Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

And relax. Let's take a deep breath in up. Finish with a big hug.

And that ends our cool down for today.

Wow. I'd like to say a special thank you to Vicki and to Stella for helping us out today on our show. And a very special thank you to everyone who has taken the time to join us today. Now Vicki has some encouraging words to keep us motivated as we strive to stay on track with our wellness.

Every day is a new day. And sometimes we wake up and we can feel we can conquer the world. The world is ours to conquer. And other times we wake up and our arthritis bothers us. Some other body part that's not working too well lets us know that Something's wrong. But don't let that stop you. Attitude is everything. With a good attitude, you can conquer everything because it tells the brain that you're in a good state and the brain does all the work of making it work, of making the rest of you work. If it can, don't just wait for these classes. Stand by the sink in the kitchen or in the bathroom and press down. and up down and up that exercises your top half of your body your triceps and your and your and the whole arm or hold on to the sink and squat down and get up and squat and get you know i can't squat and get my rear end on the floor like all these fancier Athletes do, but I do squat enough to my legs feel it. And count that as a challenge that you've succeeded. But don't ever stop moving. It's good for you. And it's good for everybody around you.

You can't find that anywhere else. If you're planning on doing this, just take that step.

He did what he was asked to do, and he made it. And I'm so happy for him. I hope that we can get more from EMS Corps.

the county's budget also known as the county operational plan is more than just dollars and cents it's about building a brighter future for all of us the county's multi-billion dollar budget supports everything from health to safety it provides programs that help people so that everyone in the region has the opportunity to thrive to do that we use a strategic plan that supports the county's vision of a just sustainable and resilient future for all We start with the county's responsibilities, those required by law. That includes providing services in the unincorporated area, services a local city would typically provide, everything from law enforcement and roads to building permits and animal protection.

So

Good morning, everyone. I will apologize for that. I will now call the August 19th, 2026 San Diego County Board of Supervisors Land Use Legislative Meeting to order. Ryan, please call the roll for today's session.

Thank you, Vice Chair Montgomery-Stepp. Supervisor Anderson.

Here.

Supervisor Desmond. Here. Chair Pro Tem McGeary.

Here.

Vice Chair Montgomery-Stepp.

Here.

And Chair Lawson-Riemer.

So before we begin this meeting, I want to take a moment to address some House rules. Public engagement is the cornerstone of transparent and accountable government. And these Board of Supervisors meetings are one of the primary venues where all San Diegans can make their voices heard. The county is committed to a work environment that is free from unlawful discrimination and harassment, including sexual, racial, religious, age, disability, or any other form of discrimination or harassment. Under the board's rules, speakers are not allowed to use loud, shouting, threatening, impertinent, slanderous, profane, or abusive language to any member of the board staff, or the general public. Additionally, all remarks and questions must remain on topic during the duration of your speaking time and must be addressed to the board and not to county staff. Any speaker who engages in comments that break these rules will be issued a warning. After one warning, you will be asked to leave the chambers for the rest of the meeting. Finally, speakers threatening violence may be reported to law enforcement and removed from the meeting. This is a space for community engagement, deliberation, and progress, not for harassment, violence, and hate. We will now proceed with the closed session report. Counsel, is there a report for yesterday's closed session?

Thank you, Vice Chair Montgomery-Stepp. The Board of Supervisors met in closed session on August 18, 2026, from 5.54 p.m. to 7.25 p.m. All Board members were present. The Board took the following reportable actions. on item 33A, the estate of Dominique McCoy versus County of San Diego et al. By a vote of 5-0, the board ratified county council's decision to appeal the district court's ruling on summary judgment denying qualified immunity to two county employees. On item 33C, Marcus Boyd versus County of San Diego et al., by a vote of 4-0, with Chair Protemagiri recused, the Board ratified County Council's decision to appeal an adverse verdict in a jury trial. On item 33H, Voice of San Diego versus County of San Diego, by a vote of 5-0, the Board authorized County Council to refrain from appealing the Superior Court's decision granting a writ petition in a case involving a California Public Records Act request. On item 33i, by a vote of 4-1, with Supervisor Desmond voting no, the board authorized county council to initiate litigation. Particulars about the litigation will be disclosed to any person upon inquiry after litigation has formally commenced.

Thank you very much for that report. We will now proceed with non-agenda public communication. This is an opportunity for the public to address the board on subject matters within the board's jurisdiction, but not on an item that is on today's meeting agenda. The only action that the board may take is a referral to the chief administrative officer. Under the board's rules, speakers can only speak once per meeting for non-agenda public communication, either at yesterday's session or today's land use legislative session, but not both. Speakers may select which session to address the board at their own convenience. To better facilitate the meeting, the non-agenda public comment For non-agenda public comment, we do have five speakers in person and five speakers by phone. The rest of non-agenda public communication will be heard at the close of today's session. Additionally, in accordance with board rules, in order to ensure timely completion of today's agenda, for any discussion item with 10 or more speakers, individuals will have one minute to share their opinion at the chair's discretion. A reminder that according to Rule 4A, members of the public that are non-English speaking and need interpretation assistance will get twice the allotted time for their comments. And a final reminder, according to the board's rules of procedures, audience members shall not whistle, clap, stomp, feed, or do anything that disrupts the proceedings. If you disrupt the meeting, you'll be given one warning. After that, you will be asked to leave the chamber for the remainder of the meeting. Ryan, can you call the speakers for non-agenda public comments?

Thank you, Vice Chair Montgomery-Stepp. We do have 19 total requests to speak on matters not listed on the agenda, nine individuals in person, and 10 requesting to speak by phone. For those that requested to speak by phone, please dial into the conference line now using the instructions that were provided to you. Go ahead and begin with those in-person speakers, and we'll randomly select the first five speakers in person today. All remaining speakers will be heard at the conclusion of today's session. As your name is called, if you could please come forward and stand on the arrows until it is your turn to speak at the podium. You'll then have two minutes to address the board, and if you could please begin by stating your name for the audio record. Go ahead and invite the first three individuals, Jean Duffy, Kathleen Lippitt, and Dorothea Flanagan. If you could please come down and line up on the arrows at the podium. Then you have two minutes to address the board.

Good morning, supervisors and staff. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you today and for your leadership in protecting public health in San Diego County. My name is Jean Duffy. I am a 34-year resident of unincorporated San Diego County and I'm here on behalf of the Lakeside, the Mountain Empire, the Spring Valley, and the Julian Community Collaboratives, as well as the many residents I've spoken to who Encourage the county to adopt a smoke-free outdoor public places policy. This type of policy is urgent and valuable to protect our unincorporated rural communities from the dangers of breathing in tobacco and marijuana smoke and vape aerosol. Being exposed to environmental toxins in tobacco product waste and destructive wildfires. Cigarette smoke contains more than 7,000 dangerous chemicals, and anyone exposed breathes in at least 70 cancer-causing chemicals. E-cigarettes do not just release harmless water vapor. When a person exhales a vape, they release an aerosol containing ultra-fine particles of nicotine, carcinogenic chemicals like propylene glycol and formaldehyde, and heavy metals like nickel and lead. Bystanders who breathe in these fine particles absorb these toxic substances deep into their lungs. causing asthma attacks and constricting arteries, increasing cardiovascular stress. None of us should be exposed to dangerous chemicals when we walk on the sidewalk, at farmers markets, or when eating on outdoor patios. Smoke-free policies are also effective tools to reduce litter and pollution from toxic tobacco product waste, and they reduce wildfire risk. An average of 44 wildfires a year are started from tobacco use in California alone. The state has experienced $18.7 billion in property damage from wildfires over the past five years. Residents of our unincorporated areas are struggling to pay increased homeowners insurance or are unable to insure their homes at all because of wildfire risk in our county. I have two friends, one in Alpine and Lakeside, who have to move because they can't afford outrageous high-risk homeowners or state-backed fallback policies. Policymakers throughout California have passed legislation.

Thank you.

Good morning, I'm Dorothea Flanagan. You pretty well know me. I've been coming here with oversight in the 5th District, North San Diego County. This is an ongoing issue with the Code Enforcement Department, where the last time I spoke with Sophia, approximately six weeks ago, she thinks her job is to interpret the law. It is not her job to do that. Others that know more about traffic and roadways have studied that and that's why the code was put together. I'm talking specifically about 2636 Gopher Canyon Road where people came in and put 200 feet of chain link fence right into the berm. Anywhere from one foot to four feet from the berm. That doesn't happen anywhere in the United States that I have ever seen. And now I'm hearing nothing. She said, well, her reasoning was, well, is there enough people, enough room for people to walk down the road? That's not the issue for her to do that. I explained setbacks to her. How many feet back from the side of the road, the middle of the road, sometimes it's the side of the road, that you can't just go install a offense without a permit and put it wherever you feel like it. Cars don't have much leeway to swerve and get out of there. Please do something about your code enforcement department. They don't know code compliance and they don't care. They think it's funny. Thank you for your service.

Thank you. And as the next speaker is coming up, I'll call the final two in-person speakers for the morning session, Javier Parita and allegedly Audra.

Good morning. Excuse me. Good morning, board. My name is Kathleen Lippitt. As a public health researcher and consultant and community advocate, I have worked in communities around the city of San Diego and the county for over 20 years. I help to advocate community members and raise their capacity to be able to have a say in the policies that government imposes upon them because it affects their lives, their quality of life, their health, their safety, and their investment in their community. It troubles me that there seems to be a disconnect between an addictive drug, marijuana, that they seem to want to promote in the county. And we have provided information and research about the harms of this drug, and especially given that it is not a just a normal plant that people think of as 40 years ago, but it is a highly hybridized and genetically modified plant that was created to maximize THC. Just one of the items is an increase of more than 6,000% in pediatric exposures to cannabis in the United States. And mostly, that is under the age of 6 to 12 years old. The rise is temporarily associated with changes in federal cannabis policy that began in 2009. But because of the negative effects on children, public policy should be considered. And you certainly shouldn't be creating more opportunities, more access, more commercialization, more promotion, and more advertising. So thank you for letting me speak.

Thank you. Next speaker. And then we won't be hearing from, allegedly, Audra this morning, so we'll go to the next speaker, Dorian. Dorian's in the chat. Perfect.

Good morning. I am Corita Javier, senior with existing medical condition and victim of ceramics kiln toxicity since 1997. My late husband, Harold Barber, was one of the original

Residence.

Residence. And stood a father figure of the owner of the business which was located, contracted, and operated in 1984. He fell down in our backyard and broken his lips in 2011 and passed away February 2012. I remember a world always at a while in the backyard. Stay away out there. He was at the

Hinting, hinting spot.

To the ceramics can emission. I have no idea about poison gas commission.

Thank you. We'll hear from our final speaker. Thank you.

Thank you.

You may approach the podium. Yes, thank you.

Thank you. My name is Dorian Golu, and I'm here again, hopefully. Can you raise the mic? Yes, sir. Thank you. Someone will care. So I want to bring again to your attention that my family is blasted with chemicals, poisonous, sickening gases by the drug dealers who move next door after we complain about their night... Parties all night long just cover for their drug dealings. Lately, we knew that they are protected by high-level officers, corrupt officers, in my opinion, in the Sheriff's Department. That not only don't do anything, but they arrested me for calling the Sheriff's Department and asking for help. If you don't believe me, you may believe the police.

stop calling and making up stories about your neighbors because they're all being documented. It's not fair to your neighbors. It's not fair to our dispatchers. It's not fair to our deputy sheriffs. If you have any questions, you're welcome to give us a call back. You're going to get me all night and you're not going to speak with anyone else. So have a good night.

Get some rest. So I got some rest the next day because that day I couldn't because of the gases. They continued this harassment. every day, especially at night, with gases that I have no idea what they are, and most likely from the symptoms they relate to gases used by the law enforcement for crowd control. This reminds me about the dark days of Upper Hyde when people were kicked out of their houses because a group of people, in this case Mafia of El Cajon, believes they are above the law. This also reminds me about the dark days of Auschwitz in which people were sickened or gassed out because a group of people believed they are above the law. I'm not sure how to express with more stronger words than this. Thank you. Please do something. Thank you.

We will now hear from those that have requested to speak by phone. And again, in accordance with the board's rules, we'll be hearing from the first five callers. The remaining callers will be heard at the conclusion of today's session. When it is your turn to speak, you'll be unmuted and you'll hear a recording that will tell you to begin your comments. And we will go ahead and begin with our first caller.

Just real quick, Madam Chair, if we could get the gentleman that just spoke his address. Thank you.

Sir, if you wouldn't mind giving your address to the clerk. She's right there. Raise your hand. Right there. Look right there. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Benny Charles. Good morning, members of the board. I'm here representing one of Five owners in Rayford Drive in Escondido, California. Our family has been affected by an easement that remains on property as a result of an administrative or recording error. Government Code 51057 and 51085 says you cannot accept an open easement without a contemporary 60-day general plan consistency report. The county accepted our easement in 2003 with zero report. We are asking the county to review the complete history of this matter and help us finally resolve it. Thank you, guys.

It sounded like my district, if I didn't address it. Thanks.

Thank you. We'll go to our next caller.

My name is Gord Orbison, and I want to talk about something that intersects with land use and public safety. We have a lot of crime in San Diego County, and a lot of crime means the need for more jails. So I propose creating a prison camp. in unincorporated San Diego County for trainees. They violate our laws. They beat our women in sports. They creep on women in bathrooms. And the sheriff needs to get tough on these transsexual freaks before our county falls. We need to stop this scourge. That's why we need some prison camps and reconversion therapy centers. We need to stop the transsexual menace from taking over San Diego County like they took over L.A. and San Francisco. I hate trans so much. And thank you for letting me speak and for respecting free speech.

We'll go to our next caller.

Good morning, Board of Supervisors. Ann Riddle here. I'd like to continue with the comments that I began yesterday when we were addressing Consent Item 5 regarding the acceptance of funding $2.3 million it was to assist with black infant health and the statistics that went with it. I shared with you my personal experience of representing PTA to the county's infant immunization initiative. When we looked at the rates here in San Diego County and the rates in Tijuana, they had a higher immunization rate and they were concerned It was interesting because this was a different perspective 30, 40 years ago. And so we were looking at what our infants needed and we wanted to see what was affecting infant health. And we found that it didn't have so much to do with gender as it does with social economic level. And this matters because you put different solutions in place for those problems associated with social economic issues. I had begun this conversation because I then had, several years later, an experience with the adjudication process, the arrest and adjudication, and eventually, in this case, the loved one went to jail regarding a drug crime. And I found then, going through the process with my loved one, that it was not about race, but it was way more about economic, social economic income levels. And I think it's important for us to realize that when we're making programs and coming up with solutions, we look at what's really causing people to be adjudicated and ending up in prison. In the case of my loved one, it was originally to intercede with his marijuana sales, but because in the state of California. They were not putting anybody in jail 30 or 40 years ago, even then, for marijuana.

They... We'll go to our next caller. Our next caller is Paul Yu. Your device might be muted. Are you there, Paul?

Okay. Yes, I'm here. Can you hear me?

We can hear you. Go ahead and begin your comments.

Okay. Good morning, members of the board. My name is Paul Yu, and I'm here today representing one of five affected owners. And Benny Charles spoke early this morning, and I am the second in sequence. We filed a verified hybrid petition for a reasonable mandate, declaratory relief, and quiet title in San Diego Superior Court. We did not want to sue, but your legal office closed our case without investigating. That was a year ago. I submitted a court claim last year and they closed the case. And then I resubmitted a demand letter in July 25 this year. And I have not heard anything since then. So we have no choice but, you know, filing a court case. Nevertheless, this board has a clear choice today to save taxpayer money and avoid an embarrassing judicial defeat, you have the immediate legislative authority to voluntarily vacate this void easement. We are asking this board to direct county council to drop the resolution of vacation to resolve this grave error voluntarily. Now, citing the legal grounds for this, your clerk cited a blanket board resolution from January 7, 1992, completely bypassing the mandatory...

Thank you. Your time is up. We will go to our fifth and final speaker.

Good morning to the Board of Members. My name is James Cauley. I am here representing one of the five owners of the same property that was just discussed in the prior speaker. The history of this dates back to 1991. court approved these actions on this property without proper documentation and a record of what was going on. We have these open spaces easements that are imposing on our property and This unresolved issue is going to end up in litigation for the property. We believe historical documentation demonstrates the easements should no longer remain in effect. Additionally, it is a massive fire hazard that affects each and every owner here because we're not able to do anything about it, and it increases our insurance rates significantly.

every month so please consider removing the open space easement off of our properties thank you very much thank you and chair lawson rumor that concludes the request for non-agenda public communication this morning and again just as a reminder all remaining speakers will be heard at the conclusion of today's session

Okay, thank you very much. We now proceed with the formation of the consent agenda. This today is only items 1 through 2. All items on the consent agenda are routine and will be acted upon with one motion. And we'll have public comment after supervisors pull or make comments on anything they'd like. So, Vice Chair Montgomery-Stepp, any comments or items to pull?

No, no need to pull anything. I will move the consent agenda. Okay, thanks so much.

We have a motion by the Vice Chair and a second by the Chair pro tem. Any comments or anything to pull? Okay. From Supervisor Anderson? I don't at this time. Thank you for asking. Okay.

Supervisor Desmond? Nothing to pull and no comments. Thanks.

Thank you so much. We'll now begin with public comment.

Thank you, Chair Loftus-Van Riemer. We do have, scroll up here, nine total requests to speak, three people requesting to speak in person, and six requesting to speak by phone. For any individuals that requested to speak on this item by phone, please dial into the conference line now using the instructions that were provided to you. We'll go ahead and begin with the in-person speakers. As your name is called, if you could please come forward and stand on the arrows until it is your turn to speak at the podium. You'll then have two minutes to address the board, and if you could please begin by stating your name for the record. I'd like to invite forward all three individuals, Kathleen Lippitt, Cesar Javier, and allegedly Audra. Also, please identify which items on the consent calendar you are speaking about.

Cesar and Purita, the same victims of pollution. 1.1, first responders expected, City District 8, City Imperial Beach, region, state, federal. Justice delayed, justice denied. Thank you, Supervisor Stipp, in joining us as the City College District Board of Trustees. We were expectant, excited to hear the pronouncement, city colleges, please make a curriculum or program to train people to clean the mess of the border pollution and cure, care, feed, shelter our San Diegans. We were there, ma'am. Also, to us, abate and move that polluting facility or business somewhere safer. Your appearance there was a hope, big hope from us. But you did something different. You did something opposite. Hidden agenda, we have reasons to believe. Number two. 1.2, we must respect science. While we cannot defeat nature, we can protect humans, which is the focus of urban planning. Why CEQA? Why CEQA always exempting things that are projects supposed to be in accord with health and safety? Thank you, Uncle Sam. Thank you, God. Help us.

Thank you. And Kathleen Lippitt, and allegedly Audra.

Point of order before you start my time. Usually we do yesterday's meeting and then this meeting. Is this going to be consistently how you do the process? Because I'm just confused. Can you answer that as for a point of order?

A point of order, we always begin with non-agenda public comment in the morning. That's legally required. So that's what we're doing today. Okay.

No, we've already moved into today's meeting is what I'm saying. Usually you do yesterday's meeting, finish it, and then start today.

We are doing consent from today, currently. And then we have a number of time-certain items that we're running through today for Wednesday. And then as soon as we're done with our time-certain, we will do what we can to finish the yesterday's agenda items.

I just would like clarity, because normally you say this is how it's going to go, and it just wasn't. I mean, I'm just, anyway, thank you. So I'm wondering when you guys are going to put people over profit with this emergency that we continue to declare, you know, for decades now. And it just seems this is evidently gross malfeasance when, you know, you're not really doing anything to make sure that Mexico isn't, you know, distributing their sewage into our communities. And talks will happen with Mexico, like through Sandag and stuff, and there'll be MOUs that are created, but they're never really getting down to fixing the problem. It's like you're willing to let people suffer for decades and collect data on them and give them faulty air purifiers and, you know, complain about how horrible it is for them to experience this. But where is the urgency to do something about it? Because there's more concern about the profit that comes from the port of entry, the $60 billion that comes across. So you're not willing to even go, let's stop that until Mexico gets their shit together. Because our people are suffering. And it's so sad to see that you guys care more about that profit that comes in. Then tell in Mexico, you need to, even with like Sandag and the toll roads, we're gonna give them control over that and they're gonna get funding for it, but we're not gonna make them ensure that they're putting this into processing plants and stuff like that. So it's like you guys wanna sit here and you wanna do this and you wanna act as though you really care, but Paloma, this is your community and it's like you are gaslighting them when you sit here and act like you give a shit. Because I bet you don't even sit there and suffer the consequences that they do. Because you could go and leave that place. And people are stuck there, suffering, waiting for you guys to actually do something. How long is it going to be? 30 more decades?

Next speaker.

Good morning again. Thank you. I just wanted to remind what the California Environmental Quality Act is supposed to be. It was meant to be considered at the earliest possible stages in the project's process. It applies to all discretionary projects proposed to be conducted or approved by California public agencies. It includes private projects requiring discretionary government approval. The environmental review process should begin as soon as the project is proposed, before any significant decisions are made about the project. These exemptions were designed to streamline the environmental review process for projects deemed to have minimal or negligible environmental impacts. However, we see it being used for pretty much anything that the county wants to rush through, and that includes the social equity cannabis program, battery energy storage facilities, wind turbines, and large-scale solar projects. Statutory exemptions are explicitly defined by the California legislature and apply regardless of a project's potential environmental impacts. Examples include emergency repairs to public service facilities, certain affordable housing projects, and transportation projects specified in state law. There are categorical exemptions established by the Secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency. These apply to classes of projects that typically do not have significant environmental effects, which many of your exempted projects do. Exceptions exist if a project could cause significant cumulative impacts and affect sensitive environments, and they most certainly do in our unincorporated communities, which should not be used as dumping grounds. Thank you.

Thank you. We will now hear from those that have requested to speak by phone. Again, when it's your turn to speak, you'll be unmuted. You will hear a recording that will tell you to begin your comments, and we will go ahead and begin with our first caller.

Excuse me. The TJ River Valley pollution crisis is now spreading countywide. This is more than a crisis, more than an emergency. But your response has been mostly to seek external money or resources, which can take months and years. We need local action, which would be quicker. It's affecting people's daily lives, daily. People are getting sicker worse daily. You mentioned local efforts in the last paragraph. We need action now, not in the future, not when Congress or the state can find the money to act. And by the way, some of the pollution is coming from the United States, though. You know, it's not like we need to go to Mexico to find it all the time. We are getting tired of air purifiers that don't work, of repeated studies which find the same basic thing of people getting sick from pollution, of money being thrown at so many things that haven't worked. like their purifiers. Time for a new approach, maybe local action like I keep saying. I have previously mentioned several possible solutions, the main one being our handheld pollution monitors to find out which buildings and exactly where the pollution is coming from. Look them up. And by the way, a lot of these sources are probably accidental little cracks that no one noticed. But I cannot support the continuation of what is essentially an indiscreet based on promoting the emergency rather than fixing it. Summary of occasion.

Thank you. Your time is up. We'll go to our next speaker.

Due to the fact that we cover up the fact that we allow noncitizens to vote in our elections, just as long as you lie on the registration form, you're perfectly fine to steal anyone's ballot. The county is trying to go ahead and kill Andrea Ebbing by not providing her medical care for her analyst that she had right before they locked her up. real care, her blood pressure is beyond belief, it's most likely the end result will be that she will end up dead in medical care because they do not want her to go to trial. That's flat out. There is no bail. No one could really go to her. No one could go ahead and assist her. This is how fucking corrupt our county became. Oh, I understand you're planning on doing the same fucking thing to me because I called you a fucking cunt. Because you guys are cunts. There is no fucking question about that. I could go ahead and... Can you pause the speaker's time?

Just a reminder that your remarks need to be pertinent and germane to an item listed on the consent agenda. Your remarks at the moment are not. If you continue in that vein, your time will be forfeited. If you'd like to speak to an item on the consent agenda, please make the item you're speaking to and how your remarks are relevant clear. Thank you.

It is clear based off of our election that we are not choosing our selected. I mean, we are not choosing our elected. So the selected are making the choices. If you do not agree with the choices, talk to the people hiring them, which is the NGO committee registration vote of thought. If you want changes, you need to go ahead and address those changes with the NGOs that are controlling each and every single one of the supervisors. Because talking to them is futile. It is pointless, and it will only get you put in jail.

Your time is up. We will go to our next speaker.

Hector here. I want to comment about the Tijuana situation. I think one thing we need to do is the past supervisor person was linked up to the drug dealers in some way, so she quit. I wonder if the new one has any connections to the drug dealers. You know, she knows the mayor of Tijuana. he's linked up to the drug dealer. So I wonder if she would disclose, because I think she's an anchor baby to begin with. Her parents brought her here to have her. But I think we should check that out, if it has anything to do with the Tijuana River scene. And then let's talk to Homeland Security and have them put three border walls right there, 20 feet apart. The first one will strain the junk coming in from Tijuana, And then that's like five inches. The next one can be three inches, like a strainer. And then 10 feet or 20 feet away from that one, have it like one inch away. That way we can get all the trash first. And Trump's got billions of dollars. He's got the wall out there. They can do that. That'd be the first thing we got to do anyway. And then we can start building some swimming pools, huge ones to collect the sewage. And I wouldn't be opposed to just Pumping it back into Mexico, man, some of it. Just shoot it in the residential neighborhood there. Let them mess with it. And then we got to just keep working, you know. One thing I think about it, too, if we would install Cesar as the public health official, he would get the job done. Our past one is going to get prosecuted for the Fauci deals. We need to have Wooten's all our emails and texts to Fauci because they all got paid for it. They made millions on it. So the shit's coming down. It's hitting the fan. And make Wooten doesn't delete her email.

Thank you. Your time is up. We will go to our next speaker.

It's truth item two. So I want to say, though, first, for the record, Tara, you were 18 minutes late today. And yes, you failed to clarify the order of the meeting for the public. Now we'll talk about what Cesar brought up. He said something to the effect of you did something different, a hidden agenda. And I believe that was directed towards Monica. But it applies to several politicians. And in this item specifically, it applies to sewage queen Manuela Floma Aguirre and her constant lies. Let me play a clip, actually.

Even though more data is helpful from a health perspective to characterize what's going on, we do not need more data to act.

We have more than enough from these two federal health services alone and what we've been hearing from the community to act.

Yeah, I agree with what you're saying. We do have sufficient data. I know I do.

I know I do.

Who laughs after they say they live somewhere? Isn't that weird, really weird and suspicious? But I play that because we've heard her say, oh, there's plenty of studies. We can just act now. And then you hear the guy that works for the county. He admitted it, too. We can act now. And yet the county has done absolutely nothing other than this state of emergency declaration that does absolutely nothing. But you flip-flop. That's all she's ever done. Because just like Lemon Grove Mayor Allison Snow, you are faked. You are a fake person. All you're interested in is manipulating people and exploiting their suffering for your own personal political gain. Manuela has spent more energy on a taxpayer-funded logo for herself than for stopping Mexico's sewage. Because at Sandex, she has had opportunity after opportunity after opportunity to not support the Otay Mesa East border crossing, which is going to bring more development and more sewage to Imperial Beach. And she has refused, just like she voted no to their plan of stopping it, just like her fake purifier solution to APCD. She's the opposite of Coronado Mayor John Duncan, who wants real solutions. He said one fact must remain clear.

Thank you. Your time is up, and we will go to our next speaker.

Well, it's just so corrupt. It's just so evident that this is all by design, and I don't understand what people aren't getting. It's like they're getting kickbacks. left and right. They have been for decades. And the people on the dais know the game. I mean, they know it so well. They're so arrogant. They don't listen to any of us and any of the people. They could care less about the people suffering. I mean, you got Anderson there scrolling away all the time. I mean, isn't your hand burning by now, dude? Seriously, put that freaking phone down and listen. It's just so sick how you guys behave up there. And how it's insane how people just believe like, yeah, there's, you know, we're still waiting. We're still waiting on a solution. There's, there's so much money. There's so much technology. This could have been taken care of decades ago, but it's, it's, there's money involved. So until people realize that, um, I don't know how this is, uh, gone on for so long and and it's just kind of like gosh the people that just have allowed it like you guys you don't have it's not rocket science man it's just so simple and it really is money technology but people are getting kickbacks and there's a reason all by design there's a reason why this is going on for so long and um it's our waters it's the animals being affected it's the humans being affected it's everything and if you knew about ocean water and this is kind of like a bit of a whatever I'm not even going to get into that but ocean water is so healing so I'll just leave it at that so there's a reason for everything and yeah it's pretty disgusting

Thank you. Your time is up. And Chair Lawson-Rumor, that concludes public comment on items on the consent calendar.

Okay, great. Thank you so much. We have a motion by Supervisor Montgomery-Sapp, excuse me, the Vice Chair, and a second by the Chair Pro Tem for approval of all the items on consent. Please go ahead and vote.

And Chair Lawson-Rumor, that motion passes unanimously with all supervisors being present and voting aye.

Thank you. Okay, well, we have a time certain for, okay, first of all, to clarify for everyone who's asking my order of agenda, we are now moving on to discussion items, and these are items three through six for Wednesday. We're going to begin with Wednesday item five, because that one's time certain, and we are joined here by Chief Meacham. Then we will move back to do items three and four. Then we will be moving on to the Tuesday items, because there's actually quite a lot of public interest in those items. So that's items 29 and items 30. And items 31 from Tuesday. And then, I'm sorry, and items 32. And then we will go back to item 6, which is from Wednesday because it is a more technical procedural matter. And we've had fewer public comments. We're trying to be considerate of the public's interest in participation. So that will be Wednesday. Item six will be last. And then we have adjournment. Okay? So for everyone who was curious, now your curiosity is satisfied. We will begin with item five. Thank you.

Good morning, Chair Lawson-Rehman, members of the board. Today's presentation will provide an update of the San Diego County's wildfire preparedness efforts and the continued investments being made to mitigate wildfire risk and protect our communities. San Diego County remains one of the state's most active wildfire regions and county fire in partnership with CAL FIRE. along with the Sheriff's Office and Office of Emergency Services, continues to advance a comprehensive strategy focused on prevention, mitigation, preparedness, emergency response, and public education. Today's presentation will highlight current wildfire conditions and regional fire resources, aviation and technological enhancements, community risk reduction work, emergency management coordination, and evacuation readiness. I'm joined today by Chief Tony Meacham, our Chief for County Fire and Cal Fire, Dale Aberfnot, our Director of the Office of Emergency Services, and Sergeant Michael Hanks and Lieutenant Gavin Lanning with the City of Oak County Sheriff's Office. I'll now turn the presentation over to our Chief.

Thank you Andrew and good morning Chair Lawson-Raymour and members of the board. We start today with a map showing the significant wildfire activity leading up to the creation of San Diego County Fire. The devastating and deadly firestorms in 2003 and 2007 were defining events for our region. These fires remain some of the largest and most destructive fires in state history with over 750,000 acres burned resulting in thousands of homes destroyed and loss of life. Vulnerabilities in regional wildfire preparedness and emergency response were exposed, showing that wildfires do not recognize jurisdictional boundaries and it underscored the need for greater regional coordination, planning, and investment. In response, the board established San Diego County Fire in 2008 to consolidate rural fire protection districts, volunteer fire companies, and unserved islands into a unified regional fire service. This map illustrates wildfire activity following the creation of County Fire in 2008. When you compare the visual to the previous slide, it demonstrates a couple of things. First, the partnership between County and Cal Fire has made a significant impact with reducing catastrophic fires, but it also shows a tremendous risk to the region. While fires have occurred, including a very busy 2014 fire season, many of these fires burned within areas that were previously not impacted during the 2003 and 2007 fire sieges. Today, those historic burn scars have experienced vegetation regrowth combined with recurring drought conditions and seasonal drying. Continuous fuel beds have returned across much of the county. This slide shows the fire hazard severity map for state and local responsibility areas. Inland fuel conditions are steadily deteriorating and have already reached seasonal critical levels. The greatest concern remains me in the alignment of critically dry fuels with the onset of Santa Ana wind events when the potential for large, fast-moving wildfires will be at its highest. County Fire continuously monitors fuel conditions through live fuel moisture sampling, weather observations, predictive modeling, and intelligence from state and federal partners. Fire conditions directly influence staffing decisions, resource pre-positioning, aviation readiness, and vegetation management priorities. Fuel conditions help us define the level of wildfire risk, but regional preparedness ultimately depends on having the people and resources in place to respond quickly and effectively. The county funds nearly 300 firefighters assigned across 21 county fire stations supported by a fleet of more than 225 apparatus and vehicles. The region is further supported by 18 CAL FIRE state-funded stations, five fire camps, three aviation facilities, and more than 800 CAL FIRE firefighters assigned during the peak fire season. The department also operates an extensive paramedic ambulance system providing critical emergency medical services to our rural communities. These investments provide round-the-clock all hazard emergency response capabilities across our region. In addition to the firefighters on the ground, we also attack fires from the air. Aviation plays a critical role in San Diego County's overall wildfire response strategy and one of the most significant investments made to strengthen regional resilience. The county purchased an S-70 Firehawk helicopter which became operational in May and provides nighttime fire response and 1,000 gallon water drops to support wildfire suppression. Its deployment is aligned with the arrival of CAL FIRE C-130 Hercules air tanker at the Ramona Air Attack Base further strengthening the region's aerial firefighting capability. At the same time, substantial upgrades to the base itself have expanded operational capacity and positioned Ramona as an increasingly important aviation hub for Southern California. The importance was demonstrated over the past couple of months during both Sorrento fires in the city of San Diego and the recent Creelman fire in Ramona, where a coordinated response of aviation assets helped knock down these fires. In addition to air assets, other investments have bolstered the effectiveness of incident response. Advancements in technology have become essential, and County Fire leverages multiple technology platforms to improve situational awareness, accelerate decision-making, and enhance coordination before, during, and after incidents. County Fire utilizes Tablet Command, a cloud-based incident management platform that provides real-time unit tracking, resource status updates, and electronic tactical information sharing, improving interoperability and reducing communication delays. Digital tactical mapping allows incident commanders to visualize fire perimeters, infrastructure, topography, evacuation zones, fuel conditions, and critical assets with a common operating picture. The new Aware California platform will provide near real-time access to UCSD wildfire cameras, satellite detections, weather information, and other operational intelligence when it is released next month. For emergency managers and first responders, this information supports early fire detection, improved situational awareness, and more informed deployment decisions. For residents, the public-facing application provides access to live camera imagery, incident information, allowing them to monitor conditions across the region and better understand wildfire activity affecting their communities. While we continue to look towards technology response effectiveness, pre-fire efforts must remain a top priority. Community risk reduction is the county's most effective long-term wildfire mitigation strategy. County Fire began utilizing Vibrant Planet, a platform to identify potential fuel reduction project areas, validate existing projects, and support community wildfire protection plan development and unit fire plan efforts across San Diego County. During the 2025 calendar year, crews completed nearly 800 miles of vegetation management on county and state roads, constructed approximately 224 acres of fuel breaks, completed approximately 45 lane miles of retardant treatment. County Fire also completed more than 37,000 defensible space inspections, updated 10 community wildfire protection plans, and supported the creation of 17 new fire safe councils. Community preparedness efforts include 67 CERT trainings and events, maintenance of approximately 100 active CERT volunteers, 11 community chipping events, 11 school fire safety events, 13 wildland urban interface classes, and outreach affecting and reaching thousands of our residents. To share more on emergency preparedness, I'll now turn the presentation over to Daryl Arbinot, Director of County OES.

Thank you, Chief Meacham. While the county leads wildfire suppression operations, OES serves as the county's emergency management agency, bringing together county departments, our 18 incorporated cities, tribal governments, special districts, nonprofit organizations, utility, and state and federal partners to ensure entire region is prepared to respond to recover and recover as a coordinated system. Before wildfire season, we work with our partners to update emergency evacuation plans, conduct regional training exercises, expand community preparedness efforts, maintain alert San Diego, and ensure the Emergency Operations Center is ready for activation whenever needed. During a major wildfire, when the incident exceeds the capabilities of a single jurisdiction, OES activates the County's Emergency Operations Center to coordinate resources, request emergency alerts, public information, situation reporting, sheltering for both residents and animals, and state and federal assistance response to support the needs that protect lives and property. Over the past year, we've conducted strenuous strengthening our regional readiness through investments in community preparedness, emergency planning, operational readiness, and regional coordination. To better support this mission, OES recently reorganized around the emergency management lifecycle by creating dictated divisions, to dedicate divisions for community engagement, preparedness, planning and training, and response and coordination. Through our community engagement preparedness division, we conducted more than 70 community outreach events, including a regional fire weather workshop that brought together emergency managers, fire, utility, and other regional partners to coordinate ahead of wildfire season. We improved the accessibility to the Alert San Diego website and mobile app and continued helping residents better prepare for emergencies through public education and preparedness initiatives. Through our planning and training division, we've updated the multi-jurisdictional hazardous mitigation plan to include additional wildfire mitigation actions and revised the county's emergency operation plan, including the wildfire response annex. We've coordinated regional training exercises, strengthened our regional readiness for future disasters, and improved preparedness across county departments and our operation area partners. Through our response and coordination division, we prepared the county's Emergency Operations Center for wildfire season, coordinated response planning across operational area, and with the state enhanced Alert San Diego and the Genesis Protect to better improve public warning, evacuation, and strengthening recovery planning so the communities can recover more quickly from disasters. The strength of San Diego County's emergency management system comes from the partnerships we've built and continue to build across the county's departments, city, tribal governments, special districts, nonprofit organizations, and our state and federal partners. Together those partnerships help ensure we're ready to protect our communities before, during, and after disasters. Now I'll turn the presentation over to Sergeant Michael Hanks. Thank you, Director.

As the Chief Law Enforcement Officer for San Diego County, the Sheriff serves as the Law Enforcement Mutual Aid Coordinator for the County. The Sheriff's Emergency Planning Detail manages the training, planning, and logistics for the response to natural and man-made disasters, which includes wildfires. The Sheriff's Office participates on the county's evacuation committee, a partnership with county OES, city emergency managers, CAL FIRE, local fire departments, Red Cross, utility companies, local law enforcement agencies, and others. The evacuation committee has been critical for interagency coordination and implementing improvements to notifications and evacuations. In June 2026, SDSO also joined a working group for Aware California, a statewide public alerting platform designed to provide... emergency notifications from trusted public safety partners. The Sheriff's Office continues to be a partner in the county's Ag Pass program, which allows commercial farmers special access to their properties to conduct agriculture activities. This year, Sheriff Kelly Martinez approved a new program, the Emergency Tribal Access Pass, or ETAP, which allows qualifying tribal government members and their employees to enter evacuation zones through soft closures to assist with zone stabilization efforts. During a wildfire, law enforcement's role in Unified Command focuses on evacuating impacted communities, protecting rights of way, and safeguarding property. Unified command evaluates the fire behavior and incident conditions to determine whether evacuations are necessary. Evacuation orders are issued if there is a threat to life. The decision to evacuate is not made lightly. It will depend entirely upon the nature, scope, and severity of the emergency, the number of people affected, and what actions are necessary to protect the public. While law enforcement is responsible for issuing and conducting evacuations, we rely heavily on the expertise of our fire department on when and where evacuations are needed based on fire behavior. Due to the dynamic nature of disasters, evacuation routes, temporary evacuation points, and shelters are pre-planned but intentionally not pre-published. When evacuation orders are required, the Sheriff's Office uses multiple methods for notifying the public, including WEAS, Genesis Protect, Alert San Diego, high-low audible warnings, and door-to-door notifications. Using multiple systems increases the likelihood that critical information reaches those in harm's way. Thank you. I'll now turn the presentation over to Lieutenant Gavin Landon.

Thank you, Sergeant Hanks. Good morning and thank you for the opportunity to speak today about wildfire preparedness and the critical role Astria plays in protecting the people of San Diego County. Astria is the aerial support unit for the Sheriff's Office and has been serving our communities since 1971. Today our program is divided into three missions, patrol operations, firefighting, and search and rescue. All combined, we responded to over 5,500 missions in 2025. Wildfire response continues to be one of our highest priorities. In 2025, Astrea responded to 285 fire dispatches and delivered 985 water drops in support of suppression efforts across the county. Protecting San Diego County from the threat of wildfires requires a true team effort. It is a mission far bigger than any one agency. One of Astria's greatest strengths is our partnership with San Diego County Fire and Cal Fire. We are proud to be co-located with personnel from all three agencies, allowing our teams to train together, respond together, and work seamlessly during emergencies. We are also excited to work alongside the County Fire's new Firehawk helicopter this season, further strengthening our regional response capabilities. That same spirit of partnership extends to search and rescue operations. While the Sheriff's Office has the primary legal responsibility for these missions, our success depends on close coordination with our fire partners. Fire personnel operate the helicopter hoist, while onboard rescue specialists provide immediate patient care. Since 2021, a paramedic has been assigned to the team, allowing advanced life support to begin at the scene. This integrated approach to fire and rescue is unique in California and is a powerful example of the collaboration among CAL FIRE, the San Diego County Fire Authority, and the San Diego County Sheriff's Office. Our current firefighting helicopter fleet consists of one modern Bell 412 EPX and two aging Bell 205s, both built in the 1960s. To modernize Astria's fleet and ensure it remains capable of meeting the region's current and growing demands, the Sheriff's Office is actively pursuing the remaining funding needed to acquire a second Bell 412 EPX. In preparation for this acquisition, the Sheriff's Office secured a $3.75 million grant from the U.S. Forest Service. We have already auctioned two helicopters and would plan to auction the remaining 205s and associated equipment to further offset the cost. A second 412 EPX would ensure year-round coverage with a newer, safer, and more capable aircraft, while significantly strengthening our ability to fight fires, rescue people, and support the region. Just as importantly, its twin-engine capability would allow Astraea to extend our shift coverage into hours of darkness, assisting CAL FIRE's nighttime wildfire suppression efforts, and provide a critical advantage in containing fires before they become large, catastrophic incidents such as what we saw in Los Angeles and more recently in Washington State and Northern California. As we prepare for another wildfire season, Astra remains committed to protecting lives, property, and our communities through rapid initial response, strong partnerships, and dedicated public service. We appreciate the board's continued support as we work to strengthen these capabilities for the future. Thank you. I will now turn the presentation back over to Chief Meacham.

Thank you, Lieutenant Lanning. The county has invested more than a billion dollars in fire protection and preparedness over the past two decades with a focus on staffing, facilities, fleet, community preparedness, and community risk reduction. The investment serves as a blueprint when looking to the future. As we noted earlier in the presentation, we have changed the landscape of the region's fire protection, but the threat is still very much real. Future investments should continue to be made in modern fire stations, replenishing fleet, staffing, regional training, and vegetation management. Air resources have been bolstered, but we still need a second twin-engine Bell 412 EPX helicopter for the sheriffs so they can sustain year-round coverage with night flying. Chair Lawson-Reamer, this concludes our presentation on regional wildfire preparedness, and we are available for your questions.

Okay, before questions, we will go to public comment, and then we'll have a board conversation and questions.

Thank you Chair Lofts and Riemer. We do have eight total requests to speak, three individuals in person and five requesting to speak by phone. I'd also like to note for the record we did have one e-comment on this item which was in favor. For any individual that requested to speak on this item by phone, if you could please dial into the conference line now using the instructions that were provided to you. Go ahead and begin with the in-person speakers. As your name is called, if you could please come forward and stand on the arrows until it is your turn to speak at the podium. You will then have two minutes to address the board. And if you could please begin by stating your name for the audio record. I'd like to invite forward Kathleen Lippitt, Cesar Javier, and allegedly Audra.

Thank you for your service. In other presentations, There was a focus on equipment that are subject to corrosion when we use salt water for firefighting. This is an opportunity for our inventors or scientists. What progress have we gotten to use salt water for putting a fire? We experienced this at Montezuma Fire, District 9, under Councilor Rivera, Mom Steve. And suddenly he won the election. The opponent says, what happened to the Montezuma Fire? We were at the lesson learned meeting and one of the fire personnel declared that we cannot enter private property, even if it's, you know, under fire. And then we confirmed the opposite from this disaster meeting, saying the cheap city fire says, no, we can only enter anywhere and put off the fire. And suddenly, Councillor Rivera won the re-election. A big question about fire related, ma'am chair, if I may be corrected. That is one. And then aviation. Aviation is really a pillar. And of course, Mr. Serrano, the chair of County Water Authority should be here to tell you, to declare to the public that we have enough water. Corruption on the water authority. That's our problem.

Thank you. And then Kathleen has let us know she doesn't want to speak on this item, so allegedly, Audra.

Items like this show how compromised you guys are because this gaslights the people when we're talking about preparedness, but we're bringing in projects that are putting people in danger because of lack of evacuation routes. So you guys can talk about rapid response, but if there's not critical planning that will ensure that people can evacuate in new residential areas that are increasing the amount of people, but there's one way in and one way out. And it's because these projects were brought in with old data. So that's negligent because it's like you want to sit here and say you're prepared, but you're not protecting the communities and you're actually making it harder on the emergency services to be able to mitigate that stuff because if they're increasing the potential risk for communities to go up in flames, it doesn't matter how much equipment you have. they continue to put projects like that forward and there's things like nanothermite being sprayed. So I mean that doesn't help when there's fires that get out of control because particulates are being sprayed from the air that cause fires to get out of control and we don't want to recognize those things. So you talk about preparedness but it's like where is that? We're even putting in roundabouts where we already know that those impedes people's ability to evacuate and So I mean, I feel like you guys should be more concerned about that too and being going, why are we implementing this kind of stuff? It's my duty to protect the people. But if you're not telling them that, because there will be fire chiefs that say, yeah, go ahead and put it through. And he tells the community, if you would have come to me now, it wouldn't have passed. So why aren't we doing stuff like that to be prepared? That's willful negligence. So don't gaslight the people like this and say that we're preparing when we even have BESs, battery energy storage, that, you know, you can't put those fires out. But let's keep putting them in and be prepared, right?

Thank you. We will now hear from those that have requested to speak by phone. When it is your turn to speak, you'll be unmuted. You will hear a recording that will tell you to begin your comments, and we will go ahead and begin with our first caller.

All about prepare for another wildfire season. Buddy, the season started a while ago. Wildfires are now a year and a half away. extra helicopters and aircraft, and air stations, and safety changes like enhanced setbacks and burst clearance. These problems resulted in wildfires being put out quicker and not also depending so much on whether the fire is on the flat or steep ground or in a canyon. but of course there's a lot of work to be done there's still a few fires bigger than they should be so presentation on the regional wildfire preparedness is a good thing i don't know why you didn't take public comments first to see if there are any special concerns that people should address i am interested in why the sheriff is so involved in firefighting and the auditor had a bunch of good questions Not sure if it's better anymore.

I think we lost you, Paul. You there? All right, we'll go to our next speaker.

I can't believe you're willing to kill Andrea Ebbing because you don't want to hear what she has to say. Now, regarding the whole fire thing, why are we going with lithium and cobalt batteries when we could go with graphene batteries? If you're wondering about it, to create that feedstock. You could turn it into gasoline and a byproduct of low-grade carbon, which you could make graphene out of and make graphene batteries where you could put them out with water. But your interest isn't actually the environment or even helping the people, because by doing that, Those actions right there, adopting Julian Brown's technology, recycling the plastic into diesel, fuel, gasoline, and then the byproduct is low-grade carbon, which could be turned into graphene. It's strengthening our roads infrastructure. You could end up generating $258 million a year without asking taxpayers money. But instead of doing that, you're going to go ahead and push that into commercial. You're going to give all that money to the commercial market, and then they're going to go ahead and determine when and if we ever get graphene batteries, because it is more profitable to go ahead and mine and use slave labor, because fuck that. We are the slave traders now. We want that cobalt, so we do not care how the people go ahead and get that. We just want our shit, sheep. And so we pretend we don't like fucking slavery. But we outsource to all the slave traders. Because that's what Monica wants. That's what Monica desires. Monica desires Julian Brown's name to be removed from the history books. She does not believe any young African-American kids at 17 coming up with a technology that could save us.

Your time is up. We're going to go back to you, Paul. You have 34 seconds left. You there, Paul? Your phone might be muted, Paul.

Okay. Two minutes?

You're having some connection issues.

Okay, but do I get two minutes?

No.

Anyway, what? Okay, well, there's a lot of work to be done. There are a few figures.

We can't hear you at all, Paul. You'll have to get to better cell phone reception. All right, we'll go to our next speaker.

It's true. Fires don't recognize boundaries and so require a regional strategy with a unified service response. That's what I heard. So I'm almost scared to ask, why hasn't the county done that for what John Duncan said was 100% Mexican sewage? See, again, the hypocrisy reveals itself, and it's why people are now seeking yet another recall. But let's get back to fires. Where are the evacuation routes? Why isn't the county investing in them, including in making their whereabouts publicly known? Because just like Mexico's sewage, why has the county failed to advocate at Sand Lake for investment in evacuation routes and fire response needs? The 67 have been bringing up for years, and there's been no real moves towards making it even basically safe for the public to drive, let alone evacuate from. Too much of this presentation was about what firefighters need, but not what the public needs. I like the Cal Fire fire map, and it should be more promoted. The live camera should be linked on the page. The county needs to advocate for enforcement on arsonists, treatment for drug addiction and use, and brush mitigation since the county allows drug addicts and arsonists to burn down communities. Has the county invested in fire sensors because those, along with fire cameras, help catch the arsonists? The county needs to advocate on changing state law, a.k.a. a sequel exemption to be able to use homeowners swimming pools during fire responses, even if it requires MOUs. Why hasn't the county invested in more night-flying helicopters? Why did it take years to even get one? Why did the county wait to act when they knew the helicopter wasn't working for at least six months? Why did Meacham get mad when I told the Sendai Public Safety about that? Why did the county not get a night-flying helicopter until I brought it up countywide? That's an admission that regional watchdogging accountability is important. And yes, if the county continues to support fire-prone battery energy storage sites, wind turbines, and EVs, along with emergency vehicle blocking roundabouts and evacuation blocking high-density projects, then everything said here is fake. Fake, fake, fake. Thank you.

Thank you. Your time is up. We'll go to our next speaker.

Amen. Consuelo, yep, they're not in the business of solutions. So let's just make the obvious. Okay, so first off, wildfires occur in nature and have its role from things like clearing the ground and returning nutrients to the plants, releasing seeds. and supporting other wildlife. So it does occur in nature, but it's become very obvious that the wildfire these days are deliberately being started, or anything but wild, their plan. You know, I remember speaking to a woman who told me that she had owned a ranch out in New Mexico, and she had lost everything. I've told this story before here. Anyway, she lost everything, and a planned fire. And she remembered asking her husband why the county would have a planned fire when the winds were up. It was like, it was so odd, she said. And like my radar instantly went up and I was like, okay. And I looked at her like, don't you get it lady? But this woman was so out of touch, like just totally out of touch and clueless and trusted her government. And it didn't even dawn on her that it was purposely set when the winds were up. So instead of canceling it, you know. Anyway, so we see how these deliberately set fires are more and more, are happening more and more. And it's due to having to keep the narrative of climate change going. And it is changing due to being engineered differently. and delivered via chemtrails, as Audra mentioned earlier, to the government-funded arson, and all to keep the people in fear and under control.

Thank you. Your time is up. Okay, we're going to go back to Paul. Paul, you have 34 seconds left.

Paul, I hope you can hear me now.

We can hear you.

Hello? Can you hear me?

Great.

um uh let's see so um presentation on wildfire preparedness is a good thing um i don't know why you didn't take public comments first to see if there are any special concerns the fire people should address i am interested in why the sheriff is so involved in firefighting auditor had a bunch of good not sure if we matter anymore. The board.

All right, Paul, that was the rest of your time. And Chair Lawson-Riemer, not seeing any other callers in the queue, that will conclude public comment on this item.

Okay, thank you very much. I had a couple of questions, but I also want to open it up to my colleagues, anyone else's comments.

Go ahead. Well, and thanks very much for the report. I mean, you've got it down to a science, and we learned a lot of lessons over the last couple of decades and done a great job. One of the pictures you had up there, you know, it showed the fire coming right up to a subdivision or, you know, a group of homes there, and we saw in Paradise that, not Paradise, Palos Verdes. Is that it? Palos Verdes. Palisades, Pacific Palisades, lots of P-boards there. But anyway, Pacific Palisades, you know, the wind just blowing down the hill just goes, drives that fire right into the neighborhoods. You know, I remember sheep and goats and other types of methods of clearing fuel. Are we advancing on any of that or clearing fuel, particularly adjacent to housing and things like that? I'm just curious what the strategy is, where we're at with that.

Yeah, through the Chair, Supervisor Desmond, we continue to make significant investments in community risk reduction. And while we certainly are always going to look for more response assets, I've said many times, we're not going to respond our way out of this wildfire crisis. And the long-term strategy for us is in building more resilient communities. And that starts with a few fundamental things, is defensible space around existing properties where the homeowner has the responsibility continuing to invest in home hardening, certainly larger fuel reduction projects. For example, we did a project in the community of Crest about a 14-mile...

I guess that's more to my point, the fuel reduction.

The fuel reduction is critically to manage these fuel beds. You know, fire's part of the natural ecosystem, so I think continuing to manage those standing fuel beds through a variety of reasons or, you know, a variety of methods is important, and certainly goats and sheep are part of that inventory, but that is the long-term strategy to reduce our losses is to continue to invest in managing the fuel loading.

Okay, thank you very much. Appreciate it, and thanks for all the great work, and we've seen huge improvements since the 2003 and 2007 fires, I think, and congratulations, and One of the things I was harping on yesterday is agencies all working together, and it seems to work very well. Thank you.

Thank you. Chair Pertumagheri? Thank you. I also want to thank you for all your work and being so prepared and working well as far as interagency coordination. I always appreciate that. I also want to align myself with what Supervisor Desmond said about field reduction. I think we need to enhance as many opportunities as we have to use what used to be non-traditional but are becoming more commonplace, like goats, right? They're low cost and low maintenance. So I would encourage that. My question has to do with defensible spaces. We talked a lot about that when we approved a couple of projects this year, actually. You do those annually and if so, that's 37,000, right? I know that's a lot but as we increase our risk and vulnerability to wildfires, I think that I guess my question to you is do we need to increase those from annually to biannually? Are there plans around that? What are your thoughts?

Through the Chair, Supervisor Aguirre, so in our responsibility area we have about a hundred, roughly a hundred and six thousand structures. And so we started this with a three-year cycle. Our goal going into this year, we just received through the state budget two additional full-time positions to do defensible space. So our new goal is to go to every other year on the defensible space. And ultimately I would like to acquire enough staffing to be able to do the inspections I think the more that we're out in the community, the more we're interacting with the homeowners, the better result we get. And I think something that's important to add, of those 37,000, we issued less than a dozen citations. And I'm very proud of our staff that we have over a 99% compliance rate because one of the reasons we haven't hit our goal of 50 is that we're taking the time with the individual homeowners to educate them about the risk, which then changes kind of the culture and the outlook of the community. where they understand the investment. And then when we go back on the re-inspection in a year or two, we find that those inspections have been done. So it's almost like a snowball. It started with about 11,000. We're up to 37. Our goal this year is 50. But ultimately, I would like to inspect all 106,000 structures.

every year that's very helpful so we do them tri-annually and we're moving towards annually and that depends that's great and i really appreciate the educational portion you you talked a lot about that in our last project that we talked about so thank you i appreciate your work very much

Hi, thank you all. Let me just ask a couple questions. The first is about 911 response time. And so I wanted to better understand what's our county's fire response time for getting first to the scene.

Well, thank you, Chair Lawson-Reimer. As you know, we serve a very wide geographic area from very dense urban areas to extremely remote areas. And so we've divided the county into three response categories based on population density. And we measure a little bit differently. We measure from the moment we pick up the first 911 call until we arrive at the scene. So it's the totality of the response. So in an urban area, we strive to be there 90% of the time within nine minutes. Rural areas at 14 minutes and the most outlying areas in the county at 24 minutes.

Okay, that's very helpful. And what percentage of our calls are currently meeting those standards?

So for 2025, for urban areas, we were at 82% compliance. Rural areas were at 83% and outlying at 88%.

Great. I mean, first of all, that's amazing. That's great. And also still room to do better. So I think both to celebrate how good a job the team is doing and also to acknowledge that, you know, we can always be improving and would love to get those numbers to 100%. you know, as we kind of continue thinking about what investments we need to make. Are there places in our system today where county fire isn't evaluating additional stations, fire stations, or are there other investments we could or should be looking at that would help us get up to 100% in those response rate standards?

Yeah, Chair Lassimer, I think there's a multitude of answers there. The first is yes, we have a very comprehensive standards of coverage where we look at our ability to serve every community. We have identified areas in this county that would certainly benefit from having a fire station. As we rebuild our aging facilities, some of those we believe we can relocate to improve response times. The other fundamental issues are that eight of our State fire stations are providing primary county coverage. And so when we have very active wildfire seasons, oftentimes those stations are not covered. We made advancements last year in Palma Valley and Delzura, solved that, but we believe additional companies. And then the final piece of that is we do have some stations that have very high busy workloads. And so when those companies are committed, adjoining stations have to serve their area. So really it is additional stations, relocating stations, and then ensuring we have the depth of resources in all of our facilities to handle that workload in each of our communities.

Okay. So just kind of building on that a little bit, that's really about stations. What about fire engines and apparatuses? So yeah, just to, I mean, cause we, I think, didn't we just purchase a new truck for about 1.4 million or a couple of new trucks?

So in the county fire inventory, we have over 225 vehicles. And what we've seen in the last three years, the price of a fire engine has tripled. Our current most recent was $1.38 million. We currently have almost, we've identified in the next five years, a $35 million liability in our capital assets. So about $6 to $7 million a year is what's required just to maintain the fleet that we currently have.

So $67 million to maintain the fleet, and then it's, you know, $1.4 million more or less to add an additional vehicle that would, you know, to help to kind of chip away at improving response times. That is correct. Just back up to the fire stations. Okay. the kind of the big modern fire stations as we're looking in the future, what's the projected approximate costs like for stations like the East Otay Mesa?

So, you know, our fire stations vary by size, depending on the number of personnel. So the Otay Mesa was a very large station. At the time, we built that for $16.7 million. Some of our other more rural stations are about half the footprint. But with construction costs and with how remote our stations are, we're estimating about $18 to $20 million to rebuild a facility. And we've identified 10 facilities that currently... We should be looking out for replacement with four of those being really critical that we look at replacement.

Four critical, ten that need replacement, four that are critical, and that's not even building new ones.

That is correct.

Okay. At a kind of a cost, if we look backwards, at about $17 million more or less per facility? That's correct. Okay. Thank you. This is very interesting. And first of all, just saying again how proud I am of... of you and of the team and how great everyone really is doing. And just really want to continue focusing on what do we need to do to continue making those investments and scaling the investments that we need to always be at the top of the game. I think the last question is about staffing. I know we've done a lot to make huge progress in staffing over the last six years. It's been kind of a game changer. I know we have a lot of our trucks that still have three people on them, and I'm wondering whether we have any instances where four-person staffing would improve capacity or operations.

Chair Lozano-Marino, the most important thing for us is having adequate staffing. And we measure our success in two things, the speed that we get there and then the weight we bring to the response. Only two of our 22 companies are currently staffed with four people. We have a legal requirement unless we have a known victim trapped in a building that we require a minimum of four firefighters on scene before we can make entry into that building. So when we arrive with three people we can initiate actions but we can't initiate interior structural firefighting. Our rescue companies, everything we do is dependent on two people working in teams of two. Our rescue companies are also staffed with three personnel on that critical fourth. And the final piece of this, when we talk about wildfire response, I want you to think about hiking a hill in the summer with 70 to 80 pounds of gear on your back. And what we see is by going to that fourth person on the engine company, we almost double the efficiency of that company with the operations that we do. that we undertake. So we have a current staffing plan. You know, every year we try and make incremental improvements, but certainly staffing is one of the most important things that long-term, again, we can address. I do want to add, when those personnel are not actively fighting fire, my expectation is they are out in the community doing that very important fire prevention work that we also talked about.

Okay, thank you. So that's only two of our trucks? Correct. So how many additional firefighters would we need to move all these units to four-person staffing instead of three?

So we've identified 18 positions, which would be six additional companies that we think are critical. But ultimately, all 20 of our other companies, we would like to get to four-person staffing. So minimum is 18. Ultimately, at the ideal build-out, we would add 60 additional personnel on the floor and then the associated support staff.

This was so helpful. Again, I'm really proud of the investments you've been making. I think they continue to be top priority in terms of what we do to keep our community safe. I think you all are doing just a fantastic job of doing everything you can and coming to us when you need support. I think we've made some really important investments, especially in our night-flying helicopter and A lot of big, important investments. But I think this is really helpful, at least for me, as we look forward to kind of thinking about, you know, potentially the need, you know, if we were really going to be at the top of our game of potentially 60 more staff would be kind of ideal. Looking at, you know, six to seven vehicles that need to be replaced just to maintain operations, and those are pretty expensive. Looking at those minimum of four, maximum of sort of 10 stations that we need to upgrade or replace. So that's a lot of investments. Seems like we've got to just, you know, plan ahead and make sure that we're looking for sources of revenue to be investing in 911 response and keeping our community safe. Do you have anything to add?

Supervisor, I certainly appreciate all the support. You know, one thing I do want to add that's really important to me is, you know, the Fire Department gets a lot of the attention on this, but I do want to reflect on the totality of the county response that bring my partners that are here with me. But we think about everybody in the county that is going to respond. Our Department of Animal Services, you look at the Public Health Department with the impacts to smoke to our vulnerable populations. county environmental health, dealing with just the household hazardous materials, our planning and development services as we look at, you know, if we have losses. And so I do want to highlight that our entire county team and how much your department heads that we routinely talk about wildfire response, not only ahead of time, but what are we going to do when we have a catastrophic fire? We have to have that team ready to go to quickly look at getting our communities back. I felt I would have been remiss today if I didn't reflect on the totality of all of the county departments that play a role in this.

Always a team player, Chief. Thank you. Supervisor Anderson.

I just want to thank you and all the people that put the plan together and are executing the plan on behalf of my constituents. Thank you for the great work that you do. We appreciate it each and every day.

Okay, thank you very much. I'm happy to make a motion to receive the presentation. Okay, we have a motion and a second on the floor. Please vote.

And Chair Lassenheimer, that motion passes unanimously with all supervisors being present and voting aye.

Okay, thank you all so much. We're going to give folks a chance to get organized. Our next item is Wednesday, Item 3. This is Socially Equitable Cannabis Program Amendments to the County Zoning Ordinance and Code of Regulatory Ordinance with Certification of Final Program Environmental Impact, Sequel Findings, and Associated Permanent and Licensing Fees. And we will begin. with a presentation from the county team, then we go on to public comment, and then we will have board discussion.

Good morning. Starting in 2021, we've had five touch points with the board regarding the Socially Equitable Cannabis Program. Over that time, we've analyzed a series of program options, and in January of 2026, we received your last direction on how to finalize the project to return today. During the course of the project, we held nearly 300 public meetings. We prepared a program environmental impact report that received and responded to over 350 public comments. If adopted today, the socially equitable cannabis program will go live this October for equity applicants and all applications will be open to the general public three years later. The first component of the socially equitable cannabis program is the social equity program, which is led by the Office of Equity and Racial Justice. The goal of the social equity program is to ensure that the communities that were disproportionately impacted by the war on drugs have equitable opportunities to participate in the cannabis industry. The second component of the proposed regulatory requirements are revisions to the county's regulatory code and zoning ordinance, which state where cannabis facilities can be located and how they operate. The Board previously directed the development of a local program that aligned with state requirements. The third component of the program is the Program Environmental Impact Report, or PEIR. The Board directed the development of a PEIR to create a streamlined environmental review process for future applications. And the fourth component includes developing procedures and fees to issue the licenses and permits to run a cannabis facility. Two hearings are required to adopt the SECP. Today is the first hearing and the board is requested to certify the program environmental impact report which includes the CEQA documentation, adopt the zoning ordinance amendments including adoption of a board policy, introduce the regulatory code and social equity ordinance amendments, and introduce the licensing and permitting fees.

Staff will provide a summary of the social equity ordinance. Within the new social equity ordinance section, there are some main components that the board considered and provided additional policy direction on in April, 2024. The social equity eligibility criteria tiers, minimum 51% social equity ownership requirements, a three-year time frame for social equity businesses to open prior to non-social equity businesses, licensed ceiling for cannabis storefronts, 25 total storefront licenses, and no ceiling for other licensing type, and lastly, minimum 50% storefront retail licenses reserved for social equity businesses. In January 2026, the Board provided further direction on Community Equity Contribution Program, which was also included in the Social Equity Ordinance. This program allows businesses to provide a community benefit where the cannabis business is located and receive a matching grant in return. The Community Equity Contribution Program encourages cannabis businesses to give back to their local communities by supporting neighborhood improvement projects. After completing an approved community benefit project, businesses may receive a county matching grant up to $5,000. Community benefits may include, but will not be limited to, improvement of parks, community art murals, tree planting, community gardens, historical place guard or signs, and bike racks.

Next, staff will provide an overview of the Program Environmental Impact Report, or PEIR. The Board directed the preparation of a PEIR to streamline the environmental review for future applications. The draft report and draft ordinances were released for a 60-day public review period in 2025. The final report, including responses to public comment, was released in March of 2026. The PEIR evaluated five project alternatives. The proposed project is Alternative 2, which aligns with state standards and previous Board direction. The final report identified that the proposed project could cause significant and unavoidable impacts to aesthetics, noise, air quality, specifically odor, groundwater and water supply, and transportation. It is important to note that all project alternatives would result in similar significant and unavoidable impacts. However, alternative four, which would prohibit outdoor cultivation, would not have the same odor impacts. The PEIR identified mitigation measures to minimize potential environmental impacts, which were outlined in the Mitigation Monitoring and Reporting Program, or MMRP. Environmental impacts may still occur even when all measures are applied. Next, staff will provide an overview of the amendments to the zoning ordinance. Consistent with the board's direction, staff have drafted amendments to the zoning ordinance to establish where and how cannabis facilities can operate. Facility types could include cultivation, retail dispensaries, non-front retail, otherwise known as delivery, consumption lounges, temporary events, manufacturing, distribution, testing, and micro-businesses. Facilities could locate in certain agricultural, commercial, and industrial zones and must be located at least 600 feet from schools, daycares, and youth centers. The draft zoning ordinance requires cannabis facilities to comply with performance standards related to lighting, fencing, noise, odor, and water usage, among others. Some standards apply only to certain activities to address impacts that are unique to those facility types. For example, cultivation projects are required to perform all processing of cannabis within an enclosed structure to minimize odors. Next, staff will provide an overview of the updates to the regulatory code and the proposed board policy for unlicensed cannabis enforcement. In terms of the regulatory code amendments, this update expands the licensing and operational requirements for cannabis businesses to include two new additional activities, consumption lounges and temporary cannabis events. It also adds clearer language around the terms and conditions that apply to cannabis business licenses. This helps to ensure applicants and license holders better understand their responsibilities and the standards they must meet. Finally, the updates bring county regulations into alignment with current state requirements, ensuring the local ordinance reflects the broader regulatory framework for cannabis businesses. As directed by the Board, this update ensures sufficient minimum funding is maintained for enforcement related to unlicensed cannabis facilities. Any necessary funding would be addressed through the normal annual budget process for Planning and Development Services and the Sheriff's Office, with specific allocations for code compliance and the Sheriff's Marijuana Enforcement Team. Next, we will provide an overview of the local costs applicants can expect when establishing a cannabis facility. Each facility must obtain a local land use permit, a local cannabis business license, and any required state licenses. The associated fees support staff review of the application to determine whether the facility meets required zoning, development, operational, environmental, and public health and safety requirements. This may include reviewing sensitive use buffers, odor management, lighting, security, site plans, meeting compliance with any of the mitigation measures from the PEIR, and any site improvements required for a proposed location. Local land use permits are deposit based. Applicants will need to obtain either a zoning verification permit or an administrative permit, depending on the type of facility. Zoning verification permits are ministerial and are approved if the project can meet objective zoning criteria. These permits would require an initial deposit of $5,391. Administrative permits are subject to discretionary review and require a deposit of $7,815. These permits, excuse me, local business licenses are fee based and will range from $22,000 to $25,000. The licenses are one-time approvals and only paid once. Once an applicant has secured all of the necessary permits, they would then need to renew their local cannabis business license annually. Renewal fees for the new fiscal year have decreased and will cost $18,536.

We received feedback from diverse stakeholder groups gathered through more than 295 outreach meetings since 2021. Regarding the environmental analysis, some community groups and members of the public raised concerns about odor impacts, particularly from outdoor cannabis cultivation. They emphasized the need for stronger odor control standards or a prohibition of outdoor cultivation. Industry advocates, social equity applicants, and the Farm Bureau asked to narrow the list of sensitive uses and buffers. They expressed concern that a broader definition of sensitive receptors would significantly reduce the number of viable business locations. In contrast, community groups, some community members, and public health advocates supported additional sensitive uses and expanded buffers. They also raised concern about the potential over concentration of outdoor cultivation and mixed light or greenhouse facilities. Public health advocates who oppose cannabis use altogether raise broad concerns about addiction, mental health, and youth drug prevention. They also raise concerns about impaired driving related to cannabis consumption at lounges and events. Some community planning and sponsor groups submitted letters raising concerns about aesthetics, lighting, over-concentration, buffers, temporary events, odor, and public health and safety. Some supported moving forward with a program that limits cultivation, while others opposed the program altogether. On April 10th, 2026, the Planning Commission recommended that the Board of Supervisors adopt the proposed projects with several modifications that go beyond the state minimum standards, including a prohibition on outdoor cultivation, an expanded 1,000-foot sensitive use buffer with the addition of public parks, public trails, and places of worship as sensitive uses, and allowing informational and educational events at cannabis facilities. The Planning Commission recommendation varies from the staff recommendation. If the Board chooses to implement the Planning Commission recommendation, additional hearings could be required to consider updated ordinances and CEQA documentation. Staff recommends that the Board of Supervisors adopt the proposed program which allows all cannabis facility types and requires a 600-foot buffer from schools, daycares, and youth centers. This action includes adoption of the final environmental impact report CEQA findings, the statement of overriding considerations, mitigation monitoring and reporting program, and certification of the final PEIR. Adoption of amendments to the zoning ordinance. Approval of the introduction of amendments to the regulatory code for cannabis licensing and for the social equity program. Approval of introduction of amendments to the planning and development services fee schedule and adoption of board policy B76. If the board takes action, the actions recommended today, then on September 2nd, the board would take action to adopt the amendments to the regulatory code and to the fee schedule. If adopted, the program will be open for applications in the fall of 2026. This concludes staff's presentation and we're available for any questions.

Okay, we'll now go to public comment. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Loftus-Riemer. We do have 54 total requests to speak, 41 individuals in person, 13 requesting to speak by phone, and we also have two group presentations. Also like to note for the record, we did receive 174 e-comments on this item. 137 were in favor, 28 were in opposition, and one was in neutral. for any individuals that requested to speak on this item by phone if you could please down to the conference line now that using the instructions that were provided to you we will begin with in-person speakers we do have two community planning group chairs that have requested to speak so i'd like to invite forward beth nelson and larissa anderson you will have five minutes each to speak since you are the community group community planning group chairs and you can come forward in any order

Good morning. I'm Beth Nelson, Vice Chair of the San Diego Planning Group. I didn't see our name up on your slide there, but we have submitted letters all along the process on this item. As a member of the Planning Group and a licensed pharmacist, I view this issue through both land use and public health lenses. Our planning group again submitted written concerns about expanding cannabis operations into the unincorporated area. We don't want it and we didn't ask for it. Last January, we asked this board to approve option one, no expansion into our areas. As a backup, we asked for no outdoor cultivation and certainly no consumption lounges or special events that could put impaired drivers on our dark, narrow back roads. Our letter submitted yesterday details our objections. Strong odors, especially from outdoor growing, effects on people and animals, health and safety concerns, increased crime, and limited county enforcement resources. As a pharmacist, I recognize valid medical uses for cannabis, which has been decriminalized in California. It's already available for legitimate medical purposes including cancer patients and veterans with PTSD. That is not the issue here. The issue is expanding cannabis businesses into communities that do not want them. Today's cannabis is a supercharged version of marijuana. much as Oxycontin was the supercharged opioid three decades ago. A recent local headline confirms the concerns. New UC San Diego marijuana study affirms drug's negative effect on youth. With youth rising nationwide, health practitioners are seeing more heart attacks and strokes, lung cancer, psychotic disorders, hospitalizations, and other harms. Given these risks to our kids, why would responsible leaders promote more access rather than restrict it? As one speaker at your January hearing said, giving away their motive, quote, I see revenue opportunity. Approving expanded access to this substance for profit is like handing the keys to the county to the Sackler family. Their motive was revenue, not public health. That comparison is uncomfortable, but the concern is similar. Revenue should not come before public health. Do you really want San Diego County to repeat that mistake? From a land use, public health, and broader societal perspective, why are we expanding access to more mind-altering substances? I was a young pharmacist when new opioids like Oxycontin were approved in the 1990s. They were promoted as an improvement over older morphine derivatives, then became widely used, both legally and illegally. We know the result, an epidemic of addiction, millions of overdose deaths, and countless downstream victims, including people now caught in homelessness and other crises that require millions in taxpayer dollars to address. Why expand access to another dangerous substance that may create more problems for a future board to address in 10 or 20 years? Funding expanded drug access on one hand and the cleanup of its consequences on the other makes no sense to me. I don't know if option one, no expansion, is still on the table. In January, when it wasn't brought back here, we were told it would reappear. If that option is still available, that is our preference. If it is not available, please choose the most restrictive alternative. Prohibit outdoor cultivation, consumption lounges, and special events. Thank you for listening and considering all perspectives on this difficult topic. Appreciate your time.

Good morning, honorable supervisors. My name is Larissa Anderson. I am the chair of the Bonsall Community Sponsor Group, and I am the president of the Bonsall Unified School District Board of Trustees for the sixth consecutive year. In January, we asked you to pause. In April, we showed the Planning Commission where this program becomes difficult to defend. Today, the record reveals something more fundamental. The Socially Equitable Cannabis Program is neither socially equitable nor environmentally responsible. My father died of cancer exactly three months ago. During his last year, medical marijuana helped restore his appetite and manage his pain. I am grateful it was available to him. The San Diego County planning and sponsor groups united in opposition to the SECP are not demonizing cannabis. Rather, we question where, how, and at whose expense we industrialize it. GERD Road at Highway 76 sits at the precise intersection of my two public roles and exposes the profound inequity built into this program. Basel Unified owns 50 acres of A70 land held for public education since 1960s. For more than half a century, that land has been set aside to support children's education. Our district needs a new comprehensive secondary campus. Approximately 1,200 new homes are being built within Bonzo Unified School District's 88 square miles that spans from Paula to Pendleton, while our current 17-acre grades 6 through 8 combined secondary campus is overwhelmingly portable and insufficient. A school must prove that traffic works, evacuation works, water is available, environmental impacts are addressed, infrastructure is funded. We cannot fast track a school. But while BUSD would never authorize it, the GERD Road property's A70 designation would create a clearer, faster pathway for industrial cannabis cultivation than for public agency development. The absurdity of that land use prioritization under SECP is mind-boggling. Imagine a BUSD campus on Gird Road finally built through a public-private partnership because passing a bond is difficult in our community. Students learn. Student athletes compete. Families gather for performances, agricultural programs, and graduations. Nearby, an industrial cannabis operation was entitled first because the county created a faster pathway for cannabis than for educating our youth. We spend public money teaching students to avoid substance use and addressing addiction and mental health. Then, under the banner of equity, we normalize daily proximity to industrial production of the substances we profess to keep them away from. Is that what equity looks like for rural children? Same land, same groundwater, same roads, same wildfire conditions, different standard. That is hypocrisy codified as land use policy, and the harm extends beyond schools. Our agricultural land should continue producing food and flowers. Organic farmers should not have their crops, soil, water, or organic integrity threatened and undermined by pesticide drift or contamination. Groundwater does not recognize parcel lines. Bonsall and other unincorporated communities should remain multi-generational communities rooted in agriculture and equestrian heritage and supported by schools, roads, fire protection, water systems, and public facilities that healthy communities require, not extraction zones. County staff stated publicly that approximately $5 million has been spent developing this program. $5 million may explain its bureaucratic momentum. It cannot transform a fundamentally flawed program into sound policy. Do not compound that sunk cost with decades of enforcement, litigation, and environmental remediation. Your agenda asks you to acknowledge significant environmental effects and adopt a statement of overriding considerations. After hearing the public, the Planning Commission in April recommended significant changes. Your agenda today acknowledges the additional CEQA documentation and additional hearings that would be required if you continued down this path. The clearer choice is available today. Reject the SCCP and choose the no project alternative. Bonzel Unified and the sponsor group have taken formal unanimous positions against the project and last week reconfirmed that no project alternative. We are not asking you to make this program marginally less damaging. We are asking you to reject it. A larger setback does not cure an indefensible premise. Indoor cultivation does not eliminate groundwater demands, pesticides, energy consumption enforcement, or industrialization of agricultural land. Mitigation does not turn extraction into equity. Do not certify this EIR. Do not adopt the statement of overriding considerations. If this program cannot withstand the same sequence scrutiny required of a school hospital or other public serving use, it is not legally defensible and should not advance. The three supervisors who advanced this SECP in January, each of you has prioritized safeguarding our environment in your public role. We ask you to extend that to the rural backcountry as well.

Thank you, thank you. Okay, so we have two group presentations now. We will begin with the first. You will have 10 minutes to address the board. All three members of the group must speak during that 10 minutes. So please self-regulate your time on the podium. And then let me go ahead and invite forward the first three individuals. That is Dori Rattray, Dr. Matt Matthews, and Chris Barber. And then just as a reminder, each person in the group may speak for no more than four minutes. So as you come forward, if you could please state your name at the podium before you begin your presentation.

Sorry, excuse me. So we just have a correction here. I'm Dori Rattray. I'm the Valley Center Planning Group Chair. I am actually here to...

I don't see all three members.

It's not Chris Barber, it's Kathleen Lippitt.

Oh, okay. Sorry. Sounds good. Thank you. That was a correction. No worries. I apologize. I apologize.

So just to state, so planning group chair, Belly Center community, we are here to also represent a number one option, no cannabis in our market. Over 500,000 residents call the unincorporated San Diego County home. And for years, our communities have fought to protect the rural lifestyle, our environment, our public safety. Today, we must state a fundamental truth that commercial cannabis businesses do not belong in our unincorporated areas at all. Unincorporated regions are fundamentally unsuited for this industry. They are defined by winding two lane roads, limited water supplies, and limited CHP, sheriff, and fire protection. Introducing an intensive commercial cultivation, processing, and distribution strains these fragile rural resources to a breaking point. Furthermore, our rural communities lack the public transit, sidewalks, and municipal policing necessary to manage heavy traffic, public events associated with cannabis. And placing these operations here in the unincorporated creates an unacceptable risk of impaired driving, which we've seen a lot of, on unlit, remote roads, threatening the safety of our children. especially mine, and seniors and families. Large-scale commercial operations, which we have a lot of, also bring intensive odor, noise, pollution, high energy demands, which is a given, and heavy water usage that disrupts the quiet agricultural lands and wildlife habitats. Unincorporated residents are expected to shoulder 100% of these environmental and safety burdens, while the benefits are centralized elsewhere. True equity... And regional preservation can be achieved properly by restricting commercial cannabis operations exclusively to the incorporated cities and municipalities. Cities possess the commercial infrastructure, transit networks, and full-time municipal services required to manage these businesses safely. Unincorporated San Diego County is not the industrial zone. We urge the board to listen to a half a million of us who live and exist here. We do not want cannabis in our market.

Good morning again. The SECP program will negatively impact land use, equity, environmental risk, public costs, public health enforcement. Importantly, the county has failed to demonstrate that a new commercial marijuana industry is in the interest of the public that you were elected to serve and responsible to serve. This program should not impose a controversial industry on residents who have no municipal government of their own. Residents of unincorporated cities can elect a city council who decides whether marijuana businesses belong in their communities. Residents of unincorporated areas have the board of supervisors making those land use decisions for them. Their strongest elected supervisor voice has been Supervisor Desmond, but he's been largely ignored and circumvented. The three supervisors who primarily have driven this have little to no unincorporated areas in their districts. These businesses will be concentrated in primarily low-income communities, where the people moved there just because it was more affordable. The county's own CEQA analysis and environmental analysis identifies significant impacts that cannot be completely mitigated. At the county's January 26 board meeting, the PEIR found that even with safeguards, odor, noise, groundwater would remain significant and unavoidable. That should have been a stop right there. If the county's own environmental document says impacts remain significant and unavoidable, why is the approval of the program necessary? How, then, is it appropriate to approve this program? When significant CEQA impacts have been identified, alternatives should be considered. The findings argue against approval of the project altogether. The impacts can be mitigated is not the same as the impacts will not occur. Groundwater is limited and a precious resource in the San Diego unincorporated communities. If the county's true purpose is to reduce barriers for people who were disproportionately affected by cannabis criminalization and facilitate equity, there are far better ways to do that. They do not have to expand the industry. They could provide them grants, workforce programs, business training, fee assistance. expungement assistance, loans, scholarships, assistance entering existing legal industries, economic development and programs unrelated to cannabis. Social equity should not become a justification for weakening ordinary land use protections and furthering risking the lives of those already involved in drugs. Thank you for letting me speak.

I'm Dr. Matt Matthews. I'm the chair of the Cannabis Subcommittee in the Valley Center Planning Group. And I also possess a DEA license, and I'm very familiar with the workings of the Drug Enforcement Agency, their regulations, and the reporting process involving with scheduled compounds like THC is on the fast track or in litigation right now to become a Schedule III drug under the jurisdiction of the Food and Drug Administration. And under the... the federal drug enforcement agency. Anyway, you can't really talk about cannabis without talking about the drug THC. THC is the point of cannabis and the reason that it is used. And so I'd like to kind of... review that the county of San Diego has removed cannabis under the enforcement of the sheriff's group, county sheriff, and has moved it as a code enforcement responsibility. This is absurd as cannabis attracts a drug element, I'm sorry, a drug, maybe even a criminal element and that we see in other communities where crime rises as cannabis is introduced and distributed. So as far as the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Schedule III, cannabis dosages are being decided. The form in which the drug is managed is being decided. The chain of possession from manufacturer to distribution is being decided. All of this will be under the jurisdiction of the Drug Enforcement Agency. And so the business of having dispensaries looks like it's an obsolete idea and that the board here needs to understand that the Drug Enforcement Agency in a Schedule III cannabis product, THC, will not be able to be distributed in that way. It'll be distributed by medical doctors, prescription, and distribution through a DEA pharmacy, which are licensed like all other pharmacies. So I believe that the social equity idea is well intended. I think everyone who introduces policy has good intentions. But with the legality of THC influx, we don't know what those concentrations of drug will be in, say, beverages or foods, or if the safety studies will even support that. And so... My recommendation, if you listen, is to table this here because we don't have legal clarity on the drug THC. We don't know if what is passed today will even be allowed in federal law and even those that grow cannabis and possess it in a chain of possession will even be allowed because of, say, live scan, background checks, and these sort of screening processes that don't allow drugs to be managed by certain people with certain criminal pasts. And that is concerning to me. So I believe that right now we do not have the information to make a legal, logical, legal sort of a code at this point.

I'm going to pause your time, but that's your four minutes. Your group has 45 seconds left. Either one of the other members can speak. You haven't used your four minutes.

So I think what he's trying to say is right now it's in federal hands, and so it really, for you to make a decision on this when it's not decided at the federal level, you're making a decision that it may be impossible, it may create more lawsuits for you. So I think you need to think about that. That might be a problem for this board going forward, because you're going to make a decision on allowing businesses that may not be legally allowed, and then they're making investments that may be closed. I mean, all this money that they have to spend to create something when legally it's gonna be the hands of a pharmacist. And I don't think you thought about that part. So thank you for your time.

Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to call the next group forward. That group consists of Eileen Delaney. I believe it's Janine Domerick and Stephanie Baxter. And then the same rules apply. As a reminder, each person in the group may speak for no more than four minutes. Each person in this group has to speak, and you will have 10 minutes to address the board.

Good morning, Chair and supervisors. I just want to make it clear, this is a presentation on behalf of the Fulbrick Planning Group. I'm Eileen Delaney.

These are my colleagues, Stephanie and Janine.

The Fallbrook Planning Group continues to be opposed to this program. It's being forced on all of us in the County of San Diego, the unincorporated areas. We'd like to reiterate that the opposition is not about the social equity portion, but rather about the issues, the land use issues, which would allow outdoor marijuana grows in large commercial cultivation close to residential areas. We've been speaking about fire this morning. Can you imagine? We're a high fire area. Having a fire that goes through cannabis grows could be a real interesting event. We remain extremely concerned about the harmful environmental impacts which have been well documented in other regions that have legalized cannabis cultivation. And my colleague Stephanie will give you more information about that and our position. Our neighbors in South County already contend with horrible smells, odors, and environmental impacts from pollution caused by the Tijuana River. Is this what's in store for us? Will we have to contend with odors and negative environmental issues caused by cannabis cultivation? Cannabis is not a crop that is easily compared to other agriculture. Most other crops don't produce strong, unpleasant odors that can disrupt daily life and our outdoor activities that we love in the unincorporated areas. Some of our crops have wonderful fragrances like citrus and oranges, for instance, that produce the sweet fragrance of orange blossoms. We certainly won't have that with cannabis. All this being said, it appears that the majority of supervisors who live in cities may not be familiar and understand the rural lifestyle and why we oppose the aspects of this program. We hope that you will really listen And pay attention. And pay attention. And pay attention. Thank you. Appreciate your attention. To our concerns. Our Planning Commission recommended that the number of sensitive areas be increased to others that were originally recommended, cannabis cultivation be required to be indoor only, and the setbacks be 1,000 feet, like the city of San Diego. In the interest of compromise and working for the benefit of everyone, we reluctantly would support those recommendations. This at least gives us some protections. We ask that you do the same and at least support your appointed planning commissioners recommendations, the residents of the unincorporated areas which measure over 500,000, and the representatives of the planning and sponsor groups who strongly oppose this. Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Jeanine Domark. I'm the second vice chair of the Fallbrook Planning Group, and I'm also the chair for the cannabis ad hoc for the Fallbrook Planning Group. The thing that I, again, want to make very, very clear is we are not speaking today on licensing. That is not our portion. We are speaking only on the land use. And I just want that to be really, really clear to everyone here. The impacts on our communities include lounges and events, more impaired drivers on our dark, windy roads, which are mostly private, limited law enforcement to address the more impaired drivers, and there's no testing available when someone under the influence is actually stopped. We have no rideshare services in unincorporated areas, so people going to lounges and events, they're going to get in their cars and drive. That's a huge concern. Our existing rural infrastructure isn't equipped to handle an influx of large-scale commercial operations, such as four-day events. This, again, includes law enforcement as well as fire department. Taxes do not go into the unincorporated communities. It goes to the general fund. So I hear people saying, well, it will help our communities. It doesn't really help our communities at all with taxes. We are against outdoor grows. We're asking for indoor grows only. It will help but not eliminate the odor, the impact on soil and water. Indoor grows will still impact areas because of lighting, noise of fans, and odor when facilities are what they call burped, but it will help slow that down. Outdoor grows have historically impacted large communities. The example is Santa Barbara County. There were over 4,000 odor complaints over a span of time. There was a class action suit brought and the class won. They are now redoing their entire cannabis program because outdoor grows simply do not work for the community. It impacted schools, restaurants, businesses in a very negative way. Ag zones and residential zones are right up against each other in unincorporated areas. That means that most of us live right against ag zones, and we would potentially have commercial grows right in our backyards. Literally. Lighting, security, and crime are huge also concerns. We're hoping, we don't like this at all. Number one is always what we've wanted. We're hoping that you follow the suggestion of the Planning Commission and that you really take this to heart because it's really and really important for 500,000 residents of this, what could happen with our land use. I appreciate your time.

Good morning, Supervisors. My name is Stephanie Baxter, and I wanna step back from cannabis and ask a bigger question regarding the environmental double standards that are being represented here. What exactly is the county's vision for our unincorporated communities is the question we should all be asking, because your own policies seem to be working against each other. Let's have a look. Your climate action plan calls for preserving agricultural lands, conserving water, and protecting biodiversity. The Mission Resource Conservation District, whose directors you appoint, work to conserve soil and water, support ag and protect the Santa Margarita and San Luis Rey river watersheds. Your general plan calls for preserving communities, agriculture, open space, and rural character. And you're investing public dollars to revitalize Fallbrook and other downtowns, attracting residents, businesses, and tourism, while preserving small town character. We want that vision. But simultaneously you're proposing commercial cannabis cultivation in A70 and A72 rural, residential, and agricultural lands under a program whose own environmental analysis identifies the significant and unavoidable impacts that we heard from the presentation earlier. How can these policies coexist? Why is rural character something to protect in the general plan and market through revitalization, but something negotiable when approving socially equitable cannabis? A70 and A72 are not empty spaces on a zoning map. People live there, people farm there, wildlife moves through there, water flows through there. Social equity might be a legitimate goal, but it cannot exist in a vacuum. So which county vision are we supposed to believe? Please don't adopt one county policy that undermines everything the others are spending public resources to protect. Environmental protection cannot be a county priority only when it's politically convenient. Our rural communities should not be environmental sacrifice zones for a program the county has acknowledged will harm the environment in our communities. Thank you.

Thank you. And that completes the group presentation. So now we will move to the in-person speakers. As your name is called, if you could please come forward and stand on the arrows until it is your turn to speak at the podium. You will then have one minute to address the board. If you could please start by stating your name for the audio record. And I will be calling individuals in groups of three. So please listen for your name. I'd like to invite forward the first three individuals. Looks like it's Shelby. Albert, I believe it's Pepe, and Gene Duffy.

Good morning, my name is Shelby and I'm a public health research coordinator and a board member of the San Diego chapter of Americans for Safe Access. I urge the board to adopt the EIR and code ordinance for the socially equitable cannabis program with several notes on the proposed amendments. First, buffer distances should match the state's 600-foot minimum and its own definition of sensitive uses. Extra buffers, like places of worship and trails, make it harder for licensees to operate and open the door to bad faith actors. A strong legal market is what actually protects against youth access and untested products. Second, please eliminate the outdoor cultivation ban. Outdoor cultivation has deep roots here, and regulating them beats leaving large-scale illegal grows unchecked. Third, I support allowing educational events as education helps consumers use cannabis more safely. Thank you.

Hi, board members. My name is Albert Pepe. I am a social equity C participant. I've completed all the necessary classes and received a certificate of completion. Today's cannabis is legal, and it's generating jobs, businesses, and revenue. It's only the right that we use the moment to strengthen our county economically I strongly urge the board to move forward with the recommendation to align local eligibility requirements with the state's requirements without adding unnecessary barriers. A social equity program should open doors for people, not create new obstacles to overcome. Let's get this right and give the people a genuine opportunity to participate in the future of this industry. Through the courses I have learned about real-world challenges that will help me make a responsible business decision to comply with the laws and regulations. I have continued my education learning more about operating a business, regulatory compliance, government requirements, industry standards, networking, and investor opportunities. Social equity participants completed the classes and courses and are ready to be leaders in the cannabis industry.

That's your one minute. Just a reminder again, it's one minute. I'll invite a few of the next speakers forward. Heather Gawley and Damian Martin, if you could please line up on the arrows.

Hello, supervisors and staff, and thanks again for this opportunity to speak to you today. Again, my name is Jean Duffy. I'm the mother of three, the grandmother of three, the wife of a middle school principal, and a former youth leader and teacher. I've seen the devastation to our young people caused by marijuana use to their motivation, to their mental and physical health, and to their futures. As a 34 resident of unincorporated San Diego County, I cannot stress enough the negative outcomes we will see if you move forward with plans to allow marijuana cultivation, distribution, manufacturing, commercial sales, and consumption lounges in our rural areas. An attempt to pass this off as a solution for social justice issues is manipulative and misleading. That's just putting lipstick on a pig. Marijuana commercialization perpetuates racial injustice. It doesn't reduce it. I raised my children in Julian. We moved there to enjoy nature, recreation, and spaces and apple trees. It's a hub for small mom and pop shops in a historical area, a tourist destination, not a destination for high grade, high THC, destructive pot. Thank you.

Good morning, supervisors. I'm Dr. Heather Ghaly, superintendent of the Bonsley Unified School District, and I'm here to urge you to select the no project alternative and not move forward with a socially equitable cannabis program. As superintendent, my first responsibility is to the students we serve. Our schools are part of a rural, unincorporated community, and decisions like this have real implications for the environments where our students and live, learn, and travel each day. There are simply too many unanswered questions about the potential cumulative impact of this program on our students, our schools, and our community. When school districts seek to develop land or build facilities for children, we face extensive requirements, reviews, restrictions, and safeguards. We understand why. When children are involved, the standards should be high. So why should the standard of caution be any lower here? We should not move forward and discover later that the safeguards were insufficient. Our students should not bear the consequences of that uncertainty, and I urge you to select the no project alternative. Thank you.

Thank you. As the next speaker is coming forward, I'd like to invite forward the next few speakers, Cesar Javier and Monica Hazel. If you could please line up on the arrows.

Good morning, honorable chair, board of supervisors, staff, and the public. My name is Damian Martin, co-founder and attorney for Catalyst Cannabis Co. Catalyst is the second largest cannabis retailer in the state of California. And quite proudly, I'd like to highlight that we operate a store in the city of San Diego. And most importantly, we operate six social equity cannabis businesses in the dispensaries in the city of Los Angeles. It's my proudest accomplishment in the cannabis space. My wife is one of our social equity partners. So when you think about this, you further delay this program, I want to highlight the human element here. Every one of these social equity applicants have a powerful story about the war on drugs. Further delaying this program is just going to feel like continuation of the war on drugs. It's going to be a real punch in the gut. On the buffers, the buffers proposed by the Planning Commission are really just going to kill the purpose of the program. They're so restrictive. We've been in cities that have, or municipalities that have buffers like that. You basically can't find real estate. So what's going to happen if those buffers are approved, the social equity applicants can't find real estate, prices will go up. That'll kill the purpose of the program. Please approve. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. I'm Monica Hazel. I'm the superintendent of Fallbrook Elementary School District. Eighty percent of the families we serve in our Fallbrook in-town schools are experiencing poverty. Our community has fewer resources and less political power to influence decisions that affect where our children live and grow. If we want to truly establish a safe buffer to protect our children, we need to increase the buffer well beyond a thousand feet. A thousand feet is less than one lap on a traditional field. That is not a buffer, it's right next door. To put it into perspective, our youngest children walk over a mile to school in the morning. As proposed, these cannabis operations would sit within our school boundaries. Also, this program has been advertised as socially equitable, but I'm asking for whom. Equity can not only mean economic opportunity for the cannabis industry. It must also mean protecting communities like Fallbrook that have historically carried disproportionate burdens. I ask you to oppose this program.

call for the next three speakers, Gail Cantrell, Erin Blivitarlano, and Dorothea Flanagan. If you could please line up on the arrows.

One minute. One minute.

I'm Dorothea Flanagan. I wonder if your environmental review group has a real estate broker involved with giving them feedback. Bonsall School District won't have a snowball's chance in hell at getting another bond measure passed to build a school next to that, I guarantee you. That's the real, that's the hidden secret in all of this. It just amazes me. I won't have to worry about my taxes going up, will I? No parents are going to want to put their kids in that school, let alone pass the bond measure for, say, another $59 million to be next door to somebody undesirable like that.

Thank you.

Hello, I'm Gail Cantrell. I live in Bonzel, and nothing has really been said about our property values that you will single-handedly destroy the value of our property in the rural area and the lifestyle that we love, being out horseback riding and hiking and biking and boating. It's just amazing the thought of this and the 1,000-foot setback is a moot point. If you talk to people in Needles, which is called Weedles now, they can't come out of their homes at night because once the turbines are turned on, the scent just permeates for miles. It doesn't matter how far that setback is. A thousand feet isn't going to make a difference when the air is permeated with the stench. And the water use, it's just ridiculous to talk about a crop that's going to use that. Your website said about five, anyway, there's over 130 resources for cannabis now.

Thank you. We'll call for the next few speakers, Eduardo Gonzalez and allegedly Audra, if you could please line up on the arrows.

Honorable Board of Supervisors, the character of our homes and towns are being tested today. My name is Aaron Arellano. I'm a high school senior at Bonsall High School, and I've lived in Bonsall my entire life. What makes my community so great is the people and its character. My friends and I play in the fields and the hills where the SECP wants to build farms, selling points, and event spaces. How can you tell our students, me, my friends, not to smoke, use drugs, or use cannabis if every single day when we walk or drive to school, we are passing stores and growers? How does that work? I urge the board, listen to the people who live here. Listen to the parents, teachers, and the neighbors. Listen to the kids. Protect our community. Thank you.

Hi. Good morning. My name is Eduardo Gonzalez. And actually, I was one of the ones that got incarcerated back in 2008. And I was one of the victims when I did have my medical license. And I just feel that, you know what, this is one big old change because it's been legalized all over the nation. And it seems like San Diego do need a lot of tax money from what I'm hearing from all the stuff that's going on here. And everybody wants to move to San Diego. I just feel that, you know, we could even fix the sewer problem down in Tijuana. I mean, I've been having a dream all my life to fix that issue. And literally, we could turn that into a power plant because sewer does turn electricity. So, I mean... This is one big old chance that we're just going to blow out the window because, you know, it's not legalized correctly here in San Diego. Like when I got incarcerated and I did have my medical license. And literally, it's just like a waste of time because even Donald Trump and everybody across the nation is legalizing it. So have a good day.

Thank you. Call for the next few speakers, Scott Chipman and Andrew Baines, if you could line up on the arrows.

You guys are always putting the cart before the horse. I think we need to address this potential move to a Schedule III drug as the post-hearing briefs have been filed two days ago. And so potentially in the next 30 to 90 days, there will be a decision being made. And of course, an appeal can come. I think you guys need to address that because all of this work that you're going to be doing here is for nothing. So you guys need to be following that. And if you weren't aware of that, I find that to be very negligent that you're in charge of this social equity program. And it's just interesting to be talking to drug lords who micromanage. drug dealers and people asked to be governed harder. It's interesting to see what has gone on with this industry as prior to people coming out of the closet and exposing themselves, you can make $5,000 on a pound that now you get 500 bucks for. What? A 90% pay cut. How crazy is that? And then the rest that you get, you give to the government. So what do you get a pocket? 10%? Good job.

I'm reissuing a letter from Dave Evans of Civil Cannabis Industry Victims Educating Litigators. Curious that Marin, that might be considered the birthplace of 420, Marin County allows no stores, no grow sites, no distribution, no cultivation. Check out Carpinteria, 3,700 odor complaints in the little town of Carpinteria. Big mistake. This is equity, so we're going to use equity to justify giving arrested drug dealers the permission to sell more drugs. This makes common sense nonsense.

Thank you. And sorry, I didn't want to interrupt your comments, but can you state your name for the audio record?

Scott Chipman, San Diego's First Safe Neighborhoods.

Thank you.

Good morning Madam Chair and members of the board. My name is Andrew Banez. Now is the time. Most of the applicants here have waited two and a half years. I've waited since 2021 for this opportunity. I've been here since day one advocating for the county's socially equitable cannabis program. I have years of lived experience and years of county training. I've done the work. I understand compliance. I'm prepared to follow the regulations and operate responsibly. By the standards you've established, I've earned this. I believe I'm the most prepared social equity applicant in this program, and I'm not asking to lower the standards. I'm asking you to align this program with state guidelines without adding unnecessary county restrictions. We have addressed the concerns about safety, compliance, location, and the community. Please don't move the finish line after I spent years preparing to cross it. Now is the time to give social equity applicants a real opportunity to succeed. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll call forward the next three speakers, Chris Adams, David Baxter, and Jennifer Hader. You can come forward in any order.

Hello, Board. My name is Chris Adams. Thank you for the opportunity to speak this morning. I'm part of the social equity program as well. Like you said, we spent two and a half years going to very high-level, cutting-edge classes. We've had educational information to all make us stewards of these licenses that are going to be available to us. I agree with keeping in line with state regulations. I agree with outdoor cultivation, having consumption lounges and temporary events. These events can be ran Safely, I've worked in event production pretty much all my life and operated some of the biggest festivals, events in the world, including ones outside of this building. And these events can be ran very safely. There will be officers, medics, things like that. So we've all checked and went over lots of safety guidelines, and this is one of the most regulated industries that there is. And thank you for your time, and have a good day. Thank you.

Supervisors, good morning. I'm going to stretch this thing up here. My name is Dave Baxter. I'm a farmer. I love farming. Farming's fun. It isn't easy, but as a farmer in San Diego, we know crops. We work with a lot of other farmers who grow all kinds of things, and we see what crops benefit from what the farms produce. It's not just the crops, but a lot of our crops bring people together. I know you guys go out, you take your kids, farmer's markets, different harvest fairs, harvest festivals, those kinds of things. There's weddings, there's events, there's wine tastings. We guys love all this stuff. We all do it. We see you guys out in the community. It's fantastic. You guys obviously care about our community. So we were just listening in yesterday and talking about Powerlink. Thank you. You guys are really supporting the community and helping us through some of the things that are being pushed into us. That being said, There's a lot coming into the unincorporated areas. We have a water shortage. You guys know this as farmers. It's very significant. Just encourage you guys to please vote for number one, no cannabis in our unincorporated areas. Thank you, guys.

The next speaker is coming forward. I'd like to invite forward Kelly Hayes and Michelle Kiebukrin.

Good morning. My name is Jennifer Heider, and I am... Ma'am, can you pull the mic towards you? Good morning. My name is Jennifer Heider, and I am vice chair of the Bonzo Community Support Group. I had a bunch of notes prepared, but we've had so many intelligent speakers up here, I'm just going to say, I'm mad. I'm really mad. This is ridiculous. Common sense is not weighing in here. We have real concerns. We're concerned for our children. We're concerned about that buffer, which is nowhere near adequate. We're concerned about the smells, the odors, the additional drug problems. Come on, guys. If this were a TV program, it'd be a comedy hour. I want to thank Superintendent Desmond. He has a no-nonsense approach to just about everything. I've been following him closely for about four years now. He has it right. Come on, listen to somebody who knows what they're talking about. Stop being self-serving. Follow the money. Where's the money coming from? Who's spending it? Who's getting it? What's the backdoor deals? Let's just be honest here. Let's just control this thing. Say no.

Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Kelly Hayes. I'm a licensed attorney who has worked with the cannabis industry since 2014. I support the county's ordinances before you today as drafted, except I do have a couple of requests for revisions to temporary cannabis events. I've submitted a detailed letter that I hope you've all read. I'd like to make a couple of points. First, locations. Current restrictions go too far by significantly limiting the locations where no event will be possible at all. We ask that public properties and county-approved locations be allowed. Second, security. These events can draw up to 2,000 to 3,000 attendees. As proposed, a 1 to 35 ratio would require 57 to 85 private guards. a number larger than many California police forces. We ask that this be replaced with a safety plan developed alongside staff, county sheriffs, and the fire department. Third, insurance. It is nearly impossible to obtain insurance for a temporary canvassment. Thank you.

Thank you. Call for the next few speakers. As the next speaker is coming forward, Wade Olson and Brian Gooden.

Good morning, supervisors. My name is Michelle Kevorkian, and I am strongly supportive of the San Diego County Social Equity Program. For two years, I prepared for this opportunity through the SEED program. I've studied compliance, regulations, business operations, financial literacy, budgeting, licensing. I have participated in mentorships, industry shadowing, marketing, and Dr. Tyrone Freeman Lunch and Lurds, where we have learned directly from leading industries. I'm also a recipient of a presidential pardon in which I was invited to speak at the White House. I'm ready to operate. I understand that cannabis is highly regulated and that regulations will change, and that it is my responsibility to stay regulated and on task to keep my license. It really resonated with me today that of 183 Oh, 85 E comments, that only 34 were marked opposed. You gave us the tools. We did the work. We are prepared. Now give us the opportunity. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. Thank you for supporting cannabis equity. My name is Wade Olson. I'm a medical cannabis patient, approved equity applicant, also a part of a state-funded, a study funded by the Bureau of Cannabis Control, the California Legacy of Cannabis Genetics. on the Community Advisory Board. I urge you to allow outdoor cultivation licensing because San Diego is historically a cannabis producing region. Start treating cannabis as the specialty crop it is and follow the state guidelines of 600 foot setbacks. To make an opportunity for delivery without a storefront for people who do not win the lottery to still have a path to much-needed retail. Also, with medical cannabis being rescheduled, to Schedule 3 means policy change for enforcement. Stop arresting medical cannabis patients. I propose making at least 50 licenses available to serve the over 3 million residents and 4,500 square miles of our county. Allow events and lounges. I'm ready to open a cannabis business, so let's make it sustainable. Thank you.

Call for the next two speakers, Brian Gooden and Andrew Sweeney.

Good morning. My name is Brian Gooden. I'm a native San Diegan, and I just want to simplify this. In the 1920s and 30s, there was a thing called prohibition, and that produced probably more mob bosses that... United States has ever seen. And when it was done away with and alcohol was legalized, a lot of people were able to build homes and take care of their families. With the cannabis equity program, it's a similar situation. And in case you haven't noticed, there's a liquor store on every corner in America. you know, people are benefiting from that. So why not take this lesson from the past and apply it to the present and allow this industry to benefit not only the people, but the economy.

Thank you. Good morning, members of the board. My name is Andrew Sweeney. I'm a District 2 resident from Lakeside, a cannabis entrepreneur and chemist with 25 years of industry experience, holding credentials in cannabis healthcare and medicine from the University of San Diego. I urge you to uphold your commitment to the San Diego social equity program, specifically approving dispensaries and regulated on-site consumption lounges. Over 140,000 residents in our unincorporated communities live under strict lease agreements where consumption and even odor is prohibited. Homeowners have private properties where they can consume legally and safely without penalty. Renters simply do not. That's a fundamental equity issue. The demographic data is clear. Homeowners skew higher in wealth, while renters represent working-class families and equity-qualifying residents. Denying local lounges effectively make legal consumption a luxury reserved for... Luxury reserved exclusively for property owners. Right now the only legal legal space to, I'm sorry, I'm very nervous. Only a place to go sessions where you can, it's 40 mile or a 40 minute trip, so very far.

Thank you very much. Call for the next three speakers, Diane Strain, Eddie Lane, and Robert Wood.

Hello, I'm Eddie Lane. I'm a resident of Valley Center, and thank you for having me here today. Look above you. There's a motto up there that says the noblest motive is the public good. You've been hearing from a lot of people here, how is this in the public's best interest, this kind of a program? When I turned 18, I was on the road. I got a speeding ticket for doing over 55. I didn't get a refund when it went to 65. Okay, so the plan is in place. You're helping out people that did go to jail. Make amends. This is not the way. There are other ways that they can help. Rather than encouraging and embracing drug abuse or drug use, even if prohibition did allow us to have liquor stores in every single corner, we don't need cannabis stores in every single corner. We now have an alcohol abuse problem in this country. We have traffic accidents all the time in Valley Center due to alcohol use. We don't need to embellish that further. Thank you very much.

Thank you. No more skunks.

Hi, my name is Diane Strain and I live in Bonzel and I have 34 acres of A70 property where I grow flowers and I would like to address something I think is maybe unintended consequences of this program and that is green theft. All of us farmers in Fallbrook and Bonzel know about people coming onto our property and stealing In Humboldt, for instance, I know that they have armed security to protect their pot. Does that mean then we're going to have to have armed security protecting some of these growers? And what does that get met with? I haven't heard anybody talk about that. And I'm so old and been around Bonzel so long, I remember when a mushroom farm got shut down in Bonzel that was growing indoors. They had to grow like in Quonset Hut greenhouse things because of odor and because of runoff. I believe that was in 2000 and it was...

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, as the next speaker is coming forward, I'd like to invite forward two more speakers, Geronimo and Anthony Hawkins.

Good afternoon, supervisors. My name is Robert Wood. I'm formerly incarcerated. During that time, I earned four degrees. Since I've been home, I earned an MBA. The reason that's relevant is because in this social equity program, we've had a combination of two years That include our lived experience prior to that. We did online learning. We did classroom learning. We've had all kinds of opportunities to learn. Not only me, but other people in this program have done what I consider the equivalent of an MBA in cannabis compliance and regulation. We stand totally ready to completely comply with everything in this cannabis industry with all rules, laws, and regulations, to be socially responsible, to create jobs in the community, and to do everything that we need to do to make sure that this thing goes right. We have more preparation than previous business owners did. Because of social equity status, we were forced to prepare. Thank you, and I appreciate what you're doing. Please consider 50 instead of 25 cannabis licenses. Thank you.

Good morning, Supervisors. My name is Anthony. I am here today in strong support of moving the cannabis social equity program forward. I also want to make one thing clear. When individuals claim to speak for our backcountry, rural, or unincorporated communities, they do not speak for everyone. There are residents, families, patients, and business owners throughout unincorporated San Diego County who support responsible cannabis regulation and social equity. Their voices deserve to be heard too. Cannabis is already legal in California. The question is whether San Diego County will expand, will create a responsible system that will expand legal access, creates economic opportunity, and gives people harmed by past cannabis policies a fair opportunity to participate. Please listen to the full diversity of the voices in these communities, reduce unnecessary barriers, and move this program forward.

Thank you. Thank you. We'll call for our next few speakers, William Hinks, Eduardo Bautista, and Nathaniel Sheffin.

Just pausing before the speakers, but someone from my team is here looking for the San Diego Planning Group member, so if she could go back to the woman in the pink. Thank you.

Hello, Board of Supervisors. My name is Geronimo Mejia. I am a graduate of the social equity program. I'm a farmer. One thing that I don't think many people realize, regulations on growing cannabis are way stricter than any other agriculture demands. So we're not going to be spraying glyphosate. There's not going to be runoff like that. Nutrient runoff is expensive. So not only is it not something that's good for the land, it's not good for the farmer. So cannabis is one of the cleaner crops to grow besides the smell. Please move this program forward. Let's do 600 foot setbacks and let's also get some outdoor. The first cultivated plant ever was cannabis. So this is not something new to the human people. Thank you.

Good morning, board. My name is William Hinks. I am here today speaking in favor of the social equity program and its opportunity for successful business ownership. I asked the board to make sure the final program decisions are accessible, fair, and practical for SEED participants and other social equity applicants. The requirements, fees, permitting process, and timeline should not create new barriers that prevent the very people the program is intended to help obtain successful, thriving businesses. Thank you for your time.

I'm going to speak fast. Nathaniel Shufflin. I'm responding to all of the straw man arguments throughout the day. Pharmacists failed to flag the overprescribing of opioids to the tune of a million people dying since 1999 from that drug. So a pharmacist coming in here and saying that we shouldn't be growing something that has not killed anywhere near 100 people, 1,000 people. Yeah. Now, wineries and golf courses represent far heavier impact on our environment, and you've all approved wineries and their use of temporary event planning in rural areas, including you, Desmond. And the environmental impacts that he was speaking of, we are all about regenerative agriculture. It's very important to us. Taking care of the land, not destroying it. Thank you.

And I'll call, as the next speaker's coming forward, I'll call the final two in-person speakers, Charles Barnes and Russell.

Good afternoon. My name is Eduardo Batista. I am a father of four, a husband, a business owner, and a resident in District 2. I actually live in Mountain Empire Community, which I haven't really heard much about. I've heard a lot about Fallbrook, Bonzel, all the areas up in North County. But there is an area that's out in East County. We have about a little bit under 12,000 people that are in that area. And there's a lot of people out there that could use work. A lot of the other areas that we've discussed have already been built out. They have a lot of box stores, a lot of retail, places where people actually can gain employment. So having something where we can have outdoor cultivation, greenhouse cultivation, things like that in the rural areas can definitely help some areas. I'm also a participant in the seed program. I've done all the studies, all the work. I've participated, been to every single one of the classes, and we're definitely prepared to be contributing members to society, to San Diego County, pay our taxes, and operate in the law. We're not about lowering expectations. We're about being defined by what we can build, not by our misunderstandings and issues of the past. Thank you. Thank you.

Good morning. I'm Charles Barnes from the San Diego SEED program. I only have one idea that I want to run by you, and that is a solution towards lowering the stigma of criminal activity attached to cannabis sales and distribution. But to do so, I'm going to need a license, so please...

Good afternoon. My name is Russell Palmer. I'm a third generation San Diego County resident and a longtime cannabis user. When I was a youth, I played high school at Ramona High and I had a major back injury that impacted my life majorly. where I was at a level 12 pain most of my life. And I've been medically using cannabis most of my life to ease that pain. But access has been a problem, a massive problem. We sell eights at dispensaries, but medical cannabis users don't have access. I wrote something called the One Plant Theory, which brings on cannabis immersion therapy. We're scheduling cannabis at schedule three because the federal government believes medical cannabis is viable. I come to you today after three years ago, I found a cannabis strain that finally healed my sciatica that had been like a pulse pain for over 27 years. Think about that. Medical cannabis is viable.

Thank you. We have one more in-person speaker, Becky Rapp. I'd like to invite you forward to the podium. And then I will call the one speaker that I called earlier, just to recall, which was Cesar Javier.

Good morning, Board of Supervisors. My name is Becky Rapp and I strongly oppose this item. When this item was brought before the Planning Commission, it was clear that residents had serious concerns about environmental impacts, public safety, and enforcement. At that hearing, the question was specifically asked, what is the official position of law enforcement on this proposal? Staff responded that law enforcement had not been questioned and there had been no official statement, but that this concern would be addressed and included in the update to the board. I've reviewed the new staff report and I do not see that promised law enforcement statement. Instead, the report tells us how much the county has spent on enforcement, which is approximately $1.6 million annually, which is important, but it is not an official statement from the sheriff's office about this program. So if public safety and enforcement were identified as concerns serious enough to warrant a specific follow-up, then the board should have the information before voting. I request this board require this assessment, including anticipated impacts. Thank you.

Thank you. And that, I don't see Cesar in the chamber, so we will now go to our phone speakers. Again, when it is your turn to speak, you'll be unmuted and you will hear a recording that will tell you to begin your comments. And we will go ahead and begin with our first caller.

All of old. Some of the limits are good, but the ordinance is wrong. Right off the bat, it defines cannabis as including, quote, every compound, derivative, mixture, preparation of the plant, et cetera, unquote. Just as in regular medicinal practice, you don't give a drug the same name as any of its components. Politicians are good at the rename game. The Planning Commission recommendations are reasonable to prohibit outdoor cultivation and to require cannabis facilities to stay 1,000 feet from schools, daycares, youth centers, places of worship, parks, and trails. nice that cannabis facilities wouldn't be allowed in residential areas but that defeats the purpose when you're allowed to be sold in bars restaurants or stores which would subject kids and thank you your time is up we'll go to our next speaker barbara gordon

I am concerned the county's cannabis program does not actually address the significant impact marijuana businesses could have on the community and the environment. Cultivation involves pesticides, fertilizers that contaminate soil and water. Again, it requires a significant amount of water and while generating odor and waste that can harm surrounding communities and the environment. As a public health advocate, I am also concerned the harms associated with high THC, including addition to emergency room visits, addiction, impaired driving, serious psychotic harm. planning group and the community have repeatedly stated land use decisions made through the social equity program will not exist in isolation brown water demands agriculture viability and long-term community character will be hard thank you your time is up we'll go to our next speaker

Hello. So I understand that the socially equitable cannabis program represents years of staff work and investment, but we should not fall into the sunk cost fallacy and continue with the program simply because we have already spent time developing it. It is better to stop now than to spend years dealing with consequences we could have avoided. The county's own January PEIR found that even with safeguards, impacts including odor, noise, and groundwater use could remain significant and unavoidable. Groundwater is a really big concern in rural San Diego County. Our communities may depend on private wells and vulnerable groundwater systems with limited recharge, agricultural demands, drought vulnerability, and sensitive riparian habitats. The years already invested in developing this program should not outweigh the years of consequences our rural communities could face. So I urge you to reject the socially equitable cannabis program. My name is Madison. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll go to our next speaker.

Peggy Walker. I wanted to quote Chairman Lawson Reamer from the UT. You've got to trust government isn't being captured by insider special interests. If only you practiced what you preach. This board maturity instead has ignored overwhelming opposition to this program in spite of documented environmental land use, quality of life, youth health, and safety downsides and no need. Montgomery's step disturbingly claims a moral imperative for this, but that allows applicants, even with illegal weapon possession charges, to get licenses and the sale of, quote, every derivative mixture or preparation of psychotropic marijuana at unprecedented potency. That, with unrestricted targeting abuse, ensures addiction prevention. where craving overcomes and drives the brain. It becomes the primary brain driver. Thank you.

Your time is up. We will go to our next speaker.

Now, let's go in and talk about who you guys work for and what really is going on. How many of you guys are lawyers or were lawyers at one time and worked for the ACLU? Yes, wonderful. Now that we understand that the ACLU, anytime that they back someone, they win, and they do not believe in voter security, it makes sense that they would go ahead and place supervisors to go ahead and push their agenda. Ain't that right, Nora? I mean, ain't that right, Tara Larson-Lemur? Or Monica Montgomery Steps? You've known us this entire time. So the legal ramifications that are happening, you guys have a background in this. You know damn well what the fuck you're doing. There is no question about it. When you choose to give me a restraining order instead of answering my questions, you knew what you were doing, Tara, right? You were taking orders from your boss, the agent.

Yeah, he can continue.

You will not go ahead and look into the non-citizens voting. Why you go ahead and punish?

Your time is up. We'll go to our next caller.

My name is Elliot Lewis. I'm the CEO for Catalyst Cannabis Co. I just want to speak in support of the overall measure that the County Board of Supervisors is moving forward. I think it's great any time we bring safe access to patients as well as focus on communities that were impacted on the war on drugs. This overall approach that the Board of Supervisors has taken, just watching from a distance, has been one of the most effective approaches to social equity I've seen. And we've been involved in a lot of social equity processes, the training, really keeping the group together and making sure that they meet all their requirements. The only thing that I would add as far as policy matters when it comes to the property buffers, You know, look, these are huge barriers of entry, which the point of social equity is to break down those barriers and allow the landlords to exploit potential tenants if you make the geographic barriers too rigorous. So I would ask the Board of Supervisors to make the zoning as lenient as the state zoning and take care of all the schools, the main thing that we all want to be concerned about. And we would hate to see folks that have faced barriers.

Thank you. Your time is up. We will go to our next speaker.

Andres, good afternoon, supervisors. My name is Andres Rivera, director of Catalyst Cares, the community arm of Catalyst Cannabis since the company's founding. I'm in support of item three. This past Monday marked my fifth year with Catalyst, and every day since, I've been blessed with a chance to uplift and work alongside our community. The war on drugs was not an abstract policy. It left real people carrying convictions that blocked jobs, housing, and opportunity for decades. Catalyst genuinely cares about its community, and Catalyst Cares has answered that harm directly, helping people expunge those very records one person at a time. Since we opened our doors in Kearney Mesa, we've given back to San Diego directly. Expungement clinics, Christmas tree giveaways, blood drives, and SB34 cannabis donations to military veterans. The work continues across our entire footprint, and San Diego remains a focus. The county's own social equity program mirrors that mission. Training, mentorship, expungement help.

Thank you. Your time is up. We'll go to our next caller.

Good afternoon, Board of Supervisors. Ann Riddle here. I'm concerned that we have been spending a great deal of county money educating applicants for a program we didn't have a policy or regulations for. Does that prejudice your vote then? Because you've already suggested that these people can all be approved in a policy and a program that we hadn't as a public address or that we have taken a vote that we're doing that today. I worry about that. I also think as a public health educator, if we care that much about social equity and repairing the damage that's happened in our communities, let's offer something a whole lot better than owning a pot business, for goodness sakes. These days, you can go out of business so fast. That isn't an opportunity that anyone would think is worthwhile. Let's provide small business loans and training and mentoring. Let's provide small business educational opportunities and workforce programs and other opportunities to look across the field of businesses.

Thank you. Your time is up. We'll go to our next caller.

Hector, this is another chance for the slut gang of three to vote against the county. You know all those three sluts are going to vote for it, and the other two guys are going to go, no way. It's just another thing on the register of slut votes. that have degraded our county. Keep paying attention to them. We're counting the boats. And then, I don't know, I'm a victim of the war on drugs, both sides of the fence. But there's a lot of people also a victim of the war on poverty, which I was not a victim of. But you've got to address the war on poverty, man, with all the food stamp guys. We should get them out working at the beach, cleaning it up. Teach those guys to get a job instead of food stamps. That's what ended up with the war on poverty. Bad families, no working, just total, just created more poverty, man. Anyway, all those guys are going to vote.

Your time is up. We'll go to our next caller.

Good afternoon. My name is Terri-Ann Skelly. As a county planning group member and a concerned resident, I participated in the county-sponsored listening sessions and planning group presentations when county staff was collecting our opinions regarding its proposed SEIC overall last year. I felt that those of us who participated then were disenfranchised when the SEIC report came to the Board of Supervisors in January and again today. The staff reports today do not represent what stakeholders were presented in the staff PowerPoints or what the county's unincorporated community residents have said. Oh, the pot property here is from outside the area. Desires were also in the report. It seems very unfair that this board has disregarded the stakeholders' opinions. They're concerned. They're passionate. Thank you.

Your time is up. We'll go to our next caller.

Hey, it's Truth. The war on drugs is the hypocritical excuse for the county to introduce drugs and profit off the market as its new cartel. The pay-to-play community benefit tax is the progressives' blood money bribe, knowingly profiting off something that does harm. And we know Newscum and Democrat felon Jesus Cardenas have funneled pot money to political campaigns. This industry is union-driven. That's why they promote useless murals instead of requiring pot jobs to pay double for recycled water, the grid, law enforcement, fire response, rehab centers, and for property value mitigation. And why they won't restrict uses as far as possible from places like homeschools, parks, restaurants. and places of worship. I treat this gross topic just like any other choice. Do your thing, but keep government and taxpayers out of it. Plus, equity is no longer legal, and marijuana is in the federal air. We know this board is about union-driven dribble, but the backcountry has spoken. Environmental protection is not negotiable. We don't want it, and we didn't ask for it. So shame on the three progressive women who refuse to represent we the people.

Thank you. Your time is up. We will go to our next caller.

Hey, Consuelo here. And so, yeah, I just wanted to also mention that anything that the government declares war on gets worse. So history has shown that. Okay, so also I wanted to highlight what the gentleman from the San Diegans for Safe Neighborhoods mentioned about Marin County. And I'm in total alignment on what he said, but what he didn't mention was was the demographic of the residents there. Marion County is the third wealthiest county in California. And to put it in perspective, San Diego didn't even make the list, the top 10 list. So my point in pointing that out is because money talks, dude, seriously. And these board members, especially Tara, Monica, and Paloma, are in fact money-hungry sellouts. And they will do anything for a dirty dollar. They'll do anything to keep their social status on that political ladder and to climb it up. So, yeah, it's just unbelievable, honestly, hearing the people talking about social equity.

Thank you. Your time is up. And, Chair Lawson-Rumor, that concludes public comment on this item.

Okay. Thank you very much. I'm going to begin just with a queue of folks who've put up their hand to speak, starting with Vice Chair Montgomery-Stepp.

Thank you so much, Chair Lawson-Reamer. Take a minute to breathe. I've been doing good so far. I haven't had any response to any of the things that I've been hearing. But let me just start by thanking you, Davia, and the entire Planning and Development Services team. Vince, Rami, thank you so much. Cooper, thank you very much for being here. Tyrell and also Brandon, thank you for the role that you've played in over the years as we've heard the development of this program. As we are here today and making this extremely important decision, there's been a lot of outreach and we've heard there are obviously a lot of different opinions because there are a lot of different experiences in this region. And I think this has amplified those various various experiences. So I do want to thank members of the public who have come out and for the most part this really has been about a difference of policy opinion and not not personal attacks for the most part and so I have to just say that I do do appreciate that and obviously most of you know where I stand but I hope that you can hear me when I say thank you for taking your time and to advocate for your community because what I do feel is that you are being very sincere in that advocacy about what you believe. And I have to respect that. I don't respect the personal attacks. I think they're crazy. I think it's ridiculous that we have to sit with that every time we're on this diet. It is what it is. We're here. We have not signed up to be abused, but we have signed up to do the job, and the job is tough. So I get that, but I truly want to say that I appreciate every person who comes in here and thoughtfully knows the issues and speaks from fact, from the way, what they believe, and I want to say I thank you for that. I think this is one thing that I've heard in this discussion and even around some consented items that we had on the agenda yesterday was an acknowledgement that socioeconomic status really can and does negatively impact our places in life, depending on where we land on that ladder. That is true. Where the conversation becomes very controversial and where there becomes a split of opinion is the role that race plays in that conversation. So we've heard, you know, it is not about race, it's more about socioeconomic status. And, you know, it would be a lot more comfortable place if that were true. Because that would mean that we all started in the same place. And we didn't. And there's a lot of variation in where we all started. Just because you're lower income, in a rural area, maybe white, doesn't mean you didn't start in a different place. Right, but there is variation in where we started in this entire country and the way it was built. And how that relates to this item now is because attached to cannabis has been a historical racial criminalization of cannabis. It has devastated individuals, families, entire communities for generations. And all those studies show that across racial lines, the use of cannabis is very similar. The criminalization of cannabis really is where we see the difference in the racial component. And that is where the equity lens is coming from here. And it does not negate some of the other equitable issues that we have to deal with based on geography and everything else. But for this particular subject in cannabis, we saw that, for example, with black Americans, roughly 37% of drug-related arrests were black Americans while representing only 13% of the population. All this, again, while showing the use of cannabis across racial lines, it's very similar. So we have to be clear about the war on drugs. It was never about public safety. It was engineered to discriminate. And in this country, over and over, every generation, we create another system that has discrimination embedded within it. This was one of those industries So the policies around cannabis have been rooted in excessive punishment, targeted enforcement, been deeply racialized criminalization. And it really, it fell heaviest on a lot of people we hear from today. and for people who have had to go through the system and have criminal records and be denied access to housing, be denied employment, education, and stability for conduct that is now legal under state law. And that's what the equity is about for this particular program. California voters recognized these injustices when they passed Proposition 64, which legalized adult use cannabis and acknowledged on a statewide level that the war on drugs caused profound and disproportionate harm. But legalization alone did not repair the damage. It simply opened a doorway. Now I believe it is our responsibility at the county level to walk through that doorway and implement the equity that Prop 64 envisioned. The socially equitable cannabis program gives us the chance to right those wrongs. It creates pathways for people who were directly harmed, those who were arrested, jailed, or burdened by cannabis convictions. to finally access economic opportunity and self-sufficiency in the very industry from which they have been excluded. And at the same time, the program strengthens our ability to address illegal cannabis activity, regulate businesses responsibly, and generate tax revenue that can support county services, infrastructure, healthcare, and behavioral health programs. The benefit of the socially equitable cannabis program overwhelmingly outweighs the cost. This program can create good paying jobs in our unincorporated community, support small business development, expand general purpose revenue, and most importantly, advance true equity by confronting decades of racial injustice and cannabis enforcement. We cannot afford to let the county fall behind. The economic opportunity, the social impact, and the restorative justice potential are all directly in front of us. Now is the moment to move forward. Implementing this program will empower and uplift the very communities that were harmed the most by decades of discriminatory cannabis enforcement. Adopting the staff recommendation allows the county to proceed with a well-vetted, legally defensible, and fully CEQA-aligned framework that reflects prior board direction, advances our social equity goals, maintains regulatory consistency with state law, and ensures that we can begin implementing licensing enforcement in the social equity program without any further procedural delays. And so with that, I would like to make a motion to move the staff recommendation today, which includes actions. I believe it's one through six in today's hearing that are outlined in the board letter and the action sheet. But let me just check and make sure that is accurate. Yes, that's my motion. Thank you very much.

Supervisor Desmond.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate it and I appreciate all the people also that came out and spoke, particularly people from the unincorporated area. I know you came quite a distance to be here this morning. I have a quick question for staff before I, and then I have some more comments. How many dispensers do we have already that are licensed and permitted in the unincorporated area?

Through the Chair, there are four that are operating now.

There's four. How many are permitted?

Four are permitted and operating. We have no unpermitted dispensaries operating at the present time.

Okay. I thought we had five, but at one point in time.

At one point in time, we did have five permitted dispensaries. One did stop operating.

So we already have four dispensaries operating in the unincorporated areas. So there is access. As far as the discrimination and everything else goes, I don't know that these communities are the ones that have to pay the price for that. And it's bad. We should stop discrimination anywhere and everywhere. The community, this is more of a land use issue for me. The community should have a huge say in what goes into their communities, right? And that is allowed by state law for distribution, cultivation, and retail sales of marijuana. And some communities have embraced it and others have not. And unfortunately, the unincorporated areas are having dispensary forced upon them with smoking rooms and the growing as well. So I'm fine with medical marijuana. If somebody wants it or needs it or hospice or you need it medically, have at it. And it is legal. But I do think communities should have a say into whether they accept it or not. And I do think this has to be the most twisted and contorted term of equity that I've ever seen. If you've previously broken the law, you get to jump to the head of the line for a permit for a dispensary in the unincorporated area. And if you obeyed the law, you're sent to the back of the line. Now, whether you think the law was misguided, it was not enforced correctly, it was the law. And to say that now, I mean, what laws do we think 10 years from now are going to be changed and go ahead and break those laws now? It doesn't make sense to me. I don't think it's a message we want to send to our children. Break the law now and you get a government break later. I voted against this item every time it's been in front of the board and today is no different. In pursuit of this twisted view on equity, the program would place all of the public safety and environmental burdens, all of it on the unincorporated areas. And I've heard zero, none, not one incorporated community wants these dispensaries. And it's not just the dispensary, it's the egregiousness of these, are these consumption lounges on windy roads that aren't as lit in the unincorporated area and people, hi, driving on the roads. And one of the things in the impacts that I noticed is here, the significant and unavoidable impacts through the program environmental impact report, significant and unavoidable, groundwater. Most of these people are on wells. The drinking water is groundwater. And this has a significant, not a moderate, not some, a significant impact on groundwater and water supply. from these grows. Now I did hear from some of the growers that they're going to have to capture that, but in the environmental impact report, a significant impact of the water supply. What would we put, I can't think of anything that we would approve that has a significant negative impact on our water supply. I do commend the county planning commission for making reasonable adjustments to their recommendations. They expanded the list of setbacks and sensitive receptors and setbacks, prohibiting the outdoor cultivation. I think those are all steps in the right direction. However, I can't with good conscience vote to approve a program due to the serious impacts on the unincorporated areas. These communities don't want them. Not one community in the unincorporated area asked for more dispensaries. There's already four out there. Cannabis dispensaries are being forced on these communities, and it's not for the greater good of the people. Just about everybody who came up and spoke was a resident in the unincorporated area. And the other people, most of the people that came up that were in favor were making money off of the cannabis. This is not for the greater good of the people. It just adds money to the pockets of the marijuana industry, which I'm not, if they want to be an entrepreneur and start a business, do it in a city or an area that wants them. There's plenty of them out there. So I'm not going to be supporting the matter here today. I don't think the unincorporated area should bear this burden. None of them want it. And the significant impact to water supply and groundwater, to me, is just a deal breaker. So appreciate the time. Thank you very much.

Chair Partemagiri. Thank you Madam Chair. I just want to say that for decades communities harmed most by cannabis criminalization carried the consequences while others were later positioned to profit from legalization. We can't allow that injustice to continue in San Diego County. This action is needed because legalization without equity can deepen the very disparities it should help repair. A fair cannabis program must create genuine ownership and economic opportunity, not just symbolic participation. This item establishes a regulated cannabis market in the unincorporated county with a three-year head start for social equity applicants. Half of all storefront licenses reserved for equity businesses and a requirement that equity owners maintain at least 51% ownership. It also provides support such as training, mentorship, grants, workforce development, and help clearing eligible cannabis convictions. This matters because it gives people and communities harmed by past policies a meaningful opportunity to build businesses, create jobs, and generate community investment. We recognize the concerns about safety, odor, water use, and neighborhood impacts. Those concerns are real. And regulation is how we address them. Legal operators will face zoning rules, environmental review, inspections, operating standards, and enforcement. Approval is not the end of the work. We must track who receives licenses, ensure equity owners retain autonomy, enforce community protections, and keep this coalition involved throughout implementation. And I just want to say I heard one of the arguments that were made about the concerns of exposure. You know, compared to alcohol, according to the CDC, alcohol is 15% to 20% more addicting than cannabis. And we have basically a liquor store every other block. that are constantly, kids are constantly driving, biking, walking by. So I just want to point that out. And I also want to point out that according to the CDC, all traffic fatalities are usually, 30% of traffic fatalities are caused because of alcohol. So I just want to remind the folks that try to make that argument that it is not even close to the level of addiction or to the harmful consequences of abusing alcohol we're talking about here. So with that, I'd like to second the Vice Chair's motion, and I want to thank her for all of your years of work on this issue, and I'm happy to support it.

We have a motion on the floor and a second. I just want to take a moment to express my gratitude for everyone who came today and for all the letters that were sent. I've been reading many of the letters all morning. So thank you. for those and I think this is really one of those instances where there's really legitimate points of view on all sides and really important considerations on all sides and really grateful for people who are here to express your views and what's important to your community in a respectful manner, in a manner that acknowledges that these issues are complicated and that focuses on the issues and doesn't make it personal. So thank you again, especially for folks who've driven really far to be here. With that, I think we have a motion to floor. Seeing no further hands, we can go ahead and vote.

And Chair Lawson, remember that motion passes with Supervisor Anderson and Supervisor Desmond voting no, all their supervisors being present, voting aye.

Okay, thank you again. It is now 12.40. We will take an hour. We'll be back here at 1.40. Thanks.

Board is in recess until 1.40 p.m.

Keep going. Eight. Nine. Nine. We're going to hold this last one. And ten. Three. Two. And one. Very nice. Release the band carefully. Put it across the top of your thighs. And tie it underneath one time. Pull it up on the sides. Nice and snug. Okay. And then sit up as tall as you can. After you're in place, we're going to press those knees apart from each other. Okay? Try to keep your back off your chair and press. Good. There should be a good amount of resistance as your knees move away. You should feel this in the outside of your leg. The muscles supporting the hip. Good. Everybody feel this? Oh, yeah. Good. Press. Release. Press, release. Two more. Press, release. Last one. Hold. Three, two, and one. Great. We're going to do a second set of seated rows. Take your band, put it underneath the bottom of your feet. Again, around the front part of your foot.

Do you ever raise your feet when you're doing this?

Well, we're going to focus on our back muscles right now. Engaging the core. And we're gonna go ahead and reach down after we're nice and set, and reach, pull it back. Down, press. Down. And lean back into it, squeezing those shoulder blades together as you sink the weight backwards. That's five. Good. And six. That's it. Seven. Good. Eight, two more. Nine, and let's hold. Ten, three, two, and one. Very nice. Okay, release carefully. Second set, we're gonna work these abductors again. Take the band, wrap it around the bottom, tie it up once on either side, hold it there. This time, we're gonna stomp our foot to the right and to the left. Okay, sitting up tall, very important to have good posture. All right, here we go. Stomp the foot. We're activating all our senses, okay? Our somatosensory sense. Feeling the ground. It's very important as we age that we're in touch with that. Good. Press. And stomp, getting everything moving. That's it. Let's do two more after this one. Good. And that's it. Very nice. Great, okay, take your band. Put it underneath just one foot now, preferably around the front part of your foot again. Come towards the edge of your chair without falling off. Okay, and you're going to pull the band back and attach it on your rib cage as your knee comes up. Shoulders are relaxed. Press down and up. Two. Try not to let go of where you're holding the band. Three. Four.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair and Board of Supervisors. Today, staff is requesting the board to consider a potential amendment to the zoning ordinance related to the separate sale of accessory dwelling units, also known as ADUs. This is the fifth zoning ordinance amendment brought before the board this year and builds on the board's previous actions to expand housing opportunities in the unincorporated county. Today, we will be discussing the separate sale of ADUs and potential options for implementation that support home ownership and encourage owner occupancy. We will review the direction provided by the board on March 4th, then we'll introduce draft options for supporting home ownership and owner occupancy through the separate sale of ADUs. The County of San Diego is one of the few jurisdictions in California that allows ADUs to be sold separately from the primary residence as condominiums. The board's previous action established ADU condominiums as a new housing product in the unincorporated area, creating an additional tool to support local home ownership objectives. By allowing an ADU to be sold separately from their primary residence, the program creates home ownership opportunities at price points that may be more attainable than traditional single-family homes. This can provide an additional entry point into home ownership, particularly for first-time home buyers, while expanding the range of ownership housing options available in the unincorporated area. On March 4th of 2026, the board adopted an ordinance allowing the separate sale of ADUs under AB 1033. While state code establishes the basic framework for AB 1033, jurisdictions are allowed to include local criteria. The board directed staff to return with options that could further support home ownership and owner occupancy. The options presented today build on that direction and would only apply to properties with ADUs sold separately from the primary home under AB 1033. Today's request is for the board to consider four draft options specifically related to implementation criteria for the separate sale of ADUs. The board may choose to implement one, several, or none of these options. These options were developed in coordination with board offices and stakeholder outreach as directed by the board. Each option reflects a different policy approach for the board's consideration while building upon the county's existing separate sale of ADU program. The options are intended to expand access to home ownership while promoting stability and owner occupancy through the separate sale of ADUs. The draft options include option one, maintaining the existing ordinance which allows the separate sale of ADUs following the state framework. Option two, a right of first refusal providing an existing tenant or condo owner on the property with an opportunity to match a purchase offer. Option three, requiring owner occupancy for a certain period of time. And option four, requiring a public listing period when selling an ADU condo.

With the first option, the board may choose not to add any additional local criteria and not to implement any of the other options. This would maintain the ADU ordinance as it was adopted on March 4th and continue to allow the separate sale of ADUs as condos using framework from state legislation AB 1033. This would preserve maximum flexibility for property owners and avoid added regulatory complexity. The current ordinance, as it exists, works to advance local policy objectives to increase homeownership opportunities by allowing smaller, more attainable housing types available for sale. Our second option is a right of first refusal. Under this approach, before a unit could be sold, an existing tenant or another con owner on the property would have the opportunity to match the purchase offer. The intent is to create a pathway to home ownership for existing tenants or a rightsizing opportunity for another owner on the same lot. An ADU condo owner could upsize to the primary dwelling condo or a primary dwelling condo owner could downsize to the ADU. The draft option currently includes a 30-day window to execute a matching sales agreement. A right of first refusal would add new requirements to the sales process and could affect marketability or transaction timing. Stakeholders suggested that a shorter response window, such as 15 days, could help balance flexibility with the intent of the program. If the board chooses to pursue this option, the response time frame could be adjusted prior to adoption. Option three is an owner occupancy affidavit, which would apply to both existing units and new construction. This option would require buyers of ADU condos to sign an affidavit confirming that they or a family member intend to occupy the unit as their primary residence for a specified period. This approach is intended to prioritize owner occupants, and in doing so, it supports long-term community stability and aligns with the board's interest in promoting owner occupancy. During outreach, we heard mixed feedback on this. Some participants questioned how an owner occupancy requirement could be effectively enforced and whether it would substantially change purchasing patterns, noting that many buyers may already intend to live in the units they purchase. An owner occupancy requirement is a new responsibility for both the buyer and the seller of an ADU. Buyers would be required to commit to residency, and for sellers, marketability may be impacted if the potential buyers perceive an owner occupancy requirement as too restrictive. Option four is a public posting period. Under this approach, ADU condos would be publicly listed for a set period, such as 30 days, with a disclosure noting that priority is intended for buyers who plan to use the unit as a primary residence. The intent is to increase transparency and provide a fair opportunity for eligible buyers, including first-time home buyers, to learn about and compete for these units. In many cases, this may already align with how units are marketed today. At the same time, this option would add new responsibilities for sellers, particularly in situations involving wait lists or time sensitive transactions. For that reason, the draft language includes the ability for some exceptions at the director's discretion. If the board chooses to pursue this option, it may choose to modify the required posting timeframe prior to adoption. On June 12th, 2026, the planning commission reviewed all programmatic options and recommended the board consider options two, three, and four. The commission expressed no objections to these options and suggested the following timeframes. Option two, right of first refusal, 30 days to match an offer. Option three, owner occupancy statement, one year owner occupancy commitment. Option four, public posting period, 30 day minimum listing period. If the board chooses to combine option two with option three or four, it may adjust the associated timelines. For example, the board could reduce the right of first refusal period or the public posting period from 30 days to 15 days, allowing the combined requirements to be completed within a 30 day timeframe.

Through this effort, several additional potential concepts were discussed. These concepts were above and beyond the options brought forward and they are not specific to the separate sale of ADUs. These additional concepts may have potential to support broader housing goals for all housing types. These concepts include tenant relocation assistance going beyond the one month of rent that landlords must pay tenants for no-fault evictions under state law. While ADUs are generally excluded from the state protection, many cities have adopted local requirements that expand eligibility or payment requirements. Empty home tax, intended to encourage owners of vacant residential properties to rent or sell their units. A similar effort was pursued by the city of San Diego, but was not approved by voters. Deed restrictions, requiring the sale of ADU condos to low or moderate income buyers. While this approach is legally permissible, it would require the establishment of an administrative framework to implement and monitor the program. larger ADU types requiring a new CEQA analysis and stakeholder outreach for a new discretionary building type in the zoning ordinance. These concepts may warrant further consideration. However, they are not currently included in the department's work plan. If the board is interested in exploring these concepts, they could be considered as part of the county's seventh cycle housing element update and associated housing strategy efforts. While not specific to ADU separate sale program, the board may provide direction on these concepts at their discretion today. Staff recommends that the board take the following actions. Find that the program is exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act and consider the options for local implementation criteria for the separate sale of ADUs. This concludes our presentation. Staff are available to answer questions.

Sorry, I'm getting my notes. I had some questions. Give me a second if my colleagues have any questions. Okay, we'll go to public comment.

Thank you, Chair Lassen-Riemer. We have 15 requests to speak on this item, seven in person and eight requesting to speak by phone. Also note for the record that we received six e-comments, one in support, one in opposition, and one neutral. For any individuals that requested to speak on item four by phone, please dial into the conference line using the instructions that were provided to you. We'll begin with the in-person speakers. As your name is called, please come forward and stand on the arrows until it's your turn to speak at the podium. You will have one minute to address the board since there are 10 or more speakers on this item. I'll be calling in groups of three. So I'll ask you to please listen for your name. I'd like to invite forward the first three individuals. Beth Nelson, Cesar Javier, Dori Rattray. I'll invite additional speakers. Allegedly Audra, Rafael Perez, Meredith Munger, and Alonzo Gonzalez. If I've called your name, please come forward. And again, I'll ask you to please state your name for the audio record. Thank you.

Talk about macro managing everything. It's like you guys want to have your hands in everybody's business so that you can bring in requirements and restrictions. And, you know, I'm wondering about this, these HOA requirements for these, what they consider micro condo communities, if you have an ADU on your property. then you actually have to create an HOA. And in that, the homeowner holds all the legal power, which I don't know how that's good for an HOA, if the person, like, that doesn't, absolute power corrupts. But you guys are destroying the single-family residents, residential communities, where people have gone there to, you know, just have a nice single-family home, and all of a sudden these monstrosities are coming up that are like apartment buildings. And there's no fire evacuation routes. There's limited parking. And so it's like this goes along with your preparedness for wildfire when you're actually putting people in danger by claiming that you want them to own a home so that you can take it from them when they can't pay for it. Because people are just struggling to pay rent. And you think they're going to buy a home.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

I'm Meredith Munger with the Building Industry Association's Responsible ADU Committee. I'm also speaking on behalf of Rafael Perez of the Casita Coalition and the California Association of Realtors. We strongly urge you to adopt AB 1033 as is without the additional items. And I actually thought that the Planning Commission agreed on that approach as well, but perhaps I'm wrong. I was at the June 12th and We had long discussions about not adding in the extra regulations. This is new to here in California, but data from other states shows that about 75% of ADUs are sold off. And the classic examples are from seniors. And I wish Stephen Stonehouse and his wife, he serves on the Sweetwater Planning Board, I wish that he was here because they are in their 80s. They built an ADA compliant ADU that they had planned to move into. And then because most seniors have no house payment.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Alonzo Gonzalez with the nonprofit San Diego Housing Coalition. I also heard the Planning Commission state some reservations and concerns about the four options. Our group is okay with all four of the options. We hope that you consider streamlining the 30 days to two weeks if you do go with option two. or four i think a bigger i'm concerned some of the public comments and back and forth with staff are lost opportunities on two points streamlining the process making concurrent mapping with building permits possible that would shave off months of the process that is a possibility and i think staff is on top of that and we'll be working forward to that, hopefully, and also is making the ADU more flexible. Before we talk about the general plan update, allowing junior ADUs to be attached to ADUs would not create additional units. So it doesn't require a general plan update. The state would allow it, and it creates more incentives so that we see this opportunity of working class neighborhoods wear pencils. Thank you.

Thank you. A final call for Beth Nelson, Cesar Javier, and Dori Radre. We'll now hear from those that requested to speak by phone. We'll start with our first caller.

Hi, Paul LeBeau. Option 1 is to leave the ordinance as is. Option 2 provides insurance to the owner that the ADU would be offered to a tenant they've already approved, which is better than having to reestablish a relationship with a succession of prospective tenants. Option three could subject the property owner of the ADU to a tenant they don't know or don't get along with. Option four means that the Board of Supervisors could set a countywide sales method, which the ADU owner might not have the time to or be able to comply with. and the retail website doesn't specialize in certain areas or properties so it might require the use of retail websites that might be not be right for the particular owner therefore i would reject options thank you hear from the next caller

Monica, I really did not realize that you were so sensitive. I'm sorry I mentioned the fact that you worked with the ACLU, and I think your prior provision was a lot better. They should have never promoted you to supervisor. Seriously. I'm saying that 100% because if you cannot accept criticism, you're in the wrong position. Just wanted to go in and let you know that. Regarding the ADUs, I'm pretty sure the ACLU already determined the route that we're going to go in and take on this. And this is just a circus show, as Tara Larson-Lemur quite accurately stated multiple times at the Board of Supervisors meeting, meaning it's just smoke and mirrors. This is just a checkmark. Yes, we talk to the people. We don't care what they have to say. We're going to do what we want to do because we were paid to do something. We were given a lot of benefits from basically ACLU and accompanying groups. Thank you.

We'll hear from the next caller.

It's true. Just like cannabis, this is all about the campaign donors getting rich off the backs of regular people. It's also fake like the lack of responses for the sewage crisis and the fires because there is no housing crisis. I'm going to repeat that. There is no housing crisis. Don't use it as your excuse to just build up everywhere. Because there's an affordability crisis that is very California-specific and could be changed at any time. That has nothing to do with the corporate developer friend building and raising property values beyond what normal people can afford, let alone creating increased parking, evacuation, fire, and law enforcement needs. We already know that this corrupt union-controlled board will implement fake Allison Snow's tenant, fake protection lies that have never helped anyone. We'll implement the city of San Diego's extra taxes on homes, along with Gonzalez's streamlining corruption, and anything else that makes San Diego County homes unaffordable. Because these multiple property-owning individuals on the board are out of touch with reality because they are fake, fake, fake. Expensive boxes, no front yard, back yard, not a real solution. It's overinflated.

Thank you. I'll hear from the next caller.

Amen to all the ones paying attention. You know, the plan and the goal is to have no homeowners at all. And this is how they will be, this is how they'll execute that. So government has their dirty, greedy hands on everything. So gross profits off of everything from the people. penalizing people for using what's legally already theirs. This item regarding ADUs, just another government scam. Homeowners shouldn't be required to have to check in with government for anything pertaining to their property. Everything presented is not to help the people, but to further control them and to submission by imposing even more restrictions and and will be penalized for not complying. So there you go. Government always wins. Big government is big bullies, big mafia, big bullshit, and people need to wake up and start calling it out. Honestly, it's just...

Thank you. And Chair Lawson-Riemer, that concludes public comment on this item.

Thank you so much. So sorry, I was looking for my notes, and I found them, and I had a bunch of questions, most minor. But first, I just want to say thank you for the work. I know you had a bunch of kind of different options to put together, and you've done a really good job. I think the first one was just trying to better understand how we would verify what would be the verification. So for example, option three, enforce. requiring primary residence occupancy commitment, and it's an affidavit. Well, what if that's the affidavit, someone lied on the affidavit, how would we investigate this?

Chair, it would be a condition as part of the condo subdivision to begin with. So when we process the condo subdivision to sell off the ADU, we place a condition that they have to do the affidavit. Then we would require the affidavit as part of that in the sales contract. It generally would be a civil matter if it is not enforced. We would follow up on complaints if we receive them. The reference point we're using on this is Years ago we had a requirement if someone built a second home on a property before there was an ADU program for an affidavit for the owner to occupy either the primary residence or the second home. We had very few complaints to us about that at the time, but we do not regulate real estate transactions and so just similar to other real estate transaction requirements that the state has on a property, we don't have an enforcement tool in those should we get complaints on it. If we did get complaints, we'd follow up with the property owners to let them know that we received a complaint and to inquire.

Who would complain? How would they know to complain?

Does someone have to have standing to complain?

I think this is great. I just feel like there's not a lot of... I don't know how you'd enforce this, right? So...

Being a condition on the project itself, we do get complaints from neighbors, property owners, random individuals that conditions on projects are not enforced. We have team members within the department that follow up with property owners of projects if a condition is not being satisfied that we can follow up on them. We do have some enforcement tools in the department to do enforcement if conditions are not continuing to be met. And so subdivisions, use permits, things like that, if a condition is not being met, we can take enforcement action. We have a code compliance program. we can engage it in that regard as well.

What would that enforcement action look like?

We'd start with contacting the individual to inquire to find out who's living there. We can move forward with escalated enforcement through citation should we get it. Oftentimes enforcement is a combination of county action and then property owners taking civil action as well in parallel should they want to move forward and advance that.

Sorry, I feel like I don't want to make a big hay of this. I mostly just had some small questions, but I'm getting less and less satisfied as we kind of unfold the onion. I thought this would be simple. I'm just like, who would do that? This does not feel enforceable, I think, from what you're describing to me. I don't know if Davia wants to chime in. So you get a fine? Who would submit? How do they even know who to call to submit the fine? How much would the fine be? It's too late. The person already bought the property. You can't undo the sale. I don't know here. What happens if someone lies on a loan application, for example, and says that it's a primary residence when it's not? How is that kind of thing enforced?

Chair, I think what you're touching on are some of the challenges of bridging into this legal arena of real estate law, and I'm leaning a little bit on our legal counsel here. We do have the code compliance mechanisms, but I think to say, okay, there's an issue here, something may not be adhered to, but this does then move into the legal arena, and I'd like to turn to counsel to talk about what actions would need to happen to ensure that enforcement occurs, but we would be in a little bit of a challenging position in terms of county framework that could address this. This really does become a civil litigation-oriented issue if someone were to lie on an affidavit. So I'm going to turn to Jared Markley to assist with that.

Chair, I don't have a whole lot to add to what Davia just said. There's not a strong enforcement mechanism for the county to directly enforce these things, but it does create a legal requirement that if it's not observed during the real estate transaction, may create some legal rights for anybody who wants to challenge it, a neighbor or somebody else who might have benefited from this requirement.

Okay, so it creates some kind of legal claim, cause of action, I guess, but who could bring a lawsuit, and then what would their remedy be? I mean, if you're basically saying, hey, we have no ability to enforce this, but we're going to set up a bunch of rules and people can enforce it against each other, you're saying bring each other, essentially you're saying bring each, you all sue each other, essentially. Like, that's all we got? What would they get? What would be the remedy?

I mean, there's not a lot of precedent on this. You brought up the example of representations on promissory notes that, you know, that's going to be the primary residence and there's There's pretty good evidence across the country that that's generally complied with.

But what's the enforcement mechanism? I don't even know. What happens if someone lies on that?

There's not a lot of good examples of actual enforcement of that requirement. It's a requirement that most people comply with, but some people don't, and there's not a lot of enforcement.

Okay. Well, I don't want to monopolize, but I think overall, I think this is great. It's like really going in the right direction. I just want to make sure that it's not just a piece of paper, that it's like meaningful. So let me null on that, like mull on that. But again, really good job. I just want to make sure we can enforce what we put out there. Turning the floor to Vice Chair Montgomery-Stepp.

Yeah, thank you for the conversation. I... I am thinking through our last conversation, especially around the right of first refusal, which we all felt, if I remember correctly, that that was at least something to explore because part of what the state's intent was, part of the reason why this is not been tested is because the whole concept is new, number one. And then two, the intent behind what the state did was to possibly open up additional home ownership opportunities to people, right? So even now, even with code enforcement, there are some things that we can go in and say, Well, technically, this may be your line, your property line, and this may be yours, but what we have is old, so you guys are going to have to go to court. Like, we do that now, right? So that's, for me, it's maybe looking at, you know, our budget discussions, how we can, you know... add this into the super large webinar of code enforcement, which is something none of us wants to do. You know, I don't know, you know, whatever. I'm just saying that. I think because it's new, we're not going to have a whole lot of precedent, right? So anyway, I just want to make sure we're doing everything we can to try to open up those opportunities and we're not having investors, you know, come in and buy up a bunch of, of ADUs anyway to kind of defeat the purpose. I've seen it happen before where, yes, it is tough to watch neighborhoods grow in this way. This can be a highly controversial topic, but if we're going to do it, we should at least make sure that it's open to the people that it was intended for, just people who still want a place to call their own. If for nothing else, they can have the stability of a mortgage as opposed to rent increasing. So with that in mind, and I was originally thinking about the right of first refusal, whether 30 days was enough and all that. But I think just the way that it has been presented to us, these options two through four, Looking forward to hearing from my colleagues, but where I stand right now is that I'm okay with the options moving forward as to where we are now. And I think some of the other discussion points can be taken up later on as a board just because of the procedural conundrum we find ourselves in. So that's my initial feedback. Supervisor Desmond.

Was that a motion?

Yes, I will make that a motion because it doesn't really change the discussion. I know you're going to speak your mind and everyone else is too. So I'll make that a motion for adding the options two through four.

I'll second. Thank you. I think it's great. And I too had questions about, okay, how are we going to enforce this? And quite frankly, we probably don't have that many means. However, they are signing a legal document and sooner or later, things like this will come back and bite you maybe. But I mean, we already have that where you say you're going to, I've, you know, you heard from even politicians that say their primary residence has been, you know, shifts around or moves around. I feel like you're saying bad karma is our... Well, I just, it's, yeah, karma is probably the best thing we got. That if you agree to sign this, it's a one-year commitment. or to occupy it, and we really don't have the policing, unless there's a complaint, and then we'd go in. But I'm okay with that. Quite frankly, I agree with Supervisor Montgomery's step in the fact that we really want to get young families into owners home ownership and this is a not the perfect path but it is a path and so i'm happy to second it and um like i said we these adus are uniquely primed for first-time home buyers due to their affordability especially when compared to the market rates of other single-family homes so i'm happy to support thank you sue roser anderson thank you ma'am chair i uh

I'm good with all this. What doesn't work, we can change. It's not in stone. And so while thinking in terms of where we want to head, I'd like to amend this to include to direct the CAO to report back to the board within 180 days with options to increase the size of ADUs from 1,200 to sizes such as 1,400 or 1,600 or larger. I just want to know what the options are I don't want us to move forward with it. I just want to know what those options are, because if we're talking about moving for this independence and allowing people to purchase, perhaps 1,600 square feet is a better number that would allow a family of three or four, or I meant four, I was thinking three or four children. So six. But what might be a... more appropriate. But I thought since we're going to give them direction, we should make it a little more inclusive just to look at what steps we would have to take to explore that. And I don't know if we turned in language for it. Okay.

To the makers of the motion and the seconder.

I am fine with that at a later point to discuss it, but I think...

It's just to discuss because we don't even know what we're up against.

But I think just... I would add a discussion about the deed, have the deed restriction discussion as well at that time.

Well, I'm good voting with what you've suggested.

Yes.

All I'm saying is in addition to it, since we're looking at all this. Just direct staff, specifically. So...

So direct staff, so what we have, the motion on the floor, and then to add to that direct staff to come back to us with options around a larger ADU type and deed restriction.

I am... I'm going to hand my note over. Okay, all right. I'll be able to read it. It's right here, but I have notes in the back.

While Andrew's typing, why don't I, can we all talk to each other? One conversation, please. While Andrew's typing, the chair pretend my comments.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And something on the friendly amendment, I would just suggest that we cap it around $1,400, $1,600, because anything bigger kind of defeats the purpose. It'll make the ADU more expensive, and that's what we're trying to foster and foment here is accessibility to homeownership for young families, like you mentioned, or elderly. So I would say we don't go too big. Okay. Are we okay with that?

I think staff's going to come back and say, we can go to here, but then we have to jump through these extra hoops to go bigger than that. And I'm just looking for, well, what is it? I'm not. I'm not thinking it's going to be 2,400 square feet.

Okay. It was very ambiguous, that's why. Okay. Yeah, I just want to say I support the motion with the friendly amendment. I think that this is a very real path to help your elderly parents or your adult kids or to build generational wealth, especially for people in my district. So I will be supporting the item. Thank you.

Just to clarify, though, that the amendment also includes exploration of deed restrictions. So if you want to add how you would like to say that, Vice Chair, on this piece of paper that Andrew's put up on the floor.

Okay, and so I just want... I just want to make sure that we are discussing that additional issue that was in the board letter. I am not, I don't necessarily need it in the motion.

I liked it. I'm supporting the addition of the deed restriction option. I liked it.

What I'm saying is, I think we're going to talk about it regardless, but because we have called this out, I just don't want it to get left behind. Yeah. I guess it's just my point. That's because I wanted to talk about this as well.

So do you want to say at the same time report back with options for deed restricted, deed restricted units? At the same time, report back.

The deed restriction as a condition of permitting in ADU. As a deed restriction as a condition of permitting in ADU. Okay, that's great. Based on the way it reads in the board letter now. And these are just discussion items. We're not saying we're supporting, not supporting. You know, yes. So I am okay with that if the seconder is...

Okay, and let me, I would love to make a friendly moment to the friendly moment. I think I'd like to have a discussion around enforcement, like what are the best options around enforcement for any, whatever we pass. How are we going to enforce this? And looking at all the tools in the toolkit. And just to kind of put some commentary on it. It could be things as simple as like publicizing a phone number or an email to submit a complaint so at least people know where to go to. Or something more complicated like putting this under the purview of of county council. Like, I don't know. I'm not predisposing. I just think it would be helpful if we're gonna pass these laws to have something besides karma that we're relying on for people to abide by them. I'm okay with karma. Karma. It happens. That is what, I appreciate that. It happens.

I'm okay with karma. Trust people sometimes, too. So, do we even need this as part of the motion, or can it just be staff direction?

I don't, I think that...

It's all staff direction.

Yes, and I think it's fine either way, but because, but yes, we agree on something, so maybe we just go for it.

If I may, through the chair, it is beneficial for our team who's working on a lot of housing items to have very specific direction on what the board is looking for so that we provide... Appreciate the effort. But so that we do provide a report back that addresses the specific issues that the board is looking at so we don't need to return again and we provide you everything you need in one effort.

Okay. In six months, we want everything. Okay. I'm fine with it.

Okay. Okay, we have a motion on the floor and a second that includes now this amendment. And the motion included options two, three, and four. Okay, it's all written there. Answers ahead of all of us as always. Please vote.

Chair Lawson-Riemann, that motion passes unanimously with all supervisors being present and voting aye.

Okay. Great work, everybody. Okay, okay, okay. Now we're going back to Tuesday. This is another item people had opinions about, trying to get through all the things that the public wanted to participate in. I think we're on item 29. This is requesting presentations from County consultants contributing to ad-hocs of Coney research and the development of ballot measures Supervisor Anderson, this is your item if you have any introductory remarks, and then we'll go to public comment.

Yep. Thank you. Ma'am chair We feel that a lot of questions from our constituents in my district and during the most recent board meeting in June I mentioned that I was planning to bring forward an item and requesting public presentations to the board from county consultants involved in the research and development of current and county future ballot measure language. My item asks that the county consultants known as FM3 Research in Ironwood Public Affairs to provide a presentation during the September 1st, 2026 board meeting regarding the recent work that they've done, they've performed for the county. This work involved surveying several hundred constituents to obtain feedback on the direction the county is headed, what their thoughts were on county governance, and possible new revenue sources. By having the two consultant teams present that information during the September 1st board meeting, all supervisors and the public will have a chance to learn more about the polling details, and I hope that my colleagues, I hope you all will agree to this additional clarity and transparency so I don't have to field any more phone calls. That's my motion. Thank you.

Okay, thank you so much. Do we have folks who have called in to comment?

Yes, thank you, Chair Lawson-Riemer. We have eight requests to speak on this item, one in person and seven requesting to speak by phone. Any individuals that requested to speak on item 29 by phone, please dial into the conference line using the instructions that were provided to you. I'd like to invite forward, allegedly, Audra. You'll have two minutes to address the board.

Look at that. Nobody's here. It's fun. It's like a party. And when you guys are talking about karma, let's say it's more of an FAFO type of a thing. You fuck around and find out when you reap what you sow. So, I mean, you guys are always doing that. Anywho, so let's go to this. This is interesting because not only are our elections totally fraudulent and nobody wants to admit it, but here you're talking about getting more revenue. I mean, you guys are money whores, so it's like anything that you can do to... increase the money in your pockets and in your bank accounts all under the guise of public safety doing something beneficial for the community. It's like if you guys weren't racketeering, you know, maybe the money that you guys get would be actually spent wisely and we wouldn't have roads in disarray. People will living on the streets just hoping to get into a home while you're sitting here saying that you're going to put people into a home and have them buy it when they can't even pay rent. So let's think about some things that you could do to generate revenue. I think one way would be for you guys to be personally liable for all of the FAFOs that you guys do. And so instead of going into the public liability fund, you guys could bring money back to us for all of the mistakes you make. Like, every time, you know, you commit a Brown Act violation. How about something like that? Tara, were you just flipping me off? Are you pulling a puta paloma? Like, there you go. You did it again. I love it because I catch it on my camera. You guys don't get it because you're looking at me, but it's cool. It's cool. I don't know about aborting babies. Like, maybe every baby that's aborted, we could just, like, you know, give money back to the community because they're, like, not going to take money from us anymore. Can you please Yes, I'm talking about revenue generating.

That's not the topic of this item. What it is not. The topic of this item is presentations to the board and information that would be presented to the board regarding legislative research.

Revenue research. You can sit here and try and play word games around me all day long, but you know that that's in your item. Did you not see it? A and B under number two? Like I'm just making it up? Exactly.

Thank you. I also failed to note how many e-comments received on this item. We received two. I'm sorry. We received three e-comments. Two in support, one in opposition. Any individuals that request speak by phone, we'll hear from them now. We'll begin with our first caller.

Excuse me. Well, it's always nice to hear unbiased research. I'm not sure I would trust anything the county says at this point. Or it's henchman FM3 who supervised the poll at the request of one of its sponsors. Do you want a second opinion from firm Ironwood to which FM3 reports as a, quote, sub-consultant, unquote? This incestuous relationship is precisely why I do not trust the self-serving people on the board. The county needs to come clean about this relationship and others, by the way. Next, who the 700-odd people polled actually were, which is less than a thousandth of the voters, and their relationship to county government. They sure didn't ask me, were they simply plucked from the county, or was there actually an effort to be truly representative? Ordinarily, I support free speech, but this government for a few years has made a point of not only squelching free speech, but picking whom to squelch. Manipulation is the game, not transparency. and the board chooses that collectively for disruption but doesn't seem to care much about your baby disrupting the meeting not even an apology hey i suggest paying a caregiver to feed the baby in the overflow room you can afford it thanks thank you we'll hear from the next caller Ann Riddle, it is your turn to speak.

You might want to mute the audio feed that's coming in from the meeting. I'll go ahead and unmute you.

Thank you. A little confusing now. I appreciate this opportunity to share a few thoughts I had on item 29 regarding the contribution of the county consultants to these ad hoc subcommittees. I didn't think what these ad hoc subcommittees were really doing was well described in the staff report. As best as we could tell the public, it has to do with ballot measures. But it seems to me that it's far more comprehensive than that. So I'm not weighing in on this item pro or con, but more from a description of the problems as well as the good parts of these county consultants who are contributing. So perhaps a little fuller explanation would have been useful. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll hear from the next caller. Next caller is Truth. Your device might be muted.

Yes, I'm back. That's Truth. Tara, we the people wanted to talk about this item yesterday. This item is obviously to mitigate corrupt Tara and Monica's backroom deals with J.C. Cooper on the Medical Subcommittee and their backroom deals with Ironwood and Dan Rottenstreich on the Fiscal Subcommittee. FM3's $250,000 contract went up by 5.1 times with no public update or approval or knowledge. For the record, I've never received a survey from any county contractor, and I don't know anyone that did. Only 727 people were allegedly interviewed, which means each conversation cost the taxpayers over $343 for each person. Plus, the alleged research by Ironwood raises the cost to $784 for each person. Or then the 0.0002% of the population of San Diego County residents were interviewed. That's what that means. That's a scam. This is why I, along with several others, have initiated multiple public records requests to get to the bottom of yet another progressive scam. You corrupt entities aren't going to get your tax stream fulfilled anyway. So why do you continue? The news reported that a spokesperson for Democratic Supervisor Aguilera said she hadn't seen the poll. So you don't know anything about what you're approving? Yeah, right. Terrorists protecting you from messaging up the agenda. Because Rotten Strike was and probably still is your campaign consultant. So you don't get to claim ignorance. Sarah lied and lied again to allow Ironwood to subcontract to progressive minion buddy Amplify Campaigns as a kickback. Rotten Strikes just happened to help Cesar Fernandez go $10,000 into campaign debt. Oh, and Manuela, $67,000 in debt, just racking it up still. County reports have paid consultants for 160,000 just on one, then 80,000 on another two polls. So you do a total of at least 569,000 wasted. Here is becoming a real poll worker. Reminder, a majority of voters in all districts think the county is headed the wrong direction.

Thank you. Hear from the final caller.

Okay, I will say... Sorry about that. I will say that amen to the previous speakers, and yeah. Also, especially to what Paul mentioned, and as far as that, I'm a little... different I say whip it out anywhere lady to feed your baby but the thing is that you use those babies as political props and that's so obvious because you can't afford it you can afford like three caregivers but you know you got to do what you got to do to maintain that image people are catching on and you're not very liked I'm so sorry but don't expose your kids to that because that's pretty messed up they don't deserve that but you don't care okay that's all I have to say

Thank you. We'll hear from one final caller. This next caller is Becky Rapp. Your device might be muted. It looks like she dropped off. Chair Lawson-Riemer, that concludes public comment on the sign-in movement.

Okay, thank you all so much. Put myself in the queue. I want to say I think I support the spirit of this item around transparency and making sure that the public has full access to information and that's why I already put online and posted publicly the results of the legislative research that we conducted on these two items. But I have a couple concerns about the way it's written and would love to be able to get to yes. So let me just kind of go through those and hopefully I'll be able to support this. I think the first is just regarding the first recommendation, which I could have been really insulted, but I'm going to take it in a spirit of that I think it was, I hope it was intended, which was around transparency and not about singling out my office. So I think it would be, I think it's quite inappropriate to single out one contract for one board office and really, I don't think it's appropriate for a policy to target just one board office. So I do think the idea though of we're asking for these kinds of report backs is totally reasonable. So I drafted some slightly tweaked language that would broaden the net so that it targets a larger set of potential community surveys and polls. I don't know if Andrew, my team sent that. If you want to put that up there. So we can see what I was saying. Oh, it disappeared. Oh, there it is, okay. So direct the Chief Administrative Officer a designated request that any community surveys or pollings that support legislative research for any court board offices be presented to the board on the work conducted under the contracts. So that obviously would include the work that FM3 did for my office. It would certainly include that, but it would make sure that any work that was conducted for any offices that was conducting community servings and polling was included. So that would be my first amendment to the, and I think the impact from your point of view, Supervisor Anderson, would be the same, get the same reports back. But to me it's about if we're really committed to the idea of transparency, that should be a policy that's for all and not for one particular poll and one particular survey. Yeah, why don't we do this one at a time? Because I think this is the one, okay. This is the one that I was the clearest on. The other, I had more questions. Okay. Okay, great. So I think that makes, I mean, and I think that makes a ton of sense. I don't have any issue with that. I think it's, the public should know what's going on and we'd already posted it anyway. And if the CEO wants to ask for a report, more power to it. Okay, so that was my first one. I think... The other, I just had more questions, I think, for council, and then some kind of thoughts, and that weren't quite as cooked up. So I wanted to kind of begin with recommendation three that because it has the presentations coming in September but I know one of the things that we talked a lot about before was how we need to be really careful in talking about any measures going to the voters because we don't want to inadvertently engage in electioneering or accidentally engage in communications that would be a violation of PPC. So I just wanted to get some guidance from County Council on any risks or considerations on the timing given that we're within 90 days of an election.

Thank you, Chair Lawson-Riemer, for the question. In terms of the discussion point, there's no legal prohibition to having a discussion about development of a ballot measure or communications that went into the development of that measure with contractors. those are all legitimate governmental activities that can be discussed. I think the challenge could be just the scope of the discussion surrounding that information. If there's any communications that could be viewed as advocacy or something that goes beyond information, those communications could present an issue with because the election is essentially open at that point in time and the ballot measure has gone forward. And so there just would need to be some additional concern about making sure that there wasn't communication that could be deemed to be advocacy. The timing, the scope, the tenor of the conversation, all of these have sort of played out in other FPPC opinions as to determine whether there could be a violation. And so that would be flag to be aware of if this conversation were to take place prior to an election.

So it's not so we legally could have a presentation but there's risks based on what was said and the timing what's said because it's within 90 days.

It just Depending on what is said, again, I don't know what the conversation would be. I don't know the scope of what could be discussed in that conversation. It just depends, again, how facts may be characterized. You know, those kind of issues, depending on where the discussion goes, could present some risk for a violation of the rules.

Madam Chair, if I may, a recommendation for it was said that no disclosures that would otherwise be prohibited by law. Now, I can't control what everyone else says, but I don't believe if there's a violation, the board's in trouble, the individual's in trouble. For example, if I were to say something that was illegal, like vote trading, and made an offer on this dais, I'd be held. The board wouldn't be held. So I think it's just important that we stay in our lanes and have... them present in their lane and not talk about how this portion is better for the county and that's why you should vote for it. But saying when we looked at all the things, the public said this was most important to them. Perfectly legal, perfectly reasonable. Please correct me if I'm misspoken. But these are the types of questions that we've been fielding. Had we had not cancel meetings. I would have brought this up sooner. I didn't want to have it this late. We're still getting calls. I want to put it to bed. And I think that people have a right to know. And I think that any of those questions, and we've heard from people who have spoken, all sorts of conspiracy thoughts and innuendos, and let's just put it to bed. Let's just be transparent. Let's let them present what they learned so that we can better serve our constituents. And I would caution all of you, if you don't feel that you can stay in your lane and not say something that's gonna get you in trouble, then walk out. As long as we don't lose a quorum.

I mean, I'll be honest, that gives me a lot of pause, like the notion that we could be creating a discussion forum that you could say one wrong word or three wrong words in the middle of a conversation and it could then trigger an FPPC investigation I think that does not create is not an environment that's conducive to like a good exchange of ideas well let me finish let me finish what I'm saying um I think from my point of view um I think there's kind of two approaches either one would be would would address these concerns for me is either one would be to have some kind of report back that is sent to a report back instead of a return back or am I saying it wrong is it a return back instead of a report back So it's not a presentation where we're all sitting here talking, but as in said, like a report that's posted publicly and sent to all the supervisors, but doesn't create like a dialogue moment. I think that would do a, that would could satisfy the need for public transparency. Or if we feel like we all need to sit here and talk about it, then I think it has to be after the election. So either one I would be fine with either, either sending this information in some format instead of us, instead of it coming to the board for a conversation but posting the information or us bringing it back after the election. But I think bringing it to the board it just it creates in my opinion too much risk. So if you'd be open I'd take either of those.

Are you not confident in your own ability not to violate the law? I am not confident in the ability... Because I'm confident that I'm not going to violate the law with my questions or my constituents' questions.

This is not about whether the law is violated. It's about whether it creates an opportunity for a case to be brought. You know, you could be well within... You could not do anything wrong. Absolutely, but we've created a forum in which we're talking and saying things and someone could then make an FPPC complaint even though ultimately you're found to have not done anything wrong. So I don't I want to be clear right like the law is a long process and you could do nothing wrong but we are creating I think it's a huge risk to create a forum where we're we're essentially saying okay Now there could be tons of FPC complaints filed or one FPC complaint and for what end? Like why do we need to do that if you can share the information in a way that doesn't create that legal risk? It could either be sent back to us without us it being presented in a conversational format or if you feel like time is of the essence or if you feel like the more important piece of this is having a robust public conversation from the board then I think we should do it when we're not all sitting here on pins and needles terrified that like one single word could be misconstrued. So I would take either one, either like send it back without a presentation to the board or a board presentation after the third. If I was going to choose, I would probably say a board presentation after the third because I think there's a lot of interesting information that's worth a board discussion, especially in the bucket of work that the Sustainable Fiscal Subcommittee is doing. I think there's real value to coming back to the board and having a discussion about that because that's work the Sustainable Fiscal Subcommittee is still doing. That would be my preference. But I would say, to me, either one. I think... The return to the board and having a board discussion before the election is what feels like a problem.

So, both those solutions don't solve the transparency issue that I'm facing. So, as far as the FPPC goes, every day we get tons of public records requests and We slow roll those. We've been sued over it. You can't stop people who want to file something.

If somebody wanted to file... We're not talking about public records. We're talking about FBPC.

No, but the point, though, is we don't change our behavior for fear of lawsuits against us on things that have no merit. And... having done some of the research, does the FPPC have oversight over us? We're over three million. They only do two million. I'd have to... Because that's the reason why we're creating our own ethics committee because we don't fall under the FPPC and when I look to see if we could fall under the FPPC we're prohibited by law because they don't do more than two million people. We're past that considerably. So I get that people still continue to file that stuff, but they could file it anyway. They could make any... We all know people that file as a way of making a living. And so I'm not worried about that. What I'm more worried about is putting to bed any conspiracy theories that are out there and how things were mismanaged and misdone. And the timeliness of it is important. Had we not canceled our board meeting, we would have addressed it sooner. But because we canceled our board meeting, this has gotten delayed. How about we do a middle ground. How about we simply pass our questions to our counsel and he reads the ones that are appropriate and sends back ones that's too close to the edge and sends it back to us. And that way we can still have the robust, we can still have the public input and the people that are hounding my office will have an opportunity to come here, say their piece, and have their questions answered. I just think that we need to be absolutely transparent. I think when people are looking from the outside in it looks like it may not be as crystal clear as it should be.

Can you clarify for me, though, Supervisor Anderson? We're talking about a couple different things, right? We're talking about the legislative research my office did that I've already shared and it's already public. And then we're talking, that's one piece of this. And then we're talking about the work the Sustainable Fiscal Planning Subcommittee did. has done and is continuing to do that's not yet complete and is not relevant for this, you know. So what, so what do you, when you're saying folks are hounding your office, is it about the work my office did on my legislative research?

It's on all of it. We're just getting a whole random, it's all random stuff, and I don't want to be in the position of having to

Well, let me say this.

I'd rather do it sooner rather than later. After the fact, I'm still going to get pounded between now and the election.

Well, I did hear someone say something they wanted, you know, just to build on what your point is that you're getting hounded by all sorts of random stuff. One person came here today talking about a different subcommittee, right, which wasn't the Sustainable Fiscal Planning Subcommittee. It was the Social Safety Net Subcommittee.

Well, I love your broadening. I think that's great.

So, I mean, I'm trying to get to like a coherent point here, just to be clear. Like, I think we are on agreement on number one. Maybe we can hold for a second on number three and go back to number two. Number two says direct the sustainable fiscal understanding committee to engage our own public affairs to present to the board on the body of work conducted to develop the regimen, petition revenue budgets, blah, blah. I mean, shouldn't we just direct all the subcommittees at some point to come back as soon as possible with presentations from all of the consultants?

Ours are all posted, so.

But I just said, yes, I hear you, but you just said that posting doesn't seem to be good enough for you. No, no, no. Because I just suggested we post.

The questions, so when you read the polling, it doesn't answer the questions of the methodology or the thought or any of those things, any of those questions. It just tells you what the outcome is, but it doesn't tell you how it was created. And in ours, you see the whole interaction, so you know exactly how all of it's created. I'm willing to accept your idea of the report back and us submitting questions. prior in getting that going right now.

Sorry, I'm not understanding what you're saying.

Well, what were the two choices you gave us? One after the election and one sooner?

Yeah, I said like look, I think there's two possibilities here. One is we have a big robust discussion after the election so we're not worrying and sitting on pins and needles and worrying that one word is wrong and we can all really talk and not, and we all say sorts of things that maybe you wouldn't say if you're trying to be careful. And I think there's a value to that and vowing to have a robust discussion. I think we're going to have a better conversation if it's post-election. Or, I'm not comfortable with having that kind of robust discussion pre-election. I think there's too many legal risks. Instead, we ask them to submit a report and post that report publicly and send it to all our board offices. Ebony can tell me the right term. Is it the report back, as opposed to the return back, and do that before the election.

Can we add a Q&A portion to it, so in the report they're answering the questions of the constituents?

And they wouldn't come here to do it publicly, but we could send them the questions ahead of time, send it to Ebony, and then she could get it to... Is part of the report back? I would be fine with that, yeah. Like, we could all send our questions to Ebony ahead of time, and she could share those questions with the consultants. That would be fine for me. I think I'm just trying to prevent us all sitting here and not being able to really talk because we're worried about some frivolous litigation. So that is fine. I don't know, maybe I could give Damon some thoughts, some moments to think about how we would do that.

In terms of facilitating the questions.

I think the question being, like what we're talking about is instead of having the consultants come and present to the board, instead we would have them write a report and send it to board offices. And then we would be able to give Ebony questions to ask the consultants that they could then include in the report they send to board offices. Yeah.

I think the discussion piece is when do you eliminate that, you sort of eliminate the risk. So if there are questions presented in advance that can be submitted to the consultants and be part of the report back, then that eliminates that risk.

Okay.

If, so if we did have them report here though, and we did submit the questions to you, wouldn't we have the same filter?

If the questions were submitted to me, but there was no discussion, is that the?

No, no. The questions that were not in the gray, you simply ask. We'd still have the discussion, but our questions would. The concern is during the discussion, that's when we're going to get in trouble.

I think that's the concern is the discussion. I'm not concerned about the questions that are asked.

Gotcha. That's what I keep saying is that we might discuss and get in trouble. So that's what I'm trying to. Make sure we don't do. Do you want to try out, Andrew? I'm listening. Okay.

So I think basically the idea is taking number three.

Okay, yes, I see you, Supervisor Desmond, but we're trying to get somewhere. I think, just to be clear for Andrew, and then we'll go to Supervisor Desmond, Andrew's trying to draft something that basically says that instead of coming back to the board with a presentation, is that the clerk would... in consultation with county council, I guess, because that seems to be critical here, send questions and ask for some kind of report back from the work that the consultants have done. And they'll get those questions from the board offices ahead of time so that those can be shared with the consultants. Supervisor Desmond.

Yeah, this is just awful watching this go back and forth. We should err on the side of transparency and just rip the band-aid off. If there was no wrongdoing, let that be shown. If there was, then let that come out. But by waiting for... An election to happen because it might change things one way or the other, I think, is not a reason for us not to be as transparent as we possibly can. As soon as we can, this just looks like we're obscuring something. I don't know what it is, but that's just what it seems to me watching this whole conversation go on.

I have a question, Chair.

Please. If there's no one else in the queue. Oh, Supervisor Anderson is in the queue, but he already spoke. So do you want to go ahead, Supervisor?

No, no, I'll speak after.

Okay. Thank you. My question is, I mean, to address Supervisor Desmond's point. If this comes back... in the format of a report that's emailed to us that has any and all questions from constituents they may have regarding this specific data, that would be made available since it's being made available to us through our offices and we would have the ability to share that with the public, correct? Just like, you know, you've been making available our work through the FTA. So would that address the concern? I mean, it's still going to be public.

What I was going to say, if you've recognized me, is I agree with Jim. However, you can always try to be as pragmatic as possible, and I'm always open to yes, and I don't want to drag this out and make it any worse. I'm good with that. I'm willing to accept those amendments, and if you want to move forward with the vote, I'm good with it. My first choice, though, would have been Jim's. I think that The more transparent we are, the better off we all are.

I know Andrew's still working. Let me turn to the Vice Chair.

Just for clarification, the questions, we're going to set it up to where the questions will be answered and everything will be made available to the public. And that is not just through a PRA. That is actively initiating that availability process. Right? That's right. Yeah, that's not just saying, okay, in some obscure way, now there's a memo that needs to be PRA. That is putting this in reports received or something like that.

That's, I think, the intent. But, Andrew, why don't you put up what you got? I'm looking at it. I think it's not quite there. It's not 100% what Ebony is going to need to be actionable, but we're like halfway there. Ebony, what else would you need? She's writing me notes over here, and I said just say it out loud.

Thank you, Chair. What I would appreciate having in terms of clarity in the board's direction is specific timelines in which we would like to receive those questions from your offices, as well as the timeline for the report back in which we'd like to see that filed, and it will be filed in communications received, yes. Thank you.

So the two questions Ebony's asking is submit questions by X date to CAO and report back by Y date. So today is August 19th. So when does everyone want to give their questions to Ebony by? Let me pause. Vice Chair, did you have a thought?

I'm just saying, y'all go ahead and choose because just, yeah, just go ahead and choose.

I didn't put my name up. Are these questions and responses gonna be made available to the public or is it just gonna be report back to our offices?

Go ahead, Vice Chair. That was my question. And no, they will be in communications received. So they will be on our agenda. They will not be just where it comes just to us and then we're expecting the public to know and PRA. They will be made public for people to go and review it.

All right. I just prefer doing things in public as opposed to back door. Thanks.

Let me just pause. I want to make sure you know I think that like I think we're all let me just say this. We just all voted in favor of item 14 yesterday which was all about ensuring that we have you know a lot of transparent processes and good guardrails around community surveys and sharing that information for the public. I think we all put a lot of work into developing that. I want to recognized Supervisor Anderson and brought that idea forward initially and we all jumped on board and it was passed unanimously. So I just want to pause and I want to make sure that folks get a chance to to contribute so let's just slow down there's one other piece I wanted to raise and then we can kind of circle back to this amendment okay because I want to make sure we're kind of accomplishing because I think we're all committed to the transparency piece that feels very clear to me that everybody here is really focused on transparency and accountability it's a question of how we do that I think circling back was With the, oh yeah, the recommendation four, it says recommendations one through three shall not require disclosure of any information that is otherwise prohibited by law. I'm wondering what that means, kind of there's, this is a question for Damon. Is there information that there would be like reasons that you wouldn't disclose, like because it's predeliberative or it might be sensitive or something that would still get disclosed the way that item four is written. Does that question make sense? Is there information that is not prohibited by law from being disclosed, but that the county might have like an important interest in because it's predeliberative or it might be misleading to the public? And I just want to better understand the scope of four because this is something I feel like we talk about a lot.

Sure, there would be pre-deliberative privileges that would attach to some of the communications. Most of the contractors are aware of what that information is and would know not to disclose that information, but that would be one bucket of information. There could be other exemptions I'm not aware of presently, but I think the language was intended to capture certainly the pre-deliberative privilege that would have attached to those discussions.

Sorry, I'm still not following. So if it's pre-deliberative, would it be disclosed or would it not be disclosed the way this is?

It shouldn't be disclosed. It what? It should not be disclosed.

It should not be disclosed. Okay, that's helpful. Okay, so that was my major question. So do you want to just take a moment? Anyone have thoughts on this? By X date, compile report back in Y date, or do you want to take a totally different direction here?

So I was thinking, perhaps when we got the questions in by the 28th, had we had the public hearing, it would have been easier for me just to notify people to show up. So we're going to have to go back and notify the people to send us, resend their questions to us or any additional questions. I'm thinking we can get that done by the 28th. And I want to be fair to those organizations. Do you think two weeks would be appropriate so if they came back by the 11th or the following Monday? To answer them? Because I think that these are not going to be so complicated. They're going to either know about how they formulated questions or not.

I don't know. I think that's an ebony question. Because I don't even know the scope of the contracts. Would you need to have a contract updated to require them to? I don't know. That's an ebony question.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Supervisor Anderson. I think you've identified both that it's going to be subject to the scope and volume of the questions as to whether or not the contractor will be able to be responsive within the time periods that we define. If in the event I found that they were not able to in either one or multiple instances, of course, we would communicate that to your board to make sure that you are aware. We can set some parameters, as you mentioned, maybe the 15th, for example, as a date and maybe the end of next week to move us forward.

My plan is that when we have 10 questions that are similar, we'll narrow it down to one question that answers all of theirs. Like if they say, hey, did you think of this on a Tuesday? And the next question is, did you think of it on a Wednesday? We'll just simply ask, which day of the week did you think, to the best of your memory? So I'm not, my idea is we may have 100 questions. There may only be nine questions that are uniquely different. So I'm going to, that's why I need a little extra time to make sure we crunch it down. It's not fair to ask these vendors, you know, answer 100 questions of which 90, OR THAT, YOU KNOW, REALLY SIMILAR.

THANK YOU, I APPRECIATE THAT. AND THROUGH THE CHAIR, IF I COULD JUST ASK FOR, SO CLARIFYING THAT WE WOULD RECEIVE QUESTIONS FROM YOU ALL BASED ON THE INPUT THAT YOU ALL RECEIVED FROM YOUR STAKEHOLDERS BY AUGUST 28TH IS, I THINK, THE DATE THAT I HEARD. AND WE WOULD SUBMIT THOSE QUESTIONS TO THE CONSULTANTS AND COMPILE THE REPORT BACK NO SOONER THAN SEPTEMBER 15TH.

It says no sooner, but can we have an end date so we actually know when we get it this year?

Fair. What would be your end date?

Through the chair, what I heard in terms of the board discussion is that there's a desire to have this in advance of the actual election. There was some discussion about post-election, but what I think I heard from the motion maker was in advance.

Yes, please.

Yes, so certainly prior to the election, at least 30 days prior to.

How about September 30th? That gives a two-week window.

That's great.

Okay.

And again, like I said, if there's something that comes up as we're working with the consultant. Sure, of course. Thank you.

So this would be a replacement for three, essentially.

I'm good to go if you are.

Supervisor Geary, you're very thoughtful. Thoughts? Good. We know where Supervisor Desmond's at. Supervisor, Vice Chair, Montgomery Step, our attorney. Thoughts?

I do have a question.

Okay.

So, Joel, or Supervisor Anderson, so is it... I mean, I'm trying to read and figure out what it is. Basically, what we're asking for is that we get the survey and the polling that any office has done legislative research. So really, we're just going to get the survey and the polling. Is that what you're... No.

Because that's what it reads. Well, we're going to submit questions, so we're going to get the questions answered.

So you're gonna have more questions than what, so I guess I'm really not sure what I'm voting on, I guess. But it says, well, I don't see anything in here. The questions are gonna be submitted and answered. I guess, okay, the second part, receive questions from the board on this, all right. Because the first paragraph, it says surveys and polling. So what is it that you don't want? I get the questions are different, but what is it you're after?

Well, there's some confusion as to whether we've gotten everything and we've seen everything. So I'm being inundated with questions about whether we're being transparent or not, whether the board's being transparent. I just want to put it to bed.

So has the surveys and the polling been released? Is that already out there?

Yes.

Survey questions?

Yes.

Okay. So you got other questions? All right. Sorry, I'm just...

Okay. We're all trying to be as transparent as possible.

All right.

Okay. So we have a motion and a second then. And hopefully nobody changes their mind when we walk out of here and has better ideas than we came up with. But this was a very transparent policymaking process.

Good news is we can always come back and rediscuss it and change it.

Oh, no.

If we have a better idea.

Okay. Sounds good.

Just to be clear, for the record, we have the two recommendations before you today are the actions that the board would be taking. None of the other recommendations would be included. Just be the two that are on the screen.

And also four.

And recommendation four.

That was missing.

That would describe recommendations... We'll reword that to indicate that the report shall not disclose any information that's otherwise prohibited by law.

Please go ahead, counsel.

We probably would want to include some additional language that specifically describes the other privileges that we were discussing. Otherwise prohibited by law may not capture the totality of what we would be concerned about with the pre-deliberative privilege, so if we might want to call that out specifically, we can send over something.

Could we just say something really simple that just says, still not recognized of any measurement deemed by county council as pre-deliberative or otherwise prohibited by law? Just keep it simple? That's better.

We're going to email the language to Andrew.

You're missing a verb, is. Thank you. I'm okay with that if my colleague is, okay. Okay. Are we supposed to wait?

Okay.

Okay, I'm fine. I don't care. I mean, whatever you recommend, but I just don't want us to, I just want to make sure we're disclosing everything we can and not breaking the law. That's my goal here. May I share? Yep.

If we have no later than September 30th? If we have no later than, do we meet September 15th? If they want to give it to us the next day.

Yeah.

Let's just let them do it.

Sounds good. I don't care. Just no later. Yeah. Okay. Great. We have a motion and a second. Please vote.

Chair Lawson-Riemer, that motion passes with Supervisor Desmond voting no, all other supervisors being present and voting aye.

Okay, thank you, thank you. Gosh, on our theme here, seem to be on a theme. This is my item. This is item 30, restricting post-employment lobbying and barring county officials from insider trading and betting platforms like CalSheet and PolyMarket. I am tired from that discussion, so let's start with public comments, and then we can go to board discussion.

Thank you, Chair Loftin-Riemer. We have 10 requests to speak on this item, one in person, and nine requesting to speak by phone. Also note for the record that we received three e-comments all in support of this item. For any individuals that requested to speak on item 30 by phone, please dial into the conference line using the instructions that were provided to you. We'll begin with the in-person speaker. I'd like to invite forward, allegedly, Audra. You'll have one minute to address the board since there are 10 or more speakers on this item.

Talk about robust. It's so interesting watching that. I feel like watching somebody buying an ADU and having to do an HOA with a person that they bought the home from. I'm wondering how you're going to enforce this. Are you going to have people tracking and tracing people once they leave employment? Damon, are you going to be in charge of this? Are you going to be surveilling people that have once worked here? Are you going to target certain people? Or is it just everyone? Tara?

Audra, go ahead. You can continue your public comment. Thank you so much.

I really appreciate your permission to do that. I was going to ask, I was wondering if I can go to the bathroom later. Is that okay? Do I need a permission slip? Are you going to surveil it? You guys have been doing PCR tests on poop. I'll bring it back for you so you guys can put it in a cup and dip the PCR test in there. That'll be exciting. Then you can track and trace my movements. You know what I mean? Yeah, I'm sure this is going to be enforced. We should be looking at you guys because you're doing it right now.

Thank you. We'll now hear from those that requested to speak by phone. We will begin with our first caller. Just one moment, reconnecting real quick. Okay, we'll resume with our callers.

Good afternoon, Board of Supervisors. That was a tiny bit confusing. Thank you for the item 30 that we're going to look at. And of course, I support the idea of a two-year ban. And I think it's all part of the transparency that you all say that you want. And now I understand, 29, it would have been nice to have seen what you actually voted on for us to discuss instead of changing it substantially. And now we didn't get to participate on the new item. I don't know if that's appropriate in the way that you handled 29. But we do appreciate your commitment. And we do appreciate that when you spend money, county money, that's our money. It is useful for us. Now I'm speaking to 29, I guess. It's really useful for us to know that it's being spent and what it's being spent on and why it's being spent. It would have been nice to have had all this information for 29, but I do appreciate Board of Supervisors who bring it to our attention so that we can more effectively interact and understand our role in relation.

Thank you. We'll hear from the next caller.

Paul Bowles here. I don't know what the phone interruption was, but I'm glad I'm back. Anyway, the item number 30 sounds reasonable, although hopefully no new bureaucracy committee or employees just for this because we already, you know, get taxed up the wazoo. Please also restrict excessive corporate donations which do not represent the community and have a similar corrupting influence. You know, the board is kind of corrupt in accepting all sorts of donations from corporations and then they ignore the people. It's

you know at the round robin i really thank you on to the next caller it's crazy to me that i was right so many years ago about the aclu influencing our basically our county and i wonder how many other ACLU, ex-lawyers, or ex-legal teams are now super vibrant or even higher positions. We want transparency, and obviously you guys are going to receive it and you do realize that something is up. I heard it in your guys' voice. I heard you guys recognize the fact that the shenanigan is up. People are aware of your crap. And people are starting to investigate you. Ripping the Band-Aid off real quick, real fast, before we go ahead and vote to give you more power, just to find out later that we should have never done that? That would be just flat-out stupid. I understand that you're an ex-lawyer for the ACLU. Thank you.

I'll hear from the next caller.

It's truth polls and Polly Market is just the beginning because here's proof that Tara is always a hypocrite. I don't know you very well, but I really like seeing us do. You have really good vibes.

Very good vibes, which is really important. I'm actually just reading an article about an astrologist who's been making a killing in the stock market.

Yeah, is that your inspiration? You're a better, too. We know this is yet another political attack on patriots who just happen to bet on what has become obvious plans to destroy the country. Everyone should be entitled to at least make a few bucks while we're on the downfall. I mean, if Tara's friend Nancy Pelosi is allowed to rake in millions of illegal stock trading, why can't the good guys? Is that because progressive communists are hypocrite fascists to repress the rights of others? Rhetorical question. And to reference Pelosi's nephew, Newsom is hilarious when his dumb, corrupt wife is profiting off his dirty diaper deal with her NGO fraud. And Tara, nobody wants to hear your 30-minute screed spewings on the diet. They just give off creepy, gross vibes. Couldn't even hear the need.

And we'll hear from the next caller.

Um, yes, really disappointing to not be able to listen to the phone calls. You guys honestly can't even get the phone thing right. And, um, yeah, it was like, ironically talking about transparency, you guys are anything but, um, yeah. So good to know, uh, that, uh, Our rules are actually to be quiet, don't ask questions, and pay your taxes. Such a joke.

Thank you. And Chair Lawson-Riemer, that concludes public comment on this item.

Okay, thank you all very much. I'll just make a couple opening remarks. We've had a long couple days, so I'll keep it short. I think we have spent the last many, many months very focused as a board on how do we really make county government work better for the people that we're here to serve and that government is here to serve. And this is one more item in that vein that really tries to ensure that government is accountable to voters and that we as not just elected officials, but also all the senior leadership that works here at the county is oriented towards serving the public and that public interest comes first. So this item has two parts. The first is extending the post-employment lobbying restriction to two years. And the second, which I think is really interesting and is really trying to get ahead of the curve Some of the dangers we're seeing emerge in other places is barring county officials from insider trading and betting on futures market platforms like CalSheet and PolyMarket. Right now we don't have any kind of ordinances prohibiting gambling with insider information on prediction markets, and this is definitely becoming a bigger problem. We haven't seen any instances of this happening here at the county, thank goodness. But I always think it's better to have rules in place before something goes sideways instead of putting rules in place after things go wrong. We've started to see some of this emerging at the federal level. An army soldier was charged in April for making more than $400,000 on polymarket, betting on U.S. military actions using classified information. The most recent interesting example of this was the teleprompter operator who used his knowledge of what Trump was going to say in his State of the Country, State of the Union, to make about $100,000 on prediction markets, which, of course, he knew what was going to be in the speech because he was the teleprompter operator. This does not seem right. So this is a fairly broad... It's very bad, Andrew. What is this? I'm trying to work on it.

It's very bad. Maybe I turn... Is that better?

A little better? Can people still hear me? Okay. This board letter would give broad latitude to staff and to legal counsel to come up with guidelines that make sense to really figure out which employees should be covered. Probably not everybody. We kind of got to think about what's the right level of seniority so that all that work needs to be done. But this just gets the ball rolling and comes back with options. So with that, I'd like to make a motion. And if anyone has any comments. Please, Supervisor Geary.