Policy Council - Regular Meeting

Presentation, but first if the clerk can call the roll.

All right, first we're gonna start with our presentation and then we'll come back and do the pledge and everything else.

Please take your seats so that we can get started with today's meeting and presentation. All right, please take your seats. If the man of honor can make his way down today. COMMISSIONER, WELCOME. MADAM MAYOR, WELCOME, WELCOME, WELCOME. ALL RIGHT. SO FIRST AND FOREMOST, OF COURSE, GOOD MORNING, EVERYBODY. THIS IS A PACKED HOUSE. I DON'T KNOW IF IT'S BECAUSE OF THE LOVE FOR FORMER CHAIRMAN OLIVER GILBERT. Oliver G. Gilbert III, or is it because we have some long items on the agenda? Which one is it? We know it's both. We have the YEP students here, so welcome to our chamber, and they're going to

Can we have quiet in the back? Those talking by the front doors, can we go outside please? Thank you.

And now, the one we've been waiting for, Oliver G. Gilbert III. Congratulations, my friend.

All right. Now we'll do a photo and then the sergeants will put the portrait up on the wall as we take our seats and start our meeting.

Everyone that's going to stay for the meeting, please take your seats. Commissioners that serve on the committee. Quiet in the chamber. Let's get the meeting started. If I can please, while the sergeants organize the podiums, if I can have the YEP students please walk up to the front of the chamber.

Alright, please line up the yep students. There with the. There with the podiums here. Make sure you're all in the kind of in the middle here. All right.

Thank you for being here on the very first day of this year's second annual YEP program initiative. So congratulations. You all woke up early and are giving us a portion of your summer to learn about the very exciting work that government does. So we'll speak more about that later. I'm going to plan to go and speak to you all up on the 18th floor. But in the meantime, if you cannot, please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Thank you so much. You may all be seated now. Thank you, guys. We're going to have... because I think it's fitting, I'm gonna catch him off guard, but because I think it's fitting for Oliver Gilbert to lead us in prayer this morning. And I think it's fitting that now as he leads us in prayer, his portrait is overlooking this great prestigious chamber.

All right, you may be seated now. All right, Mr. Attorney. See, sometimes I'm so used to saying Madam Attorney. I have the habit of looking up. You can't hear me? Oh, you can't hear? All right. I'll speak. Maybe we got to raise the microphone just a little bit.

All right. Mr. Attorney, let's move to our item one. Let's see. Oh, I guess I have to do reasonable opportunity first. All right. Reasonable opportunity for the public to be heard is now open. I will call your name. You will have two minutes to speak on the item. Please state the item you're speaking on, your name and address for the record to start. And I have Chad Friedman.

All right. Public hearing or reasonable opportunity is now closed. I only have one person registered to speak. I will allow it, but you didn't register. You can state your name and address and then add your name to the list.

And I failed to do this at the beginning, but I want to just recognize, even though I know we'll be hearing from them in a second, but I want to recognize the constitutional officers. Welcome to the Chamber. We have a supervisor of election, Alina Garcia, our clerk and comptroller, Juan Fernandez-Barquin, our sheriff, Rosie Codero-Stutz, and our property appraiser, Tomas Regalado. I think we have almost a quorum. Well, we have a quorum of the constitutionals for sure. I think we're just missing the one that's always here. That's very odd. That's very odd. Yeah. Our tax collector must be collec

All right, so the agenda moved by Commissioner Lopez, seconded by Commissioner Gonzalez. All in favor of setting the agenda signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. Show the agenda hereby set. At this time, Mr. Attorney, can we take up item 1G1 and 1G1 substitute, which is my item?

All right, I'm going to go ahead and open up public hearing at this time. When I call your name, please state the item you're speaking on, which is this one, of course. And you will have two minutes to speak, Ms. Burton.

Thank you miss burn and do I have anyone else registered to speak. No all right with that public hearing is now closed on this item. Sure so, but I do have an amendment to make if the county attorneys can read the amendment.

Thank you and that just synchronizes it with state law. I think state law prohibits us from giving a full refund, but there is statutory language saying that we can give. Uh, reductions per every day that were delayed in our process. So essentially kind of accomplishing the same goal. A little bit different than I would have originally liked, but we got to the same angle. So, with that commissioner Gilbert moves the item 2nd, by commissioner Lopez. Any discussion on it commissioner Cohen as amended? Yes. Commissioner Cohen Higgins.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. And that's exactly right, Commissioner Koenig. a lot some of these are our same day permits now but it's done administratively i'm codifying that and and putting some sort of penalty on ourself right we often apply i mean we this body haven't seen done it much but government could apply fees and penalties on those that don't comply within as far as residents go but we don't we barely ever put penalties on ourselves so this this adds that that amendment adds penalties on ourselves shall we not uh comply with our own uh ordinance or surely the administrat

All right, show the unpassed. All right, can we, Mr. Attorney, can we have, and I don't know, the next several items are sponsored by Commissioner Cohen-Higgins. Commissioner Cohen-Higgins, do you want to move all your items unless somebody wants to bifurcate one? Or do you want to discuss each one? How do you prefer to do it?

All right, so let's do this. Why don't we move all the items? I just need to bifurcate 2G and 3A. So let's bifurcate 2G and 3A. Any other bifurcations?

So we'll do that. All right, so you want to move the remainder of the items? It's been moved by Commissioner Cohen-Higgins, seconded by Gonzalez. Do we need a roll call? No. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. Show those passed. Commissioner Cohen-Higgins, you're recognized on 2E.

Not say that reason merits to do that. So, all right, so it's been moved as amended. Seconded by commissioner Gonzalez on favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed nay. Show to e passed. Mr. Attorney can we take up item 2G? Yes. And I have, do I have an amendment already prepared? I do. Can you read my amendment?

All right, Commissioner Cohen-Higgins, would you move my item? Move it, Mr. Chair. Seconded by Commissioner Gonzalez, and you're recognized, Commissioner.

The amendment does for now. And then I think from my understanding from the lawyers is that not administratively, but by this body legislatively, we can then bring legislation after this, assuming it passes, to maybe create park regions, because what we don't want to do is for folks to just start advertising in our four or five regional parks throughout the county, and then our small community neighborhood parks kind of start to fall behind. So we want to spread it, but we also want to try to contain the funds to sort of a zone. It doesn't necessarily need to be a commission district. We maybe

having money parked when parks needs a lot of help right now all right so the so so this just brings in the possibility for this revenue to start flowing into the county uh parks department specifically i want to make sure this isn't swept for any other department but that it stays within the park system and then we as as the legislative body when we approve our annual budget we decide kind of where we allocate the funds but it it'll stay within the park system it can it won't go to the district commissioner it won't go to uh water and sewer you know won't go to any other department uh other t

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And that's precisely why working with our parks director, we decided to amend it to give us some more flexibility on it being spread throughout the system. Commissioner Lopez.

Thank you. All right, with that, all in favor as amended, signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. Show 2G passed. All right, 3A. Mr. Attorney, I have a motion on this item. So would you want to read it at this time? Madam Attorney, Mr. Attorney, whoever sits down and takes the...

So colleagues, first and foremost, I'll say this is something I understand. I'll let the deputy mayor speak to it in a second, but this is something I understand the administration is supportive of. We've been working on trying to figure out what to do with this specific RFP. This was competitively bid out, and it was for two different locations. And all bidders just bid on one location, not on the other. So kind of our process here, that's of course something we're trying to fix now with the strip committee, which we'll be hearing about soon. You know, our process here would require for us to

And to answer the question, also to be recognized, unless she has more questions, Deputy Mayor.

When was that date, by the way? I want to know. Because I didn't really hold it for much longer than a month.

That's a long time. I think we should look at that. We should look at it, because I definitely did not hold that item.

I wouldn't do this if the attorneys didn't bless it. So if they change their mind now, then we have a bigger problem. So do you guys want to respond to the deputy mayor's concerns?

Okay, so is the motion accurate the way it's written? I'm sorry, because my staff was talking to me.

Uh, it is my understanding that from the, some bidders that have been in communication with the administration or with maybe our office, but I understand that there It's acceptable to them to do it in this manner. Okay. Thank you, sir. That's my understanding. And this will save us six, seven, eight months of going back out to bid at best.

It sounds good with that. All in favor signify by saying aye. All opposed, nay. Show that item passed. All right. And now, does that conclude our actual agenda as far as action items?

Which is presentations. But action items are all done, right? Correct. All right. All right, where do we start? First and foremost,

All right, we're going to start with the one that came up and spoke, or one of her representatives, our supervisor of election, Alina Garcia. Come on up.

Could you all quiet down? Yeah. Starts to get loud on the side.

Thank you so much. Madam Supervisor of Election Alina Garcia, thank you for that and thank you for keeping it brief. I will say, Um, that our tax collector, while not present. Um, I would just like to put on the record he. Has yet yet not submitted his, his, his budget to the. County, so that's I think that's why he's not presenting and our property appraiser tomorrow. I believe is present. But I understand he will not be. uh doing a formal presentation but i would recognize him for um for submitting a flat budget this year to uh the county so thank you to our pa for being so fiscally responsi

Thank you so much Mr property appraiser. All right, I'm going to kind of go a little bit out of order because I was rushing too quickly at the beginning by calling my friend and colleague. I'm actually going to recognize our office of management and budget to give their brief presentation before we continue with the constitutional officers. And then at the end, of course, we'll have questions, but. If my colleagues can save their questions to the end, pretty much for everybody, yes.

Thank you. Um, and we'll hold the questions to the end, but, uh, commissioner Gilbert can, I know you may not be thrilled to do this, but I may need to entertain a motion.

At least another 30, 45 minutes. Yeah. All right. So let's do another 45 minutes for now. And then if we need to revisit it, we will, but, and if we end early, then we'll, we just tend early. Um, all right. So it's been moved. It's been seconded by commissioner Gonzalez on favor of extending signify by saying aye. Aye.

Correct, yes. I know I do see some here for airport, I believe so. Yes, immediately after Policy Council Aviation Committee will begin, Aviation and Port Committee. All right, so I think I'll save, I'm not going to save the best because then we all get jealous, but I will save the best for last. The sheriff for last, and I'll call up my friend and colleague clerk and quarter controller. Well, for that is breaking.

Thank you. We're going to leave the questions for the end. We're going to go through the last constitutional officer and then we're going to, I'm sure there's going to be several questions. So stick around, please. Thank you guys. Appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Of course. All right. And our last constitutional officer presenting today, our sheriff, Madam Sheriff, please approach the wall.

Thank you very much All right, I'm sure that there's going to be several questions from the day is so Lead off with Commissioner Cohen Higgins and of course you can ask questions of the administration of OMB You can ask questions of any of the constitutionals that are present And just have an ebb and flow in Q&A as you wish

Thank you so much, Commissioner Lopez, you're recognized.

Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Gilbert.

Thank you. Commissioner Gilbert, the thing with everything you just said is that it has this effect. that it sort of triggers questions and emotions. But I'm going to be restrained in my questions and new emotions that have come up because you're right about almost, if not everything you just said. And it's what I know myself and maybe some other colleagues on the days have been saying for months on several other topics. that all come down to this very moment, to the budget discussions. It was part of the discussions when we were discussing mental health facility. It was part of the discussion

Thank you, Commissioner Lopez. And I had followed that veto list very closely, but I had, as you're saying, all I'm thinking is, on one end, and this is just what we deal with all the time, right, to Commissioner Gilbert's point, is at some point something has to give and you know on one end you have the governor advocating and for for lower or eliminating property taxes uh but then on the other end also vetoing public safety and law enforcement resources so you know you the state really puts us in a true bind right uh because i think we all agree that all these services and of course when you

All right, it's been moved by Commissioner Lopez, seconded by Commissioner Cohen-Higgins. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed nay. Show us adjourn. Thank you all very much for coming out and doing your presentations this morning. Thank you guys.