Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

Ready? Okay. We are coming back. We're ready to go back from closed session. County Council, do we have anything to report?

Thank you. Moving on with the agenda, item C, presentations and recognitions. We have one that approved the certificate of recognition for the Women of Leadership and Strength Award to Diane Ortiz and authorized the board to sign certificate. Do we have, do we take public comment on this presentation section? I cannot recall, I don't believe we do though. No, okay. We don't do public comment on presentations. So is there a motion from the board or discussion on this item? So I move to approve. You're first and second. All in favor, aye. Aye. All right, motion passes.

And I don't believe we have any presentation today. It's gonna be at the Indigenous, so if I can just make a comment on that. Number one, it's gonna be an honor to be a model at the Indigenous Fashion Show and Gala. I can't wait to see what I'm put in. My son is very excited about it. But I will be at that event and will be presenting this at that time. So thank you so much for the recognition.

Thank you. Anything else? Great. Well, moving forward, we have no department head announcements today. Board announcements, any announcements from board members? Yes, Professor Carrillo.

Okay, besides the event that's going to be on the Indigenous Fashion Show on Saturday, which is from three to nine, tickets are still available. Girls Inc. is doing their Taste in Treasure, which will be on September 26th. Let me make sure I have the date right. I'm pretty sure I have the date right. September. Yes, 26th is, and it will be at Dam Vineyards. Tickets just went on sale. Please support our local students by attending this event and sponsoring Girls, Inc. The last item is I did attend the CSAC Board of Directors meeting in Sacramento yesterday, or not yesterday, last week, and ther

I can just report out really quickly from RCRC since we're talking propositions. Proposition, let's see, 43 and 45, RCRC, which is the rural counties representing California, RCRC took no position on Proposition 43 and 45. Even though staff recommended no, the Board as a whole decided no position. However, they did support Proposition 1. So that is all I have. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Moving forward with public comment. Opportunity to address the board on items of interest not appearing on the agenda. Do we have any public comment today?

Thank you. Can I make a clarifying statement, just for clarity? Just in case the public speaker missed it, we do have a future agenda item on today's agenda that I requested to have a conversation with direction about the El Nino situation, and it's my understanding that that will be on the agenda, hopefully, optimistically, one week from today, September 1st. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. We're going to move forward to consent agenda. These matters shall be considered as a whole and without discussion unless an item is removed from consent. Any supervisors have items they wish to pull from consent agenda? No? Okay. No items pulled from consent. Do we have any public comment on the consent agenda?

Thank you. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda?

Is there a second? Second. All right, first and second, can we have roll call vote, please?

Thank you. Move to our public hearing item. This is item 2.1. Adopt an ordinance titled, An Ordinance of the Samuel County Board of Supervisors Amending Article V of Chapter 5.03 of Title V of the Samuel County Code to Implement the Voter-Approved Amendment to the Cannabis Business Activities Tax, approved by the voters in 2026, June 2nd primary. okay um county council uh do you have we presented this item from your office yes assistant county council rebecca mojica will present this item thank you

Thank you. Okay, so we'll open the public hearing. And do we have any comments from the public?

Interesting. okay they were yes abraham's checking yeah well we're gonna check we'll give them a chance to comment if we can find them in the meantime do we have discussion from the board

Well, I have a lot of things to discuss with this item. However, I don't have a problem with the business tax part of it and that range that the voters passed. So I'm ready for action on that part. But if we are going to discuss the rate, that's where I will. I've got a lot more to say and a lot more about that. Are we going down? Do we want to have that discussion today? All right.

I believe that was the intention, yeah, to have the discussion today.

Okay. So I don't know that I need to be the one to start if anybody else has. You already. I mean, you guys were. I mean, I don't know if you've had a chance. I think there was going to be some outreach and different things.

No, I thought they were going to come here and speak and have a conversation with us. So I'm hoping they'll still do that.

Okay. And I can let you know where I'm coming from if you want, and then maybe you can respond.

Yeah, I just, you know, I make it clear. I prefer to have these conversations in public as opposed to private conversations with a lot of, especially when we're talking about something like a tax rate, which, you know, the folks that are in this industry and the so-called stakeholders, you know, there's going to be a, they inherently will have, you know, we want to have a good collaboration and a partnership, but they're inherently going to have, you know, if we choose a rate that is, you know, too low, they're going to essentially profit from that. So I want to make sure that those conversati

Yes, and then you can provide a speaker card later. Okay.

Thank you. Okay. Back to the board. Any comments?

I do. Thank you. So I'm hoping, in a perfect world, we would not be making a decision on this today on our rate. I think that what I would like to see is I really would like to see us come up with a... an ad hoc that consists of the stakeholders, of law enforcement, of planning a building. I really think there's a lot we need to consider in this. There is not only the economic part of this, but there is also the safety, the enforcement, all of the different things that go into into this item. I've spent a lot of time, I've had a lot of conversations, I've talked to different counties, and I wa

So we do have a little bit of time. So anyways, that's just that's kind of where I'm coming from today. I really appreciate everybody. your time, your participation. I just want to make sure that we get this right, and I want to make sure that we get this right for everybody. I want our cannabis growers to be successful, but I also need our community to be really successful, and we need to do everything we can to take care of things. So I've got a lot more questions. I think there's a lot more conversation that's needed. So that is my position today. Thank you.

So I appreciate all the comments from my colleagues so far, and I agree moving forward with this ordinance update, absolutely totally support it. Where I'm struggling, a little like Supervisor Sotelo, but a little different. I am looking at this from a how can we set a rate and then come back in a year and say, whoa, that was way too low. I would rather set a very conservative rate and then come down. And the reason why is because of some of the things that Supervisor Sotelo has brought up. I think the zero tolerance issue is very important, but also staff, I want staff to be engaged in this p

Okay, yeah, I'll just say, yeah, I understand that.

You know, this is going to be what it is until next year anyway, so we do have a little bit of time. My concern, though, partially, where I think there's a little bit of urgency, is that there's this looming question mark for the industry and those involved, the growers, and they don't know what's going to happen, so they can't really plan, they can't forecast, and so it makes it difficult for them in that regard. And so that's one reason I think I would like to – I understand there's not – maybe not – at this meeting today but sooner than just the last minute at the end of the year. I do want

Yeah, just briefly, I think everybody's making good points. And, you know, we have time, but I also agree with Supervisor Zanger's point about... getting it done sooner than later we also are running up against the timeline with the budget um so i'm not so sure perhaps the ceo can chime in at some point about timing and if we are trying to do this as soon as possible through a workshop of some kind when that could potentially happen that works with the schedule on the budget and then lastly i would say if we do a special meeting just to ensure that you know the stakeholders that it's more of a

I think we're probably needing probably more time for the staff to. To review? Yeah, review how.

I don't know. I don't know that I necessarily want to set the date today. I think I was looking for you to respond to maybe Supervisor Kosmicki's comments about needing the information prior to the end of September for our budget considerations. Okay.

Are you agreeable to that? Do you need us to have this rate set for the budget this year?

Okay. That clarification, thank you for that. I am 100% on board with you both in recognizing the importance of letting all of the stakeholders know what the rate is and them making business decisions. I understand how hard that is with something kind of in limbo. You at least know there's a cap of $10,000 per acre, right? So I appreciate that, and I think I am 100% committed to doing whatever I can to, you know, be prepared and make that happen so i appreciate the extension with doing this public meeting i think that will be great one other point and i don't know how this would work but i thi

Yeah, I think that would be, I would love to see that. I don't know if my fellow board members agree. Okay, yeah, I would love to see that as well. And then we will have a whole section about zoning kind of the enforcement side of what that kind of looks like? Yes. Okay. And, okay, fantastic. Then I am good with that. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Can I just? Supervisor Carro and then Supervisor Kosmicki.

Yeah, I appreciate that because that's exactly where I'm trying to go, is we should not have to punish the good characters for the bad characters, but we need to make sure that we have an enforcement for the bad characters that recoup the cost. And I want that fining and that abatement and that... staff time to be in some sort of a written fee structure that is a fine for in so that the good brings in the money and the bad you're never going to want to be a bad guy again sorry or gal So that's it.

means of deterrence for these property owners thank you thank you yeah and i just piggybacking up pretty much similar vein as what supervisor curl said um a couple things i you know i do not in principle i appreciate what so far as the tell us said because we've got to cover costs with something with these issues but um in principle i don't necessarily agree that the legal growers should be paying for the mishaps of the illegal growers so that we just make sure that that's clear. That being said, I think if you have a year as a surveying mechanism, a pilot of sorts, we'll get a better idea if

No, no, it's not being continued. Sorry. Okay, is there a motion then on that half of the item at all? Second. First and second, can we have roll call vote, please?

Thank you very much. That concludes our public hearings for today. Do we need a five-minute break or should we move to regular agenda? Yeah, take a quick one. It's a five-minute break. Thank you. Okay, we are back from our break. We move on to regular agenda item 3.1. This is to receive a presentation on the transfer station analysis and staff's recommendation of the resource recovery park site as the preferred location for running the landfill.

Thank you. Questions from board members?

Thank you for the presentation and all the hard work that you guys have both done and all of the consultants. And I want to thank Supervisor Zanger for being such an active participant on the sanitary solutions ad hoc. I don't think any of this is a great answer for our community. With rates going up with PG&E and potential shutdowns of energy sources, we're going to see utility rates go through the roof. We also are going to see utility rates on trash go through the roof. want the most economical and environmentally safe program moving forward. I do want to say for being on the local area tas

But with a transfer station, understanding when we talk about congestion and truck traffic, we're still going to have trucks coming in and out. Because the small trucks come in and dump, the large trucks take it all and haul it out. So instead of the trucks coming in with trash, they're going out with trash.

Transfer vehicles. Okay, and just so, I don't believe we are, we're still not accepting any out-of-county trash. If trucks are being seen right now, these trucks, there is a reclamation project going on with Granite Rock that has nothing to do with the landfill. If you're seeing a large quantity of trucks, they're not trash trucks, unless I'm missing something. These large quantity of trucks that you see, and if these trucks, these haulers are on Fairview, we need that reported to the county because they're only supposed to be on 25. And it goes until the beginning of September. So I just want

One can only hope. In having these conversations of who's willing to take our trash, it's gonna be a business. Okay, just wanna make sure the public's aware of that. When it comes to the fact that this is not, please tell me that this presentation is also being done to both cities.

I think we need to make sure that all of our residents, including our cities, are fully aware of where this is going and that we are as transparent as possible. Because I see unforeseen consequences that are going to be coming that the public is going to say, we didn't keep them informed. I want to make sure that they're completely informed. since waste connections has stepped away from their appeal or waste solutions do i have that right which one is it both both okay whichever one the parent company or the laura company whichever they both stepped away i know part of our contract stated that

And the reason I'm asking is because we need to look at how much this is gonna impact our residents and cost. The number one complaint I'm getting right now from all of my constituents are how much it costs to live here. they can't afford it and we're pushing them out and rate increases are going to do that even more i don't want the trash anymore than anybody else i don't want out of county trash but we have to look at how do we keep rates at a sustainable level so that the residents are not impacted so just something to keep in mind if i have to give a recommendation of how we move forward i

Yeah, Resource Recovery Park. But understanding that SB 1383 is going to impact us even more financially as a community because recycling and compost will be across, we're going to lose that exemption right now. That rural exemption will be gone.

2037. So even though, I mean, we're talking, this is a lot of stuff happening over a long period of time. If we look big into the future, I'm seeing major financial impacts on our residents. And how can we minimize that? So I'm open to those suggestions and future conversations of what we can do and education to our public about where we're at and how this may play out. But we need both jurisdictions, both cities to be involved in this. And I would be recommending that we move forward with the resource recovery property, but continue the conversation with RJR. Those are my comments. Thank you.

Thank you. Who else, Supervisor? Supervisor Kosmicki?

I can go, it doesn't matter. Yeah, so do we have a mechanism to ensure that there aren't out-of-county,

not to be accusatory, but I do think just as a way to ensure that, again, I just think it would be a good practice to have some sort of mechanism. I don't know what exactly that would look like, but I do think that the concerns are valid concerns. And if we don't have a mechanism to ensure that there aren't out of county trucks, I do think we should have some sort of, whether it's an audit or periodic sort of thing. I don't exactly know what that would look like, but I do think it would just be responsible. And again, it's not to be accusatory whatsoever. toward the contractor, but there is a

Yeah, and that's great. I just think there's a little bit of a guessing game involved there. And have the have has the tonnage gone up it seems like that 15-year window has shrunk pretty quickly in my broad recollection that this 15 years was not 15 years when we said it was 15 years because we're down to nine years now and that that raises a red flag to me um because that means there's a lot more trash going into that landfill than we were expecting and so again not accusing anyone of anything it would just be a good practice to have something in place to hold the landfill operator accountabl

No, about our landfill, about expanding in county. So we're solely in talks, and now we're not in talks, with one contractor. uh contractor and i'm suggesting that let's open the door to having conversations with other contractors others that may be interested in looking at an in-county only expansion and maybe that's not feasible i'm just saying that that should be part of this conversation because these numbers are eye-popping um and we have to have all of our options on the table uh you know saying yeah

Well, maybe that's something that needs to happen as a closed session conversation then. I don't want to wade into anything legally. But yeah, so if they bought all the land, and again, I'm going to zip it. As far as the cost per ton, $111 to $142 per ton, as opposed to the $67.50, That's gonna be a concern of our residents. It's a concern of mine. So I think we have to keep looking at options to get that number down, basically. I don't think that, I will say though, that this is a balance between economics, environment, and quality of life. and um the residents at some point when we have all

Sorry about that. Yeah, you do have it. Okay. All right. So I get it. That's very helpful. um so again i will just say that um i think we i would like to see more options i would like to look at um to circle back to uh maybe having a conversation as a board in closed session about the current situation with john smith landfill and um And then other than that, appreciate all the work, work from the ad hoc, work from the staff. And I don't think we're anywhere near being able to make any kind of a decision today, other than I'd be willing to consider and hearing from the rest of my colleagues as

Thank you. Yeah, I agree with a lot that has already been said. And I think it's crucial. I agree with Supervisor Kuro about presenting to both cities, ensuring that they're kind of aware and the impacts on residents, et cetera. How would we potentially, I see all of the different rate increases potentially and all of that, but then I believe it said it was $10 to $20 million for the capital costs for us to build this transfer station. Am I reading that correctly? Yes. Who funds that?

Because, I mean, I think that's going to play into a huge part of this decision, right? And giving – you know, if we want to give the public all of the options, that's a huge part of the consideration. Is there a way for us to get that information? I mean, we just – essentially what you need is the $250,000. I mean, I feel like there is some – We do need to spend some money to really research this and get this information. I think this is kind of critical for us to weigh all of the options. You kind of know what you have existing, but you don't know what the opportunities are kind of looking t

the financial analysis until we did the conceptual design at 30 percent and then okay i mean i yeah i mean i appreciate supervisor cosmicky's comments regarding you know looking what potentially is there another operator that would maybe want to come in um I think there's so many variables right now and it all is so much money. And so, yeah, if I had to pick one, I like the smaller footprint on the John Smith side, but I get that that also may not work for our community moving into the future. So I see the benefits on the other side. So I guess if we were gonna look at it, that would be my pre

Thank you. I had a couple questions. I'm not going to go through everything that's been said, but what is the, like, Bay Area South Hall rate versus what we'd be looking at with the transfer station? Do we have general figures?

You said $130 was like kind of the average-ish. And then what would we be looking at, though?

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, in terms of the two sites, we spent a lot of time on this at the ad hoc level, I remember. And as far as I remember, it's basically like a... there was a non-starter to end up at the, to stay at John Smith. We have to go across the street to the resource recovery park. So if we're gonna move forward, I would, obviously I would agree with Saf, that's the site to move forward to. I remember that we looked more closely at some of the traffic issues that were brought up and it was actually quite a problem. So if we move forward, it certainly would be at the resour

Is there a reason? So there's wording in the contract that limits, you know, we have to go through waste connections first. They have to refuse. But it also deals with the closure, the post-closure and the class one Hollister contract. So we need to be careful that we, what my comment was gonna be, totally agree with Supervisor Kosmicki, I'm just gonna say we need a closed session item and I'm just gonna stop talking.

I would agree, we should have a closed session item on that topic, I think it's a good idea. Now as far as moving forward today though, so the idea is to put 250,000 just to explore the option more clearly, right?

Okay. Okay. Yeah. Well, I think we need to start figuring it out because our clock is ticking. So one way or the other, we have to move forward on this. So I would be prepared to go forward with that. I mean, obviously, I don't know if it makes sense to get that number smaller and do a rougher estimate or if that's just useless or we have to go through.

Okay. Can you call, yes, where's the crow? Oh. Make a motion. Oh, yeah, please make a motion. I think we're ready.

I move to approve the moving forward with the RFP per staff recommendation for the $250,000 estimate, understanding that we will be looking at other options and that that RFP process be brought back to us for contract consideration before execution.

And then with that, oh, you second, I believe, actually. Oh, okay, would you say with the motion, we also schedule a closed session agenda item?

Yeah, I just, I wasn't gonna put that into the motion. I assumed that staff would just schedule a closed session.

That's fine, that's fine. Okay, we have a first, is there a second? Second. Okay, thank you. Any further discussion? If not, can we have a roll call vote on that motion, please?

And thank you again to staff. I will say the ad hoc appreciates all the work that you've put in. It's been a real educational process.

Thank you. All right, next item 3.2. This is a behavioral health item. Receive informational presentation regarding the county's opioid settlement funds.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Is there any public comment on this?

Thank you so much for the presentation. I know that the work that you guys do is very important for keeping our community safe. I have a couple of concerns and questions and maybe you can clarify. This for-profit rate, that we're paying we don't have another option to be able to reduce so that we could serve serve more people i'm just thinking how can we since this is only funding for 18 years i have real concerns about how we're going to continue this program

There's a lot of pluses there. Yeah. So the question I would have is how extensively have we negotiated with them on rates?

And not to question, this is really just for educational purposes, who does the negotiations with these for-profits?

And I'm sure you guys do a phenomenal job. I'm just looking at council right now saying when it comes to any negotiations, I'm not going to say I'm a trained or paid negotiator, and I don't claim to be one, but we have people on staff that are negotiators, and maybe there's a way that we can have a little more robust negotiation. So that's just a future maybe something to think about. So that answered that question. It did seem, it's a lot, when you have that amount of money, and when you talk about prevention, education, and treatment, and treatment of 20 clients for $400,000, I get concerned

This is just me trying to make sure we make the money go as far as we can. Are we screening people for they are from the unincorporated area as opposed to Hollister? Sorry, just trying to say we have funding, they have funding, we shouldn't be supplementing theirs, they shouldn't be supplementing ours, we need to have a playing field, a level playing field. So where does that happen?

if we're already paying for it. So I would like to ask staff to assist behavioral health in this conversation and start a more robust conversation about how the Hollister funding could, I mean, if we're serving everyone and we're paying for the mobile, what are they doing with their funding yes so that would be the question i'd like to have brought back to the board um with that said i appreciate this and um it's definitely going to become a financial impact because i don't see opioid treatment going anywhere so it's not going away it's we're going to still have it we just need to find better

Thank you, Rachel. Thank you for being here and putting this presentation together. I've sat on some of the opioid task force calls, and I think I've attended some of the different events that they've had in county, out of county, and the work that you all are doing is really tremendous, and I appreciate everything you're doing. I think that the... The issue is very, very real, and we need to do everything we can on the education and prevention side. I'm just curious, with the $400,000 that you guys are taking annually, and then it looks to be about $85,000 annually, has there been any work be

Okay. So what you are looking at, though, is that typically, and I mean, if there is any way that we can keep people local in dealing with crisis moments like that, right? As one supervisor, I would love to see that. I think it would be worth having those negotiations for that specific instance. You know what I mean? For those specific issues of kind of that seven day, 14 day, not a prolonged, but kind of that initial, I would love to see us be able to figure that out. And I don't know if we can or not. I mean, looking at the dollars, it's very, very different. And I think that sometimes, like

Thank you. Yeah, nothing else to add that hasn't been said. Thank you for the presentation. Thank you.

Okay, that concludes regular agenda. We are going to move back into closed session to finish. Can we do that? Okay, yeah. Well, actually, we'll do the future agenda item right now, and then we'll go to closed session. So future agenda item, item 5.1. This was a future agenda item brought forward by Supervisor Kosmicki.

Yeah, I mean, it's pretty self-explanatory. We've already sort of alluded to it as far as El Nino and just have received concerns. I think everybody's cognizant of the fact that we're hearing more and more about this upcoming El Nino and that it could be one of the worst, if not the worst. multiple decades so the idea is just to have that conversation give direction get all the information we can as far as what we can do in this window that we have as far as cleaning out creeks and any other preventative measures and then also just to ensure that we are fully prepared because we're obviously i

Yeah, thank you. I personally 100% support this, obviously. I think we should do this soon. I'd like to see it on, if there's agreement, I'd like to see it on the next board agenda for the first. And I would just say, since now we're kind of rushing a little bit with what staff can provide, personally, Lover's Lane area is a problem in not even really my district anymore, it was my district, but that area, I think all the areas that had past flooding issues is what we need to look at first and go from there. Chair Zuccaro and Sotelo, do you guys, Chair Zuccaro had something.

Yes, when I was at CSAC last week, Monterey County and Santa Cruz County are being proactive and are starting to either move forward or have already requested a pre-state of emergency, which would be working with Fish and Wildlife to be able to allow residents into their stream beds to be able to clean them out. I really think that we need to get on board with that. that uh we're really putting political pressure on opening the accessibility to areas that that even though environmentally they don't want us touching we need to get in there and get those cleaned out and it's not i also recommend

I just I think we need to add, you know, all things. emergency response to I want to make sure that we're totally prepared in that area, as well as I think we need to start the conversation and the relationships and continue working on those with our nonprofits. They were a huge, you know, they gave a huge lift last time. And I don't want to forget about their contributions and the way that we all kind of work together. And I think starting those conversations maybe starting meetings, et cetera, might be really healthy. And so hopefully we can have some of them at this future meeting. But I ag

Just real quick, I know we can't do too much dialogue, but I totally agree with both of you, with Supervisor Crowe's point about the, I think it's really important to have that conversation about the state of emergency because these, especially in my district, it's a lot of the farmers basically that run along that creek all the way from San Juan, really from San Juan Oaks all the way to San Juan Bautista is problematic. And so if we can get them clearance to get in there, they're more than willing. I know they're more than willing to get in there and clean out these creeks. Thank you.

Great, so there's clear consensus on that and we'll hear that ideally one week from today. All right, now we will head into closed session unless there's anything else. Continuing, we already took public comment on the closed session, so at this point we can just head back there and then we'll come back out for a final adjournment. from closed session county council do we have anything to report out thank you mr chair members of the board supervisors there is no reportable action thank you thank you very much all right we are adjourned