permit conditions to be applied consistently and enforced when violations occur. When permit requirements are ignored for years without consequence, it undermines confidence in the county's regulatory system. and creates the appearance that some operators are being held to a different standard than everyone else. The county has stated that Miranda's Rescue failed to satisfy the conditions of its permit. These conditions were not optional. They were requirements for continued operation. If those conditions were never met, then the permit expired two decades ago. County records indicate that if the conditions were not satisfied, the operator was required to reapply and undergo the same review process as a new applicant. Instead of taking enforcement action against the business and land use operation that appears to have been operating without a valid permit, the county issued only a notice of possible suspension. But if there's no valid permit, what exactly is there to suspend? Why is an extension being considered instead of enforcing the terms that were already in place? This raises serious questions about equal enforcement of county regulations. If an out-of-compliance cannabis farm violated permit conditions, it would face fines, enforcement actions, and possible permit revocation. If a homeowner performed unpermitted construction, they could immediately receive a stop work order. Why has this operation been treated differently for nearly two decades? The allegations currently being investigated are horrific, but they did not happen in a vacuum. A lack of oversight and a failure to enforce permit conditions contributed to a situation where accountability was absent for years. The county's inaction may also expose significant litigation risk. The public deserves answers. Permit conditions exist for a reason. When government agencies selectively enforce their own rules, it undermines public trust and calls into question the integrity of the permitting process itself.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Your two minutes is over. I just want to remind folks that when we hit the two-minute mark, we are allowing folks to finish their sentence, but not an extremely long run-on sentence. So finish your thought at two minutes, and it'll be great. Thanks.

That's all on Zoom, Chair.

Excellent, we're bringing it back to the room. And so, again, non-agenda items, this is your time to speak on those things and proceed.

Ken Sawatsky, I have my ballot here. I'm gonna turn it in. We're voting today, I hope. Everybody turn your ballots in. I wish to emphasize the prior comments that were made, including the fact that it's been a process where we do go back frequently, and I appreciate that latitude that was given before today to people on Zoom who couldn't get in on time. A little bit selective. I'm here, as many people know, because of what you're gonna hear a lot of people speak about. Many of them are better experts at this than I am. It didn't surprise me at all that Kirk Gerard was the planning director when the CUP was put through and there was no follow-up or enforcement. That seemed to have been a trend back then. I do think John Ford is making his effort. I do agree with some of the speakers, and I've never really agreed with just let everybody go on something like this without a little bit of a stick, some cost. In other words, everybody in the county now looks and says, Well, I'll just go. I won't follow my CUP. There's not going to be any repercussions. Why even get a CUP? Just go ahead and do what you want to do. So unfortunately, I think the staff needs to have a policy where you're going to go ahead and actually have a stick to go with things like this when you try and bring people into conformance. I think bonds should be in place. People are gonna speak about the atrocities that I believe took place. I entered my public record in public comment before the meeting. I hope you all had a chance to look at that, and you're taking your time to do that. It's greatly appreciated. I feel there's a warning. People like Rob Arkley has been alleged, public perception, defunding litigation, and I would encourage any lawyer who really wants to continue to practice within this county to consider not representing him. We have the not-so-honorable Judge Kreese who has just bartered something. Still representing people of that nature out there. Maybe he could do that for Mr. Miranda. Listen to the other people, please.

And I appreciate you guys lining up. They're very helpful.

Hi. Oddly enough, I've lost my voice on the day of the voiceless, but my name is Annie Bone, and I adopted and rescued a dog named Third on Saturday afternoon, but there will be no record of that at Miranda's rescue. I gave a fake name, Frankie, and they took it. They didn't look at my ID, and they gave me a dog that they had no record of. They didn't have his name. they didn't know where he came from and he was skin and bones they he was slaughtered to be killed and i know it and this board needs to be aware that that is unacceptable you cannot trace dogs by not track by looking at an id not knowing who you're adopting to and not having a record of where they came from not one person on that property even knew that dog's name and he had been there for a month and he's skin and bones i unfortunately had to put third with a with a different rescue right now so he can get back up to health and then hopefully be able to take him home but that is unacceptable and that should be looked into as well how many fake records are there how many people how many times has he filled out something like this just himself for a dog to just disappear or a cat or a bird or sheep or whatever animal that's unacceptable thank you thank you for your comments

I'm a little late to understanding the situation, but I wanted to ask if the AI surveillance camera that I saw.

That's on the agenda later, after this. Okay. So stick around. All right.

Years ago, we adopted our dog, Jangle, from Miranda's. My 10-year-old daughter, Leah, was smitten with the rescue mission of Shannon Miranda and his sanctuary. She asked me if there was anything we could do to pay back Miranda's for the joy of adopting and saving this dog's life. Hence, we gathered with eight of her young friends. We would meet weekly to plan fundraisers for Miranda's. We held car washes, raffles, yard sales, and garage sales. After our fundraising, me and these beautiful, eager eight children would go to Miranda's with cash in our hands, gleefully handing it to Shannon Miranda. I speak to you today because 18 years later, these kids are still connected. When they heard the news about the truth of what Shannon Miranda was engaged in, their phones were flying, the shock palpable. To understand the greed, the selfishness, the duplicity, and the violence that this man had been engaged in was devastating and a shock to not only me, but to them. If Shannon Miranda does not experience his comeuppance for the egregious actions he's engaged in, what will be the message to these young adults? That amorally and violently killing innocent dogs for profit and greed is condoned by the powers that be? Or that the people in power have the moral backbone to stand up and ensure that we model right behavior and set precedents and ensure that actions such as this can never be legally allowed?

Here's a light for you all.

Good morning, everyone. My name is Kim Klass, and I'm the executive director of Companion Animal Foundation. And interesting, today marks that we opened our doors 24 years ago with a single mission to help animals in Humboldt County, to create the kind of community that we all want to live in, which is a kind community, one where we care for each other, including animals. I'm very invested in the wellbeing of this community. We currently have around 60 animals in our care, mainly kitties. Shannon has been an acquaintance and a colleague of mine for 29 years. I knew him before he even moved to the place that he's at now. Shannon is charismatic, amazing, right, appearing. But my question is, who are you when you think no one is watching you? Who are you? What are the actions that you take? and the actions that Shannon has taken is when he thinks no one is watching, he thinks it's okay to take in animals and kill them. In my 24 years, I have had the displeasure and the sadness of having six animals euthanized. I had to make that decision and I cried every single time. I sat with a friend recently. I hadn't seen her in a long time. I'm opening a cat cafe and she wanted to help. But she shared a story of how about 20 years ago she took an amazing German shepherd in a macaw to Shannon's. He was so enthralled with them, he said that they would live on his sanctuary forever. Her situation changed, and she knew that they were there, so she went back to get them. And they were nowhere to be found, no accountability. And interestingly enough, she said he had the same piles of dirt in his field that you can see today, and he was using them also to raise up his horse pasture. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Jamara Knight and I just want to first of all say that although I'm affiliated with some of the groups in this room, these statements are mine and mine alone. I would like to start my statement by encouraging each of you to remember your favorite childhood pet and to remember that unconditional love they provided you. The trust that Shannon Miranda shattered. He took dogs that were scared and had traumas of their own. All they provided were trust. Trust that we would care for them and instead he brutally slaughtered them and buried them in Matt's graves. Shannon Miranda took advantage of this community and used us in the worst possible way. He took advantage of the good within people and used it to line his pocketbooks. People took animals to Shannon with the intention of doing right. We believed he would and did find them homes. What he did is the worst kind of human. He took what was good and turned it evil. Greed, vacations, and living large became the focus for Shannon. He lived large off dogs dying young. His scheme of setting these dogs up to die is sickening and this community needs to stop sweeping it under the rug and stand strong against this ever happening in our community again. I believe that the Sheriff's Office and the Fortuna Police Department knew about what was happening at Miranda's, and they made the decision to look the other way. To me, this is the biggest violation of trust in this whole situation. Numerous complaints and reports came into these agencies, and no one truly investigated or held him responsible for his lies. This was a brutal slaughter of animals who enrich our lives and bring us so much joy. And Jennifer and Jenna are brave, strong women who made the county act. I will forever be grateful to them. Your act ladies have already saved so many dogs from meeting that awful fate and it forced the county to act. So thank you, Jenna and Jennifer. And I hope the county leads by your example and actually acts.

Good morning, supervisors. I am Alexandria Sullivan, administrative specialist at the Northern California Community Blood Bank and a proud blood donor. I am here to personally invite you and the public to a special celebration at the Northern California Community Blood Bank on June 18th, marking our 75th anniversary serving this community. we are hosting a chamber of commerce mixer that evening and it would be it would mean a great deal to have you join us as you know local blood banks are lifelines especially in rural areas like ours where timely reliable access to blood saves lives every day for 75 years our staff and generous donors have been here for neighbors in need and we're proud to be a long-standing institution in humboldt county We'd be honored if you could attend our celebration and meet the people whose dedication keeps our mission going strong. Your support shines light on the importance of local blood banking and encourages others to step forward as donors and advocates. Thank you for all that you do for our community and we hope to see you on June 18th at 5 30 p.m. Thank you.

My name is Debbie Shuffler. I was board president for Shanna Miranda for several years. My family and I have been very involved with his rescue for quite some time, over 20 years. And my experience has been that he is an upstanding person. He has always done the best that he could do. Times, things are very hard. Decisions are hard to make. Are they perfect? No, but he has always done the best and we have always helped him. We've gone out there, been there for days on end helping at that rescue, put roofs on the dog pens here a couple years ago on all of them so the dogs had shelter. My grandkids have been involved out there, my children, my daughter ran the Fortuna Thrift Store. They spent nights out there. His children spent nights with my kids. I go there unannounced. I have the code to get into his place. I have never, ever seen anything that would have made me think that anything was wrong. He's always been upfront, and I just have no bad feelings about anything that went on there. it's he's always been helpful he's gone out to situations that were horrendous until i was involved in the rescue i had no idea how the human person could be not very good and um it's it i just have nothing no doubt in my mind that this was ever done maliciously or for profit. He has always been honest. Thank you.

Thank you. I just want to point out in these chambers, sorry, one thing, I'll always point the mic towards you when you're standing up there, but Please, we really don't have, this is why we don't have cheering, we don't have boos, because it's an intimidation in either direction of people's rights to be here and speak to this body. So it's very important that we respect those rights to the extent possible. So please keep your applause and or disagreement to yourselves unless you're at the dais. It's pretty important to respect the rights of everybody that's in this room. Thank you.

Hello. Good morning, my name is Hillary Graham. I've lived in Humboldt County most of my life. I've known Shannon Miranda for nearly all of his life since he was a young teenager and I have watched him dedicate every single day of his adulthood to save animals. Not dozens, not hundreds, but thousands. Animals who would not be alive today if not for him. And what is happening to him right now is nothing short of a lynch mob, a rush to judgment fueled by misinformation, fueled by personal grudges, and fueled by people who should know better. Anyone who claims to love dogs yet wants to shut down a rescue with no charges filed needs to understand the consequences. Those dogs will not magically find homes. they will end up dead and that is the reality. I have seen Shannon taken animals no one else wanted. The old ones, the scared ones, the broken ones. He didn't do it for praise. He didn't do it for money. He did it because he could not stand to see them die. That is who he is. That is the truth of his life's work. And yet today, he is being buried under lies, lies that have been repeated and weaponized by people like Jenna Moore and Jennifer Raymond. These are individuals who have brought animals to Shannon for years, who relied on him, who trusted him, and who are now spreading stories that do not match the truth. do not match the evidence and do not match the decades of work they personally witnessed. This is not justice. This is not due process. This is not fairness. This is a man being destroyed before a single charge has been filed, before an investigation has been completed, and before the truth has even had a chance to hear, to be heard. Justice must be based on facts, not on Facebook. It must be based on evidence, not rumors, and it must apply to everyone, including Shannon.

Thank you. Again, please try and hold it to two minutes if you can. And I also, as a reminder, this is comment on non-agenda items. We will not be discussing any of what is said today. Just for what it's worth, it's not on the agenda. We don't have the ability to have that discussion. as board members.

Can you hear me? OK. My name is Allison Holland, and I am here today not to speak for Shannon, but to speak for fairness, due process, and the danger of becoming judge, jury, and executioner in the court of public opinion. What concerns me most about this situation has been less about dogs and more about personal vendettas. When people are selling merchandise to capitalize on a crisis and influential members of the community like the wife of a sheriff are publicly weighing in on the situation, we have to ask whether the focus is about justice or it's about a spectacle and a personal campaign. If this is not an anvil on the scales of justice, I don't know what is. This has become a public embarrassment, not because questions have been asked, but because conclusions have been reached before due process has had a chance to do its work. And while many people have strong opinions about rescue, few understands what it actually requires. Rescue is not all rainbows, butterflies, and happy endings. It is reality that not every animal can be rehabilitated. It's just like people that is painful. It is difficult. It is unfair, but it is the truth. And that is why rescue work is so hard. It requires people willing to step away from situations and walk away when it is terrible. People willing to take on that responsibility for animals when no one else will is what this is all about. For years, Shannon has been one of those people. I have watched him drop everything to help animals. I got my favorite dog that I've ever had for 17 and a half years from Shannon, and I am forever indebted to and grateful for him. It is important to ask hard questions, demand facts. However, do not confuse accusation with guilt. It is not a good thing to destroy a lifetime of hard work before the truth is known. Thank you.

Good morning, my name is Joanne McGarry, and I just want to remind the supervisors that I have spoken up at non-agenda items in the past about my concern on animal welfare issues in this county. And I also want to remind you that I paraphrased Gandhi, but I now have the actual quote here on my whiteboard, the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated, Mahatma Gandhi. And I suggested that the County of Humboldt can be judged on the way it treats its animals and its concern for animal control and welfare. I do think there are things that we need to consider beyond focusing on one individual and one organization and one of circumstance that the animal control and welfare of the animals in Humboldt County has long been a grand jury concern and a concern for many of us in the community. So I think the board needs to really focus on Consideration of a few things, and these are just some things to consider. I'm not asking that they be implemented, but possibly removing animal control and welfare from the Sheriff's Department, making it a standalone entity like it is in some other counties. San Francisco, where I was involved in animal welfare for 16 and a half years at the San Francisco SPCA. I was also a state humane officer, which can be appointed by non-governmental animal welfare organizations. I was a state humane officer and was involved in investigating cruelty to elephants at the San Francisco Zoo. Humboldt could benefit by having state humane officers on staff at some of the humane societies in the community. And an Animal Control and Welfare Commission, an oversight for specific animal control and welfare issues. Thank you.

Hello. My name is Dan Martinez. I run a small dog rescue in North San Jose. When this story broke, I realized that some of the dogs that we had been advocating for had ended up at Miranda's rescue. One in particular was a dog named Oliver. I was able to identify that he was still there, and on Wednesday I picked up Oliver from Miranda's rescue. He was severely emaciated, lots of scarring on his face and arms. Shannon told me that animal control was urging him to put the dog down. I later verified that that was not the truth. There's really no justification for a dog being in better shape in the care of a shelter than in the care of a quote-unquote rescue. It seems like there was no incentive in taking our dog's life because he wasn't a part of a contract. He was surrendered to Saranda by an individual. She gave him $1,000. There was no paperwork. We will probably never know how many dogs ended up at Miranda's rescue under those circumstances. The dogs are the only creatures in this world capable of unconditional love. And the one way that we can pay them back is when the time comes, letting them go peacefully, humanely, and with their person. There is no world where ending a dog's life by executing them and dropping them in a pit with puppies is ever acceptable. I'm seriously concerned about the dogs that are still there. I seen third and other dogs that have come off the property in the last week or so severely emaciated. We need to act now to save the 60 or so dogs that are still in this man's care. Thank you so much.

My name is Jennifer Raymond and I'm one of the people who dug eight dead dogs out of the mass grave on Shannon Miranda's property. I know how those dogs died. They had holes in their heads. I am very concerned about the remaining animals in Shannon Miranda's that are being left under his control. This is a man who has admitted to shooting dogs, admitted to lying about the fact that his rescue is not a no kill. When a raid is done, with allegations of child abuse, the children are removed from the home. When stolen property is recovered in a raid, the stolen property is removed. When illegal drugs are found during a raid, they are removed. why were these animals not removed? And then we were told by the Sheriff's Department in their press release that animal control would be monitoring the well-being of these animals with daily visits. When I called Andra Hale, the head of the animal shelter, she told me this is absolutely not the case, and they had nothing to do with it. I contacted the sheriff's department and we said, oh right, we're sending deputies out every couple of days. Well, obviously those deputies don't know what a healthy dog and an emaciated, the difference between a healthy and an emaciated dog. These dogs are emaciated. They need to be removed from his care. Furthermore, he needs to be prohibited from taking in additional animals, which means additional money for him. Not only does that put more animals at risk, but it means more animals will need to be rescued by the county when these animals are finally removed from his care. Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Lisa Toohey. I'm a registered vet tech and I reside in Oakland and I work in Berkeley. I work for an emergency hospital and specialty center and we contract with Berkeley Animal Services. I began my start in 1999 at Oakland Animal Services as a volunteer. I'm here today simply because I care. When the story broke, I felt so much pain for the loss of all the dogs that were sent from Oakland and not knowing where they are. I spoke with a friend of mine who works at Berkeley Animal Services about Charmaine, who was one of the dogs that was found in the pit. And I know that she was a friendly dog. She was not an aggressive dog. She was not a bite risk. She was only a year and a half old. They sent her up here thinking she would stand a better chance as a big rambunctious dog to maybe find a place with more land that she could live. They loved her and they thought she was getting a chance. I'm all for fairness and investigation. I'm only up here asking that pressure be put on to run a thorough, fair investigation of Mr. Miranda. I want to know where the dogs are. I want to know where these Oakland dogs are who came up here and trusted and the volunteers that trusted and the staff that trusted. I just want to know where they are. Thank you.

Good morning, my name is Angela Pei. I'm a lifelong resident of Humboldt County and have been involved in animal welfare most of my adult life. About a year and a half ago, my family fostered a litter of puppies, one of which was being dragged around by an unhoused person. She was immediately arrested. Going back to 2007 with the landmark case of the Michael Vick bad news kennels, he was arrested immediately. What's happened out at Miranda's rescue in the course of 10, 20 years that we've all known about, In 2025 alone, over 600 animals are unaccounted for. If we multiply that by the number of years that he's been operating his rescue or no kill sanctuary, we're looking at the possibility of 10 or 12,000 unaccounted for animals, dogs, cats, equines, llamas, parrots, other birds. The scope of what he has committed at Miranda's rescue leaves all the other cases that came before him seem like child's play. It's unacceptable that he is in our community continuing to operate. Starving dogs are still out there. He advertises his mission statement as being no kill, a sanctuary, a rescue. People trusted him. He has violated the trust of this community and the greater animal welfare across this, really it's gained national attention. He's committed a dereliction of duty to the animals and to the people who trusted him. The evidence is there. There's the video, the holes, the dead dogs, the animals that are still in a freezer out at the shelter. We wish we didn't have to be here today and make this case because that would mean that over 12,000 dogs could possibly still be alive. But here we are. We're not going to stop. And those dogs mattered.

Okay, if there is anyone left to speak to this, or I guess it's not really an item, but to the non-agenda items, please line up so that we can do this in an orderly fashion. Thanks.

My name is Jenna Moore and I am here today, not only as a citizen rescuer and animal advocate, but someone carrying the weight of thousands of voiceless victims. For more than 20 years, members of this community raised concerns, filed complaints, shared stories, and sounded alarms regarding Miranda's rescue. For more than two decades, people reported missing animals, questioned practices, and begged agencies to look deeper. Today, we know those concerns are not imaginary. If the allegations prove true, this has happened over years, possibly decades. That means that there were countless opportunities to intervene, investigate, and to protect animals that instead vanished into the system with little oversight and few safeguards. Adding to these concerns is the fact that Miranda's Rescue has reportedly been operating under a conditional use permit that expired more than 22 years ago, yet somehow, despite the expiration, additional opportunities and extensions appear to have been granted. To many members of the community, this feels like another example of procedures slipping through the cracks and another example of special treatment. When I first came to law enforcement with evidence and documentation suggesting animals were being killed and buried, I made one simple request, that animal control or law enforcement immediately monitor the animals still on the property and conduct an inventory of every animal in Mr. Morana's possession. Why? Because based on the evidence we had gathered, we believed that animals were still at immediate risk. And we're, um, assured this, this would be addressed four days later that had not been completed that same day. My trail cameras captured activity, confirming exactly what we had been afraid of. If law enforcement and animal control had immediately conducted animal inventories and welfare checks, when those concerns were first reported, would Jennifer and I have ever felt compelled to take matters in our own hands? Citizens should never find themselves in that position. This case has exposed major gaps in our system. Non-profit oversight, enforcement, communication, and accountability. No animal should ever pay the price for failure.

Thank you, your time, so thanks. Again, please keep the clapping and the disapprovals to a non-audible level, thank you.

If you see something, say something. I saw something. As a volunteer at the Humboldt County Animal Shelter, where our mission is to provide love and care to shelter dogs and cats and many other animals awaiting adoption, I, Karen Dorman, witnessed a disturbing scene while walking a shelter dog to the play area. An animal control officer was unloading deceased dogs from his truck. They were in black garbage bags. Initially, I assumed it was a single dog that had been struck by a vehicle. However, the officer continued to remove multiple bags one after another, after another, after another. Upon inquiry, the officer and supervisor confirmed that the bags contained deceased dogs, citing an ongoing investigation into animal abuse case, but declined to provide further details. These were the dogs recovered from Miranda's rescue for evidence. I was shocked and concerned by this discovery. It haunted me because I could visualize the size of each dog that was being uploaded and placed onto a cart for examination inside the shelter facility. I urge the Humboldt County Sheriff's Department to continue to conduct a thorough investigation, hold those responsible accountable for all of the slain, murdered dogs and other animals that are still buried underground as additional evidence. I expect the department to pursue justice diligently for all of the lives lost to a bullet in their heads. Once again, if you see something, say something. How many people have said something for over 20 plus years? Now it is a time to do something. I trust Humboldt County Sheriff's Office is on course to resolve this in such a way that this atrocity never happens again in our county. Thank you for attention to this very disturbing case.

Good morning, my name is Paula Ray. I actually run a nonprofit animal rescue here in Humboldt County. Many of us for years have tried to get it made public and known what goes on at Miranda's Rescue. While Shannon Miranda and his family have been taking in animals to their nonprofit, rescue under the guise of safety and sanctuary where instead they are being shot in the head thrown into mass graves and then replaced in a cycle of turning living beings into profit this isn't just a violation of compliance it is felony animal abuse and a coordinated fraud against everyone who believed in them supported them and funded their mission But as monstrous as these actions are, what is happening right now is equally as terrifying. We are told there is an investigation. We are told to let the process work. But while the process drags its feet, the suspects remain free on the property. How can the Sheriff's Office and Animal Control justify leaving Shannon Miranda and his family free to roam the alleged crime scene where evidence is buried? In any other felony investigation involving fraud and mass violence, the perimeter is secured, yet here the doors remain open and the remaining animals are left in the custody of the very people accused of abusing and neglecting them. Where is the financial oversight? This is a money-making scheme operating under the shield of a 501 . Why was this out-of-compliance facility allowed to rake in funds while local oversight slept at the wheel? If you're waiting for public outrage to die down, hear this clearly. We are not going away. Guard the crime scene, protect the survivors, and give this community the accountability we deserve. Thank you.

Hello, my name's Lisa Casagrande. I'm a lifelong resident of Humboldt County. In fact, my father was mayor of this fine city in 1970, so I'm very aware of civic duty. I'm here because it's my second time. I went before you when the grand jury report came out and spoke of conditions out there. Now with this happening, I'm very concerned because even though I totally understand and agree with everything everybody has said, what's gonna happen? What is the board and everybody else gonna do to make sure that this is taken care of? I understand the scenario, But we've got to have a plan. And I'm hoping this time, after these people have spoken with their hearts, and the Humboldt County Grand Jury has come out with their report, that we can please, please take this seriously. Please try to do something about it. It's time. Thank you.

Hi, my name's Meredith Mayer. I'm an animal advocate and stand shoulder to shoulder with the people you see here. There's no doubt in my mind and I'm sure in all of our minds here that these atrocities took place on Shannon's property. I wanna thank the sheriff and the undersheriff for finally taking this matter seriously and for doing this investigation. And I know that me and my animal advocate friends are gonna, be as patient as we can to watch this process unfold. I would like to speak about the conditional use permit and the fact that Shannon failed to meet the required conditions and the conditional use permit expired on September 17th, 2004. He's been operating for over two decades without a valid permit and he's remained out of compliance with numerous terms of the additional conditional use permit due to the Humboldt County uh, department to properly follow up on this matter rather than requiring Mr Miranda to submit a new conditional use application to pay the required fees and undergo the standard review process. The county is attempting to revive a permit that was given to him two decades ago that he's failed to be in compliance with. At the very least, this needs to be reconsidered. Thank you for your time.

Okay, is there anyone else that wants to speak to anything that's not on the agenda today? All right, just for, I wanna stay consistent, we're not going back to online comments at this time. Folks who may have wanted to jump in later, you can still email us, you can still call us, and you can even come back next week and comment, because none of this is, to be discussed by the board at this time because it's non-agendized items and so it's not fair to the public or anybody else for us to have any substantive discussion about these items from today's public comment i am going to ask us to take a 10 minute break while we sort of clear the room for the next pretty substantial item. And with that, we're gonna be back here at 10.15. Thank you. We are back at it. Let's see here. Item. All right. Mr. Black, are you prepared? Yes. There seems to be a lot of folks outside talking, so if this is your item, please come in and have a seat. Thanks. Mr. Black's ready, Kaylie, you set the jet? Okay. Come on in and sit down and we can get started. All right, the item that we're about to go into is an item It's a matter initiated by the board, specifically by Supervisor Madrone. It's listed under automated license plate reader program. It's a discussion of that. I want to just set a couple of expectations before we get too deep into this discussion. One is, just like the item we had before us, As this item has some controversy to it, I want to remind folks that we're keeping our decorum as best we can in the chambers. No cheers and no disappointments in terms of voicing those things because we want everyone to feel free to say what they want to say without feeling intimidated. And I think that's very important and it's part of the First Amendment rights. Comments are gonna be limited to two minutes, just like the rest of the meeting and the two meetings before. And we are going to, I just wanna go through what is kind of the process we're gonna go through today. What I'm gonna ask first to happen is, because this item was brought by Supervisor Madrone, he will give his statement as to his, it is to the purpose of that and then next will be uh sheriff hansel will give an outline of his perspective of his of the program that's being uh that's uh he has uh happening uh and then we're gonna go to public comment and first we're gonna go online public comment and i want anyone who's online should put up their hands right now even though it's gonna be a little while, because once we're through online comments and we come back to the room, we're not going back to online comments again. So I'm just making that very clear, so we're fair about that. When we get back and talk, when we bring it back to the board, I'm hoping that the board doesn't interrupt either Supervisor Madrone or the Sheriff, but write down your questions and your concerns, and then we're gonna try, I'm gonna try my best to segment the discussion from in various portions of the subject matter because there are there are issues of jurisdiction their issues of budget their issues of not just legal jurisdictions about the program and the data, but there's also some issues. There may be some questions about location and geographic issues there might be. So we want to make sure that we're. So what I'm getting at is we'll try our best to sort of segment those up so that we're all talking about the same thing at the same time up here. So again, we're receiving a briefing from the Sheriff's Department on this program. And in the end, the board will be providing direction to staff regarding next steps, including without limitation, meaning we have some leeway on what that is, whether to request formal review of the automated license plate reader programs, compliance with applicable local, state, and federal laws and regulations and standards, which is quite broad, but we're going to try and frame the direction within that context. All right, I think I've set the game plan as best we can. We'll try it out, and I'm gonna start with Supervisor Madron.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So good morning, everybody, those here in the chambers as well as those online. Today we're here because many Humboldt residents are deeply concerned about the continued use of flock safety cameras in our county. While we all want our sheriff's office to have the tools needed to solve crime, public trust requires real oversight, not just promises. The sheriff has assured us that new policies are in place to protect privacy and comply with Senate Bill 34. However, the county's own transparency portal tells a different story. Humboldt deputies continue to log nearly every search with vague one-word reasons like, in quotes, investigation or drug trafficking. while California Highway Patrol officers properly document a specific case or a call number for each query, which is required by Senate Bill 34. More troubling, all of this data lives on FLOC's private servers, and the sheriff has no independent access to the full audit logs. That means when federal agencies access some of our data or when searches are conducted without proper justification, our office has no way of knowing. We cannot effectively enforce California law if the company controlling the cameras is also the one controlling the records. This is not about being anti-law enforcement. It is about making sure powerful surveillance technology is used lawfully, transparently, and with meaningful accountability to the public that pays for it. We will hear from the sheriff's office and the public today. But the central question remains, when the data and audit trail are controlled by a private contractor, how can we honestly tell the people of Humboldt that their privacy is protected? Thank you.

Sheriff Fonsal, are you prepared to give us an overview of your program? Thanks. Hold on one second. Looks like we have a technical difficulty. We're all good over there? OK. Back on track.

Good morning, Supervisor Madrone, Chair Wilson. Thank you for voicing your concern and bringing this to the Board of Supervisors meeting. We discussed this in the past as far as the use of license plate reader technology here in Humboldt County. And we've heard...

Okay, no, we'll wait, we'll wait.

Are we good?

Yes. Okay. All right. Thank you. And so we do take this responsibility very, very seriously. We do take people's privacy very seriously. I don't endorse it. want a surveillance state. But as we look around, we know that we are videotaped and we are tracked by a lot of different sources that are out there. But what we're using is technology to help solve crimes after the fact. And that we've had examples of solving or help solve missing persons cases we've had examples of solving a homicide and there's numerous examples of how we can utilize this technology when we have struggling you know we have a hard time maintaining our our deputies on the street and making sure that there's a patrol element on the street and we owe our community the best investigative efforts we possibly can. And if that's incorporating technology, we are going to do it. And so that is, I think, way more important. And I think we have to look at the hypotheticals here, but we also have to look at the facts. and know what actually is occurring by utilizing this use of technology. And I think it's important to utilize and to not look at this as a what if scenario. Let's look at this as far as what is actually occurring here. I want to admit that there have been THINGS THAT HAD TO BE TIGHTENED UP. ABSOLUTELY. BUT WE'VE MADE THOSE THINGS HAPPEN. WE'VE TIGHTENED THINGS UP. WE'VE MADE SURE THAT DEPUTIES ARE NO LONGER SAYING INVESTIGATION OR THOSE TYPE OF THINGS. WE ARE DOCUMENTING EVERYTHING APPROPRIATELY NOW AND THE UNDERSHERIFF HAS SPEARHEADED THIS PROGRAM AND TO MAKE SURE THAT IT IS UP TO SPEED AND I WOULD LIKE HIM TO GIVE A PRESENTATION OVERVIEW OF WHAT WE'VE DONE AND HOW WE CURRENTLY UTILIZE THE SYSTEM.

Thank you. I know we've already presented on this in the past, so without going through the PowerPoint and stuff, I put together just some talking points that are updated that might bring you guys up to speed on everything the sheriff is talking about. I didn't bring my readers, though, so forgive me. I'm going to have to squint to read this.

And for what it's worth, fill in details wherever you feel like you need to because some folks from the public weren't present for the original presentation. Thanks. Okay.

The Humboldt County Sheriff's Office contracts with Flock Safety Technologies for automated license plate reader technology, or ALPR. ALPR, specifically the system provided by Flock Safety Technologies, records only plates and vehicle characteristics, no bodies or faces, does not record or access any owner data, and only retains the image for 30 days before purging permanently. ALPR technology is a force multiplier for law enforcement helping to track stolen vehicles, vehicles associated with missing and or endangered persons, and vehicles associated with major criminal investigations, and that is it. In regards to law, the HCSO, through its partnership with Flock Safety Technologies, is in full compliance with all laws governing ALPR usage, including those mentioned by Supervisor Madrone. Our policy, HCSO Policy 437, originally obtained through Lexapol, but has been repeatedly updated as additional safeguards have been added. Some of the initial confusion was that the most updated policy that we had after our changes made from the Lexapol version were not always the ones that people had when they had questions, which were good questions. Numerous modifications and revisions have been made since original version. The most current copy available on our website was last updated May 29th. of this year, sharing with only select agencies who have to sign an MOU with HCSO to ensure proper use to our higher standards than what is required by the state and by the federal government. Our transparency portal, which is accessible through our website, covers the following things. What's detected? what's not detected, acceptable use policy, prohibited uses, our access policy, the hot list use policy, the public search audit, which shows the most recent month's data, data retention, total cameras, sharing network data with, hot list alerted on, number of hot lists, number of searches, recent success stories, and another copy of our full HTSO policy, which is updated. As far as cameras, there are seven permanently mounted ALPR cameras in the county and two mobile cameras that can be used for special events or special investigations. These cameras were purchased using grant funding. The cameras are all placed on public roadways where there is no expectation of privacy for anyone and other agencies like Caltrans, the state, cities put cameras up all the time where there are no restrictions like what we put on ours where it's not restricting any potential data I'll try to continue. As far as cost and contract, the cameras were all purchased via the burn JAG and Homeland Security grants. To maintain the service these cameras we pay $21,000 yearly. We are in a contract with flock safety technologies that will expire June 30th of next year. for use each user is required to complete training for use in addition to having to review and sign off on our policy dispatchers and administrators must complete additional training for audit purposes any search by any of our authorized users requires an offense type of which there are 49 to choose from any search requires a justifiable reason and a case or incident number and originally the system not require that We did, but FLOC has since made changes where it is required and the system will not function without that. Sharing. FLOC safety technologies does not allow the data to be shared with federal agencies for any reason. Anytime an outside agency makes a sharing request, it is stored in a queue to wait approval or denial from an administrator. This is not the way the system originally started, but that is how it works now. Any approved use by another agency requires they meet all requirements set forth in law and policy. Additionally, the HCSO only shares with local county approved agencies, CHP, and the other North States sheriffs, which is a total of 22 agencies. MOUs will be required to be signed by any agencies that are approved to access our camera data, ensuring that they will follow not only the law and their policy, but our more restrictive policy. Data storage. All data is stored in the secured cloud provided by Flock Security Technologies for 30 days before being permanently purged. Only data that is determined to be evidentiary, meeting all the requirements set forth before, is downloaded and retained by the HCSO or another agency with express permission to access it, and it is stored for evidence. Improvements that FLOC has made. FLOC has implemented safeguards that ensure all data is controlled by the originating agency. There are now options to lock out sharing with federal or out-of-state agencies. We are currently utilizing these restrictive options. Additionally, each request to share information with an outside agency is reviewed by the assigned administrator. We have policy in place that ensures all queries of data are associated to an active investigation. A monthly internal audit is conducted to ensure compliance within the HCSO in any agencies we share with. As mentioned before, we are now requiring a signed MOU with any agency wanting to access our data to ensure proper use. And even that sharing is very minimal, often only allowing them to check for a major crime involvement or a stolen vehicle or an endangered person or missing person vehicle. Some of the justifications that I just would like to point out before I open it up for any questions is This technology only records the plate and vehicle description. No occupant characteristics and no data associated with the plate is ever part of the system. Stuff that we would obtain through DMV records or clats or clues or any other database NCIC is not part of the system. It's just pictures of the plate and vehicle that was at this point in time. And if it's not tied to one of those very specific reasons within that 30 day window, it's just deleted permanently. And if it's something that is tied to a crime, we have to download that data into our evidence, which is then secured by us and under our control, and Flock still deletes the data. This helps with locating stolen vehicles, vehicles associated with missing or at-risk people, and vehicles associated with major criminal investigations, of which it has to meet one of these 49 eligible. And I think more so on the what-if side, I try not to think about what if my plate, which I mean, I want my privacy as well. I'm a citizen as well as working for the county, and I don't want it misused, but I also would hate to think that somebody I cared about or a loved one might have been saved with technological advances like this, which improve our ability to respond and investigate things, if we got rid of it just because of concern that it could be misused. I think we've taken more steps than any agency I'm aware of in the state of California to restrict the use. We've pared it down to 22 agencies that we share with and they still have to ask us for permission and show us the justification. All this is on the transparency portal which is available to the entire public. We have audits which are shared with the sheriff and could be shared with the board every month if requested to give an additional safeguard either with the board or an assigned ad hoc committee to make sure this oversight is both within what you guys are acceptable with and so that you can reassure your constituents that this is being oversighted not just by the sheriff's office but also by you and the cameras are only placed in public areas where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy something that you've probably seen a lot with law enforcement is people photographing us We don't have a right to say we're not going to be photographed, and neither does anybody else in a public place. If you go across the Golden Gate Bridge, there's cameras. If you go through any toll place, there's cameras. I know somebody that just got a ticket from Medford because a camera caught them and retained that data, had their DMV information, looked up their registration information, and sent the ticket to them in the mail. I mean, I'm more scared of that oversight than the fact that we might be able to help solve a homicide or a missing person case based on just a license plate being captured at a point in time in a public area where nobody should have any reasonable expectation of privacy anyway. And finally, this data is only stored for 30 days then permanently deleted unless it's tied to evidence as a case in which we take over that storage and FLOC still purges it. FLOC doesn't access CLETS, NCIC, DMV registration data. They're just taking the pictures and storing the picture for us to find out, give us enough time to determine if it's involved in a crime or something that we're investigating. And then it's gone. So I will open it up to any questions that you guys might have, unless the sheriff has something to add.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you for the report. I just want to also just reaffirm here that this is technology that's used by all county agencies, all county law enforcement. And I don't know this for a fact, but we had a drive-by shooting yesterday in the city of Eureka and with the vehicle description. and if they don't have a license plate associated i guarantee a phone call was made and they searched our database for a description of that vehicle to see if that vehicle was seen on one of our cameras and and so they could get a license plate they could get a read on who possibly could be involved in that drive-by shooting We had a pride flag a couple years ago that was torn down from this courthouse. All we had was a vehicle description, and we utilized that vehicle description into the flock system, and we located the suspect, got a confession, and got the flag back. Those are the kind of uses of technology that we utilize here, and it is something that, again, speaking of hypotheticals, You know, I mean, what if we had this technology when Karen Mitchell went missing? What if we had that technology on each side of the town of the city of Eureka? We have a vehicle description of someone that may have kidnapped Karen Mitchell. But that case has gone unsolved for 35, 30 years? 40 years, huh? 34 years. And... And so if we had this technology back then, then we would have something to follow up on. And that is very important. This technology is very important, including with the MMIP crisis. I've talked to the chairman of HOOPA, They want to know who's coming on and off the reservation, right? This is technology that I encourage them to look into. Everyone's got to make their own decision. But Blue Lake Rancheria has taken this seriously, and they've installed this technology because they want to know if there's someone that is harmed or abducted from their rancheria that they would at least have something to go on. And so I'll leave you with that.

Okay, so my intention was that the Board of Supervisors here would write down their questions, unless they're really burning, but we would go to public comment and then come back to the Board. If everyone's okay with that, we're gonna do that. Okay. You have a question? Go for it.

I think this is important to clarify before public comment. Can you talk a little bit about, you mentioned the matters of jurisdiction and whose decision-making authority is where? Could you please, and we have heard this item before in April 2024, where my understanding, one of my key takeaways from that was that this was a Sheriff's Office policy and decision. So I think we're here again talking about it because there's some concerns. So could you please clarify that piece for us? Yes.

so as you know the board does have budgetary control over my overall budget but the board does not have the ability to tell me how to investigate crime and can't interfere with my investigative element here in the county and so that's where the differentiation comes as far as jurisdiction goes and so if i need an investigative tool here that i feel is important and valid I can install that investigative tool like I did the LPR cameras.

Well, we've broken the seal on questions from the board, so Supervisor Bushnell, and then Supervisor Bone.

Thank you. I want to ask a question around what you just said around your budget. My understanding is that the FLOC program is a grant-funded program. Is that true?

We initially used grant funds to purchase the cameras. Ongoing funding, I believe, is supported through general fund.

Okay. Thank you for that. Yes. I'll have more questions, but I'll stay in protocol.

Yes. We'll keep it as best we can.

Supervisor Bone. Just because there was a lot of correspondence on this, and I found myself going down a rabbit hole and everything else. Have we had any of our deputies track their girlfriends and boyfriends with this? That you know of? No. Okay. I mean, so have we had any instances where would it create concerns for you or and or us up here at the board except for to solve the crimes that you mentioned earlier?

We've had no documented use violations of our policy for ALPR and no one's been disciplined for that. Great, thank you.

Okay, I think we've got an initial round of questions. Oh, I have one, I suppose, now since we do this. It just has to do with the jurisdiction that you were talking about with external operators, private and or other agencies. What is the nexus? Sure.

So as we know, the tribe can utilize these cameras and put it on tribal land. The state can utilize these cameras. And the state actually has utilized cameras in Oakland, right? And so they've incorporated that down there. CHP can install cameras. Caltrans can install cameras. And private citizens and private businesses can install cameras. We had a private citizen put a flock camera up in Humboldt. And they'll, you know. created some controversy, we didn't know whose it was or whatnot, but a citizen can put that up there and utilize that technology as well.

Okay, now we're gonna take it to the public. We're gonna go online first, so if you wanna comment on this online, this is the time to raise your hand. Once we're done, and we come bring it back to the room, we're not going back to online, so let's start with our online public comment and we'll go from there.

Thank you, Chair. Caller 1268, I will unmute you and you will have two minutes.

Hello. Hello, my name is Peyton. I'm a resident in Arcata. I was really fascinated to learn today that we've developed a new type of camera that can only record license plates. When I set my camera up, it can record everything it looks at. So that's really fascinating to learn that this technology is out there. You know, I'm obviously being sarcastic. When you have a camera, it records anything that it's pointing at. So that's ridiculous, and that's just honestly a lie to say that it only records license plates. It's the same strategy that they're using with these gunshot detectors in different cities, where you install the infrastructure under the guise of safety, under the guise of protecting the community and once the introduction in place you know all these legal protections that that the sheriff is mentioning there's no guarantee that they'll last there's no guarantee we're obviously seeing the deterioration of our state and these there's there's really no guarantee that the protections we're talking about are going to last but um if you're cool with that you know push it ahead just build up the infrastructure and see what happens you know i'm telling you there's no such thing as a camera that can only record a certain thing they can ai use whatever jargon they want to it's in a cloud which cloud you know i call this in my cloud we're talking about computers and servers where the data is being stored and yeah once you've installed the cameras you've signed off your privacy you've signed off everything to people that don't live in our county people that don't have the same values as us people that honestly don't care about the safety of our community they just want the data because that data is valuable there is value in collecting the data of the movement of people of tracking who's in what place and that is what the sheriff is trying to push today it's very, very, very important that we all come together and say, no, no, no, no, no clock.

Okay, again, if we could keep it quiet in the room, that'd be great. I know people have opinions they want to express, but please don't override the other people's opinions and their expressions. Everyone has a right to the same access to this process, please.

Caller 1268, you ran out of time. Caller 5345, I will unmute you and you will have two minutes.

Hi, I'm just calling in because I want to say I just think continuing to have these county cameras, these flock cameras in our county just feels short-sighted just because we quote unquote haven't had any violations as of yet or aren't partnering with any three letter agencies that a lot of people do not want in our county and accessing our data doesn't mean that having this ongoing contract doesn't mean that that's just continued the continued option to have that happen. Like having these cameras is like just a big security risk. Like there's videos, easily accessible videos online on YouTube on how to access these cameras, just public, facing, there's devices that you can just drive around with that make you have accessibility of these camera feeds remotely or locally. And they're just not well-built devices. The company is just an overfunded and under-engineered project, surveillance project that, if you just look statistically, has been going terribly. Like, in multiple counties and states, Flock's just not a great company, security-wise. Yeah, again, just because we haven't had any violations yet doesn't mean that we're not going to. Emphasis on the yet. Yeah, and it's very unfortunate to see this being pushed as something good to help solve crime because just statistically it just does not. And it just takes so much ignoring of how the flock project nationally has been going. It just takes so much ignoring to actually want to continue to use this stuff. You have ran out of time.

Sorry, you have used all your time. Caller 1050, I will unmute you and you will have two minutes.

Good evening. Good evening, actually morning. So I have been following this stuff about flock for the past, you know, since the last time it's been here. And I just, you know, want to go over how flock is run by Peter Thiel, a man who said that when asked if the human species should go on, he could not answer that question for 20 seconds. And I do not trust a company run by someone who is a genocide supporter and whose information in order to access white flip-flop cameras captured, as said previously, is easy to pick up, take off online. It's very easy to get. I do not ascribe to the belief that nothing bad has happened yet. Bad things have happened across the country. A lady was arrested because a camera picked up her face using their AI to a crime that she did not commit two states over. First off, this AI sucks. It's run by a genocide supporter who can't believe that the human race should go on. I do not think that we should be ascribing this 1984 kind of technology to what our beautiful accountant should be for. It doesn't help. Like I said previously, it's not just for license plates. It records everything. The flat cameras record every single part of the person's face, whatever the fucking sheriff said in the lie.

You have used all your time. Caller 6208, I will unmute you and you will have two minutes.

uh hi my name is joe and i am an arcadia resident and business owner um although i applaud and stand with the ability uh to solve crimes i think that that in and of itself is incredible i know i stand with many people when i share concerns about the precedent that sets for the infringement on our rights to privacy as i believe that uh chef hansel has said previously and Although I think that this could be a good thing, I think that the way to set up currently lacks oversight. And if this were to continue, I would like to see it put to a public vote on the general election. And I think that if it were to pass, it should be a go without saying that the board has access and readily available auditing ability, and that there would be an elected board of oversight by the community separate to the sheriff's department. And this would be the bare minimum, I think, if this were to continue. But as it stands now, I feel that in a time of AI data collection and what this could be used for greatly outweighs the potential benefit that this program currently offers. Thank you.

Thank you. Caller 3053, I will unmute you and you will have two minutes.

Hello, Thomas Boulder here. Just want to confirm you can hear me there in the chamber?

Yes.

Just as a community member listening in, you know, I have friends that are concerned about it, everyone on both sides of this, just kind of listening along. I heard the report from the sheriff and the undersheriff, and it seems like there's safeguards in place that some crimes have been solved that are positive for our community. I haven't heard anything that is contradictory to that. So maybe I am working, so maybe I didn't hear that. And I also do remember reading back when these first came out that this helped knock down some massive amounts of drugs that were coming into our community. So if that's really the case, it doesn't seem like there's anything that's against it other than the mistrust, and that goes back to the sheriff oversight and all that other political stuff. some of you are trying to step in i just want to put that out there um and also it could please correct me if i'm wrong but i swear i did hear a private landowner could just place one up um if they wanted to on their own private property without oversight of the sheriff maybe i misheard that just putting that out there thank you for the opportunity to speak thank you caller 4816 i will unmute you and you will have two minutes

Hi, I'm a McKinneyville resident. I'm calling to voice my disapproval of the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office continued usage of the automated license plate reader program to spy on the community that they serve. Our community has already spoken up against the usage of these 24-7 warrantless tracking cameras, hence the reason you don't see them around certain parts of our community. And yet, despite this, the Sheriff's Office has decided to surround this county with these cameras. This is a clear example of how the Sheriff's Office continues to ignore the rights and desires of our community And I don't need to explain why state surveillance is a bad thing. All the dystopian novels we grew up reading, there's plenty of reasons why, plus that's already been covered. But it's pretty clear to me that this is a bad idea. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Caller 1054, I will unmute you and you will have two minutes.

Hello, my name is Mitch. I'm a Eureka resident. I want to voice my concern with the oversight of ALPR use. Per the public search audit CSV file that I just pulled up from the flock safety transparency portal for Humboldt County, it shows that 147 ALPR searches were conducted from May 9th through June 1st, 2026. 44, which is about 30% of those records, have no reason stated for the search. This seems to be in direct violation of Humboldt County Sheriff's Office policy 437, which states there must be sufficient investigative reason to conduct searches using the flock safety ALPR database. And that reason shall be documented in the system with each individual search. Thank you for the time.

Thank you. Caller 9072, I will unmute you and you will have two minutes.

Hey there, can you hear me?

Yes.

Hello, good afternoon, supervisors. My name is Riley Morrison. I support not only a formal flock review of this camera program, but also the removal of the county funding for this program and the development of a county ordinance prohibiting the use of automated license plate readers within unincorporated Humboldt County. These cameras collect information on every vehicle that passes them, regardless whether anyone is a suspect of a crime. Concerns raised in today's agenda regarding data sharing, privacy, compliance with California state law, and ethics are serious enough to warrant more than just a review. If the technology with this level of surveillance is gonna be used in our community, it should first have a clear public approval and strong local safeguards. In my view, those safeguards currently do not exist. I encourage the board, the direct staff, to explore both ending the county funding for this program and adopting an ordinance that protects Humboldt County residents from mass vehicle surveillance moving forward. Thank you.

We're getting close to the end of the online comments but this is your last chance if you are online and want to comment raise your hand because once we move out of that we're not coming back caller nine four five nine I will unmute you and you'll have two minutes

Good morning, Board. I'm here to say that I find the ALPR reading program a gross violation of my right to privacy, which I know has been overturned with Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court. However, that doesn't mean that you should be Tracking my vehicle, I've done no crime. You've submitted no evidence, I've done crime. There was never a warrant issued. You don't have probable cause to create a data set to track all of our vehicles around the county constantly. This is all part of the broader plan of the government to avoid our right to privacy by contracting it privately. Contracting surveillance privately so that we can be observed and that data can be bought not just by our government but by private rich people. And guess what that means? It's that anyone can get access to our flock data. And you know what about data sets? They get breached. That shit gets um stolen online and sold um so in in some i'm dismayed that um a county that claims it does not cooperate with um three-letter agencies like ICE. We're allegedly a sanctuary, but here we are creating a data set that is searchable by the federal government for the purpose of tracking people, dangerous individuals, as they like to say, or that new aliens.gov site. It's fucking despicable. This makes me sick. Love to see better from my county supervisors. Hope that you guys respect our rights to privacy. Thank you.

Just a reminder, can we keep the language that we do broadcast? So it's important that, just keep us out of trouble if you can. Thank you. We have one more comment I think online.

Thank you. Caller 2476, I will unmute you and you will have two minutes.

Hello, I worked as a computer programmer in Silicon Valley from 2017 to about 2020. Everything that we did and said publicly online, we completely ignored. Oh my God, we were laughing about it pretty much in private rooms and there was multiple data breaches and violations when I worked for the companies that I worked for. I didn't personally do any of them, but I was disgusted by them. And I do not believe a single thing that comes out of any of Block Media's, sorry, any of Block's PR. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, caller 5345. I will unmute you and you will have two minutes.

All right, I just want to harken back to that previous commenter said that the cameras have been accessed multiple times without reason. I feel like we should be a bit more concerned about that having happened so many times and having them come up and say that they are following the policy so steadfast and surely, but clearly they Clearly they are and if they've accessed it so many times without giving reason, that makes me uncomfortable and really unhappy and it makes me think we need some sort of oversight board going on here. Yeah, thank you for your time.

That is all on Zoom chair.

All right, we're gonna bring it into the room. Just a reminder, it's two minutes. If you run up against that two minutes and you have a sentence to finish, please by all means do so. Without extreme run-on sentences, that'd be great. All right, let's get started.

I'm a Humboldt County resident. wish to remain anonymous on this, but have real concern about the breach and the risk of personal data. My concern lies with flock, not with the sheriff's office. The initial data goes to flocks, uh, data cloud. They have total control and they can do what they want for profit, political gain, et cetera, goes on and on. The data gives them insight to personal identifiers. One point I'd like to clarify, the sheriff's office indicated that flock data is deleted after 30 days. Now, the difference, however, is I read the service agreement. The service agreement states that video images are deleted every 30 days. It does not refer to deletion of data associated with those. Now I could be wrong. You could check with general counsel about that if I am wrong, but it, it struck me they referred specifically to video images, not data being, uh, deleted every 30 days. Um, the best intentions of the sheriff's office, their procedures. The reality is they have no control over flock data because flock holds it. SB 34 has a loophole and it's basically a get out of jail free card for flock. SB 34 reads, SB 34 prohibits any public agency from selling, sharing, or transferring license plate reader information except to another public agency. If you read on, however.

That was your last sentence in this.

Oh, Lori.

Okay.

My recommendation to the board, black bag all the flock cameras by end of the week.

Okay. Okay, everybody.

Cancel resolution to cancel the contract.

All right, our first in-house comment here, and we've already kind of broken a few protocols, so let's... Please bring it back, thanks.

Hello, my name is Hillary Mosier. I live on Murray Road in McKinleyville, where one of the flock cameras are. I'm here this morning to ask you to defund all flock cameras under your jurisdiction. Like some other electronic inventions, the flock license plate reader cameras seemed like a good idea at the time. However, now we can see that the company that holds the contract for this system has changed their initial agreement. giving them an option to sell the data from our county wherever they choose and to own the data indefinitely, even if a community chooses to discontinue the contract. Flock also recently announced that they have launched a Flock Business Network, a collaborative hub designed to help private sector organizations work together to solve and prevent crimes. What private sector organizations? How are they authorized to solve and prevent crime? This means private companies creating watch lists, black lists, and databases about everyday people like you and me. I remember being on a watch list as a Vietnam War protester in my college days. I ended up having to go to college in Europe rather than subjecting my neighbors, teachers, friends, employers, and family to the inquisition of the FBI. And that was before flock cameras. All this data is subject to the Public Request Act. It's funded by public funds. It is managed by a public agency. If a stalker with a restraining order against them wants to find out where their victim is, they can access the nearby camera footage anytime. It means that if I happen to frequently drive past a house where a package was stolen, I could be considered a suspect. The attack on flock cameras is not an attack on law enforcement. No one here wants to let criminals go free. Yet, many of us are not willing to allow a database that aids in crime and that lowers our rights to privacy about our comings and goings, leaving us vulnerable to undesirable individuals and groups who may use the data for nefarious purposes. Right now, we have no protections from the collateral damage this camera system leaves us open to. I represent over 1,700 people who have signed a petition on change.org. Next time, I can try and get them all to come if you'd like. Thank you.

I'm really trying here, guys. Please, it really actually doesn't help us. We'll spend more time here, but for whatever that's worth. But it doesn't really actually help the decision makers. So I just wanna, just the messages only, please, thanks.

Hello, I'm a Hummer County resident from Westhaven. I'm going to state something and then I'd like to also direct a question that my supervisor, Steven Drone, may be able to answer at a later time in this forum. Since Humboldt County is designated, since this County Board of Supervisors has basically stated that Humboldt County is a sanctuary county, I assume I'm correct in that regard, since the flock cameras are a direct connection to the Department of Homeland Security, to ICE, the flock cameras are a direct connection I believe in violation of our status as a sanctuary city that ICE will be able to obtain that data. So that's one very big concern of mine. The other concern I have is the supposedly private flock camera that was installed at the intersection of Scenic Drive and southwest haven drive um and perhaps uh supervisor madrone can address this at some point today it's my understanding that this private individual whose house is adjacent to that intersection installed that camera and saw the flock camera that seems completely um in Congress completely wrong that a private citizen would have the ability to install a flock camera on county property. That camera needs to be removed ASAP. I walk to Moonstone Beach frequently for my meditation and I have to pass this uh the big brother orwellian flock camera on the on the intersection of scenic drive and southwest haven drive i want that camera removed asap i want the contract with flock terminated all cameras removed by july 1. thank you thanks next

Hi, I'm Nolani. I'm a concerned community member. I live in Arcata, and I'm just calling for the Board of Supervisors to cancel the contract between the Sheriff's Office and Flock Safety. The ND Commission, the AI spy surveillance software in the counties that has been installed so far. Flock cameras have no correlation with decreased crime rates and are a waste of public funds. Flock also habitually disregards local ordinances and limitations to their operations, so while you guys have set guardrails down, they tend to lie. Flock says cities control their sharing settings. They say each customer has the sole authority over if and when and with whom information is shared, but city officials have recently realized after the fact that they were sharing data way more broadly than they had even known. With privacy violations, risk of misuse, and limited benefits, it's clear that these cameras don't return enough yield on investment to justify tens of thousands of tax dollars in state funding to install and maintenance. I read that it's $21,000 to maintenance them every year, A lot of money. It's clear that voting to keep this contract would mean selling out the safety of your constituents and the people that live in this county. Thank you so much.

Hey, I can't give my name because I'm currently a high political target. I'm an AI consultant, and I can affirm to you, speaking to you through public comment right now, It is possible for me to use a large language model to cause President Trump to catch a stray bullet from the Secret Service. It is this easy for me as a hacker to weaponize... We're going to keep references to violence out of the conversation. No, I'm saying this as a consultant. It is not a reference to violence. I'm saying an LLM... has the quality necessary to weaponize in this capacity from my voice, from my public comment. If I did not create this weapon here by speaking it, you will not have a way to disarm this system. It is not currently lawful for the sheriff to authorize sharing of any data with Flock because it is a weapon I can aim. You are selling me the Republic as a hacker. The question that I had that I've been thinking, well, everyone needs to hear this question first. The question is for the Sheriff. And if it is yours to ask, then you will need to ask it legally.

And again, speak to the board, nobody else.

Right, okay. What you will need to ask the sheriff is a simple question of jurisdiction and it is under which city ordinance any special investigation is performed because reasonable privacy is not in any of the contracts I'm looking at.

All right, whoever's next, come on up.

Hello, my name is Slate Savra. I'm a senior at Six Rivers Charter High. I thought it was important for me to come here to make it clear that the younger generation is also against this. My generation has been famous for accepting technology without question, but I do feel like this is a massive overstep of the government and dangerous. We shouldn't be tracking our movements constantly. Also, Flock AI has recently said that they would, are trying to, I'm sorry, they're trying to find suspicious behavior for police instead of letting the police search for things they suspect. We don't need an eye generating suspicion. That is dangerous. Allowing Flock AI is not within the best interests of our community. Thank you.

Good job from the youth. And get up close to that microphone so that we can get good broadcast.

Hi, my name is Pat Hansler. I work nights, I wrote you all, but this is important. I had to come. First of all, I want to say, you know who Edward Snowden is? He wrote a book called Permanent Record. This digital information cannot be deleted. It's always going to be there. And I also want to reiterate that the Flock contract says that this information is going to Flock and Flock has been known to give it to ICE and the government. I'm very upset about this because of the political atmosphere right now. We can use these Flock, not we, I'm saying law enforcement can use these Flock cameras and start looking at just regular citizens and not just for migrants or criminals. and they shouldn't be looking for migrants, but we know they do anyway. So I'm just trying to let you know that this is a surveillance state and it shouldn't be, and I should be asleep right now. So I'm sorry, but please, I'm sure you've listened to everybody else. And I also want to remind you, you work for me. All right. We voted for you. And I don't know how much money exactly you make, but you work for me. And you should start looking up what FLOC says on its site and look up what the contract says. We're talking about surveillance here. And I expect you to do your duty. Thank you.

All right. Hi, I'm Tyler from Arcata. Uh, and I just wanted to read off some of the reasons entered in for the flock safety queries from within the past week. So you've got investigation, INV, investigation, investigation, INV, INVESTIGATION, OFFICER SAFETY, OFFICER SAFETY, OFFICER SAFETY, AND ABOUT A THIRD OF THEM ARE BLANK WITH NO REASON LISTED AT ALL. IF THEY WERE USING THEM FOR ACTUAL CASES, ENTERING IN THE CASE NUMBERS, IF THE OFFICER TRAININGS WERE EFFECTIVE AND OFFICERS WERE ENTERING IN LEGITIMATE REASONS, THAT WOULD MAKE ME FEEL A LOT BETTER ABOUT THIS. You know, there's the Flock Cloud. The Flock Cloud is an Amazon data center. All of Flock's data is being stored in computers owned by Amazon, and I really don't think Bezos or Amazon is going to pose any resistance to the federal government or any of their agencies from accessing that data. So, yeah, that's it for me. Thank you.

Hi, I'm Diana Preston. I live in Eureka. You know, we're living in a sci-fi novel right now. And it's been said before, you know, people with a great deal of understanding of authoritarianism, George Orwell, Ray Bradbury, Aldous Huxley, envisioned what would happen when an authoritarian government had technology. And it's not pretty. It doesn't end well. Anyway, and I think if we are to think that we're not going to have our data gooped up by amazon i think that would be incredibly naive because i mean look at what happened with musket that he's now has the whole entire social security data under the thumb of him and his like silly little guys Anyway, so I just think this is a perfectly dreadful idea. Now, if we were as a civilization ethically prepared for this technology, that would be an altogether different matter. But of course, we all know we are far, far from being able to handle this responsibly. and of course all the individuals that will be targeted by who knows what and who knows who and who knows why. We just really don't want to have that here. We're so, so blessed to live in this community, so blessed to be behind the redwood curtain and have just a little bit of shielding from this massive horror that's going on in our country and around the world. So anyway, I just wanna protect us.

Hi, I'm Marilyn. I guess I wanna just piggyback off of what she had said beforehand is I'm not gonna say that this is something that could never, ever happen, but I don't think that it can happen now. I wrote notes down, but I really don't think they're relevant right now because I feel like we're all well-educated adults that can look up facts on our own. But ultimately, I think this issue just falls on We don't trust the private company having our information. It's very Orwellian. We don't trust that it'll continue to cost $21,000. I mean, shit, I got a Spotify account years ago and it has jumped up in price three, four times in the past couple of months. So who's to say that every year it's not going to cost an additional 10, 12K to keep Five years from now, it could be $68,000 a year. Who knows, right? But once they get in, it's so much easier to change the fine print than it is to grant them permission in the first place. I'm afraid of that fine print. It's gonna be so much harder to get them out once they're already in place. So I don't trust the private company owning all of our information. And you know, I kind of don't trust the police. I think just because we haven't had instances where somebody has checked up on a girlfriend, although I do think investigation, investigation, investigation might have yielded one or two instances of peeping on their significant other. I think that your constituents don't think this is a tool. I, I think that we think this is a toy. Yeah, true.

um hi i'm abby i'm a local resident and i've just came here to express my concern i've watched flock all over the nation very rapidly expand in multiple places especially keeping tabs on places i've lived before one of which is was in boulder colorado and currently A class action lawsuit has been brought against Flock and the city because investigations have shown that despite promises from the local sheriff's department, it was used as an illegal dragnet to track citizens with thousands of requests that did not have justification and when people wanted to request from Flock what data they had on their vehicles, it was rejected by the department because Flock is a private company and it is a black hole in terms of who controls the data is different than CCTV cameras, which are supposed to be locally controlled and have public access to the information. I'd also like to emphasize that within our own county, the Sheriff's Department has made thousands of requests that are vague, using very, you know, vague identifiers, and that is just our public cameras, so there's already a violation of trust for something I should have public access to. I'd also like to, in terms of a through line with connection to ICE, ICE has surveilled protesters according to NPR. Dozens of people have been stalked or immediately pulled up by databases, things saying like, We are taking you home. We know who you are. Within seconds, ICE can pull up private information on your data, and I'm very uncomfortable with this. Thank you.

Howdy. A very basic standard of industrial process safety is that the best way to manage a risk is to eliminate it fully. no matter what alleged safeguards the sheriff claims to have put in place although it seems based on reporting in the lost coast outpost that again and again sheriff's policy has been violated with regards to this i don't have a particularly strong reason to believe anything the sheriff says about policies that have now been put in place this time But regardless, the best way to eliminate a risk, to manage a risk is to eliminate it. The best way to manage the risk of a totalitarian society is to eliminate the possibility of a private company holding a nationwide database of everyone's car's movements. That's a very simple way that that risk could be managed is to simply not have such a database. Maybe, maybe some benevolent government is somehow theoretically able to manage this. There is no But also, I'm running out of time, but I also wanted to mention that the statement that data is deleted after 30 days is incorrect. License plate data is not deleted after 30 days. Thank you.

Right there. don't get to decide what looks suspicious tomorrow just because you're not doing anything wrong today doesn't mean you won't be watched tomorrow license plate cameras like flock don't know your intentions only your movements a trip to a protest or a friend's house in a high crime area or a misread plate can flag you as suspicious as history has shown when governments or third parties gain unchecked surveillance powers, they're eventually used against the people who weren't doing anything wrong until somebody decided they were. For example, in 25, ALPRs weren't used for tracking immigrants, legal or otherwise, but now they are despite policies prohibiting it. In a recent Blender, members of ICE inadvertently added a random person to a group chat called mass text when they were using ALPRs in real time to track down people targeted for their migration status. This inadvertent exposure shows us that This technology specifically is being used against migrants. And as a reminder that however subjective and fickle criminal status is, the consequences of criminalization with this kind of surveillance are swift and dangerous for many members of our communities. Thank you.

So the flock company cannot be trusted. What large company do you trust? The Sheriff's Office cannot be trusted. What's to stop them from monitoring someone with different political views or someone they have some kind of personal vendetta against? There have been numerous accounts of misuse, allegedly none from this Sheriff's Office, but say I do believe them, how long can you expect that to last? Am I supposed to believe that this county's officers are somehow more trustworthy than others? Additionally, if a regular citizen can access these cameras quite easily, the government can as well, which is quite concerning to say the least, given our government right now. Even if they only capture license plates, they don't. It only takes a single software update to change that. We grew up hearing about propaganda, hearing propaganda about how citizens in China, Russia, North Korea, and many other states were always being watched and that we were better than them for having freedom and privacy. What happened to the Fourth Amendment? It's only applicable to governments, not private companies. Are we just expected to let our rights be eroded in the name of safety? The Patriot Act has torn the spine out of nearly every official and it is shameful. Thank you.

i'm going to speak quickly and i hope clearly i'm going to start off with a point that i hope the two brown shirts to the left of me here the ones who mentioned caltrans putting up cameras and doing things like that i just want to point out that none of the flock cameras follow Caltrans safety guidelines as installed. All road signs, which they are legally designated as at this current time, must have a breakaway base in case someone hits them with a car, and these flock cameras do not. Over two dozen people have died within the United States in the last year due to flock cameras that are installed that do not follow road safety guidelines. However, I want to diverge from the topic of what is lawful, what is correct, because As we are being proven to day after day after day, laws cannot be relied on when they are being applied unjustly to different people. So if you are telling us that every mention of restricting access to this information was then followed by how agencies can legally request information as long as it is within the boundaries of the law, If there are agencies that are determining what is lawful and what is unlawful and that changes day to day, this is not making us safer. This is not making us more secure. When laws are being enforced unjustly, other agencies, there's no... guarantee that whatever other agencies receive is going to be taken with personal safety in mind at all. As another commenter mentioned, how long is it until it is decided after the fact that what you were doing was unlawful? I call for removing all of the cameras and ending the contract with Flock and reinforcing that Flock it's cloud it's private business we do not need to feed into this idea that private business transcends our idea of law and security and safety thank you hello i'm just a concerned community member but there was one topic that gave me a bit of pause

and that was the designation of these cameras as being in an area where privacy could not be assumed. As someone who has grown up with phones in my house and has grown up being tracked by just about anything, you expect there to be cameras in every place that you walk into. You know that your IP address can track you at any moment. You know that your phone can be tracked no matter where you go. I feel that this definition of privacy has been shrinking over the past few years and I worry that this is just another step in which our privacy will continue to shrink and it will be another area in which we are tracked and it will be a foothold for us to continue to lose our privacy in this state.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Ann. I'm a resident of Eureka. I'm very concerned about Flock being here in our community. Flock is not a safety company, it is a data mining company. That's what they do. And by getting in like a Trojan horse, coming in and acting like a safety company, they now have cameras all over spying on us. And I don't know whether you got wind and dine for that or what, but our grant money now is gone and $21,000 for, whatever, I was under the impression that they were rented, not even owned. So I'm so glad we own the equipment. But I think it was a foolish thing to do because they are known for being less than above board with all their work. There's price hikes. There's no ownership. Flagstaff, Mountain View, Santa Cruz, Redmond, Washington, Oxnard, Ithaca, New York, they've all taken flock down due to outcry from their constituents that they listened to. Dayton, Ohio took theirs down. I think that's where the sheriff there was chasing his girlfriend. And it's still up in Arapahoe County, New Mexico, or Arizona, it's Arizona, where the... The sheriff there loves his cameras. But I didn't think we were like that here. The rapidly expanding surveillance system, there's an estimated one camera per 4.6 Americans. I really don't want that on my street. Thank you for your time.

Hello, I'm a humble resident and a student at the College of the Redwoods. I'm speaking today as a transgender woman. I fear for my safety and the safety of my community with the installment of these flock cameras. I do not trust that the data that is taken from these cameras will be held within the county. I think it is very susceptible to being accessed from people outside of the county, including the federal government. And the federal government is currently placing like an attack on people in my community. I feel for their safety, I feel for my own safety. And I wish that these cameras, for these cameras to be removed.

Thank you.

all of those concerns for the person behind me.

Hey, you only get one shot at this, and you had yours already, so. That's it, sorry. All right, next.

Hi, Council. Thank you for your time. My name is Malcolm Writings, and I'm just a concerned citizen of Eureka in Humboldt County. I feel like I could go into all the logistics and just facts of why flock is bad, but I feel like I was more inspired by the person, a couple people before me, who came up here and talking about trust. And I just wanna speak from a place of like my heart and my community. And it's like that we don't trust Flock. It's a giant company that uses data and data points. We've already established that they don't delete the data. They might delete the photos, but they're using this data to create systems to oppress people and aid in the federal government and kind of multiple movements deportations or punishments of individuals that we don't want. And I don't think we want that in Humboldt County from what I've seen. I don't think that we can trust this, uh, company, this giant conglomeration. Uh, I don't think we can trust the sheriff's office either at this point to be honest with, um, what we've seen so far into just their, uh, investigations and use of the cameras. I'd like to be able to get to a point with the sheriff's office that we might be able to, but I don't think that flock is a useful tool to be able to do that. I think that maybe in the future through the use of other actions, maybe we can get to trust with the sheriff's office. At the end of the day, they're a community member and they're people too, but the use of flock is not a way to do that. And I just would like to encourage the council to cancel the contract with flock. And I feel like I've heard comments of like, well, that's not possible or that, that the sheriff's office is able to utilize tools in order to do that. And my question or, you know, opening question is just why is that? Why can we not cancel that? That seems like a gross, like misjustice of power. Thank you.

Keep the flow.

Keep the flow. My name is Charles Blassingame. And I have to agree with what the sheriff and the undersheriff both said. FLOC's a very useful tool in solving crimes. And the other statements that they made that there are other entities that use it. There is a repo truck that uses it, drives around the community. they're all over the place. I work mainly my job. I'm down in the Bay area to LA and that's how I get to fulfill my job is using flock, finding people, and then arresting them. I mean, this is crucial. Most of these people are very upset about this. If you want to be upset about people getting into your data, there's a trash can. Put your cell phone there. It's easier to find out more information on what you have in your hand all day long than driving your car around town. That's what I have to say about it.

All right, thank you. Next. I see a few lined up. If there's more, I just wanna, again, keep the flow. So if there's any more folks that wanna talk, get in line, please.

Hi, my name's Billie. I'm a resident of Humboldt County for the last 13 years, and I currently live in Eureka. Something that I don't feel like needs to be reiterated is a lot of the things that other people have said, so I won't reiterate those things. Y'all are amazing. very eloquently explained that that flock cameras are mass surveillance tools that are likely not to be trusted. So I won't reiterate that. The few things that I do have a concern about specific situations are folks trying to travel to California for care that they might not be able to get in other states. abortion care, transgender care, gender affirming care. This is another mass surveillance tool that could be utilized to allow federal agencies to get information about people that are traveling to this county or to other counties in California to be able to get the care that they might not be able to get legally in their state. We already know that people are traveling to California to get abortion care, gender affirming care. that they would that have become illegal in their state and so this is just an additional concern as well as of course ice uses usage and criminalizing people of color and undocumented folks so that's all that i have to say thank you

My name's Joanne McGarry and a long time ago a wise elder told me just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do it. And I look at this types of technology right now in that regard because there is great risk of dehumanizing people and and harming them unjustly so uh i've been following the papal encyclical that was released last week called magnifica humanitas about human dignity in the age of artificial intelligence and i recall a friend of mine a reporter who went to the vatican back in 2014 and a cardinal at this gathering of environmentalists and scientists said to the group you know We're technical giants and ethical children. And I think we're still at that stage. So this technology that we have available to us, we have to ethically look at to see if it truly is beneficial for the common good the common good. So I really do think it is time to step back, take away the cameras, talk about what we really need in our community to protect ourselves. And it probably isn't a private company, that is led by someone who is delusional about humanity. So please listen to all these people and do the right thing for the common good. Thank you.

Captain Swarovski, sometimes using my birth father's name of Red Sullivan, multiple personality order. I wish to, this is a cell phone. If you have this cell phone, I was tracked in Mexico, all my conversations were tracked in Mexico by a private individual. They knew exactly where I was, coming from Humboldt County. If you have this, this little camera here, if it's out like this, there's technology for somebody to activate that. Your computer, your laptop, they can activate your camera on there. So this whole thing, and Flock's probably not the company to use. It sounds like there may be other alternatives. I support the tool if it's used correctly. And again, trust has to be with the sheriff. And of course, I've lost a little bit of that with what's happening with Mr. Miranda, but that's between me and Billy. But anyway, the technology is out there. You're gonna be tracked. Everybody knows exactly, all of us in this room, if they wanna know who's here, if you have a phone. It's scary, isn't it? But that's our life that we're living right now. There's no solution for it. I do have firsthand information because I was kind of tracking something with the sheriff's office in my neighborhood where there was a murder out there in Glendale. And in that particular case, I was led to believe, and I do believe, that was very important as far as solving that particular crime. Now, again, maybe this company's not the company, maybe the thing, but the tool I see is having benefit, and it has to be maintained in a manner, and this is part of what I kind of support now, a little bit more of a sheriff's oversight thing, developed hopefully by the sheriff, and this would be one component of where we'd have the public and oversight checking into these things following up, and I think that's important for us to move forward with in some way. Thank you for my opportunity to speak.

Hi, my name is Shale and I am a business owner in Arcata. I think that the sheriff's office has already proven how trustworthy they are with the use of this data. They've already been misusing it and breaking the county and state laws around how it gets used. They're not keeping to the rules the requirements for searches, and these cameras can easily be adjusted to also collect facial data, so the continued use of them is, it will evolve over time, and we cannot trust that it's just only going to be licensed plate readers. In the future, it will likely track faces and be misused then. the we don't know if it has been used to track boyfriends or girlfriends that is because nobody has looked into all of these um all of these searches that are don't have any case numbers associated with them and in any any of these uh investigation searches could be somebody misusing the data. We don't trust FLOC, we don't trust the Sheriff's Office. Governments notoriously misuse the data. notoriously track people to stop protesters or people that are activating for civil rights. So I think that we need a county ordinance that protects us from mass surveillance. Thank you.

good morning supervisors my name is robby crossley and i'm a resident of this county i'm standing here today to urge you to vote no on implementing the flock safety license plate readers while we all share the goal of safe communities this technology is the wrong choice for our county for three reasons. and they' re critical. Number one, unproven safety claims. Flock sells a false sense of security. Independent studies show these cameras rarely reduce violent crime rates. Instead, they shift scarce public funds away from proven community policing and real safety solutions. this is a financial trap flock operates on an expensive subscription model the price you see today will rise once our county becomes dependent on their ecosystem will be locked into paying mounting fees forever and number three. Zero oversight and privacy loss. flock builds a massive centralized mass surveillance network it tracks the daily movements of regular lot of buying citizens without a warrant it stores this data in the cloud creating a prime target for hackers and data breaches supervisors we should not use our hard-earned tax dollars to spy on our own neighbors we deserve transparency fiscal responsibility and true safety not corporate surveillance Please protect our privacy and our budget. Vote against flock safety. Thank you for your time.

Is that it? Nobody else? Because I'm going to close public comment, and you can't go again. Sorry. Nobody can go again, not just you. All right, so I'm gonna bring this back to the board. First of all, I want to ask, and I actually want to congratulate everybody because to be honest, Sometimes we have a big group like this, it's tough to keep it civil and on task and on topic and I think everyone did a really wonderful job of doing so. So congratulations and thank you for that, for the grace in that and being respectful of everyone's viewpoints. I'm gonna bring it back to the sheriff and ask him if there's any clarifications. in terms of information or questions you may have heard from the public. And then we'll bring it back to the board and we'll kind of, I'll try and keep it into some various subject matters, but you know our board, we're squirrely, so we'll see how it goes.

It's fine, it's okay. I appreciate everyone, I agree that I know this is a topic that has generated a lot of interest and so I, you know, hearing everyone speak and that kind of stuff and voicing their concern, did they take some notes? Yeah, there have been some agencies that have canceled contracts, but there's still over 200 agencies that utilize flock cameras here in California. They have thousands of cameras that are up and down the coast. And, you know, there was mention that cameras, there's not evidence that cameras have reduced violent crime, and that is not the case. Oakland had 300 cameras put up. Yeah, that's a lot of cameras. But it helped solve some of their violent crime, lowered their violent crime by 40%. 40%, that's a real number. And so people in Oakland are benefiting from those flock cameras. As far as the transparency page goes and the update on that, we require our people to enter a case number. OR A REASON WHY. AND SO WE NEED TO UPDATE OUR TRANSPARENCY PAGE TO DOCUMENT THE CASE NUMBER AND TO MAKE SURE THAT EVERYONE KNOWS THAT THERE'S A BONIFIED REASON FOR THAT CHECK. AND SO I'VE ALREADY WORKED WITH OUR TEAM HERE. WE'RE REACHING OUT TO TRY AND MAKE THAT HAPPEN ON THE FLOCK END OF THINGS. SO THERE IS A JUSTIFICATION FOR EVERY AND IT'S ON THE TRANSPARENCY PROTOCOL ON THE BOARD THERE. uh we don't own these cameras these are leased cameras so they are rented and if they do get damaged flock does fix them they we require to get a caltrans permit and engineering goes into that and so caltrans does approve these put up there they are there's an engineering process and the flock has to follow that if that means a breakaway base or whatever caltrans approves That is up to Caltrans, but a permit has to be pulled in order for that to happen. The camera takes a picture of the rear of the vehicle, the rear of the vehicle. And so it does not capture driver or passenger information. And that this information is stored in the cloud, and it's the same cloud that other government agencies do utilize. Our body-worn camera information is stored in the cloud. And so it is all CJIS compliant, which means this is federally and state regulated, and that it is secure. And though it may be a Jeff Bezos cloud storage, this is government cloud storage that Amazon does maintain. and like state and local and federal agencies do have access or you know that that that provide information for that that information be stored much like a lot of our a lot of our databases here in the county like Caltrans Caltrans cameras are stored in the cloud and and so But it is secured storage, it is strict access, and there are audit logs on the cloud storage. So, Under Sheriff, was there anything else you wanted to add?

I would just think it's important to clarify that the transparency portal doesn't show the case numbers that are required, but our audits show all that information, which is something that you guys could get. I had people texting me saying that's not true, we just looked at all the case numbers are there. The transparency portal doesn't show all that. We can talk to Flock about putting that on there if that's important, but the public hasn't been the person auditing us, so there was no reason for them to put it on there initially, I guess. The other thing is I'm not for unwanted search and seizure. I'm a citizen too, but I feel like body-worn cameras are a much more violation of my privacy and unreasonable right to my information be distributed. I think it's funny that people want that but don't want this. They're just tools to help us do our job. And that's what they're used for. I mean, there's always going to be questions. And we've made modifications based on that. And we will continue to. And I mean, if the board decides that they're not going to have them, then that's your guys' decision. We're just going to keep using the tools that are available to law enforcement to try to do our job.

Okay, we're gonna take a break because we've been here since nine and it's noon. We've had one 10 minute break and our staff needs some time and we're gonna take a break about, we're gonna do about 20 minutes because we need to eat a little bit, shake it off and we're gonna come back and have a robust discussion here. it's gonna be tight, so I want us back here at 12.15, all right? And yeah, that's what we're gonna do. And I'll try and organize that discussion to be as fruitful and as concise as possible, thank you. Mr. Black, are you online and ready to rock? Excellent. Kayleigh? Okay, we're bringing it back. We've had some introductions on the subject matter. We've had public comment. Again, this is discussion around flock cameras in the County of Humboldt. I'm going to bring it back to the sponsor for a moment before we then, which is Supervisor Madrone, and then we'll bring it back to the board. And what I'm going to ask the board to do is when we have some discussion, there are a few subject matters we're going to try and hold within those subject matters. And what I mean by that is there's questions around jurisdiction, for instance, and we can have a conversation about that and not... go off into data technology or something like that, and then we'll come back to those, if we can. We'll try our best. So Supervisor Madrone, I want you to kick us off on this conversation.

Well, thank you very much. And Sheriff Hansel and Under Sheriff Rowe, thanks for being here today and helping to offer insights into how you see the program working and improvements you've been trying to make and all those kinds of things. You know, there's the comments about how these cameras solve serious primes and help us with limited resources. I certainly can understand that opinion about that. but the data online and not just chatter right I mean there's chatter online and then there's data published reports and things like that it certainly suggests that in many cases the solving of crimes is somewhat limited compared to what it's presented as I certainly can appreciate you know the idea that well if we had those cameras could we have found Karen could we have done these things and those things I can absolutely appreciate that kind of stuff You know, there's pros and cons to everything that we do, right? So the issue isn't about having cameras, and people have ring cameras on their front doors, right? And some of you see online stuff where they put little bombs, not to kill people, but blow up and put purple dye all over the person that's stealing their package and stuff like that. I've seen some pretty funny videos around that. But there's been a lot of chatter lately about how the Ring camera picks up more than just your front porch. It's surveying whatever the camera's angle is for so many feet out and stuff, maybe even your neighbor's front porch and things like that. So there's a lot of stuff online about all that kind of stuff. So nobody's saying remove every camera, but the issue is about this mass surveillance, right? I think that's pretty clear. We had 43 people here today that are opposed to these flock cameras being installed and utilized, and only two people spoke in favor of that. And I hope as public officials, I saw you guys listening, and I hope that that maybe weighs heavily on you, that so much public opinion clearly is in opposition to the use of this mass surveillance tool. And it's not that rural crime isn't real. It absolutely is. But then there's the Fourth Amendment. So there's these pros and cons in how we balance these things. I will say that I think, you know, what I've heard you say Sheriff Hansel often is that one of your best tools of all is public trust and the public's willingness to call you, call your department and report crimes and provide you with information when you're trying to solve crimes and the feeling that they have where they feel like they can trust you and come forward and share all that information. And I, I suspect that there's a lot more crimes that are solved. with a high trust level. You spoke a couple of weeks ago about how you feel that trust has never been so high with the department and our community. And I think you have made great inroads towards improving trust on many levels. So I just think what we're trying to do here as a board, I think, is weigh the public trust tool with mass surveillance tools. And the mass surveillance tool clearly reduces public trust. Absolutely. I mean, we had 42 versus two here today, just as one example. And that doesn't include all the phone calls, all the emails and everything else of which I only had one person call me or email me out of maybe 50 in support of these cameras and 49 in opposition, let alone today's data. So that weighs on me heavily. So I just want to be really clear. It's about, you know, in some cases, you mentioned Oakland, some cases with really high crime rates, there is more of a targeted cameras in high crime areas, things like that, that have been successful. Also, you talk a lot about the strict policies and how we comply with SB 34. I mean, when this first happened and you came to us on the agenda, it was not a action item, it was a report telling us that you had gotten this grant money to install these cameras and pay for the annual maintenance fees for a couple of years. And a lot of promises were made that day about how there would be very strict enforcement of the use of this data and access to the data and everything else, and that clearly was not the case. I'm not trying to blame anybody, but it just simply wasn't the case. Those promises were not upheld, and it wasn't really until the local article came out where they did their investigation that a lot of improvements started happening to our policy. But by state law, we were required to have all those things in place the day, day one when the cameras went active and they weren't in place. So a law was being broken, right, for a couple of years in that we didn't have the policy up to the level that it is now. Like you said, under Sheriff Breaux, you said that you delved into the data that's not actually shown on the porthole, the transparency porthole, that actually has a list of case numbers and call numbers and things like that. And you didn't think that was all that important on the porthole because you didn't think the public was going to be the ones accessing it, something along those lines. I mean, transparency is for the public. I mean, I think that's exactly what that's for. And that porthole's use is that to provide the public with the data they need to be able to see, is the law being followed? And the local article really delved into that very deeply. And my big concern is that promises were made from the very beginning that weren't met. And then when the local article happened, there was a lot of improvements, but it still wasn't being met. And frankly, today, if you go to the porthole, there's still all this investigative, investigative, et cetera, like people pointed out today, which doesn't meet the law. It simply doesn't. Maybe that data's available somewhere else, as you said, but that's not what the law says. It needs to be there in the porthole. It needs to be available to the public. uh according to sp 34 so i have some serious problems with these promises being made that haven't really been met which to me frankly that's uh crime right there and and where's the investigation of all that you know uh and and the training of deputies and others that this is what's required to follow the law This idea that we control who can access the system, well, as was presented here today and in other conversations across this country, when it's in the cloud and things are out there, there's no guarantee of who's getting access and all that kind of stuff. So the idea that we control that I think is really not true. I think that there's a lot of access that can occur without our permission. or whatever by this corporation and other things. And that the data is only used for legitimate law enforcement purposes when we have seen a flock camera used, for instance, in abortion investigations in Texas, where theoretically you can't go across the state line to get an abortion. It's a federal offense, and so there's been a lot of tracking and use of it in that case. There's a lot of information online about that one as well. And another one is that it's just a privacy activist issue. I mean, are you really discounting all these people here today, all 40 people and the other 80, 50 people that contacted me and others, that we're just activists? You know, I mean, you really, I mean, you sat here, you listened to people, it was overwhelmingly public, concern about all these things. And I would hope that that would be influential in how you might decide to continue or not continue with flock cameras. If you're listening to the public and the constituents, to me, that's, that should be a huge thing for you. I mean, I certainly listened to it. Um, and, and, you know, on a very large scale, people are not IN SUPPORT OF THIS. SO I WOULD HOPE THAT WE WOULD BE ABLE TO TAKE SOME ACTIONS TO CHANGE THAT AND TRULY PROTECT BOTH THE PUBLIC SAFETY AND OUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS IN THAT REGARD. SO THOSE ARE A FEW THINGS. LASTLY, I KNOW WE'RE GOING TO GET INTO THIS NEXT WITH OUR COUNTY COUNCIL AND WITH YOU, SHERIFF HONSAL, IN REGARDS TO WHO HAS JURISDICTION. JUST BEFORE WE TOOK THE BREAK, THERE WAS A COMMENT MADE ABOUT body-worn cameras and that if People don't support that policy then we could discontinue it and I clarified that With under sheriff bro to mean that he was saying if the public doesn't support body-worn cameras then Sheriff's Department would respond to that and not do that Well, we heard here today a whole lot of people, along with other input, that they don't support these cameras. So I would hope that you would then look at that and say, you know what? This tool, while it may help solve some crimes, it also reduces the public trust tremendously. And as I said in the beginning of my statement, the public trust is probably one of your best tools of all to solve crime. And if you start eroding that by pushing back on an oversight committee or pushing back on flock camera deployment and things like this. After this agenda item later today, we have the Measure K ordinance and the annual report there, which I won't go into all the detail there, but there were statements made back when that campaign was happening. But again, do you believe the Board of Supervisors does not have authority to regulate flock camera placement on county property and that's really only in your purview because it's a tool? Do you believe that? I'm asking you a question. Yes.

Through the chair. Through the chair, yes. Oh, okay, thank you. There you go. I appreciate that. I believe that I have the investigative autonomy to put up tools throughout the county, but go through the normal process. If it's on the county road, then I would have to go through the county permit process. If it's on a state highway, I'd have to go through the Caltrans permit process.

Sure, okay.

Yes.

So you do not believe that we have the authority to set a policy up that does not allow flock cameras on county property?

You're gonna have to go through your county council to figure out what your authority is. I'm not gonna tell you what your authority is, sir. You can figure out that yourself, but what I'm telling you right now is I had the authority to put up the cameras lawfully, and what you wanna do here today is gonna be up to you and your four constituents.

Just for a moment here, just for decorum, please reference the body as best you can, and let's try not to get personal. That's all right.

Right. I'm just trying to ask very important questions about jurisdiction through the chair. Um, if we were to develop a policy which the public is clearly asking us to do that does not allow the deployment of flock cameras anywhere on county property, county facilities, county right of ways, would you then sue the county over that because you think that's your authority, not ours?

You're going to through the chair. Yes. Thank you. Through the chair. Yes. Uh, I don't know what your ordinance would look like. So what you would need to do is you would need to create something. And then I would have my attorneys look at that and see if this was justified under the law. That is the due process. That's a separation of powers. And so we can look at that and we can figure out what the law states.

And I want to just, I don't want to interrupt, but I do have to, because I have to say, it's not you personally, it's your department and your office which you head. And it's not Supervisor Drone personally, it's our body that makes these decisions. So if we can just try and keep our conversation in that framework, that would be great. If we can try. That's all I'm asking.

I'm trying my best to ask questions that I think are very pertinent to the next conversation we're going to have around jurisdiction. And I believe that the public deserves to know who the ultimate decision-making body is in regards to deployment of these cameras on public property. We can also talk about the deployment of these cameras by private citizens on public property. of which has been talked about here today and without mentioning any more detail, the person who deployed or paid Flock a lease fee, because as you said, nobody owns, Flock owns the cameras, but you do a lease with them, and that individual stated to me over and over again that they had worked with a deputy in your department to get that camera deployed. We don't know if that's true or not, and I appreciate that you were trying to investigate that as well, because that's very problematic, personally speaking. But I think the public deserves to know where you stand, and maybe we'll get into it more in the next discussion on jurisdiction, of whether or not this board has authority to set a policy about deployment on our public property and facilities because I think we do, but you bring up the issue of if we restrict your use of tools, then you think that's within your purview to decide on what tools are best to apply. And then I've made the argument that by deploying this tool, you're reducing the use of probably the most important tool of all, which is public trust. So there's these pros and cons that we have to weigh here as a board and your position as well. So I only say that because of that. And then the other one is, do we have the authority to say we don't want county funds being used for the deployment or maintenance annual fees for the flock cameras and i think you would well should i ask you or should i just assume that your answer would be the same that that's your authority within your department to regulate that budget once we give you a certain budget you have some leeway within that budget even the general fund allocations to use it how you see best fit to apply the right tools to do to do your job is that accurate am i making a bad assumption there

Through the chair. Through the chair.

Yeah. As your board, as far as you provide a budget allocation for me every year. Yeah. And so then it's me and my teams determines how I best utilize that budget. And so that's what the county authority has given me. Yeah. Okay. So. If this board decides to create an ordinance or provide direction, of course I'm gonna look at that and make sure that it is within your law and the purview to provide that direction. And so it's part of our process.

Okay, I appreciate that. And I'm wrapping up, Mr. Chair, because we have very important discussions to do about jurisdiction and what actions this board might take or not take. But I just want to say that I do recognize as an elected official, you have a lot of authority. In your department, you have a lot of authority. And I want to respect that. I really do. And I hope that we, your department, yourself, and this board can figure out a way to work together to honor the public's concerns, to maintain the highest level of public trust that we possibly can around solving crimes and keeping public safety really at a premier place. So I guess I am imploring you to listen to what happened today, the public comment, and what continues to happen in this community in regards to this. And we find a way to work together to maximize the most important tools of all. Sometimes some tools just simply aren't going to be used because they're not effective. Or the cost of implementing them and lowering the effectiveness of other important tools has to be borne in our decision making. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. Chair and the rest of the board. I'd like to hear the rest of the comments and more on this discussion.

Okay, so yes, I'm gonna allow you this time in just a second, but just to clarify, because some of us have conversations outside this body, not necessarily with each other or illegally or whatever. What I'm getting at is, just a reminder to the board and to the sheriff, many people in the public, these are new subjects. And so one of the things that was just brought up, you're a separately elected public official. And so for folks to understand, there is overlap and there are some separations of powers that get discussed in these items. And we may have differing opinions about those things. This is where this might jump on point for you to discuss that. Sure, sure. Thank you.

Chair Wilson, it is an important aspect of government to have separation of powers. And as each one of the Board of Supervisors represents a district, the sheriff is elected for the entire county. And with the idea that the elected sheriff runs a jail, the coroner's office, and then the entirety of the sheriff's office, including the $65 million budget. And it is... I pledge that I do work with the board, and I do hear from my constituents, and I do this every day. The undersheriff and I take great pride of being good listeners, and it doesn't mean that we always agree, but it means that we will listen to someone's opposing views. Based upon what I heard, based upon everything here, I'm not opposed to looking at another contract, to look at another company. If there's a deal with Flock, and we don't trust Flock, and maybe there's an opportunity to do on-site storage through another company, but yet have still license plate readers. These are the things that are going on in my head right now. as a way of discussion. And as the undersheriff said, we're not opposed to sharing this information with an ad hoc committee or even this board as a consent calendar item of seeing the audit, whatever you would like there. We're not opposed to that. We're not opposed to working with an ad hoc committee to see you know addressing some of these concerns um those are all things that that we are willing to do in order to provide um better you know transparency and trust and also you know work with the board and and this county and again jurisdictionally we have some authorities and you have some there and some are separate and absolutely yeah yes okay supervisor arroyo

Thank you. I appreciate all of the comments and information and the updates on this item. I have a few overarching comments similar to Supervisor Madrone and then just a couple of questions in here initially. So sort of in keeping with what the chair said, I think a lot of folks have become interested in this or aware of it recently. And so folks may not realize or may not have been here when we talked about the fact that these are already in place. There's already a contract in place. And we had a report that was informational only in April of 2024. on this item, at which point the cameras were already in place and grant funding had been received and the sheriff had made that decision to install them for, you know, investigatory purposes, which we heard today. And then, you know, of course there's been some news and conversation around it that really brought it to the fore, so I appreciate that we're able to have this discussion today. Some of the commenters and some of the folks that we heard from even before the meeting referred to the roles of cities. Also in keeping with this discussion, we're a county, so we're organized differently and our authorities are different. In a city, the city council is a top-down approach with far fewer elected officials and at the county level, we share those powers in a different way. So my understanding thus far is that this hasn't fallen within our authority and I've done a little research to understand what options are available to us to get a little closer to what people are asking for. I would say I mean, I'll be honest, from the get-go, this has not been comfortable to me. I've had concerns similar to what some community members have raised here, and I also think two things, or multiple things can be true at the same time. This can be an important tool for solving crimes, and it can also be a really serious concern about privacy that people have, and I think both of those things can exist simultaneously, and we've heard about that here today. And I think one of the things that I learned about that I had concerns about when I think about Flock as an entity or a company is the proliferation of things like Last fall, they announced that they'd be offering private sector drones for pursuing suspects of shoplifting or other crimes that can actually follow the person. And when I think about that, it gives me the heebie-jeebies. Yes. as a person who finds that to be a little creepy. And I also could see how that could be a tool. So it's certainly something that I think this technology and the tools available are expanding really quickly. And I do think it is time for us to consider having some form of ordinance that lays out how we will handle requests for, for example, installation of surveillance apparatus on county property, or how these things will be handled in our county. There are examples from other counties, and so I'll get to that in a minute. So, you know, we, we could choose to take $21,000 out of your budget of 35 plus million dollars, but I don't think that that would accomplish defunding the flock cameras outright, and that wouldn't necessarily achieve our goals. So I think rather than sort of digging into a position around that. I am curious, through the chair, if Sheriff Hounsell, you could kind of, you've already said a couple of ideas about how we could share the data, increase the transparency a little bit more, perhaps the idea of having an ordinance that spells out what the process will be. Do you have any other ideas about how to get a little bit closer to addressing some of these community concerns that have come out of this conversation today?

Like I said, it seems like a lot of the community concerns reflect around how flock safety has managed their data. And the trust on that data storage is really the, the crux of the issue and potentially sharing that information with federal or out-of-state partners. Even though there's assurances that those are locked down and those are not accessible and that the data is ours and though it's stored in a cloud, people still have concerns that that can be accessed and turned over. So like I said, you know speaking hypothetically because I you know I know that there's other there's other companies out there and then how we could work with those companies to do on-site storage and through a local server is potentially a possibility as opposed to a cloud storage and the same having the same policies in place that we will not share information with out of state or federal partners and You know, essentially abiding by SB 34 and our local policy and our procedure. So that's, you know, addressing some of the concerns, you know, from, you know, the constituents and this board. You know, that's something that, you know, we can definitely look at.

Thank you. Yeah, and I heard pretty clearly that there are searches that have additional information that is not on the public-facing end, that's on the law enforcement or user end. And so folks who are looking at this might not be seeing the same information that you're seeing when you grant access, so that's helpful to understand. I do want to ensure that we have control over the data and that we have a human administrator making those decisions. It sounds like we've evolved some of those processes to do that, but I'll just be honest, I still have some of the same concerns about the hackability of the system or the ACCESS THAT PERHAPS I SAW SOME ANALYSIS ABOUT DIFFERENT WAYS OF ACCESSING DATA THAT WAS LIKE FRONT DOOR, BACK DOOR, SIDE DOOR. IS THERE ANOTHER AGENCY THAT IS RECEIVING OUR DATA BUT THAT THEN HAS MUCH MORE BROAD DATA SHARING AGREEMENTS IN PLACE FOR THEMSELVES? THAT KIND OF THING I THINK IS A VALID CONCERN. I did see a community member did reach out and shared a recommendation that we look at the County of Santa Clara's ordinance. And without getting into detail about their ordinance, it does speak to how to look, and it's actually old. They've had it in place for 10 years, which in this quickly emerging technologies is a long time. But it speaks to how the county departments outside of the district attorney's and sheriff's office will go through a process and then limits the roles to investigatory actions and then says that they'll sort of work collaboratively on any requests outside of that. And it seems like they have a lot of... public information shared about surveillance, but I do have concerns about the private installation on county property of anything, but especially of something that has this data sharing capability. And I do recognize that also when people have their own door cameras on their homes or businesses, many folks are already choosing to share that information with law enforcement in cities and counties and have agreed as individuals to do that. And that's its own sort of realm of data sharing that's outside of what we're talking about here today. But that is happening. I think that's all I wanted to bring up for now. I did want to mention there was SB 1186 a few years back. That was not passed. It was very extensive around data sharing, and so I think there have been some bites at the apple to try to regulate this on a state level more robustly, and those have not been successful on the state level. But some of this seems like it's so, it's so many agencies that we're talking about that work together that to some degree, I don't wanna pass the buck, but we do need to see a state method of addressing this as well alongside whatever we do locally. So that's all for now. I'm sure we'll get into more.

Can you respond to any of the comments from Suarez or Arroyo?

I don't know if I need to respond to anything else. There was a lot of good points that she made in there, and I appreciate those. And, Under Sheriff, was there anything that you wanted to add?

I think it's important to clarify that we never assisted any private citizen putting a flock camera. on county property we were not part of that and flock ended up sharing with us that the person did it privately it ended up that they had put it on county property without permission so i think that there's something underway to get that removed as it is that person offered to share their information with us we declined access to their camera we didn't think it was in line with what we were using the cameras for and where we put them I also think it's important to clarify that it was brought up earlier. The law school's outpost article pointed out a bunch of violations of our policy and law, which if you didn't see, they did an addendum because I had talked with them and showed them that we were not in violation. And so they came out and added that, that the transparency portal didn't show that. It wasn't required to show those. And I think that the reason it didn't initially was there's some of those cases are ongoing and there's could be a compromise of really important homicide cases stuff like that drug trafficking cases that could be compromised if that stuff was released to the public so the required data by sp 34 and all the laws was there in place we were following policy and law but it wasn't being shared in the transparency portal we're working on maybe adding that because what the transparency portal puts on there was what flock put on there based on what the laws required but from the beginning uh like supervisor madrone said we were given this system and we've taken your guys's input and concerns and continually added more stricter guidelines to the point where we're barely sharing with anybody and when we were sharing before it was with only state agencies within our state not with federal agencies we were only allowing them to query a plate based on the same requirement so it wasn't a free-for-all but i felt like we felt it was good input and questions that you guys asked well how can we control all those agencies search how can we make sure that that case number actually is tied to something and we agreed and so the sheriff said we're only going to share with the North State sheriffs who will sign MOUs agreeing to this and with our local in Humboldt County agencies. So very minimal amount of access now, way more restrictive than what is required by the laws and what is practiced commonly in the rest of the state. I mean, we still can get information from all the other cities and counties that are participating. They didn't cut it off to us, but we cut it off to them. So really, we're an anomaly with use of this program.

Thank you. I did forget one last comment and then I think I'll be done with my first, most of what I have to say. I did just realize I forgot to mention that I think we talked in the past about AB 1185 and had a robust discussion about that which does authorize boards of supervisors to implement civilian oversight and that's not what we're talking about here today but we're going through the process of analyzing that. per our previous conversations, but I think that's one of the few roles that the law in California gives to us as electeds alongside you to provide some form of... And honestly, if we had that in place, a lot of this conversation would have happened in that type of setting. and I think there might be a little bit more clarity about whose responsibility it all is. That said, I think it's pretty clear that this ball is in your court, but I do want to see how we can work together to address the community concerns that have come up. So thank you for being part of this, and I really hope we can all just stay engaged on this topic together.

Supervisor Bushnell.

thank you so I I appreciate all the comments today the emails I've received I do want to recognize that and I'm saying this lightly we have a hundred thousand folks here in Humboldt County so 50 of them spoke today it's a bit pretty small percentage however I can say also that our districts are vastly different by district and and the feelings are different. As well as my district, like most of ours, is kind of split. Southern Humboldt is a little different than Fortuna. I've heard from quite a few Southern Humboldt folks on their thoughts. Not so many from Fortuna who They are ran by city councils, as my colleague referenced, too, that are a little different. I understand people's thoughts about privacy because it's creepy, right, to think that the drones or your cell phones listening to you or that you're being... recorded or watched. That's not a very comfortable feeling for anybody. I do want to recognize also that this same group of population requires and wants body-worn cameras, which also can be, those things turn on a lot, sometimes not even when you're doing a stop or a call, and they're worn by you guys, they're worn by the city's jurisdictions, they're worn by CHP, so a lot of cameras out there. I also think that what my colleagues said is that I think that we could come up with a policy alongside you that hopefully could make folks feel better. And regardless if we remove or you remove flock cameras, CHP has flock cameras in Humboldt County. They're not going to listen to us say taking them down. I think through legislation, if that would ever pass, that could really control that. But they currently have three in the south area, and I think they have three in the north area along the 101 corridors. I spoke with CHP before this meeting to feel them out and see what their thoughts were around that. And so they have them in ingress and egress purposes, and they do not have facial recognition. It's not available in the snapshots obtained. Quarries can be made by any authorized user by inputting a license plate in their department. And so whether we, Humboldt County, decides not to utilize plot cameras, they are still gonna be out there. And if we go with a different system, what I heard today was more around the storage and where that information goes after it's utilized. And we hear that for 30 days it's not kept, after 30 days it's not kept, and then it's erased. But it does say that data is owned entirely by the contracting local law enforcement agency. It can be accessed or returned for county provided the county agency operates within the sharing network and has the appropriate permission. So I'm wondering if we could talk with FLOC. And it does say that it's owned in the cloud, like you had said. Is there a way for them to dump back our information that come out of our cameras? Maybe that's something we could ask. Since it says that we own the information coming from those cameras. Specifically, it does say that. Also I do, I think that I heard you Sheriff Hansel say that maybe an oversight committee around block cameras or camera use. Did you say that?

If the board recommends an ad hoc committee, that we would work with that ad hoc committee to come up with some recommendations or how we can utilize.

And that, can I ask what that would, would that be around maybe finding a different company? Are there different companies out there, do you know? Yes. And then how, I assume that most companies would utilize storage the same way. They do. So I don't know that that's the answer, going to a different company, if it's going to be the same storage, the same everything, just a different company. I think those concerns are still going to be there. So I really think that it's around what happens to that content after storage. and how can we get it back and dump it ourselves, possibly, and see if that's a possibility, since it does say we own the data. Sure. And then...

So there's, let me, can I clarify? Yeah, please. Sorry, through the chair, is that... is that we don't know how we could store the potential data. It could be a cloud storage that we manage, that we have the key to, that we make sure that the data gets dumped, deleted every 30 days. So I know there's companies that are eager to do business and that if it's a part of the recommendation or the desire of our county, they may find a way to make that happen.

Okay. Also, you know, I recognize that things that happen at this board, because we have that power within Humboldt County jurisdiction, but I want to make sure that when we're talking about this and when the public is talking to us that they realize that if your interests are that cameras or whatever your issue is be addressed, in Humboldt County, I'm very hopeful that you all do that across the organization because it really does limit uh our sheriff's department when we we see this we've seen this come to our board lots other jurisdictions they're not regulated by us and so if that is your interest please also realize that we are one and i think about seven in humboldt county and that I don't wish to limit our sheriff's department and have other agencies be able to have more information, be better at problem solving, we really need to be just continuous. It needs to be a continuous thing if those are your issues. And so targeting just the Sheriff's Department because it's within the county is, I'm hopeful that we can just be, you know, have that continuity across the organization, which would be all of Humboldt County. I also think that what, where is our data stored for the body-worn cameras?

It's also cloud storage that's CJIS compliant. So the federal government, state government ensures that that is encrypted and under lock and key, so to speak.

So the same process?

Yes.

So you have the same process for flock cameras that you have for bonding? OK. And then how would, because we are, and we're gonna hear about this a little later, we have Measure K that's here, and so we're a sanctuary county, and so if, and I've heard a lot of concerns around how maybe that data could be utilized for undocumented. How would that happen if it were to ever happen in our county because we're sanctuary? We don't hand over information.

So the information is locked down. We don't share that information with any federal partners. And so I don't know how they would receive that information if they don't have access to it. So we would not share that information. We wouldn't provide that information to them. And again, this is a snapshot of a license plate. They can run license plates through the California Department of Motor Vehicles. They have access to those databases. They have access to our criminal history systems and driver's license and warrant systems. And so a license plate picture is, again, that's locked down. I don't know how they would get that.

Okay, thank you for that. And then I'm curious, you know, most tolls are license plate readers now. And so if you leave, if you go to San Francisco or if you go over the Richmond Bridge or all of those areas, you get something in the mail that says you owe seven bucks. Do you know what kind of, where that data is stored by any chance?

I don't know specifically about the tolls, but all of the Caltrans cameras that are up, that are monitoring the roadways, those are stored in the cloud. But I'm assuming, because no one wants to have a server that large, that a lot of this data in the state is stored on the cloud. But I don't know specifically about the tolls.

Okay. Well, thank you. I'm really interested and hopeful that our board can just work together with some guidelines that will help ensure the community that the information is either getting returned to us or being stored properly and not accessed. and I think that possibly if we could maybe get some reports from you, board reports more often, maybe quarterly on what that looks like, how many times it was accessed, I don't know, just something that could reassure the community that I think that it's a really important tool. I would hate for, I would really dislike in the future something really terrible happen and we say well, We don't have cameras. We don't know. You've seen a lot of the silver alerts and missing children alerts. And I know some of the silver alerts, you know, older folks with dementia get confused. They lose their way or even younger folks. We all kind of. do and then those tools have really helped locate those those folks and so it's really important to those family that we do have those tools someday that could be you and so i'm really hopeful that we can all come to a good agreement and the community can feel much better than they do the current community that in this room could feel better about it okay i'm going to take this as supervisor bone i don't know i take the

I went a different route. I talked to a bunch of deputies. They say it's all part of a tool to do this. We talk about trust. I have a little bit different view, and it may be jaded as hell and everything else, but I'm pretty sure I'm the only one up here that's been out after midnight at least four times in the last six weeks with the sheriffs with vandalism and theft on a piece of property that I run. I put up two more. I put up three more cameras. If there's somebody out there that you think I'm violating your rights, don't come steal from me and we've hit a perfect recourse. I don't know what's wrong. They don't bother me. I don't think they're, I don't think some cloud, I don't think anything else. And I have full trust in the sheriff. This sounded, I'm sorry, I'm gonna say it. This sounded so personal today. This wasn't about the sheriff department. This is about some people making their mark in the sand. And it left the part of being business for our board to be impersonal. And our chair having to become a referee. And I think that's wrong. And with that being said, there's nothing I can say that's gonna change the vote today. Not a thing. So I'm not gonna say anything. But I am gonna tell you, I trust our Sheriff's Department. There's 240 people over there. Do I trust every one of them till they break my trust? Yeah, and somebody's gonna break our trust over there. I guarantee you, there's 240 employees. We see it all the time in all the departments. but I don't know if a camera's gonna change that, fix it or not fix it, but this is an important tool. We throw out seven or eight, nine people that have canceled it and everything else, but there's, what'd you say, 250? Yeah, I mean, using it in California. The three guys, well, two guys and a gal that invented Flock, it's been around for nine years now, They're just young techies that came out of school and invented it, just like everything else. I don't think Jeff Bezos is really that worried about us guys. He just wants you guys to keep ordering anything online. And I applaud every one of you, because I'm almost sure none of you buy anything from Amazon. So I appreciate you. Way to bring them down. I just think that's a great thing. I don't, but very often. But what I'm saying is we throw it out there, we change the whole diversion to it's a corporation, it's a giant, it's big brother spying and everything else. It is a tool the sheriff's department uses. I have an advantage or not an advantage and maybe it's a jaded. I've known those two since they were pups. I mean literally. I knew both their parents. They're part of this community too. They're not trying to take away your rights. They're not trying to take anything else. They're just trying to make this community as safe as it is possible for the people that are gonna be here in 20 years as much as the people that are here now. And I mean, you can huff on, you can do everything else and go online, tell me, tell everybody I'm a stupid idiot. That's what people think. I don't care. I don't see, I don't have the same fear that you guys have, but we do have a technology that we are adjusting to every day. Now me, I'd be the happiest guy with my flip phone up here and not deal with this technology. I haven't written a letter with AI, I haven't done a term paper with AI, I haven't done anything with AI, because I don't know how to. And I think I'll... Laugh all you want, I'm 72 years old, I got here. So anyway, I appreciate the time. I mean, let's hear about jurisdictions and everything else and then take the obvious vote.

And I have something to say too.

Supervisor Arroyo.

Thank you. I wanna bring it back to kind of why I think we're talking about this in the first place. You know, we, We all take an oath to defend the Constitution of the State of California in addition to the Constitution of the United States. And one way that they're a little bit different is the explicit information around the right to privacy provided in the California Constitution, which is much more defined and clear than the rights in that regard within the federal constitution. The language is much more specific. And so I don't think it's at all frivolous for us to talk about the right to privacy in a constitutional document that we have sworn to uphold. So it's not like a... He said, she said, they said, kind of floofy thing. This is a constitutional right in this state that we work really hard to uphold. And so I appreciate the ideas that have come up today. I want to underscore Given that this is the current body that has an opportunity for public comment where we release reports and information about the county, that idea of the regular reports, perhaps quarterly or something like that sounds good. I want to reiterate, you know, an ordinance that specifies, you know, how we will utilize county property for installation of this kind of stuff. And you know, strong consideration of what kind of data controls we have internally to be sure that we retain as much control as possible over our data. I realize that from an IT and cost and some other facets of that, from those perspectives, it might not be an overnight thing to get our own server to maintain a whole a bunch of additional data. And I think that's worth exploring nonetheless, is how we look at that and how we administer that. So those are some of the ideas I hear today that I think get us a little bit down the road. But I wanted to just kind of ground us in that constitutional right to privacy as we continue the conversation.

Supervisor Bushnell, and then I'll have a couple comments.

Thank you. Sheriff Hounsell, do you know what the process is when your organization got the permits through Caltrans? Do you know what that process was?

We have to, I don't know the exact process, but it's just you have to file permits with Caltrans and go through the permitting process. once that location is identified and then you'd have to go through that whole paperwork and process to get it approved.

Okay, I think Kayleigh, Director Ford is online and I want to ask him some questions if we could.

He is. Thank you.

I think Public Works manages county roads, if you're asking about county roads.

Okay, I'll ask both. I'll ask both. Tom's here. First, I'll ask Director Ford, what does the permitting process look like for having a camera, if it was a flock-style camera, on a private property? Just like we have cell phone towers that have to go through the permitting process and go through... the Planning Commission. Can you enlighten us on that at all, if you have a thought?

Sure. I mean, cameras to this point on private property have not been regulated. Telecommunication towers are pretty large, visible facilities. And so those do require permits in certain circumstances. I'm not aware of any permit requirement to put up a flock-style camera.

Okay, thank you. Director Mattson? Same question, please. I think you're on.

Good afternoon, Chair Wilson, members of the board, Tom Mattson, director of public works. You have to get an encroachment permit for anything in the county right away. And this being a new and emerging technology, what we look at for encroachment permits, is it safe? Is it going to cause a safety issue to the traveling public? So it is very difficult for me not to issue in a permit for somebody who submits something that's safe for the traveling public Unless the board makes a policy decision like you have on not using herbicides in the county right away It's legal to use herbicides, but the county has chosen not to so that's what I would be hoping that County can come to is some kind of agreement on some kind of ordinance on the placement of these items which are technically legal and puts me in the position as an unelected official of making elected officials decisions on policy.

Okay, can you answer with those encroachment permits, there's no public process or is there?

No, there is not. That is an internal department process. The one and maybe two that are out there right now, the one has definitely been notified that we are not gonna issue a permit until the board makes a policy decision.

Okay, so there could be a process where there would be public process if that's what this board so chooses and it followed with an ordinance, is that correct?

There are other agencies that do have a public encroachment permit process. I would recommend you keep that limited. Otherwise you are going to be overwhelmed with a lot of little minor things.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you. So I was looking at the recommendations, and it's to receive a briefing on the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office, which we did, and then provide direction to staff regarding next steps, including without limitation whether to request a formal review of the automated license plate reader program compliance with applicable local, state, and federal law regulations and standards. And so I think with those two recommendations, It would probably, we would need an ad hoc, like Sheriff Hounsell said, to come together to talk about that and then also maybe forming an ordinance around county property as Director Matson described. So I've, I'm happy to try to make a motion. I don't know if there's more input that needs to happen. What's the thoughts of the board? And then I would like for that motion, if I make it, in consultation with Sheriff Hansel, how we can get to the second part, which is provide directions for reviewing the flock camera process.

Okay, well, let me take a shot first. If I can, I'd like to have my moment here, if I can. So a couple of things. I want to, there is a fundamental difference between body cameras and flock cameras. And I want to be really clear. I mean, we're, the movement to have more body cameras was for both the protection, not just of the, officer but actually the people they interact with as well and that is different than what we see with a flock camera because you're it's kind of a one-way thing the only other way we have in the the way we can see how how law enforcement uses that is through this uh through this um through your portal basically and it's not really it's in so far not so transparent other than when it's requested and what in what you guys are offering isn't isn't all there that the public can see without some sort of report. So there's definitely work that can be done on that. But it's definitely very different in the way. It's not an equal transaction, I guess you'd say, in that way. So I want to point that. The other thing that's very different between a camera and a tower, in terms of what or anything else we might put into a into a right away is that there are laws around the use of cameras and actually it's kind of in your jurisdiction more than it is in our jurisdiction to some degree because the ability of a person to put a camera on their private property but then to direct it into their neighbor's yard or their neighbor's windows is restricted to a certain degree. I mean, there are laws about that. There are privacy expectations, and there is code to address that. Whether it's pointing onto a street where there is less of an expectation of privacy, that's something else. But as was mentioned before, if you're pointing it directly across the street into somebody's window, That's also something that can bring up concern. And I understand there is some code around that. And that's criminal code. That's not land use code necessarily, which is something different. That being said, for us to adjudicate or to talk about whether or not we're going to put or permit a camera in our right of ways means that to ask the question about whether we know or don't know whether that camera's being used in a lawful way or not, right? And so that, for me, is very concerning, and I don't want to put us into that position where either a separate organization, a third party organization, or a private citizen says, I want to put up a flock camera, just trust me, it's all going to be fine. It'll be pointed in the right direction. There's no way for us to either monitor or maintain that that's going to be used in a lawful way. And that's concerning to me. Because they could put it in the public right away and face it at their neighbor's front door, right? It's just concerning to me, so I don't want to see that happen. I am very concerned about the issue around the management of the data. We've heard that today, and we've heard that maybe there's another organization or another. But again, it is concerning. If I could ask you this sort of a little bit. While there are other agencies and there are even third party, not just agencies, but organizations and private parties, both businesses and others that can contract through flock to put that camera in their front yard if they so choose. Are they, what's your, what's your interface with that? What, what, what do you, and what, and what do you know about the interface beyond just your, your law enforcement agency to other law enforcement agencies? Where, where does that, what's your experience?

Yeah. So if, if let's just say target decided to put up flock cameras in their parking lot, they could share that information with law enforcement. They could give that law to, to Eureka police, probably give it to us, give it to California high patrol. We would be able to access that information. they cannot access our databases it's a one-way street when it comes when it comes to those businesses and just like what we've done with some other agencies some agencies down down south have had wanted to share information with us they've asked us or they've agreed to let us share information or let us receive information from them. And so we're doing that. We're receiving information, but we're not sharing information. So if we can look in their database for a license plate that may have tripped one of their cameras. So that's how that works. And so it's not necessarily a two-way street every time someone flips on a camera here in the county.

So we have, was it SB or AB 34? I can't remember now. SB 34, so it only really applies to state and county and city. It really applies to governmental organizations. I think. I mean, maybe I'm wrong about this, and maybe it appears to me that if a private shopping mall or whatever puts up flock cameras, that they can share that with whatever federal agency they want. Is that how I understand it?

I would assume so. It's their data. And so if they choose to share that data with whoever they want, they have every right to do that, I guess. All right.

Yeah, you can see why people get a little nervous. And also, jurisdictionally, we also, again, as folks can figure out, it's not just, we aren't just separately elected folks. It's like, in a city, a city council hires and fires the chief law enforcement officer, and so can tell the law enforcement officer to do these things. We're not in that same position. We have a little bit of a very different relationship. And so I do have some concerns. I wanna emphasize that I do think that minimally we should, if we're gonna move forward with having any of this technology being used in Humboldt County, that we do need oversight, public oversight. And I do believe, can we right now, can I ask you this question, which is, And I heard the under sheriff say something about like we can expand or do a quarterly report or even a monthly report about that fills out the data that we can't see in the portal now. Would that be something that you guys, how hard would that be to generate that report?

It's not hard to generate a report. It's just how we can get it into a fashion that could be readable and understandable to the public. And that's what maybe the ad hoc committee could come up with as a suggestion as far as a public accessible document that could be published.

And we are not the only jurisdiction having these issues around this technology. It was mentioned there's a whole litany of them, a whole list of them. And they have both, there is a spectrum of responses. Some has been remove the technology entirely, and I'm not totally sure again what our, this body's jurisdiction is in relationship to that, but that's something that I would want to get back before we make any big moves, because... What I don't want to have happen is us get into a back and forth, a legal back and forth with our jurisdiction, with our sheriff's jurisdiction, without knowing what our rights are to do that and what your rights are in relation to that. But in the meantime, though, I think it is important for us to get a committee together to review this. And I ask you, again, I mean, I don't want to wait for a committee for you to give us some or give the public some kind of report on this that maybe matches what has been done in another community, which is kind of what I was getting at, because this has been done already. Other communities have done. made the format for what that expectation is in terms of that reporting to the public. And so I'm just kind of wondering, have you seen that? Do you know about it? And if not, are you willing to at least take a look and see what you can find to get us something before we have to go through the rigmarole of having an organized group put together to do that?

Yes, I would much rather work with the board than for the board to create an ordinance or something that is adversarial or we don't agree with. I would highly recommend that we get together with an ad hoc and we can discuss these things. We already have things that we are gonna work on coming out of this meeting. Number one is making sure that the portal is reflective of all the data that we can possibly put on there so everyone realizes that every search has a penal code section has the reason why you know the inquiry or even a case number there whatever we can do to. To instill some level of trust that these are bona fide searches for legal reasons. So everyone knows I will be looking at cloud storage and what are alternatives in our current contract with flock to see if there's anything else that we could do on that. And then also, you know, explore the contract and see, you know, our contract is up a year from now. If there's other companies that could better serve our needs, I will look at those companies that reflect better on our community concerns.

Okay, and this is a request to the board. I think it would simplify things for us if we had an ordinance that basically did not allow for third-party services surveillance cameras in our right of ways. There is a difference though, we will have to explore this because our right of ways, several different formats. One is fee title, where we own the property. And that's pretty simple for us to make an ordinance that says that. Then there's our right of ways, which are just basically easements. And there is language within those easements that limit our ability to say what happens in that right of way. Because sometimes the language is really clear. It's like, the right of way is for transportation purpose only, or utilities, or whatever they may be. So the property owner who has that right-of-way easement over their property also has some rights in there and we would have to explore that and understand that. But nonetheless, I think from my perspective, I would feel a lot better if within our jurisdiction and what we own, And what we understand is under our control, I would like to severely limit the capacity for third party surveillance i just think because again i don't want someone to install something and then be using it in a way that is nefarious or not in its intended use or whatever i mean i don't even know and it seems really um we don't need to part we don't need to participate i think in that uh in that on our property someone wants to put something on their property that's a whole nother subject. So those are some of my thoughts on this and Supervisor Bushnell, bringing it back to you.

um thank you i wanted to um just to say one thing around what supervisor wilson just said around cameras that are not the sheriff's department cameras and the access i have cameras at my businesses in garberville and i've had a lot of folks come in and say can we look at your camera my truck was broken too last night it's always my discretion whether i let folks use that data or not and whether they can you know, download. I don't often, I'll review it first and then sometimes I'll say, well, if you have a case number, then I would let a deputy look at that information if it, you know, if there looks like there was a crime committed. Because I think just like what you guys have said, the Sheriff's Department said and this board is saying, we have a responsibility not just to share things, just routinely, oh yeah, come look at my cameras. So I want to recognize that, you know, Throughout there's cameras everywhere, but it is the owner of the camera like myself or or the counties that gets to share that Information and and why the reason for it. So I think that's a really good I'd like to make a motion unless okay, so I'm gonna I'm gonna try. Yep. So let me get my agenda back up So So the motion is to receive and file the report that we received today and then to create an ad hoc and who on this board would like to be participants there?

I would like to be.

steve do you want to since this was your item okay so um i'll just um say to create an ad hoc with supervisor majone and supervisor bushnell along with the sheriff's department uh do you want you specifically you billy it may be me the undersheriff or department and and public works so that we can create a document around county properties and ordinance or a document, whatever you want to say. And then to look at, through the ad hoc, to look at and bring back recommendations around flock storage, continued use with flock, and that would be my motion. So Supervisor Madrone, I think that during that ad hoc, we're gonna have to come back anyways and that can be, the ordinance would have to be brought back, we'd have to do readings. So I think that we can figure that out in that ad hoc. But it would be around public works and utilizing cameras on public property.

County property.

County property.

Okay, through the chair.

yes sir um well i'm not interested in serving on an ad hoc that's just going to delay things out months and months and months in regards in particular to developing a draft ordinance in regards to private interest placing flock cameras or alprs on our county properties There is some nuances there, as was mentioned by the chair around fee title versus easements and things like that. But our public works director has an existing encroachment permit application in front of him. That applicant deserves to get a response sooner than six months from now or something down the road, which typically these ad hocs take a long time to do their work, just to even get us all together and come back with recommendations. And so I don't think we want to wait six months to come back with a draft ordinance for placement of ALPRs on county property by private entities. So I'd like to see that happen quickly because I don't think it's super complicated and I suspect there's pretty strong support for that. I actually would hate to tell you what the private property owner said about why they installed the camera and the rest of it. You would be shocked.

Well then say, if you're gonna bring it up.

I don't want to go there because I think it's just off topic. I think that we need to have some regulation around the placement of these cameras on our public property by private citizens and entities.

So what the motion, what do you want me to say to make sure that Your time frame is next week?

I'd like to have two different motions. Yeah, come in. One just specific for the draft ordinance on private installation on public property and one for the ad hoc to work on all these other issues.

Okay, so let me change that motion to direct Tom Mattson's department, Public Works, to bring forward an ordinance about with – Tom, can you come up?

Can I interrupt just for a second and ask clarification from council? Can we today at this moment set a policy based on what we have in front of us that just as a, I don't know if we require an ordinance to set a policy that we don't allow for or we discourage a policy third-party installations of surveillance cameras on our right-of-ways and properties. Can we make that a policy today so that we can deliver that to the property owner? Or do we have to go through an entire ordinance process to do that?

It doesn't necessarily have to be an ordinance process. It could potentially be a policy process. But whatever we decide today is going to be direction to staff to bring something back to the board at a future date for consideration.

And it will be much quicker to come back with a policy than an ordinance on this. And you could do both. And we could ask to do both. But I would like to, if we could, to address the issue of the camera that exists now that someone has put up without a permit. I mean, part of this is, I mean, in some ways, I assume maybe they've been red-tagged, I don't know, but someone has installed a physical item on our right-of-way, and we're awaiting some sort of policy to know how to permit that or not, so what do you think?

Part of the direction could be that you have us look into whether or not it's a policy or an ordinance. To require the removal and change the application process for encouragement permits would most likely require an ordinance.

Okay, but I just wanna get to the, if we create a policy in the interim to do that, like if there's three votes on this board to create a policy so that we can deny that permit, and move forward or accept the permit.

We would have to look into whether or not we can do that through a policy is what I'm saying. I don't know if that is something that we could do at this point. We may need to have an ordinance in place in order to address that particular permit.

Okay, I appreciate that. And so if I may, Supervisor Bushnell has a question on this and some clarification. I think we're honing in on, we're getting closer to where we need to be. I just wanted some clarification on that. And thank you, Tom, for helping with that.

So Tom, if I made a motion that your department create a policy around cameras or camera installations on private or county property or county easements, is that something that you feel you could do?

Yes, I would work with council and bring that back.

Okay, so my first motion is that the Public Works Department creates a policy around installing or having cameras, flock cameras installed on public rights of ways or public property. That's my first motion. My second motion is that an ad hoc be created with Supervisor Madrone and Supervisor Bushnell, along with the Sheriff Department, to go over the flock policies, flock storage, and reports back to the board about flock activity.

I would second the motion, and I would offer a friendly amendment. Okay. I would say ALPRs. automated license plate reader technology versus flock so that we don't have to amend it if we decide to change because the issue is about mass surveillance being installed by private entities on public property.

Good clarification for that. And I would, I would add, If you, friendly amendment to that, which is not just ALPRs, but surveillance cameras in general.

That's, yeah, because it's not just about license plates, but surveillance in general. Those are two, I think, great amendments that I would accept as a second of the motion maker.

Yep, I'm fine with that.

Okay.

I have one more question, Tom, for you. Don't leave. You're fine. Can I ask him one more question?

Yep, and then Supervisor Arroyo.

Around the camera that's installed right now without the encouragement permit, you can give them an abatement notice. Is that correct?

We have already notified them that they're illegal. That's when they ask for the permit. So now I can go back and say, no, remove it.

Okay. Thank you for that update.

You can do, excuse me, through the chair. Go ahead.

Hold on.

You can ask them to remove it without even a policy ordinance in place.

I can. We already did. And they came back with, well, how do we get it permitted? And that's put us here today.

Given that the board is directing to actually come up with a policy to likely not allow for that.

And we can follow through with removing the encroachment.

OK. That's great. Good to hear. I think that's quick action. Thank you for that motion maker.

OK. Supervisor Arroyo.

Thank you, the ordinance that I mentioned from Santa Clara County, it speaks to, so I hear this discussion kind of being about ALPRs and or surveillance technology related to the county right of way, but I also want to mention that their policy and some of the examples they've seen out there have been a little bit more comprehensive and that they also speak to and I think it might be worth considering this at the same time, they speak to things like whether departments that are not reporting to another elected official who are under the purview of the Board of Supervisors have authority to implement surveillance technology of their own or do things like drone utilization, things like that. So it's a little bit more comprehensive. I don't know. Mike's shaking his head. I don't know if it seems it's a bigger fish to fry, I guess. But do we want to try to define what our process is gonna be with respect to things like that, or do we just wanna limit it to this particular issue of the county right-of-way and whether people are able to do this in our county right-of-way?

Who are you asking and is it a public works issue? The board as a whole.

I'll take a shot at it as chair. I would advise not broadening the scope at this point in time. I would also wait until after and if there is a civilian review, oversight, whatever term we're using for the law enforcement that we've been talking about get established, and I would probably have it in that venue. If that doesn't happen, then I would say bring it back to the board.

This is separate from the sheriff's and DA's investigatory authority. It's actually talking about all of the other functions of the county where you might have surveillance technology and it basically says the board has to approve it. And it goes into more detail than that, but it's basically saying that the county is not gonna do, individual departments are gonna take on surveilling without it coming to the board for some form of approval i'm like i mean this is a lengthy ordinance 10 pages but so i'm summarizing but um that seems part and parcel with this as far as people in the community wanting us to have some kind of framework around this i'm going to back off my opposition to that

I think that it would be a different ordinance around departments and not, Public Works wouldn't say whether planning and building can utilize a camera. I wouldn't think. You do facilities, right?

We do facilities. Okay. There's all kinds of different things. Planning with code enforcement. For public works, we do videos of vehicle counts. We do drone surveys.

So could you include in that ordinance something about board authority for departments?

That would have to be wider than just public works.

Okay, but is that something that, who would take that on? Would that be you because your facilities?

If it was just for facilities and not for private property, yeah, we could handle that. But if we're talking surveillance over private property, From the public right away, if somebody flies a drone, I mean I have drones flying over my house all the time down the road.

I don't think we're talking about that because we can't tell people.

Please be clear.

I mean we have a first and a second on this item and I think that I'm not sure where we would get this policy, how we would work that in.

I don't think it's ripe, let's just put it that way. But I do get it, that it, I think the policy was just, the policy in the ordinance being referenced by Supervisor Arroyo was basically just saying that if a department wants to use surveillance technology for whatever there is, it would come to the board for approval. I think that's simply what was being asked. But I, In my mind, I think it's a good subject matter for us to get to. I think we should just keep it simple for the moment. Yes, sir?

So I would like to suggest that we move on the motion in second in regards to installation of surveillance cameras, equipment on public property by private entities. That we go ahead and take that motion, vote on it, clear the slate, so to speak. And then on the second motion, I still feel that there is opportunity there by the ad hoc to work on looking at some of these other issues and coming back to the board with a number of possible recommendations that might, as Sara Ponce said, lead to a blending of the community concerns into possible updates that we might make to a policy related to all that. I think that Supervisor Arroyo makes good comment around there. is existing policies in Santa Clara County and other places that we might be able to learn from. We can look at other companies, we can look at local storage, we can look at a lot of different things that my assumption would be we'd come back with a report to this board offering recommendations on a number of different issues that fit under this particular second motion. But if we could just take care of the first motion and then finish the discussion on the second motion, it gets so confusing when you got two motions at the same time on the table. But I appreciate them both.

Can I just offer that I don't think that for that second motion, I'm not sure the sheriff would be involved in a discussion around surveillance with our organization and buildings. We have a lot of security cameras within our organizations, so that we did include public works, and that would be more, I think, his purview, and I don't think we're going to be restricted on what we can do in that ad hoc around surveillance. addressing people's concerns and also we heard supervisor Arroyo her concerns what she would like to see that will come back to this board once we have those discussions well I think it's good to be clear on what you know what the what the span of our discussions might be excuse me okay we have a couple things here I'm not sure if we're like at two or three motions at the moment but what I want to I want to kind of pull back into is

create this, but which staff is going to deal with this? I mean, have the help or assist this committee to actually draft this report and item to come back, and is that through our Public Works Department or what? And so I just wanna clarify that. I'm gonna ask the CAO this question if I can. I did. Okay.

Yeah, and Tom gave me the nod back there, feeling like because it involves right-of-ways that this was best in the purview of public works.

Appreciate that. Supervisor Royal, you had something to say.

Thank you. I somewhat apologize for opening that can of worms, but I think it's important that we come back to it and at least acknowledge that it's a parallel but important issue because otherwise we are... saying the sheriff's office has to do something, but the county as a whole is not taking on the question of a unified countywide surveillance policy and how we approve that. Admittedly, this other ordinance is 10 pages long, but from my perspective, maybe it doesn't even have to be that lengthy. But if there is some clarity about how we're Doing this, and I think it gives the public confidence that we have a plan in place, and I think it's a little bit problematic to say a policy for the but not for me. So it's it's time everyone's this technology is is. proliferating greatly and it's a good time to look at how we bring something back so I realize that might not be the charge of this ad hoc but I think it's gonna be relevant that we that we do something okay thanks we are honing in on the final moments of this motion so can we vote on that first motion and then go to that second one and I'm gonna add something that make me clarify that

Sure.

Or I could add it now and it might clarify it all. No. Let's just clear this slate.

And although we're not, this isn't part of the motion, I just want to, there was a list of items that the sheriff had mentioned that they were going to respond to and I wanted to make sure that that's in the record and whoever's taking that, that you guys are going to do that. But I also wanted to add the presentation from the undersheriff today in terms of what has transpired or changed, I would like that to be publicly put onto your website as well. That would be really great. Okay, so with that, what is the first motion you'd like to run? Clarify.

The first motion is to have Public Works create a policy around cameras on public rights aways, or county rights aways and county-owned properties.

Property, okay.

By private entities.

Yeah, and we will do a roll call vote, yeah. And wait, so we have a motion and a second on that? Yeah. Okay, great.

Through the chair, does that cover it, Tom? Excuse me, yeah.

Okay, roll call please.

Supervisor Bone?

No.

Supervisor Arroyo?

Yes.

Supervisor Madrone?

Yes.

Supervisor Bushnell? Yep. Chair Wilson?

Yes.

First motion carries 4-1.

Okay, second motion.

Second motion is to create an ad hoc with Supervisor Bushnell, Supervisor Madrone, Sheriff Hansel, and the CAO's office to, first of all, talk about cameras or what was the specific? Surveillance. Surveillance with the Sheriff's Department. And the second item would be to include IT to create an ordinance around surveillance that happens within the organization, correct?

I would say policy and or ordinance. Policy or ordinance. Because I think maybe we can accomplish that with a policy because we govern all of those buildings. Okay.

So it would be a countywide, like was suggested by Supervisor Arroyo.

Yep. That's the second motion.

I think that gives us a lot of leeway working with partners in the Sheriff's Department, Public Works, CAO, to look at a broad set of issues here and come back with some recommendations.

Okay. And then also I just want to clarify.

So the seconder continues to support that.

Okay. Sheriff Hansel, you'll send out an invite. Will you be lead for your part of this? Okay. Yep. Doesn't need to be part of the motion, Kaylee.

I'm really sorry, but I have a clarifying question about the second part of that motion. We're trying to get it right, right?

Yeah, let's do it.

Okay. So the second part of the motion pertained to working with IT on surveillance policy just related to county facilities, or does that also include when county departments use any form of surveillance technology in the execution of their duties?

because that's the ordinance that I was, that's the extent of that. Okay. That's the motion.

That's very far reaching, so just want to make sure.

To the chair again, a county-wide policy. looking at how it applies to all of these things.

That sounds good. And just a note for the, have fun, for the committee, I'm asking for practicality in that if there are subject matters that seem to be too onerous or big in the moment that if you can bring back policy that is more immediate that you can agree on quickly we can do this in steps it's going to be okay i just i don't want us to hold up uh the good for the perfect or whatever that is i just want to get it i want to move have some movement on that please before we take the vote can i just uh sheriff on so you feel okay about this okay Yeah, I think. Okay. So, Kaylee, are you ready for a roll call, please? Yes. Thank you.

Supervisor Madrone?

Yes.

Supervisor Bushnell? Yes. Supervisor Bone?

No.

Chair Wilson? Yes. Supervisor Arroyo? Yes. Motion carries 4-1.

Okay.

Through the chair. I have a couple motions I'd like to put on the table as well to try and wrap up this discussion, if I might proceed. Sure, take a shot, see what happens. I would like to make a motion that we direct staff to develop an ordinance that does not allow placement of any ALPRs on any county property rights-of-ways or facilities, period.

Wait, didn't we just do that?

This is to direct a specific policy to not allow any of this stuff to be installed on public property at all.

It's different.

It's moving forward with this specific effort to eliminate these from our toolbox.

Can I ask a clarifying question from Director Mattson? Is that your understanding of the policy that you're going to be bringing forward?

That's just for private entities. I'm talking about us, public entities, us, the law enforcement, the rest of it. No cameras, no mass surveillance on any public property whatsoever. So that was not what I was going to bring back. It was going to be private. This is separate.

Thank you.

Separate motion. We'll see if it gets a second or not.

I don't know where. That seems very, very broad. are you talking about flock cameras, are you talking about just within any of our facilities, all public facilities, no security cameras on any public facility? I guess I'm having a hard time understanding.

No, it's specific to the automated license plate readers.

Okay, so you're talking about?

ALPRs.

ALPRs, anywhere in the county, on county property, as opposed to, oh boy, okay.

Private entities doing it, yes.

I'm looking back at our council on this one.

Are you including ALPRs that are installed by the sheriff's office?

Yes, yes I am.

Okay. Can I comment, I think, oh.

Supervisor Arroyo.

I think that is one of the possibilities that the ad hoc could evaluate, is what the contractual agreement is, what it would look like to rescind the authorization for some of those, what it would cost to end the contract early, what would it look like to get out of the contract at the end of one year from now. I think those are all considerations the ad hoc could evaluate. I think those are all possibilities that other jurisdictions have floated, but I don't know that we have clarity about whether we can just cut off the ability for them to operate in an existing contract or whether the sheriff is, yeah, I think determining who's

what the next steps would be would be part of that ad hoc i agree as the seconder of that other motion that is supported i agree that it could come from that but my perception is that will take a half year or a year for to have any effect whatsoever and what i'm looking for is to have an effect immediately like say july 1st or as soon as possible because it would take a little time for staff to come back with a ordinance to enact that motion. So I recognize that. I recognize that it could very well and probably will be a part of the ad hoc discussion. So I'm fine with that. It just sounds to me like there's probably no second for my motion. So I'll move on to my next motion, if that sounds appropriate, Mr. Chair. Okay, the second motion is to, as we're in the middle of finalizing our budget for the year, I would make a motion that as of July 1st, we no longer provide any funding to the Sheriff's Department to deploy and or maintain flock cameras on public property.

Yes, you can ask a question, and then we'll take it to the council because he's got his hand up.

Council first.

Just a clarifying question with regard to that motion. Are we talking about directing staff to come back with something pertaining to the budget?

Yes.

Okay.

But given that we're getting ready to approve the budget in 22 days, uh, it's a timely discussion. Uh, we may very well only have four members of this board at that final meeting on June 23rd. It takes a four fifths vote. And I'm just want to be clear that I'm not willing to support continued funding to the Sheriff's Department of our general fund budget, which is $12 million in the whole, to continue to use those funds for supporting flock camera maintenance. Again, it probably won't get a second, but I'm making the motion.

Supervisor Bushnell.

This question's for Sheriff Hounsell. In your budget to us, do you specifically have a line item that are for those flock cameras or do you, how do you budget that?

Yes, I believe we do.

So if, okay.

I guess we'll see if there's a second. I doubt that there is.

Well, hold on. I just, for what it's worth, I mean, even if we voted to do that,

you find it some other other way in your budget there isn't really we just we don't have an enforceability there's no way to enforce this kaylee steve can you please repeat your motion so i can make sure i have it i have four motions so far i want to keep track there's a lot going on uh the motion was to direct staff to come back with a um reduction a recommendation for a reduction in the coming year's budget of $21,000 from the sheriff's budget allocation that is specifically line itemed for flock cameras. Sure.

So, I mean, I think I mentioned this earlier. We could remove $21,000 from the budget, but that doesn't necessarily mean that that won't get funded. But what I hear is that you are not willing to go forward with support for the budget if it doesn't exclude that funding. So I'm not sure, I can see why, Supervisor Medrano, why you're wanting to bring this forward now because of the tight timing of adopting our whole county's budget. I'm just a little bit concerned. I'm not clear on whether doing that would accomplish the intended goal. So I don't know if that's a question for Sheriff Hansel or for you or for someone else, but this is a little bit of a surprise. I have another question.

OK, Supervisor Bushnell.

Thank you. So you are currently in contract with BlockCorrect for one more year?

Until June of 27.

And so you would have to find the funding somewhere else, or we would be breaking contract. Is that true?

Yes.

OK. And if we exclude the $21,000 or $22,000 line item, Do you think that you'd probably find that money somewhere else? We can't tell you who can't use these cameras currently.

I will evaluate my budget and determine where I would best spend my money.

So you could make cuts other places to, okay, thank you.

So, through the chair. There is a clause in your contract that allows you to provide a 30 day notice to cancel, correct?

There always is a cancellation, yes.

Yeah, and it's a 30-day clause which would give us time to cancel by June 2nd, I'm sorry, July 2nd, in a timely way in relationship to the budget thing that I'm suggesting. Again, there may not be a second for what I'm suggesting. So let's ask that question first, Mr. Chair, if we could.

No, hold on. Okay. Because you're using my family obligation to be out of town as a cudgel to, in this moment, which is really not cool. And the point I'm getting at is, so I want to, figure out do we have, if three votes, if we get three votes to remove this $22,000, is that enough to make the change in the budget or do you need four votes to do that? It's not even on our agenda, right? We- Right now.

No, it's not on the agenda right now, and we have historically placed the adopted budget on consent agenda requiring a four-fifths vote. Technically speaking, and we would have to run this to ground to be very sure it's the changes that your board is required to vote on so at public hearing we can vote on that with your presence there and then we may be able to bring the adopted budget back as a receive and file because you've already blessed whatever changes will take place on the 15th through the public hearings in which case we would have all five members present but Again, we would have to run that to ground and that would be a shift in how we had functioned in the past.

Okay. We have a way through this, then I'm not too concerned. And we don't have a way to bring that, I mean, we don't really have a way to bring that particular motion to the floor today because it's not on our agenda. Is that correct?

The agenda, excuse me, through the chair?

hold on i'm asking the through the through i'm asking uh council an argument can be made that you could have the motion on the floor because it is providing direction to come back regarding next steps pertaining to the continued use of alprs and for the record i'm actually fine with the motion honestly like i don't i'm i'm okay with that but uh if but it would still require four fifths vote a budget to make that an actual thing. I don't know how we get through that process. Supervisor Arroyo.

I think now we're between a rock and a hard place on the budget where it sounds like if I'm reading this board correctly, we wouldn't be able to get four votes either way. I do wonder if recognizing that there's not a way that we can tie this 21 or 22 000 to this specific item and defunding this specific item i understand kind of where you're going with this but recognizing that that's the case um and we're gonna be in a little bit of a catch-22 either way um is this something that you could in good conscience allow for the ad hoc to work on i mean i just would

Yeah, I'll second the motion, actually. I'm okay with seconding the motion and moving forward, but the question then becomes, if this passes with three votes, for instance, what happens?

You're just providing direction right now. It's when we return to actually modify the budget. So on the 15th through the public hearings is when your board will give final deliberation on modifications to what we will propose next week, and that will require a forfeits.

Okay, I'm seconding this motion. And if there is more discussion, we can have it. But I'm ready to take this vote and move on. Supervisor Bone. I apologize, I keep looking over here as the staff. That's fine, I'm used to it.

Okay, we have visual cameras. that I've seen pictures of that actually take pictures of license plates too. Is this gonna be an end around to eventually we're gonna have to take away visual cameras because they're reading license plates on the building, on the road? I mean, it doesn't take audio, but it does take, we had an incident on the front porch here a while ago. I mean, there's such an end around coming and it's just, Be aware folks, this is good. And I appreciate all the people that so graciously and heartfully, I believe you really actually believe all this. I just think there's such an end around becoming into play. And I would be fearful if I was your age now with what AI is going to do because What they hear, 60% of all white-collar jobs will be gone in five years. So AI scares the hell out of me.

But I'm too old to worry about it. I think the motion is simple. And I'm prepared to support it. Can we take a roll call vote? No? Yes, Chair. Supervisor? Supervisor Bone?

Supervisor Arroyo?

Actually no, just for the reasons already stated.

Supervisor Madrone?

Yes.

Chair Wilson?

Yes.

Supervisor Bushnell?

So I don't believe that this accomplishes what the motion maker made because we just heard from the sheriff that it's his budget and he'll rearrange it how he sees fit, so no.

Motion does not carry.

So Mr. Chair, if I might, I have a third motion that I would like to put on the table.

This is getting, how many motions do we, this is very unusual, clarifies, and back to council, like where does it, where does it overlap between the sort of broad scope of the motion that was before when you're, as opposed to amending motions at this point, as opposed to like replacement motions?

I don't believe there's any replacement motions or amended motions at this point. There are additional motions being, um, placed on the floor. The, and then it would be in the discretion of the chair to make decisions as to whether or not they are.

I'll hear your motion.

I appreciate that. Um, you know, the staff report did say without limitation. So that's, you know, a ways heavily on what I'm trying to do here. Um, And I totally appreciate what you said. In no way did I design any of this to take a personal shot at your reason for not being at the meeting. I didn't know what the reason was, and it wasn't designed around that. It is designed around utilizing my authority to the fullest extent that I can. And so when the sheriff pushes back, even with such great public participation and opposition to all of this, I feel like what he's saying is that he's gonna play hardball and he'll decide what's best for his department on how he uses these funds, whether or not he'd push back on us if we ever come forward with a policy to not allow for flock cameras or any of that kind of stuff. So I'm just saying within my authority, I have the right to be able to vote on this budget or not vote on it. and so those motions have failed so i'll make one final motion which would be to direct staff to reduce the sheriff's budget by 21 000 and that's it and then he can decide whether or not the flock cameras are so important to take that 21 000 from other things or not that's his decision but i would like to make a motion to take 21 000 out of the budget it's that simple for the record. Is that direction to staff to come back? It's direction to staff as I said at the beginning of my motion, yes.

And for the record, I don't support that motion just because I find it a bit abstract in my, from the way I analyze this. Is anyone else, is there a second in there? Okay, seeing there's no second, there's no more discussion, we are going to come back in 10 minutes for the next three items, okay? Thank you.

Okay.

I'm not going to worry about that.

Nope, nope, nope. We're just going down the line here. So the next one is consideration of the appointment of a board member to the fire service ad hoc committee. This is a public hearing, so I'm opening the public hearing. It's not a public hearing. It's not. Why did I say that? It's a departmental report. Oh, it's the next one. It's not. I was like wondering why would we do a public hearing for that?

No public hearing, please.

All right. Sorry. Next. Next.

So as Supervisor Wilson just mentioned, this is for an appointment to the Fire Service Ad Hoc Committee due to the resignation of Supervisor Madrone. The Fire Service Ad Hoc was formed in April 2018 to work with local fire service providers to apply the approved strategies to incentivize fire service related district annexations, consolidations, and formations. The meetings are held as needed and currently Supervisor Wilson is the other appointed member on this ad hoc. So I'm just looking for a motion for another board member to serve.

Okay.

First we'll start with public comment from the outside world.

There is none.

Great. Is there any public comment on this item in the inside world? Seeing none, I'm looking for another volunteer.

Supervisor Madron, make a motion. I motion that Supervisor Bushnell fill the vacant position.

Accept. Second.

There's a second. All right. I just want to say that she did a fantastic job in serving for several years before and her district has a lot going on in this particular realm, so thank you.

And a lot happened while you were there, so I wanna appreciate that as well. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Supervisor Bone, you wanna say anything? Nope, you're good, all right. Is there any objection to unanimous consent? Seeing none, the, okay, well then we'll have to take a roll call.

Go for it.

Supervisor Arroyo? Yes. Supervisor Madrone?

Yes.

Supervisor Bushnell? Yes. Chair Wilson?

Yep.

Supervisor Bone? Abstain.

All right. We now have a new... member to our Fire Service Adopt Committee. Congratulations, Supervisor Bushnell. All right, moving on to amendments to the solid waste container sites and redway transfer station for fiscal year 2025, 2026, and this is a public hearing, and I am opening the public hearing.

This is a continuation, and we are asking you to continue it one more time. Basically, Michelle was right.

Okay, is there any public comment from Zoom out there?

No.

No. Is there anyone in the room? Seeing none, is there a motion to continue this item?

I'll make a motion to continue to time uncertain.

Yes.

I'll second.

There's a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, is there any objection to unanimous consent? Seeing none, the item has been postponed. Thank you. Thank you for being here for that. Nope, too late. All right. Okay, now we're moving it back to the sheriff again. And this is a public hearing to provide the 2025 annual submission of data pertaining to immigration and customs enforcement access as outlined in government code section 7283.1 section D information only semi-annual measure case submission of data. Thank you, Chair, for allowing us to do this public hearing regarding our... We have opened the public hearing.

Oh, sorry. I have opened it now. You may. Thank you. I'm just going to be quiet and turn it over to Jail Commander Dwayne Christian to provide the report.

I thank you, Board, for allowing me to be here today.

As you can see, your mic is off.

I'm usually loud enough even without the mic, but... So I appreciate the opportunity to present the information to the board. As you can see from the numbers there for 2025, we had 33 administrative detainers received by our department. We had five detainers that were received on an individual that had a qualifying offense. That means within government code 7282.5, they qualified that they could reasonably be turned over to ICE. We had 11 of those received after the individual had already been released. we had one individual turned over to ice in 2025 and we had two individuals at the end of 2025 that were still in custody that had qualifying offense they are no longer in custody as of right now all right is that the extent of your report to the report I'm welcome any questions or any points of clarification for the board

Okay, are there any board questions? We'll start with Supervisor Madron and then go to Supervisor Bunn.

Well thanks for the report. It sounds like things, I mean for the last number of years we keep getting the annual report and everything seems to be pretty hunky dory, pretty straightforward, pretty simple. I appreciate that and appreciate your diligence to our sanctuary ordinance. Thank you for that. How much is it costing us per year to manage Measure K and do this report?

Um, it's a minimal. I do most of all the, all the reporting of it. We received the administrative detainers by law SB 54 and AB 2792. We're required to notice the individual that we had received the administrative detainer, even though we're not going to act on them. Um, we do have to maintain a spreadsheet. Um, and we do have to determine if they are still in custody, if they do have a qualifying offense or is there is some, research needed to be done on their criminal history, but that's pretty readily available if necessary. So, I mean, in total throughout the whole year, it probably takes up, including preparing the reports twice a year, it probably takes up maybe 40 to 50 hours of time throughout the entire year. And that's done by myself or Lieutenant Mindy Brew.

Well, that's great. So it's fair to say that it's less than 10,000, probably several thousand maybe that, it cost to do this. Thank you for that. Appreciate that.

Supervisor Bond did you have a question. OK. Supervisor Beshal anything. Okay, all right, so we will go ahead and move to public comment. In keeping with our practice, we'll see if there are folks online before we go to those in the room. Are there any hands up online? We'll give just a moment, because we didn't announce it earlier. Now is the time if you want to speak to this item online. I'll hand it back to Chair Wilson.

All right, anyone online? There is not. All right, we're bringing it to the room. Welcome.

Thank you, what a long day for everybody. My name is Linda Evans, I live in McKinleyville, and bear with me, I am an ally to Central Del Pueblo and was one of the many people out there gathering signatures to get this on the ballot. It was a bit of a struggle, including some opposition from the sheriff, but I want to bring forth some comments Those, that side mark was my comment, not from Central Del Pueblo, but I did reach out to Brenda Perez for some talking points about this, and so I'm going to read those to you, and then I have a couple other things to say. Training and accountability. How many Sheriff's Department employees have been trained on the county's sanctuary ordinance and related laws? How is that training measured, and how is it, changed policies, procedures, or day-to-day practices? And I also want to add to that, how many bilingual officers are there? Know your rights support. What steps does the department take to ensure that people who are stopped, detained, or interacting with law enforcement understand their rights and have access to reliable information and community resources? ICE communication protocols. What is the department's protocol for informing the public about confirmed ICE activity in Humboldt County? How do you ensure timely, accurate communication with the community? Active implementation of sanctuary protections. Beyond legal compliance, what proactive actions is the department taking to implement the sanctuary ordinance? Are deputies familiar with resources such as red cards and Central Del Pueblo hotline? And how are those resources being incorporated into outreach and public education efforts? The community continues to hear commitments to sanctuary protections, but we have not seen clear measurable progress. We are looking for concrete actions, outcomes, and accountability that demonstrate these protections are being actively implemented. I brought some cards that Central, excuse me, Central Del Pueblo hands out to people with their hotline number. Thank you.

You put those over there and your time. I'm sorry. No, you did great.

A little more I wanted to say, but anyway, thank you for your time.

Thank you.

And where do you want me to put these?

All right, next.

Ken Sawatsky or Red Sutherland as my alias is. Basically I think the report, continually I've been watching these for years, I'm not gonna answer those questions that were just asked, but I think the evidence basically proves that we're doing what we're supposed to do. And I know there's always room for changes and improvements and people would like to see more done. But the report comes back and I think that as far as honesty and transparency and following through with the requirements, I think the Sheriff's Department has done an excellent job. And I think he deserves the thanks from all of us who do care about certain people and have family members or other things that may be susceptible to kind of ICE actions and things of that nature. So thank you, Sheriff Billy and your staff for the report.

All right, thank you. Is there anyone else who wants to speak to this item?

Welcome. Am I allowed to ask a question?

Generally no, because we can't respond. Okay. Let me just say, you have a First Amendment right to ask a question. We just don't respond. We don't have a conversation here, that's all.

Yeah, I had a dream at one point of... someone named Yusuf being detained. I haven't really been sure what to make of it.

All right, is there anyone else who wants to speak to this item?

Good afternoon, supervisors. You all know me. I'm Alexandra Profant, for the record. I want to speak to this item on behalf of the safety and security of our nation and this lovely state of California. I spoke to this item a little bit on our last public comment, or not public comment, but on another agenda item in the last public meeting you had, and have since also submitted another comment to you. regarding ex post facto law, which you all took oaths as representatives who were elected to prevent ex post facto law, wherein the substance of a matter is criminal versus civil. And illegal immigrants in our country, I think we all need to work together, especially if they're criminal, to do whatever we can do to remove them from homes, wherever they are, especially homes that have been stolen or transferred illegally. until they can be recovered and returned to their actual legal owners. For the sake of law enforcement, I would pray and hope that local law enforcement can work with federal law enforcement. And I spoke with John Ford about actually doing outreach on behalf of Section 106. Section 106, even though it's lodged under the National Trust for Historic Preservation, bridges local police power to federal police power. And so I was urging him, you know, if you could actually reach out to the public and we could establish a criteria and standard to survey, identify, and protect the history that we would like to protect, which has to do with our Constitution, our homes, our security, whatever it is, that would actually effectively codify how local police could work with federal officers. So that's my comment. Good luck. Thank you, and thank you for all you're doing.

Thank you. Is there any more comment on this item? on this public hearing. Seeing none, back to the board, any discussion? And do we have a motion to?

I'll make a motion to file and receive.

All right.

I will second. I did want to see, one of our commenters was hoping to understand a little bit more about training and what kind of information is shared with the public about their rights. Could you speak to those items briefly?

Yes. All of our deputies and correctional deputies are trained on our immigration policy and Measure K. Very important. I think it's very important that everyone realize that we do not ask for immigration status. There's nothing that we can check. There's no databases that we can search. And that we only know if someone is in the country illegally and that ICE... you know, would like them is if they submitted a detainer after they're booked into our custody. And that's the only way that we know that someone's in the country potentially illegally at that point in time, and then we don't honor those detainers. As far as information goes, we are not providing information to, just general information about Central de Pueblo or immigration rights. If someone has a question about that, we can definitely steer towards those groups. If someone is a victim of crime, And, of course, we will offer victim witness assistance, which includes people that are potential immigrants, working with the consulate, working with local immigrant groups to make sure that they receive all the support that they need. Recently, we had a human trafficking case where that was pushed to the front, and we're able to work with local groups as well as the consulate and help him get to where he needed to go.

Thank you. And I did forget, I know that there are bilingual personnel within the sheriff's office, but how do you handle requests for interpretation and then also kind of what's the bilingual staffing if you happen to know offhand?

I don't know how many. I don't know if the captain knows. We have several in both the jail as well as operations. And then also we have a language line. we work with we also have an app that we we also have and that it can translate for us and and so all these things are very important these are tools that we have to help the communication barriers that we that we face out there all right is there any more discussion see none is there any objection to unanimous consent for the motion

Seeing that there's no objection to unanimous consent. Unanimous consent is obtained and we are done with the open session part of our meeting. We're gonna go into closed session. Could you read us into closed session?

Thank you, Chair Wilson. It is the intention of the board to meet in closed session pursuant to California Government Code Sections 54954.5 and 54957 in order to consider the public employee performance evaluations for the positions of the interim county council, chief probation officer, and the human resources director, and the public employee appointment for the position of the aviation director. It is also the intention of the board to meet in closed session pursuant to California government code section 54956.9 D2 and E3 to discuss exposure to litigation in one potential case regarding proposed changes to the provision of security services at the Humboldt County Courthouse. It is also the intention of the board to meet in closed session pursuant to California government code section 54956.9 in order to discuss existing litigation in the case of K Marie Gibbs versus County of Humboldt at all, Humboldt County Superior Court case number CV2301390. is also the intention of the board to meet in closed session pursuant to california government code section 54956.9 d4 in order to discuss the initiation of litigation in one potential case finally it is the intention of the board to meet in closed session pursuant to government code section 54956.8 to grant authority to its negotiators regarding the price in terms of payment for the lease of real property located at 1250 Fifth Street, Ferndale, California, 95536. Assessor parcel numbers 030-011-003, 030-021-003, 030-071-001, 030-081-006, 030-112-017, 030-112-20, and 100-181-03. The county negotiators are identified as Tom Madsen, Humboldt County Public Works Director, and any duly authorized designees thereof. The parties with whom the county may negotiate are identified as the Humboldt County Fair Association and any duly authorized designees thereof.

Great. Do we have any public comment online?

No.

No. Do we have public comment in the room?

That was an awful lot of zero three zeros there. I did want to make one comment here. The meeting goes really fast as soon as Tracy takes one thing and we zip right on through. Super Tracy. Regarding your closed session items, a good share of these go before your judiciary upstairs. and i did wish to make one note regarding that when people need to look at this particular thing because it does affect all of us is we don't we don't there's nothing on your ballot to either vote for them or not vote for them there's a problem there so you've got some anticipated litigation i would hope somebody would be suing the court system to make sure we get to vote whether these judges are appointed or not or have an under vote That's one of the topics you have on there, anticipated potential. I did wish to comment on item one, position of interim county council. I know that Scott prefers to stay interim, but that's been, what, about three years? And I guess there's no legal reason he doesn't have to have the other title. I think he deserves it if he wants it, as far as that goes. Because although I've had a few disagreements over the years basically i think that you've been well represented by by him as far as your needs for the county and especially with some of the people you're bringing on some litigators and things of that nature so you're not making some of these other firms wealthy and we're doing it in-house so that's been a fantastic move on his part by directing that i also did wish to make a comment on the public uh Director of Human Resources. Unfortunately, I've had some major problems with that. You're in litigation on some things because some of your investigations you have. Possibly, I don't know how that's all been working. But there does seem to be some problems in that particular department. And you may wish to be tracking how much those mistakes are costing us in legal cost and litigation. Thank you for my opportunity to speak.

Thank you. Any other comments before we? Go into closed session. All right, well, I'll meet you all in closed session here in a few minutes. Mr. Black, how are we doing? We're rolling. Caleb, we're good? All right, everybody's in position. All right, council, please. Oh, we are adjourning this meeting?

Well, we have to report out and then we'll adjourn. Thank you, Chair Wilson. There was no reportable action taken with regard to items J1 through J8.

We are adjourning this meeting in the honor of Shelly Shaw.

In her memory and sending our wishes and prayers and love to Waylon and family.

There you go. All right. Good night, America.