Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

Good morning. It's 01/06/2026 in the year at the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors meeting. It's keeping with tradition. We're just a little past 09:00. And if you would, please stand for the pledge allegiance and remain standing for the invocation by Mike Gunnerson, City Ministry Network.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Good morning and thank you for Heavenly father, I wanna thank you for this beautiful day here in Stanislaus County. Thank you for our country and the opportunity to be here this morning and participate in this form of government. I know that not everyone here in their in our county experiences the same level of health, safety, and financial provision. I ask that you would allow each of us in this room to be part of seeing the needs of each citizen fully met. I pray for peace, for health, for fulfilling relationships, and financial provision for all.

I pray that you would bless Stanislaus County. I pray for our elected officials who are here this morning. I pray that you would bless their families, businesses, friendships, and health. May each of them fully come to know your love for them. Be with them here this morning as they address the issues before them. Give them discernment, wisdom, and boldness to serve our county well. I pray this in your name. Amen.

Thank you for that beautiful prayer. I appreciate it. Alright. Next up on the agenda is the election of the 2026 chairman and vice chairman of the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors. And I'll I'll take a motion and nominate.

To nominate Vito Chiesa as chair for upcoming year 2026.

I have a first and a second. Before I do that, I'm gonna go out to the public and see if anybody has any public comment on that. Seeing that, I'll bring it back to the board. No one's gonna save you. Bring it back to the board for a vote. All in favor, aye. Aye. Any opposed? Unanimous. We also need to nominate a vice chair.

And keeping with this natural rotation, nominate the chair.

I'll second that, and I'll go once again back out to the public and have anybody having public comment on the nominations. Seeing none, I'll bring it back to the board. All in favor, aye. Aye. Any opposed? Unanimous. Alright.

The peaceful transfer of power. We show how it's done. Okay. So Hello, hello. Perfect. All right. Supervisor Condit, come on up for a second. This is the Buck is the last of us to be the chairman and the rotation. And he just served his first term as chair. And what you find out when you're chair is that you you get a lot more information.

It's just just the way it operates. Everything runs through the chair. And it gives you an opportunity to really expand your horizons. Not only that, you get to do committee assignments, and you take yourself off of all the committees that you don't wanna serve on. So but you've done a great job, and I can tell that you were a fireman before because your compassion for people and the way you treat people is second to none.

You were an awesome chair, and congratulations on serving out your first your first term as chair and to to many more. So next up on the agenda is is an important you know how we do ten, twenty ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty five year for employee awards? We actually have a board member up here who's in his fifteenth year, and he's gonna get his fifteenth year pin. We didn't bring his pin down because he would lose it between here and his office, so we gave it to Jennifer to make sure it makes its way onto one of his coats for sure. Time goes by fast, doesn't it?

I don't wanna speak on behalf of that. So here's my ride or die partner on the board. We've been on a long time together and had been through many wars, for lack of a better word, accomplished a lot together. You are like a moral compass for me, truly. You you believe you're passionate for what you do. You've just done a great job, but fifteen years goes by so fast, and I'm gonna say something that you normally would say. I'll say it for him. It is very difficult on families when you serve in this position. You know, people are mad at you sometimes. You do a lot of late night late nights where your spouse may or may not want you to go, but you always show up because the world is run by those who show up.

So congratulations on fifteen years again. You're you're a North Star for me, for sure. Thanks, buddy. I will point out just for today is the five year anniversary of three board members up here, Chance Condit, Buck Condit and Manny Graywall. So we're a pretty experienced board at this point.

It's a great congratulations to you, too. All right, next up is going to be Jodi, is you going to come you can do it up here? Okay. It's an accommodation for Patrice Dietrich, the Chief Operations Officer. It's going to be a commendation upon her retirement, which is coming way too fast.

Good morning, everybody. And come on down, Patrice. This is when, you you get to stand next to me while I talk about you awkwardly. So

Good morning.

Good morning.

To get in a certain spot because he'll learn to see me. Am I gonna find that? Is

Patrice visible to everybody who wants to see her? Okay. Excellent. Okay. Good morning, everybody. It truly is an honor to stand here today to recognize and celebrate Patrice Dietrich as she prepares for her very well deserved retirement from Stanislaus County. So with thirty eight years of distinguished public service, Patrice has exemplified the very best of county leadership serving with integrity and an unwavering commitment to our mission and the communities we serve. Okay. So although Patrice started her county career in 1987, this story really begins with her mom, longtime county employee Dorothy Butler. So while Patrice was getting through school, attending MJC, Cal Poly's, Cal State Stanislaus, she earned her degree in accounting.

Her mom, Dorothy, was planting seeds to recruit her into county service. So for those of you who worked with Dorothy, you will recall that she was herself a model county employee working in the auditor controller's office. She had an infectious spirit to match her hard work and dedication that she served all of her customers with a smile. So, Patrice, I know your mom has always been tremendously proud of you, not for any titles or status, but for the way you have approached your career in county service, centering heart and spirit in your work from day one. And with that said, I know you are equally proud of her for the examples that she set for those around her, and, ultimately, she dedicated over twenty four years of service prior to her own retirement.

And to be clear, this was no easy recruitment on your mom's behalf. In Patrice's own words, she hated public accounting and was more interested in teaching. She didn't even wanna do this work. Sorry, Terry. She literally said those words. Okay. So okay. You can explain it away, but you said those words. Okay. Patrice, we're very, very fortunate that you were such a good kid, you listened to your mom, and we're all better for it.

So let's get back to when you were the new kid. So let's get back to when you were the new kid on the block with the county back in November 1987. You hired as an accountant one in the Department of Social Services or now what we call our community services agency. For those of you not familiar with community services agency or CSA, this is our largest county department. Usually represents about 20 or 25% of the county's budget and has had over a thousand employees for as long as I can remember.

This is our biggest, operation. Patrice started in the financial services division, and as you can guess, she quickly rose through the ranks. Within five years, she had promoted four times and was serving as a principal accountant in very short order. I read through your file in preparing for this morning. And first of all, it's one of the thickest personnel files I've ever seen, but for good reason.

That's because it literally has thirty eight years of glowing evaluations in it. Those early evaluations tell just a great story, consistently describing Patrice as hardworking, willingly taking on additional responsibilities, bright, pleasant, treats others with respect, a great coworker and a great supervisor and mentor to others. Those were just in her initial years of employment, and you knew that she was setting the seeds for a great career ahead. So within eight years, Patrice was promoted into management, and the new opportunities really took off from there as she built a solid reputation, not just within her own office, but with other county departments and colleagues throughout the state. Everybody in the county organization at that point knew who you were and what you were capable of doing.

She filled the role of chief financial officer for CSA as well as assistant director for administrative services. These were significant roles in the county organization, and she was widely recognized by others as the go to resource to understand some of the most complicated financial systems we operate within the county. It was amazing how quickly Patrice demonstrated such a deep understanding of the work that we do. So while her technical skills have always been impressive, to me, her real superpower in leadership was the ability to take that knowledge and translate it to real programs and decisions that have practical impacts on how county employees work in the community each day. When you're given a title like principal accountant or chief financial officer, it can sometimes feel like you're just telling people what they can and can't do with the budget.

But as long as I've known Patrice, she always starts with the why. She wants to know what we are trying to accomplish first. What is our mission driving us to do? She wants to know that before she gets into the numbers and has those other con conversations. So once that is established, Patrice is like a world class chef, ready to prepare the best meal possible even when your grocery budget may be a little tight, and she has worked with some really tight budgets throughout these years.

That ability to transition seamlessly between technical skills, strategy, vision, program operations, it's very unique. It's even more special when someone does it with grace and a smile. While serving as the assistant director for CSA, our office asked Patrice to fill in as the interim director on two different occasions. She actually was the interim director and and and had charge of CSA a couple of different times. And then, ultimately, we swayed her to the chief executive office as a deputy executive officer about eleven years ago.

So then after that, after I was appointed to CEO in, I think, 2017, Patrice stepped up as an assistant executive officer and finally chief operations officer in 2022, just rising completely through the ranks. And as chief operations officer, there's only one more chair to go, and and you actually probably have a few votes up here if you wanted it. I might even vote for you, Patrice, but she's telling me to stop. She wants to retire. Patrice, you have an amazing story of county service.

There are some things I think everyone should know about you as you cap off your thirty eight years. You work as hard as anyone I have ever worked with, and working hard doesn't just mean putting in hours. You demonstrate ownership of really difficult issues and dedicate yourself to ensure the best possible outcomes often without any recognition. And although you always try to center your comments and input with positive framing and deliver them in the nicest way, you have never been afraid to say the thing that people may not wanna hear, including myself. It's really important for any high performing team to share honest reflections and to welcome all other perspectives regardless of how they're packaged.

On a personal level, I wanna thank you for eleven years of partnership, and collaboration working with our senior leadership team and the chief executive office. I am deeply grateful for your contributions to my own professional growth and success. Your guidance, trust, partnership have challenged me to think more broadly, lead more confidently, and approach decisions with greater clarity. And for those of you in the inner circle of our office, you really know who supervises who in this relationship here. I know your family was unable to be with join us this morning, but I wanted to share another personal note of appreciation for them.

It's no single individual can put in thirty eight years of county service by themselves. It really takes a team at home as well. So we appreciate your family for all they've done to support this journey, and we're so happy that starting this Thursday, they get back a full time mom, wife, daughter, yoga, and travel partner starting Thursday. So I had to throw that in because I feel very guilty that all of your late dinners over the last eleven years are because of me personally. So I wanted to thank the family, and sorry for all those late nights.

Alright. I'll try to wrap this up. Patrice, your legacy is one of dedication, integrity, and selfless leadership. Stanislaus County is unquestionably stronger because of the way you chose to lead over your thirty eight year career with purpose, courage, and excellence. And along the way, you've no doubt made us all better.

So thank you for everything you've given to the community and to public service, and congratulations on your very, very well deserved retirement. Congratulations. And you get to say a few words.

Wow. I wanna actually start by saying that the word that keeps coming to me over and over again as I've been preparing to retire is grateful. And I mean that sincerely. I am so very grateful. I am proud to work in Stanislaus County.

You just witnessed in the beginning of our board meeting how our board works, how well they work together, how they can have amazing vision and passion and differences, and professionally work through them and get things done. And to be able to work in an organization that has the impact that the county can have, and has leaders who can work together that way is amazing. I will say, Jody's right, in 1987, I came to the county. I did not like doing income taxes, which is what my role was in public accounting. Also in true confession mode, I got A's all the time in college, and the only C I ever got was in income tax accounting.

Very sorry, Jay. I just I could not find my passion there. And so I had told my mother, who was and has been in my life an amazing mentor, I told my mother, I'm gonna go back to school, I'm gonna be a teacher. And she said, Well, you can't start until next fall anyway. There's a job open at the social services department, you should apply there, and you know, just give it a try. So was amazed. It was fabulous. I got the position. I walked into the best supervisory relationship that anyone could have dreamed up. So I'm going to say So Seal Chatham was my very first supervisor, And Ceil exemplified for me what I see in the best of county supervision.

She was open, she was authentic, she shared. She shared contacts, she shared information. She willingly gave of her time and her knowledge and her skills. And I saw that, and I thought that's what we were all to do. So I saw good mentoring. I saw it, and I tried to do it. And if I had even the smallest kind of impact like that on other people since I've been here, then I'm really delighted, and I hope that I did make her proud. I thought I'd be at CSA for a year. I was so positive I was gonna be there for a year. And then, you know, mission happens.

I'm very mission motivated. This organization has an amazing mission. The words may have changed. You know, we used to be about being the best, and now we build community. But the messaging behind it has always been about all all the people in the county, that all of our residents can feel safe, can have access to health care, can have an opportunity to work, to thrive, to be a part of who we are as a whole.

And that was the biggest driver for me. So that accounting wasn't just numbers, it was actually being able to help people in the community. I had amazing department heads along the way. I want to recognize that Jeff Ju was the first director who made me realize that we needed to think not just about supporting internally in the department and responding to the staff and the program managers, but that our presence in the community mattered, how we showed up. And I remember he said to us, We walk in and we come with a certain level of power and authority.

And so our words are impactful in ways that we can't even imagine. And he said to me, Your team is like a team of accountants I've never seen. They have heart. Well, that just made us want to have more heart. So I have great thanks and gratitude to the team of people I worked with at CSA, the accountants there with heart, the people who inspired me and showed me what social workers and clinicians and all those healthy community people can do.

I came to the CEO's office eleven years ago, and it was funny. Oh, somebody else who really impacted me. Patty Hill Thomas was my assigned assistant executive officer for a long time, and Cindy Tomlinson was my assigned management consultant. So I've been in a department and I know what this relationship can be like. Okay, I know what it's like when the phone rings and you see, oh my god, it's the CEO's office.

And they asked a lot of hard, hard, hard questions because they mattered, because the information mattered, because understanding the whole story would give us the best outcome. Those hard questions made me think better, made me more creative, made our team more responsive. I it was amazing, amazing learning, and I want to recognize that as well. And I hope that when our team now is calling you in department land, and we're asking a lot of why questions, not because we don't trust, but because when we understand, we can partner better on the solutions. And I mean that very sincerely.

So Patty asked if I wanted to come to the CEO's office, and I said, No, I really love CSA. And then Stan asked if I wanted to come to the CEO's office, and that was really flattering. And I said, No, thank you, I really love CSA. So they sent Jody. And Jody said, Look, I know you love what you do, but if you come to the CEO's office, you can impact and be supportive of healthy community in a different way. Think of the things we can do. And then I had to say yes. He is so inspirational. He is so practical. I feel like I started with the best supervisor, and then I ended with the best supervisor.

His intelligence and his ability to look at really complicated and sometimes messy and emotional topics and help the team figure out what does success look like, what are we trying to accomplish, is amazing. And so I want to say thank you for that. Okay, and last, I do want to recognize my family. I love that you talk about my mom so much. Those who are close to me know that my mom is in assisted living these days.

And there was a big chunk of my career where I would go to meetings and someone would say, I just have to tell you, your mom is amazing. And then I would call her at night and say, Mom, I got a compliment on you. And she'd say, I got one on you too. So she also wired us. She told us when we were young, no matter where you go, people it's a small world. People are gonna know you, and everything you do reflects on me. So I hope I'm reflecting well. I hope I'm reflecting well. My husband, I say, is the nicest man in the world, and you've heard multiple times, family is everything. Having a supportive family, knowing that the kids are gonna be fine, knowing that it's okay that we're not cooking one more night this week is a big stress reliever.

My husband Joe is amazing. He is as hard a worker as I am. When I met him, I said, Look, I have a daughter, I love children, I have a lot of God children, and I work a lot. And he said, Great, me too. So he's actually perfect for me. And then my two kids. My two kids, they're both in Southern California. They're working, which is wonderful, and supporting themselves and or in school. And so I'm going to say two things that they said to me over the years. There was a time when I was dropping Abby off at school, there was a luncheon that day, and I wasn't going to be able to go, because it was budget season, and we had budget deadline.

And it was one lunch and a number of lunches. And I did all she we did Girl Scouts. There were a lot of things I was there for. But she knew I wasn't gonna be there. And when I dropped her off, the teacher said, oh, so you can't make it today? I said, no, no, I'm sorry, I can't make it today, but somebody else was gonna be there. And so as I was leaving, the teacher said to my daughter, what does your mommy do? And Abby said, my mom finds money to help people. And I thought, oh my God, if that's what she thinks I do, it kinda makes up for the fact that I'm a little weepy that I'm not gonna be there for lunch, because that's what I wanted to do. And then the story of my son is He's in his government class and texts me on his cell phone to tell me that the government teacher just told him all about Transparent California.

And wow, mom, you really are a Boston County. So that's the range of things that I've gotten from my kids. Thank you to the CEO team, thank you to senior leadership, thank you to the budget team, thank you to our department heads who've always been amazing to work with. This is way more than I wanted to talk, but gratitude, grateful. I am so grateful. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And I'll help however I can, whenever.

Thank you, Patrice. Congratulations. Okay. You get your ceremonial clock now that it doesn't matter what time it is anymore for you. So come on, Marito. And we have this accommodation from the board as well for you. And thank you for being a good sport and agreeing to do this. She definitely would have preferred to not have recognition, but I think it's an important opportunity to thank the people that helped you along the way, and you did a wonderful job of that as well. So I think we're gonna take a picture real Can

we take one with senior leadership too?

Yes. We can. So we'll have our senior our CEO senior leadership team queue up over here real quick, and we'll we'll shuttle you in for a quick photo after the board. Chair, if you don't mind, I would just want to do one more introduction for everybody. I do want to introduce our, new county clerk of the board.

Mary Hartsfield is with us this morning. There she is. And I'm very, very excited to have Mary joining our senior leadership team. We have a couple of transitions in mode, and she's just a wonderful new addition. She will be sliding over into the clerk spot here at the next meeting literally on day two. She is already here helping us out and providing this wonderful input as well. Welcome to the team, Mary. Happy to have you.

Very good. All right. That was a feel good moment, but a sad moment for us. And Patrice, you always use words. I like that you think of words. And I always think of two words that always come to mind with you. Passion, number one. You said it a couple of times, but you have a passion for the job, always have had, and you're completely curious all the time. Anything that's asked of you, you may have the answer, but you always want to go and research and make sure that your thought is right. You're one of the most exact people I've ever met.

You're the only person that can keep Jody in check, which was another characteristic, and you will be sorely missed. I think it's going to be very tough to replace you. And thank you for your thirty eight years. Okay. Now we're going to move on to Item five, public comment period. First of all, I'd like to acknowledge there are no written comments. There are correspondence at the end of the packet. And the public comment period is a time for those in attendance to speak on any item not already on today's agenda. Please state your name for the record and direct all comments towards the dais. And so it's fair for every speaker, please keep your comments limited to five minutes.

I do have two speaker cards. The first one is Milt Treewiler. Welcome, Milt.

Good morning, board members, staff, and community members. Milt three one. I'm pretty certain that every one of you went on a trip somewhere this last year. You traveled to other parts of California or other states or even other countries in the world. Wherever you traveled last year, not one of you found farmland as good as the farmland right here around Modesto, Turlock, Siris, Riverbank, Salida, and Houston.

The reason you could not find farmland as good as the farmland in this part of Stanislaus County is because it does not exist anywhere else on the earth. With this fact and reality in mind, how could any one of us want to destroy this farmland with unnecessary development? I am asking all of you to be thoughtful and open minded when it comes to decision making that will have a negative impact on our children and descendants. Saving this farmland must be our number one goal. All of the above cities and community districts must be saved in Stanislaus County except for the poor soil areas, West Of Patterson and Newman and along Interstate 5 and the areas East Of Oakdale and Waterford and all the remaining areas in the county that can be developed.

We have many areas in Stanislaus County that can be developed without taking away the best farmland in the world. We are educated people. We know that without food, clean air, and clean water, we will die. On all of our counties, cities, and community districts surrounded by prime farmland, we need to grow up on their infill and blighted areas. We the where there are already city services available for this growth.

We can build large numbers of high rise luxury condominiums and luxury apartments and also affordable apartments in other parts of the city. We must all be committed to saving this irreplaceable farmland for our children and our descendants, and that is what our mission is as adults and parents. That is our mission on earth. We must do this because our ancestors did this for us. In the 1887 in 1887, our ancestors started the first two irrigation districts in Stanislaus County in the entire California.

They were the first two in California, the first two irrigation districts. So it is our beautiful soil, deep soil that can grow trees, nut crops, and those kind of crops, not just alfalfa. You can grow alfalfa and that kind of crop anywhere. But you can't grow the beautiful crops that we can grow here in the land surrounding our city. We can grow up. It's so easy to do. You just make a mandate that you grow up and you grow up, and that's what the county can do. So we have a long road to go. It's gonna take time. It's gonna take effort, But I know we can do it because I know we love our children and our descendants, and I know we can do this. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Milt. Next up, have Brian Evette.

Morning, Brian Evette out of district Manning's and Terry's. Anyway, I'm here because this is my sixteenth anniversary of being disabled by the local sheriff's department. My house was broken into, a vagrant girl was stuck in there, and one of the sheriff's named Schwartz turned around and he had a hard on for the little girl, and she was trespassing. And when he came out, he pulled weapons on me and my two children, 11 and 12. He said, well, I'm gonna put you in handcuffs after he pulled the weapons on us.

My girls were scared. I said, that's fine. You can walk me to the car. He didn't do an investigation. I let him in on the property to find the little girl. He didn't even go look. He just took and attacked us. He ran up on us holding his holster and his gun. When they got me handcuffed, they were told me they were going to take me to the car. I told my daughter, don't worry, just call grandpa. She's screaming and yelling, dad hadn't done anything. This officer didn't even make an investigation to find the facts. He turned around, walked to me three steps, kicked me to the ground, and started head socking me. A neck a second officer came running up. He's chasing my girls around the truck.

And then he turns around and they're on 911. And they're calling and they're sitting there saying they're beating my dad. The other office jumps on me. He's head hit hitting me in the head. And it's all in the report for pain compliance on something he hasn't even investigated. He hasn't even done anything. And I gave him the right to my property to go back there and do it. And then the next thing I know while I'm being beat on the ground, here comes two more sheriff officers. They kick me in the head. They turn around, and they beat me in the head. One's got a club beating me. My daughter's screaming and yelling. They're beating my dad to nine one one. The girl has no consideration. Don't worry, sweetheart.

We're sending more. There's more ambulances in the background. She's screaming louder. They're beating with clubs and he hasn't done anything. They turn around and I'm laying on the ground. Two more officers, Rodriguez, shows up with sergeant Parker. They turn around and they drag me across the ground and they tell the ambulance driver, dude, you can't take him. You can't take him. They drag me across the ground. They put me in a wrap. I'm already in handcuffs. I'm face down on the ground, and they're beating on me. They broke my ribs. They split my liver. They split my kidney.

They blew out two discs in my neck. They hyperextended my ulnar nerve. They pulled my thumb and he grabs me this way. And I get beaten. Beaten. And then I get thrown in the hospital. That's fine. Chained to a bed. And then after that, they're supposed to put me in an infirmary in the jail. They throw me in with two black guys, one with a leg that wanna beat me up. This is what we go through in this county. And you guys do nothing. And then you put me in front of a judge that's retiring salters. I turn around and one seventy point one him because I know he's biased. He refuses that.

I won 70.6 him. He's biased. He refuses that. I say, I'd do it again. He goes, you're too early the first time. I said, I'll do it again. Then he says, I'm too you're too late. And then he turns around and says, like, do you point? I point in myself. This is like Okie Law. And you guys don't turn around and help it. And you've damaged my daughters. You've damaged them that way because then they grow up thinking this is the kind of county that we have to live in. They don't wanna live in this county just because you guys don't protect people. And you destroyed my life because I was building custom homes on Tullock Lake.

And I couldn't do it anymore because I didn't have a shoulder. And then you praise everybody that gets to retire. I don't get to. I don't get to because you guys. And nobody wants to protect it. And then the next day I do, I come back down here again on another house to save some people. And the next day I know I'm being arrested for a burglar. They won't arrest the burglar when I say I'm gonna arrest him. No, you're not. I go you're a witness. You're an officer. It's my duty. No, you're not. And then they track me down at that house. I don't even live there the next day like they got a tracker on me.

How did you know I was gonna be there? Then they arrest me because the burglar who lives in Oakdale says that I wanna kill him. That's not true. I wanna arrest him. That was that was on video with the officer. This is what happens. You guys don't protect us. You run our kids off. And all you wanna do is make them poor because that's what you call social living. Oh, we're gonna help it, make a better society. We give it to the homeless and we build little shelters for $1,358 a square foot. That's not even right. We got a $150,000,000 that we could spend. We could have built half of that courthouse for the homeless. But this is what we do. And you say that you love us. You turn around. We're taxpayers. I own three pieces of property right here. But do I get any anything out of you?

No. I have to have come in here and sue it up, Ryan. So this is what I gotta sue, and I'm serving you guys even though this is improper. I'll have it served proper. But the clerk's gonna take this in because I'm suing the sheriff's department. They put me in a contaminated cell after that, and you're supposed to keep me in a clean cell.

Anyone else

can help gave me a fungal disease. We try to protect our trees from fungal. Right. We have people. It doesn't matter. This needs to be resolved.

That's good. You had your five minutes plus.

Now can I hand this to the clerk? As you know, it's summons.

You sure can. Any other people for public comment? I know it's illegal. You're getting Please come on up. Seeing no one, we're going to move on to the consent calendar before the board takes action on the consent calendar.

Does anyone in the audience wish to provide comments on any matter that is on the consent calendar? I will point out that item B1 is a sale of the former Salvation Army property that we own and affordable housing developers buying that and doing a project in Modesto, which would be a three or four story, I think. And so, Melt, it kind of leads into what you were talking about. Very good. Any board members wish to comment, pull anything? Seeing none, I'll entertain a motion for the consent calendar. We have a motion.

I second.

And a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank

you.

Oh, turn them up. As

we get into item 7.1, I need to announce that supervisor has a, Levine Act conflict here. The Levine Act requires an officer of the of of the county to disclose and not participate in a decision where a party, participant, or their respective agents involved in a license permit or other entitlements such as what is in front of a in front of the board, has contributed more than $500 to the officer during the twelve month period prior to the decision. Supervisor Condit has received a contribution and is determined not to participate in this item.

All right. Thank you very much. This is a public hearing to consider the Planning Commission's recommendation of approval on parcel map variance and Williams Neck cancellation application PLN twenty twenty five-twenty two. Hold on one second, Emily. Okay.

Okay. Alright. Good morning. Chair, members of the board, CEO Hayes, and county council Boes, I'm Emily DeAnda, associate planner, here to present parcel map variance and Williamsonak cancellation application number PLN2025Dash0022 Silva revocable trust. This is a request to subdivide a 107 acre parcel into two parcels and a remainder.

Proposed parcel one of the parcel map will be below the required 40 acre minimum for a new parcel being created in the a two forty or general agricultural zoning district, which will require a variance to be granted. Due to proposed parcel one being below the 10 acre minimum size required under a Williamson Act contract, a cancellation of a portion of contract number 71Dash364 is included in this request. The project site is located at 20400 Armstrong Road between Pear Avenue and East Marshall Road in the Crow's Landing area. The site has a general plan designation of agriculture and a zoning designation of general agriculture with a 40 acre minimum. The site is surrounded by orchards, row crops, and scattered single family dwellings in all directions.

The current site is developed with a single family dwelling and an agricultural storage building, which are both located on proposed parcel 1. The remaining balance of the site is planted in row crops and is flood irrigated via surface water from the Patterson Irrigation District. The district's lateral h canal separates proposed parcel one from the proposed remainder. The site includes irrigation infrastructure consisting of a floodgate at the southwest corner of the proposed remainder parcel and a 10 foot wide irrigation ditch that begins at the southwest irrigation gate and extends along Pear Avenue. Irrigation infrastructure is around the perimeter of the site with flood gates shown in the stars on the screen.

As stated previously, the project is to divide a 107 acre parcel into two parcels, five acres and 44 acres in size, and a 58 acre remainder. The entire project site is currently enrolled under the Williamson Act. If approved, the 5.3 acres proposed under parcel one will be canceled, and the remaining 102 acres will be reenrolled under a new contract. No new development is being proposed as part of this request. Each resulting parcel will utilize individual private domestic well and septic systems for current or future residential development.

The site was originally comprised of six lots of the Patterson Colony Subtract number two map, which was recorded in 1911. Proposed parcel 1 consists of the five acre area originally encompassed by Lot 669. However, a subsequent parcel map recorded in 1980 extinguished the Patterson Colony lots, establishing a 107 acre project site and then enjoining 51 acres to the north. As discussed in the agenda item, staff did not provide a recommendation of approval or denial to of the project to the planning commission. Typically, a variance may be approved in situations where physical characteristics of the property exist that may limit the enjoyment of development rights experienced by other properties within the same zoning designation resulting in unnecessary hardship for the subject property owner from the strict application of ordinance.

The applicant's finding finding statement proposed that the request for the creation of a five acre parcel in the a two forty zoning district should be approved due to the parcel previously existing as an underlying lot, stating that the lot was inadvertently merged as a result of a parcel map recorded in the nineteen eighties. Additionally, the finding statement further state that the PID lateral that physically separates the five acre parcel from the ag portion of the project site is justification for the variance. And making recommendations on similar variance requests, staff has not considered the existence of an irrigation lateral itself as a physical characteristic warranting a variance unless there is some kind of impediment to accessing around the lateral, such as a long distance required to be traveled to get to the other side. As can be seen from the pictures provided on the screen, access to the proposed parcel 2 and the remainder is feasible from Armstrong Road, Pear Avenue, and Alfalfa Avenue without extensive travel or distances around the lateral to reach the proposed properties. In this case, there is direct access to all areas of the parcel, including to the five acres west of the lateral and to the larger portion north and east of the lateral via multiple county maintained roadways.

Accordingly, no such access limitation exists. In past requests for direct access around the lateral is not feasible, staff has supported the granting of a variance. However, this property does have a unique personalization history based on the six Patterson Colony lots that existed prior to the eighties and the parcel map that was recorded in 1980, which resulted in the loss of four of the underlying parcels. Additionally, the project site zoning designation of a two ten at the time of the 1980 parcel map would have allowed for up to 16 parcels based on the overall acreage at that time instead of the ultimately resulting two parcels which were recorded with the map. Even if this current request is approved, the overall number of parcels will be less than the applicant's family had prior to 1980 and less than the number of parcels they could have created with the previous parcel map.

In both cases, the current request to create two conforming parcels and one parcel under the required size creates unique circumstances in which staff has not provided a recommendation of approval or denial for the currently proposed subdivision. Similar to a variance, the findings for a Williams And Nat cancellation can also be difficult to make. However, based on the resulting parcel size, if the variance is approved, staff believes the cancellation findings for the five acre proposed parcel can be made. No other issues have been identified during the review of this application. Standard conditions of approval have been added to this project to address the less than significant impacts associated with the creation of the proposed parcels.

General plan consistency was evaluated when processing this discretionary request, which included an evaluation of the project site's general plan land use designation of agriculture with the exception of proposed parcel one, which proposes to cancel its portion of the contract. Proposed parcel two and the remainder will be 40 acres or more in size and have been proposed to be reenrolled into a new Williamsonnet contract after project approval. These two parcels are considered to be prime agricultural land and will continue to be used for production agriculture, which would be consistent with the intent of the general plan designation. The project site is also within review area two of the Crow's Landing Airport as established in the county airport land compatibility plan. The project was referred to the airport land use commission and is located outside of identified safety zones and noise contour areas of the Crow's Landing Airport.

However, the site is located in the airport influence area and has been conditioned to provide real estate disclosures and Federal Aviation Administration height notification requirements. Zoning and subdivision ordinance consistency was also evaluated. As discussed previously, new parcels in the A240 zoning district must be 40 acres in size unless a variance is granted. In order to grant the variance, it must be found that there are special circumstances applicable to the subject property, including size, shape, topography, location, surroundings. That the granting of the application is necessary for the preservation and enjoyment of substantial property rights.

That the granting of such application will not adversely affect the health or safety of persons residing or working in the neighborhood and will not be detrimental to the public welfare or interest to property or improvements. As discussed in the issue section of this report, the applicant's finding statement asserts that the requested five acre parcel was historically used as a home site since 1925, and that it was inadvertently merged with all other underlying lots, and that the physical justification for the variance include being isolated from the balance of the property, that it sits at a higher elevation, and no irrigation infrastructure currently being connected to it. And ultimately, the applicant states the current proposed application would only be recreating the previous five acre home site. Similar variance request discussed in the planning commission staff report included the 2002 variance and parcel map application for Ali Ashad Ashad to create two parcels of ten and five acres. This particular request was made due to an MID lateral that severed access to the eastern portion of the parcel and required use of county maintained Blue Gum Avenue to access it.

Staff recommended denial of this request arguing that the distance needed to be traveled to the farm, the portion east of the lateral did not justify creating two substandard parcels. In June 2003, the planning commission denied the variance. The decision was appealed to the board of supervisors who upheld the commission decision denying the request. The second request was for variance of parcel map application number 2001Dash27, Bolino Family Farms, which proposed to create two parcels of thirty and seven and a half acres due to an MID lateral severing access to the southern portion of the parcel. The southern portion was previously accessed by an MID bridge.

The bridge was deemed to be hazardous and was removed without any replacement. Travel of county maintained roads to gain access to the southern portion was extensive, requiring travel along multiple roadways. Planning staff recommended approval of the request, and the planning commission granted the variance in March 2002. This current project shares similar similarity with Arshad's request because of the lesser distance to travel for access. However, the personalization history, in addition to the separation of the site by the lateral, does give some weight to the applicant's request to create a parcel below the minimum parcel size.

If the variances approved, it would essentially reinstate a previous condition enjoyed by the same property owner prior to the 1980 parcel map. Creation of the five acre parcel would require a partial cancellation of the Williams Sonat contract as required by state law for the cancellation of a contract, the Stanislaus County Assessor determined the current fair market value of the land to be $479,000 and the cancellation fee, which is equal to 12 and a half percent of valuation to be 59,875 for the proposed five acre parcel. In order for a Williams Sinnett contract to be canceled, the board of supervisors must hold a public hearing on the request and make several findings, including but not limited to the findings that are shown on the screen and that the cancellation is consistent with the purposes of the Williams Neck and is in the public interest. In accordance with CEQUA, the project was referred to responsible agencies, and no significant impacts have been raised. A negative declaration has been prepared for the project.

Standard conditions of approval have also been applied to the project. Planning commission held a public hearing for this request on 11/06/2025. No one spoke in opposition and the applicant's representative, Lori Silva, and the applicant, Barbara Silva, spoke in favor of the project discussing the previous previous mapping error and that the site has served as a home site since 1925. Ultimately, the planning commission recommended the board of supervisors approve the project on a vote of six zero. The planning commission's recommendation of approval to the board including included the required findings and the staff recommendations, which was comprised of findings regarding the environmental review, the variance, Williams snack cancellation, environmental determination, the parcel map, and project approval.

That concludes my presentation. Staff is available to answer any questions.

Any questions for staff I go out to the public? Nope. Okay. We'll go out to the public. Any comments? Milk?

Yes. Milk Treewater. I have just one question. I've spoken before about this cancer cell, where you're trying to get something out in an area just to get a precedent started so that you can, you know, develop the farmland in that area. I don't know anything about this particular situation. I didn't study this at all. But I'm just hoping that we're not creating a cancer cell that's going to start something that will spread throughout our county and destroy the best farmland in the world. Thank you.

Thank you. Comments? Anyone else?

Good morning.

My name my I'm sorry. Go ahead. This is Barbara Silva.

Hi. Barbara.

My name is Lori Silva, land planning consultant authorized agent for Barbara Silva, trustee of the George Silva and Barbara Ann Silva revocable trust. On 11/06/2025, the Planning Commission unanimously approved by a vote six to zero, PLN twenty twenty five, 22, the parcel map and variance that restored legal status to Lot 669, a historic 5.32 acre home site. Today, on agenda item 7.1, we respectfully ask you to complete the act of fairness by approving the Williamson Act cancellation for this same small parcel. Lot 669 was born as the home site in 1911. It is and its very first deed in 1924 from the Patterson Ranch Company to Charles Silva, explicitly denied it irrigation water from adjacent canal, a restriction the surrounding lots did not carry.

The home was built there in 1925, and for over half a century, it has quietly supported the Silva family's agricultural life. An unintended 1980 parcel map merged this deed restricted home site into a larger farm parcel. The Planning Commission recognized that mistake and corrected it. Now we need only your approval to lift the Williams Neck restriction on the 5.32 acre home site, which isolated, elevated and water deprived. This cancellation threatens no farmland.

The remaining two parcels, 44.22 acres and 58.08 acres, both comfortably exceed the 40 acre minimum. And will remain in active production under a new Williams snack contract. There is no net loss of protected agricultural land. The home site will simply continue the low impact residential role it has played for a hundred years with no new development, no added demand on services. At 83, Barbara has lived in the home on Lot 669 since marrying George in the nineteen sixties.

They remodeled it together, raised their children there, and built a lifetime of memories in this rural setting. George is now gone, but Barbara remains surrounded by the farmland her family has tended to for over half a century. In the 1980 parcel map error erased this home site, this morning you can restore it along with the estate plan she and George envisioned long ago. This approval honors generations of the Silva family's exemplary stewardship and upholds Stanislaus County's commitment to equitable land use. Staff recommends full approval.

The secret negative declaration confirms no environmental harm. We humbly ask you to adopt the staff recommendations, approve the negative declaration, make all required findings, and grant the Williamson Act cancellation for this 5.32 acre home site. Let Barbara keep the home she and George built. Let the farmland continue to thrive, and let a century quiet responsible stewardship be honored. Thank you for your time and consideration. I am happy to answer any questions.

Do you have any questions of the applicant? Seeing none. Thank you very much coming in today. Any other public comment? Okay. Seeing none, I'll bring it back to the board for final thoughts.

Final thoughts? I'll just I'll go ahead and make a motion to accept all staff recommendations. Second.

We have a first and second. Before I just want to make a quick comment. I would tell you that probably being a farmer out in the unincorporated area, know, when we have bought parcels before, we're always trying to keep a substandard parcel for this same reason. And I've been pretty unsuccessful, but it's probably the most requested thing of myself on land use, farmers trying to split off a piece of property. And generally, Williamson Act doesn't allow that.

Staff is usually not supportive of it. This is a pretty unique situation. I consider this unique situation. I can make the findings, but I just want everyone that sees this happening. It's about the, you know, enrolling the Williams Neck because we want to keep egg whole. We want to make sure the egg succeeds. And by not splitting it up into 10 acre parcels like the former map, will help do that because there's always a conflict zone between the urban ag interface. Again, this is unique. For me, it's pretty easy to find to come up with findings, and we'll fix what was wrong before. So, alright, we have a motion and a second.

All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries four-zero. Thank you, Emily and Angela.

It's public hearing. Okay. Alright. Thank you very much. I forgot to hit the gavel and say open comment. So first mistake, first day. All right. Now we're going to we do have a closed session today. Right? I'm skipping board member comments. All right. Yep. Comments. Correspondence. Yeah, guess I better go back to the original So there are no more discussion items.

Correspondence in the back of our packet. And are there any board member reports? Left, looking right. Exciting everyone had a happy holiday with all the kids and grandkids. Legislative Fiscal Management Report.

Good morning. Yeah. Do wanna, update you on a few matters. First is recognize that, the, state, proposed to governor Newsom's proposed budget for the state of California is due by January 10. So we'll be tuning into the state of state address that's scheduled for this Thursday.

Most likely hearing some preview items from the upcoming proposed budget. And also wanna recognize a new development that's occurred in the last twenty four hours. We saw that the federal administration announced that it was freezing child care and development funds grants in five states, including California. This was can also confirmed by the office of management and budget. Though the states reportedly have not been informed or received any formal notice yet.

So we're not sure what this means yet, but early reporting also includes or could be other effects to the temporary assistance for needy families payments. So like many things that we have had to address with the with federal payments over the last year, we'll be monitoring this very closely. We just wanted to mention that we did see this reporting and want you to know that we're watching very carefully to see what impacts. Obviously, childcare is an extremely important economic development issue to Stanislaus County, and we are very much involved in in our expansion of childcare efforts in the community. So we're watching that.

One a couple of announcements. We're currently recruiting volunteers to distribute care kits and to assist with the annual homeless point in time count that is scheduled for the morning of January 29. So volunteers do need to be 18 years or older, have a smartphone, and participate in a short online training. So if anybody is interested, we do have flyers here, or you can go to csockstan.com, which is csocstan.com for more information. And also just a quick announcement on an important road closure.

Terminal Avenue between Townsend Avenue and Clairvault Road and Riverbank will be closing beginning January 12 in support of North County Corridor project. And you can always look at the latest updates on that project at northcountycorridorphaseone.com. So that's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Alright. We're gonna join adjourn our regular meeting, and we're gonna we do have a closed session.

Oh. Yes. Yes. We do. But but before we adjourn, I think the the clerk's office would like to know what to do with the the correspondence. Normally, we tell them to refer as recommended in the agenda.

Is that okay? Is that is that what you're asking? Because I skipped that too. Why don't you just say it? Acknowledge, receive, correspondence and refer as recommended on the agenda. I've got this new script, right? I told you that. Now we can adjourn. Okay. We have a closed session.

Yes, we have closed session. The first item is conference with labor negotiators pursuant to government code section 54,957.6. The agency negotiator negotiators and the labor organization is noted in the agenda. The second item is conference with legal counsel, existing litigation. That will be held pursuant to government code section five four nine five six point nine subdivision d one. We have one case to consider. Wyatt at all versus county of Stanislaus at all. Case number is 121CV455. That's in the U. S. District Court for the Eastern District of California. Would that appropriate for public comment?

Public comment? Seeing none. Thank you, Deputy Trevino. First time here for your oversight. Overwatch, I think is the right word. I appreciate it. And we are adjourned closed session.