City Council - Regular Meeting

1st, 2026. We're going to call to order the Monterey County Board of Supervisors, letting the record show that Supervisors Askew, Alejo, and Church are present. Supervisor Lopez will be arriving soon and Supervisor Daniels is absent today. Are there any additions or corrections for our closed session agenda this morning?

No additions or corrections.

All right, we have items number 1A through C on closed session calendar. Is there any public comment on the closed session calendar today? Seeing none, we'll close public comment and move on to public comment. We'll move on to, we'll recess the board for the closed session, recess into closed session for these agenda items. We'll be back here at 10.30. Thank you. All right. Welcome, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. It is September 1st, 2026. We're reconvening the Monterey County Board of Supervisors on our public agenda items, letting the record show that all supervisors are present, with the exception of Kate Daniels, who will be absent today. I'd like to welcome and announce our Spanish interpretation services that are available. We have Diego Salas with us remotely. Diego, are you able to make announcements?

Yes, I am. Muy buenos dias a todos. Mi nombre es Diego Celis y voy a ser su interprete en español para la reunión de hoy. Si usted está planeando hacer un comentario público y necesita servicio de intérprete, favor de hablar lenta y suficientemente fuerte para que yo lo escuche. Favor de hacer una pausa al final de cada oración para asegurarse de que tengo la oportunidad de interpretarle. Muchas gracias por su atención.

Thank you. Right, next we'll be having the Pledge of Allegiance. If we could have everyone please stand. All right, are there any additions or corrections for our agenda this morning?

There are. For item number two and four under ceremonial resolutions, both received a revised ceremonial resolution. For item number 16.1 under appointments, a revised board report was received. And lastly, for the adjourned in memory, it should be Octavia Reyes Salinas and not Octavia Vanna Reyes Salinas.

Great, thank you for those corrections. We're gonna start with ceremony resolution. So we do have a couple items before we get to public comment. Okay, we'll get to public comment on that item. Thank you. Okay, so we have ceremony resolutions to begin with. We're gonna start with items number two through seven. Is there any public comment on our ceremonial resolutions this morning? Okay, we have a motion for approval from Alejo, a second from Lopez. I didn't see any public comment. All in favor? Aye. All right, it passes unanimously. And we'll start with our presentations.

It's on, yep. All right, good morning, everyone. It is always our honor in these chambers of the Monterey County Board of Supervisors to take a moment to honor some unsung heroes in our community. Today, it is our honor to especially recognize National Rehabilitation Awareness Week and to honor the outstanding health professionals of Natividad Medical Center's outpatient therapy services for their exemplary service to our community. I think this is the first time we will be doing this type of recognition for Rehabilitation Awareness Week and for the Outpatient Therapy Service. So we want to call up Blair Limon and all our team to receive this. And we're going to have some special guests say a few words in just a bit as well. So come on up. Everyone, rehabilitation is something many of us don't think about until we, a family member, or someone we love suddenly faces a debilitating medical condition. We often think about the emergency room or a hospital stay But recovery doesn't end when someone is discharged. For many patients, that is when another difficult journey begins, from the hospital, sometimes to a rehabilitation facility, and eventually back home, where the hard work of rebuilding their lives continues. That is where rehabilitation professionals become so important. They help people regain some of the most basic functions that many of us take for granted each and every day. Standing up, walking, moving an arm or a leg, maintaining balance, communicating, or becoming independent again. But rehabilitation is more than just physical recovery. It is about restoring confidence, dignity, independence, and hope. And that work requires tremendous patience, compassion, encouragement, and understanding. This recognition today is particularly personal for me because my mother and my stepfather, Jose Covarrubias, are here with us today. Jose has spent more than 30 years as a dedicated classified school employee with the Gonzales Unified School District, including many years as a bus driver. Over those decades, thousands of children depended on him to get safely to school, to get back home, sporting events, and field trips. And he was so committed that he never even missed a day of work. But last October, Jose suffered a stroke. He was hospitalized for weeks, and when he finally was able to return home, one of the first things he wanted to do was to begin his therapy. He was determined to get stronger and regain as much independence as possible. And he found the perfect place to get those services at Natividad's outpatient therapy services. So our family witnessed firsthand the professionalism, the patience, the compassion, and the encouragement this team provides at every visit. They didn't just help Jose with his recovery, they gave him encouragement and they gave him hope. Jose wanted to be here personally today, along with my mother, Maria Luisa Covarrubias, who is a retired County of Monterey registered nurse at the Alisal Health Clinic. They wanted to come and thank the dedicated employees who gave him so much on his journey. He still has a ways to go, but you are the people who give him hope. So we wanted to call up my mother and Jose to come say a few words before we present the resolution. Let's give them a round of applause, everybody. I think this is the first time my mom comes and speaks on an item here. Yes, he can bring, yeah. Okay, we'll wait for you. We'll wait for him to come. You can start saying some words.

Good morning, everybody that is here. I just want to say thank you for this team. I never had a family that had a stroke. Jose, my husband, he was very healthy. Like Luis said, he worked. Actually, Gonzales School paid him back about an year, a little bit over a year of sick leave that he never used to be sick. He will never go home and rest. He was very dedicated to the job he was doing. Jose's only problem was that he had high cholesterol and he was always within normal. And that was his only medical problem that he had. He didn't have high blood pressure. He didn't have no diabetes like most of us. We're worried about stroke because we have diabetes. We're worried about stroke because we have high blood pressure. And it was kind of surprising that he had this stroke because he didn't have hypertension. I just want to tell you about the symptoms he had so that maybe you might have a family member that might have the symptoms. Jose used to get up at 6 o'clock in the morning to do his coffee and my coffee. I was so used to having coffee from him. And I heard him gagging and trying to vomit in the restroom and I wonder what's wrong with him. He was trying to vomit and he couldn't because he had nothing on his stomach. And that woke me up, and I said, what's wrong with you? He said, I feel nauseated, and I'm feeling really weak. And I said, that's funny. You're feeling really weak right now? And I walked him back to bed, and I told him, you know what? There's something going on with you. This is not you. So I laid him down in bed. I said, just give me a half an hour to get dressed. Go and feed my doggy, because I have a little Yorkie dog. And let me go and take him out to the pool, because I know that going to the emergency was going to... take a very long time, so give me enough time, just lay in bed and let me take care of the doggy. And I put him back in his little home there. I took Cosette to Salina Valley Hospital and right as soon as I got to the hospital, they went to do a lot of tests, blood work, they did MRI, they did everything. The doctor came back and told me, you know what, Maria, your husband is having a stroke. A stroke? I said, yeah, he's having a stroke. And they did all kinds of tests on him. He came back and, you know, I saw Jose. I felt so sorry for him because his hand was so stiff like this. His leg, he couldn't move it. And his hand was curled like this. And anyway, it was a very sad time for me, you know. I'm sorry, because I know a lot of people have family that have strokes. I've seen so many now. Anyway, from there, he was in the hospital four days, and they transferred him over to rehab and , for him to cooperate, to get better, in other words. He was there four days. They did a little bit of physical therapy. They did some occupational therapy. They even did a speech therapy, because they wanted to make sure his speech was okay. But that was only for a few days, you know, and then he had enough time there, you know, not enough time for, because they had so many other patients there, you know, very friendly nurses and doctors, but there was not enough time for, to take care of all of them. There were so many of them. But anyway, when he got discharged outside, I wanted to look for a place that I could take him there, even if I have to take him there, because I needed him to work on exercise, the machines and everything. And I couldn't find a place. I mean, there was some physical that came over the house, but it wasn't enough. But anyway, to make things short, I found this group of ladies here, the staff here, which they can say a few words later, and now Jose is doing much better. Look, he couldn't even write his name. He couldn't write his name. He couldn't raise his hand up. Raise your hand up. He couldn't raise his hand up. He couldn't go all the way up. He couldn't walk. He was just so stiff, you know, and the doctor told me, you're very lucky, Maria, because he had almost like a paralyzed stroke, you know, and I couldn't understand why, but here he is. I just want him to say a few words for the staff and you guys.

Yeah, you might need a term interpreter.

Jennifer. Rita, no caminaba y en silla de ruedas y ya salí caminando. Muy agradecidos con ustedes y me han dado tareas para hacer en la casa y las sigo haciendo. Y todo que me dice, camina bien, levanta el pie, levanta la mano, levanta la mano. Y me enseñó, si me caigo, cómo levantarme. Muchisimas gracias. Que Dios las bendiga. Gracias.

My name is Jose Covarrubias. I ended up in a hospital where I was very taken care of by very professional therapists who helped me. Her name was Jennifer. I couldn't walk, but thanks to them, I was able to get back, raise my hands. Thank you to all of them.

So this resolution just recognizes National Rehabilitation Awareness Week in Monterey County and will be observed September 14th through the 20th of this year under the theme Building Futures Through Rehabilitation to recognize the transformative benefits of rehabilitation and celebrate the achievements of individuals who have regained strength independence, and quality of life through rehabilitative care. So therefore, on behalf of the Board of Supervisors and all our residents, we hereby recognize this week as National Rehabilitation Week in our county and commence outpatient therapy services at the Tivetta Medical Center and its entire multidisciplinary team for their exemplary service, compassionate care, and outstanding commitment to helping patients throughout Monterey County and the Central Coast recover, regain independence, and build brighter futures. So with that, we want to present this to you. On behalf of all our community and my mama and my stepdad, of course. Thank you very much. Let's give them a round of applause, everybody.

I guess I'm the spokesperson for today. I'm Andrea Rosenberg. I'm the Chief Ancillary and Support Services Officer at Natividad, and I have the pure pleasure of overseeing the therapy departments at Natividad. I quickly want to introduce the people that are up here. It really takes an entire team to be able to do all the amazing work that you got to hear about. So we have Blair Limon. She is our Director of Therapy Services at Natividad. We have Jenny, who is the Occupational therapist, Rati, who is a physical therapist, and Jessica, who's our supervising therapist in the department. So we're really appreciative of this recognition today. It really means a lot. Our team does excellent work at Natividad, and it's really nice that we got a few minutes, our 15 minutes of fame to be highlighted today at the Board of Supervisors. So thank you so much.

Anybody else? All right, we'll take a photo.

That's the word that I missed. You know, how we got, me and Jose got this group, it wasn't only me, it was a lot of people sitting outside waiting for their husband, their wife, their children, all the ones that were waiting for therapy. I started talking to all of them, you know, and And I was going to get a petition because they all were telling me how great this team was. It wasn't only my effort or his. It was a lot of other patients that were waiting outside. And I wanted to get a petition so they can sign it, you know, so we all can come in. But, you know, I realize that it's confidentiality on the patients, but it wasn't only us. It was the patients sitting outside waiting for the families to the thought that this group of therapists were very excellent and they really enjoyed coming to the therapist with them. Thank you.

All right.

Okay.

I'd like to thank my wife who's been very loyal to me, who's been taking me to all my therapist appointments. I would really like to thank her. Thank you.

How special is it to have our family members in chambers? Thanks, Luis, for bringing your mom and family. All right, our next resolution is honoring the League of Women Voters on their 100 years of service here in Monterey County. And I'm going to invite some folks up, Dennis Moore and Tama Oliver, and then whoever else is here representing the League. Yes, happy to have the crew. All right, I'm going to. all right um thank you for being here and joining us and i'll have you come stand here with me um so uh there's a lot we get excited about here and a lot of good work that happens here at the board of supervisors but um empowering everyone to support and get involved in our democracy is um is at the center of literally everything that we do here at the county In 1920, the United States ratified the 19th Amendment of the Constitution, which states that the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. And 1920 is not that long ago. My grandmother was born into a country that didn't give her mom or her the right to vote, and we've come a long way since then. The League of Women Voters was founded that same year in 1920 with the goal of helping newly enfranchised women exercise their right to vote. And the league's Monterey County chapter has been a part of the community since 1926. Ever since they've been busy empowering voters, defending democracy, registering voters, staffing the polls. I think you have a couple of locations that you'll be four locations fully staffed by the league volunteers. You're out doing voter education in the community. If you've ever used Vote411 to figure out what's actually on your ballot, that's thanks to the League. Their voice on local issues has influenced critical community decisions, making sure that voters are educated fully about the issues and not just listening to the sound bites that can be so influential. But you've been out there educating and providing additional information on critical issues like housing and water. Your work with young people helps build civic engagement as a value and a responsibility that lasts for a lifetime, creates the foundation of who we are here in Monterey County. And our democracy depends on the people who show up and do this sometimes unglamorous work year after year after year after decade for a century. election after election. And I want to thank the League of Women Voters for the work that you're doing today, that the work that those have come before us have done, and celebrating 100 years of service here in Monterey County. We've come a long way in that period of time, and we still have a long way to go to make sure that we continue to protect the rights of all people in this country, women and men, to be able to vote in every election without barriers or other reasons that get in the way. So thank you so much and congratulations.

And I'm going to give you a chance to make some comments.

I just I can't add anything actually to those very kind words and insightful words about the work that we do. Our mission is empowering voters and defending democracy. And I think our current events will show you it's an ongoing project. So democracy needs nurturing and it needs people who believe in it and support it. And we appreciate the people in the community who engage with us and give us the opportunity to keep our democracy working. Thank you.

Thank you.

We'll take a quick picture. Bev, do you want to join us? Beverly?

We've got someone to take a picture.

Do you want to join us? Photographer.

Great, we got a lot of the parks team up here and this is, One of these resolutions I'm really, really pleased to think about because I think it's really very special. And it's going to be to commemorate our 60th anniversary, not just of... Parks established it now. It's a division of Public Works facilities and parks, but originally it was formed as its own department and This year is its 60th anniversary, but it's also a 60th anniversary of the first park. That's Royal Oaks Park and we You know Monterey County was one of the one of the counties that was rather slow when adopting parks and into into its system. It really actually was in 1944 that the County Moderate Planning Commission prepared a Parks and Recreation Plan. It's a framework for acquiring property and setting conversation practices and priorities and establishing public space for a regional park system. But it sat around for about an entire generation, not just ignored because there was funding problems. And as some of you know, my father was a county supervisor in the 60s and 70s representing the North Waterbury County areas as I do now. And when he ran for supervisor in 1964, he saw that was lacking and he ran on a platform of two park system. And this is one of the priorities that he was he was very and I think the thing he was probably most proud of and all the 12 years he sat on there was the establishment of that so those those first two parks by the way were Royal Oaks and And Toro and then the rest of the park system filled into the 60s and the 70s. So basically what we have now so we The county found the money in 1966 to set up its first, its parks department in April 1st, and then actually purchased the, a couple months later, Royal Oaks Park, although the land was already previously designated. And the lady who sold it to the county, who lived in Fresno, and at that time, she was receiving offers from some strawberry growers to sell strip out the oak trees and put in strawberry fields. But she really didn't want that to happen. It was being used as a turkey farm at the time. And are there any wild turkeys running around there? Yeah, so there's still some turkeys there. Not the same type, but there are some. And she had enough patience to wait long enough for the county to go through its usual deliberate process of acquiring the land. And then in Labor Day of 1966, Royal Oaks Park opened and that's what what we're commemorating is those two those two dates April and September It is Parks are really one of these just these I think these important things that all government entities really have a role in whether it's state federal or or local down to city and counties because parks become something that that everybody can go and enjoy. And it doesn't matter upon your wealth or usually even how close you are to it, how far you are away from it. They're usually one within your neighborhood somewhere. There should always be one around somebody's neighborhood because it gives an opportunity for people to relax, to be together, for recreation. It's something that... improves the quality of life for everyone and I'm really really proud here on the 60th anniversary here to to present this resolution to the to honoring the Monterey County Parks and Lakes Division and and Royal Oaks Park I was at that that Labor Day opening on September 4th I was only the age of seven but I do remember it very clearly I remember how they were playing horseshoes and I wanted to play horseshoes but Now they didn't have a division for age seven, but they still have some horseshoe pits there, and I know Brian Flores has challenged me to a game coming up as we celebrate it on September 12th, so I'm really looking forward to giving him a good whipping. So Brian, do you have any words you'd like to say, or Randy?

Thank you very much, Supervisor Church and members of the board. The department greatly appreciates the distinction of what you recognize us with, and it's something that's grand for not only the department, but for the public itself. The county has over 30,000 acres of parks and open space, ranging from Royal Oaks Park in the north and Manzanita Park, down to Toro Park, Jack's Peak Park, the former Fort Ordlands, San Lorenzo Park in King City, and then the beautiful recreational spaces we have at the lakes, Lake San Antonio and Lake Nascimento down in the south county. And those are all maintained by the hardworking staff here in the Parks Division every single day. And this is a small contingent of them that's up here today because the others are all back at the parks and lakes getting them ready for the recreational spaces that people need to use them for. 60 years, 60 years, staff like this have maintained the parks for our public. And it was especially notable not only every day, but also during 2020 and 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, where the parks were the only places people could go for both physical and mental well-being and relaxation during that very trying time. And it was the staff here that maintained it. And 60 years is a legacy left by that board that made those difficult decisions and that initiative back then and have carried it forward to this generation of the board who have used the new measure called Measure AA to reinvest in our park spaces, making them beautiful for the next generations to come. And with that, I'd like to hand it over to the person who leads that dedicated staff on a daily basis, Chief of Parks Brian Flores.

Thank you, Director, Supervisor Church. And my staff, without you, none of this would be possible, from our admin staff to our field staff to our utility specialists to our park rangers. It's a great team. It's a lot smaller than it used to be. I'm hoping it will get larger over the years. But we're making do. And with Measure AA funding coming in, we're able to do a lot of great projects. We're going for playground replacements. We're putting in disc golf courses, investing in our utilities and our facilities. So you're going to see a lot of great things from parks over the next few years. I'm very glad that in 1944, the master plan that was done by the Planning Commission, it showed all of the open space that could potentially be parks. These were all the properties along the coast that are now state parks, that are regional parks. I'm very, very glad that we are not managing every single open space. AREA IN THE COUNTY IT WOULD BE HUGE BUT THANKFULLY STATE PARKS AND REGIONAL PARKS AND SOME OTHER PARKS DISTRICTS STEPPED IN AND ACQUIRED THOSE PROPERTIES BUT SEPTEMBER 12TH WE'RE HAVING OUR 60TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION AT ROYAL OAKS PARK SUPERVISOR CHURCH AND I WILL BE PUTTING ON A SHOW WITH THE HORSE SHOES We are having probably 15 or more food trucks, food vendors, food and beverage vendors that you all will recognize. Great baked potatoes and soul food and all kinds of great desserts and seafood and barbecue. So please come out. We're having a disc golf tournament that starts at 9, shotgun start. We're having a closest to the pin contest. We'll have cornhole, horseshoes, volleyball. We have pickleball courts. We have tennis courts. We have basketball courts, two new soccer goals. We're trying to do a baseball field for this, but it just wasn't in the cards before the 12th. So come out. It's a great time for family. It's a free event except for the food. You'll have to purchase that yourself. And it kicks off when the park opens at 8 o'clock and gets done when it closes at 7. So we're looking for good weather and hopefully a great time. So thank you so much.

No comment on the whooping? He's checking.

Well, we'll have to come up with a, you know, the loser has to do this or that type of thing and make sure that that's captured on video for posterity.

Game on.

Brian is taking the challenge. I'm a little afraid he has home court advantage. He's going to be out there practicing every day.

Hooray for our parks. And what was the date of that event? Everyone's welcome. September 12th, from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. at Royal Oaks Park, a big old 60th birthday, and everyone is invited. Thanks. All right, moving right along this morning, we have a number of appointments, items number eight through 16.1. Is there any public comment on our appointments this morning?

I would just like to have a separate vote on item number eight.

Item number eight, got it. All right, any other public comment on our appointments this morning? All right, seeing no public comment, we'll bring it back to the board. We have a request for a separate, do you wanna comment on that? I just wanna abstain on that one. Okay, happy to.

I think on 16-1, we have to vote separately too.

Great, all right, so we'll look at item nine through 16. Happy to entertain a motion.

So moved.

Motion from Alejo, second from Church, thank you. All in favor?

Aye.

Aye. All right, passes unanimously. Let's go back to item number eight. I'm happy to entertain a motion. This is to correct the term expiration dates for Ricardo Diaz to the North County Recreation and Park District from November 30th, 2029 to January 27th, 2029. It looks like that's a correction.

We corrected for one other person last week. So this would be the correction here. I'd move to approve the correction.

I'll second that. So we have a motion from Church, a second from Askew. All in favor? Aye. And one abstention. So abstention from Alejo. Great. Thank you. All right. Item passes and we'll go on to item 16.1. And is there a staff presentation on this or do we just pass it over to you, Glenn?

You want to go first, Nick? Appropriate.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. There are two names that have been put forward for consideration for the board. One is Mr. Jordan Caballero, the other is Mr. Ruben Diaz. We have a corrected staff report that was sent in. There was an error in the first one that went out, so I think this is really a decision for the board at this point.

Just going to point out that thank you. thank you. the applicant Mr. Diaz we didn' t get a bio from him and I know there were some this is a multi-district appointment is the reason it' s coming up this way because the bill isn' t from district 2 to Mr. Diaz, from what I understand, there were numerous attempts to contact Mr. Diaz onto this one, and we didn't get in contact with him, so I'm not sure what his interest is. So with that, I mean, it becomes really clear. We did have this open two times for nominees. The first time it was open, nobody applied, and then the second time, we had two. So being the only one that there's really been any contact with, I would be happy to nominate Mr. Diaz. Jordan Caballero for that.

Great, thank you. I also have a motion from Church, a second from Lopez to appoint Jordan Caballero of the two candidates. And just to clarify, North County Recreation and Parks District is a special district that authorizes the Board of Supervisors to make appointments to their board even though they are an independent body from the county. So any other discussion on this item? And I'll open it up to public comment on this item. Seeing none, we'll bring it back to the board. We have a motion. All in favor? Aye. Passes unanimously. Thank you. Okay. Moving on to consent items. We have item 25 through 42. I'll start by opening it up to the public. We do have comment on item 33, so we'll welcome our public comment on item 33 now.

Good morning, Board of Supervisors. Mike Weaver for Protect the Process. This POU, POE issue deals with some pretty strong stuff. Nitrates, arsenic, fluoride, chromium 6. How do we measure these? The health department was nice enough to send me two packages. I read all through it, and I have some questions and concerns. Who, how often, who pays? Where does the arsenic sludge contamination go? As you may remember, Caltrans was dropping sludge in the landfill for a while until they were caught. So where does it go? And what penalties are there out there for noncompliance? um it's it's all about mitigation monitoring and coming up with mitigation measures on this which i don't find in the package it's been ignored we need more oversight and responsibility from the landowner whether he rents or resides there and the sludge or the toxics, the filters, must get deposited somewhere and we need to get a receipt and keep a record of it, checks and balances. You probably know, especially North County, I mean, I've been to the health department before and somebody's brought in a check and said, here you go, here's my share, I share a water system with four houses and one guy doesn't pay and damn it, I'm not paying for him. and they'll give them a check for a quarter. Well, the fourth guy never does pay because the water doesn't get turned off. So I mean, what penalties are gonna be out there for people who are dealing with toxics that aren't complying with basic health? That's my concern. It needs to go back to the drawing board and work all this out. Thank you.

Thank you, I'm just gonna give an opportunity for staff to respond to those questions.

Good morning, Chair, members of the Board. Rick Encarnacion, Director of Environmental, Bureau Chief. With respects to the disposal of the filtrate from the point of view's point of entry, water systems, these are systems, either very simple systems, it could be treated as household hazardous waste, there are rules and regulations regarding household hazardous waste it's intended to be easy if there's questions on the technical aspects of our of our oversight of local small water systems I do have the supervisor here with regard to that but with respects to the disposal of the filtrate from the point of views point of entry It's household hazardous waste, which there is a complete system with regards to that. And with regards to protection of renters, we are at the health department. We respond to a multitude of issues, also renters' issues, issues with pollution, issues regarding local small water systems.

Thank you.

Let's see if there's another public comment on this item.

Okay, let's see if there's any other public comment on our consent agenda today. not seeing anyone in chambers and there are no hands raised online. So we're going to close public comment, bring it back to the board, and we'll go to church.

I just, you know, I think, you know, Mr. Weaver raised some important points out of that there, and I appreciate Mr. Encarnacion on addressing it as it is, you know, it is household waste. The state does allow for the... for the larger systems of 15 connections or more, it does allow PoE systems to operate for dealing with a whole range of hazardous waste, and the county does as well. This particular ordinance right here is not dealing with how this is being disposed of, because that is already covered inside a county process and the state process onto there. This referral, which I put forth initially, was because in situations, we'll just deal with like a four parcel water system. If you have three houses that are built on it and say it has some contamination with something into it, It is already allowed for the three existing homes to have POU POE systems and operation They're an operation They're able to operate but the way the current law has been is that that that? Undeveloped lot if somebody wants to build a home onto there they then the whole system had to put in a centralized water system Well, you're talking about something you could cost anywhere fifty to a hundred thousand dollars and the existing homes are not the existing people living there in that water system are not usually willing to pick up that extra cost so that their neighbor can build a home and we have such a shortage of homes shortage of of adus as well that this gives the opportunity to build onto there so that a new home a new dwelling can actually have the same rights to water use as the ones that are existing so it' that's why it's not addressing some of the issues Mr. Weaver raises but you know they're very valid issues on safety and concerns and I think you know being that it's household waste I think that's been addressed but I want to put everything on context of what was exactly we're addressing there it's not setting forth a policy where suddenly this is we're having PoE systems and I should spell those out as point of use point of entry which is you either put them in your house or outside your house, but this is just allowing a little more fairness. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other, so bringing back to the board, any other items to comment or comments for consent agenda this morning? I did have just a couple comments on item 33 specifically. I just wanted to thank staff for hearing the feedback that was provided at our last, the first hearing on this, and to thank you for adding the notification to tenants who might be renters, who might be living in a unit with a point of use, point of entry, supportive property. And I just think it's important that we're really clear that all of our residents, regardless of their ownership status, understand how their health is being protected and the systems that are operating within that that building to keep their water safe. So thank you for calling that out explicitly, but I'm happy to support that today. And then I have a couple of questions. I might ask for a separate vote, but on item number 32, which is an Epic IO amendment number one on some cameras that are used by environmental health to deter and document illegal dumping. We've had this program in place for some time. It's actually been, apparently been fairly successful in helping to deter some of the illegal dumping that happens here in the county. But as I'm paying more attention, as the community's asking us to pay more attention to privacy, to data, to how governance, governance around how we use cameras in the county, I wanted to ask about setting what the expectations are, what the policies are around how that information is retained, accessed, and shared. So we're asking those questions. I've raised those questions now for the sheriff's proposed contract. And as I'm reading through and thinking about the different spaces that we have data that exists, and as those contracts come forward, I think it's important that we ask the questions around policies that that dictate retention periods for data, who has access to that data, whether images can be shared with other county departments or law enforcement, and what policies we have in place that are governing that use. So again, if I could just ask Environmental Health to speak to some of those policy questions around data privacy and data security as it relates to this particular contract. I'll just say if we don't have clear policies, I think it's something that I'll want us to maybe take a pause on this and bring back those policies, but I'll throw the question out.

Thank you, Chair. Rick Encarnacion, Director of Environmental Health Bureau. With regards to retention of the data that we collect from these camera systems to combat, again, illegal dumping, it is stored locally within the program. Maria Ferdin, the supervisor of the program, It's it's it's her data or her data. It's the county's data Stored within our program solid waste management services within the Bureau of Environmental Health It's subject to the retention of our records retention policy, which is three years with regards to sharing We we only share the the data with those involved with our case It may be law enforcement in in the case when we first instituted the program we asked for the public's help and We posted the video. Illegal dumping is horrible. And it's the most convenient thing a person can do. But so we asked for the public's help with that. With regards to sharing the images again, we'll only share it with those who can help us. We've shared it to the extent of the public. Like again, we posted it, tried to crowdsource for information to help us with getting information on who is doing this illegal dumping. So it's very local. It's very local to the extent of our program within the Bureau, subject to our records retention policy, and only will be shared with those involved with helping us build the case to combat illegal dumping.

Thank you for that. And so in terms of the policies that govern that use of this data, we have the records retention policy that applies to all county data. Are there other policies that have been developed that guide how this data is held and managed?

Only our policy with regards to enforcement of illegal dumping.

Okay, great, thank you. And so I guess, thank you if this answers my questions. So as we're looking at all of these contracts, I fully support the work that's being done on the illegal dumping side of this, but I would like to just ask that we... We have the data security and privacy question reviewed in more detail by County Council and IT to make sure that we're fully addressing all of the data privacy and security and governance issues. issues around this particular contract. So I'd like to have this pulled for some further review and come back to us at a future date. So that would be my motion on this item 32. Right, there is no second. So we'll bring it back to the board for any further discussion or action. So I'd ask to have item 32 held for a separate vote and for some additional information about the policies that are governing the data so that we're clear on those policies. There was no second to that motion, so it went back to the board and there's now a motion for the entire consent agenda. I would ask that item 32 be on a separate vote though. Right, so the motion from Alejo, a second from Church for a full consent with the exception of 32. So all in favor? Aye. All right, and then moving on to 32.

Briefly, my comment onto that is, I do agree, I think there needs to be a policy set forth. We'll be hopeful when we have a discussion in a few weeks on these type of cameras that would probably be an appropriate time to bring up the direction that would go into it. So that's why I'm not seconding, although I understand, I think it needs to be a discussion on that.

So we have a motion on item 32 from Alejo, a second from Lopez. I will be abstaining on this, or I will be voting no on this because I do feel like given the public discourse on this item, I would like to know that we have policies in place before we move forward. And I will reiterate that I do feel very, I've been fairly involved with how these cameras are being used, with the staff, how staff is handling this data. And I feel very confident that it is being managed appropriately. But to be consistent with the questions that I'm asking about other camera and data use in this county, I do think it's important that we have policies in place before we act on those contracts. So that's why I'll be voting no on this particular.

If I may just kind of follow up then. I am going to support it because one, we do own these cameras. We know specifically what staff is looking at it and the narrow scope that's being used. But I do agree there needs to be a bigger discussion. But I think on these cameras, it's ownership and the use is going in two different directions.

And I agree, we've been doing this for several years now, and I don't want, by the time we develop some policy, I don't want that to be a reason to hold this off for many more months when there is a separate way to be able to address what we're talking about here today.

All in favor?

Aye.

No. So that's three with an ask you, voting no. All right, thank you. Okay, we're moving on to our general public comments. This is a time for members of the community to speak and share your thoughts with us about items that are not on the agenda but are within the purview of the county government. I'm going to just ask for a shared respect while people are providing their testimony. Thank you for joining us.

Karen Cameron concerns Salinas resident I've been collecting data from spray days our world's first notification of toxic restricted pesticides within one mile. McKinnon elementary school is they've had 5 a.m. and 6 a.m. chlorpyrichrine 1 3d applications or notifications of them anyway. Monday Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday every day this week right before school 5 o'clock in the morning 6 o'clock in the morning. Monday also had an evening methamil that' s what they' re getting in a data point these are toxic restricted pesticides banned in about 50 countries however they are allowed by epa and cdpr and signed off on by our but it's allowed in the ag industry. I don't understand. I don't have all the solutions. I stand troubled because I always believe that if you present a problem, you should try to bring a viable solution, and I don't have them. I'm simply a layperson sounding the alarm. I did meet with Reservoir Farms briefly this week and intend to follow up. I also attended a Safe Ag, Safe Schools meeting where we heard about the steam pilot project that they're doing in Watsonville. which may be a viable alternative. I say may because I question the use of propane. It doesn't sound too organic to me, but it claims to be a viable trade-out solution for fumigation that we could at least look at in the future. For the immediate, I just call upon Juan Hidalgo to please live up to your mission statement and vision statement that you can read on the Ag Commissioner's website, where he talks about being a voice of Monterey County agriculture and a role model for the future. And meeting the needs of the public, I urge you to do so and do better, please.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi. Peter Zelai. I listened carefully to last week's discussion about the sheriff's proposed expansion of flock cameras. Roughly 50 speakers opposed the technology, and Supervisor Askew reported receiving about 400 comments, most in opposition. Those voices deserve to be heard, but our county has 430,000 residents. Public policy should not be determined by who organizes the most speakers or sends the most emails. Your responsibility is to weigh public concerns against evidence, experience, and the broader public good. I share legitimate concerns about privacy, accountability, and misuse. But those concerns should not come from assumptions about how the technology is actually being used or unjustified criticism of law enforcement. Salinas has used flock cameras since 2023. Officers are trained, have individual logins, and their searches are tracked and audited. Searches must relate to legitimate investigations. The cameras capture license plates and vehicle characteristics, not faces. There is no facial recognition. They take still images, not continuous video. A flock alert is only one piece of evidence. It identifies a vehicle at a location. It does not identify the driver and by itself does not justify an arrest. Salinas Police report that this technology has assisted homicide and other serious criminal investigations. The department also operates under SB 54 and does not use the system for immigration enforcement. What I would like to see is greater public transparency, regular reporting on how flock is used, its safeguards, violations of any, and measurable results. Accountability and public safety are not competing values. We can insist on both. And finally, Benjamin Franklin's liberty and security quotation is inaccurately taken out of its historical context and should not substitute for a careful evaluation of the actual policy before you. Thank you.

Madam Chair, members of the board, my name is Mark Del Piero. I'm here on behalf of the Ag Land Trust this morning. This morning, you all received a press release at your respective chairs. Nice to see you, Nick. First of all, I wanted to thank Supervisor Lopez because he wrote a letter along with Congressman Panetta And as a result, the Aikman Trust is pleased to announce that the Department of War and the U.S. Army National Guard awarded us $2.5 million to train veterans as to how to be 21st century cowboys. That's about as simple as I can put it. The press release that you have in hand Lays out a large amount of the details of what's going on We own a number of ranches in feed down in South Monterey County that we've acquired over the course of the last decade and That money has come from the REPI program It's called Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration. It's a mechanism by which conservation organizations like the Ag Land Trust here in Monterey County work with federal government in order to secure the purchase and permanent ownership and preservation of lands proximate to military reservations. And so this pilot project will go on for the next three years. We have about 20 veterans or guys that are quickly transitioning out of the military service that are ready to be brought on board. And they will be transitioning through that program. Some of them will be in a six-month training program. Some of them will be there for up to three years. Supervisor Church and I have had this conversation a couple times about what's going on. And we've been Been in contact with the County Veterans Affairs Officer, so he's aware, as well as San Luis Obispo County. If you have any questions, you're welcome to get a hold of us. Thank you very much.

Welcome back, Supervisor.

Mark, I'm just going to have you come back to the microphone, and given your significance in this county, I'm going to allow an additional minute.

Thank you so much. I wanted to make a point of introducing you to somebody that a couple of you already know. Camille Polson, who's our Director of Finance for the Ag Land Trust, is here with me this morning. She makes sure that everything in the office runs correctly in spite of me, and so I wanted to take the opportunity to make sure that everybody on the board who hasn't met her in the past has the opportunity to do that. Thanks so much for your time.

Thank you. And thank you for your service to the county as well. All right. Any other public comment? No one else in chambers. We'll go online. We have a hand raised phone number ending in 705.

Good morning, supervisors. Lorna Moffitt here. You know, I'm up in Palo Alto and I attended a city council meeting where about 100 residents showed up about the flock cameras. And I learned a lot. And there's been a lot of mistakes that the flock cameras make in the identification. And people have been woken up in the middle of the night by literally, you know, SWAT teams terrorizing them and misidentification. And I just think, you know, it's very important that we have some kind I guess surveillance on the violence, but it does take away our freedom and our personal privacy. And we are going to have to pay one way or the other. So I think we have to make a decision. And my decision is I'd rather live in a free world where I'm not surveilled all 24 seven, which is what this country is coming to. than the flaw cameras. So think very carefully about what you're doing. Thank you.

Thank you. Seeing no additional hands raised, we'll close public comment and bring it back to the board for our two scheduled items this morning. Three, four, handful of scheduled items this morning. We'll start with item number 19, receiving a presentation and to consider approval of revisions to the County Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District Policy. We'll just do a time check. We have a couple items that are scheduled for 30 minutes. It is already 11.30, so we'll try to manage the rest of the morning.

Morning, Chair Rudescu, Board, Chief Assistant CAO Chulos, Richard Vaughn, Economic Development Manager for the county, and presenting to you a revised Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District Policy. Let's see. So I wanted to give you a quick background on this just to refresh your memory. So we have received several interested parties, cities regarding EIFDs in the past, and we actually do have one EIFD that has been approved. This was back in, I believe, 2021 between the county and the city of Gonzales. And so with that, economic development was uh directed to come together with the cao office and hcd and pull together an eifd policy so we worked very closely with our admin office our budget director housing community development and presented this to the board this was back in october of 2023 and the board moved forward with adopting that policy Since then, we've received feedback from several city partners regarding some of the language within the policy. And so that is what we brought to you today. So quick outline of our EIFD policy. So the way that the county receives these proposals is we consider proposals from cities seeking financial partnership through the Joint City-County EIFD. This is particularly interested in in supporting projects that provide for jobs a housing balance therefore will prioritize commercial industrial developments that promote creation of above minimum wage jobs within our region and so some of the components of the eifd that was previously approved is a contribution of tax increment, term of the county participation in the EIFD, required elements for city proposals, county analysis of the proposal from the city, and then any miscellaneous provisions that we've added in. And so with that, some of the revisions that we're bringing before you today that we've heard from our city partners is a request for an elongated term of an EIFD. So we originally approved or this board originally approved a 25-year term. And so we've heard from our city partners that that's a bit too short for them to be able to move forward with a large project of this nature. And so they're requesting an increase from 25 to 30 years, which is not too drastic. That's within regards to 2A of the agreement. or of the policy. Moving on to 2C, and at any time, if you have any questions, feel free to let me know. 2C, we are moving forward, or we are proposing the extension of a two-year commencement for a project. So we've heard from our city partners that that's a bit too quick for them, working with developers, working with all the partners to pull together a project of this size, of the scope, that seven years would be more amenable. and so we're proposing an extension from two to seven years uh for the actual commencement of a project uh and then uh proposing a an extension of from one year uh post that to a 10-year span for the actual implementation of an eifd so if by year 10 uh project has not started construction, it would authorize the county to be able to end the agreement with the city partner for an EIFD. Under our required elements for city proposal section, 3AII, number four, this is just clarifying what affordable housing mix is essentially so we've heard from our city partners that this language was a little too vague and so we went in there worked with our HCD partners with Craig and Melanie and pulled together what the actual percentages are and language that pulls together what affordable housing specifically is in order for the county and the city to work in unison. And so within that language, we've also added a clause that the county may also consider a 20% set aside of district revenues to be limited for affordable housing uses. Under the next section, county analysis of city proposal, we received feedback that this language was a bit too vague and didn't quite understand some of it. So we went back to the drawing board and reworked this. And so essentially what the county has come up with in conjunction with our city partners is that we've revised it to read that should the county lack any required in-house expertise to perform portions of the evaluation of the proposal we receive from our city partner, or if the county possesses the necessary expertise but we don't have adequate staff to review, at that time we would then engage a third party to assist with the review of a proposal for an EIFD from a city partner. and we would then require the city to cover those costs. And under the last section are miscellaneous provisions, just tidying up affordable housing specifically and ensuring that we added in that allocation for an alternative set aside of 20% of district revenues to be limited for affordable housing uses and refers back to the original revision that we made. And with that, do we have any questions from the board? Very minor changes.

Thank you, any questions from the board? Do you have a couple questions I'm gonna ask and then we'll open it up to public comment. So I appreciate the review of the policy and I just, I know we have an economic development committee and did this go, has this been reviewed? Did they have a chance to weigh in on it? Was there any feedback that they provided?

Um, so with regards to these recent updates, this was not presented to the Economic Development Committee. This was done at the board level. So we anticipate that it'd be brought back to the board for these revisions.

Okay. Okay. Thank you. And then in terms of the financial impact, I know that the policy itself doesn't have a financial impact on the county, but what we're effectively talking about is sharing of county future county property tax revenue. And so when we approve a FID, there's an argument that you will generate additional property tax revenue because it supports the additional growth that our cities need, but at a sort of a higher cost to the county So do we have any sense of what the fiscal impact of changing the policy might be? We expect that it will generate more requests or make it easier for our cities to work with us on these requests. Is there any financial analysis that's been done or can you comment on that?

So to my knowledge financial analysis would be completed on a per project basis. And I defer back to Assistant Chief CAO Chulos on that. I know you've worked on the first EIFD here in the county.

Yeah, Richard's right, Madam Chair. The Gonzales EIFD, when we did that, we had a financial analysis. You really need to do them on a project by project basis because the details are going to be different. for each one.

Right, right. Okay, and so by having a policy just simply by having the policy doesn't mean that we're required. We still have that financial analysis on a project by project basis.

Correct.

Okay. Okay, great. Thank you. And then there was, I think it was on page or slide five where it talks about, maybe not slide five, I'm not sure which slide it was, the after 10 years that we proceed with dissolution of the EFID, can you just speak to, when we say proceed to begin dissolution, is that a mandatory, dissolution proceedings would be mandatory at year 10?

Yes.

Not that it's an optional thing to dissolve at that point. How long does dissolution here at proceedings take?

We've not had to perform one. We only have one EIFD currently on the books. But we would definitely want to reach out to a third-party consultant. So once an EIFD is established, then it has its own separate board, its own separate governing body. So we would just keep in contact with that. separate governing body to ensure that things are moving forward. And if by year 10, we would then want to bring something back to the board to get your approval to then move forward with dissolution if there has been nothing that has transpired.

Okay. And I assume that the costs for the consultant who would help us with that would also be shared by the parties in the same way that the initial setup was shared?

I believe so. That's how we've drafted the language in here so that anything relating to an EIFD would be shared.

Okay, great. And then I appreciate in the policy that it's requiring us to explore whether housing produced can count towards the county's RHNA. I think that's a really interesting way to proceed and to make sure that where we're wanting to have affordable housing built is in communities where we have infrastructure and resources and transit and schools and shopping and doctors, that that makes a lot of sense to me. But there was something in it where it referenced that we could consider a revenue set aside instead of the actual affordable unit production. And I know that within our county inclusionary housing ordinance, we have a dollar amount that's set for what that buyout would look like, and it's very, very low. So I guess the question is, when you talk about the revenue set aside option, would that be indexed to the actual cost of building units or would it be based on the county's inclusionary housing ordinance?

I would need to defer back to HCD on that one. We can definitely get you some more information on that. But to my knowledge, all of this would come before the board.

It would be negotiated.

It would all be negotiated and then brought to the board for your approval. So you wouldn't be seeing that on the back end. You would see this up front as to what that 20% set-aside would be if we were entertaining that. And then you would have the option to approve or not.

Okay, got it. And I think that on that section, you talked about the miscellaneous other categories. I would just want to make sure that we're prioritizing the actual production of those units that are affordable for the community as opposed to the buyout amount that doesn't actually create housing that we need and isn't sufficient to actually build that housing. So it wouldn't support the arena goal. So I think it's tied into that, but I just want to be very explicit in that expectation that I have as proposals come forward to us. Yeah, please.

thank you Mr. Chair. thank you Mr. Chair. I have one question that popped up. The aspect where it talks about share and I know part four it moved from may seek reimbursement to share which is a lot more clear. When we speak of share are we

clarification on that I think it would be project by project basis so if you know if the county has the expertise and we're able to review then you know there would be no additional cost that we would bear but you know if you know we don't have expertise within the county to be able to review some portion of an EIFD proposal we would most likely need to go out to request a third party to assist so each one's going to be different on the degree of sharing and the cost okay thanks

I know Richard probably knows what I'm going to ask for right now. Obviously, we just had our Economic Committee yesterday. And it would be good, because we do have a panel of experts on that committee, to be able to at least know what EIFDs are, right? What are their origin? How do they work? How do they benefit the city? How do they benefit the county? How do they affect the goals of affordable housing and housing overall? So anyways, I would ask that even though this didn't come to that committee first, at least to bring this to an economic development to talk about it because it's relevant because there still has to be cities wanting to come to the county to partner in EIFD. I know City Salinas has interest and perhaps there's others coming forward. So it's a timely topic. So process-wise, I want to make sure that the Economic Development Committee could start just looking and understanding how these work. EIFDs came after redevelopment agencies went away. This particular option was authored by Senator Jim Bell out of San Jose. I authored a different bill in partnership with the League of Cities, and those were called the CREAs, the Community Revitalization and Investment Authorities. For a while, there was interest in Seaside wanting to create a CREA under my legislation, but both of them had options to use tax increment and then put percentage aside for affordable housing goals. And I think both of these options have that in there. So these are important post redevelopment law tools to help communities, disadvantaged areas, bided areas, to be able to use tax increment for a good public use. So anyway, so I just want to say, I know there is community interest. The biggest city in the Monterey Bay is looking at this right now. So thanks for making these revisions that can make this work better and have these EIFDs realized within our county and they can benefit our partner cities and then of course our county as well. So that was my request moving forward. Thank you.

All right. Let's open it up to public comment. Is there any public comment on this item? Seeing no one in chambers and no hands on line, we'll close public comment, bring it back to the board for action. Second.

Second.

We have a motion from Lopez, a second from Alejo. And if we could just, by nature of the discussion, have the comments that were made today considered by staff as we move forward.

So I think just for clarity, I heard a lot of pieces that weren't gonna go into the policy, so can, I just wanna be clear on the direction we're giving staff at this point. what I'm comfortable with is the policy put forward because we've put a lot of work into this out of the examples through Gonzales. So yeah, I just, I didn't hear a lot of concurrence on different things. I don't want that to be assumed as direction. I think is my fear.

The two that stuck out to me was having the item be added to a future economic. I could just do that as chair of the Economic Development Committee. Okay, Economic Development Committee meeting. And that as items come back, that the goal would be to have the production of affordable housing over the set-aside funding as those options are considered. But you don't have to include that.

Okay, so I'm good with the, We're already hearing that it's going to go back to committee at this point.

Here, because I could do that as chair of the committee and that request that staff bring that to a future meeting.

All in favor? Aye. Passes unanimously. Thank you. We'll go next to item number 20, which is to receive a presentation on the results of the 2026 homeless point and time count. We have Roxanne Wilson and Katrina McKenzie here to present.

What is happening here?

It's green. Okay, oh, there you go. Good morning, honorable chair and members of the board and members of the public. My name is Roxanne Wilson and I am the county's homeless services director. With me is Mrs. Katrina McKenzie, who is the executive director of the Coalition of Homeless Services Providers, which serves as the Monterey and San Bernardino County's continuum of care lead agency.

Good morning, everybody. Thank you for having us. So why do we do this point in time count? We do it because as a continuum of care or COC, we are required to do so by HUD or the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The data collected during these point in time counts helps us determine the level of federal and local funding that COCs receive and accurate counts enable better allocation of resources to meet the needs of the people experiencing homelessness. The counts provide crucial information for policymakers to help us make informed decisions about homeless prevention and intervention strategies. Accurate and up-to-date data helps us raise awareness about homelessness issues among the public, the stakeholders, fostering support, and necessary actions for policies. So by conducting regular pick counts, COCs can track changes in homelessness over time, allowing for better trend analysis and adjustments to strategies as needed. So we conducted the sheltered point in time count on January 31st so at midnight service providers administered a snapshot of the housing inventory account or HIC. So this counts the number of beds and units in specific programs and the point in time sheltered count counts the people occupying those beds. or units at that time. This activity is conducted every year as the unsheltered point in time count is only done every other year.

Can I just recognize that there is a mistake inside of this slide? So it says the 29th was the sheltered count and the 30th was the unsheltered, so Katrina just corrected that.

Thank you, Roxanne. All right, so the federal definitions of homelessness for the point in time counts is basically those that are living in supervised publicly or privately operated sheltered or designated to private provide temporary living arrangements or a primary nighttime residents that is a public or private place not designed for human habitation.

The 2026 point in time count revealed that there are 2,073 individuals who are experiencing homelessness in Monterey County on any given night. This shows a 15% decrease from 2024 for overall homelessness and a 23% reduction in unsheltered homelessness. And again, as Katrina had mentioned, that the point-in-time count, it does look at those two different populations, those who are living in temporary living facilities that's funded by the public or private sector, and also those who are living in places not meant for human habitation, including cars, abandoned buildings, bus, trains, I mean, I'm sorry, I've been repeating what she said, but tents and unpermitted structures, sorry. This slide breaks down the point in time count by jurisdiction and shows where we've seen changes since 2024. The most significant reduction occurred in unincorporated areas of Monterey County, where the total count dropped from 443 people in 2024 to just 123 in 2026, a 72% reduction. That reduction reflects a substantial amount of targeted and intentional work in our unincorporated communities, and along major encampment areas, including those that were serviced by the encampment resolution funding grants that the county had received and the launch of the county's interdepartmental encampment response team. We also saw notable decreases in several incorporated communities. Seaside declined by 38% and Pacific Grove declined by 37%. Soledad's unsheltered count fell from 45 people to eight, although its overall total now includes people staying in shelter. Again, a result of the encampment resolution grant that we received in partnership with the city. At the same time, the data reminds us that progress has not been uniform across every jurisdiction. Salinas continues to represent the largest concentration of homelessness in the county, with 1,249 people counted this year. Monterey, Marina, and King City have all experienced increases in their overall counts, although there may be some explanations to those increases. for example the former Pueblo del mar program in the city of marina was non-operational when the 2024 point-in-time count was conducted however the in fall the project reopened as hope housing so in 2026 you will see increase in their sheltered numbers i'm going to pause many people like reading this one There also have been significant decreases among all subpopulations that's mandated for the COC to count and monitor, which includes people experiencing chronic homelessness, veterans, families with minors, and unaccompanied individuals under the age of 25 years old. Again, these declines could be attributed to substantial resources that has been made available to these populations over the past two years. And I'll expand on what some of those changes to the system are in a future slide.

Thank you, Roxanne. So respondents report that homeless populations continue to age while nearly one in three individuals now age 55 or older, which is an increase from 2024. Adults between the ages of 35 and 64 remain a large, the largest group representing nearly two-thirds or 65% of individual counted. Men continue to comprise of the majority of the population at 70% compared to 66% in 2024. It's important to note that HUD revised its demographics reporting standards in 2026, so there is a we can't really compare gender or sexual orientation data due to those changes. We see here that local homelessness increased with 89% reporting that they were residents of Monterey County when they became homeless, which is up 81% in 2024. Long-term homelessness declined with individuals experiencing homelessness for one or more years, decreasing from 78% to 67%. our first-time homelessness increases substantially with 60% reporting this is their first episode of homelessness compared to 23% in 2024. The homeless population continues to age with 30% now age 55 or older compared to 24% in 2024. So the bottom line here is more people are becoming homeless and our local residents. Fewer people are remaining homeless for extended periods of time, and more people are entering homelessness for the first time. Our population continues to age. Okay. The survey indicates here that there's encouraging progress in reducing justice system involvement among individuals experiencing homelessness. Compared to 2024, the percentage reporting incarceration within the past year declined from 26% to 19%, while those on probation and parole at the start of their current episode of homelessness decreased from 20% to 10%. So that's a 50%. the number of people sleeping outdoors increased from 45% to 69% while fewer reported This change likely reflects a combination of reduced temporary shelter resources and increase in unsheltered homelessness, reinforcing the need for expanded outreach, shelter capacity, and permanent housing opportunities.

Survey respondents have the opportunity to self-report health conditions that may affect their housing stability or ability to gain or maintain employment. This slide really underscores how closely homelessness and health are connected. We continue to see a very high rate of people with behavioral health or physical health conditions, including substance use disorder, depression, PTSD, physical disabilities and chronic health conditions. Most notably, 65% of the respondents reported at least one disabling condition, up from 52% last year, or the last count. This slide shows a meaningful increase in access to government benefits. In 2026, 74% of the respondents reported receiving some form of government assistance, compared to 60% in 2024. The barriers for those who are not receiving assistance has also changed. In 2026, immigration-related concerns were the most frequently reported reason for not receiving benefits, whereas in 2024, immigration concerns were the least frequently reported barrier. Another important finding is that 17% of the respondents who were not receiving government assistance said that their benefits had been cut off. For people experiencing homelessness, maintaining benefits can be especially difficult because so many systems depend on consistent communication. A person may not have a reliable mailing address, may lose access to an email account because of two-factor authentication, or may have a phone number that changes several times throughout a year. This is an area where a system has a real opportunity to improve by building processes that recognize those realities and make it easier for people to maintain their benefits and stay connected to services. So in conclusion, the homelessness response system, which extends far beyond just the county's efforts, is becoming more coordinated across systems, rather than relying on individual programs to operate on their own. We are seeing strengthened partnerships across jurisdictions, connecting people to housing and building more intentional pathways between homeless services, healthcare, education, and the justice system. We have also been much more deliberate about how we approach encampments, pairing outreach and resolution efforts with realistic service and shelter options whenever possible. At the same time, projects like Light Fighter Village, who is for the veteran population, Hope Housing for those with a behavioral health condition, and expanded reentry coordination are increasing the number of pathways people can use to stabilize. The overall direction is toward a system that is easier to navigate, more response to individual needs, and a system that meets people where they are. Although the system looks completely different than it did 10 years ago, we still have substantial gaps. We don't have enough affordable housing options. We don't have housing voucher housing choice vouchers available at this time and as mentioned several times throughout this presentation The senior population is growing and we simply don't have the resources to handle their varying needs But what we do have is a whole network of partners from school districts the Sheriff's Office public defenders and so much more who are doing what they can to help and that is promising and

And while the 2026 point in time count shows meaningful progress, several federal and state policies changes could put these gains at risk. At the federal level, HUD continues to shift priorities, potentially reducing resources that... Potentially reducing resources that currently keep vulnerable households permanently housed. Proposed changes to protect Proposed changes to prorated rents for mixed immigration status households could also increase housing costs for affected families. In addition, H.R. 1 expands work requirements and benefit recertification requirements, creating additional barriers for people experiencing homelessness to maintain health care, food assistance, and other critical supports. At the state level, there continues and there's continued uncertainty around our hap funding that present a significant concern hap is one of our most flexible resources and allows us to respond to needs and gaps specific to our local community there's pressures that come at a time when our pit data shows an aging population with increasingly complex health and behavioral health needs require greater coordination across housing health care behavioral health and aging services. The takeaway for us locally is that progress we've made is real, but it's not guaranteed. Our priority must be to protect those gains by building, sorry, building resilience, coordinated system and could adapt to the changing federal policies, uncertain funding and evolving community needs.

As mentioned before, we still have a lot of work to do, and working we are. On September 16th, my office will be hosting a community engagement meeting to gain input about a proposed reconfiguration of the Share Center to better serve families and to better serve people being discharged from Natividad Hospital who are experiencing homelessness and need a safe place to recover, and I do plan on bringing that proposal to the board by October. the city of salinas and the county partnered on a grant submission to serve people experiencing homelessness along the davis road corridor between blanco and baronda and we do expect to hear back from the state this month on whether or not we've been funded of course two home keys have opened those home keys opened after the point in time count was conducted and all of the folks that are moving in are housed they are no longer considered homeless The board has given me direction to identify a safe parking option in North County, and we do hope to have a proposal to the board in the upcoming months. And of course, BHSA is ramping up. CalAIMS transitional rent is already in effect. And I think it's really important to note that the bulk of our accomplishments are made possible because of the huge investments by the state of California. and how they had invested into our county and we have so many people within this county including the board who is willing to take those steps towards a better community. The state has had a very clear vision and has made resources available to communities who align with it. Over half of the counties in California who conducted and released a point in time count this year have cell reductions, which includes Fresno, Madera, San Francisco, San Joaquin, Alameda, Ventura, Kern, Orange, and of course, Monterey County. That concludes our presentation and we are available for any questions. Thank you so much.

Great, thank you. We'll bring it to the board for questions.

Yeah. First of all, Roxanne and Katrina, thank you very much for the heroic work you do, the great collaboration you both do on behalf of our county and our residents and our most vulnerable. I very much appreciate in having your expertise, not only yours, but all our partners. It really makes a difference. And it's helped facilitate building trust with their cities, more collaboration among the nonprofits and our housing authority, as well as the things that you just mentioned have been a result of what we learned makes things happen, which is partnerships and collaboration. I commend both of you, but I also know that these are very difficult times. As you're talking about, there's a lot of new restrictions on the federal funding. In fact, our next round of funding, our NOFO, is tied up in litigation. We had our panel rank and review projects and services to be granted in August. And because of litigation against those really restrictive conditions, By the administration now, we're kind of in limbo waiting to see what the federal judge would do. On the state side, yes, the state was very proactive, but then we got to a point where one year didn't provide any funding. In fact, last year, the governor had zero dollars for HAP round seven, and it was a legislator who put in $500 million. That issue carried on until this year, where again, counties, Monterey County was one of those who advocated to restore, not the $500 million, but get us back to a billion dollars. We didn't get a billion, but we got $900 million. But in the governor's January budget this year, at his May revise, it was $0 for HAP homelessness funding. It took counties and nonprofits and Continuums of Care advocating to get us back closer to what the state was doing there for several rounds. So I just wanted to point out this count is critical because this is used in the formula about how federal dollars and state dollars are designated to counties, right? And sometimes to the big cities, to the COCs as well, continuum of cares. And this is an issue that we've been fighting because counties like ours, after doing this point in time count, every two years, if you have an increase in homelessness funding, then based on the formula, you're gonna get more because your PIT count went up. But if you're a county like ours where we decrease 15%, it's like we're gonna get 15% less funding because our numbers dropped. And we've been trying to correct that. We brought it to the legislature's attention. Just haven't made ground. But for us, there's good news here. But the flip side, the bad news is we're likely going to get less money because now this pit is used in the formula that will result in us getting less money, not rewarding us for doing what the state and the federal government wants us to do. I wanted to just go into two points. One thing that wasn't highlighted here, out of the last four point in time counts, Monterey County has had three reductions out of four. And I think that's important for the community practice. We're not just looking at a two-year length, we're looking at how we did compared to all the previous counts. And back going to pre-COVID, we had dropped just under 15%, 14.6%. During COVID, in 2022, we dropped 15.5. Where we had an uptick was two years ago, 2024, that was a 19% increase, and now we dropped back down 15%. So I want the community to know we've had drops, consistent drops, three out of four different counts. But this came up here during public comment, maybe two, three meetings ago, which is this chart on jurisdictions. I'm glad we look at the unincorporated county, we look at the county overall, but we also look at how the 12 cities within Monterey County are doing in this count. And sometimes the numbers don't tell the whole story. The news says, oh, Salinas went up 3%, right? But within the 3% numbers, when we're looking at homelessness numbers, we're looking, comparing the numbers of homeless in previous years compared to this current count. And in your chart here, it breaks down the number of unsheltered and sheltered, right? So that 3% includes individuals in both categories. So just on the unsheltered, from 2024 to 26, these are unsheltered people not in any type of program or service, more than likely out, on the street or even in a car, the increase was 18 individuals in Salinas. That's in a city of 160,000 people, unsheltered. It says here 949 two years ago, now it's 967, that's 18 individuals. But we also had an increase of sheltered homeless. Those are people actually in a program, in some kind of service. That increased from 267 to 282, so that was 15 individuals. But yet when you look at the 3% over there, you're looking at both, right? So there's a distinction there of sheltered versus unsheltered. The sheltered are people who are considered homeless, but they are in some kind of program getting services in this count. Because if you just look at percentages, you look at Sand City went from two overall the last count to four, that would technically be like a 200% increase. We have a start here because it's such a small number. It's not fair to the city to say, oh, you went from two to four, you had a 200% increase. Gonzales went from one to six. And there's a start of there too, but that would be otherwise a 600% increase, right? So it's such a solid number, it's not fair to characterize that kind of increase for that community. But anyways, I wanted to go into that because we had some comments made here that overgeneralized without really looking into the details of how these numbers are divided. and what they mean. Yes, I always said we had an overall reduction in the county. We had 18 more individuals living out in the streets or in cars in Salinas, but there's much more work to do. But overall, we are making progress, but it's never enough because our mission is to try to get everyone into services and everyone out of homelessness if possible. So anyways, I just wanted to bring a little light into those numbers. Thank you.

Thank you.

Sure. I really don't have any questions. I just want to really, really thank you and your team for all the great work that we've worked together the last four years and a lot of issues out in Pajaro and around Salinas, a lot of places, unfortunately. And I, you know, really pleased to see that you know there's there's progress going forth I know we're working on a safe parking program which has been really difficult to to do and I'm really optimistic on what's going to happen out of this I this is one of these it's one of these things that are just real challenges challenges and communities challenges within government and I know we had the right people doing it and you you guys are doing a great job we had the the old village that set up and up in Watsonville and had some challenges with that that was with outside our control and That's been been a big success and we can see the impact that had in the in the borrowed community right there So I believe we're heading in the right direction I think there's a model here for a lot of the cities to to follow through and in assist with as we're doing here with the city of Salinas and I'm just Looking forward to to the future and hoping the numbers continue to go down

Thank you.

I too only have appreciation And just want to point out a supervisor Alejo did a little bit of a dive on the numbers That in South County this year. We also had the two new shelters open up and as part of that we likely saw a shift of folks out of Unincorporated into those cities. So some of those numbers are playing into the figures that we're seeing with the opening of sendero and and I always get it wrong, and I know that was the reason for the naming, but Casa de Esperanza or whatever we ended up naming the one in King City. But with that acknowledgement, just a continued appreciation, I think seeing the numbers move in the right direction is something the community has been looking for. And I know any time you see the data, we hear folks push back and say they're unwilling to trust those numbers. But I trust them because I've seen the work. I've seen the new locations open. I've seen people move in. And I've seen the lives changed. And at the end of the day, that's the real goal. So thank you for the work that helps illuminate that.

I don't have any necessary questions, but I do just want to highlight a couple of the points that you're making on slide 16, which is the where do we go from here. Improving our hospital discharges and making sure that we have folks who are both being discharged from hospital as well as from our county jail with those warm handoffs. I know it's that's like really challenging work to do. But one of the, just talking to our folks at Natividad and realizing that with the ECM program in place, that they've been able to make some pretty significant improvements and even separate from Behavioral Health Services Act, but folks who are being, coming through the emergency room for serious mental illness, inputs into the mental health unit, and then finding more stability for people who are experiencing that cycle with an ultimate reduction in the number of people coming through the emergency room needing mental health, serious and immediate mental health treatment. So I would just encourage us to think about both the hospital discharge side as well as our jail discharge side and using those ECM programs, continue to use them as effectively as possible. And then I did, I guess the question I have is I know I raised a number of issues with the Behavioral Health Services Act and the intentions of those dollars to be used to help move folks out from homelessness who are homeless population that is experiencing serious mental illness into housing. And I just, if I can put you on the spot and just ask how that conversation as we look at implementation of BHSA, how those ongoing conversations are going.

I haven't had a chance to check in with the Director of Behavioral Health or the Director of the Health Services Department, but I certainly can do so. I'm aware of organizations that are partnering with them, but I can certainly look into that and get back to you.

And I think I asked the question primarily, we now have from the BHSA, Behavioral Health Services Act, this movement of money where we experienced an acute loss of funds for prevention and early intervention, but those dollars moved into housing. support for individuals who are unhoused. And so I think it's really important that we're maximizing the utilization of those dollars. And as we, where we go from here, I think that's going to have to be a critical part of all conversations moving forward. And then on the fifth one, slow down the pipeline of people into homelessness. It's really disheartening to see that the average age of our unhoused residents is increasing. And I think that there's a number of reasons for that. But when I'm looking at the sort of canaries in the coal mine and those individuals in Monterey County who are living very much paycheck to paycheck on the edge is when I look at our student homelessness rates. And there's a new report that just came out. Monterey County student homelessness rates continue to be exponentially, statistically, dramatically, significantly higher than what you see anywhere else on the coast of California. Our rates of student homelessness are It's a different level of measurement from our HUD point in time homeless rates, but when you're talking about multiple families each living in a home with one family per bedroom, families who are living in garages, technically those kids are sheltered, but it's not It's families who are right on the edge and barely holding it together. And there's incredible resilience in the way that families hold it together, but also those are folks who are one breath away from finding themselves in a motel, in a car, which leads me to the last point about serving individuals who are living in their vehicles. We're already seeing in Monterey County, I think Salinas Elementary School District, the last time I checked, had over 100 students living in vehicles. And MPUSD on the Monterey Peninsula and Seaside runs a safe parking program with 25 families who live in their vehicle. And I think those kids and K-12 students who are living in vehicles do fall into our HUD category of homelessness. But I think it's important to acknowledge and recognize that it's not just those that we see or hear about, but there are statistically huge numbers of those kids and those families who don't have the stable housing that they need to be learning and growing safely and successfully. And so on the parking, serving individuals living in their cars, I just want to acknowledge that the county continues to have our safe parking program, that there's a number of churches who participate on the peninsula in safe parking for folks. and that Monterey Peninsula Unified even as a school district with the support of the City of Seaside is operating a safe parking program. We really can't do that on our own as a county. We need the cities to participate. We've got some resources, we've got some models, but I feel so strongly that catching folks before they fall farther into homelessness and those families especially and those older individuals who for whatever reason need the security of a vehicle, that that's an area that I would love to see us continue to lean farther into and to ask our partners to lean farther into as well. So those are my comments. Let's open it up to public comment. Is there anyone in chambers for public comment today? No. All right. Is there anyone online? We have one phone number ending in 436. We'll welcome your public comment. Thank you for joining us today. This is the phone number ending in 436.

Hello, this is Eloise Jim calling. So I've looked at the leadership group on Wes White's YouTube channel, and I know that Supervisor Alejo has been present at those meetings, as has Roxanne Wilson. However, one individual that I've mentioned, Mike Husted, is still a sheltered homeless person after 22 years. In my view, that's unacceptable. Personally, I think with the extra support from Robert Rivas, who listened to my concerns about my subsidy through HUD, my rental portion decreased, which gives me more discretionary spending capacity. And I'm less worried that I'll lose my subsidy today, which contributes to lessening my homeless anxiety. The Salinas Rental Registry Stabilization Initiative was not supported by Supervisor Alejo. And it is a crucial component to combating and eliminating homelessness. He needs to be more of an authentic advocate for the homeless issue in my view. Also, there are many more people than 18 homeless people without shelter just in my immediate neighborhood. And that alone, let alone the entire county. So I think those numbers are, you know, if you're a person like me that takes the bus and walks around to get places and not just in your car, going to your home, you will know more, there are more homeless people than what you're saying there are.

Thank you. Thank you. All right, I'm seeing no additional hands raised. So we'll close public comment and bring it back to the board. This is receiving the presentation today and I didn't hear any direction in the comments that were made. Is there any direction that we'd like to offer? I do know that we have the annual summit coming up. Can you make an announcement about the annual summit?

Yes, thank you. So we are hosting a annual, not really annual, every other year. Biennial. Biennial Summit on Homelessness in April of 2027. It's going to be at the Old Steinbeck Center. And we are really excited to continue to partner with the County of Monterey and Monterey County Council office of education to put on this summit. We are offering 12 learning sessions. We're gonna incorporate some work groups, training for service provider network, and really informing our community on what homelessness looks like in our continuum of care, what resources are out there, and training opportunities for our service provider network to continue the growth in addressing homelessness.

Great. Thank you. And there'll be more information about that on the coalition website. Yes. So please do look into that. And that is part of our implementation of the Lead Me Home plan that we continue to, I think, try to work in alignment as a community on. So thank you again for all the work.

And everyone's invited. And we've been sold out because there is limited space. The last couple of times we've done this. So please RSVP early.

Yes. Great. All right. With that, we'll close this item. Thank you again for the work. And we will move on to item number 21, which has no new referrals. So we'll skip that and move on to item 22.

thank you chair as season which can counsel. This is a referral from supervisor church requesting the board establish a policy governing district specific appointments to county boards commissions and committees specifically asking that the policy state that is supervisor shall not appoint a resident of another to a district specific position without the prior consent of the supervisor representing the proposed appointees district of residence and um as far as what needs to happen today uh the board needs to either decide to move forward and direct county council to come back with such a policy or another direction similar or to drop the referral. Those are the choices.

Thank you. We'll go to the referral maker, Supervisor Church.

I think it's pretty self-explanatory onto it, so I really, let's let it kind of rest at that. This is questions.

Yeah, I know Kate's not here, and I'm hoping we could get to a solution that might address Supervisor Church's concerns, but also address the concerns I'm about to say. On appointments, it's been my practice on my 10 years on this board to always give, well, one, to recruit. If you see my social media and out in the community, I'm always trying to recruit people for vacancies. And I've always, in my 10 years, I've always given priority to District 1 residents if they are qualified, right? You all have to review each individual on a case-by-case basis. But second, I've always given an opportunity to others who are willing to serve because my thinking has always been, well, I'd rather have, if I can't find somebody to fill the vacancy, I'd rather have somebody who's willing to serve and put in the time to be able to do so rather than just leaving it vacant. And our county, historically, has always struggled to fill in vacancies. I think that's why the chair has now posted on the agenda what vacancies are available. But we've also tried to do different things to make it easier for people to apply and to serve on these committees, because they are volunteer. And for a while there, people had to take time off work, or travel, spend time traveling, spending money on gas, just to attend meetings. So it's historically been a struggle. In my district in particular, I've always historically, my 10 years, I've had a struggle trying to find people for certain types of committees. My historical advisory committee, I've had one vacancy, I've tried to find people, haven't been able to fill it in years. When it comes to fish and wildlife, I know fish and wildlife, you probably have more interest in some of the unincorporated areas than the city of Salinas, which all my district lies in. And it just historically tried hard to find people, but luckily I've been able to find people who are willing to serve, who have expertise, who are willing to put in the time, and they haven't always been for my district. I've always been honest about that. Sometimes there's challenges with committees, right? And it's not the appointment. Sometimes it's hard keeping people there because some committees, like Behavioral Health, they're very long meetings. Supervisor Church, Supervisor Askey and I have served on there. They're like sometimes two, three-hour meetings in an evening after work. and they go pretty long. And sometimes they move to Greenfield, to geographic areas that make it also challenging to attend for some of the members. the commission status of women has been a challenge. I've recruited many, I think partly more than any other commission. I recruited, they're willing to serve, they go on there, next thing you know they're resigning. And I even addressed it with staff, with the CAO. I go, there's something going on in some of these committees where I think we need to find ways to retain commissioners once they're appointed. Recently, in 2023, our neighboring county, Santa Cruz County, they struggled to find people to fill in their vacancies. They have no restrictions by district. They, in fact, modified their policy to allow people who are employed in Santa Cruz County to be able to serve on the commission. So they don't have to just live there. If they work in the county, the Board of Supervisors there said three years ago they're also eligible to serve on a commission that is vacant. And these are all challenges I'm raising, but that's why I specifically pushed our county to support the modernization of the Brown Act so that these advisory committees and these commissioners could participate via Zoom. And that bill actually was vetoed by the governor repeatedly. I think it was on the third time last year where Governor Newsom finally was willing to allow it for advisory committees. And that has been game-changer because now parents seniors working folks they're able to be able to participate and volunteer much more easy by being able to join a zoom versus traveling across the county to do so so the last point I wanted to make the concern I have on this is because historically our appointments have always been our our sole discretion we get a point who we want hasn't been an issue on the board for the last 10 years this would be the first time that we would put restrictions on one supervisor being able to, not be able to appoint a willing, volunteer unless that supervisor agrees to that. And for me, I just think that's problematic because I think our supervisorial districts are not fiefdoms. We don't own the people. And I'm hoping that perhaps there's another way where if we have a willing person from one supervisorial district willing to serve in another, not to say you can't serve unless the supervisor there agrees, Perhaps if there's a way to provide notice to the supervisor, to inform the supervisor that this is happening. I think there's other ways, because I know I've recruited people, and usually the clerk sends that application to the district that they live in. And sometimes if they're outside of my district and they're wanting to apply to be one of my commissioners, I always try to tell them, in their put that you're applying for a D1 district, that doesn't always happen. And so there's been some of my recruits that have actually been appointed to the status of commission, to the status of women by Supervisor Church. So I've helped recruit some people that got appointed in other people's districts, but even on my effort, I try to tell them, Please indicate that you're wanting to serve in a D1 commission vacancy. Anyways, I don't know if that addresses your concerns, but I'm trying to find ways. I want to be respectful to you and to other supervisors, but I don't know if notice would suffice or if it's just going to be a blank, straight... black and white rule where unless the other supervisor agrees, then I won't be able to appoint that and then that vacancy sits empty for another period of time. I think currently I only have six vacancies on commissions. I tried to get it down to zero. I was hoping to the point where I could get zero. I got all of mine. filled, but unfortunately, a few long-time commissioners decided to do something else recently, so another two, three vacancies opened, but it's been my goal to fill every single one for my district, and if not, a willing person who lives in the county who's willing to serve in those roles.

Sure, well, you know, it's obviously.

Let me see if Supervisor Lopez had a comment first, and then we'll come back around.

Anyway.

This is a preliminary analysis report, so it's not the first reading, it's the second time it's coming back, and we're gonna give direction today. Okay, thanks.

Oh, okay, all right. So, you know, we each obviously are elected in districts. We have a responsibility to our constituents in each of our districts, and in representing them, and and that's you know that is that is a priority nobody can you know nobody can speak for any of our districts as as eloquently as the one the supervisor that's been elected by the people in that district and that's that's why we're districts and not at large partially in this some in this county nothing in this referral limits I don' t know if anybody from being selected outside I know years and years past there has been issues on appointments outside of districts that have come up. When I came into office here there were quite a few vacancies within my district for you have to fill in those spots you have to fill in those spots you have to fill in those spots you never 100% full I think there' s always somebody that resigns but we' re pretty full and filling those spots which is good but there' s and then the supervisor will go to my case where we go to make an appointment and we find out that the individual has already been appointed from another don't get any response on how to deal with it with that district, so I've had to go to the CIO and the clerk of the board and point out, yes, this is a person who's applied in my district, and it's a potential problem here. It just really has to be resolved because It shouldn't come to any kind of conflict when we have people that are willing to serve, and the supervisorial district that they reside in is really where the first one should have that chance.

Thanks, I'm gonna comment briefly. And this was a really interesting, I'll just say like I had a long conversation with my team about this referral and how it has played out in the past. And we do have, District appointments and it hasn't been an issue in the past ten years where someone has blocked a district appointment But it has been an issue prior to that There are situations where the board has chosen not to support a district Presented appointment it happened when I was a staffer for supervisor Parker and I And I think that either we say that you have district appointment process, we have policies that we follow. And I think one of the questions I've been asking us to do is to look at those policies, to update those policies, to have clear guidance on those policies. And this referral fits right into that bigger question of how are we making appointments. When it is a full board request for an appointment, I think it is important that we have policies that guide that so that it doesn't become a territorial or a provincial type of situation. And I just wanna, I really appreciate the reasons why Supervisor Church is bringing this forward. There are very specific concerns that I think are trying to be addressed and that district specific appointments should generally come from the district that they represent. And I guess the one, so I do think it's a relevant conversation to have. I generally agree that the proposed solution makes sense to me. And at the same time, I'm just trying to think through the reality of, we have district boundaries, they're in profit proxies for what our communities look like. Sometimes we have someone who maybe lives in one address and works in another part of the community. We've always looked at the, gone back to the bylaws for each one of the appointments to let that guide us in how we bring people forward. Do they qualify? Do they not qualify? So I think those were some of the questions that I bounced around as we spent, you know, dove into the actual request and the proposed solution. I think it could make sense to say, you know, if you're going to appoint someone outside of your district, that there is a consultation that occurs with the you know the other district um i think that that seems like a fair uh request to make um and i think the other piece of it that that i've raised in all of my other comments is is really thinking about how we as a county are making sure that vacancies are known about by the community and um you know the county serves all of our cities uh we don't have any uniform way by which vacancies are shared in a broad manner. We have the Maddie list on the clerk of the board's webpage, but that's not shared broadly. So oftentimes we'll have vacancies, there'll be an appointment, someone will hear about it in some other way, but the bigger issue for me in all of this is that we're making sure that the community truly does understand the residents in each district understand that they have an opportunity to serve and that the wide range of individuals who might be interested. I know they're out there. I talk to them every day and I'm oftentimes referring people to city opportunities or county opportunities that they would have never known about. So I'm not providing clear direction in this, but I do think it's a relevant question, and I think that the proposed solution is one that could make sense. Do you want to comment, Supervisor Lopez, or the public?

I think I've heard three different opinions. I've heard concurrence, notification, and like approval, right? So there's like three different potentials there. I've heard three opinions, three different levels. And just want to acknowledge that I understand all the above. I've never been in the middle of one of those issues myself with an individual being contested in any way, but at the same time, I've had certain, so I think I appoint more than anybody else because I have so many special districts and all those tiny cemetery districts, water districts, memorial districts. So given that, I know in the past, like in the instance of Fish and Games, I've had an abundance of folks, like nine folks apply for a few seats, and Supervisor Alejo's had vacancies, so I've sent him a couple, and he's appointed some of those, so I can see the concurrence piece there. And I think it's a really interesting question, and I look forward to hearing it, if we have any public input on this. I doubt we do, given the time we're sitting in empty chambers, by throwing that out there, and just want to acknowledge my three opinions, and you know, understanding that there should be some level, it's a question of what level, and maybe this is one we do wait for Supervisor Daniels to join in on the conversation just given that as well. But given my history with it, I agree there needs to be some level, it's a question of what is the appropriate level, and then which bodies are we talking about as well, just knowing that all those different potential places that it could be an impact down the line. And I agree with that piece because I largely I often feel that I'm the bedroom community for so many others, right? I know everybody who lives in my district usually works in someone else's. I feel that in the morning on the freeway of folks headed north, and I wouldn't want to block those folks who might be useful and insightful from helping others. But I'm not resistant to the idea of a concurrence, I guess, is where I am. But, yeah, just sitting there kind of with that. A lot of different pieces. I just want to acknowledge I heard three different opinions there.

I do think it probably you know it's an item since it's board policy really needs all supervisors engaged and I was You know what they really should come back when there's five supervisors and that could be the direction from the board today if I may to come back at a future date that we're all five supervisors are here and

Yeah, County Council and obviously all of us, all five, even if it's a district specific appointment, we all end up It ends up being voted upon by all five of us. It all gets agendized, even if it's a district specific. But one thing that's unique here in Salinas is that there's four supervisors and a lot of residents, when we do recruitment for commissioners, they don't know what supervisor district is because they could be here and you're on this side, but then you cross into Old Town, I mean, just on Main Street, then you're in my district. versus Wendy's, you get to the rail station side, then you're in Glenn's district. And not all these residents know where the lines are. I recently had two recent college grads. They're really great resumes. They're not in my district. I had a parks position open. They reached out to me, wanted to serve as a park commissioner. That was made vacant when former Salinas Council member Sergio Sanchez passed away. And so they're coming. They want to serve. They provide their resume. They look like very strong, qualified candidates. And that's what you want. These young people born and raised here, they go get their education. They're coming back. They want to serve. I want to be able to appoint them if they're willing to do that. But I get... prior to an appointment coming to, being placed on an agenda, I have no problem reaching out to Supervisor Church's or Supervisor Lopez's district and informing them, hey, I have given some kind of notice to the district knowing that these applicants have come to our office asking to be appointed and asking to be D1 commissioners. I'm hoping there's a way that that might be able to address Supervisor Church's concerns, because ultimately they are gonna come to all of us for us to be able to vote on the actual appointment itself.

I'm going to open it up to public comment. I don't see any hands raised or anyone in chambers approaching, so we will close public comment, bring it back to the board so we don't miss that. One thought that comes to mind is potentially, since they ultimately come to the full board, is somewhere in the application to show that if it is someone being appointed from out of district that there's concurrence from the... the primary district. And if there isn't, the full board would then have an ability to know that that's the case in the voting. And that maybe is a gray area in how we move forward. But one additional thought.

And the only other thing I would add, I could do a separate referral is just, well, I'll do a separate referral just for the board to consider if we want to allow people who work within our county to be able to serve on commissions. I'll be a different discussion, but certainly want to be able to provide more opportunities for people who are invested in our county, whether they live here or they work here, and perhaps that's another way to address trying to fill some of these vacancies to give more opportunities to people who have a stake within our county.

And I think we do have within many of the board commissions, if you look at their bylaws, it does state that it addresses that issue specifically already. So I don't know if there's an overarching policy in place, but we've looked into the bylaws on specific appointments and... Yeah.

If there's precedent, maybe just expand it, and I'll file that referral.

Yeah, each commission has its own. On the larger issue, and I know this discussion has been made before, just on committees, special districts, and we've got a new policy now when special districts spill over into different supervisorial districts, is that there is... The whole process is really uneven and is somewhat broken. I mean I hear from my staff all the time the bits be There's I don't know I mean I know supervisor Lopez mentioned all the you know the special districts Commission's he has Committees he has think we all you know all appointing to some so many others and it's hard to get a an up-to-date list on this clerk of the board is totally overworked and uh... and has this come to do on top of them and it's you know for honestly they're really this important role i think is of all discussed for people to go and engage in government and the special districts actually it's a financial fiduciary with real power and a lot of on the planning commission it's has real power a lot of others it's advisory but it's a way for people to be engaged in government and give advice so many times you make appointments we never even I never hear what happens to this committee I mean they should be reporting back on a regular basis I know you know I'm just I'm not talking just about you were talking about sort of the policy here the committee's I'm trying to look at the bait we're coming up a bigger a bigger picture here that it's there' s a lot of things that are broken in this process that needs to be smoothed out and one of them is honestly there really should be one in a county as big as we with 5,000 to people in the public who want to be engaged in making sure that those committees are operating properly. And I believe it is currently written and it's supposed to report back to us every year. And we hardly ever get it from any of them. I mean, and that needs to be kind of pushed along. So, you know, I'd like to see a bigger, you know, besides just this here, which I think we need health supervisors, I'd like to see this whole thing open up into a bigger issue to make this much more efficient because it really is broken.

Thank you. So I think we do have the request to have Supervisor Daniels included in the discussion. I have a board referral that's been pending for quite some time in regards to looking at our policies and processes around commission appointments. We do have a policy. One of Jane's first referrals when we used the new referral system, Jane Parker's, was to create an annual report requirement for all of our boards and commissions. There was a point in time years ago when financial challenges were forcing the county to look at how we provided staff support to all the boards and commissions. And so as a first step in that was asking all the boards and commissions to file an annual report with this body, with the Board of Supervisors, so that we knew the commissions that were effective. We knew what they were up to, and they had an opportunity to demonstrate that they were functioning as intended so that we knew that it was appropriate to continue making those investments into the staffing support. We're not getting those annual reports, which I think would be really helpful in the broader discussion about why do we have We don't have committees and commissions just for the sake of having more meetings or for allowing people to sit in meetings. They really are there in most cases based on their bylaws to be advising the board of supervisors on issues that they have some specific tasking to do so. If we're not receiving the reports back or the updates or the advice, it is a question, a bigger question of what are we really asking residents of the community to do when they sit and volunteer their time on a committee. So I think there really is more to this and I appreciate this coming forward and I think if we could maybe have it direct staff to come back when Kate Daniels is present so we can have the broader conversation. If as part of that we could discuss this item, we could also get an update on that and maybe just even a copy of the annual report policy that's in place for our existing commissions.

Respectfully, you're expanding what's agendized. What's agendized is only this, but I think...

But I think what we're asking is, could it come back as two separate different items, agenda items at the same time?

I think you could direct CAO to come back with a larger discussion on committees. A larger discussion on committees.

On a second item, okay.

To put a different item on the board agenda.

Yeah.

All right, and I think through our acting CEO, Nick Chulas, who we didn't get a chance to introduce you this morning, everyone knows who you are, but we've talked about a lot of different parts of our boards and commissions today within the context of this referral. And I think even Supervisor Church's comments were clear that this is a broader issue around the policies that govern our commissions.

So you want this brought back as a broader discussion, essentially? Two items. but in addition to the item that we're talking about.

Yeah, or if it can be a single item, so we talk about it in the context of a single item, but however we bring it back, we'd like to have the broader context discussion. Yeah, okay. All right, cool. No further action is needed there, so we will move on to our county administrative officer comments.

Okay, thank you, Madam Chair. Just a couple of things. I wanted to give the board a very brief kind of high-level overview of the fire situation. our eoc has been activated at level two for about the last week and a half and that basically means staff from seven in the morning till seven at night it's not a 24 7 operation at this point because it's not really warranted but we have a number of disaster service workers from many different county departments who are working at the eoc in one capacity or another which we really appreciate the department of emergency management is doing a really good job of coordinating the effort on this along with our law and fire partners both the fires the timber fire and the plasket fire are both at about as of this morning at about 25 000 acres each the difference there is the timber fires at about 25 percent containment the plasket fires at about one percent containment And the reason for the difference is the area of the Plaskett Fire on the south coast hasn't burned in years, and there's a lot of material there to be burned. The Timber Fire is burning in areas where there's been historically every five or six years a pretty significant fire, so the fuel load is different in that area. Caltrans is working to evaluate slope stability along the northern closure of Highway 1 and there are trees to be removed boulders and that sort of thing that need to be dealt with we're hoping that by thursday the northern part of highway one can be reopened and we've been in very frequent contact with the district five the businesses affected down there in big sur the residents and had very frequent meetings with them There was a very well-attended community meeting in Kishawa on Saturday afternoon. A couple hundred residents were there in that area just to get a briefing from the Forest Service about potential issues that might come up out there in terms of the fire. And there's another meeting tomorrow night in Palo, Colorado to bring the residents down in that area up to date. So that's kind of the quick update on the fire, Madam Chair, fires. and the department that we wanted to highlight today as we do every every board meeting is emergency communications which is the nine one one dispatch department. It's got a seventy four fts fifty six dispatchers within that seventy four twenty eight agencies are are serviced at through the nine one one dispatch center and really the the volume of. traffic in that department is pretty astounding. 592,000 phone calls were answered and managed last year. Of those, about 200,000 were 911 calls, of which almost 90% were answered within 15 seconds, which is an improvement of performance from the previous year. Training staff is always an ongoing work in progress with that department, and we're happy to announce that four dispatcher trainees completed their training program, which is about a 12-month program, and were promoted to dispatcher twos within the department, which is great. Filling those positions is always an important function. Then last, the department continues to explore using emerging technology such as AI to assist with call handling and to expedite the call traffic that is coming through the department. So that's just a quick overview of some of the accomplishments of our very hardworking emergency communications staff. That concludes our comments.

Thank you. Board comments? Supervisor Alejo, comments?

Yeah, I'll start. First of all, next Monday is Labor Day, so I want to just thank all our 6,000 employees and thank them for their dedicated work serving the people and businesses of Monterey County. So hats off to everyone. I also wanted to just say that we had a really great grand reopening of Cluster Park in East Salinas. It was a $10 million investment, $6.9 million or $6.8 million of that came from state funding, the rest provided by the city of Salinas. And the community was very pleased seeing all the great renovations and added amenities and activities from the enhanced baseball fields to the soccer, I mean the skate park. refurbished basketball courts and many other things that the community really asked for at their park. But that's not the first one. There was also a state investment in renovating the Hebron Community Center not too long ago. That was another $8 to $10 million project. In East Salinas, the community is very pleased with that. And today, I'm very pleased to report that because the legislature, they're on their last minutes of the legislative session, they approved an assembly budget bill, AB113, that had several projects throughout the county included as member requests. I think there was one on Seaside. There's several in Salinas, but the biggest one for me was two allocations for a total of $2.7 million for the Salinas Regional Soccer Complex. I want to just give a... Special shout out to Assembly Speaker Rivas and Senator John Laird for including those significant allocations to advance the work to add the eight new fields out at the soccer complex. I think the community is going to be very excited to hear this news. you know, it's, it's, it's a breaking as we speak. Um, the last thing I want to mention, I know Kate's not here, but we do have IndyCar coming this weekend to Laguna Seca. It is the Monterey, uh, Grand Prix. It's the season finale. So it's going to be televised on the news. There's tens of thousands of fans coming in at the end of this week. And so I want to, um, just say how exciting it is to have these events at our world renowned racetrack at Laguna Seca Raceway. Thank you very much.

I did remember two brief points. One is that tomorrow morning, Trust for Public Lands is going to be holding a session with CNRA, our California Natural Resources administrative folks, are going to be in town tomorrow. We're going to start with a tour at 8 a.m. at Ensign Park here in Salinas, and then the larger moderated panel will be in Gonzales at the Janus and Dennis Caprara Community Center at 8 a.m. Or at 10 a.m. Just want to invite everybody out This is an opportunity for us to truly inform the next administration on how we're gonna be focusing on making sure parks are accessible to all and given the theme of the day But just wanted everybody to know that that is on for tomorrow and invite folks to join us for that and I Blanked on my second one. That's how it works sometimes. So I'll just go with one. Thank you. Madam chair comes with age.

I

So I'll just briefly go back here to the 60th anniversary of the parks. We're going to Bend Royal Oaks Park out there on September 12th from about 9 to 7, I think, is the time. And there's going to be a whole range of events. I think it's going to start with disc golf. And as I say, there's going to be some soccer. There's going to be some cornhole tosses. There's going to be 10 or 15 food trucks there. And there's apparently going to be a horseshoe race. Match taking place then which I'm feeling a little less bravado that it earlier because I realized Mr. Flores as has real home court advantage because he's gonna be able to practice every day there and so Keeping my fingers crossed and what what's gonna be the bet on that? other thing I just wanted to kind of bring up is I've had a you know, I I the four years i've been on the board i've only missed one meeting it's been um when i was uh actually hospitalized from an accident but there is a slight chance i'm not going to make the 15th because even as supervisors and it's good for public to know we do get called for jury duty and while i do think it's unlikely i'll be on a jury duty i do have to be the day before potentially uh if um if they're going to be seated and and see what happens out of that so i um We'll close with that.

I did remember the other one, and that is simply to say that AB 2728, which is our bill fixing the de minimis issue, is on the governor's desk now. So hopefully in the next few days we'll get good news that that's been signed and has moved through and solved a major issue for us.

It's known as Chris's Law.

Great, thank you all. I had a lot of fun this weekend out celebrating some of our youth athletic leagues. I grew up playing youth soccer and loved it and being on the field with all of the Marina Youth Soccer Association kiddos as they kicked off their season was like the most joy I've felt in a while. So I really appreciate being able to support and be a co-sponsor of that program this year. And then later in the afternoon, the Gill Basketball Academy celebrated its 18th anniversary with really, it just felt like a family barbecue because those kids who participate in that program really do become family is the story I heard over and over again. But those are just two of the many groups across the district that are welcoming kids into movement, including cheer and marching band. Yuri's spending many days sitting in a stadium now cheering for the cheerleaders. So I didn't ever realize that's what we did as parents, but that's what we're doing. So really grateful for all the coaches and volunteers and families who keep the teams running and affordable for our kids. Also, the Monterey Airport kicked off their new east terminal with the Dusty Shoes tour. It's really going to be a beautiful, beautiful building. When it's done, it will expand the number of terminals that we have, expanded long-term parking, so stay tuned for announcements. And when you get a chance to get over to see that new east terminal, it's going to be gorgeous. I also wanted to, on Sunday I think it was, I got to celebrate Lu Van, the Vietnamese Parents' Day, and it was a beautiful, joyful celebration with dancing, music, families and recognizing just the value and the significance that we all have parents who raised us and who loved us. And so being able to reflect on what your parents mean to you and all the gifts that they instilled into you. A couple upcoming things. There is an East Garrison Historic Arts District master plan being developed. So I'm putting a call out to everyone, not just those who live in East Garrison, but there is a community survey that's posted online. We've got it up on all of our socials or can provide you with a direct link if you reach out to the office. But we do need thoughts and feedback from everyone. This is part of the redevelopment of the East Garrison Historic Arts District. Developing that master plan will really determine what type of redevelopment continues to happen with those properties that the county was deeded after the closure of Fort Ord. So please, if you can take five minutes and fill out that community survey, we would really appreciate it. Also related to East Garrison, our community services district meeting is September 9th at 6 p.m. This is where we review the annual property tax update and get announcements about the fee changes for Melrose, So it's a deep interest to our East Garrison residents and taxpayers. And I'm really thankful to staff that we're now able to have this annual meeting where the property tax update is presented publicly to the residents. Later this week, I'll be at the Monterey County Fair. I'm excited to table at the Senior and Veterans Resource Connect Fair on Thursday. And then there's an open studio arts tour coming up in September 12th and 13th and 19th and 20th. So I look forward to seeing you out and about at all of those activities. We do have an adjournment memory, but we'll do close out from council first. No reportable action, Chair. Right. And I'm going to pass the floor to Supervisor Alejo for our adjournment and memory.

Thank you. Now, wait for a clerk to put the image up on the screens. And I believe maybe Supervisor Lopez would like to say some words as well. All right. Dear colleagues, I ask that we adjourn today's meeting in memory of Octavia Reyes Salinas, affectionately known throughout her family as Mama Chief. She was a beloved grandmother to my Chief of Staff, Linda Gonzalez, and loving mother to former Monterey County Supervisor, Simone Salinas, who was her primary caretaker for these last several years. She sadly passed away on August 26th at the age of 95, surrounded by her family and loved ones. Octavia was born in Cerritos, San Luis Potosi, Mexico, to Andrea Corona and Julio Reyes. It was there that she met and married the love of her life, Julian Salinas. Together they immigrated to the United States in search of greater opportunities and a better life for their family. They first settled in West Laco, Texas, on the borderlands of the Rio Grande Valley, and spent many years doing difficult work harvesting crops throughout the state. But in 1965, they made their way to California and eventually settled here in Salinas. Octavia's story is a story of so many immigrant and farmworker families who helped build the Salinas Valley and our country. She worked hard, sacrificed. persevered and endured challenges so that her children and the generations who followed could have the opportunities she herself never had. And today we especially recognize her role as a grandmother and matriarch. Grandmothers hold a special place in our families. They are often the keepers of our traditions, our stories, our recipes, and our family history. They teach us where we came from and remind us of the values that hold a family together. Their lessons and love continue long after they are gone. For Octavia's family, that person was Mama Chief. The name was given to her out of both tremendous affection and deep respect, and she was the heart of a family that now extends across multiple generations. Octavia expressed her love through the simple but meaningful things that make a house a home. Cooking, knitting, caring for her garden and birds. making tamales for her family, teaching her grandchildren to crochet, and tending to her beautiful roses. Those memories are now part of her legacy. Octavia is survived by her children, Celestina, Chalo, Maria, Juana, Lina, Simon, Francisca, Gabriel, and Luis, as well as numerous grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren. She was seated in death by her husband of 52 years, Julian, and her sons, Andres, Camilo, Emeterio, and Jose. From a young woman in San Luis Potosi, to a farm worker in Texas, to a beloved matriarch of a large family here in the Salinas Valley, Mama Chief lived a remarkable American immigrant story. Her greatest legacy can be seen in the generation she leaves behind, a family that is here today because of her courage, her sacrifices, her hard work, and above all, her love. On behalf of the County of Monterey, I extend our deepest condolences to the entire Salinas and Gonzalez families. May they find comfort in knowing that Mama Chief lived 95 extraordinary years and that the seed she planted in her garden, in her home, and in this community will continue to bloom for generations to come. May Octavia Reyes Salinas rest in eternal peace, and I respectfully ask that we adjourn today's meeting in her memory. Que descansen paz, Mama Chief. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and I too just want to join in sending my condolences to the family, but at the same time, we all know that she was the foundation upon which a family who is made Salinas such an incredible place to live and invested so much of their time has built their legacy. That foundation that Mama Chief laid for them is truly one of those that most of us will never understand. And many folks remember that when Simone retired from this board and was asked why, He said it was clearly to take care of Mama Chief. That was his why. And I can tell you that she was a fighter. Many times in the last few years, Simone and I would talk and he'd say, hey, she's sick. And we'd kind of laugh and say, ah, this isn't it, right? She was always fighting back. And he would tell me, yeah, she was really sick. And I'd wake up in the morning, nope, she was in the garden, tending to her roses, taking care of her flowers. And I knew she was back at it. Next thing, it was the tortillas on the grill. And you could smell them. You knew she was back. And so her legacy, her life, her tending of the garden, the roses in the end is really the family that she left behind. These incredible people that have brought so much beauty to a community that we all love. And so as we all join them in mourning her loss, we also celebrate her legacy and everything that she has helped. create here in the Salinas Valley and beyond through her story. And our hearts go out to the entire Gonzalez and Salinas family today as they continue to mourn her passing. Thank you, Madam Chair.

You're adjourned.