Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

Ready to roll. Everyone knows when Terry Withrow puts his shirt on. All right. I'm going to call this regularly scheduled Board of Supervisor meeting to order. The date is August 4th. The time is 9.05 a.m. If I could please ask everyone to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and remain standing for an invocation from Mike Gunderson from the City Ministry Network.

All right, we're gonna move on to item four, which is a presentation from the California State Association of Counties, or CSAC Institute graduation. Paul Danchik, the COO with CSAC Community Foundation.

Are you still associated with any school? Before, we used to be associated with some different learning institutions.

I'm very proud. So I'm going to come down and help you hand those out if it's okay.

You keep going. We're just going to do one afterwards. OK, great.

So the best part about that program, it's voluntary by our employees who want to further their educational and different components. I did take classes. I was seated in January of 2009. I started taking classes and graduated from the Institute in 2010. I think it took me about a year. And coming off the farm and the way you The way you had a discussion was you yelled louder than the other person. And so it teaches you a lot about leadership skills, about budgeting, about building coalitions. And so I got a lot out of it. And I so much appreciate CSAC has continued this for what year in your 15

Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. You know, civic engagement, volunteerism is at the cornerstone of every public servant. And through this office, I've had the pleasure of meeting many outstanding public servants throughout Stanislaus County, one of which is here today and who unfortunately is moving away from our community. But I do want to call up Candace Weyrock. who is an absolute rock star in the community of Patterson, which is on the west side of our county. And I've gotten to know Candace over the last six years. She has been a phenomenal advocate for community. She's always quick to se

Candace we wish you the best in your next endeavors and you didn't harass us you were informing us right? Thank you. Okay so we will now begin the public comment period. This is an opportunity for members of the public to address the board on matters that are not already on today's agenda. When the clerk calls your name or phone number, please state your name for the record. Direct your comments to the board through the chair. And to ensure everyone has the opportunity to be heard, please limit your remarks to five minutes. Unless a different time limit is announced for special circumstances,

Milton, are you referring to LAFCO instead of STANCOG?

Okay. I know. LAFCO. You show up at all those meetings. LAFCO, though. Farmland Protection.

Sue, could you grab the mic and just pull it down? There you go. Thank you. Okay.

These are great people. It was great. We met. This is one of the good things about this job is my wife and I are out to dinner one night. And Sue's sitting there. And we strike up a conversation. And for an hour, we realize all the same people that we knew and just very good people. And so we're going to do everything we can to help you. I know we're trying to right now try to resolve this for you. And I can see Rob is standing in the back. Cause to talk to you again here with regard to the issues. And we'll figure this out.

Thank you. Thank you, Kat. John, do you want to speak on 7.1 or public comment?

That's very nice. Thank you. Okay, so that's all we have for speaker cards for public comment. Would anyone else like to come up and speak during public comment? Feel free to come forward. Yeah, come on out. Of course you.

Thanks, Candace. All right. Anyone else for public comment? All right. I'm going to go ahead and close the public comment period. We're going to move on to the consent calendar. Before the board takes action on the consent calendar, there are comments. Are there any comments from anyone first on the dais? Want to pull any on? Okay. We do have one request from Ron McMurtry for B5. Any other items from anyone in the audience want to speak on? All right. Seeing none, I'll take a motion for all excluding B5. All right. We have a motion and a second. Ms. Buck? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Oppos

I'm looking to see. Do it afterwards. Yeah, that's his question. Okay.

I'm looking at this. Do you have other questions on this item?

C3. Okay. So go ahead. I already did C3. So, all right. Go ahead and give me your comments on C3. It's all right.

It's clearly stated on my paper that you wanted C3, so that's my total.

I just appreciate it. I know you're turning out here. You're calling it a day here. And I appreciate it. Five months. Five months left. And I appreciate this. Plenty of things that you're doing to try to make sure that everything is set before you leave. And I just appreciate you doing this. Thank you so much.

Oh, north of Turlock. From Keys Road south to Taylor Road.

All right. Thank you very much. You're welcome. All right. So we do have, I'm going to let the CEO comment on a couple of people that are online.

We're sure. We love technology, and it doesn't always work perfectly. Okay. So we're going to go ahead and acknowledge. And please tell them to unmute when they do to say which item they're going to be speaking on.

All right. Thank you very much. Michael?

Okay. So we're going to continue working on our technology to make sure that we know when people get in the queue and if you make it. But anyways, we showed a little bit of grace today for sure. So we still have to deal with item B5 on the consent calendar?

I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 5-0. Thank you. Moving on to item 7, approval to enter into a professional services agreement with GeoSyntec Consultants Inc. for a third party technical review of the Groundwater Use Management Program, the development and the implementation of the Groundwater Use Management Program Action Plan. in an amount not to exceed $495,973. Kristi McKinnon and Rob Coslevy will be presenting. Maybe Rob. Good morning.

Okay, thank you. Any questions of staff before we go to the public? No questions. Okay. We're going to go ahead and all of the presentations are done. We're going to go ahead and open this up for the public. We have three speaker cards to start out with.

Thank you. I see Mike taking copious notes there. Good morning, Wrangler.

Thank you for your comments, Mayor. Okay. So that's the last comment card we have. So now we're going to go to the audience. I'm going to let Milt go first. He was... running up here. It's okay.

Thank you. Thank you, Mel. Chair Frobos, welcome.

Where we at? Keep going. That green light will start blinking yellow when you get 30 seconds.

Thank you. Anyone else out there? Yeah, come on up. Good morning, Mary.

Can you just talk a little bit about your involvement in the Turlock Subbasin, a little bit of your history there and what you've accomplished down there with the similar non-district east, non-district west, or east-west issues going on. Can you just address that a little bit?

Thank you for that, Mike. That was great. Just that there was a lot of pain for the individuals on the east side, and that was accepted by them, knowing that that was going to happen. Because of the trust you built, you were able to build this trust between the east and the west, and there was no question that the east knew that there was going to have to be concessions. There was going to be pain there. But you guys were able to come to an agreement there. As a result, if you get into that point of trust, it seems like that's where you got.

Anyone else to speak on this issue? Opportunity all right, I'm gonna close it and bring it back to the board for comments and or action I Guess I just want to state really quickly because Mike I appreciate your comments I was on both the Turlock East and Turlock West sub basin boards and I was able to accomplish that for about probably about a year and And then the war drums came out about potential lawsuits. And so then I stepped away from the east side. Christie stepped in. And we put a wall in between, never had a conversation about it. And I represented the West Basin. And it wasn't until

I appreciate the presentation by you guys and all the hard work. I know how hard everybody's worked on this. And we will continue to work and we've got our work cut out for us in the next six months here to really produce. So thank you for that and I appreciate all the comments. I won't even go there with Bob Robos' comment with regard to my credibility here and my intentions. It's not even worth a response. Okay, so let's talk about where we're going to go here. We've been asked to be the stewards for the non-district east. That's why we're here. The county is into non-district east and non-d

I'm going to just make a few clarifications for myself in questions to staff. But first of all, thank you so much. Thank you for all the people that came to help with the presentation. So there's things that we're hearing from different member agencies, and that is a part that's a little concerning to me. We have at least one person on the phone and then the gentleman that spoke on behalf of MID that they feel that there is some redundancy. I, as one person, can get over the redundancy issue if I see that by doing this, this does build consensus. So I guess this is a tough question to ask beca

Yes. So the way I look at this, Manny, is not doing the study will definitely lead us to increased conflict, litigation, potential state intervention. The downside to it is if we don't do the study, yeah, that we're in trouble. And that's just knowing the disagreements that are out there right now. I see no harm in the study happening.

I don't anticipate... I've already stated the harm part. I just feel on doing it, if we do do it, do you feel that that will dispel or build enough trust that we could proceed forward with the study?

I do 100%. I 100% think that's what's gonna happen here. I don't anticipate that the study's gonna, I'd be surprised if the study did find something that was unbelievable between the two studies that were done. But I think 100% that doing the study will get us to a spot where we've made the effort, we have two conflicting studies, we've gotten a third opinion, and we can move forward here with whatever.

And since we're the stewards for non-district east, with whatever comes of this study, okay to continue based on what the study presents to us.

Yeah, we have a group. Our group will then take the results. The group that are a part of this will then take those results and move forward.

That's why I said this was a tough question to answer anyway. I don't think we can get any certainty that it's not going to happen. I just want to make sure that there's more certainty of it not happening if we expend these funds.

Yeah, I'm just hoping that expending, I mean, these are taxpayer dollars, ratepayer dollars, hard-earned dollars, and there is a certain sense of redundancy because, you know, I know you mentioned third opinion. We got a first opinion, got a second opinion, now we have a third opinion. At some point, we have to stop taking opinions and just know that that's what the diagnosis is, right, speaking in medical terms like you brought it up. And I hope that that's this third opinion that just puts it to now a path of actual treatment of the issue, which is that we don't want straight intervention, w

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it. I know data centers have been a hot topic at today's meeting. I'm going to go ahead and get it out of the way and kind of cut it off at the pass. But I am going to take a stance against data centers in my district and District 5's currently. I want to be on record with that. I do believe that Patterson did the right thing in placing a moratorium. My district, it doesn't seem suited for it, especially on the west side of the county where water scarcity is prevalent, as well as water contamination, as mentioned earlier today by some of my constituents. S

Okay, of course. I mean we want to hope for the best in this case scenario and hopefully if the consultant is approved and hired that they can mediate whatever issues or problems. But just hypothetically if they don't, we're in a similar situation where we're probably not going to meet the deadline. In that case, do we get a refund from this consultant?

I understand our intentions are clear and they're genuine. But at the same time, you know, we are dealing on standing on kind of shaky ground here just because it is a little bit of out of our control. We approve this today, then it goes to GSA. They shoot it down. We're on the hook for $495,000. I mean, obviously, a reimbursement clause, in my mind, would absolutely need to be mandatory in that case just because we'd essentially just blow money in that scenario. Why did the cost rise? If you can kind of just get, I know that was kind of mentioned here today. I believe Wrangler is the one who

And just may I ask, is this a local consultant? Or where geographically were they located out of?

Wonderful. Thank you so much. And Chrissy, why isn't the current management plan sufficient? I mean, it was agreed upon. Why, I guess, is there uncertainty with moving forward with that initial plan?

Got it. And so just a question about the current ad hoc committee. I mean, was this introduced to them that we get feedback input from them and was this recommended with a consensus of the ad hoc committee for our consideration?

So did they vote on this, though? Did they say, hey, we want this to go in front of the board, we want the board of supervisors to pursue this plan?

But I'm talking about the meetings in the ad hoc that BCON did and Supervisor Withrow are a part of. Did that ad hoc committee say, we want to hire this consulting firm?

Was the feedback glowing of, hey, we want you guys to go hire a consultant?

Okay. I just wanted to know. Because consensus is going to be our major obstacle depending on the decision here today. That's just where I have some major uncertainty. And also, I would like to get reimbursed if it is unsuccessful. That is just where I'm at. So that's just where I'm a little uneasy. And if my colleagues can make me feel a little bit more CONFIDENT ABOUT THAT BECAUSE I KNOW WHETHER WE LIKE IT OR NOT, THIS IS A VERY HOT BUTTON ISSUE. IT'S A LIGHTNING ROD OF AN ISSUE AND TOPIC. WHISKEY'S FOR DRINKING, WATER'S FOR FIGHTING. WE KNOW THE SAME. AND THIS MIGHT BE ONE OF THE MOST IMPOR

If I could just ask one quick question. So on the $495,974 that we're voting on today, only one, 22 would be, we're spending or additionally for a third option or third opinion on the study, regardless, whatever my math, $122 minus $495,373,974.

would be spent regardless. Just to alleviate some of the concerns that Supervisor Seekon had brought up, that that would be spent up. So when we're asking for reimbursement, it would only be on the $122,000 because the other work we would do regardless of if there was consensus or not.

Again, just sorry for my own conversation. We would be spending the remainder of that regardless to make sure that we're managing the GSA and the duties upon us as stewards for this region. We would be doing that regardless.

I'm going to say yes. I know that was a long answer, but yes, the 122 is potentially the only money that we're spending in excess of what is necessary. Yes. So good question. So I can only go, you know, based on my experience down in Turlock. So this board took action back on January 27th to move forward with this. That's what brought us to this point here today. And so now we've heard from some different folks. The Turlock sub-basin, the thing that we recognize, and I'm talking about the west component, there's the city of Turlock, Ceres, Houston, Daenerys Community Service District, Keys Com

Is that at all being considered by my colleagues?

I would just have a question on that. Yeah, go ahead. Is it you want our colleagues to go and bring this to the partner agencies, and if they are in agreeance then? What I would not find... fair to the consultants is they do the work and we can't build consensus because of internal issues or issues within our community and then we tell them we're not going to pay the bill. I can't.

No, we're kind of in the same position we were with the vendor situation. We're kind of hoping for the best. You know, we're coming from that cart before the horse there, where we're hoping they're going to be successful. I don't know, I mean, I want to be optimistic, but I'm a little bit of a cynic there. I don't know if they will be successful, and I just would hate to blow that money. So without that amendment, I will not be supporting it.

Okay, so I'm going to go ahead and make a motion to support all staff recommendations. Second.

Before I vote, I just want to put a caveat into my vote. Obviously, we had a lot of discussions today. Trust is one of the reasons we're doing all this, and I'm putting a lot of trust in my colleagues. They're going to have these tough conversations. They're going to bring back to the board. I think transparency for everyone involved, including non-district east, this would be a third. Opinion on something that hopefully regardless of the outcome that our reputed Consultants find that everybody's going to go along with that and that will alleviate you know litigation alleviate further distrust

Thank you. This does require a fourth or fifth vote. I'm going to turn it over. We're going to do an actual roll call vote, please.

All right. Motion carries 4-1. Thank you very much. Thank you, guys. Two minutes, but before we take two minutes, CEO has a statement.

That's right. We're going to take a quick two-minute bathroom break, and then we'll be right back. Support budget structural operating deficit for fiscal year 2027 and recommendations to balance the budget and mitigate impacts to the community, staff and county's general fund. Raul Mendez, Angelica Ramos and Christine Huber will be presenting. and maybe Joshua Woolworth, too.

Thank you very much. You just want to answer what the hiring freeze and what it actually means. What is the term again? is essentially a soft hiring freeze.

I'm going to start from Manny first because I think you were.

Well, thank you for the presentation. We had briefings on this. Obviously, this is a difficult decision. The hiring freeze, the soft hiring freeze to naturally, through attrition, maybe fill some of the positions that have been lost here is, I'm assuming, the reason we're doing this hiring freeze. And then again, in the presentation, a lot of you saw a lot of this is from federal and state funding as well, and we're already in process to look for backfill dollars if the opportunity presents itself, but we feel that it's responsible as a county to any of the shortfalls we're doing to get ahead

Thank you. Thank you guys for the presentation. This is difficult. Like Manny said, we all were briefed on this when we first found out about this and how this was going on. And then the update was to kind of tell us the dollar amounts that we're talking about here. It just shows how important this is. First, how important accountants are. That's always, I want to make sure that everybody knows that. But just the importance of the institutional knowledge and how we lose that sometimes when people, as people move on, transfer to other departments, things like that, that happen. That's how this

All right. No more questions. I'm going to go out to the public and acknowledge that we don't have any written comments to see when the public wish to Provide comments. Come on up. I saw your head snap back when you heard $17 million.

There's going to be real impacts to the community. There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it. You heard where they could occur, but they're going to occur because there's going to be fewer people. We did exceed the service level of what we could actually afford, the dollars that were coming in. Acknowledge that, and when we first heard about this, it's been about six months when this came to light. It's taken us that long to tear it apart and figure out what's going on. The natural reaction is the quicker we make changes, the less the impact's going to be, but there are many more things that you

The motion is second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Carries 5-0. Thank you all. Okay, on to item three, public hearing. To consider the approval of the fiscal year 2026-27 assessments for various community service areas, the landscape assessment district, and landscape and lighting districts. And your militia will be presenting along with Dave Lehman, I think.

Okay before I go any questions of staff questions questions questions, okay We don't have any written comments. Do we have any online? we do not does anyone here wish to make any comments on it and Seeing none, I bring it back to the board for action. Motion to approve. Second. Motion. We have a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Nay. Motion carries 4-1. Thank you very much.

Okay. We're now going to move on to Board of Supervisors reports.

National NIDOC tonight. Hope everybody can make it out of their neighborhood.

Stay cool, Terry? That's all. Nothing? I'm going to just do the Houston Historical Society this weekend, the Barth family, and the Asali family, Cleo and Joyce, and Frank and Maria Asali were honored. My favorite event of the whole year, bar none.

Same as Supervisor Graywald, National Night Out tonight, I'll be attending the series one on Saturn Court. Thank you, Nason Sanchez and the Saturn Court community for organizing that. And I'll be heading over to the Empire National Night Out, which is hosted by Love Empire, and that's going to be at the Empire Library. So excited for that.

Thank you very much. I forgot to acknowledge receipt correspondence. Thank you. I'm going to move back to nine correspondence. Acknowledge receipt of correspondence to refer to the recommended as recommended on the agenda. Item 11, legislative fiscal management report.

Perfect. Okay. There's nothing else for the good of the order? Yeah, thank you. This meeting is adjourned.