Interagency Governance Review Committee for Violence Prevention - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon. I'd like to, call to, order the, legislative committee here for November 10. Supervisor Alejo, you're, on, I believe, have a a just cause announcement.

Yeah. Chair, this is supervisor Alejo. I am appearing today via Zoom under the just cause exemption under the Brown Act, due to contagious illness. There's no one else with me, here, from home as I'm zooming in, and, my I'll keep my camera on for the duration of the meeting. Thank you.

Alright. Thank you, and appreciate your clean recovery from whatever you have there. Are there any additions or corrections?

There are none.

There are none. Great. So we'll go to public comment at this point for items not on the agenda. If anybody in the room or online that would like to make a public comment for an item on today's agenda?

None on one. Okay.

We will close public comment and move for approval of the, minutes. Do you have any comments on the minutes, Debrisner?

No. I'm good with the minutes.

Okay. With that, I do not have any changes either. We'll, approve the minutes by consensus and, move to, reports of the legislative offices.

Chair Church, you do need to approve by roll call vote today.

I do need to approve by roll call. Okay. Thank you on that, Kelly. I was with the with that particular exemption. So we'll, make a motion to approve.

I'll second.

K. Can we have roll call, please?

Supervisor Church? Aye. Supervisor Lythel?

Aye. Second.

Minutes are approved. And with that, we'll move on to the legislative office's reports. Anybody, you know, works from Sanders, Padilla, or Shiff online? And barring that, do we have anybody from congressman Panetta's office or Congresswoman Laukner? No hands raised?

I see no hands raised.

Okay.

Senator Laird?

Yes. Office of state senator John Laird. I just have a brief update. My name is Isabelle Mesa, and I'm here on behalf of state senator John Laird. Just a quick update again. The legislator will come be reconvene from summer from recess on January 5. By then, we will have a new senate pro temp, senator Monique Limon based out of Santa Barbara. Given that she will be our new leader in the senate, committees are subject to change. So we are not at the moment, we don't know what committee senator there would sit on. Other than that, senator there continues to be in the district. Last month, we had we had him in South Monterey County, Salinas, and then this week, we do have him in the Monterey Peninsula. And that's it. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much. You, Isabelle. And, they'll move into assembly member Rivas if we have any of his representative on.

I see no hands.

Hands. Good. Assembly member Addis?

Or Alexis?

No. Don't see.

No hands. Alright. Take any public comment from, item two, which is reports from the legislative offices. If anybody has anything to say, either in the room or online.

Seeing none online.

Nobody online? No. Okay. So let's call the comment and move to the the federal report. Maria or Caitlin or either one of you online?

How are you today, sir? So I wish I had a very robust report for you all today. But as you know, the federal government has, been shut down now for thirty or forty days, excuse me. But we are starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel. So I'm gonna start with that, because I know that is what is top of mind for most when they think about the current status of congress.

The senate did pass a procedural vote yesterday, that looks to be on the right track for a deal to reopen the government. So that had exactly 60 votes yesterday, which is required. We are hopeful that that could be put to a final vote in the senate. You know, it's unlikely today, and tomorrow is Veterans Day, perhaps Wednesday. And then, hopefully, this house could take it up as early as Friday.

I think Saturday is more likely. But assuming all goes according to plan, that that is a potential timeline to fully reopen the US government. The deal that is on the table, would combine three full year appropriations bills, ledge branch, agriculture, as well as military construction and veterans affairs, with a CR for the remaining appropriations bills. You know, I believe the date that is being discussed is early December, mid December. So we'll we'll see.

I will say that the the so called, it's a combination of CR and omnibus, Does not include extension of health care subsidies under the ACA, exchanges, and that is still a very active conversation. My anticipation is that that is something that could be addressed with the upcoming December deadline if this all does come to be, and there is a commitment on the table to do so. So that is like I said, that's been very encouraging, and this is very new just within the last twenty four hours. As you'll see related to in

the

report, which was drafted and submitted last week. So before all of these more recent developments, you know, SNAP is top of mind for everyone as I know it is in the county based on those conversations. And there's been quite a bit of wrangling in the courts over whether or not those benefits could be paid at a partial amount versus a full amount. I don't believe we've heard the last of that. And, of course, rate notices have already started to go out from commercial insurance plans, and the exchanges are already open and open enrollment.

And so that's been very much a conversation piece as well relating to the health care subsidies. At this stage, health care worker or excuse me, federal workers have missed multiple paychecks, or, excuse me, they missed one paycheck on just now at the October, we have had the military who would have, in normal circumstances, now have missed two paychecks, but there was some internal negotiation with transferability that allowed active duty continued to be paid. But it's unclear even with some of the solutions there that have been bound how long those additional funds could have been sustained. And, of course, also new since this report was drafted has been all of the challenges within air transportation. So the reductions with air traffic controllers and TSA agents and the impact there on airports.

And, you know, as as we've all seen in the media, thousands of flights being canceled, more you know, much more expected in the future coming up on the Thanksgiving holiday. I think everyone who is planning to travel in the coming weeks will be very relieved to see that there's no longer going to be concerns about those challenges. And, of course, I think as as we've all been very focused on, as I mentioned before, is the SNAP benefits, which is a true real world challenge for many families around the country. We have here included on excuse me. Moving on to the next item, if I may, but I I I can pause as well if there's any questions or comments relating to the funding and the government shutdown.

No questions for me.

None for me either.

In the world of executive orders, there's been only one executive order signed since our last report, which is entitled ensuring to continue accountability in federal hiring. And this does require federal hiring to comply with the merit hiring plan. So that that was that was an interesting one, particularly in light of recent events to see come through. We also have here, as always, our table tracking, the various community project funding, projects for the county, in in their current status as they're highlighted. I will say that none of the three bills that are anticipated in the Chromnibus would include provisions for funding for the county of Monterey.

That those are simply not the bills that ours projects would be included in. And since the CR is only a short term CR and not a full year CR, that does allow these projects to remain in play for potential federal funding. And as I know you're gonna hear from Nicole shortly, of course, we are already gearing up for the next cycle of funding, but I'll I'll let her discuss that with you further. And and that is really the the primary focus of our report for the month. We're continuing to monitor all the impacts of federal funding on the county very closely and provide those updates as is is reasonable and is helpful to county residents.

But it's it's been, you know, a little bit quiet here in DC with now over a month in on a federal government shutdown. So we do have the federal bill and issues track attached as always for your reference, and remain ready to answer any questions the committee has.

I think we have might be the first time ever that the committee has had meetings and was the the period between the two meetings that governmental government has been shut down that whole time period. I guess, ever forever happened, so I can totally understand why there hasn't been much to report until now. I don't really have any questions. Well, supervisor Lejo, if you do.

How do I. Thank you.

Right. With that, I'll turn to public comment and see if there's any public comment on this particular item, item three, the federal report?

I see no hands raised.

No hands raised. So we'll call public comment. No action on there. Just report. So we'll move to, item four, which is the state report. And, where are you, Ashley?

Thank you. Good afternoon. Not too much to report at the state level either, so in a similar position, but did wanna just give you an update on where we're at in the legislative cycle. The legislature, as you know, will reconvene for its second year of the two year session on January 5. We already heard from one of our legislative offices, senator Laird's office, that there is going to be a shift in senate leadership with senator Monique Lemon taking over as pro tem this month, and we will be monitoring the new committee makeups, the chairs, the memberships, and we'll provide an update to the county when we have more details on what that looks like.

In our report, we did provide a list of the bills that were we've taken a position on and have did not move, whether they're two year bills or we don't anticipate the bills to move forward at all. Just for reference, there are several bills on the list, so you can take a look. And I'm happy to answer any questions you may have about those bills. And finally, the governor will I'm sorry. I have something in my throat.

Excuse me. The governor will be releasing his January budget proposal by January 10. So we do anticipate that to be ready in the first week or so back to session in 2026. Moving on, CSAC has asked the county to sign on to a letter. The copy of the letter is in the packet for your review related to funding for victims of crime act.

As you know, and Maria just reported, there is ongoing instability in federal funding for many different programs that we administer at the state level, and we are unclear as to where funding will come from for the victims of crime act. So the county is being asked to sign on to a coalition letter with CSAF. This letter is addressed to the governor and budget chairs and other key legislators requesting $97,000,000 in one time funds for state budget funding to help that gap in federal funds for victim services. So we have been asked to take action on signing on to that letter, and I will turn it over to the committee for action on that.

Thank you, Ashley. Surprise, Allego, any thoughts?

Yeah. I'm supportive of it, mister Chir. Thank you.

Yep. I am too very much. And, let's see. We'll just

Can we get a roll call vote on that?

I'm gonna go out public comment first, and then we'll bring it back to roll call. If there's any public comment on item anything on item four on the state report, including the letter of advocating?

None online.

Okay. Very good. Well, I'll make a motion to approve.

I'll second.

Okay. We'll go to roll call.

Supervisor Church? Aye. Supervisor Alejo?

Aye. Right. It passes, and we will be seeing that letter out then. And move on to the grant report then.

Thank you. I'm not quite finished with the state report. I'm just that's okay. I'm on item c on the state report just with regard to the injected sponsored legislation and budget priorities, but Nicole will be going over what our 2026 priorities are. Did just wanna allow for opportunities here for either of the supervisors to bring up any potential state sponsored legislative priorities or state budget priorities.

But, again, we're gonna be going over that with Nicole if there are any if there's any feedback right now. Okay. We have provided a list of governor's actions and executive orders since our last meeting, and we have our state bill track attached. Our state bill track includes all of the legislation that we take we took positions on in 2025 where they stand, and it's very extensive with notes as to where we engage at every level of the process in the state legislature. It also includes all of our budget letters or other issues and items that we took up during the year.

If there are any questions about that, I'm happy to answer. Otherwise, that concludes my state report.

Alright. Thank you. Sorry for there. Any I I don't have any other comments on regarding the rest of your report.

Mister chair, I got a comment. Go

right ahead.

I I forgot to bring this up earlier to Nicole and Ashley. We did have a request. Back in 2018, Monterey County sponsored an ACR, an assembly concurrent resolution so we could install five highway memorial signs for

Yeah.

Five fallen soldiers. Yeah. There there was, subsequent to that, first Alyssa five, there were other family members, who had requested for their loved ones either in the war in Iraq or Afghanistan to have highway memorial signs done. That was authored by speaker Rivas, and the signs we had a ceremony about putting up those signs. I think we're only waiting for the contractor to install those.

I think it was another five names. But after that ceremony, there was a request, and I did tell this to, bring this to the attention of Dominic. We got we were contacted by the former Watsonville police chief Manny Solano, who is a resident in supervisor Church's district. But they had re he had requested, if we if we could carry an ACR for one more soldier that, he was he was killed in action under enemy fire, in 2004 in Iraq. That was marine Lance Corporal Victor a Gonzales.

It seems only appropriate since tomorrow is Veterans Day, but I wanted to flag this as as another a proposed new ACR, which only requires approval by the assembly and the senate. It doesn't require a signature by the governor, but that is what authorizes Caltrans to put up a highway memorial sign in, for this fallen soldier. He was born in Salinas, but he was raised in Pajaro. And at that time, he had done three and a half years of, service in the explorers program for the Watsonville Police Department, and he had gone to serve. And his goal was to become a police officer after finishing his service, but, unfortunately, he was killed in action.

And so this is one of those unfinished business that that we have been asked for the community if we could sponsor that legislation again, and then I'll certainly work with Mani Solana to try to maze the the required funding to put up to manufacture the signs and then to have them installed in an appropriate place in in Monterey County, hopefully, near why where he grew up in North County if there's a a highway stretch that is still available for that purpose.

So that's the only

barely have yeah. We will add this to our list of priorities for 2026.

Great. Thank you very much. And and it's only it's only proper, especially if we're being requested from his family and and those closest to him. Wanna make sure that he's given that same honor we we give it to other fallen soldiers of Iraq and Afghanistan. Thank you.

K. Thank you for raising that. Let me see then if I don't have anything else to add. We've already had public comment on item four, so we can go to item five then on the the ground report.

Great. Thank you. Our two main updates are just that, as you know, we have, allocated funds in the state budget for Sam Lucas that we are working to draw down. But in addition, we are working on San Lucas with regard to proposition four climate bond language that allows us to be competitive, or not be competitive, be eligible for funds within proposition four. And that leads me into my second update, which is that we have been all over proposition four in terms of the agencies that are receiving budget allocations in the first fiscal year this fiscal year from the legislature as they are working to finalize guidelines right now, and they are expected to be releasing those draft solicitations very soon.

We've been participating in multiple grant webinars, and monitoring solicitation so that the county is ready to apply for those funds when they are released. We have attached the grant tracker as well that outlines applications we've worked on this year as well as notices of funding opportunities, And that concludes my grant report unless there are questions from the committee.

No questions for me, supervisor?

None from me either, mister chairman.

Any public comment on item number five, grant report?

None on one. Okay. Thank you.

Can we do roll call votes?

What what's that?

Roll call vote, please.

Roll call vote. Yes. So we we do need a

Just to accept that?

What's that?

Yeah. To receive, I guess. To receive.

What what is what would be the roll call?

To receive the report.

We don't usually have Yeah. There's no

answer on that.

On just to receive this. Yeah. Only for only for items with their action on that. So I think we can just receive that without the remote.

Yeah. Okay.

Unless Kelly has something else.

Kelly, unless

there's Oh, Kelly has something to

No. That's fine. You've received it. I think we're good. You don't need to defer on that.

Great. Thank you, Kelly. We'll move on to item number six then, which is legislative and grant program. Yeah. That's for you, Nicole.

Hi. Well, thank you so much, supervisors. So if you'll turn to what I did for our 2026 legislative program and 2026 strategic grant programs or grant service program, I went ahead and I made a memo. There aren't a whole lot of changes from 2025, so I went ahead and I put the changes in there so that you guys could see it. And then I've also included the red line version of the legislative platform and the strategic grant platform in here so you could see and the red line version means that our department heads, our CEO, program heads, everybody's had a chance to see this and comment on this, and I wanted to make sure that you all saw those comments as well.

So thank you so much for engaging in this process so early. I know it feels early, but we're in the second year of a two year budget cycle in the state of California. So we kinda mirror that process, and they're getting prepped. As such, a lot of work has been done to this program in the past year, so we do not actually have a lot of updates to the legislative platform or program or the strategic grant program. Obviously, we're on the tail end of a historic government shutdown, and they've been unable to pass a spending bill, as Maria explained, which is why many of our federal priorities will just remain the same as they did last year.

And, hopefully, the federal government will function. And then we also did have a state budget deficit last year, but as Ashley noted, we were still very successful at the state level. So working hard, and we hope to continue that momentum with a few other priorities this year. So, again, we're not recommending any changes to the legislative platform itself, which is that statement of values that you guys have worked so hard on and wordsmithed over the last year or so. No changes were recommended to that platform by any department heads or staff or or anyone or any of the supervisors either.

A lot of what has been recommended are just suggested wordsmithing, updates to data, updates to statistics. And I wanted to make sure that those statistics and data that are transparent, you got to see what they were from last year to this year even though it's probably a little boring for someone to read through this whole thing. So you also will see a lot of wordsmithing around libraries, water, and social services categories, as well as a few updates to those project proposals. That's because we're still tracking a few bills that are two year bills in those categories, a few that were implemented in these subjects. So we spent a little extra time on those subjects.

As I outlined in the memo, the biggest challenges to the program, or the biggest change to the program will be adding the Scenic Road Protection Structure project to our list of projects officially. Of course, this isn't a new project for the county. It's been moving along, and and and you've already, as board of supervisors, certified the EIR for this project. We're just now entering this phase of the project. And then next year, we're also gonna be talking a lot about proposition four, as Ashley mentioned, which passed.

It's called the climate resiliency bond. And so Ashley and her team have been really busy gathering guidance and going to different webinars and and trying to figure out how we could draw down those funds to the county. So that process is still unfolding, of course, but we do anticipate that we're gonna be applicable for many different categories from prop four. So we'll work hard on that this year. One of the surprising buckets of money in prop four is creating brand new park areas, in areas that lack parks and recreation.

So, in meeting with the supervisors, we we've we've looked at a couple places. We're particularly looking at, that pot of funding for North And South Monterey County areas, which do not have parks, and that includes, adding a pool to the Castroville Recreation District. We will also continue to work with other departments to draw down applicable platform funding. So, again, it's it's one of the few funding sources that we have right now, so we're gonna focus hard on that. So, again, the list above you to the before you today, it's not exclusive, and it and it's it's not exclusive.

What it does is it allows us to have this legislative program and a strong legislative program. It allows staff and our lobby teams to pivot throughout the year, gives us kind of a a table to work from, especially in very unpredictable times in the federal government. So if you have any concerns or questions about the proposal before you, staff should be available on Zoom, today, and I can we can also make sure to get your questions answered between now and December. December is when I will bring this back for you to, hopefully finalize these documents before presenting them to the board of supervisors, full board in January. And, yeah, I will stop there.

Thank you. There's a couple things I saw on here. One, on the, the recommended legislative or or funding priorities Mhmm. The only thing I think is, you know, brought this up during our discussions was was a wildfire prevention. Right. So I you know?

Not enough wildfire for you in there. Okay.

Yeah.

Got it.

I didn't see anything in there quite addressed. I know it's a it's a big issue in Districts 23, and 5.

And it's definitely something that is prop four related as well. There there's a lot of there's a category of funding for wildlife funding in prop four, so I could make that more explicit. How about that in the legislative priorities?

That'll be granted through this, you know, grant real work. Wildfire is so important. And then I when I was reading through the let's see if I can find it here in my various notes. Oh, here it is. Going back here on the strategic grant services are part of of this plan that we have.

On page 11, at the very bottom, it has health and mental health rehabilitation facility. It's the the doctor is still referring to a conversion of the old jail to a locked facility, but I you know, with I I think the sheriff has somewhat mixed that.

Update that? Okay.

Yeah. It's so that's why we've been discussing developing and building our own facility off of constitution, I believe it is.

Okay.

That's where we had some discussions on it. So

Okay.

Just just update on to that particular part. Supervisor Lejuez, do you have any thoughts here on the No.

Nothing for me on this.

Okay. Good. When we all stirring a call, I'll they go walk down?

No. But I think that would be it. I do think we need

a vote

for this.

Well, I do have to go out to public.

Yeah.

I'd like to as well if there's anybody in the public that's I should comment on the legislative platform and grants.

No. No. No.

No. No. That will have to go to well, to

I'll make a motion.

This is to give, yeah, for the motion for the recommendation. I'll second that.

Supervisor Church? Aye. Supervisor Elijoh?

Aye. K. Motion carries. And that's pretty much it, isn't it?

Okay.

Well, I'm happy to update what what you've mentioned, supervisor, and bring that back to the LC on December 8.

That will be great. Thank you

very much.

Great. Happy Veterans Day, everyone.

Yeah. Happy Veterans Day. And, we'll adjourn the meeting here at where the time is. 02:00. 02:00.