Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.

Hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey.

Welcome everyone. Uh, madame clerk, would you do the roll call? Supervisor Chavez here. Supervisor Maxik here. Siser Mendes here. Supervisor Pico here. Chairman Bredfield here. All present. Thank you. Thanks. Good morning and welcome uh to the Tuesday, March 17, 2026 meeting of the Fresno County Board of Supervisors. We're going to begin today's meeting with the invocation and a flag salute. The invocation will be led by district 3. After the invocation, uh please remain standing for the flag salute.

Thank you, Chair. If I could invite, uh Pastor Loa with Family Christian Assembly, lead us in the invocation. Let's pray. Father, we come before you this morning. We just thank you for your mercy and grace on our lives this morning. Thank you for all giving us all breath this morning to be here. Thank you for allowing us to meet. I I lift up the supervisors right now in prayer. May you bless them, give them wisdom and discernment to run this meeting. And for everyone else in this room, God, I pray that you bless their finances, bless their families, bless the homes that they represent, and let us have a good fast um and blessed meeting today. Amen.

Amen. I pledge allegiance to the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We had two flag salutes going at the same time. Uh, agendas are on the back table for anyone wanting to follow along. Madame clerk, would you do the first item, please? Item number one, approve agenda. Is there a motion and a second to approve the agenda? Motion. Second. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously.

Item two. Item number two, approve consent agenda item number 17 through 47. Mr. Chairman, members of the board, item 43 is deleted from the agenda. And then we have an announcement for item 27 in compliance with government code section 54953D3. If approved, consent item 27 will increase the annual leave cap from 600 to 650 hours for unrepresentative management, including department heads.

Okay. These consent items are matters that are routine in nature and usually approved by a single vote. Would any board members like an item removed from consent for discussion? Seeing none, would any members of the public like an item removed from consent for discussion? Again, seeing none, is there a motion and second? Second. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Passes unanimously. Item three.

We now move to item number three. under the auditor controller tax collector. Approve and authorize the chairman to execute an agreement with Megabyte Systems Incorporated for the in installation and perpetual licensing of the Megabyte property tax system. Morning chairman, members of the board. Oscar Garcia, controller, treasure, tax collector, the assessor recorder here. We're bringing a joint item to the board. Uh before I do start the presentation, uh I have a summary of changes that I need to read. I think they're being were they distributed to the board? She's going to distri dist distribute them. I'll wait till she distributes them before I read it. Sure.

What happened? So I'll read the summary of changes. Update license installation agreement. Section numbering references were updated to correct inconsistencies resulting from insertion. Corrections were made in the following sections. Section 8.2 7.1 was updated to 8.1. Section 8.4 7.3 was updated to 8.3. Section 9.3 8.1 and 8.2 were updated to 9.1 and 9.2. website hosting addendum section 4.1 10 was updated to 11. If there are no questions, I will continue on with the presentation. I did have a question. Uh I have a 14page uh presentation. Can I go through that or do you want me to go through the the summary version? Four pages.

Why don't you do the summary version?

Okay, sounds good. Shouldn't take that long once she gets gets it going. Got four pages. You should go through. All right. So the background here we have a system from the 1960s cobalt uh based frame uh mainframe platform. It is fully integrated with both side all three sides assessor auditor and tax collector. The cobalt programmers are getting harder to find. So we needed to do something to get out of that system. Go ahead Relle. And the the only thing I want to point out here, it's got plenty of uh good stuff happening, but the real-time updates. So, if somebody comes to the window right now and pays a tax bill, right now they're having to do that. Uh it is having to take an action, upload that overnight, then they'll see the results of they paid the bill. Now, it's going to happen instantaneously. As soon as they pay the bill, they'll be able to see they paid the bill online. So, benefits. One of the one of the things I'll highlight here is the electronic tax bills that we can actually send an electronic tax bill if somebody opts in and they can also get reminders if they opt into the system. So that would be one of the good things with Megabyte that the current system doesn't have. So the last page, Michelle. So the only thing that I ask is approve the agreements with Megabyte System Incorporated for the implementation and maintenance of the mega megabyte property tax system to modernize the county's property tax administration platform and support integrated operations across the assessor, auditor, and tax collector departments. And I was the three of the members of the uh Megabyte are here if you have any questions for them. But the anticipation if the board does approve

it is that we would go live July of fiscal year 29 which is calendar year 28. So if you have any questions of me the assessor or megabyte megabytes right here. They brought a programmer they brought the the lead person and we have our interface person here. I think they want to say a couple of words. Allow them to read that introduce yourself and

Jerry Makavoy. the president of the programming department at Megabyte Programming. Um I've got a prepared statement um about what is different this time than last time. Uh last time the project didn't fail because the idea was wrong. It failed because the conditions structure around the project weren't in line for success. This time several things are fundamentally different. First, we now have a new management team that expects and enforces a far far more structured discipline approach to projects. That means a clear scope, tighter timelines, stronger accountability, and consistent communication. Second, the workflow has been redesigned to eliminate the bottlenecks that slowed or stalled the progress last time. We've modified the process, clarified the responsibilities, and built in checkpoints to ensure issues are caught early instead of late. Uh this will help enforce both parties to remain focused on the task and keep the project on track. Third, we're bringing we're bringing a more mature proven model. Since the last attempt, we've refined this approach through other successful implementations. So, we are not repeating the past. We're applying what we learned to ensure success. In short, the environment is different, the leadership expectations are different, and the execution of the framework is different. Those three things, those three changes together give us a much stronger foundation for success this time.

Thank you. Any questions? Thank you. Welcome. Any questions from the board? Yes, Supervisor Magnus. Just for the u the benefit of um our newer members about six years ago or was it seven years ago? Yes. Uh seven

seven years ago Megabyte was here and uh we spent about the county spent about a million dollars to try to develop a system and in the end we had to scuttle uh you know scuttle it and we continued on with Cobalt till here we are now with Megabyte again. So I appreciate you identifying megabyte identifying what's different now compared to you know what happened 7 years ago for me really I just want publicly Oscar you're saying this is what you want uh and I'll note for the record Paul Dtos is here Paul this is what you want is that correct for the record so Paul and Oscar have said this is what they want and they're committed to working together so that's good enough for me we need a new system I mean shoot um I don't think I own anything from the 1960s

you Yeah, I don't even remember the 1960s, but neither do you, Oscar. You weren't alive. That is true. I wasn't alive. Thank you. I remember you're not young enough to be my son, so want to I love you, Dad. Okay. Uh, I got one question for Oscar. This is kind of a coordination deal with Paul's shop. Now, when they do get their assessment done, before you they would do their assessment, then pass the paper work over to you guys. You guys would produce a tax bill. Uh, yes. Yeah. And now it's going to work like

Well, he gives me a paper, but it's still in the system, but now it's it's going to be a more integrated type system. There's a lot different the correct rules in place that Megabyte follows. They have 36 other counties they're doing this for. Okay. of of California. So, they know what they're doing. I think they have 40 years experience in this. So, I have confidence. It's going to be a heavy lift for my staff and the assessor reporter staff because they have to collect taxes. They have to and they have to help me in doing whatever it is that they need to convert it over. Right. But it'll be an integrated system. It'll be an integrated system. Yeah. Any other comments from the board?

I would just echo what Supervisor Magig said. To me, this is like the third time that we're doing this. And in the last times, there was a lot of fingerpointing, you know, and I wasn't completely on board or this and that. But it's good publicly stated for the record. Both you and the assessor um are both in agreement. You are both bringing this to the board. This is what you want. And I think whether the success or failure that both of you will be held accountable. um if it doesn't succeed because there's it's enough excuses and now it's time time to deliver and we've spent enough money on failed attempts and um no more excuses.

I think the assessor would come and say it publicly actually. Yeah, I I'm on board by the way. I know it's going to be a heavy lift, but I'm on board. I'm fairly confident. We have to have to work together. Have to work together. Thank you very much. This is a different time. Megabyte has 75% of the counties in the state of California. They have the experience. They're better off now. They have organized, you know, and I expect success. I'm not leaving this county until we succeed on this project. It's good to hear.

I I just have a quick question. Um not to our auditor, but maybe to the Megabyte representative. Um under your agreement terms, I know that there's a an option for our folks to be able to make payments um online. Um so with regards to to that function um who who's responsible for the collection of the payment is it Megabyte?

So um Megabyte integrates with a payment provider um they collect the money for you and then the contract is between the county and the payment provider and but they go through megabyte portal. So we provide the payment portal but is integrated with the uh payment providers and they collect the money they they distribute to the tax collector. It's a different contract with so for folks that opt for the online payment uh function and right now in the era of fraud and scams and everything that go what kind of security um system are in place to prevent that from happening for for folks.

So we already currently have an online payment system. I think what Megabyte is offering is that if if you have several partials throughout Megabyte counties, you can go to a one-stop shop with them and then it'll direct them to the different counties. So, if you had three three properties in three different counties that Megabyte has, you can go to that platform and it'll direct them back to uh the county uh Fresno County, Kern County, and whichever other county that they have. But we currently have online payments.

So, what so what is our security process then? Oscar. We we provide that with the v the vendor provides that. So our vendor right now is is the one doing it. We've been doing that for years. So there hasn't been any issues with that. Uh so I'm anticipating no issues with this. There isn't going to be anything changing with that other than they're going to direct them to our our payment status, our payment platform, and that's where we'll accept the payments. So, in the situation where one of our constituents makes a payment online and there seems to be some kind of a of a scam or there's an issue with the payment system, like who is responsible for for for addressing that and resolving that?

Well, we would work with our provider and then we work through counsel as to who who was at fault with that. But like I said, we haven't had any issues with that on our no issues have occurred with that. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. Any other question? Any qu any uh comments from the public? Okay, I'll entertain a motion. Motion to approve. Second. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Passes unanimously. Thank you.

We now move to 3.1. Receive update on road initiative. Good morning, supervisors. Uh, Mike Leonardo, the retired FCTA director. Uh, I've talked to you before about uh, our efforts on putting together a plan to renew Measure C, and I'd just like to kind of give you a brief update on where that stands. I'm not going to get into the history of Measure C. I think you're all familiar enough with that. is uh there should be a presentation going. And do you forward the slides or Okay, thank you. So, um, as I've told you before, a group of county leaders and transportation professionals came together to put together a measure C renewal plan. Uh, at the same time, Fresno Cog was also working on a plan, but we had a concern that that plan might not really address the top priority needs of the county. Um, back in 2022, FCTA conducted two public opinion polls and then in 2025, COG also conducted a public opinion poll. The results of those polls were very consistent and basically fix roads, fix roads, fix roads. And when you're done with that, reduce congestion, eliminate bottlenecks, improve safety. And then as you get down the list, it started to talk about transit with the primary focus on keeping transit fairs low for seniors, students, and the disabled. Um, and these these polling results actually they became the basis of the plan that we put together. So these are

the same uh the the some of the primary uh components. 20-year lifespan which basically follows the existing 20-year life of measure C. Massive impact uh the potential to leverage up to eight times the funding in certain categories within the program. Accountability, we've got rockolid accountability in this and retain FCTA as the governing body over measure C. And uh we do that all without increasing taxes. So the I already mentioned the top priorities that but we're going to that we focus on roads. We do this while limiting the amount and duration to 20 years uh maximizing the ability to leverage state and federal funds and including rockolid oversight. Next, so this um this this basically shows what our plan is. It's a very simple plan. 82% goes to roads, 18% goes to transit. That 82% is broken into 50% of the funds, not of the 82, but of the overall go strictly to fixing roads. It really can't be used for anything ex anything else but fixing roads. And that money is allocated directly to the 15 cities and Fresno County. There's another 16% of overall funding that goes to those same 16 local agencies. And that's that's the flexible amount. So that's basically whatever the top priority needs are within an agency, that's what that 16% goes for. And then there's another 16% that goes to improving our major uh roads and highway corridors. And then last, there's 18% that goes to transit. I'm going to get into a little bit more detail on that as we go on. I just want to point out here that you're going to probably hear, if you haven't already, that 18%'s a massive cut. The existing measure was 24% for transit, but that's really not an accurate number. That 24% included a bunch of small programs. The actual direct allocation to the transit agencies is 19 and a.5%. So we're a

little bit under that but it's not a massive cut. It's a pretty small um so majority goes to fix our roads 50% to the um to the to repairing local roads. Um and and really both of the the both of these programs they are directed by the elected officials by the boards and the city councils to target the the most the highest priority needs within these categories in each agency. Next, the as I mentioned, our plan has a comprehensive list of major and urban rural projects uh that's currently called the regional program, but really we it it's it's the major corridor. So, major county roads, major city roads, and state highways. It's not an extension of the system. I mean, there's there's been a lot of criticism that that's what we're trying to do. This is about managing the system we have in order to increase safety and avoid LA style congestion. We also uh with tackle some pretty significant uh problem areas. The Shaw 99 is one and then the Blackstone H. Hearnden corridor area is another. And these are just examples. Um if you I'm going to show you a map a little bit later, but I'm not going to get into the details, but if you're interested, you can go to our website to see what the projects actually are. So within the rural area, uh we focus on improving safety on problem corridors, strategically adding lanes on rural arterials and improving connectivity between our uh rural cities and the uh 8 billion dollar Fresno County a agency to the uh urban area and to the rest of the state. And historically, this is the this is the area that has the highest potential for matching funds. In the in the in the current two measures, we managed to leverage about eight to one. So for every measure dollar, there's eight dollars of state and federal funds that we were able to do. We're not predicting that this time around. Um I'll talk a little bit more about that.

We we're actually we're predicting we used a 3 to one to develop our plan. It's probably going to be more in the 5 to one area, but the point is these are the projects that allow you to obtain those mass matching funds. So these are the maps. I know you can't read them. I'm not going to get into the detail here. Again, I'll refer you to the website if you're interested. But this is the urban map. And you can at least see by the colors, the corridors that we're trying to address in the urban plan. And then the next slide is the rural plan. And again, um these list the projects are on our website, but you can see from the colors where the projects actually are. And I do want to point out here that we work very closely with your staff and public works to identify what the county's priorities were on this on this rural system. and uh we were able to get in the vast majority of that priority list. Next slide. So I did talk a little bit about transit. Uh our plan we believe funds transit at their current level. And what we did is we actually went to the uh performance measures that they have to report on an annual basis to look at what their budgets were as opposed to what the last plan was. And their budgets were about really about 17%. So we put 18% into the to that category. But we also were requiring the transit agencies to uh participate in two studies. One is transit consolidation looking uh at the ability to consolidate transit agencies to uh eliminate redundant costs and try and save money. And then reimagining the way transit services are provided. There are examples of major metro areas where transit agencies have subsidized Uber Lift. And I'm not saying that's the solution here, but it's just an example of out of the box thinking of ways to improve transit service without necessarily putting a lot more large buses on the road. The current Measure C plan puts 230 million in transit. Our plan puts 700 million in transit and local agencies can supplement their

transit funding out of that flexible share that I've talked about earlier. Uh we recommend caution in doing that. Uh, as I said, we put uh 230 million in transit beginning back in 2006. We had about 2% of the trips from transit in 2006, and it's a little bit less than 2000 I little bit less than 2% now. So, just throwing money at transit doesn't actually improve things. You've really got to look at how you strategically put those investments out. Next, so at this point, I'll I'll try and do a quick comparison of our plan versus the competing plan. So the chart on the left is ours and you've seen that before in the prior slide. The chart on the right is the competing plan. The only thing I'm going to point out here is the 82% versus the 65%. We invest much more significantly in roads and we invest significantly less in public transit. They have 29% which is 25% direct plus their innovation program really is geared towards transit. Um, and I want to point out really in in this chart and in the rest of the charts, we're comparing our plan with the first 20 years of their plan because theirs is a 30-year plan. So, to do a heads up comparison, we just picked the first 20 years. Our plan could be extended again if it needs to, but I'll talk about that a little bit later. Next slide. Uh, I know this is hard to read, but again, this is on our website. The thing I want to point out here is that under our plan, every agency gets more funding for their priority road repairs uh than the competing plan and our minimum funding to each agency is higher, which is important to our smaller communities that maybe have trouble putting together enough money to actually fix the roads. Next slide. As I said, ours is a 20-year plan. uh just like the two prior successful measure C's the competing plan is for 30 years the difference to the taxpayers is significant so 3.9 billion under our

plan 7.3 billion under the competing plan there are a number of reasons we chose to go with a 20-year plan but the the one I want to highlight here is transportation is in a very dynamic period right now I mean if you look at if you look at Uber microtransit smart corridors self-driving cars electric vehicles none of that existed did 20 years ago, at least not in the mainstream. And so I think projecting out 20 years is hard enough, let alone 30 years. You may hear that the competing plan allows for a 10-year adjustment to to to accommodate this, but frankly, as I I I read their ordinance, it really doesn't allow any kind of significant changes at the 10-year mark. They do a review, but there's no they're not allowed to change categories. Next, so um again, us on the left, them on the right. Our plan provides strategic invent investments in the major roads and highways. As I've discussed, the competing plan restricts jurisdictions from adding lanes, severely uh restricts major road and highway improvement funding, and literally abandons our highways and major corridors to LA style congestion and accidents. They do have a small uh regional program, but basically if you get into the details of the implementation plan, you can only uh do uh bike lanes or bus lanes with that money and it limits it to a very small percentage of it. Next, so our plan has more road funding, has a higher minimum as I mentioned, and gives the cities in Fresno County the ability to select their projects. The competing competing plan provides less for road funding. its spending plan really was developed by special interest as opposed to the countywide polling the way we did it. Um and the um yeah, I guess that's it there. Thanks. So, our plan requires Oh, sorry. Want to make sure I was on the right page. Uh as I mentioned, it requires transit agencies to re to

re-evaluate how they provide services with an intent of increasing service but lowering costs. Uh our plan allows but does not does not mandate the use of measure funds for recreational trails. Their plan, the competing plan, they increase transit funding by 45% and they really have no accountability or performance measures included in that plan for that additional spending. And it precludes measure funds on recreational trails. This maybe isn't a big deal, but uh according to your public work staff, that's the only kind of trails you guys have are recreational trails. And yet they mandate the county to build them, but you can't build recreation. So, it's it's just I it's going to be a problem moving forward. Next, so our plan retains Fresno uh county's oversight of measure expenditures. FCTA has a 40-year track record of of uh of administering these funds really without controversy, without any any problems. Retaining FCTA keeps us consistent with the enabling legislation that measure C uh originally estab was was originally established by the legislature in 1986. The competing plan totally totally eliminates FCTA. It eliminates the checks and balances that were established by the enabling legislation which basically put COG and FCTA in a almost like a house and senate role. So both agencies had to come together on any kind of major changes for the plan and they eliminate SCTA altogether. It eliminates the the most of the possibility of matching funds uh with their regional program so small that you really don't have the ability to leverage those additional funds. And frankly I mean that's money that the counties next to us smile about because if if if we can't use it, it'll go somewhere else in the state. And it empowers the unelected citizens oversight committee really to help manage the program. We have a oversight committee in ours as well, but theirs is is uh it's really about public information and providing feedback to

the board. Next, so in summary, the competing plan uh it's going to continue or it's going to allow for LA style congestion to occur by failing to manage the systems that we have. unaccountable spending. I mentioned 45% increase in transit without any any performance measures uh and loss of leverage eliminating the FCTA 40-year track record of public uh uh success. So, moving forward, our next steps are to um gather petition signatures, continue our public outreach efforts, and prepare the campaign leading up to the November election. next. And uh so this is if you're I'm sure that in your package you have a link to the website, but if anybody is interested in uh finding out more, this is our website that you can go to. And the last thing I want to say that um we do that's different and it's even different than the existing measure C. the we require that FCTA engage the services of a program management firm and that was allowed in the current measure but it wasn't a requirement but we have so many performance measures that we're we're putting to as a part of this. We think that the the SCTA needs substantial professional help to flush those measures out and then to actually help measure them. So we want to make sure that the agencies are making progress towards fixing their roads and so on. So that's another element of our plan that's different. So that's uh all all I've got. Be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Comments? Supervisor Mag? Yeah, it's my understanding that u with the uh competing measure it there's no money in it for um really projects outside of cities. So regional projects that where there's connectivity, all that's been eliminated. And right now with the existing measure C, what percentage of uh the existing measure C goes towards regional projects?

Existing measure C has 30% going towards regional projects and the competing plan they have they have 5% but one goes to airports and as I said earlier the 4% is restrict is restricted to transit lanes or bike lanes. So they functionally don't have a regional program. And with the the 65% that is for roads, are there restrictions on how that money can be spent on roads or pretty much can you know the county and cities use that money any way they want as long as it's for roads? because I when I was reading through there, I thought that it said, you know, uh there's a requirement that everybody's got to breathe their bring their pavement management um index of their roadways up to a certain amount and then any new roadways that are built or additional work, there might have to be money spent to do bike lanes and pedestrian trails. But correct me if I'm wrong. I just want you to touch on that a little bit.

No, you're you're you're exactly right. Uh their 65% is not just for fixing roads. It does have requirements for bike and trail. They specify miles instead of an amount. So, we really don't know how much of that money would need to go to bikes and trails. So, they do. Yes, they are they are much more restrictive than we are on how that money gets spent. And we don't really know of that 65%. You know, we've we've said 50% for ours can only be fixing roads. There is no required minimum within that 65%.

And then looking at again, I look at the county of Fresno, we're very different than cities. you know, the, you know, city of Fresno, I think, might be 125 square miles. A city of Clovis is probably around 26 square miles or the two largest cities, but the county is 6,000 square miles. And we've got, you know, a little over 3,400 lane miles of roads that we've got to maintain. Um, so that being the case, uh, with if if the other measure passes, are we going to be able to use the dollars that we receive to really maintain the roadways we have, or are we going to be forced to put in bike lanes? Because I think about, and I'm a cyclist. I love to ride. And really, I don't like dedicated bike lanes per se. Um, I like good pavement. and concerns that I have out in the county is, you know, if the county has to build a whole bunch of uh bike lanes, I look at all the lawsuits we get hit with from cyclists who um sometimes aren't paying attention and there's sand in the road or debris. They hit that, they crash, and they sue the county. So, are we going to have to like sweep these bike lanes throughout the county and the thousands of miles we're expected to, you know, maintain? Because to me that's almost creating a liability that we can't, you know, we we can't maintain properly because the the rural parts of the county are different than the urban areas. We have mountains, we have foothills, we have rain that sometimes washes roadways out. You constantly have debris that's uh in the shoulders and also in bike lanes that could potentially be developed. So speak to that a little bit. Um I mean you you're you're right that there is the requirement that the uh cities and the county the county in specific um have to build a certain mile and I don't have it in front of me but have to have a certain mile of bike lanes built. Our approach is two things. If you want to I mean every

agency has to have an active transportation plan not just the county but every agency does. And you can fund projects in your ATP out of out of our our funding. You can maintain trails and bike lanes that you have out of our funding. But more importantly, if any roads uh are are widened, then there has to be enough of a shoulder. That kind of gets to your point. I mean, most uh real bike bicyclists, that's what they want. They want a shoulder adjacent to a highway that's kept in good condition. And so I mean we allow within the pavement category that includes uh repaving the shoulders that that are degraded and if you widen the road you've got to have shoulders that are wide enough to accommodate bicycles. There's not a lot of detail in their plan. I mean it's I want to say it's 12 13 pages. So I think some of what you're asking it's just going to have to flush itself out. Well, so I have 400 bridges in my district and if you are widening a roadway, uh sometimes you cannot widen a bridge at all because it would be 105 million to redo a bridge and uh so you can't have a corridor, say this is a bike lane, unless you have a shoulder that's wide enough because there are standards. So you hit bridges um and then are we going to be required to replace bridges?

I can't answer that under their plan. I mean, under our plan, no, it's that that really again, that's a decision you make on where you put this money. All right, I can go on and on, but I think I've scratched the surface enough. I I would I would say the same thing. We're we're getting into the weeds here quite a bit. My question is pretty basic. Has this plan qualified for the ballot yet? And what is your plan to do that? Otherwise, to me, we're talking about a lot of hypotheticals, and if it doesn't qualify on the ballot, then we're kind of wasting our time. So, is this qualified for the ballot? Neither measure is qualified for the ballot at this time.

So, what's your plan to do that? And what's the deadlines? And because to me, that's more important, right? Once you qualify, then we can come in and debate the merits of the two, right? But right now, we have two proposals and nothing's qualified for the ballot yet. Right. And we're not asking you what are we doing? We're we're simply updating you on where we we're at. We're not asking you to make a decision today. Right. As far as what we're doing, uh we're printing um the petitions as we speak. I'm not sure when they're going to be out. Uh if you go to the website, there's a link you can click on. Is your goal to qualify for this November? Is that correct? Yes. Okay. To me, that's what we really need to get down to,

right? what's what's the plan? Are you going to do it? Is the other one going to do it? And then once that happens, then we could start going over this. So that's great. You educate us, but to me, it's the cart before the horse. Fair enough. Personally, that's it, Mr. Chairman.

Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Leonardo, for the presentation. And I think as the conversation develops with regards to what this is going to look like, I think for me, my main concern for next year is that we won't have any funds for for our roads. So So to me, I'm trying to find uh a process that gets us there. And uh Supervisor PCO asked the question I was going to ask with regards to the status. I know that other folks are also collecting signatures. It's not a cheap endeavor. Um I think the cost is approximately half a million dollars or so just to get the 33,000 signatures. Um so you're you guys are in the process of doing that as well. Um and then the question would be I guess for our CEO and in in the spirit of fairness and transparency cuz the other initiative got mentioned a couple of times. What's the process if that other group would decide to come and do an update or a presentation uh for for our folks? I mean that is at your board's discretion but uh this was a request for an update and I think at your board's discretion you can have them come and do an update as well.

And and I like to also you know echo what Supervisor Pacheco said. I think once they qualify I think now it's it's a different conversation. U but just to have that on the record for the process of what that will look like. Thank you.

Well, I appreciate uh the update. Um, I'm I'm u more supportive of this plan. I also am uh in the camp with Brian, which is are you going to be able to get this on the ballot? Because the other group um I think will they have uh the foundation from Ashley Swearing's Foundation. They have lots of money. They love to burn it on ballot on uh putting things on the ballot. Um that other measure uh is sponsored by uh a bunch of uh radicals. I think uh mayor um Vong Manatua called them crazies yesterday at uh his city council meeting. He joined the crazies. Um that's leadership for justice and accountability, building healthy communities. Ashley Schwaren's group, that plan, in my estimation is nothing more than a public transportation tax disguised as a road tax. Uh the re reality is they want to get people out of their cars and riding buses, bicycles, and scooters. Uh not fixing roads. They have in their plan 120 miles of bike lanes um that are mandated. You can only widen a road if for a bike lane, not to fix roads. Is that correct?

Um there I guess I'm not sure I'm understanding the question. I mean, fixing a road and widening a road are kind of two different things. Fixing roads are clearly both both of the plans allow for fixing roads. Widening a road, I don't think their plan really allows that except for bikes or

that's what I'm saying for except for the bike lanes that you can widen a main road. Um they are eliminating in their plan FCTA the uh transportation authority which is an oversight committee of those funds. They are 30 million 30year uh tax which you're right is a is 10 more year burden. uh for the taxpayer. Uh and what they want to do is have an oversight committee uh to oversee those funds, which is what they did in the steering committee where which they hijacked uh at the COG because 11 mayors uh didn't have the courage to stand up and do their uh elected duty, which is to come up with a plan. Uh so they punted it to these radicals and came up with this plan. So I hope you get it on the ballot. Uh and we need to have that discussion. if not and that the only their uh measure is on there, I I will do everything I can to let people know what a scam uh their measure is and uh that there really isn't oversight and it will be hijacked by uh leadership for justice and accountability and building healthy communities and all of those groups uh and the uh the citizens will get screwed royally. Uh so I don't think it's going to happen. I don't think that's going to pass. And we do need a measure C. We do. This county needs a measure C. Um, and we need to be fixing our roads. Uh, the city of Fresno is, I think, 1.3 billion in deferred maintenance. We're 1.6 billion in the county of deferred maintenance. We need a measure C, but we need the correct measure C and one that's truly going to fix roads because, as I've said, people want their roads fixed. They don't want to be forced out of their cars. They don't want to be forced to ride buses or bicycles or scooters. They want they like their cars and they want to ride in their cars. and want their streets fixed. That measure, the other measure will not do that. It's a scam. That's all I have to say.

Hey, no, that's fine. Um, but you're up.

You know, we're uh I'm going to say this, you know, not I'm not This is a way more mature group right now. The other side is going to the west side cities and where they're bringing the other group in and they give their little deal and at the the last item on the agenda is a resolution to support it without even hearing the other side or even know even understanding what the measure actually is. And when I Mike actually asked me if he could talk today, I said, "Let me talk to the CEO." And when I talked to Paul, I said, "You know, if we let Mike come, we have to let the other side come, too." You know, but there's um I'm going to jump back in the weeds just for a little bit. Um the oversight on their measure there's never been the COG has never done any oversight of that magnitude.

Correct. They are involved in the amendment process but as far as the fiscal management that's 100% FCTA and and the FCTA has had no problems in all the years that they've managed measure C. Correct. Correct.

Yeah. The there's one thing too that it's always the details. That's why I'm getting back into the weeds. In their plan, you could have, and I'll call them a kangaroo group that oversees it, and they could actually pull the money from different jurisdictions by saying, "You didn't do these bike lanes. You didn't do, you know, this transit deal." So, we're not we're going to hold all your money back until you get it done. Is that correct? Uh that's my understand that's into the realm of possibilities, right? Yeah.

And and the other thing that along similar lines that's somewhat disturbing is the citizens oversight committee under their plan can propose amendments to the plan. Yeah. And maybe that sounds okay. Oh, citizens oversight. Yeah. Let's let's let's give them that authority. But when you look at how those committees are made up, I I think that that's an area that has that very same potential. Depending on who's on that committee, you could have the citizens oversight committee propose it and then COG rubber stamps it. Right. So you could have measure P dumpster fire all over again. Not my area of expertise, but yes, I have heard that.

That's my point. That's not a question. But thank you very much, Mike, for coming down. You know, one thing I left out I would like to add if I could. Fresno County is going to grow by two or 300,000 people in the next 20 years. How are those people going to get around? It's not going to happen with buses. I mean, I just we don't have any history of that being successful. So, I just think that's something we need to consider as we look at measure C. And uh Mr. CEO, I welcome the other group coming. uh they have an open invitation to come and present to the board. I look forward to it. Just any comments from the public. Okay, we'll move on to the next item.

Item number four under the administrative office adopt recommended changes. Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Cous.

Hi there. I just James Cous, Fresno County Clerk, register our voters. I did want to come up and because a question was raised about the qualification of this petition and the qualification of the other currently circulating petition by supervisor Pacheo. So I did want to uh say that both petitions have now published their notice of intent and the title and summary provided by county council. So both petitions are eligible to be circulating. Both petitions must return their signatures to my office so that my office can verify those signatures. And if enough valid signatures are found, I need to bring that to this board so that you through your ministerial duty can return it to my office to put it on the ballot by August 7th of this year. So very important for everyone to realize out there that this board needs to actually give that to me, but there are steps between here and there that the two proponent groups must complete and get that to us. Um we're already at a point uh Supervisor Chavez mentioned 33,000. That's 150% of the required number. The actual required valid number of signatures is just a little under 22,000. But to make it to this board and back to me in time to qualify for November, these proponent groups need to actually pass under what we call the random sample checks, not a full check of the signatures. The deadline for full check of the signatures was actually about a month ago to make sure that I have enough time to do it. And that is a major question here. We had a supervisor Chavez also mentioned the competition that's out there. There are a dozen

state propositions and that makes it very difficult to get signatures. Those propositions are already coming into my office. We have three that we're doing random check on right now and that we have a deadline of uh about 45 days from now. Every petition coming in, whether it be a state proposition or a local petition, gets placed into the queue. So you need to pass on random check and you need to get in early. When that's ready, we'll be here. I will be ready to come in. I will work with the clerk of the board, CEO to get both of these, one of these when they are found sufficient to this board so that you can take actions as you deem appropriate.

Any questions from the board or comments? Thank you. I think there might be more than a dozen propositions. Yeah, I'm being a little conservative there. Hey, you're being very conservative. Yeah, I'm I Yeah, there's a lot of stuff on the June ballot. If anyone hasn't noticed, there's up to potentially 60 gubernatorial candidates, and we're going to have a dozen to 20 propositions on the November ballot. So, it's going to be a very busy election year, but we are help here to help both of our local petitions, whatever questions they have, and then when they are ready to bring them in, we're here to work them with everything else that we've got going on.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Cous. Thank you very much. We now move to item number four. Under administrative office, adopt recommended changes to the Fresno County State Legislative Platform. Authorize the chairman to execute letters of support or opposition in accordance with the platform and authorize the county administrative office to work with the county state legislative delegation Sacramento lobbyists and or other necessary parties to support or oppose legislation in accordance with the platform.

Good morning chairman, members of the board. Samantha Buck, deputy CEO. The item before your board is the annual update to the state platform. It serves as a policy document for advocac advocacy efforts with the state delegation for your board. It also um it was updated with input from our county departments and our state advocate Paul Yoder who is joining us here today. Now for the format of this presentation I'll provide your board with a highle overview of the recommended changes. You'll have a chance to review those changes, add any additional language that you would like. then I'll turn it over to our advocate Paul to provide an update of um the latest updates from Sacramento. Now moving on to the presentation. The primary changes by section in the platform are under major legislative issues. We added language to address the impacts of HR1 or to mitigate those for the county, including language supporting state funding for counties to manage these impacts, including the increased costs of indigent care and unfunded administrative and staffing costs. Under general government and finance, we revise the bullet to support legislative reforms to establish reasonable caps on non-economic damages for civil filings against entities. Under housing and homelessness, we revised the language to expand the county's capacity and provide flexibility to address homelessness. The language basically allows us to tailor the resources to the unique needs of each community. We also added language to ensure that the arena credit is attributed to the county for affordable housing for extremely lowincome households when county funding programs or land support units are developed within incorporated cities. Under social services, we added language to support efforts that reduce administrative barriers for participation in CalFresh and medical programs. We also added language to support sufficient funding

to engage CalFresh and medical clients who are required to complete work requirement or proof of exemption to maintain benefits. We also added language to support fair and not general California-based cost sharing methodologies for CalFresh payment errors. And then lastly, we added language to support efforts to address the structural funding issues of administering Calresh program as a result of HR1. This concludes my presentation. I'm available for questions. Thank you. Any comments from the board? Any additions or deletions? So, I'm going to wait till uh Paul gets up. I've got a question for him.

Okay. Well, I I have an addition. Do you want to wait for Mr. Yoder to Yeah. Okay. We'll do that then. So, for purposes of format of the structure, if there's going to be changes to the platform, we make them now. I request that you adopt them. And then the next item is Yod's presentation. Okay. Do you have any changes? I have no changes.

I have one. Uh with the federal platform, we eliminated the needle exchange program. I think we need to do that here with the states, particularly since the state is the one that's funding this. So, I would uh recommend putting in this language oppose uh expanding any legislation that supports funding public syringe or needle distribution or exchange programs or supervised consumption sites, never use alone services, safer use education, and pre-exposure prophylaxis and postexposure prophylaxis. Instead, advocate for directing resources and policies towards comprehensive recovery oriented services, health interventions, initiatives focused on treatment and measures that pri prioritize public safety. So, I would request to add that

and we'll add it to the section under public health. Correct. Yes, under public health. Do we need to take a vote on that? I guess Well, that's the only Are there any other changes? Any other additions or modifications? Any comments from the public? We're going to vote now. I think so. Um I I don't know if we we need to vote on that change first and then the rest. You could say make a motion to approve everything along with that change. If you Okay. I would make a motion to approve everything along with that change.

I'll second that. Okay. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? No. One. No. Okay. Um, Supervisor Bacho is a no. Thank you. Great. That was Thank you. We now move to item number five. under CEO's office received verbal report from Paul Yoder, state lobbyist, regarding legislative activity.

Good morning board members, members of the public. Thanks for having me here today. Happy St. Patrick's Day. I'm sure you've already said that, but I'm married to a McGovern, so I am contractually obligated to say that as many times as possible today. Um, let's jump into the state budget. Um, I think everyone knows that heading into the budget, uh, December revenues were really, really good. Uh, way above expectations. The legislative analysts had predicted a deficit of $18 billion. The December revenues coupled with good November, good October allowed the governor to instead predict a $3 billion deficit. Very, very different. Um, and really when it came down to it, the LAO and the Department of Finance admitted that they weren't really disagreeing. um that basically um everyone thinks everyone knows the stock markets plural are doing really really well. What the disagreement was the the difference between the 18 and the $3 billion was the timing of a stock market bubble bursting. Legislative analyst believes it will happen during the 2627 budget year. Department of Finance and Governor Nuomo said, "We don't believe that it'll happen that quickly. We think it'll happen later." So especially for the public's benefit, that is the difference between those two numbers. So the governor basically could propose essentially a status quo budget. Um h did propose funding for HAP, right? The homelessness program that county cities and continuence of care have received funding for I think we're going on eight years now. And I want to pause for a second. I want to say that's very important for this reason. Governor Nuomo for some time and his uh administration have believed that because of the revamp of the mental health services act in California that became the behavioral health services act that at some point there would be no need for HAP funding and that instead counties could utilize money in the BHSA. So what we have been trying to do very in working very very diligently is to

ensure that this year Governor Nuome's last year there is still another round of funding for HAP so that we can at least get to the next governor and start trying to work with that governor and hopefully get this money uh more in a in a in a fashion where counties can actually plan better with it over two and threeear cycles. So the governor finally saying he'll put more money into HAP very very significant. Unfortunately, conversely, uh the governor proposed no new money for proposition the implementation of proposition 36. Um to give you an example of of some dis disappointing news for the counties. Since the governor's release, more money has come in. Since the governor released his proposed budget, expenses have continued to go up. If it weren't for the increase in expenditures in addition to the increased revenues in the May revisor might actually be able to say the state of California has a couple billion dollars to the good at least for 2627 but expend expenditures still are exceeding by a lot uh the projections that were in last year's uh 20 26 excuse me 2526 budget on HR1. I know it's going to be discussed later. I just want to make sure the board is uh aware there have been multiple multiple information hearings, informationational hearings. The legislature seems focused on um the work requirements uh for Cal Works and Calresh um and also just trying to get its arms around uh admin and infrastructure especially since the counties for years and years and years uh didn't have to worry about uh issues like that the way they did sort of back in the day. So every singleformational hearing is focused on those things. Counties have been asked to testify. Uh last week Tary County CEO Jason Britt was in town testifying for SEESAC. Um there are a lot of ideas going uh being floated in terms of additional county flexibility. Obviously there are also ideas being floated by members of the legislature on

bringing in additional revenues to the state of California. Uh our our prediction, my prediction is at the end of the day, I think the the ideas on flexibility uh are really going to come in more to play while this governor is still in office. Segueing to new legislation, the lowest number of bills introduced in I think almost 20 years, 1,800. So the lowest number introduced in 20 years is 1,800 new bills. Um we have had a a briefing with your staff. The thing I want to as I sit here today that it's it is a critical juncture and and here is why a lot of bills introduced are in what we call a spot form. They really don't do anything. They say it is the intent of the legislature to do something in the area of public works. This week a lot of those so-called spot bills are being fleshed out. One bill, just to give you an example, yesterday it was nothing. today. It's a bill that would require home insurance companies to guarantee issue for the survivors of uh force majour events such as wildfires. So if you have State Farm and god forbid you lose your house, State Farm has to keep your insurance, keep issuing you you your insurance for three years. That would be a significant change. There are a lot of other bills that are being fleshed out in real time and staff will get a report uh from our office later today. We have one more week next week until the spring legislative recess. Then we go to Easter and then April is where the action really happens on the new bills. Uh another juncture and I'm wrapping up here. I want to make sure the board and the public are aware of initiatives were just talked about extensively. Late May, early June is uh something you want to circle on your calendars for initiatives, for example, that have already qualified. We're all seeing advertisements for the Uber initiative, right, that's opposed by the consumer attorneys in California. Uh I haven't seen any ads by them, but they'll run

soon. If, and I I'm not saying this is going to happen, but if there's any chance that the waring sides are going to cut a deal, for lack of a a better way to put it, and they want to go to the legislature and say, "We want to cut a deal in the legislature." And so Uber would withdraw its initiative from the November ballot, they have until June 25th to do that. 131 days in reverse from the November general election. So early June, I said late May, but early June, mid June, you're going to see some negotiations in Sacramento, people trying to figure out exactly do they want a legislative solution or do they want to push forward uh on the on the November ballot with the voters statewide. Um so we're looking at that earmarks, um I wouldn't rule them out for this year. Um your legislators are doing their usual, uh great job of soliciting ideas. We're working with them, working with staff. We'll see what happens there. Um, on the issue of rats, uh, in the more rural, uh, areas, uh, Assembly Member Tangipod did introduce a bill. I don't think that bill is going to move forward. We're going to try a budget, um, pursuit instead. Uh, sort of allah water hyasin, allah uh, nutria in the delta. Um, maybe there's some state state money that can uh, go towards the rats, the very unfortunate rats issue. And then we've been helping working with staff on the courthouse. really really really proud of the connections we can make for the county there. Happy to help. Uh I think we got some good news, some progress there and uh you know uh nice to have a win I think a little earlier in the year than later. So Mr. Chair, thank you. A lot of stuff. I went as fast as I could. Happy to take your questions.

Sure. Any questions, comments from the board? Yeah, I got several. So first, HR1 is going to have impacts on all counties. I think the first uh impact is to the SNAP program and then in another year or two we're going to see um Medicaid funding to states and then our reimbursements out of medical and what we end up having to do for indigent populations really going to be impacted. So SEESAC I love SEAC. They haven't made an ask yet. When's the deadline for us to make an ask and should we move forward with making an ask to the legislature not waiting for SEESAC? Thank you for the question through the chair. I've got more uh questions after you answer that.

I'm in I that's why I keep drinking. This doesn't work though. Um uh on HR1 I I think this week is timely. Um and I think you know early next week would still be timely. It's my understanding that's where SESAC is driving on this. I think tomorrow morning they're going to have a meeting with all the county affiliate organizations, the health execs, the welfare directors, uh behavioral health directors, uh etc., etc. the hospitals. And I think maybe by Friday uh but but if not Friday then early next week I think SEESAC will have a letter to the legislature. I think it's important I'm going to editorialize a little bit. It's really important that CEC do that. The I know there's been a lot of talk about the ask which that's right. It's a good thing for people to talk about, but you need the organization that understands all these issues and how they work together to lay all that out in its complexity to the legislature and the governor. And so, um, they might have waited longer than later this week, early next week. There's been a lot of behind-the-scenes conversations. I think that's where we are, supervisor.

All right. And next question. ARPA runs out officially end of 2026. So as uh local governments are preparing their 2627 budgets really they uh where ARPA has helped prop up counties and cities that is gone or going to be gone. So are you seeing any stressors out there from other counties as they are looking forward to prepare their budgets and uh um I mean what are you seeing in regards to that? Yeah, I think the stressors are are everywhere. Um, ARPA on top of the implementation of HR1, on top of uh a lot of other I'm just going to put it this way if it's okay. Uh, a lot of things that are resulting from the interaction between the state of California and the federal government. Um, the stressors are are everywhere. Um, I wanted in the interest of time I didn't break down HR1 in in some ways that I could if members of the board would like to do that. But um but yeah, the stressors are everywhere. I when I talked about the the money coming in and the deficit for this year possibly being lower, although I I I think when I was talking about the stock market indices, everyone's aware that they're all down uh right now, right? And so we're watching that very very closely. Um, even if let's just say the $3 billion deficit number is what the governor still feels comfortable using in the May to the state budget, there is no disagreement between the department of finance and the legislative analyst office on what the 78 scenario looks like and the 89 scenario looks like. Um, and so and and and what they agree on is that the outlook is not good. um protracted deficits of 15 to2 billion dollars annually in those years. Budget year plus one, budget year plus two, budget year plus three. And so um stressors are everywhere. And then gasoline. Uh we have an acute issue with

just uh gasoline prices going up but supply coming uh being constrained to California. Um what is Sacramento doing to try to make sure that we don't run out of gasoline? I've heard that India and China, which I think send about 20% of our supply of uh fuel to us, have said they can't they can't send us fuel anymore because the straight of Hormuse has been, you know, pinched off and and they're uh being challenged. So, does the legislature have a plan or are we just going to see what happens? Have Have you heard any rumblings?

First of all, let me say I think you know what would really help in Sacramento is if more county supervisors got elected to the legislature. and, you know, maybe from both parties, both in both houses. I mean, it just, you know, it'd be like a godsend. Um, on gas prices, um, last year,

uh, the legislature and the governor got together and they, uh, passed and enacted Senate Bill 237 that codified the countywide environmental impact report for Kern County, and drilling permits are once again being taken out. Drilling is increasing again in Kern County. um that the discussion that uh you know out of which that was born those same players are still talking about refineries for example Sable off the coast of Santa Barbara uh just started pumping again um through the counties of St. Louis Kern and Santa Barbara. Uh, no, Santa Barbara Kern. I'm leaving somebody out. It's not you guys. Um, but oil is moving east. Um, Kinder Morgan is talking about a pipeline from St. Louis all the way into Southern California. Large pieces of that pipeline already exist. So, it's not starting from scratch. It's filling in some gaps. So, I think there's some interesting things in California. uh some interesting things happening I would say in the western states by private firms. Um but ultimately supervisor uh we need additional refining capacity in the state of California uh is what a lot a lot of really educated people believe and I want I'm going to hold this up. This is a letter with my notes on it. So maybe don't zero in on my notes, but this is a letter we're trying to get all eight counties on uh that would encourage the governor uh and the legislature to increase among other things increase refining capacity in the state of California. So um you know supply and demand um and there's only so many ways in the short term to increase the the supply in California. There are other proposals that are out there. Um I just don't know. I I I think, you know, the thing I'm going to be focused on is the legislature and the governor trying to increase refining capacity in California.

And then Southern California, the fires last year wiped out 50 to 100 billion dollars of value in, you know, homes and businesses. I think last year the legislature kind of bridged that gap to help schools and everything else. Are they going to are they is there talk about doing that again uh this year or and the reason this is important is uh if if uh Southern California schools, special districts, local governments all rely on those property taxes. So uh if that is not uh held whole then I mean you could see a kind of a collapse out there in the bond market too could be impacted. So is the legislature talking about trying to fix that problem again this next cycle? I think the property taxes um that's a five-year deal. The first time a governor and a legislature have ever extended that kind of relief for that long. Uh after the Paradise fires, um BU County, the town of Paradise got three years. Um so I think you know property tax are okay. There are I know we've talked in the past about there's there are some special districts that have floated bonds that are entirely property tax dependent and I think that's just being worked through. Um, the biggest thing to watch to me, I'm going to take schools and fires separately if I may. Uh, for schools, average daily attendance is down in California for a lot of my my understanding is I don't lobby for the schools, but my understanding is for several pretty significant reasons. I think you may see legislation this year about how to calculate ADA in California that's different than how we currently calculate it. for example, rather than a three-year rolling average, perhaps a five-year rolling average, right? That would help a lot of school districts in California. That's on schools on the fires. The thing that didn't happen last year, and I'm just telling you right now, uh you can look for it and goes back to stressors on the state budget. City of LA uh believes it needs

financial assistance from the state of California for a lot of other reasons, not just property taxes, but just rebuilding. Um, the county of Los Angeles believes it needs significant relief from uh the legislature and the governor. Uh, they are both going to the legislature and they did this last year, but they're going to the legislature again and they're asking for some significant sums of money because of those fires. Um, so yeah,

got a, you know, when we were talking about HR1 and SESAC, I think SEESAC wanted to come out with a, hey, 58 counties going to agree on this and it just been taking them a long time to get that together because they didn't want counties to go rogue and start, you know, getting off the reservation and uh, you know, pontificate about something that some counties were against that you're hearing the same thing. Um, you know, there there are a lot of different interests representing counties. Um, and I want to um, yes short answer to the chair. I forgot to mention earlier

for the public's benefit. There are three kinds of counties when you're talking about healthcare. Counties that have county hospitals in the valley, Sanwaqen, Kern, uh, counties that are so small they've banded together over the last 25 years. is there in the county medical services program. That's basically like a third party administrator, right? Helps them purchase services um what have you uh amongst it's actually up to 37 of the 58 counties and then the counties that aren't in either bucket and that's this county. when AB85 passed after uh the feds decided to uh create health insurance exchanges uh like we have in California. Um that was a significant event for this county. Um, and all joking aside about who's in the legislature, who will be in the legislature, uh, your legislators, this county's legislators at that time held up the state budget because the deal wasn't it, the healthc care deal was harder for the counties that don't fall in either of those two buckets. So, the Fresnos, the Stannis Losses, the Riverides of San Diego, Sacramento, just to give some other examples. Um, but your then legislators actually held up to state budget until the director of finance put in writing, we know this deal isn't great for Fresno County and we're gonna we're going to work through it right after we pass AB85. And that's what happened. So, I just say that to the board today just to make sure you know, uh, when it comes to SEESAC, what you said is true, Supervisor Mendes, but when it comes to the representation of this county, right, we're just going to represent this county. I am just going to represent running your opinion. Yeah. What you gave it to me. My opinion is uh health care figuring out how health care dollars flow in California to the

counties. It it gets really complicated if it's not a county hospital county and it's not a CMSP county. So I want to assure all five board members today. We're we're on it and we're going to do our best for you. Yep. Because if you have a county hospital, it's instantaneous. You know, these costs become instantaneous. Yes. where if you don't have a county hospital becomes engineed care deal that comes down the road because these people fell through the cracks but they have to fall through the cracks first.

If if you operate a county hospital you know what your your gap or your delta is right in your operating revenue to stay afloat. Um, if you don't have if you don't own and operate a county hospital, the you have to deal with the hospitals, the clinics, the physician groups, the individual physicians in some case depending on what kind of medical specialy. I mean, this county has to bring all those things together and figure out how it it will it will work, right, going forward. Um, not trying to imply at all that having a county hospital makes everything everything's just smooth sailing if you got a county hospital because there are other issues, right, associated with that. That's why county a lot of counties don't have them anymore, right?

Um, but that complexity is what we're educating uh making sure this crop of state legislators are aware of. Um and it's going to be important that um all of those counties are in that third bucket. Um that their legislators are talking talking to each other, working together. Um I do want to note very very quickly that the new prom the new Senate leader in the state of California, Monnique Leone, she represents uh Santa Barbara um which is in the same bucket as Fresno County. Um and so um that's something that we're hoping will be helpful. Um, but yeah, there were some disagreements in the family, right? Exactly. And and the family is working through the disagreement, right?

As long as they're not catastrophic. We're working through the Yeah. And one quick deal so you can move on. that oil legislation was kind kind of a farce I think in the long run because that's one of the reasons why Chevron's leaving the state of California because there's areas in the state that they're saying okay we're going to give you more permits but they're slow walking them in the meantime because even in an old oil field you know people don't understand oil fields wells don't last forever you have to redrill them to get to continue to get the oil to flow in y yeah So if you're not redrilling new wells, the oil field degrades really quick. Y especially the better ones.

Yep. Understood. Okay. Thank Thank you. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Just a quick comment that related to and Paul can confirm this, but my understanding is the county hospital association already has a $500 million ask in uh and the CMSP has a $300 million ask in currently. So that's the kind of this idea of, you know, we're we're not going to fall in that bucket, but we've got asks that are currently in SEESAC's trying to get us to have a comprehensive ask, but there may be some things that are different here. Okay. It's sure on that on that point. It

you know the CMSP ask is from county medical services program is from 300 million to 800 million annually. Why is that? 300 million is if 30% of the estimated eligible population shows up on day one and 800 million is if every single person in the estimated eligible population shows up. And so it's okay to have a range, right? It's okay to have a range. And I appreciate um the CEO mentioning the county hospital ask um for counties like Fresno County that are in that other bucket. I'm not going to call it the third bucket, but um each county has to basically say what its need is, right? Um you're not conveniently in in an association. Um and so that's what we've been working through. We're getting those estimates together. SEESAC has those estimates and we're going to keep doing that.

Okay. Thank you. Any comments from the public? Okay. This was just a report, so no action necessary. Next item. Thank you, Mr. We now move to item number six. Yeah, I'll stick around just in case for the next two items. Thank you. Thank you, board member. Thank you. We now move to item number six. Under the CEO's office, receive midyear budget report for fiscal year 2526 and approve proposed schedule for the recommended budget and adoption of the fiscal year 2627 budget which incorporates a recommended budget by June 30th, 2026.

Good morning. Uh well, Paige is bringing the presentation up. Paul Nurland, your CEO. Uh we're going to give a presentation this morning that will give you a status of our current year's budget midy year. We're also going to give an outlook of the fiscal year that we're going to be coming into 2627. We're also going to look at the recommended dates for the budget hearings and budget adoption for 2627. And so with that, I'm going to hand it over to Paige and we'll we'll tag team as we go through this presentation. So Paige,

good morning chair, members of the board. Page Benvitas County Administrative Office. As Paul mentioned, the purpose of our presentation today is to provide an overview primarily of the general fund budget. Jump in here. Departmental mid-year expenditures for 2526 were approximately 39% of budgeted appropriations, which is right in line with midyear for the prior fiscal year. Revenues recognized at midyear were about 33% of budgeted revenues which is approximately 5% higher than prior fiscal year. Based on the estimates um provided by departments it is projected that uh sorry going back to this slide. It is projected that both total actual expenditures and revenues for the fiscal year um will be at 92% of budget or about 1% higher than in the prior year. Most general fund departments have indicated that they will be at or below their budgeted net county cost as shown. We are monitoring budgets uh for county council parks under public works and planning alternate indigent defense and uh foster care and aid to adoptions under the department of social services and if needed will we anticipate returning to your board with urine adjustments to address any shortfalls. um those would be adjust uh addressed with appropriations from budget mitigation or transfers between budget units um that are projected to have net county cost savings. This chart just illustrates um the fiscal year 2526 adjusted budgeted net county cost by service type versus estimated actual NCC by service type. uh based on our projections

and I apologize I realize I did not distribute our presentation. I'll let you turn to that page. Slide number eight. As we look ahead to fiscal year 2627, we'll review the status of our major categories of countywide or discretionary revenues. Approximately 80% of total ongoing countywide revenues is derived from property tax. Fiscal year 2526 adopted budget for secured property tax and property tax in lie of vehicle license fees which both directly correlate to assessed value included a 4% increase over the prior year actuals. As you are aware, this approach was less conservative than our usual 2% budgeted increase, but it is closer to actual growth projected. Estimated actual countywide or discretionary revenues are shown here and this reflects a u property tax growth of 6.4% over prior year actuals. Your board is familiar with this slide. This is a look back at our assessed value growth over the um years from which um the county's property tax revenue is generated. As you know, revenue growth is critical to keep our pace with rising costs. And in the last few years prior to the current, we saw record setting growth followed by a slowdown. To illustrate further, this graph shows the percentage of actual growth over the last 5 years. And for 2627, uh we recommend keeping a conservative approach in budgeting property tax growth.

To put this growth change in context even further, this chart shows the dollar amount. So, previous slide you saw percentages, the chart chart shows the dollar amount that has been added to budgeted discretionary revenues for countywide growth yearover-year for 2627. A 2 to 4% property tax growth adds approximately 14 million to just under 21 million over the 2526 budget which is less than what was added from 2425 to 2526. Now moving to our sales tax revenues. Bradley Burns or the 1% general sales tax is the second largest stream of countywide discretionary revenues. Total sales tax revenue received for the first five months of 2526 was 6% higher than actual revenues received for the first five months of 2425, but that's still down about 2% from the fiscal year prior to that. At this point, we're expecting growth for 2627 to be minimal. As your board is aware, Proposition 172 sales tax revenue, although it's not discretionary for countywide use, it funds a substantial portion of the public safety departments in the general fund. Prop 172 sales tax growth continues to be mostly flat. Um, revenues received to date at 58.3 million is less than 1% higher over year uh year-over-year. We expect to end the year right around the total amount budgeted with little to no new carryover available for the prior year or for the coming year that is and I'll turn it over to Paul. So looking ahead to next year uh just giving you a preview of what we are seeing um today. So, if we estimate taking the unbudgeted property tax

growth from this year, which is the $3 million you see at the top, along with anticipating or recommending at this point starting at a 3% budgeted growth for the new year, you know, many years we've we've come in with 2%. Last year we budgeted somewhat higher at 4%, but if we start at 3%, that is $17 million in growth. So that's about 20 million in revenue that we're looking at to offset our expenses that will grow next year. As we just look at potential cost increases next year, I just want to give you a very quick overview of those. If we estimate salary and benefit costs, uh if we were to estimate even just a 1% salary increase, uh that is about a $13 million increase. And I want to clarify that's for our net county cost. So there's there's more cost, but that's just the net county cost portion. Uh we've been talking a lot about HR1. Um the cost share in October of of this year, uh HR1 reduces the federal government share of the CalFresh administrative costs from 50% to 25% and that is the 7.5 million. That's a direct uh cost shift to the county that will be coming uh next fiscal year. Uh we're working closer closely on our risk rates. That's our workers compensation, our liability rates every time we come and we're uh paying claims when it comes to that and they are significant, but we're estimating, you know, approximately a $4 million increase uh to our net counted cost departments. And then operational service and supplies. There's I don't have to tell your board about where we're seeing those things. There was a discussion earlier about fuel, but just to give you an example of what we've seen u this year. Uh in January we were paying 299 uh per gallon. Uh March 4th we were paying 352

per gallon. March 9th we were paying 458 per gallon for county vehicles. So obviously something that is is not what was expected. uh but those kind of cost increases have an effect uh and are will affect us as not just that but the services that we take advantage of many times those cost increases are passed on uh to the county included in that is our jail medical contract which is about a 5% increase that would go from about 42 million to 44 million and then just the inflationary costs in our operations. The bottom line is with that we've got a gap that we're going to need to close that we're projecting. This could change, but it's about 17.5 million dollars that we're going to have to work uh to close. There's other impacts that I don't have on this slide that are are things we're working through uh including maintaining some of our Fresno County fire services and then other HR1 impacts that we'll talk about here shortly. Let's go to the next slide. Solutions and recommendations. Um when we when we look at this the property tax revenue growth just budgeting at 3% is is as you know is is higher than what we traditionally do. And we'll work with your board on how aggressive uh to be. Every percentage is about $3 million approximately. So the more aggressive we are, the closer we are to actuals. Our goal is that we are never budgeting uh anything that is more than actuals ever. Um net county cost department budget reductions. Last year, we were able to close many of the gaps uh through one-time funding, which which helped us, but that is not a a sustainable model. And so, we'll have to work with our departments to look at reductions. Uh as we look at those reductions, um the evaluation of what's most important and also your board's priorities remain the top priority. So, whatever we do, it will be done in that lens. Um hiring

controls are in place now. Uh but we'll probably need to scrutinize further. Uh there is not yet a hiring freeze, but really for departments that are listening, uh we're going to need to consider will you be able to afford those positions next year if we have to cut uh one-time funding. Again, any remaining net kind of cost that we carry over. This is less a solution and more of a band-aid. And you know, it's something that you can do every once in a while, but we need to be cautious where and when we we use it. We can go to the next slide. Looking ahead uh at other possible solutions, we've talked to your board about looking at other options to increase revenues. A transient occupancy tax or a toot tax could generate 3 to 4 million. We will will be coming to your board in April with an ordinance uh based on your direction. Um I know that there was a request by your board to to look at a general tax measure and you received some information recently and what that would look like. it could generate significant revenue and also depending what happens with the transportation measures may be another conversation we have to have sooner. Um the other thing I want to note is future solar projects for the public. A lot of our large commercial solar that we're seeing especially on the west side of our county is exempt from property tax and uh as of January 1st of 2027 that will change. And so projects that are complete after that date, uh we are expecting a boost in our property tax. Uh we will probably begin seeing a small boost in 2728, hopefully larger boosts in 2829. And so there is some hope on the horizon with that. Um I'm not going to talk anymore about HR1 because that we'll talk about here in just a moment, but I will turn it back over to Paige to talk about our proposed budget development schedule and hearings. The proposed budget schedule includes bringing the preliminary recommended budget to your board by June 30th and we

will keep your board apprised of important developments as the state budget situation evolves. Uh the preliminary budget your board will adopt in June will provide appropriations for the period of July through September until the final recommended budget is brought to your board. As a reminder, adopting the budget in September allows for the impacts of the state and feds to be incorporated. It also allows for a more accurate estimate of fund balance and any carryover that can be included in the following year budget. Final budget hearings will be held the week of September 14th, 2026. And with that, we are available for questions.

Questions from the board. One question uh on the solar projects, do you have any anticipated estimate of in January next year, what kind of revenue would be coming in?

Very rough. Uh but part of that was we've worked with our assessor's office to determine what that would look like. But I can tell you we took a look at just one large project and that one pro project alone, just the county's portion was about $4 million. Now the the part is it it's taxed based on where the completion date of that project and so I would anticipate we're going to see greater lengths really two years from now more than one year from now.

Okay. Any other question or comment? Anybody in the public wish to comment? Seeing none, is there a motion and second to approve? Motion by Supervisor Chavez. Uh all those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Passes unanimously. We now move to item number seven. Administrative office receive a presentation regarding the impacts to the county of Fresno of HR1.

While we're setting up, I'll just introduce this item to keep keep us moving. Um again, you're Paul Nurland, your CEO. So, a lot of talk about HR1 today. Uh but it has not been uh discussed more comprehensively in front of your board. So the purpose of this presentation uh is to talk about the impacts that we're seeing locally here at the county and I have uh three of our directors here who can speak in more detail uh to that. We can go to the next slide please. So we're going to talk about the current estimated impact from a fiscal standpoint. A little bit about indigent care. A lot of talk about that. uh what our local program looks like, behavioral health impacts, medical changes, CalFresh changes, and then some decision points that we will have coming before your board and then any questions um that you may have. When we look at where we are now, and many of you have seen this, we've also used this in collaboration with SEESAC and collaboration with uh with Paul as was discussed earlier as we talk about the impact to the county. That's a wide range, but the impact you're seeing is 68.5 to 294.5 million. And as Paul alluded to earlier, most of that is in the Department of Public Health, which is the indigent care program. And that really depends on how many people uh could be accessing this program. But I want to note the low end of 41 million is is staggering uh for our county budget. uh behavioral health 20 and social services is also a wide range. We'll discuss as we go through what that looks like. Um let's move to the next slide. And just to again introduce indigent care in California, it's already been talked about. We talked about the three buckets in our c in our state. The county medical services program or CMSP counties are in orange. So that they've they've banded together. They've got a plan that pays claims through that. You've got your counties in in blue that are provider counties that basically have their own hospital kind of like

Fresno County used to be back in the 90s. And then you've got us which is we are called an article 13 county uh which means we provide indigent care either directly or through contracted providers. Uh and so that is a different model uh than the rest of the state. And so with that, I'm going to turn it over to our director of public health, Joe Praau, to talk a little bit more about indigent care and the estimates that we've come up with. Joe,

good morning. Um, chairman and fellow board members. Joe Prao, public health um, director. So, let's walk you through that large range of 41 million to 241 million. What we did is we started diving into the data that was available to us. So in there we looked at managed care plans medical cost per patient and then we also looked at what did it cost us back in 2010 and then we added a consumer price index inflation factor yearly. So this is what contributed to the large um range here. So I'll walk you through the managed care plan cost when we looked at that at population at 11,000 is 41 million. Population at 30,000 will be 110 million annually. When we look at county costs, what it costs us back in 2010 with inflation factor at 11,000 people it would be 89 million at 30,000 people will be $241 million there. So that gives you a sense of where we actually came up with these particular um calculations. Now if you look at what um how many people are on medical in Fresno County, it's half almost half the population. So over 500,000 people. So we're using these population figures as just an estimate. If more people fall into indigent care, these numbers just go up and up and up. 19,000 people were on indigent care back in 2010. So it gives you a context of where we go. If it's a little lower, could be um could be that range. If it's higher, those costs are going to go exceedingly high. um funding. Um the county um back in 2013, the state um passed AB85 that pretty much took the county's dollars away to fund indigent care and they redirected it. So with that redirection, the department of public health um does not have funding to pay for indigent care. The reason for that is because the

affordable care act was passed in 2010 and so everybody became eligible under the affordable care act. So for the last two fiscal years, we've had zero expenses in our program because everybody is utilizing the Affordable Care Act. There's other avenues for health care. That will not be the case moving forward. So um why where does this mandate come from? Well, it's a it's a mandate from the state of California under welfare and institutions code 17,000. This is the code that requires us to pay for indigent care and it also sets each county in the state of California sets its own standards of eligibility and care. An exception to each county setting its own eligibility and care is um what was mentioned earlier, the CMSP counties. There is actually a board that votes on the eligibility in care and that board then sets forth the cost there. But I think there's a rare opportunity right now in the state of California that would benefit not only um the residents of Fresno County, state of California, but also um cost benefit. And I think that's where we start looking at removing the state mandate and start looking at moving this into the medical managed care plan fee structure. Why? Because if we those numbers are shared with you right now. So, at the county level, um it's $8,000 cost per patient. At the um managed care level, it's $4,000 approximately cost per patient. At the CMSP level, it is $6,000 um cost per patient. So, if we take a step back in the state of California and say, what is it that is going to cost us the least amount of dollars? It is the managed care plan's medical structure already. Second benefit is now patients that are in a hospital or being seen and cared for, they don't have to go outside and apply through a local county. They can actually just be within that existing framework within the managed

care plan. So instead of funding uh not funded, well there it's an unfunded mandate now, but instead of sending uh paying $8,000 to counties or the 6,000 through C CMSP county, utilize the infrastructure of the medical framework there. So there's a benefit for continuity of care, but also reduces the bottom dollar and also removes a state mandate to to local counties. So these are um solutions we we're bringing this up with um state legislators as we're having this conversation. But I just wanted to let you know there's a little bit of what we're trying to do in assessing that. If we're not able to see dollars come into the county, we'll be working with the CEO's office. We'll be working with county council to start evaluating the eligibility and see what dollars we do have. But in our department, we have no dollars um budgeted for this here and we don't have any incoming dollars. So it is an unfunded state mandate.

Thank you, Joe. At this point, we have Susan Holt talk about behavioral health impacts.

Good morning. The most important thing I want to emphasize for our board this morning is that the county behavioral health system is completely carved out of the indigent care conversation that you've heard about this morning. So we are a specialty mental health plan and a drug medical organized delivery system under contract with the state of California that get that again is completely separate from the indigent care conversation. So whatever solutions are being discussed at the state level for indigent care, those don't apply to county behavioral health. We're looking at impacts that we've conservatively estimated around $20 million specifically for these reasons. When individuals have medical and a mild to moderate mental health condition, they're managed by those managed care plans that Joe referenced. They don't touch our county behavioral health system until their needs are severe. When folks lose their medical and lose the treatment that they're receiving for a mild or moderate impairment, their impairment will escalate and they will hit our system completely unfunded. Most of our inpatient care settings are already not medical eligible because of the federal IMD exclusion, the Institutes for Mental Disease Exclusion. So we use tremendous amounts of 1991 realignment to fund that care. Um for the limited amounts that are fundable through medical, all of that would shift again to realignment. So we're very concerned about the administrative burden of the redetermination for medical. the persons with significant impairments. Um would we already know from past history that completing a more frequent process of gathering the papers to redetermine their medical eligib medical eligibility often slips off for that population particularly for our

persons experiencing psychosis and related challenges. So when they lose their medical, we lose the ability to draw down revenue even though we're continuing to try to assist them in uh determining that eligibility. Again, in the interest of time, I'll step aside and allow um the presentation to continue. Thank you, Susan. Um we're going to end with Sonia Bugare, director of social services on some of the impacts that that uh she's seen.

Good morning, board. Sonia Bugay. So I want to address both medical and calresh from the eligibility perspective. HR1 did really what the reason we have such wide estimates from both public health and behavioral health is really the HR1 changed eligibility. So the first piece that happens is eligibility needs to be determined and then we'll really know who falls in and who falls out. So a couple of points on medical that I want to make. At the moment 520,000 people in this county on medical and our numbers are really for impact of social services really look like zero on this page and they're not because the feds are not changing the dollars we're getting to administer medical. The state isn't either. What they gave us is a whole lot more work to do with the same work. About third of our case load is now subject to additional eligibility checks twice a year as opposed to once a year. Third of our case load is subject to work requirements which has never been an issue for medical and there's slew of others that are added that really are all designed to reduce eligibility rules. whatever falls out um portion of that population will be indigent which is what the projections are 11 to 30,000 um for people to be indigent. What we don't know yet is how many and the reason we don't is we do not have directions from feds yet. We're the state is expecting them by beginning of July. Once we those once we know those numbers things will change and behavioral health and public health will have more concrete numbers. Most of these things will be implemented for medical starting uh February starting January of 27. The big impact that has not been talked about yet is that in addition to all of that HR1 added error rates to medical which are been a

non-existent thing for medical and that will start in 2029 and at the moment um those rules are also being developed. So that's it for medical on Calresh. Really three things, lots of information on this page. I won't go over over all of it, but I want to leave you with three really key things. One is the shift um of county to county share of cost and state share of costs from the feds. That 50% that went down to 25 county share of cost has been 15% for past four decades. That will starting October 1st become 22.5%. That seven and a half percent share of cost is seven and a half million to us. That's about shift to cost. So that's one. Two is we have similar to medical unfunded eligibility workload work requirements changes. Work requirements is probably the biggest one. There's a slew of others that all of a sudden the work that our eligibility workers have never been asked to do, they're going to need to do starting um June of this year, but 50,000 of our cases are subject to work requirements. That is currently not funded. And then the final one, which is an existing issue for Calresh and being added to um with HR1, two different types of share of costs for benefits. So, we issue $560 million a year in Fresno County in food benefits. You don't see it in our budget because that's off budget, but it's $560 million is about 48 million a month. At the moment, 100% of that cost is federal cost. State has no share of cost. Counties have no share of cost. HR1 changes that for county for states to have a share of cost from 5% to 15% depending of the error rates for state of California that's if it were at 15%

that's $2 billion state of California error rate right now is such that that would be applied I don't know where state would find $2 billion and I don't know that any of that would be passed to the counties but that's a risk the second one is payment error rates per rates 19 counties in California and we're one of them are subject to those air rates um and pass on of penalties and Fresno sits in kind of a double exposure place when it comes to how these air rates are calculated. So part of it is we don't have sufficient money for eligibility. Air rates are likely and penalties are likely and people will fall off the medical. eligibility piece of this. I do think the costs are really understated because of the work and the potential penalties that we're not calculating in that 7 million to $30 million estimate. So, I'm going to end with that

quick question. Air rates, does that mean fraud? What does air rate mean? It means um fraud, which is tiny. It means administrative errors by our eligibility workers and admin and it also means inadvertent household errors. It means any time a case is not accurate compared to what federal rules say and the majority of those error rates aren't fraud. They're really error rates by eligibility workers. What percent of error rate do we have now?

So um in food stamps right now the federal fiscal year 25 that ended we were at 4.25%. I will tell you as a county we have been as high as 14% just a year or so ago. In 2026 um we are going to have a higher air rate just on the natural because of HR1 implementations. So HR1 was passed July 4th. Some of these um effective dates were July 4th. We waited on federal direction and state direction to implement pieces of it. Most of it will not be implemented until April 1st and June 1st, which means based on federal rules, every case would be errored out. That is not within county control. And yet, we would be subject to some of these error rates.

If there are error rates, um, someone's got to be auditing it to find these errors. Or is that AI? I mean, who's who's the one who says, "Here's your error rate." So we have quality assurance staff and state and QC staff that are within my departments to review theirs that is submitted to the state. They review behind us and at times through either single audit or different federal audits cases are audited. So yes it's based on the actual audit of cases that air rates are determined.

All right. Thank you. Thank you Sonia. I want to thank the department heads. I want to thank uh Amina who coordinated this presentation. Um the upcoming decision points as we end we we we talked about the the increase in the uninsured that we're anticipating with that. Uh there would be a decision to consider the eligibility here in Fresno County. Uh I know I think county council also sent something to your board on what that could look like and what our options are. Uh as was just alluded to on the eligibility side, the administrative capacity based on these new requirements. It's ironic that there's more scrutiny there, but yet we need more staff. It's it's an advantage in Fresno County to keep more of our local population on medical because otherwise, as was shared by Joe, it's it's less expensive through medical uh than it would be to pay for it through our indigent care program. Uh the advocacy we've already talked about with with Paul, SEESAC will be coming up with an ask, but we may have some unique ask as an article 13 county. And then the general fund exposure may require more difficult decisions as we look at the impact of those precious discretionary dollars. With that, uh, that concludes our presentation and welcome any questions that you may have for for me or for any of our presenters.

Any questions or comments from Yes, Subra Shavez. Thank you, Chair. Just a quick question on the error rate. Um, I think Sonia, you're the one that had mentioned it. Um, the the big ugly bill gets uglier um as we discuss it more. Um, so the error rate, you're being judged on that, not per county, but for the whole state. So, is that correct?

Yes. So, it it's really both. Um, statewide, there's a national error rate trends at So, for 2025, nationally, we were at 10% as a as a um country. California was at 11% in 20 in 2025. So therefore, California would be subject to penalties. How state calculates this is because 19 largest counties represent 88% of the CalFresh case load. State passes on that calculated error to 19 of us our 88% share. There is some significant challenges in how this is done. So one thing that for me advocacy like what would look like in the next couple of years is one really advocating with the state to hold counties harmless the 19 PMC counties from any 2026 air rates based on state decisions or federal decisions on implementation of the um HR1 and then really working with the state of fig refiguring out how um pass on penalties are done because there some complexities to it that the county's air rates could be marginally different for the 19 counties and the amount of calculation of what would be passed on is in millions of dollars worth of difference. I looked at it for 2023 and 2024 for our county and our numbers went from three million to 14 with a half a percent change in error rate because what other counties are part of it how it's calculated there's so much technicality to it that really our first step to me is holding us harmless to 2026 because if two years in a row we have a high error rate as a state the pass on happens and in 2026 we will simply based on HR1. So that's step one and step two would be redoing this for 19 PMC counties because that legislation is two three decades old and

we with HR1 is really in a new space. Right. And so to me it sounds like our our state uh advocacy folks and our federal advocacy folks should be helping with that because to me I mean it's fair to to judge a county if they have a high error rate but if you're doing a good job you shouldn't get penalized. Right. That's one of the conversations that we had in in in DC on that. But that's thank you for the clarification. Yeah. Okay. Any other comments, questions? Any members from the public wish to speak on this item? Okay. Seeing none, it was just uh to receive a presentation. So, no motion needed. We'll move on to the next item.

Item 7.1 under administrative office public works and planning and public health. proceed presentation from county administrative office, department of public works and department of public health environmental health and provide direction regarding construction demolition debris at American Avenue disposal site. Okay, the floor is yours.

Good morning board. Steve White, public works and planning director. I'll do the opening remarks on this with slide presentation for you. We will try and make a brief considering the time. Uh we did a brief discussion about the landfill, its operations and how it functions as a landfill, where the waist stream comes from. But the first thing I want to start with is making sure that this board has an open invite to come visit the landfill. It's a machine. It does 2500 tons a day, 300 plus vehicles a day. And one of the clogs breaking can cause problems. And that's what this is today. is there were constituents that complained to two of our board members with regard to CND waste being rejected at the landfill itself. So with that, I'll open the door to Dan. All right. Good morning, chairman, members of the board. Uh just starting off. So what is CND? So CND is construction, demolition debris. It's material generated from construction, remodeling, demolition. Uh you can kind of think building material. So wood, metal, roofing, uh asphalt, bricks, etc. So, uh, Fresno County has an existing ordinance, uh, 8.25. Uh, it's a disposal ban. Uh this was approved by the board in uh May of 2004 uh in response to a compliance order from the state for compliance with the integrated uh waste management act of 1989 commonly referred to the industry as AB939 which required all jurisdictions by 2000 to divert at least 50% of the material from the landfill. um failure to meet AB939 requirements uh could subject jurisdictions up to a $10,000 a day penalty and CND in particular has a high potential for waste reduction, recycling and diversion uh which saves landfill air space and helps comply with the state diversion requirements.

So, one of common misconceptions is it's a total disposal ban. If you show up, you got a couple 2x4s in your load, you're going to get rejected out of the landfill. That's not true. There are limited exemptions in the ordinance. So, one, so you can bring up to three cubic yards of material. So, a visual, if you come in with a full-size pickup truck loaded to the top of your cabin, we're going to accept that material. Uh, if you co-ingle or mix the loads, as long as there's no more than 20% of the load. So, if you have a giant rolloff bin, you can have up to 8 cubic yards of CND material in that, and we will accept it for disposal at the landfill. So, there are several local CND facilities. Uh there's one uh transfer station located uh you can see Mid Valley there just south of Kerman. That's about 7.4 miles. Uh but they're along the 99 corridor there in Fresno. And then Republic Service has a facility kind of near Fryant there off the 41. So here's just a kind of quick video to get a visual of the landfill and kind of the flow of the landfill. So coming off American Avenue, you pull into the scale house. Uh we have two inbound scales. One is a manual scale. So they'll weigh in, weigh out, ask where you're bringing the material from. The other is an automated scale, the one to the right there. So our large commercial haulers, their trucks and trailers have uh radio frequency RF tags and they come in, punch in their code, they get a ticket, and those customers in particular that once they go up and dump, they're able to just exit the facility. they don't have to weigh out. Uh any normal self hauler or non RF vehicle has to weigh in and out every time they enter the landfill. So this is just kind of a view of the access road. The big hole in the ground was our phase one uh original 30 acre part of landfill that we did a large relocation project a couple years ago. Uh going up to the active phase now. So

the trucks will actually go and this is all trash. So, as they're kind of going up this ramp here, you'll see they're all on millions of cubic yards of waste and then the trucks queue up and dump at the the tipping floor and then staff uh push and compact the material. That's probably good. May good morning board. Um Joe Praau with public health and um my portion of the presentation is just to explain there's another county department involved with American Avenue Landfill. Um through our environmental health division, we are the local enforcement agency. So we actually issue the solid waste facility permit and we actually um ensure that um everything that is taken out there is following under those permit standards. And so construction and demolition is part of the permit process. And um there's a tonnage noted um on the screen there. And as of the most recent inspection last month, there was no areas of concern or no violations issued by our department. Thank you. So couple options. What do we do with the CND? So right now we're currently exercising option one, immediate enforcement. So we're rejecting and redirecting loads that do not meet one of the exemption requirements. It's a three cubic yards or 20 less than 20% of the load. Uh you know obviously the pros of that median compliance with the ordinance supports state diversion goals and is actually significantly reduced customer weight times at the landfill. Uh obviously one of the big cons is customer frustrations when loads are rejected and possible illegal dumping concerns. And option two, we can amend the existing CND ordinance. Uh we did reach out to the state. They're going to get back to us next week. Obviously, again, the original ordinance was a requirement of the compliance order. So, we've engaged with the state to see if there's any flexibility there. Uh, but currently

all loads, so if you bring your load in and you say, "Hey, you know, there's less than 20% scale house says no, we can't accept it." Uh, we do have another process where one of the site supervisors will come over, meet with the customer, go over the load, confirm, you know, if they're good to go, we'll allow them to dump. If not, we will reject the loads and then direct them to one of the existing facilities uh throughout the county and we can amend the existing ordinance uh to allow addressing concerns of select groups of the public uh to the extent that we're allowed to by the state. Uh option three, accept and transfer CND at AADS. uh we could accept the material at the landfill, segregate load and transport transport the material to a local permitted CND facility. Uh the pros are it is a centralized disposal location for customers. So, you know, it's like a one-stop shop and it it does improve compliance of the ordinance. Now, one of the major cons is it there's a long lead time. It's probably going to take at least 18 to 24 months. Uh there's environmental land review. Uh there could be some capital costs which we estimate about a million and that could go up and down depending on what's required uh by our permit. Uh these additional operational costs though the the American Avenue operates as an enterprise so these will be passed on the customer. I fully anticipate the cost to accept this material and transport to another facility will significantly exceed direct hauling to one of the current facilities listed on the previous slide. And also there's there's a risk that the perception that we're competing now with the local companies and we're actually could potentially, you know, reduce the amount of customers they receive as well.

So I want to speak to the texts I get every week from Richard Kaggleia twice a week like clockwork tells me what everyday weight time for his carts facility group is. It goes from 32 minutes to 37 minutes and back and forth. uh just yesterday I received another text that because two of the pieces of equipment were down uh he was up to 37 minute turnaround. So for this industry and the commercial haulers which is our core business we've automated that landfill as best we can but there's only so much room in the face. Uh when I say the face is where they actually dump the walking floors and like big bulk volume haulers coming in as you saw in the video one of the trucks coming out was one already dumped. So what ends up happening they face up they get in they circulate down there. Remember, you're sitting on a million tons of garbage when you're driving a truck there. And we can't touch the self haulers. All of you in the video is another person pulling a trailer. It's a self hauler. We touch them, we break them, we buy it. That's some of our liability issues with touching them trying to help them. So, what ends up happening is they want to get in and get out of there as fast as we can. We would love to have another scale because as you see the outbound coming out, the truck has to have a clear path going forward. So, we've asked we put some delineators out there to clear that path out because what's not in the video is where you dump as a public up into the bins. You drive in with your pickup or car, whatever else, and they'll offload for you and then drive back out. But the stacks the outbound scale because you have to pay as you go the outbound scale. So, we've tried to implement many different programs. A concern came up just yesterday with regarding the our safety plan out there requires you to wear a vest. So, we provided vests. We have a wonderful vendor out there who's taken the opportunity to be in business for himself. We're asking code enforcement assistance trying to shut him away, but we will have vests at the at the office to give out and for the most part we get them back, but over time they they migrate on. So what we're looking for clear direction today from the board is what direction would you like to go? What we're hearing from the industry,

they really like the wait times. They really like the additional volume that's coming back to them with CND being processed at the facilities. A CND processing facility is a very expensive capital asset 10 million plus. I worked on a CAG was one where was in private sector and the material has to be sorted through a bunch of hand sorting operations mechanical systems plastics uh any organics has to be pulled out. We do receive a portion of this material back at the landfill as Dan can attest. The tonnage is going up, but there's fewer trips, so the density is going up. We try and do our best with the customers. Three cubic yards is a lot of material. 20% of a 40-yard bin is a lot of material. And it's just what direction would you like us to take this? Because amending the ordinance, we can go back to the state, but from the email I received from Dan yesterday, I'm not sure the state's going to be very receptive to us. Um, because you're going against there's new regulations that have come into effect. What we're looking for is we'll continue with the public outreach, but no one is denied access without having due process given to them from one of our site supervisors. If you're being denied, it's blatant. You have an entire trailer full of roofing material. We can take it. If you would strategize of how you load the trailer and bring it back to us, maybe in two trailers, because there's a lot of materials over the years you got in there. We're doing a more diligent job now of enforcing the rules than we have in the past. We'll accept that. We freely admit that to this board. So, we'll wait for direction.

Comments from the board.

I I I'll start Nathan. Um I think petitioning the state to try and change the rules is a is a waste of time. I think these are the rules and we have to adjust our practice to adhere to the rules. So first and foremost, I think education. So we've already started that when you reject the loads. So for me personally, I'm not as concerned with the 40 yard bins because that's a large commercial. I am concerned with the everyday resident trying to dispose of their property at the dump. That is my number one priority in this whole discussion. So for me, first and foremost, we need large, huge billboard signs that states due to state law, we cannot accept construction and debris material greater than whatever. And we need to have that in clear writing and not in little print, massive. Massive. So, as a person pulls up and they see a stop sign and they see the sign next to it, they can expect what's coming to me. That's first and foremost. That needs to get done immediately if not sooner. Okay. Then once we start that, then as Steve mentioned, yeah, we have an issue that again for safety and enforcement and I have again no issue with that. Do we're now requiring people to wear these vests. So, we have to be able to provide the vest. We're giving the vendor across the street an opportunity to make money on our people at an exorbitant rate because we won't let them in the landfill unless they have a vest. Is that true or not?

That is true. But we do not support or you know agree with the vendor that's operating

irregardless. Irregardless. You are indirectly creating that situation by having them require vest. So, if you're not going to give the people a vest, you are giving that vendor an opportunity. And I I applaud the guy for making money because if I'm pull up, I take 20 40 minutes to drive there to dump it and I find out, hey, I need a three or$4 dollar vest to get in, what am I going to do? Well, I'm going to go and pay the 20 bucks or whatever it is to get a vest so I can get my stuff in. I don't have a choice. So, the way to prevent that is we have a county employee there and we hand the guy a vest. The problem is you got to have one at the end to grab our vest back or you're going to blow through your vest in a week. Okay? Again, no issue. I'm trying to tell you as a practical point of view what we do as an individual person. Okay? We need to solve these kind of issues. So again, the 40 bends, no problem. Reject those, send them out. I am again concerned with the individual person trying to unload their garbage. So we start with education and and we do those kind of things and then once that happens over time we'll do it. I personally believe we need to raise the rates of our disposal facility. You guys were just here a little while ago. Um we need new equipment out there. We apply and those those numbers are huge. Hundreds of thousands of dollars for the massive equipment that you use. And again, as you said earlier, this is a machine. This is its own enterprise. It is a massive, massive operation that the entire county of Fresno uses. The city of Fresno, City of Clovis, everybody's taking their their garbage out there. It is a machine, so we need to operate it as such. And when is the last time we raised our rates?

Uh rates are raised annually, 2 and a half%. Uh but that's all precipitated by the city of Fresno agreement that was approved by the board in 2014. So that kind of set our modern rate structure um you know significantly reduce the rates and we're starting we're starting to get back up there but again 2 and a half% is not has not kept up with inflation over the past 5 to seven years.

So again that contract was before any one of us here we're on the board. Um, I personally think that contract was too long because it doesn't allow for the cost of inflation. And as we know, just in the last 30 days, costs have gone up exponentially as they have over the last several years. That contract on a 15-year contract is not keeping pace with what our true cost is. So again, I feel the county we're subsidizing the city of Fresno. We're subsidizing the city of Clovis and all that because it's costing us more than what the actual costs are. And that's not your your fault. That's whoever was in this board prior to any of us being here. So for the next board, when that comes up, don't do it that long. Don't do it that long. Fiveyear increments should be the longest. Should be the longest. And I know we're gonna have people complain we can't do stability and all that. That's life. That's life. So if not, then take your stuff somewhere else. And that's exactly what's happening. So ours is the greatest game in town because if you don't go to us, then you got to go to one of these other people that you listed. What's the minimum cost of going somewhere else?

I think it's 80 a ton. Yeah. The typical for Cindy is 80 to 100 ton at other facilities.

100 bucks. 100 bucks. and we're $30 to $15. That's why everybody comes to us and nobody wants to go under there because again as an individual we have to maximize our dollars and I don't fault the people for that but apparently we're very under the market if we're 15 to $30 and everyone else is going to 100. So as an individual, do you think you want to go and pay a hundred bucks when I'm going to try and sneak it in for 30? Of course not. But this is the issue that we have and this board needs to address. So again, I don't fault you for what it is. Uh but I agree with you. My number one issue that I've had in the last three weeks, this has been a bigger issue for me as a supervisor than roadside garbage. And that's amazing because that's our number one call that we get on a weekly basis is roadside garbage. And this now has taken the lead. So for me weight times is killing us. I firmly believe that we need to invest in another scale but again that takes money and we can't do it with our current budget but we need a scale. It will help the commercial haulers and more importantly it will help the individuals going out there because their time is just as valuable as the commercial guys. So again we need to solve problems. We know what they are. It's not your issue, but it's now this board's issue. So, we need to come up with a way. And again, we just heard we have no money. The new HR1 bill is going to decimate this county and all these other costs that the federal government has unloaded onto the state and the state is unloading to the counties. So, if we think it's bad now, in the upcoming years, it's going to get a whole lot worse. So, we need to come up with a plan to

fund these issues because these problems aren't going to go away. It's only going to get worse. So, Mr. Chairman, that's my my comments on this. This is just the tip of the iceberg, but we have an issue and I'm interested to hear what my colleague, Mr. Magik, has because I know he's got a lot of calls as well. And I was about ready to say, but wait, there's more.

Yeah. So I agree with mostly everything that Brian Pacheo said and rarely if ever do I do this but there is one correction to your comment. So the city of Clovis has its own landfill. They don't bring garbage there. Now there might be some residents who might drive out but the city of Clovis has managed its own landfills because it's had ones in different areas for quite some time. But while we were sitting here having this uh discussion, I was texting a major hauler and I I'm like, "Hey, are you happy with the landfill?" And their comment was, "Wait times are way too long. Not sustainable. It's crushing them." So, something needs to be done at the landfill. And one thing that was brought up, and I'm glad, you know, I'm glad Steve brought this up. The agreement that was negotiated with the city of Fresno in 2014, that too is not sustainable. It doesn't pay for its fully loaded cost for us. operating an enterprise account, we have to make sure that our costs are covered. So, no one entity is getting subsidized. We charge the general public our costs. Otherwise, our general fund has to subsidize these issues. So, I I would say we don't need to wait till we're gone. Look at it now. And as far as uh what I think needs to happen is we have commercial haulers throughout the county that are bring bringing garbage to us. They need their own dedicated lane. So residential haulers and smaller haulers that are bringing debris don't slow things down. I'm open to a transfer station um where haulers can come in, dump their materials, and there is a look from staff of what they're, you know, what they're uh putting down, and then they're charged a per ton fee uh for that. And then we sort so we can make sure we're meeting the requirements of AB939. And I recognize something like that might have to be put out to bid. the two other transfer station that exist off of Fryant Road and then the other one out in Kerman. I think those are going to be

there regardless because someone's not going to try to save $20 to come all the way to our facility if they're only dumping, you know, a half a ton of material. They'll still go to the Rice Road dump or the Kerman dump, but it's the it's the bigger haulers. It's the haulers that maybe have a five or 10 yard bin where, you know, they're they're they're dumping several tons of material where they are now raising their hand saying, "Wait a minute, I need a place to dump this." And they're being rejected at our landfill. The bigger issue is the time now that they have to absorb uh rerouting to a transfer station. And their complaints are after they dump at the transfer station, that transfer station just takes what they dumped and brings it back to the county dump. That's their complaint. So I think we do need to do some work. We may need to add another scale. We need to find a way to have commercial haulers having an express lane so they are not having to wait for even 37 minutes is too long. I look at labor costs, fuel costs of these things idling that we need to find a way to have them get in and out there. I want to cut times in half. Uh, so we need to think bigger and we need to renegotiate the City of Fresno agreement. If it is not covering its cost, we blow it up. We blow the thing up. Bottom line,

you have a contract though. How do you do that? We We have attorneys, don't we? We got to take a look at that contract and find a way to blow it up. The old contract. You probably wrote it. Yeah.

Can I jump in and explains at the landfill? We're gonna put them on American Avenue and we're going to put them inside the phase. You're not going to read a sign on the fence. I will guarantee it. Last time I was there was $9.30 and I had a full truckload. And the great part was they helped me offload uh when I pulled my truck back in into the we dump in the bins and I was out of there. The disconnect is we do have an express lane uh with RFI on it, but it sometimes stacks. If you do choose to go to the landfill, they're stacked on American Avenue. There's 20 30 trucks stacked out there first thing in the morning. Each of them has to come across a scale. They log in. They have to key it in. We need a second. We can look at what a cost of a portable scale would be. Start that process. The disconnect really is trying to get the cellers out going across the single scale where they pay. We're going to have 100 plus vests in stock at all times to give to the public in attempt to get them back. Uh those are easy things for us to solve. the capital costs, the physical cost of building, putting in a scale. We're going to work up those numbers, present it to the CA's office, and then bring it back to the board whenever direction is there. It's the face that we're up against, too. There's only so much area that these uh the face is opened up to because they have to be closed up every night. And when you get inclement weather, yes, I got a text today from that special hauler because he didn't have enough room on the face because you're sitting on a thousand a million tons of landfill. So everything you're asking for, we can do. If you're interested in a rate increase, okay, we'll move forward with that. Take two months to to do it. Opening up the contracts is going to be an issue. We'll have to turn to Doug on because we sent those contracts to Doug yesterday and to our CIO. How do you open that back up? Our landfill is one of the cheapest lands in the state. We get the business model. They're going to come to us before they'll go somewhere else. So we have to find that

balance. How can we raise the rates? not penalize everyone else, but make it to where the lo the waste needs to go where the waste needs to go. Um,

that might help cut your volume, too. If you raise the rates, you should have less people coming in. Maybe the other ones would be a little bit more attractive. So, that might indirectly help our weight times. One of the things that was also brought to my attention, and again, it's a third-party hearsay, is that when we did have an issue a month ago when we first brought this up and and something was broke and the lines they everything stopped, the complaint from the individual residents was is that when you opened it, you let all the commercial guys go first and you made all the residents wait until they were done. Maybe a more fair way would have been let one commercial guy go, one resident go, one commercial guy go, one resident go. But when all the commercial guys got to go, the residents there were livid livid that they were waiting just as long as everybody else, but they were forced to wait when the commercial guys got to come in. So again, we want to be fair to all our people and we need to address those kind of things.

All right, understood. Yeah. The issue with the commercial traffic getting prioritization is they're receiving this material daily from the you know the route the route trucks that are picking up you know that's pure garbage. Yeah. Yeah. Let's let's there's classes of garbage. That's pure garbage. But if you're there waiting that's not your job

times the the the previous months were a result of again as you said we're the cheapest game in town. Everybody with a truck and trailer. Yeah. go out to American Avenue, dump for, you know, 32 33 a ton as opposed to 80 100 a ton. And that's what really I mean we've seen our traffic drop, I think 80 to 100 vehicle trips per day, just really enforcing the current ordinance. And that material, all the other commercial locations that were listed on that map, they've seen a significant increase in customer traffic. As Steve said, they're happy that one, they're receiving additional volume, but two, the weight times have been significantly decreased at the L

and it's it's a transition period, and we know that and these are transitional pains. Supervisor Maxig, I'm curious, was uh appreciative to learn about Clovis. Does Clovis let residents dump there, too?

I don't think so. I think Clovis uh the way that they operate is uh the city collects its own garbage and so um they do their own sorting and they but residents are offered up two curbside pickups a year. I don't think there's any other city that does that. So residents really don't have to find a dump to they just allow the city to come get it from them and then the city deals with its own sorting and and hauling right off Aubberry Road where they've operated a landfill there for many many decades. So I think that's a significant difference is when you don't deal with the public, you only deal with your own trucks, that's a huge advantage that we don't have that luxury of.

I agree and I've got So here here's three things I want to throw out there because I want to make sure as we have this discussion that we've got some takeaways and then we give staff direction so we can continue to move on this. One is we need to look at the city of Fresno contract. If it's not covering its costs, then we've got to make sure it is covering its costs. Number two is we need to cut weight times. Whether that means more lanes and other scale, I don't know. You need to figure that out. And then we need to change our tipping fees at our landfill to at least cover our costs. Those are the three things that I want and I think they're reasonable. And I think people would be willing to pay5 or $10 more per ton if you don't wait time significantly. So

those are I don't know if if there's any good you want to throw. And I just think we need signs and again I would concur. You need them on the road to there so that you know what to expect when you are there. Yeah. They have no choice but to read them. Yeah. So, what you just asked for, we can do. No problems. Perfect. But I'll put it in perspective of this is a process. Yep.

We'll bring you back a flow process. What the cost of that process is going to be. It's not just getting across and getting in and out of the scale. We did a product several years ago, American Avenue. We're able to stack trucks up is what we want. They open gates, they roll in. It's the face management too. We're currently under study of what's our operational efficiencies. So if we need to buy another Tonka, we'll buy another Tonka. We're dirt poor. We're struggling with that. We're trying to find cover for the things themselves. So it's not one piece. It's all of them together because I really don't enjoy getting those hot texts from one of the haulers saying for two minutes and if I can make it go away, what's reasonable? 25 minutes because time is money for us too.

Yes. If we have an operator out there, they need to be they're working their eight hour day putting that stuff underground. And we put 2500 tons underground every day, six days a week. Well, I appreciate you looking at this. Mr. Chairman, I'm done. I got a question. You You guys have completely dominated the conversation here. Now, a portable scale, is that legal? Yes. Okay. They exist in the indust. Yeah, they exist in the industry now. We go to one of the brand name business. Yeah, there's all kinds of portable scales. Well, we would get we get load cells

to see what we can get at the lowest cost alternative for the truck to come across for the load cells. You don't need a full deck for a portable scale. No, if you have two load scales that are wired together, you go, you sit on top of it. The tricky part, all you got to do is put the axles on it. That's all. Uh because you could actually use the big scale for the commercial and use a portable scale for smaller vehicles. We may not put the portable scale on the inboard. We may put it on the outboard because when you back up the traffic, you can't get the truck out. That also contributes to the the challenge because I'm pulling a trailer. You got to cross traffic. So again, it's a process. Yeah.

Let's get the process figured out. Minimize it. put some lane controls out there, one scale, two scale, whatever it turns out to be. And it's also going to be the staff another lane going out if they were on Exactly. scale. So, as to the contract issues, we agree. We had to hand the CEO a very big check this year, which we asked him to send to or deliver to the city. And that's just not what I would do in his business decision, but that happened well back in 2014 was $200,000 plus dollars of uncolored money. It's great for the city, but not good for us. We could put that same money back into our machine out there and enhance it. Okay.

So, you're saying we essentially gave the city of Fresno a rebate check for over a quarter of a million dollars. Yes. I think every year. It's not just one time. Every year. Yes. There's criteria in the tonnage of the numbers in there. They're generating more times, which is a good thing. Uh but at the same time, it was negotiated long before any of us. And now it's how how does our magic attorney unravel all those issues? I don't know. That's amazing that we're paying someone to bring us garbage. I just find that amazing. You know, that's the same people that paid the ridiculous amount of money for that property in Selma.

Yep.

Oh, wow. Any other comments, Supervisor Chavez? Yeah, just I when Supervisor Pacheco brought this issue up uh last board meeting I had uh and Steve, thank you for helping out the illegal dumping in Callow media was called. I had to go out there and address that. But I would say 60 to 70% of that junk was exactly what we're discussing here today. And and Steve and I, we spoke yesterday with regards to how do we address this going forward. I think the solutions my colleagues brought were great. I think for me in the in the areas that we're working in, Callawa, Mayfair, we have illegal dumping that goes on. I think long-term solution and it's related to the contracts that we're going to be discussing with regards to our vendors, but I think we need to have the operation cleanups within these uh unincorporated areas, whether it's at Mayfair, Callow, Fig Garden, um other neighborhoods. I think going forward, I'd like for us to look at that because I think it'll cut back on a lot of these issues. And the one question that I had, I'm looking at the PowerPoint presentation. So, we're doing this because of the diversion requirement from the state, right? So, these folks come up here. Um, not a lot are rejected, but the ones that are probably end up being dumped in West Fresno County or in Callawa or in, you know, East Fresno County. when we pick those up because we we have to pick them up. Do those not count towards the the the percentage because we didn't accept them and they were just picked up as a illegal dump site.

We're doing the the tonnage now to produce that back to Dan for the $4.2 million we spent in the last two years. We're doing the tonnage recaps right now with the various different vendors. We'll provide that back. We're hoping to count some of that towards our diversion criteria. Usually when you have an illegal dumping, it's it's a pickup

load. It's not a 40-yard rolloff. So, we're already working with the city of Fresno and have for many, many months that we're asking them, give me a unit cost per house and then we'll bring it back to the CEO who bring it back to the board. Can we afford that as we talked yesterday or can we do a planned event? Your um the dumping we did last two weeks ago picked up for you five 50 yards came out of nowhere two days. So, we rolled in, rolled out, and got it done. So,

we're gearing to take this over in roads this summer. Uh, unfortunately, we're down 14 operators and nine staff. So, we're working with Paul's office to try and hire those back. So, part of the solution is let us manage our own game. We'll look at the landfill process. We'll come back with game plans, but when the city gives us the numbers, we'll present those to Paul. He can bring them back to the board and you can make a decision. When are you plan on getting those numbers? Uh, when are you plan on getting those numbers from I'm hoping to get them next week. That's I keep pushing on Paul Armo. Clovis is unique. They do it twice a year. Fresno used to do it twice a year

and we would plan in my household twice a year to go out take the junk out there. Now they do it once a year and it's usually when it's 110 degrees out. But if we can do that and we can afford that, it will guarantee less going to having a problem with illegal dumping and the like. But we don't have the numbers yet. Absolutely. And as somebody who represented the other side of the street, you know, two years ago, I know exactly what you're referencing. But th those are some of the options that I think we're going to be discussing in the near future. Thank you. And Steve, what is our current illegal dumping budget? How much are we spending a year?

Uh, in the last few years, we spent $4.2 million and I think we still have less I think about million dollars left-ish in the budget. We track it in Bill G's office every month. Our goal is to get lo and transferred over to roads. Yeah. Just and just to clarify that what's actually budgeted is 4 million, but that includes homelessness cleanups, illegal dumping, so everything. And as as your board knows, we've that's increased. I think it was half a million two years ago. It's gone up to two now to four. So every year four million a year now. That's the but we we've typically illegal dumping and cleaning homeless and things like that. That's right. So your calls have lessened,

but the costs are up because we task our contractors very very quickly. But we task them, I'm going to go here. I'm going to go here. What Rose is going to do is they're going to wipe it clean. Constantly wipe it clean as part of their daily task. So not every hour that day will be build back to illegal dumping. Then we have to work logistics out and we'll be in the same boat. If we have a bunch of CN debris, we can't bring it out to the landfill. We'll stage our dumpsters and get it within the rules that the landfill can take and then we'll haul it out there.

I will say they're they're doing a great job. I know they can never keep up, but they they're timely in their response and sometimes they're there before we even make the call. So, actually, that's going well as well as it can be expected. One last question. Now, in the county islands in town, you know, could Supervisor Chavez mentioned them. Are they on mandatory pickup? Uh, no. Unincorporated Fresno County is non-mandatory. Now, if you're in a That's a problem.

If you're in a jurisdiction though with its own community service district that handles waste hauling, they may require it, but I know one that does it. And we got a good system and we have two cleanups a year, but what it is, you have to take it down to the rodeo grounds and they'll sort into the different piles that they'll take it.

Yeah. We're going to recommend not house by house clean up. We're going to recommend to get started on this maybe a block by block or something like that because if people will bring us to waste, then we can do exactly what supervisor said. we can kind of sort it. Um, any of the programs would be Clovis or Fresno, you have the pickers come through and 90% of what you put out there is gone by the time your day of pickup is because they source it. They do exactly what we want to have done. They source it. Metals, materials are recyclable and everything else. How can we metal mold the best model for what we're doing? The challenge is where do you take it? Grove was a choice road of choice down in Calla. Maybe that's where it becomes. And we're doing flyers. We'll do everything we need to do to try and get people educated. Please don't illegally dump.

Any other comments? No. Co, sorry. So, I just want to see if I can summarize what I heard. Uh, so we've got clear direction. So, what I heard was uh ensuring we've got clear signage, website, education, so that it's very clear what the requirements are uh as soon as possible. uh ensuring we have a supply of vests and that we also recoup them on the way out. Uh we review the fees that are in place to ensure we that the costs are being recovered and not just for our current but also for expansion as we look to the future. Um I heard looking at expansion including a scale that would help with the weight times and coming back with what that would do.

Yeah. So we would come back to your board with what would that look like and discuss options and then finally review the current agreement including the one with the city uh to look at renegotiating and what options are there working closely with county council. Does that summarize the direction? Sounds right. Okay. So I think we need a motion from your board to confirm that motion. Hang on one second. Let me go out to the public. Any comments from the public? Seeing none. I'll make that motion. Second. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you.

We now move to item number eight under public works and planning. Consider and adopt resolution accepting 2025 general plan annual progress report and authorize the department of public works and planning to submit the 2025 APR to the governor's office of land use and climate inov innovation and the California Department of Housing Community Development.

Go ahead and staff. I was going to say good morning, but I'll go with good afternoon chairman and members of the board. Anton Kramer, planner with the Department of Public Works and Planning. Today, I present to you the Fresno County's 2025 annual progress report or APR for your approval. This item comes to your board with a unanimous recommendation for acceptance by the planning commission. We have prepared a presentation if your board wishes. If not, we have no additional comment and staff is available to answer any questions. Yeah, unless anybody wants one. I think we're fine without the presentation. I think we're all good. Any comments from the board? Any comments from the public? Uh, is there a motion? Oh, sorry. We have a somebody from the public. Go ahead.

Uh, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to read um a letter into the record. Sure. Go ahead. Okay. Good.

Mr. Chairman, um my name is Radley Ree. I reside at 557 West Escalon in Clovis. Last month, I presented the planning commission with a letter detailing problems with the county's annual progress report for calendar year 2025. I trust you've had a chance to study it. The EI associated with the 2024 general plan contains about a dozen mitigation measures, the monitoring of which is to be reported. While there's a blanket statement in the staff report saying that the 2025 APR satisfies this reporting requirement, the truth is that the APR does not contain even one word about those mitigation measures. There's no reporting whatsoever. The staff report states that during 2025, the county made no progress in implementing 15% of the 129 programs. But that information is of no use to anyone because the APR fails to disclose which programs they are. It's anybody's guess as to which programs were not implemented, why progress was not made, and whether a lack of progress constitutes a serious problem. The staff report states that the APR documents progress implementing 84 of 129 programs, but this is simply not true. The APR only reviews 86 programs. And in my letter to the commission, I provided a long history of the lack of implementation of a number of these 86 programs. For example, I showed that for the past 25 years, including 2025, the county has failed to implement to excuse me, to inventory areas suitable for future parks. Disseminate Oakwoodland management guidelines to land owners located in Oakwoodland habitat. Review air district guidelines visav county adoption of procedures for performing air quality impact analysis. Assess the effectiveness of agricultural preservation programs. Amend the subdivision and grading ordinance to address dust control measures and prepare water conservation ordinance to maximize the benefits of water

resources. No mention of this decadesl long failure to implement required general programs. And finally, the 2025 APR does not report on the need to update the Kings River regional plan. Doesn't even mention the plan by name. This despite the fact that the county received an application in 2025 to provide an area near the Kings River, excuse me, to develop an area near the Kings River that requires an update of the regional plan. Did someone accidentally forget to report the county's inability to update the Kings River regional plan precludes the applicant from moving forward with his land use application? As you can see, the report before you is unacceptably incomplete and inaccurate. I ask that your staff revise it. If there are no questions, I'll be seated. After you close the hearing, if it follows normal procedure, I'll watch as you trade misinformation, perhaps thank me for a misguided effort, and get the blessing of county council saying the APR was prepared in accordance with state law.

Thank you, Mr. Thank you. Any questions? I'll bring it back. No, there's none. Any uh I'll bring it back to this. Is there a motion in second to approve this item? H motion by supervisor Mendes, second by Supervisor Pekco. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? None opposed. Passes unanimously. We now move to item number nine, board of supervisor committee reports and comments. Are there any committee reports and comments? Super.

I just wanted to say happy St. Patrick's Day. I'm very pleased that everyone's wearing green except Brian. So, I'll be seeing you later, Brian. No, I think he has There's green in that tie. Darn it. Well, there is green in that tie. Green in that tie. Well, congratulations to all of you. I'm not wearing green, so line up. No, I'm just kidding. Is there green in your pin? Happy St. Patrick's Day. Oh, yeah. There is green there. Green pin. Uh, today my son John became chairman of the KRWA, Kings River Water Association. Excellent. I think he's been even though he's in his early 40s, he's probably one of the youngest chairman ever. Excellent. Yeah. Well done. Congratulations.

Supervisor Jacob.

Um yeah, I have just a couple of things. You know, u we have uh going on right now a war with Iran and uh it's called Operation Epic Fury. And I wanted to just recognize uh the 13 service members killed uh in that war. Uh these men and women clearly are the best of the best. They are great Americans, great patriots, great heroes. We honor their service, their sacrifice, and are eternally grateful to them. We'll never forget them. Uh may God bless them and give comfort to their families. I'd like to to mention their names. Sergeant Declan Cody was 20 20 years old from West De Mo Iowa. Sergeant Firstclass Nicole Amore 39 of White Bear Lake, Minnesota. Captain Cody Kirk or Cork, 35 of Winter Haven, Florida. Sergeant Firstclass Noah Tietens, 42 of Belleview, Nebraska. Chief Warrant Officer Robert Mzan, 54, Sacramento, California. Major Jeffrey O'Brien, 45 of Indiana, Indianaola, Iowa. Army Sergeant Benjamin Pennington, 26, of Glendale, Kentucky. Major John Cler, 33, of Auburn, Alabama, had a wife, three children, a 2-year-old son, and seven-month-old twins. Captain Ariana Savino, 31, of Covington, Washington, Tech Sergeant Ashley Bruit, 34, of Bartstown, Kentucky. She had a three-year-old daughter and a stepson. Captain Seth Kovville, 38, of Morrisville, Indiana. Captain Curtis Angs, 30, of Wilmington, Ohio. And Tech Sergeant Tyler Simmons, 28, of Columbus, Ohio. All heroes, great patriots. We will never forget them. Um, could I have asked the honor of Supervisor Magzik to say perhaps a brief prayer for them and those that are serving in in Iran and and in that area now?

Happy to do that, Mr. chairman. So, please uh bow with me just for a moment. Our heavenly father, uh the Bible is clear that there will be conflicts uh constantly in the Middle East. And I pray right now just for your hand uh to be on the Middle East, to be uh protecting our allies, to be protecting the men and women who are serving in uniform from the United States over there currently. And right now, I pray for the s the 13 service members who've lost their life. Uh I pray for the families that are left behind, comfort for them, and I I pray dur uh during these times that we draw closer to you and that you let us know that you are present. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

Amen. Thank you very much for that honor. I appreciate that. Uh in a different direction rather than going from heroes, I want to talk about uh uh two um despicable people. One of them is Gregory Vogel Sang 57. They're both pedophiles. The California parole boards approved the early release of of two men convicted of child sex crimes. Uh our governor has appointed these parole board members that continue to release these pedophiles that make our families and our children at great risk. Uh Mr. Voggulen, 57, is been was sentenced to 355 years to life in prison for sex crimes committed against six children between the ages of 5 to 11 uh between 1995 and 1997. Psych psychological evaluations documented that he acknowledged he remains primarily sexually attracted to boys between the ages of 5 and 11. And uh the board of parole hearings granted him an elderly parole uh which is the most stupidest thing in the world. Um where they release him based on his being elderly. He's 57 years old. Uh even after determining he was a greater risk to the public. More recently, there's David First Funston, 64. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 1999. He was convicted of 16 counts of kidnapping and child molestation for using candy and toys to lure and prey on victims between the ages of four and seven. Uh Funston's release was approved despite admitting he still experiences pedophilic urges. Let me educate the public as a clinical psychologist. Pedophiles don't change. Uh there's no surprise that they're still attracted to children. That's what they're attracted to. Uh these animals should never be released, frankly. uh they should be in prison forever or executed. But we don't do that in California. We don't hold criminals accountable. And uh Governor

Nuomo should be held accountable as this parole board for releasing these animals back into our community to make our children unsafe. I want to commend uh Assembly Member David Tangapa for highlighting this as well as others. Uh this is what is going on in the state of California with legislators that are procriminal and I know um my own personal opinion are two uh board members here who will I believe go to the assembly will be fighting against this kind of insanity. So I want the public to be aware of this uh be careful if they are actually released uh watch our children carefully uh because these people will reaffend again. There is no doubt about it. And uh so I needed to highlight that. Uh any other comments from anybody? No. Then we'll we'll move on to item nine.

Item number 10, board appointments. Any uh appointments from the board? Yes. Supervisor Magzi. I've got two to the Childcare and Development Local Planning Council. I want to appoint uh Tamar uh Griggsby to the vacant district 5 seat previously held by Erlene Graves Stevens which expired on 16 of 25 and to the Clovis Cemetery District. I want to reappoint Ken Long to the District 5 seat which expired 15 of 26. Okay. Anyone else? I have one. I want to reappoint Diana Ma Masias Carlos to the Commission on the Status of Women Commissioner position. Uh, is there a motion to approve?

Second. All those in favor say I. Any opposed? None opposed. I apologize for that. I apologize. Was that you, Supervisor Chavez? Is it was the second? Okay. Thank you. We now move item number 11, public presentations. This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons desiring to address the board on any matter not on this agenda as well as public comment for items 13- 16 on close session. Okay. Any comments from the public on any matter not on this agenda or on close session items 13- 16? Yes, Mr. Roberts.

Uh good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. My name is Jeff Roberts. I am here to talk about the northwest corner of Temperance and McKinley land that's in this county but currently in the sphere of influence of the city of Fresno. I'm speaking on behalf of the Casaris family who's owned the property for over 25 years and you're being handed a graphic that pretty simply illustrates where the property is and what the issue is. We find ourselves, we would like to move forward with applications on this property, but find ourselves caught between a couple elements in yourou. We've been to the city. Uh we have 4.66 acres. We've asked to develop that property and they said you can't without taking the 115 acres to the north uh in your applications. You need to prezone that and annex it. We to cut very short, we uh we had a neighborhood meeting and I can tell you firsthand that the folks that live in that 115 acres do not want to be annexed to the city of Fresno. We can't move forward with these applications because the city says you'll form an island if you move forward by yourself. So you must take the 115. So we're stuck at that prop. We visited with your staff here. Their the interpretation of theou and the way the county can accept applications. I believe their interpretation's correct, but we're still stuck that there may be a way to move forward. And that's what I'm hoping for today. What we're looking for is a way to kind of thread this needle and move forward uh back to the city and ask for a release. Um we understand this is not a normal course of events. It's not typical for development and so we're looking for cooperation from both the city and the county. What we'd like to do is ask for your board to assist us in provide direction to staff to work out a way

that we could move forward with I'm not sure whether you call it a specialized release or a unique release from theou but some way to move forward with applications filed at the county uh without annexation at this time. We believe this is a win-win for both the neighborhood that sits there in the uh 115 acres to the north. It will allow the city to move forward with any kind of uh entitlement or excuse me uh improvement of McKinley Avenue right now that doesn't exist. This is a three-legg intersection and so there's big improvements needed and they can only be solved by uh development of the property. I thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. be happy to answer questions if there are any.

And yes, go ahead, Supervisor Mson. Just some general comments. So, uh I assume you want to build basically to city standard, correct?

And so, just some thoughts off the top of my head. I have no problem if this if there was a way for the the county to receive the application to develop, but some things that need to happen. LFCO needs to approve an extr territorially agreement in writing. we need something from the city uh saying that they're okay with the county being the applicant and also too the city must be willing to deliver services to the site and that kind of goes to the extr territorial agreement but they're going to have to deliver sewer water services as well as public safety services too to this site because it's going to there's going to be density there so as long as the city's willing to it'll be built to city standard they've got to provide services

I really have no issue if it's you know developed um at the county level. That's just my input, but I'll throw that out there. Okay. Any other comments? Okay. Thank you. Oh, did did you have something? I I we would certainly agree to work with the city staff to obtain those things and the extrateral agreement with both the city and the and LAFCO. We're we're literally stuck right now. We can't move forward and we can't move backwards. So, we appreciate any help that that your staff can can give us. Chairman, just a quick comment. I think the uh and I don't disagree with anything Jeff said. The

the city's hangup will be that our current that's just what they're focusing on and would say we we can't do it for that reason. So, uh council's reviewing whether it would be a standalone agreement, a waiver, whatever it may be. There's got to be some kind of agreement between the city and the county uh to to proceed with that. And that is, you know, per your board is something we can uh approach, but it would be separate. Right now, it this would be inconsistent with thatou, but I I see this is one where there could be a public benefit for it if there's conditions that you lay out, but council will confirm, but I think it would require a standalone agreement apart from our current. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. Item 12, county under county council, county council reports from previous close sessions. Yes. Uh there is no report out from prior close sessions. However, there may be a report out following today's close session. Okay. The board will now go into close session. Um I guess would we adjourn if there's a possibility that I would hold off on adjourning until after close session. Okay. Then the board will now go into close session.

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Welcome back. Oh, go ahead. Yes. Uh, one report out from today's close session. The board has unanimously approved giving direction uh for county council to uh provide a demand letter and pursue litigation against the county recorder Paul DTOS in his official capacity uh to require compliance with how SB2 fees are determined and collected. That's would that be for item 14 on the agenda? Yes. Thank you. Okay. Is there a motion and second to adjurnn? to all those in favor say I. I. Passes unanimous. So we are adjourned.