Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

Here. At this time, please stand and join us in pledging allegiance to our flag.

All right, the next item of business is approval of the October 6th, 2026 minutes from the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors meeting. Second. Motion from Hartman, second from Lee. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passed unanimously. Abstain. Oh, an abstention from Lavagnino. Next item of business is our CEO report. Madam CEO, do you have a report for this morning?

I JUST COULDN'T LET THIS MOMENT I JUST COULDN'T LET THIS MOMENT PASS. PASS. DANIEL, 13 YEARS IN SOCIAL DANIEL, 13 YEARS IN SOCIAL SERVICES, AND FOR THOSE FOLKS SERVICES, AND FOR THOSE FOLKS THAT DON'T KNOW, SOCIAL SERVICES THAT DON'T KNOW, SOCIAL SERVICES, I'M GOING TO SAY IT'S LIKE SERVICES, I'M GOING TO SAY IT'S LIKE 700 EMPLOYEES, 800 EMPLOYEES. 700 EMPLOYEES, 800 EMPLOYEES. IT'S A HUGE JOB. IT'S A HUGE JOB. AND IT'S BASICALLY WHAT WE DO AND IT'S BASICALLY WHAT WE DO HERE AT THE COUNTY IS MAKING HERE AT THE COUNTY IS MAKING SURE THOSE THAT NEED HELP GET SURE THOSE THAT NEED HELP GET THE HEL

Thank you, Supervisor Labanino. Supervisor Hartman.

Yeah, Daniel didn't want a resolution and he didn't want a party and so we're having to sort of shoehorn it in this way because we couldn't let it go unremarked. He's just been an extraordinary person. I think He was the kind of department head who ran his department well and very responsibly, but he also was ready to pitch in. It was noted that he served as director of what was then our County Public Health, but he also just pitched in on things like Workday or any other county-wide effort. He was there. I served with him also on the CINCAL board and he rarely missed a meeting and he always w

Thank you, Supervisor Hartman. Supervisor Capps.

Yeah, it is telling that he isn't here. He's just sort of this humble public servant. And really, Daniel runs a department that does both things of this county so well. It's all heart, and it also has to run incredibly an efficient bureaucracy. And he managed to do both things so well simultaneously. I'd have these meetings with him. I mean, it's such a huge department. serving the most vulnerable on a daily basis. 40% of our county is served by his department roughly and touches our county in such important, meaningful ways, often unseen. And so he runs with such a heart, knowing that service

you supervisor captain lee thank you um i just want to say i agree with all my with my colleagues i remember um him giving me a tour of the santa maria facilities that we put is put in perspective of what he does and how important job it is so if you're watching thank you enjoy retirement we try not to bother you but no promises when i just like to wrap it up with just uh

reiterating some of the things that were already said up here about him being just this constant professional and this humble person and not wanting to be here today is very thematic of his leadership style, but it's also leadership style of being a mentor. Daniel is responsible for, I believe, four department heads in other areas, either in our county or other counties that were people who worked underneath him. And so he was able to mentor them up to be able to be leaders in their own organizations. So I think that says a lot about Daniel and his character. One of the reasons why he didn't w

all right thank you madam clerk and just for agenda management for those that are watching we are going to uh get through administrative agenda hopefully here quickly you don't have any resolutions to present so that's going to make us go a little quicker and there will be general public comment then we need department item number one which is a a short one then we'll get into department item number two which is the orca library item if we have enough time before 11 o'clock we're going to skip to item department item number four which is the oil um response item that we have with fire and then

All right. How about items being pulled by my colleagues? Anything here?

OK. Supervisor Hartman, A13. And I will join you guys and point that as well. So pull A13. And I'm going to go ahead and pull A30 and A31. There's some set hearings that I want to make some quick corrections to. With that, can I get a motion to approve the balance of the agenda? So that is all the A items except for 13, 30, and 31. Motion from Hartman, second from Capps. Any further discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes unanimously. All right, we'll go ahead and move into that and the order of the items and start with item A13. Madam Clerk, could you please read that item into the record?

All right, Secretary Hartman, you pulled it first here, so.

Well, I just wanted to remark that there have been a couple of areas at the jail where we've seen some significant improvement. The medically assisted treatments stayed stable despite really high demand. And the discharge for MAT patients is really strong. So glad to see that. And the multidisciplinary meetings for patients with high complex needs, that's really great. I wonder, Director Hamami, if you would talk about safety cell monitoring. I know that that's where scores have declined and that's a focus area for the future, but I think that's really important. And then the mental health pra

If I may interrupt, why the shorter stays? What have you done to reduce the stays, the time?

Thank you. I appreciate that. Supervisor Hartman pulled this. I was planning on this as well. And so on this point, are you suggesting a link between the fact that inmates are in the safety cell less time and so therefore they wouldn't require the three visits and so therefore it would be categorized as a fail? Is that what you're suggesting?

You said that there's a certain amount of time that they get three visits. But if they're there a short period of time, a shorter period of time, which is a positive thing, are they just not there long enough to require this and therefore they're

Thank you. I mean, again, I should back up and say this is reflective of progress and I'm appreciative of uh director hamami's role in in in in monitoring and and the partnership that clearly seems to be working uh that was a new direction um i also want to make sure that the audit is asking the right questions because we find that sometimes it's kind of miss missing and and so if i don't know if this is our audit or um but if it's if you're explaining that it's not quite getting at the essence of i mean if it's a 10 minute late um well check then it sort of misses the point, right? So is that

Yeah. And I guess I'll just ask you more qualitatively. Are you feeling as though we're making significant progress in the cell monitoring?

Okay, and I want to give ACO Heitman a chance, but I just wanted to make sure, I know staffing has been an issue, so is there a correlation between staffing and these checks happening? You're nodding, so.

Go ahead. You finish off. Okay. Just I also see in the materials that electronic medical systems is another area that needs improvement. I know all of us as patients, we all deal with, the shifting of electronic medical records in our own lives, and so I just was hoping to hear what you all are planning to ensure that all of the WellPath staff are up to speed on getting everybody enrolled quickly, because I know that can help with efficiencies.

So it really will be helpful. So that's not happening with Marion at this point?

But not the nurses? No. Interesting. Okay. Well, thanks for explaining that because, again, I just know how I can imagine how valuable that information is, especially if you're dealing with a patient, somebody who's not able to communicate what just happened to them in the ER, et cetera. So thank you for that.

So the takeaway is that the collaboration is working well and that we are getting improvements, some quite significant, some we still have to work on. I had forgotten that CalAIM was going live in October. That is a huge Should I say, we have a big hypothesis here that by getting people care arranged during their stay, afterwards they're going to follow up. And we may not have the kind of recidivism that we've had before, especially with medically assisted treatment, but also mental health care. And so first of all, congratulations to everybody. I had no idea I participated in a task force. Wh

All right, and I had a quick question about one of the measures. My hypothesis all along on this has been that we need to get our staffing levels up, that we really can't address some of these issues until we get to the level of staffing that is adequate. And it sounds like we are staffing up appropriately. One of the areas I saw that there are still struggles with, I think, is the referral bundle that we have, especially the main jail, even though staffing's going up. that number is going down, which is kind of a counter indicator. So I'm kind of curious on what's going on there and what we c

So in our third quarter audit, we'll see that number pop back up now that the contract and the audits align on the standard?

Okay. And are we tracking why, when it does get missed, why that's happening?

Okay, perfect, thank you. All right, not seeing any other lights. Can I get a motion? I think this is a receiving file here. No direction.

THAT'S THE STAFF RECOMMENDATION. SO, YEAH, SUPERVISOR CAPS IS MAKING A MOTION. SECOND FROM SUPERVISOR HARTMAN. ANY FURTHER DISCUSSION? SEEING NONE, ALL IN FAVOR SIGNIFY BY SAYING AYE.

OPPOSED? MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY. THANK YOU. ALL RIGHT. I THINK THE NEXT ITEM THAT WAS PULLED WAS PULLED BY ME, AND THAT WAS ITEM 830 AND 31. COULD YOU READ THOSE BOTH INTO THE RECORD?

All right thank you. So I pulled this item in part because that constellation item which is in Vandenberg Village in the fourth district I've asked that for that item to be heard at a north county meeting which is the 17th So I'm gonna go ahead and make a motion to move that from the 10th to the 17th. But when I do that, that's also aligned with the window that we submit to the state. So we're gonna move the window from the 10th to the 17th as well. So my motion, let me make sure I read this correctly. is to revise recommendations for A30 to set the hearing date for November 17th, 2026, and mo

Opposed? Motion passes unanimously. So that concludes our administrative agenda. And we're gonna go ahead and move to general public comment. Madam Clerk, is there any general public comment today? And these are for items that are not on today's agenda.

All right move right along we'll go right to department item number one, madam clerk, will you please read department item number one of the record.

All right. Thank you for that. Any questions from the board? Madam Clerk, is there any public comment on this item?

All right, so motion from Supervisor Hartman, second from Supervisor Lavin. Any further discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all in favor by signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. All right, moving right along to department item number two. Madam Clerk, could you please read that item to the record?

Yeah. All right. All right. Questions from the board? Supervisor Labagnino.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So the recommendation for CMAR, we've never done this before. Why haven't we used this method before?

So it's basically design build, but we get to keep the original. Correct. Okay, cool. Only other question I had was, so the difference in debt financing, this isn't for you, but I don't know if anybody from budget office is here or whatever, but maybe wait. Oh, hey, there's Paul. He's over trying to find the money in the hallway. So the difference between if we went with plan A or plan B is about the difference between $1.85 million a year in debt financing or $3 million. Is any of this budgeted? Is the 1.8 budgeted or where are we on budget?

Um, that's all I had. Okay, thanks. Supervisor Hartman.

Yeah, so this is to be built with the OASIS center there to share infrastructure. So how much of the infrastructure and site work that also serves OASIS will be allocated to them and how much to the library? That cost maybe belongs in a separate budget line to understand that better.

Okay, and then what would the new annual operating and staffing costs be? I'm not sure that that would be your, in general services, it might be for CSD. But we're already struggling in our library system to manage staffing and operating costs every year to fund operations. So I just, this is a big new facility. We're already sort of struggling. What's anticipated for O&M over the long run?

And have have you applied for the California State Library buildings forward program for funding? And I know that that focuses on disadvantaged communities, but it is helping in in Goleta with their renovation.

Yeah. And then in Goleta, when they wanted additional library services and they weren't yet a city, they formed County Service Area 3 and taxed themselves. Has there been any discussion of doing that in ORCID?

Yeah, well, I have serious questions about the cost of this. I'm eager to hear from everybody, but we have a real Cadillac version. And I know that when we did a community center in Isla Vista, we really worked with funding that we had. We didn't expect the county to bond for this, especially at a time when we're already working really hard to put the money together for the jail. So I guess I do have a question. For the jail, as we bond, and this may be for our budget director, we're waiting for the probation office to be finished, if I understand, to have adequate collateral to fund the North

Yeah, I guess I'll make one final comment right now. I know there's a lot of people who support libraries and community centers, and I think they're hugely important. But the county has a long list of projects, capital improvement projects. And we look at those in a context, and that's coming up in March. I know that in Orkut, we need a fire station, a new fire station. The old Orkut fire station needs significant work. We have a fire station in Goleta that we're trying to fund. So I think understanding what the broader range of capital improvements projects that we're looking at would be help

All right. Thank you, Supervisor Hartman. Supervisor Levine, did you get a follow up or did you get answered? Okay. Supervisor Capps.

Yeah, thank you. I'm looking forward to hearing from everybody. And I just want to acknowledge, Chair Nelson, how much work has gone into this, how much you believe in this. My first few months or so on the job, I toured ORCIT with you in the truck with my dog. And you showed me the need for the ORCIT library. And so this is a passion project. And so I say that because I do have questions along the lines of Supervisor Hartman. But they don't mean at all to undermine the beauty of what you're trying to do and what this would mean for the community. So along the lines of some questions, all thos

Okay, so just to be really clear, because we have these yellow signs saying Yes, to the library. I mean, if we say this is a priority today, is that we're signaling that we wanna fully fund it or we just want it to be part of this analysis? I guess we can get to that when we get into deliberations, but I just, in reading the presentation about seven times, it was a lot of either ors or a lot of chicken and egg kind of questions, and I understand that's because staff is really looking for us for directions, but I just don't wanna, I wanna be really clear about what we're committing to.

Okay. So along those lines, I did have a question about this again. I want to be really clear. Maybe this is for our budget director, but as I again, really tried to understand. It says staff is recommending the CMAR, which means construction manager at risk, if the board commits to fully funding. So I wanna see, are you recommending that the board commits to full funding today, or are you simply saying that it's the better procurement method if we choose that path?

some phase of construction in the future pending any kind of funding decision okay so you're sort of the the funding question is really on us or will that be part of the process of what you'll do the analysis and come back to us with wayne horn assistant ceo thank you uh so to clarify your board is has

Okay, and the upsides are obviously less the construction costs are what they are. I have one question on the option B that you just laid out. It seems as though we risk losing, if we delay the project, we risk losing at least one of the grants, potentially the Orchid Library, the Friends of the Orchid Library, the 2.1. 0.25 million donation. Do we know how long that is?

Okay. Okay. Okay, I think those are my questions for now. I'm sure I'll come up with a few more. Thank you.

Thank you. Other questions? All right. There's a lot of members from the public here that want to speak on this item and I'm here to talk about it. So let's go ahead and go to public comment. We'll come back for further deliberations.

I'll go ahead and close public comment at this point.

Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate the claps and the applause. It's appreciated. But because the rules of decorum in a hearing like this, what we do is the hand wave instead of clapping so that we can keep the movie moving along.

All right. Thank you all for speaking on this item. We appreciate you all being here. So we're back to the board here. And I'm going to take the chair's prerogative as this is a project that's in my district that I've been championing quite some time to kind of kick it off. And first of all, I just want to thank all of you guys for being here. Thank you, ORCA, for showing up. Thank you for advocating and sometimes wearing your heart on your sleeves. And I think that sometimes I see and I feel what you guys feel out there. And I know that a lot of you saw some things up there today and were a l

Sure, absolutely. So as Bob said, Orchid's just a unique part of the county in that it is a city in every respect, except it just doesn't have any representation except for a member of the Board of Supervisors. So I guess this decision for me just comes down to like when you're at home, is this something we need or is this something we want? And I think when you really look at it, it's an absolute need because ORCID just does not have a lot of the, necessary gathering spaces that many of our other communities have. So I think once you get over that mindset of is this a need or a want, you know

Thank you, guys. Just the hand waves. Thank you.

Yeah, it's not about geography or need. It's really about information. And I feel a little bamboozled, honestly. I feel like I haven't really gotten a lot of information. So I have some questions for our budget director, if you don't mind coming back up. I just was curious. I feel as though a lot of folks came here today expecting an outcome that maybe they've been privy about for longer than I have. So I was just wondering, has this been part of the five-year forecast or even just a ballpark number or part of our budget hearings? I'm just curious if I missed something.

Okay, so sort of the timing for today is, is what, like, what led this agenda item at this juncture as opposed to budget as opposed to when other capital projects come forward?

I'm not I mean staff put this forward. It didn't come from d4. I'm just wondering what I would look to judge I don't really under it seems out of sequence to me, and I like to make budget decisions in context We weren't assistant CEO really it's with what Paul specified is we needed to know if we needed to include this commitment your five-year forecast and

So that's- Sure, but they're like an impetus. I know we did $10 million for Guadalupe because there was an impetus, there was an emergency. What is the impetus for why are we I'm just curious as to the timing. I understand the need. Absolutely understand the need. I love the library. There's no problem, or I'm very enthusiastic about the project. I'm just really trying to get my, this is a huge number, and I feel as though there's an A or a B, but there's, I feel a little, I want to understand the options here.

Absolutely. So I mean, I'm definitely enthusiastic about the project, open to looking into financing options. With the next item, we're going to be talking about the Northern Branch Jail, $147 million. We had years of conversation. This just feels, to me as a board member, like we're presented with a huge, you just said the word, sticker shock. And I would rather have more time for you all to discuss the options and it doesn't feel very clear to me which one you're actually recommending. Maybe Supervisor Hartman has some thoughts on that.

It's our turn now. Thank you. All right.

But it's definitely not a, you know, a lack of support for the project or a lack of not understanding the needs of ORCA or a lack of support for North County. I don't want there to be any sort of insinuation of that at all. It's really just, wow, you know, this is the first time this is, I know we've given two incremental votes in support of purchasing of the land. Those are quite relatively small. So what we're talking about today. So I hope that my colleagues understand the need to understand more from the staff

um what the options are in context to the other capital needs well let me and let me kind of maybe respond to that because i as just somebody that's advocating for this to move forward and some of that um prides himself in and trying to be on top of the budget this allows us to build it into that budget right if we move forward with this recommendation just like this last year you know for example this we built into the budget you know, the Texas HR1, right? So we had to put money away for, you know, $5.5 million this year, another $5.5 million ongoing next year to handle indigent care. And so

you know and that that will be a decision we'll have to make at that time we'll have to cut things out of that budget just like we're moving forward with the north or the north branch jail addition i think there's nine million dollars this year ongoing that we're doing financing there is that right channels and that's correct and so you know we're just trying to get this thing moved in and so we can budget for it so that it can be cake baked into the cake um and this is where we got the project to to this point um I will admit that I've been trying to get this item to the board for about a yea

Yeah, I just want to go back. This land where Oasis and the library would go, if you remember back, that was for passive recreation zoning. And so this board worked very hard to get that rezoned so that these projects could move forward. And I would say I was a very strong advocate in that process. I served on a library ad hoc committee where we looked at the exorbitant rent that ORCID has to pay, and I was a huge advocate for saying we really need to acquire a building so we don't have to pay all this money in rent. And throughout my tenure as a board member, community spaces, trails, parks,

All right. Thank you, Supervisor Hartman. Supervisor Lavagnino, do you have your lights still on? Your light's back on. Is that right? Supervisor Lee.

This is hard. I'm on the fence. A question for staff. So nothing's set in stone today, right? If we go forward with option A or B, that you'll come back with us to talk more about this for more information.

So if for some reason things just doesn't work out, there's a way for us to say no down the road? Is there a yes or no on that?

Can we do both, A and B? Or does it have to be one or the other?

OK. So thank you for clarifying this. So you want to speak? I want to eat. You know, when Bob said cake, I got my attention right away. And Bob, I know this is so important to you, and I'm going to be supportive. I do agree that our kid needs this. as we do have in many communities, whether it's Carpentry, Montecito.

Thank you, guys. Just a wave. Just a wave is good.

Santa Barbara, I have been to Orchid. I learned about it. I love it. It's a great community. And I want to see you guys happy. But please don't expect that this will happen. We'll do our best to try and make it happen. and working with our colleagues, I know that we will try to get there. So we do have tough years coming up. So I think of my support.

Okay. So I'm going to go ahead and make a motion or sorry, Supervisor Capps, you guys went for the Supervisor Hartman, you have further comment or

Yeah, I'm just trying to sort out the five-year forecast, our budget, and then the capital improvement program. And the five-year forecast that you're doing, how does that incorporate some of our other capital improvement projects?

try to bring down the cost of that ongoing debt service even further that would be looked at in the context of the available one-time funding other priority projects and things like that so could you do several five-year forecasts as supervisor lee suggested the the more expensive project the less expensive project and then without the project or just with a phased project

LET ME ASK A QUESTION, THOUGH, THAT MIGHT HELP HERE. SO WHAT'S THE FIRST YEAR IN THE FIVE-YEAR FORECAST AS THIS SHOWS UP?

THIS EXPENDITURE. YOU'RE TALKING, IT'S PROBABLY, WHAT, YOU SAID 2029 OR 2930?

Similarly, we did the jail where we put $50 million aside so we could bring that number down as we move forward. And that's kind of what we're trying to get this one into the queue so that you can explore those options. It doesn't mean we're going to finance and do $3 million necessarily. That's kind of a worst-case scenario right now. Is that the way I understand it? That's the way I understood it as well. So, again... You can do other forecasts, but the math will be really simple. You look at 2029, you could reduce the deficit by 1.2 million changing the option at that time if the board want

Yeah, and would the five-year forecast include operating costs? Would there be an operation of the library by that point?

I mean, so could we limit the options to option A, financing, option B, financing, and operating costs for both?

Yeah, I mean, I certainly wouldn't, I mean, seeing what the numbers would be is what we'd really be voting on today, which I hope your constituents understand that's what the vote is. But that's certainly something I couldn't see any problem with doing that.

So this would all be built into the five-year forecast, which is something that we're going to be budgeting for, right? That's what the five-year forecast is. It's a projected budget.

Right. I think that's how that's county finance in general is we move for these big projects. You know, we you know, we get to a place and we have to every year adopt an annual budget. You know, that's what we do. And we look at those things and we look at what those cuts can be. The question today is, do we advance the project forward? And I think we should. I think it's a good project. I think as Supervisor Labanino said, I think it's a need. And I so with that, I'm going to go ahead and make a motion that we adopt I'm going to go through the letters here and I'll go through which one those

Point of clarification, does that have operating costs in it?

Let's make sure that under option B two, provide county executive officers develop a project financing strategy that can include ongoing costs in that strategy.

And did you, okay, great, thank you. And also on option B three, does that, did you say option A and option B?

I'm saying option A is what I'm asking for. The board, anytime we'll be able to reduce it, the project to option B by just reducing $1.2 million from a five-year forecast and choosing a lesser project. I don't wanna choose a lesser project. I wanna move forward with option A. But if the board's looking at future budget forecasts and you guys are saying, hey, we need to cut costs and you guys could identify that as a potential cost cutting measure and go down to option B instead of eliminating altogether, that would be something that the board would have that future decision before then.

I would be much more comfortable voting for your motion if it had both options.

So we could pursue both options, right? Is that... Was there a problem with that, Kirk?

yeah we can we can look at both i mean again like you said chair nelson it's a it's a number and it's just a formula and a line on thing and you change the so when we do our next side of your forecast it's going to have um probably i don't want to call it an asterisk but an asterisk on there essentially that says that if you don't when you're looking in out years if the board wants to make some additional cuts they can reduce the project the orchid library

And I don't disagree. And I mean, again, that's one of the reasons why I'm up at the state trying to lobby more money for us so that we have more money to do other things like this. I'm envisioning hopefully getting that $11 million of indigent care back to the state and that frees that money up. There's so many different levers in county budgeting. It's not a binary choice. I think we can do all these things. I think this is an important thing and I'm hoping that we can get there. But if we're in tough budget times, I'm somebody that's up there tightening my belt just with the rest of you guy

Yeah, further discussion. The five-year forecast really deals with our annual budget and what the interest would be. So it would be, you know, three million if we go for the desired project. But again, it's a time where we've been firing social workers who work in child welfare. So that's a hard thing. And next year, I don't know yet, but we're projected an even worse year next year than we have this year. And then what we don't have with the five-year forecast is our capital improvement projects. Do you want a fire station or a library? In ORCID. I mean, these are capital projects. So I feel

Okay. Well, I can appreciate that, but two rows of 11, you know?

I was just curious. I don't remember. I know we did reduce library funding last year slightly, but what's the ballpark? What are we paying out in library to existing libraries right now just for operation?

OKAY. SO I TOTALLY UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU'RE SAYING. You know, it was a tough budget year. But even during a tough budget year while we're doing layoffs, we're still spending $5 million on existing libraries. We did cut it back. But I think we can do more, you know, this board has done amazing work on doing more than one thing at the same time. So there's, that's what you find out. The hard part I understand Supervisor Hartman's having with is that We don't really see all of you at every meeting when we're talking about mental health care, or we're talking about homelessness, or we're talking abo

All right. So are we clear on the motion, though, right now? So there isn't A and B is included on there? is part of the five-year forecast. Got that? Okay. So can we go ahead and get a roll call vote on this?

All right, thank you very much. Thank you all for attending here. We're going to go ahead and go to closed session with that.

Can I just say, I think you all need to be here at budget discussions when we go over the five-year forecast. So you can remind everybody that this is, because this is not set in stone. This is to be discussed.

Thank you. All right. So if I can have all you guys be quiet just for a moment. We're going to read out for closed session. Please.

Excuse me, I just need you to be quiet for just one minute while we take care of one order of business. Go ahead.

All right, welcome back to the October 20th meeting of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors. We're returning back from closed session. Madam County Council, will you please read out items that were reported from our closed session agenda?

All right, thank you. With that, we're going to go ahead and as you mentioned earlier in the meeting that we're going to do item four first before item three. So we're going to go ahead and move to department item number four. Madam Clerk, can you please read that item into the record?

Yeah, thank you for this. It's timely and reassuring to get the report. So I just was hoping to get real tactical. If you can go back to slide 12, please. So that first box is an obvious question, but that takes an operator to identify the spill and call. Who? And do they all have the number? I mean, I know that sounds really obvious, but we did have a sewage spill a couple of years ago and literally there was a problem because they called the number and it was on the weekend and left a voicemail. So I just really wanna drill down and make sure like who, you know, does every operator in the co

So even if, so you say those numbers again, five barrels, anything over that?

And there wouldn't be a delay over trying to determine how big it is?

And you're present for these drills. How often do they happen?

Okay, and so you feel confident about these operators knowing your number or whoever's number and they're on the wall or wherever they need to be?

Okay, great. And I wasn't on the board in 2019 when this was last updated, but I know lessons were learned from the 2015 plains pipeline burst. Can you just describe some of those lessons that were learned and what this plan, anything, any takeaways going forward?

Do you have good communication with the current operator?

Okay, so if people are, especially in my, especially the people I represent are quite nervous about a current spill of that pipeline, what would you like to tell them, at least about the response?

And does this plan exist somewhere that people could read about it other than, I mean, just if there's questions going forward.

I know you've been extremely accessible. So again, just very timely given the repairs that are happening right now, or at least the review of the repairs. So I appreciate the information. Thank you.

Thank you, Sir. I had a question about the going back to slide 12 there for a moment. So after the oil spill, go back, yeah. The oil spill was identified. The next step is to initiate immediate on-site responder activities. So that's the operator themselves trying to do containment or cleanup? Is that how that?

Is there anything in this plan that requires them to wait until you guys are on scene or anything like that to do any cleanup? Because I know that was one of the issues in Refugio's spill was you know they potentially you know it was really an onshore spoil that went offshore because there wasn't you know quick response and if maybe some people were able to act that may have never happened in the first place and so I want to make sure that those levels of bureaucracy are not in this plan.

Yeah, I think Pacific Petroleum is ready and rolling 24 hours a day throughout the Central Coast and ready to respond on these actions and are great partners in local business. So glad to know that that is not a problem. So thank you. Other questions? Madam Clerk, is there any public comment on this item?

Right. Well, I think the other nice part about it is that we're also authorizing the fire chief and the fire marshal to make ongoing corrections over that few years if things come up. And I think that's a great authorization. And I think we would trust you guys to do that. And we appreciate that and we look forward to this coming back to the board. Can I go ahead and get a motion?

I'll move A through C in today's board letter. I'll second.

All right. Any further discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passed unanimously. All right, now we will go ahead and go to move to our third and final item.

And before we get started, I'm going to go ahead and have to leave today's meeting to head to Sacramento for county business. Vice Chair Hartman will be taking over the chairman duties for the remainder of the meeting. I will follow up and watch this item from the road. So thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Patton. Board questions. Supervisor Lovenino.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm just curious because I don't know what the schematic design looked like for the original pods. Is there anything that we've learned since we've opened the Northern Burns Jail that these pods will differ from the original pods?

So I guess that leads to the question, is there gonna be a fight over who gets into what pot?

More so, I mean, not comically, but I mean, I know you have to divvy people up a certain way as well. So how does that all gonna go down?

No other questions? Madam Clerk, is there any public comment?

And Madam Clerk, I'll close public comment.

So back to the board for questions. Supervisor Capps.

Yeah, thank you. I wanted to hear from the public because I knew some of the natures of their questions. And I was just hoping some of them can be addressed in more detail about really how does the design support access to programming, education, more of the services for people in custody to reflect the shift? the shift that I know this board is supportive of in terms of how we treat those in custody.

Thank you, and a point was made about why does it all have to have the same level of security? That was also made in a helpful op-ed in the Independent. So can you address that as well? And there was an example of Santa Claus County, I believe, had different levels of security. So why are we, can you just explain the level of security that's being put forward in this design?

Thank you, and two more questions. I know the advocates here, the member of this committee, they're not happy they're pushing us. You need to keep pushing us. But there were these engagement meetings, and I know they've been discussed, and it was part of the presentation, but it bears repeating. Can you just speak to some of the changes or some of the additions that were made based on feedback from advocates or others in the criminal justice partners?

Great, and I know we checked in, because I know making sure that there was adequate space for inmates to meet with their lawyers was a key thing. And so we checked in with public defender Makuga on that, and she was pleased with the direction. So OK, my last question, because we still get asked this all the time, is what's happening with the main jail? Can you just speak? just again bears repeating that it will be decommissioned. And how does the design of this incorporate planning for the decommissioning of the main jail? I think it's hard for people to get their head around the fact that it

Thank you, very helpful, and thanks for that distinction about the high security.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It was raised a couple of times by different public speakers about California Title 24 and the legality of that. Can you just speak to that a little bit?

That it? So I did have a couple of questions. Will we be submitting an analysis of levels of risk of our population? And do we have that analysis over time? How it's how it's been changing? Or is it constant?

I guess that's the one that you would submit to the state.

And does it track it over time so we get a better sense of if the population has changed? I sometimes hear that with a lot of diversion, we have more higher risk people. And so I'm just interested in who does that analysis? When will we see it?

So I guess what I'm struggling with, or maybe in talking to some of the people who've come before us today, is a concern that our facility isn't flexible enough to handle people in different classifications. And so they're eager to see some kind of an analysis of that. I'm not sure which it is. I suggest I think a CEO, Heitman, does, and maybe you could elaborate on my question.

That's very helpful. Thank you. Because I wasn't clear on that either. I have a question for General Services. And that is, we've heard a number of calls today to reduce our units from six to four and wait on pause on two of them. And just what would that do to our budget and our logistics? I mean, I think it would be very difficult at this juncture to change. Maybe Mr. Patten, you're the one to, I'm sorry. I'm not sure who's best to address that, but I just wanna talk about the practicalities of that.

You were ready for that question. Those are all the questions I have, Supervisor Lee. Just comments. So Supervisor Levinino, why don't you start us off on comments?

Sure. Well, I guess I did have one question of Chief Sullivan. So what is the percentage now of felons, felony versus misdemeanor? Where are we at?

I'm not going to hold you to a certain percentage.

Um, first off, I want to say thanks to the staff that we do a lot of time in this county. We go out to the public a lot and we hold these, uh, you know, listening sessions a lot of time with planning or you're talking about a public works thing and they get a lot of input And honestly, we don't really implement much of what we hear because we're already going in with a plan and we're like, this is what we're going to do. And so there is I've been to a lot of these things where it's like, oh, you hear all these great ideas from the public and then nothing gets done. It's the same plan that we s

Yeah, thank you. I'll pick up where Supervisor Levin left off with just the fact that these public engagement meetings and a lot of the partnership amongst the criminal justice team, I think, is reflected in these designs. I know that our CEO went to one of the meetings. I think you're just day two of your time here. i hope that that provides some solace to the to those advocates who you know still um aren't happy with the size and happy with uh where we're headed in terms of the of the footprint um but i'm you know i'm pleased with the fact that this design does reflect the commitment to dive

Supervisor. Well, I remember when I visited the South County jail, we need new nomenclature for the jail. It's not the main jail. Help us out with that next time. I came out in tears. I mean, it was for people to work there people to be there. It was so really a terrible black eye on our county. And I recently, Chief Sullivan, you showed me around, spent some time with me at the new jail. And it is like night and day. And there was light, there was openness, there were bright colors. And people talking and the officers dealing with the residents, it was really... such a different environment,

I'll move A through C. Staff recommendation. I'll second.

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes.