Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

The board can't act on the spot. They'll refer your comments to the chief administrative officer who will look into the issue. Last thing, the board will hear from the first 10 speakers, five in person and five by phone at the beginning of the session. Then all the remaining speakers will get their chance to speak after the discussion items. During the consent agenda, the board handles a bunch of routine items with one vote. If you want to comment on an item, keep it simple. For example, I'm John Doe speaking on item five, and I agree with approving the contract. Discussion items are the main event where the board debates before making a decision. Want to speak at one of the meetings? It's really easy. Just hop online and fill out a quick request form at publiccomment.sandiegocounty.gov. Pick the meeting you're interested in, hit the register button, then fill in your details. Make sure to include a phone number if you plan on speaking by phone. Prefer speaking at the podium in the board chamber? No problem. Just pick the in-person option. After that, just check off the agenda items you want to talk about and let them know you're for, against, or neutral on them. Hit register and you're good to go. A confirmation email will land in your inbox to wrap it up. If you're speaking by phone, the email will include the instructions for how to dial in. Be sure to submit your request early. Once public comment begins on the agenda item, we can't take any more requests to speak.

And if you have documents, hand them to the deputy clerk when it's your turn to speak at the podium.

Now, you get two minutes to speak, but if lots of people want to talk, it might get cut to one minute. So, you might want to consider writing two sets of comments. One for two minutes, another one for one. That way, if time's cut, you won't be scrambling. There's also a countdown clock at the podium to keep you on track. Once you're at the podium, stay on topic. Stick to the current agenda item. If you stray off topic, you might get a gentle nudge to get back to the point. Keep your comments related to the agenda item's recommendations because that's what the board is relying on to make a decision. Also, speak directly to the board. They're the ones making the decision. When your time's up, it's up. Overstaying might mean getting muted or even asked to leave. Now for some ground rules. For safety, keep aisles and doorways clear. If there isn't a seat, head across the hall to room 302 or the fourth floor balcony to watch the meeting. Respect is huge. Everyone should feel heard. That means you, other speakers, and the board of supervisors. Disruptive behavior gets one warning, and after that, a deputy sheriff might show you the door. So let's keep it respectful. Your voice matters, and we want to hear from you. Remember, we're all here to make a difference.

you

Supervisor Desmond. Here. Chair Pro Temigiri. Here. Vice Chair Montgomery-Stupp.

Here.

And Chair Lawson-Riemer.

Okay, thank you very much. Before beginning, I'm going to go through our House rules. Public engagement is the cornerstone of a transparent and accountable government, and these Board of Supervisors meetings are one of the primary venues where people in our community can make their voices heard. Under the board rules, speakers may not use loud shouting, threatening, slanderous, profane, and abusive language to any member of the board, staff, or the general public. Second, all remarks and questions must remain on topic during the duration of your speaking time. Third, these remarks must be addressed to the board and not to county staff. And fourth, audience members shall not whistle, clap, stomp feet, or do anything that disrupts the proceedings. Any speaker who breaks these rules will be issued a warning. After one warning, you will be asked to leave the chambers for the remainder of the meeting. Finally, speakers threatening violence may be reported to law enforcement and removed. We will now proceed with the closed session report. Counsel is the report from yesterday.

Good morning. The Board of Supervisors met in closed session on September 15th, 2026 from 4.55 p.m. to 6.04 p.m. All board members were present except Supervisor Anderson was not present for item 26C. The board took the following reportable action. On item 26B, by a vote of five to zero, the board authorized county council to initiate litigation. Particulars about the litigation will be disclosed to any person upon inquiry after litigation has formally commenced. End of report.

Okay. Thank you. We now begin with a non-agenda public comment. This is an opportunity for the public to address matters within our board jurisdiction, but not a matter on our agenda today. The only thing we may do is refer the matter to the CAO. Speakers can speak once per meeting for non-agenda public comment. That's either today or yesterday at your choice. We will have five speakers in person and five speakers by phone at the beginning of the meeting. The remainder will be held at the end of the session. And the first five in-person speakers will be selected by random in order to facilitate fair participation. Members of the public that are non-English speaking and need additional assistance will receive twice the allotted time for their comments. And once again, a reminder, if you break any of the rules of the chamber, you will be given a warning. And after that warning, you will be asked to leave the meeting for the remainder of the meeting. Ryan, please call the speakers.

Thank you, Chair Lawson-Rumor. We do have five total requests to speak on matters not listed on the agenda, two of those individuals coming in person, and three by requesting to speak by phone. For those that requested to speak by phone, if you could please dial into the speaker line now. We will begin with the in-person speakers. As your name is called, if you could please come forward and stand on the arrows. If you could please begin by saying your name for the audio record, and I would like to invite forward Cesar Javier and Parita Javier, and you will have two minutes to address the board.

Speak directly into it.

Try your best to speak louder.

I am Purita, security with existing medical condition and victim of ceramics kiln toxicity since 1997. or our neighbors since 1984. I met, be there, located, and the overall, the certificated a vocational trainee at and is for the College Board of Trustee is counselor Hello, Rivera. Our chronic absentees at the APCD governing Mm-hmm. Residential zone, dedicated community since our... Cesar, the husband, the caregiver.

Thank you, human services. Finally, you recognize our state and condition. We need the opposite of hard heart, deafness in your ears. What else? The moral dimension supposed to be in favor of health, and safety that is the essence of land use mom mommy step no steep neck on our issue we were thankful that you were at the city college district meeting that is not your posture right there you were in hollywood costume mom and we were very happy present there in a hope that you could support our request from the city to help us evade because the owner is a graduate of Mesa College, and Mesa College has something to do, responsible for their graduate. Ma'am, thank you for your presence then, but your presence was opposite. Opposite to our intent. Ma'am Premier, Air Commission Board has declared January 2026, do something. Secondhand smoke is declared air pollutant. What shall we do? Air pollution control district. Mom line use expert. I am not hateful of you. We are here to help you redirect you to do the right thing as mandated by ethics. I have only a few more seconds. We plead. We cry. We ask God and we work for it.

Thank you. Thank you. Your time is up. We will now hear from those that have requested to speak by phone. Again, when it's your turn to speak, you'll be unmuted. You will hear a recording that will tell you to begin your comments, and we will go ahead and begin with our first caller.

Good morning, Board of Supervisors. My name is Diane Grace. I'm a parent. public health educator, and county planning group attendee. I come today because I feel that our board of supervisors cares about how our residents are housed and how our county unincorporated land is used. Regarding housing, we know that any county resident, regardless of their financial or living situation, would benefit equally from clean air. It would change their health outcomes significantly. The best way to achieve this is for every resident to live and play in smoke-free and vape-free environments. There are two major strategies to effectively accomplish this. One, adopt smoke-free and vape-free policies for housing and public places. Two, make smoking and vaping products less appealing and available where there are tobacco or marijuana. This fall is a great time to begin the process to implement smoke-free and vape-free policies for public places and apartment complexes. And now is the time for our county to hold the course, allowing no more stores that sell or enable the use of tobacco, marijuana, or CBD smoking and vaping products. Think how far it would go to eliminate smoking and vaping-related disease and death. This would also address disparities that occur among those less able to protect themselves from the effects of secondhand and thirdhand smoke. Thank you.

Thank you. We will go to our next caller.

Barbara Gordon, good morning, supervisors. I wanted to share with you the results from a statewide organization called Getting It Right From the Start that collected data from tobacco retailers in California for the sale of illegal intoxicating products. The data demonstrates that the sale of these psychoactive products from tobacco retailers is a widespread problem. Products are sold like Kratom, which acts on opiate receptors. It's highly addictive. Repeated use leads to tolerance, dependence, and the need for progressively higher doses. Another product, nitric oxide, is used legally in medicine or dentistry or the food industry, but it's a growing source of abuse by our teens and young people, causing an increased number of deaths severe burns, and serious neurological injuries. Products sold as psychedelic mushrooms can cause significant impairment, psychosis, and other adverse health effects. Intoxicating hemp products that contain THC, these products are available to our teens and youth who are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects like psychosis and addiction. The packaging of these products is typically marketed to youth. All these products that were found at our tobacco retailers, again, are illegal to sell. Having a tobacco license is not a license to sell drugs to our kids. There is a need, and I urge you to have more local policies and enforcement efforts to stop the sale of these products. Thank you for letting me speak.

Thank you. We'll go to our next speaker.

Good morning, Board of Supervisors. Ann Riddle here. I came to share with you what I feel is some really good news for parents and those who care about our young people. AB, let me get the number correct for you, AB 2249 has been passed by the governor, signed by the governor. It originated with Assemblymember Jackie Irwin, one of our own Southern California legislators. And what it would do is ban any marijuana product that was designed or likely to appeal to those under the age of 21. Things like cartoons or other young people looking to be under 21 or mythological characters. Also, they are concerned about those products that are normally consumed by children, like candy, cereal, sweets, and desserts, that those products... and their labeling not show up on anything that is a marijuana product because children wouldn't really know the difference. What's exciting about this is that this has been a second attempt to have this happen. And finally, the public has spoken and our legislators have responded and recognized what a serious issue it is to misportray marijuana to young people. However, it is disconcerting that the marijuana industry replied that they were very much object to this legislation because it would affect their profits. A sad commentary on marijuana businesses. Thank you.

Thank you. And Chair Lawson-Riemer, that is going to conclude the request for non-agenda public communication for the day.

Okay, thank you very much. The next item on our agenda is approval of minutes and statement of proceedings for the concurrent special district meeting of the Sanitation District for June 24th and June 25th. Do I have a motion? Okay, we have a motion by Supervisor Desmond, a second by Vice Chair Montgomery Stepp. Please vote.

And Chair Loftus, remember that motion passes unanimously with all supervisors who are present in voting aye.

Okay, we now proceed with the consent agenda. These items are routine and will be acted upon with one motion. First, I will ask my colleagues if they have any comments or any items to pull, and then we'll go to public comment. Vice Chair?

No items to pull. I'm happy to move the consent agenda. I do just... have a comment on item number three. And I just want to thank the Spring Valley Community Alliance for your work in using their lived experience and knowledge to bring attention to much needed local programs that would go above and beyond the Spring Valley Community Plan. I also want to thank PDS staff for their role as a collaborator in recognizing support and capacity needed for the alliance is partners and the residents of Spring Valley. So I appreciate everyone's work on this and the grant that is noted in item number three. I have moved the consent agenda. Thank you.

OK, thank you very much, Vice Chair. Chair Pertem? Just a quick comment on item three. Happy to second. I want to say that Spring Valley residents have long called for safer streets, greener neighborhoods, better access to services, and more opportunities for their local families. Through the Spring Valley Seeds Initiative, hundreds of residents, youth, business owners, and community organizations came together to define what a better quality of life could look like. from safer walking and biking routes to community health, workforce development and protection against displacement. I want Spring Valley residents to know that we heard them. This application is an important opportunity to turn their vision into real improvements in their community. The funding is highly competitive, but Spring Valley has done the work and built those partnerships. And I'm hopeful that the state will recognize that this investment is important and what it could mean for residents. And I'm proud to support the item. Thank you. Thank you very much. Supervisor Desmond.

Thank you, Madam Vice Chair. Nothing to pull. I do have an item number one. This is the advertised and award construction contract for drainage culvert repair and replacement. I just want to acknowledge the great work of the Department of Public Works because of their outstanding achievement in bringing our road network to an average level. pavement condition index of 70. We're now able to direct more dollars into other critical infrastructure, such as the $4.5 million in culvert repairs being presented today. So thanks very much for your good work. I'm happy to support you.

Okay, thank you very much. Supervisor Anderson, we are doing consent. Do you have any items to pull or any comments?

And done at this time, thank you.

Okay, we'll move to public comment, thanks.

Thank you, Chair Loftus-Riemer. We do have seven total requests to speak on items on the consent agenda, two individuals in person, and five requesting to speak by phone. For those that requested to speak by phone, if you could please dial into the conference line. We will go ahead and begin with the in-person speakers. As your name is called, if you could please come forward. You will then have two minutes to address the board. If you could please begin by stating your name for the record. Also, when speaking, if you could please identify which items on the consent agenda you are speaking about. I'd like to invite forward Cesar Javier and allegedly Audra to the podium. You have two minutes to address the board.

Cesar and Purita, seniors with existing medical condition from ceramics toxicity. We are here to help. We are here to learn and teach in our humble ability. Item number one. This has been the culprit. SECA exempt Why?

It's always in favor of business.

We have a lot of businessmen here, wealthy San Diegans, and we are here. Few minority, weak, less. Justice delayed, justice denied. SECA is misused, your honors. SECA is abused mom stiff. Harshness in heart is stiffness in neck, ignored and neglected. SECA by law has something to do correlated very strongly with what is happening in Tijuana River pollution. What have we done? This is it. We should not only review, but sorry for the noise. My apology. It will never happen next time. Please do something. That is second mom. You spoke to me. Oh, that is the general rule. We want the specific. What is he specifically want to hear mom dying and sick people? Thank you, God.

So with two and four, you're talking about easements and right-of-ways, vacating and acquiring, and I would like you guys to be mindful of the many times and the history of where they are not used for their purpose and kept for decades, and then wound up being vacated so much longer later that people could be using their property a lot sooner, so whatever. And number three, no, I don't think we should be getting any money for this climate communities program when what you guys are doing is putting people in danger to save the planet. You want us to get out of our cars. You don't want us to drive. You want us to be using public transit. You're building communities that have no evacuation routes except for one way in and one way out. And when you're getting people out of their cars, I'm wondering how you're expecting them to evacuate in a disaster. It is dangerous to be implementing these things to save a planet. that could potentially take people's lives. So you guys need to quit putting profit over people. And you do that every time that you're pushing this fear agenda that we need to save the planet. Because the things that you are doing are not doing that. Like solar energy is toxic to the environment. These buses, the battery energy storage is not only toxic, but they're lithium bombs. I mean, sitting here and saying that there's no geoengineering or cloud seeding that is causing storms, instead you like that to push the propaganda of that the climate is heating up and that the sea levels are rising when like in Midway, that used to be underwater. All that's happening is the water is rising to where it used to be. But you guys use it to push your agenda. And this comes from the United Nations. So you are pushing a globalist agenda. And you sit here and say that you represent the people, but you do not. And that needs to stop.

Thank you. We will now hear from those that are requested to speak by phone. When it is your turn to speak, you'll be unmuted. You will hear a recording that will tell you to begin your comments. And we will go ahead and begin with our first caller.

Oh, bold. Thank you, Naomi. But amazing. Almost comedic that the You know me, number seven, sanitation district, quick claim. It's amazing, almost comedic that the property owner had to inform the sanitation district that there was already a house built on the land to get that to do a quick claim and give them the extra land. Jaymon Newford charging landowners $6,500 now when you could have done it both properties at one time and split the cost. Two, valley center excavation. Not sure I like summary vacation unless it is in fact necessary. Here you would be vacating three parcels for a shopping mall in a rural community. There goes neighborhoods. Public Works must be having a three-for-one sale. Last time, one summer vacation cost the owner $6,500. The owner here gets three for that price. One, culvert repair. Looks good, except I would suggest beginning work right now, if possible, to minimize the expected flooding and other impacts from El Nino. Four, Ashwood Street corridor. An eminent domain proceeding. Leave it to government to call it something else. Glad that land, but no houses are affected. And having traveled that road, I can attest that it wouldn't be bad to widen it. Also, looks from property map Ashwood Street is wide at each end.

Thank you. Your time is up. We will go ahead and go to our next speaker.

Good morning, board. My name is Kathleen Lippitt. I'd like to address consent item five. Starlight solar is a 588 acre monstrosity that will destroy the same wildlife biodiversity that you celebrated yesterday. Ignoring CEQA considerations were summarily dismissed just as they have been on your social equity cannabis ordinance as well as your other projects. The county planning group that opposed this project was also summarily ignored. There are fire and safety risks, environmental and cultural impacts, and a cumulative burden on the areas that are being unduly concentrated with these projects. You will be long gone, but these problems will remain for these unincorporated residents. You may have the authority, you do not have the right. Thank you for letting me speak.

Thank you. We'll go to our next speaker.

Hector here. I say keep all solar projects out of the unincorporated areas in the backcountry and stuff. Put them over the shopping malls. Fashion Valley, cover it with solar panels. Mission Valley, cover it with with solar panels, big time. I live up on the hill from there. Just cover them with a huge amount of solar thing there. And put them on every trolley station. The trolley runs on DC, which is solar, but it's generated with AC, and they have to step down the AC to DC at each trolley station. So what the hell's with that? Let's run the trolley off DC direct instead of paying extra to change the AC to DC to run the trolley cars. But anyway, Nick Shirley's coming to town, man. 12 investigators for daycare. Nine of them were illegal aliens, Somalis. There's all sorts of corruption going on. We need to hire Nick Shirley, pay him 30 grand to sit on the board and start going after all the different things. The transportation guys, the daycare guys,

Sir, can you please clarify which item you're speaking to?

Well, the solar panel thing, backcountry and the solar panel. But I had some more stuff to say on that. We got the clear out the culvert.

Excuse me, sir. Please ensure your comments are confined to that item. Thank you.

Okay. Clear out all the culverts. In the past, the San Diego City and County neglected the engineered culverts that we already had and allowed plants to grow in because of the environment. We can't clear these things.

Sir, please pause. Which item, I've asked you now, I said you can be on item one, two, three, four, or seven. Which of the items?

The item that does the culverts.

Okay, sir, which item is that one? Item one.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Item one. So on the culverts, any engineered culvert we have needs to be cleared out. I don't care about the vegetation, the dirt that's in there, some birds in there living. They got to be cleared out no matter what. We paid the price a big time for not doing it. Even in Mission Valley, the San Diego River, they kept the culverts with plants and dirt over decades.

Thank you. Your time is up. And Chair Lawson-Rumor, that concludes public comment on the items on the consent agenda.

Okay. Thank you all very much. We have a motion on the floor from Vice Chair Montgomery-Stepp and a second by Chair Parton-McGee. Please vote.

And Chair Lawson-Rumor, that motion passes unanimously with all supervisors being present and voting aye.

Okay, fantastic. So now we move on to item five, and this is notice public hearing approve the Starlight Solar Project to allow for the development of a solar energy generation and storage facility and certify the environmental impact report. We do have a county presentation, so we'll begin with the county team. Thanks.

Good morning. Before we begin the slide presentation, we'd like to share a little context for renewable energy projects and why we're seeing them where they are proposed in the unincorporated county. California has passed legislation setting ambitious goals for renewable energy generation by 2045. To achieve these goals, California is seeing renewable energy projects proposed by private property owners throughout the state with utility providers entering into purchase agreements for the energy generation. San Diego County has seen similar projects proposed, with several projects approved in the East County based on availability of unbuilt land and proximity to energy transmission infrastructure. Today's project, Starlight Solar, is the largest solar project we've seen proposed in our jurisdiction. While there have been multiple design project changes based on community comments, especially in the last nine months, we recognize there are still aspects of the project the community would like to see additional changes. If the board would like to incorporate any additional changes, staff and the project applicant will be able to answer questions on which changes can be made today. Now we'll begin our slide presentation. Thank you.

Good morning, Chair Lawson, Reamer, and Supervisors. I'm Nick Kotefides with Planning and Development Services. Today, Ashley Smith and I will be presenting on item number five, which is the Starlight Solar Major Use Permit. On July 10th, 2026, the Planning Commission recommended approval of the project and adoption of the environmental findings with additional conditions. The project site is identified in purple. identified in purple, is located within the community of Boulevard in the Mountain Empire sub-regional planning area, approximately one mile south of Interstate 8 and one mile north of the United States-Mexico border. The project was first submitted in 2022 and originally featured a larger footprint and higher solar energy capacity. Based on feedback from the community and stakeholders, the design has been revised to reduce its overall size and address community concerns. These changes include increased setbacks and buffers, addition of a wildlife corridor, additional water supply, relocating portions of the battery energy storage and adding water retention, and additional dust control conditions during construction. The applicant has also increased the proposed community benefit contribution from approximately $940,000 to $1 million in Phase 1, along with an additional commitment of roughly $7 million in Phase 2. Despite these revisions, the community remains largely opposed to the project, citing concerns related to its overall scale and potential fire risks. The proposed solar and battery facility is allowed with the approval of a major use permit. In response to community concerns and consistent with the Boulevard Community Planning Group's recommendation, County staff increased the setbacks for the project, including 300 feet from Jewel Valley Road, 400 feet from the northernmost property line, and 500 feet from existing residences. On July 10, 2026, the Planning Commission recommended moving the Phase 2 battery storage shown in red as far south as possible based on requests from the community. This change will require a 2.1 mile overhead line that would be approximately 50 to 80 feet tall. The project will be conducted in two phases. Phase one includes 125 acres with 20 megawatts of solar and 17 megawatts of battery storage. Phase two includes 375 acres with approximately 64 megawatts of solar and 200 megawatts of battery storage. The project access will be provided by driveways off Jewel Valley Road, The power generated by the solar panels will be collected in an underground system that converts the power and ultimately connects to a collector substation. The collector substation collects all solar power from the facility and increases the voltage so it is compatible with the grid distribution level. The substation components will be a maximum of 50 feet in height. The 0.6-mile transmission line is proposed to be undergrounded except for an overhead section across Tule Jim Lane and then be undergrounded until it connects to the Boulevard substation. The project also includes a battery energy storage system. The battery containers are proposed at two locations shown in this slide. If the Board of Supervisors agree with the changes as recommended by the Planning Commission, the Phase 2 BEST system would be moved to this location shown in red. This slide shows a typical battery storage container. Battery energy storage systems, or BESS, provide flexibility to the electrical grid by storing energy produced during periods of oversupply and discharging it to the electrical grid during periods of high demand. Each steel container will be approximately six feet wide, 5.5 feet deep, and eight feet high. The system will use lithium iron phosphate batteries. Each battery storage container will have an internal fire detection system. The solar panels will be mounted on single access trackers that allow the panels to track the path of the sun throughout the day. The solar panels at full tilt will be up to 12 feet in height at their highest point. The area underneath the solar panels will be hydro seated and vegetation would be maintained throughout the operational life of the solar facility for dust and erosion control. A decommissioning plan and a bonded agreement are required to ensure decommissioning of this facility. The project will be conditioned to remove all components after its operational use, including both above and below ground components. Most of the solar facility materials can be recycled or reclaimed. Remaining materials that cannot be recycled or reclaimed will be contained and disposed of offsite. During processing of the project, the county received comments from stakeholders, including the Boulevard Community Planning Group and community members of Boulevard and Acomba. In addition, various organizations, agencies, stakeholders, and tribal governments provided comments. These comments included concerns primarily related to visual resources, biological resources, fire risk, and battery fire risk. This slide shows a comparison of the existing view from Interstate 8 and a simulation of the solar facility. At higher elevations, most of the solar facility would be visible. The EIR determined that the solar facility's impacts to views from Interstate 8 would be significant. As a result, visual impacts would remain significant and unavoidable. The project will include a 448 acre biological open space easement, which is highlighted in purple in this slide. The open space is contiguous to undeveloped land and will be managed in perpetuity. Based on state and federal wildlife agency input and site specific conditions, the project incorporates a wildlife movement corridor with a minimum width of 150 feet throughout the site. The corridor is intended to maintain north-south wildlife movement and connectivity between surrounding open space areas. With implementation of the mitigation measures identified in the EIR, biological impacts will be mitigated. A fire protection plan has been prepared, which identifies fire risks and identifies measures that will mitigate those risks. These measures include improved access, fuel modification zones throughout the solar facility and battery facility, water tanks, and steel poles. The water tanks will be used to prevent fire spread and cooling adjacent battery containers, not extinguishing container fires. The project is required to implement a fire protection and mitigation agreement, which requires approval by the Board of Supervisors. This agreement will ensure funding for firefighting and emergency medical resources. Additionally, the applicant has offered an offsite pond to provide additional water for firefighting purposes. With implementation of the fire protection plan and fire mitigation agreement, the project will have a less than significant wildfire impact. Comments were received regarding the potential for smoke, gases, or small particles to be released if a battery fire were to occur at the proposed battery energy storage system. The project was required to prepare a plume study, which evaluates how smoke or gases from a potential battery incident could travel through the air, and whether those impacts could reach nearby homes, schools, or other sensitive receptors. The plume study was reviewed by County Fire's third-party consultant, Jensen Hughes. The plume study determined that the plume safety distance would be 660 feet. The nearest home is more than 1,235 feet from the nearest BESS, almost two times farther away than the plume. Based on the distance to existing homes, the plume study concluded that the BESS is adequately sited. Additionally, the study found that the proposed batteries are required to be 10 feet apart. County fire has also reviewed the changes to the project based on the planning mission recommendation, including moving the phase two best southerly and confirmed it doesn't change their determination and has determined that the project meets all fire code requirements.

The project has been reviewed for compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act. An EIR was prepared and made available for a 46 day public review period from July 31st to September 15th, 2025. A total of 35 comment letters were received during the public review period with most of the comments being in opposition to the project. Comments on the draft EIR were received from tribes, agencies, organizations, as well as from individuals. The EIR determined that the project would have significant and unavoidable impacts to visual resources. Therefore, a statement of overriding considerations has been prepared for the project. A decision-making agency may decide to adopt a statement of overriding considerations for a project because the agency views that the economic, social, technological, and other benefits resulting from the project outweigh its significant adverse environmental effects. All other impacts of the project have been mitigated to less than significant. The project includes several benefits, including generating almost 100 megawatts of solar energy, helping the state meet its clean energy and greenhouse gas reduction goals under state law, which would power approximately 48,000 homes. The project supports local energy reliability through a local power purchase agreement with SDG&E and helps advance California's energy storage goals. The project would reduce reliance on fossil fuel generation and is estimated to avoid up to 29,700 metric tons of carbon emissions per year. The project also includes a project labor agreement for union construction labor. The project includes a community benefits package. For phase one, the applicant has committed to provide approximately $1 million to the Boulevard community prior to phase one construction. Prior to phase two construction, the applicant would provide an additional community benefit payment of approximately $7 million based on the final size of the facility, which is consistent with the prior JVR solar project community benefit amount. In order to grant a major use permit, findings must be made demonstrating that the project is compatible with the community and surrounding area. The major use permit findings can be made based on the increased setbacks, existing energy infrastructure in the area, and the nature of the proposed project. A number of factors contribute to the suitability of the site for a solar facility. For Starlight Solar, PDS finds the site suitable because it is in an area already shaped by transmission and renewable energy infrastructure. Project components will be comparable to nearby transmission infrastructure. The project includes setbacks, fuel modification zones, anti-reflective panels, and minimized lighting. About 448 acres would be preserved as biological open space. Construction traffic would be temporary, with about 258 daily trips in Phase 1 and 699 in Phase 2. Based on staff's analysis and increased setbacks, the findings for a major use permit can be made. The Boulevard Community Planning Group held several meetings to discuss the proposed project. On November 6, 2025, the planning group voted to recommend approval with conditions. Those conditions focused on a larger community benefit package of about $7.04 million, increased setbacks from roads, property lines, and residences, additional best fire risk mitigation, wildlife corridors, and to utilize wildlife-friendly technology. After this meeting, the planning group held several other meetings to provide additional changes on the project. On September 11th, 2026, the planning group held a special meeting and voted to request that the board consider requiring a new plume study, moving all batteries to phase two and require undergrounding, additional groundwater monitoring, analyze construction water trips, and require the entire community benefit payment to be provided in phase one. On July 10th, 2026, the Planning Commission voted to recommend approval of the project with several conditions, including a water retention basin be provided underneath the BESS locations to prevent contaminated water from leaving the site during a fire, locating the phase two BESS as far south as feasible, additional onsite dust monitoring, reallocation of community benefit dollars from phase two to phase one, and additional community benefits to be provided for Boulevard. Based on staff's analysis, we recommend the board take the following actions. First, staff recommends that the board find the project in conformance with the California Environmental Quality Act and certify the EIR and adopt the environmental findings, which include adoption of a statement of overriding considerations and the implementation of a mitigation and monitoring program. Second, staff recommends that the Board of Supervisors approve the project, including the additional conditions recommended by the Planning Commission. Third, staff recommends that the Board approve the Fire Protection and Mitigation Agreement and authorize County Fire to sign the agreement. And last, staff recommends the board require the applicant enter into an agreement to defend and indemnify the county in accordance with county code in the amount of $1,250,000 and authorize the director of PDS to execute the agreement. Ahead of today's hearing, we received several letters raising concerns about moving the Phase 2 beds farther north. They state the change wasn't studied in the EIR and could create new impacts that might require recirculating the EIR. Because of that, the applicant is asking the Board not to move the beds and instead improve the rest of the Planning Commission and staff recommendations. The applicant has also requested that if the board does want to move the best South, they request a continuance to do additional analysis. County Fire has confirmed they have no concerns with the original best location. That concludes staff's presentation and we're available for questions.

Thank you very much. Thank you. That was very thorough and very helpful. And it did actually answer some of the questions I had, so you anticipated them. Any of my colleagues have any questions at this time?

Just want to verify. You just said that if the best location has to remain in the north, that Chief Meacham and Cal Fire said it's no more of a fire hazard or danger. Is that true?

Supervisor Desmond through the chair. That is correct.

Okay. Thank you.

Thanks. Okay. Seeing no further questions, we will go to public comment.

Thank you, Chair Lawson-Riemer. We do have 62 total requests to speak, 51 individuals in person, and 11 requesting to speak by phone in nine group presentations. Also like to note for the record, we did receive 169 e-comments on this item. Two were in favor, 160 were in opposition, and three were neutral. So we will go ahead and begin with the group presentations. You will have 10 minutes to address the board. All three members of the group must speak during that 10 minutes. Please self-regulate your time with the timer on the podium. And I'd like to invite forward the first group presentation. Consist of James Whalen, Johanna, I believe it's Falzerano and Christopher Fahey. And then just as a reminder, each person in the group may speak for no more than four minutes. As you come forward, please state your name at the podium before you begin your presentation.

Good morning, supervisors, county staff, and members of the public. My name is Johanna Falzerano, and I'm SWCA's principal planning team lead. SWCA was retained by the applicant to prepare the EIR for the project in accordance with the requirements of CEQA, County of San Diego CEQA guidelines and other applicable regulations. The applicant, SWCA, county planning staff, and the county's consultant, Harris & Associates, engaged in the preparation and review of the draft EIR, final EIR, and technical studies to assure that the analysis met the requirements of CEQA. Although prepared by SWCA and a team of technical experts on behalf of the applicant, these materials were all independently reviewed by county staff and Harris & Associates. Next slide, please. To support the EIR, SWCA, the applicant, and a team of 10 other consultants undertook a rigorous process of performing field surveys and preparing technical studies, which were completed by experts in their fields meeting the pre-qualification requirements of the county. Please advance the slide. Thank you. The technical studies prepared to support the EIR are listed on this slide. Next. Through this process, the EIR determined that the project would result in no or less than significant impacts to the topics listed here, which include air quality, hazards, and transportation among others. Next. The EIR determined that the project would, however, result in significant impacts to the topics listed here, including biological, cultural, and tribal cultural resources and wildfire. These impacts would be reduced to less than significant following implementation of required mitigation measures. These measures include, but are not limited to, the provision of a 448-acre biological open space easement area, a dedicated cultural open space easement area for archeological resources, and a fire protection and mitigation agreement with the San Diego County Fire Protection District. Next. Finally, the EIR determined that the project would result in significant and unavoidable impacts to aesthetics related to visual character and quality, valued visual character and image of the neighborhood, community, or localized area, and focal and panoramic vistas. While no feasible mitigation measures exist to reduce these impacts to less than significant, the applicant committed to the project design features listed here to evaluate I'm sorry, to alleviate adverse aesthetics effects to the extent feasible. Next slide. Before a project that has significant and unavoidable impacts can be approved, the county must adopt a statement of overriding considerations pursuant to section 15093 of the CEQA guidelines. To this end, the county must balance the benefits of a project against its unavoidable environmental impacts when determining whether to approve a project. Therefore, I conclude today with listing the benefits of the project. Which better it assists the county in achieving regional decarbonization by 2045. Produces renewable electricity to power up to nearly 65,000 homes. Assists in achieving its renewable energy production and storage goals and reduces greenhouse gas emissions. Locates solar energy projects as near as possible to existing infrastructure. Uses union labor with a local higher requirement for construction and provides community benefits. tailored to Boulevard, including $1 million for phase one and over $26,000 per megawatt for phase two. I did want to note the corrections to the first two bullets on that slide. The correct numbers were what I read, decarbonization by 2045 and enough electricity to power nearly 65,000 homes. Next, Chris Fahey will speak on behalf of the applicant.

Hi, good morning. My name is Chris Fahey. I'm representing the Hagen family who owns the land and the property here and has owned it for over 60 years. I just want to point out a couple of, a few extra things. One of them is that we've got a lot of the reports of all the expert reports, you know, from both sides, you know, claiming the different opinions. Like you, I have to rely on staff, rely on the experts, rely on our consultants to tell me what is right and if indeed the answers have been responded to. In this case, we believe your staff and your fire department has responded. Your third party experts have reviewed our program and our proposal and they have recommended approval of this project. A couple of the things I just want to bring out that you don't see or haven't heard is the benefits that this project can actually bring to the community. We're creating hundreds of good paying union jobs to construct this, dozens of good paying union jobs to maintain it. The project will add tens of millions of dollars to the property tax base for the county. Hopefully those dollars get siphoned back into the community. We are providing direct assistance to our community benefits for the Boulevard area and insisting that they be used in the Boulevard area. And it's a total of $8 million. And without this project, there'd be $0 for community benefits for the area. We're supplying clean energy to achieve the state and the county's expressed goals for decarbonization. If decarbonization is a serious effort, this project helps towards that end. We have worked very hard from day one on this to minimize the impacts to the local community. Some of you have heard today from the staff, others that you don't even see because we provided those at the very beginning of the project. We appreciate your attention, your concern, and just want to highlight that we have a planning commission that supports this project. We have a community planning group that has supported this project. We've got an all-star list of environmental groups and union trades who support this project, so we look for your support as well. Thank you very much.

Good morning, Chair Lawson-Reamer and members of the Board of Supervisors. Jim Whalen, Jay Whalen Associates, seeking the board's support for Starlight Solar. Before I get going, SEG&E announced 5,209 megawatts of electricity use last week when it was so hot. Starlight is 100 megawatts, so it was an important step in decarbonization. You've heard how we've checked all the boxes. including wide buffers, no local groundwater use, and using topography to screen views. We pioneered community benefits in the backcountry, and today we are exceeding what JVR did per megawatt. It's actually $8.5 million total. We tried to make changes based on public input, including offering to move the Phase II batteries to the south. We've done the work. I think it's especially noteworthy that we have support from eight environmental groups, including Sierra Club, Endangered Habitats League, San Diego 350, Climate Action Campaign, Audubon, and others. Unfortunately, we got a letter late Monday night that threatens litigation if we move the batteries and don't recirculate the EIR. Because of the letter from the lawyer, we are asking the board to leave the batteries where they are in the EIR today. And you've heard from Chief Meacham that that's acceptable. Moving the batteries to the south doesn't reduce the impacts. And we're being told now that moving them causes problems with our EIR. So there's clearly nothing we can do. To get the opponent's support, we have gone as far as we can, and I think the extra mile, to try and meet community concerns. We urge your support, and we remain available for questions. I've saved a little time. Thank you very much.

Thank you. With that, we will go to our next group. I would like to invite forward Thomas Wall, Leona Grunau, and Teresa DeGroote. And then just again, as a friendly reminder, each person in the group may speak for no more than four minutes. As you come forward, please state your name at the podium. Oh, my, my apologies. I just got noticed group nine was next. I thought we were going in order. So let me call group nine. My apologies. Okay, Jessica, thank you. Jessica, thank you so much. Susan Fogle and Deborah Gonzalez. And then you'll have 10 minutes to address the board. And again, no one person can speak more than four minutes.

Good morning, members of the board. My name is Jessica Aviles. You took a solemn oath to protect public health and safety, yet approving the Starlight Solar project violates that oath and directly non-complies with safety policies in both the San Diego County General Plan and the Boulevard Community Plan. First, this project violates the CEQA through illegal deferred environmental review. The applicant has not chosen a battery manufacturer or chemistry without a specific battery model or UL9540A testing data. The project's smoke plume modeling testing data and the project's smoke plume off-gas chemical toxicity and fire mitigation plans are purely speculative. Under Laurel Heights v. UC Regnitz, approving an EIR with an unselected core hazard is illegally defective. Second, official records list only seven homes near the site. Through staff concerned on July 10th, there have been now listed up to 15 because the county only permitted structure, only counted permitted structures. In Boulevard, many families live in trailers, mobile homes, and outdated single pane windowed homes. They cannot shelter in place if a toxic plume of hydrogen fluoride, hydrogen cyanide, and heavy metal dust. In a chemical release, families face an agonizing choice, evacuate instantly or stay behind with the pets that they've raised since birth. Animals absorb these lethal gases even faster due to higher breathing rates. Third, county fire confirmed there is no approved extinguishing agent for these batteries containers, and these containers, the fires can burn from five to eight hours. Yet the project's 60,000 gallon water supply runs dry in only four hours. Finally, during the SDG&E public safety power shutoff, cell towers, internet crash across Boulevard for hours, leaving residents trapped, isolated, and terrified in the dark. Uphold the CEQA law, honor your oath, and vote no on the starlight solar. Thank you.

Good morning, Chair, members of the Board of Supervisors. My name's Susan Fogle and I stand here before you, not simply as a resident of Boulevard, but as a steward of the land. I look at the land around Boulevard and I don't see empty space, I see home. I see generations of people who have cared for this land. I see wildlife, open country, oak trees, dark skies, and a community that still understands what it means to live close to the land. And with that privilege comes a responsibility. We are the stewards of this place. The Starlight Project would bring hundreds of acres of industrial scale solar development and a major lithium battery storage facility into a landscape that the county itself designates as rural land. I am not against renewable energy. I am against the belief that rural communities should continually be asked to carry the burden of industrial development simply because we have something increasingly rare in Southern California, and that's open land. Our open space should not make us an easy target. Our small population should not make our voices easier to ignore, and living from And living far from downtown San Diego should never mean that the safety, character, and future of our community matter less. We are being asked to accept a permanent change to this landscape. Future generations will live with the decisions being made today long after the people making those decisions have left office. Why is this stewardship matters? Sometimes stewardship means planting a tree. Sometimes it means protecting wildlife. And sometimes stewardship means standing before people with far more power than you have and saying this land matters. This community matters and Boulevard is worth protecting. Please do not sacrifice our back country in the name of progress. Find responsible places for responsible energy development and allow us to pass this beautiful place to the next generation, knowing that when it matters most, we stood up for it. Please, I'm begging you all, vote no on the solar project. Thank you.

Good morning, members of the board. My name is Deborah Gonzalez. I'm co-founder of the Backcountry Community Alliance for Responsible Development. I'm sorry, I don't speak well in front of the groups. I stand before you to bring us back to your first principles, your sworn oath under California Constitution. Your fundamental non-negotiable duty as county supervisors is to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the people. first wildfire hazards and emergency response in high fire hazard severity zones community safety is not a theoretical debate is a matter of life and death our rural communities rely on narrow single road corridors as our only way out during a catastrophic burn as you know we've experienced four wildfires in three months and I was stuck. I couldn't even pull on to Old Highway 80 for our own evacuation. Because we're in a fire-prone backcountry area, this will trap residents and emergency crews in deadly bottlenecks. Pushing development that stretches first responders' response time past acceptable limits directly violates duty to protect us. Two, groundwater security and public health. Second, water security. Our rural families, agriculture operations, and local ecosystems spent entirely on a source groundwater aquifer. Depleting or risking the contamination of these underground water tables creates irreversible harm to over 8,000 residents. Unlike urban communities supported by municipal pipelines, when a backcountry aquifer is contaminated or overdrafted, there is no backup system. protecting our water supply is not an option it is the foundation of our survival it is our life topic three general plan integrity and sequel compliance third responsible land use protecting residents means upholding the san diego county general plan the mountain empire sub-regional plan and the boulevard plan Granting special developers exceptions or industrial rezoning forces rural communities to absorb 100% of the long-term fire and safety risks, while out of area corporations take profit. True public service requires holding projects to rigorous environmental and safety standards without compromise. Members of the board, you are responsible for our safety. As you weigh today's choices, remember the board's decisions can be revised, but lost lives and destroyed aquifers cannot be restored. We urge you to honor your oath, protect our fire corridors, our water, and protect our community first. Thank you.

Thank you. Call for the next group, Thomas Wall, Leona Granau, and Teresa DeGroot. Again, you'll have 10 minutes to address the board. No one person can speak more than four minutes. And if you could please, please come forward. Yes. Sorry. And then just go ahead and please speak your name before your comments.

You can get set. When you love a place, you really are dedicated.

I haven't started your time yet. But before you begin your comments, we do need people to come forward and introduce themselves. Thank you. Yeah, because each person only gets four minutes. So if we're running a video, I'm not sure.

Thank you.

My name is Thomas Bowen. Here we go.

My name is Leona Grunow.

When you love a place, you really...

My name's Theresa DeGroop.

Are dedicated to the commitment to the relationship and making sure the place is, you know, taken care of and preserved. And so we're here as a community to tell our story.

We love where we live. We love the night sky. We love the peace and the quiet, the animals that we've got, the natural habitat that we live in.

Love the open space, love all the nature, the animals, the peace and quiet, and the sense of community. There's always somebody there to support you when you need a hand.

For me, it's nature, the birds, the plants, the boulders, everything about being out here that you can witness and be immersed in.

I like the space.

I love the quiet. I love the peaceful nights. That's one thing I love.

I need to tell you one of the things I love is my home in Boulevard and this beautiful country and land and rural character that we have. And so we're here to advocate and our hopes in by telling our story and our needs, you will advocate with us. Though we're not opposed to renewable energy, we are really opposed to renewable energy literally in our backyards without proper fire safety, proper evacuation routes, and without substantial commitment to the community benefits package. The reality is this package is majorly affecting this area and it's not just one project. Starlight's one of many. JVR has already happened to Hukumba. We're almost surrounded by windmills at this point. So we're here in that advocacy because we know it's our responsibility to let you know what our needs are to at least improve this package so there's more benefits coming to the community.

We protect the Mother Earth, and there's room for growth in all areas and things, but I think that we have to learn how to do those things in a way that doesn't take away what is already there.

Large industrialization of an area like this is, it's a bit devastating when you see what it does.

I think that when we start turning a community into a location for massive industrial projects, we lose the culture of the community too.

The backcountry is continuously being a resource of the urban centers. It's being looked at as just a place where expansion can happen without any repercussions. But there are, there's environmental There's wildlife, there's plant life, there's the sky, there's so much. It really takes away from the security of the natural environment here and the peace of mind for the people that live out here as well.

We would like to protect the cultural resources that have been present in Hacumba and the Boulevard area for over 10,000 years, which includes the plants, the animals, the artifacts, and the history that is here. And I would also like to advocate for the generation that comes after me, the generation that comes after that. My name is Jason Santos, and I live on the Mandanita Band of the Kumeyaay Indians. We stand with Boulevard as a community and we would love to see the rejuvenation and the revitalization of the living standard here of Boulevard.

My biggest hope for the future is that the communities will work together to achieve a lot of ends. That's my biggest hope for the future.

My hope is that we have a bigger voice in what happens in our communities to protect the things that we have moved out here for. My family's been out here for 29 years.

My mom has worked all those 29 years to afford what we have, our 10 acres, our little slice of heaven.

Above anything, I would love for her to be able to retire and not have to fight another solar project or wind project and just get to enjoy the land she's worked for for so long, for once. Lincoln, what about you? Any hopes for the future?

I want a playground. Playground would be sick.

I'm going to start using my time. My name is Thomas Wall. I'm one of the main organizers here in Boulevard. I tell you, every time I watch that video, I do this. When you love something, you protect it. And we're here today to tell you our story and our strength and our power. I'm so darn proud of this town and how we have shown up for you to listen. So thank you for your time. This is not about one project, it's a story about cumulative projects. This is just another chapter. I'm going to talk about two things to start with, things that I believe in. Two things that we can most all likely agree on. The first is cumulative impacts in this project are significant and unavoidable and this forever changes our life, forever. The second is Dolly Parton. She's one of the most amazing people that has been on this planet, and I live with her spirit in me. I believe in kindness, integrity, respect, and being a good neighbor. You are all our neighbor, even though you're in different districts, so that's why we ask you to stand with us. You've heard lots of things already from the developer and stuff like that, but we're trying to tell you what we know. We are the experts because we live in this area, okay? And in this area, We have extreme fire safety. We have lots of wildfires, okay? We're fully opposed to this project and we do not give our consent. If the Boulevard Planning Group voted on it today, which they tried to, they would vote no because we've learned so much through this process. This is being forced upon our community. If you all vote on it, it's forced, okay? We're not giving our consent, okay? And with that, As we've learned more, we've just become more scared, okay? I know that CAL FIRE is doing their best, but the reality is no one knows all the details because this is new technology. And this, I think you already all know, it's an extreme risk. This idea of not moving the batteries to phase two, that just increases the risk. There's homes all around phase one. There's no homes around phase two. So how does that make any sense? That's the developer wanting to save money and to save time and not recirculate the EIR report. If it gets moved to phase two and these lines go underground, it has to recirculate. That's going to help all you feel better, like I'm making the smartest, wisest decision because we have all the corrected, updated information. This project just takes and takes and takes, and it gives nothing back to our town. And this idea of the kilowatt, we don't agree with that at all. We want all the money up front if you approve this, but again, we are opposed. We do not want you to approve this at all. Okay, thank you. I'm going to give you to my neighbor, Leona.

Good morning, supervisors. I've been raising my family in Boulevard for the past 12 years. I'm not against renewable energy, but I'm fully opposed to this project. Today, I'm here speaking as a mother to speak for not only my children, but the future generations as well. Our community is facing an 868 megawatt hour best, one of the biggest in California, currently situated only 1.5 miles from Clover Flat Elementary School. May 19th, 2026, Tulsa fire burns 820 acres. July 15th, Thorn fire burns 1,234 acres. August 17th, Church 2 fire burns 132 acres. September 2nd, Border 13 fire burns 6.2 acres. That's all in Boulevard. As a fire begins, I witnessed what it does to the children, biting their nails and wondering, do we need to leave our homes? If we do leave, will we have a home to return to? We do not consent to adding to this wildfire risk with a large-scale bus in our backyards. What happens when the elementary school 1.5 miles away receives a thermal runaway and toxic plume warning during Santa Ana wind conditions with gusts up to 90 miles per hour and the I-8 closes down? Many parents work in the city an hour away. School bus transportation is 30 plus minutes away. And what if there's a shelter-in-place order along with power outages and a high heat warning? If this project is approved, does that mean it is acceptable to overlook the life safety of the school children in order to fulfill state renewable energy mandates? Supervisor Aguirre, please help us make waves by supporting our often neglected community and saying no to this project. Chair Lawson-Reimer, as a mother, outdoors woman, and advocate for environmental justice, please support us by opposing this project. Vice Chair Montgomery, I ask that you advocate for our community in our time of chaos by voting no. Supervisor Desmond, as a father, I ask that you think of the families in this community and support them by opposing this project. Supervisor Anderson, as our district representative, I ask that you support the children and grandchildren who deserve the same benefits and safety protections that we all have enjoyed growing up in San Diego County. Thank you for listening.

Thank you, that's your time. And we will go ahead and go to our next group. I'd like to invite forward Murphy Smith, Mara Harris, and Mary Ann Betty. Again, your group will have 10 minutes. No one person can speak more than four minutes. As you come forward, please go ahead and speak your name at the podium.

Hi, my name is Marianne Betty.

My name is Murphy Smith.

Good day.

I'm Mara Harris.

Community is strongly urging the County Board of Supervisors to vote no. Boulevard is really defined by this incredible bouldered high desert landscape. It's a unique rural vibe that locals are deeply attached to. And right now it's facing some pretty massive changes. It's built to the public as a solar project, right? But the community notes its defining feature is actually an enormous 868 megawatt hour battery energy storage system. 868 megawatt hours makes this setup one of California's largest, and controversially, San Diego County hasn't even finalized the zoning rules for these exact types of facilities yet. A BESS uses massive battery banks to store grid energy. Since this is an evolving technology, it carries some serious unresolved questions, specifically around system failure and toxic emissions. They can catch fire, releasing deadly fumes. These battery energy storage facilities help support the power grid, but there is risk involved.

Three fires in a year, one in Valley Center, another in Otay Mesa, and more recently in Escondido. It's called thermal runaway, a chemical reaction when lithium ion batteries overheat.

Once it starts, there's no way to stop it. Really, the fire that's happening inside the battery has to run its course. So that chemical reaction really can't be stopped. These fires can take days or even weeks to burn out.

The one in Escondido lasting 13 hours. The one in Otay, 17 days.

Which brings us to their first major point, wildfire and emission risks. Pulling from Electric Power Research Institute data, they calculate a 16% annual probability of an incident for a battery facility this massive. Stretched over a 30-year lifespan, they argue that equates to a near certain 99.5% probability of failure.

The proposed site sits in a very high fire hazard severity zone. I mean, Boulevard has faced three significant wildfires in just the last 90 days alone.

The recent Thorn Fire absolutely tore through nearly 700 acres of this specific, highly flammable landscape in under two hours. Their fear? A battery fire here could trigger a fast-moving catastrophe.

So with fires threatening the structures, including homes, people forced to evacuate, people are emotional at that point.

Next up, Section 2, protecting the groundwater supply. Rural Boulevard relies 100% on well water. Because they sit over a fractured rock groundwater system, toxic runoff from a chemical leak wouldn't just stay put. It could easily spread beyond property lines and threaten the entire region's drinking water.

Because of all these compounding risks, you know, the massive scale, the fire hazards, the highly vulnerable water supply, the community has really rallied together. The primary explicit demand to the board of supervisors is just a flat-out rejection. They want them to vote no on Starlight Solar.

So what happens if the board approves it anyway?

If the board approves this project anyway, then these strict protections absolutely must be mandated before a single shovel hits the dirt. First, they want a truly independent atmospheric study of potential toxic plumes. They're asking the county to use rigorous outdoor modeling. They want conservative assumptions evaluated right at their property lines so they know exactly what they'd be breathing in during an emergency.

I would like to require an independent third-party verification on the figures and the plume analysis or just make it the whole plume analysis. I heard there was a member of the public who said that this is revolutionary. When I hear revolutionary, I think new and untested a little bit. So we need to really be sure of ourselves that the plume analysis is legitimate.

Second up, they're demanding defensible setbacks to protect their actual property lines, not just existing houses, so their future land use isn't ruined. They also want maximum separation between the battery containers themselves to keep fires from jumping from unit to unit. Third, they need ironclad groundwater protections. We're talking baseline testing before construction, monthly monitoring during the build, and testing every private well within a three-mile radius. Plus, they want a legally enforceable remedy. Basically, if the water goes bad, the developer is legally bound to pay to fix it. Fourth, the project's construction water source recently changed. The community is demanding a full recalculation of transportation impacts. And that brings us to Section 4, the Community Impact Fund.

The developer offered a $7 million fund. This is barely 1% of the project's estimated half billion to $1 billion lifetime gross revenue. They are demanding this entire fund be locked in before phase one even starts. Why? Because the noise, dust, one lane road delays and potential property value drops hit Boulevard on day one.

Obviously there's a real need in this community and $900,000 initially doesn't seem like that much money to me. I wonder if you'd be more flexible in redistributing your funding between phase one and phase two. On a large project like this that you've been working on for many years, it certainly seems to me to be a goodwill gesture on your part to the community. I work on a lot of large commercial projects, and I think there's probably room in there to be more. We can do that. Thank you.

Which brings us to the big picture in Section 5, the rural siting precedent. Whatever happens in Boulevard sets a firm precedent for acceptable risk across the rest of San Diego County's rural backcountry.

It imposes enormous costs, but does not make the community whole. The community is left sort of holding the bag on something that benefits others, and they're holding the costs. And I think this is the kind of environmental injustice that I think we fear when we look at big-scale energy investments.

You know, for too often, we've allowed affluent communities to step on smaller communities, weaker communities, and that's not fair, and it's not right.

The community explicitly supports renewable energy, but they're making the case that a giant battery facility just doesn't belong in a highly vulnerable location.

Good morning, supervisors. My name is Murphy Smith. I'm a long-term resident of Boulevard, California, and I'm here asking that you vote no on this project. If you must vote yes, we ask that you only vote yes, guaranteeing that these protections we're asking for can be put into place. These protections aren't complex. They can be boiled down to simple concepts. They follow the elements that we've all learned from a young age. The element of fire. We don't want more fire in our community, as you've seen in this video, so we need the maximum fire protection we can get, which is moving these batteries, the best units into phase two and less overhead power lines, not more as the developers proposing. The second element is water. We just want safe, drinkable water after a fire at this facility. So we need these well protections in place and we need to know where the water is coming from for this construction project to even happen. The third element I want to talk about is air. We need breathable, safe air, again, after the occurrence of a fire at this facility, which is why we need this independent plume analysis to be redone and redone correctly. Finally, we have the element of land, of earth, and that's this town, the land that we're all here to protect. This sea of black shirts with white writing, that's what we're all here for. And that's why we need the $7 million impact fund from day one of this project if it gets approved. Because the infrastructure to our town and our culture will be irreversibly changed. Finally, I ask that as you look at everybody coming up to speak about this issue, as you look at me, you don't see one set of eyes, but you see the eyes of all of our community members who can't be here today, and you see the future generations who are gonna be impacted by the decision that is made today. Boulevard has a unique ability to retain and nurture multiple generations of families. My grandparents retired there in the 1980s. My parents bought property there in the 1990s and I'm there to this day. So I ask that we preserve and protect that character of Boulevard and not devastate it. Thank you.

I've got a minute and 40 seconds to say hello. Good morning. Thank you. I want to say we are, I support the spirit of renewable energy. However, in practice, the political review process is broken, arbitrary, and unjust at this point. This project you are being asked to vote on today is putting us all in the crossroads of an incredible cosmic irony. Isn't renewable energy in its mission meant to save Earth, to preserve resources and people, to produce positive results, to do good instead of causing harm? There were four fires within five miles within the last 60 days of this proposed project site. It is not if, it is when. A fire breaks causing unintended chemical fire hazard as in fact it is probable, predicted, also inevitable result of this green energy project. We are looking at irrevocable harm. to land and human life. I would also like to say that I am sad that our human existence here now no longer considers the environment as an important component. We are at the baseline of this project considering human life. And that is a result of a predicted fire from a unproven and infantile environment.

Thank you. Okay, we'll go ahead and call the next group forward. Jim Freeburn, Melissa Lamoureux, and Frank Davali. Again, you'll have 10 minutes to address the board as a group. No one person can speak more than four minutes. And then if you could please come forward and introduce yourself before you begin.

Hi, I'm Jim Freeburn, and I've been living out in Boulevard for 32 years. I'm 62 years old, so that's most of my adult life. Thank you. Does that make me older than all of you? We'll get the next people to introduce themselves or to start your time.

Thank you.

Hi, Melissa Lamoureux. Sorry.

It's okay. Hi, I'm Frank Daviley. All right, may we begin? Okay, I'm going to go first, and I'm going to try to use my time efficiently. I want to say a prayer. Like, we've come out. To be with you, the citizens, the residents, you are the legislators, and we have the community planners. We're all together today. And I just say a prayer that we come to a wise and beneficial decision for the residents who are here, for San Diego County, for the state of California, for America, for planet Earth. That's what I pray for this, is I want to start. Also, I want to put a little gratitude because you're giving us a very generous amount of time to state our case and I really appreciate that. Being heard feels really good. I was at the planning group meeting that went really well. I want to give Mr. Anderson a shout out. His office has sent staff out to us and talked to us many times. I called his office and I figured I was going to register my opinion. And I figured I'd get, you know, like a voice recording and I'd leave a little message like, no, someone answered the phone and said, Joel Anderson's office. And I talked to a young person who asked me really smart questions. And we talked for 15 minutes. And I really feel like that person listened to me. So, like, the system's working. Thank you. This is really beautiful. So I have just something simple here. You probably know you have an ordinance regarding these best systems making its way through the system. It is in the public review stage, but at least the first draft of the language is written and one of its central tenants, its central ideas is that these will not be put in residential areas. Right? We live in a residential area. We are zoned, most of us are zoned S-92. That is residential agricultural. Our families, our pets, our livestock, our children, our elderly live where they're discussing putting this thing that we all agree, like we're all thumbs up on renewable energy, but it's literally going in our front backyards. So it's like in the spirit, I don't know what density of residency constitutes concern. Like do the people living in the city tightly packed together get more benefits than people living like out and more spread out? Are we less concerned about their lives and their property? So just consider that your own ordinance is moving its way. It won't affect this project, but these things are not supposed to be in residential areas. areas they're dangerous right so we should have them away from the people somewhere so a lot of empty land out in East County been out there so there's other places to put them I can speak it's a small town that I live in everybody kind of knows everybody it's kind of like on TV little towns I can tell you I can speak loosely for everybody not a single person who lives out there wants this not one nobody I can tell you that confidently not a single person living out there wants this project to happen. Now there are some people who want it. And you know this is a complicated issue. We know there's stakeholders and competing interests and we're moving forward in better energy systems. But the people who do want it, primarily the landowner, who's owned a large, the Hagen family. I think we heard 60 years they've been out there. We never see them. They don't live out there. I imagine, not sure about this, but it's an investment property, and they're interested in making money on their property. God bless. Money, you know, no shame in that. But that is one of the people who, they will not wake up with the impact. of this project. Number two, Mr. Whalen, he's guiding the project through. He's a paid person to get this thing going through. And then the third would be like, there'll be some union reps who might speak. There's going to be some jobs for a few years. So there are jobs, but they're really not going to be jobs for us and probably jobs not even going, it's like really not going to benefit us at all. We are your neighbors. I'm going to go ahead and pause your time, but that is your four minutes. All right, thank you very much for hearing us.

Hi, again, Melissa Lamoureux.

Mike.

Thank you for your time. Thank you for caring, and thank you for your consideration for all that we're fighting for today. I had a lot more written, but everybody's kind of spoken to my point, so I'm going to keep it short and sweet, which I'm sure you'll approve or enjoy. The question before you is whether this industrial scale project truly belongs in this community and whether the full impact of Boulevard has been adequately addressed. I don't think so. The biggest issue that cannot be measured simply in acres, megawatts, or mitigation measures, the community character and consent. My husband and I, sitting back there and we'll be speaking, Bought our property here two years ago because of what Boulevard is. It's rural character, open space, wildlife. I love the quail. I see them every morning. The family's growing. The starry nights and a sense of community. The county's responsibility is to look at the whole picture, to protect public safety, preserve the community character, and consider the cumulative effect of placing a major industrial infrastructure in a rural residential town. We are not an industrial energy corridor, and we do not consent to this fundamentally incompatible transformation of Boulevard. I urge you to please deny the Starlight Solar Project. Thank you.

Good morning, members of the board. My name is Frank Davoli. I'm speaking today on behalf of the Boulevard community, and I'm strongly opposed to this project. Many of us have invested our lives, our savings, and our futures into Boulevard. I'm concerned that this value is lost on proponents of this project. Myself, I spent 25 years as a defense contractor and then as a civil servant driving up and down the road all the way to Point Loma and back, sometimes for as much as four hours per day would be my commute. A minimum of two hours per day was my commute. We stand before you as united against the unrestrained intrusion of large industrial energy projects that threaten human health, displace wildlife, and devalue our property. For over 20 years, East County residents have borne the burden of massive energy and infrastructure, including the Tulewind and Hacumba Valley projects. Now we face the Starlight Battery Energy Storage System. This project introduces three severe compounding hazards to our community. The first being public safety threats to include inadequate evacuation routes and an elevated risk of catastrophic fires in a region already vulnerable to extreme winds and wildfires. Myself, the last two big fires, the Church 2 fire and the Thorn fire headed directly towards my house. Four times the fire mitigation was dumped into my backyard. In any case, 200 feet of my backyard was caught on fire. Thankfully, the airdrops prevented my house from being burned. The second danger is water insecurity. In a backcountry dependent entirely on well water, soil compaction will block the rainwater from replenishing our aquifer. Worse, our groundwater is threatened from chemical fire retardants required to fight an inevitable fire caused by the lithium battery's thermal runaway. I understand there's a mitigation measure that's supposed to capture that water, but if the well water is monitored, well water monitoring will not protect us. It will only tell us after the fact that our water, our sole source of drinking water, has been irreversibly ruined. Furthermore, developers have identified no secured water source for construction. The third threat is environmental degradation to include permanent wildlife displacement, toxic dust creation, and severe visual blight. Starlight was advertised as a benign green energy project when in reality it's a massive, dangerous industrial facility, one of the largest battery storage developments ever proposed in San Diego County. The developers claim it's safe, yet their plume study relied on inaccurate wind data. The project even recently added two miles of electrical lines, which is a dangerous double-edged sword. Overhead lines risk being blown down by our high winds causing fire, while burying them will unearth toxic, potentially unearth toxic dust from the Risley Silicon Mine. This billion-dollar project collectively devalues our land by tens of millions of dollars and offers an inadequate $7 million safety net. In a catastrophic fire, or environmental disaster, please ask yourselves, what dollar amount is acceptable compensation when a loved one is lingering in a burn ward or a hospice? And what would you do for days, weeks or months? And what would you tell them to alleviate their suffering? The Starlight Solar Project does not benefit our backcountry. It actively undermines it. We bear all the burdens and receive none of the benefits. We urge the San Diego Board of Supervisors to protect the citizens of San Diego and vote no on this project. Thank you very much.

Thank you. We'll go ahead and call the next group forward. Joe Rowley, Dave Bergen, and Andy DeGroot. Again, you'll have 10 minutes as a group to present. Each person may speak no more than four minutes, and then as you come forward, if you could please...

Assistant clerk, we have one simple request. If we stay within the 10 minutes, we have this incredible expert, Joe Raleigh. We'd like to know if he can go beyond the four minutes. He has really, really valuable data.

Chair says no. Okay.

I should have asked the chair. Maybe that would have worked.

Okay.

Thank you. Thank you for your smile. I appreciate it.

You're welcome. Thank you. And then as you come forward, if you could just please introduce yourself before we begin your time. I'm Joe Raleigh.

David Bergeron.

Andy DeGroot.

Chairman Lawson-Raymer and supervisors, my name is Joe Rowley. I've been a developer of large-scale energy projects for decades. I was Semper U.S. Gas and Power's vice president of project development for many years. And since retirement, I consult on best projects. I think we all know that best projects catch fire because of thermal runaway. The question is, how frequently does that happen? What is the risk? What's the probability? The Electric Power Research Institute has put together data on that. Take a look at the graph. That orange line that starts at the upper left and comes down sharply shows that the rate of fire happening dropped rapidly during 2018 and 19, but has since plateaued and is kind of drifting downward. If you look at just the plateau, just that lower area, And look at the five-year rolling average. Between 2020 and 2024, that five-year rolling average was 0.28, or in other words, a 28% chance of fire per year per 1,000 megawatt hours. Now, the latest number has dropped. It's now 20% chance of fire per year. 1,000 megawatt hours per year. Now, a project the size of Starlight being 868 megawatt hours would be somewhat smaller, somewhat lower probability, so it'd be around 17% probability of a fire happening per year for that project or a project of that size.

Next slide, please.

So this depicts a plume from a best fire. We start from the right-hand side And the plume far away is naturally at a lower concentration. And so as you work your way from the right, moving left, first you cross what's called the AEGL1 boundary. The AEGL1 boundary, that's the threshold for temporary health effects. Moving further left, you cross that red line. That's the AEGL2 boundary. That's the threshold for permanent health effects. And as you move further left, you get to that greenish area there, that's the IDLH threshold, or what's called immediately dangerous to life and health. Next slide. Okay, so let's take hydrogen fluoride for example. Best projects, one enclosure, one container, has about 50,000 pounds or more of battery material inside. And when the container burns that 50,000 pounds, when you go to look at what's left, there's not much left inside. 50,000 pounds has basically been converted to gaseous molecules and particulate that have drifted into the atmosphere. We take hydrogen fluoride for an example. And the reason I use hydrogen fluoride is because all of these technologies, including LFP proposed for this project, use fluorinated electrolyte. So there's over 1,000 pounds of fluoride. the element fluorine, just in one enclosure. So when the enclosure burns, it produces hydrogen fluoride. Large-scale fire testing has shown that the concentration at the source is over 500 parts per million. But that quickly dissipates as you get downwind, and that's the purpose of plume modeling, is to determine that dissipation rate. So if you take a look at the exposure levels that we're concerned about, let's first focus in on the 30 parts per million. The 30 parts per million is the, for hydrogen fluoride, is the IDLH number, or in other words, immediately dangerous to life and health. Then you get down to 24 parts per million. Pause your time right there.

That's your four minutes. Okay. If you look down.

Apologies. We really need to be consistent because we do have a lot of presentations, but I personally am going to ask you to come back when it's my turn to ask questions because I do have some follow-up questions for you specifically. Thank you. Appreciate that. And sorry, sir, what's your name so I can call you appropriately? Joe. Joe Raleigh. Joe Raleigh. Okay. Thank you, Joe.

Good morning, commissioners. My name is David Bergeron. I'm a San Diego native, and as of last five years, a Boulevard homeowner and land owner out there, a place that is truly amazing for us. I had a lot to say about fires and how we constantly live in fear of fire out there. I think you've heard a lot about fires already at this point. I think we all know that we've had three to four fires in the last couple of months. We all live by the watch duty app that tells us when a fire is coming. Just last couple of months ago, we were sitting here in the planning commission meeting. We got a notice. We all know what that sound sounds like for us. And that's oh, my gosh, there's a fire. Where is it? Are we evacuated? Are we in danger? our is our investment our home our property our life our kids in danger out there fire is real for us and we it's just hard for us to believe why we would put something that we know is going to catch fire at some point in an already extremely fire hazard prone zone and with minimal evacuation routes um you know our biggest concern is why not move these batteries that we know are going to catch fire at some point move them as far as we possibly can away from the residents and the homes right where that really danger is and if we can move them to the southern part of the project it gets us freedom to get evacuated should those batteries catch fire, not should, but I should say when. And so that's our biggest push. Why can't we move these to the southern part of the project? And ultimately, if that means we need to reevaluate the ERI, let's do that to make sure that we're doing the right thing for our community, for our people, for our children. So that's it. Outside of that, I urge you, please vote no on this project. It's not right for our community. It's not right for what we're about and who we are. we need to be more smart about where we put our renewable energy, and this is, in our backyards, not what we want. So thank you very much for considering and for listening to us. Appreciate you.

Okay.

Thank you. We'll go ahead and go to the next group.

I just would like to probably thank Joe Riley. He's just, just a moment.

Thank you. Yeah, we got to keep it equitable. Thank you though. If you want to help present the presentation, that's fine. Thank you. Okay, so we'll go ahead and go to our next group. That is going to be Alana Gray, Mark, I believe it's Guerra, and Trudy Niebuhr. And again, you'll have 10 minutes to address the board as a group. Each person can speak no more than four minutes. And as you come forward, if you could just please introduce yourself at the podium. If we could please introduce ourselves at the podium.

Mark Guerra. Thank you. Trudy Nybert. Thank you.

Alana Gray.

Thank you.

Good morning, supervisors. Again, my name is Alana Gray and I have my children here, Remy and Lucille Gray with me. I've been a resident of Boulevard for over 10 years where I've been raising my family. And what I've learned from these years in our high desert community is that water, an essential component of life, is so very precious and in no way an inexhaustible resource. We cherish the rare rains we do receive and are immensely grateful for the clean, non-toxic water we are able to drink straight from our taps. This may all change if this project is allowed to extract and pollute our very limited resource. We ask that prior to the start of construction, a comprehensive baseline of water levels and water quality be established for the aquifer and nearby residential wells, that the groundwater and designated wells be continuously monitored throughout construction, and the developer funds a program allowing residents within the agreed area of the project to have their wells tested regularly for the life of the project. If changes in groundwater levels, well performance or quality of water is identified, clear accountability and corrective action requirements have already been established to correct these actions. I would also like to recall to your attention that the water required for the construction of the project is stated to be sourced from Hakumba Community Services District or Padre Dam. Neither of these sources have contracts stating the construction water may be sourced from those areas. We ask that before the board votes on the project, a clear written answer is provided as to where the construction water is being extracted from and what those environmental impacts will be. I stand in front of you as a mother who is deeply concerned with what will happen to the water levels and quality of water that will be available to my children and future generations if this project, which is designed to supply clean energy, has polluted and over extracted our precious water resource. I'm here to represent the voices of my children who are not allowed to vote on this project. I stand here and hope that you will act in the best interest of these future generations to help them thrive in our wonderful community of Boulevard. Thank you for your time.

Good morning, Supervisors. My name is Mark Guerra. My wife and I own 10 acres at the end of Jewel Valley Road near the Starlight project, and I am asking you to please vote no. Before you approve this project, there is one very basic question that needs to be answered. Where exactly is the construction water coming from? Starlight estimates it will need nearly 68 acre feet, about 22 million gallons of construction water. The EIR assumes that water will come from the Hakumba Community Services District, but the county relies on a 2022 facility water availability form that states in capital letters, this document is not a commitment of service or facilities by the district. And as recently as August of 2025, JCSD's board voted to inform the county of its supply limitations. Most importantly, the county's own response to comments acknowledges that Starlight Construction water purchasing application has not even been submitted yet. So you're being asked to certify an environmental impact report today based on a water source that has not yet been secured. And if that source changes, the haul distance may change, truck miles may change, traffic, air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and noise may change. These are precisely the impacts an EIR is supposed to evaluate before you approve a project, not afterward. There's no reason to rush this decision. Require the applicant to document its actual construction water source and determine whether that changes the EIR before you vote. Until then, please vote no on Starlight. Thank you.

Good morning, Supervisors. My name is Trudy Nybert. I am a local realtor serving Boulevard and our backcountry communities. And I want to address what the Starlight Project could mean for real estate and the people who have invested their lives here. In Boulevard, water isn't an amenity. For many properties, the well is what makes the property livable. If this project compromises our groundwater or even creates legitimate uncertainty about its future, that uncertainty follows the property. Buyers will ask questions. Sellers will have to disclose known material facts and properties can become harder to market because of risk homeowners did not create. These families should not have to sacrifice the value and marketability of their homes for an industrial project. You can replace a solar panel. You can replace a battery. You cannot replace an aquifer. Please don't gamble with Boulevard's water, homes, and property values. Thank you.

Thank you. And then we'll go ahead and call the next group forward. Rebecca Bergen, Lee Hernandez, and Steve Bollinger. And then just as you come forward again, just a reminder, each person in the group can speak no more than four minutes. You get a total time of 10. And if you could please introduce yourself before the timer.

Thank you. My name is Rebecca Bergen. Lee Fernandez.

Steve Bollinger.

Good morning, Supervisors. My name is Becca Bergeron and I'm a homeowner and very proud member of the Boulevard community. Wow. So today really feels like Groundhog Day. I was here five years ago in this very room when this board voted on JBR Solar in Hacumba. Three of you were actually here and I vividly remember what you were saying. And I appreciated you were speaking about fairness. You were saying communities are being asked to host these projects and they should be made whole. and the community should not, the county should not perpetuate environmental injustice. Now, five years later, our community is being asked again to absorb even more energy infrastructure. While we urge you to vote no on the unsafe siting, if the board moves to approve Starlight Solar, you must require the developer to pay the full $8 million community benefit fund in a guaranteed disbursement upfront. And that must remain true, even if for some reason you only approve phase one. The developer offered only $900,000 for phase one. And when you saw when Commissioner Pallinger asked him to provide more in phase one, he only offered another $100,000. This is a 30-year project. The phase one total... works out to just $30,000 a year for Boulevard if that was in. For everything our community is being asked to carry, that is simply not enough. Especially considering this is a projected half to one billion dollar project. And the amount shouldn't be calculated by megawatts built in each phase. Community impacts don't occur by megawatts. The impact begins on day one. Construction traffic, dust, the noise, Fire and evacuation fears, loss of rural character and views, worries about our wells and groundwater, insurance and property value concerns. The people you see in this room live in Boulevard and the developer does not. The Hagans may have owned land in Boulevard for many years, but they don't live here. They won't live every day with the consequences of the project. We will. $7 million or $8 million won't erase the impacts, but it can help offset the very real cost this project imposes and help make Boulevard safer, stronger, and more resilient. If you vote to place the region's burden on Boulevard again, whether you approve phase one or two, please enforce your commitment to fairness, which you spoke of five years ago very clearly. Require the full $8 million guaranteed disbursement up front. Thanks for your time.

Hello, my name's Steve Bollinger, and good morning to you all. One thing we all have in common, no matter what side we are on, is that we all are struggling with affordability. And I believe it is safe to say that all of us in this room continually pay more and more each year for all the types of various insurances that we all require. This project isn't just a land use decision. It's a decision about whether the people who already live in and around Boulevard can afford to stay. Boulevard is in a very high fire hazard severity zone, Cal Fire's highest risk tier. As you see, we've already had four fires. And although there is uncertainty about a future fire related to this project, there is definite certainty that our insurance and mortgages are going to be affected by this project. Homeowner's insurance is required by every mortgage lender, but San Diego's back country, all these lovely towns on this t-shirt, Boulevard, Campo, Potrero, Hummel, Alpine, already has some of the highest insurance non-renewal rates in the county. Since 2019, high risk zip codes have stayed at 14% or higher of non-renewal every year. Insurance companies are some of the most profitable companies in the country. They manage risk extremely well by minimizing their portfolio risks in these areas. They are actively pulling out of high-risk areas like ours, so this should be an obvious clue that adding more risk to our community is not a wise decision. When private insurers leave, families are pushed onto fair plan, which I don't know why they call it fair plan, because then it's one and a half to three times the cost. Plus, that's just for the fire, but then you have to have a second policy to cover all the other things you want. So that can mean going from a $1,500 a year policy to $4,000 to $9,000 or even more. If a family can't secure that coverage, they fall out of compliance with their mortgage, triggering force placed insurance, which is from the lender, to two to three times the cost, which only protects the lender. So what comes next? Possibly foreclosure. Boulevard's median household income is already below the state average, and our community skews older members, with many residents on fixed incomes. Realtors have already reported roughly 40% of deals now fall through over insurance affordability alone. This is already happening before this project even breaks ground. This project only adds more fuel to the fire, more incentive for insurance companies to either drop coverage or raise rates, squeezing out current residents and making it less appealing for future families looking to find affordability housing. And I just want to do a little PS on that map that showed the wildlife corridor. That's actually along the wall that's been built. So if the wall is built to keep humans going through, it's also built to keep wildlife going through. So it's a gracious offer, but it does not really affect it.

Hello, supervisors. I'm happy to see you today. Good morning. My name is Lee Fernandez. I live on Jewel Valley Road. I'm a newcomer to Boulevard since April of this year. I come to this community in the high, dry desert of eastern San Diego County for peace and quiet, for the amazing sunrises and sunsets, the rainbows which sometimes stretch across the entire horizon from edge to edge. What I found here is a true community. of residents who care for one another and for this place of amazing rocks, road runners and hummingbirds, coyotes. Neighbors who help out when the pump goes out or who help when the dirt driveway needs repair. I don't want a battery energy storage system on my street. I don't want the endless trucks carrying equipment, chemicals, and water. I'm worried about fire. I have seen three wildfires from my front door. I have seen the flames three times in the last six months in the short time that I've been here. I'm worried about the aquifer, our only source of water. which we share with Mexico. We are at the border. Will it be polluted by the chemicals that are needed to contain, not extinguish, a best fire? I'm worried about the air pollution, the plume, the constant winds which blow in all directions. We have winds day and night at all seasons. If you approve this project, Boulevard needs a reasonable impact statement to make the community improvements and to mitigate the environmental loss and the changes to our quality of life that we will suffer. Remember that we need another evacuation route. We need more fire equipment. We need more fire training to address best fires. We're an unincorporated area. Thank you for listening to us, the voters of the back country.

Thank you. And then we'll go ahead and call forward our final group. That is Jeff Osborne, Mason Smith, and I believe it's Will Law. Then again, as you come forward, Just as a friendly reminder, the group has 10 minutes to present. No one person can speak more than four minutes. And then as, once you get prepared up here, if you could just please introduce yourself before we begin your time.

My name is Mason. My name is Mason Smith.

Jeff Osborne. And William Eha.

I'll be taking a minute of your time. Good morning supervisors. My family and I have lived in Boulevard for 29 years. 29 years of life and care for a place for a minute of your time. One minute to tell you all the reasons the place that raised me shouldn't be leveled and exploited for industrial energy projects. One minute to tell you about the perfect stillness and stopping for a deer crossing Jewel Valley Road where this project will go. One minute to tell you about the sunset behind Rattlesnake Mountain and the long shadow of mighty oak on the golden shimmering grass below. One minute to explain the feeling of ease passing Pine Valley on the 8 East, knowing that home is just a short and beautiful drive away. One minute to describe to you the gripping fear of smoke on the horizon and the sweet relief of high desert air when it is cleared. One minute to tell you that my friends and my family have all been here before to try and tell the people in your seats all that's worth preserving in our mountain home. And one minute to tell you how we've been ignored each time and sent home defeated, disempowered. One minute to tell you all that we are really asking for, all that we have ever asked for is honest representation and a minute of your time. One minute you could decide to stand with Boulevard, one minute to leave a community and ecosystem intact, one minute to let an entire town know that their voice matters and that they have a say in what happens to their home. If you were given one minute to defend everything you ever held dear, your home, your family, your friends, could you think of anything more potent than that you live there? And shouldn't that be enough and worth more than a minute? Thank you.

Alright. So we hope you can see how these projects come off to us. That live out in places these projects are being developed. The developers come to our planning meetings. They say we have a project that is going to save the environment. The community says, oh great, we love the environment. In fact, we moved all the way out here to be close to nature. So tell us more. How are you going to save the environment? The developer says we are going to go far from the cities where the power is needed to places that are still pristine, still wild, where the ringtails still live, where the golden eagles still fly, where the quinoa checkerspot butterflies still flutter. And we are going to bring massive bulldozers out there, and we are going to rip it all out. About a square mile of habitat, we are going to completely destroy it. We will detonate granite boulders, encircle cultural resources and chain link fences. Then we will cover it with black silicone and drive galvanized steel pylons into the ground. And then we will put it in 500 battery containers that are guaranteed to burn at some point and cause toxic fumes to get into our homes, potentially contaminate our water tables, and possibly even ignite a wildfire that could burn our homes. The community asked why would Why don't you just build all of that down in the cities where everyone is using the power and save the pristine natural environment from being destroyed? Does this also cost a lot more money to build in these transmission lines? The way we are going about this makes no sense. We believe that we should drive through the cities that are consuming all the power and we should see solar panels covering every parking lot, every commercial and industrial roof and source at the source with battery storage at the source before we even consider going out into the pristine wild lands and destroying nature to supposedly save it. When this is all said and done, we will look back at this green, washed, industrial scale destruction of our habitat and shake our heads. What were we thinking? We destroyed the remaining natural places in our environment, crisscrossed the migration paths with transmission lines, and also drove up costs for residents in our area, squeezed the poorest of our society in one of the highest cost of living places in the country. The only people that win in this equation are the developers that profit, the unions that get to build them, and the utility companies that operate the transmissions and distribution of infrastructure. Today, those that truly love the environment, that truly love nature today, we all lose. Thank you.

Good morning, Chairwoman Tara Lawson-Reimer and supervisors. My name is Jeff Osborne. I am the chair of the Hacumba Community Sponsor Group. I am also a business owner in Hacumba and the largest employer in the region, the Hacumba Hot Springs Hotel. I'm here today on behalf of Boulevard, the community, our neighbors and friends that live there, and near this proposed project. Today you've heard from this community. This is what they want. They do not want this project. They are 100% against this project. Personally, I think what was just shared by Will is the true position for San Diego County and even our green energy goals that these projects don't make sense. And I cannot get an answer to any of those questions he asked about why we're putting these so far away from where power is needed. We understand there are larger forces at play here today than loving nature and the environment and considering cost of living for our residents. So if you have no choice but to approve this project in some form for whatever your reasons, this community asks that you please at least make this ill-conceived and confused project as safe and as equitable as possible for this community that it is going to destroy. I'm gonna now go over some of the most important topics that weren't covered and recap the asks of the community. Go to the next slide, please. This system has a 99.5% chance of having a fire event over its 30-year life. It is pretty much guaranteed to happen. So you must plan for that. Most of the statistics they're using, AEGL-1, AEGL-2, that we're going to get into in a second are about accidents, like industrial accidents that are contingencies, like one in 1,000, one in 10,000, very rare events, a chlorine storage tank burst like in LA. It's very rare. not 100% chance. So we need to consider that when choosing the standards for exposure to the public. Over the lifetime, it has a chance of the probability is actually five incidences. So five fires will happen over the 30 years is the probability based on the current statistics of these projects. Next slide, please. What's really unique about this location and why these setbacks have to be so large is because, and this is important to understand that we're asking for a standard here of setback that is not going to be for all projects. It's just this project because of the wind. This is one of the windiest places in the entire state. It's in the top 1% of the state of California for wind. That's why there are all the wind projects out there. So the plumes with toxic emissions travel farther. If you place these batteries in other places, the setbacks can be much less. Next slide, please. This shows a slide shared by Joe Rowley earlier. This is his slide about the boundaries of AEGL2, which is permanent health impacts, and then AEGL1, which is temporary health impacts. I think it's critical to understand we're asking for AEGL1 because it's the only line that guarantees that the people can safely evacuate. The space right after that red line, it's pretty much the same as the space five feet over. And if there's a gust of wind, these are all models. These are done in like a computer and like, ah, maybe about this. I get that there's a lot of science behind it, but at the end of the day, they're not measuring it down to the inch of where these permanent toxic effects will permanently damage somebody. Next slide. This is a map provided by the developer at the last planning commission. This is minute 18. Okay. This is really important to see because this is what they showed us there. This shows phase one and phase two batteries within AEGL 1, which was actually 2,200 feet was what we were concerned about. Next slide. This shows where they proposed to move it, and you can still see there's two residences within the AEGL 1 boundary. This is not acceptable.

Next slide. That's your four minutes.

Okay.

this is a location that they could put it with 2,400 feet. I'm sorry, sir. Yeah, okay. If anybody else in your group wants to finish speaking, they have time.

And they can continue on your same slides. They don't need to change slides if they want to. We just need to change people so they can do the rest of your presentation. We just have to change people.

Okay.

All right, I'm going to go ahead and start time. Yeah, to be safe.

This is showing an alternative of where you could potentially put it to make it more safe for the human life in the area.

This is a 900 million to $1 billion project cost.

It'll produce 90 million in a year, sorry.

You only have about 25 seconds left, just letting you know. Vote now, then.

Yeah. Enough said. Yeah. Sorry. Just read this very fast.

Okay. Please make this project safe, and please require the developer to give the community a very small token of gratitude for getting the approval to ruin their town, their property values, and their beautiful landscape today.

Thank you. And that concludes our group presentation portion. So now we will go back to individual speakers. For those that requested to speak by phone, if you could please dial into the conference line now. We will go ahead and begin with our in-person speakers. As your name is called, if you could please come forward and stand on the arrows until it is your turn to speak at the podium. Because we've had 10 or more speakers, you will only have one minute to address the Board. If you could please begin by stating your name for the audio record. Since we do have quite a few speakers left, I will be calling individuals in groups of three, so please listen for your name. And then once you're called, please come line up on the arrows. I'd like to invite forward the first three individuals. That is allegedly Audra, and I believe it's, I'm sorry if I mispronounce this, Ansemerio Estrada, and then Anthony Ralphs.

Bye-bye, Boulevard. That's what's so sad is that it's so hard to see the devastation that comes from this board and your decisions and where you do put profit over people and you make decisions where you want to throw money at people like that's going to make up if their entire town gets burned down. Have any of you been there? I spent a lot of time there down at Camp 177 when people were coming across our border and destroying the land just by doing that. And these people didn't have a choice that that was a pickup point for Border Patrol. And now, again, just like you did with Acomba, you're going to basically pass this. And they're going to benefit by getting this in tax write-offs. So it's going to be more than the money that they're going to profit off of that. So you should actually not put it through. But if you are, you should give them $7 million a year because you're going to be able to write that off lickety-split. And so it's disgusting to see suits come in here and you guys roll over when it is your duty to listen to these people, not listen. Disregard it.

Next speaker, please.

Good morning, good morning Board of Supervisors. My name is Ancetamil J. Estrada. I'm the political director for the building trades San Diego County Building and Construction Trades Council. We are in support of the Starlight Soldier project. This is a project with a full project labor agreement, which means it's going to put workers here in San Diego County across our region, especially in East County, where a lot of our members live, to work on it, building reliable energy for the people in East County and across the region. So I hope you support this project moving forward. Thank you so much.

Thank you. As the next speaker is coming forward, I'd like to invite three additional speakers, Brittany Stark, Carl Anderson, and Cesar Javier. I've called your name. Please come forward.

Hello and good morning Board of Supervisors. My name is Anthony Ralphs. I am the vice chair of the Boulevard Planning Group. The Planning Group voted in favor of this project after three votes to delay this project at the behest of our community. We voted in favor of this project solely on the contingency that it fulfills certain conditions of approval. Those conditions of approval have either been met or are being codified into county conditions of approval. This vote in favor of the Boulevard Planning Group came largely because we've learned over the years what happens when we say no to a development project. The development project happens anyway, and the directly impacted community is often left out of important safety discussions. After watching our town quickly become littered with endless wind projects, massive electric lines, and sexually violent predators, we've learned the hard way what happens if we don't engage promptly to the fullest extent possible. The much needed conversations regarding guardrails, industry oversights, and community benefits are taking place largely because our community has stepped up to demand the best for ourselves. I look forward to working with the county staff on tangible improvements to battery safety in the coming months. Thank you for your time.

Next speaker, please.

Good morning, Supervisors. My name is Siddha Stark and I'm a resident of Boulevard. At one of the first meetings I attended in early 2025, the representative of the project spoke in a way I found concerning. The sentiment I found concerning was that this project was going to happen regardless of the community. How could they say that? You haven't voted on it yet. Why do I keep hearing, I can't be seen to vote against this project? That doesn't make any sense. It's not yet approved. At one point, the Boulevard Planning Group was pressured to vote on this project. I watched as they were pressured into voting yes with stipulations because if they didn't, the community would not get any benefits. That if they didn't cooperate, that we would have no input with the developers. It felt like being strong-armed. It felt coercive. Come to find out that we shouldn't have been voting on it that soon anyways. There are countless reasons why our community does not and should not trust this developer. I could go on and on with reasons why this project is a bad fit for Boulevard. Now is your opportunity to set a standard.

Thank you. Your time is up, ma'am. Thank you. Your time is up.

Ma'am, please, please. Thank you. This is your first warning. Thank you. Before we move on, I just want to first of all thank everyone. I know this has been an incredibly difficult topic and you all came really, really far to be here today. I would appreciate if we could not clap or engage in other behavior that would disrupt our proceedings because I'd really like us to have an opportunity to have a robust conversation and really consider this issue carefully. So please no clapping. If you want to show support, we can do this. Thank you. Okay.

Hello, my name is Carl Anderson III. Thank you, Joel Anderson and the board, for allowing me to join the Boulevard Community Planning Group. Don Novell warned me not to speak on behalf of the group, so I'm speaking as an individual because there was some veiled lawsuits in the emails that was sent to the board members. I've learned a lot and continue to learn as an individual, and I'm fully opposed to this project. If this project is forced upon the community, it must be made safe for the people in the land. These industrial-scale projects are a scourge on the community. Please do not kill Boulevard. That's all I have to say, or all I can say. Thank you.

One minute. God help. If you approve this project, it is a violation of our Constitution. Domestic tranquility. Oh, by the way, first, justice, environmental justice. Domestic tranquility, defense, protection, public welfare. Sir, you declared that The county has money for crisis, but you did not use it for crisis in the actual like the Tijuana pollution. The findings is inadequate. We wanted, for example, for you to remember code rule APC, the code rule 10 or it is, you're not exempted. Now you are to be, oh, one minute. Thank you, God.

I'll call for the next three speakers, Christina Marquez, Jamie Long, and James Vaughn.

Hi, good morning, supervisors. Christina Marquez speaking on behalf of 3,700 union electricians of IBW569 in San Diego and Imperial Counties. We would like to urge your support for item number five, the Starlight Solar Project. This project has a full building trades agreement that includes local hire requirements, a project labor agreement, or PLA, plays a crucial role in assuring that the next generation of electrical workers is trained to build great projects like this one. They also provide opportunities for folks like myself who completed a tuition-free apprenticeship with full family health care benefits to become highly skilled and trained electricians and tradespeople. By involving skilled and trained state-certified general electricians on the project, we can ensure that those with energy storage or microgrid certifications, or e-SAMTAC, are responsible for building the systems safely. We urge you to vote yes for the Starlight Solar Project. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Jamie Long. I'm a community member of Boulevard. I'm super nervous, so stick with me. I wanted to say we are not a community of activists, so thank you very much for taking the time to listen to us all. I think that my community members did a great job. I do have one question that maybe I should have asked before this point, but... If the best guidelines are still being written now with the county, why are we installing the largest project? Before those guidelines can be written, it only seems that in the to be prudent, we should wait until those guidelines are done before we install such a huge project. And also thank you for mentioning how far it took all of us to get here. It took a minute. So thank you so much though for your time.

Honorable Chair and Supervisors, good morning. My name is James Vaughn with the Procopio Law Firm, and we are the Land Use Council for the Applicant. I would like to quickly address the last-minute 200-page submission that was made yesterday on behalf of a law firm representing a group called Back County Community Alliance for Responsible Development. Their primary objection was to the relocation of the Phase 2 batteries to the south and the resulting new overhead transmission line. However, county staff and the applicant now agree that the Phase 2 batteries should not be moved. There's no reason to move them, and thus this issue is mooted altogether. We submitted a detailed response to the issues raised in that last-minute submission late yesterday. I apologize for that, but we only had a day. And this letter demonstrated that the EIR and the technical studies supporting them fully addressed all of those issues and all the issues you heard today. Thank you.

Thank you. Call for the next three speakers. Jill Hornick, Jonah Henry, and Julie Rowland. You can come forward in any order. Thank you, though.

Hi, good morning Board Chair and Supervisors. Thank you for the opportunity to comment. My name is Jonah Henry and I'm a volunteer organizer with the Sunrise Movement. We're a youth-led advocacy organization fighting to stop the climate crisis and develop a more equitable economy. I'm here to voice our strong support for the Starlight Solar Project and to urge the board to approve the major use permit without any further delays. This project will stabilize electricity prices, it will enhance grid reliability, and it will allow SDG&E to reduce its reliance on the gas-fired peaker plants that are releasing toxic air particulates into fence line communities, and more importantly, the gas-fired peaker plants that are causing the climate crisis and causing the increasing severity and increasing frequency of the wildfires that are passing through Boulevard and other desert towns. There's obviously no perfect place or perfect parcel for industrial development. But in this instance, I believe the benefits of this project far outweigh the negative impacts. And I urge you to support the project. Thank you for considering my comment.

Good morning. I'm from Lake Marina. As you're aware, you have all the documentation you need to vote down this project. I understand your nimby attitude that you don't want this in your districts because you know the fire hazard. You know how much water it takes to fight these fires. You know how long it takes to fight these fires. But what you are going to do today, if you vote to approve another one of these best projects, is to torch the back county. When you torch the back county, you're not going to have enough money to fix the problem. Environmental damage, deaths, heaven forbid, since you know this is a one road access point for these people in this community. You kill those school children or you kill anyone in this room, karma's gonna be a bitch.

And ma'am, ma'am, ma'am, I didn't want to interrupt your comments, but you didn't tell us who you were.

Jill Hornick, I'm sorry.

Thank you. No problem. I just need a marquee spoke. Thank you very much. Okay. And then not seeing Julie come forward, we'll go to our next three speakers. I believe it's Mariano Arista, Matt Spencer, and Matthew Abbott.

Good morning. My name is Mariana Arista and I'm a member for Roofers and Waterproofers Local 45 here in San Diego. And I'm here to speak in support of the proposed Starlight Solar project. This project represents more than clean energy. It represents an opportunity to create good paying union jobs and long term careers for local working families. As a business manager of Local 45, I see firsthand what union construction could provide. Our members don't just earn a paycheck. They have access to family health coverage, retirement benefits, apprenticeship training, workplace protection, and opportunity to provide a better future for their families. We support responsible development that strength our communities while maintaining high labor standards, good wages, strong benefits, and opportunities for the local workers. Thank you.

Good morning, Chair, members of the board. My name is Matthew Abbott. I'm an attorney at Procopio representing the project applicant as well. I wanted to talk about a late comment letter that was submitted from Real East County Fire Safe Council. And that comment letter addresses many of the same issues that have been brought up today, specifically the need for a new plume study, the demand for additional best setbacks, additional groundwater monitoring, construction water commitment, and advanced community benefit payments. The final EIR and its appendices and the administrative record before you constitute substantial evidence that adequately analyzes each of those topics and no further environmental analysis or supplemental study or recirculation of the EIR is required before the board certifies the EIR and acts on the project. I'm available for any follow-on questions. Thank you.

Thank you. And then not seeing Matt Spencer come to the podium, we'll go to the next three speakers. Matthew Gonzalez, Melissa Struckel, and Rosalia Redrick.

Good morning. Board of Supervisors and hard-working staff. My name is Matthew Leyba Gonzalez and I'm the business representative for the San Diego Building and Construction Trades Council. We're the umbrella organization for over 35,000 hard-working skilled and trained men and women throughout San Diego. I can go on and on discussing and talking about PLAs. I'll just focus on one instrumental part. It's local hire. So ultimately how it works is each trade requires workers that live within the area this is important because these individuals are able to work make phenomenal pay benefits and a pension and with The pay they receive, they reinvest in the community. So they're supporting local businesses. They're able to spend more quality time with their families because they don't have to have long commutes. I just drove from National City. It took me 45 minutes to get here. So it's really important because we want to make sure our members have a great life outside of work. And it's very important. So I'm in strong support. Thank you.

Thank you. Go with our next speaker.

Hello, good morning. My name is Rosalie Redrick and I live in Spring Valley. I'm a constituent of Supervisor Montgomery's step. I care about the future of San Diego and the kind of community we're building for our next generation. The recent heat waves have been a reminder that our energy needs are growing in the face of climate change and it's critical that we continue investing in renewable energy. I understand that every large scale project will have impacts. but responsible development doesn't mean zero impacts. It means identifying those impacts and taking meaningful steps to identify them. I ask that you approve the Starlight Solar Project and I appreciate your time and attention. Thank you, staff.

Hi, my name is Melissa Struckel. Myself, along with my business partners, Jeff Osborne and Corbin Winters, are owners of Hakumba Hot Springs Hotel, which is in Hakumba Hot Springs. We're here to show support to our neighbors and friends in Boulevard. We were here five years ago. with the JVR project, which went through, and we were told many of the same things we're hearing today. So I can speak to the aftermath of what happens when a project like this goes through. As I speak here right now, there's a plume of dust in Hakumba Hot Springs that does not go away. It's there Monday through Friday. They use something called Gorilla Snot to keep the dust down. We breathe it in, it's in our water. For any of you who don't know, Hakumba Hot Springs is San Diego's only hot springs. It's very sacred water there. It's in our aquifer. And all of these projects are sucking water out of not just the hot springs, but the community at large.

That's your time. Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay. Call for the next three speakers. Serena Pelka, Steve Ragg, and Stuart Murth.

Hi, good morning. Serena Pelka from Climate Action Campaign here to express our strong support for the Starlight Project. As our communities are crushed with the highest energy rates in the nation, renewable energy and battery storage are critical energy affordability solutions that we need now. One in five San Diego families are behind on their energy bills, and without battery storage, we won't get closer to providing real rate relief for San Diego families. Starlight enables us to rely less and less on polluting gas infrastructure that burdens communities of concern first and worst. It is an environmental justice solution and there are safe operational best projects in the city such as the Peregrine Project right in Barrio Logan. Ultimately, Starlight provides battery storage systems that ensure everyone has access to reliable power, a basic human need. We need thoughtful projects like Starlight or we set a precedent that clean energy is not welcome in San Diego County. We encourage your support for the project. Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Steve Ragg. I support the Starlight Solar project. I started my career at the Planning Department where I transitioned to the private sector. During my career, I worked on, processed, and permitted the majority of the solar projects in San Diego County. Starlight Solar is a good project and should be approved. Starlight Solar has worked with the Boulevard Community Planning Group and have modified their project At the request of the planning group, where applicable, Starlight Solar has complied with all county, state, and federal requirements, including meeting major use permit findings and all CEQA requirements. In fact, I believe they also have received support from the environmental community. And when have you last seen that? Possibly never. Therefore, I implore you to approve the Starlight Solar project. Thank you.

Thank you. Call the final remaining in-person speakers, TJ Bonner and Weena Joshi.

My name is Meena Joshi, and I'm a local pediatrician who owns a home in census tract 21102, which is in unincorporated San Diego County, also known as the Mountain Empire. I'd like to thank the Board of Supervisors for compassionately, thoughtfully, and critically listening to my community today. For those of you who aren't familiar with where we live, I want to tell you a little bit about where we live using this Healthy Places Index. We are sixth percent in the state for economic, 48 for education, 13 points for social, and our biggest one is clean environment, 53%. For what it's worth, I tried to track down data to see if those were improvements over time, and nothing was easily accessible to me. The petitioner has access to data professionals who can pull complicated databases and extract information from them. We're all doing this in our spare time. I want to tell you what I'm worried about. A sacrifice zone is a geographic area that has been permanently changed by heavy environmental alterations or economic dismissment, often through locally unwanted land use or Lulu's. These costs include health hazards, poor aesthetics, reduction in home values, and often are born by minority, rural, unincorporated, and politically underrepresented places that cannot get them off.

Thank you.

Good morning. My name is TJ Bonner. I have lived in Lake Morena Village for the past 48 years. Eight years before I got there, There was a terrible fire called the Laguna Fire that roared through, started out near where they want to put this thermal, this facility, burned 32 miles in 30 hours, driven by Santa Ana winds. They could not contain it aerially because of the winds. Eight people died. 382 homes were destroyed. Over 1,000 outbuildings were destroyed, countless wildlife, livestock, horses, etc. perished in the fire, domestic animals. This affects more than just Boulevard. This affects the entire county of San Diego. That fire burned 6% of San Diego. Please vote against this. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll recall the speakers that didn't come forward. Julie Rowland, Matt Spencer, and Stuart Murth. Not seeing any movement in the chamber. We'll now go to those callers that requested to speak by phone. Just as a reminder, when it's your turn to speak, you'll be unmuted and you will hear a recording that will tell you to begin your comments. And we'll go ahead and begin with our first caller.

Stand your ground, Boulevard. The project includes a battery storage project, which is a huge fire hazard. The combined death and solar would generate 317 megawatts. Only 250 megawatts in the Gateway facility in Sotai Mesa burned and reignited for 17 days. Houses and all had to evacuate within half a mile. That was a mere two years ago. The presenter said the solar is 100 megawatts and provides electricity from the city for their town. Why a 317 megawatt best? Don't give in to state rules or union shells and ruin or burn up East County. Separation from houses needs

Thank you. Your time is up. We'll go to our next caller.

My name is Kathleen Lippitt, and I would like to offer that the utility scale solar farm requires between four to 10 acres of land to produce one megawatt of solar capacity. The industry's benchmark usually sits at five to seven acres per megawatt. The physical solar panels themselves only cover roughly three to four acres per megawatt. Total project area of this one to three acres per megawatt is required for non-generation infrastructure. This includes the property lines, the buffer zones, access to roads for maintenance, the trucks. Decarbonization goals are not grounded in reality. Carbon energy is not reduced. It is simply being outsourced to other countries like India and China. And last, when union workers come to speak on behalf of the taxpayers who pay for their lucrative salaries and gold-plated health care.

Thank you. Your time is up. We'll go to our next caller.

Good morning. Rhett Lawrence. 39375 Old Highway 80 and Boulevard. Right now, the county is in the middle of a draft ordinance for best zoning. Therefore, the Starlight Solar Project should not be voted on today. This project and all future projects should be on hold until such a time as the county comes up with the new standards for best I'm not asking you to vote no. I'm asking you to put this project on hold and not let a grandfather clause be instituted as this project has not yet been approved. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll go to our next speaker.

My name is Melanie Hayden, and I oppose the Starlight Solar Project. The county's own final EIR acknowledges permanent, significant, and unavoidable impacts to the boulevard community. I'm especially concerned about the best. The county's July 26 plume study shows residences as close as 1331 feet from a best enclosure, yet final battery manufacturer and project specific UL 95408 testing had not been established. Please deny this project and require stronger protections for our homes, groundwater, fire safety, and evacuation routes. Thank you, Supervisors.

Thank you. We'll go to our next caller.

Hello, my name is Pamela Hogg. I oppose the Starlight project as designed due to the danger it presents to the water supply, both quantity and quality. The most concerning thing I heard from the last Planning Commission meeting is when they recommended approval of the project with the condition that there be a containment barrier under the batteries, as though that in itself would solve the groundwater contamination risk. The material composition or design was not mentioned, or if it even exists, and the batteries are yet to be determined. I also question how 60,000-plus gallons of water flowing from multiple high-power fire hoses sprayed from a distance in the vicinity of a battery on fire would be able to have toxic and toxic chemicals filtered out and contained in what I picture as bathtubs or maybe a large pond around the entire system. How will they contain all that water and filter the cost of chemicals and separate those from the water they're dumping on these batteries? And that's only for the first four hours. Per testimony.

Thank you. Your time is up. We'll go to our next speaker.

Good morning. My name is Jamie Hall. I am a land use and environmental attorney with Channel Law Group. I'm here representing Backcountry Community Alliance for Responsible Development. Our firm submitted a robust comment letter explaining that the environmental impact report is legally deficient and the required findings for the major use permit cannot be made. One fact you can verify before you vote. Two documents in today's packet contradict each other on the central safety question. Attachment H, your hearing report, tells you at page 20 that the maximal modeled exposure distance is 366 feet and that no schools or residences are located within the risk area. The board letter in the same packet tells you the distance is 2,230 feet. and that seven residences are inside it. Both cannot be true and nothing in the record reconciles them. My client respectfully request that you decline to certify the environmental impact report and deny the permit. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll go to our next speaker.

Ann Riddle, I came because I'm well acquainted with Boulevard, living in an adjacent community, and I too find the EIR not complete or in conflict with other information. And I think that you need to update it before you make a decision. I think a postponement is the answer so that we all have the information we need. The critics and other local residents argue that the electricity produced will be clean. However, the process in building and running the project destroys the local ecosystem and creates a human safety issue. Thus, we have the terminology green colonism. People come to town to tell you they have something good for you and then destroy where you've lived and what you always considered good before. I wouldn't listen to labor unions, and I certainly wouldn't listen to lawyers who are paid for to come and defend this project. These are people who feel that they're going to profit, the people we should care about.

Thank you. Your time is up. We'll go to our next speaker.

Hector here. I was wondering, whatever happened to the prayer that God was going to say when he got up there? I think we need one. And the union brothers, are they all American citizens in the union? No green card workers? Have them certify only American citizens will step foot on this job. And karma is not a bitch. Payback is bitch. That one lady was talking. And then how about the county guy coming in and lobbying for these guys? I thought that was illegal for county workers to do that. Maybe it's still legal. And this is on the radar for the slut vote. When the three sluts vote, I'm keeping tally of all their votes. So this could be on the tally mark. So that's the true danger. Plus, it's the Democratic leadership. You are state, county, and city. The Democrats are just clowns. We got to get rid of these guys. Throw them out. This is a no on this project. No storage batteries.

Thank you. Your time is up. We'll go to our next speaker.

Good morning. My name is Becky Rapp, and I want to begin by saying that I support the Boulevard community in the concerns that they have raised about this project. And I'm asking you to deny this project because of public health and safety concerns. We don't have to look outside San Diego County to understand the potential risks of battery storage. We have already experienced a battery fire in Escondido. And in 2024, a fire occurred at an Escondido battery storage facility. That facility is 30 megawatts with 24 battery containers. And even though the fire was contained to one container, it required evacuation measures, air monitoring, water monitoring, and emergency response. Now compare that to the proposed Starlight. Starlight proposes 217 megawatts of battery storage, more than seven times the size of the Escondido facility. That is a significant increase, and it does matter. Can residents evacuate safely? Can firefighters respond to a prolonged event?

Thank you. Your time is up. We'll go to our next speaker.

Good morning. My name is Bill Wellhouse. I'm speaking for San Diego 350, a volunteer-led organization focused on climate change. We support the Starlight Solar and Battery Project. No project is free of local impacts, but this project is better than most in reducing local impacts. We need to transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy as soon as possible. This project requires no new transmission lines, a plus for the residents of the backcountry. Batteries amplify the ability of solar to supply renewable energy 24 hours every day. We believe the benefits far outweigh the negative impacts. San Diego 350 urges strong support for this project. Thank you.

Thank you. Go to our next speaker.

board and staff. My name is Angela Elliott Santos, and I'm the tribal chairwoman for the Manzanita Tribe. And as my son said in the video, we stand with Boulevard. I am so proud to be neighbors and friends and family with the people of Boulevard. Please listen to what they said. They're asking for you to postpone this vote. Think about it. Be responsible in the planning of this. We are not against renewable energy, but we are against the industrialization of our homeland. My people have lived there for thousands of years in that area where the hot springs are. We have been disregarded by the developer. Please stand up for us and give a little bit more time so this can be done in the right way. Part of the reason we're looking for a new planet is because things have not been done in the right way. Give us a chance. Postpone this project, please. Please listen to what has been said to you today. Think about the school children. It's one.

Thank you. Your time is up. And Chair Lawson-Reamer, that concludes public comment on this item.

Okay, thank you very much. First of all, thank you everyone for being here, for all the community members who have been participating in this process and who drove really far to be here today, and also the community and project proponents that are also here to talk about the merits of this project. I just want to make a couple opening comments regarding how I'm thinking about this and how I'm approaching this. I have a lot of questions. But I won't ask them all at once because I'm sure my colleagues also have lots to say. So I will say a couple things, ask a couple questions, and then we'll have an opportunity for board discussion. I'm sure we will come back to my questions as we go on.

I just want to say, I think, first of all, this is hard, right?

Like, very big picture. We obviously need reliable, affordable electricity. I mean, we have lights on in this building. You know, I don't know anyone who doesn't use electricity on a daily basis. And the rising costs of electricity are one of the biggest challenges that people face throughout San Diego County and really across California and across our country. the rising cost of energy, and I don't know anyone who's decided to solve that problem by going and by turning off the lights and stop and just completely stop using electricity. So, and that means there's really not a lot of great choices, right? You can build oil wells and risk spills in the ocean and and contamination of shorelines. You can build nuclear power plants which have nuclear risk meltdowns. All these projects have problems. And they all have varying degrees of risk. And I think that that's what we're really grappling with today. is we need electricity we need energy it needs to be affordable it needs to be reliable and uh all the options are are not great um and so i think that's to me what we're what we're staring at is how do we how do we get a reliable affordable energy for our communities in ways that don't put people at risk that don't destroy our environment um that don't create create additional fire hazards that don't pollute our groundwater, that don't pollute our coastlines. It's very, very hard. So I just kind of wanted to frame that as like how I'm looking at this and how I'm thinking about this. And there was someone who did mention For example, why are we building, looking at a huge solar plant in Boulevard, why not build solar panels on buildings across the city? And I fully agree that that should be the top priority and has been something I have been working on at San Diego Community Power and do appreciate the partnership of a lot of people across San Diego to try to do more in filling rooftop solar because I agree that that really should be the number one priority as we look to build solar is we have lots of buildings, we have shopping malls, we've got carports, we've got Tons and tons of buildings. Why don't they all have solar panels on them? And that really should be, in my opinion, the first stop as we build out our solar capacity along with distributed battery storage options so that we're able to meet these growing energy demands in a way that reduces or, to the extent possible, eliminates our environmental footprint. I heard that, I agree, and I think that's really important and I don't want this conversation to happen in a vacuum and appreciate the kind of ongoing work and partnership to expand out more and more infill and rooftop solar. So that's something that I think we have to be continuing to work on. If we had more infill and rooftop solar, we would not be needing to look at large-scale projects like this one. That being said, I do think at the end of the day, renewable projects are certainly better than non-renewable projects. We've talked a lot about the impact on the climate. We've talked a lot about fire risk and high fire zones and the incredible increase in fire severity that we've seen. across San Diego County, across California, across our country. The huge heat waves we keep seeing, all of this is obviously directly related to climate change. And if we want to reduce kind of for the long term the risk our communities face from fire, we have to be looking at the climate footprint, which means that we have to be looking at... building renewable energy projects. So that is one thing that's really critical is how do we incentivize and build more renewable energy? And the second thing I think is really important is if we're gonna build big large-scale projects, how do we ensure that we have good jobs, that there's good workplace safety standards, that we're creating jobs pipelines, that people in our community are getting those jobs, and that people are having an opportunity to put food on the table and build a good quality of life for their family members. And I really appreciate the work that went into designing this project with a PLA. I think that's really critical. So we're looking at a renewable energy project that in the long term reduces our carbon footprint and our climate footprint and construct it in such a way that really does support working families and good jobs in our community and a rising quality of living for working people here in San Diego County. So those are really important considerations. That being said, even if a project is at a big scale kind of makes sense because it's a renewable energy project and it is a pro worker project. It is really important to me from a values perspective that it's not built in such a way that just imposes completely unfair costs on the surrounding community. That's not right, that's not fair, and that is a value I think I bring to this job from the work I did before I was a supervisor, which was really centered on questions around environmental justice and how to ensure that large-scale energy projects appropriately internalize externalities, and in this case, externalities are the costs imposed on the surrounding community. At the cost of the project, construction should reflect and internalize the costs imposed externally, and communities should not be forced to bear an unfair share of that burden when the benefit is being shared by all of San Diego County. Why should just one small community hold all the costs? That's not right. It's not fair. So I just wanted to kind of preview how I'm thinking about this because I think a lot of these times these complex issues do get lost on this side or that side and I think it's important to kind of put that all on the table as we try to grapple with how to do what's right for our community and what's fair for the whole. So that being said, as I mentioned at the beginning, I will have a lot of comments and I do have a lot of questions, some various aspects of this project. And I won't do them all in a row, because I know everyone else has thoughts as well. But I did just want to start with one piece that seemed, I was just a little curious about the water. Part of this, one of the kind of requests I saw coming out of the community, there was a community slide that we saw towards the beginning about water testing. And I think my understanding is that the request was to have baseline water testing, water quality testing, and then ongoing water monitoring. What was the community group who had a slide about water testing, water quality testing? I think it was like our second group I really am listening. Can you remind us what your request was on the water quality testing? Yep.

Yeah, we want to have a baseline water testing of where the water is currently at. We'd like to have it monthly tested to understand if anything's happening with the water during construction. And then we'd like to have all residents within a three mile radius of the project to be able to have a developer-funded well testing every year throughout the life of the project. So basically what we're doing, we just want to be monitoring what's happening with this water during this.

Okay, so it's a water quality testing in the beginning. and then regular water quality testing, and then including in people's wells.

Yeah, because the project's right above the aquifer, and so people in the area, they would like to be able to personally test their wells at least once a year so we can be monitoring it throughout the life of the project.

So my question, I think we'll start maybe with the developer and also the county team. I'm sure this was raised by the community initially. What's the reason that this has not been included? Is this not needed? Is this not a good idea? Like what's the deal on the water quality testing? Because as we all, I mean, I think clean water seems like a pretty fundamental issue. Yeah. Yeah.

Chair, for this project, the applicant is proposing to purchase the water from offsite, not utilizing groundwater as part of the project. The community did note during comments that the original vendor or entity providing the water has indicated that they would no longer be willing to provide the water. If the project is approved and moves forward, the applicant would still need to find a will serve from a water entity that can provide water for the project itself. The EIR does have assumptions in it for the trips and the mileage that's associated with that. They're quite conservative. Once that entity is identified to provide the water, it would have to conform with the assumptions that were in the EIR. In terms of the specific question, in terms of what is required and not required for the groundwater monitoring, since there is no groundwater use PROPOSED FOR THE PROJECT, THAT WAS THE REASON THERE WAS NO MONITORING REQUIRED. THAT SAID, IF THE BOARD WISHES TO PLACE A CONDITION ON THE PROJECT TO DO BASELINE MONITORING FOR GROUNDWATER ON THE SITE, COULD ABSOLUTELY PROVIDE A CONDITION TO DO THAT.

I just want to thank you. That was very helpful. I feel like it's conflating two separate issues. One is where is the water coming from and the groundwater level? It sounds like the community is interested and concerned about pollution and groundwater quality. And those are different questions. I get it. Obviously, this project can't move forward if they can't buy water from somewhere else, and that water purchase would have to conform with assumptions. I'm not as concerned about that. I'm more concerned about this basic issue. Is there anything awful going into the groundwater that we don't know about?

The items that we have identified from the community and from our analysis that were of a concern for groundwater impacts would be as if a BESS facility were to catch on fire. Part of the response from the Planning Commission was a community request to add containment beneath the BESS units, which was added as a condition for the project. So that is required, that has been added onto this project going forward. It's not something we've done on other projects, so it would be new and something that we have incorporated in this project if approved.

Thank you, that's helpful. I think again, I have a lot more questions, but I would just say from from just from the outset, if I was to approve this project, I would want to see an agreement to do some kind of ongoing monitoring of the water. That sort of seems basic, like we should know that the water is clean. Is there any reason we couldn't? Do that that doesn't seem like super onerous.

Chair, we could develop a condition or motion language on that will work on it right now.

OK, thank you Supervisor Anderson.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I was hoping you were going to call Joe up and save us from both questioning Joe. Did you want to call Joe up to talk about the plume?

He was on my list for after. I didn't want to talk the whole time, but we can.

Why don't you go ahead and hit the plume portion.

Okay, great. Thank you. So my next set of questions regard basically these questions around fire risk, plumes, and kind of mitigation procedures. So let's do plumes, and then we can talk about fire risk. So I don't know if you wanted to, if you have your presentation, we can put that up.

That would be great if we could get that back up. That last page we were on was actually the last page. So I think the important thing to realize about BEST projects is they are not a typical industrial facility. In other words, a BEST fire is an industrial accident, but it's not a typical industrial accident. Normally, when we cite industrial facilities and we look at... contingencies, it's a unlikely event. It's a contingency that's unlikely to happen. And so in that circumstance, often AEGL2 is used as the standard because we're talking about something that is just unlikely to happen to begin with. But here we're talking about, in the case of a BEST project, It's a expected event. Fires are expected events. A facility of this size will probably have multiple fires over its life. So for that reason, just like a power plant that burns natural gas, for example, you look at lower concentration thresholds for public health risk and so forth. So is that heading back up? And next slide. Okay. So, I was using hydrogen fluoride as an example. So, again, looking at the second number down in the second bullet, 30 parts per million, 30 ppm, that's the immediately dangerous to life and health. In other words, you cross that threshold, you're risking permanent health damage and death. So that's a number that's normally a big concern to firefighters. It informs firefighting tactics. So there's a reason why that threshold exists. You want to know about that. Then the next one down is 24 parts per million. That's AEGL2. That's permanent health effects. So if you cross that threshold and get higher at that threshold or higher, you're into permanent health effects. And then one part per million is AEGL1. and that's temporary health effects. So given the fact that best projects, that fires of best projects are expected events rather than unlikely contingencies, AEGL 1 is the appropriate standard for public health in this case. And so the county best guidelines reflect that. So when the first edition came out, it stated AEGL1. Second edition came out, it was AEGL1. But then the third edition came out, and it said AEGL2. So County Fire informed us at the Starlight Town Hall that that was actually a typo, and it was going to get fixed. And then they followed that up in writing. So we're confident that that's the case, but it hasn't gotten fixed yet. And so we're kind of in this interim period. And I believe that's the reason for, let's go back up. You see that 34 part per million number? So 34 part per million is the AEGL2 number for a short duration exposure. Right, for short duration exposure. In other words, the shorter you're exposed to a chemical, the more you can withstand before you die or are permanently injured. So they used, not the county staff, but rather the applicant in their plume study used AEGL2 30 minute, in other words, 34 parts per million. That's what they studied in their plume study. And so I provided comments on that. And the first comment is why that's higher than immediately dangerous to life and health. Why even study that? It doesn't inform us of anything. It should have been AGL-2 at one hour at 24 parts a minute, but that's beside the point. The real issue here is that at that level, we're talking about death or permanent injury And that's obviously not a standard for threshold of acceptability for public health impacts. I don't think I have to elaborate on that. So given that fact, the plume study just, in that regard, just made very little sense. And the probability of fire... really says we need to be looking at AEGL1, which is what the county guidelines have said and I think are meant to say. So in AEGL1, the extent of that boundary is over 2,200 feet from the battery facilities. That's the reason why the Planning Commission said, hey, you know, let's move phase two forward. down to the south part of the site to get it away from the residences because 2,200 feet envelops, at the proposed location, 2,200 feet envelops many residences. What I don't understand about that, though, is that the phase one and phase two are made up of the exact same enclosures, the same containers. So the magnitude and impact of the event is exactly the same for phase one and phase two. So it would seem to me this is sort of what's good for the goose is good for the gander situation. phase one should be moved with phase two. I'm not against this project. What I'm in favor of is disciplined siting of battery facilities. And in this case, we have an opportunity to move these batteries to a location that's more distant from residences outside of the AEGL1 boundary And yes, it will cost some money. It will mean a power line, but we're talking compared to the project cost. And I've been a developer. I know that this is just almost lost in the rounding in terms of cost. I don't understand why there'd be pushback on that. I do get the fact that the EIR may have to be recirculated. I think that is probably true. whether we're talking about phase one or phase two or both. But again, I'm not opposed to the project. Actually, I've developed projects like this. I'm just in favor of disciplined site selection given the probabilities and the risk here.

Was that helpful for you, Supervisor?

Yes, thank you. I was hoping that we'd hear from the other side as well.

Okay, yeah, thank you very much. Do you think before you, could you put your picture back up of the plumes?

Sure, yeah, go to the previous page.

And then we'll go back to exposure thresholds. I just think that would be helpful for folks.

Yeah, so that's a conceptual... drawing it showing some wind. I think you saw another graphic that showed kind of more of a blob that went all around the site that came from the developer. That's kind of a no wind situation or possible wind from any direction. So this is the more typical case where there's an upwind and there's a downwind and so forth. Got it.

Okay, thank you. Could you go back to your exposure threshold level? The other slide, just so you can leave it up and we can hear from the county. Yep, no, you were good.

No, go back one.

Go back one.

Supervisor Geary, go ahead. Thank you. I didn't want to interrupt the flow here. But I'm just curious. Keep moving past it, sir. Yeah, the plume.

This one.

The plume.

Okay. Okay. Do you have any further questions?

Just ask your question. The plume graphic, please. You can put that up.

I just asked for that. Sorry, that was my bad. I asked for that one. Is this correct?

No, I want the plume, the graphic. So the eight...

Page up or down?

Up there, perfect.

This one?

Yeah. Yeah, so I don't know if this is the scale, but you show that... The blue areas impacting houses and hospitals and such. But is there, at any point, a road that would be traversing AGL2 within the 34 parts per million at any point? Yeah, on this- People would have to evacuate and go through that toxic muck?

Yeah, I mean, in terms of evacuation, and Chief Meacham can address this probably as well or better than I. But in terms of evacuation, based on my observation of the Escondido fire, which I went out there and I observed the fire for some time, obviously AEGL-2 is not inappropriate. It doesn't inform firefighters of... an appropriate evacuation zone because it's only a couple hundred feet. And if you look at the Escondido fire, clearly you didn't want to be anywhere near this thing. You wanted to be hundreds or thousands of feet away. You did not want to be in the plume. And I never was in the plume myself. I stayed off center. But even then, after a while, I had to get out of there. My body was just saying, you need to get out of here. So... Yeah, I think that AEGL1 is probably as close a standard as we have for sort of informing us in advance of what an evacuation zone might look like. But I think in practical terms, it may be actually bigger than that. One thing that we don't see in plume studies, maybe this will get filled in in the future, but plume studies only look at gaseous items like hydrogen fluoride. It's a molecule, it's a gas, it's invisible. It's like an air molecule, oxygen or nitrogen. But what you see, the plume that you actually see is particulate. It's actually very small solid particles. And those small solid particles contain, in this case, fluorinated hydrocarbons. It's very toxic. And so we don't really have a good idea as to where that plume falls out, because of being particulate, it eventually hits the ground. They're solids, they're not gas. So that fallout, we don't really have a good handle on that because it really hasn't been modeled. So we're looking at the gaseous things like hydrogen fluoride as a proxy for how to keep things safe.

And then did this model consider the wind variations and median types of winds that we have there?

Yeah. The plume modeling that's prescribed by County Fire requires that the modeler and the applicant use a local meteorological data set, a MET data set that's reflective of the actual project site. And so that's the reason why we can't just do sort of a one size fits all and just say, okay, you know, let's do this once and everyone use the same downwind sort of setbacks because MET conditions vary. from place to place. It might be possible to do a number of them and sort of get representative of the county to get a better handle on that. But as it stands, the guidelines require a specific data set for that particular project location.

Can we turn to, so I want to hear from the county team kind of how they did their modeling.

Okay.

Yeah. I feel like that's where we're all, that felt like the next step. That was also what Supervisor Anderson was interested in as well. So it would be super helpful. I think that was very articulate and very clear. I think it would be very helpful to hear from the county team. It seems like there's... A couple questions on the table. One is, what's the appropriate threshold level to be utilized for the model, whether it's the ALG-1, the ALG-2 at 30 minutes, the ALG-2 at one hour? Hopefully I captured your different thresholds correctly. And then, based on those thresholds, and the wind pattern that was utilized, which was actually modeled meteorologically, what does that tell us about how... where the site should be.

Well, first of all, good morning, Chair Lawson-Riemer. So a little bit on the plume study and county fires, interim fire protection, and now permanent fire protection guidelines. Early on, as we started to see these best projects came in, we were one of the first entities to actually require plume modeling as part of it. I want to be clear with the board, we do require it at AGL level one. That has been consistent since our guidelines were first developed. There was a typo that has been submitted, should be posted sometime this week, the revised typo. requirements. So for this project, AEGL level one, two, and three were all studied. The AEGL one boundary is 2,230 feet where there could be a short-term impact to the residents. There was seven homes that were affected with the batteries in the north part of the project. There is no homes within the AEGL level two and three. The AE at GL level two for Supervisor Gary, there is, was it 660 feet? Jewel Valley Road is 300 feet. So there could be a level two exposure on Jewel Valley Road. But what I'd really like to do is the plume study is developed by the applicant's consultant. County Fire has a third party expert in this and Jensen Hughes that verifies that. And so, Chair, if you'd be willing, I'd like, to give an opportunity for both the, either the applicant's consultant or our own county fire consultant, Jensen Hughes, to come up and talk about the technical or answer any technical specific questions that the board had about the plume study.

I think that's a great idea. I think what would be most helpful is to address particularly the concerns raised by the community group presentation and by Joe Rowley in particular regarding the AEGL 1 versus 2 radius and answer kind of the concerns that he raised.

So, Chair, if you would, I'd like to have the applicant and or Jensen Hughes as our consultants come up. I'm going to refer to the expert who actually developed the study. Thank you, Supervisor.

Thank you.

Hi, good afternoon. I'm, again, Chris Fahey with representing the Hagen family. I'm not an expert on plume analysis. I was going to make the point, I don't believe our consultant, Hazard Dynamics, is on the phone. Kevin, are you there? He was supposed to call in. We haven't made contact with him. on our cell phone, so I'm not sure if he's here. What's his name? But I would like to make the point.

Hold on, my colleague has a point of clarification.

I believe Jensen Hughes is here. I'd actually rather hear from the MS. That's what I was going to suggest. Thank you.

We can hear from Jensen Hughes instead. Okay, great. Please, thank you so much.

Hi, Chairman. My name is Ankit. And my background is in PhD, and I've been working now on the fire research now for more than a decade. And I'm from Johnson-Hewkes, and I'm standing here on behalf of the San Diego County. So my job here is to review this preliminary and make sure that all the inputs which have gone through in terms of data, in terms of assumptions is correct and based on science and facts. So first I will also want to mention that this report has gone many rounds of iteration. So we have been working with a team over the last few months and we have given all of our comments and we have been working on them. So based on all of our discussions and all the assumptions, now you see this form has come out. And also I want to say one more thing, that this plume study is not just based on one kind of fire. There are many layers of assumptions which have made sure that all the worst cases are considered in this study. First is the fire size. So fire size, which was seen in the data, was around 8 megawatt. But we have gone further and we have increased that fire size to 60 megawatt to make sure all the worst cases which can happen can be addressed with this bloom study. Next is HF, which has been discussed a lot. And I do agree, HF is a gas which has high risk of concerns. But also HF is not required to be measured in any of the UL954DA test data NFPA855. And this is also not required as part of the plume modeling in NFPA855. But we have made sure that the consultant has also included HF in their plume study. And again, HF data has got lots of variation in the previous literature, and we have seen HF has a range from very low number to high. So we, again, have made sure that the number they are using for the HF plume study is a range which is not very low, but it falls into the range which we see across all the data in previous literature across, I think, last based on 10 years. So that number we have given them which they have used in their plume study. Next also I would like to mention one very, very important thing is that HF gas is highly reactive. So if you will have HF in your one place, the HF may not travel up to very long distance. And the reason is why? Because HF will react with the moisture and will deposit maybe in a few feet of meter. But in this modeling, we have made the assumption that HF is not reacting, which means we assume that all the HF, whatever is coming, will travel, which is not true. And we have seen data that HF is highly reactive with the moisture, will deposit, and may not travel this far. But still, in this modeling, that assumption was made. to make sure that all the HF emission is captured carefully. The next part is the wind speed. Wind speed, again here, the study has made sure that all the possible wind speeds have been captured in this study, ranging from low to medium up to higher, which is up to 99 percentile of wind speed. So all those wind speeds, local side effects have been captured in this study. Next, also I would like to mention that all of these distances which you see here are based on when all of these worst cases, they happen at the same time. Worst fire, worst wind, worst HF, no HF reacting. In that case only, you will see this distance. Again, I do agree that these best, they have fire, yes, I agree. They have toxic emission, yes, I agree. But again, all of these distances, they have captured all of these worst assumptions happening at the same time. This one, you see, okay, that HF will go up to this distance. Next, also, I would like to mention on the AGL1. If you consider the AGE level one, then the duration won't matter. Even if you have 30 minutes, if you have one hour, EPA has given guidance that the value of HF, which is one ppm, will remain same for all of these duration. And now county has also said that they are considering AGE level one level, which means that now the duration won't be important and The HF1 PPM has already captured the effects of HF for all these duration, 30 minutes, 1 hour, up to 8 hours. Yeah, so I think, yeah, these are all of my points which we have reviewed as part of this community. And again, this study has gone several rounds of iteration with us, with our team, discussions, and now this has come out which has captured all the assumptions, all the worst cases which can happen in this site. Thank you.

Do any of my colleagues have any questions? Yes. Okay, please, Supervisor Dessler.

So if I caught you, if I understand, is the scenario that I guess the... Opponents, you're saying it was all the worst case scenarios all tied into one for the modeling of the flu. But what's the health? You're probably not a doctor, but what's the health risks in AEGL1? It just says health risks. Is that permanent damage? Is it a bloody nose? I don't know.

Supervisor Desmond, through the chair, let me read you the definition of AEGL1. Vulnerable groups could experience notable discomfort, irritation, or certain asymptomatic non-sensory effects. These effects are mild, non-disabling, transient, and fully reversible once an exposure stops. So in really simplistic terms, AEH Level 1 is a short-term discomfort. A Level 2 can have permanent effects to you, and Level 3 can be considered a deadly exposure in a really simplistic view. But that's the definition of Level 1.

Okay. Thanks. That's all I had on the plume. And we've already answered the other questions. Thanks. Thanks.

Thank you. Other questions for my colleagues on the plume study?

Just related to... I'm sorry. Yes, please. Just related to weather variability related to climate change. I know you mentioned 99 percentile weather patterns, past weather patterns, but...

Excuse me. I'm sorry to interrupt you, Supervisor. Can I offer a quick correction before... Who are you with? I'm with SWCA, Johanna Falzerano. You had asked earlier whether Jewel Valley Road was in any of the AEGL zones. Yes. I believe the chief said that it was within AEGL 2. It is not within any of the AEGL zones. The evacuation road. As you can see on the figure there.

Okay. Thank you so much.

Could I?

No, I'm going to turn it back to my colleague who was speaking. Go ahead. Yeah, I was speaking. So my question continues to relate to weather variability related to climate change. Were any of those wind patterns accounted for?

This is a question for Jensen. No, ma'am, it's for Jensen. Thank you. Just to clarify, my colleague is asking a follow-up regarding the plume modeling and the accuracy of the plume modeling, and she asked whether variability of wind patterns was accounted for, particularly generated by climate change.

Yeah, so this study has been based on the wind speeds which have occurred on this site from last few years. So we can predict what will happen in the future, but still we have made sure that the plume study has captured all the possible wind speeds which have occurred on the site specific. And again, here there are also many combinations of the wind speed, combination of the class of stability in the atmosphere. So those conditions have been captured in this bloom study.

Did you include inversion layers?

Sorry?

Inversion layers?

Yes. Yeah. So that part comes when you include the effect of the stability of the atmosphere. So you have classes of DEF where you see, okay, that the class is highly stable or less stable. So there you can have the boundaries of the, yeah, boundary based on the temperature.

So just to be clear, you took into consideration all the past data, but not the potential for weather variability related to climate change.

Future wind speeds, we cannot predict, but still this study has captured what data has been there from sites across the past. Yeah, I got that.

I got that clear, but you didn't account for it. Okay, thank you.

Yep, any other questions for our friend from Jensen while he's up here, please? We have a hand up from Vice Chair Montgomery-Stepp.

Oh, no, no. Not for Jetson.

Okay. We have a hand up from Supervisor Desmond. Go ahead. You did a real hand up. You did an actual hand instead of a virtual hand.

Okay. There's windmills to catch the wind in this same area. So I would imagine the wind speeds here are higher than in other parts of the county. So that would, I don't know if that's better or worse for the plume, if the plume dissipates more rapidly with the higher wind speeds or just blows it further away. I'm just kind of curious.

Yes, yeah, sure, yeah. So there is also one more thing here as what the EPA says. EPA says that for the worst scenario, the wind speed is around 1.5 miles per hour. And also, as the wind speed will increase, there's nothing guaranteed that the plume will travel farther, because if the wind speed have increased, which means that the turbulence will also increase, which means now there is higher mixing, which means that the concentration of the gases will decrease as they travel down the line.

So, all right, is it better or worse to have high wind speeds? Sorry? Is it better or worse with that higher wind speed?

Again, so it depends on the side directions, from where the wind speed is blowing. So all of these factors...

It's primarily going blowing west to east, I mean, imagine, because that's where the windmills are kind of aimed. So if it's blowing... I'm just curious if the higher speed dissipates the plume further and is less of a hazard as opposed to a zero wind or less wind.

So as we have seen in this study, that up to the 90% of the wind speed, there was a distance which was higher as compared to the low speeds. So again, all of these factors, they are interdependent. on the wind directions, wind speeds, what gases are coming, and again, their local temperature of the air during that time. So that's also a very important variable, what temperature is there, or what is the wind speed, what is the moisture.

So there's all sorts of factors, but I guess still, is it more hazardous to the people if there's less wind, or is it more hazardous if there's more wind?

Generally, what we have seen that with the higher wind speeds, the plume distances, they decrease because there you have more mixing. And it means there are less concentrations.

Is it more dangerous to the people on the ground?

No, he's saying more wind is less dangerous. Oh, okay.

Thank you. I'm glad you interpreted that. Thank you.

Right? Yes? Okay. Got it. Okay. We're all going to be experts on plumes. Vice Chair Montgomery-Stepp.

Thank you so much.

And I think we're good.

Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thanks. I also want to acknowledge just the travel here for community members and that this, you know, we're faced with so many impossible decisions, having to balance so much. But I want to get clarity on the, any further action based on what the board decides here today. So, um, I'm, uh, I think Vince, you started out with sort of a, um, a summary about state law, um, and the requirements. And so if the board, uh, were to not approve this in this forum today, um, what would be the next step as far as the state is concerned? I'm, I'm, I am, um, And I heard from some of the community members, there's been a feeling of sort of being trapped and being excluded from the conversation. My concern is that it would go to another level where there then wouldn't be some of the community benefits would be taken off of the table. And I heard that in a couple of the comments. So I just want to get clarification on procedure there.

Through the chair, vice chair, to ensure I'm understanding the question, if the project is not approved today, then correct, none of the community benefits would be allocated to the project. Is the question then what would the applicant have an option of doing that after that?

The question is, would the project still be able to be approved at another level without the community benefits? Are there any kind of like appeals or?

So, sorry, through the chair, vice chair, maybe another way I could attempt to answer that is California allows projects to go through local entities, but there's also a path to go through the state for approval on projects like BESS facilities. So in this particular project, there's BESS and there's solar. I would need to follow up to find out if a project THIS PARTICULAR APPLICANT COULD GO THEN AND WORK THROUGH THE STATE ITSELF, BUT THERE ARE PATHS FORWARD FOR APPLICANTS TO GO THROUGH THE STATE WITHOUT GOING THROUGH LOCAL ENTITIES FOR PROJECTS SUCH AS BEST FACILITIES. IN THOSE ENTITIES, THEN LOCAL JURISDICTIONS WOULDN'T HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO ADD CONDITIONS ON THINGS LIKE SPECIFIC SETBACK, COMMUNITY BENEFIT AGREEMENTS, GROUNDWATER MONITORING AND THINGS LIKE THAT, JUST AS WE WOULD BE BYPASSED AT THE LOCAL LEVEL FOR THOSE SPECIFIC PROJECTS.

OKAY, GOT IT. THANK YOU. THAT DID ANSWER MY QUESTION. CHIEF MEACHAM, DID YOU HAVE ANYTHING TO ANSWER All right, thank you. My other two questions are about the request from community members with regard to water testing. I think the chair made that distinction, right? There's one thing about water supply. My understanding is from what has been represented here today, that there is no There is no agreement yet with regard to the water supply, but the project cannot move forward without that agreement. Is that accurate based on the planning commission's conditions?

Through the Chair, Vice Chair, that is accurate. In terms of water supply, it is not uncommon for projects to not have a finalized water source when they go through the discretionary phase. The assumptions in the EIR would still need to be met and confirmed, and staff would confirm that once a water source is identified at a later date.

Okay. On the other side of that, what I heard, and this may be a little bit of my misunderstanding, but I think I'll try to see if my common sense is common here. that any project really, especially with a community such as Boulevard in the water supply, a project with this magnitude could impact that water supply just based on the building of the project. And so I think the request for testing is coming from that impact. And so I don't know if this is question for staff or the developer of both, what is the mitigation for those particular impacts?

Good morning. Through the Chair, the answer to your question is the primary use of the water is for dust control. So it only soaks down, you know, eight inches. We do recognize the risk associated with groundwater pollution associated with a battery fire because there's a water... The water is used to fight the fire. That's why we worked with the Planning Commission to come up with a containment that would be 100% impermeable. We are willing to do a baseline groundwater test underneath where the batteries would go. And we're also willing to do groundwater testing if there was a fire in the same area to make sure there was no groundwater pollution.

Okay. I think what I'm hearing from community is in order to get the baseline first, though, that testing, they're requesting testing kind of now so that they can use those results to test against any other, to compare against any other type of testing. Sorry, I'm on the diet, so I think a scientist and an economist, and I'm neither, but...

You have it right. OK. And so we call that baseline.

OK. OK. So a baseline now regardless of an incident though?

You have to do it before you have an incident or you have no way of measuring what happened from the incident.

And so have you agreed to that already up to this point or is this breaking news?

It is breaking news and we're agreeing to it as a result of your request.

Okay. Okay. So that's what I would like to, if possible, add that condition. I think that that is important.

We would agree to that.

Okay. The only other thing that I heard, and I want to get clarification, because this was also in one of the videos, and I don't know if, is there anything anybody wants to say just to clarify? I think we got, is that settled?

I think the water's clear, and we do have a motion that the team has drafted that would add that condition to the project. So I think we're good on that. Meeting the minds.

Okay, great. Okay, one more issue. Thank you so much. That is around the fund. And so in one of the videos, I think is a clip from the planning commission, there was a request to front, well, really the group request is to front all of that fund from the beginning at the start of phase one. There was agreement to something in the video, but I'm not sure what that agreement was to. There was a planning commissioner that brought this issue up. I believe you said we're willing to do that. What was it exactly that you agreed to there?

Through the chair, Commissioner Pallinger asked if we could increase the amount of money in the first phase, and we have done that. Okay.

Is that from the $800,000 to the $900,000? To a million. Okay, $900,000 to a million.

Also, I would like to add that the power is not sold on the second phase, so there is no revenue. Until the power is sold, we have no way of funding any community benefits. The power in the first phase is sold. That's why we were able to commit a flat number. And the reason why we used dollars per megawatt for the rest is because we don't know what we have.

Okay. Thank you very much.

You're welcome.

I just want to, if you could stay up to be efficient here. I'd love a little bit more clarity on the structure of this community benefit. I guess, a million in phase one and then a dollar per megawatt in phase two. What is the timing? Where does it get paid? What does it fund?

That's a great question. We've had... 54 meetings of the planning group on Starlight since we started five years ago. About two and a half years ago, we started working on what do people think would be good community benefits. The community center needs a lot of work, and we priced it out, and that's how we came up with the number to completely refurbish it. The other thing, since it's voluntary, our intent is for it to be used as a match for a grant to improve the park that's next door to the community center that hasn't had any funding or anything. They have no parks in Boulevard because the perception by some is that you have big property so you don't need parks. We disagree. We think that parks are a valuable resource for people who come together as a community and that refurbishing the community center is a way forward. Those payments are made prior to the issuance of a grading permit.

And who are they paid to?

Well... I think it's probably going to a San Diego Foundation because they're the vehicle that we have that I've used in the past to hold money for these kinds of purposes. And you want to have an arm's length relationship with them so that the applicant isn't calling the shots.

But then the San Diego Foundation decides how the money is spent, like legally?

No. We had a whole group of ideas when we first started working with the planning group. And if you recall, well, I don't think you were on the board then, there used to be a whole range of kinds of benefits like libraries, botanical studies, things like that. And what Boulevard needs is on-the-ground improvements. The community center is nice, but it could be a lot nicer.

That's your first warning. If you disrupt the meeting again, you'll be asked to leave. Thank you. Go ahead, sir.

For the second phase there there is no commitment for that money, and that's over seven plus million. There's no commitment For what that would be spent on we didn't because we didn't have any We have no way to fund it yet because it's not sold so that money would go into the San Diego Foundation when the power was sold and Then we would work with the community in the county to come up with how it would be spent Thank you.

I'm some more kind of questions that community benefit.

Could I say one more thing? there there There's a lot of merit to creating an ongoing funding stream. We have, our firm pioneered the idea of endowments as funding community needs when it was with habitat management. And you can count on a four and a quarter percent rate of return. Let's say seven million is over a quarter million dollars a year in dividends, call it. So it's another option is instead of, coming up with a giant capital improvement, you would use it to fund ongoing something.

Okay. I have some questions on that. I mean, I think what I'm hearing from the community is they want all the money up front. You're saying we can't do that because you can do the part from phase one because that energy is already sold, so there's a pot of money to distribute.

That's correct.

But you can't do that from phase two because that has not been sold. There's no income. There's no income. Question on that. I understand that makes sense logically, but there's another piece to me, which there are upfront costs to phase two, right? Like you're doing a lot of paying a lot of investments to kind of design the project, develop the project. There's a lot of upfront costs for developing phase two, even before there is a revenue stream. It seems like it might be reasonable to consider at least a portion of a community of development, a community benefit as an upfront development cost, the same way that you think about grading roads or paying lawyers as upfront development costs. Yeah.

that's fair but we would also not incur those other costs until we had a buyer for the project power you would not incur any costs no because the the major use permit requires a level of design to get the project approved and then when you go back to get your your construction drawings approved and your building permit approved you you're that's about a year process you you would do that once you knew you had the power sold so there's a reason to do it because We're not the solar developers. The solar developer determines what the design of the final project is, you know, the equipment, the batteries, how it lays out and so on. That's the time that the expenditures would be made in line with what you're saying, which is how about when you get going on phase two. That is probably what would happen. Once you got going on phase two, you would be doing that because you had the power sold.

Other question, are there precedents, and maybe this is for our accounting team, of the community benefit going into some kind of source that's actually governed by the community? So, right, like I think the only, the reasonable entity, representative entity seems to be a community, the community planning group, since there's not like a city council.

Yeah.

I am able to answer.

Let me hear from our county team. If they can't answer, I'll turn to you.

Through the chair, the way we structured it for the last solar project was the money is placed with the San Diego Foundation. And this was with the Hukumba Solar Project. So the money was placed with the San Diego Foundation. In order for the money to be used, the county would have to agree on the expenditures. When we get proposals from the community on that project, we would route it through the San Diego Foundation to allow for disbursement of it. Our intent was to plan a similar structure here so that we would not be dispersing money on the county without hearing from the community in terms of what they want.

I understand that, but there's a difference between the county hearing from the community, take it or leave it, versus there being some kind of accountable body that's like actually chosen and selected and accountable to community members that has authority to make decisions about how money is spent.

Well, I mean, I think, am I wrong?

I mean, Julie, you would need to correct me, but it's the community planning group is the only real entity that has like representative power, like that's actually accountable to the community members. It seems like if this project is to go forward, the community planning group should have authority to figure out how to spend it for the community, not some outside entity, namely supervisors who don't represent the district.

Chair, one additional thought here in your comments there, um, We could confirm with council, but perhaps there could be a nonprofit established by the community for the determination on how to expend these funds going forward so it's not just the planning or sponsor group that is advising on it.

If I could intrude here, there is a nonprofit. And that's, he died, Mark Ostrander. He and his wife operated the Backcountry Resource Center. That is the actual owner of the community center. And I would suggest that they and the community group and the applicant and the county all have a say in how the money is spent.

Could I hear from this gentleman, please? Why don't you see the floor? He's trying to answer the question. Yeah, please. Thank you, Jim. Appreciate it.

So we would replicate the model that Jeff Osborne and the team have done in Okumba. So the way this would work is the first thing that would happen is we do a community needs assessment. And that community needs assessment is done by somebody outside the community to really understand the needs of the community. And then, and Jeff, you're gonna help me if I get any of this wrong. The money would come in, it would go into a, it would go into the San Diego Foundation through JABA, which is a Hukumba Boulevard Alliance revitalization project. So it would go in there and that, we would have people apply for grants within the town based on the needs assessment. So the idea here is so the money is very wisely spent so it can be sustainable over time and it can actually really specifically fix some of the problems in the town, but not one person or just a few people are making that decision. So when people come with grants, The town would be able to vote on the grants that people are proposing based off the needs assessment. And then the board would make the final decision on whether or not a grant was approved or not approved.

The board of who?

Hakumba Boulevard Revitalization Alliance. That's the non-for-profit that they were just speaking about that runs our community center.

I can add a lot of color to this. I think there's just one important point, which is that the planning groups or sponsor groups, they don't have the ability to run a bank account. And so you have to have the nonprofit partner to actually be the fiduciary. And how ours is structured is, like he mentioned, we're doing a needs assessment. We're then doing a scoring system where grants will be scored against it. And then we'll have an annual town hall where the community votes for the projects they would like to support. The nonprofit and the sponsor group make recommendations. Those recommendations then go to the county for final approval before the monies are then released to the nonprofit to manage the disbursement locally to make sure those funds aren't wasted.

And this is the structure that currently governs the JVR? That's correct. And is that written in, is that already the conditions on this project, that that would be the structure of the grant management? Chair, yes, it is. Community Benefit Grant Management. That is already.

Chair, yes, it is. That is written into the project. So if the board chooses to vote on it, it would already be a requirement.

Okay, got it. That's really helpful. Another set of questions, probably not for anyone here, there was a realtor in the room. I was curious, did we have some assessments on like how much we think people's property values would be impacted by the project?

Trudy, if you could come up, please.

Sorry, if you don't, to put you on the spot. You did introduce yourself as a realtor.

Yeah, and as we're having this discussion, and I know we're thinking about the dollar amounts, I ask you to just kind of think about if, say, this was just one project in Phase 1, is $1 million really enough for what would be happening to this town?

Ma'am. It's totally fair for you to say I have no idea, but I just figured that seemed like an important, interesting point.

It is an interesting point, and I have heard of a 2.1%. I don't really have the numbers, and I'm sorry, I was put on the spot.

No, it's totally fine, and thank you for being here and sharing. Absolutely, thank you.

Is there a disclosure, though, Trudy? Doesn't property owners now have to disclose?

All known material facts, so anything that they know, that is a material fact that would affect their property, they have to disclose. Disclose, disclose, disclose. Okay.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Thank you. I have some follow-ups on this, but let me give it to my colleague, Supervisor Anderson.

Thank you very much. When we do our community grants in some of my communities, we had so many grant requests that we set up a system very similar to what they're doing. Everybody submits a grant, gets to vote on in their community who gets the money because they're asking for four times more than what's allocated. And I'm not going to be the bad guy when I'm helping get the money. So I let them work it out. And I think that's essentially a one-off of what they're doing. One of the things that my staff had said that was... AN EARLY PROPOSED IDEA, AND MAYBE THIS WOULD HELP CLOSE SOME OF THE GAP BETWEEN PHASE ONE AND PHASE TWO, IS THE SAN DIEGO COMMUNITY POWER DISADVANTAGED COMMUNITIES GREEN TARIFF, THAT'S THE DACGT PROGRAM, IS A PROGRAM WHERE THEY PAY FOR POWER AT A PREMIUM. IS THERE ANY POSSIBILITY in either phase one or phase two that Some of the sales may go like that and could any of the money because this is what was proposed at one time Be repurposed to help disadvantaged in the community Meet the needs of their power Yes in short Is that something that potentially the developer would still be interested in doing that we could perhaps put into our motion?

Yes, and the motion would be along the lines of, I'm making this up while I'm talking to you, would be directing us to pursue the disadvantaged communities green tariff option with San Diego Community Power, I think Supervisor Lawson-Reamer is aware of it. We have been working with San Diego Community Power on the logistics of how to do it, and we have a way forward. We didn't want to offer it until it came up in case the board was interested, but yes, we could pursue it.

May we add that to the amendment, I mean, of the motion?

Yeah, could we, county team, could we get a write-up on how that would be included in a motion? Mm-hmm.

I just want to be clear on one thing.

You can go ahead and step to the microphone.

Sorry, I'm trying not, I'm trying to be polite. Because I want to make sure, so Joel, so you understand too, and we worked really closely with Andrew, and I really want to applaud you in front of it. He's an amazing person. He's been very helpful in this process. All of your teams have, I've talked to everybody in your offices. But the thing I want to make sure is not happening here, in the commissioner's meeting, There was a proposal for the $7 million to come to our town through an SDGE credit. We fought really hard to make sure that didn't happen so the money became in our control. So I want to make sure this is not reversing that right now. This is an addition to? Addition. Okay, okay.

This would be the marginal profit that they would have received above the standard rate. because they pay a premium of 20% more for that power they use. So that marginal difference would then be reunited into the community for people who hit the criteria of underserved.

Yeah, and again, it's in addition to the $8 million. This is an initial benefit. Yeah okay and then we're really trying to get more for the phase one. Okay and then one question on the water too so we it seems like you guys come to some conclusions of the well testing what happens what's the accountability factor if during construction or something we notice the water levels are going down substantially meaning maybe the water is being taken that's not supposed to be taken and if there's contaminants what's the accountability what happens?

question that's a question for the county team if there's if the water testing does reveal that either the quantity is decreasing so the water table is going down which we don't anticipate obviously or there's some kind of pollution in the water and the water quality is decreasing which of course we don't anticipate either these things but if they were to happen which is why we'll be testing for them what would be the consequence so if if

If water testing were to identify that water was going down, our first step would be to investigate, to identify were any wells drilled on the project site without permits. After that, we would work with our groundwater folks to look at other wells in the area to identify if there was any other use in the area contributing to groundwater going down. In terms of the contamination, if there were a fire from a BESS facility, our expectation is that we would have state and federal agencies as well as local involved in the investigation. providing guidance and direction for remediation efforts based on the site-specific incident and the ground conditions there. So we would expect groups like the EPA, Regional Water Quality Control Board, should there be a fire, to engage to say, here's what needs to happen for remediation based on that to address both ground conditions and any groundwater concerns. Again, should there be a fire on a BESS unit.

If I may, the proposed draft motion that we can provide to you all regarding water quality does account for not only monitoring, but the obligation that would be upon the applicant to work with those agencies and hold some responsibility for remediation. Okay.

I want to finish this conversation on community benefits, and then we'll go to the water quality piece. Anything additional from anyone on the community benefits side? I have one additional question. This is for the developer.

Could I make a last statement on that, what you're going to there?

No, I just want to ask, I want to get some clarity on the structure. So you said it's based on, it's 26,738 per megawatt. Is that correct? So the estimate is 7 million. And what is the timeline on the payment? Is that would be immediately upon the project, the power purchase agreement being inked?

What usually happens is, and again, you have personal experience with this, we are going to try and sell the power to community power, most likely, because we want to have the in-basin power, locally generated, local reliability. When that happens, as you know, once the community power board approves the power purchase agreement, then all these things start happening, because that's how you can finance it. Once you can finance it, then you can start spending the money. But it's kind of like a shopping center lease. When you have a shopping center lease, that's how you generate the funding to build the buildings. It's the exact same relationship with this.

So it would be right, it would be the next phase would be transferred to this account at the nonprofit once that power purchase agreement is inked.

I would say it's going to be proximate to it because you can't proceed with the project until you do all the measures.

Okay. And is that included in the way the conditions that it would be upon signing a power purchase agreement or shortly thereafter it would be sort of over the 30 years of the project?

Chair, the way we have it structured in the conditions is that before they can begin construction of Phase 2, they have to make that payment to the foundation.

Got it. Okay. Thank you.

One other thing. As luck would have it, a gentleman with real estate experience in Boulevard is here to tell you about if it's okay.

Sure. Go ahead.

I'm not a licensed real estate agent. My name is Christian Richter, IBW, Local 569. I grew up in this area. I still live there now. I've been there for 41 years. I am fortunate enough, I own three additional homes in the area, Cameron Truck Trail, Shockey, and in Potrero off of Potrero Valley Road. All of my home values have gone up since 2024. If we're using the baseline as JVR being where it started the decline. And then also my friends and family as well. My friend just purchased a home in 2024. He closed, he's moving to Texas, having issues with work, but he made a profit of $125,000 in equity on his home. So I wouldn't see this project as being a deterrent towards home values.

Okay, thank you very much. Appreciate the personal experience. Okay, this has been an incredibly granular and I think thoughtful conversation by this board. Why don't we go ahead and put those two motions up for consideration or amended amendments to the motion?

Joe does say he's got something to share.

Let's look at these and if anyone has any additional questions or any of my colleagues would like to call you back. Okay, so this is not actually the motion of the floor. That's not correct. But basically the idea is this kind of looking at this as additional conditions of if this project was to move forward would be to add a condition to require baseline groundwater monitoring, And testing prior to construction with further testing occurs should a fire occur on the property. And the applicant work with state or federal agency to remediate any contamination caused by the event. Does this include both quality? I think we want to clarify it both quality and quantity, both levels and contaminants. So that would be the first piece. So out of condition, I wouldn't erase everything.

They just sent me the motion.

Yeah, okay. Based on groundwater monitoring, testing of both quality and quantity. No, and testing of both quality and quantity. Quality and quantity. Okay. Okay. And I think, is this second bullet getting at what you were hoping for Supervisor Anderson to provide additional prior? I think you were being a little more specific. Require the developer to pursue a green tariff and ensure that any additional benefits generated are paid to the community.

Would be used in the community to offset people who meet the financial criteria or the underserved aspect so that it would go to the most needy to help them augment their power.

Well, I guess the question is, does this bullet meet your needs, or do you feel like it needs to be more specific?

I would call it disadvantaged green tariffs program. Disadvantaged community green tariffs program.

Require the developer to pursue the disadvantaged green tariffs program.

Disadvantaged Communities Green Tariffs. I don't know why they came up with that name.

No, you're correct on the title. Disadvantaged Communities Green Tariffs Program. It should all be capitalized.

And it probably should say in the form of energy rebates. So it's not the additional benefits

MAY BE MISCONSTRUED AS IT'S A SIDEWALK, BUT IT'S ACTUALLY MEANT TO PROVIDE ADDITIONAL BENEFITS TO ELIGIBLE COMMUNITY MEMBERS IN THE FORM OF GREEN, IN THE FORM OF ENERGY REBATES.

YEP. MA'AM CHAIR, WE HAVEN'T HAD A CHANCE TO ASK THE NATURE OF THEIR AQUIFER. SO WHEN YOU THINK IN TERMS OF COMMUNITIES LIKE RAMONA, ALL THOSE WELLS ARE ON SHALE. When you have shale, you can have water here that pops up over there. It's no rhyme or reason. If you're on sand, the aquifer is very clear where it begins, where it ends. For years, there was a Hatfield-McCoy battle over who's stealing whose water.

Wow.

and that was all based on shale, and it's not trackable. So I'd be curious to find out, if we're checking well in the reduction of the wells, that we don't have a shale situation where it's not truly trackable. The Barona tribe had to defend their water usage, and everyone complained that they were taking their water, but there was... It proved untrue, however, it drove great angst. So I'm just, I would like to take a look at and make sure that we're looking at this from a scientific geology standpoint.

Okay, we also have a geologist on our board.

If I may. I've sat through a lot of hard community meetings.

Yes. Okay. But to the county team, I think that was a very useful question. What is the nature of how the groundwater is stored and is it a shale situation?

Through the chair, it is a fractured bedrock groundwater system where there are pockets and inclusions, just as Supervisor Anderson was referring to, I've even heard of situations, I've been going out there for so many years, where a minor earthquake can shut a well off.

Davia? We do have our groundwater expert, Jim Bennett, here available if you did want to hear from the county.

As Jim comes up, Chair, in terms of if there were any concerns based on the monitoring well regarding the quantity, Jim is a groundwater geologist and our water resource manager for the county, and he would be advising us in terms of what the supervisor referenced in terms of do aquifer conditions result in a way for us to discern was it based on the aquifer that water quality or water quantity may adjust or based on other reasons. And I will hand it to Jim.

Thank you, please. And any questions, Supervisor Anderson?

No, that answered it. Thank you.

Jim, anything you'd like to add?

Yeah, Supervisor, it is a fractured rock aquifer and generally a fractured rock aquifer can have differing interconnections between individual wells. And every site is going to, every location, every area is going to be different. And when we're looking at information here, some wells may be interconnected, some may not. It's a complex system, but it's something that the sampling itself, we'd be able to look at that information and be able to look at trends and be able to determine that based on the information that's collected at the time.

Okay. Thank you. Davia?

Chair, if I may, with regard to the second condition here, the last sentence of the second condition still reflects only the water quality aspect in terms of remediation. If I may recommend, and perhaps with council or staff's assistance, suggesting that we also talk about remediation of any contamination and or unanticipated and disproportionate depletion of the well, something with reference to the quantity as well in terms of the applicant's obligation to remediate that. There's probably better language than that, but I'd look to staff to assist.

Okay, that was a lot. So anything additional from anyone at this time? I think I just want to uplift something that might have gotten lost because there's a lot of conversation. I think it was a comment made and a question from the vice chair that felt really central in my view to this entire conversation, which is, that there is a state law that allows for these projects to be greenlit at the state level. And if that is to move forward, if the state does decide to take this up, then there's no space at all for community engagement. benefit agreements, for conditions, for the community voice. So to the extent that we care at all about democracy and communities having a voice, it seems strongly preferred to have these conversations at a local level where we can try to sort of hash these issues out and try to be as fair as we can instead of those conversations happening in Sacramento where for as far away as some of us on this board might seem from Boulevard, the folks in Sacramento are infinitely further away.

That seemed really, really central to this question.

Yeah. So thank you. I just want to uplift that. I thought that was like a really, it's definitely informing a lot of how I'm thinking about this for sure. Yeah.

My staff just texted me. They said on the community benefits, I mean, as far as the community power, it would be the developer that issues the rebates. It would not be because they're not customers of Community Power. So we just need to make sure that it's routed the correct way so it gets to the community.

Let's read it. I think it's written in a way that's not...

It's broad enough that... Well, we were alerted by San Diego County Power... They called my office. They're worried. Okay.

How would you like to rewrite it?

Why don't we just write it more open-ended and say that rebates would be provided through the appropriate...

Require the developers to provide additional needs to eligible communities in the form of energy rebates. Could be. Could be? Or whatever is...

I wonder if the San Diego Foundation would do it.

Can we just get rid of the, in the form of energy rebates, just require the development of the Disadvantaged Community Power Program through San Diego Community Power to provide additional benefits to eligible community members, and so that way they're not boxed in? Okay. Great. Thank you. Okay. I'm going to pause. I'm going to just right now we're having a board conversation. So if the board has any questions, we will call on you. But let me ask my colleagues if they have any additional questions for Joe Rowley or any community members that have been here. the county staff, any of the independent assessments, anyone else who's come to testify, anyone whatsoever. Supervisor Desmond? Vice Chair? No. Supervisor Anderson? You're good. Supervisor... Chair Pro Tem, Aguirre. Okay. Do we have, I think that right now we still don't have a motion on the floor.

I would, yes.

No, I mean, we're about to move forward. So I actually wanted to ask Supervisor Anderson, this is in your district, how you'd like to proceed.

I'll make the motion to support it moving forward with these amendments.

Okay. We would appreciate feedback from the board with regard to the best location in the south or the north. Okay, okay, you're comfortable. Okay, that's where you're going. Okay, thank you.

That goes to the comment I feel like I need to make. The Chief Meacham has affirmed that the standard is AEGL 1. The staff's analysis and presentation is based on AEGL 2. Completely different.

Okay. This is the original question that the was raised of the plume study. So let me ask directly The standard is a aegl1 is the staff's analysis and presentation based on aegl1 or aegl2

Chair Lawson-Ramer, the staff's review and recommendation is based on AEGL Level 1.

Is AEGL, and that is also validated by, what was the name of our independent?

Jensen Hughes.

Jensen Hughes. Is our representative from Jensen Hughes still here? Could you clarify, please come up to the microphone. whether the analysis of plume safety is based on the AEGL 1 modeling or the AEGL 2 modeling?

Yeah, sure. So they have added both of these levels to their report. So AEGL 1 level is also there in the report. And the distances, which you are seeing here, 2,200 feet something, is based on AEGL level 1. Okay.

Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Any additional questions?

Chair, would the board like to accept the additional modifications to dot point number two regarding groundwater quantity and add?

Let us know what it says.

Sure. It currently says remediate any contamination, so that's water quality related caused by the event. I'd recommend adding remediate any contamination or unanticipated depletion.

No, that's wrong. Okay, yep, okay. Great. Okay, we have a motion on the floor from Supervisor Anderson, whose district this is in, to move this item forward with these additional conditions. Is there a second? Joel moved it. I'll second. Okay. We've got a second from Chair Potemagiri. Please vote.

Thank you. That motion passes unanimously with all supervisors being present and voting aye.

Okay. Thank you all again. Really, again, so appreciative of the very constructive engagement from everyone. I know that this was very difficult and complicated and just appreciate the very thoughtful engagement. So thank you all for being here. Okay, it is now 1.20. We will break for lunch. We will be back here at 2.15.

The board is in recess until 2.15.