Climate Action Committee - Regular Meeting

Good morning, everybody. We're ready to begin. It is 09:31 for the February 28 meeting of the Climate Action Committee. May we have a roll call?

Member Gift? Present. Member Painter? Here. Member Narvaez?

Here.

Member Alessio?

Present.

Member Dizzy? Here. Member Tripp? Here. Member Reeves? Here. And Vice Chair Eisenberg? Here. Let the record reflect Member LaVentina, Joseph and Chair Gallagher are excused from today's meeting.

Okay. We'll proceed with the Pledge of Allegiance. Please stand, face the flag, Put your right hand over your heart. Ready, begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic It's the pattern I remember from my school days. So I just Once

a teacher, always a teacher.

Yeah. Exactly. Okay. Members of the public who wish to speak on a matter not on the agenda may do so during citizen comments and recommendations and will have three minutes to address the committee. Unless a different time limit is established by the chair, members of the public who wish to speak on a matter on the agenda will have three minutes to do so during the agenda item.

No speaker who has already spoken on an item will be entitled to speak to that item again. The committee welcomes comments including criticism about the policies, procedures, programs, services, or of the acts or omissions of the committee. Speakers shall not use threatening, profane, or abusive language which disrupts, disturbs, or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of a meeting. Statements or conduct that is hostile, intimidating, oppressive, oppressive or abusive is per se disruptive to a meeting and will not be tolerated. Is there anybody who can bear that warning and still come up and give a public comment?

Good morning, committee members. I'm Chris Benz with NAPA Climate Now, and I'm here to invite you all to the third annual NAPA Climate Summit. And this year, we're including a job fair. The you'll all be receiving an electronic invite as well, but we wanted to invite you in person. The summit will take place on Wednesday, March 12 from four to seven at the Napa Valley College Little Theater.

This year's theme is called Investing in Our Future, and we are focusing the program on high school students and young adults. And the program will feature a keynote speaker, Tyler Brown from MCE, who works with their youth programs, and a panel of climate leaders, including state senator Chris Cabaldon, Supervisor Joelle Gallagher, Climate Analyst Deborah Elliott, and Mario Landaris from the Napa Valley Unified School District. The program will last for about an hour, and then it will be followed by a job fair with exhibitors who have training programs, paid internships, summer jobs, or educational opportunities that have a relationship to sustainability. So we hope we'll see you there. There's free pizza and free parking.

Pardon? Four to seven p. M. Thank you.

Kevin Miller, City of Napa, also City Of Napa County Napa resident. I got two professional and one more personal that I wanted to share. One, on March 17, we are going to have our annual recycling awards event. We co host this with Napa County. We have 30 winners, 21 in the city, nine in the county, and we look forward to that.

They all earned it. They will get recognition as well as a modest cash award. So we it's a positive recognition kind of celebration that we built into our contract. Then the other one I wanted to mention professionally is SB1383, which I think most of you are familiar with, went into effect in January 2022. The city of Napa submitted a plan because we've done this long enough, we knew that the education part takes a while.

But we kind of have a three year report on one of the key aspects and that's our commercial food composting route. And looking back at it, in December 2021, right before the law took effect, we had a 197 commercial entities. So it's not just businesses, it's schools, anything that's non residential.

And that year in 2021,

we collected and diverted 2,400 tons of food composting, which is a lot

of

material. This last year, December 2024, we had grown the program to three thirty seven stops and it was 3,800 tons. So that's a 1,400 ton, that's real action, that's you know, we're all concerned, you know, the short lived climate pollutants portion of organics and that's a one for one displacement that basically used to go in the landfill, now is going to composting. So we should take it's a lot of work, but it's nice to step back sometimes and celebrate actually pretty large victories. But we've got more to go, we're working on multifamily, but it's nice to step back sometimes and see the real progress so far.

And it came at a cost. We had to we added about $2,000,000 to our contract with Napa Recycling to attack this $2,000,000 a year in the long run to do everything that we need to do with that. And then the final one, it's kind of more of a on a personal note. Today is my twenty eighth anniversary working for the city of Napa. I started in 02/28/1997.

When I came, we were, as a city, measured the old fashioned way and we continue to measure it that way because it's a little more conservative, a little more accurate. We were at 27% recycling as a city. Today, using the same more conservative metrics, we're at 64%. So my goal is to get to 75% before I retire, but we've made a lot of progress and sometimes, again, I think it's good to step back and take a moment and realize how far we've come when we look how far we have to go.

Okay, thank you. Congratulations on your work anniversary and your successes. Please step to the lectern.

Forward march. My name is Yvonne Baginski, and I've been before you several times. I am currently in front of you as the founder of the Napa County Wildlife Conservation Habitat Coalition.

I want to

bring a few things to your attention. We have been working to collect data and get more information on wildlife habitat in our community. And a lot of things are coming to our attention. And one of the things that we're struggling against is what can we actually do to make change? And I'm looking at all of you because you're actually in the positions to make that change, not us.

We're the grassroots scuttling about going, the sky is falling, the sky is falling. Last week at our meeting, one of the participants mentioned that there is a huge collapse of the pollinating bees. It's so significant that they're worried whether or not there's going to be enough beehives for the almond trees this year. We have a huge collapse of the salmon population that was announced yesterday on NPR. It is the third year where they're not going to have any fishing.

It is worse than the previous two years even though the salmon were protected. And we also all know that this was the lowest Monarch butterfly count we have had since 1997. There were less than 10,000 overwintering butterflies in California. Now I'm looking out at all of you because there actually are things you can do as city councilmen and mayors and supervisors, and that is you can make steps to help raise the awareness in our community. The Fish and Wildlife Service has announced the National Wildlife Federation has announced a Mayor's Monarch Pledge asking mayors throughout the country to sign a pledge with very specific things that you can pick to do.

And there's over 50 of them on this list And they're simple. And you can pick three of them and have the mayor say, we are committed to no longer eliminating milkweed in our communities or planting more milkweed. There's 30 different things they can do. This aligns with the state of California that recently chaptered legislation that says in 2027, state buildings and city buildings and HOAs and schools are no longer going to be able to use potable water to water nonfunctional land. So they're saying there's going to have to be a huge overhaul on the kind of vegetation that's being planted in front of our Board of Supervisors' grass in front.

And they're saying this is by 2027. I have a copy of the chapter legislation. It is Chapter eight forty nine Assembly Bill fifteen seventy two. It was passed and published on October 2023. It goes into action on 2027. This is something public work directors and people who are involved in landscaping management should be looking at because they are going to have to change the way the water is coming out on those nonfunctional plants. Those are just two things that can be done that I'd like to bring to your attention. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Are there any comments, public comments online?

We have one caller. Larry, you will have three minutes.

Welcome back to you. It's okay.

Oh, hello. My name is Ian, and I'm a marketing rep for Electrify My Home. I just want to say that we're hosting a free educational webinar two weeks from now on Saturday, March 15 at 11AM. It's called heat pumps one zero one, and it will cover how heat pumps work, why they're a more climate friendly alternative to gas appliances, and how to avoid costly mistakes when making the switch to electric. Electrification is one of the biggest steps homeowners can take to cut emissions and move toward a more sustainable future.

And this session will be led by our CEO, Larry Waters. He's an electrification expert with forty plus years of HVAC experience, and he's helped hundreds of homeowners transition to energy efficient systems. Anyway, there's more details and registration at our website, electrifymyhome.com. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Sir, sorry. Lectern is yours.

Good morning. My name is Adam Pina and I'm with the Michoacopal tribe. And today I'd like to speak about the dryness of the rivers or the river, Napa River. If you could possibly get that picture up, I really appreciate that. When groundwater is overused and cause a river to dry up, the primary effect includes reduced water availability for drinking and irrigation for farmers, loss of aquifer I mean, of aquatic habitats, disruption of ecosystems along the river, land subsidence, ground sinking due to depletion of aquifers, damage to infrastructure like roads and buildings and potential increased solidity salinity and remaining water sources, all of which can significantly impact human populations and environment depending on severity of depletion.

I have five key notes, key points about effects of depleted groundwater on river. One, reduced river flow, as groundwater levels drop the base flow of a river, the constant water supply from the aquifers also decrease leading to significantly lower water levels and potentially a dry riverbed such as this in certain sections. Number two, impact of aquatic life. Reduced water levels can severely affect fish and other aquatic organisms leading to population declines or even local extinction due to lack of habitat suitable water conditions. Three, degradation of wetlands.

Many rivers feed into wetlands which are highly sensitive to changes in water flow. A drying river can lead to destruction of these vital ecosystems. Four, land subsidence. When large amounts of groundwater are withdrawn, the soil above aquifers can compact and cause the land surface to sink potentially damaging infrastructure like roads, buildings and canals. Number five is economic impacts.

A dry river can severely impact economic activities that rely on water availability such as agriculture, tourism, and hydropower generation. I just wanted to share that and I'm hoping that you all can hear me today and that possibly we can do something about this dry river. Thank you.

Thank you. Please to the lectern.

Hello. My name is Desiree Harp and I'm from the Michoacopo tribe and this picture makes me really emotional because I was with my uncle Adam. And when we were there, we couldn't hear any birds. You couldn't hear the biodiversity that's normally in these places. And, you know, when I'm oftentimes walking down these places that are supposed to be so beautiful, a lot of the times our native plants are all dry and dead on one side, and then on the other side you see these green, lush wineries.

And so I just wanted to talk about how this is really not just me up here talking. This is really a matter of life and death that we're talking about. Because when, you know, there's no more salmon in the river, they say that human beings that we're gonna decline also. Right? And we don't understand the way that everything in the ecosystem is interconnected.

And a lot of the times when we're talking about climate change, we're not talking enough about nature place based solutions. And so everyone knows that indigenous peoples, that nowadays everybody's talking about our controlled burns, but that's only talking about the fuel reduction. It's not actually talking about saving our food, fibers and medicines. When we have our cultural burns, that makes it so that way we're paying attention to not only what we're taking away, but what are we putting back into the ecosystem. And so it's really important that we protect the biodiversity.

We understand the way that all of the plants and the animals are interconnected in this ecosystem. And for a long time, nobody was listening to the indigenous peoples. And they said, you guys don't know what you're talking about. And now we're seeing these devastating impacts, these huge wildfires that are killing people, and it's because no one listened to us. And so now I'm here saying, can you please listen to the indigenous peoples?

Can you please listen to what we're saying about making sure that we are growing native plants that actually retain the water? I mean, even something as simple as putting more charcoal into the ground can actually not only help to retain water, but it also helps to filter out water. And so there is so much knowledge that we have, and there is so many people that can just take the time to understand how to restore our our ecosystems. And, yeah, I just don't want us to keep repeating the same mistakes that we've made in the past. And I I I want us to to to think when we're thinking of land three things.

Like, is it beautiful? But also, is it abundant? Are there foods, fibers, and medicines for human beings as well as animals? And thirdly, are we looking at plants that are both drought resilient and fire resilient? Because these natural disasters are going to continue to occur. And so we need to be able to save our native plants. We need to be able to save our oak trees. We can't keep cutting down the oak trees. We need to be able to save our wetlands. Please, I'm begging you to save the biodiversity in this place and to stop destroying our entire way of life.

Thank you.

Chris Malin. I'm the Executive Director of the Institute for Conservation Advocacy Research and Education. And we've been studying and monitoring rigorous scientific monitoring of the Napa River watershed from year 2000. And in 2021, we did a total basin monitoring program doing water assays, benthic macroinvertebrate sampling, and for the first time ever, a comprehensive algae study. And our results show for these twenty years that the Napa River health is declining.

And one of the big reasons is dewatering picture of the Napa River at the Pope Street Bridge. And we walked all the way to Zinfandel Bridge, and we started to get stagnant pools just before Zinfandel Bridge, and this was in the fall of this year. And this has been happening, especially in this area because there's a lot of groundwater pumping. During drought, vineyards get 80% of their water from the ground. When you lower the groundwater table, it causes drying of the plants and causes the forest to become brittle.

So there's a lot of dying of the plants along the Napa River because it's being dewatered. And, you know, when you see that, you're killing all the aquatic life. There's no more California freshwater shrimp, more Chinook salmon, no more steelhead, no more western pond turtle. But it also kills the terrestrial animals because they can't get to the river for water. And it takes away beneficial uses to humans and tribal beneficial uses that Desiree so eloquently spoke of.

Now, you do have some leverage here in the Climate Action Plan, which would be to seek out nature based solutions. And I have heard you ask staff to come up with projects. Thank you for that. But I don't see them coming around. One of the things that is kind of a no brainer is that to actually get your staff to enforce the riparian setbacks on projects.

I see a lot of slack sort of not very rigorous protections when projects come through. They may say the project can't start within the 35 foot setback on the valley floor, but then you don't have any native plantings going on there. It's just like bare ground. So I think projects could come through that are sensitive, and that could be a nature based solution. But we have other options as well that could be nature based solutions. And I'd like to see them come through to you so you can consider them. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any other public comments? Okay. We are no more online?

We have no other callers.

Okay. We will close initial public comments. And the next item on the agenda is the consent agenda. Are there any public comments specific to the consent agenda item? Seeing none, unless there are corrections, I'd like to hear a motion to adopt the consent agenda.

So moved. Second.

Okay. Motion by member Alisio, second by member Navarez. All in favor of the consent agenda? Aye. Motion carries.

This is the time when I turn the page of my agenda over. So we now have administrative items five, and we'll start with administrative item 5A, a presentation video, why bidirectional EV charging is a big deal.

Earlier this year, a California bill was introduced that would require all electric cars sold in the state to feature bidirectional charging by 2027. Now months later, that bill was gutted, but not before it sparked a whole lot of discussion amongst experts and legislators, big promises from automakers to support the technology, and questions from consumers like you. Not the least of which is, what the heck is bidirectional charging and why should you care? Simply put, bidirectional charging is the ability to pull the energy in your EV's battery back out through the charging port so you can use it outside of the vehicle. But before I can dig into how that works, let's talk a little bit about how regular EV charging happens.

You see, the cable that comes out of the wall isn't actually your EV's charger. The real charging hardware lives deep down in here in your car's electronic guts where it acts as a rectifier converting the alternating current that comes through the grid and out of the wall into direct current that your EV's battery can store. However, most electric car vehicle motors use alternating current to move the wheels, so you need that hardware to also act as an inverter to convert the DC energy back into chug chug alternating current to turn the wheels. But what if instead of sending that power to the motors, the EV just sends it back out of the charging port? That's bidirectional charging where power flows in two directions through the charging port.

And an EV that features this capability can be used to power, well, a whole variety of things. Now there are a couple of different flavors of bidirectional charging with the most basic being vehicle to load. Usually, what you get is an adapter like this v to l adapter that comes with our long term Kia EV six. You plug this into the charging port, and on the other end, you've got a standard 120 volt house type outlet. You can just plug pretty much whatever you want into there from appliances to camping gear.

Heck, you can plug a charging cable in and charge a whole other EV, though. It's gonna be a pretty slow charge. Some EVs, like Ford's f one fifty Lightning or GM's upcoming Ultium platform electric trucks, can output up to 240 volts, allowing them to power even heavier gear. The next step is vehicle to home or b to h or vehicle to building in the case of commercial buildings. These are more rare here in The States and much more expensive to implement, but a few early pilot programs allow an EV to connect directly to a home central power box where the house can draw energy from the battery pack to power every room in the building for up to a week depending on your energy use and the size of your EV's battery.

Vehicle to grid is the final frontier requiring deep integration with local utilities, but this tech allows an EV to send energy outside of the home to the grid in an emergency or to sell excess stored energy back to the grid during times of peak use. One of the best potential vehicle to grid uses I've seen are electric school buses, which could use their big batteries while sitting idle during morning and afternoon routes to power school houses or reduce brownouts during peak evening draw. Cheerleaders for bidirectional charging cite all sorts of advantages to the tech, from the ability to power a campsite, worksite, or tailgate party wherever you happen to be parked, to adding energy security to your home in an area prone to blackouts and brownouts. Heck, it doesn't even cost that much to add the technology to the car because most of the hardware is already built in. Bidirectional charging can also save you money, working as an energy buffer between your home and a rooftop solar installation or allowing frugal homeowners to shift their energy usage, drawing and storing power from the grid during cheap off peak hours to be used again when rates climb later, a sort of buy low, use high energy market right there in your garage.

Of course, the technology isn't without its drawbacks. For starters, vehicle to home only works when your vehicle is connected to your home. So if you have to go to work during a blackout, well, you could be leaving your family in the dark. Also, currently, it's very expensive to get your home ready to accept energy from your car's battery. Oftentimes, the price rivals that of stationary power solutions like Tesla's Powerwall.

And finally, there aren't that many cars in America that support bidirectional charging, and the ones that do are pretty much limited to vehicle to load party tricks, though that could change as more automakers get on board with the tech. So there you go. A quick primer into bidirectional charging, how it works, and what it can do for you. If you're still curious, we've got even deeper dives into EV charging tech, both uni and bidirectional over on cnet.com as well as a running list of the best EVs that feature the tech.

Thank you. Are there any public comments on the presentation online?

We have no callers.

Okay. Comments by members? Seeing none, we'll move on to the next agenda item, B. And this will be a presentation and discussion, the fiscal impact Napa County Regional Climate Action and Adaptation Plan CEQA Approach Memorandum.

Yes. We should have our consultants, Eric DeCock and Jessica Babcock, online who will be presenting the item. I'll just give a brief introduction. We have some new members who may have been paying attention for the development of the Regional Climate Action Adaptation Plan. But just a quick high level overview, we've completed several intermediary technical documents, starting with a greenhouse gas inventory and short lived climate pollutant inventory and carbon sequestration and stock analysis for the county wide and several technical documents looking at adaptation measures, greenhouse gas mitigation measures, and technical documents looking at the steps that we can take to actually reach our greenhouse gas emissions targets.

It's been a long process. We started in January 2024. Here we are in February 2025. We are still working with the consultants and subconsultants on the cost and funding analysis of the mitigation and adaptation measures, which will likely be concluding soon as well as the our consultant's ascent working on the administrative draft plan for public release later this year. And this item will be introducing the CEQA environmental review approach that we will be taking.

There are a few options that Ascent will be presenting on, but these are the next steps. This will be the next step in producing a plan that will be CEQUA qualified, meaning that we can use these, use the plan to help streamline development projects or the measures in the in the plan to streamline those those projects and ensure that those are not, causing any environmental damage or harm. With that, I will hand it off to our consultants, Eric and Jessica. Are they online?

Alright. Yes. Thanks so much, Ryan. Good morning, chair and members of the committee. My name is Eric Decock. I'm the project manager for the Napa County Regional Climate Action and Adaptation Plan for the Ascent team, the consultant team that's preparing the plan and has prepared the memo that you'll be discussing today. Before I go any further, Greta Brownlow from our firm is actually gonna be leading most of the presentation. So, Jesse, I believe that we gave Greta's email address to the clerk. But if not, maybe you can do that briefly, before we pull up the presentation.

Alex, do you see her name on the line? Can we add her as a panelist? Sorry. Sorry about that, Eric. I got my consultants mixed up today.

Thank you so much. I see Greta on the screen now. So I think we can proceed. I'm not gonna make a long introduction here. We're just here to present this memo, and I know that Greta is working on pulling up the presentation, so I'll give her a moment to do that. But Greta will be leading most of the presentation. Greta and Jessica were the authors of this memo along with myself, and there are environmental practice group leaders for the secret tasks for the project. So I'll hand this over to you, Greta, to lead this presentation.

I apologize. I'm just having trouble pulling up the presentation and simultaneously being able to unmute myself. So let me try that again.

And, Jessica, if you're having any technical difficulties, I we have your slide. Oh, looks like they're coming on.

Okay. Are you able to see my presentation?

Yes.

Okay. Great. Alright. I'm sorry for the logistical delay there. So as I I'm Greta Brownlow.

I'm also with Ascent. I'm our senior environmental director, out of our Bay Area office. And, as Eric mentioned and others, previewed, we're gonna go ahead and discuss briefly, the need for, CEQA compliance for the RCAP and some potential, CEQA compliance pathways and sort of the the pros and cons of those, and then go ahead and and wrap up in the end, with some, additional considerations, and then Eric will take back the mic and talk about next steps. Okay. So first of all, why does the R CAP require environmental review?

So, for those unfamiliar with, with CEQA, the anything that's defined as a project, something that requires a discretionary action, by a public agency and that could have physical environmental effects, is defined as a project. And so that the RCAB would fall into that that category. So adoption of the plan by local jurisdictions and within the j JPA would would constitute a discretionary action for those public agencies that that are part of the JPA. And as we'll discuss in in this presentation, implementation of the measures and actions that are part of the RCAT could have physical environmental effects. So this puts us in the category of needing to look at the potential impacts of implementing the plan.

The the project would be considered the for CEQA purposes would be considered the whole of the action. So the whole comprehensive program of complementary actions that are proposed as part of the plan. There are 46 GHG reduction measures along with 40 adaptation measures, some of which could result in either direct or indirect environmental effects. So the assumption is that all for for this program, this comprehensive program of measures and actions to do their job of reducing GHG emissions to the the established targets, they have to be considered together as a suite measures and actions so that the GHG emissions reductions and climate adaptation outcomes can be achieved with within the region.

Greta, would you mind putting it in in presentation mode just to enlarge it a little bit for us?

Thank you.

I'm sorry. I thought I didn't realize it wasn't. There we go. Good now?

Yes.

Okay. Perfect. Skip ahead. Okay. So one of the purposes of CEQUA is to inform decision making.

So to help decision makers who are gonna be approving a project and adopting or certifying an environmental document to understand what the potential physical environmental effects of an action would be. So the CEQA document would be evaluating and disclosing those physical environmental effects of implementing the the RCAP measures. So these bullets below are just a few examples of the types of measures that could have either direct or indirect effects on the environment. So things like landfill modification, retrofits to historic structures for energy efficiency, construction of things like detention basins, firebreaks, resilience hubs, also things like upgrading, or relocating infrastructure subject to flooding, installation of things like erosion control measures, or construction of floodgates or barriers. These are just a few examples, again, of the types of measures that are proposed in the R CAP that could actually have physical environmental effects.

So that's what essentially what the environmental impact report evaluates. The whatever document is prepared would identify potentially significant environmental impacts, again, of of implementing those measures and then would propose appropriate mitigation to reduce or avoid any potential environmental impacts. So the idea is that the member agencies of the JPA that are implementing the programs and specific projects that are detailed in the measures and actions of the RCAP would be able to rely on a programmatic assessment of the impacts of those measures. So the again, the whole of the action is the RCAB. All measures and actions for GHG reduction and for resiliency would be evaluated, and where those measures and actions would require future discretionary action at the at the local level, environmental and future environmental analysis could tier from this programmatic document.

So meaning, you know, at a high level, maybe we're gonna we'll you know, retrofit of historic structures for instance or installation or relocation of certain infrastructure. These won't be specific projects, location specific projects or jurisdiction specific projects necessarily, but they'll at a at a broad level, at a programmatic level, analyze the types of environmental impacts that could occur so that later when agencies go back to implement specific projects in in specific locations, they can rely on and tier from this this programmatic document. So where measures and actions would would require that that action, they they can use this as a tiering document either by demonstrating that those projects are within the scope so that all of the potential environmental effects were adequately analyzed already in the program level document or or if they do have to do if jurisdictions do have to do specific future environmental review, that review could be focused and and just focusing on topics or that were not adequately analyzed or where the project is is different enough from what was already analyzed in the programmatic document. So what are the benefits of doing this for the the purposes of streamlining the analysis of GHG emissions?

So it's codified in the CEQA guidelines. So this the CEQA CEQA has a statute, and then has guidelines that tell us how to implement the statute. And codified within that is this idea of a CEQA qualified GHG reduction plan. So that's what we are proposing to produce. And what that does is that provides technical requirements related to inventory forecasts and achieving reductions that align with targets.

That's kinda what the R CAP does. Also includes a requirement that the plan is, quote, adopted in a public process following environmental review. So it's explicitly described within the CEQA guidelines that environmental review is required for a plan to be considered a qualified CEQA GHG reduction plan, and it also spells out as as is detailed here the the types of information and analysis that need to be provided in order for it to be considered CEQA qualified. How this streamlining works and why it makes it beneficial for future projects that that are proposed within any given jurisdiction is that because the RCAP evaluates and mitigates existing and forecasted greenhouse gas emissions within all of the member jurisdictions and the effects of implementing those measures and actions necessary to mitigate GHG emissions have all been document documented pursuant to CEQA as required. Projects that are consistent with the growth forecast assumed in the RCAP and all the applicable GHG reductions measures would not have to conduct project level GHG analysis.

So again, not everyone here is intimately familiar with CEQA, but for larger projects, especially that, you know, can can have substantial GHG emissions, it can be quite a task to develop project specific GHG reduction analysis framework. The the methodology can be a little bit complex and take a little bit of time. So this is a a shortcut essentially such that if projects that come in under the RCAP were already assumed under growth forecasts within the the the member jurisdictions and they they meet they're consistent with the GHG or the applicable GHG reduction measures, future project level analysis is not required. So some of the CEQA approach options that we outlined in our memo, and I'll describe briefly here. The first option is obviously the most expedient, but not entirely realistic.

Either no CEQA review or an exemption. So as I just detailed, the CEQA guidelines spell out that in order to be able to streamline GHG analysis for projects that come in under under the RCAP, there has to be CEQA review. So we would not be meeting that requirement if CEQA review is not done. Also, there's not that streamlining ability in the future, obviously. And then with respect to potential exemption from CEQA, there just aren't any applicable categorical or statutory exemptions that that would apply to allow this to be a pathway.

Another option we looked at is, what's called an initial study mitigated negative declaration. The initial study is essentially a checklist that we go through to determine what the environmental effects are, and then the finding is is that we can mitigate most of those impacts or excuse me, all of those impacts and adopts a mitigating negative declaration. It's a little bit quicker than, say, doing a full environmental impact report. Given the lower standards for review and public participation, it's just a more expedient process, and it's a little bit less expensive. The downsides to such an approach, though, are that the negative declaration mitigated negative declaration has a different standard of review if challenged in court.

So it relies on a fair argument standard so that if anyone came and said, you know, there's a fair argument that there could have been environmental impact that we did not identify or that someone didn't think was adequately mitigated, the challenge the the plaintiff or challenger would have a better leg to to stand on given the standard review. It's also there's also some uncertainty going into this process of preparing this document, so you have to kind of assume that you're going to be able to mitigate to less than significant all of the potential environmental impacts. And you could go down this path and then get to a point where you realize, oh, shoot. We actually aren't sure we can mitigate all the impacts, so then you have to kind of about face and prepare an EIR anyway. Another option is an initial study and then development of a programmatic environmental impact report.

This this can help to by preparing an initial study upfront, so it's an initial checklist of potential environmental effects. You can focus the preparation of the programmatic EIR, so where there's really likely to be significant impacts in areas such as GHG or air quality, biological resources, or cultural resources, just for example. It is also highly defensible. This there's a the standard of review is substantial evidence, so courts will defer to the lead agency's, findings generally if they've gone through the the correct process and provided substantial evidence for their findings. Challenges with this is that it takes a little bit longer.

It's kind of a two step process, so there's a step before you actually get into preparing the EIR, and it's also more costly and labor intensive than an ISMND, initial study mitigated negative declaration. Lastly, a programmatic would provide a a complete and thorough analysis of all of the potential impacts. So we go mostly topic by topic. However, some topics could be screened out still from detailed analysis even without preparing that initial study. We just incorporate that into the EIR in a different way.

Also, it's highly defensible, easy to come back and, you know, do an addendum or subsequent analysis on an that that remains under that EIR, you know, standard of review. So the substantial evidence standard of review. Challenges are that it's it's obviously more cost costly, labor intensive, and, you know, takes more time to prepare than in ISM and D. And then lastly, we could do kind of a an analysis that shows the not only the overall programmatic effects of all of the measures and actions across all jurisdictions, but also where applicable does sort of a jurisdiction specific analysis. So it's it's the most kind of supportive of jurisdiction specific implementation potentially, and it's it remains highly defensible because it's an EIR.

It's challenging because it's it's even more costly and labor intensive than just programmatic EIR that covers all the measures equally, in in terms of their impacts equally across jurisdictions. And it can also result in kind of a long duplicative document. And most importantly, it's likely not needed since most, if not all, of the measures that are proposed in the RCAP are actually applicable across all jurisdictions, so the analysis would end up being duplicative. So as we conclude in in the memo that we prepared, our recommendation would be the preparation of a programmatic EIR. Again, a highly defensible document that that gives deference to the findings that the that lead agency and responsible agencies make.

It would take approximately a year, all all told. It covers all of the required resources areas in a single document and maximizes the the potential for tiering. Again, this would allow tiering for future projects that were were were measures and actions were analyzed at a high level. And if there's once there's specific projects proposed within different jurisdictions, the document could be used for streamlining in that way. It also gets used for streamlining for specifically for GHG emissions, and the standard of review remains the same for any subsequent documents.

It's also necessary. We we have to prepare an EIR if we come up with a finding during the course of the process that there would be significant and unavoidable impacts. So you in order to do the lesser level of document, an initial study mitigated negative declaration, you would need to be able to absolutely mitigate to a less than significant level all of the impacts, and this leaves room to account for any uncertainty. So during the course of the process, we're doing our analysis and we and we figure out that, you know, an impact is gonna be more severe than than we thought, and we don't really know how to mitigate it. We we have some cover for that.

Just some additional considerations in terms of how this all as a process works and and how how this gets adopted. So our proposal is that the the Napa County would take the lead as the lead agency and that the other jurisdictions within the JPA would would act as responsible agencies. So what that means is that all those other agencies would be actively engaged throughout the process in scoping preparation and review of the environmental document and potentially conduct targeted outreach within their own jurisdictions. This this kind of organization we think is gonna facilitate a more cohesive and and streamlined process for the preparation of the document and for certification ultimately of the environmental document. So the idea being again that all the responsible agencies are actively involved.

This is their document for the for the purposes of their approval. So there's only one document, and then there's just approvals by each agency via their preferred method, whether that's a resolution or ordinance or whatnot. So few key key takeaways before I hand it back to Eric to close it out. Cooperation among agencies is is gonna be essential. As I mentioned upfront, the RCAP represents a suite of measures and actions that all work together to reduce GHG emissions to get to a a specified target.

So if everyone doesn't participate and doesn't remain engaged throughout the process, it compromises, the the findings and the the ability to achieve those targets. You know you know, no jurisdictions portion of the r RCAP would have full independent utility, from the remainder of the RCAP. And, again, just reemphasizing that if anyone drops out, if any jurisdiction does not adopt and implement the RCAP, it jeopardizes the the region wide effort to achieve, the GHD reduction targets. And, every every jurisdiction needs, you know, an evaluation of the whole project, so we consider the whole of the action in CEQA. So without not piecemealing and talking about, you know, measures and actions implemented separately in different places, but again, as a a suite of reduction measures and resiliency measures.

And in the end, the benefit is that, you know, each jurisdiction does have the ability to utilize this document for its own streamlining purposes, relying on the highest the high defensibility of of a programmatic EIR. Eric?

Thank thank you, Greta. I'll be brief here. Our next steps are really to allow you to sit with us today and ask us questions and deliberate amongst yourself. We also know that this memorandum makes a recommendation that you'll need to discuss with agency leadership, after this meeting, so we've discussed that with the staff. We'd love to see you identify your preferred approach.

And then, of course, at the next meeting in March, confirm what approach has been selected by the member jurisdictions. Ascent will, upon notification that there's been a selected approach, begin working on a scope and cost that's more detailed. Obviously, we've only provided high level order of magnitude cost ranges, to date, but we are, able to begin preparing a more detailed scope and cost for the selected sequel approach. We are actively also working with staff on preparing a public draft regional climate action adaptation plan. We're in the final stages of producing an administrative draft that will be going through agency reviews, hoping to get that out on the street for public review and begin public engagement again in the late spring, early summer time frame.

So we're excited, to be closing in on that, very soon in the next few months. And then, of course, once the decision is made, contracts executed, amendments executed, we would begin environmental document preparation in the 2025. So that concludes our presentation. We're happy to take questions or comments. Thank you.

Thank you. Let's begin with public comments. Are there any public comments on this? And please, everyone remember the three limitation.

Chris Spence. That was a very interesting presentation, especially because the benefit of a CEQA qualified plan is that it allows developers not to have to do a CEQA. However, what we just heard is in order for that to work, all of the jurisdictions have to adopt all of the measures. That may not be possible because, for example, some of the measures are retrofits to buildings. That may not be financially possible for many of our smaller jurisdictions.

So, you know, I thought, oh, programmatic, that sounds great, until I look at what's actually going to be capable what parts of the plan are going to be capable for us to do as individual jurisdictions. So, you might want to look at something that is less than the programmatic. Even though it won't be as strong, it might be more applicable to our situation. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other public comments? Any online?

We have no callers.

In that case, let's move to member comments. Yes, Member Tripp.

Have more questions. So it and tell me either Greta or if I have this wrong, but it seems like we are working to get into a box, a sequel box that's specific to greenhouse gas reduction plans. Is that correct?

The only requirement for specific to sequel qualified greenhouse gas emissions is that there is environmental review under sequel. It doesn't specify what that review, what type of environmental document needs to be prepared.

Okay. So there's no particular advantage of that route? It's not a lesser review or a less stringent review or something along those lines?

It's not what we're recommending is the more I don't know if stringent is the word I'd use, but it's the more comprehensive environmental review and has the most opportunities for public engagement.

Okay.

Yeah. And we think it's the most defensible is what we're saying if you were to get challenged.

So I guess my question is, are there measures in the R CAP that would not it's not exactly, the same set. In other words, that could be not actually specifically related to greenhouse gas reduction or carefully or closely tied to greenhouse gas reduction. Or is everything that we put in our RCAP potentially fit within that box? And does it matter? I guess those are my questions.

Yeah. I'll let Eric elaborate if he wants, but just the simple answer is there's the measures are both for greenhouse gas reductions and also for resiliency.

Okay. So what you're proposing would cover all the things in our cap? Yep. Even those that Okay. And then I just wanted to follow-up on the question about local jurisdictions.

And I did look at your chart on Page 10, which was very helpful, showed the pros and cons of the memo. We're in a very small jurisdiction, and we may not be able either financially or for other reasons to do everything that everybody else wants to do. So my two questions are, is it true for the CEQA evaluation? Because this seems a little intuitively not makes a lot of sense to me, although that doesn't really matter with respect to the law, that if we dropped out of one of the measures, for example, that would tank the entire CEQA document? That would be question one.

And then my other question is if we strayed a little bit from one of the measures, adapted it more to our particular environment, are we then in the category of having to do our own EIR or some CEQA if not ER, some CEQA analysis? So those are my two questions.

Yeah. It's not I'll start with the last part, and then maybe we can talk Eric can help me sort of characterize how different jurisdictions might might implement differently, but it's not a problem to deviate somewhat to tailor the measures as long as you're there's the environmental effects are not greater. And if it's too different, then, yeah, you're not you're just not able to well, you're not gonna be able to realize if you're gonna if you're gonna implement something that's an actual, like, construction of a project, you're not gonna be able to maximize the ability to tier from the programmatic document because we're basically making assumptions about the types of of projects and activities that are gonna occur and analyzing at a high level the the environmental impacts of those. So for you know, you would be doing your own your own standalone CEQA document to implement a project that doesn't really match with what was analyzed in the EIR. So in that case, you're you're not benefiting as much.

In terms of dropping out of certain measures, I don't know. Eric, can you can you maybe address that one?

Yeah. Yeah. That's a good question. I mean, I I think the where we set up this regional plan and all the measures that you've already seen and commented on is that a lot of these measures are shared across all six jurisdictions. We're trying to create a level playing field where for creating a policy like we're gonna retrofit and decarbonize our entire existing building stock that all jurisdictions are gonna participate in that.

And there's been a lot of different policy mechanisms or, you know, implementing codes, education, outreach, incentives, financing that need to come together. So the hope is there's enough actions on the table that everyone is behind to continue the commitment to those policies embedded in the measures. If certain jurisdictions decide to opt out or pursue alternate compliance pathways, we'd have to revisit that. As this goes through public review, if there's a feeling that this might not be a one size fits all policy, we want granularity in how the implementation pathways are prescribed, we'd have to really look at that in terms of the public comments, the agency comments on the document, and then think about some adjustments before this document gets finalized. And of course, we want to make sure that we do that before the environmental review process process goes too far down the pathway.

So there's some trade offs to consider if that's what folks are concerned about. But, again, our assumption is that, all six jurisdictions are committed equally to the policies insofar as where we called out a policy, it does apply equally in all six jurisdictions. Well And I'll just lastly say there are some measures that only apply in the unincorporated county, you know, the more the landscape and more the rural measures. So, obviously, there are certain measures that not everyone is on the hook to adopt and implement.

Well, and I think I can only speak for my jurisdiction. I think we are committed, but when the rubber hits the road, there's a lot of considerations. And so my other question is, and it would seem that you would want us or it would make sense before we invest in this process to get an actual signoff by each of the jurisdictions on the RCAP, not just those of us sitting here, but an actual counsel, in our case, jurist. Sign off?

Yeah. That's I'll speak to that. That's correct. That's why we're introducing these options at this meeting and with the hopes that these can get on the agendas at your each of your hearing bodies in the next several weeks, and we can come back with decisions hopefully, a cohesive decision at the March CAC meeting.

So would we be signing off on the RCAP or signing off on the EIR approach?

On both. The CEQA EIR approach.

When will we sign off on the RCAP?

When we will look at the draft RCAP publicly later this year, hopefully, quarter by the '2, maybe early quarter three is the projected date right now. And that is when we will present it for consideration at each of the jurisdictions.

In essence, and then I'll stop because there's probably a lot of other questions, we would be embarking on the ERR. And this might make sense time wise before so we're studying an action, a plan, and its impact in EIR or CEQA analysis before the jurisdictions have actually agreed to it. Did I get that right?

I believe that's possible, Eric.

Well, if we don't see it until in other words, it's two separate steps and they could happen distinctly. That is right.

They could probably overlap. We could maybe start on the EIR with the draft cap. But, yeah. Eric, do you have any clarifying thoughts on that?

Yeah. I mean, I I think that's a good question. And, you know, the administrative draft review process will be a chance for all of the six agency staff to look at what's proposed in the document before it goes public. So there will be a chance for staff to weigh in and make sure everything that's on the page makes sense and is acceptable and has been vetted internally at the staff level. And then once that document goes public, we'll definitely bring it back for a CAC presentation right when the public review process has begun, so you'll get a chance to weigh in there. I'll probably defer to Greta in terms of defining exactly when we consider the project description complete. It's usually at the time that we have a public draft, or sometimes even at the administrative draft level. But, Greta, I'll let you define how we would approach it for this regional effort.

Sorry. So just to make sure I'm clear, the question is about publishing the plan or making the project description public?

My question is, I'm just sitting in the wondering when our town, not just me and my colleague Pam Reeds, would actually put their stamp of approval on the RCAP and the plan itself, which is what the impact will be studied under the CEQUA analysis. Whether we're going be approving the sequel analysis first or the plan first and when that would happen. That was my question.

Yeah. I've seen it done different ways. Like, plan but but if it's as a project that is being analyzed in the EIR, you could be, approving the actual plan at the same time that you're certifying the environmental document. So you could leave room before finalizing the plan for the EIR to inform that and for additional questions to to come up about these questions like, you know, the tailoring of specific measures and how, you know, how that all works and what flexibility we have within the plan to still meet the GHG reduction targets.

Thank you.

Mark, further comments? Yes. Member Painter. Oh,

Thank you. And we'll go to other members. So I'm actually probably one of the newer members of the Climate Action Committee, but I've followed the development of the RCAP pretty carefully and closely. I have also worked with CEQUA since '19 yes, I am on. Can you hear me?

Yes, it's better.

Since, gosh, for a long time, since 1984. So I and I hear and appreciate and understand we need to approach this really carefully because each jurisdiction is going to have a different timeline and a different set of ways to approach meeting mitigations based on community interest, based on cost, based on a lot of things that we don't really know yet. So I think that flexibility is going to be really, really important. And we're just here as members of the CAC, not as our entire councils. So I think that's a really important point to consider as we move forward and try to keep this cohesive and together.

But what I will say is from the question that's in front of us about how to proceed, I think the programmatic EIR is really the right direction to take. The one thing we know about what we're doing here is that the science changes almost on a daily basis, right? So we need to have a document that's going to give us that flexibility and the ability to work with it over time. And I think the programmatic EIR is the tool that will do that for us. For example, there could be mitigations that could be really terrific that we don't even know about yet because in three to five years, there'll be something else that's new on the table.

So kind of twofold. Number one, I think from a CEQUA and process perspective, the programmatic EAR is actually the right choice. There are questions. We're not signing off on the RCAP. We're not doing any of that today. So I want to try to provide that feedback. But my main question is, as we move forward, if it goes to a programmatic EIR, what is the process to incorporate new mitigations that we just aren't even thinking about today that could be really terrific in three to five years or whenever?

Yeah. I'm assuming what you're asking is to to implement new measures, new GHG reduction measures, and not so much new CEQUA mitigation measures. And the answer to that is that you can absolutely do that, and I think that is good does go to one of the benefits of a programmatic EIR because you can go back and if there's revisions to the project, you can either do an addendum to that programmatic EIR if there's no new or more significant environmental impact report impacts or if circumstances haven't changed too much such that new impacts would occur. You could do if there is gonna be new impacts and the need for new mitigation to implement those measures, you can do a subsequent or supplemental, EIR. And so and, again, those, you know, those subsequent documents will allow you to to utilize the analysis that was already done in the programmatic document to the maximum extent and also benefit from that substantial evidence standard of review if it's if your project is challenged.

Okay. Thank you. I I think that's a good direction, and it sort of makes us think about this document as what we all kind of think of as a living document, right, that is gonna continue to evolve over time, but we need to take some steps sooner rather than later to look at the sequel process. So and then the other thing that I think is really beneficial of looking at a programmatic EIR versus your other options is that potential to streamline projects at a future date for each of the jurisdictions. And but to be clear, I just think we need some comfort to know that each jurisdiction may implement policies on a different timeline, in a different set of priorities.

So if we could just clarify that we're not necessarily by moving forward committing to a particular timeline to get some of this work done, but more so creating a process so it can be done.

Yeah. I think it's definitely the latter. The idea of, you know,

all

adopting the, the projects or approving the project as the RCAP and certifying an environmental impact report at the same time is important. But in terms of, you know, subsequent actions, you know, there's the the ability to streamline future projects that require discretionary approval in each jurisdiction that just comes up when it comes up. There's no I don't I don't know exactly. Maybe Eric can speak a little more to implementation, the implementation portion of the RCAP and whether there's any any restraints. But in terms of, you know, when the sequel process is complete and then it's it's not, There's no timeline prescribed for when the measures get, implemented.

Yeah. We do when we all see the public draft cap, there will be implementation details for in terms of what the time frame is for implementation of certain actions that are nested under each measures. There are very specific steps outlined. So in some cases, there will be known time frames, and in some cases, it's a little bit longer term, and some of the steps are more sequential and are dependent. So as we think about potential future discretionary actions, some of that will be very apparent, and in some cases, it may just really depend on, the first initial actions, let's say, do a feasibility study. And once more detailed pathways are defined, then there may be more defined programs or projects on the table.

Okay. Thank you. I'll let others ask questions. Appreciate your input.

Member, Navarrez?

Navarrez. Navarrez. It's okay. It takes a little practice sometimes. Thank you,

Chair. Okay. I'm just totally messing up. It's okay.

Well, I have a couple of specific questions. The SINAPA, we recently adopted our general plan within the IR and others comments on there regarding GSG reductions. Have you looked at if there's any duplicity between other towns and the work that we've done? I mean, does that even matter? I'm just kind of thinking about some of the work that has already been done and what we're looking at here as far as the recommendations.

Also, looking at the three options, I know there's other options that are I know the recommendations of PEIR, but there's a couple others that are noted to be highly defensible. I don't see the cost on those other ones. I see the cost of 400,000. But can you also mention maybe a little bit of the cost on the other ones other recommend the not a recommendation, but the other ones on there.

Yeah. We did provide a cost for each an estimated cost for each of the pathways, pathways, I I believe. Believe. It. It. Okay. Okay. Let Let me me see if I can pull it up. And then maybe while I'm looking this up, Eric, is there anything you would note about? I think the first part of your question was about whether any of the measures in the RCAP could be duplicative or maybe even conflicting with work that each jurisdiction is already doing. Was that your question?

Yeah. And part of that question is because when we take it back to our local jurisdictions and we've done some work with EIR, I don't know what the other towns are on this, but are we going to duplicate any services, anything cost incurred and work already done if we're going to support this also?

Yeah. Thanks for that question. I mean, way I would respond is that as we were pulling together the proposed measures for the RCAP, we did work with city and county staff to make sure that we weren't working at cross purposes and anything we're putting on was additive or supportive of existing policy. So insofar as that policy review was done as we were pulling together the measures for the R CAP, that that was done in in concert with staff. I can't really speak to, like, the utility of your general plan EIR and, like, what measures were analyzed.

That's not a level of review we've done yet to look at prior analysis of similar measures. But I would probably say that if there was a general plan EIR just for the City Of NAPA, it would only cover environmental impacts in that jurisdiction. It didn't look at a county wide and again, I'm speaking without having reviewed your EIR in any level of detail, but that's what guess my response there.

Thank you. And as far as if, you know, this is implemented and the jurisdictions are following through with this, when there is a potential project, we have somebody that's looking to build commercial building, maybe retail restaurant, whatever that may be, what does that look for them as far as cost, defensible item and also mitigating whatever environmental concern? What does it look like at the user end, at the builder end, when it's in front of a council and looking at at this part of the project of a, you know, potential project?

Yeah. So the R CAP in those instances, when you're looking at streamlining the the analysis of GHG emissions on a project by project basis, it it really is focused on that one impact. So you're you're proposing a mixed use development or a commercial development that that is is through through likely a checklist that establishes consistency with the RCAP. So basically saying we're gonna develop you know, agree to develop this project in a way that's consistent with the measures and actions proposed in the plan. What that gets that project is it gets it a more streamlined analysis of greenhouse gas emissions.

So you're instead of doing a whole analysis, helping to develop a whole methodology for determining, environmental impacts and potentially doing modeling, and kind of a more lengthy expensive analysis of greenhouse gas emissions impacts, it's it's streamlining that. It's not we're we're not setting it up such that any, you know, development project down the road gets other tiering benefits, other streamlining benefits. The streamlining benefits for future projects on the ground only applies to those projects and actions related to implementation of the measures in in the RCAP.

Okay. So they still have to follow the other regulations, other the EIR? So we're not necessarily up in that area, just specific to this. And then as far as enforcing it, it sounds like because we're not an authority, we have to have each jurisdiction basically create put in their books in the ordinance or part of their development process and have each jurisdiction enforce it themselves for this to work.

Yeah. So each jurisdiction would would adopt the you know, certify the environmental document as a responsible agency and would adopt findings with respect to to what's in the EIR that's relevant to that jurisdiction. And then you whatever process, you know, you would you would decide to go to for approval of the project could be could differ from from agency to agency. And that's kind of a way to, you know, tailor how the plan is implemented for your jurisdiction.

Okay. Thank you. I mean, for me, there it seems like there's a few different options on there that could that are still highly defensible that looking at the costs, want to go back to our jurisdictions to review. But I think going through the RCAP first and then that, yes, there's probably a better option for me to be able to really figure out what we want to do with RCAP and how we want to fulfill these goals and then follow-up with this so we so it's better aligned. Because it seems like I'm going to have to review our EIR and if there are some duplicate work or maybe it's just more info for me to compare because if we're going to adopt anything at City of Napa specifically, I want to make sure that we're not doubling the work.

I don't necessarily want to say that the EIR, the PEIR is the best one if we have a segment that's going already addressing that, that maybe the IS and MND already, you know, could fill in some gaps. So those are things that I have to consider back with our team and our staff to really look at and make sure that we have the I can have the best recommendation. But great. Thank I you so

would say that an important distinction is kind of what Eric alluded to with regard to local measures versus what's proposed in the RCAP is that what's proposed in the RCAP is this, again, suite of measures that are all considered together when we model the the ability of implementation of all those measures together to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to a given target, and that and it's a regional benefit. Right? So I think there's a way I'm I'm I don't wanna speak out of turn, but it seems like there's probably a way to take some credit for what you're doing locally or intending to do locally already in terms of of your implementation of the RCAP, but that's something a bigger discussion, I think.

Okay. Thank you.

Member Reeves?

I just wanted to follow-up on Bernie's comment about the need before making a lot of comments here on the progression of how we're going to consent to all of these things that you're presenting as well as the RCAP which comes later, which is a little problematic for me to make a decision on the CEQA document. But I think it's really important for us to just listen and thank you for your presentation and take it back to our staff and our councils because there's a lot to discuss in what our responsibility will be and what our financial obligations will be and how we would progress through what comes out in the final RCAP. So I think it's premature for us to comment too much on it.

Member Alessio?

Thank you. And I think you make a really good point, Member Reeves. Everybody's made great points. Thank you, too, Member Painter. It's great to have you here and your many years of expertise. And I want to say for the record, it's great to be sitting with my colleagues here, former council members, and not be breaking the Brown Act. I love it. Know, we know this is is a priority for each of our jurisdictions, for the city of Napa, for each of our jurisdictions. We all made a resolution with the intent of doing our best to get to net zero greenhouse gases by 2030. The reality may force that to change, but I know that we all want to lean into this.

And as we set our jurisdiction priorities, we also want to make sure that that's in line with our budget as much as it can be. But also, as we've been mentioned, and thank you, and when rubber hits the road, it's like, what do we have in our budget, right, at the end of the day? Because what we say yes to, there will be things that we'll have to say no to. And that's just a simple fact, unfortunately. A quick question. If we don't move forward with the PEIR, does everything else kind of fall apart after that? Or what's your thought on that?

Yeah. In order for the plan to be considered sequel qualified, you do have to do some kind of environmental review pursuant to to California Environmental Quality Act, but you're not required to do an EIR per se. You could do another option. You could do a mitigated negative declaration. We're just, you know, for the reasons I've described, recommending the EIR approach.

Okay. I have to say, Anne, thank you again for your presentation, but it made me really nervous. It did. It made me what I heard, to be frank, is a lot of uncertainty and a lot of cost. And those two together put it kind of you know, I kind of pause on that.

So when I heard, you know, or hesitated, let's say. And so I do agree, we do need to bring it back to our experts in the jurisdictions, have all our planners look at this, because we need to know that we're going to have a return on this investment. We need to have a good understanding of what any potential unintended consequences could have on our economy, not just our economy in terms of our jurisdictional budgets, but what can it do to our economy, to our industry, to small business. I think that's really important, too. We talk about streamlining, is this going to streamline the process so they too can benefit?

I think that's just really important. I know we are all here committed to reducing greenhouse gases, to doing what's right, to protect our biodiversity, to do all we can to, you know, prevent climate change from getting worse here in Napa County in terms of our part of the global effort, right? But just a little feedback, that's kind of what kind of stuck on me. And I don't know if anybody else how anybody else felt about that, but it felt a little it made me nervous, to be frank. But I do appreciate you being forthcoming and presenting and being so transparent on the benefits and then also on the challenges.

I thank you for that. In terms of I want to you know, I always like to have other people generally I like being the first and saying we've had the courage and we've been the first, right, to do certain things that are really, really positive for the greater good. But I also I'm not much of a risk taker by nature, so I also like to know whether other jurisdictions have done this. Can you tell me are there other multi jurisdictions that have taken the RCAP and have taken this approach with the PEIR?

Yeah. To my knowledge, there's there's not another regional climate action plan that has been approved and adopted. There was one in Sonoma County, I believe, that was undertaken and got to a certain point. I I don't think I think it was political. I I don't know the details. May I don't know if Eric knows anymore, but I feel like it was political challenges more that more so than anything to do with the likely benefits of the implementation of the plan or efficacy of the CEQA process. You know, it wasn't challenged in court. It didn't even get to that point. It just fell apart for other reasons.

Okay. That's good to know. Well, I think that's reality too. And we are very different from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. There's not I what I think what makes Napa County so great is our natural beauty and environment and all those things, but that we are all very different.

So when you come to Napa County from American Canyon to Calistoga, you're going to have a very different experience. And the agencies within those have different priorities and challenges too. Just don't think we're really a one size fits all per jurisdiction is what I'm trying to say. So I do think as we approach this and we continue to present this to our colleagues at our different councils and board that we that we can somehow show that it can there is some flexibility. That there is, because we are so unique within us, even though we have this common goal and called to do all we can to reduce our greenhouse gases and CO2 for that matter.

My last question is really how often, if we went to move forward in every jurisdiction and said, you know what, this has a return on investment, this meets our goals, How often does this have to be updated? Is it just does it go within the same timeline as the general plan as our regional climate action?

I'll let Eric speak to the plan. The CEQA document does not need to be updated unless you make changes to the plan that would result in new impacts.

Yeah. Thanks for the question. I the cap will need to be monitored and updated over time in order to remain up to date and sort of continue to serve that SQS SQS SQS qualified streamlining utility. So we typically recommend that the update inter interval be anywhere from three to five years. A five year update's a nice interval, but we haven't necessarily nailed down those specifics with the staff. So you're asking a great question. And as we move forward in pulling the public draft RCAP together, we'll be weighing those options with staff. But right now, that's my general response as we typically see about a five year update at least, if not more frequently.

Okay. And I could see that the PEIR might need to also be updated and flexible just based on all the great innovation and changes that, you know, we'll see in five years. Look what we've seen since the last five years. So thank you very much for that, and I'll let somebody else chat.

Further comments? Yes. Member Tripp.

In thinking about this a little more, do now understand CEQA analysis you need to do before we take governmental action. So that makes sense to me that we are looking at CEQA before we formally adopt the plan. But in answer to kind of reducing risk, which I really resonate with, Would it be feasible for us to take back to our jurisdictions the draft RCAP and get sort of a conceptual blessing so that should we proceed with this investment? And I do agree, it was actually a very excellent and clear analysis of the pros and cons, we would have a little better feel for where we're going and making the investment. That would just be a thought I would propose, that we do I think it would have to be just a conceptual because you can't take government action before you've done the analysis.

But we would and maybe we need a lawyer. But anyway, that's just a proposal or a thought.

Yes. Member Painter.

You kind of took the words right out of my mouth. I was thinking exactly the same thing that and I'm thinking process, and I'm used to that, and that's okay. But I think we really need to look at all the mitigations that are already prepared and do some not just to our jurisdictions, but even to the community. You know, let's look at exactly what we're proposing in a draft format, and then we can enter into this process discussion with being a little bit more informed. That was a terrific point. Thank you.

Going back to Novas? Member Bernie?

Yes, sir. Thank you, Chair. Going back to a previous question about the costs, because I maybe it's like right in front of my face, I can't see it. I've gone through my notes, but I saw the range of 300,000 to $400,000 So before I go back to a jurisdiction, I just want to be clear what would be the cost of the ISM MND versus the ISPIR and so forth, because I see a range, but I don't see a specific one. So we're looking at the different ones, specifically the three highly defensible items. I'd like to be clear on the cost because I'm not seeing it here. Maybe it's in front of me and I'm not seeing it. So I just maybe it will

work Yeah. Looking back at the memo, I'm seeing we estimated approximately 90,000 for the ISMND, so the initial study mitigated negative declaration. And then the other estimates were, I think, the programmatic, as you just said, was 300 to 400,000, and then it would be a little bit more expensive up at probably up at that higher range, the the top of that range, about 400,000 if you wanted to do more and more jurisdiction focused analysis within the programmatic EIR. And that's to be clear, that's not each jurisdiction. That's the total cost of the process and documentation.

Thank you.

Any more questions? I think it's fairly clear there are a lot of concerns. There's no way that this group could right now give any kind of recommendations about which plan to go ahead with. We definitely have to take it back to our jurisdictions. We have to go over the pros and cons of each.

There were definitely concerns about what the order that jurisdictions will take in implementing various parts. There are concerns about what how that would affect the EIR, what level of the EIR would affect individual jurisdictions where there would be need to be additional help. So there are still a lot of questions. And I also have one comment about the draft RCAP. Well, I know that we're we're still awaiting a financial analysis to the jurisdictions on the R CAP and it'd be very hard for my counsel to vote one way or another on a specific issue or to give a direction without having that financial information.

So, I know I've been on this board an advocate for let's get going and get this done but I don't want our speed to get in the way of doing things right.

Yeah. I will just note and respond to a few comments and then just well, I'll get there. If we wait for the draft a public draft to come to to wait for a decision on CEQUA, it will continue to delay things, but if that is the direction of the committee and each hearing body, then we can work with Ascent and discuss with staff to look at those options. But it just it will be pretty significantly delayed for the the sequel qualification of this cap. That said, for for the logistics of the meeting, we are at 11:05, and we have a presenter for Item 5D that is here in person.

And I know this was one of the fiscal year priorities for this current fiscal year for the EV charging plan, our presenters here in person. Item 5C is also a budgetary item, so we wanted to present the CEQUA approach memo and following with the budget discussion. But we could we could move item five d at the discretion of the vice chair to before five c. I know we will be losing quorum probably slightly before 11:30 with the members from the city of Napa needing to leave, at which point we can take press we can take information items only with no follow-up discussion. So that's at the discretion of the vice chair.

My concern is that bypass there's we'll lose two members for the budget discussion and it's very uncomfortable not to have a we barely have a quorum. I might consider that we table the budget discussion because I would hate to shut out any members from that. I also want to take advantage of the people who are here to give a presentation, and I know that a lot of people here are looking forward to it. Do I have any thoughts? Yes.

Yes. Thank you. I'm just I'm going look and thank you for coming up Jameson too. I think there's a I'm not really certain what our next steps are based on this presentation other than maybe just having county staff reach out to each jurisdiction to talk to their planning departments, building planning environmental departments, to have initial discussion and then maybe bring it back. I know there's a time sensitivity there as there is in this moment for today's meeting. Does that sound like the approach that you would recommend?

Based on the discussion today, I do think that is an approach that we would recommend. And I would agree with the Vice Chair that we well, the timing and I might let my supervisor, Jamieson, speak on this, but the timing of the budget item is also timely for today's discussion so we can bring this back to for a final as we begin fiscal year budget preparations at each jurisdiction with an item finalizing the budget in March.

Let me just say, that budget discussion is the cost for this study. So it's very hard for, I think, for this committee to have that discussion when there's so much uncertainty at this committee. It's kind of got caught before the horse.

Absolutely. Me. Wow. My voice is gone. Absolutely. If I may, the we've made kind of assumptions in the budget about a direction for the CEQA memo. Obviously, we don't have to go that direction. We just picked kind of essentially the PEA the programmatic the PEIIP option because it had the higher price tags. We assumed, okay, let's this would be the worst case budget. The budget discussion item doesn't need to be a presentation per se, and I think there's more there than we can really have time to discuss anyway.

But I think if we can at least have the opportunity for staff to present that to you, just kind of this it's not complicated, honestly. It's pretty straightforward. Just to at least present that to you briefly, we understood already that you would all need to, you know, discuss that back with your own other staff and city councils. So we'd like to at least get that. I mean I'd love to do all these items. They're really all important. And Ari has come here from Berkeley and he's going to be here this afternoon to do a similar presentation to your staff. And anyway. But I would like to suggest we do the budget.

Okay. So I would suggest we do a the overview knowing that we will have continued discussion on some of the specifics later. So let's instead of continuing to talk about it, let's begin.

Absolutely. Jesse or Thank you to

the ASCEND team.

Mhmm. Okay. Thank you, Asat. Thank you, Greta. Thank you, Eric.

Thank you.

And thank you to the committee for a great discussion too, I think. That's what we wanted. So yes, I'll fly through these slides about the budget. As you know, the CEQA memo this is Jesse Gutierrez, sorry, staff liaison principal planner with PBES, staff liaison to the CAC now, along with Ryan. Okay.

So, yeah, so we're just I'm going to fly through these slides about the budget for fiscal year twenty twenty five against this proposed and estimated budget for the next year. As we know, the CAC priority for fiscal year twenty twenty five was to complete the RCAP, the Regional Climate Action and Adaptation Plan. And as we've just heard, the secret document is part of that process. It's kind like part two of the RCAP, and they do kind of work in tandem. But in addition, for this year, hopefully, we adopt the plan and kind of pick a framework for the CEQA document is to really kind of start working with the jurisdictions at a staff level, also to create how an RCAP can be implemented, obviously taking into account the differences in size and scope of how each jurisdiction is working on climate action and climate adaptation.

So, just off the bat, here we are in terms of staff from the county in terms of hours that would be allocated to working to staff the CAC, which means, like, administration, like what we do now, preparing the staff reports, working with ASANT, kind of managing that contract. So this is the breakdown of time and effort and hours based on previous work, but also on CAC anticipated needs. The committee had asked for more time, for more staff time, so that's included here, with the total budget at the very bottom there of staff time devoted to the CAC, to the RCAP and other sustainability tasks that would be could possibly come down from the CAC. So the final number is there at the very bottom. In terms of all projects, ongoing projects, staff time would work on energy code, the EV charging tool, which we've already kind of invested money in.

We put $10,000 as kind of ongoing for updates, but also presentations to different jurisdictions possibly. The Napa Climate Challenge is a recurring annual cost that the CAC has seen value in. And the big number, the sequel review, which is a big investment, but also we want you to take that back to your jurisdictions, to your council, to electives, to really discuss what makes the most sense for everyone. And again, the county staff time tier. And the total budget is at the very bottom, big number, dollars 697,278.

And this is the cost breakdown per jurisdiction. There is a formula in the JPA, the Joint Powers Agreement, that speaks to how this breakdown works with Napa County and Napa City taking a big bulk based on population and size. But here, you have the numbers and the breakdown of that grand total. And again, this is based on how Jamieson mentioned, the kind of bigger number for the PEIR, if we win with the bigger number. Obviously, there are ways to kind of finagle or work around our staff time if we want to reduce cost.

And also, I think working with Ascent to figure out if there are things from that arc, from that secret review that staff can take on or do to kind of bring the cost down. So, again, these are all conversations. This is just an estimate in proposed budget, and I'll leave that there for you all.

Brief comments?

Yes. I'm sorry. I'll just keep this super brief, and thank you for the presentation. Clearly, we're going to set the CEQUA number aside, which is the big number on that list. I think as this comes back a new person here, so I'll totally admit, I haven't followed the budget year over year over year, but it's grown since '20 since the formation of CAC, at least looking specifically at county staff time, by threefold.

So for me, as this comes back, what I would really like to see is not just a breakdown based on positions, but based on task, like a budget would tell you, this is how much we're spending on staff report preparation, CAC sort of the normal things you do, grant administration, I kind of see three four buckets. Completion of the R CAP, and that number may change. There was a fourth item on the list, development of options for a new organizational structure. Again, I'm the new person here. I don't know what that means.

I don't know what amount is allocated for staff time in that set of numbers. So as this comes back, I think it would be really helpful to get that comparison and also to look at year over year how the numbers have changed, which was kind of challenging to find that information. So and you don't have to respond to it. I know everybody wants to add and we're all quick. This budget and what's happening is becoming more complex, so we should really present it in more of a budget format that we're used to seeing. Thank you.

Further comments? Yes, Member Tripp.

Just I wanted to make a general I do completely agree with what Member Painter said, but I also just want to acknowledge a lot of really hard and dedicated work that I've seen on the part of staff. And moving us along is not an easy task. So thank you. And I hope you understand that we're responding to budget constraints that have nothing necessarily to do with the level of work and what a good assist you've given us. So thank you both.

Member Narvaya?

Thank you. Good job. Thank you. I actually agree with the task. I'd like to see that in a little more detail. There's a couple of concerns that I brought up in the last couple of meetings, and there's staff time and meeting here. We are all dedicated our time to be here, be very impactful in what we're trying to do. There has been a few times where I think we can be a little bit more aware of the kinds of meetings that we're having because some meetings have not been action items, have just been presentations. So I just want to be aware of how we're allocating some of the time or resources. So when we are here, we can be very impactful with being decisive and moving forward some of the progress that we're doing.

So, you know, possibly not having a meeting every month if there's no action items, right? Not being afraid to defer to a future meeting or make sure that we have something of an action item in the budget so we make sure every time we meet and we're utilizing these resources, both staff, money and time, that we're being very impactful with that. The other thing is, you know, and I do recognize the work from Napa County staff that's really helping us move along, but I also want to create an opportunity for discussion if there's staff at the city levels because the theme is we have a discussion here, then we go back to our jurisdictions, then we come back, right? And that takes a whole lot of time. So in the mix of the staff that's helping with this committee is an opportunity to bring in staff from other jurisdictions, right?

So it's not all Napa County. So just I don't know what that will look like, right? But just bringing that conversation so that way, when we go back to jurisdictions, it's not just members in the public, but they're part of the staff team. So most of it, I think at the beginning, that was the very the natural thing to do. But I think now that we're looking at larger budgets, significantly larger, and we have to go kind of this ping pong effect, there's an opportunity that maybe I'm just looking for more efficient and effective ways of how we're going to conduct the business moving forward to be more efficient and meet those goals a lot easier.

So it's just something to think about. And actually, that was it. Thank you.

Thank you. Further comments?

Thank you, Chair. Chair, you're doing a great job, by the way. I know Vice Chair, Okay. But your Chair for So on that note, and in terms of the question from Member Painter and the efficiency being requested by Member Narayas, In terms of the transformation that's being discussed, I think the opportunity to be more efficient and more impactful here is for us to consider being a joint powers of authority. We talked when this was first formed, we went back and forth.

And at that early time, it felt like it was best to go joint powers of agreement, which was kind of a middle way to go. But because of the budget, because of the impact, I do think we definitely want to have a discussion of making this a joint powers authority. So we'll be making the decisions here. Obviously, our staff for each of our jurisdictions, I know the city of Napa's staff member is always here. She's very involved. And not everybody has as much staff. I understand that. But it is upon everybody's jurisdiction staff to stay involved. Not for us to ask them to be involved or ask them to be here, but to stay involved and stay informed. And I think that they do.

We just don't see it maybe. But the discussion of a joint powers authority, I think, can actually help might help some of that efficiencies. In terms of I'm going to kind of defend my being chair formally. I really wanted to have meetings in staff knows this every month during my tenure as chair because there was so much information we need to learn about, cover, and daylight to the public. So that's why, you know, even if there was an action item outside the minutes, I thought it was really important not to skip meetings.

Because prior to that, we skipped meetings and we weren't creating momentum. And we've actually achieved a lot by having more meetings. So I'm going to defend that. The other thing I'm going to defend, and now I know because I'm on the other side of this side of the county. County has given far more time into what to create the Con Action Committee and the work they do to prepare than what they've been reimbursed for in the past.

And I think asking them to detail that is completely appropriate in that line item, in that budget item. So I think that's pretty much all I have to say in terms of I think the budget, in terms of having the discussion on the PEIR and the cost of that as you go back to each of the jurisdictions and talk to the planning and building, it's a good time to let them obviously, you'll let them know about the budget.

By the way, I concur with Member Painter's idea about what actually gets done, and I'm wondering if we're going to have a good discussion on the budget, if that can be provided to the members as quickly as possible rather than waiting until the week of the meeting. And I do look forward to a discussion of whether a JPA would be appropriate because I don't really have information about that. What we're left with is right now, we're going to be doing our best to bring the budget along with the CEQA back to our jurisdictions to get a direction from there that we can bring back here. There are no more questions or comments. Let's thank you so much for your presentation and let's move on to item d.

So I'll just introduce our, consultant Ari Birick Baal with UC Berkeley, and the Center for Law, Energy, and and Environment, who is the mastermind behind the EV equity mapping tool. And I will pass it straight to him.

Beautiful. Thank you so much Ryan and thank you all members of the committee. My name is Ari Balbirak. As Ryan said, I'm a PhD student at UC Berkeley and really excited to be presenting to you today on some of the work I've been doing on an EV equity roadmap tool which will I'll kind of get into this, but ideally aid in the selection and communication of sites for EV charging infrastructure. I'm going to do this kind of the Lightspeed edition which is good news for me because my goal here is to encourage you all to check out the tool.

It's publicly available. It's already up online. So rather than giving you the full comprehensive run through I'm just gonna tease it and you all have no choice but to check it out for yourselves. So I'll just briefly run through the context first which is the broader initiative that this roadmap is a part of. That's the EV Equity Initiative out of UC Berkeley Law.

I will very, very briefly demo the kind of public facing version of the tool. I'll run through some of the extensions of this public tool that I've created for Napa County specifically and then we'll show how those could be applied for a grant application that we've already actually sent out. I'd be shocked if there's time for Q and A but we'll see how it goes. So the EV Equity Initiative is kind of has sprung out of a collaboration between the UC Berkeley Law Center for Law, Energy and the Environment and the Energy and Resources Group which is an academic department at Cal. And the idea to briefly run through the motivation is that electric vehicles are a really critical part of decarbonization especially in

the short

term. Many people face barriers to charging at home particularly renters and multi family residents. And furthermore public charging availability has been shown to be kind of a key driver of EV uptake even for folks who have the ability to charge at home. There's a little bit of what economists call a coordination and network externality, what I think of as a chicken and egg effect where if there aren't very many chargers out there in the world people are less likely to adopt EVs but that makes the chargers that do exist less profitable to run. So if we can kind of kick start this with some public investment in charging infrastructure, you get more chargers out there, more incentive to invest in EVs and then suddenly you have more of a market for charging and get kind of a positive feedback there.

The EV Equity Initiative specifically focuses on how local governments and other stakeholders can incorporate environmental justice and equity concerns into these citing decisions and also facilitate the kind of communication of these decisions to communities and federal or state funding sources etcetera. So the mapping platform which is this kind of public facing tool, I have a very hidden QR code right there.

Yeah.

Sorry about that. Let me see Yeah, if that cool. Okay. Anyways, it's evmap. Climateplans.org which is reasonably easy to remember. So this is already up and out in the open and for the public facing component of the tool we had kind of three design criteria. One is that it would be data rich. So we specifically chose our kind of data presentation approach to cram as much data as we possibly could into an interface that would be relatively easy to use and straightforward to use. The next is that it's very flexible and able to be tailored to local contexts. So users actually select the criteria that they're gonna map to determine EV charging priority.

And this is really important because the needs might look very different from one community to another, but everyone can kind of use the tool in their local context to fit that local context. Finally, this publicly available version which is available at the URL here is publicly accessible, open to the public. And this means that we're kind of creating a common language. So jurisdictional staff can use the tool to determine a kind of priority location for an EV charger. But then a community member can go kind of check their work and make sure that they weren't just doing this to fit their own agenda.

And you know funding agencies, private sector kind of stakeholders can use the tool as well. So everyone's speaking the same language with these available data. Just to briefly run through the architecture I'm not going to go over all this text but we have kind of three component parts of the map to help users make these decisions. The first is priority pixels which are basically the who do we want to serve. So priority pixels can show things like existing charging deserts, areas where people don't have access to charging infrastructure, high density of renters and multi family residents, other demographic information, historical environmental justice burden, basically who do we want to with charging infrastructure.

Is superimposed with feasibility pixels which depict kind of constraints on the physical location of chargers. So primarily we have power grid constraints and then also funding resources. And the idea is you superimpose the who do we want to serve and the where can we deploy infrastructure to get a sense of areas to prioritize which can then be kind of combined with local knowledge and community engagement to figure out where it might actually be a strong candidate for charging infrastructure. Oh here. Yeah.

Good call. Awesome. Okay. Good call. So the last feature on the map is co location points which are additional points near which you might want to co locate charging infrastructure, things like healthcare facilities, public schools, public parks. And I'll dive a little bit into a specific co location point that I've done for the County Of Napa which is publicly owned tax parcels. Okay. Let's see. So I have the live demo kind of queued up here. And maybe I'll run through that because it is really interesting.

But again this is really just a tease. We won't be able to fully go through it. I'm giving a training to staff level employees later this afternoon so they'll get a much more kind of full picture. But let's say we pull up the city of Napa. So you can see here on this map these priority and feasibility pixels, priority in blue, feasibility in orange.

And let's say we want to install DC fast charging infrastructure which was kind of undertaken by the city of Napa earlier this year. We can say well we want to serve kind of underserved communities. So we can slide up this CalEnviroScreen composite indicator which shows environmental justice burden. And that should be loading. There we go.

So this now shows census tracts at the forty fourth percentile or above of CalEnviroScreen. We can look at charging deserts by sliding down the number of level two chargers that are accessible. Or because this was a DC fast or DCF charging exercise, we would slide down the access to DC fast chargers. Now in the city of Napa, pretty much all the DC fast charging infrastructure exists along that Highway 29 corridor. So you can see as you slide that slider down things that are closer to that highway start to disappear.

And we can slide up kind of density of multi family residents and renters. But the key here is that per this map, this particular exercise, we would want to prioritize this Terrace Shurtleff area of Napa. And so then what we can do here is zoom in and say, Okay, where could we actually put chargers? So for DC fast chargers if we want to put in two we need about 700 kilowatts of available load capacity from PG and E. And okay bummer we're not going be able to put a DC fast charger right in that community.

Is any of it eligible for a national electric vehicle infrastructure? No, that's only along the Highway 12. But IRS 30 C we could get some funding there. And so the thing we've realized especially if we kind of layer on some of these co location points is that actually putting a DC fast charger in Downtown Napa is a very reasonable candidate location. And so that's kind of exactly what we decided.

I'll skip through my backup here. But basically this location at 2nd And Coombs just across the street, a block away there, is the site that we applied for grant funding for. We can also layer on city and county parks and this kind of alternative site was not IRS 30 C eligible but could have been a good candidate location as well. It does have sufficient load capacity. So I'm sorry I know I'm a little over time already but I'll just briefly run through the ways that I've extended this for the Napa County Consent.

It's fine. Continue please.

Oh perfect. Okay. Thank you so much. So there are basically six things that I've done that are kind of Napa specific here to further tailor this tool and the data and insights for the context of this county. The first, which is more kind of bragging rights than anything else, is that Napa was the first county for which data were collected, compiled, and made public.

So there was a time in November where Napa County was the only populated county on the website. And it was used in December to do this kind of type of decision making and grant funding application. So that's exciting. The second is that I was able to incorporate pesticide exposure as an environmental justice metric which is relevant for Napa County. Here's the city of Napa with pesticide exposure percentiles of 70% or above.

So you can see this impacts a lot of people in this county which is excluded statewide. I've added much richer charging access metrics. So one is the option to exclude Tesla chargers. This was not a political choice but was just kind of based on the observation that not everyone is able to charge chargers and the alternative fuels data center does not kind of make that distinction cleanly for us. So you can see here this is a neighborhood that does not have access to kind of publicly available and publicly accessible non Tesla charging infrastructure but shows up on the map as kind of having access.

And then I also have this competition congestion adjusted charging metric that is available only in Napa County which essentially discounts charging ports that are accessible to a lot of people. So if 10 people have to share or a 100 people have to share 10 chargers and their neighbor in the jurisdiction over has a charger all to themselves, you're still kind of better off to have that less congested charging access. And so this additional layer would show that for the County Of Napa. Also special for the County Of Napa and huge thanks to Ryan here for help setting this up. We can show publicly owned tax parcels as kind of defined by county staff And this can drastically streamline the site selection process.

If you know that it's publicly owned you don't have to worry about getting whoever owns that land on board. Finally I've put together data for the entire county. So on the public facing tool you can only look at one jurisdiction at a time or the entire county's unincorporated area which kind of cookie cutters out the city jurisdictions. Getting this whole county data allows us in the Napa County context to say well, you know, we could put a charger here just outside of Yountville and we do have sufficient load capacity there but could also serve these under resourced communities there for instance. Finally, I'm here.

I'm offering ongoing training and support. I'm really excited to speak with the staff later this afternoon. Very briefly we could just run through the kind of extra power for Napa County. So if we had this picture from the public facing tool we can kind of zoom in now. This is a screenshot from ArcGIS on my own computer. And you can actually see already I'm offering a faster update time for charging infrastructure. You can see it looks like a charger was taken offline down here, so the news is even worse. And then the feasibility pixels can be filtered to show public ownership. And so you can see that lines up. I'll just, there we go.

So here was without filtering for public ownership, here's filtering and that's the proof. And that's all I have for you. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Good job, Ari.

Very good.

That was clear, concise, great. Are there any public comments?

And I will just I will alert the chair that due to losing quorum, we cannot take any questions or public comment at this time on this item, unfortunately.

Okay. All of you public people, sorry. Can we take comments from the

We cannot, unfortunately. However no. Ari is available. His contact is there and these presentation slides will be made available so questions can be directed to staff or to Ari directly.

We ask staff questions at this time?

Because of loss of quorum, the meeting should be adjourned so we cannot have any discussions on this item.

And does that mean we skip items six and seven? In that case, because we do not want to all be arrested as we walk out of this room, I'm adjourning this meeting at 11:37.

Thank you.