Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

recording in progress yeah good morning everyone we'll be calling the regular meeting of the board of supervisors on may 26 2026 to order can we please have the pledge of allegiance led by supervisor velasquez Thank you. Is there a motion to acknowledge the certificate of posting? So moved. Is there a second? Thank you. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion passes. Before we get into board announcements, I'm going to go to county council because I believe we have to add an item.

Is that right? Yes, Mr. Chair, members of the board of supervisors. We have an item that we need to add as an urgency item to the regular agenda as item number 3.3. You have been provided copies on the dias and copies are in the back for the public. This is an item which came to our attention after the posting of the agenda. There is an urgency to approve this matter given that we will not be meeting before And this is for additional supplemental services to be provided to the Registrar Voters Office by Dominion Voting Services. And so since we will not be meeting between now and election day, it is imperative that we have the board add this to the agenda and that the board review and consider it for approval. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there a motion to add the item to the agenda?

So moved.

Is there a second? I'll second. All in favor of adding the item? Aye. Aye. All right. So that will be added to the regular agenda. Next, we have board announcements. Any supervisors have any announcements at this time? Representative Currow.

good morning everyone and uh thank you mr chair um i attended the c-sac legislative conference last week in sacramento uh hr1 um is a major major concern um unfortunately the state may revision from the governor's office uh does not include funding for hr1 it includes some funding for rural hospitals they did emergency legislation that was passed about a week ago and they are looking at more funding for the rural hospitals and potentially funding indigent care, but everything else that is impacted by HR 1 is not currently funded and the county's costs are for the actual um ask was up to 9.5 billion statewide due to hr1's um lack of funding from the federal government uh currently the mayors or the governors may revision i have information that i'll share that I got with the CEO so she has the latest. Some of the other things we did talk about at the government finance and affairs committee currently I am the chair and we discussed AI and I know AI is a topic that is coming forward to the board. A lot of interesting feedback we had SCIU and the chamber of commerce talking about how ai is a positive and a negative and some of the concerns were very valid and i'm looking forward to our ai policy coming forward our draft policy coming forward for the board's consideration uh some of the other things uh The Government Finance and Affairs Committee oversees budget, also oversees taxes, and makes policies on many areas. One of the topics that came up that I pushed for during our visit at the Capitol with Senator Laird and others that were there on the Budget Committee is that we need to take this opportunity of having a new governor come on board next year, any new governor, with a open mind of realignment. We did realignment in, Prop 13 was passed, and realignment happened in 1991, and then it happened 20 years later in 2011, and we are approaching that 20-year mark again, and they were very receptive to having a major statewide conversation about realignment and ensuring that Prop 13 funds are adequately distributed. So it could be a topic that we have at the December annual conference on the GFA committee. The good news is the Legislative Analysts Office Carolyn Chu did a realignment recommendation back in 2017 and that realignment recommendation did not move forward at the governor's either of the governor's previously did not move that forward but she has hope that this could be revitalized so I am I have a copy of both that I'll be giving to the CEO and it may be a conversation that we could have about what realignment could look like especially with The... redevelopment bonds being paid off in early 2030. So there's an opportunity here. And if we can be a bigger voice right now to be able to talk about how small rural counties that do not get the funds that all other counties get because of Prop 13, we get 10 cents on the dollar. It could be an opportunity to boost our revenue for the county. So that's the big update. Everything else is just informational that I'll be passing on to the CEO.

Thank you. Any other supervisors have announcements?

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. First of all, I want to give a very big thank you to our VFW post 9242 and American Legion post 69 for a very special Memorial Day remembrance ceremony yesterday. We are very fortunate to have these leaders in our community and I'm grateful for everything that they do to recognize all of veterans and all of the work that they do so thank you very much. Also a couple of happy or good things to report. Last week was Public Works Appreciation Week and so I want to give a huge thank you to all of those in our Public Works Department and just give a real you know, sense of appreciation and gratefulness. We need to shine a light on these employees. They do a lot of very important work in our community, making sure, you know, that our roads are good. I know that there's a lot of complaints about the roads, but you know, we've got a small crew, small but mighty crew, and they are doing absolutely everything they can. They are working on servicing our parks. I recently met with some of them and the care that they are putting into their job is just incredible and so I am hopeful that next year we can do more of a formal recognition from this board recognizing Public Works Week and the employees that we have in our Public Works Department. In behavioral health we had a meeting last week and behavioral health department was we were the agency of the year awarded from San Jose State and this is for in the MSW field which is the Masters of Social Work and this is for field placement of interns and so from the time that I got on this board to where we are today I think we have made great strides and so I appreciate everybody that has really helped help do that we have people that are now coming and wanting to work here because of how great it is and the great work that they're doing. So I really, really appreciate everybody that's working on that. Also with behavioral health, I wanted to give you a couple of updates regarding the mobile crisis response. In the month of April, There was 71 encounters. Year to date, 612. Of that breakdown, 20 of them were community encounters for the month of April, 170 year to date. From the hospital, 51 for April and 442 year to date. And then ones with involving law enforcement, both Hollister Police Department and the Sheriff. We had two for April and 108 year to date. Response time, the average response time in April was 21 minutes and the year to date response time is 23 minutes. And so I just thought this was really important information that I should share and let the community know about. That's a very important thing that we have here. And lastly, integrated waste management. I ran into Selena, our department head there, and she was with someone from the state, and they were going around and doing some kind of site visits, and the woman from the state mentioned that Southside School is a model school in the entire state for dealing with separating the waste, the compost, and recyclables, and so I just wanted to give kudos to Southside and the staff at Integrated Waste Management. They are truly making a difference in this community, so thank you very much, and that is it.

Thank you. Any others? President Velazquez. Yeah, I wanted to thank the Pacheco Creek Stormwater Board. They amazingly were able to get the Army Corps of Engineers out here to San Bernardino County to tour the levee. along our river between San Felipe and Lubbers Lane. So this is no small feat, this is a very big, big deal to get them out there and take a look and do a study of the levy system. The tricky part, a lot of people don't really understand this, is that levy system is not county owned, it's all private. So they walk through the entire Not the entire levee, a big part of it. Chairman Zanger and CEO also toured, and we did a long hot walk jumping over fences, and Chairman Zanger was able to jump right over them. Of course, I tried, and I fell right on my backside while Chairman Zanger was doing backflips off of them. So it goes to show. But they came back with a really quick analysis showing what would happen next. in a breach scenario and overtopping and point out a couple areas that were being eroded and really needed to be looked at. The tricky part is now how do we help this group gather the millions of dollars it's gonna take to really shore it up. But the steps taken, are a big step, so I was happy to see that and really proud of all the work they're doing. So thank you, Mr. Chairman, for being there and the CEO for also being there for that tour.

Thank you. Mr. Chair.

Just briefly, I just also want to thank veterans groups for putting on Memorial Day ceremonies. Everyone who came out as well to honor military personnel who have died while serving. And I had a chance to go to the San Juan ceremony. Very, very, very touching ceremony as always. And so, again, thank you, everybody, for that. Hope everybody enjoyed their three day weekend. And then Union Road looks great. Just want to point that out. Again, get a lot of positive comments from the community about the great job that the county's done with Union Road and Granite Rock with Union Road. And so thank you. One quick request I have on that, CEO, is we got to get some speed limit signs up. I know that's on the checklist, I'm sure. But in the past, we just have not had nearly enough speed limit signs on Union Road. So there's full clarity for everybody to get consistent speeds out there. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, that will conclude the announcements. We'll move to public comment. This opportunity to address the board on items of interest not appearing on the agenda. Is there any public comment for items not on the agenda today?

First up, we have Megan Reich.

Thank you. Bring that down. I'm sure. Good morning, Mr. Chair, supervisors, staff. My name is Megan Range. I just came to introduce myself formally. I'm the new PG&E government relations rep. Some of you have received emails from me, for good or bad. And I just wanted to make sure you had a face to a name. I'll follow up with all of you individually to try to find time to sit down with all of you, talk about the priorities and how I can be useful to the county. Just wanted you to know I'm in the area and looking forward to working with you.

Next we have Richard Gallagher.

Good morning board. And first off, I wanna thank everybody for being on the board. You guys, every one of you has taken this up because you have a passion for this community. I really, really gotta recognize that. I think everybody should recognize that they do have a passion for the community and thank you. So the new returning Veterans Park Commissioner for the VFW, I was the Park Commissioner back in 2010 through 2018. Got a lot of projects done over there, the water well, some other stuff. So anyway, I wanna ask the staff to start the process of getting me sworn in, Form 700, that kind of thing. Some things never change. When I last left, there was monies always disappearing from the Veterans Park, being used somewhere always. And apparently, again, there was another issue at the beginning of the year. You had to have an emergency meeting because of funds being missing. That was in January. I still don't understand why we haven't had a follow-up meeting addressing why and where these funds have actually been returned. Again, I'm returning, so I'm still learning, educate myself in the community, fellow parents, ball group users, my past commissioner, So I may stumble along the way, time or two, some things have changed, et cetera. So my first thing, I believe that this money's, the way to keep the money from disappearing out of the Vets Park Commission again is there needs to be a separate Veterans Park account. That Vets account, it only gets approved by the Veterans Park Commission. The Veterans Park Commission used to have the secretary, again, I haven't been in the loop in a while, but Mike Hodges was the exemplary secretary for our commission. He came in every other month. I can't remember how often the meetings were. They were quite frequent and he always was ready to give a great briefing. So see, I'm running out of time. Just wanted to remind everybody in closing, And Angela and Mindy, thank you for being on our Parks Commission. I hope we get another meeting scheduled soon. And in closing, I want to share invitations for everybody to come out to all our veterans events throughout the year. Thank you very much again for what you folks do on the commission.

Next is Jill Buckingham.

Good morning members of the Board of Supervisors. Sometimes in life, you never know where to start. So you just figure might as well start here. And then if it is something you guys are interested in, it can go on to the future agenda items just to be discussed. Some of you may know that Monterey County recently was kind of beginning the process of cracking down on roadside vendors. These roadside vendors part of the reason that they are concerned, especially to the folks in Monterey county district attorney's office is because they do a couple things. 1st, they exploit loopholes in our system, obtaining oftentimes sales of goods that are evading both sales tax and health regulations as well as county code enforcement. So these are something that Monterey was beginning to crack down using a comprehensive county approach, both involving county health as well as county code enforcement, as well as the office for the different violations that were going on there. Part of the reason I bring this up is because I feel like with what's happened in Monterey. While there have been some low-level items of that occurring in this county, it does seem like it's beginning to proliferate more and more. That maybe some of the process of Monterey pushing, if you will, on that illegal activity in Monterey County has pushed some of that work into our county, especially this weekend driving even on the 129. I noticed a couple of roadside vendors with basically propane tanks hooked up to roadside stoves to basically cook meals under an easy up tent. Well, I do understand that life is hard and people have to make a living. The simple fact of the matter is, is everyone has those obligations and the county has a hard time making its livings. If people are able to evade business tax obligation, business fees, sales tax, health obligations, and it puts a hard. Imposition on legitimate businesses that are doing things the right way when people are allowed to kind of cheat on the side, because maybe I don't know that this is the case, but code enforcement isn't out on Saturdays or just things can go easily missed or. Uninvestigated because, hey, it's not that big of a deal. Part of the reason I bring this up, I do want to see if. This is something the county is interested in tackling. It's not something I can do by myself necessarily, but it is something that I think we have enough resources together that if we decided we wanted to get involved in this, I'd be happy to help and try to do what we can is I think that it may. Uh, be good for the overall protection of the community's health as well as the revenue stream for businesses and streamline and and get rid of that. I can already think of at least 2 roadside vendors that I always, every time I see them, I go, I can't imagine that they have a permit or that it's legal. Maybe it's my own bias, but especially there's 1 on fair view and 156 that is just on the side of the highway. And I always think that cannot be legal. And I see it nearly every Saturday coming home from Costco and. it's just one of those things where there's a there's a principle that if we ignore little things bigger things happen and over this weekend as well I was admittedly and I hate to see it I was noticing more graffiti and some other things as well and I want to work to try to catch those as much as we can I do know we have staffing issues with both the sheriff's department and the police department it's been hard and so it's hard to crack down on some of these things just bringing that up thank you thank you I have no other public comment

Great, thank you. We'll move forward to consent agenda. These matters shall be considered as a whole without discussion unless a particular item is removed from consent. Do any supervisors have any items they wish to pull from the consent agenda? Yes.

Mr. Chair, I'd like to pull 1.4. I understand that we have members of the community here to accept the proclamation. Okay. Any others?

1.15, I just have a clarification. 1.15, just a clarification. Don't know if it needs to be pulled, but there's just a typo in the mileage. It says 440 something thousand miles. It should be, it's just in the staff report. So County Council, do we need to pull that to clarify or just note the typo? Pull it, all right, we'll pull it.

Okay, so we have 1.4 and 1.15 and...

Well, I see we have another proclamation designating May 2026 as community action month. So is there anyone? Yes, we do have people here for that. So I will pull that one as well. So 1.3, please.

Okay. Any others? Okay, so 1.3, 1.4, 1.15. Then the rest of the items, is there any public comment on any of the items that were not pulled on the consent agenda?

I'd like to make a comment in chambers please provide a speaker card on zoom you can press star nine or the raise hand icon.

I have no public comments great Thank you, is there a motion to approve the remaining consent agenda items. move to approve their second second roll call vote, please.

Supervisors anger yes supervisor velasquez yes supervisor so tell oh yes supervisor cosmic yes supervisor curl. Yes. Five-zero vote, motion passes.

Great, thank you. All right, moving on to the items that were pulled. We'll start with 1.3, Scherzer-Citello, you pulled this item.

yeah i just wanted to make sure that we get proper recognition um approving may as community action month um so move to approve let's let's do public comment first okay inside them if you'd like to make a comment on item 1.3 please provide a speaker card on zoom you can press star 9 or the raise hand icon i have no public comment okay great is there a motion to approve the proclamation i move to approve your second i'll second

I may roll call vote, please.

Supervisor Zenger?

Yes.

Supervisor Velazquez? Yes. Supervisor Kosmicki?

Yes.

Supervisor Sotelo? Yes. Supervisor Curro?

Yes.

Five-zero vote, motion passes.

Great, thank you. Come on up, yeah, go ahead. Go for it. Supervisor Sotelo, you wanna?

Yeah, I'm looking for it. This is public comment though, right?

no we did public comment this is this the um give me a second it's part of the proclamation but if you want to if you want to speak yeah yeah absolutely yeah if you have yeah please uh good morning uh supervisors everyone uh on behalf of the entire uh community action board i want to sincerely thank the board of supervisors for this recognition and honor It's truly meaningful to be here accepting this award on behalf of a group of dedicated people who deeply care about this community and the people within it. The Community Action Board exists because we believe every member of our community matters. We believe that no one should be invisible. No one should be left behind simply because they are struggling, experiencing hardship or navigating systems that can often feel overwhelming or disconnected. This recognition reflects the collective work, commitment, compassion, and advocacy of so many people, board members, community leaders, service providers, individuals with lived experience, and community partners who continue to show up, ask hard questions, and push for meaningful solutions. Community action is exactly that, action. It is not just conversation, it's not just meetings, it is not simply identifying problems. It is a willingness to come together, to listen, to collaborate, and to work toward real change. At its heart, community action means recognizing that the strength of any community is measured by how we care for those facing the greatest challenges, whether that means addressing housing instability, food insecurity, access to health care, economic hardships, behavioral health needs, or barriers that prevent families from thriving. Our responsibility is to continue moving forward together. None of this work happens in isolation. Progress happens when community members, public agencies, nonprofits, leaders, and people with lived experience all have a voice at the table. That collaboration matters, representation matters, listening matters, and action matters. This recognition belongs to every member of the Community Action Board who volunteers their time, shares their expertise, brings their lived experience, and remains committed to improving outcomes of our neighbors. it also belongs to the many organizations advocates and residents who partner alongside us in this work while we are honored in this recognition we also understand that our work is far from finished there are still needs in this community there are still barriers to break down there are still opportunities to build stronger systems deeper partnerships and more compassionate solutions so uh i accept this award with gratitude with also with renewed commitment a commitment to continue listening to continue advocating to continue building and to continue taking action and service in this community Thank you again to the Board of Supervisors for this recognition, and thank you for everyone working every day to help make our community stronger, healthier, and more equitable for all. Thank you.

Well, first of all, thank you to all of our community action board members, you all are doing amazing work and I appreciate all of the time and commitment that you put in. So community action agencies were established under the economic opportunity act of 1964 and continue today through the Community services block grant to serve low income individuals and families. Community action builds and promotes economic stability as an essential aspect of enabling stronger communities and stable, homes, sorry, while continuously evolving strategies and innovative solutions to meet the changing needs of individuals, families, and communities in urban, suburban, and rural areas. The San Benito County Health and Human Services Agency Community Services and Workforce Development Division serve as the local community action agency dedicated to serving the most vulnerable and low-income residents of San Benito County through housing assistance, supportive services, and job training.

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Annually, the agency serves over 2,500 unduplicated residents annually in San Benito County through an array of services, including permanent supportive housing, transitional housing, the operation of HOME, which is Home Opportunities Meals and Empowerment Resource Center, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, the operation of the San Benito County Migrant Center, and partnership with the Workforce Development Board and America's Job Center of California. Community Action embodies 62 years of innovation, impact, and proven results in strengthening families and communities across the nation. The Board of Supervisors recognizes May 2026 as Community Action Month. Thank you for all of the hard work that you do serving our community. Enrique, do you wanna?

Thank you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Thank you. Any other comments from the board?

Yeah, I just, again, I just reiterate, thank you. These people really put in a lot of dedicated effort, and I know Tim brings a strong voice for District 2, and just these, you know, being around folks, especially on the curriculum of care, this is a very passionate group of people that give their time, so thank you.

Thank you. All right, thank you. Did you want to speak?

I just wanted to thank Tim and every community action board member. We have some that have been on the board for more than 10 years, very committed, very passionate, and you hit it right on the dot. Very passionate board members. So thank you very much.

Thank you.

Great.

Okay, moving on to item 1.4. It's just pulled by Cerese Crow. If you don't mind, we'll just go straight to public comment and then give it to you. So is there a public comment on item 1.4?

If you'd like to make a comment in chambers, please provide a speaker card. On Zoom you can press star nine or the raise hand icon. We have Dee Martin.

Thank you. I first also would like to thank the board. I would like to thank every member of the board for being here today and given this proclamation. You may or may not agree physically or emotionally or mentally or your beliefs. But I do thank you for being here because you're being here means that you're willing to put this community before your own. desires, your own thoughts. And this community does thank this member for the board for that. Last year, the pride proclamation was canceled. For many people, that didn't feel like a loss of an event. They felt like they were being told their presence, their families, their place in this community were optional. This year, by honoring pride again, we have an opportunity to say something better about who we are. Pride is not about division. It's about visibility, safety, dignity, and community. It is about telling our LGBTQ neighbors, coworkers, business owners, parents, veterans, and young people that they do not have to hide to belong here. A community is not measured by how it treats the majority when things are easy. but whether or not it makes room for people who have historically been pushed aside. Bringing back pride does not take anything from anyone else. It simply makes the circle and the community wider and stronger, especially for young people. The teenager wondering if they're accepted, the child growing up feeling they might feel different. Seeing a town celebrate them instead of easing them, instead of erasing them, can genuinely change a life. Sometimes visibly it's protection. Sometimes it's a celebration. Sometimes it's just healing. We do not have to be the same to stand together as neighbors. Pride is a reminder that community works best when everyone is welcome in it. Thank you.

Thank you.

I have no other comments. One more. I have Alyssa Bostock.

I just want to say thank you again for adding this item to the agenda and to reiterate what do you was saying about how important it is to our Community to share that we are. Not discriminatory against LGBT Q community, I think. The cancellation of last year also what he said was just I think it impacted us it wasn't just there's no pride event it's it was we had it, and now it's gone it's saying to our Community that. You are not important. We don't really care about your safety. So, I think this is really important and I'm glad it's on the agenda. So I think all of you for hearing this and voting on it. So, declaring June is pride month and our town is more than a statement. It's a promise. It tells every resident, especially our youth that you belong here. Your story is valued and your future is welcome. For our young people, visibility saves lives. When community affirms them, school engagement rises, mental health improves, and hope takes root. A teen who sees their town celebrate pride learns that they don't have to leave to live fully. They can build their life here. For families and allies, this proclamation provides a clear signal. Kindness is our standard. It encourages respectful conversations, safer schools, and homes where every child knows they are loved without exception. For our local economy and civic life, inclusion attracts talent, visitors, and entrepreneurs to our community. Diverse voices strengthen problem solving and public service, and the creativity that small towns rely on thrive. For our shared values, this reinforces what we teach our kids, fairness, dignity, and the simple idea that neighbors look out for one another. Pride is not about politics. It's about the people. It honors the courage of those who came before and invites each of us to keep making our town safer, kinder, and more just. Thank you.

Thank you.

I have no other public comment.

Thank you.

I'd like to make a motion to approve.

Is there a second? Thank you. Clerk, can we have roll call vote, please?

Supervisor Zanger?

No.

Supervisor Velazquez?

Yes.

Supervisor Kosmicki?

Yes.

Supervisor Sotelo? Yes. Supervisor Curro?

Yes.

For one vote, motion passes.

Great, thank you. Supervisor Sotelo? Yeah.

Step on up.

Oh, Curro, I'm sorry. I was looking over here.

Don't call me late for lunch.

So I know we have some community members. If you guys would like to come up, I'd like to present it to you as I read here. I'm going to just go through some highlights and thank you so much for being here today. The County of San Benito is committed to ensuring that San Benito County is a welcoming, inclusive and safe community for LGBTQ plus families, friends, neighbors, coworkers, and LGBTQ plus individuals have made and continue to make vital contributions to the world in every aspect, including in the fields of education, law, health, business, science, research, economic development, architecture, fashion, sports, government, music, film, politics, technology, and civil rights. We must remain vigilant and vigilant in deterring opposition and discrimination against people based on sex, gender, identity, or expression of sexual orientation. Celebrating Pride Month raises awareness and provides support and advocacy for LGBTQ plus community and is the opportunity to become educated, engaged in dialogue, strengthen alliances, and build understandings. We affirm our support for LGBTQ plus residents in our community and stand with them to protect their civil rights and ability to live openly, equally and without fear. Therefore, be it proclaimed that the San Benito County Board of Supervisors do recognize and proclaim the month of June 2026 as LGBTQ and Pride Month and urge residents to actively promote the principles of equality, liberty and justice. Thank you. Thank you for being here.

you want to see some more you can say thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you other comments from the board yeah thank you uh mr chair for supervisor curl um yeah this is uh this is an important uh proclamation and we the county took a big step forward a few years ago i was the first one that essentially proposed this you know month for this county my um my hope and i've always kind of been curious about this when we when we establish proclamations for honoring specific months is that we do it in perpetuity going forward at some point um and so we'd be declaring like for instance pride month black history month these months um So it's known that those months are, you know, there's other one, Women's History Month, for instance. We have some of these months that we bring these proclamations forward from year to year. I think with the weeks, they change from year to year, so that would be more complicated. But with the months, I think it would make sense for us at some point as a board to establish that these specific months going forward are designated as establishing that we're honoring those specific causes for those months. And Yeah, just one again. Thanks, everybody. And then if we could get clarity on the event, because the event, maybe if there's even a status report or a memo that goes out, because I think when they were referring to proclamation, there was never anything canceled per se. I think that's kind of where I'm coming from, so that we have these things set in stone from year to year. I'm not sure what happened last year, but... But if we could get clarity on the event, because behavioral health had done an event at Dunn Park, just for public outreach perspective, just to get the information out if there was an event this year. Thank you. Thank you.

Any comments? Okay. Thank you very much. We'll move on then to item 1.15. Spurs or Cosmic, you pulled this item.

Yeah, I just pulled this because there's a typo in there. Criticism at all. Someone accidentally hit comma. Yeah, I just pulled this again because there was a typo, not a critical thing at all. I think someone just must have hit comma instead of period, which we all do at times. So it says 449,287 miles where it should. And it does say that in the documentation when you go further within the report. But just for clarity, we don't have 449,000 miles in our county. That would be quite a large area. So just want to make sure that we approve this with that clarification.

Thank you, let's go to public comment on this since this didn't get a chance.

If you'd like to make a comment in chambers, please provide a speaker card now or press star nine or the raise hand icon on Zoom. I have no public comments.

Great, thank you. I'll move to approve as recommended with the amendment to clarify that it's 449 miles 0.287.

Thank you, is there a second? Second. Okay, can we have roll call vote, please?

Supervisor Zenger?

Yes.

Supervisor Velazquez?

Yes.

Supervisor Kosmicki?

Yes.

Supervisor Sotelo? Yes. Supervisor Curro? Yes. Five-zero vote, motion passes.

Great, thank you very much. That concludes the consent agenda. We'll move to public hearing on 2.1. This is from our CEO presentation on Assembly Bill 2561.

Good morning, board members. Elvia is gonna be presenting as acting HR manager regarding the requirements of this bill. Thank you.

Good morning, board of supervisors and members in the public. My name is Elvia Barrosio. I'm an interim HR manager. I'm gonna be doing the annual presentation of Assembly Bill 2561 regarding the vacancies in San Benito County. AB2561 requires local public agencies to publicly discuss staffing vacancies at least once each year before adopting their budget. The goal is to improve transparency about workforce shortages and how they affect public services. So we'll be sharing how many positions are vacant, explain how vacancies are affecting operations and services, discuss efforts to recruit and retain employees, hold a discussion in a public meeting such as this one so the community can hear the information and ask questions. What does this mean? Like I said, annual public hearing notices such as this today. We invite all the employer organizations to present as well. We'll talk about ongoing recruitment and retention efforts. And we'll talk about the vacancy rates here in Salmonido County. Additional reporting requirements for high vacancy units. What this means when units have a higher than 20% in one bargaining unit, we have to present a little bit more information regarding that unit. We have to report total number of job vacancies within the bargaining unit, total number of applicants for vacant positions, average number of days to complete the hiring process, and talk about opportunities to improve compensation and other working conditions. We would also have to plan development implementation for those units identify necessary changes to policies and recruitment activities, we would partner with the unions Community organizations and stakeholders to identify and reduce any barriers or maybe and improve access for applicants. The legislature finds and declares that high job vacancy impact public service delivery and workers who are forced to handle heavier workloads with understaffing leading to burnout and increases turnovers that further exacerbate staffing challenges. So the vacancies for San Bernardino County are SEIU is 14.78%. MAG is 10.47%. GSA is 19.23, IA is 7.89%, LEM is fully staffed at 0%, and the MREP is 5.88%. So this year, they all fell under 20%. We'll talk about a little on DSA in which we saw the real vacancy rate increase from last fiscal year is we had four recent deputies resign within April and May. Some went to other agencies and at least one relocation to another state. There was a significant decrease due to elimination of vacancy budgeting. And the difference in the FTE totals are due to elimination of vacancy budgeting and the elimination of 11 field positions last fiscal year, or last year. So although the county has implemented a hiring freeze, HR continues to actively recruit for many critical and approved positions. Recruitment efforts have been scaled back in some areas to align with current budget and staffing limitations while still supporting the central county operations. So what we've done for those critical positions is increase visibility of job postings, promotional opportunities to current employees. We continue to do an annual professional training series, which this year is called Mornings with Purpose. What that is, is we do four sessions a year to employees, and we train or talk about different topics. Everyone's invited. Topics are benefits, basics for CalPERS. The last one we had was ethical principles put into practice. That was conducted by Trendel. And the next one's going to be in August, and it's going to be managing difficult conversations with confidence.

So things like that.

We continue to do exit interviews. We're working on compiling all the information, analyzing it and see where we could go from there, what we could address. We perform salary studies and make market based adjustments to select positions as staffing challenges emerge. And then we collaborate with departments and bargaining units to develop innovative strategies for enhancing recruitment and retention initiatives. Any questions?

Thank you, thank you. So this is public hearing, so we'll open public hearing and go to comments from the public. Clerk, do we have any comments?

I just wanna share that we did invite all the bargaining units. SEIU is gonna do a presentation. I'm not sure if that goes right after my presentation or before public comment.

Yeah, yeah, let's do the presentation.

Mr. Chair, members of the Board of Supervisors, the record should reflect that you have opened the public hearing?

Yes, public hearing officially opened. Thank you.

Good morning, Chair and Board of Supervisors. My name is Christina Cardenas. I am here today as SEIU 521's Chapter President. Along with me is our Chief Steward and Vice President Denise Quintana. Together we represent the 345 members, encompassing your dedicated staff that tirelessly and proudly serve our community.

I would like to take the time to acknowledge each department that SEIU 521 has the privilege and honor to represent. agricultural commissioner, assessors, the auditors, behavioral health, child support services, where I have been serving for 24 years, council of governments, clerk recorder elections, district attorney victim witness, health and human services, the library, office of emergency services, probation, the tax treasury, sheriff's department, resource management, integrated waste and recycling, public permits, building and permits, public works and road maintenance. Over the past year, 55 positions have been eliminated. leaving us with 345 general funded positions but due to the ongoing chronic vacancy issues 51 positions remain unfilled the result in staffing in a staffing force of only 294 people which is 32 people less than the staff at this time last year

As these 51 positions remain unfilled, our operations that provide necessary services to our community are being limited and strained. The union's efforts in working with the county's budget have been a sacrifice to our members by accepting a one-year salary freeze, as has hurt the families they support in this growingly expensive economy, especially with the outside impact of increasing gas prices and cost of living. The risk of our current staff experiencing a burnout is an all-time high, especially with the ongoing hiring freeze. We have deep concerns about how this minimal staffing negatively impacts the critical services we provide for our community. We worry that if our county is unable to get a grasp on their budget to be able to provide competitive wages for its staff, that more people will continue to resign, resulting in not only a decrease in morale and public perception, but an underserved community.

To prevent further vacancies to our staffing, we feel it's imperative to have a fair MOU with creative benefits that can promote retention and draw qualified perspective people to work for San Benito County. We cannot afford any more cuts to existing positions, especially those in high demand that daily need to be filled. We support the ideas and efforts of revenue generating sources like Measure A and lowering the county's reserve to a more comparable percentage of similar counties. This is the time to invest in your workforce as the needs of your community continues to grow from all the ongoing developments. We need staffing to be able to provide the quality of services that our community deserves. Thank you. Thank you.

Is there any other.

If you'd like to make a comment in chambers, please provide a speaker card. On Zoom, you can press star nine or the raise hand icon. And we have Enrique Arriola.

Good morning, members of the board and the public. My name's Enrique Arriola. I'm an employee of 18 years with the county under HHSA, and I'm also the MC President. I would like to begin by sincerely thanking staff for this presentation and for providing such comprehensive vacancy information for all county units. The presentation was very informative and helpful in understanding the current workforce landscape across all departments. The data highlights total positions, field positions, vacancies, and the recruitment and retention efforts underway provided valuable transparency and oversight of the challenges and progress being made throughout Thea County. I appreciate the amount of work and coordination that clearly went into compiling this, and thank you very much for that. to assist the board and the public in better understanding the workforce trends and the operational impacts. Respectfully, I would like to offer a few suggestions and may further strengthen future reports. This includes employee turnover rates, average length of time positions remain vacant, identification of positions considered difficult to recruit or retain, departments experiencing the highest vacancy levels, vacancy trends over time to better identify patterns and progress, use of extra help, staff over time, contractors or consultants due to staffing shortages, operational or service delivery impacts resulting from prolonged vacancies. Again, thank you very much for this presentation and our continued efforts to being transparent. Thank you very much.

I have no other public comments.

Thank you. Any comments, questions from the board? Oh, so we'll close the public hearing and now go back to the board. Is there any? Yes, Rose or Stella.

Thank you. I have a couple of questions, LVF, for you. And thank you, this is very informative and I think it really helps reviewing this every year and kind of seeing where we're at. A couple of items under the recruitment and retention efforts that you mentioned. So it lists increased visibility of job postings and promotional opportunities to current employees. Can you give me some examples of what, because it says increased, so what are those things?

started sending out notices to employees via email per when we open a position and then a weekly announcement we also started increasing where we post outside for specific positions to websites specific to those positions we've started posting in our LinkedIn social media so we started putting a little bit out there with for both the employees and the public

Okay, are we doing any more job fairs or anything like that as well?

We haven't done them since the hiring freeze, but we're looking into doing career fairs. Okay. but we stopped doing that when we did a hiring freeze.

Okay, thank you. With the professional training series, the Mornings with Purpose, how many people are you getting on average attending those?

So there's a minimum that we could do because we hold them here. I think average is about 35 people, 33 or so attendees.

Okay, good, thank you. And then... so can you explain to me a little bit how you you mentioned perform salary studies and then make market-based adjustments to the select positions um can you explain that one a little bit to me like depending on the positions if we're struggling to find um if we've been posting and posting and had many failed recruitments then we kind of do a study and we look at our

Other agencies and see where they're at, or maybe even do a review of the job description. So it's not always necessarily more money if we have to revise a job description to better fit that position now, because there's been so much change. We'll do that. Okay. And then if we can address any. Compensation at that time for hard to fill positions.

Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Thank you, sir. Yeah, thank you for this. And so, you know, I think. Looking back in the past year, the last year, we really, I think the focus has been to stabilize our budget. I think we all want to have a stable budget, a strong budget. We can't do this vacancy budgeting deficit budgeting anymore. I think we've all. uh really acknowledge that and there's a lot of hard work that went into um getting a more stable budget going forward we're in a better place than we were last year and um you know i'm very optimistic that you know we'll get to an even better place in the next year and i think that would open the doors for conversations about um obviously doing more uh than we are now and and i am looking forward to our um budget hearings that are coming up we'll get a lot more clarity as we go through the budget hearings and also the workshop, I believe we're still planning a workshop on revenue generation in particular, so that we can have that conversation with the community and ourselves about how we want to go forward generating revenue. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other comments from the board? Mr. Frizzler-Crowe.

Okay, I have a couple of questions. So are we looking at, and I really appreciate SCIU's presentation, but also Meg's presentation and adding the additional questions and data points. I think that's very valuable. One of the big topics we had in Sacramento was around staff burnout. and the fact that AI is moving so quickly and how we do not, there was no one at the state level that said we want to replace staff with artificial intelligence. That was clearly not where anyone went. But what we were seeing is the use of AI to reduce burnout and one of the things Contra Costa County has done is they did a presentation to us that showed how you bring in the bargaining units in the AI conversation that the bargaining units have to be at the table because the individuals that are doing the work at actually have the experience and there's a way of having a closed internal AI technology, not a web-based AI. And so it's a conversation that I really hope that we can continue and that we can collaborate between the bargaining units and administration. But one of the questions I have is what is the challenge in hiring? Some of the things I've heard is and are we looking at internal promotional opportunities for staff that maybe they don't have the education qualifications but they have the experience and are we starting to be more creative with how we can utilize the staff we have potentially for promotional opportunities and then have lower level positions open up that may what i'm seeing from the people that we've been talking to across the state is that we have a education and qualification limit a lot of people don't qualify for the positions as the job specs are written right now so i don't know which one i'm going to go to the ceo for the first comment

Good morning. For clarification, we have sometimes trying to keep our employees and trying to promote our employees. So sometimes we open the opportunities countywide for those who feel that they can promote to go to the next step. So we give that opportunity to our employees first. We have, for example, three or four weeks ago, we only received three applicants. And so what we're trying to do is promote between our house. And if we don't see that they meet the minimum requirements, then we had to open it to outside. But we really trying to promote our own employees in the county, but they have to have the education I did. discuss an issue a matter with hsa tracy about using the workforce as a tool to start training our own individuals erp systems we don't have enough workers that understands erp system and that prevents them from promoting between the county so i asked if there's a way that we can use the workforce and funding that it comes to train people at call on the job training and to open that opportunity not only to the county employees but other people outside in the community that are willing, that may be willing to come to work with us. We're looking for people to work with us and it's been very challenging. And just to give you an idea, one of the things that we changed this last year, facing all the challenges to recruit people, We publishing at the public CEO, we spending $245. CSAC, $75. California City News, $225. We trying to hire people that is very competitive for us to compete with Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and Monterey. We have to be aware of that. So what we need to do is to start training our own workforce, not only in the county, but in this Hollister area so that we can have, we can recruit in our community so they can stay with us and do not leave us. So that's what we have been doing so far.

Okay, and I appreciate the keeping, trying to promote not only within the county, but promoting within the community. Because I think we have some, We have some really outdated job descriptions, and we know that. We have to acknowledge that. We have job descriptions that have not been updated in years. We've done salary and compensation studies that don't even address some of the long-term needs that we've had in San Benito County. So I know all of this is gonna have to take time to fix, but we have to be looking at it at that next kind of generational level because uh what's happening i will say i want to connect you with uh contra costa county what they've been doing has been it's and and and when you talk about technology you're not talking about replacing people you're talking about how do you solve a problem there is a problem with this in this area and they're doing pilot programs. One of them was animal control and they did a pilot program that was very successful and it was able to bring data together that allowed them to be able to get more funding through grants. And yes, Contra Costa is way bigger. They have a lot of people to be able to do this, but we can piggyback on what others are doing without having to have that big expense going out. One of my other questions are under consideration is, When we're looking at education, are we equating that to also work experience on the job? So we're taking, it's not one and, it's one or. Are we looking at it that way?

Yes, definitely. One of the issues that we have, we may have an individual with a master's degree and no clue about ERP or doing accounting or having the experience. on working in accounting, and they wanna be accountants, so it's very difficult for us. I think one of the biggest challenges that we have is accounting, because they wanna promote, they claim to have all the education, bachelor's degree, master's degree, if they don't have any experience. And it's difficult for us to transition an individual that has never been exposed to accounting to actually do accounting in the county. It's very difficult. So we're trying to combine both education and experience so that we can, people has an opportunity. And that's what my effort is gonna be emphasizing with workforce, that we can start providing that training. The people that has already education, they just need to be trained. on-the-job training, it's called on-the-job training, so they can come and work with us.

And I'm a big promoter of on-the-job training. I mean, that was how I started county government. I had no idea what I was getting into at a very young age, and they trained me on the job. But also looking and collaborating with workforce development. Workforce development, I know we have some training courses. I don't believe it's expired yet. Supervisor Sotelo, I'm kind of looking at you. on that, like it was Excel training and Word training. I don't know if our account has...

The metrics learning, I'm not sure. Has that expired?

I believe, no, it has not expired. So that is still available. So I think we need to promote that a little bit more, especially because it is a free... training service for our employees. Just starting with an Excel training can be a first step for someone understanding basics. I mean, really, you know, basics. One of the other things, a comment was made about measure A. Did you mean to say measure A or did you mean measure G? Because I'm confused why measure A is revenue generating. Oh, D, sorry, I went to G. So I just wanna clarify measure D. Okay, I wanted to make that clear for the record because that's actually something on the ballot in June. I'm not saying for it or against it, I'm just saying it is a revenue source and that's what we have to be looking at. Because we do, I think this board has made it perfectly clear, balancing the budget accurately, not balancing a budget on vacancy budgeting. But if we are not looking at where the vacancies are and how we can utilize others and maybe look at job descriptions in a bigger picture sense, don't always think that this position has to be this position. If we can start to look at things a little more like, okay, here's how we can make this position work for this individual so that they can learn or they can promote within. Those are just my basic comments and I appreciate all of the presentations and the hard work that is put into trying to hire. A data point I would love to have is how many applicants we receive on certain jobs that are not being filled and why are they being rejected. That's just another area I'd like to make sure that we understand the why.

Sure quick quick follow up um what can you please kind of remind me what sort of higher education incentives we offer for existing or incoming employees, if any.

I don't think we offer any. I think it just depends on the requirement for each position.

Yeah, so I just think going forward, maybe just to throw it into the discussion, the pot of discussions that we have, you know, with bargaining units and these things is to look at potentially what other counties and cities are doing as far as incentivizing is existing employees, maybe looking at partnering with our community college or our universities that are nearby to see if there's some sort of template that we could possibly use. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay, thank you. I believe this was just, or just to accept it, right? There's no other action that needs to be taken. So that will conclude the public hearing portion of the agenda. Let's take a short break before we get into regular agenda. Let's take a five, 10 minute break. Thank you.

Recording stopped.

Thank you.

recording in progress all right thank you we are back from our break we'll jump into the regular agenda um item 3.1 this is to approve agreement with monterey county military and veteran affairs division to provide samuel county um with all the services and state and staff reports. So this, we have someone presenting. Dulce, you're presenting this, I believe?

Yes, so good afternoon, Board. Dulce Alonso, Principal Administrative Analyst in the Executive Office. So before you, today is a three-year contract with the County of Monterey for consideration for military and veteran services, and we've contracted with Monterey County since, So there's a correction in the staff report. It said 2011. We've actually contracted for 23 years so far. The amount is not to exceed $480,000. Our current contract is set to expire on June 30th of 2026. And through this contract and partnership, we also, the county has a part-time office assistance that supports veterans operations here in San Benito County. And before you today, I do have Jack Murphy. He's a director of military and veteran affairs services. And you should have received a flyer that says, He created of services that they provide San Benito County. There's also some in the back and he'll briefly go over some of the services they're provided in the county. So thank you, Jack.

Supervisors, CEO Warren, good morning, and thank you for the opportunity to do an impromptu presentation. Our office typically does something more formal near the Veterans Day time period, but as we're in contract renewal, I wanted to let you know what this contract really is about. And simply, as you provide good governance, this contract is providing good services to San Benito County's 2067 veterans. family members, survivors, dependents, what those services include. So our office is the only VA accredited agency in the Central Coast that provides representation, advocacy, support. We file, we petition, and we prosecute claims against the Department of Veterans Affairs and also provide guidance and education for state level and county level benefits. To give you an idea of what the contract funding before you has provided. That flyer that I provided, and I'll go over verbally here, is really for the time period of July 1st until April 30th. So it's the first 10 months of this current fiscal year. We assisted veterans in San Benito County. We did 429 walk-in or scheduled appointments. Those appointments resulted in 920 claim actions on behalf of 293 unique veterans or their survivors or dependents. We ended up so far in the first 10 months have had 250 VA disability compensation awards awarded to San Benito County veterans. Those compensation awards thus far have totaled $1.83 million in retroactive payments, those are tax-free, along with $825,000 in recurring monthly compensation, again, tax-free. One way to think about those 250 disability compensation awards, that likely is 250 people getting healthcare benefits that they previously did not have. So it's an addition to either the existing healthcare or it is a safety net healthcare service that they currently have now. uh total compensation fiscal year to date is two almost 2.7 million dollars uh one thing i'd like to highlight as a parent uh we've had 33 college tuition fee waivers processed for san benito county dependents thus far that's 33 kids who may not have gone to college otherwise and that resulted in 278 000 of tuition savings for san benito county dependents As you look at the annual contract expenses, one thing to bear in mind is that our services are actually revenue producing. In addition to earning money, compensation benefits for the veterans and survivors and dependents of San Benito County, our services actually provide revenue into the general fund through the California Department of Veterans Affairs Subvention Program. Essentially, our services on a specific claim, for example, Garner funds that come into the county. So last year, I'm sorry, the expected subvention payment for this current fiscal year is $68,455. So you take the annual cost, in this case, this current fiscal year, it is... uh one hundred and seventy six thousand dollars is the full net county cost for San Bernardino county subtract out that uh sixty eight thousand four hundred fifty five dollars and you're left with ballpark one hundred and eight thousand dollars as the actual cost that San Bernardino county is paying for the services we provide consider that Our services generated over $2.6 million. That's a return on investment of about 24 1⁄2 times every dollar that's provided for the services that our county provides. It's a very lean contract. It's 1 1⁄2 folks, so 1.0 FTE is paid for or is a salaried Monterey County employee. We have a .5 admin assistant, as Dulce mentioned, that is a San Beto County employee. Our office operates out of the San Bernardino Veterans Hall right downtown here. We're open four days a week. Sherry Stevenson is our longtime Veterans Service representative. She's being assisted by Pam Purtle. And we're more than happy to extend these services to the veterans of San Bernardino County. Subject to your questions or comments.

Thank you very much. Let's go to public comment.

If you'd like to make a comment in chambers, please provide a speaker card. On Zoom, you can press star nine or the raise hand icon. And I have no public comments.

Okay, thank you. Comments, questions from the board? Supervisor Sotelo.

I just really want to thank you. And this means a lot to our community. I remember last year there seemed to be some confusion over us not, I don't know, the contract being canceled. I don't remember. There was some rumor that started. And I can't tell you how many calls I got. But it kind of was that reassurance of what this means to this community. And it means a ton. And you help so many people. of our veterans and the families and sherry's just wonderful i hear lots of compliments about how helpful she is in the office and so thank you so much for being here today for being willing to take on san benito county and and helping us and i really appreciate it so thank you very much our pleasure yeah

Supervisor Velasquez, go ahead and answer this question. You had me with Sherry. Well, thank you.

I'll pass that. It really is.

I've looked at this in the past. It really is a good program.

Definitely want you here and not to belabor issues supervisors, this is not a contract that Monterey county is profiting from. In fact, we have never been able to break even on this contract but i'll be very frank Monterey county isn't looking to do that. We want to continue this relationship. We want to continue supporting our neighbors and our friends and really our veterans and their survivors and their dependents. So this is something that we've been doing now for over 23 years, and we hope to continue this going forward. The expense of... our services and i'm not talking to san benito specifically my entire office keeps going up as our expenses across uh you know really all of government uh and this contract not only is it a renewal for three years but it reflects some of those increasing costs thank you mr president uh thank you so much uh for the update and it's a wonderful program and thank you for um monterey when it comes to veterans monterey is is

unbelievably gracious to San Benito County. When it comes to our seniors, Santa Cruz County is unbelievably gracious to our county. HR1 had some impacts on the SNAP program. And my understanding is the veterans are affected by some of the cuts. Do you have any statistical information that has come out from either Monterey or San Benito on how HR1 is being impacted by the SNAP program for the veterans?

supervisor that's a great question and observation i'll start off by saying our office is not funded through any hr1 uh streams uh we get the majority of our funding basically from property tax revenue gfc uh we do have some grants through the california department of veterans affairs On that slide in the middle, you'll see something that's kind of cryptic. It says 117 Medi-Cal WLUs. That's a workload unit. That is basically our office doing 117 Medi-Cal income verifications. We're doing healthcare applications towards... safety net programs that would offset any losses that could come from HR1 losses. You know, we're very sensitive to a veteran needing supplemental needs, a veteran showing up for food assistance. That should never have happened to begin with. So our close relationship with your Health and Human Services offices, for example, we do a lot of cross referrals to help those veterans who are presenting for those community benefits. And that's where we help connect them to the VA, which actually provides significantly greater financial and safety net benefit, as noted by the statistics that are before you. But at this point, Supervisor, we don't see any significant cuts, losses, or impacts specifically to the veteran community. That's not to say there's going to be some other downstream effects. Our job is to try to go upstream and offset as much of that as possible.

No, I really appreciate that. And it was just one of the concerns in reading this agenda item and seeing your flyer. You have a collaboration with HHSA, but we do not even know the full impact right now of HR1 in our community. So if you do start to see that, please make sure Tracy's always informed and the CEO, because these numbers are the numbers that we're trying to push back to be able to get funding from the state. So thank you.

We're very sensitive and we will do that. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Well, thank you very much. Is there a motion to approve the... Okay, we have a first. Second. Second, great. Roll call vote, please.

Supervisor Zenger?

Yes.

Supervisor Velazquez?

Yes.

Supervisor Kosmicki?

Yes.

Supervisor Sotelo? Yes. Supervisor Curl? Yes. 5-0 vote, motion passes. Thank you.

Good day, thank you.

Moving on to item 3.2, public works regarding the gate and fence at Dunnville Estates, right? Dunnville Estates.

Hi, good morning. Good morning, Chair. Good morning, board members, and good morning, members of the public. My name is Linda Yang, and I am the CSA coordinator for San Benito County. Um, we are here to request an approval for a retroactive amendment number 3 for a contract with and fence for the work provided at Danville estates to for the construction of their gate. I'm just to provide a little back history and twenty twenty one denville estates representative worked with county staff for a prop to eighteen to collect fees for the construction of a gate for the denville estates community. The. PROP 218 PASSED AND THE CONTRACT WAS AWARDED TO CCOI AFTER AN RFP PROCESS. THE ORIGINAL CONTRACT WAS BACK IN AUGUST OF 2024 THROUGH DECEMBER 31ST OF 2024. TWO PRIOR AMENDMENTS WERE DONE TO EXTEND THE CONTRACT EXPIRATION DATE. For unknown reasons the contract was let to expire and additional work was needed and so the contractor. I guess continued the work to finish off the gate and so that's why we're here today is to request authorization to retroactively approve the contract to extend to cover the additional services provided with the additional expenses.

Thank you. CEO, did you have something before public comment?

Just a question. You said that for some reason the contract continued with the work. Who was overseeing the project? Prior staff.

prior stuff so that was a capital projects oh I see it was not part of the CSA maintenance services under the CSA team I simply stepped in to assist to process the invoices on a timely manner okay and so when the last invoice came in um it all kind of all came to relevant thank you thank you to a public comment please

If you'd like to make a comment in chambers, please provide a speaker card. On Zoom, you can press star nine or the raise hand icon. I have no public comment.

Thank you. Is there any questions from the board? Yes. Thank you.

I'm trying to understand. So they had the gate installed, but it wasn't completed or the payment wasn't completed. Correct. And then they had this cloud service to make sure they can operate the gate. And that's really the, the main issue right now to make sure that it gets paid. So that service is not cut off.

So there's two them. The, the one that we are requesting is for additional, um, I guess sensor needed, um, From information that I read shows that I guess there was concerns that the gate was going to trigger on the opposite side. So they added an additional sensor and that was the change order that was being requested. Cloud services, monthly cloud services is an additional item that I do want to bring up and discuss or request for direction for the board and to see how we should proceed with that.

So in the future, how do we avoid this so it doesn't take so long? I mean, I'm sure it's frustrating for your office and for the CSAs, but how do we, what's your advice to make this move quicker on these types of projects. So we're not in these situations where services might be cut off. There's obviously reserves in some of these budgets to handle some of these things. I mean, there should be enough lead time to prevent this. So what would your recommendations be to?

So I feel like this situation is a little unique in the sense that typically we do not provide services for communities that have gates. The RFP and the Prop 218 that proceeded for the Dunville gate was specifically for the construction of the gate only. So we only collected enough fees for the original cost of the gate. So anything going forward, which is the third item on the list is we need to, I guess, discuss whether we want to proceed to continue maintaining the gate for the CSA residents. which means we would have to do a Prop 218 to include those services in their annual tax levy fees because currently we are not collecting for those services.

Just for clarification purposes, you mentioned something about that fence being now private, right? Correct. And so your request comes in two pieces. The first piece is to increase the amount to complete the project, to pay the contractor for the work that was done already, and that comes from the CSA. That's one of the pieces. But the maintenance is a separate issue. How much is the maintenance on a monthly basis?

On a monthly basis, just the cloud services alone is $150 plus an annual fee of $250. And then that doesn't include anything that may come up in regards to anything that goes wrong.

So are you talking about $1,500 a year, more or less?

More or less.

or more, yes. So then the question is, and this is kind of like a tricky question because the service was not included in the original Prop 218. But not only that, the fence is now a private fence. So are we collecting funding to pay for the ongoing, it's not part of the original Prop 218. And so that's what we are right now. We need to make sure that you understand that one thing is the construction portion and the other thing is in the ongoing service. So how are we gonna pay for that when it's a private entity?

Well, again, the CSA is exactly that, to pay for the services they wanna have in their community. Whether it's a gate for the roads, for whatever projects they're doing, you have a monthly... monthly billing, and we know, say for an example, the billing of monthly services for the CSA totals out to, let's just call it $1,000 for the year. We know next year it's gonna be 1,000 plus, right? What's the buffer zone collected each year for these CSAs? So for example, if it's $1,000 in fees or payments that need to be made, do we collect 800 so we have that $200 buffer? So these new costs that come up can get paid without it being a bigger deal. I guess what I'm saying is I look at these things and say, this is $150, the gate was installed, we should have that fit in into the monthly expenses because it was their choice in the first place to get it done so that it doesn't become something that comes to the board to talk about these issues. How is the process?

Well, again, the gate is a little bit different because a gate is not a usual service that the county would be providing. The services for CSAs are generally landscaping, street maintenance. So services that we collect additional funds for that specific CSA so that it doesn't add burden to county funds.

I get it. So what though is a gate is more private service? It's on my mind. The CSA decided to put the gate. They paid for the gate. They're gonna pay for the maintenance of the gate. The county's not paying for any of it.

Yes, but I guess once they requested to turn the roads private instead of the county providing the services for maintenance, I believe it should have been given to the CSA residents as opposed to the county maintaining it.

Well, I get that, that's what I'm saying. What process do we need to make sure everybody's clear up front, make this an easier process? If it's private, the CSA is gonna pay for the road maintenance, private or public, pretty much, right?

That's what we're gonna ask direction for on that specific matter. Does the board wish for the county to stay where we're at in the terms of making the gate be private and allow the CSA residents to take over the maintenance and collect their own fees to provide their own services? Or do we do a Prop 218 to include those services

in their current annual tax levies so that we can extend services to the gate from the county we're kind of saying the same thing in different ways right a csa is responsible for their cost we should make this kind of make this simple to understand for the public for all of us their expense their they cover all their costs that should be the maintenance of road landscape whatever it is water pumps on and on and on we should know a annual budget for that for the projections of your roads going to cost so many hundreds of thousands in 10 years 20 years so on so that should be collected and the annual budget is paying out the monthly expenses for gate, cell, whatever it is, the landscaping that would happen every month. Correct? Correct. Okay. So I guess what I'm saying is how do we get to a point of simplifying? Because I've heard this CSA conversation several times and I hear some residents are not happy for this reason, that reason, but at the end of the day, it's their CSA. So It comes back to how much does it cost to operate your CSA with your gate, without your gate, for the road, future cost of the roads, for the annual cost of landscaping, so on and so on. So there's a budget number, and that budget number, again, is $1,000. and we know it costs 800, we have a buffer there to give them heads up that, you know what, next year you might have to increase to do the 218 or whatever it is. I'm just looking for a way that makes it easier on you and easier on us and the residents is what I'm looking for.

The only way going forward right now either direction is we have to do a Prop 218. We can't just calculate their expenses and say, we need to increase you. We're at the max for the CSAs, and so we do have to do a Prop 218.

Can you allow the attorney, because I think we're running into a different situation right now. Can you go ahead and elaborate?

Mr. Chair, members of the Board of Supervisors, I think Supervisor Velasquez raises a very important point, and that is when these CSAs are established, there is a very specific set of county services that are to be provided to each CSA. And the costs are then determined based on those services. As Linda said, this is not a standard county service. So this should have been the responsibility of the residents, not the CSA. And I think the simplification is that we make sure that all CSAs are provided the same county services based on the actual cost of services and any increases that we are going to face annually to provide those basic services. But the trouble we get into is when we start providing CSAs with an additional range of services, which are not your traditional county services. And so, as Linda said, this should have been the responsibility of the residents at the outset. It didn't fall within the scope of the original CSA services. And I think that's where we find ourselves today.

I would, this is the point I'm getting to here. Every CSA is gonna be different. We know that. Now, when we talk about what the county provides for a CSA, it is different on every CSA because everybody's gonna have different needs. What I'm saying is when these CSAs chose to be a CSA instead of HOA, which in my opinion should be HOA so they can provide themselves better services, they're gonna change as years go by, right? They decide, you know what? We don't want weeds part of the year, we want weeds gone all year. That means additional services. That means additional dollars, which means what does, at the end of the day, to me, it's simple as what are the costs for the year? And if you wanna put a gate or you wanna do something else that's gonna cost you 10, 20, 30,000, $100,000, what's that cost? Do you need to do the 216 to gather that money to pay for that and then to maintain that? I'm just looking for an easier way rather than try to compare each CSA to each other because...

So the issue that you're having right now is that this gate was not part of the original authorization of the CSA.

I get it.

It's a done deal. I understand that. They did a Prop 218 to install the gate. The problem you're having is... like similar with special districts. You have to be providing the authority to the special district or CSA to operate that. You say they're gonna be different. One of them are gonna be for landscaping, the other one is gonna be landscaping and sidewalks perhaps or something else. In this case, the gate is not part of the CSA authority. So you're gonna have to extend it.

I wanna remind everyone, we do have the CSA discussion on the calendar, so we can try to stay focused on this issue. I think that would be helpful, the specific one.

I think the problem that you're having right now is authorizing something that is not part of the authority of the CSA. It's not part of the description of the word to be done by the CSA. That's what you're running into it. So if you were to approve today, the maintenance of that fence, it's not in the current authority of the CSA. You're gonna have to extend that in order to pay for those services in the future.

Right, the county can't obviously be paying for that, it wasn't in the scope.

Go ahead, then, Supervisor Curro, after the county council. So, as the CEO has indicated, the board needs to authorize the amendment to the contract. And then secondly, simply you're not authorizing maintenance, you're simply giving staff direction on what to do as it relates to the ongoing maintenance of the gate, which is in order for the county not to bear that cost and the CSA to bear that cost, then we must proceed with the Prop 218 procedures to make sure that that is included. and i would just also note that the issues that the board is raising over and above that is a discussion that we will have with linda because one of the other issues that the board needs to be aware of and this is something that supervisor kiro has dealt with consistently and that is that the details of what the csa covers and what it doesn't cover are not clear And so we have an ongoing struggle to determine what was part of the CSA and what is to be paid from the CSA versus what is the county's responsibility. And that has created an awful lot of discord among the residents because it's difficult for us to give them a clear answer because it was never detailed at the outset as it should have been. So these are just issues that going forward we are gonna need to address. Thank you.

Thank you.

Spurs are correct.

I couldn't agree more with County Council. Not only was it not necessarily clear, on this specific CSA, you have a list of services. Every single CSA should have a recorded document on record with the recorder's office of what the CSA is the responsibility of the county. That's where we have a problem because there's not backup to historical CSA expenses or historical agreements when the CSA was formed. I just want to note on this CSA that in 2022-23, the net county cost was a positive of $9,698. In 23-24, it was a net positive of $4,045. Since then, it has gone into a negative, and we're at a current recommended from last fiscal year of $97,257. Is that specifically because of the gate? Correct. And they passed a Prop 218, so does the budget revenue accurately reflect how much money is coming in on the current CSA 50?

Yes, however, the additional tax revenue ended this fiscal year. So going forward, we're going to scale it back to the two original tax levy fees, reducing the revenue coming in for the gate because we've collected the full amount for the gate.

So if we've collected the full amount for the gate and the agreement originally was just to install it, my recommendation to the board would be that we do not get involved in maintenance. If maintenance is an issue they need to form an HOA and only an HOA that will pay for whatever services that HOA has. What people have to understand is HOA does not mean that you have regulations on what color you can paint your house or what you can do with your yard. You can have an HOA that just focuses on one thing, a private gate. That's it. They form it, they do it. But we need to be able to explain that and guide these CSAs to where and how to create HOAs because I do not support ongoing maintenance on a CSA, even with a Prop 218 vote. We need to get out of that business. So... Right now, my recommendation to the board would be approve the one time costs if a prop to 18 has to happen to recoup that one time costs, I have a concern because i'm seeing a $97,000 deficit in the CSA.

I would have to go back and look at in detail their expenses but. they do have a water treatment facility that takes up most of their fees so i think in general i will have to proceed with the prop 218 to get them up or get their revenues up to cover the services for their water and and i agree with the chair this goes into the much deeper conversation that we need to have and when we have that meeting which i thought was going to be on thursday but got canceled we need to invite csa's to this meeting so that they can hear

the broader, bigger picture issue.

I have a question. So the additional cost that you're requesting to be paid to complete the contractor contract is 2,640. So what is that 98 something thousand dollars that you said is in deficit? That's my question.

That's what was budgeted for next fiscal year.

Budgeted for what?

or water treatment services, any repairs, utilities. So you are upside down in that account? Some of those expenses are coming for the reserve funds for future repairs that we are aware of now. And then we're adding a little bit more based on the repairs that occurred this year.

And so this is where my question comes. When we have the conversation about CSAs, it's not just about the budget, it's about how much is in their accounts. Several CSAs have reached out to me and are asking, what is the balance in our account right now? And that has to be known when we're having this conversation about CSAs, because if we don't know how much is in that account, we don't know, should we be approving a budget of a negative 97,000?

this is a long conversation i had with steve for many years and now it's like i'm done i'm done talking about it we need to start addressing it so i believe their annual revenue is about 67 000 and the additional um expenses for repairs are coming from their reserve funds i know for a fact one is that they do need a new water tank

And that's a big ticket item that you have to save for many years to be able to afford because our community is doing that and it's taking us 10 years to save up for it. The revenues have shown actuals in 22, 23, they were at almost 85,000, 23, 24, they were at 91,000 plus. So we need to be looking at how all this ties together and going back to the original CSA documentation, this is a huge project that one person can't do without support from others. So my concern is, I believe we can cover this because their revenues are pretty substantial. I think we can cover this $2,000, but I do not support ongoing maintenance.

Okay, so go ahead. Mr. Chair, sorry. Yeah, excuse me. I swear I'm fine. Yeah, the county should not be in the business of maintaining gated communities gates. I think that's very, to me, that's just out of bounds as far as what we should be doing. So what we need to do going forward is find a way to resolve this, obviously, without setting any precedent that work, because there are other gated communities as well. So I'm concerned that we're gonna be getting into a hole Um, precedent setting situation here as far as gates, no gates, um. You know, my understanding is that there's a, there's a push against having, you know, from the fire side of this whole equation to that. There's a push against even having. These gated communities going forward because it creates complications if there are emergencies to get into these gated communities. Um, but. A county like us, we provide basic services and this is a prime example of why we should not be in this level of CSA CFD service providing. Basic services like roads and just lay those out and that's what we need to really hash out when we have that meeting is really kind of lay the future pathway of how we're going to be administering CSA CFDs. But yes, we should not be... the County of San Benito, the taxpayers of our community should not be getting involved, whether it's through Prop 218s, that's why they should have an HOA. And we need to make that very clear to these CSAs going forward that if even if it's just to form an HOA to address issues like a gate, then that needs to happen because we should not be getting involved in fixing gates and maintaining gates.

I have one concern. So I understand that we should not be involved in the gate services. I totally agree. I'm not in disagreement. What I'm concerned though is that we got involved in building a fence that now has to be maintained. And so was the contractor what made the county aware that once that the gate was built, a maintenance will be required? Didn't the staff knew that by building a gate, you actually put in a community in a difficult situation in which now they had to pay for the gate service? I'm just wondering what was the, What would they were thinking when they were building the fence? Who requested the fence? How would the fence was approved for part two without looking into the future about the maintenance? It doesn't make sense to me.

Thank you. Yeah, I mean, I would, naturally, I would assume that the residents considered that they were going to be maintaining it and operating it and paying for that, I assume, because I don't think they expected the county to do that, considering they were paying for it. Yeah, it's going back to what I'm saying.

Is a county going to maintain a gate? Of course not. We have no clue on how to maintain gates, fences, and these types of things. You hire the contractor who did the gate, and I'm sure the group understands that these things are not cheap to maintain. There's going to be problems. As I understand it, they acknowledge that. they're gonna be willing to pay for any of those costs. So I wanna make sure we're clear that this is not something other taxpayers are paying for. We're talking about a CSA that has to pay their own cost. And if you've heard me once, you've heard me a thousand times, I will not take dollars from somewhere else to pay somebody else's bills. They, this CSA from the conversation I've had, they acknowledge that. That's not what they're looking for. All they're looking for is to make sure the bills get paid with the money they've provided. If it needs more money, fine. The 218 process, whatever it's going to take to get them there. And I'm looking forward to this conversation with CSAs because I think somehow we made it more complicated than it has to be. And to me, it's numbers. based on what those residents want. Every community is different on what they want. So I think we can get there. I think there's just confusion where nobody's paying for this other than those residents of this community. I just wanna make sure we get this thing going so we don't get services cut and have different problems. And then we can have a robust conversation on CSAs one through 50, whatever there is out there to make this thing, again, more streamlined and more efficient. Because in my opinion, every owner of a CSA involved should be able to go look at their account. That group should be able to look at their account, what's in there, how much reserve do they have, what's expected cost of road maintenance in 10 years for replacing a water tank in 15 years, so on. Because that's how they can get to the true numbers. And that's, I think, what we can do to make sure everyone understands it is their responsibility. No other taxpayers are going to bail them out, and that's not what they're asking for here. All they're asking for is to make sure their bills get paid, the money they provided.

Thank you, so we have a couple different items then that we need to go through as far as the actual agenda item. So the first is the 2640 for the actual construction of the gate, adding that. So we can separate these out. First, we can deal with that. Is there a motion to approve adding the additional 2,640 for a total not to exceed of 98,640. So moved. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. Can we have roll call vote?

Supervisor Zenger?

Yes.

Supervisor Velazquez?

Yes.

Supervisor Kosmicki?

Yes.

Supervisor Sotelo? Yes. Supervisor Curl? 5-0 vote motion passes.

Great, thank you. Then the second half would be regarding the ongoing gate maintenance payments and so I guess I've heard that the idea sewers accrue throughout helping them form an HOA to do that versus I guess the other option would be just going through a 218 to increase the fees every year for that, right? Those are the two options if I understand correctly that we've presented. Okay, yes.

Thank you. When was the gate completed? In December. In December. So have we been accruing the $150 cloud charge since let's say January for the last five months?

Yes.

So what do we do about paying those $150 charges I don't see this HOA, I mean, I like that direction, but it's not gonna happen overnight. And so do we have like, okay, for this year, the goal is by December of 2026, that HOA is completed and that is all done. But I feel like we're a little bit on the hook for, paying some of these invoices, or we're just gonna ask this contractor to, sorry, we'll pay you in a year, or the homeowners will pay you a year from now. I kind of feel a little bit weird about that. Like, what do we do in the interim? Because we have accrued existing invoices.

We're missing one piece of the situation. We don't have a contract with him for maintenance. The contract for the installation doesn't include maintenance. How do we pay someone without a contract? Even if the board decides, I understand your concern, it's the same concern that I have. That's why I ask the question, were we aware of having this contract for services? If we didn't, and now we're delayed on paying the service, we need a contract in between to pay for those services, but make sure that those services are gonna be from the CSA, part of the Prop 218, even if you do it until the end of the year.

Right, right, no, 100%. I just think we have to consider that as we discuss this, right, that it's not just about, okay, well, we'll have this HOA discussion. There has to be a little bit more about what are we going to do from January to current because those invoices exist. I totally acknowledge and hear you that we're outside of contract, But that's not going to change the fact that there are these. So I just feel like there's two different parts to that.

You're making a great point. This is why these things, I don't believe, should be this complicated. This is a utility bill, basically, to provide cell service so the gates can open and close. And if emergency vehicles come in, they can get right in because they have the codes to get that taken care of. That again should be paid from their budget their annual budget that's why I use example if it's $1,000 we budget for. And we're actually only paying 800 there's always a reserve to catch these additional bills that are going to come up because again, nobody else is going to pay for it, but. the organization, CSA, HOA, whatever you wanna call it. So somewhere in that budget, there should be dollars that pays that bill and that shouldn't be the complicated part. I agree with what you're saying. They need to be aware that there should be a maintenance contract figured out what that's gonna cost. So that's figured into the 218 to cover the cost of that and the water tower or tank, whatever it's gonna be needed in the future replacement parts. So these are all important pieces that have to be clarified. That's why I'm looking forward to the next discussion when we can about these CSAs and HOAs and how do we stop this?

So I guess one potential solution is the following. If you allow me to maybe place a solution just for this year. That was my biggest concern. It feels that we acquired that responsibility. So including the Prop 218, the 2,600 and something that is all for the construction and the one year service that ends December of this year and allow the staff enough time to be able to discuss, have that discussion with the residents for the HOA. but I think that will be the only proper way to do it, because that gate needs to be service, having service.

Then would we need to bring back some, we'd have to bring back a contract then for the work that's been done already, right?

Yes, we'll do the paperwork, but my biggest concern now is that she needs direction, staff needs direction about Do we include the Prop 218 with the 2,600 that is pending to complete the project? And number two, can we include in the Prop 218 the one-year service subject to us to be able to get the agreement, and then for the next year, if that will work with the group so they can create the HOA?

Okay. Does that make sense? That makes sense to me.

I would only ask that we also know what the fund balance is of CSA 50. I just sent you an email saying we have a fund balance in the ACFER of all CSAs. We don't have a fund balance for each CSA. And that's where we need that for that meeting when we have a group, the CSA conversation. Otherwise, we're not having any sort of understanding of where they're at fiscally. Sounds good.

That's a very important point. Very important point. And again, this is basically a utility bill on this that we're talking about. So we need to get that caught up, keep it moving forward, and then have that deep discussion on these. Because this really, to put it this way, shouldn't be something we're dealing with. It just shouldn't be. And I think there should be an easier process for all this. Thank you.

So Mr. Chair, the recommendation of the CEO, what I heard was to go to the residents with the 218 to incorporate the 2640 on top of the one-year maintenance, which roughly comes to, sounds like about $44,000 to $4,500 in total, and to come back in a year after the staff has given time to hash it out. I'd make that motion.

Well, just a quick second here, though, because I also heard.

Hold on, he made the motion, so now we have to have a second before we can discuss it.

Oh, second. Give me. You're right. Sorry, I'll second that. I'll second it properly. There's also a conversation you pointed out about a replacement of a water tank potentially and maybe some other equipment. So that has to be discussed into this 218 to cover all these costs, correct?

She will have to come back to the board to include that in the Prop 218 with a projected cost for the project, including engineering, design, so whatever is needed. We don't have those numbers right now. So for us to include that into the Prop 218, it's not in the agenda, number one. So we need to come back maybe on June the 9th if that's the desire of the board. to have all the numbers and do just one Prop 218 to include all those services. But also to analyze what budget they have available. We don't know the balance. So if there's something missing, then we'll have to do an analysis of whatever is missing and the CSA balance right now, maybe other costs that we have not foreseen and they're upside down. So we need to bring that completely, a full discussion.

Okay, just for, again, for me, for clarity, but what we're approving now covers this cost already for this monthly fee that hasn't been taken care of or that... bell service or whatever it is to get the gates open and closed because that's that's a critical part of any gate system i want to make sure that's covered and that's going to continue to operate properly because that bill is paid so under the motion we'd be coming back this would be giving direction to come back on the next so for now the issue right now is to proceed with the one-year contract for the maintenance of the gate

and come back also, so they don't stop right now. The gate needs to be serviced. So we're proceeding with that, but then we'll come back next meeting with the total of what is all under the Prop 250, the total that is all under the CSA, including the fees, the water tank, and the $2,600 all together projected so that you can make a decision and give direction to us to proceed with the Prop 218, acknowledging all the costs that are gonna be involved with Prop 218, not just the $2,600 and the one-year contract, everything that comes together.

I'll move my motion to incorporate as stated by the CEO. I'll approve.

Okay. So then we have a first and a second. We're on set? Good. Can we have roll call vote, please?

Supervisors anger yes supervisor Alaska yes supervisor cosmic yes supervisor so tell oh yes supervisor curl yes five zero vote motion passes.

Thank you. Okay, we will now be moving on to the item that we added at the beginning of this meeting, this is from Cisco Diaz.

Good morning, Mr. Chair, Board of Supervisors. I wanna thank you for adding this item as an urgency item. I also wanna thank County Council, County Administration for helping us put this item together and also for working on this Labor Memorial Day weekend. Let me pull up the item. While processing an urgent request from a technical election onsite support, a county council review a historical contract structure with Dominion Voting. In doing so, they identify legacy procedure and consistency dating back a couple years. As a result, we are here today to present Amendment 2 and Amendment 3 for board ratification to formalize our administrative record and ensure absolute compliance moving forward. rather than allowing these processes or past practices to continue by bringing these contracts forward today we will align our past actions with current established standards and correct the record we are here in good faith to finalize the compliance transition and also to secure a new agreement with the successor company liberty vote in amendment 4. by providing these items we ensure that we're going to have election on-site technical support to be able to assist and mitigate any risk that we may have while counting ballots and it'll help us meet our deadlines but also it ensures our contracts are fully legally compliant and the record is set straight thank you thank you it's your public comment

If you'd like to make a comment in chambers, please provide a speaker card on zoom. You can press star nine or the raise hand icon. I have no public comments.

Thank you. Any questions from board members? Yes.

I don't have any questions, because I was part of the RFP process for Dominion Voting well before it became Liberty. The process had three phases to it, just to educate the board a little bit about what happened and the new administration. We had an RFP process that went out to all systems that were certified in the state of California, or soon to be certified in the state of California. We then went to, had, internal analysis of the functions of the system and how it integrates with the operations of elections. And then we also did a very extensive public outreach. And we had all the vendors come with their systems and we invited all the community. We had over 100 people attend in the evaluation of this system. And the ranking system was very detailed about how it was gonna be ranked, how much was weighted in each one of these areas. And in the end, the Dominion voting system did win, even though personally, I was actually leaning towards the Hart system, which I'm really glad we didn't do because it did not get certified in time for that election. So election systems and voting systems are very extensive. And as technology changes and as things grow, we have to always keep in mind where new systems could come. But changing a voting system is not like just changing a contract. And so it changes everything in the operation. So I do support this amendment. And I understand that Liberty Systems is now a US based organization as opposed to a Canadian based voting system.

Mr. Sherman, I would like to point out two things and want to make sure that everybody understands how difficult it is for me to make the following statement. I wasn't aware of this situation, that recorders didn't approach me. He approached county council. So that for me is the number one red flag. If you expect me to manage the operations from each department, each department, whether it's an elected official or not, they need to contact me directly when they have an initial like this. The second issue that I have with this contract, this is retroactive two years. two years when you already know the schedule for elections. It's not like you prepare an agenda out of nowhere. You have a pre-schedule elections. You know that it's coming your way and you to prepare yourself and here we are on an emergency item, last minute. That is not acceptable for me. So I just wanna point it out, put it in perspective, that is the expectation is that I coordinate those departments that are under elected officials, that they come to me and discuss those items. Because this is the second time that I have this issue, that I'm not being approached, and the county council has to work with them. until I find out later on when they inform me what is happening. That is not acceptable. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other, anything else from the board at this time?

so if i make make a comment this item was rather quickly and expedited in the last week or so and i do want to work and collaborate with county council i want to collaborate in good faith as it was said at the last meeting however this all transpired in the last week As I said, this is a legacy contract, and the conversation, text, and emails that I do have on record clearly state from Rebecca Mojica on Friday that this needed to go forward on Saturday, on Sunday. It was not my intent to bring it at this meeting because I thought we could do it at a future meeting. This all transpired rather quickly, and I do want to work and collaborate with County Council in that spirit, as it was said before. And once again, I am here in good faith trying to create, ratify, and correct omissions that were done several years ago with the assistance of previous county administration and county council. I do not want to get into an arguing debate, but I do want to set the record straight, as there are other department heads that are watching this, and we are trying to resolve these omissions from previous years.

Mr. Diaz, you never contacted me, I'm sorry. I had to put you on the spot because you never contacted me. You went behind my back with County Council. You know you pre-schedule elections. You are very aware when you're having elections. If you know that this issue is coming your way, whether it's tentatively or not, you should let me know in advance, but you didn't. You waited to the last minute. I just wanna make sure that you understand that.

I'm trying to work with you. I'm sure we can deal with the rest of it offline.

Let's just do that. But just one correction, if I may, really quick. One second, let's get through this. I have to speak. This is not an item that was scheduled for this election. We reached out to our vendor to ask for onsite support because we're having difficulties with the current stat levels. When we asked for technical support to help us on election day so we can count the ballots this issue came forward. It is not something that I was planning on coming forward this month, this year, at all. It came forward upon legal review, and thanks to their consultation, we are here, but this is not pre-scheduled. This happened because we wanted election support, that's all. Okay. Thank you.

All right, is there a motion then from the board at this time? I move to approve. Second. Thank you, we have first and second. Can we have roll call vote, please?

Supervisor Zenger?

Yes.

Supervisor Velazquez?

Yes.

Supervisor Kosmicki?

Yes.

Supervisor Sotelo? Yes. Supervisor Curro?

Yes.

Five-zero vote, motion passes.

Thank you. Thank you, that will conclude our regular agenda. We'll move to closed session. Do we have any public comment for closed session?

If you'd like to make a comment for closed session in chambers, please provide a speaker card. On Zoom, you can press star nine or the raise hand icon. On Zoom, I have one. Stacy, you've been unmuted. You have three minutes. Stacy, you need to unmute yourself. Thank you so much and I apologize. I just wanted to bring up just a couple of little idea concerns regarding closed session.

First of all, it's critically important on one of your items on closed session that Supervisor Kosmicki must recuse himself. It's come to our attention that he doesn't intend or apparently has not retained counsel, which is certainly his right to do so, but it government code 8314 would prohibit him from using public resources for campaign activity, and recall is considered a campaign, which means that county council cannot be providing any advice or support in this issue. Also, the California Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 1.7, prohibits representation involving a conflict of interest. And just to reinforce the concerns, Transparency and trust are critical for the people of this community. It's the intention and desire of our community to have accountable, transparent governance, and that cannot be ignored. Thank you so much.

Mr. Chair, if I may briefly respond as to item 4.6, Supervisor Kosmicki is of course recusing himself, will not be present, and will not have access to any of the information because of the stated conflict. I would also note that we have not and will not provide any information to supervisor kosmicki in this context because he is acting in his capacity as a candidate and not as a supervisor and finally our representation is of the registrar of voters not supervisor kosmicki so we will continue to discharge our ethical duties as required thank you thank you

Sorry, I have no other public comment.

Thank you. Okay, we will adjourn to closed session then. Thank you.

recording in progress

Okay, welcome back. We are back from closed session. County Council, is there any reportable action?

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the Board of Supervisors. The Board of Supervisors met in closed session as to items 4.1 through 4.6 this afternoon. There is no reportable action except as to item 4.3. That's a matter of real property negotiations involving the Verizon Cell Tower and Veterans Memorial Park. The Board has directed that we proceed with a special meeting and a closed session with the Veterans Commission, since they have statutory authority under the county code to consider any negotiations and offer. Thank you.

Thank you. To future agenda items, we have no new future agenda item requests. Is there any public comment on future agenda items?

If you'd like to make a comment on Zoom, please press star nine on the raise hand icon. And I have no public comment.

Thank you. That brings us to adjournment. Thank you.