Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

We are unmuted. Good morning, El Dorado County. Welcome to our special meeting for today, which is September 15th. I'd like to call this meeting to order and ask our CAO if she'll lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for

One nation under God, indivisible,

All righty, and Madam CAO, are there any changes to the agenda that was posted on September 9th? No, thank you, Madam Chair. Okay, thank you. Let's go ahead and move on to the consent calendar. I'll ask my colleagues if they wish to comment or pull any items for discussion. I'll start to my far left, Supervisor Partland.

No changes.

Okay, thank you. Supervisor Turnbull.

No changes.

Thank you. Supervisor of your camp. No changes and supervisor for no changes. OK, and I myself have no changes as well. Will now take public comment on all matters on the consent calendar. So to be specific, we will hear public comment on consent items one through three.

Madam Clerk. For public comment, each speaker will have three minutes to address the board. A timer will alert you when 30 seconds remain and again when your time has ended. We'll begin with comments from individuals present in the boardroom followed by those participating via Zoom. If you're joining via Zoom, please ensure you unmute yourself when called upon. If you're joining the meeting by phone, press star nine to raise your hand. If you're on Zoom, use a raise hand feature to indicate your interest in speaking. We ask that you voluntarily state your name for the record before beginning your comments.

Right, thank you. Are there any members of the public in the room that would like to comment on consent items one, two, or three? Please come forward.

Okay, seeing nobody, may we go online, please? Not taking public comment from online participants. Not taking public comment from 390.

Good morning, board. Ken Greenwood here. I'm just curious as to why there is no opportunity for public input on a general matter, also known as open forum. And on today's agenda.

Mr. Greenwood, we're taking public comment right now on consent items one through three. Do you have a comment on either or any of those consent items?

No, I'm questioning why there is no opportunity on the agenda for the public to do open forum.

We will do open forum at 1 o'clock, and yep.

No, it's a special meeting. Today's a special meeting, and we don't typically have open forum at special meetings.

Thank you, Ms. Parlin. Thank you, Mr. Greenwood. Yep, thank you. Are there other public comments online?

There's no additional public comment.

Okay, then I'll bring this item back to the board for a motion or further discussion.

I'll move.

Second.

There's a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

Motion passes 5-0.

All right, thank you. We'll now take public comment on all the rest of the agenda items to be specific. Those are items four through 16, all of our department matters. Ms. Dawson.

For public comment, each speaker will have three minutes to address the board. A timer will alert you when 30 seconds remain and again when your time has ended. We will begin with comments from individuals present in the boardroom followed by those participating via Zoom. If you're joining via Zoom, please ensure you unmute yourself when called upon. If you're joining by phone, press star nine to raise your hand. If you're on Zoom, use the raise hand feature to indicate your interest in speaking. We ask that you voluntarily state your name for the record before beginning your comments.

Are there any members of the public in the room that would like to comment on any of the items four through 16?

Okay, seeing none, may we go online, please? Not taking public comment from online participants. Not taking public comment from Linda Campbell.

Good morning, everyone. Linda Campbell, El Dorado Hills. first i would like to mention how unfortunate it is that the public's unable to gauge in real-time discussion on all 13 agenda items today due to the current public comment structure next i noticed on the library presentation that district one is vacant i can't tell exactly when the seat was vacated because the commissioner was only noted as absent at the last meeting so i'm interested in knowing if there's an estimate when a new commissioner will be appointed for district one I'm also in agreement with the comments submitted by the Taxpayers Association on the SEED presentation. It would be worthwhile to re-examine the resolution for that committee to determine ways to strengthen their advisory status for economic strategy, including quarterly reporting, if economic development is a priority for the county. Other than that, I'm curious if there are standards for this annual reporting across all the committees and commissions. Some of the presentations are similar, but not all of them. Although they have different areas of focus, this is a great opportunity for public visibility to what they do and the benefit they provide. For example, some of them include recognition for volunteers and the number of hours spent. That could be something standardized to increase ideas for volunteering. Some of them referenced collaboration with county departments, recognizing the efforts of engagement that occurs. A few of them highlighted key achievements, identified future challenges, and provided some goal setting. All of these could be helpful in expanding public engagement with these committees and commissions if reported consistently. Finally, I want to say a big thank you to everyone that's participated in a commission or a committee this year, investing your time and skill sets into improving our county. You are appreciated.

Thank you. Thank you.

Now taking public comment from 390.

Good afternoon or good morning. Ken Greenwood here again. Item number nine. I note that yesterday there was a meeting for the solid waste advisory committee or the board was acting as I don't recall it exactly. But anyway, bottom line is I noted in the presentation that yesterday that there was an open forum. And again, I wonder why we don't have that. But for next week's, if we have the sheriff come on to talk about flock cameras, perhaps we can have that as allowing some public input. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Greenwood.

There's no additional public comment.

All right. Thank you for the public's comments. We'll go ahead and get started on our agenda. We have several department matters scheduled throughout the entire day. And we're going to kick things off with item number four coming from Health and Human Services. Ms. Dawson.

Item number four comes from Health and Human Services Agency on behalf of the El Dorado County Commission on Aging, recommending the board receive and file a presentation which provides the board an annual report on the commission's operations over the past year. Written public comments received by 4 p.m. on the day prior to today's meeting were distributed to all board members and included with this agenda item.

All right, I have here in my notes that Ms. Lynette Stott and Joan Falkway will be presenting this item. Please come forward. Welcome, good morning.

Good morning, Madam Chair. Good morning, Supervisors. I'm Lynette Engelhardt-Stott, a Deputy Director for Community Services and HHSA, and I'm El Dorado County's Area Agency on Aging PSA 29's Director. I'm not presenting. I just have the honor of introducing Joan Fuquay, the Aging Commission's Chair, and Joan will be presenting the annual prison update to you guys this morning.

Joan, go ahead.

Welcome.

Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. I am so impressed. Almost half of the commission is sitting out here in the audience this morning. I'm so proud of them. Well, good morning, Madam Chair and Board. Thank you for the opportunity to present the 2026 overview on the Commission of Aging. Today, I will highlight our mission, accomplishments, challenges, and priorities for the coming year. Let's begin with why the commission exists. Next slide. Okay, I almost changed my page here. Our mission is to ensure that older adults, especially those frail and vulnerable, have access to services that support independence and wellbeing. We serve as an advisory body to both the Area Agency on Aging and the Board of Supervisors. Our recommendations are intended to strengthen programs funded through the county. The next slide will explain the authority behind our work. Next slide. Now I changed my page. The commission is a mandated advisory council authorized through federal, state and county law. I want to specifically highlight that an ad hoc committee is currently reviewing our bylaws and policies and procedures. This work will help ensure our governing documents remain current, coordinated and effective as the community needs evolve. The people doing this work are our greatest assets. Next slide, please. Our membership reflects the diversity of the county through board appointees, city representatives, and community representatives. Please note that we still have vacancies. An ad hoc recruitment committee has been established to ensure that complete and county-wide representation in filling the remaining vacancies. With that team in place, here is what we accomplished last year or this year. Next slide. The past year we formed a fundraising and awareness committee for senior services. This action was taken in response to a previous commitment made by the commission to the board. We participated in community events, the senior of the year program, supported housing discussions and continued active involvement in statewide organizations. I especially want to recognize Commissioners Raylene Nunn and Tina Bladen as they continue representing El Dorado County through the California Senior Legislature. They have worked through the year to ensure the adoption of proposed legislations affecting seniors. Thank you, Tina. I especially want to recognize, oh, I just said that. Okay. While we are proud of these successes, challenges remain. Next slide. The most significant challenge is outreach. Because we live in rural and urban communities, communication requires different approaches. We're trying to reach younger seniors before they need services. And we also are committed to providing support to families and members who care for aging parents and loved ones. Housing affordability and uncertainty of future program funding continues to affect seniors throughout the county and the country. These concerns directly shape our work plan for the coming years. Next slide, please. Looking ahead, we continued outreach and education initiatives, especially relating to scams. Housing remains a major focus, and we also continue revising our bylaws. We will continue with that. We'll continue in our statewide advocacy through the senior legislature and other activities, and strengthening the partnership with the board Area Agency on Aging, and community organizations. Finally, I would like to conclude with the values that guide us on everything we do. Next slide. Our core values are advocacy, advising, and adapting. Advocacy means ensuring older adults are heard. Advising means helping decision makers understand those needs. And adapting means being responsive to new issues emerging. I want to thank you for your continued support for the Commission on Aging and the older adults that we serve. I'm gonna go off script right now and thank the commission. I just feel so supported. We have such a great team and I wanna thank them all for being here. At this point, I'd be happy to answer any questions.

All right, terrific. Thank you for getting us off on such a good note. Supervisor Parlin.

Yeah, thank you for the presentation, Joan. We did get an email regarding the Commission on Aging's presentation from Jim Wassner with a whole bunch of data in it about our aging county, and we're all very aware of that. Look at this board. No, I'm kidding. But what I get concerned about in these conversations, especially about housing for seniors, When I'm talking to folks that live in the county and have lived here a long time, they don't want to be displaced and move into affordable senior housing apartments. They don't want to be displaced at all. And I get the gist that most of our residents, not all, of course, but a lot of our residents want to stay and age in place. And so I'm trying to understand, is that a bigger part? To me, if that's what our residents want... shouldn't we be focusing on how to make that happen versus telling people we're building affordable senior apartments and our residents maybe don't want those? Has anybody looked into the affordable senior housing apartments that have been built? Are our residents moving into those? Are we just attracting older seniors from other areas? I mean, I really think we need some data on some of these things that have been happening in our county. Because if we're building these senior apartments, and we're just attracting more seniors, that's making us even older as a county. It's just counterintuitive. So is the commission looking into that kind of stuff? Because it seems to be a hot topic, the data, and what do we really want and what are we doing? And I see somebody standing behind you that might want to chime in there. I didn't know if you saw him behind you there, Joan, so that's why I was like, well, hold on.

Jim Wassner, Commissioner on Aging. Listening to the comments, the first thing I think of is I run a nonprofit that, as you know, that helps keep people in their homes because we will never do better anywhere else than we do in our own homes. Stay there as long as you can. It's not an issue of drawing people out and putting them in these apartments because if you look at the numbers, affordable housing right now, the units we have, there are waiting lists that are years long. So there's a group, a large group that you apparently don't talk to out there that are dying to get into affordable housing that we don't have.

That's a poor choice of words, Jim.

There's a list. There's a list that people.

Is it specifically for seniors, though? I know affordable housing has lists from, you know, the general population is the senior. I'm talking specifically seniors. Right.

I think they compose a lot of it because of their percentage in the county.

But do we have data? And that's a question I think this board's been asking for a long time is do we have data instead of making assumptions and guessing?

Right now, Engage El Dorado is doing that process. They've just done a questionnaire to a lot of people. Okay. And they're ready to give us some of their formulations right now. Okay. So hopefully we'll have some hard data that we can back it up. That's perfect. But yeah, I'd like to say the other thing is there are people that would love to stay in their homes. But unfortunately, when they lose a spouse, when they get older, they do what we call downsize.

Yes.

They can't take care of the five acres anymore. They have to. I just downsized five years ago from Pollock Pines to Diamond Springs myself. And it's a natural progression. And they're looking for a place that is more affordable. Some of them, it's not a problem because what they're leaving and selling sets them up. They can move into heritage places like that where you have a house in a community for seniors. And those are great, but not everybody has that ability to liquidate and use that cash to help them so there's and those people are fighting with what we call workforce housing too because it's the same right our seniors are downsizing are looking at the same places that workforce housing is too and we recognize that okay so we advocate for that as well because we know our seniors are going to get some of those so

Yeah. I just think that a lot of times the conversations tries to make things so simple. And I just find that the reality is far more complex than we would like. And I just want to say thank you for that nonprofit organization because I've referred people to it. I put it in my newsletter. So I hope that it's going well.

Seven years now, and we've helped 740 clients in the county. Wow. That's great. It just keeps going. I started to think, what's this going to do? And here I am, seven years later, with five guys that are volunteering their time to me to make it happen, too. Perfect. So I've got to count out them. Thank you, thank you. Thank you for that, Jim.

Other questions?

I share your sentiments, by the way, because I've heard the same things. You mentioned heritage, and we have a few subdivisions in Eldorado Hills that are 55 and older. Yes. 55 is pretty young, in my opinion. And I have friends that are moving into, you know, those developments that are, you know, in their late 50s. Are they competing for homes or do you have any data? Are they competing for homes with what I believe true seniors, you know, 70 and above?

I don't have any data on that that separates them out. And typically it doesn't. That 55 also is mobile home parks. difference between family and adult and then you have 60 and then you have 65 so there's different levels and different groups but i'm not aware of statistics that yeah pull that out i think you would probably find that younger seniors are moving into places like heritage Because they're downsizing and they're looking ahead. Because not everybody waits until the last minute or until medical issues or death of a spouse forces you to. They're smart enough and able to do that ahead of time, which is why you see those places fill up, don't they?

Yeah, well, I think it's slowing down, but they are full.

Yeah, and the thing is, if you look at the statistics, like I said in my letter, It's just going to go up. They say 2030 to 2060, it's just going to increase. So what we see now is just going to be exasperated. So that's why we keep trying to advocate and get ahead of it, because it's coming. And it's a big part of your constituents. They're out there. What I see a lot of it is Pollock Pines and Placerville because that's where my low-income clients come from, not Cameron Park or Eldorado Hills. I don't get a lot of clients from there because I only deal with low-income. So I see a lot because that's where the lower-cost housing is. So that's the concentration.

Mm-hmm.

Other questions, comments, Mr. Chairman?

I just want to thank everybody for all you guys do. Anyway, one of the biggest things, talking about affordable housing, you know, we did this Title 25 program for the people in Grizzly, and I was talking to Mr. Elliott from Elliott Homes, and he said that was the smallest home he's ever built. But he said it would be a great thing for starter homes and especially senior communities to build some of these small homes to start, which would really be something that would be great because a lot of these people want to live in a home. They don't want to live in an apartment either. And we can push and use something like that for ADUs to help because of high insurance costs is basically forcing families to reunite and live together now. And that's something we got to focus on because seniors, you know, when they're at that certain age, they can't afford it, especially on fixed income. So we need to look at something like that.

I like that. That's one of the things we advocate for with the housing group is ADUs. Because it started out long ago when I worked for the county. It was for your mom or dad who were sick. And we did mobile homes that were easily gotten. And then we've seen it progress. And I think ADUs are a great... answer to a lot of issues especially keeping the family right that's that's a huge thing and we don't do that there are cultures that it's built into the culture where the grandparents are the babysitters because everybody lives together right exactly and it's a great thing and that's you'll see more of that with the adus and with these anytime you can get them together we also uh try and advocate for intergenerational right housing and that's what we're talking about we want to get back to that strength so everybody can stay at home and help each other. It's quite an idea. If only everybody would embrace it, we'd be a lot better off.

Thank you, Jim. I appreciate it. Thank you all very much.

I want to say one thing back to what Supervisor Parlin asked about aging in place. And certainly, when able, aging in place, I think, is widely understood to be the best option for aging successfully. It's not always a possibility. But many of our area agency on aging programs are there to do just that. Home delivered meals, even, you know, or congregate dining to make certain that people have access to food. In-home supportive services, so we can help with chores, we can help with transportation, and all of those programs really are, when possible, helping people age in place, which I think is often the preference, but not always possible. Yeah. Thank you for that.

Thank you. Any further questions, other questions, comments.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you all. Thank you, chair. All right. We will take a five minute break and be back at nine 30 to hear from our ag department and our fish and wildlife commission. All right, we are back from a short recess and anxious to hear from our next presentation. This comes from the Ag Department and this is the Fish and Wildlife Commission. Ms. Dawson.

Item number five comes from the Agricultural Department on behalf of the Fish and Wildlife Commission recommending the board receive and file a presentation from the Fish and Wildlife Commission annual report for fiscal year 2526 and provide direction if necessary. Good morning.

Good morning, Madam Chair, Honorable Members of the Board, Jesse Fowler, Agricultural Commissioner. I am the liaison for the Fish and Wildlife Commission. So the Fish and Wildlife Commission is a recommending body to the Board of Supervisors on all matters pertaining to fish and wildlife in El Dorado County. Members are appointed by their district supervisors, so one per district, and then there are two at-large members, so seven total. The members include Dennis Byrne for District 1, Larry Robinson for District 2, Jim Davies for District 3, Patrick Weddle for District 4, Leona Allen for District 5. Then there's Stephen Schwartzbach, who is at large, and Heather Gardner, who is also at large. I'm going to keep this very short because Leona Allen, who is the current chair of Fish and Wildlife, has actually put together a very informational presentation about the commission and its members. So I'm just going to go ahead and invite her up and let her go ahead and take over.

Great. Thank you. Welcome, Chair Allen and Commissioner Weddle.

Good morning. And Madam Chair, Board, thank you very much for having us. And thank you very much for the support that you've given us over the years. Again, my name is Leona Allen. I'm the District 5 representative.

And I'm Patrick Weddle, past chair and District 4 representative.

Yeah, go ahead with the next slide. Thank you. Here's our mission statement, and I know you guys already have this in your packet, so I'm not gonna wax ad nauseum about all of this stuff. Go ahead, Kim. As Jesse said, this is our current membership. We are a seven-member board, and five from each district, two at large.

Go ahead.

As you can see from our resumes, we have experiential depth when it comes to science, ecosystems, environments, and culture.

Go ahead, Kim.

I would like to say that we are appropriately diverse and knowledgeable, and I'd like to introduce the two commissioners that are in, Dennis and Jim, if you'll stand up. Commissioner Davies and Commissioner Byrne.

Thank you. Go ahead, Kim.

We also especially want to acknowledge and thank the support staff because we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for them. So I want to mention Kaylee Runkle, Myrna Toh, Helen Keith, and Kira Scharfenberg. They have become our professional cat herders. And to manage us is usually problematic, but they do such an amazing job. And again, none of this would be happening here today if it wasn't for them. We also want to acknowledge the past service of Leanne Mila, our Agriculture Commissioner, and of course, Welcome, Jesse Fowler. We're really glad to have her on board.

Go ahead. So most of you know already what we do, but our main job is to advise you on issues relating to fish and wildlife management in El Dorado County. And we also administer the funds that we receive from the state that come to us as a result of fees and fines that are levied against people who commit violations of the Fish and Wildlife Code. We also administer the funds that you provide to us for various projects that we can discuss. Um, this is just a list of, uh, some of the monies that we've received as a result of the fees and fines. And we work closely with the, um, with the, uh, wildlife, um, law enforcement folks at the state, as well as with our district, our, our County district attorney, so that we're all on the same page with regards to, um, uh, our, our, our need to be, uh, aggressive in the, in the, uh, enforcement of fish and wildlife codes in this county, both because we don't want people thinking that El Dorado County is a place to come and poach, which had been a problem in the past. And that's a function of good law enforcement. And we've got great cooperation with our law enforcement game wardens. And also working with Jim Clinchard at the district attorney's office, we collaborate on what our various needs are and what we wanna emphasize going forward in order to optimize the funds that we receive as a result of fines, but also maximize enforcement in the county.

The beginning of the 25, 26 fiscal year, there was a couple of things that we were able to tackle Number one, and really climate change is what it's all about. Everything is being impacted by climate change. So the Monarch Fellowship came and talked to us about the decline of the monarch butterfly. We had a presentation from the Urban Beaver Coexistence Project, and as a keystone species, it's very important to watch our beaver population. Then also, we talked about the problems in the District 5 area. There are two campgrounds in District 5 that do not have bear boxes. They're the only campgrounds in the entire Lake Tahoe Basin. One of them is Tahoe Valley Campground, which is owned by a private company, and the other is the City of South Lake Tahoe Campground. So we're really trying to encourage and work towards that, and I'm working with Supervisor Lane to make sure that we can kind of encourage that issue. And the issue is not just for the visitors, because we are seeing social media posts from people that are staying in these campgrounds saying, I was attacked by a bear last night or a bear came into our tent or whatever. I have no place to store my food and this was a problem. I'm not coming back. But the other issue is that most or both of these campgrounds are in the middle of residential zones. So this becomes problematic for the people who are also living there. Oh, go ahead. Sorry.

I'll let you talk about the trout restoration project.

So, yeah, the California Tahoe Conservancy is supporting a trout creek restoration project. We're really excited about it. They have some funding and it's absolutely necessary to get these marshes in Trout Creek, Taylor Creek, Upper Truckee, and to make sure that they're clean and healthy so that the health of the lake is supported.

The presentation by the Highway 50 Wildlife Connection Grant Project was interesting because, as you know, one of the leading contributors to wildlife death is collision on the highways. And this is an effort to try and improve connectivity for wildlife where they're not having to get out on the highways and not running the risk of collisions. And I guess while we're on that subject, I should point out that we got some recent data from the folks, Dave, this is, we call him Dear Dave, the people who, the rescue team, animal rescue group in El Dorado County. And, um, in 2024, 49% of the, uh, animals that they took in were, um, a result of collisions with cars. And these were mostly deer. Um, another 40% were, uh, as a result of, uh, damage from fences. And, um, one of the things that we've done as a commission and also you've participating cooperated in is developing educational information on the role that fences play in damaging wildlife, especially deer that get caught in them. And you've, we've had presentations on that in the future, but, uh, one of the outcomes of that is, is that, uh, The planning department now is including that information that we've provided in their efforts to assist people in planning for fencing in El Dorado County. Both wires and spike fences, fences with wires above them and spike fences are typically the problem that deer get caught up in. So I'll just give you some other numbers here. We also, in 2025, Cars represented 54% of the animals taken in, and injuries from fences represented 25%. So it's a significant issue with regards to the wildlife, especially the deer and Highway 50 Wildlife Connection Grant Project is one of the things that's being done to try and mitigate at least the collision thing. And then we've got the continuing discussions regarding black bear coexistence efforts. Unfortunately, we had to cancel our meeting in May because of the snow.

Apparently, you guys down here don't drive in two inches of snow, so we had to cancel. Next slide, please. We got to visit Taylor Creek in September and got to see how, again, climate change is impacting the creek and its wildlife. and how there are challenges regarding staffing, infrastructure, et cetera, at the Taylor Creek. And I just want to stay for the record that no, the kokanee are not flowing in the creek right now. There's not enough water in the creek for the salmon to come up. So just so everybody's clear on that. Go ahead, Kim.

One of the organizations that started up in Placer County was developed for volunteers to go out and collect old barbed wire fencing. And it's actually quite a problematic thing, especially in these rural counties. They came and made a presentation to us, and there's been a couple of efforts in this county by FON and local folks to go out and clean up some of this obsolete fencing it's something that we're continuing to try and emphasize and support and i think there may be an organization a comparable organization developing in this county and if there is we'll have more on that going forward

I have to acknowledge Commissioner Byrne and his efforts here. Actually, it's now closer to 150 fishing rods and reels that we have donated to children throughout the county. And Commissioner Byrne has been substantially responsible for all of that. So appreciation to him.

And all the folks who contribute to him. And all of the way.

So how many extra rods and reels? Go ahead, Kim.

Next. Yeah, we received a really good presentation from the American River Conservancy on their efforts in land conservation stewardship and environmental education. And, of course, they manage and cooperate in the management of a lot of land that has a lot of wildlife on it. So we try and stay in close collaboration with them In assisting in any of the efforts that they have protecting protecting these resources We had a really good presentation recently from the mountain lion foundation and for those of you who may not know that was a foundation that was formed many years ago by Gavin Newsom's father and they typically took a kind of a Bambi approach to managing mountain lions with not a whole lot of focus on where the real problems were. They've got new management now. They basically eliminated their entire board and brought in a whole new board. And their chairperson came and gave a presentation to us about what they're looking at going forward. They told us that they realized that El Dorado County is an epicenter of mountain lion-human potential conflict. This is in addition to the state fish and wildlife leadership understanding that we also are a epicenter for those conflicts in El Dorado County. So there's statewide, if not national wide appreciation for the efforts that are going on in this county to mitigate conflicts between humans and mountain lions.

And of course we support fishing derbies all throughout the county, which are pretty famous and you can see a lot of happy kids there with a lot of very, very large fish.

And notice in the bottom left corner,

Yeah.

Where's her pole?

Oh, it's the kids fishing.

Yeah. You know, we have a lot of fun with these, and for those of you that have attended one of these or more of these derbies, you know that they're very well attended, and the people, the families that come out to these really have a good time. There has been some problems up at Tahoe, and I know that's been kind of put a damper on things, but hopefully in time that will, there'll be some recovery there. The thing that's really, and I think we can go to the next slide on this. Yeah, this is one of the things that really I think is impressive is that we have all this community involvement in these tournaments, co-sponsoring and supporting in various different ways, This effort so it's it's really a Community effort and it's something that that we enjoy being part of, and that we appreciate the support that we get for.

Look questions oh yeah.

There he is, Yogi himself.

Something going forward to just kind of a heads up is in our last meeting with our wildlife warden and the DA's office, a problem emerged. It's a situation where up in Tahoe the people who are responsible for managing wildlife in the state, which is the State Department of Fish and Wildlife, they're running into a lot of interference from folks, from citizens up there in their efforts to manage. I think they even have, now they have to take law enforcement with them when they go out to do their management efforts. It's gotten that bad. In Nevada, there is, an ordinance, a state ordinance that prohibits anybody from interfering with the management of wildlife by the state agencies. We don't have a similar thing in California. And there was a request made to our commission at our last meeting with the DA that El Dorado County at least try and do something in that regard. So we're in the process of formulating some language to possibly submit to you requesting an ordinance to make it illegal for people in El Dorado County anyway, to interfere with the management of, by the state Fish and Wildlife people, the management of wildlife. And it's mainly aimed at, the Tahoe district where this seems to be becoming a bigger problem.

Questions, comments, Mr. Virkamp.

If I may, I want to thank the Commission. I continue to do a lot of work years ago, Pat, and you mentioned it already that we work through with the DA and others to bring up the finding. Judges have turned over, though, in the last few years. Are they still getting the message okay through your organization as well as the DA? I see the fines were down, but maybe that's because...

The relationship of fines to any given year is a function of a lot of things. We've never felt comfortable interacting with the courts. I don't think it's part of what we should be doing as a commission. But one of the things we try to do is, know when some of these hearings are happening and show up so that the court sees that there's interest in this particular issue. Most of these fines are misdemeanors. And one of the problems that the DA has is that oftentimes judges, for various reasons, some of which are good, they will divert, it's called diversion. And what diversion does is it kind of cleans the slate of the person who's in violation. And they don't have a record of this violation, which means that if they go to another state and violate, that state can't look back and see that they've already had problems somewhere else. So we've been trying to, you know, keep in mind that a lot of these cases are being diverted. Some of them, there continues to be a fine, but others not. And if we could go and educate each new judge that handles fish and wildlife cases about this, but it's not something that we feel is really in our wheelhouse to do. The DA seems to be doing a pretty good job of educating the courts as to what their needs are. And we feel that that's probably the best way to encourage proper penalties for violations.

Good.

Just one other thing. As a lifelong member of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, we too work to remove fencing and other obstacles that benefit our wildlife. Locally, we've got probably a group of 50. So maybe if we had to work together, put together a project. Yeah. Because there's a lot of it out there.

Well, I'm sure. And we can put you in touch with Fawn. Okay. Because I'm sure they'd love to cooperate on that. And like I said, there may be a local organization developing similar to what they're doing. Maybe it's not even needed if your folks are doing that kind of work.

Okay, perfect. And I do know somebody that's got a lot of fishing poles, so Myrna, you need somebody to donate some of those. I actually have more than I need, too.

We'll be in touch. One of the important things to keep in mind is that because we're a semi-rural, rural county, the conflict between people and wildlife is enormous and very broad-based, everything from... you know, the collisions on the highways, to the fencing issues, to the feeding issues. And it's a constant educational process. And that's one of the things that we try and keep in the forefront of what we do. And oftentimes, hopefully more often in the future, we'll be bringing ideas to you folks about how we can really make progress on these kinds of issues. Because those issues aren't going away.

There was an outreach to the feed stores as well, I think. That's a tough one.

Regarding enforcement, one thing I'd like to mention is I do a lot of backpacking in Canada, and they are really good about coexistence with their wildlife. They don't have the problems that we have. But when you go to a campground and you leave food out when you're not in your campsite, it is a $25,000 fine. Wow. So it doesn't happen. Now, it's $25,000 Canadian. but still it makes an impact on people. And so, yeah, just something to think about that sometimes, you know, the punishment needs to meet the crime.

Yeah, for sure.

Other questions or comments, Mr. Turnbull?

Yeah, I just want to say thank you for all the hard work you guys do. And it just beyond me is some of the laws that they try to pass, you know, and I just feel like they need to be more educated, especially when it comes to our legislatures, you know. And the biggest thing is like that Bill 1305 that was tried to, you know, introduce the grizzly bear back to California. I mean, these people don't even live in the rural area. They don't even know what it's even like, especially to live in around bears or mountain lions. And we have this epidemic, especially with the mountain lion population, which is growing and our bear population is growing. There's got to be some kind of bills put in place that would help that. Now we're going to have a problem with the wolves. They had a problem. They brought that, introduced the wolves in Idaho, and then it grew out of proportion is what it did. Now it's coming to California. And they need to address it a little bit more and better, especially when it comes to public safety. It's a big issue, and I'm glad that they passed that one bill. Basically, during bull hunting season, now you can pack a sidearm, which is a good thing. So that was introduced and passed. I think it was Heather Hadwick put that in place.

So it was a good thing. Well, we often say that these problems are not wildlife problems, they're people problems. Exactly.

I agree 100%. But these people don't understand what it's like living in a rural area. They introduce these bills, and they have no idea.

Mr. Ferraro?

Just briefly, thank you very much for the presentation. Thank you for the presentation and for all your work. And I just want to give a shout out to the District 1 Commissioner. He's top notch and I appreciate everything you do. So thank you. Thank you.

Other questions, comments?

Thank you, and we should probably get together before I'm out of office there, Pat, because I want to know what you're going to be up to.

We're both lame ducks.

Yeah, we're kind of getting some short timers going on here.

Well, and before you go, this is a topic I could talk about for hours. We often talk about it for hours. I really appreciate your service on the commission on behalf of District 5. And that you're chairing it this year is just fantastic.

I missed the meeting. That's all that's about.

Yeah, well, and make sure you don't let it snow on commission days. Right, right. You touched on it a little bit. You mentioned some language, a possible ordinance that El Dorado County would take a look at, particularly in the basin with regards to groups of folks that oftentimes intercede in what Fish and Wildlife is trying to do. I would be open to that as a possibility, but what really bothers me is we are not holding our humans accountable. And so I think if we're going to approach this, we need to holistically approach it. The amount of people that bait their vehicles so they can get the picture or that stay in vacation home rentals and leave food out windows open and then are, are upset because, and they use the word that they got attacked by a bear. So we're, we've been very, we've been very much trying at least in the basin to be clear about the words we use and really identify what, what the situation was properly. Um, I'm a little bit, I've never heard of the information you just provided with regards to Canada. But I think we should look at all of it. As you mentioned, half of the problem is the wildlife, half of the problem are the humans.

And those halves can shift.

Yeah.

Depending on circumstance. We'll be working with our administrator, jesse and uh this will be a something further down the road but we'll try and come to you with some language that that can be utilized in in this process yeah yeah that would be great i'm going to take miss fowler up on the opportunity to meet with her on a monthly basis and

One thing that I had to really work with with the previous director is the fact that in the basin, we kind of have a different philosophy about wildlife. And it's different than the West Slope issues. And so we have to treat them differently, in my opinion. So I really appreciate your work and your acknowledgement. The fact that the commission comes to Tahoe twice a year and you really get to kind of see what we deal with. We appreciate that.

You know, it's the problem that we have, and it's not a problem, it's a situation. It is that these animals are the property of the people of the state of California. And as such, the State Department of Fish and Wildlife are responsible for their management. And they have people who are experts in wildlife management. And they have certain protocols and requirements that they have to follow. And when citizens disrupt that, it really makes it difficult to do the right thing in terms of the tactics and strategies that need to occur in order for successful management to prevail. So we need to keep that in mind as we go forward with anything we try and do as a county to assist in the state's efforts to do a professional job of minimizing these conflicts.

And what is the relationship between our commission, you, and the state of California's Fish and Wildlife Commission?

They serve as advisory, both the... a game warden and a biologist serve as advisory members on our commission. So we always have their input, which is invaluable.

That's great. Well, and I think the residents haven't always had confidence that fish and wildlife were doing the right things. I think the process that we have now where we're taking DNA from bears and we're able to, I, identify problem bears and separate out the ones that are not. Conflict bears. Conflict. Conflict.

Here we go back to the language.

I just said convict bears.

Problem people, conflict bears.

Convict people too, right?

And we don't have that same ability when it comes to like our coyotes. And there have been some instances where I have had to at least caution people the game warden that wants to just go up and trap because people are complaining. People who live on meadows are complaining about, you know, the coyote population. It's a very delicate balance, and I love that you have the ear of the State Department because they are the enforcers, and yet, you know, we have to be diplomatic about how we... deal with our wildlife and and i would like to start seeing us deal with our humans that are causing problems thank you thank you for all your work thank you for coming today i think it's important to note too we do have a member of state fishing game here today so i'm assuming that collaboratively and yeah he snuck in on you he snuck in behind you

So speaking of our representative, this is Bob Pera. I don't even know what your title is. Anyway, he's been amazing to work with. We love him to death. He's an incredible resource for us and then, yeah, is helpful with all the enforcement issues that we're dealing with. Great. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks for being here as well.

all right let's move on to item number six which comes from our library department um madam clerk item number six comes from the library department on behalf of the eldorado county library commission recommending the board receive and file an annual report from the library commission and provide direction to the commission or staff if necessary welcome

Chair Sheridan.

Good morning, supervisors. I'm George Sheridan. I'm chair of the El Dorado County Library Commission. And this is our annual report. you probably are aware the purpose of the commission is to represent the community regarding library issues, serving as a liaison with the County Board of Supervisors. And I have assisting me, Bryce Lovell, the director of the County Library. And I should say that the commission works closely with Director Lovell. He reports to us at every meeting, and we ask him questions to research for the next meeting. The members of the commission, we have five, and currently District 1 is vacant. District 2 is represented by Constance Crawford, who's the newest member of the commission, and We appreciate her greatly. District three is George Lloyd representing Placerville, which for a long time was not represented. So we're glad to have him. And district five is Jen Giuliani from Tahoe. And she's the longest serving member of the commission. So our job is to advise you on any issues regarding ways and means of improving the county free library service. And you may remember that last year, the county library system decided to follow the path of most major libraries around the country and stop imposing late fees for books that had not been returned by their due date. And we followed up with that to learn that in fact, the new policy was, highly effective in increasing number of books that actually got returned and improving circulation in the library. So it was a win-win situation. And our job is to advise you about rules and regulations governing the operation of the free library system. to make recommendations for future development of the library service and to encourage support for the library system by individuals and groups throughout the county. And each year we review the annual, the proposed annual budget for the library system before it's presented to you. And we offer input to the library director as well. So our achievements in the last year, I think one of the, major achievements was that members of the Library Commission working with the Friends of the Library, which is entirely a volunteer organization that exists in each supervisor's district around the county, encouraged support for the measures in both Lake Tahoe and in Georgetown to approve continued assessments on the residents in those areas to continue to provide the extra level of library service that is funded by in Lake Tahoe, Measure B, which I'm sure you know, passed by 75%, and in Georgetown, Measure C, which passed by 71%. Sorry, I have to do this. I'm having significant visual difficulties. So I'm one of these people who needs a certain amount of ADA accommodation to do my job. So, As you've possibly noticed on the slides or as we've reported to you before, our libraries are regarded by members of the public as welcoming spaces and spaces that serve a whole variety of community needs. And the library department has been working to increase the accessibility of all of these resources and services to the public and to a wider segment of the public. And one of the examples of that is the historical museum, which is, continuing the process of being digitized and available for people rather than having to manually search each of the historic photographs and so forth. So I think at this point, perhaps it's a good idea for me to stop and see if any of you has a question.

Well, first of all, I would say it's impressive to see a gentleman of your stature using your cell phone the way you are. Very good. Very good. Questions at this time?

No questions.

I have a question regarding South Lake Tahoe specifically. Number one, with the new multi-generational rec center that was built, in the beginning we were having some kind of conflicts around parking requirements. I'm wondering if those, now that the building is open and functional, did we work those out? And the other thing I would want to ask you to speak about is the generator that the South Lake Tahoe Library has, and how is that working?

Okay, so on the generator, I'm going to have to confer with Bryce because I can't recall any discussion we had about that. As far as the parking, it was a topic of discussion at several commission meetings over a significant period of time. And the most recent report, as I recall, was that parking is still a problem. tight i mean it's simply not that it's a conflict between the organizations occupying the space really they've worked well to try to resolve that but it's just a reality that sometimes parking is barely adequate so let me see if bryce can help me with your question about the generator thank you chair

Welcome, Director Lovell.

Thank you, Bryce Lovell, Library Director. With the parking, so there's limited parking, but we're working together with the Rec Center. We've also staggered our programming, so we have programs and events occurring at different times. So we're very mindful of that. We're working with the Rec Center. So parking is not as compressed as it once was. With certain activities, it's always going to be limited parking, but on a day-to-day basis, it's become more manageable. Okay. With the diesel generator that we have at that site, so recently there was a power outage and it turned on. The diesel generator kicked in and it functioned as intended. And we saw an increase in individuals using the space. So using the library. So we probably had an influx of maybe 60 individuals. So mostly using Wi-Fi and some of our other offerings. But it was very successful.

That's great. And do other libraries in the system for El Dorado County have generators as well? Or is this the first one?

Placerville Library does, and the Georgetown Library has a generator.

Are they all diesel?

I believe so. Initially, natural gas was explored, but it wasn't powerful enough to power the building. So we explored that, and then ultimately, diesel, that was determined the best tool. OK.

Any other questions, comments?

Yeah, Bryce, B and C obviously were passed. We're looking forward to another passage, right, coming up?

Opportunity for... Could you repeat the question?

Well, B and C were passed.

The ballot measures were passed.

We've got more coming up, correct?

Yes, so currently the library department is looking at Zone H, which includes the Placerville region, so that's within County Service Area 10. And it is a massive area. It goes all the way up to the desolation wilderness, out towards cool. So we're looking at shrinking that area. So I'm working on those pieces now.

Perfect. Because a lot of people check out books to take to desolation. Yeah, exactly. And just keep in mind, too, in the future when you're looking at shrinking the size so it could be more successful, We also talked about in the future maybe looking at Kool, incorporating that into the, or where does Kool actually use, I think we were looking at data, so Kool's always so out there and sometimes it's aligned not correctly with its actual uses, so.

Our circulation statistics show that we have a fair amount of individuals coming from that area to utilize the Georgetown library.

To Georgetown, but they're not currently in that area. tax district is my recollection. And so that was another thing in the future. Just so you guys can, you know, when these conversations come up, please remember to include that in the conversation. I do think someday cool should be included in that Georgetown mix, maybe do some polling out there to see how popular that would be. Cause Georgetown currently the divide really does embrace. And, you know, you saw the numbers, they passed that so high flying colors and, And I don't want to dilute that, but at the same time, the tax base is critical for that library. So yeah, maybe some really good polling out there would be. Good to do. Auburn Lake Trails specifically, it's a high density area. Probably could have a meeting out there and talk with folks or something, but yeah. Thank you for that.

Thank you. Good stuff.

Yeah, and just, oh, Supervisor Trimble. I just want to say one thing, Bryce. You're still looking at, you know, Community Hub Day out in Pioneer Park, right? And you bring the bookmobile out there, but are you still looking at maybe putting a small library out there?

We offer outreach services to Pioneer Park and surrounding areas. So we're out there roughly once a month, sometimes more, depending on the bookmobile schedule. So we have explored using that space as kind of a... more of a mini library or a self-serve kind of operation. There's some technical hurdles that we have to explore a little further. Really having that outreach and having the bookmobile, that's creating the most impact right now, but it's definitely something I can continue to explore.

Okay, that's good. Thanks.

Other questions, comments?

I just wanted to let you know that we are advertising for our vacancy in District 1. It's been vacant for about maybe a month now. And so, yeah, we're trying to replace that position. So, great.

Mr. Lovell, is there a general fund subsidy that the library relies on? Or is it all tax-based?

We are reliant on general fund and then we have the county service area. So we have the different zones of benefit with Georgetown and then Cameron Park is a benefit assessment. And then we have El Dorado Hills and then South Lake Tahoe.

And approximately what is that subsidy from the general fund?

I would have to look for the exact numbers, but I believe it's over 2 million.

I think we, didn't we have a really in-depth numbers on that when we were looking at the ballot measures? I feel like, I think that data really dialed in is back there. If you go back and look at when we were doing the ballot measures, it laid it out pretty well. You could see what part of the county puts in what and how much general fund and all that. I thought it was in there.

And, and part of the reason why I asked the question is because I noticed that whenever the library goes out and, and does an increase to, or, or ask for an extension on the tax base, you never build in like a Cola or anything. So the amount of money, you know, $15 today in 20 years is going to be equivalent to like seven. So, um,

Some of the zones have a built-in increaser. So they follow the Bay Area Consumer Price Index. With Cameron Park in particular, there's no sunset and there's no increase. So you're constantly fighting inflation. And so unless there is additional properties built, then you won't see an increase in revenue from those zones.

And then like the city of Placerville library, there is no tax base that supports that. So that's all paid for by El Dorado County?

Correct. The Placerville library and then also the Pollock Pines library. So those are reliant upon general fund.

That's the reason why the hours of service in Placidville are less than the hours of service in, for instance, Georgetown or Tottenham.

Got it. And I think that's important to distinguish as we look to reconfigure because right now they're lumped into these other areas and they're not really beneficial. So we'll be back.

Yeah, that's why I just kind of wanted to understand. I've been hearing a lot about it, but I didn't really ever put all the pieces together. So thank you.

You're welcome. Yeah, with the Tahoe area that generates between 550 and 600K a year with the county service area and the taxes. With Georgetown, I think it's around 140. With El Dorado Hills, I believe it's just over 500,000. With Cameron Park, it's about 230K a year. And you also see all those numbers in the annual report that goes to the board. and that'll be by the end of this year calendar.

Interesting. Okay. Well, thank you.

Thank you very much for the presentation presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you, George.

Okay. We'll go ahead and recess and come back in 10 minutes. Reconvene at 10 30. We're back from a brief recess and we're now on item number seven, which is a presentation from Health and Human Services relative to our Veterans Affairs Commission. Ms. Dawson.

Item number seven comes from Health and Human Services Agency on behalf of the Eldorado County Veterans Affairs Commission, recommending the board receive a presentation which provides the board with an annual report on the commission's operations over the past year. Good morning.

morning, Madam Chair and supervisors. I'm Tim Lynn Janes, Assistant Director of Human Services with HHSA. And I have the honor of introducing our district to alternate Veterans Affairs Commissioner Donna Mullins, who's going to be doing the presentation today.

Come on up, Donna.

Donna is a very strong asset to the Veterans Affairs Commission. She contributes quite a bit of time in a bunch of different areas on the commission. So thank you, and I'll hand it over to you.

Well, thank you, Timlin, and thank you for giving us the pleasure to bring this forward to you this morning. As you mentioned, I'm Donna Mullins-Becker, and I'm the alternate appointed by District 2 to the Veterans Affairs Commission. Next slide, please. And unlike the previous gentleman, I brought paper. wasn't that impressive wow incredibly impressive so as you can see these are just a few pictures of our veterans and different moments throughout the year that they attended and provided arms and presentation to the local community next slide please our purpose and objective the veterans affairs commission accident advisory capacity capacity to the board of supervisors by promoting aiding and encourage public support for veterans affairs reviewing policies and programs affecting veterans and their families, providing appropriate timely information and recommendations to the Board of Supervisors and the public concerning Veterans Affairs within the County of El Dorado. Next. Our membership, and this is something a little different this year. We wanted to be transparent and let you know who our actual commissioners are and what their rank was during their service as a veteran. So District 1 is Todd Smith, he's E3, United States Navy. The alternate is Robert Fisher, he's E4 with the United States Marine Corps. District 2, Roger Reynolds, E5, United States Army. Myself, Specialist 4, US Army. District 3, Seth Culver, E8, US Air Force, he is a retiree. The alternate is Alfonso Aguilar, he's E6 from the US Army. District five, I'm sorry, four, is Ken Walsh. He's a U.S. Air Force E6. Timothy Thompson, he is a Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army retiree. District five is Gary Norton, E5, United States Army. His alternate is Tom Milliham, United States Navy, E4. And with that, we have the Veterans Service Officer, Jonathan Brown, Secretary Ex Officio, and the Recording Clerk of the Veterans Affairs Mission is... Courtney frame. Next slide, please. What we do veterans affairs commission standing committees. We have a social media, which boosts our visibility of the VAC through social media, Facebook, and Instagram. We currently have approximately 1306 followers on that social media account. Our budget ensures responsible fiscal management of funds received through the county. Transportation works with both governmental and non-governmental agencies to meet the needs of the transportation for veterans. Education and employment, assist veterans with sole proprietorship business education, learning opportunities, and scholastic enrichment. Legislative, evaluates and advises on legislative initiatives. Two current bills of importance are Senate Bill 694, which aims to protect veterans from predatory practices by addressing claim sharking. which passed on February 10th, 2026, and Senate Bill 1407, that will exempt military retirements and survivor's benefit pay from the state taxes, which is making its way through the legislature currently. In fiscal year 2627, the Veterans Affairs Commission will be evaluating these committees to determine their effectiveness and identity as needed, or whether we need some changes to them. And these are all part of our bylaws. One that I didn't mention earlier was the Transient Occupancy Tax Committee. Boy, that's a hard thing to say. In fiscal year 2526, the allotment and allocation of general fund dollars collected through the Transient Occupancy Tax, better known as TOT, to the Veterans Affairs Commission was 175,000. Of this funding, $115,197 was awarded to local organizations through contracts with the county, as well as funding to support a permanent .5 FTE office assistant for the El Dorado County Veterans Affairs Office. The Community Foundation was used then to utilize for, there was a balance, I'm sorry, of 59,803, and that was added to the balance of funds that was held by the El Dorado Community Foundation. and those were to be utilized for mini grants. At last year's presentation to the Board of Supervisors, we were encouraged to spend down the undistributed funds held by the El Dorado Community Foundation that accumulated over previous years. To accomplish this, we included this year a one-time grant funding in addition to our mini grant process and application cycle. I'm pleased to share with you that we distributed $75,000 in one-time grant funding to assist County veterans with urgent or emergency needs, as well as $162,600 in mini grant distributions to organizations serving our County's veterans. The total amount distributed this year was $237,800. The year end balance with the foundation after all funds had been distributed is less than $10,000. Next slide, please. Our challenges. One of the challenges we have is strengthening commission's ability to build genuine collaborative relationships with the county's veterans organizations, ensuring each group feels valued and invested in shared outcomes. This requires individuals to set aside personal agendas and work collaboratively and collectively toward the common goal of supporting El Dorado County's veterans. Secondly, mobilizing consistent and effective outreach to ensure veterans and their families across the county are aware of events and opportunities and are actively encouraged to participate. Next slide, please. Review of our governing documents. In 1991, the Board of Supervisors adopted Ordinance 4188, establishing a Veterans Affairs Commission to advise the Board of Supervisors about veteran issues within the county. As you can see, there have been changes to the ordinance governing the Veterans Affairs Commission. And in 2019, the Board of Supervisors approved the introduction of ordinance 5113, repealing the previous ordinances, and then approved that same document in January 28th of 2020. Next slide, please. Here are some of our goals. we would like to build awareness of the Eldorado country, uh, Eldorado County, um, veteran owned businesses program. This is something that we are going to be actively going forward in this next year. Um, we can get listings of any business within our county that has identified themselves as a veteran owned business. So we're hoping to reach out to them and give them some kind of, um, acknowledgement and give them opportunities to reach out to the commission for other ways that we can support them through that we want to both boost the visibility and engagement of the veterans affairs commission website by posting local events and veterans focused support resources helping the site become a trusted and widely used common community resource continue to support veterans in our community and through our county through the many and annual grant programs utilizing general fund dollars obtained through the transient occupancy tax allotted to the VAC each year. And this year, you did allot us, again, $175,000. We are hoping to invite local and state federal agencies to present to the Commission. information regarding veteran programs and issues in an effort to increase the commission's awareness and ability to support veterans in our community. One of these aspects will be any individual or organization that received mini grant funds or through the one-time emergency funds, they come back and report to us. How did it work? What did you accomplish? Was it easy for you to do this? Was it, I mean, any of the different questions they might have and how we can then better learn from that and work forward on our mini-grant process. Lastly, encourage recipients of annual, and I just said that, mini-grants to educate the Commission. So we're hoping that we can do that more this year. Next slide, please. I would like to thank the Board of Supervisors for the opportunity to share the Commission's annual report for fiscal year 2526. I would also like to thank the HHSA staff, Amy Higdon, Lynette Stout and Timlyn James, as well as John Brown, who is our veteran service officer, and Courtney Frame, who is our recording clerk and the veteran service office. They help us keep on track of what we're doing, especially when it comes to the Brown Act. Yeah. Do you have any questions?

Thank you for that report. You're welcome. Thank you. Questions? Comments? No, just thank you.

Donna, thank you for representing my district. I really appreciate all your hard work and actually turning the organization around with all your support and knowledge that you have. And I just want to say, you know, Dave Lorensky, you know, he's helping a lot of homeless vets, especially when it comes to vehicles, because, you know, I used to help him especially when these cars would break down, you know, because a lot of these people, you know, their car would break down, they had no place to go, or they were trying to get a different, you know, medical procedures and stuff too. So worked along with him to help these people get back in their car. So it was a great thing. And I really appreciate what you guys are doing, especially.

Thank you very much. And thank you all for your time.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. I promise I'll do it on.

Thank you. All right. That takes us to our next item, which we have to hold off until 11 o'clock. So we'll take another short break or this will be a little bit longer break. We'll reconvene at 11 a.m. Yeah. Okay, thank you and welcome back. We are going to now take on item number eight, which is our 11 o'clock time certain, and this comes from Health and Human Services. Ms. Dawson.

Item number eight comes from Health and Human Services Agency on behalf of the El Dorado County Community Action Council, recommending the board receive a presentation which provides the board an annual report on the operations over the past year.

I'd like to welcome the chair of the Community Action Council, Ms. McGuire-Estrada. And we'll welcome you back as well.

Thank you so much. I'm happy to be back. Shannon is going to sit for her presentation. um good morning again i'm lynette engelhardt deputy director in community services and hhsa i'm pleased to introduce to you shannon mcguire estrada she is the chair of our community action council and she'll be providing their annual update to you now great

welcome thank you good morning chair and members of the board thank you for giving us the opportunity to provide our annual update on el dorado county's community action council so i'm going to go over the presentation very briefly today focusing primarily on what the council has been doing over the past year what we've learned and where we hope to go next The Community Action Council exists as a part of the county's community service block grant. Our program is to advise the board regarding the needs of low income residents in El Dorado County, and to help identify resources, opportunities, and services that can address those needs. But one of the things that our council has really focused on this year is making that role more active. We don't want to simply meet once a month and talk about community needs. We want to hear directly from the community, understand what resources are currently available, and learn about new resources as they develop, and then share that information back out. Oops. So our trip with tight membership structure helps us do that. The council brings together representation from the public sector, the low income community and community organizations serving residents throughout El Dorado County. That mix of perspective is important because each member comes to the table with different experiences, community connections and knowledge and knowledge of the different resources. The Council also continues to review its governing documents and bylaws to make sure our structure supports the work we're trying to accomplish. This year, the Council has been actively reviewing potential revisions to the bylaws. This past year, one of our biggest priorities has been strengthening the Council's connection with the community. What we do a major part of that has been resource sharing resources are constantly changing new programs become available eligibility requirements change organizations expand their services and sometimes programs people have relied on are no longer available. Our monthly meetings give council members and community partners an opportunity to share those updates with one another and learn about resources we may not have previously known existed. We've also invited organizations and county programs to speak with us so the council members can better understand the services available throughout the county. This year we heard from representatives working in affordable housing, probation community outreach, philanthropy, and programs supporting single mothers. Those presentations help us become better connectors within the community because members can take that information back to the people and the organizations that they interact with. But we also recognize that we can't understand community needs only from the inside of a meeting room. One of the goals the council established was to become more visible in the community and create more opportunities to hear directly from residents. The Kids Expo was a great example of that. Council members staffed a resource booth where we could provide families with information about available services, but equally important, we had conversations with community members about what they were seeing, what they need, and where they continue to experience gaps. That two-way communication is really important to the work of the council. We wanna share resources out into the community, but we also wanna bring information back. What are residents struggling to access? What services are missing? Where are people getting stuck? And what needs should we be bringing forward to the county leadership? We also had an opportunity this year to put that advisory role into practice through recommendations regarding the CSBG discretionary funding. An ad hoc committee recommended supporting a fall prevention program for low income residents living with disabilities. so they can remain safe in their homes, as well as outreach for the YANA program, which provides check-in calls for homebound seniors. As we move towards the 2027 Community Needs Assessment, we want to continue building on this work. That means attending more community events, creating additional opportunities for residents to provide input, continuing to learn about new and changing resources, and identifying service gaps so we can provide meaningful recommendations to the board. challenges. We do continue to have challenges. CSBG funding is limited, which restricts opportunities for direct community support. We also continue working on how to better connect residents with existing services and how to maintain a full council membership. And sometimes the challenge isn't that the resource doesn't exist. The challenge is making sure people know it exists and can actually access it. Looking ahead, one of our major priorities will be gathering information for the 2027 Biennial Community Needs Assessment. We want to continue increasing our presence in the community events and create more opportunities for residents to provide input, continue learning about local programs and organizations, and identify gaps people encounter when trying to access services. Ultimately, I think our goal is fairly simple, to keep strengthening the connections between the community, service organizations, county programs, and this board. We appreciate the opportunity to serve in that role, and we appreciate your continued support of the Community Action Council. Thank you, and we're happy to answer any questions.

Great, thank you. Questions, comments? Supervisor Turnbull?

Our regular funding for 2026 is about $330,000. We haven't received it yet, but we've been told our discretionary 2026 funding will be 29,000-ish. So it went up a little bit from last year's, which was 26,000.

Other questions, comments? Is this acronym CSBG, is that the old CDBG? It's different? Community Development Block Grant?

Community Services Block Grant, CSBG.

And that's different from CDBG, which is for more housing, I think? Okay. All right. And so how do you spend that money? How do I spell? What do you spend the money on?

Oh, well, we come together with an ad hoc group to determine the community needs and where the need is. So what programs are maybe lacking some funding this year? And that's how we determined that the people with... disabilities and keeping seniors safe at home, there was definitely a need for that, as well as the YANA program to keep our seniors at home. And a major population of our community are our seniors. So we want to keep them safe.

That was the discretionary funding. That was the $29,000? Which we're not guaranteed, but we do tend to get it. So that was the discretionary funds. And then with our regular block grant, it's used for staff costs, salaries to support programs. And then it has a variety of other uses. We've used it for senior daycare. We're currently using it for in-home supportive services. So chores... transportation, family caregiver support programs. It's a pretty flexible block grant, and so it's a nice opportunity to use it to supplement other programs that we have. But the bulk of it would be used for staffing costs to provide the services that we provide.

And did you say that there was a little bit of that money that was being used for NAMI?

Did you say that right now? No. YANA. Oh, okay. Sorry. Got it. Okay. And that was the discretionary funds, YANA.

Excellent. Any other comments, questions? No? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. We will come back at 1130 to hear from environmental management.

So we'll break again.

Okay, welcome back, El Dorado County. We are now on agenda item number nine, our 1130 times certain. This is being presented by Environmental Management Department. Who doesn't want to talk about solid waste?

Absolutely. It's my favorite.

Ms. Dawson. Item number nine comes from Environmental Management Department, Solid Waste Division, on behalf of the El Dorado Solid Waste Advisory Committee, recommending the board, one, receive a presentation from the El Dorado Solid Waste Advisory Committee, and two, provide direction to staff or the committee if necessary. Welcome.

Thank you, good morning. Good morning. Supervisors, my name is Doug Venable and I'm District 3 representative and recently elected chair to the El Dorado Solid Waste Advisory Committee, or ED-SWAC as we like to call it. And I'm here today to talk trash. More specifically, what we do with solid waste in El Dorado County. Ed Swack is, thank you, next slide, please. Ed Swack is charged to advise the board on solid waste planning and policy. We review waste management contracts and facilities. We evaluate waste reduction and outreach programs. We conduct periodic reviews under state and county planning programs. Next slide. So EdSWAC was established back in 1992 under assembly bill 939 as mandated by California state law. The committee exists though to serve and advise this board on long-term waste planning and to support county ongoing compliance with state recycling goals. So this year we also completed an update of our governing bylaws, which I'll discuss in detail in just a moment. Next slide. Ed Swack members represent the entire county from El Dorado Hills up to South Lake Tahoe, including representatives from all five supervisor districts, incorporated cities, including Placerville, South Lake Tahoe, all of our local community service districts, as well as our private haulers, including El Dorado Disposal and South Tahoe Refuse. We're also supported greatly by Tim Engle from the county's environmental management department, along with clerk to board, Kim Dawson and clerk Kaylee Runkle. A lot of support there. Next slide, please. So what does that SWAT do? Some of you may know a little more than others, but we meet quarterly to work through the goals and objectives laid out by our bylaws, including the review of facility disposal and recycling data. That's a lot of data that's crunched every month that we get from the facility. We track public and private waste reduction initiatives. We monitor past and pending legislation and other requirements. we keep tabs on critical planning documents. So 2025 was a pretty big year for the Ed Swat Committee. As we briefly discussed, we had a leadership transition with Catherine Dixon-Swerkbach, our district four representative. She retired as chair after 30 years. I'm honored to step into her shoes as the chair. I've got a lot to learn, obviously. We also have a long time leadership, our district one representative, Don Nitzolek. He's got a great eye for numbers and big picture stuff. So I'm in good hands there on the committee. Second, we've completed a long awaited update to our bylaws, shifting to quarterly meetings, provided a little bit more flexibility with the meeting times and updating procedures to comply with the Brown Act. And thirdly, we completed a comprehensive five-year review and brought presentation late last year on the state of the waste in El Dorado County from 20 to 2025. Next slide. And like other counties, we've got a lot of challenges here in El Dorado County, and they're further complicated by the fact that we don't have a solid waste disposal facility since the close of Union Mine back in 1996. We're expected to hit aggressive state diversion and disposal targets, all while considering the burden and the cost in the taxpayers, our rate payers, and local businesses, and avoiding potential enforcement actions by the state. So we take all that and make a soup. And then in addition to that, we got new labeling and recycling standards that are still confusing to a lot of our residents. Our service area, as you know, is large and diverse from our cities to our mountain communities. And so equitable service is very difficult in a county like ours. We're also managing growth and development pressures, trying to streamline the state's reporting that's come a bit redundant across multiple programs. We're adjusting to commodity markets that shift economics of recycling from year to year. Slide. Looking ahead, our priorities include focused on organics recycling and compliance with SB 1383, which is the state law to divert organic waste from our landfills in the state. This effort remains one of our biggest lifts and also our biggest accomplishments, I believe, in the county. We also plan to expand public educations so our residents better understand what belongs in each waste stream. We also plan to do continued waste characterization, which gives us an idea of what is in those waste streams and how to maybe adjust in the future to prevent more contamination in those waste streams. On the operations side, our handlers are also looking at technologies such as truck cameras, and that will help improve monitoring, service quality, and compliance. And so that's kind of it in a nutshell of EdSwack. First of all, thank you for your time this morning. And it's not a very exciting event. and maybe the most glamorous subject, but I'm really honored of the work that this committee does and looking forward to the work that we have to do. Are there any questions this morning?

Thank you for that report. Are there questions, comments? Supervisor Turnbull?

Yeah, I used to be on this ED SWAT for quite a few years. And we put this solid waste plan in effect way back when, and it was supposed to be five years. They figured that we were going to meet our goal, our 70% diversion rate.

Yeah.

And where are we at right now?

We're approximately in the low 30s. And so I do believe that, I think it was 75% diversion rate. I believe that was a lofty and unrealistic goal, considering you look back at the last 10 years or so, and even though the technology hasn't changed, the habits of our folks haven't changed. And so one of the things that are driving these diversion rates are... construction and demolition materials. We've got our recycling that has a lot of contamination in it, so we're not able to recycle as much. And so those numbers really haven't elevated like we'd hoped they would.

Yeah, because I know we spent a lot of money on that plan. I think we did, you know, to come up with something. And it just seems like to me that, you know, it's been numerous years and we still are not increasing any of that to meet that goal. So

It's important to get some traction on that. And that's some of this. I think contamination is hopefully one of the things that we're going to really look at. We're going to form an ad hoc committee to focus on that. But I think the reality is, is that the economics kind of drive what we're putting in the trash can. And it's hard to change people's habits. And I'm not saying that's not possible, and I want to do these things, but I do believe that that goal of 75%, unless we've had a state-of-the-art recycling facility that can optical sort these things, it's really challenging to get that diversion rate.

Yeah, and that's on the West Slope, or is that for the whole county? Can you say that again? What you're saying, we're at 30-something percent?

I think it bounces up a little bit more, a little bit less, depending on, I think South Lake Tahoe has a much better diversion rate.

So what is that in Tahoe, do you know?

Tim, I'm going to defer to Tim Engle.

Yeah, yeah. Please. Because I think Brooke was going to ask that question too.

Let me give Doug a hand on the diversion rates. Again, sorry for my informality. I had a field inspection today. Timothy Engel, Eldorado County Environmental Management, Solid Waste Division. So currently diversion rates in the county, we break them up. Doug was referencing the facility diversion rates at EDD and STR doors. So that's usually going to be a lower number. They're getting mostly municipal solid waste. Those are in the 30 to 40% numbers. County-wide, Eldorado County Incorporated is about I believe this year, about 66% in the 60s. It's been trending up. City of Placerville is hovering around the 60 to 50, around 60% mark. And City of South Lake Tahoe, depends on how you define it via employment or population. I think employment is more fair. for the city of South Lake Tahoe, and they're in the 60% range as well. So we're doing good with diversion. We always can do better. I like to judge ourselves against jurisdictions like Folsom and Elk Grove that are close, that have attainable diversion rates. They're usually closer to the low 70s, and I think we can get there with some excellent education programs, a lot of work on my part, and a lot of work on Doug's part.

Yeah, one of the things, especially coming to the future and stuff, especially if we're not going to be able to haul our garbage to other places, are we looking at other motives and incentives to be able to, if El Dorado County says we've got to keep our garbage here, are you looking at biomass or anything like that?

Yeah, more disposal facilities and better disposal facilities are always going to be on our agenda no matter what. The solid waste management plan, the document you were referring to that was passed in 2012, it had provisions for advanced facilities and diversion rate calculations based on those implementing those facilities. I think the issue that Doug touched on with EdSwag is we do have to consider the cost to rate payers and businesses. I often look at solid waste rates from other jurisdictions in the county or other jurisdictions in California. And for example, one example I like to harp on is the city of Palo Alto has excellent diversion rates. They also have trash bills that are almost close to $300 a month. So it's like these costs absorbing these costs. Totally understand. We're trying to get the best diversion rates we can for the best rates we can afford.

Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you. Appreciate it.

Supervisor Parlin.

Don't go anywhere, Tim. So as Tim knows, I do love talking about trash because I'm on the environmental services JPA. And what I'm not seeing in here is SB 54. And, you know, right now the Circular Action Alliance is forming and trying to help figure out how that's going to get implemented. And SB 54 is more about recyclables themselves and making the packaging. But the burden is supposed to be on the manufacturers and for the – groups that are actually doing the collecting and the recycling and stuff, they're supposed to be able to charge their costs for that increased ability to recycle materials and sort them, everything, they're supposed to be able to get reimbursed for those costs. And so that is, like, happening as we speak, though. It's this new program that's being built. And so how do you feel that's going? Because in my mind, I mean, I've been very honest about all of this. Trust in recycling died. Yeah. you know, about five, 10 years ago when we all found out it wasn't really happening and it was fake. So how do we plan to build true recycling and also build, because there are people that just won't recycle, they won't sort. Because they're like, it's not real anymore. I mean, how do we, to your point, you guys said educate. How do we educate people that it is real? We're trying to build the markets again. Contamination is our biggest enemy, I believe, in the recycling world. And so then you get into the whole thing. You hear about people... I mean, I don't like it that there's cameras on the trucks checking what's in my bin. But if they don't, how do they know, you know, if we're doing it correctly and all of that? I mean, it's really it got complicated when the trust and recycling died. And how do we rebuild that? And how's our county doing with all that?

It's big. I'll go first and then Doug can add on some stuff. So first of all, SB 1383 and SB 54 are our line item agenda items. with Ed Swack every, every meeting. We have a, we have a discussion every meeting and SB 54 just got added to that. Okay. Um, SB 54 is very new. The state kind of always, as you know, can put the cart before the horse. They, they pass all these regulations and then cow recycle doesn't even kind of know what they're doing yet. And they're like, well, we're figuring it out. Why don't you help us figure it out?

Yeah.

And they're in the, why don't you help us figure it out phase? So we just actually yesterday got, um, the recyclable lists that we requested from South Tower Refuse and Eldorado Disposal of what they, kind of like what they can do, what they would like to do and what they can't do. And these are what I'd consider a phrase I've always used throughout the years is what I'd call economically viable recyclable materials. When we wrote the SB 1383 ordinance, the local ordinance, CalRecycle wanted us to go just recycle anything, like recycle any organics, fats, oils, grease, whatever. And I said, no, we have to recycle economically viable recyclable materials because if there's no market for it, then it's not really recyclable. in theory is, like styrofoam is in theory recyclable, but almost no one does because it's not economically viable to recycle. It's too light, it's too bulky, and you can't make that many products with it besides red Solo cups and spools for 3D printers. So, I mean, We, with SB 54, I think we see an opportunity to reset inert recycling, bottles, cans, cardboard, packaging materials, food packaging materials, and not only parse proper ones into the organics bin, things like paper and stuff, but also reset true recyclable materials. And we're going to get logos on things that are not the recycle logo that you can put on anything. We're going to get real recycling logos that say, this is an economically viable material that can go in your blue bin or your, it's blue. Yeah, the blue bin. Sorry, I have a yellow one. They still have to change it. So that's kind of where we're going, but we need a reset. We haven't taken our foot off the gas with inert recycling. We know they're coming down with SB 1383. We know they've been talking about C and D and those kinds of things, but inert recycling is still a big deal and we still take it really seriously and contamination is really a problem and we have to fix it. Okay. And that those standards do come from the top though. El Dorado County can't just have expect their citizens to know exactly what is economically recyclable.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I appreciate that. Cause I do think that it's, it's a huge challenge. I know somebody the other day that put something in the wrong bin and I just happened to notice it. You know what I mean? And I was like, how, how is the, how are we going to share that with the public? How critical it is for our success. You know what I mean?

Yeah. It really comes down to good public education that we're not spending obscene amounts of money on. And then, you know, I think that strategies like Eldorado Disposal's oops tags, where it's kind of like a soft poke where you say, hey, this was actually wrong. This is where it's supposed to go. A corrective action, not a violation or a fine or anything. Those kinds of things can help people figure it out. I'm the guy that's not supposed to do this ever, and I've made a mistake. So clearly it's confusing to everybody. I don't think anybody's not confused by this. So we're going to get it less confusing. And we're going to have to work with all our partners, both at the state and the local level as our haulers, to figure it out. Doug, do you want to say anything?

Well said. I think you touched on everything.

I think I did. But yeah, SB 54 has talked about every meeting at SPAC, and it's part of our prioritization right now. Very good.

Thank you for that. I thought with regards to SB 54 that Governor Newsom extended the deadline and kind of iced it for a little while and asked CalRecycle to go back and... how it can be implemented?

Well, that's where they're at. I'm not familiar with the internals of the legislation at the moment. It got, it was getting sued.

Yeah.

It was in like OAL, OAL purgatory is what you call it, like where they're stuck there and OAL is trying to figure out if it's legal. I mean, they did this with SB 1383. They were like, you can't write those regs. They're not legal. So right now, Cower Cycle is in that information gathering phase where they're asking the hauler, asking the jurisdictions to ask their haulers, what can you do? What would you, you know, would be nice, those kinds of things. So STR just got us that information. EDD just got us that information. Me and our sustainability coordinator, Julie Abatelli, are reviewing it along with Jeff. And we're going to send it off to Cow Recycle and then try to grab some of that money to expand our recycling here in the county. That's what we want to get. We want the funds. But again, they're cagey about that. I don't even know if they've actually legally allocated money yet.

Yeah, we just had a conversation about that the other day. But yeah, Emily Coven and the Circular Action Alliance and they're saying like save your receipts. Yeah. So that's where we're at. We're saving our receipts. That's the problem. They're figuring it out as we're trying to implement it, and it's really hard for folks to keep up.

It's really normal for Cow Recycle to say, figure this out, and then I'll make a tracking sheet, and then I'll send it to them, and they'll say, can we use that tracking sheet that you made to send out to all the other jurisdictions? If it gets done and it gets figured out, I don't lose any sleep over it, but they definitely are in that we need to figure it out phase. Yeah.

you mentioned economically viable recyclables and you gave some examples. You said like aluminum, paper, but you didn't mention plastic.

Yeah. Certain kinds of plastics are absolutely economically recyclable materials. PET, P-E-T, which is like, I think number one, plastic number one. That is one of the most recyclable materials in this country. I mean, you can, there's end producers in the state that are actually making materials and making stuff with it. As you can see, if you buy a bottle of Coca-Cola, it'll often say this contains recyclable material from previous bottles from previous pets. So, you know, we often lump plastics into like recyclables, but plastics are a vast, you know, group of different kinds of chemical compositions and pets really easy. PVC pipe and styrofoam, not so much. Not so much.

You know, what's interesting in the basin is, as you may be aware, the city of South Lake Tahoe has banned single-use plastic water bottles. Yeah, water bottles. I've talked about it with my colleagues about a similar ordinance in the unincorporated part of the county because it just makes sense. I've talked to South Tahoe Refuse about it. And they're like, it's ironic because it is one of the more highly recyclable. But we all agree because we have a lake that is number three in the world in terms of plastic contamination in the lake. So taking some of the plastic out of the environment so it can't even break down and eventually make its way to the lake is a goal. So I... kind of wondering what you think about that. And I also am curious if Salto Refuse is still going through with the biomass. They planned a small biomass facility there that would power the whole plant with electricity. Is that still a go?

So to answer your first point on the plastic water bottle ban. It's a tricky situation because PET is the most like recyclable material. I mean, it is the one where if everyone actually put it in the can clean, you know, it wouldn't be almost 100% recycled. There would be almost no waste, which is great. But I do understand that the basin is an incredibly ecologically sensitive area. The lake is incredibly sensitive. So even if something is in theoretic and theory recyclable that, you know, not having those materials there in the first place might be a better course of action. Um, I don't really, I, it's a tough call. Like, I mean, I think that if you wanted to continue to have plastic bottles legal in the basin, then you would want to make sure that there's recycling facilities where people can put them. If you wanted to ban plastic bottles in the basin, you'll have also have to be cognizant that, um, You know, sometimes people will still bring them up and there might not be places to put them and they'll still wind up in the ground or in the lake, unfortunately. And the other plastics that aren't necessarily as recyclable. Styrofoam is, as I've said, I don't mean to pick on styrofoams. It's kind of a wonder material.

Well, we banned that in the basin too.

But it's also, it's a menace. I mean, you can't recycle it. It's just not economically viable. So styrofoam is a significant larger, more bigger problem than PET is because of the streams. But again, this is Tahoe. This is a complex environment. So- you know, that's a public policy decision that I think it doesn't matter for me, what we do, as long as whatever happens, environmental management would, and Ed Swack would take the course of action to make sure that those, those materials are being diverted and not entering the lake. So again, if we keep pet legal, keep water bottles legal, we need, we need cans up there and they need to be serviced. Got it.

Okay. And the biomass facility. So, uh,

For SCR. So I am not 100% plugged into this. I apologize. I know they have a sophisticated food waste and green waste collection program. I don't know where they were going to cite that. Was it at the Ruth Avenue facility? Yes. Oh, okay. Yeah. I, you know, I would be happy to get back to you on that. I don't know off the top of my hand and I'm not going to pretend like I do, but let me talk to Jeff about it and we'll see where it's at. I might've just been slipped out of it.

Yeah. I appreciate that answer as well. Thank you.

Yeah.

Other questions, comments?

Yeah, I just want to bring it up. Actually, waste management is using cogeneration plants to power their facilities and stuff and produce electricity for the residents and surrounding areas.

Yeah, it's a great way of producing energy. I totally support it as long as CARB lets us do it.

It makes great sense, but they don't get diversionary credit for it. The state has not

Oh, that's really frustrating. So anytime we think we should get diversionary credit for something, we're always kind of like, can you, can you credit this? And of course they have to go through the rule book and sometimes rewrite the regs, but eventually it would be nice to get diversionary credit for some of this stuff.

Good. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you. Please.

We've got a vacancy on our board for district two. We're looking for anyone. So if you could put out some feelers to see if anyone might be interested in that, we'd love to have another member.

Yeah, I know Laura Stroud stepped down.

So anyway, thank you very much.

Great, thank you. Thank you all. Appreciate you.

All right, we'll go ahead and break for lunch and we will be back at one o'clock for item number 10 from the Ag Department. All right. Welcome back, El Dorado County. We are just coming off of a lunch break, and we are back to our special meeting. We are at 1 o'clock, time certain department matter, item number 10, to hear from the Agriculture Department and receive their annual report. Ms. Dawson.

Item number 10 comes from the Agricultural Department recommending the board receive an annual report for the Agricultural Commission for 2025 and provide direction if necessary. Welcome back, Ms. Ballard.

All right, so I'm also the liaison for the Agricultural Commissioner of the Ag Commission, and just a little bit of history on the Ag Commission. It was created by the Board of Supervisors in 1967, and they held their first meeting actually December 5th of that year. The Ag Commission acts as an advisory body to the Board of Supervisors and the Planning Commission on all matters related to agriculture. Oh, you're keeping right up. So this is slide two. I can go to slide three. All right, so the Ag Commission is composed of seven members representing specific industries. So that would be forest and the related industries. And that member is Bill Draper. And just a little bit of information, just so you kind of see kind of the breadth of their knowledge. He has been on the Ag Commission since 2008. And he has been a registered professional forester since 1974. He was also an apple and Christmas tree producer in Apple Hill for 15 years. Then Livestock has two members. Tim Nielsen has been on the Ag Commission since 2010 and is a fifth-generation cattle rancher. He's also a member of the El Dorado County Farm Bureau. Shemarie Tong has been on the Ag Commission since 2023 and is a commercial cattle rancher. She has ranched in El Dorado County with her family for four generations, and she is a member also of the El Dorado County Farm Bureau. Then Fruit and Nut Farming has two members. Dave Bolster, and he's been on the Ag Commission since 2015. and is the operator of his family's farm, Bolster's Hilltop Ranch, which produces apples and blueberries. He also serves on the board of directors for the Apple Hill Association. Chuck Mansfield has been on the board since 2022 and is the operator of his family's farm, Goldbud Farms. He is a Plastival Food Growers Association board member and vice president of the El Dorado Wine Grape Growers Association. Ag processing, that member is Derek Delfino. He has been on the Ag Commission since 2026, so he's new. and is a vineyard owner and orchard manager for his family's farm, Delfino Farms. He is the current parliamentarian of the El Dorado Wine Grape Growers Association and has been president of the El Dorado Winery Association. He additionally raises livestock. Other agriculture. That member is Kevin Jones. He's also new. He's been on the Ag Commission since 2026, and he is a manager of his family's vineyard and winery, Lava Cap. He also raises cattle and is a California licensed timber operator. Now, there's actually ex-officio members. The Ag Commissioner is one of them. And I just wanted to really thank my staff because even though I sit in the chair and I smile and I nod, they're really the hard workers. So my admin tech, Myrna Tao, who's here, she acts as the clerk. And then also my supervisory agricultural biologist and standards inspector. They always give us really long titles. And then my assistant ag commissioner. So that's Tom Williams and then Corey Larson. They also put together the reports and give them as well to the ag commission. So kudos to them because that's a lot of work on their part. Then the other ex officio member is actually the county farm advisor. So that's Mackenzie Patton. All right, slide four. Thank you. There were eight meetings conducted in 2025 and covered such topics as setbacks, conditional and temporary use permits, commercial cannabis permits, Williamson Act rezoning, and general plan policy. Next slide. Two presentations, one from our Resource Conservation District in concert with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and there was another one that we presented from the Ag Department. Next slide. The purpose of the Ag Commission is to formulate and recommend to the Board of Supervisors general policies related to the purpose of the commission, which includes legislative or policy sections that will encourage and promote agricultural activities that are conducive to the well-being of El Dorado County. The commission is charged with recommending to the Board of Supervisors general policies related to the purposes of the commission. The County Agricultural Commissioner provides staff services, the Ad Commission in the conduct of his business, And unlike other committees and commission members in El Dorado County who are appointed by their district supervisors, the members of the Ag Commission must actually be screened by a predetermined panel of local ag industry leaders and then interviewed by the members of the ag industry to current members of the Ag Commission and the Agricultural Commissioner. The interviews panel selection is forwarded as a recommendation to the board, and then it turns into a four-year appointment. This process is outlined in the Ag Commission's bylaws. Next slide, please. I'm trying to go fast, give Dave lots of time to talk. All right, looking forward to 2026. So ag lodging has moved to the forefront of the Ag Commission's priorities alongside tourism business opportunities. And I'm gonna let the Ag Commission's current chair speak more to that in a moment. I just wanted to say though, that I am confident that the Ag Commission will have thoughtful recommendations based on lived experience as many of our current commissioners come from multi-generational agricultural families and are additionally part of a family legacy previous Ag Commission members. And speaking of legacies, I did want to, before I turn over the mic, recognize Lloyd Walker and Greg Boger, both of whom resigned from the Ag Commission this year. So Lloyd was a member for an impressive 31 years, and Greg, not to be outdone, was a member for 47 years. So I just want to be First, I want to say how grateful I am for their combined 78 years of service on the Ag Commission and the fruit of their labors, pun intended, will continue to be an important part of Eldorado. So with that, I want to invite Dave Bolster, current chair of Ag Commission, come on up and present. Thanks. Welcome, Mr. Bolster.

Good afternoon, all. Appreciate the opportunity to, always appreciate the opportunity to preach the gospel of El Dorado Ag. So thank you for the opportunity this afternoon. First of all, welcome Jesse Fowler, our new Ag Commissioner. Jesse's doing a wonderful job, and we know she's going to do great things for the Ag community and the people of El Dorado County. Let me see, Kim, if we can, I will like to walk through those slides as well. Just a couple of comments on those.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. And while we're doing that, Greg, this is the last shout out. Fabulous job, Greg Boger, 47 years on the Ag Commission. I think he spent the last 30 as the chairman. So I am the current chairman of the County Ag Commission. Thank you, Kim. So obviously I won't rehash all of this, but I think to give the board a little background, just a reminder. So the roadmap of all our Ag Commission activities is the Agricultural element of the county's general plan. The goals, objectives, and policies of the ag element of the general plan, basically that's a roadmap of all of the activities of the Ag Commission, particularly goals and objectives 8.1 and 8.2, the preservation of ag lands, and also the economic viability of our farms and ag land. So everything that we do as we go through here, it's driven by what we see in the ag element of the general plan. And that's our roadmap. And I can assure you that County Council keeps us within the guardrails of that roadmap.

Next slide, Kim.

So Jesse touched on the membership, very diverse group representing the wine industry, livestock, forestry. Bill Draper is our forestry representative. We have the new president of the El Dorado County Winery Association. Derek Dolphino is in the room back here. Great to get some youth and energy and our new youth and energy in our agricultural association. So that's a great step forward. Next slide, please. So again, Jesse described these and each one of these elements, the ag setbacks, conditional and temporary use permits, the Williamson Act rezones, cannabis permits, all those are mandated and described in the ag elements of the general plan. So those are really the core elements and the core activity is what the Ag Commission does. and a couple of presentations. One comment on the State of Agriculture in El Dorado County presentation. There's been conversation that I think, particularly given the state of the wine industry right now, it's appropriate for the ag community, not necessarily the Ag Commission itself, but with leadership and assistance from the Ag Commission, for the ag community, the Alpahoe Growers Association, the Farm Bureau, Cattlemen's Association, the Christmas Tree Growers, to make a presentation to the board on the state of the industry, either end of year or first of the year, so that the board gets a snapshot of where we are in the industry, so that we're close to the pulse of what's going on in the industry. I think it's a good idea for the board to be more informed. I think that's one of our goals going forward is to keep the board more informed about what's going on with the industry at any one time. And once again, powers and duties, I think we've covered that pretty well. Thank you, Kim. So fast forward to 26 and those activities that we just described, those were in calendar year 25. So year to date, we've had a number of those ag setbacks, conditional and temporary use permits. So I think it's important, as we just talked about, to look at a snapshot of the industry and the ag lodging and TBID, so-called TBID, the tourism business improvement district plays into that. So the snapshot of the industry, it's a good news, bad news story. We have elements, many of the elements of our ag industry are doing really well. Well, we're in the livestock industry right now. The federal government has seen fit to import lots of beef because we can't produce enough. So it's good to be in the livestock cattle industry right now. So very, very strong industry. And I think Jesse's crop report for this year will reflect that next year. Christmas trees, we can't grow enough Christmas trees. I know the folks up in the Apple Hill area there, they open up the day after Thanksgiving and they close that following Monday and they're done for the year because of just overwhelming demand. So that represents an opportunity. Let's grow more Christmas trees in North County, Georgetown and in South County. Now the Apple Hill program obviously is still a very strong agritourism program, so all those things are working. So the things that aren't working right now, the timber industry still is in the doldrums, and both the issues right now that are having an ag are demand driven. There's just not enough demand for the product that our producers are generating. On the timber side, the real estate industry, really since the spring of 2022, it's just been flat. Very low volume, relatively low, historically low volume of sales for coming up on five years now. If houses aren't being built and sold, that reflects on the timber industry, low demand for timber. I know Sierra Pacific is doing some logging on their forest lands, but that's a minimal volume. So someday we hope to see much more activity on that. And we... We won't talk about the fire fuel reduction programs on federal lands that go to reduce fire danger. That's a whole different story. So the other industry is we know that suffering is our wine industry right now. We don't have to rehash the whole story, but I think the data tells the whole story. So right now in El Dorado County, there's either 20 or 21 wineries that have either been foreclosed on have closed their doors permanently or currently for sale. So there's about seven each of those wineries. So it represents almost half of what we had four years ago. And the reason is demand has declined by a minimum of 50%. And in some cases, some people, some of the wineries are seeing 75% reduction in sales. And obviously, if you own a business, 75% reduction in sales is not sustainable. So we know the issue. We know the problem. So now our challenge is, as the ag community and the county government collectively, 1963, we had the same type of crisis. The ag community came together with the Board of Supervisors, the Ponding Commission, state agencies to pivot to a new crop. It took the whole community, it took government, it took the industry. The reason that Ed Delfino and Dick Bethel have their name on the building down across the street, they created basically the vineyard and wine industry in the county, and they played a key role in creating the Apple Hill Growers Association, which gave the industry ongoing critical mass. Without the Apple Hill Growers industry at the time, Who knows what Gold Hill and South County and other growing regions would look like. Could we have preserved those as long-term agricultural districts? So part of the pivot is some of the activities we have going on now. You discussed ag lodging a few weeks ago. So what we need to do, particularly with the winery people, is provide tools for those people to get through the storm, to get through the night, and keep those ag lands preserved for the long haul. So ag lodging is going to be one of those tools. The other element we see here is tourism business opportunities. Hats off to your planning department and working with our seed group, your economic development team. They're doing a fabulous job. And as you know, the tourism business improvement district is a proposed project that's being discussed now. And it hopefully will result in a creation of an independent visitors authority that's funded separately independently from the county and will be governed by a separate board. Obviously, we need tourism promotion in order to drive visitation to our winery tasting rooms and all of our farms and wineries. And I think we have one member of SEED here today. David, thank you for being here. And that's another note that the Ag Commission has been working cooperatively with SEED people, not only looking at T-BIDS, but If you look at the challenges in the wine industry, back in my youth, I was served on the board of the El Dorado County Economic Development Corporation, so you learned Economic Development 101, Business Subtraction, Business Extension, and Business Retention. So right now, our economic development challenge is business retention. We want to retain as many of those wineries as we can. And you have some really, really fine people on the seaboard. Karl Roboto is an economist who's spent his whole career on business strategy. And so we're going to lean on those folks to help us in terms of business retention. So that's what we look like going forward and happy to answer any questions.

I'm sure there's a lot of questions and comments on this one. So who wants to kick us off?

Okay.

I just want to make some comments. The thing with the Forest Service now, we've got a pretty good relationship with them now. And I know they're at the classical nursery, they're expanded now. raise 1.5 million more trees. And that nursery is one of four in our nation. So the Forest Service is going to look at the USDA being centrally located here in El Dorado County with the new Forest Service Station 2. So they're going to represent the whole state. And this nursery supplies all the You know, all the Western states is what it does. It's kind of amazing to me. And we have it here and it's just real small. But now they're finally expanding to be able to do it, especially after these horrific fires that we've had. you know, and then also what the new executive orders of president signed in place. So it's, it's a good thing. And one of the things that I'm pushing for is virtual fencing because it's so expensive to get started. And I've been talking to, you know, Kevin Kiley and whatever they can do to help because to help the ranchers out, because it's, it's really expensive to get started, especially during the Caldor fire, you know, You know, the Nielsen family, my cousins, basically lost all that grazing up there, and plus it damaged over 60 miles of fencing. So we've got to start focusing on things like that, trying to get it in place to help.

No, 100%. I agree 100%. And Bill, I think some of us knew Bill and Pat Scheuner, who had Grandpa Sellers up in Apple Hill. Bill was the manager there at the Forest Nursery for many, many years, and he always bragged about. And there's a reason they chose that site. Like you said, I think it was one of five or six in the country. That's because you had 12 feet of Carson Ridge topsoil, and Bill always called it Jack's Chocolate Mousse. Exactly. And it's a credit to us. Look at that facility, one of six in the country. And across the hill, the U.S. Forest Service, Forest Genetics, Institute of Forest Genetics, I think that's their lead forest research facility in the country. So it's a testament.

Well, the cluster was like around 200 employees at one time, too. So it was a great thing. It really was for our county. So hopefully we can get it all back to normal like it used to be, which would be good. Absolutely.

Other questions, comments? Mr. Vierkamp? Go ahead, Brian.

Dave, I think you hit the nail on the head. I mean, a lot of it has to do of issue out of our control, what the Fed is doing and so forth. Our other challenge in El Dorado County is... don't have unlimited acres of it either and if we did then we'd have water challenges because the state can't figure out water either so there's a lot of challenges in our you know our ag tourism uh possibilities are right in the middle of residential possibilities on wagon roads so it's complicated and you know really feel for the winery industry. And, you know, unfortunately there's all these other competing interests that are making it difficult, insurances, costs of everything else. I have to go buy diesel right now.

or better just might as well go to the bank.

So it's a tough challenge, but I think together, the different factions, we can work to at least keep some things as sustainable as we can and try to get through some of this. And I think that's what's obviously occurring and much to your guys' help. We appreciate that very much. But you guys been involved a long time, so good smart people will figure it out. Appreciate everybody's hard work and we'll get through it.

Absolutely. Yep.

Supervisor Ferrer.

Yeah, just what can we do or the county in general to help you guys realistically? Are there examples? How are we slowing you down or standing in your way or inhibiting efforts that you would like to see move forward?

Yeah, no, and I appreciate Brian's words, or I'm sorry, Supervisor Rehrkamp's words, that, yeah, it's a good challenge going forward. Fortunately, El Dorado County's got a history of boom and bust in terms of commodities. We had many wineries, the Skinners out in Supervisor Vermouth's district, the Pioneer Skinners. They're still in the wine business, actually down at Rescue. But The wine business went bust, came back. Prohibition killed the wine business again. That was replaced by the pear business that went bust. So we have this track record of boom and bust, and we've recovered every time. We recovered when the pear industry died almost overnight. As I said, the Farm Advisor's Office, the Ag Commissioner's Office, Board of Supervisors, DOT, everybody came together to make it work. At the Apple Hill Smorgasbord, the only way it worked was Dub Walker, the commander of the area highway patrol living around the corner from what's now a lava cap and Dub brought the whole crew into highway patrol to manage traffic there and that was in 1966. So it took the whole group, the whole village to do it. But I think specifically to answer your question, I think we have a good start with looking at tools like the ag lodging and the TBID is if you're not familiar with that, The structure is that it's an assessment and that the funds flow through to the county and it's a pass-through So the board will have to vote to approve that and there's a five-year five-year renewal on that your seed chairman Karl Roboto is the Economist strategist that put together the Temecula T bid and they just were awarded their second five-year process, and so the TBID is very important. You know, I would say if, and maybe Derek or Fee would comment on this, but one of the things that we can do on a very short-term, immediate basis, you know, obviously it's 911, the house is on fire right now, and we're standing on the street watching it. So, you know and this is a planning conversation is that over the short term perhaps over two or three years we look at temporary use permits to allow our wineries a broader the ability to sell a broader section of products that whatever they can license at the winery in terms of alcoholic products with abc and federal ttb if you can sell cider, beer, distilled spirits. And right now in El Dorado County, the winery ordinance only allows us to sell a wine. So our neighboring jurisdictions, Placer and Amador, you can sell all of those products. They do have requirements in terms of what you're growing. But I think it would help our wineries tremendously if over a very short period of time we had a sunset temporary use permit that would allow the opportunity to sell a broader cross-section of products. Distilled spirits, apple brandy at Apple Hill, and those kind of things would be very helpful. So that would be one of the things we can do.

All right. One other question. I was going to ask this on the seed presentation later, but I received an email regarding the TBID. And I just want to clarify, is this something that the industry is driving? Industry is, you know, kind of defining? Or is it the other way around where the county is defining how it should operate and function? Or is this something that's industry driven? Yeah.

Well, I think it's both. And truthfully, like I said, we're just so fortunate in Colorado to have Carl Roboto, who lives in Supervisor Lane's district. Carl spent his whole career in the lodging, hospitality, and agricultural marketing. and he's done a number of these tourism business improvement districts. I know he's done, Amador County has two of them, the wine specific and then the tourism side of it. Temecula, I think Carl did Santa Barbara, which they just had their first annual review and they generated $1.1 million in assessment fees to fund their tourism promotion. So Carl's very, he's You know, he's done this many times, and the company that actually handles the structure part of it, it's called Civitas, and I'm stealing David Spahr and Seed's thunder here, but I think it's both. I think it was Carl's initiative because he's gone through this process many times. He saw the opportunity, had the conversation with the lodging people and the ag industry, so I think the concept would be a diversified TBED the lodging industry, the agriculture industry, outdoor recreation, hopefully people like Sierra Tahoe Ski Resort. So it's been a mutual, mutual interest.

All right. All right. Good. Thank you. That's all I have. Yeah.

Supervisor Parlin. Yeah. Supervisor Ferro, thank you for asking that question because I think that I've been, well, what can the county do? Yeah, I mean, we've been. We don't want to stand in their way. Yeah, it's like, and thank you, Dave, for providing something very specific. I mean, I think that's what's been missing in this conversation is we've been kind of all dancing around it. And that was very specific and something that. Again, the question's been, what can the county do versus what does the industry want us to do or not to do? So that's perfect. That's the kind of stuff we need, something very tangible, finite, that we can get our heads around. And that's actually something the county could do. So I love that. Thank you.

Yeah, no, we appreciate the opportunity, and we could be here all afternoon, but there are some more ideas that are being thrown around out there. But it's obviously a mutual benefit. You've all seen the TOT numbers from the last two years. Well, the wine market went south in the fall of 23, and in 24 and 25, it just collapsed. I mean, the bottom fell out of the wine industry, which meant that fewer people were coming to El Dorado County to stay overnight to wine taste in El Dorado County, which translated in lower TOT. So, you know, we love to be your partners in tax revenue generation, and everybody wins.

Yeah, another thing I want to talk about is, you know, cross-laminated lumber, especially when pine is in the tank. And we hear that from Sierra Pacific a lot. Lori and I, we had meetings with them on biomass. And the biggest thing is, is they're building two facilities in Oregon right now to do that because they used to import it from Canada. And you can actually make cross-laminated lumber out of pine. So especially when our building industry, it would really help, especially affordable housing, workforce housing, if we could use that kind of a technology to help out our county, plus it would create jobs. So something that I'm looking into and might be something that you guys need to look into too.

Yeah, absolutely. Hopefully, Jesse, you're taking those notes.

pressure is on yeah okay absolutely mr bolster i've heard that comment before that the wineries want to be able to do to diversify a little bit yes where is that at i think that i thought i saw that there was a request of the planning and building department and

I think the discussion is still going on. I don't know exactly where that stands. There was discussion about a temporary use permit approach that would sunset. So, yeah. And the reason is, you know, the demands collapsed for multiple reasons, but one of those is that us old boomers are drinking a lot less wine. And so the wineries are going to have to reinvent themselves. And one of the ways to do that is to attract younger crowds and produce products that the millennials and the younger demographic is going to consume. So that's all part of the mix.

Other questions, comments?

Just really quick to follow up on that comment you just said. Cause I did ask it before. Are you guys doing a lot of polling with the younger folks? So what they want? Cause you know, I know that actually non-alcoholic drinks, even like mocktails or, you know, those things seem to be really popular. Yeah. All that stuff. So is, is, Are you guys doing research on what's out there and what's popular with?

No, absolutely. I'm in the business where I get bombarded every day by the major wine trade publications. And there have been so many white papers on the road forward, the transition and the reinvention that the wine industry has to do. And non-alcoholic products are part of that mix. non-alcoholic products and and also creating a new and different experience for people that visit your winery yeah um you know and it's not just not just events uh but it's the nature of the experience and it's also uh i think the term new term in the winery is is go to the engagement where you're just not hosting parties your wineries are proactively seeking out opportunities to go serve wine and present their wine at different venues

Thank you.

I think I'm being thrown out by the kids.

I heard young.

Hi. So, yeah, Derek Delfino. I'm on the Activision. I'm also president of the El Dorado Winery Association and the Grape Growers Association as well, actually. But when I heard the question, I wanted to come up and say that, yeah, I would say that the wine industry is in a big dip and my generation is probably the blame. You know, the traditional wine tasting model is pretty much dying. You know, going to the winery, tasting five wines, going to the next winery. It's not as sought after anymore. People want an experience. You know, they want to come up here. They want to experience something. They want the whole farm experience, which that gives us such an opportunity in this county. We have the ability to give a diversified experience. We just need stuff like the TUP, you know, give abilities to offer different products at different times instead of just your wine so we can create that full experience. I also think that, you know, help would be lodging, you know, get overnight stays. The problem with our county, we're a one day trip. You're in, you're out, you're gone. If we could create overnight stays, get people staying here three nights, creating, you know, longer trips where they can discover smaller farms, you know, instead of stopping at the big farms or maybe just off Highway 50, they can discover fair play. They can discover cool. They can get out of that that main drag. I think that would just create so much more visitation because right now we have an over tourism problem in now, you know, harvest months. We could create a year round destination. It would be more tax dollars. It would help us out as well. So I think stuff like the T-Bid, you guys are talking about the T-Bid. Obviously, a lot of money goes to the associations, but we can market ourselves the way we should be marketed. We all see what's going on in Folsom. We're going to have a wonderful little pot to grab out of. We just have to make sure they know we're here, they know what we offer, and the only way we're going to do that is if we have money that comes from the T-Bid, where we can truly market ourselves. Because right now, we don't have a whole lot of money. We're all non-profits. We're all just... farmers working our way through it but if we had money that comes from an assessment that we can actually market ourselves and hire people because mostly everybody is a volunteer including myself we can hire people then i think this county can really truly take off because we're we have a we're situated in a lot of good spots you know right you know in the good spot metropolitan areas we have water i know water's hard but we have water we're at the headwater so that's also good i just feel like we're primed for exposure we just need to do it in the correct way so Thank you.

Thank you. Well said, Mr. Delfino. And, you know, my only caution, it's not even a caution. It's just to be aware of is, you know, the basin, we had that kind of economy five months out of the year. Everybody made a bunch of money. Seven months out of the year, we all died on the vine for a crude way of saying it. We diversified, we decided what our, you know, that we were going to really focus on recreation and getting everybody outdoors, you know, and now we're going, ah, too much all the time. So, you know, there's, you always have to weigh those plus and minuses. But I do think that the TBID and focusing some dollars on tourism is, And who is the person, who is that visitor that you're targeting? I think it's super important that the county be clear on who they're trying to attract. And then we make sure that we have the products and the experiences here that they want to experience so that we attract them. But targeted messaging is very important as opposed to throwing the spaghetti at the refrigerator and seeing what sticks. So I think El Dorado County is beginning to have those very important conversations, and it's going to take the board working with these various commissions and advisory committees to really come together in a way in which Mr. Bolster had shared in our history that we've done before. But it is gonna take the whole community and we've gotta have clarity on what it is we wanna provide and how we're gonna get there. So I think having these conversations is super important. So thank you for all that, Mr. Delfino.

Sorry, yeah. One more thought that I, my grandfather, Eddie O. Delfino was one of the founders of Apple Hill and also was the ad commissioner. And I always used to hear stories how, you know, DOT painted apples on the road at every Apple Hill entrance. I mean, I felt like it was such a county effort. Everybody was on board. Everybody was bought into the agritourism. And, you know, I feel like that's what it's going to take to rekindle that fire. So I just wanted to say that I think it's going to be, like you said, a group effort, a community driven effort. So I just want to say that. Thank you.

Well, we can see that the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree. So we'll be expecting you to step up big time.

Yeah, hopefully. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you for that presentation. Okay, if there's no other comments or questions, we'll go ahead and move on to item number 11, which is our 130 times certain. This comes from the Parks and Recreation Department.

Ms. Dawson. Item number 11 comes from parks, a division of the chief administrative office recommending the board receive and file an annual report presentation from the parks and recreation commission. Welcome back.

We meet again.

Donna Mullins-Becker, good afternoon. I'm the District 2 appointed commissioner of the Parks and Recreation Commission, and I'm currently their chairperson. And it's with my pleasure that we present you with our annual report. Next slide, please. The Parks and Rec Commission is advisory to the Board of Supervisors regarding planning acquisition, development, maintenance, and operations of recreational opportunities within the county, as well as coordinating with other recreational providers, securing of funds and development of fiscal resources, formulating policies affecting public recreation, reviewing and recommending support for legislation favorable to parks and recreation, reviewing and updating sections of the recreation element. And finally recommending adoption of the master plans and policies on usage operations and management.

Miss Mullins Becker, could you just pull a little closer to the mic?

Yeah, is that better?

That's it might be. Yes.

Okay. Thank you. In 2526, the staff developed a mission statement, which the Parks and Recreation Commission approved. It reads, we promote and protect Eldorado County's world-class outdoor recreation and cultural resources for the public's enjoyment through community partnerships, stewardship, and education for present and future generations. Next slide. Our membership is comprised of Wayne Lowery for District 1, myself for District 2, John Hospitallier for District 3, Torin Donovan, who is our vice chair. He's here with me today. And District 5 is Danny McLaughlin. Next slide, please. This slide represents the governing documents of the commission. The updates to the parks and trails master plan and the river management plan were part of our achievements this year. We're proud to announce our volunteer program or a reactivation of our volunteer program. Initiative 4.1.4 of the master plan states provide motivational support for and retention of volunteers through calls to service and recognition of efforts. Staff has, one, launched efforts to build volunteer base for our general parks and natural sections of El Dorado County and the trail, and relaunched the Rubicon Adopt-A-Trail with great success. All segments have been adopted on the Rubicon Trail. There are 65 general volunteers, as it's noted up on your slide, and 120 Adopt-A-Trail volunteers, which gives us 185 volunteers, with a value for that volunteer service of approximately $54,000. And there's a little caveat down at the bottom that this was how we came up with that dollar amount. And it's based on a $41.71 hourly rate from the 2025 independent sector value of volunteers. So you can see that they have definitely moved forward in the volunteer side of it. Next slide, please. At this time, we would like, with great pleasure, to recognize the volunteer program. There was an increased volunteerism across the county in every disc, and we acknowledge those efforts by volunteers this past year and we are honoring them here today. Next slide, please. District one through four is Don Rose. He's the El Dorado Trail volunteer and advocate, most engaged volunteer, passionate about mountain biking, hiking and trails, clear vision for what the El Dorado Trail could be. He has dedicated his life to supporting the development of this trail. Don does it all. So he has consequently earned the name Don of the Dirk. Next slide, please. District two is Eileen Krim. She's an El Dorado Trail champion, always has a smile on her face and a positive attitude, always there to add the secret sauce to whatever we have going on, such as sharing educational materials with staff, providing historical context for projects and participating in volunteer work days. Her passion for the El Dorado Trail has been instrumental. I personally have known Eileen Krim along with her late husband, Bill, They were indeed champions of the trail throughout the years. Next slide, please. District three, which is Motherlode's Trail Stewardship, which I have two individuals here from this group, which Blake Ingram and Micah Rass. They activated the El Dorado Trail by participating in our El Dorado Trail Workdays over the past season. They have supported all trail and biking related events, such as the Missouri Flat Overcross and Ribbon Cutting, excuse me, and instrumental in recruiting volunteers to support the natural trail projects of the El Dorado Trail. District four, Shannon Kord. I'm sorry, Shannon Shard. My apologies, Shannon. Rubicon Trail Volunteer and Friends of the Rubicon Trail Trail Boss. Shanna is dedicated to the Rubicon Trail. Her volunteerism doesn't stop in El Dorado County. She is a true advocate. She has coordinated volunteer workdays across the entire trail. Her meaningful approach engages volunteers in a positive way. Shanna is also the amazing artist that painted the iconic Recon Trail sign, which I remember when it was installed. That was a long time ago. Thank you, Shannon. She is an important part of our entire ecosystem. That is the Recon Trail. Next slide. And you can see some of the slides from the Recon Trail and some of their projects that they did and their volunteers. And you can see the sign, which still stands and it still is lovely. It's always good. Next slide. District five, the Neary and Moore family with a Snowline Little League. The Neary and Moore families were instrumental in to addressing the needs for the Four Bay Parks sports field. They helped spread 250 pounds of seed and 30 cubic yards of mulch. The field is now looking amazing, which is attributed to the support of the families of the league and their dedicated volunteerism. Next slide, please. Our achievements. One of the ones that we would like to, we've got multiple ones here, but I'm just going to touch base on a couple of them. One of them is with the update of the 2018 river management plan, which is becoming, we'll be going to the planning commission and to the board. It's later this year. The volunteer program, recruiting volunteers provided day of event support and developed a volunteer recognition program. And the commission has been supporting the project for cost recovery, which we'll be working on later on this year as well. And last but not least, we adopted a mission statement. Here are some more achievements that we've had this year. As you can see, we've been busy and so has staff. Spreading the word of the division and county facilities through attending public events, Eldorado County Fair booth, which was a lot of fun, I enjoyed that. Got to see a lot of people. And providing information, informational tables at events, education, outreach, and volunteering at events. Next slide. Our challenges for 26-27. We've identified the following challenges. We're going to continue to build on volunteer base for our parks and trails, assist staff and volunteer groups in promoting community involvement in the maintenance and promotion of our parks and trails. As always, we do have budget constraints. We're going to continue to support staff with implementing parks and trail master plan initiatives with limited resources. and ongoing funding issues, which this is a part of the ongoing maintenance of those parks and trails that we so do enjoy, and the need for appropriate funding to be able to maintain the county's world-class outdoor recreational facilities. Next slide, please. Our goals. We have ongoing goals, we have goals continued, and we have... 2627 goals. So I'll briefly run through them. Our ongoing goal is to continue to be a public forum for discussion of parks and recreational concerns and opportunities, continuing to continue to support staff and recruiting a volunteer base and providing motivational support for retention of those said volunteers to assist with volunteer activities at parks and natural trails sections of the Eldorado Trail. This year, establishing the guiding principles and develop criteria to be used for the nomination of volunteers to be recognized in the future years. Continue to represent the division through attending tablings, events, and public meetings to interact and engage with the public and support the community of Grizzly Flats in their efforts to develop a park. Some of our goals that we are continuing is the cost recovery program or project that I mentioned. We're also looking at supporting some efforts to develop a 30-acre trailhead in El Dorado Hills and support the four-bay improvement project and assist with funding for future phases of it. Right now, I believe we're in phase one or two.

We would be beginning phase one.

Our new goals are to review our existing parks plans, including the elder elder trail master plan and continue discussions of the Henningsen Lotus park conceptual master plan to real value of priorities for implementation of improvements as funds become available. And also to develop a partnership with the local chamber of commerce's or other similar agencies to promote County parks, trails, and recreational opportunities. By that, we are looking at some way of forming some kind of relationships and support through our local community organizations such as Rotary, Kiwanis, the Lions, and things like that. They could help us promote our events and all of our parks and trails through fundraising. So that's something we're looking at for this next year. Staff has recommended that we encourage and promote donations to capital projects and amenities and maintenance projects and support staff with establishing sponsorship guidelines for parks and trails facility as part of the cost recovery plan. Next slide, please. concludes our presentation to you. On behalf of the Parks and Recreation Commission, I would like to thank the Board of Supervisors for the opportunity to share the Commission's annual report for fiscal year 2526, I would also like to thank the parks and recreation staff, Zach, Shannon, and Jessica for their assistance in preparing this report and their ongoing support to the commission. They are dedicated to making the county's parks and trails, a world-class recreational destination for the community and visitors. And we, as a commission are proud to be a part of their ongoing efforts. Just one little quick final note. If you look it out at the bottom of this particular slide, you'll see some of the ways that they are reaching out to the community to encourage people to volunteer. It's out on our website. There's an interest form. They can sign up with that. And it's been quite successful as I understand. So if we may indulge in your time just a little bit more, we would like to bring forward our recipients of the recognition for their services and present them with their certificates. And I'm gonna let Torin take this on and he'll call each one. And if we could, a photo app would be great. Do I have any questions first before we get into this?

Yeah, let's take a moment for questions, comments.

No questions, thank you. Very thorough, thank you. Yeah, okay.

Okay, very well. You guys are busy.

Thank you.

All right, we're very excited about the volunteers, as was already shared. So first we're going to have Dawn Rose, who we're honoring as our District 1 through 4 volunteer. And I assume we'll bring them all up and do one photo, does that sound right? Sure. Okay, great. Dawn, come on up. And then our district two honoree is Eileen Krem. And y'all can just hang out up here, Dawn. We'll just do one photo right after that.

I was prepared to speak. Oh, do you want to say something real quick?

All right, let's do it.

OK. Well, I prepared a speech. Thank you for recognizing my efforts in promoting and building and maintaining the El Dorado Trail. And extra, extra, I don't know whether you know about it, but I'm kind of a historian for the El Dorado Trail. We recently have a video that made the green issue of Rails to Trails magazine, which is pretty special. And then at one time we got a award from Hillary Clinton for trail conservation and community engagement. And I have copies of this for all of you, so I won't take too much of your time, but I'll give them to Kim here.

Please. Thank you for sharing and congratulations.

Oh, and be sure and watch our award-winning video that's on EldoradoTrail.org. Thank you, Eileen.

All right, our District 3 honorees are the folks from the Motherlode Trail Stewardship Organization, and we have Blake Ingram and Micah Ross here. Our District 4 honoree is Shannon Chard. And then District 5, who are here?

Yes.

Oh, the District 5 honorees, the Neary family and the Moore family are not here, unfortunately, but they are very honored as well. Great. So you all want to do a quick photo?

Thank you.

I mean, I assume, like, maybe have everybody up front. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, this works for me. Yeah.

Yeah, that's actually better, huh?

Everybody ready?

Okay, I'm going to count down. One, two, three. All right. Thank you.

Well, congratulations to all of the volunteers and all the hard work of our Parks Commission. It's much appreciated. We'll go ahead and take a short seven minute break until two o'clock when we'll come back for item number 12. Okay, welcome back, El Dorado County. We are continuing with our special meeting and we are now on item number 12, which is time certain two o'clock. This is being brought forward by the clerk of the board.

Would you please read this item into the record? Item number 12 comes from the clerk of the board on behalf of the El Dorado County Early Care and Education Planning Council, recommending the board receive and file an annual presentation. Welcome, Ms. Santana.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, Supervisors. Thank you for the opportunity to report out on recent activities of the El Dorado County Early Care and Education Planning Council, aka the LPC, in legislation. I think most of you know me, but I'm Deanna Santana, the Director of EDCO's Child, Family, and Community Services Department, which includes the LPC, Quality Council El Dorado, which oversees professional development of early care Early Childhood Education, the educators, the Child Abuse Prevention Council, most of you probably know me from the Commission for Youth and Families, and also First 5 El Dorado, which includes the family specialists who serve the community through play groups and connections to services for families with children. Next slide. Thank you. The Local Planning Council is a state-mandated partnership between the county and the County Office of Education that assesses childcare needs, priorities, and develops local solutions for families and providers. In this context, childcare providers Child care refers to all providers from birth through age 12, of children age, birth to 12. Sorry, I'm all mixed up today. In our county, that includes family child care providers, private child care centers, public child care centers, such as EDCO and Lake Tahoe Community College Child Development Center, and also care by FFNs, what we call family, friends, and neighbors. So that would be unlicensed child care. We also must include our Boys and Girls Club as that's an important part of our local system in providing childcare to school-aged children. The LPC brings together parents, providers, businesses, schools, and community partners. The legislation requires the LPC to advise on local childcare funding priorities to the state of California. identify childcare shortages and service gaps, and recommend solutions to improve access for families and employers, and also to advocate for a strong early care and education system through workforce initiatives. One of the things that isn't in my presentation, but I would be remiss if I didn't bring it up, is El Dorado County launched three years ago, we're in the fourth year of the only rural early childhood education educators, registered apprenticeship program. And unfortunately it's coming to an end because we don't have any further funding, but it's actually created a model that we're going to roll out into our high schools as a career path for high school students. So we're working with the CTE and the high school program to develop that workforce. Childcare is an economic driver in El Dorado County and everywhere, both because childcare providers are business owners, but also because a healthy childcare system allows parents to work. Next slide, please. The infrastructure that supports children and working families includes families which are caregivers, childcare providers, employers of childcare workers, schools, and also local government. As you can see, childcare is essential in our county. Next slide. One of the mandates of the LPC is every four years we have to complete a comprehensive child care needs assessment and build a strategic plan off of it. Our LPC also did one in 2024, but we found that the data that we collected was insufficient to fully inform our system and we wanted to have better community input. So because of blending and braiding of funding with our UPK mixed delivery money, we were able to go out and complete a second one this year. I will note as we go through this that we have already identified that we reached a higher percentage of parents who are already enrolled in subsidized child care, so we do not think that the picture is complete. We are planning to expand and collect more data this year from additional parents and caregivers in the county. We were able to reach over 400 parents, which compared to most LPCs is pretty significant. They're happy if they get 100 parents. responses to their surveys, we got over 400. And we do think that that's because the partnership between the County and the Commission for Youth and Families and EDCO over the last few years to build that capacity of community input. I'm going to talk today about four specific things, childcare deserts, workforce challenges, burdens on families, and free and subsidized slots that are still available. Some of the things might seem like they don't align, but I'm hoping to show you that more than one thing can be true at the same time. When parents cannot find childcare that matches their work schedules, businesses lose workers, employees reduce their hours, families are forced to make difficult choices between a paycheck, earning a paycheck and caring for their children. Next slide. When we were looking at childcare deserts, we learned that many of our areas in the county have no childcare providers or almost none. Afterschool and vacation care is what's most needed by families and an often unavailable service. 89% of the parents that we surveyed said that they needed expanded or non-traditional hours to truly meet what their working needs were. And there's very little infant care available in our county. The families said things like there's no options available in our areas. I can't pick up my kids by four o'clock. I take them to Folsom. One parent has to work nights. We also brainstormed as an LPC over the last year. And at our next meeting, we'll be setting our strategic plan for the next year. But some of the potential ideas that we've come up with are there's an opportunity to grow new businesses where we can educate the community. specifically for your audience, your constituents about the opportunities to open childcare provider, home childcare businesses or childcare centers, that would be even better. We can have childcare president planning for new housing developments. That's something that's happening in a lot of, I would say probably more urban, but I think that there's an opportunity with some of our low income housing that we're building to actually have childcare at the table to maybe build childcare centers within those housing developments. and also friendly startup business policies such as streamlining opening a child care program through the county processes, also Catalyst Community, which many of you may still know as Choices for Children. They actually offer a home CEO business program that child care providers can go through to learn how to run a business and operate a business and lots of supports. Next slide. In talking about the deserts, this is a map of where childcare centers are. So you can see up in the northern part of the divide, there's only one licensed childcare provider. And then as you go down, there's three. If you look in South Lake Tahoe and kind of the Cameron Park, El Dorado Hills area, there's lots of childcare providers. Again, in South County, we only have one provider of childcare and it's not a full day program out there. Next slide, please. When we're talking about workforce, it's probably no surprise to you that the childcare workforce is aging. 58% of the providers in our county are over 50 years old, and the wages are low. Starving wages are lower than fast food due to the special... Fast food minimum wage. Staff turnover is extremely high. 56% is our estimated annual turnover in childcare. And the stress levels are high. And many people, providers express that they feel unappreciated for the important work that they do. I would compare this to the work of those that take care of our elderly and those people that take care of special needs people in our community. Another thing that I think might be of particular interest to you is the cost of insurance for small businesses, specifically childcare providers, has had a 94% increase over the last three years. So we've actually had several of our family childcare providers who have closed because the cost of doing business doesn't make sense. They can't charge more because families can't afford more, but they can't afford to continue to operate. What the workforce has told us in our surveys is we're dedicated, but we're stretched very thin. My work makes a difference in a child's life. To keep staff, I'd have to raise my prices, and families can't afford to pay more. Back one more. Sorry, Kim. On the left, I have some ideas for potential strategies. Support policies that increase wages for child care professionals. That's probably more on the state level, but there are some opportunities to provide input occasionally for our commission. support policies that address the rising cost of insurance, specifically fire, support and celebrate childcare workers. Some of the other counties have done a day of the preschool teacher, childcare professional, opportunities for stipends and incentives that actually already exist within my own department. We pay stipends for people to get their continuing education, but also their degrees and low cost at no cost continuing education. Next slide. Thank you, Kim. Cost is the most frequently identified barrier for families. 23% of families reported that vacation care is not available. More said that non-traditional hours are needed. We also learned that geography matters. 46% of families said gas costs impact attendance and enrollment. If you think about a family on the divide, that maybe has a job on the divide but can't drive down the hill to put their child in daycare. There was one specific family childcare provider we just spoke to this week in Shingle Springs. A family had been driving from Somerset to there to drop off their child to go back to work because they work from home and they're not able to do that anymore and it's affecting that business owner. The lack of infant care availability and many families depend on more informal care, which is that family, friends and neighbors provide a network. And families have told us that they stay out of the workforce due to the lack of affordable childcare. Some of the burdens and potential strategies that we have brainstormed is bringing childcare to planning and new housing projects, increase higher wage for licensed childcare providers, and more subsidies for parents. Again, that's advocacy at the state level for us to do. Investigate ways to bring more childcare providers into El Dorado County and the childcare deserts, and inform families that are using informal childcare that they may actually be eligible for subsidies provided by Catalyst Community that they can use to pay their informal caregivers. Lots of people don't know that that's an option. Next slide. Just to give you a context of the cost of childcare and housing in El Dorado County, this is just a chart about median housing, probably not a surprise to you. And if you look at what our families are spending on infant, toddler, preschool and school-aged care, it's a pretty big chunk. And we also know that our survey reflected data of people that are already receiving subsidies. Most, we believe after we go back out this year and gather a little bit more information, it's probably gonna be pretty equal to what families spend on housing. At the same time, next slide, there can be another truth. In our county, we have the alternative payment program that Catalyst Community provides, which are stipends to child care providers or to parents that they can go out and find their child care. And that pays for a portion of their child care. We also have our state preschool program, our Head Start and our Early Head Start. We believe that 24% of the family, well, actually, we know from our survey, 24% of the families said they had no idea if they qualified. 58% of the families are not aware that universal pre-K or TK, as it's called at the local schools, that that is available now for all four-year-olds at no cost. And many parents do not know that the elementary, many parents said they didn't know the elementary school where their child should attend or will attend. And CSPP and TK often, while they might be available, often don't fit within the parent's schedules, right? They're during the school day and not in the same hours as parents. um the families are again are telling us that there's not options in their thing the cost is too high so some of the strategies that we've uh brainstormed around this are share with your constituents the availability of subsidized child care several times per year as you know that's something we could provide language to the supervisors to put in their newsletters as a suggestion share with constituents the income thresholds are actually much higher than most people think for subsidies and share tools to connect your local constituents to their local elementary schools. And again, invite subsidized childcare programs to community events to talk to families about childcare. Next slide, please. This is just one type of subsidies that are available. But I wanted to share that, you know, for a family of four, if you're making $136,000, you qualify for subsidized care. That's a much higher threshold than it used to be. And that's why we say a lot of families don't realize that they would actually qualify for subsidized care. Next slide. The blue indicates where we're not fully enrolled in EDCO CSPP slots. So you can see up on the divide, we have quite a few openings that are still available. Buckeye School District still has room available, LTUSD, Motherload, Pollock Pines and Rescue. So getting the word out to families so that they can figure out if they do qualify. And also if their child has special needs, that also qualifies them regardless of income. So that kind of gives you a picture of that we, yes, we need more in general child care, but we also need families to know that there is subsidized care available. Next slide, please. I just wanna end with childcare is essential infrastructure that supports children, working families, employers, and El Dorado County's economy. And the LPC looks forward to the opportunity to maybe brainstorm things in the future within our county, what would work. In Marin, they did a tax, ballot initiative that they passed to pay child care workers. I don't think that there's probably an appetite for that in our county. But what are some other creative ways that we could come up with ways to serve our families better? And that concludes my presentation.

I would like to introduce just a couple of people.

Angie Hegelson is six days on the job as our new LPC coordinator. So that's why I'm giving the presentation. And then also Colleen from First Five. And she is an LPC member.

So any questions? Questions, comments? Supervisor Parlin? You have to buzz in. You have to buzz in, George.

I'll just keep talking in the room. Absolutely. Yeah, we remind them at the meetings often. So I did go over during break and mentioned to Deanna and Colleen, and I met Angie, and I told her I'd go up. I'll probably forget your name when I see you next, so just remind me because she's new and we meet a lot of people. But on the needs assessment that was attached, I found that, you know, sometimes – We just aren't aware of the data that's out there, and we're always supposed to be making data-driven decisions. And in a way, some of the data in this report, to me, kind of explain why we have some of the challenges that we have. And District 4 on here has such a significantly low... number of population under 18 compared to any of the other districts. And yet it's huge, which means there's very few, you know, residents under the age of 18 spread out. And so it would make it more challenging for families to get services. So it's just one of those things that why I love data and maps and that kind of stuff, just to remind everybody that each of our areas has different challenges with our different demographics. And even within our county, the one size fits all doesn't work. So really appreciate this kind of information. And it sounds like you're doing a new needs assessment, you said? I beg your pardon? A new needs assessment?

We're going to update, we're going to go out and do some more survey to do an amendment to it to make it more robust and more, we think, a better picture of the full county, not just people in subsidized care. To your point... Supervisor Parlin is we don't think a one size fits all will ever fit in our county in any way, shape or form, right? But I do see like on the divide where we maybe don't have as many families, but we do have families that are saying they need childcare. That's a place that perhaps we promote small businesses availability or opportunities to other moms that are perhaps stay at home moms. We were chatting over here about stay at home moms. And that's a way a lot of early childcare educators come into it as they have kids of their own and then they get involved in caring for other kids. Perfect.

Yeah. I utilize that type of model when my kids were little and it was a mother who had kids and it worked out perfect. So that is a good option. I can see where in your district, it being so spread out though, that model would be, would be more beneficial and especially if we could incentivize it.

Yeah. That's, that's our hope.

Yeah.

And support too, because I think quite honestly, I had considered doing something like that, but the, the, the liabilities and all of that kind of stuff, you know, doing your own business with kids in your own home and stuff can be a little, so yeah, having the resources to show how you can do it and, and make it work for you. And so that you can also help others at the same time is, That would be a really good way to use our resources. So that's a really good point through Riser Lane.

Well, and with regards to insurance, if you're operating a daycare out of your home, you supposedly already have insurance. So you have to have an insurance policy on top of that?

Yes.

And that's the one that has grown 94% over the last three years.

It's the one that covers their childcare business. And at least according to the providers that we talked to that closed, you know, they've been paying the same liability insurance for some of them decades. We have providers that have been open for almost 40 years and their liability insurance has come up and their agents have said it's because of the fire risk.

So, yeah. Wow. Okay, something to think about. Other questions, comments? Thank you, Dan. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, everyone, for coming. And we will take a brief pause before we start Item 13 at 2.30. Okay, thank you and welcome back El Dorado County. We are on item number 13 on our special meeting agenda, our 2.30 times certain. This will be kicked off with the planning and building department.

Ms. Dawson. Item 13 comes from Planning and Building Department recommending the board receive and file an annual report from the Strategic Economic Enhancement Development Committee and provide direction on priorities or coordinated needs as necessary. Written public comments received by 4 p.m. on the day prior to today's meeting were distributed to all board members and included with this agenda item.

Thank you. And I'd like to welcome our Director of Planning and Building, Ms. Garner. Good afternoon. Thank you.

So here today, just going to kick it off for our Strategic Economic Enhancement Development Committee. And first of all, just go over the membership of that. Typically, there's seven members. We have two vacancies right now, which we're going to, the next meeting, start working on the recruitment to fill those. But right now we have Carl Roboto, who's our chair, and he's the president of a consulting firm, SMG Consulting. Dave Spahr, who has many years of experience in various positions with local government and also consulting firm. Les Heinzen, he's the owner and president of Element 79 Vineyards. Perry McLean, He has his business, PMC Aquatics, and Christine Noonan, who's the general manager and owner out at Delfino Farms. So really good cross-section. And I know I've said this to the board before, but I'm going to just repeat myself and say that in my 30-year career, this is by far one of the best committees that I've had the pleasure of working with. They are very thoughtful and dedicated. their discussions, they kind of get the assignment of being that group in between the folks that they work with on a daily basis and local government and being that sort of liaison of information back and forth. So I've really enjoyed working with them. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to the chair, Carl Roboto.

Welcome. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here at the Board of Supervisors to make this presentation. Before I get going, I do want to thank our committee. It's one of the best committees I've been on in a long history of committees. But everybody participates, there's great insight, and everybody brings their ideas to the table. I also want to thank the staff. Karen and her staff have been incredibly helpful in helping us move the agenda forward on some of these critical issues. So I really do appreciate that. Before I start, the premise of what we do in SEED is the development of a community-based approach to economic development. One of the things that we've learned over the years is to work through the lens of the community in developing economic development and create an inside-out perspective as well as... There's always going to be an outside-in perspective, but at least... build an inside-out perspective to economic development. I think some of the things that you'll see today kind of reflect that. Real quickly, you know, I'm not going to go through all these slides in detail. You got them. But I do want to talk about our three-part operating model because I think this is reflective of that approach. One is we have the committee members, which come from different walks of the community, appointed by the County Board of Supervisors. We have the county departments. Not just, you know... Karen's department, but we touch other departments as well. And so it's critical that we bring all these pieces together. And then finally, partners and stakeholders, whether it's the ag group or whether it's the wine group or whether it's all these different groups, it's critical that we have to work together and get this cross-pollination of ideas and cross-pollination of strategies and insights moving forward. Go to the next slide. there's basically several elements to our plan structure. The first is strategy and alignment. The second is tourism and revenue. And the third is the community's infrastructure. When we talk about strategy, we're very, very keen on strategy. One of the things that I've seen in my consulting career is there are lots of people that become activity-driven. And what we're trying to do is strategy-driven. How do we develop the right strategy for El Dorado County to drive the implementation of ideas and activities? And so we're trying to take a very different approach to that. Clearly, tourism is a key piece. It's not the only piece, but it's a key piece, and we've identified it as a short-term benefit that the county can take. can get to. And we have a TBID education, and I'll talk a little bit more about that. And I know you heard some stuff on that maybe earlier today. That's something that is deeply in the works right now, and I'm happy to answer questions. There's ag lodging elements that I know staff and the ag community are in discussion with, and at some point you'll probably See some things there, hip camp, low impact camping and so forth. These are all things that in the short term we think can generate transient occupancy taxes, which is one of the best taxes this county can have because it's unrestricted. And that is one of the easier, nothing's easy, but one of the short-term goals is to generate as much short-term revenue as possible. And then a little bit longer term, community infrastructure, arts and culture. We've heard from the arts and culture people and they're an integral part of economic development because what we're looking eventually to do is to build a creative economy to support the other elements of the economy that we have here in El Dorado County. And we believe the sense of place that El Dorado County offers is very conducive to that creative economy. And so that I think is gonna become a key. We also had a big presentation from the water agency. So we understand the value of water throughout the whole watershed and how that fits moving forward. So we've really tried to be, and I know the Tahoe Prosperity Center wants to come down and make a presentation. So we're trying to connect both sides of the county. So we're really reaching out to get as much input and perspective as we can with all these different groups and integrate them into that community-centric perspective.

Next slide.

The strategy moves from immediate revenue opportunities to longer-term resilience, and I think that's key. The first is activation, you know, working on priorities and foundational pilot programs. The second is expansion, strengthen business, workforce, and sales opportunities. tax growth. And then the third phase is institutionalization, grow the property tax base and embed performance systems. And we're very sensitive to the measurement piece. That's something that County Board of Supervisors has brought up before. And everything we do, we'll look to have that element tied to it so that we don't just come in here and say, look at what we did. You know, it's, hey, this is, look at what we did and here's how we measured it and here's the results. And we may need to tweak some things, we may need to enhance some things, but certainly it becomes a more learning system than we've had in the past. And I think that's our long-term goal. You know, over five or 10 years, if we continually improve these things, you know, the range of error goes from here to here. And that's sort of our goal moving forward in this approach. The phase one emphasis is tourism TOT, ag lodging, county assets, entertainment zones, and vacation rental policies. Some of these are tough, challenging issues, but I believe we can work through some of these and get some of these things done. But those will begin to change the framework of tourism in a positive way. And when I say tourism, I'm not talking about mass models of tourism. I'm talking about sensitive tourism. You know, we want to attract people that are guided to El Dorado County because of the environment. They want to take care of the place. It's not just an open, you know, open, open door. Here we go. Let's ram a jamma it. We're very sensitive to the dynamics of overtourism and those issues. Believe me, I've worked in that zone for a long time across the country. So just to reassure the supervisors that that's where we're headed. Okay, next. Three constraints, clearly, you know, coordination is one and that is multi-department, you know, and it really crosses a lot of different departments and we need to continually work to bring, you know, multiple departments together under one common vision or common input or what have you, but we recognize that as a potential constraint and so we have to begin to address that. Staff capacity is always an issue. And we're sensitive to the staff capacity, and Karen has let us know quite ably what the staff is able to do, where some of the challenges are, some things that may have to wait for another cycle to happen. So we're very sensitive to that. And then, you know, the adopted direction, the county strategic plan and our implementation plan must provide clear priorities and accountability and authorization. You'll get a plan update, I think, a little later in the month. That's coming. So you get a chance to take a look at that and make sure it aligns with the board's thoughts.

Next.

And tourism can be a coordinated economic development platform. For years, we've seen tourism elements very separate and siloed. You've got some tourism people, you've got wine people, you've got outdoor rec people, you've got ag people. And rarely have we been able to bring them together in a coordinated way with a strategic vision of where tourism should be and where tourism should go for El Dorado County. And that's sort of one of our goals is to create a new tourism organization serving El Dorado County outside the Tahoe Basin. We're not trying to recreate that wheel there for Tahoe. They got plenty of stuff to do on their own and replace what we've had. And this is a whole new model. of what we're used to. And we presented preliminary concepts of what that organization could look like to the Seed Committee at our last meeting. And that model will roll out to get input and perspectives from throughout the county and throughout the different groups. And tentatively, we're calling it Visit El Dorado. Okay. New name, new brand, new approach, new structure, new everything. And you'll see some detail coming forward on that. We're looking at a stakeholder funded model. We don't expect any funds coming from the county. And so, you know, we'll be able to hopefully generate the money to support the TBID and the marketing and promotion and education efforts that way. It'll be industry-led governance. The plan is to set up a board that reflects the industries that are participating so that they can begin to see their direct investment in the tourism business improvement district and shape the strategies of the organization moving forward. And finally, and probably the most important from my view is county alignment. How do we get everybody aligned? You know, my job in real life is an organizational consultant in the tourism world. And alignment counts for a lot. And that is one thing that I really think that we can do well here is get everybody in in the beginning, get everyone to see the vision, get everyone to see the structure, and get alignment so that everybody is sort of talking to each other in the same way and has the same goals and so on and so forth. And so the current stage that we're in here is education. I think we just locked up a deal with Civitas to be our advisor on forming the TBID. And so now that that's happened, we'll begin to educate all the different community groups, develop multiple scenarios of funding models, and all the rest of that stuff that goes with feasibility of the whole idea. And so we're just about to be knee deep into that. And I'm sure you'll be apprised of the situation as we go along. Next slide. Yeah, the upcoming work plan shifts from discussion to execution. We're back here with you to see our implementation plan later in the month. And then, you know, we are looking at moving forward with partners, milestones, staff resources, requirements for phase one of all of this. And Civitas is helping us to develop that plan. Then we'll advance the priority pilot plan. issues and opportunities, stakeholder outreach, including the Tourism Business Improvement District work. And then finally, we'll have a quarterly progress report and a dashboard so that you can see easily, hey, this is what the program is. This is where we are. This is where we're headed. It's all in one place. You can feel confident. And the goal is to build confidence. to build confidence that the direction we're going is the right direction, okay? And the best way to do that is put it right in the middle so everybody can see and make comments. And if we need to tweak, we can tweak and we'll go from there. But that's sort of where we're headed here right now. Next. And again, board alignment now creates the conditions for measurable progress. You guys will get the seed annual update, provide direction, priorities, make sure we're moving in the right direction, and that the implementation plan will come back to you later in the month. And our role is to keep the economic strategy connected to community priorities. You know, we don't want to get this. We want to get this. You know, too often, you know, I've had this chair position. I'm grateful for my community to select me, but I get to hear everything coming at me, all different parts of the community and the economy. And, you know, I recognize the community of priorities. I've been to some community outreach groups and so on and so forth, and I get it. But we've got to do a good job of educating the community and reducing the level of anxiety of change. That's one of the things that I have found in my professional career that is one of the most challenging, is introducing the new order of things and reassuring people that, hey, this can work. and spending the time to do that. So we're looking for that kind of alignment as we move forward. It's the only way to move forward. That's why it's community-centric, is because we need that alignment. Next. That's it? Okay. That is our quick presentation. Happy to answer any questions. And again, you'll see a more complete plan later on in the month. Thank you.

Thank you. Any questions, comments by the board?

Yeah, Carl, I think you hit the nail right on the head. I talked a little bit earlier with the ag group. But you say it right here on slide six, the purpose is not simply for motion. And I think that's the scare if you talk about change. And it's the handcuff in El Dorado County because we just don't have the infrastructure just to go on wild. So we've got to be strategic and we've got to be careful and we've got to make it work within. Yes. a mainly residential setting throughout most of our districts. So we gotta be cautious, but we definitely need to move in this direction, which I think you guys are right on.

And I respect those challenges. I live in South Shore. We've been dealing with over tourism and I've also done work for the state of Nevada in very, very rural parts of the state. where not much exists. And there's a balance in there. And think of it on a continuum. There's a sort of mass model of tourism over here and what we call an alternative model over here. And we've got to find El Dorado County's place in that continuum. But we don't find that place unless we start having those conversations. And so I'm totally respectful of the community and their issues and their, their fear. I get it. I totally get it, but I think we can hear them and work through and find some paths to, you know, moving the ball, you know, further.

Obviously as along the way, as we get into the fall season, now every Saturday, Sunday, we deal with that coming back through Placerville and limitations again of our infrastructure. So.

Yes. We have to be careful, but I think we can do it if we do it right. Yeah, and obviously infrastructure is a big ticket item, involves a lot of players. But at the same time, I just sent Karen something today. Rancho Cordova is now advertising Apple Hill as their attraction. If you go on LinkedIn today and you see Rancho Cordova, they're now saying that Apple Hill is their attraction. We have to make a competitive move.

That's good, because the next SACOG meeting, I'll tell the guy from Rancho Cordova to help pay for Highway 50 so we can get their people through the stoplight.

But maybe that's also a sign of success, because I know we've got the Reno-Tahoe Airport, which people think they're flying into Tahoe, and they're not. They're flying into Reno, but they took our name. But that could be seen as... something that you would be wary of or be angry about, or it could be seen as something as, Hey, we're so successful. Yeah. That they're glomming on.

It bleeds business. It does. That's the challenge. And that's, you know, we don't lose business like this. It's a cut, a cut, a cut. And you look around five years from now and you go, what happened? You know, and that's what we want to avoid. And again, I think we can do it in a sensitive way towards the communities.

Thank you, Carl. Supervisor Parlin.

Yeah, so the whole concept of TBIDs, Carl. Yeah. I know we had a presentation here. I can't remember when. But I think that there's a lot of, to your point, confusion about what a TBID is and isn't. So we desperately need that. Is that what you're bringing then, this next? Yes.

We're going to be bringing all kinds of information.

Okay. Because, you know, and... there's going to have to be a decision made as far as like, how big is our TBIG going to be? That's critical. You know, Debbie Manning and I were in an email thread and she said that they visited, you know, Eldorado Hills alone wouldn't be big enough. You know, even though we all think that that's where our population big center is. And it's like, so, and what entities will be included in it? Is it voluntary? Does it have to go to voters? I mean, all of that needs to be really explained well. All of it. I'm not asking you to do it now. I'm sending that presentation. No, no, no. You know, bring it. Bring all the information. What can it be used for? The whole thing about it's actually a separate group, has its own board. How will people be selected for the board? All of it. We're going to need a lot because I think there's so much confusion out there about what it is and isn't. And the other thing is when you say community-led, how are you going to reach the community? I'm talking the residents that aren't in a special interest group.

How are you going to do that? Now that we have Civitas on board, we can begin to work on this and how we do bring community in. There'll be public meetings and all the rest of that. But I want to assure you, we start at ground zero in terms of educating. We assume nobody knows anything about this. And we have to work from that level up to make sure people understand what it is, how it's funded, what the funds will be used for, who's on the board, here's the structure. I absolutely assume ground zero up. Perfect. In terms of that. So there'll be no shortage. I want everyone to see it. Give us your ideas, you know, critique it, make it better. I think that's what we need. We need to build a constituency to understand tourism, its role in the economic development portfolio of El Dorado County. And it's something that can be managed. And it's something that certainly makes sense for us. So I'm totally on your page in terms of educating everybody. Awesome. Thank you. Pure and pizza for everyone.

There you go. Supervisor Ferrero.

Ben from Rancho. Rancho realizes we don't have accommodations for everybody that goes to Apple Hill. You said it was the TBID. Yeah, keep coming back to that. Industry-led and governments and funded. Who's funding the consultant Civitas right now?

The county is, but we anticipate paying that back once we get revenues flowing from the TBIT. Okay. And so that's, you know, I want to reassure everyone that's in our plan that once we get this thing up and going, those funds will be replenished. And so it's a net, you know, at least cash out net zero to the county. How much is that?

Karen would know.

We have it broken into.

Thank you.

You have it broken into two phases, and the total, I believe, was like $30,000. Total. It's relatively small in terms of contracts. All right. Thank you.

Anything else?

Other questions, comments? You know, we had a discussion earlier about I think it was our 1.30 presentation with the Ag Commission. And we talked about the fact that El Dorado County right now is suffering in the wine industry big time. And it's jogging people's memories that, you know, historically El Dorado County has been through these kind of ebbs and flows and has had to recreate themselves once before, right? and might have to do it again. But the whole community is starting to rally around that idea of who do we want to be and what is it going to look like? So I think the timing for Seed in particular and then the community's desire to come up with some of these ideas and thoughts, it's all happening at the right time. It feels like it's coming together.

Yeah, timing is everything. And I think... You know, we don't control the macro environment. We don't control what's going on out there. But we can control what we can control. And that's kind of the emphasis of this. What do we have in terms of assets, in terms of creativity, in terms of capabilities? That's what we can control. And instead of sitting on the sidelines and saying, you know, maybe it'll come back or maybe it won't come back or real estate will come back or maybe, you know. That's a passive approach. And I think the community and the industries, they don't need passive. They need urgency. And so the TBID is what may not have flown in years past. There's a lot of keen interest now because I think people are beginning to see like, you know, this idea could work. This could do something. You know, Visit El Dorado could be a player. And that's, I think, the coordinating idea, the gravity center of the idea. A lot of people will talk about promotion and all that. But to me, the true asset benefit is bringing everybody together and getting all these disparate groups under a roof to have a conversation on how we move forward. That's where the creativity from a community comes. That's the truly untapped asset. It's not dollars. We'll figure out the dollars, but it's this that matters. And that's sort of where I'm after. That becomes a competitive advantage. If we can get it together and work well with each other, believe me, I've made a living out of dysfunctional destination marketing organizations. And I think we've got the chance to kind of start from a blank slate and build it from there.

Yeah, I think we do too. Well said. And that's kind of the feeling that I'm getting. So we need to capitalize on it, but time is not on our side.

That's right. But we will educate everybody. Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Good presentation. Might I just ask one question of Ms. Garner? Since you're here and we have five minutes. We do. The issue came up when we talked with the Ag Commission an hour ago that- You know, Supervisor Ferrero asked the burning question, you know, what can we do as your county board of supervisors? What kind of things can we support that would be helpful or not do that would be counterproductive? And his answer had to do with the fact that the wineries in particular that are suffering the most, that their wine permit only allows them to produce and and do like wine tastings and if they could diversify and have other products that that would really help them in the short term while we're trying to work out the long-term fixes and they were looking at a temporary use permit is that something that planning and building is working on i did see some emails going back and forth so i thought you were involved in that

Yeah, so there is a temporary use permit that they can use now to do like distillery, so something other than grapes and wine. I know that, excuse me, I'm sorry, I'm getting over a cold here. I know that there is concern about the time it takes and the expense and all that. Temporary use permit is relatively easy. you know, it's not a conditional use permit. The discussion we've had is if there is interest, yeah, do the temporary use permit. It's good for a year. If that's successful, if people are like, you know what, this is working, this is bringing in some extra income, then we can look at doing a longer-term program, try and keep it out of the conditional use permit territory or at least make it an easier process. but to my knowledge, no one's really taken advantage of it, so it's sort of like, hey, you know, someone, yeah, go out and do it, so we know what the pitfalls are, what, you know, this is, this works, this doesn't work, give us that feedback, and then we can create a program around it to do something more permanently.

Yeah, and that is perfect for trying to get through finding out those negative impact, because it seems like whenever we create or update an ordinance, there's these unintended consequences and having that year timeframe to figure those out and actually live through them before we do a natural program would be perfect. So that's a really good idea.

At the end of the year, could you do it again? Could you get another permit for another year? Yep. Okay.

So we can already do that. We don't have to change, what is it, the wine ordinance that you mentioned? They can already do this. Okay. Yep.

Okay, perfect. That was one of our questions, that they weren't sure where it was in the process. So good to hear. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, good work. We will have a moment of silence. Okay, thank you. We are back for item number 14, which also comes from the clerk of the board. Ms. Dawson, would you read this item into the record?

Item 14 comes from the clerk of the board on behalf of the Coloma Lotus Advisory Committee, recommending the board receive and file an annual report from the Coloma Lotus Advisory Committee and provide direction to the committee or staff if necessary. Thank you.

I'd like to welcome the chair, Chair Haber.

Good afternoon. My name is Natalie Haver. Good afternoon, Chair Lane and supervisors. I'm here to give the presentation on the 2025 Colomelos Advisory Committee update. And if I could get the presentation up, great. So once again, my name is Natalie Haver. We also have Howard Penn here, who is another CLAC member, and then one of our ad hoc committee members who we had this year. If you go to the next slide, please. So first and foremost, I'd like to thank everyone here so much for your time. We really appreciate you taking the time to listen to this. And secondarily, I'd really like to thank staff for all their hard work, all their help. Kaylee Runkle is an absolute, just marvelous resource to have.

So can't thank her enough for having her. She's wonderful.

So moving on to CLAC, the Coloma Lotus Advisory Committee is an advisory committee. We were established in 2019 and our geographic area is limited to the Coloma Lotus Valley, which includes the South Fork American from Chili Bar Dam to Folsom Lake. And the purpose of the Coloma Lotus Advisory Committee is to review and make recommendations to the Parks and Rec Commission, the Planning Commission, and then of course the Board of Supervisors. And the commission is compromised of seven members. And I'll go over those on the next slide. If I get the next slide, please. Thanks. So I'm Natalie Haber. I'm the non-commercial voter representative and also the chair. A rusty sage is the landowner resident representative. Nate Rangel is our commercial outfitter representative. Darren Freeland is our member at large. Howard Penn is our member representative. Courtney Laird is our landowner and resident representative. And finally, we have Sam Hole, who is our member at large. Thank you. So we've had a lot of wonderful collaboration projects this past year in 2025. A couple of them I'd like to go over. We've had two great presentations from the El Dorado County Department of Transportation. The first one was on the Mount Murphy Bridge update. As you remember, there's been a couple emergency repairs done on the bridge in 2021 and 2025. And the Department of Transportation has come before us and given some proposed ideas and gotten some feedback from the community, which has been really wonderful. They've also provided us updates from on the class one trail to proposed trail that would connect to HLP Henningsen Lotus Park to Highway 49. And we provided feedback to them as well with the community. Some other projects we've had is the El Dorado Irrigation District. They came and gave a presentation to us regarding the water diversion dam project, project 21112. And we've been working together with them to provide input, provide feedback on water levels, water flows, things like that with the community. And we're currently awaiting the final EID to come out. Fourth, we have formed a Dark Sky Initiative, an ad hoc committee. And basically, this is to provide resources and education to the community on how to make our skies just a little bit darker to see those stars and Milky Way just a little bit better in the summer. If you go to the next slide, please. Okay, a big project that went on with the Coloma Lotus Advisory Committee last year, and it's still ongoing, is the River Management Plan update. The CLAC created an ad hoc committee to write extensive input and feedback to the RMP update. That's been a big update this year. We've worked with wonderful staff from Parks and Trails, as well as the Parks and Trail Commission, to get this update going through, and hopefully it'll be ahead of you guys next year. We've also worked with Chili Bar and the American River Conservancy on ongoing planning and recommendations for Chili Bar Park. And finally, we reviewed some governing documents in August of 2025 and made updates which were approved by the Board of Supervisors in 2025. Finally, I think the most important and greatest thing about CLAC is just all the community involvement that it's able to create. We've been able to get a lot of community input and voices in that I think normally wouldn't have voices. So we've had a lot of people attending meetings. One of our meetings we had last year, I think had upwards of 80 people. The range was totally full. And we've been able to provide the public with information, providing them times to provide public comment and participate in surveys. And finally, we've invited qualified professionals and subject matter experts like from EID and the Department of Transportation to provide really important information that effectively affects residents of the Colombo Lotus Valley. And next slide. And that is all for me at this time. I want to keep it short and sweet. So I know you guys have long days, but if anyone has any questions, I'm happy to answer anything. Great.

Thank you. Uh, questions, comments, um, not seeing anybody pop up supervisor problems.

Yeah. I would be remiss if I didn't make a comment, wouldn't I? So, yeah, I just want to thank you guys for all the work you do out there, um, in the Valley. It's really, um, been good to see that when, uh, Howard and I took the lead to creating this committee in 2019. It was terrifying, quite honestly. It was a lot of work to get everybody to come together to embrace the committee. And I think that everybody's realized now, and I try really hard to remind department heads that anything going on in Coloma run it through this group first and actually use the CLAC to bring the community to you guys and to interface with the county departments. I just think that it's working really well and I hope that it continues on. So thank you for everything. Really appreciate it.

Thank you, Lori. Other comments, questions?

Thank you. Good stuff.

Thank you.

Thank you, Howard.

Thank you. Good work. Thank you, Chair. Have a good rest of your afternoon. Thank you.

You too. Board, instead of taking a break, would you like to do board member updates at this time, and then we'll shave a little bit off at the end of the meeting? Can we do that? They're not on the agenda. Agenda. Oh, they're not either? My whole protocol sheet is messed up. I know. Sorry. I know. That was a good idea, though. Let's take a break. Let's take a break. Okay. We'll come back at three. Okay, thank you. Welcome back to our special meeting. It is now 3.30, and we have two items left on this agenda. This item 15 is also brought to us by the clerk of the board. And Ms. Dawson, will you read this item into the record, please? Of course.

Item number 15 comes from the clerk of the board on behalf of the Cameron Park Design Review Committee, recommending the board receive and file an annual report.

All right. Mr. Maloney chair.

Yes. Thank you very much. I don't know if I have to turn this thing on or not. You're good. It's on. Perfect. Red is on. Okay. Thank you for having me again. Some of you I have met before. Some of you have not. Um, for those of you who have not met, my name is Vince Maloney. Again, I'm the chair of the Cameron park design review committee. I'm going to go on script because my wife says I ramble otherwise. Um, I am here at your invitation to give a presentation on what our committee has been up to for this year, for the past year, spoiler alert, it's relatively short. So let's first start with our committee's reason for being. The Cameron Park Design Review Committee reviews proposed development projects to provide protection, enhancement and use of places, sites, buildings, and structures, having special character, aesthetic interest, and value, enhancement of tourism and the economy of the county by protecting and preserving places, having special and unique character and interests. So in layman's terms, we represent the aesthetic into a very limited extent, the social interests of the Cameron Park community. And we for all intents and purposes are no cost consultant to the planning department. As an architect in my professional opinion, good design is simply good business and bad design or lack thereof can be harmful to the community as a whole. And our goal is to hopefully support businesses that want to open in Cameron Park or improve their existing buildings by providing helpful suggestions of ways that their projects might be improved. We recognize that there are what I like to call hero buildings and background buildings, but even background buildings can be good background buildings.

Next slide, thank you.

I'm sure it was at least partly in recognition that the idea that good design is good business at the Cameron Park Design Review Committee and several other such committees were formally established in 1992 by the Board of Supervisors, as you can see here on this slide. Next slide, please. So this is a map of our zone of influence, as we call it, or the Cameron Park Community Region. So everything that falls into that zone, which is either commercial, multifamily, or proposed subdivision, we would review in our committee. Next slide, please. So our current membership is only three out of the five positions that are available. This does not mean that, but what this does mean is that if any of our current members are unable to attend a meeting, obviously we don't have a quorum. So that is definitely a challenge for us, which we'll get to challenges later, but that is one of the challenges we do face right now. I do want to publicly acknowledge Diana Enderly who served on the committee for over 10 years and recently retired or resigned from the committee. And until then she was the longest, excuse me, the longest tenured member on this committee besides myself. Well, now I am. As you can see, I've been on the committee since 2015, which is more than half the time I've actually lived in Cameron Park. And I also want to acknowledge Kaylee Runkle, who keeps us on track and in business. Next, please. So what we do. You probably know this, but we act in an advisory capacity to the planning director, planning commission, and board of supervisors yourself with regard to review and comment on design review for multifamily commercial and industrial applications within the jurisdiction. What that looks like is when a project comes into the planning department, if it's in our region, they assign it to us. Kaylee sends us an email. We review the project. Hopefully it's complete. If not, we request additional information. We have a hearing right here in this room. And then we provide feedback to that applicant in this room. Sometimes they attend and sometimes they don't. So then we provide that recommendation back to the planning department and sometimes it's implemented and sometimes it isn't. Full disclosure. Next slide, please. So 2025 was a relatively slow year. As you can see, we really only looked at two projects twice each. One was the revamp of Cambridge Plaza, which is at Cambridge and the off ramp of 50 right there, Mary Chase. To my knowledge, that project has not gone into construction yet. I do drive by it every day. And then the second is Green Valley Commercial Center, which is, if you're familiar with Green Valley Road, is between Cameron Park Drive and Bass Lake, right next to the new grocery outlet. Well, it's three or four years old now. So we looked at both of those projects last year, which is not to say that there should not have been other projects that should have been sent to us for review. One in particular I did want to mention is the Habit Burger on Cameron Park Drive went through what they called a tenant improvement, which turned out to be more of a full building redo. Exterior was totally redone. It's not to say they didn't do a bad job or do a good job rather with the exterior, but there were a couple of misses. One is that we can now see their mechanical equipment on the roof. Big. The others, I was just there the other day, I'll just mention this off script real quick. And the entire end of the parking lot where they are was filled with smoke. So they don't have a proper scrubber system on their rooftop equipment there. They also took out all of the mature trees. So now the south facing parking lot there has no parking lot shading whatsoever, which is a real detriment. Um, okay. And then in just the last year, um, the Sinclair station on camera park drive rebranded yet again, that's the third rebrand in less than 10 years that they've done. Um, when I first moved here, that was a shell station. Um, And it continues to operate with a non-compliant poll sign, which keeps getting grandfathered in project after project after project. So it's just something worth bringing up. So outside of reviewing projects, members of the committee also attend and provide feedback at public hearings regarding proposed community design standards. I heard you guys talking a little bit about that earlier. These will actually be beneficial to us as a committee going forward as those will actually give us the teeth to actually provide feedback to applicants. Because right now we really just say, this is what we'd like you to do. And sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. Next slide, please. So that's, this brings us to some of the challenges we see as a committee. Again, there are applicants who don't integrate the feedback that's provided. The committee doesn't usually receive feedback from the planning department about the recommendations that whether they were or were not implemented. sometimes we get applications that are incomplete and they need to come back more than once which is a lengthy process for the applicants because it takes months for them to actually you know pass through planning to us and then be on an agenda enforcement of area standards are being violated so for example one of the rebrands we had they decided to add a u-haul rental at their location, well, that's not allowed by the zoning. So our only recourse at that point is to call the planning department and say, hey, we need to open an enforcement action. Let's see, business make changes after construction. This happens all the time. Full disclosure, I've had clients who've done this too, in my work as an architect, but we don't recommend it.

Okay, next slide, please.

So one additional thing that I do want to, oh, I'm sorry.

Yeah.

One additional thing I do want to bring up is the locations of our meetings are an additional challenge because we do meet in this room, which is beautiful. It's fantastic. But, you know, obviously it's less accessible to members of our community. You know, some members would actually, or some community members would actually be able to walk to our meetings if we had it in town. In fact, I know some people that used to ride their bikes, but we used to meet way back when at the fire station on, on country club when I first started on this committee, but unfortunately it sounds like there's no sort of no cost solution to that currently. So that's why we meet here. And Kaylee sets all that up, which is fantastic for us. So to that point, it's important for developers to hear real life residents, besides us, bringing their concerns to their projects. Because obviously, as a governing body, we can say whatever we want. But hearing it from somebody who's going to be their neighbor, literally their neighbor, is important. OK, so upcoming goals. Recruit members to fill vacant seats. That's like number one. We're actually hoping that the board of supervisors can help us with that by advertising the position a little bit more broadly. I think it does appear in the Mountain Democrat from time to time. I don't read the Mountain Democrat full disclosure, but online platforms are probably the most effective. Second is to strengthen our working relationship with the planning department and the planning commission. That's always an ongoing goal. That's a moving target. We'd like to define the process for enforcement of standards violations. Obviously, again, once we have design standards in place, that'll be a little bit easier to and then support the planning department and the development and implementation of the regional design standards. I overheard some of the discussion about that. I don't know where that's at right now, but maybe you do. I heard that Diamond Springs might actually be ahead of us at this point. But that's all I got for you.

All right. Very good. Comments, questions? Yeah.

Doug, you got a question?

Yes. You might have covered it. I missed it. Do you have authority or are you an advisory group similar to APAC? We're more like an APAC.

We don't have technical authority. That's correct. Okay.

I just got one. You know, when you get this comes up and you look at the design, you go through the design, especially for these businesses and stuff. How long does it usually take? I mean, I mean, I know you guys meet once a month. Is that what it is?

We meet once a month as needed. And typically once we get the project, we'll schedule it for the next meeting. So if it's a week, if it's two weeks, whatever it is, it doesn't take very long to review it.

Okay.

But we do review it for not just, I mean, you think about elevations and colors and whatnot. It's not just for that. It's also for site plan and for like, do you have enough trees? Do you have good site lighting? Do you have adequate access for pedestrians? Things like that. Things are important. Yeah.

Well, I appreciate everything you guys have done. So same here. Yeah. Thank you very much.

Yeah. You know, how, how do you guys see things changing when the design standards are adopted or do you think they're going to change? And I'm concerned about some of the challenges that you've got here on this slide.

I do think they're going to change a little bit. You know, obviously we don't review for things that the planning department reviews for, you know, like there's a certain minimum number of trees that you have to have, tree islands that you have to have in parking lots or, you know, things like that. But the objective standards, the last version that I read at least had um, things about, you know, articulation of facades and what is the height of windows and things like that. And actually I was pushing them for, um, not having it sort of, um, what I would call like a Disneyland standard, which is, you know, sort of form based, but more, um, sort of like a kit of parts. Right. And obviously, you know, we in the past, at least have always had this sort of, well, it's the best way to put it, but exception for exceptional design, let's put it that way, where, you know, you just know good design when you see it, even if it doesn't meet the standard. Right. And I think that was one of the things that we're also pushing for with the, with the new standards. But again, like I think, with a standard, we'll actually be able to say, hey, it says you have to have X, Y, and Z. I see that you don't. How do you explain yourself?

Yeah. It's going to be interesting to see how this unfolds.

Yeah, for sure.

Very good.

All right.

Yeah.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I'll give the rest of my time to you.

Good job. Thank you. All right. We're in our final recess until 4 o'clock.

Yeah.

All right, welcome back. We are at our final item for today. This is our four o'clock item number 16. This also comes from the clerk of the board. And Madam Clerk, will you please read this item into the record?

Item 16 comes from the clerk of the board on behalf of the Diamond Springs and El Dorado Community Advisory Committee recommending the board receive and file an annual report.

Welcome, Mr. Hillendall, the chair, and we saved the best for last. Take it away.

Thank you, Chair Lane. Yeah, I'm Carl Hillendall. I'm chair of the Diamond Springs, Colorado Community Advisory Committee, and a committee that was established back in 2009. I think Jack Sweeney had something to do with it. He made a motion. Resolution was passed. So we exist at the pleasure of the board. And...

This is the purpose of the committee.

We look at all the development projects that are going on in Diamond Springs and the Eldorado community region. We look at the general plan. We give comment to planning department and concerning it, DOT, we also give comments too. We make sure that we look at the plans with respect to the Missouri flat design guidelines. We look at the historical overlay in Diamond Springs in El Dorado and make sure that design complies with the historical overlay. And we do other things according to what the Board of Supervisors would like us to do. So we have seven members at the moment, Matt Cameron, Denise Delegato, Jennifer Denton, myself, Jonathan Lee, Chris Whitaker. There's one vacancy that I'd like to find somebody to occupy it. And we do provide an opportunity for residents in Diamond Springs and the El Dorado communities, stakeholders to project their views regarding certain projects. We take comments in from the public and we digest that. We make recommendations to planning, to the developers to conform to our standards. Next, please. And some of the projects that we've looked at, Diamond Springs Parkway, and it's getting along really well right now. I think pretty soon they're going to have it all paved. They're going to have that roundabout, Missouri Flat, working. They're doing sidewalks right now. We have been looking at that ever since it was proposed. We're also... Looking at the, we've made comment concerning the Diamond Springs Community Park and Toronto Oaks, which seems to be on a pause right now. And we were instrumental in implementing Rule 20A, which requires utilities to be placed underground. So we talked about the underground infrastructure um district back i think about three years ago and noticed that pg&e had about a 30 30 million dollar fund set aside for undergrounding and that we could tie into that fund to get things you know to get projects to get power underground okay um we're going to have to uh Within Diamond Springs, undergrounding is going to be at the same time that any Caltrans work gets done on Pleasant Valley Road on Highway 49. So we have to wait for those projects to come up. If they're going to be doing any renovation on the road, then we can grab some of the PG&E funds and get power underground in Diamond Springs. and in El Dorado if it happens. We've also made comments on the Best Western Hotel and Quick Quack Car Wash, and that's going pretty well right now. We got to make some significant design changes on the El Dorado Community Health Center on Missouri Flat. We've commented about Target and the other projects that we've listed in this slide. And there's the origination of the committee was back in 2009, Board of Supervisors Resolution 235-2009. We have adopted bylaws and made updates to the resolution in 2024. And next slide. And that was it?

That's it, yeah.

Any questions, comments?

Questions, comments?

Just if I may, you know, we've been through a whole lot today. And these gentlemen, ladies are volunteers. And Carl had to take time off his dental schedule today to be here for the presentation. And so we so appreciate and thank you for that and everybody that presented today and the time that you guys put into the committee meetings. We sort of bounced around a little bit with Diamond, but I think we're settled in here now. And obviously Kaylie does a great job in the guidance and the Brown Act and so forth. But Carl, you and your committee, thank you so much. Very appreciative.

Well, thanks for making this a non-threatening environment.

Thank you, Carl, for everything you do. I appreciate it. Thanks, George.

Everybody have a good afternoon. And I think the committee would like to stay in existence.

Oh, yeah. Sounds good. Thank you, Carl.

Thank you. Yeah, and Supervisor Vierkamp, I think you hit the nail on the head that we acknowledge all of these people are volunteers. They do such great work for the county, and I know I myself am having an appreciation gathering up in Tahoe at my summer cabin to thank the 80 volunteers plus people that all volunteer to serve on various boards and commissions. And, you know, they do it out of the goodness of their heart. So I think it's really important that we thank all those people that give of their time to help us make Eldorado County better than the way we found it. So good note to end on. All right. Any other comments? Okay. Thank you. We'll stand adjourned.

Thank you, Kim.

Thanks, Kim.