Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

Thank you all. If everyone could filter and take your seats. Good morning. I now call the September 1st, 2026 San Diego County Board of Supervisors meeting to order. We would first like to take a moment to acknowledge the land we call home. There are communities in the San Diego region that face unjust conditions and circumstances related to that environment in which we live. The tribal nations of the San Diego region are an example of one community that has historically faced such injustices. We acknowledge the harmony that existed between the land, nature, and its original peoples, who have

Here. Okay. We now have Reverend Dale Suggs, who will deliver the invocation, and Eric Freund, who will lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Please stand.

Oh my god. Okay, thank you. We now proceed with the proclamations. The first proclamation will be given by Chair Pertamagiri honoring Millionaires HQ. Accepting the proclamation is Christina Flores. Thank you.

Come on up, guys. Hi, hi. How are you doing? Good morning. Okay, good morning, everyone. Buenos dias. As we observe Barber Appreciation Month this September, along with World Barber Day on September 16th, we take time to recognize the incredible heritage, artistry, and vital cultural role that barbers play in our daily lives. Today, I have the privilege of recognizing a truly special business and community partner in our region that exemplifies this meaning. Millionaires HQ, its founders, its barbers, and the entire team that has helped build this incredible place. Millionaires HQ began in 202

Thank you very much. The second proclamation will be given by Supervisor Anderson honoring Russia Shana. Accepting the proclamation will be Jeff Schindler.

I actually think we have a bigger group than this. I told them, follow me. I'll take you to the boardroom. And then I was late, and they followed suit. It's good to see you. Thank you. Also, I'm very excited to hear that one work.

Good morning, everyone. I'm honored to be here today as we celebrate Rosh Hashanah. And I'd like to thank our County Assessor, Jordan Marks, and all of our Jewish community leaders for joining us here today. Rosh Hashanah marks the beginning of the Jewish New Year and the High Holy Days. It's a time for prayer, reflection, repentance, and renewal. For more than 175 years, Jewish residents and organizations have strengthened San Diego County through their public service, education, healthcare, business, philanthropy, arts, and culture. One of those pioneers was Louis Rose, who arrived in San Di

Oh no, please do, please do. Jordan does an incredible job, and he's helped script this. And I was looking for leadership.

Actually, I'd like to invite all my colleagues. Who doesn't like to celebrate New Year's Eve?

Yeah, wherever you want to be. Yeah, sure. I don't know. She'll tell you. What's that? Are we good? Yeah, yeah.

Well, I'm almost done. I'll hand you the proclamation. You can hold it, and then we'll get some pictures.

Whatever works. Okay. Well, good morning, everyone. Supervisor Jim Desmond here, and I have the honor to proclaim the Hope on the Hard Road proclamation here today. So good morning, everyone. It's my honor to recognize Eric and Kristen Freund. They're co-founders of Hope on the Hard Road Incorporated. So thank you for being here today for this tremendous difference that your organization makes, not only just in the lives of children that have special needs, but with the families who care for them. Since its founding in 2019, Hope on the Hard Road has been guided by a powerful message. Families

Creating community is so important, and it's not only about the individual with special needs, it's the entire family.

This is wonderful. Do you want this? We'll do a picture here.

Thank you all so much. Before we begin this meeting, I'm gonna take a moment to remind everyone here of our house rules. Public engagement is the cornerstone of a transparent and accountable government, and these Board of Supervisors meetings are a primary venue where all Sandy Goons can and should be able to make their voices heard. I will first remind us of our Board's rules. Under our Board's rules, speakers may not use loud, shouting, threatening, impertinent, slanderous, profane, or abusive language to any member of the Board, staff, or the general public. Second, all remarks and question

Could you please pause the speaker's time? I'd like to just get some guidance from County Council. Is that kind of profanity when it's directed at a specific individual such as the District Attorney, Summer Steffen, sufficiently considered disruptive behavior for this meeting?

Okay. So to be clear, A reminder that your comments must be, when you're speaking on non-agenda public comment, must pertain to a matter within the subject matter of jurisdiction of this board. Those comments are not within the subject matter jurisdiction of this board and are disruptive to this conduct of this meeting. That is one warning. The speaker forfeits his time. Thank you.

Speaker's comments. Ma'am, the cannabis item, which I think you're saying, it does not go on non-agenda public comment because it is actually agendized. So we are hearing the cannabis item on consent on our land use docket tomorrow. So if you would like to speak on another matter within the board's jurisdiction, please go ahead. But if you are intending to speak on cannabis, please come back for consent tomorrow so you can speak and we can consider your input when we consider the item. No, thank you.

Okay, thank you all very much. The next item on our agenda is approval of the minutes and statements of proceedings for the sessions of August 18th and 19th, 2026. Is there a motion to approve? So moved. Second. We have a motion and a second. Andrew, can we please vote?

Okay, thank you so much. We now proceed with the formation of the consent agenda. This is items one through 12. As a reminder, all items in consent are routine and will be acted upon with one motion. Individuals can comment on the consent agenda items after any of my colleagues make any comments they'd like to make or pull any items they'd like to make off the consent agenda to put on discussion. Do any of my colleagues have any items to pull? Vice Chair Montgomery-Stebb.

No need to pull any items. I have a few comments for item number two, item number three, and item number five. I just want to note how important it is that outreach is being done in a thoughtful manner to ensure the community members who are not currently aware of the service that is in item two are being reached. I want to thank staff for taking our concerns and then bringing this item back. Certainly, we discussed publicly the outreach that Supervisor Anderson brought up to rural communities, so geographic outreach is extremely important. Also, demographic outreach is important as well. We w

Thank you for comments. Thank you for the motion. We will turn to Chair Pro Tem Aguirre.

Thank you, Chair, and I'll go ahead and second. I want to speak briefly to item number five, the probation department's response to the civil grand jury's recommendation regarding body-worn cameras as well. I recognize the work that probation has done to expand and upgrade fixed camera coverage at both the Youth Transition Campus and East Mesa. I also recognize the department's ongoing work around de-escalation care teams, reducing the use of OC spray and bringing community-based partners into our facilities. But I am also concerned about the department's decision to wholly disagree with the g

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to thank county staff in Jewish Family Services for taking into consideration Potrero and other rural communities where they didn't have access to this program in the past, and I appreciate their commitment to giving them access now and tracking that access so we can better meet the needs of all of San Diego County. The second is I'd like to pull item six, please.

Okay, Supervisor Anderson has pulled item six. Supervisor Desmond.

I have no comments and no items to pull.

Okay, thank you very much. I have no comments and no items to pull. We will now go to public comment on consent.

the speaker's time. The item on the consent agenda is regarding a competitive solicitation for no-cost transportation for older adults. That solicitation would go to Jewish Family Services as well. So just, again, you can go ahead and continue speaking, but please make sure that your comments are relevant to the item. Thank you.

If you're speaking, if you're calling to comment on either of the items regarding the Tijuana sewage crisis, those items are in discussion, not on consent. So please comment on the consent agenda or return to make comments on the Tijuana River items when those are up for discussion. Thank you.

Okay, thank you so much. We have a motion by Vice Chair Montgomery-Stepp and a second by Chair Pro Temagiri. Seeing no further requests for comments, please vote.

Okay, thank you all very much. I'll give everyone a moment. I'm going to talk a bit about the schedule for the remainder of the day. Before we begin our discussion items, I'd like to note that Sheriff Martinez is only able to attend our meeting until 3 o'clock today, so we are planning to hear our sheriff-related items before she leaves. Those are items 6, 18, and 20. Again, Sheriff Martinez is only able to be here until 3 p.m. today, so we need to hear items 6, 18, and 20 before she has to go.

So my plan, unless there's concerns, objections from any of my colleagues, is to take these items in order, which would be item six, which Supervisor Anderson just pulled. Then we do items 13 and 14. then we would do item 15, and then we would do items 18 and 20. However, that does make it likely that item 15 may be after lunch. So Supervisor Anderson, you did pull item six and item 15 is yours. So I am giving you professional courtesy. Do you want, if you have a preference on ordering.

You know, if you want to do it last, I want to make sure that we get through the items. This is not a big deal.

So the question is simply, would you prefer to have item 15 before or after lunch, if we have a chance for it? After lunch is okay? Okay, then we're going to do item 6.

15 is your item with Supervisor Montgomery's step on El Capitan.

Supervisor, what are your thoughts? I know we have a lot of speakers.

I would say maybe do six, 18, and 20 back-to-back after lunch. Great, happy to do that.

Okay, so we will then start, and this is for my colleague, we'll start with 13 and 14. Then we will be able to move on to 15 so that we can get through 15 because we have a lot of speakers here for 15. Then after that, we will take a lunch break. And then we will do our three sheriff related items back to back after lunch so we can finish those before the sheriff has to leave. Again, trying to take account all the needs of all of our speakers and being able to maximize public participation. So I will repeat that one more time. We've just finished consent. So we'll go to items 13 and 14, which

For 60 years, the people of the South Bay have been promised a fix. The skepticism in my community is not just understandable. It's been earned. So I want to speak directly to that skepticism today because this item is about more than a treatment system. It is about who can be trusted to deliver. Here's what I know about trust. You don't rebuild it with words. You rebuild it by showing up, doing what you said, and being honest about what comes next. We have shown up. When the air turned toxic, this county put purifiers into thousands of homes. When Saturn Boulevard became ground zero for hydro

Thank you so much. First, I just really want to thank my colleague for her fierce leadership, ongoing partnership in ensuring that this issue, this crisis, this public health crisis, this environmental justice crisis that has faced and plagued our region for so long remains centered and at the forefront of our policy agenda here at the county and across San Diego County because We've all suffered far too long and especially the residents of her district who deal with this public health crisis every single day. But the reality is that this is a public health crisis and an environmental justice

I'm happy to move. Okay. We have a motion from the chair pro tem and I'm happy to second.

I appreciate one minute for two items. Sir, your time is up, thank you.

Sir, this is your first warning. Please do not disrupt the meeting. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you very much. I turn the floor over to Vice Chair Montgomery-Stepp.

Thank you so much, Chair Lawson-Reimer and Chair Pro Tem Aguirre for bringing this item forward. Chair Pro Tem, and really the chair, have been very persistent and consistent in your advocacy around this issue, and I want to thank you for that. For decades, communities in South Bay have waited for outside agencies to fix this crisis. While billions of gallons of raw sewage polluted our beaches and sickened our residents, this action lays the groundwork to build a locally controlled treatment system. On the San Diego side of the border, we can no longer let our environment and public health dep

Okay, thank you so much. Chair Pertamagiri. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Vice Chair, for your support.

I just want to address some of the comments that I heard. I always think it's interesting that people think that we're omnipotent and that we can actually force another country to do something that they may or may not want to do. All we can do is pressure, push, advocate, even continue to demand that Mexico step up and invest more resources and reduce the amount of sewage and industrial waste that's flowing freely into our communities. since the beginning of the century, so that we could have clean air and clean water. Now, that being said, the agreements that have happened under the past admi

Okay, thank you very much, Supervisor Desmond.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Appreciate it. Ultimately, I would like to see Mexico stand up and finally fix the source of this issue. I think we all would. And we've been waiting decades for that to happen. And unfortunately, it hasn't. But I agree we should do anything we can here within reason to provide relief for San Diegans and San Diego County. This is Mexico's fault. And if anything, a treatment plant should be built on their side of the border, not on our side of the border. We've already built one to the tune of $650 million, and that's just the cost of it. The operating costs are a millio

First of all, I want to thank Supervisor Aguirre for her leadership on this issue. I know that you know all these answers, that's why I'm asking you. But why hasn't the state of California declared an emergency? Why haven't they engaged in any level? Those state legislators that represent that area, are they championing this or what's the status?

Our local delegation has been incredibly supportive, as well as the entire legislature. Every single assembly member and senate member in the entire state signed a joint resolution calling for a state of emergency. Senator Padilla, his bill just was recently approved yesterday, I believe, to set hydrogen sulfide standards, which by the way, we don't have health standards for hydrogen sulfide because nobody should be breathing in that toxic gas. So our state delegation has been supportive, and I haven't been timid about stating this. Unfortunately, our current governor has decided that this doe

Then, part of my concern on this is the item 13, I really think it needs to be, I would feel better supporting it if the cities impacted were part of a coalition that was doing it. I don't believe that we should be going alone. IB should be participating. San Diego should be participating. Coronado should be participating. And maybe even some of the communities along the coast further up who have had their beaches impacted. Without that regional support, I'm uncomfortable moving forward with it. As far as the second item, the... the Saturn Boulevard, I'm totally supportive, and I'm happy to su

I just thank you so much. I just want to clarify something regarding your comments and item 13. The intention of this item is absolutely to build the kind of coalition that you've mentioned to bring this forward, but we don't want to wait. We need to do this initial pre-construction scenario planning so that we are then able to have three to five concrete options that we can then go get feedback around, talk to all the various different cities. I'm certainly intending to talk to the cities in my jurisdiction, which includes the city of San Diego, the city of Encinitas, the city of Solana Beach

Chair Pro Tem. Yeah, I just wanted to add, thank you, Chair. Just wanted to add some context to my comments earlier. So when the EPA does their NEPA process, which is the National Environmental Protection Act, It's kind of our sequel, right? They go out and consult with all the stakeholders. All of the stakeholder cities, when these options to bring forward were considered, were consulted. They were part of that process. I was part of that process. We were all part of that process, even before Minute 333 was signed, which I was also part of. So it's not that we are acting in a silo. This optio

Yes, Supervisor Anderson. Thank you for raising your hand.

Thank you. I My concern is this is not our lane. And once we start going down the Fed's lane, the state's lane, there's always things that need to be done in the county that aren't our lane. And I've opposed being outside of our lane, no matter what the project was, if it's not our lane. In the board letter, The sense and the direction I got was not even to look at using the leverage of the water that we sell. And I get it. That's Otay Water District that does it, not us. But we're not even taking into consideration. We're already committing to $1.8 million in a long-term strategy without taki

Okay. Thank you so much. Any further comments from any colleagues? Okay, so we have a motion and a second for both items 13 and 14. We will vote on them separately at the request of Supervisor Anderson so he can register his support for one and his opposition to the other. We will begin with item 13 and then we'll move to item 14. Andrew, please call the vote. This is item 13.

Okay, thank you very much. Now we're moving to item 14.

Okay, fantastic. We're moving on to item 15. Let me turn it over to my colleagues who brought this item. Vice Chair.

Thank you so much. I believe that we're going to allow for public comment. Supervisor Anderson, is that what you wanted to do? And then go back to Supervisor Anderson.

Okay, great. So we'll go to public comment and then we'll return to the authors of the item.

It's very broken up. I don't know if you're walking or if you're in a place with bad reception, but perhaps you could either go off speaker or stop walking and we can see if that works a little better.

Okay, thank you very much. To my two colleagues, Supervisor Anderson, do you want to start?

Sure, I'll be happy to. I want to express my sincere appreciation to Vice Chair Montgomery-Stepp for partnering with me on this item. and to our previous El Capitan board letter that started this whole process. The El Capitan Reservoir is a very special reservoir. Not only does it provide some of the best boating, fishing, and recreation in the county, it is a vital part of the City of San Diego's water supply. It's owned by the City of San Diego, but is located near Alpine in the Unincorporated. It is used by thousands of residents in my districts and throughout the county. Because it's such

Thank you, Chair. And I will start off by, of course, thanking Supervisor Anderson for your partnership on this board letter, but also this issue, which, of course, as you mentioned, we had a board letter in October of last year. I also want to thank county staff for all of your hard work in working with the city of San Diego. per our direction last year. And so that brings us to this point. Thank you to the members of Friends of the San Diego Lakes for being here, for your advocacy, and all the community members who took time out of your busy schedules to be here, and also to call to make a p

Okay, we have a motion and a second. Any other comments from anyone? Okay, seeing none, please vote.

Thank you all. Please don't clap. I don't want to have to kick you out of the meeting, but I'm very glad that we were able to pass this today. So thank you very much. We are going to take a break for lunch. It is 5 till noon, so we'll come back at about 5 to 1. We'll see you all in a bit. Thanks.

Okay, thank you. We're now back in session and we'll begin with item number 18. Is our sheriff here? Yeah, I'm here. Hi. Okay. Thank you. I was looking all over the audience.

Thank you very much. This is a receive and file, but it would be helpful if anyone had any questions to ask them now, and then we can go to public comment. Any of my colleagues? Okay, Supervisor Anderson.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Sheriff, I just want to thank you for the hard work. When I first got elected, our numbers were astounding. You've reduced them substantially in terms of deaths. I get you can't control everything, but clearly you're controlling something. And it's the right trend in the right direction. And kudos to you and your team. Keep up the good work.

Thank you. Sheriff, I want to say thank you and to all the deputy sheriffs as well for a job well done. Like Joel had mentioned, we're seeing better trends in a lot of different areas. So you gave out 600 iPads in one of the facilities? Is that it?

Oh, okay. And you plan on, was this like a pilot program at one facility? You're going to try to do that throughout, I guess, for every jail that we have?

So do you take Wi-Fi complaints or anything like that? If my cell isn't getting a good enough signal or something like that?

Well, good. I was just on the phone with my provider the other day. But I wanted to say thank you very much, and I know you need resources, and these jails are not cheap, and I know the Vista Jail is very expensive, you know, high on the list, but it's going to take a lot of money to redo that. And they're way overdue, but I'd appreciate all, you know, you're doing the best you can with what you got. Thanks.

Chair Pro Tem and Geary. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Sheriff, for the presentation. I also want to thank our deputies for all the work that you guys have been doing, and I do want to recognize the efforts that you all have been making to reduce in-custody deaths. It's quite stark, the difference. Obviously, we're trending right, and we want to make sure that we continue, hopefully, to zero. That should be all of our collective goal. So I just have a question related to... metrics and outcomes. So, you know, what types of indicators would you say we can focus on so that we can ensure

Yeah, and I appreciate also obviously the efforts of us working with CalAIM and recuperating those costs because that's going to help us a lot in those efforts too.

Vice Chair Montgomery-Stepp. Thank you so much, Chair, for being here. As you indicated at the beginning of your presentation, something that you promised the public and the board, so thank you for being here. To go to just piggyback quickly off of the CalAIM question, are we on track to get that rolling in October? I know we discussed that the last time I think you were here with regard to the administrative care contract. So I just want to know if we're on track for that.

Just again, just briefly, are we on track with that, though, by getting everything done so that we can bill by October 1st?

Okay. I know we're in a little bit of a time crunch, so I have more questions about that, but I'll just leave those for now. And I generally like to just get the public's input before, because I have, as you all know. I have questions and then I have comments. But I'll just go ahead and go through some of these questions. And certainly I want to begin by acknowledging the very stark graph that you showed us with regard to fewer people dying in our jails. As you said, every single life matters, and we don't want anyone dying in our custody. But it does show meaningful progress, so thank you for

So in their independent April 2026 study, it does say that limited data and denied requests for certain data severely constrain their work. It was April.

Okay. I think they would say the same, but I just wanted to make sure there was clarification because that study is out there.

Okay. I think I want to just hear public comment, and I'll come back to a couple more questions that I have. But again, I appreciate the report and the progress. Thank you.

Thank you. First of all, I just am glad you're here with this report. It's obviously a really critical issue and really important to keep not only the board updated, but the public. because this is something I hear a lot about and has been an issue for a long time. Just had a couple questions. I think the focus on the improvements is super helpful. I also know that one of the findings from the clerk report that I found really particularly upsetting and was wanted you to talk a little bit more about what else we could do to address this was that over half the deaths are occurring for folks that

I'm just wondering if there's any work to be done with the DA to think about how to, it's really, I mean, this is like a very specific population that isn't, you know, they're in your custody, but they've not yet been convicted.

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

Thank you so much for being helpful with your really helpful responses. Please, if you ask me the question, I can ask staff.

The board's role for the public in particular, and then just go through some questions. So when someone dies in custody and also when there are bad conditions in the jail, of course, residents understandably call this board. And the public deserves that clarity. The independently elected sheriff operates the seven detention facilities throughout the county. The board cannot... direct a deputy clinician or jail commander, nor manage the sheriff's daily operations. However, this board is not powerless. We control appropriations. We act on certain contracts and settlements. We fund independent ov

Okay. And all I'm saying, I think we're on the same page. When we make the broad statement that the level of care significantly expanded, then, you know, you say it's on the website now, good.

And in the quarterly report. Sure. that it would just be good to link that with the progress. So we were saying that level of care has expanded significantly just based on the data that you're now pulling that you've been able to organize. It would be good to just see that progression through the data.

Appreciate it. I also just want to know specifically how you all determine that CHP contributed to reduce death risk, right, when it comes to our medical providers. Was there risk-adjusted evaluation or external clinical review or is that statement kind of based on a year-by-year annual analysis?

Yes, just a little bit more data around the statements. I guess just when there's some generalized statements, right? And just kind of digging into the data a little bit more. Yeah, and I apologize.

Okay. My last question is about the MAP program. Thank you for the video. Just want to know, based on the relationship with Behavioral Health Services, about continuity of services post coming out of the institution.

Okay, thank you so much for being here and answering all those questions, and yes, I just, when, I know generally, you know, you're cognizant of our time, but I do like to see the data that supports the qualifying statements, right, in the report, and so, because I think that, you know, there's some good data there, and I just want to make sure, like I said, this is all about progress, and the only way that we sustain it as we just stay on top of that data and culture shift as you mentioned.

Okay, Chair Pro Tem. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a follow up question to clarify. It has to do with the case that we had recently settled because of the person who didn't receive the insulin and died. Are you familiar with that one? So when we have somebody that's diabetic or critically ill, or they're unable to express that they need that care, how do we go about not checking them off as refusing medical attention? Is that to do with what you were just saying that everybody's just sent to the ED? How do we qualify that?

Yeah, I was curious about the changes that have happened and what safeguards we have to ensure not just people who have diabetes, but that are sick or confused or incapacitated or unable to express that they need help or advocate for themselves. How do we ensure that we just don't check them off as medically, refuse medical attention, and that we actually do provide that attention. You gave a great example that's very helpful with the insulin pump. Are there other examples that you can point to?

Okay. No, that's great. Thank you. I appreciate that response. Thank you. Thank you.

If we need a motion to receive the report, I will. No.

I don't think we do. Am I correct, counsel? No. Okay. Yeah. It's just a receiving file. Okay. Thank you so much. We will now move on to item six. Thank you very much to our sheriff and our whole team. Thank you all for being here. We'll move on to item six, Adopt an Ordinance to Amend Rules and Duties for the Citizens Law Enforcement Review Board. This item was pulled by my colleague, Supervisor Anderson. If you want to explain why you wanted to pull it and what you want to discuss, then we can go to public comment.

Let's call it public comment, and then I'll be happy to.

Okay, thank you very much, Supervisor Anderson.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So this is a board that consists of 11 members. There are two members that come from each district, all five districts, and there's one seat at large. The concern I have with this is we're now reducing the standard where Two districts could control all the policy coming from this. The whole purpose of coming from each district, I believe, is to have better representation and diversity on the board to represent both the coastal communities and the inland communities. And yet, this change would allow just two districts to set all the board policy. The other issue is it re

THANK YOU. DO ANY OF MY COLLEAGUES HAVE ANY COMMENTS? ANYONE? DO YOU HAVE ANY COMMENTS OR JUST WANT TO MAKE A MOTION?

I WANT TO THANK SUPERVISOR ELLISON FOR THAT. analysis, there's just two quick things. One, I kind of looked at the slow walking the other way around. The people can purposely like not show up to stymie progress of the board. One, and then the other thing is, I think the board is a reasonable board just based on our appointments and the CAO's appointments. And they did agree that these are changes they are bringing to us as a board. So I'm going to go ahead and honor that and I'll move the item.

Thank you very much. Supervisor Anderson, go ahead.

I forgot to include. So right now, it takes 54.5% to pass something on the board. So you have a board majority. This will reduce the standard to 36.4%. And it would require, for someone not to show, it would require that five, that six members don't show to stymie things. So I get it. It's a difference of opinion, and I'm good with that. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And Supervisor Anderson, you bring up a good point here about, I do remember at LAFCO we had a similar, I don't know if it was the same one you were talking about, but You know, here, even if we have a majority, it still takes three votes to pass something. Even if the majority is here, I understand that we don't just, if three people show up, two people can't make a decision. So this is kind of going to that minimum. And quite possibly, I don't know if you'd... except a friendly, well, I guess there's already been a motion, well, not yet, but if we made the minimum vot

But I don't know if that would be something you'd consider or something that you might, at least that'd be a little bit more of a bar that has to be met other than the bottom that it's at now as being proposed. Sure, I'll make a motion that we go ahead and pass item six. It's your item. Or no, you pulled it. Item six, but allow that the minimum number of votes to pass an affirmative would require five votes.

No, I was going to second. I was just waiting for... She was being polite and waiting for Supervisor Desmond. So we have a motion and we have a second. So we have now substitute motion on the floor from Supervisor Desmond, seconded by Supervisor Anderson. So I just want to be very clear so everyone knows the content. So the motion made by Supervisor Montgomery-Stepp and seconded by Supervisor Aguirre is adopt the item as currently written. The substitute motion keeps the item most as written but changes the voting threshold to four. To five. To five. Okay. Does any... Go ahead.

One of the issues with this is unlike other committees, we have given them extraordinary power. We have gone back and and really empowered this committee to do investigations, to do other things. In lowering that standard, I don't know that I would have voted to give them more teeth and more ability if I knew the goal was to lower the standard so that simply two districts would have the authority to use the teeth that we gave them. And I want this to be a powerful committee, and I don't want to take away from it, So that's my concern. Unlike the other committees that they described, those comm

I'm going to call myself, who I put in the queue. Is there anyone from CLRB here who could speak to this? Brett. Please, if you could come up. I think I need to better understand from clerk's perspective why y'all kind of moved this recommendation forward, what the rationale was behind the voting threshold you proposed in the first place, and then kind of, yeah.

So just talk us through a little bit about how the change you propose would operate differently than the alternative presented by Supervisor Desmond.

What's been the pattern of how many you need to have a quorum?

Do any of my colleagues have any questions or comments?

I guess I just want to clarify with the statement I made earlier. Andrew, do we have to have, we have to have three votes to pass something in the affirmative here at this board? Yes, charter requires three affirmative votes for any actions. We have that, yes. So we have to have three votes. You can't, if you have three people show up, you can't have two votes and it passes. So I guess that's kind of the rationale I was using for this one. Well, I guess one of the things we could do is, from CLRB, if we've got a vacant seat, we've got to know about it right away and hopefully fill those vacant

I HAVE A QUESTION. WHAT IF YOU ONLY HAVE SIX MEMBERS SERVING? HOW MANY WOULD YOU NEED TO HAVE A QUORUM?

But just to, I'm just trying to be very specific. So we're talking about the difference between what you all put out and what Supervisor Desmond put out. The difference between if we have six people appointed, you need four to pass something. If you have seven people appointed, you need four to pass something. And if you have eight people appointed, you need five because eight's a majority. So the only time where you would only need four instead of five is if you had less than eight people appointed and serving at any given time. Have we had... any times in the last few years where we have les

Not present though, right? We're not talking about present because you just said that if you have eight appointed, you need a majority of those appointed. Am I correct? Not a majority of those present?

Supervisor. Mr. Klein, and now we have 11.

And these are rules. I know that this board is a bit different. It's in the charter. It was voted upon by the people. But generally speaking, it's still an advisory board one. And then you're saying this language is consistent with A74.

I certainly appreciate when people don't show up or people don't get appointed, but that's where the focus should be. It shouldn't be lowering the standard of representation. You know, right now we have a board that gets along, that is of good nature. What if the next board majority decides the club's not important and they simply don't make the appointments, and then only two districts, four people, vote for the 11th? and control the direction. If we hadn't empowered them with additional, and I don't remember off the top of my head, maybe, Ebony, you can share with us the additional authority

Now, do you have subpoena power or what? Because you didn't have that before. That was a huge step. We've always had subpoena power. I thought there was more to it. Monica, you had a whole deal in Supervisor Montgomery's stuff. I mean, I liked it, I supported it, but I knew that we'd have a full board reviewing it and that, you know, it'd take three districts to actually pass things.

Yeah, technically, well, let me go back. Yes, there was a list of things. Mr. Kalina covered, I think, the meat of it. A lot of the other stuff is around Pobar. He mentioned that's something that we added to this additional authority, reporting back to this board yearly, but also having the one-year requirement and meeting up with the Pobar staff standards, which is where they're, I think, from his comments, kind of running into some issues. We did put that extra kind of burden on them. So with that additional influence that they have and certain powers that they have came with that extra resp

How many times have you ever had some investigation that elapsed over the year and or whatever the time period was and you weren't able to address it?

So the last time you actually, I guess, one of these lapsed, it was during COVID.

For that reason, but you haven't, but my question is, has a case lapsed because, okay, we ran out of time?

It can't ever be less than six, even if you only have six people appointed? No.

I understand that. I'm asking a different question. You're saying you want to go with the majority of the people who show up. So I'm trying to understand what's the least number of people that you could have show up. If you have 11 people appointed, it's six. That's clear. I don't think we have a confusion of this. The question is, but we're not talking about, we're not problem solving for when you have 11 people appointed. We're problem solving for when you have like seven people appointed, right? Because we're not problem solving when you have eight, because then you're in the five bucket an

Okay, thank you. This is super helpful. So let me just kind of, first of all, I appreciate Susan Anderson flagging this. I think it's valuable to remember that this is an incredibly important board with real power that makes real decisions, and it is important to have, you know, broad countywide representation. For me, it's a question of incentives and who's best positioned to, like, solve different parts of the problem. I think the, I actually am inclined to support, to just move forward the way with Claire framed this, I agree it would be better if we have like more people there and we don't

If When I do this stuff, I'm not thinking about this board. I'm not worried about this board, but I don't know who follows us. We have to confirm every person that goes on CLRB. If somebody wanted to hold up that confirmation... because they liked the direction and they didn't want the direction to change. I just don't want the process to be politicized. And I appreciate where everybody's coming from. And I just want to tell you, you know, thank you. And look, we all vote our districts. And I agree with that because we were elected to represent our districts. But to me, it's not about us. It's

Thank you, Supervisor. I want to note that that's also my concern, is sort of nefarious people, not current members of the board, undermining a process. And I would worry, what if someone doesn't want to fill their spots because they want to slow roll things so they don't appoint people. So the approach you outlined would allow if you had one or two board members who really didn't want this board, the clerk to function to undermine the function of clerk by like not appointing their people. So I think that the point that I'm making is that these are, this is a valid concern, but ultimately we a

Let's see though. You'd still have the board majority. You'd have three people producing six people. and the CAO, a district-wide person, that would give you seven people. So even if two people decided they're not going to do their appointments, the process still would include the board majority of the votes passing. And even today, under the circumstances of six, it's a board majority that passes it. It can't be done with just two districts' appointees doing the work. It takes more than 30... What did I tell you, 34%? 36%? It actually takes 54%. So I always feel like if 50% plus one, you're s

Okay. Just to remind people of the procedure of where we're at, there is a motion on the floor by Supervisor Desmond, seconded by Supervisor Anderson. That's a substitute motion, and that substitute motion puts the voting threshold at five. And prior to that, there was a motion on the floor. Okay.

I think we all understood that in this conversation.

Okay. Okay. So again, we have a substitute motion on the floor. The prior motion that this is serving to substitute for was from Supervisor Montgomery Stepp, seconded by Supervisor Aguirre, and that would adopt the item as presented and written without any amendments. So we will first take a vote on the substitute motion. Andrew, please call the vote.

Okay, thank you very much. Now we'll return to the initial motion on the floor to adopt item six as written. Everyone please vote.

Okay. Thank you all very much. That was very interesting and helpful. And thank you for all your service. It's really important. Great. So now we are moving on. Again, we're sticking with the items regarding the sheriff and community safety and law enforcement generally. And so that's item 20. And this is protecting community safety, prohibiting wearable electric shock weapons. Turning it to my colleagues.

Yeah, go ahead. Thank you, Madam Chair. Colleagues, today we're asking this board to take a very simple position. There's no place for wearable electroshock devices by state, local, and federal law enforcement agencies operating in California. We're talking about gloves that allow an officer or agent to deliver an electric shock simply by grabbing or touching another human being. not by drawing a taser, not through a clearly visible deployment of force, but through something worn directly on the body that can be activated during close physical contact, used repeatedly, and be far more difficul

Thank you, Chair Pro Tem, for your leadership in partnership on this item. Chair Lawson-Riemer, thank you for accepting this late docket. State elected officials are in their final dash to the finish line for this legislative session. I know we're all getting texts. I think they're almost done. But I want to thank Assemblymember Lachey Sharp-Collins for her leadership in protecting our communities by authoring AB 2760. Equipping ICE with electroshock gloves does not make community members safer or ICE agents better at their jobs. It's simply another tool for ICE to use to harm and intimidate o

Thank you very much, Chair Pro Temohiri. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to add a few things. So for anybody who would make the argument that AB 2760 strips law enforcement of critical non-lethal tools, I would just remind folks that officers will still have access to tasers, OC spray, batons, and de-escalation tactics. This bill went through its due process, legislative process. It went through the Senate Public Safety, local government, and appropriations committees. advanced to the floor for a vote and now as I mentioned earlier has passed and is just awaiting our governor signature. I

Was that a motion? Okay, we have a motion. We have a motion on the second. Supervisor Desmond?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate it. My understanding from my staff and their research is the state bill was a gut and amend measure that was just amended 10 days ago in response to a news article. So I don't think it was, I don't know. This is an effective lawmaking. And the bill aims to restrict federal, state, and local law enforcement from adopting this de-escalation device. I mean, they sound creepy to me. They absolutely do. It sounds like something I would not want to have used on me at all. But this is less lethal, and it's a de-escalation device. You know, we had the meeting the o

Vice Chair? I just want to address the Guttenman that is accurate. However, this assembly member, Sharp Collins, was working with my office to provide greater jurisdiction for Inspector General's offices to include animal services and also probation departments. So what happened was our state association of counties had additional feedback than we thought in order to make the law more robust and to make sure that we are covering all the different areas that were reflected in the code, that she decided to pull that back. So I just want to say that it was, I think, to say that it It was not effe

Thank you very much. There's a couple layers here. First of all, the notion that this is creepy and terrible, but we should support it because it's less lethal. What would be less lethal is if we didn't have ICE roaming around our neighborhoods trying to kidnap people. Just last week, there was an entire armed tactical unit that invaded a mall in Encinitas for hours. Everyone was terrified. Because that's, why are they there? It's completely inappropriate use of taxpayer funds, but also incredibly damaging to our communities. So to my view, if we would like to be the less lethal, they should l

Okay, thank you so much. We're moving on. So now we're trying to get back in terms of the order of the agenda. We had jumped ahead to take care of some of the public safety and law enforcement items. So now just looking for the remainder of the agenda, we have item 16, item 17, item 19. Then we'll have adjournments in memory. comments for closed session and then closed session. Okay, so moving on to item 16. This is an item that I brought forward and we can start with public comment.

Can you please pause the speaker? Yes. We're on item 16. Okay, but you're speaking currently on the previous item. So this is your first warning. Please stay on topic on item 16. Thank you.

Among us in the community and society... Ma'am, ma'am, ma'am. We really need to be consistent on our rules, but you can come back, okay? I will cede you some of my time. The vice chair will invite you back up to finish your comments. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you very much. I'd like to make a motion to adopt this item and then turn the floor over to the Vice Chair.

Thank you so much, Chair. I just had a question for Ms. Russell. I wanted to just see your perspective as you were speaking about how this is impacting you, your family, and others. So if you could come back up to the mic and complete that. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Chair, I will second your motion. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Before we get into board discussion, I want to make a couple of remarks about this item and why I brought it forward today. We've been speaking for nearly two years now about the threats posed to health care in our region by the Trump administration and the cuts to Medicaid. And for the most part, we've been talking quite at length about H.R. 1 and the impact that H.R. 1 will have to San Diego County. This was signed last July and the combination of massive significant red tape and really increased burden on our eligibility workers, in addition to changes in eligibility rule

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd like to offer a friendly amendment that reflects our county's takes on misuse of public funds seriously. And I think that I have it here if we could post it. And I was thinking that we could either replace paragraph 10 or put it in after paragraph 10. I'm flexible on that. But with all the brouhaha, I don't want to have any confusion about over where we stand on fraud and at the same time how our constituents are in need and their needs are our concern. So it's not a big difference, but it would make it easy for me to get to yes.

And where exactly you wanted to put it? After which clause?

Either in lieu of paragraph 10 or after paragraph 10.

Okay. I'm gonna look at it and we'll think about it as the maker of the motion. And in the meanwhile, Supervisor Geary.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you for bringing this item forward. I also want to thank all the speakers. I know how difficult it is for you guys to take time out of your day, especially if you're caring for a different abled child or a different abled adult. I know that almost 80% of our older adults age 65 and up live in a multi-generational household, and that's always a challenge. When you take away the paycheck for these in-home care providers, You're hitting them on both ends. You're hitting them on their income and you're hitting them on their ability to put food on the table, keep a

Thank you very much. Supervisor Desmond.

Thank you, Madam Chair. There's a lot of fear built into this, and I think we've got to be truthful with people. And the main changes to the Medicaid that are causing people to act like the sky is falling are the work requirements for able-bodied 19- to 64-year-old people and having to certify twice a year compared to once a year. And the work requirements are for people, able-bodied adults without children. If you're caring for a child, you're not going to have to go to work. You're not going to have to jump through that hoop. You're not going to have to volunteer. You're just going to have t

Thank you so much. Just real quickly, I also want to thank the members of the public that came out to speak on this item. I also want to thank county staff because Supervisor Desmond mentioned something about what H.R. 1 cuts are actually doing and who they're impacting and our county staff has been working really, really hard to ensure that whoever is eligible will still maintain their eligibility regardless of if they are understanding of the rules or not. I also want to thank this board and the majority of the board for supporting the Safety Net Bridge program that my office initiated becau

I would be without doing much of anything because I didn't have the capability to do it. And so I know personally, I know I'm only one person, I know it's anecdotal, but I know what us helping our community members can do for them. I know what people, the desire that people have to give back. Contrary to the belief of this federal administration, And even some of my colleagues up and down the state, most people don't want to live off of a taxpayer dollar. Most people do want to contribute. Most people do. And so I just, I know it's not personal. I know that's not, I know we'll have our differe

Thank you for your passion and your vision and everything you bring every single day, Vice Chair. I'm fine with this amendment. I think it's true. We do stand for this. I would note... just want to add an agreement that the fraud I'm most worried about is the fraud that's committed by the richest and the cheaters who are cheating all the regular people who are just trying to live their lives and the reason we're looking at these huge Medicaid cuts is because people like Elon Musk are not paying any taxes at all and they're cheating on their taxes every single day so I'm definitely stand strong

Well, I feel that I need to respond. The people, and people that maybe share my opinion on this, it's not that we don't want to help people, we just want to make sure the people that are being helped qualify for the help. And you already have to stand in a line and ask for that help every year. This has to be done twice a year. Medicaid costs have gone up astronomically in this country, and maybe that's for many different reasons. But if your water bill goes up, double or triple, you go try to find out where's the leak? What's happening? Why is this happening here? So we want to, this is not b

Thank you. Just I wanna note, I think it's helpful to put this into context. There is experience with states that have implemented these kinds of measures. And the modeling and the predictions we have of about 150 to 170,000 people losing healthcare is based on other states that have implemented similar kinds of measures. And I find it, ironic is too soft of a term, tragic, distressing, disturbing, but certainly in Congress that there's not, that we're looking at essentially death by red tape, like massive amounts of bureaucratic red hurdles, needing to fill out, come in, apply twice a year, n

Aye. Thank you. Thank you all. Please let's not clap. I don't want to have to kick anyone out, but thank you for being here to testify and to participate and to share your own experiences. Okay, we're moving on to our next item. That is item 17, promoting economic development by authorizing 300,000 grants at East County Economic Development Council. And again, I think this is Supervisor Anderson's item.

Up to you. That's fine. We can start with public comment.

It can be done with any money. The question is, where will we get a large enough chunk of money? The lost revenue strategy? We do it all the time.

Okay, thank you very much. I'll turn the floor over to my colleagues who introduced this item.

Would you like to go first from where you want me to?

Okay. Well, first of all, I would like to thank our Vice Chair Montgomery Stebb for partnering with me on this very important initiative. As you've heard, this is really important. This money is going to draw down $400,000 in federal funding to help give small loans and emergency businesses in East County the step they need to get started. We've had tremendous success with programs like this in the past. You'll serve La Mesa, Lemon Grove, CNT, El Cajon, and it's an absolute fantastic program. I'm very happy to support it. In past years, it's helped more than 570 businesses, created more than 5

Thank you so much, Supervisor Anderson. Thank you for your partnership here in all of your advocacy in East County. As a daughter of small business owners, I have seen firsthand the challenges that local businesses face. And the solutions are clear. People do need capital, so smaller loans, flexible financing, and strong support. It's essential to back the people and organizations driving real change. in collaboration with Supervisor Anderson. I'm really proud that we were able to find an allocation for this funding so that the East County Economic Development Council could launch the Empower

Okay, we have a motion and a second. Any further comments?

Yes, I just want to point out that none of the loans go to big, evil companies. They're all small, family-oriented, tiny companies that a small loan would really help.

Good. I hope they're not cheating on their taxes. Thank you. We have a motion and a second. Please vote.

Okay, thank you all so much. We now move on to the final agenda item before closed session. That's item 19, Supervisor Desmond.

Thank you, Madam Chair, appreciate it. For this one, you can call me a cold-hearted SOB on sexually violent predators. So last week, I was informed the state is seeking to place another sexually violent predator in our county. John Phillips, a man who's deemed by the state as having sexually molested two children and diagnosed with a mental disorder and is likely to reoffend, is being placed at 1619 Zuni Place in Borrego Springs. The unincorporated communities across California, and particularly here in San Diego County, have become the dumping grounds for sexually violent predators. We alread

Okay, we have a motion for this item and we'll go to public comment.

Okay, thank you very much. Turning the floor back to Supervisor Desmond.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I forgot to mention that both of these houses in Borrego Springs, they're going to be housing three, two in one house and one in the other. Both of them are owned by the same husband and wife. And it's public knowledge or public information. They live in Yorba Linda. And they're working with Liberty Healthcare. They know they get multiple times the rental rate for these houses. And just, you know, this is becoming a business on a racket in the unincorporated areas, particularly in Borrego Springs and Acomba. And appreciate your help and support. Thanks.

Thank you very much. We have a motion on the floor. I thought I saw Anderson-Eager, Supervisor Anderson-Eager to second it. Was that? You were chafing at it and then I cut you off and went to public comment. Okay. We've got a motion in the second. Please vote.

Yep. Now turn to public comment for closed session matters.

If I'm not confident, then I'm not going to violate the law with my questions or my constituents' questions.

Okay, thank you very much. We now proceed with our adjournments in memory. Today's adjournment in memory will be presented by Chair Pro Tem McGarry in memory of Dolly Parton.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Today we adjourn in memory of Dolly Parton, a once-in-a-generation artist whose influence reached far beyond the stage. For more than six decades, Dolly brought joy through her music, her unmistakable spirit, and her extraordinary ability to connect with people from every walk of life. But her legacy was about so much more than music. Through her imagination library, she put books into the hands of millions of children, opening doors to literacy, learning, and opportunity. That legacy has a special connection to us here in California and San Diego. Dolly worked alongsid

Okay, thank you. That was a really beautiful one. With that, the board will proceed to close session and be in recess until tomorrow, Wednesday at 9 a.m. We'll take about a 13-minute break, 12, 13 minutes. We'll be there at 5.15, okay? Thank you.