City Council - Regular Meeting

And I will convene the meeting. Thank you all for joining us this morning. Our Pledge of Allegiance and invocation will be led by our second district.

Thank you, Chair. I'd like to welcome up Pastor Victor Chang. He has served as a pastor in ministry for over 20 years. He's currently lead pastor of the First Chinese Baptist Church in Rancho Cucamonga. He is one of the founders of Cornerstone Bible College, an accredited ministry that trains pastors in China in partnership with Harvest Bible University. Pastor Chang is married to his wife, Jane, in 2017, the proud father of Michael and Lisa, both students of Rancho Cucamonga High School. His son, Michael, has served as a Fontana Police Explorer for the last three years. I'd like to welcome him up.

Good morning.

Good morning. Thank you, Supervisor Armendariz and honorable member of board. It's my true honor to be here and pray for everyone for this county. Okay, hello everyone. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we come here with a grateful heart because you say in Psalm 33, 12, Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, and the people whom he has chosen as his own inheritance. We thank you for blessing over 2 million residents who live and thrive in this county, just as Acts 14.17 says. You have shown kindness by sending rain from heaven and crops in their seasons, providing us with plenty of food and filling our hearts with joy. Father, we are grateful for every supervisor and official gathered in this chamber today. They serve us with wisdom, integrity, and genuine care. We recognize that their calling to serve itself is your grace and your sacred appointment. We ask you to continue to guide their every decision, grant them clarity of mind and strengthen their determination to pursue justice and the well-being of all residents they represent. We pray especially for this important meeting today. May your Holy Spirit rest upon every discussion and every decision made in this chamber. May those who are present today be filled with your wisdom and discernment to reach resolutions that could help this county to continue to grow and flourish. May your blessing rest upon this meeting, this entire county, and all those who serve and are served within it. In the name of Lord Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen. As we close in prayer and turn our heart to this great nation, please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and the republic for which it stands, UNDER GOD, INAVAISABLE, WITH LIBERTY AND JUST FOR ALL. THANK YOU. GOD BLESS.

WE WILL NOW MOVE ON TO OUR MEMORIAL ADJOURNMENTS. VICE CHAIR BACA.

THANK YOU, MADAM CHAIR. IT'S WITH GREAT HONOR I HAVE THREE MEMORIAL ADJOURNMENTS TODAY. THE FIRST ONE IS FAY ALDRIDGE. SHE WAS 77 YEARS OF AGE, A RESIDENT OF SAN BERNARDINO. And she was also a retiree from San Bernardino County CFS. She continued her service with purpose and generosity. She did a tremendous job. And one of the things about Faye is she really, really loved San Bernardino. She was very, very active in the neighborhood association known as the Arrowhead Neighborhood Association, which is a group of community members that are very involved in the city. And I remember when she personally invited me to her I Love Your Block event where they did – mural paintings in her community. She was just so proud of it. She's proud to be active in the community, and she definitely will be missed. The second one was Philip Morris of Redlands. Phil was a longtime neighbor of the family in the city of Rialto. We grew up with him. He actually was raised in Needles, California. He moved to Redlands along with his brother, Pat Morris, who was the... Councilman, and I'm sorry, the mayor of San Bernardino, but also served on the bench as a judge for many, many years. Phil was a public school teacher at San Gorgonio High School, and eventually went to law school, graduated from law school, and was appointed on the bench in 1983 by Governor Jerry Brown. And just a great man, a great human being. I grew up with his step-sons. They're a little bit older than me, Steve and Jeff. They're great human beings. And Phil was just a wonderful man. He really loved his community. He loved his wife. He's gonna be missed so much. And the last one is, you know, One of the ones that is just a bit more challenging was one of our youth that just died. She was five years of age. She died. She was one of our students for the preschool service department. She was taken by the ocean. It was just a sad thing. Her name's Amada Mia Brown, and we honor her. Brighton loved a five-year-old from San Bernardino whose life was taken too soon. Amada was chair student at Arrowhead Grove Head Start, which is one of our preschool services departments. Awards cannot ease the pain of such heartbreaking loss. We joined together remembering a young life that brought much happiness to others. On behalf of the 5th District and the entire County Board of Supervisors, we extend our heartfelt condolences to her family, her loved ones, and the dedicated staff at the Arrowhead Grove who cared for her and supported her. Hamada's joyful spirit and the happiness she brought to those around her remember her dearly and she will be missed. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much. Supervisor Cook.

Yes, I don't have a specific name, but I want to adjourn in memory this time of year where people decide to go wandering in the desert. And if you look at our area or my area that I represent, the number of people over the years where people have gone out there, the desert is very unforgiving. And if you know somebody that's there, please do not let them go out there by themselves. It's very, very challenging. Some of the rescue groups we have do a fantastic job and everything else. But it's getting warm. It's getting hot. And as I've said in the past, the desert is very unforgiving. And we don't want to lose anybody. beautiful paradise that we have up there. So just be thoughtful. Try to have friends. Try to go with groups and come back in one piece and alive. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Supervisor Armendariz.

Supervisor Hagman, no.

This morning we have three presentations, so I'm gonna ask my peers to join me up in front, but before I do, I wanted to announce the orange ties. I may have worn an orange dress at our last meeting and gotten some ribbing from my peers, and so now in solidarity, they are coming out. I think it's a little mea culpa on their part that I got a hard time from them. So anyway, that's why the orange ties. No specific reason other than I got ribbed last time for wearing an orange dress. I will save the comments for non-public.

He may or may not have called me the Great Pumpkin.

I would like to ask Rod to please come up and join us, Rod Ohansley. Good morning, sir.

Congratulations. Very exciting for you.

So this morning, we would like to present a special resolution in honor of Rod, who is retiring after 28 years with the county. He began his career in 1998 as an employment services technician with the Transitional Assistance Department. He's retiring with the Program Development Division, where he has spent his time supporting Children and Family Services Department and the Department of Aging and Adult Services. We thank you for all of your years of dedication to the county. We wish you well in retirement.

Thank you all very much. It is certainly one of the great pleasures of my life that I was able to be with so many dedicated public servants trying to help the people of this county from the young to the very old. And it's been a privilege and an honor.

Do you have any other photos you want to bring them? Can we have Chris come up, please?

Whole family.

We can't do the jobs that we do without the support of the family, so it's nice to have you join us.

Here, use the mic. Come here, Connie. Both of you. Both of you, come on.

Do what mama says. OK. What are they doing?

Congratulations.

Thank you so very much.

If I could ask Norma Gallardo to please join us. Good morning. Norma is retiring after 20 years with the county. She worked for various departments, including the Department of Child Support Services and the Public Defender's Office, as well as Children and Family Services. We thank you so much for all the contributions that you gave to the county, and we wish you well in retirement. Congratulations.

Good morning, everybody. I just want to take this time to thank you so much. It does really take a village even to help us in our careers, right? And there has been so many people in my time with the county that have helped me grow as an employee, helped me grow as a person, helped me grow spiritually, mentally, and physically.

Yeah.

But I just want to take this time to thank the Board of Supervisors. Thank you so much for all your hard work and all your dedication and your commitment. To those of you that have helped me in each department that I've worked at, thank you so much. It has been an honor and a privilege to be a skilled county employee. And now on to the next journey, right? And I want to say last and not least, thank you to my family and my special friends. Because without you having the support, it probably would have been a different road. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Amen.

Now it is my honor to ask Dr. Hart to please join us up here. Good morning, sir. I'll tell you, there's a lot of fun things to do in this job. Recognizing our hard-working county employees, as you just saw those two, is one of them. And then we have an outside special recognition for Dr. Hart today. And it's personal to me. He is in my district. Loma Linda University is in the third district, and we have been able to do such great things together with collaboration and partnership. We're going to miss you. And I have a prepared thing that they gave me, and I learned something, so I'm going to read it. So it says here, now what year was the institution founded?

1905.

Okay.

I wasn't here then.

But Half of the institution's lifespan, he has been a part of it. So Dr. Hart, president of Loma Linda University Health, has served since 1972 and became the president in 2008. In his role, he oversaw operations of eight schools and six hospitals, and he was instrumental in the development of Loma Linda University Health San Bernardino campus. Dr. Hart is also the president of Adventist Health International, a management consulting organization for Seventh Day Adventist hospitals and clinics in developing countries. We are grateful for your leadership. It has just been an honor and a pleasure to work with you. And I know Dr. Hilliard will take the helm in running and doing good things. But I just can't thank you enough for all that you've done. You embody the saying of mind, body, and spirit. Our communities are so much better enriched because of it. And thank you for all of your years of dedication to all of us. So thank you.

Are you gonna make my family come up? Absolutely.

Why don't you guys come on up? Well Loma Linda's we consider San Bernardino our city for 121 years now and what a privilege has been through the network of clinics and hospitals and projects of various kinds. Come on up. I've got one of three daughters here. I've got three of nine grandkids and and one of one wife here. Anyway, thank you very much. I mean, it's from the SAC Health that Loma Linda spawned and this network of clinics to the Seminole Gateway College, working together with the Seminole Tribe. All the different projects we've taken on have been such a joy. We often think that we're doing a service to the community. The community does a service to us by giving our students, our residents, our faculty a chance to engage with real issues, with real human needs. So it's a privilege for us to be part of this community for so many years. Thank you very much.

Congratulations. Dr. Hart, don't be a stranger. I know we're going to see you in your next journey. Thank you for everything. We will now move on to reports from County Council. Thank you, Madam Chair. I have nothing to report. And reports from our CEO, Luther.

Good morning, Madam Chair. Nothing to report from me either this morning. Thank you.

And that brings us to our individual board member comments. Vice Chair.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I know that we just did the retirement. Just want to personally give a shout out to Roderick O'Hanley. Thank you for your service. Roderick's a resident in Rialto, a longtime resident. I was his son's baseball coach at Rialto High School. We're just so proud of the family. I know you're longtime parishioners at St. Catherine, so congratulations and thank you for your service. Yeah, I just want to highlight some events. Had the opportunity to attend The 243rd Basic Law Enforcement Academy graduations, I want to congratulate and welcome all the new San Diego County Sheriff deputies that are now coming to our department. I appreciate them joining the Office of Law Enforcement and coming into the field, but being part of the county family. Also, we had the Pacuma K-9 Field Lighting Celebration, which is in the Rosina Ranch community. It was a partnership with the San Miguel City Unified School District, the Rosina Ranch HOA, and also the Board of Supervisors to provide lighting, for the Rosina Ranch community, which will now provide lighting on the two ball fields and lighting on the soccer fields. But it's more than just lighting for the fields. It also allowed them to have community activities and other outside uses. It was a great event. I want to thank the San Bernardino City Unified School District for their partnership to bring amenities to the Rosina Ranch community. Also wanna thank my colleague, Chair Rao, along with the fire staff and PFMD and the entire staff that attended the Fire Station 227 groundbreaking. And the great thing about this event was a partnership between many government agencies, San Bernardino City Unified School District, the County San Bernardino Fire Service, but also the San Manuel Band of Michigan Indians or the Javietam who made a commitment to put this new fire station on a school campus. So this is actually historic for the County of San Bernardino. I think it's the first time we've ever had a fire station built on an elementary school campus. So when the county inherited the fire station from the city of San Bernardino, it's just old, outdated. This will bring new amenities, provide service, but also influence some of those kids that are attending the elementary school. Maybe they'll consider going into the fire service. This coming Thursday, we're celebrating the ribbon cutting for our Kern Street project. This is for 30 new beds in the Muscovy community that will help the forensic population, those exiting jail or formerly criminals, that will come out and get residential treatment. So it's residential treatment facilities. And I just want to thank staff for the great investments we've made. We've made a lot of different types of investments. housing investments, permanent supportive housing, substance use disorder, those that need residential treatment. So this is just one of many projects that are coming through the pipeline for our county. So hats off to the team. Also this Saturday, we'll be having the Glen Helen Nature Playground ribbon cutting at our Glen Helen Regional Park for the San Bernardino County Picnic. And the great thing about this, this was a project that started four and a half years ago. We had an old dilapidated museum that was there. It was just outdated. So it was demoed. It was replaced with a brand new state-of-the-art playground. I want to thank Beata Davis and Glen Helen Regional Park staff and all our staff here for making this a reality. It's just a great thing. And also this past week attended the West Valley Water District and presented them a check from the County Board of Supervisors for $55,000. This is for a turf replacement program that was in conjunction with the West Valley Water Board of Directors, San Bernardino Municipal Water District, and the Rosina Ranch HOA, and the County Board of Supervisors, which will provide drought-tolerant turf replacement in the unincorporated area of Rosina Ranch. So I just want to thank my colleagues and thank all the partners that really came together to have this And I know prior to this meeting, we had the county library bookmark contest winner photo. We took a photo op before here. But one of the things I want to thank is the county library for really including our community and our kids and having them participate in the process. A lot of times, many people don't know what the county does. We offer a lot of great programs. But the fact that the students from our county and our community could participate and be recognized was just so critical. And just want to wish everybody a happy 4th of July as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of our country, which is a great thing, greatest place in the world to live. Um, also, on June 11th at the San Bernardino County Transit Authority, another hat we wear, Metro Valley study session. We begin moving on a $4.6 million project, which will help the off-ramp on the 210 at Del Rosa exit. You know, I know that Carrie's here. I want to thank her for her good work and Otis for the great work to begin this project, which will help deal with traffic congestion on the 210 at Del Rosa. But this is also a main corridor for many of those that travel in the unincorporated community of Del Rosa But also it's an on and off ramp for those that are gonna go to San Bernardino International Airport. So this is just so critical. And the last thing I want to do is highlight some great items in the agenda. Item 79, permanent supportive housing, formerly known as the Days In, a $6.5 million investment, which will allow those that are transitioning out of homeless to now have housing. This is 50 units of permanent supportive housing. Also, we continue to make progress on item 91, the Pacific Campus expansion. I want to thank the Haviatown Band of Mission Indians for their $3 million grant. So today we're accepting the grant. It's a great partnership. And the fact that they believe in what the county is doing and the investments we're making is just so critical. Also, we have continued progress on the Rosina Ranch Fire Station Item 101. This is a $23.8 million investment in Rosina Ranch, which will not only provide a much-needed fire station, which was committed many, many years ago before my time on the board, but it also will have 2,000 square feet for San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department. So we're looking forward to having our deputies have it. a space there in that fire station. Item 105, this is a partnership between Public Health and the San Bernardino City Unified School District, which will now provide health care services, mobile services such as teeth cleaning, eyes and vision, and immunization for our students in our community, especially our low-income families. This is a great thing. And the last thing is item 45, which is a big investment. We're looking forward to, I know that some of the details are working out, but having FIFA World Cup community viewing events in our county, which is historic. This is a big deal for those of you that may be into soccer or just support national pride. It's just a a tremendous event for our community. And item 153, school resource officer. We're now going to be working with the Sheriff's Department and the Colton Joint Unified School District to have a full-time deputy at the Bloomington High School. I want to thank the team for that. And the last thing is item 188, increasing our nutritional services for our senior nutrition center here in the city of San Bernardino. It's a $300,000 increase, especially as groceries and things get tougher for our seniors. We'll provide them the necessary nutrition that they have. I know these are a lot of items, but we got a big budget coming through with a lot of other things, so I just want to thank my colleagues for great work. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Supervisor Cook? Supervisor Armendariz?

Thank you, Chair. I just want to do a couple highlights of some events that we attended and some little accolades. I want to thank my colleagues and all of the members at SBCTA Metro Valley Study Session for gracing me with the ability to be chair for this year. Also, we went to our CFS ad hoc meeting where we were given a lot more information through those steps and what it looks like to go through that process as CFS moves forward and how they deal with our young children. I also took a tour of Custom Trucks OneSource, which in the city of Rancho Camonga, there's a $1.9 billion business that you wouldn't even know it stood there unless you walked up to it. And they are a company that's growing leaps and bounds and is now doing business in the city of Rancho, in the unincorporated area between Rancho Camonga and Fontana, I'm sorry. Took a tour of it and it's an amazing place to see all of the equipment that they are actually customizing for our needs as government. We also participated in the Hoops and Heroes basketball tournament where we were able to give scholarships to every kid who played and in tunes of about $700. So that was exciting for us. We participated in the Miss Montana pageant. We were able to speak at the SPARC orientation where 161 kids attended, including some of my interns. My interns, can you guys just stand up for a second? So we have our own interns this year, so let's give them a hand, because they took the time to come out and see how government works. Hopefully they can get some insight on the second district. And we participated in the summer reading program in the city of Upland for their literacy event. We also toured Arrowhead Regional Medical Center and were able to see firsthand how the emergency center works. And oh my gosh, there is so much there to dissect and they're doing a great job. Also celebrated 30 years of Home Smart Realty in the city of Ratchikamunga. And I want to say happy anniversary to my wife, who we celebrated yesterday, 13 years of marriage. A couple things I'd like to highlight from discretionary funds in the second district. A lot of people always wonder how do we give back and whether we're fixing a roof or expanding a unique program in the community or we're helping veterans in the second district or we're renovating SUD beds. or we're helping a dance team to get to a world championship, or participating in scholarship program for our young women, or we're helping our ROTC teams get out so they can actually fund their gear and training. The second district is committed to our community and we're gonna continue to make these investments like this as long as we are able to. So thank you, that's all.

Supervisor Hagman.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a few things, a lot of it's covered already by my colleagues, but item 19 said purchasing a test kit that will test the accuracy of commercial megawatt electric vehicle charges for commercial trucks at electric vehicle charging stations, which is kind of important, as you know, that we do the weights and measures for the regular fueling. This will be the accuracy of getting your charge for your electric vehicles going forward. So it's kind of state of the art and when I keep it going, and it's also part of our agenda today is item 207 is discussion of what energy ad hoc will explore, which I'm very motivated that the state of California needs to double its electrical output by 20 years from now. So that's a huge infrastructure that will limit us or allow us to grow, continue to grow here in San Bernardino County. Item number 65 allows the city of Chino to participate in the county's urban county program. And item 149 will allow regional parks, like was told by my colleague, to play the FIFA World Cup games. I just spent a couple days in Miami, Florida with the wife, came back yesterday, and they had some huge watch parties over there. It was a lot of fun. and see the national spirit or international spirit, depending where you're coming from, at those games. So it's really exciting. On to a couple committees. SCAG recently published a white paper on AI and the big data's impact on our regional planning. So those who want to check that out, it's on their website. And SCAG also funded the Metrolink's new contactless payment system, to pilot the advance of 2028 games for our public's buses and other transportation. So that's coming up. Thank you.

And I would like to highlight number 91 on our consent calendar today, which incorporates San Manuel grant program funding the Pacific Village campus expansion that will offer housing and social services to those who are experiencing homelessness. The $3 million grant from of San Manuel Nation will fund enhancements to outdoor gathering spaces, covered pedestrian pathways, and therapeutic landscaping designed to promote residents' wellness in the site. So I'd like to thank the tribe for their continued support. And I also want to give a shout out to our sheriff's department. I received a cold case notification via the Nixle update, and I thought it was incredibly great that they identified three suspects from a 2016 murder investigation, and that led to them finding them and grabbing them and putting them in custody. And when you think about all the hard work that still continues, even behind the scenes work, on those cold cases, our deputies and law enforcements are working around the clock to keep our community safe. So thank you for that. And with that, we will move on to Lynna and changes and revisions to today's agenda.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have one revision for today's agenda. Item number 87 is being revised to add a recommendation in recommendation number six to read as follows. Uphold the purchasing department's ruling that Swinnerton Builders protest against the design build proposal submitted by Baumel Construction Company Incorporated was invalid and the remaining recommendations are renumbered accordingly. Those are all the changes, thank you.

Thank you very much. Chair, I actually have another change to the agenda. On item 203, the appellant is incorrectly identified as EDF Renewables when it is actually Paul Marconi with Bear Valley Electric Service, Yannick Tam from Energy Designed for the Future Renewables, and Daniel Quindley from Davis Wright Trend Main LLP.

Thank you very much for those changes. If we have any board members wishing to disclose a conflict of interest on today's agenda, now would be the time to do so. All right, seeing none, I've decided, because of the anticipated length of today's meeting, to move our general public comment on items not on today's agenda up to the top of the meeting, so we're gonna begin with that this meeting instead of end with it, so that all folks wishing to comment have a chance and don't go into the later afternoon. We're gonna start with Garth Pizant, followed by Lisa Fine, and then Carmen Gallegos. Good morning, Mr. Prezant.

Good morning, Chair Rao and the Honorable Board of Supervisors. Vicarious liability, respondis superior, a Latin term meaning let the superior answer, is a legal doctrine that forms the basis of vicarious liability. Under this principle, employers can be held responsible for the negligent acts of their employees when those acts occur within the scope of employment. However, while the law may impose liability on supervisors, managers, or government entities, legal responsibility should not be used as a shield against personal accountability. The existence of vicarious liability does not absolve individuals of their own duty to act responsibly, ethically, and in accordance with the public trust. This brings me to a simple but important question. How does the county intend to rectify this dilemma? We often hear discussions about liability flowing upward through an organization, but accountability must also flow downward to the individuals whose actions and decisions created the problem. It is easy to point to a supervisor, a department head, or the county itself when something goes wrong. What is more difficult and far more important is for each person involved to acknowledge their role and accept responsibility for the consequences of their conduct. True accountability begins with the individual. Leadership and oversight are essential, but integrity requires more than assigning blame to those higher in the chain of command. It requires every employee, supervisor, and public official to own their actions and decisions. If San Bernardino County seeks to maintain public trust, credibility, and competence in government, then personal accountability must stand alongside institutional responsibility. The public deserves not only that deserve not only answers from those in leadership, but also accountability from those who actually gave rise to the issue in the first place. Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you. And before we take our next speaker, I'd like to announce that at 1.30 today, we have a special board agenda item that we will be hearing that will do an overview and a deep dive into our children and family services. So if you would like, please join us for that at 1.30. Our next speaker is Lisa Fine, followed by Carmen Gallegos. Lisa? Lisa? Right, do we have Carmen Gallegos? Good morning.

Good morning. So again, I'm gonna pull my words together and make it up as I go.

So I have a sign here, it says adopt a planet, block by block.

We have many, I guess, different sources of different people. I do wanna congratulate the county for succeeding in taking down a lot of concentration camps. and illegal contractors, too, because they definitely know better than take advantage of the city and make it into a battlefield, because the clean air is very important. And again, that's addressed, too, clean air and clean water. I went to maybe three places, too, that they had gas leaks. They say inspected and didn't. I had to address some medical issues with gas leaks. And again, no fire alarms, no gas alarms. And again, that needs to be addressed. But again, I'm going as I go. But also I notice the neighborhoods when I look around the environment itself, just like fireworks to fires and using children. So again, like we're a mountain area and they also need to know how to take care of the people and the animals, not just burn things. But again, like I said, too bad we can't put swimming pools by the fire department too to learn too about water safety and to teach people to swim. But again, as I go along with the county, I've worked many places with the county. I also want to know that if you can't be having a lot of people die, And like I said, if you go block to block, you can also get the pedestrians off the streets, as well as fixing the streets between the city and the county. I'm noticing they have different areas, if they can just take care of that. And also from the ground up. Because when you go to the ground up, you'll see as you fix things block by block, you find people and how they help them. And we all sometimes have the same job, and that's also a bumper around each other. But you also got to know it's a mountain, it's a beach, it's a desert. Sometimes we got to tell ourselves that. Because also about prevention of fires, that's more important. I rather have nothing happen at all than a lot of battlefields. That should never happen. Because you're leaving people out of the street and unemployed. and their health and safety laws were gone. And it went to violence in the workplace because it went to work to work. People had to work to work. And that's bad. Anyway, so again, I was just saying, Dr. Planet, because I did call about fireworks one time and I got a comment that says, I'm too far away. Well, Thank you. I was going to say adopt a block, but adopt a planet. Thank you very much for, like I said, cleaning up the neighborhoods. And also, like I said, they're working on where I had called about there's a walk. When I see candles on the ground and it's pedestrian being hit, be it on drugs or alcohol, as well as your employees. That's time. Thank you.

Andrea Myers, followed by Melinda O'Neill.

Lisa's here.

Go ahead. I'm sorry. I called several times, so I need to move on to the list. Andrea Myers and then Melinda O'Neil.

Good morning. I just wanted to say that I thought it was very interesting that we've been up here asking you guys to do something about CPS and their illegal removal of children. of our sons and daughters. And you decided to throw us on right before you guys go on vacation at the very end of the day. knowing that all of us are tied to visitation requirements, class requirements, like not taking any of that into consideration, just like the social workers don't take any of regular life into consideration, right? They let us just give us all these requirements and expect us to still work a full-time job and still be there for our kids that they've stolen. So I just wanted to point that out, that I am signed up for a comment later, but I have a visitation today that I have to attend to, so I probably won't be able to comment. I also want to point out that I've had a problem at one of the visitation sites that you as the County Board of Supervisors have allocated them millions of dollars per year. You just updated them with another like seven million dollars, 11 million, I'm sorry, 11 million dollars like one or two meetings ago, right? It's called Asante Family Services over there on Highlands by Parris Hill Park. That place needs to be shut down. Somebody needs to investigate that place and what's going on over there. And I have emailed, I CC'd two of you board members that are standing up there in an email that I sent to Jeannie Glasgow after already having to move my issue up from my social worker who ignored it to her supervisor, her supervisor, and then her supervisor with no relief. So I sent Jeannie Glasgow the email and cc'd two of you that are sitting up there. That was 11, 12 days ago. No reply. No reply. And that's what we're talking about. There's no response. Like my issue is non-existent. My visitation with my sons and daughters. How is that not a problem? You guys just sit up there ignoring it. I hope you're going to enjoy your vacations, right? That you get to go spend time with your family. while we're sitting here begging you to see ours and telling you that there's problems with the way that money's being spent and illegal removal of children from homes when there's not even any issues or the issues are very minimal, right? No family is without problems. The harm that is done by removal is more. And that's what the statistics show. That's what the data shows and nobody's seen that. Nobody's recognizing that. You guys are just sitting there. sitting out there, ha, ha, ha. It's like somebody's sitting up there, right, like they're Oprah. You get a new car, you get a new car, just spending all that money, right, spending all our tax dollars. That's time.

Melinda O'Neal, followed by Alejandra Contreras.

Hi, my name's Melinda O'Neal. For a minute, I wasn't sure what I wanted to say, but when my kids were taken, they were 17 and 10, and they were taken to, downtown on E Street, my daughter has told me that they were taken to a facility and stayed there for a week, couldn't go outside. She's 19 now, but she says they couldn't go outside and they slept on cots and hardly any supervision. Then through my case, I completed my services, completed them. But still, at my last court hearing, they said I did not. And my case now is in the appeal office. Because the judge even says in my case that there's off the record decision making. I don't know how that's OK. I don't know, that's it.

Thank you. Alejandra Contreras followed by Amethyst Yates.

Hello, good morning everyone. I reviewed today the agendas and I saw the item 206. I need to speak up because families and children should be always come first. before any funding or approval for a project. We must remember the real lives are affected, or children and secondary to develop them. They are the priority. Decisions made today should affect compassion, urgency, and responsibility towards families who are struggling and need support now. I'm here to advocate for my family, for my kids. I've been dealing with CPS two years. Two years. With those two years, I haven't seen my kids for 18 months. I barely see my kids. I barely see my kids. How is this possible? How is this possible that we separate with false allegations? And this is because delayed. This is because the money. This is because each kid represents money. And we need to do something. We're here to advocate for our kids, for families. I'm here to represent families that cannot be here no more because they suicide themselves. Everyone cannot deal with the pain, pain that we were tormented for a long period. I don't know how my kids survived this battle. I don't know how my kids survived this battle. They're little. I'm fighting for them. You know how much I've been spending on my private attorney? Over $30,000. And I just really say my kids, this has been injustice. This has been a lot of things that people need to know and be aware and be advocating for families and kids. This is a problem because they remove it because of the risk of. But now because of the removal, they be affected, they be abused. I opened a civil rights claim against CPS. I finally thank God and I spoke to Joe Barker Jr. He advocate for me, talk to Maya civilian, Maya Moore, They say they're going to remove. Finally, this guy, he's been removed. He was biased. Now I have a new social worker, and he's doing the same under the supervisor, Jonas Nava. Even Jonas Nava called my family therapist to ask her, can you help us delay her reunification? How is this possible? How are you doing that? how he's making false report whenever he's doing everything, whenever he's proving, I've been doing my family therapy twice, I've been doing parenting five times, I've been doing devil therapy five times, plus my privates, because I don't trust the system. The system's so broken, they need to be repaired.

Amen.

Thank you.

Thank you. Amethyst Yates, followed by Krisha Kale.

Good afternoon, or good morning, sorry, chair, members of the board. My name is Amethyst Yates, and I am part of a nonprofit called Starting Over. I oversee the Family Reunification Equity and Empowerment Project. But I'm not gonna talk about the parents today. I'm gonna talk about my personal experience being a child in DCFS. And let me tell you, when my mom fought for four years and got me back, i was broken not because of what my mother did but because of what the system did they taught me to trust strangers to not have healthy attachments it took a lot of therapy and a lot of resilience to overcome these things that the system taught me Unfortunately, these parents are going to have to witness this. I became homeless at a young age because, well, after the money runs out, you're on the streets. It took me many years in prison and everything else to get right. I do not want the children under DCFS to think it's okay to hate their parents that love them. I don't really care what they did. telling a child that they're bad or sorry forgive me if you're telling them that their parent is bad whether that's direct or indirectly you're telling that child they are bad and they are internalizing these things i'm part of a 501c3 i will not take money from the department we will not accept any funding from the department directly because we want to help people we do not want to subject children to lifelong trauma and undeserved punishment thank you thank you very much krisha kale followed by tisha h tasha h

Hello, everybody. My name is Cresha Cale. I've been up here several times. I don't have a script for you. I do want to tell you more about the experiences I have dealing with CPS. And I was a foster kid myself, too. And everybody in this room should know that as soon as the kid enters the system, the chances of them being sexually abused, emotionally abused, starved, increases, these are facts. When I went into a foster care, the first thing a person told me to do, her husband was living there, DFS didn't even know, and he wanted me to go swimming in a white T-shirt. That's weird, ain't it? But was there anybody there who cared about me? Not one. No social worker there to protect me, nobody. My son was living in a home with a convicted felon for a year and DCF tried to keep him from me. And when I found out where he was, I found out he was with a convicted felon for a whole year. And then it took eight weeks after that to move him. Nobody there to protect him, even though his mom's been here advocating for him time after time, completing classes. But I don't see my son and haven't seen him since January because I hurt some social worker's feelings. Not because I hurt her feelings in the presence of my son, because I sent her a text that called her Quasimodo after she interrupted my prayer over my son and told me that I wasn't allowed to do that. I brought two of my children, ages two and three, to see their brother. I had custody back of those six kids, but this one, DFC is holding onto. And they told me I couldn't bring in my two kids, even though there was a court order to do so. The magic leak, the court order couldn't be found. and my kids barely got to see each other. Social worker came in the room screaming, get those kids out of here, get those kids out of here. Lee Wiseman, she should be ashamed of herself. Spit coming out of her mouth until my kids left the building to see their brother. They're literally one, two, and three years old. I didn't Beauregard my way into the visitation room. Somebody let me in, but that's not how the report is written. That's not what it says in the report. Every single visitation form, safe and appropriate, safe and appropriate. But I'm detrimental because somebody's feelings got hurt away from my son because how dare I tell a social worker, do her job? How dare I say, put that bachelor degree to work? Now I'm a bad parent. My son was never abused, never starved, I was never homeless, I was never on drugs. My son was abandoned by his biological father, and we've been here fighting, fighting, fighting. Fraud is what plagued my case. My name is Cresha Kill, and my son is Adan Kill. And we want him back.

Thank you, Tisha H.

Hi, my name's Brian Green. This is my wife, Alicia Green. Honorable members of the board, my name is Brian Green.

Excuse me, I called Tesha H. Alicia H? No, no, T-E-S-H-A.

She's in the restroom.

And she's the last request to speak that I have. no okay all right then that is the last request to speak to confirm there we do not have a t-shirt atesha h okay with that we will move on to our consent calendar which today consists of items number two through 200 if we have any board members wishing to pull an item for discussion now would be the time i'm going to request that we pull item number 70 for discussion Any others?

I'll move the balance.

I have a motion and a second. Let's take public comment on consent. Mr. Prezant. Garth, you are up for public comment on our consent calendar.

Good morning. Item 12, 13, and 14. If I can be graced with the privilege of speaking to Sharon Nevis, Director of, Director, I'd appreciate it. Item number 40, if I had the grace to speak to Joshua Douglas, Acting Director of the Public Health Department, I'd appreciate it. Probation, item 83, if I had the privilege to talk to Tracy Reese, Chief Probation Officer, I'd appreciate it. And transitional assistance, Item 164, if I have the privilege to speak to James LeCourteau, Director, I'd appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you very much. That is the last request to speak that I have. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions?

Sorry, Madam Chair, if I could please confirm the second was Supervisor Baca. Thank you. With that, the consent calendar is approved unanimously with item number 70 being deferred.

Thank you very much. With that, we will move on to our deferred items. Item number 70 is a resolution calling for the special election to submit Measure I, the local transportation improvement program, to voters on the November 3rd countywide election. Luther?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Sorry about that. I'd actually like to defer to have Otis Greer from SBCTA come up and say a few words, if you would. Good morning, Otis.

If you'll join us down here, that'd be great.

Good morning, Chair Rao.

Good morning. You have to speak right into that microphone.

Thank you, thank you. Good morning, Chair Rao, members of the board. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you regarding Measure I and the recommendation to place the extension before the voters on November 3rd in 2026. My name is Otis Greer. I'm the Deputy Executive Director for Strategic Partnerships at SBCTA, and I'm here with our Executive Director, Kerry Schindler, and my counterpart, Andrea Zurich, our Deputy Executive for Operations and Capital Delivery. Measure I, San Bernardino County's existing half cent sales tax, transportation sale tax that the voters approved initially in 1990 and reaffirmed that commitment to the program in 2004. For more than 35 years, it has served as the county's primary local transportation funding source. providing a foundation for transportation investments that support our residents, businesses, and the economy. Since 2004, Renewal Measure I has leveraged approximately $682 million in local funds into 2.9 billion in transportation improvements throughout the county. Those investments can be seen throughout the county as Measure I has helped deliver congestion relief on interstates, funded major interchanges, grade separations, bridges, railroad crossings, and local roadway projects that improve safety. At the local level, Measure I has returned approximately $700 million directly to the cities and more than $112 million to the county for street rehabilitation and transportation projects identified by local jurisdictions. These are flexible funds that have helped address transportation needs in communities large and small, including many of the projects in the county's unincorporated areas. Measure I has also expanded transportation choices beyond our roadways. It has supported the growth of Metrolink Commuter Rail Service, helped bring the Aeropassenger Rail Service to San Bernardino County, and provided resources that support transit affordability for seniors, veterans, students, and individuals who rely on public transportation to access jobs, education, healthcare, and essential services. Most importantly, Measure I, the Measure I proposal under consideration is not a tax increase, but rather an extension of this important transportation funding source, which represents local control. The revenues stay in San Bernardino County. Priorities are established by local leaders, and investments are made in the communities that generate the revenue. So on behalf of San Bernardino County Transportation Authority, I thank you for this consideration, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much. I just wanted to highlight that on today's agenda and have you take the time. So thank you very much for being here today. I have one comment, but I'm gonna see if my peers have any comments or questions for Otis. Kurt?

I just wanna say, SBCTA is doing a wonderful job, seeing what they've done in the last decade for my district and throughout the county to really Most of the grants coming from the federal and state government, you need local matching funds. And this is that source from our sales tax dollars that go through that. So I just wanted to say what a great job they've been doing. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. You know, I concur with my colleague, Supervisor Hagman. I want to thank SBCTA for the great work and, you know, specifically, you know, for the investments that have been made in the 5th District, but not just the 5th District, but countywide. It's really dealt with many, many transit projects, you know, like off ramps, on ramps, which are great projects, you know. safe routes to schools, walkable communities, and all the transit projects that it brings. It's just so critical for future funding just to deal with the amount of growth that we're having in our county. It's just so critical as we continue to grow, especially on the west end, the high desert, and the east valley. It's just so critical as we deal with future growth, but not just transit, but also economic development, which is a critical pipeline for our community. Thank you, Otis, for being here.

Supervisor Armendariz?

Yes, I also want to echo the comments of my counterparts. I think this has been a huge investment for the county. But more importantly, I think it's the jobs that it creates also. We can't forget the jobs that it creates. Working families are depending on these funds to continue to grow our communities. And I think this is a great opportunity for us to extend this so we know we can secure the future in the county. And that's all.

I think that this is the best form of government because it is all local. It is local elected officials at the county and the city levels determining where the funds are spent. So it is truly a great way to have influence on how those dollars that are collected locally stay locally. And in a county as large as San Bernardino, it is hard to fit all the different needs. I had not an unusual request, but a request that came out of a rural community that I wanted to share with you for consideration. So the Lucerne Valley community saw this on the agenda, and they just asked me to share this with you. As you're looking for considerations of Measure I implementation in the future, it says here that raw materials are not taxed under Measure I. until they're turned into taxable products. So the aggregate comes out in our mines in the Lucerne Valley area, but it's not taxed there. So revenues are going to jurisdictions where it's made and sold. So the revenue, but there's still trucks traveling on those aggregate to the mining communities. So other sources to compensate for Measure I for the plant's truckloads don't necessarily get generated, they don't stay where they're generated, those truck travel trips, and it just creates wear and tear on those roads in our rural communities where we have mining. And so that was just something that was brought to my attention, and I just wanted to share with it for your consideration.

Thank you, Chair. We'll certainly take that back.

Thank you very much. With that, I'll entertain a motion. And we don't have any public comments on this item, is that correct? Okay, I have a motion from Supervisor Hagman and a second from Supervisor Armando, or did I get it wrong? I think I cheated, Jesse. All those in favor? Aye, any opposed? Any abstentions? Thank you, Madam Chair, with that, the item passes unanimously. Thank you very much, thank you, sir. All right, with that, we'll move on to our discussion calendar, which today begins with item number 201, which is a public hearing regarding the County Service Area 70 Zone J Oak Hills component of the 2025 Mojave Regional Urban Water Management Plan being presented by, good morning, Noel Castillo. I will open the public hearing.

Good morning Chair Rao, Board Members, Noel Castillo, Public Works Director. This public hearing is for the 2025 Mojave Regional Urban Water Management Plan, covering County Service Area 64, Spring Valley Lake, and County Service Area 70J Oak Hills. Our goal today is to explain why this plan accomplishes for these communities, how it supports reliability, preparedness, and long-range planning, and then answers and will answer any of your questions. Next slide. This plan is fundamentally about reliability. It evaluates our water supplies, anticipates future demand, and prepares for drought conditions. By identifying challenges early before they become emergencies, we help ensure that residents in Spring Valley Lake and Oak Hills continue to receive stable, dependable water service well into the future. Next slide. This plan is part of a regional effort led by the Mojave Water Agency, developed in collaboration with 12 participating regional urban water suppliers, including Water Districts CSA-64 and CSA-70J. The regional plan provides a coordinated assessment of water supply reliability, demand projections, water conservation, and drought preparedness. Each agency, including RCSAs, has its own individual section and associated water shortage contingency plan, ensuring local needs are especially addressed. This planning effort also fulfills the requirements of California Water Code Division 6, Part 2.6, which mandates urban water management plans for systems with 3,000 or more connections. This plan must be updated every five years. Next slide. Approval of this item will satisfy state planning requirements without changing current water operations, service levels, or customer rates. Thank you for your time. This concludes my presentation.

Thank you very much. I do not have any requests to speak on this item. Any comments or questions from board members? Seeing none, I'll close the public hearing and entertain a motion. Thank you, Supervisor Hagman for the motion and Vice Chair Baca for the second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions?

Item number 201 passes unanimously.

Thank you very much. 202 is a public hearing regarding County Service Area 64, Spring Valley Lake component of the Mojave Regional Urban Water Management Plan 2025, also being presented by Noel. So I'll open the public hearing on that.

Thank you, Chair Rao. Thank you. We went ahead and combined both presentations. Yeah, so that presentation took care of both. Okay.

I do not have any request to speak on this item, so I will close the public hearing. Motion by Vice Chair, second by Supervisor Hagman. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions?

Item number 202 passes unanimously.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Noel. Thank you. Next up we have an appeal of the Planning Commission denial of Bear Valley Solar Project being presented by Miguel Figueroa. I would like to ask Linda to read the proceedings of today's order.

Chair, I'd also like to correct the correction to the agenda on this matter.

I screwed up, just for the record. I screwed up.

The joint effort working together, we thought it was odd that we had the same applicant and the same appellant. The agenda was originally drafted correctly, so there was no amendment needed. So the appellant and the applicant are actually the same person. Very good.

Correction. I apologize to staff who had it right when I had it wrong. So good job, staff.

Okay, Lena. Thank you, Madam Chair. This is an appeal of the Planning Commission action to deny project number PROJ-2025-00036 consisting of a policy plan amendment to amend the land use category designation from very low density residential to rural living zoning amendment to amend the land use zoning district designation from Bear Valley single residential one acre minimum to rural living and a conditional use permit to construct and operate a five megawatt alternating current solar voltaic facility in big in Bear Valley The applicant and the appellant is EDF renewables and the order of proceedings on this matter will be as follows The chair has opened the hearing Miguel Figueroa land use director Staff, thank you. We'll make their way, make the presentation. The representatives for the applicant appellant, Paul Marconi and Yannick Tam will have the opportunity to make a 15 minute presentation. Following the presentation, the board will take public comment. Members of the public will have two minutes to present their testimony. Individuals who do not wish to speak but would like to have their position recorded should register their position with the clerk of the board staff in the rotunda. Please note that in the interest of time, speakers are asked to avoid redundant testimony. When public testimony is concluded, the applicant appellant will have a five minute rebuttal period to present closing remarks. The representatives for, excuse me, excuse me, the representatives for the appellant applicant will be available to offer comments and respond to any questions raised by the board. And at that point, the chair will bring the matter back to the board for discussion, close the public hearing, and then ask for a motion to vote from the board. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you.

I feel like I did not open this public hearing yet. Is that correct?

Let's do it again. Let's do it again. Thank you.

We're going to open the public hearing. Thank you, Leonard, for that. And we will move on to staff for the presentation.

Good morning, Chair Rao, supervisors. I am Paul Gonzalez, Planning Chief, and beside me I have Delaney Garlick, Planning Manager. Delaney is the project planner for the appeal of the Bear Valley Solar Project, which is a request for a policy plan amendment, zoning amendment, and conditional use permit. The applicant is Bear Valley Electric Service, represented by EDF Renewables, and Davis Wright, Germain LLP. At this time, I will hand it over to Delaney Garlick, who will be providing a full presentation.

Great. Thank you, Paul. Good morning, Madam Chair, members of the board. The project here before you includes a policy plan amendment from very low density residential to rural living, an associated zoning amendment from Bear Valley single family residential one acre minimum to a rural living zoning designation, and a conditional use permit to construct and operate a five megawatt alternating current solar photovoltaic facility. To give some background, this project was heard by the Planning Commission on February 19th of 2026. At the time, it was requesting a recommendation to be heard by the Board of Supervisors for approval and adoption. However, at that hearing, the Planning Commission did deny that recommendation. Following the hearing on February 27th of 2026, the applicants filed an appeal contending the Planning Commission's decision. The appellants claim the Planning Commission's findings are not supported and that the proposed project is consistent with the general plan elements, including the land use compatibility goals and policies and related to renewable energy goals and policies. To further go into the appellant's claims, the appellant argues that the project is consistent with the general plan, that the project does not significantly alter the development standards and preserves the rural residential nature and character of the area. impacts from the project would be fewer than what would be allowed with a residential development by right, and that the solar project has stricter design standards with the CUP requirements, and finally that wildlife impacts concerns were not supported by any evidence found in our biological study or initial study. To provide you some background and context on location, this project site is located in the mountain region of San Bernardino area. It is situated east of Big Bear Lake and positioned between State Routes 18 and 38. Getting into the land use proposed changes, this slide illustrates the proposed change from very low density residential on your left to the proposed rural living on the right. This would facilitate the requested zone change as seen here. This slide shows the requested zoning modification from the Bear Valley residential single family one acre minimum to a Bear Valley rural living designation. Under the existing single-family residential zoning, renewable energy facilities are not a permitted use. Therefore, the applicant is requesting the zone amendment to rural living, which would allow for solar projects through a conditional use permit. The development code lists rural living as one of the zoning designations where a community-oriented renewable energy or core facilities are allowed through a COP process. Getting more into the project itself, visual impacts were assessed and are a key consideration. On the top, you see the current state of the vacant site in the dirt road. Below is a simulation of the project at landscape maturity. The applicant is proposing a vegetative screening to soften the visual profile, and improvements to Irwin Ranch Road would be part of the project as well. Another simulation from Lakewood Drive shows how the proposed vegetative screening would effectively buffer the solar arrays from views from the public right-of-way and maintain the rural aesthetic of the neighborhood. On your screen is the site plan. This details the layout of the panels themselves. Other notable features include detention basins in the northwest corner for stormwater management, 5-foot buffers around identified cultural resources for their protection. Access to the site would be from Irwin Ranch Road on the south, and the project is conditioned to improve Irwin Ranch Road to connect to the nearest paved road. This project is considered a community-oriented renewable energy, or CORE, facility. And the resource energy and conservation element, or RESEA element, in the policy plan defines CORE as renewable energy generation planned and approved for consumption by one or more locally sponsored specific and proximal end users. This project would have 100% of the power produced be consumed locally within the Bear Valley Electric Service territory and supply approximately 10% of their annual retail sales. Some background on how the project was noticed. Initially, it was noticed in October of 2025 with approximately 20 comments received. Public hearing notice for the Planning Commission were sent on January 26 of 2026 with four public comments received. Since the Planning Commission hearing, 24 comments in opposition were received with concerns regarding compatibility, environmental impacts, dust, traffic, and impacts to property values. Eight comments in support were received regarding the economic benefits, the carbon neutral contributions, renewable energy infrastructure serving local level, and increase to the public safety. Since publishing of this PowerPoint, additional comments have been received on an ongoing basis. At our latest count, 37 additional comments were received. The CEQA evaluation for the project included a mitigated negative declaration, which was prepared with a 30-day public review period. At that time, one comment from California Department of Fish and Wildlife was received, and the applicant did address all those comments and concerns, and no modifications were made to the mitigated negative declaration. So with that, staff is bringing forward the planning commission's decision at the planning commission hearing, which was to deny the project. On your screen are the findings for a denial. The proposed general plan amendment is inconsistent with the character and identity of the area. The planning commission found that the general plan amendment would alter the established residential ranch-like neighborhood. Additionally, the planning commission found that the use and development were not consistent with goals, maps, and policies and standards in the general plan, and that the project would alter the rural lifestyle of the neighborhood and introduce a land use that would detract from the beauty and tranquility of the small town environment found in Bear Valley community. So with that, it concludes my presentation, but I am available to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.

Thank you very much. And the appellant and the applicant are the same in this entity, so I would now like to ask the representative for the appellant slash applicant to please come up for their presentation that will last 15 minutes. Good morning.

Let's see.

Good morning, Board of Supervisors and Chair Rao.

I'm Paul Marconi, President of Bear Valley Electric Service. Here with me is Yannick Tam from EDF Renewables, our developer, and Dan Quindley from Davis, Wright & Tremaine, our outside counsel on this matter. I've been with Bear Valley for over 12 years. Go to the next slide. At its core, this project is about keeping the lights on for Big Bear residents, businesses, and critical services when Edison invoked public safety power shutoffs, outage events threaten our community. Question is not whether PS events will continue, they will. The question is whether Big Bear will be prepared when they do. Every megawatt generated locally is a megawatt we don't have to import through vulnerable Edison transmission lines. Next slide. Our economy depends heavily on tourism and reliable power is directly tied to public safety, jobs, local businesses, and economic stability. Next slide. Our mountain community deserves a reliable and resilient energy source. Approximately 90% of big barriers outages are tied to Edison shutoff events. Even when our local system's operating properly, customers can lose power because of events occurring outside the valley, off the mountain. And our customer service center gets calls from frustrated customers who cannot understand why power was shut off due to high winds, even when there's no wind up in our area. the high winds are in the valley. Next slide. As long as Big Bear remains dependent on Edison transmission lines, PSPS vents will continue to pose a threat to residents, businesses, and critical services. Next slide. Consequences of relying on an imported power source are measured in days, not minutes. Some of you have even submitted open letters to Edison expressing concern over their public safety power shutoffs. During the PSPS events, the reality is customers face food spoilage for hours when your refrigerator goes bad. Daily life is disrupted, schools are shut down, parents scramble to figure out where to put their kids and maybe not go to work because they have to watch them. Businesses cannot provide services to residents and visitors. Restaurants and stores shut down, employees are sent home without wages for that day. On top of that, they get a spoiled refrigerator. Local generation gives us an opportunity to reduce that risk and improve community resilience and take control of our destiny. Next slide. The need for critical infrastructure does not stop during a PSPS event. Reliable power is essential for water systems, sewage treatment, communications, public safety, emergency response, local businesses, tourism, and our economic viability. For many residents, power outages quickly become a health and safety emergency. You can go to the next slide. More than 1,200 customers depend on electricity for critical medical access and functional needs. Imagine you're on an oxygen concentrator and the power goes out, and it's not just going out for a couple of hours. It's going out for 12 to 24 hours. You have a bottle that lasts four hours. That's the standard. You quickly gotta pivot and figure out how to get control of your breathing. For these residents, losing power is more than inconvenience. It directly affects their health and safety and quality of life. Let me go to the next one. We have support from leaders in the community that understand the benefits of this project. Bear Valley Community Hospital, California State Council on Developmental Disabilities and Disability Rights, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 47, Big Bear Chamber of Commerce, City of Big Bear Lake, City of Big Bear Lake's Department of Water, Visit Big Bear, Big Bear City Community Services District, Big Bear Area Regional Wastewater Agency, and the ski resorts. Go to the next one. We have listened to the community concerns. We've read every one of those comments, and we have introduced mitigation measures to address those issues. This project strengthens reliability, enhances public safety, protects vulnerable residents, and supports our local economy. Our goal is straightforward, keep Big Bear powered, protected, and prepared for the future. And we are committed to being good neighbors and working with the residents in that area. I'll turn it over to Yannick Tam.

All right, thank you, Paul. Again, my name's Yannick Tam. I'm Associate Director of Project Development. I work for EDF Power Solutions, and we were hired by Bear Valley Electric Service to be the development, engineering, procurement, and construction company for this project. And we are a company that is very well-versed and has over 25 years of experience in this space. So briefly, I wanted to give you guys a quick timeline of all the diligence that has gone into this project. And even before this April site selection secured date in 2022, Bear Valley actually pursued a couple other sites prior to this one, one of which being on a landfill in the northern area of the Bear Valley Service Territory. But that was unfortunately deemed unfeasible due to a liner on top of the landfill and that the foundation could create some damages. So from an engineering perspective, that was not feasible. And secondly, there's another site that was assessed near Baldwin Lake that was determined to be within a floodplain. So again, from an engineering perspective, not a feasible site for the solar project. So that led us to 2022 of April, April of 2022, when this subject site was selected and secured. And since then, it's gone through a lot of diligence. First and foremost, the project went through the California Public Utilities Commission process. So the application was filed in 2024. The PUC is an independent body that regulates public utilities such as Bear Valley and projects, infrastructure upgrade projects such as this one need to be reviewed and approved by this independent body. That approval came in December of 2025 from that agency. And we also did extensive environmental and diligence on this site in accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act, CEQA. starting primarily in July of 24. I'm not gonna list all these studies that were conducted, but the effort has been ongoing over the past almost two years, as recently as a rare plant protocol survey that was conducted as recently as last month. So we've, you know, an extensive diligence process almost two years. And the last thing I wanted to point out on this timeline is this end date here, the commercial operation date of 2027. So solar projects such as this can benefit from a federal investment tax credit that essentially cuts the CapEx expenditure by 30% for the project, but that benefit expires at the end of 2027. So the project needs to be commercially operational by that point. And Bear Valley, as well as the CPUC, have agreed that that 30% benefit gets passed directly to the ratepayer. It does not go to Bear Valley Electric Service. Real briefly, again, Delaney mentioned this. This is a community-oriented renewable energy project. This is core. The power is generated locally. It's put on local distribution network in Bear Valley and consumed locally by local citizens, 100% of it. So that's basically the left side of this figure here. On the right side, it shows, you know, power on... high voltage transmission lines that get shipped far away. This project is not that. All the power gets consumed locally. It's also solar, generally speaking, is passive use of land. It's been designed to fit into Big Bear's landscape. The project offers quiet operations during its operation. No emissions are emitted. There's little to no demand on public infrastructure, including services, roads, water, sewer, et cetera. It's monitored remotely. Very, very few visits for O&M maintenance and maybe some vegetative maintenance two to three times per year. And that's about it. So no impacts to traffic during operation. And then, of course, provides local business stimulus during the construction phase. As far as the project details, we're proposing to construct a five megawatt AC 6.2 megawatt DC direct current project located on the right here in the Irwin Ranch area, just kind of south of Baldwin Lake. And the parcel is approximately 30 acres of undeveloped open land. but only about 20 acres are going to be within the fence line of the project. The northern 10 approximately acres of the subject parcel is a mountainous area that is completely untouched by the development of this project. So we're only staying in the flatlands on the south. And the last brief thing I wanted to touch on, again, this is consistent with the county's renewable energy conservation element. More specifically, that county goal RE3, which promotes these, again, community-oriented renewable energy projects, where the power is generated locally and consumed locally. So what does five megawatts mean? It's about enough power to address about 2,000 homes' electricity consumption every year. And in terms of like a greenhouse gas and carbon mitigation perspective, it's about equivalent to taking 2,235 internal combustion engine cars off the road every year. And just a few project highlights here. There's about $3.5 million of local economic stimulus that will be during construction and including labor materials and hospitality that is realized because of this project. And then the third bullet here I wanted to call out as well. This is a project that will contribute directly to the state mandated renewable portfolio standards that requires public utilities such as Bear Valley to deliver more renewable energy power to its customers. And again, the CPUC has determined that this project is the lowest cost method in order to meet that goal. Site plan, we briefly reviewed this already in the previous slide, so I don't want to spend too much time, but again, there'll be access from Irwin Ranch Road. That gray is the crushed stone access drive. The red vertical lines are the photovoltaic solar panels that will track the sun from east to west. The kind of hashed areas in the top, the northwest, are detention basins that have been designed by qualified civil engineers, and the preliminary drainage study's been approved by San Bernardino County. that will manage the 100 year, 24 hour storm event to mitigate any runoff. And then finally, we also of course need to balance the needs of the wider community and the electricity needs with the concerns of the local residents around this project. So what the Bear Valley has done is agreed to plant a very robust vegetative screening plan That's indicated in green around the eastern, southern, and western portions of the site. Actually, the original proposal did not include that line along the eastern property boundary, but that has since been added and will be constructed as well. So we have a visual simulation on the next slide here. I want you to keep this map in mind because this map will be in the bottom right corner of that video. And you'll see a yellow cone that kind of moves that basically represents the vantage point from which we are viewing the project. All right, how do I hit play? I only have a write button. Is it this button? It's a PDF? OK. Do we have the Microsoft PowerPoint version that has the video in it? OK. Is there, I submitted a PowerPoint to play the video, and I submitted the actual video file as well. Is there any way we could pull that up? It's quite important. I also have a flash drive. Flash drive, okay. Is that okay? Yes. Yes.

I do know there's a time limitation. You paused, good, I was gonna suggest. Thank you.

And just for the record, we didn't pause it, so we'll add about 10 seconds at the end. We have right now, we have two minutes and three seconds left, including that additional 10 seconds.

Okay.

They don't have the land use one. They don't have that one. They don't have that one.

It didn't get handed out, the land use one.

Madam Chair, we'll ask for that from my staff and have that provided to the board for the land use presentation.

I'm ready when you are. Okay, so this is the visual simulation of the project. So again, we're moving along Irwin Ranch Road here to the west, thick vegetative screening plan. This is the project site entrance and a few interconnection poles and that's the point of interconnect along Irwin Ranch Road. This is a vegetative screening plan that's made up of all drought tolerant species. and this is what it would look like at its maturity. So now we're cutting through the neighboring parcels. As you can see, there's a nice vegetative screening buffer that shields the view of the solar panels behind them. Again, you know, drought-tolerant vegetation. Primarily evergreen, so stays SHIELDED THROUGHOUT THE WINTER MONTHS AS WELL. AND HERE WE'RE GOING DOWN FROM LAKEWOOD DRIVE. AGAIN, THERE'S NO IMMEDIATE RESIDENCES ON THE EAST SIDE HERE, BUT STILL SHIELDING FROM THE PUBLIC RIGHT AWAY ON LAKEWOOD DRIVE. ALL RIGHT. SO THAT'S BASICALLY WHAT THE PROJECT WOULD LOOK LIKE AT I don't have much time left, but basically we also did analysis to analyze other parcels and effectively we have this, what's called a solar buildable tool that we did an analysis that eliminates parcels that are not feasible for solar and some of those metrics are listed here in the bullets, like 20 acres. The main important one I want to call out are topography. As you can see, this is a mountainous area and solar requires flat area to be built on. And also, most importantly, a point of interconnect, the distribution lines adjacent to the parcel. So in doing this analysis, this is really the only parcel feasible for this type of project within the Bear Valley Service Territory. And therefore, that's where we're requesting the rezone.

And that's time?

Thank you.

Thank you very much. We're going to move on to public comment. But before we move on to public comment, that Did you find a copy of land use services presentation? They're going to bring it to us. I don't think we had it.

Madam Chair, if I may. Please. So, yes, land use during public comment is going to make seven printed copies and bring them to us. Unfortunately, only the appellant's presentation was provided in hard copy, so they're going to bring those over. You will get a copy. In about 10 minutes, staff will bring them over.

I know your goal is to

That is certainly not our goal, and we will fix that mistake.

So to clarify, we all got the appellant applicant's documentation minus the video, but we did not receive the Land Use Services portion, and I think the challenge for some of us is it's not uploaded to the website, so we don't have access to that in advance of anymore. So if we had questions on it, it would just be nice to be able to go back and look at it.

Absolutely. And so I apologize for you not having that staffer going to print them and bring them over.

Okay.

So by the time public comment is completed, you'll have hard copies.

All right, gentlemen, I'm gonna ask you to stay put right there if you're comfortable there. If not, if you'd like to go back to your seats, either way, we have quite a number of speakers, and then we will come back to you for your five minutes of closing remarks, so wherever you're comfortable. And as a reminder, our comments for this item, if you can keep them to two minutes, that would be greatly appreciated. Our first speaker is Kayden. Llewellyn I apologize if I'm mispronouncing the last name Llewellyn and Caden will be followed by Paul Marconi and then Jeff Barber Does this one work yeah, yes

Hello, my name is Caden, representing Bear Valley Services. Unfortunately, representatives from the Big Bear City Community Service District and the City of Big Bear Lake Water Department were unable to attend today's hearing, but they asked that their letter of support be entered into record. With the committee's permission, I'd like to read both letters. The Big Bear City Community Service District, CSD, strongly supports the Bear Valley Solar Energy Project and the Battery Energy Storage Project. While these projects are not with CSD, reliable electricity is critical to our operation. by reinforcing the grid locally, these projects will reduce trust in off-mountain electricity sources that are often at risk to PSPS. This project is vital to Bear Valley Electric Service for meeting its 60% of its electric retail sales for renewable SOURCE BY 2030, AS REQUIRED BY SENATE BILL 100. THESE PROJECTS WILL HELP MANAGE COSTS AND ENSURE BVES CAN CONTINUE DELIVERING RELIABLE, HIGH QUALITY SERVICE TO ITS CUSTOMERS AND MAINTAIN POWER FOR CRITICAL CUSTOMERS DURING OFF MOUNTAIN PSPS'S. Events that affect BVS power supply, Big Bear City Community Service District supports these projects and urges their advancement for the benefit of the Bear Valley region. And then the City of Big Bear Lake Department of Water and Power, DWP, is writing to support the Bear Valley Solar Energy Project and Battery Energy Storage Project. DWP provides water service to approximately 16,000 customers, both within the City of Big Bear Lake and areas of San Bernardino County. While these projects are not related with DWP, our daily operations includes pumping two million gallons of water per day.

That's time? Thank you very much. Paul Marconi, and Paul, since you are the applicant and appellant, it is highly unusual to have you speak again from the podium. You have new information for us?

Yeah, I'm a resident of Big Bear. Okay. And I've been in Big Bear for 12 years, and before that, I completed 27 years in nuclear submarines where I commanded USS Olympia and Naval Base Point Loma. I was commanding officer there. Last Saturday, I gave the eulogy at my 95-year-old mother's funeral. In November she went on oxygen and in February she was completely bedridden. I know up close and personal how power outages affect vulnerable communities and populations. We have a lot of them up in Big Bear and I think we need to consider that. During one of the PSPS events last year, I called my daughter to see how she was doing and she said the restaurant where she worked had shut down and everyone's sent home without pay. Fortunately for her, she can lean on me, but her coworkers are single moms and struggling on their own to make a living. On that call, my daughter said she was at Vaughn's parking lot idling her car to charge her phone and laptop so she could do her online EMT coursework. Said the parking lot was full with cars idling. Quite the unintended consequence of PSPS. Everybody in their car running their cars for hours and hours just to get power. So to me, this is up close and personal. And I just want to say, as a Naval officer and a committed citizen of this community, I am committed to living up to all of our obligations and being an excellent neighbor in managing this project and operating this project. Last year, or two years ago, I had to evacuate during the Line Fire. I understand wildfires. I understand why Edison has to turn off the power. Power travels uphill, and there's nothing we can do about that. So we have to take measures to control our density up on the mountain. So I urge you to support this, and thank you for listening to this old soul. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up, we have Jeff Barber, followed by Chris, and then Daniel Hotchkiss.

Okay. Good morning. I'm Jeff Barber. I oversee operations at Bear Valley Electric Service. Every day, our team works to ensure power is delivered safely and reliably to the homes and businesses that depend on it. During PSPS event, the responsibility becomes even more challenging. We closely monitor weather conditions, system status, and transmission availability, often around the clock. Field crews work alongside engineers, customer service representatives, and emergency responders to prepare for potential outages and respond as conditions change. One of the most difficult realities we face is that most PSPS events are triggered by transmission lines outside of the Big Bear system. Even when our local system is ready and operating safely, our community can still be impacted by decisions made beyond our service territory. From an operations perspective, having more local resources strengthens the resilience of our electric system and helps us better serve our customers during emergencies. I urge your support, and thank you for your time.

Thank you very much. Chris, followed by Daniel Hotchkiss, and then Jim Lona.

Good morning, Madam Chair and board members. My name is Chris Porter. I am a senior assistant business manager for IBEW Local 47. We have nearly 15,500 members that have in one way or another in the last 80 years engineered, built, and maintained the electric grid down in Southern California. It is... Nothing unique that we also represent 22 members at Bear Valley. We stand in support of this project because it provides a number of benefits to the community within Bear Valley Service Center. One being, it gives them executive control over generation assets, something that is strongly needed, very much in the plan of how we get to an evolutionary step in the maturation of how we provide safe, reliable, and affordable, more than anything, affordable electric service for modest communities like Bear Valley. A lot of planning, a lot of forethought, and understanding about what was needed, and how it can service that community, even in a PSPS initiated by Southern California Edison, that generation asset would be able to, one, be able to service small community resource centers where instead of being in parking lots, running your vehicle for hours, trying to charge batteries, charge and stay connected to the... That's time.

Thank you very much. Daniel Hotchkiss followed by Jim Lona and then Mark Mendel.

Hello, my name is Daniel Hotchkiss. I am a substation technician for Bear Valley Electric Service. I'm also a citizen. of the Bear Valley up there. I do have three letters that I would like to ultimately present to the committee for consideration. Things to think about, though, when it comes to electrical systems, and this is countywide, all of our electrical systems will have various blocks that will contribute to maintain a good quality electrical power for each and everybody in this room. Those building blocks could be, let's say, from Hoover Dam, hydroelectric power. It could be a gas turbine. It could even be nuclear. It could be coal-fired. Of course, we're not going to put in a coal-fired power plant. but we are wanting to put in a solar plant. Comment from Visit Big Bear, reliable electricity is not just a utility issue in Big Bear Valley, it is an economic issue. Our local businesses, residents, visitors, and workforce all depend on consistent, uninterrupted power. Comment from the operators of the snow ski resorts up there. With your support, BVS can increase its renewable supply portfolio and bolster grid resiliency. And then from Big Bear Chamber of Commerce. The Big Bear Chamber of Commerce is pleased to express its support for the proposed Bear Valley solar plant. As California advances towards a carbon-free future.

That's time.

Thank you. Jim Lona, followed by Mark Mandel, and then Alexis Rabnick.

Madam Chair, members of the Board, thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. As a longtime resident of Big Bear City, I'd like to ask that this project not be viewed simply as an energy issue, but as a public safety issue. For many of us, losing power is an inconvenience. But for some, for some of our veterans, our seniors, and medically vulnerable residents, electricity is healthcare. People in our area rely on oxygen concentrators, respiratory equipment, refrigerated medications, and other equipment that allows them to remain safely in their homes. When the power goes out, their health and their lives may be placed at risk. Our community is different. We face wildfires, severe weather, road closures, and public safety power shutoffs. We know that emergencies do not always happen at convenient times, and help is not always a few minutes away. This project represents more than infrastructure, it represents resilience. It represents preparedness, and it represents our responsibility to protect those who are least able to protect themselves. Reasonable people may disagree on the details of this proposal, but I hope that we can all agree on one thing. No veteran should have to wonder whether the machine helping them breathe will continue to operate. No person should have to wait. and wonder. Electricity is not a luxury for everyone. For many, it is health care. And for some, it is the difference between life and death. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. And thank you for your service to our community and also for your military service. Mark Mandel, followed by Alexis Radnick, and then Tom Chow.

Hi, my name is Mark Mendel. I'm a resident of Big Bear City, here to support Bear Valley Electric Services' plan for a solar power plant. I also have a letter of support that I would like to read from the Bear Valley Community Hospital. Bear Valley Community Hospital is pleased to express its strong support for the proposed Bear Valley solar energy project in unincorporated San Bernardino County. As a hospital dedicated to servicing our community with the best possible care and arrays of services on the mountain, we recognize the critical importance of reliable and sustainable energy infrastructure. By reinforcing the grid locally, these projects reduce reliance on off-mountain electricity sources that are often vulnerable to PSPSs. A resilient and dependable grid is essential for providing easy access, emergency medical, and acute care here on the mountain, as well as providing balanced scope of patient services. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Alexis Robnick, followed by Tom Chow, and then Vincent Martinez.

Hello, my name is Alexis, and I'm an engineer at Bear Valley Electric Service. During PSPS events caused by Southern California Edison restrictions on their transmission lines feeding Bear Valley, the team at BVS works to maintain safe, reliable electric service to our customers. However, sometimes there's only so much we can do to keep the power on without the supply from those transmission lines. That's one of the reasons that the Post Solar Facility is so important to this community and to me, not just as an engineer, but as a resident. Having sources of community-oriented renewable energy right there in Big Bear will improve our resilience and diversify our energy profile. This project will help us keep our lights, our refrigerators, and even our medical devices operating, rather than relying on industrial power plants many miles away and every transmission line from there to here not being disrupted by the threat of wildfire. And the wildfire threat is getting more severe. I see it in the wildfire hardening that we're doing. I see it when I model fire risk. I see it in the burgeoning length of the fire season. In 2025, Southern California Edison initiated PSPS conditions on lines up to Big Bear for almost 50 hours, including a PSPS on January 25th in the middle of winter when we need electricity the most. Having a clean, reliable local source of power at that time and going forward would help reduce our dependence on transmission lines outside of Big Bear and help strengthen reliability, improve resilience, and better serve every member of our community, the people who depend on us every day. The entire team is working tirelessly, both in PSPS and out, to dedicate our energy to you and me. So please, stand with me in supporting this solar project. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Tom Chow, and then Vincent Martinez, followed by Joseph Vasili.

Good morning. Hello. Good morning, San Bernardino County Supervisor. My name is Tom Chow. I have been devoted over 13 years at my career in Bear Valley Electric Service as a utility engineer and Wi-Fi mitigation manager. Today, I stand before you not just an employee, but a dedicated member of Big Bear community. I'm here to support the Big Bear Solar Project. In 2025, Southern California Edison invoked several PSPS events that affected the entire Big Bear community. One related was January 25th. The other one was June 20th and August 4th. All of these events are over 21 hours and then 20 hours and 8 hours. And the one that happened in January, what happens was Not everyone has the ability to have a heated stove. So a lot of times, the communities depend on the electricity to heat up their homes during the wintertime. If you don't have that electricity, then you'll be cold in the winter. And in the summertime, the opposite. You could have extreme heat, which cause people to be, need to spoil food and stuff. We cannot control what SE invokes PSPS on us, but we could help prevent it by supporting the solar project. especially for AFN customers and medical baseline. They're vulnerable for, we need support them on purpose.

That's time. Vincent Martinez followed by Joseph Assele and then Chance Onder.

Good afternoon, my name is Vincent Martinez and I work for Bear Valley Electric in the Operation Technology Department. I am a resident of Bear Valley and I have a wife and two daughters, but I'm not the only father or mother who works at, parent I should say, that works at Bear Valley. Our staff is made up of mothers and fathers and when the lights go off, we leave our families in the dark to go and get those lights back on. PSPS events leave not only normal residents, but also internal employees in the dark as well. We have a small ICS, Industrial Control System, SCADA, Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition System, and that uses various communication protocols and hardware to provide reliable access and operational control to our operators of our smart grid system. When the power goes out, our primary concern is restoration, and that requires the ability to operate our system. The integrity of our industrial control system is paramount when we are working on getting the lights back on. From our command center at Bear Valley headquarters, we have the ability to operate various devices that contribute to our smart grid. This solar project will enable our smart grid to operate in the most dire of needs. As a United States Marine, I live by the discipline of it is not if a disaster happens, it's when. Ensuring the ability and integrity of our smart grid provides customers with a service that we cannot live without during this age of technology. I urge your attention on this matter and hope for your support as we continue to provide power and a reliable resource to the community of Bear Valley. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comments and your service to our country. Next to speak, Joseph Asele, Chance Onder, and then Isaiah Zamorano.

Please proceed, Joseph. Hello, my name is Joe and I work in IT at Bear Valley Electric. Today I just want to talk briefly how technology supports the community during a PSPS event. During the PSPS event, most people go online to find their answers first. They check for updates, they log onto their accounts, they report issues. While they do this, our IT team works behind the scenes in emergency response mode. We monitor systems, support communications, make sure information stays available for when it's most needed. Technology becomes a lifeline that helps people stay informed and prepared. I'm a local resident of the community and I moved here six years ago because I love the community and the terrain of the rural city. I realize people get concerned about how a solar farm might be interrupting the beautiful landscapes here in Big Bear, but that's not entirely true. I read an article a week ago published by Eco News, published stating how animals thrive in the shade of the solar farms. The article went on to explain how in 2025 in Spain, they found more bird species thriving in this solar farm compared to farmland. The study went on to find those same findings were repeated in England and Australia. The solar farms allowed small insects and animals and other wildlife to thrive, which shows clean energy production and habitat conversation can work together. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Chance Onder.

Hello, my name is Chance. I lived in Big Bear for the past 11 years. I am currently employed by Bear Valley Electric in the customer service department. Every day, my job has me interacting with members of our community and customers in person, in the office, by email, and over the phone. Because of those conversations, I've heard firsthand what matters most to the people in our community and what their concerns are. And one of the biggest concerns I hear are public safety power shutoffs, or what we all call PSPS events. The moment we are made aware of a pending PSPS event, we send out warnings. The moment those warnings go out, our phones start ringing off the hook. Understandably, customers are worried about losing power and what that might mean for the community as a whole. They worry about how long they'll be without power, how long they'll be in the dark, whether the food in their fridge will spoil, and whether their elderly loved ones might be doing all right, with one constant question in the back of their mind, when will the power be restored? Parents worry about caring for their newborn children, and seniors worry about navigating their house in the dark. I myself worry about my parents that also live in Big Bear during these PSPS events. And for some customers, as you've already heard, it's even more serious, with roughly 1,200 customers that rely on electricity for medical equipment, refrigerated medications, oxygen concentrators, or other essential needs. The threat of these outages alone cause frustration and fear, and once the lights go out, that turns to panic and anger. Our customers deserve more than explanations. They deserve greater confidence that their community will have power when it needs it most. With the solar project, we can mitigate the risk of these concerns and continue to provide power to our community. I urge that you consider the benefits of this project.

Thank you for your comments. Isaiah Zamorano, followed by Carolyn Kabaki and Joel McGivney.

Hello, my name is Isaiah Zamorano. I'm a project coordinator and utility planner at Bear Valley Electric. I was born and raised in Big Bear, and I've called it a home for the majority of my life. Over the last several years, we've seen PSP threats become more and more frequent due to the issues with the Southern California Edison transmission lines. We cannot control the weather, and we can't always control what happens outside our service territory. But we can invest in infrastructure that makes our community more resilient. The community economy is resilient, reliant on power staying on. PSPS vents can cause a strain on our local vendors and business owners to maintain a steady patron visiting their stores. That's why I support this project. Local energy generation gives Big Bear another layer of protection when outside transmission lines aren't available. This project is an opportunity to do both, helping build a stronger and more resilient future for Big Bear. I urge your support. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Carolyn Kabaki, followed by Joel McGivney.

Madam Chair, board members, thank you for your time. I appreciate it. My name is Carolyn. I am an executive support associate at Bear Valley Electric. First and foremost, I'm a proud resident of the great community of Big Bear. I want to be a good neighbor. I share the same concerns as every resident when a PSPS event is announced. Like many residents, I've thought about what an extended outage means for our businesses, schools, emergency services, and neighbors who depend on electricity for their health and safety. Since joining Bear Valley Electric, I've learned that every member of our community suffers losses during PSPS events. Residents and visitors lose money on spoiled food. Stores, restaurants, bars, and clubs must close, resulting in lost business and canceled special events. They also lose a significant amount of money on spoiled product. Individuals and businesses have no recourse to recoup this lost money due to a PSPS event. If these events occur more frequently, that's more money gone from our community. We need a solution that reduces the impact of PSPS events without raising energy costs. I believe the solar generation facility offers a good solution. By creating a local energy source, we can help ensure that both critical and everyday services remain available. and that our community is better positioned to withstand disruptions that are out of our control. As a resident, I believe this investment will strengthen the community that we're proud to call home. I appreciate your time for listening to my opinion. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Joel McGivney, followed by Eileen.

Yeah, hello. My name is Joel McGivney, and I'm a journeyman lineman at Bear Valley Electric. Most people never see what happens behind the scenes to keep the lights on, and usually that's a good thing. But when a PSPS event is announced, our team immediately shifts into emergency response mode. We know that every decision and every update affects real people. We think about the families preparing for a possible outage, the business trying to stay open, and the residents who rely on electricity for medical equipment, communications, and everyday necessities. As operators, we feel a tremendous responsibility because we know how much our community depends on reliable power. It's especially difficult when the threat comes from transmission lines outside the Big Bear area because there is only so much we can do to prevent those impacts. Local energy generation helps provide another layer of security for our community and reduces our reliance on infrastructure outside our control. It helps ensure that critical facilities, emergency services, and essential community functions can continue to operate when they're needed most. As someone who works in operations, I see firsthand the value of having reliable local resources. This project is an investment in a stronger, safer, and more resilient Big Bear. I urge your support. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Eileen. And then Dan Dryden.

Hi, good morning. My name is Eileen Dryden, and I live over at Irwin Ranch. And EDF and Bear Valley Electric have a longstanding relationship, which goes back to 2014 when they entered into power purchase agreements. In 2019, Bear Valley Electric entered into a contract with GE Solar to construct a 7.9 megawatt solar plant off of Palomino Drive. In September 1, 2020, an email from the California Public Utility Commission administrative law judge, Jason Jungress, Bear Valley testified that GE would terminate their agreement based upon a damaging hydrology report showing flooding. Bear Valley then testified that EDF Renewables stepped into GEE's shoes as the project developer and engaged a consultant that would produce a new hydrology report supporting the project to counter the GEE report. Bear Valley also issued 45 requests for proposals for this project. Only one company, EDF Renewables, submitted a bid. When 44 out of 45 companies don't participate, it's a clear indicator that the process itself was compromised. Also, July 24, we had installed all our electrical infrastructure, passed our city and county inspections, and had our utilities fully paid. And Bear Valley withheld our power connection for two months during the environmental review process. My house sits 28 feet from the property line. It has never been analyzed through the EIS MND under CEQA law, although I did see it in their PowerPoint thing there. So this EIS MND must be denied because EDF Renewables paid consultant. That's time.

Thank you. Dan Dryden, followed by Nadine Jenkins.

Good morning, Chair and members. of the board. We have one-acre parcels out there next to us. I have 2.40 acres there. I built my family home there. And I have a two-story. So I'm going to look out over a solar farm for the next 30 years, which is also a corridor for wildlife. It also backs up to National Forest, which nobody's really addressed. But the donkeys corridor through there, there's a fish species that's only a couple places in the world it's there. And nobody's really addressing these concerns for the environment or the people that live there. That one presentation they had with all the power poles down Irwin Ranch Road was pretty attractive. I'm going to have to look at that every day, I guess, for the next 30 years or whatever until the thing flops. And also, Policy 410 was adopted after extensive public participation and environmental review. They recognize that renewable energy development should be direct towards appropriate locations such as disturbed lands, former industrial sites, existing energy generation areas, utility corridors, and other suitable locations to minimize impacts on established communities. We are an established community there. We've been there since the 1900s. And, you know, it's ridiculous. They're going to put a solar farm right there, back up two parcels, two parts of my property back up to that. It's like I can't believe they're thinking about this, especially in Big Bear. I mean, everything they showed you is just a bunch of, it's nonsense. They don't show you the community. And it's ridiculous what's going on with this. Especially when Fish and Game completely turned it down. So I don't know why they're appealing it and trying to do different. That's time.

Thank you.

Nadine Jenkins followed by Lucas Jenkins. My name is Nadine and I'm a resident and the direct next door neighbor to this project. I want to be clear that I am not opposed to renewable energy. My concern is the location, compatibility, and safety of the established residential community. When my family bought our home, we trusted the zoning that was in place. The zoning is part of what protects homeowners and gives families confidence in their investment. We are not asking for special treatment, the applicant is. We are asking that the zoning already established for this area be upheld. I also want to state clearly that I have not received a single notice about this project, despite being the direct next door neighbor. For a project this close to homes, that lack of notice is deeply concerning. There are also serious safety and environmental concerns. Recent events in Los Angeles involving a large facility fire with rooftop solar showed how complex and difficult these incidents can be if a fire occurs. In a wildfire prone region, any added fire risk near homes is extremely dangerous. This project also raises environmental concerns. Studies were not conducted during the proper season, which missed important habitat and wildlife activity. This area includes sensitive species, including the endangered stickleback fish. We have residents who rely on private wells. Any potential groundwater impact should be taken seriously. This site is also a three-minute walk from a neighborhood park where children and families gather. This is not an industrial buffer zone. This is a residential community. Finally, project materials have underestimated how close homes actually are. At least one home is less than 30 feet from the proposed project boundary. The Planning Commission reviewed these same issues and determined this project is incompatible with the surrounding land uses. I respectfully ask you to uphold the zoning the residents relied on and trust your colleagues in planning who already denied this project.

Thank you. Lucas Jenkins followed by Doug Metcalf.

Good morning. I'm not being paid to be here today like many of these previous speakers. I had to take the day off work to be here. I'm here to express my concerns about this proposed zone change and the conditional use permit for a solar project adjacent to my home. My bedroom window is elevated and sits approximately 65 feet from the proposed solar field. Imagine waking up to 30 acres of industrial solar infrastructure. This project is simply too close to the existing homes and would permanently alter the character of our neighborhood. There's no privacy fence, landscaping, or vegetation buffer that will truly shield the neighboring families from these visual impacts and appearance. One of these hazards is fire risk. We live in a region where wildfire is already a consistent concern. Placing a large energy facility immediately adjacent to homes raises legitimate questions about emergency access, fire safety and consequences should this incident occur. I would also like to address the wildlife impacts from a firsthand observer and a neighboring landowner, not an incomplete wildlife study. I have personally observed coyotes, mountain lions, burros, bears, western diamondback wild snakes, California king steak, Go for snakes and the rare and protected southern rubber boa on this property. This is not a vacant lane. It's a living functioning wildlife corridor that supports a wide range of species moving through our mountain community community. In addition, many residents rely on private well water. The water table in this area is approximately 10 feet below the surface. This is a residential neighborhood where families depend on local groundwater resources. Any potential impacts of groundwater quality or contamination should be taken seriously. Each of you on this board holds significant responsibility. Today, your decision will directly affect families, homes, wildlife, and the future character of this community. Please trust your land use commission's expert opinion and protect your neighborhood. That's time.

Thank you very much. Doug Metcalf followed by Wendy Hawkins.

Yeah, hello, I'm Doug Metcalf. I have a property on Irwin Ranch Road, and there's a lot of concern for PSPS events and stuff like that. I understand that. I'm all for solar, but putting it in a neighborhood like this is a bad idea. Mr. Marconi was saying that the Vons parking lot, he had a power outage everywhere. One was there on their phones. Well, put solar panels in the parking lot of Vons on top of the roof, ski resorts, a lot of other locations. I know there are very... very well invested in this project, but they're going down the wrong road. This is rural residential. People have come here to live and enjoy the ruralness of it, and they're talking about power lines being a problem. They're adding 1.8 miles of overhead power lines from this spot, which is another fire hazard that hasn't been mentioned in their PowerPoint. So if they're concerned about overlying power, that's another issue. I also have a house in Lucerne Valley. There's plenty of land there. They have power lines going all the way up there, cottonwood substation. They could just add to that, and there's occasional events where it would cut the power, but 90% of the time they'd have more power than they need using it that way. It's a bad idea. You've got to take people's lives into concern.

Wendy Hawkins, followed by Stephanie Schlosser. Hi, my name's Wendy Hawkins. I own the property across the street. My husband and I have lived there for 22 years. This is our home. This is where we live. We don't want to look or see solar fields across the street from my house. I have a ranch property I bought there to be out in the open. Per Marconi, I know he says that he wants to offer solar and we need the solar for our valley and renewable energy. I'm not against renewable energy, but he has made it where we can't put solar on any of our homes or have wind generators. and be attached to Bear Valley Electric. And when questioning him on this, his statement was that he's not in the business of giving away electricity. So it's not really about offering Bear Valley renewable energy. It's about making money for them. And I request that you guys uphold the planning commission's ruling. It doesn't fit our general plan for our community. This is where we live. These are our homes. And this is an industrial complex. It does belong on rooftops and parking lots and not a whole field overlooking our houses. That's a fire hazard. Again, that fire burning in LA is solar panels on the roof. So this creates hazards for us and our water. our wells. We are all very concerned about how it affects our property values and our homes. Thank you. Thank you very much. Stephanie Schlosser, followed by Matt Hawkins.

Hello, my name is Stephanie Slosser. I'm a nurse and program director at Azusa Pacific University. And my husband is a fire captain at Big Bear Fire Authority. We've lived 18 years in Big Bear. We bought property two years ago, sold everything to build a horse property on Irwin Ranch Road. This area is very, there's animal corridors. We go out there and watch the burrows. You can see all kinds of animals. It's beautiful. I have a question for Bear Valley Electric. In the presentation, they said that there's 1,900 homes that this can give power to, but there's 21,000 in the area. So we are going to destroy this whole area for 9% of the houses that we can provide service for? so you're talking about power outages and people not able to have electricity for the refrigerators so nine percent of the valley will be helped by this project it doesn't make sense to me also this is about changing our zoning which is not fair without our consent to change the zoning of properties that we purchased It's lowering the land value. It also is a huge fire hazard. You're going to be adding power poles that can arc in wind storms, which we frequently have in the Big Bear Valley. So this project, you need to uphold what the planning commission came to because they were looking at all these different events and things that happen in this local area. So I would ask you to please uphold what their decision already was to deny this project. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Matt Hawkins, followed by Lori Axton. Matt Hawkins? All right, welcome back to Matt. Lori Axton? Hi.

Hi. Hi, I'm Lori Axton. I live on Irwin Ranch Road. I am a wife of a Marine veteran. My husband is permanently in a wheelchair for 40 years. He had a accident and became a paraplegia. Then he had a stroke. We live with the fact of a mechanical bed that I have to put him in every night, an overhead lift that must lift him out of the bed into his commode chair, back into bed to get dressed. We have planned. all of the staff of Bear Valley Electric that spoke today, addressed veterans' needs, addressed seniors, addressed disabled. I'm a wife of a disabled man. I married him from a wheelchair. He is a man who gets things done. We have prepared, we have set aside, when we know something is coming up and even before. We are prepared for the refrigerator to go out. We are prepared for the energy to go out. I work from home 40 hours a week. I support Holocaust survivors in staying in their homes and keeping their machinery going. We help those clients prepare for power outages. I understand there are a lot of seniors in the Valley that cannot do this because they cannot afford it. The reason, or part of the reason they cannot afford it is because Bear Valley Electric charges triple net for any electricity that we have and receive. They make a tremendous profit from our backs of working and supporting our electric bills, to keep our heat on, to keep our lights on. I urge you, as a wife of a veteran and a- That's time.

Thank you very much. Matt Hawkins, followed by Christina San-Nichols.

Is Matt the one that was in the restroom?

All right, we're moving on to Christina Sand-Nichols and then Randall Young.

Can you do me a favor? Would you give me a one-minute notice as I come closer?

The little... button up there will turn orange when you have 30 seconds left.

Perfect. OK. Thank you so much. So good afternoon, Madam Chair and members of the board. I respectfully urge the Board of Supervisors to uphold the Planning Commission's denial of the requested zoning change and conditional use permit for the proposed solar facility within the Irwin Ranch community. You know, being a military dependent with a parent of 28 years who served on special forces, as well as a wife of a military, I've traveled all over the world, and I couldn't wait to finally move up to Big Bear in a place where, in the Irwin Ranch community, where I've lived now 19 years, and with the wide open spaces, scenic beauty, equestrian and western way of life. These qualities reflect the very values and the land use principles that San Bernardino County's general plan and zoning was designed to preserve while protecting the people that live there. It is truly heartbreaking to see animals and plant habitats, farmland, ranches, equestrian areas, and as a whole the western way of life slowly decreasing and or disappearing. Approval of the zoning change that allows the proposed project to move forward would introduce an industrial scale energy facility into a residentially designated area, creating a significant land use conflict that is inconsistent with the established zoning regulations and contrary to the expectations and livelihood of the community residents and the protected species that inhabit that in that area. So please, for these reasons, please uphold the Planning Commission's denial of the requested zoning chain and conditional use permit for the proposed solar facility. Thank you again for your time, consideration, and just looking at the communities you serve and our special Western way of life.

Thank you very much. Randall Young. And then it'll be Tim Krantz. Is Matt Hawkins back? Okay. Randall Young.

Sip. Sip. Yes, hi, I'm Randall young. I'm 100% disabled that combat veteran. I live Erwin Ranch Road Jason to this solar project. As a resident of the Erwin Ranch community, I have relied on San Bernardino County's general plan zoning regulations and land policies, use policies. to protect our residential neighborhood, preserve our quality of life. These protections that we have entrusted in you are the foundation upon which many of us have built our homes and raised our families. In the military, we have a term called, do you have our six? It means, do you have our back? This is a question rooted in trust, loyalty, and expectation to those entrusted with the responsibility who will protect those who depend on them. Today, I respectfully ask the Board of Supervisors the same question. Do you have our six? The Planning Commission Denial is consistent with a county general plan And the current zoning designations Just In addition This project may generate noise from the inverters transformers and substations I rely on this peace and quiet of our residential neighborhood to control my PTSD at home.

That's time. Thank you, sir. Tim Krantz and last chance for Matt Hawkins.

Good day, honorable members of the Board of Supervisors. My name's Tim Krantz, speaking to you as a past planning commissioner for San Bernardino County, representing the mountain area districts, including Big Bear. I'm speaking to you today in that the initial study, NEGDEC, definitely wrongly concludes that this project has no significant impacts on aesthetics relative to the surrounding community. The community is situated on a flat sagebrush meadow with pinyon woodland behind it. The Irwin Ranch community is comprised of rural horse properties and joined broad open space views. And yet, the developer has shown you a video showing a green hedge of native vegetation. As a botanist, I'm not sure what that native vegetation would be. But this green brick wall against the background of beautiful pinyon pines would indeed be a very significant impact on the aesthetics of the community. This violates the county's own land use policies, goal LU4 of community design, quote, we require that new development be consistent with and reinforce the physical and historical character and identity of our unincorporated communities, end quote. As a biologist, I've been working with endangered species in Big Bear for my lifetime, 50 years of professional life, and the consultants did out-of-season surveys for rare and endangered species that are there. They failed to consider the indirect impacts to the endangered sticklebacks, which are immediately downstream from the project. you saw detention basins where that water that sustains these endangered fish will no longer be able to get to Shay Pond, their last remaining habitat, natural habitat in the world. And so I urge you to go with the Planning Commission recommendation of denial. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Tim. I'm sorry, Matt Hawkins. All right, that is the last request to speak that I have, so we will move back to the five minutes that the applicant and appellant has for your closing remarks. We're gonna take a five minute recess, briefly, thank you.

Why didn't Paul just get up in the light?

Because he wants to hear it? I think Paul wants to hear the rebuttal, and I think out of fairness to that, just let him go to his restroom. Are you okay? Okay. He doesn't ask for much. Yeah. You know... All right, folks, we're gonna get going.

See, I didn't need the gavel.

All right, whenever you're ready with your five minute rebuttal.

All right. Thank you. I just wanted to thank all the public speakers and the comments, and it's something that we take very seriously and want to be good neighbors, so it's definitely something that we're balancing the needs of all the constituents and rate payers within the Bear Valley community as well as THOSE OF THE NEIGHBORS. BUT, YOU KNOW, I PUT THE COMMENTS INTO SOME BIG BUCKETS. AND JUST TO START OFF WITH SOME OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL COMMENTS, WE DID LISTEN TO ALL THE FEEDBACK. WE DID LISTEN TO THE CDFW'S FEEDBACK. and did conduct an additional rare plants survey, protocol survey that was conducted within the peak flowering period of those rare plants in May, just a month ago. And the conclusions of that report remain the same, less than significant impact with mitigation. That on top of the existing environmental diligence efforts that have already taken place, both the wetlands delineation and biosurveys all by qualified certified environmental resource consultants. and biologists, which also deemed that from a CEQA perspective, the impacts are less than significant with mitigation. This new study is consistent with that as well. So extensive environmental studies have been done over the past two years for this project. It's also been confirmed that this is not a designated wildlife corridor. There's actually a slide I had. I didn't have time to get to it, but San Bernardino County actually has a map that shows where those are located, and this project is not within one, and that has also been confirmed by Environmental Resources Management. From a zoning perspective, this is actually a downgrade in terms of the density of development that could occur on the existing zoning designation. The existing zoning designation does allow for up to two parcels per acre if it were to be subdivided, which actually would provide a significant increase more intense environmental impact and that is a by right condition because the zone is currently zoned to allow for that subdivision. So the request to rezone to rural living which only allows for one parcel per acre is actually a less dense zoning designation from an environmental perspective. It also is going to create a transition between the higher density zoning designations to the south of the project site to the rural living, which is the lowest density residential zoning district. And then immediately to the north, which is the mountainside, is open space zoning designation. So it produces a natural buffer and nice transition from south to north to higher density to lower density. Okay. And solar, again, is very passive. It is very minimal impervious surface that's developed. It's steel piles driven into the ground that hold the racking system up. And access drives into equipment pads. So very much less intensive than any sort of residential development from an environmental perspective. And then one other key point, another question came about of why not elsewhere? Why not develop this off the mountain in the desert region? That would not... That would make basically Pointless the benefit that this project would entail. Again, because the power is generated locally and doesn't have to go up those transmission lines that come from the desert region, that is the primary benefit that will ensure that the lights stay on for this community. And then... I think that's all I had.

Do you wanna add anything? Yeah. When you look at the 10% that's been raised, so you have to combine that with, we have a battery project that's being built in Big Bear Lake, not Big Bear City or over at that. when you combine that resource, and we also have a peaking plant, which doesn't operate on its own, but will operate with a base load.

Paul, it would be easier to hear you if you lean way into the microphone.

Yeah, sorry. And we have a number of customers that are interruptible. For example, the snow makers are interruptible. So when we go into a PSPS, obviously they're not gonna blow snow, and we can keep, as long as we can get about 10 megawatts total, We can keep everybody's lights on. Okay, everybody. And we've done it before, too. So that's the key for this facility. It's not just, if you look at it.

That's time. Okay. So I am going to keep you two up here in case the board has any questions for you. And then I know I have some for Land Use Services staff. So if the board's okay with that. Okay, so I guess one of the questions that I have is that we're here because Land Use Services has recommended a denial of that. And it's not about the merits of the project. So I think that we all agree that the project is a good project. It's really the location of the project that is in question. So can you tell me what you think that the Planning Commission got wrong in their decision?

Take that one.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair. Dan Quindley, Davis Wright Germain for Bear Valley here. The Planning Commission got essentially the entire procedure wrong. They were required to go through three approvals make recommendations on two of those to this board, and then make a final decision on the conditional use project. Instead of engaging faithfully in that process, the Planning Commission essentially was looking for a denial without a basis. And they issued a blanket denial for the project based on alleged zoning inconsistency. They did not grapple with the request for zone change, which is a perfectly legitimate method to accomplish what is happening here.

I apologize.

The Planning Commission essentially was looking for a denial without a basis and failed to give this board the appropriate recommendations on two of the requests, the policy plan amendment and the zoning amendment. In doing so, they failed to grapple with the project or provide this board with any adequate record or findings to support the denial. There is significant deficiencies in the record, which we've pointed out in our submissions. And what they've got wrong is essentially not recognizing that the staff report that was originally promulgated for this project supported approval, made all of the requisite findings, made the requisite recommendations, and would allow this to move forward. Instead, they articulated a vague and unsupported finding around general land use inconsistency which creates a chicken and egg problem. Can we rezone the parcel or not? They said we shouldn't rezone this at all. They provided no basis and no rationale for that.

Thank you very much. And just so Land Use Services know, I'm coming to you with a question on that, too, because it was recommended for approval at the Planning Commission level, and now it's being recommended for denial. So that change is a question that I have. While I still have you up here, I think we all have some more questions for you.

And, Supervisor Rao, if I may, I'd like to address that issue with the current recommended findings as well. I would like to point out to this board, that there is no evidence in the record and no connective tissue to support the current findings. And if the board were to adopt them, I believe it would be on a very poor basis. That would not be supportable based on the evidence in the record. We'd have another Topanga Canyon filings problem.

Thank you. Paul, can you address, back in the day, weren't you looking over at the Barwa site where there's already solar to put this and what happened over there?

Yeah, I can. So we were trying to develop a joint project with Barwa. And our portion of the solar facility would have gone down in the lower side of the lake. And the studies showed that in a 100-year flood, there would be 24 feet of water in that area, which obviously made building a solar facility there untenable. GE pulled out. We asked to have a backup study, so we did hire one of EDF's subcontractors actually to go do another study just to make sure, and they came to the same conclusion. The only mitigation that could have been done was to install a big berm across Baldwin Lake. That's what the Army Corps of Engineers said, and everybody that we talked to said that was a non-starter. It would have been huge. and just not possible, and cost a tremendous amount. So that's why we went back to the drawing board.

And I appreciate the visuals that you did in the video, but they did show it from the ground level, and we've heard several of our speakers today talk about two-story homes. Do you have any renderings of what it would look like from that second deck?

I will defer to Yannick on that one. I do not believe there are renderings, I also do want to point out that in terms of visual impacts, private viewsheds are not a cognizable CEQA impact. They are not evaluated in terms of significance. Generally speaking, it is the broad visual impact. So that would be ground level. To the extent that private viewshed impacts are impacted from a CEQA standpoint, those are irrelevant. And I would like to clarify that.

I think if it were your viewshed, you might feel differently.

I disagree with that. I mean, I live next to a CEMEX plant, and I am perfectly happy with that.

How long will it take the greenery to grow? Are you able to answer the second story visualization, which apparently doesn't matter?

Sorry, yes. So yeah, we do not have a second story visualization. However, there are certain strategies that could be put in place. I believe there's one or two two-story buildings in question that could potentially have a view. And if there needs to be a specific strategy or condition to plant specific taller vegetation in those strategic areas, that is something that the project could do. As far as the duration of the vegetative growth, it is estimated, of course, it always depends on the specific vegetation. But it would, you know, at the time of planting, there would be, you know, gaps within the visual impact. However, it would still dramatically soften the viewshed of the solar project. But over the duration of approximately five to 10 years, it would get to the point where there would be pretty much a completely opaque view of the project.

Five to 10 years, okay. And how many community meetings were held on this?

So we actually held two community meetings in October of 2025, I believe it was, in the Big Bear area, one in the morning and one in the evening to accommodate people's different work schedules. We also held recently the Bear Valley Earth Day event where the entire community, every single resident is invited to attend that specific Earth Day event. And we set up a specific booth for this project to answer any questions and address any concerns at that point. In addition to that, of course, there's the public the process, of course, with notification from San Bernardino County with all of the notice in advance of the Planning Commission hearing, as well as this hearing. And in addition to that, of course, the 30-day CEQA open public comment period, which actually was extended an additional 30 days. So there were actually two 30-day CEQA public comment periods open for this specific project.

One other public, the California Public Utilities Commission, during the application process, had a public hearing as well, conducted by an administrative law judge. And that was noticed to every single ratepayer.

He said the California Public Utilities Commission also held a meeting. My last question for you before I turn it over is you on your PowerPoint, you listed supporters. Are they supporters of Bear Valley Electric or are they supporters of this project? Because I do not have any communications from any of those entities in support of this project.

Those letters specifically speak to, they all submitted letters supporting this project. I see. Specifically. In fact, I sat at the hospital board. I met with the mayor of Big Bear Lake. I've met with Chamber, talked to their board, and their board voted. We went and saw their specific letters, and they did address specifically this project.

Okay. Thank you. Supervisor Armendariz.

Thank you, I wanna start with basically, so people know where I come from. My job is not to take either side, it's to get to the crust of what is actually technically true. And I know that these are emotional issues, and I empathize with it, but my job is to get to the nitty gritty of it. So I'm gonna be asking a few questions, I'm not sure who I'm gonna be asking them to, so maybe you guys can work with me. Regarding the less than significant with mitigation, help me understand what that means, because what is the mitigation for the habitat? We'll start with that.

So I cannot speak to the exact specifics on less than significant with mitigation. I'll leave that to Yannick, who's much more familiar with the scope of the environmental documents. But generally speaking, everything that is less than significant with mitigation essentially means that with certain enumerated steps, which are outlined in the projects ISMND, whether that's for biology, groundwater, visual impacts such as the hedge, those impacts take what was analyzed as a potentially significant environmental effect or something that could have been significant to a less than significant threshold. So these are voluntary measures that are imposed for each of the conditions.

So let me restate my question. What are you going to do?

Yeah, so as part of the CEQA process, of course, there are mitigation steps that are to be implemented and will be implemented prior to construction. So one of which is pre-construction surveys or screening from a qualified biologist for any sort of nesting birding before any sort of land disturbance from a biological standpoint. There's also a condition to do a prescreen for the rubber boa, as well as to construct a reptilian exclusion fence to not allow, if there were to be a rubber boa, which one was not identified but could be a suitable habitat on the mountainside, Above the project where there is no limits where there is no disturbance in theory there could be one That lives up there, but as a mitigation measure The project will implement a reptilian exclusion fence such that it cannot come on site within the limits of disturbance and have any risk of being Also from, you know, there's transplantation, for example, mitigation option for any rare plants that cannot be avoided, for example. So those are just a few examples of some mitigation efforts.

You plan on doing all those? Yes. Okay, perfect. And then, so my next question following that is, to the... Someone stated that the environmental species surveys were done out of cycle. It sounded like you guys kind of hit that, but I want to hit this just for my own record.

Yeah, absolutely. So heard the comment and addressed it and conducted a survey in May, which is, again, the peak flowering period for rare plants, and that was conducted a month ago.

Okay, and then also to speak to the issue of not being in compliance with Fish and Game. My understanding from what I heard from you earlier, but I want to reiterate it again. You guys took all the necessary steps to be in compliance with what Fish and Game said, okay. And then moving to you stated you guys want to get to a point of 10 megawatts. But you stated that question with we want to get to a place of 10 megawatts, and we've done it before. How did you do it before?

So Edison has two lines that come up. One of the lines is very unreliable, but they were doing maintenance on our main lines, so that line was available, the small line, which has five megawatts. And so that's how we were able to do it. So we know this will work. We've actually tried it out.

To the statement of this will create additional fire risk, what do you say?

So first of all, I mean, solar in general is a very safe and established technology. I just wanted to put that baseline out there. This is something that people put on the roofs of their homes and are comfortable with doing so. And they're not flammable equipment. The materials in a solar panel is polysilicon glass, aluminum frame around it, and polymer in the back. to hold it all together. But in addition to that, this is part of the land development process with San Bernardino County. San Bernardino County Fire has had the opportunity to review the site plan as well as will continue to do so as part of assuming a project gets approved, the building and grading permits and whatnot, and we'll have another opportunity to comment. In addition to that, THE PROJECTS DESIGNED SUCH THAT IN THE EVENT OF AN EMERGENCY THE ACCESS DRIVE IS AT THE PROPER WIDTH FOR ANY SORT OF EMERGENCY VEHICLES WITH A TURNAROUND AT THE END AS WELL AS THE FENCE WILL BE IMPLEMENTED WITH A NOX BOX THAT ANY FIRE EMERGENCY RESPONSE SERVICES WOULD BE ABLE TO ACCESS THE SITE.

Bear Valley has not had an ignition in over 20 years. Just for perspective, the big three, PG&E, SCE, and SDG&E have had over 200 ignitions this year alone. We are extremely committed to fire safety. That's our number one priority. Public safety is our number one priority. We will go hand over hand over everything, every wire EDF installs. Believe me, it'll be compliant and safe. So we are extremely committed. We understand our environment, and that's why we've had zero. And no other utility can say that.

Okay, there was also a comment that said regarding your Bear Valley's energy, your policy regarding solar and wind that you guys don't allow houses to have that. What do you say to that?

Not true.

Okay.

We have a DGE tariff and people can sign up for it.

Okay, the one thing, your PSPS blackouts, this was one of the things that were brought up a lot. And I'm not all knowing, but my little bit of understanding on this helped me understand. So if you're gonna be creating solar power and you're gonna be running on the same lines that Edison runs on, How do you stop that power from coming down the hill when they do the block? Are you guys going to be putting those blocks that they have, whatever the, where they can dissect and stop the power? Who's going to be paying to put those in?

Yeah, so when they cut our power off, they actually open breakers that would prevent power going down the hill. Their switching station is actually up on the mountain. It's called Gold Hill Switching Station, and it's right up in the mountain. So when they cut us off, they actually cut us off up on the mountain using remotely controlled switch gear.

Okay.

So we wouldn't be backfeeding those lines going down the mountain.

With that being said, who's gonna be responsible for, in the event there is a fire, because you look at all these other fires that have happened, Palisades and all these, where they're blaming the electric company, whose responsibility is it gonna be then? Is it gonna be yours if you guys are activated and you have power in those lines and there's some wind or something happening or is it gonna be SE because they own the lines?

So Edison monitors the conditions where their facilities are installed and they invoke PSPS when they consider conditions are unsafe. We also every day monitor our conditions, our local conditions. and we have very powerful risk modeling software, and we would invoke a PSPS if we had to. We haven't had to. Believe it or not, the highest Santana wind we've ever experienced is 32 miles per hour. We just don't experience those high, dry winds. When we have high winds, we're having a blizzard that day, too. So it's not wildfire weather. So that's the issue, is in the valley, we typically have low winds during these fire threat periods. And so we can operate, safely operate our system, unlike Edison, who's experiencing 85 miles per hour down in Lucerne.

Okay, I only have three more questions and I'll be done. Snow, so in the event of snow, these are not effective, right? So we talk about power outages or PSEs. During the snow season, what is gonna happen with these solar? Are you guys gonna be cleaning them off and trying to harness them?

Solar is actually more productive in the snow because these are bifacial solar plants. panels. So when the sun hits the ground, it reflects up on the backside. They actually produce more. Perfect.

That's what I needed to know. And then noise pollution. I was told noise pollution is an issue.

So it... Few pieces of equipment create a very small amount of noise. The inverters are typically the ones that are commented on. That's usually around 50, 60 decibels, which is about the same volume as a conversational voice. But what the project has been designed to do is those inverters are located centrally on the site. um and of course sound dissipates over distances and it also further dissipates as structures are in the way such as the panels themselves such as the fence such as the vegetative screening as it currently is designed the nearest resident would be approximately 400 feet away from where those inverters are located The CEQA report required that the inverters be at least 4D feet, 4-0 feet away from the nearest residence. So we're 10 times further away from that. there should really not be any kind of noise concerns. The last point on that front is that these inverters are only making a very calm, slight humming sound during the day when electricity is being generated, not at night. At night, totally silent.

Okay, so for my final question, for the residents of this community, if we were to adopt this or be in favor of it, we're hearing things of two-story. You guys said you're willing to work with mitigating those factors for the two-story. Yes. The bigger concern for me is the five to 10 years for maturity. Are you guys willing to work on that also and bring that up to speed so it's not five to 10 years? Maybe you're going to have to buy some bigger plants. Yes. Okay. And is there any discounts being part of this program? Are there discounts being made to the residents on the cost of power? We know the cost increases constantly with the cost of energy. Through this program, are the residents of this community going to see any sort of savings? Or is it going to continue to go at market rate?

So the solar facility, you're talking about across all the rate payers. That's a hard one to calculate. Right now, over the life of the project, and the way we have to calculate is from when we filed our application with the CPUC, which energy prices were lower then. But they will basically see about a $2 increase. In cost? Yeah, because we have to do, it's initial. By the end of the project, the project's got a 30-year life. We're looking at less than 50 cents. And then once the financial life of the project is over and if the project's still producing, which is pretty likely, it's the only cost that the customers will bear for this energy would be the O&M for us to maintain it, which is pretty low for solar energy. So essentially, it becomes quite a savings. I'm done.

Do you have any questions?

No, I want to know if there's going to be another 105 questions.

Supervisor Hagman, do you have anything for the applicant appellant?

Yeah, I reviewed it and seen it in there, but I could be mistaken. How large is the project, the space, the acres? I'm sorry.

It is, in terms of acreage, it's approximately 20 acres within the fenced area.

And if you subdivide that into half acre parcels, you potentially, a developer could put 40 homes. Is that what you're calculating now? Thank you.

If there are no other questions for the applicant and appellant, we'll bring staff back up. We'll have you change positions, please.

Madam Chair, just while staff are changing, one thing we want to clarify for the record, there are eight letters of support that are uploaded into the system that are reflected. So Laura and I were talking, just want to make sure the record reflects that those letters of support are there.

As opposed to the couple hundred we got against the project?

I don't see those specifically.

They've been coming in? Yes. Okay. I have a question. Originally, when the applicant came for the Planning Commission, it was recommended for approval. That has since changed to denial. Can you help us understand that?

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. So initially, when staff evaluated for this project, we evaluated against objective criteria in our plans, policies, development code, and the standard findings to make for a policy plan amendment, zoning amendment, and CUP. We did confirm that the project met all legal and technical thresholds for the consistency. Therefore, we did recommend approval on that project. However, at the planning commission hearing, the focus of the conversation was really around the subjective element of neighborhood characteristics, ultimately finding that the project was incompatible with that rural residential feel. So really what it came down to is a compatibility kind of discretion. Ultimately, staff is bringing forward to you the planning commission's denial for your consideration. So staff is not bringing forward the original set of approval. We are here to bring forth the planning commission's recommendation.

You heard my question to the other gentleman, what he disagreed with the planning commission. Do you share his sentiment or do you defend the decision to recommend the denial?

Madam Chair, at this point, we're bringing forth a denial, so I would have to bring forth the findings that there was incompatibility and inconsistency with the rule character.

Okay.

I have a comment, but any other questions of staff?

Before I call for the question, there was something that was said earlier that solar doesn't present a fire risk. I'm watching the Boyle Heights. Solar just continued to burn and burn, so I'm not sure I agree with that. Philosophically, I have a problem when government changes the rules mid-playing, mid-game. If I buy the house and it's zoned X, I want it to be zoned X. I don't want it to change zoning across the street from me. I have been consistent with that in my vote all along, so I do believe it is incompatible with our neighborhood residential, with the zoning that exists that they live in now. So I'm ready to call for the vote if there are no other questions. Go for it.

I got lots of comments, but... First of all, I think when we look at these development projects, a lot of the local residents look at what I see today. What you see today is a vacant lot. And you always have to compare what is being proposed versus what can it be. That's the question I asked. It was 20 acres and the developer came in there and they applied for half acre lots. and we approved that, that's 40 residents there, and looking at the pictures on there, all of you have outhouses, barns, other things that are not just besides dwelling there. Not to say that new neighbors wouldn't do the same thing, but compare those visual view sheds of what could be versus what is today, that is different. You can't expect a landowner not to develop their property just like you developed your properties. I feel very torn what to do myself because I know the need for power. I'm in the county's representative of both South Coast AQMD, SCAG, and a few other regional boards that look at the energy needs for Southern California. Not that I like all the things the AQMD is pushing out, but they're pushing for full electric. They are trying to clean the air even more, pushing for full electric. On appliances, we stopped a couple of things for rehabs, but all the new builds are gonna be fully electric going forward in South Coast A&Q and Air District and other air districts will catch up. CARB is very aggressive throughout the state. So our reliance on energy is gonna go way up, not way down. It's projected in the next 20 years that we need, California needs to double its electrical output to keep up with demand coming through over the next 20 years. So we have to, we as, I guess, government or public utilities have to be able to provide. I have many projects throughout the county that are held up four to six years right now because there's no power. You put that on top of, the power lines, the transmission lines haven't been really updated or it was built 40 years ago. So the capacity is not even there. So if we were to build it in the high desert, which I'm in favor of building more energy production in the high desert, we would have to build more utility lines, more of those transmission lines through our neighborhoods, through our community to get it. So to get power to the needs of our residents going forward. I also, you're representative of Inland Empire Health Plan, IEHP, and when the power outage started going out, we had to help hundreds and hundreds of our residents get life safety battery backups for their, so that medical thing is rare, but it is a real thing on that as well. I did a question, is natural gas generation even a possibility? It's a smaller footprint for backup. I guess that would be for staff or the applicant, I don't know.

Yeah, Supervisor, I can't answer the gas one, but I did want to make a note on the point you made about what's allowed by right and the amount of density that could go there without a public hearing process. And it's a 30-acre site, so essentially it could be 60 lots with an additional three units on each lot by right for ADUs. So just to make note of that, that's the intensity that we're also comparing a passive solar use to the potential intensity of that many units.

And I agree with my colleague next to me that I think the mitigation, that's a small thing, but it shouldn't be like, well, I'm going to plant seedlings and let things grow up to be like put on the full V-shed right away and work with the neighbors if we were to go that way to make sure that whatever that screening is is appeasing to them and works within their decor. But that's if we went that way. But that's all my comments I had, Madam Chair.

Supervisor Armendariz, did you have another brief comment?

Yeah, you know, I think you hit it on the head. 180 more units could actually be here. So how much energy is that going to take? You know, I think when we sit here and we talk about these issues, we have to, as a board or stewards of government, have to take all things into consideration and the implications of every decision we make. For me, we have an ad hoc that's going to be coming here shortly talking about energy and what that looks like later on today. It's unfortunate because we're gonna have it after this vote takes place to know because what I would hate to see is if this is the only one area in Bear Valley that actually is suitable for clean energy, if that's honestly true, we just put a project behind another couple years. And that's what we face. We have to weigh these options and I understand I have solar myself, I have 19,000 kilowatts at home, three Tesla batteries. If the power grid goes down, I'm totally okay. I don't worry about anything. And I'll charge my electric vehicle at the same time. It's having that redundancy in my own home that when I look at the community, how can I make sure that my community's safe? How do I make sure that Maybe I don't make everyone happy, but if I can make the majority of people happy, that's the goal I have to look forward to. This energy problem is not going away, guys. It's only getting worse. And with more development that happens, we're going to continue to strain the system. So those are my closing comments.

I will save my comments because the third district is the area that we have developable land for energy and that's just unfortunate because it's not in some of the other districts. With that, I'm gonna close the public hearing. Any further questions or comments before I call? Okay, I've called for the question. Do I have a motion for staff's recommendation? So the motion is to, staff's recommendation is to deny the Planning Commission's, deny the appeal. Deny the appeal, uphold the Planning Commission. Uphold the appeal, deny the project.

No, deny the appeal.

That's correct. I'm an aye. Okay. You're making the motion? Yes. Thank you very much. I'll second. Thank you, Vice Chair, for the second. All those in favor of staff's recommendation to uphold the Planning Commission and to deny the project, say aye. Aye. All those opposed?

Nay.

To confirm, Supervisor Armendariz, you are again, you're a no vote. Okay, so if you'll let the vote reflect that there were two no votes and three ayes.

Thank you, Madam Chair. With that, the motion passes to deny, excuse me, to uphold the Planning Commission's decision to deny the project with Supervisors Armendariz and Hagman voting nay.

Thank you very much. All right, thank you all. Item number 204 is an introduction and adoption of an ordinance amending the San Bernardino County Development Code.

Are we on number 204?

Relating to floodplain regulations being presented today, this afternoon by- Chair, if I could please ask those leaving the chambers to please, the meeting is still continuing. Please keep your voices down. Thank you, I will open the public hearing.

Good afternoon, Chair Rao and board members. Miguel Figueroa here, Land Use Services Director. By my side is Land Development Chief Kevin Marstall. Before you, we have a presentation for a development code amendment as it relates to the floodplain regulations in our county. The proposed development code amendment will modify language within the following floodplain regulation sections listed on this slide. Specifically, the floodplain safety overlay, the flood hazard development reviews, pre-construction flood hazard mitigation and erosion control inspection, floodplain administrator, and specific definitions. For context on the relevance of this board agenda item before you, our county has participated in the National Flood Insurance Program since 1978, with a floodplain ordinance adopted through the development code. The floodplain ordinance ensures compliance with FEMA. Specifically on April 9th, 2024, the current ordinance adopted specific regulations for the shaded X zone, which included higher standards for elevation. Last year in 2025 land use services identified higher standards as potential obstacles to the creation of ADUs and junior ADUs.

Thank you Miguel and good afternoon chair and members of the board. The proposed amendments to the floodplain ordinance include the following. First, to promote housing, it provides an exception for conversions of existing structures to create accessory dwelling units within the X-Shaded Zone while still maintaining FEMA minimum regulations. Secondly, it clarifies the Land Development Division as having review authority. Next, it makes some minor text revisions. And finally, it addresses the incorrect definition of zone A1 to 30. The ordinance amendment was considered by the Planning Commission on April 9th of this year for which notification of the public hearing was published in the Sun and sent to interested parties. No comments were received from the public and no modifications were recommended by the Planning Commission and notification again for this public hearing was published on June 12th and again no comments were received. That concludes our presentation. Thank you and does the board have any questions of staff?

No, thank you. Not for me. I cannot imagine that Supervisor Cook does, and we have no request to speak. I'm going to close public hearing and ask for a vote. Thank you. Vice Chair for the motion and Supervisor Hagman for the second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right. Thank you, gentlemen, very much. Energy ad hoc item number 205. I asked for this to be brought forward when we created the ad hoc. Supervisor Hagman and I have committed to serving on that. And I chose the two of us because we represent the valley and then the other reaches of the county by having the two of us on there. And so mountains and deserts and valley in the third district with Supervisor Hagman understanding energy having an interest and a background on that, but as the two of us take our, the things that we hear forward and work on, projects and appropriateness of siting and things like that, what I wanted to do was give the other supervisors an opportunity to weigh in on this to give us your direction and your thoughts. So that is the reason for today's agenda item. I see no comments coming from my right. I know that there are comments, I know. Supervisor Armendariz.

Yes, thank you for entertaining me with this, knowing that this was something that was something I wanted to be a part of. I will ask that the ad hoc does consider a couple of things when they move forward. One, I would love to see if you guys would entertain an option of bringing a multi-county ad hoc committee together, including San Bernardino, Riverside, Kern, and Imperial Counties. We're all suffering from the same issue. We're all looking at this and trying to figure out what is the best way to move forward. I think it would behoove us not to come together and really have a real sit down on how we could make this a meaningful opportunity for all of us to come together and utilizing kern county has a lot of data on this already kind of would give us a head start but really looking at it from that point of view and getting a couple of supervisors from each of those and there are people who are with power uh to the to the table also i would love to discuss in in some in some real um um guess the word, really, really look at it, what our opportunities could look like if we wanted to pursue a nuclear route, potential locations, looking at areas of contamination currently that we could probably utilize, looking at failed solar systems, solar plants that are failing today, how we can look at those areas and see if maybe that could be a good option. Really looking at the amount of energy we're consuming and what the future looks like with consumption when we're making these decisions as far as data centers and other areas that are gonna use large amounts of electricity. Also ask that we look and take a deep dive in what that infrastructure looks like if we were gonna use it for housing. I want us to take everything into consideration, not just solar, wind, battery storage, but looking at it holistically from a point of view of if we do X, what happens? If we do Y, what happens? How much land do we utilize when we're putting 29 acres of solar when we have a housing crisis? All those type of things going, I was supporting right now a solar project I thought should have been withheld, but at the end of the day, we also have a housing crisis. What does that really look like for us? And really, if you guys would just take that deep dive and look at whatever we're gonna do forward, how can we make it meaningful for all our community? And those are really all the ones I have.

Thank you. Supervisor Hagman, any comments? It is a big need, and I just will wrap this up by saying that my desert residents come out in force when we have projects that are brought forward. And oftentimes that is because developers don't necessarily reach out to the community, do due diligence and find out. They just look at the desert and think it's big and open space. And Moronga Basin Conservation Association reached out to me late last night with... thoughtful recommendations as the ad hoc moves forward for participation from our communities in this as well, which I would welcome because it's not just about energy. It is about community health, education, public safety, housing, and all those different things. And so rather than have the desert or mountain residents, as we just heard, be super frustrated with the sightings of locations, I think that it is incumbent upon us on this board to make sure that we have considered all aspects. So I would welcome that discussion. And thank you very much for your input on this as Kurt and I move forward with it.

Yeah, I would ask also, you posed a good thing. Looking at, so in the second district, we have a lot of flood basins. If we could find a way to multipurpose those and maybe harness some energy through those two or battery storage or something along those lines where the areas are not being used. I can show you some of the ones and show you some renderings from some people who have met with me before who thought they had some brilliant ideas of ways that we could utilize that land.

Very good. All right, good news, I'm gonna recess for 10 minutes and then we're coming back to do the Child and Family Services. I understand, you do not have to stay if you have other appointments. And we will recess for 10 minutes and we will come back and at 1.30 start promptly on agenda item number 206, thank you. Oh, good afternoon, everyone. We're gonna reconvene, and I know that Supervisor Cook is in the back listening while he finishes his lunch, and then he will join us. So please begin whenever you are ready.

All right, thank you, Chair Rao, members of the board. My name is Gilbert Ramos. I am the Human Services Executive Officer, Assistant Executive Officer for San Bernardino County, and I also have Jeannie with me as well.

Jeannie Glasgow, Director of Children and Family Services.

And today we have a presentation to do an overview of children and family services and we're gonna go over a variety of topics to talk about some of the legal mandates, the referral processes, some of the funding of children and family services, out of home placements, staffing, and just basic accountability and oversight of children and family services. So we'll go ahead and jump in to the presentation and move right in. So the presentation is broken up into about five sections. And so each of those sections will talk a little bit about each of those topics that I had mentioned. And so we're going to start right off with some of the mandates and oversights that Children and Family Services have. There's about six core legal responsibilities, legal mandates that Children and Family Services have. Each of these are based on federal and state laws and regulations, as well as some local county policies that we have in place. Children and Family Services are legally required to receive and investigate every abuse hotline, abuse report that comes in. This is received at the child abuse hotline. And after these calls are coming in, we have to ensure that the children are safe. And so that's one of the main things that we do at Children and Family Services is ensure that child safety is happening. And so that as we ensure the child safety is occurring, the thing that we try to do though is prevent removal. If we can prevent removal and ensure child safety and we keep the child with the parent, that's what we'll do. We want to avoid unnecessary removals. However, because child safety is paramount, If we do have to protect the child by removal, we do look for the best safe placement. We do look for families first. Jeannie will talk about kin care soon, but that's one of the one things we try to do is keep them with the family, keep them in a home and a safe care. But once they're in home, if they can't stay safe in their own home and they have to go to a care, we also look for permanency. Permanency is a key area as well that we look for. Reunification is the thing that we try to accomplish first and foremost is reunification with the parents that they're removed from. But we also look for other permanencies. Every child deserves a permanent family, a forever family as we call it. And we look for guardianship and adoption first. And then, of course, at this whole process, as we go through this process, we look to ensure that we have due process through the court orders and child safety is that we're protecting parental rights as well as the children's rights during this process. So moving on to the next slide here, we have the oversight of CFS. And I'm gonna start from the bottom up on this slide here because there are federal state and county oversights. And so at the federal level, we have the Children's Bureau who is a branch of the Administration of Children and Families that provide direction at the federal level of how we are required to provide safety for children. At the state level, we have California Department of Social Services that is required to give us the guidance and direction from the state level that tells us how to provide and enact some of those rules and regulations. And where we do here is as we exercise those requirements, the state is providing oversight by doing audits and reviews, their own, not investigations, but just like oversights of our actions that we're taking. And then here at the local level, the county, as a Human Services AEO, one of the responsibilities that I have, and as the County Board of Supervisors had appointed me as the County Welfare Director, that's something that's listed in Welfare and Institution Codes 10801, that there's a County Welfare Director. That's one of my requirements as the local oversight. And so something that Luther and I does as the CEO, we have regular meetings, routine meetings. We talk about the variety of things that are happening within the Human Services Department, Children and Family Services being one of those departments. And we strategize and talk about what's going on, what's happening, how our areas of just fiscal integrity and program oversight and how we can improve things that are happening that may need to be improved. All that said, I go to the top box there of the judicial oversight. And because all things that are happening at Children and Family Services is overseen by the judicial branch of Juvenile Dependency Court, So every decision that is made, every recommendation that is made, all things that are presented by Children and Family Services is determined to be approved by the judges that are overseeing each case of the courts, of the families. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Jeannie to actually talk about how some of the referral processes actually work and kind of like show you just the process from maybe beginning to the permanency plan.

So before I walk you through those steps, I want to share what guides our work. At CFS, we believe that children are best served when they can remain safely with their families. Removal from the home is always our last resort, an action we take and recommend to a judge only when we have exhausted every other option to keep the child safe at home. Our social workers carry enormous responsibility and they are trained to approach this work with both urgency and compassion, acting swiftly when a child is in danger while doing everything possible to preserve the family unit. Every step of our process reflects commitment. With that said, let me walk you through the process. The process begins with the child abuse hotline. We receive a call from someone that has concerns about a child being hurt, so they call the hotline. At that time, the hotline screener will use a structured decision-making tool to decide whether it meets the criteria for an in-person investigation. At that time, it's either an IR, which is an emergency response. We must respond within 24 hours. We usually get there before that, but we have up to 24 hours. or we have a 10-day for lower risk referrals. Social workers complete in-person interviews, home visits, and safety assessments using the Structured Decision Making Tool, SDM. Structured Decision Making Tools are state-mandated, evidence-based tools used by child welfare agencies across California. SDM provides a consistent framework for evaluating concerns, assessing risk, and informing decisions regarding services and interventions. These tools are utilized throughout the life of the referral and the case, so the tools are used at the beginning all the way through the case to make key decision points. SDM promotes consistency, accountability, and transparency in decision making while supporting compliance with state and federal standards. The use of SDM combined with professional judgment helps ensure that decisions are informed by both evidence-based practice and unique circumstances of each child and family. By using the SDM tools consistently, San Bernardino County CFS strengthens its ability to make informed decisions that support child safety, family stability, and positive outcomes for children and families. Allegations can result in findings of unfounded, inconclusive, or substantiated. Unfounded means there's no merit to the allegation, inconclusive means there is not enough proof to confirm the allegation, and substantiated means there is proof and confirmation. Most investigations do not end up in removal. When appropriate, families receive services through family maintenance, allowing the children to stay in the home with support. Removing a child from a parent's home is one of the most difficult decisions we make. We recognize the profound impact that this has on children and families, and we approach each case with care, compassion, and a deep sense of responsibility. Whenever it is safe to do so, every effort is made to keep children with their parents.

Next slide.

Judicial oversight is a critical safeguard within the child welfare system and helps ensure accountability, transparency, and due process. CFS social workers assess each family's circumstances and make recommendations to the juvenile court services placement and permanency based on the child's safety and well-being. While CFS makes recommendations, the court is responsible for making the final decision in all dependency cases. Attorneys representing parents, children, and CFS present information and advocate on their client's behalf. So each parent gets an attorney assigned to them. The children get an attorney assigned to them, and CFS has attorneys. This multidisciplinary process ensures that decisions are informed by multiple perspectives and are made in accordance with state law and the best interest of the child. Judicial oversight helps balance child safety, family rights, and accountability while supporting fair and informed decision-making process throughout the life of a case. Children who enter foster care quickly enter the court process, beginning with detention hearing within 72 hours. This early hearing determines whether a child can return home or must remain in the custody. and care while the case proceeds. Jurisdiction and dispositional hearings generally occur within 15 days and represent a significant milestone in the dependency process. During the hearings, that's where the court reviews the facts and circumstances of the case to determine whether the allegations in the petition are legally substantiated. If the petition is substantiated, the court determines what services and supports the family will get and interventions that are necessary to promote child safety, stability, and permanency. The court also establishes visitation at this hearing. The hearings provide an important opportunity for all parties to be heard and help ensure that decisions are made in accordance with state law and the best interest. Status review hearings occur every six months after that. During each one, the court evaluates the family's progress, safety conditions, and the appropriateness of current placement. Once the court selects a permanent plan of adoption, legal guardianship, or another planned permanent living arrangement, permanency hearings occur every six months, ensuring the case is consistently moving toward reunification, guardianship, or adoption. Permanency. We take this very seriously. Our staff are trained to carefully assess each family's unique circumstances and make recommendations that serve the best interest of the child. Permanency is a final step in the child welfare process. The court must authorize any case closure, meaning no child exits the system without judicial review. Judges wait evidence and testimony from all parties of the case. And the court makes a final decision about a child's permanent plan. Reunification remains the preferred and most common outcome when safe and appropriate. It reflects a return home to a parent following successful participation in court-ordered services. Legal guardianship provides children with a safe, long-term family environment when reunification is not possible. Many guardians are extended family members who can maintain important relationship and cultural ties. Adoption, including tribal customary adoption, is another permanent path that ensures children have a forever family while honoring cultural identity when applicable.

All right. So on this next area of slides that we're going to talk about is the funding of Children and Family Services. And so I'll go ahead and go to this slide here. And so in this slide, what we have is two different ways that we can take a look at the funding for Children and Family Services. So on the left side of the slide, we have an orange block that talks about $674 million. And this is in combined of the money that we spend on both what it takes to fund the social workers, the indirect costs of rent and overhead and things like that, as well as assistance payments to pay for actual foster care services. This money comes from three sources. It comes from the federal government, it comes from the state government, it also comes from local share here at the county. These are investments made by, part in requirement, but also investments. And so of the $674 million that you see up there, about 49% is federal and state dollars. There's 31% that is realignment funds, and then there's 17% with net county cost, and 3% of wraparound investments. So that's where the money comes from to have children and family services funded. So where is the money spent exactly? And so the money is spent primarily in client assistance payments at $469 million. And then there's also other dollars for salary and benefits and indirect costs. Now I do wanna call out that these are not the entire budget of Children and Family Services. There are other dollars that we did not include here because on the next slide I have a trend slide that shows the budgets over the last five years. And so because these other funds are one-time funds that I didn't include in the slide, it kind of skews the trends. But there are about another, close to $100 million of other one-time funds, special allocations and things of that nature that we talk about throughout the other areas of the slide. where we have like children and family team supports, we have family first prevention services, resource family approvals, emergency childcare, bridge services and things of that nature to where it's, like I said, it's one time fund and it ebbs and flows the amounts and whether or not we get it in particular years. So within the next slide, this is a slide that shows the amount of money that is being allocated towards child welfare services. And again, this is the admin piece. Over the years, it shows the trends that it's increasing from fiscal year 21-22 at about $154 million and all the way into what our planned year for 26-27 at $205 million. And then the next slide to the right shows our client assistance payments, and it breaks out by adoption assistance, foster care payments, and then also guardianship payments. And it shows the growth there as well within each of those sections from fiscal year 21, 22, to 26, 27. And over time, you know, there's obviously increases, there's growth, and it's a variety of reasons why. And I'll talk about that deeper into the presentation, but one of the things that I do like to point out is just that there's... Some of the costs are beyond us. We don't have complete control of all the costs. Some of the costs are driven by state requirements, state regulations that we have to pay certain levels for foster children in placement. And as well as we're gonna see, I'm gonna talk a little bit later also about the staffing increases and some of the investments that have been approved and made by the board. Being able to hire more staff is also reasons why costs are going up on the child welfare services side. So another, moving into the next section of our presentation is a conversation about where actually the children that Children and Family Services engages with don't really enter into foster care, into a foster care placement. And I think this is important to talk about. And this next slide that I want to show, I think, really drives and explains this idea. So in this chart here, I mean, I think the best way to describe it, the way I want to describe it was, I guess, too complex to show. What this shows is the five-year trend, and rather than going to the current year, because this is a point in time count, so moving away from the very last numbers, I want to move us over to the 2025 count, which starts out at 30,545. And so that's the darker blue. And this is all the referrals that come into the child abuse hotline. So there is over 30,000 calls that come into the child abuse hotline that says these are all the mandated reporters, the concerned family members, the neighbors that are saying we're concerned about children's safety in the community and calls are coming into the child abuse hotline. Of those calls, They have to be screened by Children and Family Services, and not all of them meet the requirement for an investigation, and that drops us down to the orange line. There's about 16,410, the orange block that meets the requirement. There is enough information in those allegations that say, hey, there is something here where the child is safety is at risk and we need to investigate. So that's the orange block. After CFS assigns it, as Jeannie talked about, of maybe an immediate referral or a 10-day investigation, it drops us down to the next, where they go out and investigate. And there's roughly 2,609 cases in which there's actually a referral where a case is open. And so this is a, I'm sorry, substantiated, substantiated, where a case is actually substantiated. So out of the 16,000 cases that are referrals that have been looked at and investigated, there's only about 2,600 that are substantiated. And so of those substantiated cases, there are even fewer cases that are actually open. And of those cases that are open, fewer cases where children are actually removed out of placement. And so I think what this demonstrates and shows here is that while there is a lot of referrals that come in, there's not that many children that actually are removed from the child's home, but there are still services that are being provided and children's safety is being ensured.

Prevention efforts focus on supporting families before it escalates to a crisis. Family maintenance is one of the best ways that we can support a family while the child still remains in the home. As well as we have an alternative response team who diverts families to community-based support when safety can be maintained without CFS intervention. So if a referral comes in, we're not going to open in the case or go out to investigate. We have a team that will call the family to see what resources they need or what referrals that we can give them so that we can tie them to their own community and be serviced by community-based organizations. We focus on community investments through partnerships with CalWORKs, family resource centers, mental health programs, and substance use treatment providers to strengthen the family through local support networks. FFPSA prevention funding supports CFS in expanding services that help stabilize at-risk families and prevent foster care entry. One of our most significant investments will be the opening of our first CFS-funded Family Resource Center. The Family Resource Center serves as a welcoming hub where families can access supportive services, resources, referrals, and opportunities to build connections. FFPSA funding has helped support community events meeting immediate needs and strengthen community connections. We've hosted a coat giveaway in the high desert before it was winter, and we also conduct annual backpack giveaways both in the desert and here in San Bernardino. These events provide more than material support. They create opportunities to engage with families, connect them with resources, and to build within communities we serve. Through these partnerships, kin families can access resources, guidance, and services that help them provide safe, stable, and nurturing homes for the children. Supporting kinship caregivers helps children maintain important family connections and promotes greater stability during challenging times.

And so continuing on with the idea, there's not, our children that are in care, we're trying to mitigate that and keep families in, keep children with their families. This is another trend chart where we show how the cases are trending in regards to active cases. If we take a look, we can see back in 2020, there was over 11,000 active cases. And again, if we go all the way to the right-hand side where we're at year-to-date 2026, we're at 6,000. Now, again, this is a point in time count where it's starting to dip down, but that will level out if we were to look at this at the end of the year. if we go back to 2025 as another example we kind of just see you know where how we break this out you know to where at the end of 2025 we had you know 8 500 active cases but of those active cases there were only you know just just under 5 000 cases that were in out of home care altogether and then of those um some you know 2000 were in in in family maintenance and then the other uh uh were in family maintenance, and the others were all other cases. And so what we're trying to do, the main point that we're trying to accomplish here is trying to narrow the gap between that light blue line and that orange line, where we want to, and even if possible, maybe cross them to where instead of having out-of-home placement as being the higher amount, we want that orange line where we're having family maintenance cases more, more cases staying with families where we're shrinking that gap. And so if you take a look, All the way back in 2020 where we had that gap, you see the baby blue line and the orange line is wider, but it is starting to narrow down. And what we're anticipating is as time goes on and we still have focuses towards where we're keeping families together, that line will come closer and closer together and that gap will narrow over time. So moving on to the next idea of where we're trying to keep families together. And in the event that we can't keep families together, we still try to reunify and have children placed in permanency, in areas where we can keep families together forever and have them in a family-like setting. And so one of the things that we're trying to do is ensure that where I talked about earlier about having kin care and place children with families to where there is a home-like setting, a family-like setting, and not in group homes or treatment homes and things like that. So within our next slide, I have another another chart where it shows over the last five years of what it looks like of where our children are placed. So those children that are in and out of home placement, where are they placed and what kind of homes are they're at? So the majority of the homes, The orange, the green, the light blue, the light green, and the dark blue are all in family-like settings. These are relative homes, non-relative extended family members homes, resource family homes, guardians homes, supervised independent living placements, as well as FFAs. So all these are types of homes where you have their family-like structures, home-like structures. to where the children are in that kind of environment. So that's the area that we're shooting for when we come to looking for placements and the types of environments that we have for children in placement.

So one of our goals is to make sure that we increase our kinship care and decrease the STRTP placements. We understand that we make this a priority because children experience greater stability and stronger long-term outcomes when they're placed with relatives or close family friends. We are collaborating with the state to look at how many kids we have in STRTPs and how we can reduce that number and put them with family-like settings. And that includes family finding and... Could you humor me?

When you come across an acronym, would you mind spelling it out for us? Because this is not our world as much as it is yours.

And it's just not... We don't have the familiarity. Okay. Thank you. I apologize. So STRTPs are short-term... Residential treatment placement. They replaced group homes, so we call them STRTPs. And so we are working with the state to reduce the number of kids that are in congregate care so that they will have a family-like setting. The department emphasizes kinship placement immediately at intake, but also throughout the case. So even if we don't find relatives initially, we will continue to search and do family finding. Family finding is not a one-time activity. It's a continuous effort throughout the life of a case. Our staff actively work to identify and engage relatives, extended family members, and other supportive adults who can play a meaningful role in a child's life. We also work on strengthening fatherhood. Fatherhood engagement, we work really hard on. We partner with Children's Network so we can make sure that fathers feel just as important as moms, and so we put some effort into that. We're committed to ensuring fathers are identified, engaged, and included as partners in case planning and decision-making whenever possible.

Next.

Permanency is a technical child welfare term, but it refers to children leaving foster care to grow up in a forever family, either by reunifying with parents or through guardianship or adoption. In 2025, 85% of children exiting foster care achieved a permanent family through reunification, guardianship, or adoption. Reunification accounted for the largest share, 45%, showing that many families were able to stabilize and safely reunify. 27% adoption provided permanent homes for children unable to safely return home, and guardianship at 12% allowed relatives or extended caregivers to provide stable, long-term care. A smaller percentage, 13, aged out of the system through the age of majority. Extended foster care, which is when a foster child turns 18, they have the option of staying in care through 21. And so that's extended foster care, which is a voluntary program. It's their choice. Once they turn 18, they make the choice to either stay or leave. We recognize that youth at 18 still need many supports. So this path provides youth and caring adults in their lives, including the department, to support their goals of independence, emotional well-being, and economic mobility and stable housing. Over a five year period, foster care exits have reflected consistent trends in permanency, reunification, and adoption, and shows that reunification has been the biggest case outcome every year. Data helps the department understand patterns, identify needs, and adjust services accordingly. For example, through case reviews and performance data, CFS recognized that fathers were not being engaged as much as possible, and so we made those adjustments. In response, CFS strengthened its focus on family finding and father engagement by emphasizing ongoing family efforts through case process rather than limiting those efforts to the initial stages of the case. So we look for anyone throughout the case, not just at the initial.

Next.

CFS provides robust support to both parents and youth involved in child welfare. Parent services include legal representation through an attorney to help them through dependency hearings. Child and family team meetings give the parents and the children a place to be heard, ensuring that they say what happens in their case. So at the first 60 days of removal, we hold a child and family team, we call them CFTs, and the parents can bring anyone they want to these CFTs and their voice is heard. We also have an ombudsman for concerns about their case who reviews and responds appropriately with the goal of resolving the complaint. Parent partners are CFS staff that have lived experience, that walk alongside parents that need support and can explain how the process goes, and they are dedicated CFS staff that want to help the families go through the process. CFS also provides child and youth supports, including enrichment programs like Youth Enrichment and Exploration Program, or YEEP, launched in 2023, which provides enrichment opportunities for dependents in care. This includes cultural activities, sports, art, STEM programs, and even an overnight summer camp. This year we had 430 children and youth registered for summer camps throughout Southern California. 871 youth received technology package which included a laptop, a tablet, and accessories to help bridge the gap for many of them so that they had the same quality technology for school. The Independent Living Program, or ILP, is targeted to youth as young as 16 to prepare them for transition into adulthood by developing life skills, including applying for college, finding employment, managing money, and building healthy relationships. The education liaisons ensure that youth are on track to graduate and they will help youth find their credits because sometimes they tend to move. So they'll work with the schools to make sure they get all their credits so they can graduate. They also often attend IEPs with students or any kind of disciplinary hearings that they might get at school.

Could you please tell us what an IEP is?

I'm sorry, an independent education plan. Thank you. Transitional housing for older youth matches them with stable housing and allows them to experience independence through their own living space. Children and youth are also supported through our partners at Department of Behavioral Health with mental health support, and dependents are assessed upon entering. So as soon as a foster child enters our care, they are assessed through the Department of Behavioral Health.

Okay, so the next section I just want to talk briefly about our recruiting and training and workforce that we have. And so just quickly, I will mention that through investments that have been made by the board, we have increased this number of staff over the last many years. And primarily the point that I wanted to bring home here is that because of the investment that have been made by the board, we've been able to focus social work on the social work, social workers on social work, and move the administrative pieces away from those things that can be done by administrative staff. And so that's one of the areas that have been really impactful. And furthermore, we've been able to decrease our vacancies because of that. And so, With really quick on the next slide, and I think this is just probably the more illustrative piece of it. These are the different kinds of caseloads that we have. And so I just think really was important here is showing throughout the years, we've seen a substantial decrease in our caseloads because of the investments, because of the ability for social workers to just have, we have more social workers on staff. And this goes to the point where I made earlier about why are we having more fundings being spent on child welfare services in this area is because to that point that we're reducing caseloads by 30 and 40% across the board. And this is, I think this really is impactful and it provides better social work and helps improve child safety across the board.

New social workers complete a 23 comprehensive day of orientation and induction training to prepare them for, so they go through this training before even getting a case. Additional training includes eight days of supplemental coursework and 20 days of state-mandated core training. Workers also receive 14 days of advanced data systems training. And all social workers complete at least 20 hours of training per year, including advanced child welfare topics, and receive ongoing on-the-job training to strengthen their skills and build experience. We also recognize the critical role supervisors play in supporting staff. Strong supervision provides guidance, mentorship, and trusted counsel as workers navigate complex situations. CFS staff have access to voluntary coaching through the Child Welfare Development Services Program at the Academy for Professional Excellence and San Diego State University. This additional support helps employees strengthen their skills, apply best practices, and continue their professional development beyond formal training. CFS maintains robust accountability systems at both the individual case level and the broader system level to ensure children and families receive high quality services. These systems include supervisory case reviews, performance monitoring, quality assurance activities, data analysis, court oversight, and compliance reviews designed to evaluate practice and identify opportunities for improvement. By regularly reviewing outcomes and performance measures, CFS can assess the effectiveness of services, monitor compliance with policy and best practices, and make data informed decisions to strengthen programs and service delivery. Equally important, these processes support a culture of continuous learning and improvement by identifying strengths, addressing challenges, and sharing effective practices across the organization. Investigations of complaints. Every complaint received by CFS is investigated. We take it seriously and it is thoroughly reviewed. We are committed to listening to concerns, responding appropriately, and maintaining accountability in our work. We recognize that families involved in the child welfare system are often hurting and facing some of the most difficult circumstances of their lives. We approach each family with empathy, respect, and compassion. Child safety remains our highest priority, and we understand that the decisions made in child welfare can have a profound impact on children and families. Even when intervention is necessary, we remain committed to engaging families, preserving important connections, and supporting reunification or placement with relatives whenever it is safe and appropriate to do so. Through our dedicated ombudsman, CFS receives concerns from families, caregivers, and community members and conducts a comprehensive review that may include interviews, case documentation, policy review, and court findings. While confidentiality laws limit what we can share publicly, every concern is carefully examined to identify potential practice issues, improve customer service, and strengthen accountability. Complaints often reflect genuine frustration and pain, and we do recognize that. We view them not only as opportunities to address individual concerns, but also as valuable feedback to help us improve our services. Our goal is not only to protect children, but also to support families as they work toward healing, stability, reunification, and long-term well-being. CFS is committed to continuous quality improvement and uses data dashboards, case reviews, audits, and stakeholder feedback to evaluate performance and improve outcomes for children and families. These tools help identify trends, measure progress, and inform data-driven decisions that strengthen practice and service delivery. Family voice is central to this work. Each year, CFS facilitates more than 8,000 child and family team meetings ensuring children, families, caregivers, and service providers are actively involved in the planning and decision making. Accountability and transparency are not viewed simply as a compliant requirement. They are core values that guide our work and help build public trust. By combining data, stakeholder input, and family engagement, CFS continuously works to improve services and achieve better outcomes for children and families.

So in conclusion, we talked a lot about the things that CFS does from a legal standpoint, from a funding standpoint, from a process standpoint, but what are we continuing to do going forward? And we continue to build a stronger child welfare system. And there are three areas in particular that I wanted just to kind of share and talk about and make sure that the board is aware of. So of course we have the ad hoc committee and that's something that we're working on and we continue to provide education and we will eventually get recommendations from that ad hoc committee based on some of the work that's in the next box being that we've hired a consultant to help us with independent review and technical assistance. And so based on some of the information that's being pulled together and looked at and we're trying to figure out where is there areas that we need to take a deeper dive on and provide opportunities for improvement. And when it's all said and done, we're here and we're looking at areas that we believe is a place where we can improve, grow, develop. Bottom line, what CFS does, they're passionate about. We're a big organization. We're people serving people. But we're not perfect. And so we definitely have an area of openness to where listening to feedback and input to where we can improve. And so with that, we are definitely open for any questions that the board may have.

Thank you very much. Before we take questions, we're going to take public comment. And we have a variety of speakers. You'll have three minutes. You can speak on either side of the chambers up in the top. We're going to begin with David Tristan, followed by Griselda Diaz, and then Andrea Myers.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is David Tristan. The reason I'm coming to you today is because I'm questioning the supervision of the social workers of the social worker supervisors. The reason I say that is because I'm a former employee of the Amazing Grace Resource Center, which I will refer to as AGRC. AGRC has been a program that's been a part of the Victor Valley program. a unified school district for nearly 20 years, working with at-risk kids, U.S. citizens, children that are immigrants. Recently, in February of this year, I was terminated from my employment because an erroneous allegation made by a social worker and the social worker supervisor to the school board regarding a child that was at Silverado High School. This child is an immigrant. Child came to me, was about to turn 18, and said, would you please adopt me so I don't get deported? My supervisor was present during the interaction. I was never alone with the child. I didn't even know this child's last name or any information regarding this child. I was then contacted by the social worker, Kiki Brown, that works for San Bernardino, and said, did this child ask you to adopt her? I said yes, but I explained to her that I could not adopt her because I don't meet the criteria. But this was not the format or the manner with which things are conducted by AGRC. I reaffirmed that to Kiki Brown. The next week I was informed that I was terminated for grooming, at which point a full investigation was conducted by the Unified School District, Victor Valley School District. My supervisor was interviewed, the girl was interviewed, the parents were, the foster parents were interviewed. At no time did I groom this child, but I was terminated on a false erroneous allegation. I was not offered my job back. I was not allowed to even have any contact. After the child graduated, the foster family of this child contacted me through a third party, my coworker, and said, we would like to apologize to you. You didn't even know, I did not even know that this child had asked Kiki Brown for me to adopt her to avoid deportation. I asked Kiki Brown at the time of the conversation, Why doesn't this 18-year-old girl know her A number? Why doesn't she know what the status of our application to become a U.S. citizen is? at which point Kiki Brown became irate with me. I explained to Kiki Brown that I'm not only a veteran in the United States Air Force Desert Storm, but I'm also a retired law enforcement officer and a former federal agent that works at the school to mentor at-risk kids, to assist them with filling out college application, doing homework, helping them translate when they're struggling with English. I said, that's all I've ever known about the child. I don't even know this child's last name. But because Kiki Brown's erroneous falsification of an allegation against me.

That's time. Thank you. Griselda Diaz, followed by Andrea Myers.

Good afternoon, members of the board. My name is Griselda Diaz, and I am a resident of Los Angeles County and the city of Los Angeles, and currently a candidate for mayor as a writing candidate for the same office. Today, I am here on behalf of families in San Bernardino County, a lot of them of immigrant backgrounds that don't speak English, who are followers of me and all my social media accounts. whose children have been removed without a police report, without a warrant, and without meeting the imminent danger standard required under California Welfare and Institutions Code Striction 306. This board has been no notice. In 2022, a civil grand jury concluded that this county's Department of Children and Family Services is and I quote from the report, too broken to fix and recommend that it be abolished entirely. In May 2023, a federal class action was filed on behalf of more than 5,800 children. That case survived a motion to dismiss and is heading to trial in 2028. The State Controller's Office has found hundreds of thousands of dollars in unallowable costs claimed against child welfare funds in this county. Now, some more data. San Bernardino County has 2.2 million residents, less than a quarter of LA County's population, yet San Bernardino's county per capita rate of child welfare allegations is 72% higher than LA County. Kind of weird, right? In 2024 alone, 1,720 children entered the foster care in this county. At the minimum state reimbursement rate, that is over $2 million per month flowing through a system this county's own grand jury called irreparably broken. California claimed $266 million in federal title IV-E foster care reimbursements in FY 2024. My apologies, I do not know what that acronym stands for. San Bernardino County receives a share of those dollars for every child in its system. The financial incentive to remove rather than preserve is built into federal law and this county is an outlier in how aggressively it activates and incentivizes. 78% of the children being removed are black or Latino. That is not coincidence, that is a pattern. And half of those Latino kids that are removed, their parents are given documents that they do not understand because they don't read English without proper counsel in violation of their civil rights under the 14th Amendment and 42 USC section 1993. So today I'm here to put the following on this official record. Parents in this county are experiencing warrantless removals based on allegations that do not meet the legal standard. They do not pass legal muster. Children are being placed in homes where parents have witnessed drug use, and they've told me that personally. I just met a family that underwent that. They're sitting right there this weekend. Four of their children were removed. They have not been returned. They tried to remove their fifth child. Their allegations were all proven unproven, yet the other four children have not been removed. So I will be submitting a formal documentation package to Attorney General Rob Bonta, Civil Rights Division, and I will intermittently appear on this board until we get some accountability. Should I not receive a substantial response before the end of July, please be advised I will be traveling to Sacramento to hand all the statements of all these victims and the families in person to the Attorney General Rob Bonta. and should he not heed my warning about San Bernardino County, I am fully prepared with my backing school, Loyola Law, and their family law clinic to pursue this in the federal matter. Thank you and have a wonderful rest of your day.

Thank you very much. Andrea Myers followed by Alejandra Contreras. Do we have Andrea Myers? All right, we'll move on to Alejandra Contreras. After Alejandra is Amethyst Yates.

Good afternoon, Chair, members. Again, my name is Amethyst Yates. I'm with the Family Reunification Equity and Empowerment Project at Starting Over. I am extremely familiar with the SDM. That's the Structured Decision Manual that DCF uses at the state level. However, I... I don't agree with it. I mean, I believe it was revised in 2004. It's very outdated. The first couple pages mostly have to do with things that have happened in the past, nothing current, or things that fall under ADA. So I am in disagreement with these things. I would like to ask DCFS, What are they talking about when they're referring to client assistance? Because per their own presentation, their clients are foster care, adoption, and guardianship. So those people that are their clients are not the parents. That's my understanding. And then I was crunching some of these numbers. So there's 5,000 for out of home out of 6,000 674.4 million if 5,000 are out of home, that's $134,880 for out of home placement per year. Please correct me if I'm wrong. That's a lot of money. I mean, I understand children need support, but most of these things are poverty related when they're being removed. I also want to address how parents are not given opportunity to speak in court. I have been in both San Bernardino, Riverside courts, and Riverside lets them speak in court. Riverside also allows community-based support to come in and sit with the parents. I've never seen that. I can't even make it down the hallway. I hold up everyone I work with, their information and confidence. and it remains confidential with me. Also, backpack giveaways, we do those every year at starting over, so I don't really see why it's costing so much. Let's see. Oh, and as far as parents being able to submit evidence, I do help parents build a social bio packet that's to highlight everything they've done before, during, and after their case that highlights the positivity. The courts do not allow those things. They're not giving the parents opportunity to give any evidence, nor is it being explained to the parents how they can submit evidence. And mind you, the attorneys that are representing the parents, they move back and forth from child council, county council, parents council, and they're all paid from the same pot. Thank you, that's all I got.

Thank you very much. Last call for Andrea Myers. Okay.

Thank you. So that was a wonderful presentation by the CPS office down there. It's plagued with omissions. It's the information that they're not including and what they're stating. And I like how they blame the judge. It's up to the judge, it's up to the judge. But I've literally heard phone conversations with social workers talking about how the judge is just gonna do what they say anyway. And that's what us parents are noticing, is that the judges are rubber stamping whatever the social worker puts on the report. Glasgow mentioned over there about the SDM and how it's evidence-based and this and that, but what she didn't mention is that that system also has flaws. There's no transparency with it. And it also allows them to do overrides. So it allows the social worker to override it. And a lot of times that social worker is overriding things because she doesn't like mom or she doesn't like dad because of their attitude, because they didn't answer the door for her. She also mentioned that the attorneys advocate for the parents. I would ask any one of you To know that the things that we are saying are true, these attorneys are not advocating for parents. They're not even advocating for the children. And those attorneys for the children have a fiduciary responsibility to those children, and they're not doing it. Go walk in the courtroom. Go hang out over there in dependency land and see what we're talking about. You'll see that it's very true. It's grotesque. It shouldn't be happening. Status review hearings every six months, not happening either. They used a statistic and they lumped reunification and foster, they lumped it all together to permanency, so what the permanency plan was. We wanna see individual statistics. They need to be separated. We wanna see who's being reunified, who's going into foster, who's just timing out and going into extended foster. That's what we wanna see. And that's what I'm talking about, the omissions, the stuff that's left out that's not told to the people. They got a nice opportunity to go ahead and get up here and present themselves as if this is like some glorified saving program for the 2,600 kids, right? And I believe Ramos stated there's 85 and only 5,000 of those are in custody, right? Only. And that lets you know his mindset right now. Only 5,000, 5,000 of which four are mine. It's a big deal to me.

That's time. Thank you very much. Alejandra Contreras.

Hi, good afternoon. I'm back. I'm here because I trust in God, and I like what you had there, and God will trust. And I believe you hear it, and I believe you can advocate for us. My kids are in the system for two years. I've been advocating, I've been paying my private attorney because I don't trust the system. The system has been broken, and I've been living in fear for those two years, living in torture. My kid's been extortion. My kid's been going through a lot. I had a question, and I questioned myself many times. What happened to me? I was a foster caregiver, and my child was from a kid that I was not aware, my foster child that I'm talking. And they saying that I'm neglected? I will ask, who neglected first? My intention was not neglected. I did everything I could. But they put kids that were fried on my curry when I'm not licensed for curry. And because of that, they removed my kids. Saying because the risk, it could be a risk. Now my kids been, and... caregivers, with the strangers, when the law says family first when it's safety. My family being safe, they don't have criminal charges, they don't have nothing, not even me have a ticket, but they've been removed. 18 months without, I don't see my kids. 18 months that I've been fighting and paying a lot of money, which I'm not rich. But as a mother, I do everything I could in my power. I just recently graduated from Bali College as a psychologist and liberal arts science because I want to prove them that I'm not sick, that I'm not unhealthy, that they try to say it. I'm scared how many families they've lost their kids because they've been presented to court false allegation, false testimony from doctors saying that she's bipolar. I've read my paperwork from Loma Linda, what he says, I'm healthy. I've been fighting a lot of things, but this system is scared and broken. And one day, I subpoena, like a savvy pain, my private attorneys. Mr. Corey Hackman was on my court one day. I've been advocating, and I say, thank you, Joey Barker Jr. again. I met with him once. and he did his part, but the system needs to be fixed, and it has to be fixed now, not tomorrow, not another day. Our kids are suffering, my kids are suffering. You know, I had to do a welfare share against one caregiver. Her license revoked, but CPS keep it quiet. The second caregiver, they tried to keep everything secret. My new caregiver make a new claim against her. Now they're gonna open, now they're gonna say it was true? Imagine what they're doing. You need to go investigate CFRS on ES3. Investigate Jonas Nava, my supervisor. He call my family therapy saying. That's time.

Thank you. Tisha H followed by Krisha Kale.

I feel like I drove two hours here just to hear you guys go over the policies and procedures, which I already understand the policies and procedures. The issue is the caseworkers are not following the policies and procedures. Workers are committing perjury in these reports. Reasonable efforts are not being made to families before removal and not during their cases. I personally paid for all of my classes, went above and beyond what they asked me to do, and then they determined that my case plan was not valid so that they could delay my case. Our complaints that we make with the ombudsman are turning into retaliation. Our cases are being delayed. My jurisdiction hearing, which was supposed to be held in 15 days, was delayed for 15 months because they asked for delays to keep interviewing three children with disabilities to coach them to say that they were being abused. So they used that 15 months to make up false allegations. They are exploiting children with disabilities So they broke down the funding, but they didn't mention that they received incentives for these adoptions under the Adoption and Safety in Families Act. That's what wasn't mentioned. Kinship is not, that's not a first priority for them. They're placing children with anyone who is willing to alienate the parent. That's what we're experiencing. Children who are aging out are becoming homeless. So they're a part of our homeless population. They didn't address that. My kids have repeatedly asked to be returned home, and they're being ignored. So when Glasgow said that they honor the children's wishes, not true. There's no services. Out of everything that they said, I didn't hear anything for any services and supports for children with disabilities. My children have disabilities, and they've just been categorized as children with problems, and they've just been tossed in foster homes, psych wards, all kind of things just so that CFS doesn't have to deal with them and their behaviors because they're failing to meet their sensory needs and other needs. Our attorneys are being used to control the narrative. So they allow whatever CFS wants to be put on the record, that's what they allow. The real evidence gets hidden. And foster homes are not safe. Our children are being abused in the foster homes. Mine personally have been burnt with hot water. They have been drugged to the point of a medication overdose where the doctor said he was surprised that the child was still alive. I still have those medical records, but of course we're not mentioning stuff like that, right? So foster care is, CPS is funding, excuse me, they're being funded to provide a safe, a safe place for our children, but they're not.

Thank you. Krisha Kale, followed by Brian Green.

Okay, hello everyone. So what we just witnessed right now was the sheep, was the wolf in sheep's clothing. Because the same way they sat there and told those lies to you guys and the board said that we were going to come here and hear all these new things that CFS was doing to make things better for us, we heard nothing. All we heard was the things that we sat here day, every meeting, and complained about. We're telling you we know the policies. We know the procedures. Unlike you, who sat there and asked those questions. What'd you say? This is not my life, so can you explain it to me? But it should be your problem, because we come up here every meeting, and we're telling you it's a problem. It's a problem. And we're not getting any assistance. Everybody up here has said the same thing, omitted reports from your social workers. And what are you doing about it? Nothing. Nothing. My son was removed without a warrant because a social worker said there was no present family members. She forgot to mention that she took the baby out of my cousin's arms. Right? So this is what we're saying. This is perjury. And it's happening. This is fraud. When a social worker emits evidence into a report and presents it to a judge to make a ruling that causes harm, that is fraud. And it's not just happening on one case. You heard it there. You heard it here. You heard it here. How many times you got to hear it before you say this is not an isolated incident? This was a joke. Coming up here today was a joke. You guys inviting us here today was a joke. You didn't care about no kid up here. Glasgow won't even turn around and look at none of these parents up here. She sat here and she looked at me. She just spoke to me on different occasions. I said, ain't nothing changed. Ain't nothing changed. When the law says something's supposed to change, they're not supposed to terminate my parental rights based on fraudulent evidence. But yet here I am, scheduled for the 17th, not to see my son again, hiding him from me, from a mother who loves him, the only one who found out he was staying with a convicted felon when we trusted these people to keep him safe. I'm the only one. Don't ever think the state is going to have the best interest for my son. I'm here. None of you guys are going to advocate for him. None of you. None of you guys are going to remember his name after this. But I'll be there every time. And the only person keeping me from him and keeping me from him is you guys. Nobody. They won't reach out to us. They won't make any effort to change anything that they're done. Don't expect them to fix the problem themselves. They're creating the problem. We're here for oversight. We expect it. We deserve it and we pay for it.

Brian Greene followed by Denise Norwood. Brian Greene. All right, we're gonna move on to Denise Norwood.

Hello, my name is Denise Norwood, and I come here today to say how CFS legally kidnapped my children. And they knowingly and willingly placed my son, who has special needs, in a home where they knew he has a high chance of being hurt, where he was sexually assaulted. And he's still in that home as we speak, even though CFS says they should have been removed since last year. And not just that, my daughter was refused to be let into the building where she ended up raped and pregnant at 13 years old. She's on the run as we speak. And it's me who looks for her, not CFS. Because the workers, even Jonas Nova, who's the supervisor, who told me, I'm a great mother. And what can he do to help me? Bring me back my children. Because they can't even give me an answer why they took them. Why? Because I was a victim of domestic violence and got over it? And what, now they have every right to just come and take my children when my son is suffering? When Mr. Macias falsely put information, said I did not participate in nothing, when I have it in emails and text messages from every program I did. And now, since it's so far behind that I already finished everything, I have to pay out of pocket. They're trying to terminate my rights. But who's going to fight for my daughter? Who's going to fight for my sons? Not you guys, are you? Nope. Not Jonas. Not Ms. Macias, Mr. Macias. or Danielle Jones, none of them fight for my kids. They knew where my daughter was at. My daughter was with pimps. I had to go get them. I had to go save her and take her back to where they refused to let her in the building on the E Street, where she ended up raped by three men. And you know what they told me? Report it to the hotline. Report it to the hotline. So tell me, as me, as a mother, I failed because I let them take my children from me. That's where I failed as a parent because they have my children. Even though there's so much evidence that I try to present to everybody, I don't get to speak in court at all. We're supposed to do trial. We never did a trial. We jumped to something else. Not once have me or my kids spoke for ourselves like we're supposed to. It says it in the paperwork in the court. Trial. No trial. Something different. It's what the worker says, and that's how the judge goes by it. We're not cooperating. We're not doing what we're supposed to. But in reality, we are. It's because what? They say I'm crazy. I'm a drug addict. Why? Because I'm showing emotion.

That's time. Thank you. Myra Partita, followed by Alicia Haas. Myra? Do we have Alicia Haas here? How about Vaughn? Gregory Osborne?

Good afternoon. Let me first apologize that you had to sit through quite a bit of that. Not the public address at all from the microphones here, but the fertilizer we heard before. I understand I'll be retaliated against for this, but I'm none months into an Arizona medical kidnapping where I brought my child to a hospital for medical care and had my four children removed from myself and my wife. We were both thrown in jail, no charges, no arraignment. Just get yourself to the dependency court as soon as you get out. Actually, they let you out about 11 o'clock at night, and you're supposed to be at court at 9 in the morning the following morning. Now, when you don't have anything in your pockets, for which to call anybody, it makes it kind of difficult. These are just details, though, and nobody in a court ever heard any of them. I suppose I should have filed an affidavit. Is that correct? The representation is a joke. The court is a joke. It seems to be a private matter. It's not just confidential. Everything about it is kept private. I don't understand why. My daughter, Hannah, turned seven while in custody. And my children are being alienated from myself and my wife. Most of them are special ed or have difficulties. And they have many more difficulties now, and I suspect they will for a very long time. My daughter Hannah, I'm just going to read something for you. It's called Hannah's Prayer of Exaltation. Then Hannah prayed and said, My heart exults in Adonai. My horn is lifted high in Adonai. I smile wide over my enemies, for I rejoice in your salvation. There is none holy as Adonai, for there is none besides you, nor is there any rock like our God. Boast no more so proudly. Insolence comes out of your mouth, for Adonai is the all-knowing God." and by him deeds are weighed. The bowels of the mighty are broken, but the stumbling are girded with strength. Those full hire themselves for bread. Those full hire themselves for bread. I'm almost done. But those starving hunger no more. Even the barren gives birth to seven. But she with many sons languishes. Adonai causes death and makes alive. He brings down to shale and raises up. Adonai makes poor and makes rich. He brings low and also lifts up. He raises the helpless from the dust. He lifts the needy from the dunghill. He makes them sit with nobles, granting them a seat of honor. For the earth's pillars are Adonai's, and he has set the world on them. He guards the steps of his godly ones, but the wicked are silenced in darkness. For one does not prevail by might. Those who oppose Adonai will be shattered. He thunders against them in heaven. He judges the ends of the earth. He gives strength to his king, exalting the whole.

Thank you. Delina Murillo.

Good afternoon. My name is Delina Murillo, and I am here today because I believe serious accountability issues exist within CFS. For years, my family has been subject to reports containing omissions, leading questions, repeated questionings of children after they provided answers social workers do not appear to like, and recommendations that have permanently affected my family. When my child expressed a desire to return home to me, that should have been documented and respected. Instead, she was questioned again and again and again on multiple different occasions until she gave the answer they wanted to hear. Especially when the agency is claiming to act in her best interest, her best interest is to be with her mother, not to be with this family that don't love her, that didn't give birth to her, that will never have the love that I can give her. My five-year-old son, who I have full custody of, is being denied to see his sisters. It's going to be a year in July. He has not seen his sisters. Him and his sister are 10 months apart. They have a bond. They were growing up together. I was in my children's lives constantly up until July of 2025 when these guardians decided to adopt my kids because of a paycheck, not because... They didn't feel that my kids should be back home with me because they were my friends. When they were intimidated that I was coming back for my kids, they decided to adopt for their paycheck because they have six kids of their own. They have a husband who isn't working. And yet, Jeannie Glasgow, I have a question for you because you continuously try to navigate me to my attorney. Your name is all over the back of my reports. Why are my reports being submitted minutes before my hearings? Why are my reports having questions to my kids that are leading, ignoring the evidence? They're not mutual. They're biased. It's one-sided. They're not looking at changed circumstances. And then to top it off, this was a wrongful removal. This case shouldn't have been opened. It's been lies from the beginning, but no one will go back to the beginning, right? Judges won't go back, attorneys, they won't listen to me. At this point, I can represent my case a lot better than the attorneys can and I'm not even an attorney. The things that I have found in my case and I've been wrong, I'm not even licensed to, I didn't study any of this. This is just a mom who wants her children back home where they belong. And Jeannie Glasgow, when are you going to provide some answers to me? When are you going to provide the answers of the RFA licensing? Huh? Because these people have had my children have never been licensed up until February of 2026. Can you answer that? Why were my kids with them? I mean, the agency is getting paid. They were getting paid. That's fraud. Do you have those answers? Do you have answers of my social workers that are not licensed or have expired license writing my reports giving recommendation on an adoption? Can you answer that? Are you reviewing these reports? Thank you very much.

That is the last request to speak that I have. I appreciate the ad hoc's work on this. Thank you very much to staff and everyone for the information that you pulled together for us. I have often said in this job that we are the master of nothing. We learn an awful lot about so many different departments, land use, child and family services, preschool services, It is challenging to be an elected official at the county level and in a county this big where we have so many different needs within. But I will say that all of us are parents up here and I think I can speak for my peers when it comes to children and our children and your children that I think we are all fiercely wanting to advocate for the children and it is near and dear to all of us this is a subject that is exceptionally difficult for the five of us because of confidentiality and i i commend you on the things that we've learned today i know it's frustrating for those of you in the audience that it is something that you live day in and day out and i apologize that we have not had to endure that Struggle that you have all had to do and so please bear with us as we go through this as a part of your journey and learn more I want to thank the ad hoc committee for for bringing these things forward so that we can all help learn I think what I'm hearing today comes down to that the aspects of Confidentiality and I do have a number of things that I would like to have you help me understand or try to answer if a parent is feeling that they don't have a place to turn. There was a question that was brought up on client assistant versus parent assistant. And oftentimes that may not be the case. For those in the audience here, they may not be the client. Where do they turn? And if that is their ombudsman, and if they feel retaliation from them, is there any other, if I could please, if there's any other option for them where they can turn? They're turning to us and we don't have answers for them, which is really hard. And I know confidentiality in the law, it is really easy for all of us to say, this is a problem in the courts and we don't have jurisdiction over the courts. How can we give them tools to help reunify themselves or to find means to seek a different person to help represent them if they feel that their person within CFS is not representing them? If we could start with the conversation there, and I'm sure that the others have questions as well.

Sure. So any parent can either go to a parent partner. They can go to a supervisor. If they're not happy with that, they can go to a manager. There's also a deputy director in each region. And if they can't resolve it there, then there's assistant director Mia Moore, who will be happy to help resolve their issue.

And is a client assistant the same as parent assistant?

So attorney, you mean? Children get their own attorney, and then each parent gets their own attorney.

And do we have, it was just referenced in public comment, parent assistants versus client assistants. Do we have, in your department, client assistants? Yes, there's services for both, both parents and children. Okay. And an interesting point was brought up, the difference in Riverside County Courts and San Bernardino County Courts. Can you speak to the differences that they might see there?

I don't know anything about how Riverside runs their court. I just know what happens in our court.

It does happen. What does happen?

Oh, she was saying in public comment that she's allowed to go in with the parent in Riverside County, but not with San Bernardino.

That's what I'm saying. So in San Bernardino County, we don't allow.

Is that, but that doesn't fall under, like we can't impact that. Can you?

I can't. I believe that's a court decision on how the process works. That's correct.

OK.

So unfortunately, the courts are a separate system from the county. Sometimes that's not totally understandable. And so the courts make their own decisions on how the court process will work procedurally. And we don't have say in how the courts decide that they want to run the cases.

One of the other specific questions that was brought up today, reports being submitted right before the court hearings. Can you address that?

So we have courts, the court reports are due within a certain time frame. And there are some times that a court will be late. But I know that we right now at our highest time that we have had the least amount of late court reports at this time.

So wait, I'm gonna ask. I have given everyone time to speak. Please be respectful of this process. It may frustrate you, but I'm trying to hear her and I can't. So can you say that again?

This is, right now is our lowest percentage of late court reports. So we, in previous years, have had higher late court reports, but right now it's the lowest.

So that just, yeah, but. If I may.

Yeah, please, because I'm getting frustrated with that. Why do we have any late court reports? Social workers, timing, there are late court reports and we are working on that.

So there are areas that this board can help influence and improve. Yes. And whether that is holding, and again, I know this is sensitive, but can we better appropriate funds for additional social workers or staff for those? What is causing the late court reports?

Do you want to talk about, so one of the things that we've recently done, and this was one of the things that came out of the ad hoc committee earlier on, it's something that we identified and it was one of the, it was the early court reports that, and Jeannie, you probably have to speak better on this than I can, but it was one of the court reports that we have the ability to make a change to and it's the way we're servicing them. And so it was a process that we were able to adjust with help of county council and changing the manner in which we were able to mail reports. And so maybe Jeannie can talk about a little bit more that we just recently made that change not too long ago as one way that we're trying to make improvements in delivering court reports.

Yeah, so beginning of the May hearings for all the status review hearings, we were able to mail those out instead of them getting them at court the same day.

Is there a way to electronically do that?

That's what we're working on. Madam chair if I could what I've asked for is some sort of for for those of you who ever had a real estate transaction or something where they send you electronic documents with a. Some sort of secure way for you to log into the portal and download those documents. You would need an email address. You would need some sort of way to know how to get into the portal. But that's what I've tasked CFS with, is they're a way for us to upload those documents and alert each of the individuals who need to access them so they can click on it, have a secured link in, and be able to access those. Because the mail system's slow, the mail system's inconsistent.

delivering these documents at the day in court is just it's too late so we've recognized that as an issue and I've asked CFS to address I appreciate that supervisor Armendariz do we also have an option where they can come and pick them up here directly early as soon as they're ready can they be notified just maybe they don't have electronic systems and they can pick them up at the office okay a couple questions I had was um from all the things we heard, can a parent recommend placement prior to them being put into the system that we're doing? You know, is there an option there that we have to, we have a policy created that if a parent does know somebody, you know, in lieu of us putting them into the system, I know we've talked about the kid in kinder care or whatever.

Yeah.

Yeah. Kinship care. Are we constantly making sure we give that opportunity and do we have anything where we can have them actually sign something that so when we hear things like this, we know that we've done everything we can and we have some type of document that, hey, we've tried everything we can and we don't have a list of people we can go off of now. Is that something we can do or is that something we can't do?

We can do. But I just want to say it's not so that the child doesn't come into the system, but we can place with someone that they choose.

Yeah, that's what I mean. I just mean not having to go through the... Also, we are working... The parent partners that we offer, are those parent partners offered to every single person? And if they're not, why not?

So at orientation, so the parent comes in the first time when they come to court for the detention hearing at orientation, the parent partners offer their services. And if during the case, a family member can ask for the parent partners to be assigned?

Are they aware of this? Are we constantly making sure that they're aware that, hey, at any point in this situation that you're dealing with, you can ask for that advocate and we will get that advocate toward you? Or is it we do it the first time and then they should know?

We do it throughout the case.

Throughout the case, okay. Let me see what else I had. What do we do, and maybe you can walk me through a better understanding, when we're dealing with children with disabilities. Walk me through how that program works and we're making sure we're getting them the resources or the care that that child needs. Regardless, I don't, the situations are the situations. Take a child who has a special need. How are we making sure that they're getting the care they actually need?

Through assessment. So we, each child is individual, each case is individual, but we do look at, they're getting assessed when they first come into care through DBH, Department of Behavioral Health, as well as any school records, any school issues. We work with schools, we work with doctors. You know, they're seeing the first 30 days by a doctor or dentist. So we get a good assessment of how, what are the needs, and then we refer them to different services. We work closely with Inland Regional Center, so if they are a consumer, we get them their services through there.

And we often talk about how there's a certain part of this we can't cover, the court system, right? I'm under the assumption that I understand that. I understand that we can't control the court system, but what we can control is how we articulate our message to those court systems. Who's reviewing the caseload that's going to that court system to make sure that it's accurate, fair, and giving both people the opportunity to be represented properly, not just the child, but the parent also?

So the social worker writes the court report, and the supervisor reviews it and approves it and signs it.

And if a parent were to review that and think it was not substantiated, what's the next level?

Then that parent can talk to the social worker and give them any evidence or information so that they can see what's appropriate.

And if that doesn't work?

Then they go to a supervisor.

And if that doesn't work?

There's a manager.

Okay, so you have things in place, something in writing that shows them, hey, if you're not getting this result, you can go here, here, here, and we document all that?

Yes, we also have flyers that we have in each office that describes that.

Okay.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for the presentation so far. Some of the things I wanted to figure out, and you kind of briefed on a little bit, but when you go to court and there's a family law judge, and you have the three different representations, the child, the parent, okay, what's the process? What input besides the report do we have on that process of what the outcome of that is?

So we present the court report, and then the attorneys give their input and evidence, and then the judge decides based on what they gather from each person, each party, to make a decision.

A lot of the public input we had over the last several months is, okay, they sent things for me to go do. I did those, and they're not getting the child back. So kind of explain that, clear that process. Who clears that return? Who sets those standards to the judge?

So based on our recommendation, the judge decides yes. If they're making progress in their case plan and what things they've completed or not completed or benefited from.

Is that a court order case plan or how's that?

Yeah, it's a case plan that's created by CFS and approved through the court.

And then they go through that and then we give updates and reports from them. I'm going to piggyback a little bit on the paperwork. Pretty much most of the things I know about courts, you have to have so much notice. We have to have our notice before you put something on the agenda. I really want that to be fixed. I can imagine going to a hearing and not know what I'm going to hearing for. So I know you're working on that, but I'd like to get maybe to the ad hoc update on that at some point to make sure that's resolved. Or do we have any leeway to ask the court for, you know, a different appearance date afterward or something like that or?

So we can ask for a continuance but it's not usually in the best interest.

This is devolved, so I'm going to ask the Vice Chair to wrap this up. This is not as productive as I would have hoped. I would have asked for respect from you. We've given it to you. We agendized this. We're trying to understand your perspective. So, Vice Chair, final thoughts?

Thank you, Madam Chair. You don't want to thank the CFS staff or bringing this presentation and kind of giving the community a snapshot of the system, kind of where we're at, some of the things we've been doing to this point as far as some of the programming that we offer, some of the things. And look, I know this is emotionally charged when it comes to families. I can speak from personal experience. I went through a child custody dispute, not something I'm proud of, but it's very emotionally charged. I know it can be very, very emotional for families and not seeing your child. But I think one of the things that we've been able to do through the ad hoc committee and the comments made by the public, I want to thank those that have come here to speak. And I know that we can't solve all your problems in one day. because of confidentiality. We don't know your issues and some of the challenges that you're going through, but what we can do is you force us to take a look at the department. You force us to take a look at the department. None of us are experts here in CFS. I don't understand. Probably the closest thing I've gotten to be a social worker, I was a probation officer for six years, a juvenile probation, and we had to make recommendations to the court through 602 of the Welfare Institution Code, which is more criminal, but we had to make recommendations in the best interest of the the family and sometimes the community, and it was hard. It was very, very difficult, very, very challenging. But I think what our end goal here as we look through this is how can we improve? Two of my colleagues talked about submitting reports on time. You know, that's an issue. So that's something we can work on. We can deal with that. One of the things we've done is we've invested in trying to make our social workers more competitive because we were losing a lot of them going to other counties. And so the caseloads were challenging. So we're doing everything we can to do that. We don't know the... the ins and outs of what goes on with social workers. I know it's a tough job. It's not an easy job. The other thing that I kind of got out of some of the comments that were made by some of the public and some of those that had challenges is as those are removed from foster care, there have been people in the homes, there's been pets in the homes that weren't allowed to be in there. I think one of the recommendations we can do is doing more random checks to make sure that, hey, everyone is in compliance with what they should be. And that's a challenge for some of those. And I don't blame you that have children in a completely stranger's home. I get that. If a stranger's in, your child's in a stranger's home, you want to make sure they're safe as would I and any one of us on here for the sake of our children. so what we have tasked to do is we've got two consultants that have been brought on they've looked at child welfare systems and cfs systems throughout the entire country so they've seen everything so what we're looking from them is to give this board recommendations on what we can do to try to improve the system it's never going to be perfect we may never fix your your challenge today or tomorrow but We're listening. We're hearing you, and we want to take action. I think that's one of the most important things that we have to take in mind. We're looking for recommendations to come back. What are some systematic flaws that we can fix? We can't tell the courts what to do. We can't change state mandates, as it was brought up by one of my colleagues. The states and the courts, we can't tell them what to do. But what we can do is we can fix things within our system to make sure our kids are protected, our children are protected, your children are protected in these foster homes, and just Really want to thank you for giving your input because it's forced us to take a step back and take a look at this department. So thank you for doing that. And thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to my colleagues serving on the ad hoc committee.

Thank you all. With that, our meeting is adjourned. This is a receive and file item. Our next regularly scheduled Board of Supervisors meetings will be here in chambers August 4th at 10 a.m. Thank you.

Thank you.