Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

Okay, welcome everyone to the Napa County Board of Supervisors meeting of September 15th, 2026. I am calling this meeting to order. Clerk Hoskins, may I have a roll call please?

Vice Chair Lesio?

Present.

Supervisor Ramos? Here. Supervisor Gallagher? Here. Supervisor Cottrell? Here. Chair Manfrey? Here.

I at this time would like to have us rise to say the Pledge of Allegiance. I haven't chosen anyone yet. Would Jaime Pena Herrera please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance? Thank you, Mr. Herrera. um let's see our next item is pet of the week and i believe we have a pumpkin spice kitten this week so very seasonal so louise if you'd like to introduce us to our pet of the week you're welcome to join us Hi there. Good morning, Luis. Who do we have here?

Good morning. This is Carlitos. Carlitos is an orange tabby. He's about 10 months old. He's about 10 weeks old. He was found as a stray in American Canyon. We had a foster take care of him for the last month so that he can get ready for adoption. He does not have any siblings. If you can hear him right now, he's purring really, really loud. But he has been in foster care. He just came back recently, so he's only been up for adoption for a few days. And so far, for a singleton, he has been really good, low energy. But for a kid, you can definitely expect that to kind of change as he gets into a home environment. Yes. But yeah, you can expect them to be your single kitten or if you have siblings. I'm going to actually have you hold this real quick.

You're too comfortable, dude.

But yeah, if you've never had a singleton, typically what you can expect is they think that you're their sibling. So you definitely want to do a lot of socialization, desensitizing him so that he's not play fighting with you. He learns that, oh, mom and dad don't play fight like kids. I would with another cat. So you want to be a little mindful about that, because they can get fairly mouthy. So I'll be using a lot of toys to basically distract them. Some same size stuffed toys so that he goes and attacks them rather than attacks you in a playful way. That'll help him go for success. I did have a request. I wanted to see if the purr would get picked up on the microphone. I don't think so.

Oh, he's purring all right.

Well, he understands communication. So adoption fees are waived for Carlitos this week. And as soon as this evening, you could probably be having this cat chase a string in your home. So yeah, thank you for bringing Carlitos today. And yeah, wonderful. All right. That brings us to item four, which is the approval of proclamations and commendations. Today we have two proclamations. The first recognizing September 2026 as Suicide Prevention Awareness Month and the second recognizing Hispanic Heritage Month in Napa County. Do I have any public comment on these proclamations? I don't see anyone in the room. Is there anyone on the phones? No? Okay. May I please have a motion and a second to approve? I see that we do have a comment. Well, if you're receiving the proclamation, we'll invite you to speak. But if you're here and you'd like to comment, anyone is welcome to.

And I do believe we have a couple of public comments for the suicide prevention. So we can have them do this after I read my proclamation. Okay. Just for clarity.

That's fine. This would be more like general. Okay. Motion in a second? Anyone?

So moved.

Second?

Okay. I have a motion by Supervisor Alessio and a second by Cottrell. All those in favor? Aye. That passes unanimously. Thank you. So at this time, I'd like to invite Vice Chair Alessio to present our Suicide Prevention Awareness Month Proclamation and Chelsea Stoner from HHSA to join her. I have also Jennifer Henn and anyone else who's here to receive this, please come forward at this time.

Thank you. So I'd like to invite a couple members from the behavioral health board who are also here for this. We have Sandra Oliva and Jasper and anybody else who's here to receive this. Christine, I want to say a few words. No pressure.

Just want to make sure you know you're invited.

Thank you, Chair, for giving me this opportunity to read the proclamation. And Chelsea, you'll be receiving it. Thank you. So, Suicide Prevention Month, September 2026. Whereas September is recognized nationwide as Suicide Prevention Month, a time when mental health advocates, survivors, prevention organizers, allies, and communities come together to raise awareness, foster hope, and advance efforts to prevent suicide and support those impacted. And whereas the Napa County Suicide Prevention Council is a public-private collaborative of people and organizations dedicated to reducing stigma surrounding suicide, the council supports those who have lost loved ones to suicide, identifies and advocates for resources, and promotes a safe, connected, and resilient community dedicated to reducing the risk of suicide. And whereas from 2021 to 2024 in Napa County across California, the age group with the most deaths by suicide was 25 to 44 years. And the highest suicide rate was among those 85 years and older. And whereas from 2021 to 2024, the highest rate in California was 10.7 deaths per 100,000 residents, and Napa County's rate was 10.2 deaths per 100,000, placing Napa County just below the state average. And may I say, this is trending down, based on past history. So we're on the right path. Whereas the Napa County Suicide Prevention Council continues to advance its strategic plan for suicide prevention, addressing community priorities, recognizing accomplishments, and identifying ongoing needs. And whereas since 2023, the Napa County Suicide Prevention Council has trained 2,050 community members in the Question, Persuade, Refer, known as QPR, model of suicide prevention to help prevent suicides. And whereas in partnership with Napa County Health and Human Services Agency, the Napa County Suicide Prevention Council hosted its second annual Suicide Prevention Conference, Beyond Awareness, Allies in Action for Suicide Prevention, in September 2025. And whereas every Napa County resident can be an ally by knowing the signs of suicide, finding the words to communicate with someone they are concerned about, and reaching out to local resources for help. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that this Board of Supervisors, County of Napa, State of California, on this 15th day of September 2026, does hereby recognize September 2026 as Suicide Prevention Month in Napa County. And in doing so, we call upon all residents to join in fostering mental health, offering compassion and support to those in need, and working together toward the shared goal of reducing suicides and building a healthier, more resilient community. Thank you very much. And Chelsea, would you like to come up? Thank you. Thank you. Let me give this to you.

Thank you, Supervisor Alessio, for reading the proclamation. Chair, members of the board, it is an honor to be here alongside members of the Suicide Prevention Council and the Napa County Behavioral Health Board and our council co-chair, Jennifer Henn, in recognizing September as Suicide Prevention Month. Suicide prevention is truly a community effort. Health and Human Services continues to invest in this work through its partnership with MENTUS and its shared commitment with our Behavioral Health Division and our Public Health Divisions, all working together to strengthen prevention and support across Napa County. I'd like to share a couple of examples of how this work has moved forward over the past year. And I want to start with QPR training. QPR stands for Question, Persuade, Refer. And it is a training that has been offered to the community members and giving them practical skills and tools to recognize the warning signs of a suicide crisis, know how to start difficult conversations, and know how to connect to someone to the help they need when they need it. Also throughout September, Health and Human Services is sponsoring suicide prevention messaging on 10 local buses and at two bus shelters, helping to ensure that messages of hope, of resilience, and resources are made available throughout our community. And I'd also like to highlight the council's continued support for individuals and families who have been impacted by suicide loss. So thank you very much, board, for amplifying this important message and for your continued support of suicide prevention.

Good morning. My name is Sandra Oliva. I want to thank the Board of Supervisors for proclaiming September as Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. Continuing to highlight suicide prevention and thereby mental health is critical if we want to eliminate stigma and normalize feelings that often precede suicide. Feelings such as despair, hopelessness, anguish, and intolerable pain, loneliness, these are just a few examples of some of the feelings. How do I know about these feelings? Because twice in my life I have been utterly, unexplainably miserable. My brain, enough that my brain had thoughts of ending the pain. Let me tell you, these feelings are scary. However, in the depths of despair, I was able to reach out to a trusted friend who sat and listened to me without judgment. Having a safe space and a safe person got me through the darkest times. I will forever be grateful to my friend, Andrea. Today, I am finding my voice by speaking publicly about deeply personal life experiences. Giving public comment demonstrates how profoundly important mental health and suicide prevention awareness are to me because i do not like public speaking at all i have a lot of anxiety however i decided it is more important that i model courage by facing my fear just as we ask those suffering to be courageous by opening up and asking for help Sorry, my glasses are fogging up. Furthermore, I am a survivor of suicide. At age 18, I lost my 24 year old brother, John. Prior to his death, he had made several actionable plans and a couple of attempts, including driving off a cliff. Watching him struggle during the last few years of his life and then tragically losing him impacted my life so profoundly, I don't think I can put it into words. As a matter of fact, me and my family really did not put it into words. We didn't talk much about what was happening before or after my brother John's death. The loss created such a void that we buried it and just moved on. 30 years ago, mental health and suicide were not openly discussed. Some even considered it shameful. As an example, my brother's obituary read that he was involved in a car accident. As a parent now, I do empathize and have much compassion for my brokenhearted parents. But as a teenager, having lost my brother, back then I really wanted or I really wished my parents would have talked to me about what was happening and what we could do to support him. I do know that they did the best they could, though, at the time. Sometimes I wonder if wraparound programs offered today, like Aldea's first episode psychosis program, were available back in the 90s, would my brother John be here with us today? I wonder this because an entire team of professionals provides services to a person wherever they're located, at a park, at a school, at while listening to their needs and what they want. And also, they offer support and education to the whole family. I'll never know in regards to my brother, but I do know programs like this are a step in the right direction, as they do provide the family what they need. I share my story and that of my brothers to amplify mental health and suicide prevention. There's no shame in feeling overwhelmed, unmotivated and desperate as these are a part of the normal human experience and I am proof of that. Please have empathy. and compassion for those struggling with their mental health. Be a safe person and listen without judgment. My goals are twofold in being here today. I want there to be a day where we talk about mental health as if it's the common cold. And then second, I want to end stigmatization so that no one suffers in pain alone. Thank you again to the board for recognizing September as Suicide Prevention Month and for allowing me to share this very personal story.

Would we like to take a picture for this moment? Thank you. Let's go.

If we could bring everybody down and everybody up who's here for this proclamation.

Thank you.

Great. And Supervisor Ramos, would you please present our proclamation for Hispanic Heritage Month? And anyone who's here to receive this is welcome to come up and stand with Supervisor Ramos and then say a few words after she presents the proclamation, if you wish.

You don't need to stand in the corner. Come closer.

Come on up. Don't be shy.

Come on. Look at your shoes.

They're so cute.

I don't need background dancers. Come on. Come closer. Seriously. Like really, really closer. Good morning and thank you so much for the opportunity to present the Hispanic Heritage Month September 15 through October 15, 2026 proclamation. Whereas the Napa County Board of Supervisors proudly recognizes September 15 through October 15, 2026 as Hispanic Heritage Month in Napa County. honoring the rich history, diverse cultures, and invaluable contributions of Hispanic and Latino communities whose heritage traces to Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Caribbean, Spain, and Central and South America, and Whereas Napa County's wine industry is built on the labor of its Hispanic workforce, the backbone of our wine industry, rising before dawn and laboring beneath the summer sun, they tend and harvest the vineyards, orchards, and fields that define our landscape and sustain our tables. Their work has shaped this county's economy and culture in ways that will echo for generations. And their dedication and leadership remain fundamental to the community we are proud to call home. And whereas this year's national theme, Unidos Somos Mas, Together We Are More, calls us to celebrate family resilience, creativity, and service, and to honor the diverse stories that strengthen our nation and build a stronger future for all in a moment when some fear stepping outside their own front door. Let this be our reminder, united we are stronger. And whereas now, more than ever, it is crucial to honor and uplift Hispanic Heritage Month, as many within our Hispanic community are living with real fear of discrimination, violence, and being made to feel less than welcome because of the color of their skin or the language they speak. And in times like these, silence is not neutrality. Napa County stands openly and in solidarity, offering support, visibility, and respect when they are needed most. And whereas today and every day, We honor the resilience and strength of our Hispanic communities and the countless sacrifices made throughout history, who, despite generations of adversity and discrimination, have never stopped leading moments for justice, equality, and opportunity, making this county more just in the process and today. Drawing courage from those who came before us, we refuse to look away in the face of racism and discrimination and stand in solidarity in the ongoing pursuit of justice, dignity, and respect. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed. That this Board of Supervisors County of Napa State of California on this 15th day of September does hereby recognize September 15 through October 15 as Hispanic Heritage Month in Napa County. And we call upon the people of Napa County to celebrate and honor the rich heritage contributions and the spirit of unity that define our Hispanic communities. We encourage all to reflect on the progress made and commit toward a future of inclusion, equity, and shared prosperity for all. Thank you so much. And I get to present it to our Napa Valley Together Coalition partners. So to all of you, thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Good morning, supervisors, county staff, and everyone joining us today. My name is Madeline Hernandez, and I am the North Bay Regional Directing Attorney for IIBA, partner organization in Napa Valley Together and member of Community Leaders Coalition. On behalf of Napa Valley Together, thank you for this recognition, and thank you for the opportunity to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with you. We are deeply honored to receive this proclamation, but more than anything, we see this recognition as a reflection of the community we have the privilege of working alongside every day. Thank you for the work that you are doing to make sure that voices of Napa County's Latino community are heard. Thank you for creating space for dialogue, for recognizing the contributions of our community, and for understanding that representation isn't simply about having a seat at the table. It's about having a meaningful voice in the decisions that shape our future. Napa Valley Together reaffirms our commitment to building a stronger, more inclusive Napa Valley. We are united by a shared mission, to uphold immigrant rights, ensure due process under law, reduce the climate of fear created by misinformation, and safeguard the continued prosperity of our community. We strive to create a Napa County where everyone has the opportunity to belong, participate, and thrive. And that belief extends beyond the boundaries of Napa County. We are especially proud that Napa County is represented in regional networks and conversations that bring communities together across the Greater Bay Area. Those connections allow us to share what we are learning here in Napa, learn from our neighbors, and make sure that the experiences and voices of Napa's Latino community are part of a larger regional conversation. Because while Napa is unique, our community is not isolated. The challenges and opportunities facing Latino families, access to opportunity, economic mobility, education, housing, civic participation, and a sense of belonging connects us to communities throughout our region. When we talk about Hispanic Heritage Month, we are really talking about much more than history. We are celebrating a living heritage. Latino heritage is woven into the story of Napa Valley. It is present in the fields and vineyards, in our restaurants and small businesses, in our schools, in our neighborhoods, in our places of worship, and in the generations of families who have helped make Napa County what it is today. It is a heritage of hard work, family, resilience, entrepreneurship, culture, and community. And Napa's story would not be complete without that contribution. For us, celebrating Latino heritage also means recognizing that the future of Napa County is being shaped by Latino families and the next generation of Latino leaders. Their voices, their ideas, and their dreams are essential are an essential part of Napa's future. So today, we accept this proclamation with gratitude, but also with a renewed sense of responsibility. We are grateful to the Board of Supervisors for recognizing this work. We are grateful to our community partners and to the many people who continue to show up, build relationships, and create opportunities. And most importantly, we are grateful to the Latino community for trusting us to walk alongside you. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, let's do a photo.

One, two, three. oh i don't know i'm sure they're in it

All right, thank you all so much. We are moving on to agenda item five, which is our consent calendar. Do we have any board comments or items to pull from the consent calendar this morning? I am not seeing.

I had made a request to pull item 5P.

Okay.

Okay, we will pull item 5P. Okay, very good. And we will discuss that at item 8 on this agenda.

Thank you, Chair.

So, is there anyone present wishing to make public comment today on anything on the consent calendar? Is there anyone on the phones?

No?

Okay. Then may I have a motion and a second to approve consent calendar items A through U with the exception of item 5P?

Second.

You go. Okay. I think that was a motion by Ramos and a second by Gallagher. All those in favor? Aye. That passes unanimously. And as I mentioned, we'll be hearing Item 5P during Item 8 of this agenda. Is there any general public comment for items not on the agenda today? In the room, you're welcome to come to the mic and... And each speaker will have three minutes.

Good morning. Jim Hinton, 45 Spring Street, Napa. Today I'm here to support former LAFCO executive officer Brendan Freeman. I ran into Joelle Gallagher Friday, and I asked her, what happened to Brendan Freeman? And she laughed in my face. She laughed in my face. I supported her campaign, and this is how she treats me. She laughed in my face. But then again, I started thinking, how would she know what happened, right? She's an alternate on LAFCO. She's not allowed in closed session when you made this decision, right? She's not allowed in closed session, because if she was in closed session, and Belia was in closed session, and Ann was in closed session, that would be a little violation of the Brown Act. And I know that you wouldn't do that as supervisors. But five years ago, before Joelle and Anne and Amber and Liz were here, Belia got attacked pretty strongly by the likes of Min Tran and Diane Dillon and the Farm Bureau. And one brave, fearless man rose to her support for no reason, just because it was the right thing to do, that we shouldn't have a government that harasses people. We shouldn't have a government that bullies people. and forth. And I've been gone for three years. I thought we elected new leaders that were going to do good by the people, that were going to, when you have a staff person who's smart, reliable, has integrity, he helps the politicians. He helps the developers. He helps the concerned neighbors. He gives information to everybody. And evidently, that kind of behavior is unacceptable here. We've got to buy them out with lawsuits, nondisclosure agreements, and all that other stuff, and then bring in someone incompetent, someone incompetent who's stupid, who doesn't care about anything. You can just ram these projects down people's throat And right now what's going on in American Canyon, if you missed the protest meeting on Friday, it's despicable. The fact that Chair Beth Painter thinks she can run a meeting without the authority and your attorney is backing her up, even though the people in the room all came prepared with the law, to see Beth Painter try to run it her own way is despicable. I can't believe this fine body of government is turning out the way it did. But Mike Holcomb said, no matter how good you are, when you run for supervisors and you make it, you turn into 24-carat shit. And I'm telling you right now, you ain't seen nothing yet. Baby, you ain't seen nothing yet, OK? If that's how you want to play, we're going to play harder than I've ever played before.

Thank you for your comments, Mr. Hinton. Is there anyone else in the room wishing to speak? I am not seeing anyone approaching the microphone. Is there anyone on the phones? No? Okay. We will move on to Agenda Item 7, which is Board of Supervisors Reports and Announcements. And before we go into our individual reports, I would like to invite Chief J.C. Greenberg up to speak on the Steel Fire, which was occurring last week. Seems like a long time ago already. But that's because it did not turn into a major conflagration and that is in thanks in large part to all of the work that's been done leading up to this for several years, investments and well thought out plans and strategies for addressing fire safety. So I'd really appreciate it if you could give us an update from your perspective on how that incident played out.

Absolutely. And thank you, Chair. Thank you, Supervisors. The steel fire started up in the Berryessa area off Steel Canyon Road near our Berryessa Highlands community last Wednesday, and it burned a total of 51 acres. But that wasn't 51 acres in the flats. That's 51 acres at the bottom of Steel Canyon to the top of Rimrock, very steep, treacherous terrain adjacent to our community of Berryessa Highlands that once had 350 homes plus up there. Due to 2020 fires and the devastations, lost nearly 100 there. So those residents up there, those fire safe council members have been working very hard to make their community resilient, do a lot of work, and it's been a story of cooperation across all of the entities there. A big help to the Fire Safe Council, NAPA Firewise, for really kick-starting this, helping design the projects that need to be done and complete up there. Our CAL FIRE crews have been helping with the contractors burning piles during the wintertime. So this has been four to five years of preparation. Your board approved the money to help support these projects in using NAPA Firewise to complete this work. CAL FIRE GRANTS WERE RECEIVED TO HELP SUPPORT THERE. YOU APPROVE THE APPARATUS THAT'S NEEDED FOR OUR NAPA COUNTY VOLUNTEERS TO CONTINUE TO BOLSTER. AND THESE WERE ALL RETURN ON INVESTMENTS THAT WE SAW LAST WEDNESDAY OF THIS PREPAREDNESS. WE WORKED WITH THE SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT AT OUR INCIDENT COMMAND POST TO DETERMINE WHAT LEVEL OF EVACUATIONS WERE APPROPRIATE. We chose to keep it at the lowest level, which is just a warning. We didn't have to go to an order. Because we had fuel breaks put in that the fire had not reached, that was in our contingency plan to help protect that public. Your fire marshals, defensible space educators, and inspectors, they're in that community every single year. It's not every other year. They're in there working with residents. on the ground talking about how they can better prepare their homes. And the homeowners are doing this. So there was a lot of successes that day. Our C-130 air tankers were on scene dropping 4,000 gallons of retardant. Multiple helicopters, our leased or what we call exclusive use helicopters, were there as well. Napa County volunteers showed up and forced CAL FIRE crews outside the area in bulldozers. A great success of what this looks like. And I think we sit here describing what money is needed, what work needs to be done. But I think this was an example. And thank you, Chair, for letting me speak on this. This was a true return on investment where we need to go in the future to continue all these works throughout Napa County. So thank you very much.

Thank you. Great update. And I would just like to add that the communications were superb. Yeah, the social media, you know, communicating with people in the affected areas, I think everything was very clear to everyone moving through the process of of becoming aware of a fire and being prepared in case it um you know were were to get out of control but of course did not because uh because of all the planning and good work people were doing and i'll remind everyone too that it was very hot last wednesday and so it did have some of those characteristics of um that tend to make those of us who have survived fires more afraid and more fearful and i think the communication really helped reassure people and so just great job with that

Thank you, and you were corrected fire started before 10 a.m. And those crews on the ground were out there through the night evening and temps reached 109 degrees so very challenging for those workforce as well, but a great job Also, I'll close out a common question that I've been fielding lately is what's the cause of the fire? And unfortunately, our investigators are still working on the case. It is still open. Cause is undetermined, has not been released yet. So I appreciate everyone's patience as they work through the due process. Once they're completed, we'll be able to announce that as well. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. So now I'm going to move on to board announcements from my colleagues. So is there anyone who'd like to kick us off? Go ahead, Supervisor Ramos.

Thank you so much, Chair. You and I attended the MTC Executive Committee. I attended the MTC Executive Committee. We together attended the MTC Commission meeting. We attended the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority meeting and the Bay Area Housing Baja. What's? No. Baja. We'll get there. We'll get there on these acronyms. But there, I covered it for you. I did attend a special LAFCO meeting on August 27th. I also, together with Supervisor Manfrey, we attended the MTC Glideways Tour. Very interesting technology providing transit solutions. I also attended the Bay Conservation Development Commission on September 3rd. And I also attended a special CSAC executive meeting on September 8th. Those are my requirements. So now for my others. I just I wanted to say in regards to the upcoming elections, Congressman Thompson held a roundtable in regards to the SAVE Act and our Registrar voters, John Tudor was there as well. And certainly the encouragement is making sure that people utilize our drop boxes for the upcoming election to avoid any types of delays. So there'll be more outreach in regards to that in the next couple of weeks as we get ready for this next election. I had an opportunity to tour the construction project of the progress of the Napa River Ecology Center, and I highly encourage all of my colleagues to do that. The Coastal Conservancy has invested nearly $2 million into this project, and it really truly is going to be a gem for the that north portion of the San Pablo Bay. So I highly recommend that you do so. And if you need help arranging that, happy to do so. Next, I would like to make a referral. And the referral is in regards to the keeping of cats as pets. and animal facilities as it relates to public health, safety, and peace within the community. We've had a number of concerns brought to us regarding excessive, and understanding the word excessive there is my opinion, excessive populations of cats that are kept at homes. and understanding the public health concerns that are presented by that. And I would like to refer this over to staff with specific nudging that you look at the LA County Ordinance. The LA County Ordinance deals with both the public health aspects of it, the animal keeping and licensing aspects of it, And also the zoning aspects of it includes special considerations for making sure that there are vaccinations and microchipping when those animals are being kept. And I think this would just be an opportunity for us to give our law enforcement partners, code enforcement, and public health more tools in the toolbox. And then if you guys aren't busy on September 24th at my district office at 9 a.m., I'm hosting a coffee chat with the American Canyon Chamber, and you're all welcome to join us. Thanks so much.

Thank you, Supervisor Gallagher.

Thank you. I attended the Air District full board meeting and also the Community Equity Health and Justice Committee where we had a very long conversation and did a lot of work on looking at where we're going to be distributing 60 million dollars in settlement fees that actually have come from refineries in the Bay Area and helping those communities who are most impacted by those emissions. Also attended the first five commission meeting. I wanted to announce that again that there is a meeting at the Napa Valley Yacht Club on October 1st at 6 p.m. We will be discussing the increment three which is the flood control project from the Hatt Building to the Imola section of the Napa River. I want to thank Supervisor Manfrey for joining me to coordinate this with our district staff and also to the neighbors in that area for collaborating really well with us and helping us to put this meeting together. So if you're interested in that, please remember to join us on October 1st at 6 p.m. Thanks.

Thank you, Supervisor Gallagher. Do I have any other votes? Vice Chair Alessio, go ahead when you're ready.

Thank you. Just a few quick updates. I'm the representative here for the Marin Clean Energy Board, MCE. I'm on their ad hoc governance board. And just to let everybody know that this Thursday evening, MCE is having a board meeting. You can view it, you can stream it from home and learn more. There will be a presentation on the outcomes of our governance assessment by the group that we contracted, Leading Resources Inc. That will be, I think it will be informative for those who are keeping an eye on this. And we also had, I also chaired the MCE Finance Committee and on that presentation there was a financial audit and it was a clean audit. There was nothing report, no findings from that. So I wanted to share that great news. On the Climate Action Committee, which is a countywide committee, we received a presentation on the Regional Climate Action Plan and also discussed outreaching and engagement. So if that's something that's of interest, you can actually view that meeting to receive that presentation and you can Log on to ConnectNapa to get more information regarding that work. It's been a long time coming and we're getting there. I also sit on the Napa County Child Care and Development Planning Council. I just want to share that it's kind of an interesting swing. As we know, we've been in dire need for access to childcare for our working families. And we still are, especially when it comes to infants. For every nine babies born, there's one licensed space in Napa County. Browns Valley Child Care has been open for 50 years. And with the change of TK, children who are entering public school, At age four, as of September 1st, what's happened, it's taken a very large age group away from child care providers and on the business model that they built on and that they're licensed to be built on has created a consequence, an unintended consequence where Browns Alley Child Care is probably going to close. They have historically, they're licensed for 42 spaces. They have filled all those 42 spaces. They have had a waiting list until this year. And now they have, last I heard, they have eight kids that they're watching. where they're caring for. And if they don't or if they aren't able to increase that minimum to the end of this month to at least, you know, 12 to 15, they will be closing, which is terrible. And we know that's not the first one. We know this happened in Calistoga. So the pendulum is kind of swinging this way to this way. And I'm not sure what the course of action will be. I do think it's important that we keep an eye on it. And there has been talk at the meeting that maybe we look and advocate and talk with state legislators about moving that birthday date back. which would allow children who are just three a month ago or a week ago or a day ago that enter into the public education a chance to develop more because there's also this component of early development of kids being comfortable with the bathroom fully and all those other things that early childhood education is specifically trained for and our systems and our facilities are adapted for. So it's just something I just wanted to share. And we'll just continue to do our best to support those working families and save places for our infants and children while their parents are working. I think that's it. I attended the Bay for Health board meeting. Things are moving good. We received a kind of a budget update on that. As we know, there are impacts because of federal grant withdrawals, but we've been able to, through their Director of Health and Human Services, been able to find a way forward to supplement that for this year. This coming weekend, I'm actually, it's a personal but also a curious trip. I'm going to Colorado to to go to the Green Builders Guild Expo. And the Colorado Green Builders Guild was developed out of basically their massive fires that swept across Boulder, very kind of similar in terms of our 2017 fires. And out of that, in terms of rebuilding homes, there was a group of community members who gathered together to work with the trades to get these homes rebuilt. But rebuilt in terms of that's a green rebuild and also hardening for the next potential fires or when fires come around. So I'll be going to that and to see if I can bring anything back. Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair Alessio. Supervisor Cottrell, go ahead when you're ready.

Thank you, Chair. And I just first wanted to say thanks to you and to Chief Greenberg for making space for an update on the steel fire. I think so often when we have successful containment and things stay small, it's not news. So we forget about it. So it's really important to continue to elevate the small successes we're having. They're big successes. And I have a couple of reports. First, as the RCRC delegate on this board, I attended an RCRC event in Sacramento where I was able to meet the Canadian Consul General and dove right into some of the challenges that our Napa Valley growers are facing and vintners in terms of the tariff wars. And so they understand it, and there's a lot that's way above our county pay grade here, but I think it was a good opportunity to share concerns and understand that they want to work on that issue as well. And then as the Napa Valley Tourism Corporation board member, I attended a few sessions here at the Cal Travel Summit, which was an event held here in Napa County at the Meritage. And it was great attendance from other travel partners around the state talking about trends, what's helping people come to California. And again, one of the legislative updates we heard about was a proposed $230 $50 travel fee that the administration wants to levy against any international traveler entering the country, which adds expense and is not helpful to bringing visitors or people coming here to live. So that was a good thing to learn about. Here locally, I was able to, with Supervisor Alessio, attend a river tour with local residents and CJ DiMaggio who is the new director for the flood control district and we learned more about the flood wall design in the area and neighbors were able to communicate some of the concerns and the ideas they had and I wanted to appreciate CJ for being there and being open to the feedback and so I thought that was a good process. I attended and spoke at the Yonville ceremony to observe 9-11 and I wanted to thank Sheriff Ortiz and his team and the many members of the Napa County Fire Department who attended. And finally, I just wanted to note that we in our consent calendar which was an agreement with the NVUSD adult education program to continue to provide education up to high school diploma or equivalency for people in custody in our corrections facility. And to recap from that staff report, this is education provided at no cost to the county. I wanted to flag that my district aide, Leah Doyle-Stevens, attended the graduation of the first person to complete the program in the county's new corrections facility. And she said it was a very inspirational ceremony. This graduate was able to share that he had been in and out of incarceration and he came to this facility and learned about the GED program and he said something just clicked for him and he was able to take the classes he needed and earn his diploma. He talked about his experience and was able to share his past mistakes and was really grateful to the counselors, correctional officers, and specifically gave a shout out to his teacher Mike Pearson at NVUSD Adult Schools. So I wanted to share that story and I wanted to thank AJ Alarcon for extending the invitation and just wanted to share a positive result for something that we just chose to continue to support.

thank you thank you very much great updates from everyone um so i will add that mbaha is the bay area headquarters authority that oversees the metro center building um and we attended that meeting uh uh since the last board meeting we uh uh on august 26th was a regular mtc meeting september 9th were committee meetings and i think the really the take-homes for me for from those meetings are that the Jameson Canyon Interchange project is moving forward and we have good partnership there between MTC staff and directors and NVTA on moving that forward and also the American Canyon Multimodal Corridor concept is in good shape moving forward. And for people commuting south out of Napa, the Diverging Diamond is now open, which is an interchange at the fairgrounds and Highway 37 near Vallejo. So that's a change on the road that is pretty different. September 3rd, I attended the State Route 37 Committee at the Marin Civic Center. The state has allocated about $300 million toward a couple phases of the Highway 37 corridor improvements between Marin County and Solano County, and notably that is the Novato Creek really kind of a causeway, which is now out to bid, and it includes a lot of wetland restoration, but will also lift an area which is the most common to experience flooding up and out of the flood zone. And the second thing is the Toll Lake Creek Bridge, which is a raising and widening of a bridge near Sears Point so that it will reduce some of the bottleneck of traffic that happens at the Sears Point intersection and also create more tidal exchange between the Bay and Tolle Creek and again restoring habitat. So good projects all around. On September 4th, I attended the North Bay Watershed Association. We received a presentation on how past conditions are no longer accurate predictors of future conditions, particularly in the water world. This is something we also commonly hear in the fire world. And we also received a great update on field trips organized by the Sonoma Land Trust, which does include field trips for Napa County students. And so we thank them for that. It's really important to get kids out into open spaces. And also at San Francisco Bay Restoration Authority on September 11th, we approved substantial grants for projects in Marin County, Alameda, Santa Clara, and San Mateo. And this is the allocation of money from a $12 per year parcel tax, which was adopted by voters in the nine-county Bay Area in 2016. And the projects typically include local youth, disadvantaged communities. It really has a great scoring system, and the staff work really hard to make it very inclusive and meaningful for local communities. NAPA also occasionally receives grants through these projects. But anything around the Bay, it's one big connected system, so all of these things benefit us, too. And then, on September 2nd, I was able to go out with Eric Hernandez from our fire marshal's office and tour fire breaks and fuel reduction work at Berryessa Highlands, which was great to see. And there's so much work going on. They had a crew of, I don't even know how many, everywhere I looked there was somebody cutting brush and piling it for burning in the winter after the rain start. and really substantial fire breaks, which will keep that community much safer. Things are looking so much better out there than they were a few years ago. So thanks to everyone involved in that work. It's very meaningful to residents and the safety and security of the whole community. And I also ran a town hall in the Pueblo neighborhood last week. Thanks so much to county staff, the city and agency partners. We had a handful of people show up. But I think most importantly, everyone who did show up had great questions. We had a great conversation. And the support that we had from staff and partnership from the city meant that everyone got their questions comprehensively answered in that meeting. So I think it was very effective. uh and i will just add that on october 10th and 11th the napa county open space and state parks partnership will be running old mill days at the bale grist mill so that is a fun upcoming event for the community

Chair, can I ask for one more moment? I'd like to make a referral of staff that we get the chance to have a proclamation celebrating Mayor Paul Doering, who will be stepping down at the end of the year.

Great. Thank you. I also have a request for information, which I'm going to kind of close this check-in with, which is I was hoping that our agricultural commissioner could join us, Tracy Cleveland. I am hearing that the agricultural industry is concerned about changes in cropping that may spread diseases like red blotch, pests like Lassie-winged sharpshooter, and create other issues like mildew and buildup of fuels when we have abandoned, derelict crops. not fully kept vineyards or not fully treated vineyards. And I'm interested in how we might locate these to better manage them, what the steps are that you take to ensure that lands are being appropriately managed to not be spreading diseases, pathogens, or creating other issues.

Okay. So, good morning, Chair, members of the Board. I'm Tracy Cleveland. I'm the Napa County Ag Commissioner and Sealer of Weights and Measures. So, thank you for the question. So, essentially, we have a process that's built in. My staff is tasked with addressing and mitigating nuisances that are a part of an abandoned or neglected vineyard or agricultural property. So this is something we deal with on an annual basis. Usually, it's at a much smaller scale that seems to be growing. So typically, the process is as follows. So we receive the complaint. We can get it from a phone call. We have a survey link. For abandoned and neglected ag, we have an additional link for any ag complaints and then walk-ins, emails. So any way someone wants to report a property, we'll take a look at it. I also have staff that are in the field, and so they often find properties that look to be neglected, and so we'll address it that way. So we receive the complaint, we assign it to someone, we go out, we do a site inspection, we assess the property, we make every effort to make contact with the land owner or the property owner, and oftentimes we're able to work it out over a period of time. So we educate them, we walk them through the process, we help them understand the impact that a neglected or abandoned vineyard can have. on neighboring vineyards, the pest pressure, the reservoir that exists there. So oftentimes we're able to, through education, address the issue. If that doesn't work, our next step typically is to have an official letter that's documenting the conversation we had. And now this is a letter attesting to the fact that there's a neglected vineyard property. So it's a general neglect letter. And it documents the issue that we're seeing, the steps that they need to take, which includes submitting a farm plan to the Ag Commissioner's Office. And in that letter, we usually identify resources that are available to them. So that can be best management practices from the Napa Valley grape growers, it can be UC Cooperative Extension advisories, and then contact with our department to help them understand what we expect. If those actions or attempts fail, then our next step is an additional letter with an order to abate. We really try to work it out with property owners and to give them every opportunity to bring it into compliance. The abatement process is very lengthy. And essentially, that results in a lien on the property. So we post the property. We move forward with abatements. We remove the vines and destroy the vines. And then we put a lien on the property. So that's not ideal. And all of these things are in consultation with county council. revisiting that process and we're i think getting all of our ducks in a row and so that's where we're at now we have a handful of properties i think there are more out there that we are not aware of so i really solicit input from the community from industry from growers neighbors anyone that thinks that they've seen an abandoned or neglected property contact my office we're happy to go take a look and work with those property owners I will say there's an additional pathway now based on Assembly Bill 732 that passed last year and went into effect the 1st of January this year. We haven't utilized that pathway yet, but it is a possibility. Pathway is really more, it doesn't rely on the lean process. Instead, it's education and outreach with a penalty process. And so it gives landowners an opportunity to bring things into compliance through good faith attempts. But it also allows us to assess and find and assess the penalty amounts. I think the amount is 500 to 1,000 per acre. So with no good faith efforts, that's another pathway for us. So that's the general process. I'm happy to answer any questions if there are any.

I don't think I have any questions myself. Are there any questions for my colleagues? Super advice, Chair Alessio?

Yeah, thank you, Tracy. And you and I, we have a meeting about this, so thank you, Chair, for bringing this up. I watched the meeting that you held, the Select Committee on California's Wine Industry. Great job, by the way. And who else was the presenter? Was it the state? It was yourself and the other person that-

Dr. Cron from the UC Cooperative Extension. I think that's probably what it was. And then Michael Miller from COG. Yeah.

It was very informative. I'm assuming it probably still is available via recording. But I caught it. You sent out a link, and I was able to catch most of it. And my concern is, well, twofold. In the reality of one neighbor kind of tattling on the other neighbor, that makes it very challenging for neighbors to have a healthy relationship right right but then you also have neighbors that have red blotch and you talked about how pervasive red blotch is becoming and i'm hearing by growers they're they're seeing more and more that's their number one concern right now is red blotch and then you have landowners who have land but they don't They don't have any money. They're land rich, but they don't have the funds to pull the vineyards and to do the right thing. And I don't know. I would like to work with you and have staff look at this and see if there's a creative program that's outside of the education is great, outreach is great. Penalties might be, I understand it's accountability, but is there another path forward for people that have hardship and yet we don't want this to spread any further in terms of doing the right thing. So I wanted to just put this out there since we're talking about that. I look forward to talking to you more about it and maybe coming back and having a referral to staff in some kind of problematic move forward. Thank you.

Can I just say that I've had the same thoughts. I mean, if we're pursuing abatement and issuing penalties to growers that are already struggling, that's not necessarily going to get you where you need to be. So I like the idea of that. I'm kind of thinking big picture of things we could do to help growers. And so I have meetings planned with planning and industry to have further discussions.

Very good. Thank you.

Yes.

Okay, great. Thank you for that thorough update and for continuing to work with all of our partners. I know you're also working with the UC ANR. And yeah, and so great partnership through the community. Keep up the good work. Thank you. Commissioner Cleveland. Okay, we are moving on to item eight, which is discussion of items pulled from our consent calendar. And this is item 5P. I'll read the actual item, which is approve an authorized amendment, number one, to agreement number 250418B with Byrne Software Technologies extending their contract term through June 30th, 2027 and onwards. So, yeah, Director Bordone, would you like to start us off?

Yes, absolutely. That infant just took the words out of my mouth. Yes, we've received and I appreciate the comments submitted from Water Audit on this item. I have not had a chance to do a deep dive. It was a fairly voluminous letter. But what I can say is this is an extension or expansion of our technology that we use to monitor conditions of approval. And it's not limited to groundwater. It includes traffic conditions of approval, biological conditions of approval, the whole gamut. It does not serve to change any of the underlying conditions of approval. I think Water Audit's letter kind of hinted at the need for that. This isn't that today. That venue would be at the TAG or the GSA. or other appropriate venues such as the standard conditions of approval. So again, this is just a software improvement that enables us to be more efficient with the way in which we track and monitor our conditions of approval, not solely limited to groundwater, including everything, so that we can do away with spreadsheets and tablets and written notes and whatnot and fully automate it in a digital format. So I hope that answers your question.

Yeah. And I just want to say, too, that my understanding is that this is in the context of planning, building, and environmental services modernizing a whole lot of its data storage. So it's not the only area where we're updating software or migrating things to digital formats, that kind of thing.

Yeah, and you'll appreciate this. It allows us to include or weave this into GIS. And so there are spatial analyses that can occur. And so if we're talking about groundwater, we can have details about well depths and whatnot from a spatial perspective, a geographic perspective. So it would help also is ultimately going to help us inform decisions and conversations as it relates to groundwater and anything that we're monitoring for that matter.

Okay. And then I think maybe I can help us work through some of the content of the letter. So there are things about this that they like. The comment letter that we got from Water Audit California. And their first question effectively is, will it support enforcement?

Yes.

Okay. And the second question effectively is, what kind of results? Let's see. Um... So I think what's being asked is if there's an exceedance identified, what is the remedy?

I don't know what the remedy would be. I know that there is one. I'm just not familiar enough with the GSP in the event that there is an exceedance.

Patrick, do you happen to know the answer to that question?

And just to be clear that... This program is not to suggest that we aren't monitoring. It's not to suggest that we're not following up on conditions of approval. This is just an enhanced mechanism to do that.

Okay. Great.

Good morning, Chair, members of the board, Patrick Ryan, Assistant Director for Planning, Building, Environmental Services. Yeah, so when we receive information that a well is exceeding their extraction limits or caps, we do have an enforcement response. Typically, our first course of action is to have the applicant develop a groundwater management plan. This is a plan that identifies best practices and operational characteristics that will get their extraction limits back to their limits, their cap, their limit, their extraction duration or whatever it may be.

Okay. Thank you. And then the next item was how was this need identified or basically why is this step being taken now?

Yeah, we're taking this step because we have existing software that PBS currently uses that our applicants submit building permits, use permits, and they can submit all their application submittal material online. What we're envisioning this program to do is it allows our applicants, our property owners, to submit their groundwater monitoring data online. It allows us to notify those applicants of deadlines or when their reporting is supposed to be due. So it automates a lot of our application processes. And it will flag us if there's any data that exceeds conditions of approval that we can put onto the specific parcel itself. And so it's really streamlining our processes instead of applicants emailing them in directly to staff, and then we upload to a spreadsheet or to an existing monitoring system. This kind of puts it all into one place. It allows for all staff to access it. To Brian's point, we can use GIS to spatially map this stuff, and it's really just going to – we're advancing our technology in the department, and this is going to really help staff and our applicants, I believe.

Okay. And then, so you did a great job of answering two questions down. And then really the last is, in my reading of this letter, the last substantive thing, and I'll ask Supervisor Cottrell too, since you're the one who pulled this. I'm kind of jumping ahead maybe. But the last thing that I'm noticing here is that there's kind of a general question about data accessibility. And so I think this is kind of a complicated thing because some of what is contained in your systems is certainly confidential for a variety of reasons, but there's other parts that might be appropriate for public access. And so if you could address, basically, there's also this kind of connected item here of there not having been an opportunity for stakeholder input or public input as this was developed. And I'm wondering if this went through the technical advisory group, but I think there might be a connection there between the level of accessibility of different types of data and the level of appropriateness for having the public oversee, you know, the decisions about what will be included or the design of a system.

Yeah, so we have not designed the system yet. This is only the contract to start having those conversations with the consultant. As we start developing the system and the information or the data fields that applicants and staff will be inputting into our system, we would work with county council to make sure if there's any proprietary information, that stuff wouldn't be publicized. public accessible. In a lot of circumstances this information can be obtained through a public request or a PRA. And so as we progress with the consultant, with county council, with staff, we'll be able to identify what information we can actually post on our public GIS system. We'll have to vet all that through to make sure when we develop the system that we're meeting any legal requirements and then what requirements we have for our needs to actually track and monitor.

Okay, great. Really helpful. Supervisor Cottrell?

No, thank you. First of all, thanks for pulling the item and for walking us through that. I think that's helpful and to know where we are in the stage of it. And basically, at a high level, I was just interested in getting staff's response to the letter because when I read the item, the items made sense that we want this is a good direction for us to be going because it's going to give us more facility with the data that we want to be collecting and managing.

That was good. Thank you. Okay. Super. Yeah. And just in general, thank you for updating our data cataloging situation. I'm sure it's been a long time coming, and I know it's a lot of really detail-oriented work and possibly some cursing at a computer to get all that done. So I've been that person. So thank you very much for those efforts. It is actually a huge benefit to everyone working in this space. So thank you.

Thank you.

okay um that brings us to item nine administrative Madam chair you forgot public comment oh I'm sorry I'm waiting for that oh great um yes I welcome any public comment on this is there anyone in the room okay I don't see anyone in the room anyone on the phones go ahead when you're ready hi Michelle can you hear us Michelle are you there let me adjust the sound

Michelle? Keep talking, Michelle. I'm going to keep adjusting our speakers. Can you hear us now? yeah can i take a break and have michelle call back yeah of course is there anyone else on the phones no just michelle okay um so we could do our comfort break now and then return and see okay michelle if you can hear us we'll take your call right after this so let's uh come back at 10 30 10 30.

left off, we had somebody who we couldn't quite get their voice through on audio who was calling in with a public comment, and I would like to invite them to speak at this time. I understand the situation has been addressed. MS.

Thanks for your patience, Michelle.

MS. Can you hear me?

MS. We can hear you.

MS. Great. Thank you. And thanks for dealing with the Pectinburg disease. I'd like to apologize for not being there in person, but I will see you all this afternoon. Weingrove supports the county investing in accurate, reliable monitoring tools. Good data serves everyone and we welcome it. But this is a procurement item. Questions about what data gets captured and what becomes public are separate policy matters that deserve their own public process. I'd also point out who is asking for those commitments. Water Out of California is a private corporation, and the things that it is requesting, including making appliance data public and shaping how the system works, advances its own pending litigation. A private company shouldn't be dictating what the county collects and discloses, especially through a vote on a software contract. We would ask that any future design conversation include the ag community and that the records reflect one simple fact. Automating record keeping is a neutral step. It doesn't resolve or prejudge anything. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments today. All right. We now will take this to a vote. Do I have a motion and a second? So moved. Second. Okay. I have a motion from Supervisor Cutrella, second from Vice Chair Alessio. All those in favor? Aye. That passes unanimously. Thank you. That was item 5P. Our next item is 9A. We're now on administrative items. This is recommending and appointing in the runoff election of Solano County of Recommended appointment in the runoff election of Solano County of Napa Super... of Solano County of... there's a typo here. Recommended appointment in the runoff election of Solano County Supervisor Cassandra James or Sonoma County Supervisor Chris Corsi to serve on the County Medical Services Program Governing Board with a term effective immediately following the election and expiring on December 31st, 2027. I welcome a staff report from Clerk Hoskins.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Board previously voted on this or considered this item on August 25th, 2026 and voted unanimously to nominate Solano County Supervisor Cassandra James for that seat. Since that time, staff has been informed that there was a tie vote necessitating a runoff between Solano County Supervisor Cassandra James and Sonoma County Supervisor Chris Corsi. Should either tie vote occur, CMSP is in the process of amending its bylaws, which will allow the CSMP Board of Directors to fill that seat. So our directive today is to please cast another vote.

Okay, thank you. Is there any public comment today on this item? I am not seeing anyone approaching the podium in the room. Is there anyone on the phones? No? Okay. Are there any board questions or comments related to the item? Vice Chair Alessio?

Thank you for bringing this back and explaining why this is back. At the last meeting, I thought it was pretty clear that we were nominating Solano County Supervisor Cassandra James, knowing both are very strong candidates for this role. But I'm happy to make a motion to move forward with Supervisor Cassandra James. Second.

Okay, thank you. So I have a motion by Vice Chair Alessio, a second by Supervisor Ramos. Are there any deliberations or comments? Not seeing any. I think we were clear last time, so. Let's see. So the motion is to appoint Solano County Supervisor Cassandra James to the County Medical Services Program Governing Board with a term effective immediately following the election and expiring December 31st, 2027. And this is to fill the seat left by her colleague who has stepped down. All those in favor? Aye. That passes unanimously. Thank you. We are now moving to item 10, item 10A, convene a community forum pursuant to the State Transparent Review of Unjust Transfers and Holds Act, the Truth Act, which calls for counties to hold annual public forums explaining how law enforcement worked with immigration and customs enforcement representatives. And I'd like to invite our CEO, Ryan Alsop, to start this item.

Thank you, Madam Chairman, members of the Board. We're very happy to be here this morning to convene this public forum for you pursuant to the Transparent Review and Unjust Transfers and Holds Act, or also known and commonly known as TRUTH Act. Following the presentation this morning, we're seeking a simple continuance of this item from your board where we will take it up again on Tuesday, September 29th at 6 p.m. This is a special evening time that will allow people who are unable to attend here this morning to attend that evening to participate and engage with your board on this item, which is a requirement that we report on an annual basis going forward. And with that, I'll hand it over to Mr. Alicante.

Good morning, Madam Chair, members of the Board of Supervisors. We are here today to conduct the community forum for the Truth Act. Let's see. So today I wanted to kind of discuss, we have myself here, we have the sheriff, Oscar Ortiz, and Chief Probation Officer Amanda Gibbs. I'll be presenting on their behalf, but they're here for questions, should there be any follow-up questions afterwards. We wanted to discuss key immigration legislation that kind of talks about the Trust Act which prohibits law enforcement officials from detaining an individual based on an ICE hold after the individual becomes eligible for release from custody unless the individual has been convicted or been charged with a specific crime. In regards to the Truth Act, AB 2792 requires local law enforcement agencies prior to an interview between ICE and an individual in custody to provide an individual with written consent, among other provisions. And it requires the local governing board to hold a public community forum during the following year to provide information to the public about ICE access to the individuals, which is why we're here today. And then the Values Act, SB 54, prohibits state and local law enforcement from holding individuals on the basis of federal immigration detainers or transferring them into federal custody. They may only be held with a federal or state warrant, and it prohibits state and local law enforcement from asking anyone about their immigration status. So I'll be reporting for the Department of Corrections. So the data for 2025, for 2025, we had a total of 3,284 bookings. From that, we received 145 requests. And from there, 36 qualified. And we started cooperating with the I-247A form on July 27, 2019. And then in providing notification to ICE in number two, we provided being released on a certain date and time through data sharing was 36. Providing nonpublic available information was also 36. And number four, allowing interviews. We did not allow any, no interviews were held that were zero for any individual. And then regarding dates and times of parole and check-ins on number five, there was zero. So NCDC received an I-20-247A form and responded with release dates and times. Okay. In summary, NCDC does not respond to ICE requests until the individual is either eligible for release from the facility or they are pending transfer to another local or state facility. Out of the 145 ICE requests, 36 individuals met NCDC ICE policy criteria for release, and ICE was notified of their release information. Out of those 36, ICE took into custody nine incarcerated people from NCDC. The types of qualifying charges for those individuals was battery, assault with a deadly weapon, possession with the intent to sale, distribute and or manufacture controlled substances, DUI with bodily injury, false imprisonment, and possession of stolen property for those individuals. I did a historical trends from 2022 to 2025 just to kind of give us a view to kind of see what those numbers look like from year to year. So when you kind of look back, like you look at 2022 ice transfers, there was three. And in 2023, there was three. We did get an uptick in 2024 when we received 158 requests that were received. The same number was 36 that we responded to out of those 158, which was very similar to this year, which was 36 requests that we responded to. but we only received 145 requests for 2025. ICE took into custody nine people for 2025, and then 2024 they took in seven. So there was an uptick of two people from the previous year. In regards to the Truth Act demographics that we must report on, that we had provided access to, there was one male. Asian descent, 31 years old. And then we had eight Hispanic males of the ages 53, 69, 45, 43, 46, 51, and 33, and 45 years old for the demographics. We want to talk about the updates to the NCDC ICE Detainer Policy. We've done some changes from the previous policy that we originally had, and we amended some language in Policy 604 in 2026. So I'll discuss what a wobbler is. A wobbler is a crime that can be charged or convicted as either a felony or a misdemeanor, depending on the severity of the act. Originally, we allowed for ICE to be notified for individuals that had been convicted of a misdemeanor charge within the past five years described in our Appendix 2, directly following statutory framework set out in California Government Code Section 7282.5. However, with input from local public interest groups, the Board's ad hoc committee, and the grand jury, NCDC amended its policy to remove misdemeanor convictions entirely as a basis for ICE notification. So that was a change that's in the new policy. We also reduced the Wobbler felony conviction timeframe from 15 years to 10 years. So ICE will only be notified of a person convicted of a felony while they're listed on Appendix 2 within the past 10 years now instead of the 15-year mark. And then on number three here, one of the ICE detainer notification qualifying entities policy is for an individual charged with a felony listed in Appendix 1 or 2 but not yet convicted. The individual must have B, have been presented before a magistrate or a judicial officer and having a finding of probable cause that charges most likely did occur. This provided for under government code section 7282.5 as well. To ensure that staff clearly understand and appropriately apply the provision, we changed the language to clearly identify that a felony preliminary hearing resulting in a probable cause finding holding in an individual to answer must have occurred now. So that was another change that you'll see down at the bottom. One of the other things that we've also implemented is council is always consulted prior to the release of any advance notice to ICE as well for checks and balances. We did update our website. It came out from the committee. We now have an up-to-date detainer information on the NCDC's website that you can see up here. If you go to the corrections tab on the Napa County website and click in custody, you'll see the California Values Act tab. You can click on that and you'll be taken to a page that allows you to search time frames for ICE detainer information, which is live recorded now. The website allows a person to search for basic information addressing the number of ICE detainer requests received by NCDC during a specific time frame and NCDC's response. to those ICE requests. In the above example, research for the ICE detainer request from January 1st through August, the search removes any personal identifying information that might violate the incarcerated person's privacy rights, but provides the following information. The booking date and time of the individual, the individual's release and time from custody, and the NCDC's response to ICE detainer requests. the individual that ICE is requesting notification for does or does not meet the NCDC policy requirements for notification. And that's been all loaded on the website. So if an individual's release date is provided to ICE, that qualifying charge is applied. and then it's updated whether ICE picked that person up or not. Since January 2026, there have been three ICE transfers that we've had that you can see up there out of the 62 requests as of August. In preparation for this today, we have 84 requests as of now, but there are still three folks that they have taken into custody. And just kind of looking back, had we... out of last year's, out of the folks that did last year, the seven, three of those folks had that policy been enacted in 2025, the one that we just did for 2026, three of those folks wouldn't have qualified. So it would have brought that number down from the modifications. And I just wanted to share that with you, just kind of looking back. because we fully don't have an idea of what it's going to look like for this year, but just knowing who was taken into custody last year, three of those folks went into qualified with the new policy. And then in regards to the probation department, representing here, there was no information. They had zero incidents of access, all numbers all the way down. And then in regards to the sheriff's office as well, It was zero because we're the main ones that work in conjunction with them in that regard. And from that, there's questions. I'm here. Sheriff's here. Chief Probation Officer's here. Hopefully I answered everything that was informative.

Okay. Thank you so much for that really helpful update. Do I have any questions from my colleagues? Okay. Yeah, mine's on too.

Oh, it is. Oh, I see. Okay.

We have Supervisor Cottrell and then Gallagher.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you so much for this report. And I think you just answered my question, which was, you know, if we applied the new policy to last year's number, and I think you're saying that three of the nine would not have qualified.

Correct.

Okay. And then to just go over what I think you mentioned about where we are in the middle of this year, that thus far in 2026, you've had 84 requests.

We've had, as of right now, there is 84 requests that we have received.

Okay.

Not everybody has qualified. They have taken three into custody. There were two that they did not take into custody. Okay, great. So there was three out of five that they've taken into custody.

Okay. And that 84 requests, we compare that with the 145 requests from 2025? Yes.

The 84 requests is for 2026. That's what we're receiving right now. So as of as of yesterday, we've had 84 requests. That number will continue to probably go up as we get closer to the end of the year. But as of right now, we have 84 requests. Got it.

So it's going to be 84 plus X to get us through 2026. And then we'll compare that with 145 from 2025 and 158 from... Yeah.

And I'll just kind of keep that slide because I think it kind of gives a visual. Yeah. And we'll just take off that following year and then we'll show that.

Okay.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Okay, great questions from Supervisor Gallagher. Yeah, thank you. I have some comments, but I'll save those for after public comment. And I just, I did have a question about, you mentioned on one of the slides that council is consulted prior to any release notification. Can you tell me a little bit more about what you're seeking from council?

What we've implemented when we started doing the ad hoc committee, what we started to do is we started to work with county council. So anytime that we get a person that qualifies under our policy, we have an extra set that we have the county council review that just to ensure everything's in line with what we're doing as an extra set of precautions to ensure that we don't have an unlawful release to them.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. So at this time, I'll open it up for public comment. Is there anyone from the public wishing to speak? You may come to the podium at this time, and each speaker will have three minutes. And if you'd please introduce yourself before you start, we would appreciate that very much.

Before I start, there was a request to put the PowerPoint back up. Good morning, Chair and members of the board. I'm Julia DiNatale with Napa Valley Community Foundation. First, we want to thank you for today's proclamation recognizing the contributions that Latino residents make to Napa County and also for holding this Truth Act Forum so publicly. And for your steadfast support of our One Napa Valley initiative and Napa Valley Together, through which nearly 3,000 people who live or work in the valley have obtained citizenship since 2013. And through which thousands of others have more recently received legal support in a more protective way. Like know your rights presentations and family preparedness plans, and thank you for your support of those efforts. It feels particularly meaningful that today is both the celebration of Hispanic heritage and the Truth Act Forum because together these two things remind us that celebrating a community also means ensuring its members feel safe, valued, and able to fully participate in the civic life of this place they call home. As you know, we've commissioned two studies on the fiscal and economic impacts of immigrants in Napa County from the Migration Policy Institute, first in 2012 and again recently in 2026. The most recent study found that immigrants represent 21% of Napa County residents, but 29% of our workforce. And their role is even greater in industries fundamental to Napa County's economy. In agriculture, for example, 71% of workers are immigrants. So the data shows that the economic stakes are significant. Our study estimates that removing undocumented workers from Napa County's economy could result in $366 million in lost annual GDP, 4,300 jobs eliminated, and more than $28 million in state and local tax revenue lost each year. Those losses would be borne by the entire community. And of course, economic disruption doesn't require deportation. Fear itself has consequences, like when people are afraid to go to work, take their children to school, seek medical care, or report a crime. Our immigrant community's contributions in every sense of the word are critical. Protecting the stability of immigrant workers and families is protecting the economic stability of Napa County itself and the cohesion of our community. We know that you cannot control federal policy, but there are things we can do locally to support due process, keep families together, and protect our economy at a time when unprecedented headwinds are facing the valley's wine and hospitality sector. Thank you again for continuing to lead with both appreciation and action.

Thank you, Ms. Dana Talley. Welcome. Good morning to the chair, the board. Thank you for all your hard work and care for our community. My name is Jody Kuick, and I'm coming to you from NAPA Takes Action Coalition, as well as a private concerned citizen. In case you don't know, NAPA Takes Action is a coalition of concerned citizens, organically came together out of alarm and strong feelings of the injustice that we're all experiencing in our administration. It's a place to mobilize for collective actions, social justice. We have organized many of the mass rallies in town, No Kings, John Lewis, Mayday Strong, et cetera, weekly protests. And we work collaboratively with our partners who support our community. As a private citizen, I've lived in Napa for 28 years. I'm a clinical psychologist and previous mental health director for the West Contra Costa School District. I'm currently a full-time professor at St. Mary's College. I've worked in youth mental health for over 40 years, direct services, setting up school-based counseling centers, crisis response programs, and family engagement work. I'm currently training family therapists, school psychologists, and school counselors, nine of whom are currently working in our schools in Napa. I want to speak from their experiences during this extremely difficult time. As we know, there's been a substantial mental health crisis for youth since the pandemic, significantly increasing now, particularly for our Latinx youth. So in addition to being at risk for homelessness, food insecurity, and physical health issues, students are showing signs of significant mental health challenges. They're only increasing. Fears are rampant for our community's children and families regarding ICE activity and possible detentions and deportations, whether or not families are documented citizens. Students are directly reporting being afraid to come to school. Worried parents might be deported even again if documented citizens. Families have felt the need for immigrant safety plans for youth requiring caregiver authorization forms and other emergency preparedness. Children are feeling stigmatized. They don't know who to trust. They feel marginalized. They feel devalued. They feel prejudiced. They report feeling bullied. Separation anxiety significantly increased, resulting in higher rates of absences. Statistics, there's the California dashboard for school attendance, which we know declined and has been steadily improving in California. Not steadily, slowly improving. The stats for Napa schools, public schools, 29% or 957 of our English language learners from Latin heritage are chronically absent. That's almost 1,000 out of our 3,300 ELL students. Disproportionate numbers for the ethnicity. And the fiscal impact, of course, is ADA, average daily attendance funding, in addition, long-term fiscal impact. I will just go back. Is that my time? Okay. I just want to ask for clear, accessible communications around safety and support for children and families, as much transparency as possible. And then action plans for mitigating trauma and provision of supports now and in the future as we're talking about years of childhood adverse experience. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Welcome.

Good morning. My name is Sudi Shank, and I'm here also with the NEP Takes Action group. And I wanted to just tell you a little bit more about what NEP Takes Action does in regard to the immigration issues. We are all very concerned about what's happening and could possibly happen to our people in Napa County. And so one of the things that we do in addition to organizing the rallies that you may have seen or participated in is that we provide direction to some of the very upset people who want to help. And what we do is we direct them to the great work that the Immigration Institute of the Bay Area is doing in regards to training for legal observers and court accompaniment people. And we really want to help build a support so that if ICE does come into the community in a very major way, that we have neighborhoods and communities that are all ready to take action and provide the support that they need. We would like to commend you for the policy changes that you've already made, in addition to reducing the look-back period from 15 to 10 years. We'd like to push you a little bit and hope it goes back down to maybe seven years or five years. We'd also like to really encourage you to look at providing some additional legal support for the Public Defender's Office in hiring someone who can really help out with legal expenses. and the legal issues that our immigrants find. So thank you very much for listening to us, and we appreciate the support that you're giving us. Thank you, Ms. Schenck. Welcome.

Hello, board members. My name is Hunter Jones. I'm a Napa resident and member of Napa Takes Action. My partner just got back from a vacation to Portugal, While she was there, she learned that one of their specialties is beautiful handmade ceramic tiles. And at a small shop that sold them as souvenirs, she asked the vendor if she would need to worry about the tile, making it home in one piece if she were to buy one. His response, it will be totally fine as long as ICE doesn't break it in customs. So my point here is that through its actions, ICE has only continued to gain notoriety across the globe as a destructive bully. From other commenters, you're hearing some of the local impacts our communities are left behind to face when their family member or employee or neighbor is taken into ICE custody. But for a moment, I also want to make sure we keep in mind what is happening to those taken and the machine that we grow when we feed that system. Just in the last month, we've seen new reports of cruel and unusual treatment in detention centers. In Southern California, a detained journalist still has not received adequate medical care after accidentally being shot in the arm by ICE last year and has shared videos of worms in their drinking water, among other abuses. In Texas, a detention center received approval to force feed a detainee by cutting his abdomen open. And this is just what's public. As a reminder, 70% of detainees have no criminal conviction, and many are being detained based simply on how they look. We might not yet be experiencing the types of mass raids that we see and hear about elsewhere, but as a constituent county of the United States, we have a moral obligation to use our power to push back on this agency's recent behavior to the full extent of the law. By refusing to cooperate with the TANR requests as much as possible, we can be part of a larger national message that has real impact, as we've seen with ICE experiencing leadership turnover and being forced to pivot its tactics. If we move together with counties across the nation to say this agency's practices are not okay and we will not be a part of it, we can restore some of what our community has lost and show what it looks like to stand up for justice. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments, Mr. Jones.

Welcome. good morning board of supervisors and county staff my name is esmeralda hill i am the executive director of puertas aviertas community resource center a partner organization of napa valley together and the community leaders coalition today i want to speak specifically about something we are seeing firsthand which is the financial impact on a household when a family member is detained or suddenly removed from the home When we talk about immigration enforcement, and our other partner organizations, we see what happens when the families are left behind the next morning. We have sat with a mother who from one day to the next was left to raise her children without her husband and without the income he brought into the household. And we have sat with a 13-year-old whose dad was taken a few days before his middle school graduation and now worries for his mother and for his own responsibility to take care of his family, something a 13-year-old shouldn't have to feel. These are not hypotheticals. These are families, real families in our community, kids in our schools. We know them. We have sat with them, held them close, and tried to bring them some stability and hope during an incredibly difficult moment. And what we are seeing is that one detention changes the financial stability of an entire household virtually overnight. One paycheck disappears, but the rent is still due, the electricity bill is still due, people still need to eat, children still need to go to school, childcare may suddenly need to be arranged. And at the same time, new expenses begin, attorney fees, transportation costs misworked, and the cost of trying to locate, communicate with, and support a detained family member. A household that was once making ends meet with two incomes can very quickly fade, and the economic impact does not stop there. It reaches nonprofits like ours when families need emergency food, financial assistance, rental assistance, mental health support, legal navigation, or other resources. It reaches schools when children experience sudden instability. It reaches landlords when people can't pay rent, healthcare providers when families delay care, and ultimately it can reach county systems and public resources. The economic shock begins with one person, travels through the household, and eventually reaches the broader community. The county, therefore, has a legitimate fiscal and public safety interest in preventing unnecessary family destabilization. So today I want to make two specific recommendations. First, continue narrowing ICE notification and detainer practices to the greater extent permitted by law. Where the county has discretion, it should avoid practices that unnecessarily expose people who have not been convicted of qualifying offenses to federal immigration enforcement. Second, continue investing in community trust and accurate information. Napa County should continue working with trusted community messengers, multilingual messengers, and local law enforcement so residents understand their rights, have access to accurate information, and know when and how to access information safely. These decisions are not only about immigration policy, they are decisions about the well-being of Napa County as a whole. Because behind every decision is a household, a parent, a child, and a family trying to remain stable. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Heal.

Welcome. Hello again. I would like to start off by thanking the supervisors, the sheriff. Can we start with your name? Oh, yes. Hello, it's Megan. My name is Madeline Hernandez, and I'm the North Bay Regional Directing Attorney for IIBA. I would like to thank the supervisors, the sheriff, and NCDC for your partnership. Thank you for complying with SB 54. Thank you for heightening the standard for responding to ICE, and thank you for creating the dashboard. Those are important protections and they should be acknowledged. My question now is, is Napa County doing everything within its lawful authority to protect public safety, preserve community trust, and prevent unnecessary economic and family disruption? We believe the evidence says there is room to do more. This administration is deliberately attacking immigrants. We see this through anti-immigrant executive orders, policy changes, regulations, and through increased ICE enforcement. Every day comes with news of termination of immigration benefit programs, elimination of work authorizations, extreme vetting, changes that create unfair barriers to qualify for immigration benefits and safety net programs, travel bans, adjudication bans, unlawful detention, and more. It's terrifying. In 2026, there's already been a 50 percent increase in apprehensions, and the year is not even over. Additionally, IIBA's removal caseload has more than doubled, and we are unable to respond and represent all apprehended individuals. As Esme mentioned before, this affects more than just the detained individual. I encourage the county to consider aligning its practices even more with other Bay Area counties that place greater emphasis on due process, rehabilitation, and the passage of time since a criminal conviction has occurred. My first recommendation is to consider the amount of time that has elapsed since an individual's criminal conviction for all appendixes. A conviction that has occurred many years ago does not accurately reflect a person's current relationship to public safety. Incorporating the age of a conviction into policy decisions promotes fairness, supports evidence-based correctional practices and principles of rehabilitation, and allows resources to be focused on cases involving recent serious criminal conduct. My second recommendation is that ICE notification requests will not be honored or responded to when an individual has pending charges only and no qualifying criminal conviction. This recommendation is grounded in the principle that individuals facing pending charges are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law. We must respect and uphold court procedure and process. My last recommendation is to have a full-time immigration attorney within the Napa County Public Defender's Office. Seven of nine Bay Area counties have recognized that immigration consequences are often among the most serious outcomes a person can face after a criminal case. These counties have invested in specialized immigration expertise to ensure that non-citizen residents receive constitutionally effective representation. Now, more than ever, we need to preserve community trust, and this can be done through local policy. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Hernandez.

Welcome. Good morning, Chair and members of the board. My name is Adrian Maldonado. I'm representing Community Leaders Coalition and Napa Valley Together in our broader advocacy effort. You've heard today about our economy, families, community trust, and the policies that protect all three. Napa County is doing important things right, and we ask you to build on that progress. We appreciate the county's efforts to improve transparency via the dashboard and the addition of the evening Truth Act forum later this month so that the broader community can also have the same access to that same important information. So thank you for that. But compliance should be the floor, not the ceiling. And I think that's what you've heard throughout today's testimonies. Our speakers haven't simply raised concerns. They've brought forward specific data, family testimonies, practical policy changes that Napa County can consider to strengthen the protections already in place. Those recommendations are about more than immigration policy. They're about public safety, economic stability, family stability, and trust. Because when families are destabilized or people are afraid to seek help, our entire community is affected. And when our immigrant neighbors feel valued, respected, and protected, all of Napa is stronger. So we ask the board to take what you've heard today not simply as a testimony for an annual forum, but as an opportunity to continue the work already underway, to be courageous and look beyond minimum compliance, and consider how Napa County may choose to lead. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Maldonado. Welcome.

Madam Chair, members of the Board of Supervisors, my name is Dr. John Wilson. I live in St. Helena, and I'm representing as co-chair of the Civil and Immigrant Rights Committee of the League of Women Voters. Now, as many of you know, on January 21, the League of Women Voters hosted a forum at the Napa High School entitled Building Bridges, Not Barriers. And Bella Ramos was the moderator at that forum. At the forum, almost all of the agencies and people you've heard speak today were present. That forum was given extensive coverage in the Napa Register. I read that with great interest. I'm also on the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley. I've been deeply involved in building community bridges throughout the nation. I just completed an eight-year program nationwide involving 1,400 participants in 10 states and over 120 sites. I'm viewed at the University of California, Berkeley, teaching and faculty for over 40 years as probably the leading expert on how to bridge in a local community. Given my background, I read the article with great interest, and I emailed the chair of the Napa League and said, is this a one-shot affair, or are you really taking it seriously? The answer I got back is we are indeed serious about this, building bridges, not barriers. I was invited to attend the next board meeting of the Napa League, which I did. And at that meeting, they described that they intended under the Committee on Civil and Immigrant Rights to develop an action plan to build bridges in Napa County. I was then drafted to be the co-chair of the committee. I joined the League of Women Voters. And I wrote the action plan. That action plan has now been fully embraced by the League of Women Voters and also by the Latino community that I'm working with closely. That action plan really has three aspects. When you move into a community and you want to build bridges, the first way when you move into a community is you move in on fear. Fear, in this case, is ISIS. The fear can be, fires. The fear could be closure of the local hospital because of cutbacks. But anytime you have a fear that resides in a local community, then you rally around the institutions that address that fear. But that's just the beginning. You move next to what I cause in my bridging model work nationwide as you move to a cause. The cause we're addressing today is how to strengthen the Latino community. And we've strengthened it by getting all of the organizations that are involved in dealing with the issues that we've talked about today. and family.

I'm going to ask you to conclude your comments.

I'm only concluding that. Thank you. What it is is we have launched a bridging program. And I'm working very closely with Adrian Maldonado. And we're moving beyond what the hearing is about to really bridge and form bridges between the Latino community and the white community, the broader community that all of us represent. Thank you for your consideration. We intend to move forward. And the League of Women Voters is fully behind this. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Is there anyone on the phone? OK. I'm not seeing anyone else in the room. So I think that concludes public comments. So I'll bring it back to the board for any additional discussion. Supervisor Gallagher? Here. Oh, well, I'll go ahead and speak. Are you in the queue?

You're prescient, I guess. Thank you. And thank you to our Director of Corrections, Mr. Alarcon, for providing the report. Very important. And also thank you to staff for continuing this to an evening meeting. I think that's also going to be very important to assure everyone in the community has an opportunity to hear the report. I want to thank our law enforcement leadership and this board for updating the policies regarding SB 54. I think that was a good move and I'm very grateful that we made that move. I think it really speaks to the values of the board and as we made the proclamation this morning, I think it's very clear that we support our immigrant community and we want to do everything we can to protect everyone in this community. So I think again it's really, really important when we focus on this particular aspect of cooperation or non-cooperation with ICE that our job in law enforcement and in the justice system is to enforce the law and is not in any way to expedite deportation. I agree with Ms. Hernandez's recommendations from IIBA. I would like to see us take up the practices of some of the other Bay Area counties. There are counties that do not provide release information to immigration enforcement. I think that's important that We do all that we can to not be communicating with immigration enforcement. We are seeing the behavior of immigration enforcement officers as heinous, I will use that word, throughout the country and in California. And that does not reflect in any way our values as a board or as a county or as a community. So I want to just say that I am very grateful to Neva Valley Together. The work you're doing is commendable and incredibly important to our entire community. And thank you. And I hope we can continue to move forward together and do an even better job of putting our families and our kids first and recognizing that they are the ones that need protection. Thanks.

Thank you. Well said, Supervisor Gallagher. Vice Chair Alessio? Thank you. Thank you, Supervisor Gallagher. Thank you, everybody, for your public comment. It's very meaningful, and I know you've waited all day to provide this, and it's very helpful. I want to thank Director Alarcon and staff who were behind in getting this report, advancing positive policies that have also been, that are a little more just and equitable, if you will. There were a couple questions by public comment asking if we can continue to make more small measures of improvement. And one of those was, and I know we've already reduced it from 15 years to 10 years, which is a big leap. Is there, and I don't know where the bandwidth legally is in terms of reducing that even less in terms of, you know, looking at past years to reduce that to seven. Is that even viable or are we at our limit here?

That we would have to look into what we're authorized to do. But this is also stuff that can be looked at in the ad hoc committee. If that's still going, we can still get together and have those discussions. And because it's a county policy, it's what we work together on collaboratively. So that can always be looked at as an option if that's the direction of the board.

I definitely think it's worth continuing to work at. And again, it can be small measures. It needs to be legally sound and defensible, of course. But Again, hearing what public comment has to say, and people do change their lives in our correctional facilities. They're given opportunity and they take a different path forward. So I wanted to be able to honor that. Also, in terms of the request of, this is something that's always been interesting and rather confusing. to me is how are we required to report when somebody's in the correctional facility even though they're awaiting trial and they have not been convicted? Because to report that before somebody, I mean, again, I want to know what the legality is to that. Are we legally required or is there flexibility in that?

We're not making any notifications until the time comes for that. So they don't get notified right away. We inform the incarcerated person that at such time we will comply with the request, but that's not done until the time of release starts to come when they get released from custody is when we start to notify immigration.

What if they're being held, you know, in the jail waiting for their trial date?

They would be held through that whole time. And then at such time, once they've concluded all of their court proceedings and they're getting released from custody, then we would notify them. They're not notified at that time.

Are they notified prior to conviction?

No, they're notified after their... After conviction, after sentencing is complete. There's part of that, but there's also things... It's in regards to once they've completed their court proceedings, then at such time, we know when they're getting released from custody, it's when we do that. That was part of the reason why we modified a lot of those sections. And then because there was also in regards to, and I think it was... It fell under the probable cause finding because in our previous policy, ICE notifications for probable cause findings for any felony in appendices one or two, and it's been changed to probable cause finding amended to read preliminary hearing holding an individual to answer. So before it was just if they had that. Now they had to be in our new policy. It's now that they've had to have had a hearing on that and gone before a judge.

Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you for that clarification. Okay. Again, I think whatever moves we can continue to make in terms of building those bridges of trust and justice for everybody in this community, I think that does reflect our values here, and I appreciate the continued work you're doing along with the ad hoc.

Thank you for those comments and the clarifications. Supervisor Cottrell?

Thank you. Yeah, thanks to everyone who showed up and spoke today. Really appreciate that. And we are really fortunate here to have a law enforcement team that works closely with our community members. So I want to thank Sheriff Ortiz as well. And really appreciate both sets of comments from my colleagues also. And that's kind of your recommendation of if there's something we want to have continued looks at asking our ad hoc to meet again. I think the three requests that I heard, one was to reduce the window of time to look back. We've already done that significantly. So I think I do also want to point out, I think someone said, you know, we don't want to operate from the floor, which I completely agree with. We're not operating from the floor. SB 54 allows us to communicate more than we are, so just want to flag that. But reduce the window of time to look back. Don't notify ICE with only pending charges and no previous convictions. I mean, I think we looked at that one before, but interested if the ad hoc thinks there's more there. And then the full-time immigration attorney in the public defender's office, to me, those are all very reasonable. The final one is definitely a cost, a budgetary cost. So I would look to the ad hoc and the community members to, you know, help us figure out how we would pay for that, right, what happens there. And on that first one, figuring out the right window of time, I would also, and it I'm sorry, ad hoc colleagues, I'm adding to the list here, but but I think 1 of the questions is to understand what those numbers mean on the ground, right? What would a 10 year look back mean as compared to a 7 year? If since we're not at the 15 year, you know, some things like that. So that's looking at some individual cases and people. to understand a little bit more about that. So that's the direction that I am interested in going in. But again, wanted to thank everyone who helped bring this report to us today.

Okay. Thank you for those comments. Let's see. Thank you, everyone who commented today and AJ Alarcon for this very informative presentation. I look forward to your county government continuing to be partners in navigating this. It's a difficult situation. It's not anything any of us asked for. And I think we all share an interest in keeping members of our community safe, you know, as much as we can in the framework we have to work in. So thank you all for your participation today. And we're going to be continuing this item to September 29th, 2026 at 6 p.m. Thank you. All right. And we will now be starting item 10B, the introduction and intent to adopt an ordinance of the Napa County Board of Supervisors, State of California, amending the Napa County Code Section 17.17.020, approval of MAP and 17.17040, specific adverse impact of Chapter 17.7, urban lot splits of Title 17 subdivisions in Section 18. .104.440 two-unit developments of Chapter 18.104 additional zoning district regulations to bring the code into alignment with current state law regarding urban lot splits and two-unit developments. And I am opening the public hearing at this time. I welcome a staff report from Supervising Planner Trevor Hawks. Go ahead when you're ready.

Thank you, Chair, honorable members of the Board of Supervisors, Trevor Hawks. I'm presenting that I am today, which is a staff initiated an ordinance to amend county code in regards to sections for urban lot splits and two unit developments. The board previously adopted Ordinance 1495 in the summer fall of 2024, which adopted, amongst other things, provisions of SB 9 from 2021, which is in the government code, which required local jurisdictions to allow for in qualifying properties to go through two different processes, either an urban lot split or two unit development which is two primary units on a qualifying property The ordinance today would seek to update these code sections with state law that has been passed or legislations that's been passed since then that has updated these government code sections regarding Senate Bill 9 of 2021. So those are, you'll see in this draft ordinance, mainly three different types of edits that we've, or revisions that we are asking the board to consider. uh voting to adopt those are primarily around senate bill 450 from 2024 which enacted which was enacted to strengthen and clarify sb9 including adding a 60-day timeline limits on local standards and narrowing the local jurisdictions denial authority The draft ordinance also includes revisions with legislation AB 1061, which addressed historic resource exclusion within SB 9. And then there are some edits as well that update language to mirror SB 9 guidance from the State Department of Housing and Community Development. you'll be able to see this primarily in attachment c which goes through an executive summary of of the changes by different code sections we are asking in this draft ordinance you would amend chapter 1717 this chapter is primarily about urban lot splits and the amendments would update the time frame in which staff is required to approve a urban lot split application THE REQUIREMENTS THAT WE ARE REQUIRED TO GO THROUGH IF AN URBAN LOT SPLIT APPLICATION IS DENIED. IT NARROWS THE HISTORIC DISTRICT EXEMPTIONS AND ALSO REMOVES PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT FROM THE TYPES OF SEVERE ADVERSE SPECIFIC ADVERSE IMPACTS WHICH WOULD ALLOW THE LOCAL JURISDICTION TO DENY THE APPLICATION. AND THERE'S SMALL ADDITIONS AS WELL CONCERNING OBJECTIVE SUB DESIGN STANDARDS FOR THIS SECTION. Also, as well, this draft ordinance amends or seeks to revise Chapter 18-104-440, which covers our two-unit development section of the code. Similarly, what you would see with these revisions is an amendment to the timeframe in which a two-unit development application has to be approved, requirements if the application is denied. It narrows the historic district exemptions in the code or just in general. It removes the physical environment from the types of specific adverse impacts which would allow denial of the application, and it revises language concerning applicability of the environmental constraints to site eligibility for two unit development and urban lot splits. The board adopted the provisions of SB9 with Ordinance 1495, as I mentioned, in the summer-fall of 2024. That was a very large ordinance. It was our housing omnibus ordinance. I think it was about 72 pages. It had a lot in it, and so we didn't focus on one thing in particular. I've put this slide up here just to give the board some information of where uh we generally believe sb9 is applicable within the county um so what you're seeing here is in in general there's like five different categories of of where sb9 is applicable four of those five are within or adjacent to the city of napa and so what you'll find is any of our county island pockets that are in around the city of napa where they are um they have the uh Urban Reserve Compatibility District designation with them. Those are all going to be SB 9 eligible. There's a cluster along the south side of El Centro between the City of Napa and Big Ranch Road. A very large cluster bounded by, you know, in and around Monticello Road, Atlas Peak Road, Vichy Avenue and Hagen Road. A cluster in the Coombsville area, which is bounded by 1st Street, Coombsville Road, North Avenue, and 3rd Street. And then it's unfortunately not on this map. It's the only area where we have SB 9 eligible parcels, which is up in the Deer Park neighborhood as well. I do want to just mention and I have here on the slide that we our analysis says there's about 1531 parcels. What you're seeing here is eligibility based upon land use and general plan designation. So these are parcels that fall within the urban the US Census Bureau's urbanized area. area or shapefile, has the correct zoning, has the right general plan designation, and is the right size in order to go through a two-unit development or an urban lot split. The likely number that this applies to is probably lower than that because it does not take into account environmental constraints in the government code, which add an additional layer of what can be eligible for SB 9. And also, it doesn't take into account, for example, on-site wastewater configuration that may additionally make SB 9 applicability difficult for parcels. So that is my presentation. Staff's recommendation is that the board hold a public hearing discussion and vote on an intention to adopt the proposed ordinance. And I'm available for any questions. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you for that presentation. I will first welcome public comment. Is there anyone here today wishing to speak on this item? I'm not seeing anyone in the room. Is there anyone on the phones? No, okay, then I will close the public hearing and bring it back to the board for any questions related to this item. I see Vice Chair Alessio.

Yeah, just really quick, thank you for this presentation. And I'm wondering what the kind of the education outreach in terms of letting people know that this will likely pass here in just a minute, that this will pass, and how this will change development, housing development in these areas.

Thank you for the question, Supervisor Alessio. So the county has had, when SB 9 went into effect after legislative year 2021, we did have an initial map of Areas in the county that we thought were eligible for SB 9 and a general FAQ that was on the planning building and environmental services website with this update ordinance that we're bringing you today. Staff is making a push to you might have seen in slide 2 and 3. I believe it was some graphics. where we're going to update the informational website, update the map as well, because there's been some changes with the legislation has changed what can be eligible for SB 9, including the fact that the urbanized area Was updated with the 2020 census, which our old map is showing, I think, an earlier census on that. So we're going to be updating those. And what I'm hoping is that we can have that up to that website. So we'll update the website, the application. and a map of SB 9 eligible properties with some FAQs about that, hopefully before it goes into effect after the second, if the board votes to intend to adopt it, after the second adoption and I think the 30-day window when it would go into effect.

Okay. I guess I'm just going to ask that our public information department help get the word out because it's there to increase access to housing and, you know, housing of smaller size that could be more affordable for people. So that's all I ask. Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair Alessio. I see Supervisor Cottrell. And then after that, Supervisor Ramos.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you for the report. And it's actually great to have this item because, as you said, you know, the last time we looked at this, it was a component of a much larger package. And so appreciate the education here. And I'm thinking along the same lines as Supervisor Alessio, kind of how we get this information out to people. This was good news for me to understand that SB 9 applies to urbanized areas based on census blocks, not our sort of local zoning, even though it will ultimately match up because we're recognizing those as residential areas. So, yes, would love to see those updated maps and see the FAQ. And if there's a way we can help share that, I think that would be important, too. I guess one question I have about all of this stuff. One of the things we're learning kind of on the wildfire side of things is that risk increases when you have structures that are separate but close together. And so I'm sure there are other guidelines in here that we know that anything built post, what, 2008 also has to be up to current code. But it's great to see the drawings, but that's just something I was thinking about as well.

Thank you, Supervisor Cottrell. Supervisor Ramos?

Thank you. And I just have a general question. When looking at the redlined version, and I know that this probably has some overlap with the Subdivision Map Act, but there is a use of a phrase of urban lot split repeatedly throughout our redlined version. And it says urban lot split application and then urban lot splits. And it's starting on Section 17.17.020 and a few times throughout. And so my question is, why are we using that language since we do not have an urban designation? I don't necessarily see that it is tied to definitions within the Subdivision Map Act. So I'm confused. Why are we using urban lot split? Even though I understand urbanized as a different way of describing, but I am concerned that there is no definition of urban here in Napa County.

I think it's primarily been the name of that type of action within the code has been primarily chosen based upon that U.S. Census Bureau designation. review again what's in the government code for that specific section when it comes to the lot split and not the two-unit development, but that it was attributed because the primary overlay that decides where these are going to be identified is that urbanized area of the U.S. Census Bureau and then you know, outside of, and then the other layers that go into to, um, that, that decided, uh, with our zoning, our general plan, uh, the U S census Bureau, I, I can't, um, I don't know the white paper on how they make these urbanized area designations off the top of my head, but because many of those areas are adjacent to some type of public service, water, wastewater, something like that, I think it's primarily attributed to the U.S. Census Bureau designation.

And I understand that part. I guess I'm a little nervous for us in utilizing urban area and how that might conflict with our own zoning designations. Sure, thank you.

We adopted Ordinance 1495. Yeah. We added a new chapter on urban lot splits.

1717? Yeah, 010.

And that references Government Code Section 66411.7.

Which is the Subdivision Map Act.

Yes.

But the Subdivision Map Act does have references to urban. We do not. So I'm trying to reconcile, are we... What I don't want, I guess what I'm really, really afraid of here is if, in fact, we have a SB 9 lot split, and I'm just going to use the word lot split, an SB 9 lot split application that goes through, and that by virtue of us calling it an urbanized lot split, that we are then de facto agreeing to a different type of designation that is my concern here and so I'm in reading it and going and looking through the government code sections I'm not comfortable with that right now and I don't and I know we did that I know code section 1717 it does in fact have that but it doesn't comply with our own zoning designations So I would love some assurances somewhere that we're not finding ourselves in a situation where we are agreeing to an intensified use.

Right. We could potentially add something to the code section as part of these revisions to clarify that this is not a land use designation, or we could put it in the FAQs, but that is clearly the intent that this isn't changing the underlying land use designation, urban versus agriculture or what have you, it's more for a split of a parcel into two or more residential units is what the code defines. But I can see how that can be really confusing.

Yeah, and I think it would behoove us to actually include a further definition in the code that does not... that is using the parlance of the Subdivision MACT Act in urban designations to signify developed, right? Like, I think that that's the difference. You know, the Subdivision MACT Act is like, oh, it's developed, it's urban. Census is, it's urban, but... Urban has a designated use, and we're kind of allergic to that here in a lot of parts of Napa County. And so I would like some language that says we continue to be allergic to it, notwithstanding the fact that SB 9 gives rights to the property owners to subdivide. Could we do that? I believe so. I'm going to go ahead and make that as quasi-motion-ish. Unless staff feels like we need additional time in this, but I guess it feels a little too loose in the Subdivision Act how they are using urban to be very on par with land use designation.

We'll make that clarification. Okay.

Thank you, Supervisor Ramos. Anything else from my colleagues before I go ahead?

Yeah, I was just going to say, I think that makes sense to me that we could say where we have that definition of what an urban lot split is, we can also say what it is not. Yeah.

Thank you.

Okay, finding my own notes here. So I have a question, which is how does this interact with parcel size restrictions in the Ag Preserve and possibly in the Ag watershed and open space? Because you can't subdivide a parcel in some of our zones the way our zoning is written.

True. SB 9 would not be applicable in those general plan designations. So SB 9, it's a number of different layers in order to be eligible. You're looking at within the Census Bureau's urbanized area. Then it requires single family residential zoning, which is our RS. We identified as our RS and our RC zoning. We require that you have to be greater than 2,400 square feet because you can't make a – the government code doesn't allow you to make a parcel smaller than 1,200 square feet. And then several of the other factors is that you're not able to subdivide a property that is under Measure JP lands. Now, there are – if you look in the – There are some AR and AWOS lands that are not subject. It's very small slivers that are not subject to Measure J and P. Those theoretically, you know, maybe are potentially subject. But then there's also additional environmental constraints. One of the big ones is that prime farmland and farmland of statewide importance would also knock a property out from being eligible for an SB 9 lot split. So those are the primary. And then there's a number, you know, it's that government code section that goes through Uh, it's like B through it's 6, 5, 9, 1, 3.4, a B B through K, uh, which is the environmental constraints, uh, that are additionally, um, or remove eligibility from a parcel to subdivide. Uh, those are our primary, um, ways and, and what you'll see is that they actually, um, uh, knock a lot of parcels in the county out from eligibility with this.

Thank you. I have another question, and I apologize if I missed it in the text or if you already touched on it, but I just want to ask again for my own clarification. If there are service limitations on, say, septic service or water service or I heard you say groundwater deficient zone, and I know we have areas that are effectively on the edge of being a groundwater deficient zone that haven't been declared. You know, like what are kind of some of the, how do some of those specific considerations factor in?

Well, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of different factors into that. Obviously, if a parcel can connect to a public water or wastewater system, that makes an SB9 eligibility a lot easier. But that's not going to always be the case, and there are clearly parcels that meet the zoning requirements more. will maybe meet the environmental constraint requirements that will not be within areas where they can petition, you know, say Napa San or, you know, a local water provider to provide service to that site. You know, what we've seen, we've had about half a dozen applications for these, so we've learned some things through those applications. One of them is that the minimum parcel size WHILE THE GOVERNMENT CODE SAYS, WELL, WE CAN'T ALLOW IT TO SUBDIVIDE LESS THAN 1200 SQUARE FEET, WHAT YOU'LL FIND IS THAT IF IT'S A PARCEL THAT'S GOING TO USE ON-SITE WASTE WATER, YOU'RE GOING TO NEED TO BE LARGER THAN THAT GIVEN OUR SEPTIC SIZING REQUIREMENTS AND OUR RESERVE AREA REQUIREMENTS. THIS DOESN'T CIRCUMVENT THAT. THEY ARE STILL REQUIRED TO BE ABLE TO SHOW THAT THEY CAN, THAT THEY HAVE THE AVAILABLE SOILS, THAT THEY CAN put a septic system in and have the reserve system. So that, as I mentioned earlier, is going to be an additional constraint on that. And then we are continuing to try to apply our groundwater ordinance and our groundwater permitting for projects that come in. We are looking at bringing an ordinance in the future to update that with some of the housing laws that have gone into effect at the time so that these can continue to run, go through a ministerial process. The government code requires that we approve these ministerially based upon objective standards. And so I think my answer is that we're continuing to navigate that and to try to, where we can, make sure that we're applying the codes and regulations and policies in compliance with state law.

okay thanks um and then i'll just echo vice chair alessio's comments that um uh i am a little bit concerned about how much outreach may have been done or may have been missed with communities because i'm honestly really surprised we're not getting more comments on this at this stage and i know from door knocking that in parts of the areas that you showed as potentially uh you know being into consideration for this i have you know some constituents who are like i'd love to subdivide this parcel and they have neighbors who are like i absolutely don't want this to happen in my neighborhood so um you know i i i guess i just want to book note that i i foresee some potential conflict here and i am concerned about that um i don't know i mean what we're doing here is bringing this into alignment with state law and i don't know that we have much way around that but the thing we you know that i want to be sure that we're doing is communicating with residents so that this is not a shock to them and i think there may be a potential pathway to communication when properties are sold you know i i'm getting the sense that there's a lot of things that are not communicated on upon the sale of properties that would be a great benefit to out to incoming owners. And this could potentially be one of the things. So I don't know. I'm a little bit unsettled about it because I'm not hearing the public comment and so I can't respond to it not hearing it. But I think that said, we are bringing this into alignment with state rules. And I do believe staff has been pretty cautious in getting us to where we are. with the language. I noticed a couple items on page 306, items F and G, 306 of the packet for today. Let's see. And really item G, which is neither the owner of the parcel being, and this is previous language, so this is not new, but neither the owner of the parcel being subdivided or someone in affiliation with them. let's see, with the owners previously subdivided an adjacent parcel using an urban lot split as provided in this section. And there's no timeframe on that and it seems, I don't know, I mean, what is the goal of that? Is it just to prevent somebody from parcelizing one thing and then, you know, multiply, you know, breaking down the size of plots or like what's the, of parcels I should say? This is a very specific question, but I thought it was odd, and I also think it's odd that there's no timeframe on it because if somebody did it 50 years ago, I'm not sure if it's relevant anymore, but if it was two years ago, I'm sure it is.

I know the section. I'm trying to find it for the exact language, but I know the section because I remember talking with counsel as we were putting the original SB 9 provisions into Ordinance 1495. There isn't a time limit. What we brought to the board in summer, fall of 2024 was amongst everything that was in Ordinance 1495 was implementing SB 9 to the minimum standards required by the government code. And that one did have a section that says, I'm not going to say it verbatim because I'm trying to find it, but I don't remember is that, yeah, you're, you're, we're not supposed to allow somebody to subdivide one property and then subdivide the property next. So it has to be different ownerships. Clearly that's also difficult to enforce because you know, if they start to LLCs we might not be able to even know. So again, Um, it was, it was, uh, I remember talking about this is how do we actually enforce this? And it's, it's something that the legislature put in there. There's no timeframe on it.

Um, I can see a lot of end runs around it too. I mean, you could just transfer ownership or.

Yeah, that's, um, that is, that's possible. I, we remember hearing that, uh, talking about it and, uh, it's not something that's going to be necessarily, you know, easy to enforce should it, uh, be taking place.

I mean, that's basically title research at that point, which is, yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, okay. Well, given this discussion, let's see. Oh, I see Supervisor Cottrell. Did you have another?

No, but I'm ready to make a motion as to, I know this is a two-part process today, so I'll stand by for that.

Okay. So let's see. So I have a motion by supervisor. Wait. Sure. I'll go ahead and actually make that motion.

Yeah. Do you want to? I make the motion signaling our intent to adopt an ordinance of the Napa County Board of Supervisors amending Napa County Code Section 17.17.020 and 17.17.040. Okay. Thank you. And, sorry, Section 18104440 to bring the code into alignment with current state law regarding urban lot splits and two-unit developments. Perfect. Thank you.

I'll second that. And I assume that public hearing has already been closed.

Yes. Sorry. I'll modify as amended to include Supervisor Ramos' amendments.

Thank you. Okay. And I'll second that. Thank you. Okay. I have a first and a second. Is this a roll call vote? No. Okay. Well, then, all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Not seeing any. This passes unanimously. Thank you for bringing this to us today. All right. And that brings us to item 10c, adopting a resolution amending the temporary event fee schedule to update fee titles and descriptions and to uniformly apply flat and hourly fees consistent with the revised temporary event categories adopted under the amended Napa County Code Chapter 5.36, temporary events effective January 1st I would like to open the public hearing on item 10C. And I welcome a staff report from Charlene Galina, our supervising planner. And I see Michaela's joining us. Hello.

Good morning, Chair Manfrey and members of the board. The item before you today is a request for adoption of a resolution which would revise fee titles and delete fees found in the county fee policy manual. As proposed, the fee schedule for the PBS Department, the Fire Marshal's Office and the Public Works Department would be modified to reflect the newly adopted temporary event ordinance temporary event categories that you adopted this morning. Shown on this slide is the existing temporary event category fee schedules and hourly rates based upon our former fee schedule. The slide shows a mix of flat fee charges and hourly rates. As shown on this slide is the proposed fee schedule, which would align with the newly adopted categories. It should be noted that the fees themselves have already been established for cost recovery based on the 2024 fee study previously presented to the board. Based upon the new manual adopted, new temporary events manual adopted on September 15 by the board, It is intended to help applicants submit more complete applications from the onset. By providing applicants with clear requirements and tools, we anticipate reducing the amount of county staff time needed for review while also reducing the time and effort required of event organizers to respond to requests for additional information. And this reflects the new categorized The category 2A, 2B is a flat rate, and as you could see, if not needed, then we wouldn't refer the application to those agencies. And then the category 3, 4, 5, and 6 would be hourly, and it reflects existing hourly rates of today. At this time, Staff is requesting the board conduct a public hearing on this item, conduct board discussion, and adopt the resolution, including Exhibit A in your staff report. And please note that this resolution will be effective on January 1, 2027, along with the amendments to the Temporary Event Ordinance and Updated Event Manual. This concludes my presentation. We're available to answer any questions that you have on this item.

Thank you. Great. Thank you for that presentation. I know we have discussed this at length on previous meetings. Is there any public comment on this item here in the room today? Not seeing anyone. Is there anyone on the phones? No? Okay. I think we have discussed it fully then at previous meetings. And at this time, I will close the public hearing and I will ask for any questions from my colleagues on the board related to this item. I am not seeing any. Again, discussed very thoroughly on previous occasions. May I have a motion and a second to adopt the resolution? So moved. Okay. Second. Okay. I have a motion by Supervisor Gallagher to adopt our resolution amending our temporary event fee schedule. No deliberations. Then second? Oh, Supervisor Cottrell seconded and I missed it. Sorry. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

None.

So this is adopted. Thank you for all your hard work on this. It's been a long time in the making, so much appreciated. All right. We are at item 10D, adopt a resolution adjusting rates effective October 1st, 2026 for the residential and commercial operation all costs associated with the collection of solid waste, recyclables, green waste and food waste applicable to the unincorporated area of garbage zone one, a service which is provided by Napa County Recycling and Waste Services LLC. I would like to open the public hearing on item 10D and I welcome the staff report from our director of public works. Mr. Lederer, when you're ready.

Yep. Thank you, Chair Manfrey, members of the board. Very good timing. So this, I can try and make this pretty quick. Chair actually covered most of the key background here. Napa County Recycling and Waste Services is our franchised hauler for Zone 1 garbage recycling and compost. Zone 1 is essentially the unincorporated county south of Yountville. On an annual basis, they are authorized to submit for a rate increase, which is primarily driven by, frankly, by external factors. The factors include the CPI, which in this case is 2.5%. but then also the costs of the company for getting rid of different waste streams. So there's the tipping fee at the Devlin Road Transfer Station, which is where the solid waste goes, and then also for factors such as the carpet tip fee, the food, tip fee, green waste tip fee, all of which went up. But also factored in is the cost that we pay to get rid of recycling. In the past year, that was actually a cost. This year, it's actually a credit. due to the improvement in the recycling market. There is a fair amount of swing in that, although we are working with the city, actually starting this year, to do that on a three-year average. So it's a little flattened. By comparison, The charge for a 35-gallon can in Zone 1 will be $49.10 a month. That compares to the city of Napa, which is $47.17, so it's a little more, or $60.90 for the up valley. unincorporated. Those differences are primarily driven by a lot of different factors, but distance is actually probably the biggest one. Obviously, in the city of Napa, you can serve two dozen people by driving down one street, whereas in parts of the unincorporated, there's a lot more spread there. So the net requested increase is actually just is under 1%. It's about a half a percent. And we are recommending that the board approve that.

OK. Thank you so much for clarifying and presenting on this item. Is there anyone here today from the public wishing to speak? I am not seeing anyone. Is there anyone on the phones? No. OK. Then we will close the public hearing. And I bring it back to the board for any questions. I am not seeing any questions. May I have a motion to adopt the resolution? So moved. Second. I have a motion by Supervisor Alessio and a second by Supervisor Cottrell to adopt a resolution adjusting rates effective October 1, 2026 for residential and commercial costs associated with the collection of solid waste, recyclables, green waste, and food waste in the unincorporated area of Napa County Garbage Zone 1. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? None. That passes unanimously. Thank you, Director Lederer.

Thank you.

And that is the conclusion of our morning items. We have a timed item at 2 p.m. this afternoon, which will be receiving and filing the 2026 Napa County Baseline Data Report update. And I look forward to that reconvening this meeting at 2 p.m. to continue. But at this time, you are all welcome to take a lunch. All right, we are returning to our meeting of September 15th, 2026, and we are now on item 11a, administrative items. We will receive and file prospectively the 2026 Napa County baseline data report update and receive a presentation to launch the countywide general plan update and provide direction regarding the project priorities and the community engagement approach. I welcome a staff report from our director of planning, building and environmental services, Brian Bordona.

Good afternoon chair and members of the board. This item represents an important milestone for the county. Today we are asking the board to receive and file the 2026 baseline data report update and more importantly to formally launch the next phase of the countywide general plan update. The baseline data report gives us the technical foundation for that work. It provides a comprehensive look at how NAPA has changed since the last baseline was prepared roughly 20 years ago, including changes to land use and agriculture, housing and the economy, water and other natural resources, climate, wildfire risk, public health infrastructure, and transportation. The BDR itself is not a policy document. It's intended to establish a common set of facts and help us understand where we are today. The general plan is where we begin the conversation about where we want to go from here. And that's really the focus of today's discussion. We are at the very beginning of what will be a multi-year process. And before we begin broad community engagement, we want to make sure we have a clear understanding of the board's priorities and the issues you believe should help frame that conversation. Staff has proposed five initial priorities that build directly from the board's adopted strategic initiatives, preserving our agricultural legacy and rural economy, building healthy, connected communities, and meeting housing needs, strengthening environmental stewardship, climate resilience, and water security, aligning growth with infrastructure and community capacity, and modernizing the general plan while making public engagement meaningful and transparent. We are not asking the board to make policy decisions today. Rather, we are looking for your initial direction on whether these are the right priorities to begin the process and whether there are other issues we should be considering. We're also looking for your feedback on our proposed community engagement approach. A central goal is to make this a process where people can meaningfully participate. Equally important, can see how what we hear from the community influences the recommendations and decisions that follow. With that, I'm going to turn to the presentation. We'll begin with a brief overview of the baseline data report, and that's going to be presented by Shannon Wages, who is attending virtually. We'll then transition into the general plan, and that'll be presented by Matt Ramey and Ron Washington. With that, I'll turn it over to Shannon.

Thanks, Brian. So I'm just going to begin with a brief overview of the baseline data report, or BDR, if you want to go to the next slide. All right, so the BDR report is the technical foundation for the general plan, as Brian mentioned, specifically for the general plan, as well as the associated environmental impact report for the general plan. But more broadly, it also serves as a neutral baseline data set to support ongoing decision-making in the county. So any planning, permitting, and environmental review processes can use this document as a technical resource. While the BDR does not set policy or provide policy recommendations, It does provide the existing conditions, the key trends and major changes since the county's 2005 BDR, which will support policy development during the general plan process. The BDR includes 22 topical chapters organized into four themes so land use and agriculture, community and public health, environmental resources and infrastructure and mobility. And the report focuses primarily on unincorporated Napa County while also providing regional and municipal context where it helps to explain, you know, county-wide conditions within a given topic. Next slide, please. All right. So the BDR was developed through a very structured process that combined robust technical synthesis, extensive public input, and the identification of community priorities. The technical synthesis involved data collection and analysis GIS mapping review of prior plans and programs and coordination across local regional state and federal data sources for each topic. Public engagement was also central to the process we held three rounds of Community workshops each, followed by shared summary notes and presentations. We held a series of technical focus group meetings that engaged more than 100 subject matter experts. We held targeted outreach to individual stakeholders. We also had a formal public review comment period. And throughout the process, we also received ongoing questions and comments via the BDR email address. So altogether, we heard from hundreds of residents, organizations, community leaders, agencies, and technical experts and we factored all of their input into the BDR. The input we received really helped shape the BDR by ensuring that the data reflects both existing conditions on the ground as well as community priorities. And the themes that we heard most consistently included, you know, protecting agriculture and rural character, addressing housing affordability, preparing for climate and wildfire risk, protecting environmental and scenic resources and improving mobility and access to public services. Next slide. All right, so the next few slides just highlight selected findings from the BDR. These are not intended to summarize every chapter, but they do illustrate some of the most important changes and cross-cutting themes since the 2005 BDR. So let's go to the next slide. Okay, so one of the clearest changes since 2005 is that the county has moved from projecting conditions to more actively measuring and managing them. So in other words, in 2005, the county had less complete information and fewer formal management frameworks. So it often had to estimate future risks or conditions and plan more generally. Today, the county has many more tools and resources to increasingly measure current conditions track trends over time and manage conditions more effectively toward defined targets. And this slide just gives a few examples. So in 2005, the county did not have a groundwater sustainability plan, which it has today. And the county had more limited information about water quality conditions. And today there are established targets and monitoring that can show whether conditions are actually improving. The county did not have a countywide greenhouse gas inventory, and there was no formal vulnerability assessment in 2005. Today, the county has a countywide admissions inventory and climate vulnerability mapping, as well as the regional climate action and adaptation plan that is nearing adoption. So these are just a few examples of how the county now has more planning tools in place to measure and track progress over time. Next slide. right so another major shift is that climate change is now the foundational driver shaping conditions across nearly every topic of the bdr in 2005 climate was addressed much more narrowly but today the impacts of climate extend far beyond the physical environment climate affects housing stability it affects workforce and farm worker conditions and the county's most vulnerable communities but the county does have Much better the county is much better position to act on this information, the bdr documents, a growing framework of plans and tools across many topics that address climate change. I mentioned a few of these in the previous slide the groundwater sustainability plan with annual monitoring. adopted total maximum daily loads related to water quality, the regional climate action and adaptation plan, as well as 20 plus Community wildfire protection plans. And all of these are in place to see measurable improvements in water quality and air quality, community health and safety, evacuation planning, emissions reduction, fuel reduction, and state and federal funding eligibility, just to name a few. All right, next slide. Okay, so the BDR also shows the continued importance and effectiveness of Napa County's land conservation and agricultural preservation tools. So as a result of county efforts over the past two decades parks and public open space increased by approximately 36% and almost 50,000 acres moved to permanent protected open space. And that reflects land protected through public parks through deed restrictions conservation easements and acquisitions by by public agencies and conservation partners. At the same time, population and housing growth has remained focused primarily in incorporated Napa and American Canyon. Agricultural lands remain protected through measures J and P, as well as Williamson Act contracts, and agricultural production remains economically strong. Wine grape production value surpassed a billion dollars in 2024, which is nearly triple the value reported in 2005. Next slide. Alright, so this slide just highlights several findings across the economy, environmental justice, and transportation. The BDR includes the county's first environmental justice analysis since the passage of SB 1000. The BDR identified seven census tracts and 12 block groups in unincorporated areas with disproportionately high cumulative environmental impacts. As far as economic growth, The wine industry generated an estimated 11.7 billion in total local economic impact in 2022 that's up about 25% since 2016. and remains a major driver of county wide employment so roughly 72% and that's just looking at the growth of industries connected to the wine industry. On climate and energy, countywide greenhouse gas emissions declined 27% between 2005 and 2019, largely supported by a shift toward carbon-free electricity. And then transportation patterns are also changing. So the share of commutes by personal vehicle declined from 88% in 2013 to 81% in 2023. Remote work has increased in the county, and the new Vision Zero and active transportation planning frameworks are now in place. Next slide. We are very excited to share two digital resources that support the BDR. So the first is the Executive Summary Story Map. The story map really helps make the document more accessible to the public. It translates each of the complex technical chapters into reader-friendly narratives. It highlights the key conclusions from each chapter. It summarizes trends across the four thematic areas. It includes maps and images throughout. So the public can review this summary and get an idea of what the main issues are that we'll carry forward into the general plan update. And the story map also links directly to the full technical chapters within each topic. readers can get an overview of the topic and they can also easily access the chapter from the executive summary so. The second resource is the bdr explorer, which is a gis based application that provides public access to the spatial data sets used in the report so, unlike the bdr, which is a point in time snapshot. The Explorer is really intended to function as a living tool that can be updated over time and connected to the county's GIS open data hub. So as new data layers become available, county GIS can periodically do an update to the Explorer and those updates will help track change over time moving forward. You can also access the full BDR document and the executive summary story map from the BDR Explorer homepage. I'm now going to turn it over to Andy Eman from County GIS. He's going to give us a live demo of the BDR Explorer to kind of show us some of the features and the capabilities. So I'll pass it over to Andy.

Hey, good afternoon, everybody. Thank you, Shannon. So I'm going to share my screen here and do a quick live demo of the BDR Explorer. All right. So what we're looking at here is the digital companion to the BDR report, and this is the BDR Report Explorer. This is the home page where you can navigate to all the other components, the executive summary story map, as well as the data lookup GIS application. So I'm going to quickly highlight our executive summary, which is a fully scrollable story map. It breaks it down by sections here and the chapters and you can go directly to any number of these tabs and takes you to that section for details. Let's say your land use section and quickly jump to these different topics where you can find those key findings and scroll through and visualize some of that data in the map where these key findings were where they came from and what their data-driven insights are from. And it's, like Shannon said, it's a very accessible and interactive way to view a lot of the BDR data and insights. Just kind of show that a little bit here. You can see, as you scroll, the dynamic maps on the right show the different applicable layers that were used in the BDR. And if you want to go a little bit further and explore this data at your own leisure, there's a really neat tool, the data lookup tool over here on the right. So I'll jump to that and I'm actually going to share a quick video for that. So this is what the default look is of the BDR lookup tool. And as you can see, the layers showcase on the right hand side and you have your legend there on the left. And one of the best features of this whole application is the flexibility and the dynamic nature of it. And so as you can see in the map layers, there are about 100 layers. They're grouped to follow the BDR's chapters and sections and really kind of put the themes of the data into easily findable categories. And if you can't find a layer or if you're looking for a particular data set, you can search for it up here. at the top of the map layer section. And for example, something like land use, you can try a couple different methods. And you can see land use is its own section there with the space. And it shows you the keyword search results there. So there are three different layers. Each named one is at the top there, our primary land use. And at the bottom is our 2006 original BDR land use layer. And so by default, these layers are ordered here. but they can be moved around, placed one on top of the other, or in any order that you find to your liking. And by doing that, you know, you can really start doing some comparisons, either turning layers on and off with these overlays, or even going into the transparency. And this is, I think, a really neat way to visualize this at a countywide scale or really at any scale. And so you can see I'm putting the 2006 original land use layer to 100%, which makes the below layer there, the primary land use from the 2026 PDR, more visible.

If I'm going to, I'm sorry, Mr. Eamon, I'm going to ask you to pause for just a moment because the slides aren't advancing on our side, I don't think. Yeah, it's been the same slide for a few minutes.

okay um i'm not i don't think it's a slide are you guys seeing the the video screen no yeah you have two tabs open and we see the one on the right and the one on the left is spinning okay okay hold on one second let me get that going

Andrew, this is Neha. I'm going to have you stop sharing your screen. I'm going to play the video on my end and just tell me what I need to do. It's going to do the voiceover.

Okay. Yeah, it should be all the same.

All the same. Okay. Can you stop sharing? Thank you. I need to move the video to the other screen.

Thank you for being flexible.

Sorry about that.

No problem. I think I shared the wrong window.

It's our backup to the backups.

Welcome to the Baseline Data Report Explorer. I'm going to demo a couple quick tools on the data lookup component of this application. And just to jump right in, we've got about 100 plus layers. They can be kind of hard to find. They were all named differently and are grouped by the categories that you see here on the map layers. This follows the reports, sections, and chapters. And you can search for a given layer, like let's say land use, for example. Nothing comes up, but if I give it a space, land use, You can see it's in the land use section, which is its own, and it's got three different kinds of layers that contain the word land use. So I'm just going to turn a couple of these on, and we'll see what those look like. So primary existing land use is our 2026 version, and then we have a 2006 version from the previous BDR. And one is on top of the other by default, but you can move these around and explore at your leisure that way. Neat little way to overlay and change things. You can also use the three dots right here to open the transparency and tweak some of that. So for 2006, I'm going to slide this all the way to 100. You can see that it now is so transparent that the layer underneath comes through. And I can do just some visual comparisons this way, which is a really neat way to explore the data changes over time for these particular layers. I'm going to keep both of these on and I'm going to jump over to the swipe tool, which is another fantastic way to do some comparisons. I'm going to put on, first I'm going to turn on the swipe. It gives you this little bar here. And then by default, there's a left side layers, which is going to be on the left side of your screen across the bar, and then right, the right side. So if I consider the left side being after and the right side being before, this is the default setup. I'm going to pick land use, which is one of those default layers here. And for my after, I'm going to use the existing land use because that is what is current. And I'm going to flick off the 2006 version. But I do want the 2006 to be on my other side here. So I'm going to turn off the primary existing land use and turn on. You can see that the toggling of the visibility and enabling it on the swipe for that section sort of mirrors each other. So make sure you've got these configured correctly. It's a little tricky to know, but once you get used to it, it's alright. So from there I'm going to do a quick slide and you can see that the areas change. And if I zoom in just a little bit, you can see that even more. This also works by just panning around on the map. You can kind of see areas that have changed. There you go. That's a comparison of land use.

Would you like the next video? That's good? Okay. Okay. And do we finish the video?

Yeah, if you want to play the land cover in Wildfire one, that would be the next one.

We're having a hard time hearing the audio on the... On Zoom? On Zoom. I don't know if you guys can hear it. I'm assuming you can hear it.

We can hear you, yeah. Let me play with the sound real quick. You're having a hard time hearing when we talk or the video?

No, the video narrative.

Okay. I'm going to try the second video just to start it.

Given the technical difficulties, I think we're going to go ahead and just move to the GPU section. Let's skip the video. Yeah, we're getting texts that everybody that's online can't hear anything. Okay. So we're, yeah. And I'm sorry I introduced Ron as Ron Washington. I'm sorry. I have baseball playoffs on my brain. His last name is actually Whitmore. I apologize for that. An even better baseball player, apparently.

Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Matt Ramey with ALTA Planning and Design. It's nice to see you all again to really fully now kick off the general plan update. When we were last year, we were still talking about the scope. and getting things in order. And now we're really ready to go. So it's really an exciting time. As Brian mentioned earlier, what we want to do is give you an overview of the general plan process and the engagement and some of our thinking on the engagement, as well as get some feedback now that we're really at the beginning of the process of what are the major topics and things that are on your mind. So this is really an opportunity for you all to give us feedback of anything about what you see as the ideal success or issues or topics that you think we should be addressing in the general plan. So could we get the slides back up? I had it on my screen, but I'm not looking at the same thing. Apologies. Okay, so let's start with the basics. I know most people know what this is, but we're going to start with what is a general plan. The general plan is a long-term policy document that is designed to inform future planning and policy decision-making over the next 20 to 30 years. It really is a roadmap for the success of the county, and it has several real components to it. One is to envision what the future will look like for the next 20 to 30 years. The second is to make sure that the document and the policy is preserving the values about the county that people like. The values, the physical characteristics, everything. It's really important to acknowledge what those things are. what those are and then to make sure that they're being preserved in the general plan. And then because no place is perfect, we know that there's challenges. There's challenges now and there's challenges that we know we're going to be addressing in the future. And so we want to identify what those challenges are and develop policy and regulatory approaches in order to address those challenges. The existing county general plan was adopted in June of 2008 and includes the chapters that you see up here. There are a number of chapters that were actually adopted and updated since the June 2008 full comprehensive update. Circulation in 2019, housing and safety in 2023. So this document is a starting point for all of the work that we're doing. We don't start with a blank slate because you already have a lot of policy. You already have a lot in this plan that's really good, particularly circulation, housing, and safety, which are the most recent. So we're definitely going to start with what you have now and then build on that rather than starting from scratch. So there's the question, since you already have a general plan and there's a lot in the plan that's already really good, why are we actually updating the general plan now?

This is a big effort.

So why is this happening? There's a couple of reasons for this. The first is that state law requires periodic updates for the general plan to remain legally compliant. General plans are usually around for about 20 years as sort of their lifespan, and we are approaching that. And by 2028, which is sort of the expected timeframe of this general plan, the current general plan will be about 20 years old. The second is that there have been some major state regulatory changes that have occurred since 2008. A lot has happened in actually the last five to 10 years. And since that time, there's been 250 plus new laws and regulations that relate almost directly or very closely tied to the topics in the general plan. So there's a lot of new information. For example, environmental justice is one of those topics. that it's something new that we have to address now. And so we want to make sure that your plan is legally compliant with all of the state laws and regulations. And then the third is that the county's economic, social, and environmental conditions have changed in the last 20 years. There's some things that are the same, and there's some things that are different. And we want to make sure that with those changes that the policy, the vision, and the regulations are in lockstep with what those changes that have happened over the last 20 years, as well as the changes that we expect to happen over the next 20 years. So our approach... for the general plan update was really based on a lot of the conversations that we had with the community during the bdr process as well as with the board of supervisors at our two meetings that we had with you i believe it was in december and then again in april if i remember correctly the times So what we want to make sure we're doing in our general plan update approach is to coordinate regional planning efforts. There's been a lot of efforts that have been going on and the county is not isolated and in a vacuum. So we need to make sure that we're coordinating all of those efforts across all of the topics that we're looking at. We want to build on the BDR findings and data. A lot of work has been done, as you have seen, with the BDR, and we want to make sure we're building on those findings because there's a lot of really detailed conclusions and information that will go into help setting the policy and regulations in the general plan. There is a desire to honor longstanding commitments within the county, existing regulations and policies that we want to make sure are embedded into the general plan. The general plan should be modernized and updated. There's been a lot of technology changes, a lot of changes in how sort of people interact with data and interact with information, and it's really important that the updated general plan reflect those changes about how people interact with information to make sure it's really easy to use and understandable. We want to have a holistic participatory health and all policies approach. And this is a topic that's come up multiple times with this board. And it's also, you know, in addition to being partially requirement with SB 1000 and environmental justice, it's also looking more broadly at health and the causes of health impacts in the community and disparities in health. Climate change, as was mentioned with the BDR, is another really important topic, and we need to plan for a changing climate. And then we want to use the technical analysis and community input to evaluate different trade-offs. There is no one path. There's no one direction that the county can go from here. There are choices, and part of our job is to help walk through those choices with you all, with the community, to make sure that there are data-informed decisions that are being made throughout the process. This slide shows the stages of the general plan update. You can see we have really six main stages of the update. The project launch, which is really what we're sort of just initiating now. We then move into visioning. The third step is the policy alternatives, which are physical alternatives as well, like land use alternatives, as well as just policy decisions we have to make. Once we have that sort of broad direction, we set the policy. We do policy development and come up with detailed policies. We then draft the general plan and the EIR, and then we go through the review and adoption process. it's important to note that um throughout this six step process we're going to be coming back to the board of supervisors for input at key stages and this um this slide shows you what were the topics of where we're going to be coming back so again you have in sort of the light blue you have the six stages of the process and then in the dark blue you have the five points at which we're going to come back to the board of supervisors Today's meeting is the shared project priorities. We're going to come back again to confirm the community vision that is being developed or will be developed. The third time will be to establish the plan direction with the policy alternatives and the high-level policies. We'll come back for the draft general plan and EIR to get feedback on that as it is a public draft. And then we will have the hearings, the public hearings for adoption. So there'll be multiple opportunities to come back to this body and get feedback. Brian mentioned earlier that one of our starting points for thinking about the future is the strategic initiatives that this body created. And they're listed here of healthy, connected communities, environmental sustainability and resilience, agricultural legacy, county service and workforce excellence, and then values of inclusivity, collaboration, stewardship, access, and data-informed decision-making. What we did, as Brian mentioned earlier, is that we identified, we took these strategic initiatives and created some initial priorities for us as a starting point. So essentially based on the work that you all have done, this is a translation of those ideas into more sort of general plan direction language. And they're written here, but it's to preserve the agricultural legacy and a resilient rural economy, to build healthy, connected communities and meet housing needs, to strengthen environmental stewardship, climate resilience, and water security, to align growth with infrastructure services and community capacity, and to modernize the general plan and make engagement transparent. Again, this is really a starting point, and we would love some feedback from you all on whether this is the right direction, if there's anything really to add to this. So again, when we get to our discussion and feedback, what we would like is given these proposed general plan update priorities, do they align with the initiatives and are there additional or alternative priorities that the updated general plan should address? And if so, what are those? And then sort of related to that, are there specific issues, topics, opportunities, or challenges that are not included that we haven't mentioned that should also be a focus of the general plan? Again, this is a little bit of a blue sky exercise where we really want your feedback and your ideas broadly so that we can incorporate that right at the ground floor of this process. Now I want to take a minute and talk about broadly the engagement approach, and then I'm going to turn it over to Ron Whitmore to talk about the next three months, the first phase of our work. So the engagement principles are something that we have talked about multiple times with this body, and it's, of course, a very important component of this general plan and every general plan. There are three broad categories of our principles for engagement. The first is to be transparent, responsive, and accountable. And that includes ongoing two-way dialogue, having a clear purpose and intent for the engagement, and making sure that we're doing some reflective listening and tell people, reflect back what we heard throughout the process and build on that as we're going along. The second is to have an open, accessible, and inclusive process. So that means that there's going to be multiple pathways for input. Different people want to engage at different levels of detail and in different ways. People learn differently, people engage differently. We want to make sure that the process actually has those multiple ways for people to engage. We want to adopt strategies to communities that historically participate less in the process, and so that is going to be really addressed right from the beginning. We want to remove barriers to participation. We want to make it easy for people to participate in the way that they want to participate. We want to have flexible meetings, meeting times, locations, modes, and structures, use plain language. We're going to have materials in Spanish and have simultaneous interpretation. And we're going to have professional facilitation and deep listening at those meetings. The third engagement principle is to be that our work will be informed by experience and expertise. So we're going to have a focus on topics that really directly affect residents and allow people to come in and talk about those topics which are most important to them. There's going to be health and all policies approach. We're going to hear community knowledge and expertise and sort of that lived experience is going to be really important to our process. And we have tools set up in order to do that. We're going to have opportunities for focused technical input. And then of course, there's going to be interagency coordination because that is important. Again, it is the full county's general plan. It is not just one department or one agency. We have developed a variety of outreach and communication tools that we're going to be using throughout the process, or we will be developing these tools. We're going to have branding, including a logo. We're going to connect to the Napa County website so that people can find out about the process through the county website. We're going to have subscriber email a database, a fact sheet and newsletter that will be sent out, flyers that will be sent out and posted throughout the county, social media. media releases and ads. And so, again, we think about this as there's really two components of the broad program that we're doing. One is to reach out and communicate to people, and the other is to engage them in the process and engage them in the discussion. These are the outreach and communication tools. The next is how do we engage people? And we have a variety of ways to engage people in the process, including direct outreach, sorry, initial direct outreach, which is something that came out of our first meeting with you all, which is kind of a blast of focused engagement efforts with the community. We're going to have ongoing stakeholder meetings, topic-specific workshops, which is something we can talk about in a little bit more detail. later on, the public agency working groups. We're going to connect to the Napa County website. We're going to have community workshops, online surveys, and then planning commission workshops. There's lots of ways that we're going to engage with the community in the process. And then we're going to target these different phases of these different types of engagement for the different phases of work. So that early on, project launch and visioning, it's going to be much more focused on the sort of the broad community because it's the easiest for people to engage in those questions. And then as we move forward, it's going to be more focused and more detailed. And so this graphic shows our preliminary approach for how each type of engagement is going to occur for those six phases of the process. I'm now going to turn it over to Ron, who is going to talk about the initial outreach activities.

Thank you, Matt. I'll just put it closer. Is that okay? Thank you, Matt. Good afternoon, supervisors. I'm Ron Whitmore. I'm not a baseball player, much too small for that, but luckily there aren't any size requirements for professional planners. I'm a principal with Aalto Planning and Design based out of its Northern California office. as matt noted there'll be extensive community engagement conducted in the coming months largely as a result of previous input that you provided into the general plan update process first thing we're going to do is in coordination with your very fantastic county communications team establish the foundations for the project's community outreach and communications as matt noted we really kind of see these both as a in two parts there's we need to very effectively and regularly communicate with people about how they can get involved, make sure they understand we're out in the planning process, but then also engage them in a meaningful way. And so we want to, before we start with the engagement, establish those outreach and communications foundations. That will include preparing project branding and templates, publishing a project fact sheet that will give a basic GP 101 and let people help you understand what to expect throughout the phases of the project, We'll begin building a stakeholder database that will continue to update throughout the general plan process. We'll set up a comment tracking database so that we're sure to capture all the comments received and use that same database to track responses to comments. We will launch the Connect Napa County website, which is a very powerful tool, not just to provide people information, but to engage them in two-way communication during a planning process. And then once that all is set up, we'll do a coordinated kind of announcement of the general plan update, including likely things like a media release, an email blast, articles in various newsletters, and other communications. Thank you. So then we'll kick off, as Matt mentioned, that initial round of deep engagement. The purpose is threefold. One is to inform community members about the purpose and value of the general plan and how it will impact their lives. We'll then ask them about the best ways to engage them throughout the process. As Matt noted, People have different ways of getting information, different ways of providing input. We want to make sure we understand what those preferred modes are so that we can, throughout the process, meet them where they are and make it very easy for them to stay informed and provide meaningful input. And then finally, as a means of establishing that clear foundation of vision, values, and guiding principles for the entire general plan, we're going to begin asking people about those things that they want to make sure are preserved and protected, get a sense for the challenges that people face, so that we can be sure to address them in the general plan update, and then get very clear on the preferred future that people have for Napa County, what they really want to see as outcomes that the general plan should deliver for them 20, 30 years down the road. So we will take a meet people where they are approach, including attending community events, going to events that people are participating in as part of their regular life, whether that's booze at local festivals, attending health and wellness fairs, going to school board meetings, whatever the case may be. Go to where people are instead of asking them to come to one of our events. Likewise, meet directly with community-based organizations, industry groups, and other stakeholders. Also, engage people where they spend time. That could be, quote unquote, third places in the community. It could also be online, where people spend their time online through social media and other means. And then we'll also work with each of your offices to arrange town halls in each district and make sure that we're coordinating with you to make sure we know when the best times, locations are to do that and use that as a means to also engage folks on a district-wide basis. During this period, it's not on the slide, but we'll also be kicking off the POG, the Public Agency Working Group that Matt mentioned, as well as the initial two rounds of the topic-specific workshops. When we complete all that, we will then prepare an initial draft of the community vision plan, taking all that data that we collected about values and vision. And then we will use a countywide workshop and a countywide survey to get input on those drafts and then bring a revised draft based on that feedback to you for confirmation. That would be that second board meeting that Matt noted earlier. We'll also use this initial engagement to inform the development of a more robust community engagement plan. We find it very useful to first engage people and hear about their preferences for how to be communicated with and how to participate before we finalize some of the engagement details. We want to use part of this initial engagement to really understand what's going to be the most effective way to keep people informed and then reflect that in a more detailed engagement plan. And so this kickoff is a fantastic time to check in with you for your input and feedback. With that in mind, we'd love to know if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for ensuring that we provide meaningful, inclusive opportunities for the entire Napa County community to get involved and stay involved in the general plan update. And I believe I'm at this point turning it back over to Brian.

Yes, so just to reiterate the actions before you one is to receive and file the updated baseline data report as well as receive feedback Of course chairs prerogative if we want to go in deliberations now or take public comment first I would prefer to go to public comment first.

Okay, sounds good So at this time There's a lot of paper in front of me. Okay, there we go. So this time I welcome public comment. Is there anyone present in the room today wishing to speak on this topic being outreach and communication elements of our general plan going forward?

Welcome. Good afternoon. Kelly Anderson in Angwin. I was around last time 20 years ago. We filled the Chardonnay Hall. We filled the auditorium at the Napa High School. We filled the fireside room in Angwin. Overflow crowds attending everywhere. And Hillary Gettleman was the planning director at that time. And I must say, she was very charismatic. And she had the skills to bring people out and engage them. And I want to be hopeful, but when we start this process by someone, hi, Shannon, who we don't know where she is, who she is, on a Zoom call where we can't really even reach out, that's not a great start. We have to have a person in the room. And I would like to say this young lady right here, Christina Adamson, or that gentleman over there, Michael Parker, could be the face of every single meeting where you had a human that you could count on to be there. I think that's really important as we become more and more automated in these processes. I just want to say that I'm going to talk about the BDR really quickly. I wanted to make sure that there were no opinion or judgment words as to whether a policy or any particular data was valuable. I did see judgment words in there, like I just think that should be reviewed. It was very difficult during the BDR process, we saw that again today, that there are multiple platforms that you have to be able to access in order to read the data or provide comment. And if you're an old person like me with an out of date platform, you can't get there. Obviously we're not gonna go back, there was tons of time spent into developing that, but I do want you to know that it does exclude people from commenting. I do want to comment on one more thing in the BDR. It mentions, and Amber and I were at a meeting where this was a topic, those maps about farmlands, prime farmlands, unique local farmlands. I want to make sure that those are maps that we all agree on and understand because in the last general plan we spent a lot of time arguing about those maps. I'm not even sure I know what I'm talking about. But those maps were controversial and they were not helpful and they look to have been brought forward at the last BDR meeting. So maybe somebody could check into that. When the discussion about timber harvest conversion, THP, THC, three acre or less exemptions, it only references Board of Forestry policy. But I do believe the county has some jurisdiction and some policies in the conservation regulation. that are important to timber harvest conversions, and I think there should be reference. Lastly, where are you going to meet people? The laundromats, soccer games, food banks, food trucks, and churches. You have to get out there and be on the ground. Most people can't even read a newspaper anymore. Thank you.

Thank you for those incredibly insightful comments. Welcome. Anyone from the audience, please come on up.

Hi, I'm Michelle Benvenuto, wine growers of Napa County. We support the general plan update and want it built on solid ground. We're also grateful for Christina Adamson who led this effort. She is incredibly responsive and worked hard to incorporate not only our comments, but the community's comments. But this is why there's one resolved item that stands out. Let's start, though, with what the data shows, because it's good news. The BDR confirms Napa's land use framework is working. Vineyard growth was below projections. Less than 2% of ag land has changed use in 30 years. 94% of the county remains in ag watershed and open space. That is a proven foundation the update should build on. On the priorities before you today, we encourage preserving NAPA's ag legacy in a resilient rural economy. And our comment letter details how a program level EIR could have a real effect on this. But those priorities must be built on an accurate BDR. And there's one place it's not. The vegetation and tree canopy mapping still relies on 2016 imagery. This predates the 2017 and 2020 wildfires, as well as the recovery thereafter. A report whose purpose is to document existing conditions cannot rest on 10-year-old data. And here's our frustration. This isn't a case where that data doesn't exist or is too costly. The imagery is free and available. We identified five data sets that staff confirmed they have in hand, but they need time to process it into an updated layer. We know it takes staff time, but this should be a priority. The BDR draws on current data throughout. Vegetation appears to be the lone exception and it is hard to think of a layer more central to a baseline than an accurate picture of a landscape reshaped by wildfire. We ask the board to direct staff to update this. And this is bigger than just one map. The tree canopy issue reveals a gap. The county acknowledges the 26 data is out of date and we flagged it back in 2025 and nothing in this process required it to be corrected. The same gap runs forward in this update. The engagement plan before you today weighs community input alongside technical evidence, but does not require that that input be checked for accuracy before it shapes the plan. Under CEQA, that distinction is not optional. The county's decisions must rest on substantial evidence, not speculation and not opinion. A general plan built on anything less invites challenge. We ask the board to direct that the engagement plan include a standard for verifying the accuracy of the information it receives. And this isn't just about wine growers. The whole community needs this update to be a success. And getting that foundation right is how it happens.

Thank you. Okay, great to hear. Thank you for your comments. Welcome.

Good afternoon, board members. My name is Howard Siegel. I'm here on behalf of the Napa Housing Coalition. Kelly and Michelle are hard acts to follow, but I'll do the best I can. The Housing Coalition did submit a fairly lengthy comment letter back in April on the BDR. And just I'll admit, I haven't read every page of the BDR. But I'm looking for perhaps somebody can locate for me or acknowledge whether or not these changes have been made. I'm just going to mention four briefly. I know some have. Michelle just alluded to the fire situation in 2017 and 2020. As far as I can tell, there's no information as to how many houses were lost in the two fires. And I may have missed that. The growth management system I know is obscure to some people, but not to me, unfortunately. And the category four permits, I believe they're still called that for affordable housing, have accumulated over the years. And I don't think there's any reference to the current number. Again, I may have missed it. Homeless count. And again, that may be mostly in the cities, but I didn't see any count of what the current homeless number might be in the county to the extent that it can be determined. And the last thing is the cost burden in terms of the gap between median wages and median housing prices and what percentage of people can afford the median home price in Napa, which is usually one of the more realistic estimates of affordability that they use in nationwide approaches. So I don't know if anybody can address any of those right now in terms of whether or not they're in the BDR or just something to be considered.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. All right.

All right. And the last thing is in terms of the general plan update process, I saw there was a reference to community organizations and I'm not sure if, when, how those have been determined and just like to put in a plug for the Napa Housing Coalition to be one of those organizations.

Okay.

Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. Really helpful comments. Thank you everyone. Welcome. Go ahead when you're ready.

Hi, Chuck Schinneman in Napa. A number of years ago, I served as the General Plan Advisory Committee Chair for the City of Napa. And I thought about the community engagement process you're going to be going through. And it appears very thorough and everything like that. But at the same time, I also observed in the city outreach or the city consultant outreach, in public events, it seemed to me they didn't know the background of Napa, that we all have known for a long, long time the city of Napa has had an RUL that was adopted back in the 70s. And I remember being at the farmer's market with the big map on and you can put stickies on that map. And I asked the person who was handling it on behalf of the consultant, can you tell me about the growth boundary? She didn't know anything about it. And how can you engage the community asking questions that are really key if you don't even know the background about Napa. So I think there needs to be some kind of acknowledgement of local knowledge in here. I don't think a GPAC like we have would be very successful because so many of the things are very, very specific to some very specific neighborhoods. But I think there needs to be some kind of inclusion of, I don't know if this is some kind of official community involvement, I don't know if that's broken into the general plan components or however that's done, but we really need to make sure that all this local knowledge and local history really is encapsulated in the general plan. We've got tons of that knowledge here in Napa. So thank you very much.

Okay. Thank you. Mr. Shineman, welcome.

Good afternoon, Chair Manfrey and Board of Supervisors. I'm Caleb Mosley, the executive director of the Napa Valley Grape Growers. And I just want to applaud the outreach efforts thus far to get people in the room and to let people know that this process is going on. It is a behemoth, and learning about it every step of the way. Just want to make sure that all the folks working on this know that the Napa Valley Grape Growers would love to help support outreach. We'd love to support any community gatherings, anything you need from us. I want to build on those last statements that, yeah, there is a lot of institutional knowledge that many different folks have. on different facets of this whole thing. So happy to help in any way that we can and applaud the process thus far. Thank you.

Okay, that's a great offer. Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Dr. Hannah Kantoris. My background is in biology and ecology, and I'm a recent resident of the city of Napa. I'd like to bring to our attention the vegetation data used in the baseline data report. Specifically, chapter 15, page 23 of this report details that the data used for the vegetation and canopy cover was from 2016. This was 10 years ago. This data was collected prior to the largest fires that we've seen in here, which were in 2017 and in 2020. And therefore, this baseline data report does not accurately reflect the current state of the land or the canopy cover of our county. It is important that we use more recent cover data when we create the BDR, which will serve our county for the next 30 years. It seems difficult to build a strong future on an outdated baseline, especially in times of rapid change in both our climate and in our economy. It is important that we not only value current scientific data, but we also best support our county with it. Please reconsider the use of the 2016 data on the baseline data report. Thank you.

Thank you for those comments. Anyone else in the room wishing to comment today on, I should have said, the baseline data report or general plan update project priorities?

Yeah, go ahead and come up.

Thanks.

Good afternoon, supervisors. Michelle Novy with the Napa Valley Vintners. I hope you're doing well today. Just a note on the baseline data report. I was looking through it last week and I came across a comment that said we had a thriving wine industry. And I couldn't help but pause and say, do we? That alone doesn't seem to reflect the moment that we're in. I know that you are now setting out the priorities in your vision for the general plan update. The four industry groups have come together with one voice to tell you that changes are needed. And as I've said before, this is an exceptionally thoughtful board. And so I ask that that thoughtfulness continue to be extended to consider what the industry needs today. The WDO really needs to meet us here in 2026. and to serve our industry and our community for the years to come. And I think it's entirely appropriate that we investigate and implement changes that will support this community and that address the needs that we're telling you exist. I just want to thank you for everything you've done thus far, your outreach, again, your consideration, and we're here to partner, and we look forward to making this the best general plan possible. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Novy. You're welcome.

Hi, good afternoon. My name is Kirstie Shelton. And I actually echo what Ms. Novy just said. And I'm here today to kind of implore you to think creatively and also just think in 2026 terms. I hold a master's degree in agricultural engineering. And I'm currently actually going back to school and becoming a natural health practitioner. And it came to me, the combination of agricultural and health. And I just want to kind of implore you to think creatively and some really unique opportunities that are before you today. And, you know, the definition of agriculture in the Webster dictionary actually says part of it is the preparation and marketing of agricultural processing. And I think that's really critical today because the marketing element, the market's changing. The market today is different than what was in 1991, and it just really matters. So I just want to kind of encourage you to think out of the box and with that agriculture and health are actually combined. And that although agriculture should continue to remain the primary use, there's a lot of health and wellness opportunities that are before you today. Our neighboring county, Sonoma County, has a really great opportunity called Diversified Ag in their land use category. And they also are part of a diverse Healthy Lands and Healthy Economies initiatives. And I thought it would be helpful for you guys to kind of take a look at that and just really take into consideration what if we did start to invest in diversified agriculture, regenerative, and look at local food, seasonal farm-to-table opportunities, and actually provide the local economy opportunities to streamline this process. So when you're looking at your goals, I would... be flattered if you would just have an open mind and kind of think of diversification of ag, and if a local winery does provide that, to provide some sort of element of opportunity. And consider that health is agriculture, and a healthy land and a healthy community really could be an opportunity today for the current board to look at it from a different lens. And it could really be a win-win. So thank you for considering.

Okay, thank you. Is there anyone else in the room wishing to comment? I'm not seeing anyone coming forward. Is there anyone on the phone? Okay.

We have Chris Malin on the line. Chris, can you hear us?

can hear you we can hear you we can you have three minutes go ahead great thank you so much thank you okay so what I want to say is that oftentimes when the county does these kind of big projects and they refer to streams and they develop these maps they don't attribute them or if they do attribute them they use their own inside attribution style. And I would recommend that we use the Department of Fish and Wildlife stream layer so that we can better make comments on our water resources. I found it difficult to submit written comments. I tried to send them and they got rejected because of size. So I'm wondering if there's a way that we can accept written comments either in hard copy or for uploading. Also, it seems to be that if you attach pictures, that gets rejected. And I think that pictures are valuable in making comments. So if there's a way that we can accommodate comments that are larger and have pictures and make them available to the public. Like maybe a picture gallery or something attached to comments. If the technology could please do that. The last commenter really centered on the rest of my comments about diversification of ag. And I would say that there's an example in the Central Valley right now where farmers have had to go fallow due to groundwater depletion and they're going to other crops that don't take as much water. And since the ag industry is mostly vineyards and it takes quite a lot of water, at some points in the year can take up to 80% of our groundwater. which is in decline and we have to come up with a sustainable plan by 2040 to have sustainable groundwater levels that we look at other types of agriculture that take less water that we move towards dry farming in some cases and definitely organic. We have a great opportunity to protect our riparian areas as over 5,000 acres of vineyards have been pulled out due to market changing issues going on. And this will be a great opportunity to restore the riparian areas. We have at least 350 Mishua Wapo who used to live here that were run off by the white settlers and colonization. But they're still here. They want to use the river. And they need access. But the river is so deeply incised, in most cases, they can't get to the river. And because it's so deep Chris, you're out three minutes. Okay. So anyway, tribal beneficial uses are very important to consider in the BDR. Thank you.

Thank you so much for commenting today. Is there anyone else on the phones?

Our next caller is Tiffany. Tiffany, can you hear us?

Hi, yes, can you hear me?

I can hear you. You have three minutes. Go ahead.

Great, thank you so much. Good afternoon, Chair Manfrey and supervisors. My name is Tiffany Yap, and I'm a scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. I want to thank you for your leadership and your efforts on the baseline data report and general plan update process. Thank you for your attention to the Safe Roads and Wildlife Protection Act, known as AB 2244, the Room to Roam Act, which is also known as AB 1889, and SB 1425. and for really acknowledging the importance and value of incorporating wildlife movement and habitat connectivity in land use planning. We appreciate the inclusion of multiple scientific resources, including the most recent climate resilient wildlife connectivity models by conservation science partners, and the openness to including new information as it is published. The Center for Biological Diversity really looks forward to working with you on the general plan update process. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Ms. Yap. Is there anyone else on the phones? Okay. That concludes public comment. Thank you, Clerk Hoskins. So I will now bring this back to the board for questions related to the topic of the item, which is accepting our baseline data report and then looking forward to our general plan outreach process. Do any of my colleagues wish to comment? Don't all jump at it. OK, I see Supervisor Cutrell.

Thank you, Chair, and thanks to our staff and consultants and everyone who has taken the time to speak and be here today. So I'm guessing we can do this maybe in two tranches, like talk about BDR first and then a community engagement plan. So I took a page from Supervisor Ramos' notebook and I've got a bunch of stickers up here. So, okay, excellent. So I first, you know, I think there was a comment, we got a public comment from Chris Warner today that I thought was helpful that the BDR may have data that will become outdated or inaccurate or is subject to multiple estimates. So, for example, the population question. So just a question for staff, how do we kind of acknowledge that there will be some things that could change, um, at some point through it. Um, and I will just say, um, as part of that question, I appreciate the input that we've heard about the vegetation map. And I will say also working with some of the fire safe council members in my district, they would really appreciate an updated veg map because it will help them more accurately describe their projects. So I'm, I'm in supportive of that kind of thing. If we can build that out.

Okay.

Thank you. Is that a question right now or? Well, yeah. Should I just run through everything and then why don't I do that because other people may have similar questions. Okay. And then something, Mr. Bordone, that you mentioned that at some point we might see an audit of the current general plan goals and objectives. And what I mean an audit to just kind of know what we've taken action on, what was still outstanding and things like that. And one of the things that i want to just have an as an example in our uh 2008 general plan it says that there's a wine a requirement for wineries to convey a sense of permanence and attractiveness which that probably meant something in 1990 you know but we have so many building codes and so no you know everything about our california building code tells us you have to build something i don't know if it has to be attractive but anyway i i just flagged that as an example of things that we might have in our existing general plan that are somehow outdated so before we even you know start writing the new one we probably want to go back and flag some of the Old things that don't make sense anymore, or at least kind of unpack them and I'm going to actually link that to Mr. cinnamon's point about having local knowledge as part of our. Outreach, I guess I've gone into the outreach, but I think when we're doing outreach and engagement that 1 of the categories might be not only what you want going forward, but the important things about what people remember as important existing pieces.

um so i think that's all i had right now on the bdr thank you okay super thank you for keeping it so organized um i see super by i see vice chair alessio and then after that supervisor gallagher

Thank you for this presentation and for those online, and thank you for the public for the great comments. I would like an opportunity, I think there are some questions that came from the public, and if we could start with responding to some of those questions, and I think that would help kind of move forward so we're not asking the same questions. Do you have those on hand or do you want me to give you a few reminders?

Believe I do.

Oh great. Can we go ahead and just start with that?

Sure. Thank you I'm gonna go through my list. I know Shannon wages on the call is going to provide some information and background on mr Siegel and cinnamon's housing related comments Okay, and maybe I'll ask her to just hold on that So just starting off in the order of the speakers, we first heard from Kelly Anderson. She had comments about access, technological barriers, and whatnot. Totally valid comment. I have to ask my kids, like, how to update my blink cameras and stuff every time I unplug my router or whatever. And so, you know, we work as hard as we can with our IT department to make sure that we have access, people are aware of the access.

Yeah, and I think that's a good point in terms of pictures. Anything that has a lot of, creates a lot of memory that they're trying to submit in their public comment, we need to be able to provide them that access to it. So, yeah, I think that's a good task for IT to figure out to ensure public can do that.

Yeah, and I'm not putting it on IT, but I'm not the technical person. I know Christina may have some ideas that she's already explored on that topic, having worked front and center on the BDR. What I can say now is we're definitely going to do everything we can with the technology that we have to address that.

Then I'll just bring it back if there's a barrier to that so we have an understanding of what that is and we can discuss paths forward.

Sure. Thanks. And yeah, Kelly, we're going to sign Michael Parker up for this project. He will be the face.

He's not here. Oh, no. Yep, there he is.

Maybe we'll incorporate his image on the branding.

He's smiling and dancing. He's so excited.

Kelly made a comment about the farmland of importance. This dates back to the state's farmland importance maps. They have a certain application. That application isn't reflective of reality here. For example, the whole Rector Canyon area is shown to be very poor soils for agricultural purposes. We know that's not the case. We have an actually potentially productive soils map layer that kind of merges the state's layers with our layer that reflects reality. So we have that data. The information's there, and it will be there to help inform decisions about viticulture and future viticultural areas and future vineyard development. I think that's what she was getting at. The THP section, yes, we explain out the Forest Practice Act. The part that Ms. Anderson was asking about that there was nothing about the local process, there is in fact. It's the ECP process. The THP is for timber removal. The ECP is for the subsequent development of a vineyard.

Go ahead and just unpack those acronyms for me.

The timber harvest plan is a THP, and an ECP is an erosion control plan. It's the permit you get to develop a vineyard. So that's described in the BDR and elsewhere on our website. Okay. And going to soccer games and churches and all that, yes, we're going to go where people are. And I asked Ms. Anderson and others that have a seemingly similar sentiment, we haven't started the engagement, but give us a chance. I think you're going to be proud. And, no, I'm not as charismatic as Hillary Gittleman, but I have other attributes. Okay. I can't agree more with Michelle Benvenuto's compliments on Christina Adamson. I think she's equivalent to like three or four people, I swear.

Yeah, she's amazing. We all agree.

I don't know what I would do without her. And I appreciate Michelle's positive comments that she made with respect to the back and forth communication that Christina had with her comments. I think we sat in conference rooms with Michelle, or maybe it was over Zoom, going over red line track changes versions, and we did our best to incorporate her comments and concerns. We did fall short on the 2016 veg maps. That wasn't a mistake. We didn't have that scoped out. We would love to have that information. We're looking to get that information. We are fully aware that there's probably 17 versions of aerials out there. That's the easy part. The hard part is interpreting what those aerial photos are. when it comes to what vegetation type that is. Our vegetation classification system is modeled, not modeled, it is, it follows Department of Fish and Wildlife's manual for California vegetation. It's completely embedded and woven into our regulatory fabric. And so that's the difficult part, is coming up with the funds and initiating that effort. The past two efforts have been with Jim Thorne, who is a tremendous not only individual but professional, and it would be my preference to continue to work with him. He's at the UC Davis lab updating this. We've had preliminary conversations with him when we were working through the BDR. and we're looking for ways to update that data.

Is that something that we need a referral to do, or is that something that you're planning on doing and bringing something to us?

I'm planning to do it unless you tell me not to. We need this done, yeah. So it's good to know you have a plan and you're working on it. So we're looking into it, and it's something we've been looking into, but it can be a significant effort, and it's just something that we've got to reprogram, and we're looking forward to doing that. Along those lines, we did intentionally build into the general plan scope more baseline data, if you will. Existing conditions analysis. We have some funds to plug any gaps that we may have found, some of which may have been voiced today. So we are going to be inventorying those and putting a plan together to figure out what those gaps are and plug those holes where we find them. that's for the again that's for the vegetation that kit maps from 2016 or is that for something different it could be for anything but yes we plan to include the update to the maps or to the vegetation mapping there may be some housing numbers we include and on that topic and I may be getting a little bit of order here no we We, for the baseline data report, we essentially carried over all the information and details and supporting data that was in the housing element. We just recently adopted our housing element. We were not setting out to update the housing element as part of the general plan update. So we weren't looking to create more information. although we did in some cases, and Ms. Wages is going to speak to that in a second. But that in large part, and I had conversations with Mr. Warner on this in our conference room as well and kind of walked him through a lot of that. I nonetheless appreciate his continued comments on it. I respect his perspective. But it was a conscious decision not to essentially do a mini housing element update as part of the BDR. We didn't want to create anything that was out of step with the housing element and potentially run counter to it. We kind of left it alone and brought it into the BDR. So the BDR follows the housing element. OK. Mr. Shineman's comments. It sounds like, I don't know what the experience was that he had on the city of Napa's GPU. All I can say is that we'll do all the good things that the city did and none of the bad.

The city received an award for their general plan. And I was part of it. I was very proud. And it really was... an advocate. I still am an advocate, though I do, you know, the fact that CHEC has taken its time and Howard, they've taken their time because they were very involved with the city's general plan update. And it was a big, it was a big overhaul. It was a big lift. It was far more comprehensive than the city's ever done. And a great, at the great service of the general plan action committee. And I still see how that can be layered here as an overarching tool for this board and for this community to have that. Hearing from Chuck, he sees it differently. And that's actually very helpful. I'm still looking at the process, and I still am concerned about the attendance of workshops. I'm hearing from Kelly, it's great to hear people build gymnasiums and whatnot, but we all know when we have workshops, we put a lot of energy into it. and there's often times there's not a lot of attendance there. So I'm concerned about, I love everything else about the engagement process on it, I've kind of jumped forward really quick, but here I am, on the engagement, but I still think having a local stakeholder group to create that continuity and that accountability across the spectrum or the sphere of this general plan that's going to take a couple of years will be very helpful for not just the board but for the community and for staff. So I still believe that that's a very helpful tool. So just my two cents on that.

No, and I appreciate that. And when I'm done going through my notes, I'll ask Matt and Ron Whitmore to maybe do a deeper dive into the approach that they have set up. They do this for a living. That is update general plans. I don't. But nonetheless, I'll ask them to go into the pros of the approach, and hopefully that will get us there. Okay.

Going back to the question, sorry, and the answers. And this is for everybody, obviously.

Chuck made mention of maybe a lackluster individual at a farmer's market who wasn't completely knowledgeable, and maybe that was a junior planner from a consulting firm that maybe doesn't have local knowledge. I hope that that was the case and he wasn't referring to me as not having local knowledge. I assure you that I do. That said, you may not see me at a farmer's market. Okay, moving through, Caleb Mosley, thank you Caleb for the positive comments and also We actually, I think, have our first – my first gig booked at Rootstock here in early November to come to his organization's Rootstock to talk about the general plan. And, yeah, Chuck will bring our top guy there. Dr. Contores mentioned something about the vegetation maps. I discussed that. Michelle had some great comments. I think I translate that into we want to talk about the WDO as part of the general plan. I anticipate that to be a dominant subject. If we didn't exactly perfectly describe the condition of the industry today, I think in the BDR has no bearing on the discussion that's going to move forward as it relates to the BDR. Ms. Shelton commented on, well agreed with Michelle, but talked about diversification of ag. Our AG allows for any type of AG. We just happen to have pretty much one. And that's OK. But we can nonetheless talk about how we might diversify AG as part of the general plan update. Ms. Malin had comments about utilizing the Department of Fish and Wildlife stream layer. We use the stream layer that we created that was in conjunction with the RCD. It's both biological and geomorphologically based. I don't know how different ours is from theirs. I'd love to compare the two, and to the extent that there's any shortcomings on our part, we can make some adjustments. I appreciate Ms. Yap's comments. Yes, looking forward to working with you on this as well. And I think that's it. I moved into Supervisor Cottrell's. Oh, yes, reiterated the point that there needs to be some local knowledge. There will be, and I encourage everybody, young and old, with knowledge and not, to come participate in this. The comment you had about the policy audit, this is kind of an interesting one. You made a comment about the policy about wineries should have a sense of permanence and be attractive. That was somebody's way of saying we want design review for wineries. Welcome to general plan world. Nonetheless, OK, I'm going to stop for now. Do we want Shannon to talk about housing comments?

Happy to do that. Well, first of all, thank you, Mr. Siegel, for your comments and also your letter back in April. We did receive those and we did address those. So I'm just going to go through. You had four different comments or different items you wanted to check to make sure that they were in the report. Um, so I'll just go one by one. I also wanted to echo compliments of Christina Adamson. She's freakishly responsive and very organized. So she made sure we addressed. Um, okay. So the first was about how many houses were lost in the two fires and actually in chapter five under impact of wildfires on housing stock, it's on page five dash 31. talks about this. So according to county data, a total of 1,321 housing units were destroyed in the wildfires and it lists four of them. So the 2017, 2018, 2020, and 2025. And of those, the county has issued permits for a total of 555 new homes in the fire areas to date, leaving a net loss of 766 housing units. So that was the first item. The second was about no reference to the current number of Category 4. Category 4 refers to affordable housing permits. And we did address that under the County of Napa Measure A on page 5-7 of Chapter 5, which says that according to data compiled by county staff, Napa County currently has an accumulated balance of 282 Well, no, that's Category 1. 1,572 Category 4 permits available to support housing production. I hope that answers your question. If you have any follow-up, please let me know and I can look that up. The third item on the homeless count about what is the current number. So there is a section under homelessness, page 5-38 of Chapter 5. which says that the Napa County Continuum of Care's 2025 point in time count identified 374 individuals experiencing homelessness, which was a 26% decline since 2023 and 10% decline from 2024. But along with a decrease in homelessness, there was an increase in the percentage of homeless individuals who were sheltered, rising to 53% from 51% in 2024. So the BDR did identify that there are some key existing gaps in the support system for rental assistance, permanent supportive housing, outreach and prevention and diversion. And then the final comment you had about cost burden and gap between median wages and median housing prices. There is a section under the housing prices and affordability section on page 5-72 And it just talks about the wage housing gap, that it varies significantly by sector. So for two of the top industries, the beverage manufacturing and traveler accommodation, workers in single income households would need to earn an additional $65 to $81 per hour to afford a median single family home. So there's more data on that under housing prices and affordability. Rental apartments are closer to within reach for many workers, but still may be unaffordable. So I hope those answer your questions. Let me know if you have any others and I can do some more digging.

Well, that's very helpful. I do have a couple additional. I think we answered the questions that came from public comment, and thank you everybody for tracking those questions and responding. I just have a couple quick questions in addition to that. One, there's... Health and Human Services will be starting beginning this next year. Well, I guess it's every three to five years, the Community Health Needs Assessment, the CHHA, and then they'll be following that up with the CHIP, the Community Health Improvement Plan. So are you working, we'll be working in incorporating that new data and information in the, whether it be the BDR or the, because they'll have new data. Or you're using the last one, but we'll have a new one around the time we'll be starting a new plan, new assessment.

Yeah. And Matt, maybe you can speak to this, too, because this relates to EJ. I don't think we would be updating the BDR, but we can factor in that chip and data for policy. And that can kind of fall under the umbrella of the existing conditions task. if that's critical to getting that data to support new policy development.

Okay. And then along, are there going to be AI benefits and using AI and tools of AI, and how is that going to help with the accuracy and current data, fact-based data? Or have you already been using it?

And that's part of this. Shannon, do you want me to jump in?

Sure, I was going to mention that, because for outreach, we certainly can use AI on a number of things. So yeah, why don't you speak to our new tool that we plan on using for the general plan?

Yeah, so just a couple of things. First, back to the Health and Human Services. We're going to be working closely with them on the general plan. I'm not sure of the timing of their data or the impact that it will have on any different data we have. So I think it's determined. OK. Your mic is off. Maybe that's a hint to me. Yeah, I think we got them now, hopefully, better batteries. You know, the more important thing is really making sure we're coordinating with them in lockstep on the work that they're doing and the work that we're doing, both around data, around policy, as also around engagement. So we'll be doing that. In terms of AI, I think everyone uses AI a little bit differently. It's a topic we actually haven't talked about internally, but I think it's something that's important to consider. I think unlike some industries, I think we're a little bit slower to adapt and we still do things by hand. The places that we've found is actually most effective is helping sort through large amounts of data, like responses to comments to make sure we're kind of Give us a head start on it, but we always think of it like a 50% tool, not a 100% tool. It helps us get along the way, but it doesn't give us the answer.

Okay. And then there was one other comment, and I do think this is important, and I'm sure there's a general process, is that when we receive public comment, not always – sometimes that public comment is a matter of opinion and subjective to their own perception versus being fact-based. How do we navigate that? Something that is, I mean, it's input, so therefore it's important to us. We want to hear from everybody's comments. But at the same time, what type of weight do we put on that and how do we fact base it? And just as the same, whether it's in many other industries, you usually have some kind of resource and then you kind of date stamp where that resource came from to support that input. public comment or that input?

You know, it's a really interesting question that you're asking. And public engagement, there is a large part of that which is actually meant to be just subjective, right? That's what we want to hear. We want to hear people's values. We want to hear opinions. A lot of what we're going to hear is not something that can be fact-checked because it is someone's feeling and interaction with their environment that they're in. The pieces that will need to be fact-checked is someone like brings us a piece of data that says, you know, 72% of the population thinks X. Well, we'd want to see where that data is from before we incorporate it in. So, again, the data, the hard data we're using is based on the BDR and any additional analysis that we are producing based on the work that we're doing. If there is additional data coming in, we would need to fact-check that. And one of the ways that we can do that is with the topic-specific workshops where we have these – we can talk about this because this was – Ms. Alessio, this was one of your questions that you had asked previously about how we – how we're going to engage with large amounts of information, and so that is one of the topic-specific workshops. We have a series of workshops for different topics, and we're going to be hopefully working with a same core group of people throughout that process so that we can also use that as an opportunity to test some of this data because there is so much local knowledge and so much expertise that we as consultants are never going to actually be able to get that much knowledge and data from what the community has. So we need to rely on staff. We need to rely on you all. We need to rely on the public and the expertise in order to do this. We can't do it alone. We recognize that.

Thank you. I'm just going to let everybody else provide any comments or questions. I may have some more, but I want to thank you for including health and all policies here. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. I see Supervisor Gallagher, and after that, Supervisor Ramos. Okay.

Thank you, Chair. And I think we have actually moved between the BDR and the general plan update. The community engagement question is around the general plan update, not the BDR. So we are moving now between the two. I'm just going to go ahead and provide my comments in the spirit of moving us along and also so that you get the information you want from us because you have asked us really specific questions. So I'm going to go ahead and do that. So in terms of the community engagement piece for the GPU, I want to thank you for the work that you've done. And I think your plan is solid. Just a few things that I think you should think about. We should be looking at expanding language access beyond Spanish. We do have other languages spoken in our community throughout our county. And we're going to have to look at expanding that and not just doing English and Spanish. I think it's gonna be important. I commend you for the meeting people where they are. I think that's great, and I like hearing that we're gonna be doing that in a very direct way, going to various places where people show up normally on a daily basis. I do think the worksite-based outreach we should be doing in the initial round, and that should be beyond meeting with the industry groups. For example, on-site sessions at wineries, hotels, places like that where people are working so that they can participate, you know, working directly with employers to help them participate during their workday because frequently they are not going to be able to participate at night or obviously get off work to come to a daytime meeting. So I think that's going to be really important. I think we need to address the cost of people showing up. I have a lot of experience with holding workshops and classes and whatnot, and many times people cannot come because there is no child care available. It's at dinnertime, and they need to feed their families. I didn't see anything about there being any kind of budget for participation, but I do think we need to think about providing food and also on-site child care. and making sure that we hold meetings at locations where people can walk, they can walk to. Okay, the other is, I believe the plan calls for identifying specific community-based organizations after the initial engagement round. But I think if you can actually, uh calling those out those partners out and identifying them before uh is really important so that we're you know building in uh that like let's not wait to to have low response uh to uh meetings you know low turnout and then figure out how to fix it let's fix it before so that we get good turnout Also, you have the comment tracking database. I think that's great, but that just tracks the content of input and not who is actually participating. So in terms of equity, I think there needs to be some way of tracking people by geography, language, and potentially income. And this could be done really simple with sign-in sheets and whatnot, depending on what information people want to share. But I think that helps us to identify equity gaps really quickly. In terms of, I think you had asked also what worked about the 2008 general plan. I just want to concur that agricultural preservation has held. And the core vision is something broadly accepted, that we are committing to agriculture and agriculture is the underpinning of our economy. A couple of things to keep in mind. I think that we have very well studied farm worker housing. We have an entire plan that came from our housing department, or entire study that came from our housing department, which is underpinning a lot of the environmental justice work in the BDR, and I'm grateful for that. I think it's really important that we set about solving our housing problem and continuing to do that. We have done a great job, but we need to also be looking at underutilized public sites and also employer provided housing models that are used in other systems. It's important to reconcile the plans we've already updated. So as you know, we've updated housing element, groundwater sustainability, airport land use compatibility, local hazard mitigation, safety element. And we're in the process of, we'll get to the point very soon of adopting the climate action plan. So there needs to be some kind of policy crosswalk for those so that we reconcile all of those plans because, you know, they've all been approved at different times and they're places where they can come into conflict. I think it's really important that we look at that and identify some kind of a matrix or crosswalk to see where they align and where they don't. Also, I think that it's important that we do things a little bit differently than we did in 2008, where, frankly, we were doing a lot of forecasting. And now we have ways of monitoring, right? So you spoke to that earlier, that we're doing a really good job around that. And I agree with that. But I want to make sure... that going forward that this general plan, we shouldn't be anticipating a growth trend forever and we should not be anticipating a decline trend forever in our industry. We need to look at that in a way that You know, we're actually looking at metrics and we're monitoring and we're constantly monitoring because I think we get into trouble if we just assume, you know, we assumed growth forever in 2008. If we assume decline forever now, it's going to end up getting us in trouble because we have had a lot of tension around growth management. And I think we need to set up our next general plan in a way that addresses that better. And then lastly, I think it's really, really important that we flesh out what we mean by health in all policies. And so I'm just going to take a minute to go over that. This is a lens. It is not a rewrite of any element. It's an added layer of review. And that is a need for a health and equity check built into each element. So I'm going to give an example. So land use element. So every proposed designation or rezone is screened for proximity effects. Does it put homes near heavy traffic, high traffic roads, spray zones? Does it help or hurt walkable access to jobs, grocery services? So that should be its own explicit review criterion, not necessarily folded into traffic or environmental review. Circulation and transportation, safe walking and biking infrastructure prioritized in lower income and farm worker adjacent areas, not just where traffic volume is highest. Housing element, that's been updated, but we do need to employ this lens going forward. The conservation and open space element, let's look at access, not just acreage. Do low-income and farmer communities have real usable access to parks and open space, or is it concentrated in wealthier areas? Water and air quality protection should name the specific vulnerable communities they protect. not just a general environment in the abstract. The ag element, this is where farm worker health actually lives structurally. So heat illness protections as tied to land use policy, housing on farmland and how that connects directly to health outcomes. The safety element already amended, but going forward, we need to look at wildfire and flood evacuation planning, explicitly accounting for people with limited English proficiency who do not have a personal vehicle or who live in mobile or manufactured housing, not just assuming a generic resident who can drive themselves out of an area that's being evacuated. In terms of noise, consider cumulative impact on adjacent residential and farm worker housing areas, not just a decibel threshold measured at a single point in time. And then economic development, looking at job quality and wage data that's broken out by industry, so we can actually see whether growth is improving conditions for our workforce. driving our core industries, and not just tracking growth as one aggregate number. So bringing it all together under the environmental justice element itself, this is sort of the home base. It needs to have measurable indicators, health outcomes, pollution burden by neighborhood, cost burden, food access, etc., broken out by geography, income, and language group. That data is what the other elements then need to reference and respond to. So we need a mechanism by which we cross we need to cross reference this requirement so that health and all policy policies are not just a paragraph that we use to introduce each element. in terms of saying, hey, we're using health in all policies approach, but actually every element's policy should be required to cite and respond to the environmental justice elements indicators, not just boilerplate. So that's really the difference between using health in all policies as a declaration, like, hey, we're using health in all policies, as opposed to that being an actual review standard. So I'm sorry I talked really fast, but I wanted to make sure I made all of these comments and got you the information that you have been asking for from us. And I did think that it was really important to go over the health and all policies in a much more detailed manner. So thank you for indulging me. And I'll conclude my comments for now.

Thank you, Supervisor Gallagher. I see Supervisor Ramos. And I'll just note I have a hard stop at 4 o'clock.

Same, girl, same. Great. Okay. So I'll just try and tag on to what my colleagues have said here. In terms of the health in all policies approach, you know, I do believe this is going to require utilizing the existing conditions analysis to be able to implement that and to really have it be meaningful. It's an opportunity to address the environmental justice concerns in those seven block areas that we have. So I think you got the point on that one. So I wanted to go back to something that was said in the very, very beginning of building from what we have and making revisions versus really looking at this, you know, holistically, you know, a new, like a whole new standard. I understand that. However, I just want to be very clear. I don't want a red line of the 2008 general plan. And when you say revisions to it, that that's our standard where we're going from, that makes me concerned. I don't want to see the same pictures. I don't want to see the same words. I don't want to see the same tone. It's different. The whole reason why we're doing this is because everything has changed. And so I would really caution us to not use that language of we're going to be making revisions to the 2008. I think the 2008 is informative to what we're doing, but I don't want to see a red line. I don't want to see a red line. Now, let me get to—I think you satisfied my questions in regards to homes. And, you know, I want to caution us into just using homes. homelessness as a number and as a phrase. I've heard that a number of times today. It really needs to be based upon housing security and housing insecurity, meaning if you have a roof over your head, but you are two families living in one roof, that is not the standard. And while I understand that that's what we've done in the past, I think we need to be very cautious and You noted in your comments that the disparity between the housing, between the industries and the pay to what is affordable, that is the exact problem. And the way in which we can capture that accurately is to look at the housing insecurity that requires higher densities of families under one roof. Not just fire total losses, not just the number of the pick count that's gone down. It's holistically, do you know that next month you're going to have a roof over your head, right? That's the housing security that we need to be looking at. And unfortunately, the answer is no for so many of us. So I would just challenge us to look beyond homelessness. as a number and a page that's going to be recognized here. Next, I'll go to engagement. You know, I see one thing that I haven't seen. There's a couple of things. People who are financially secure show up because they can afford to show up. People who are financially insecure are probably the ones that matter most in this general plan. And so to that, I say, We need to think differently. And so one of those is, who does this matter to most? Like, this is great. We're looking at this plan 20, 30 years out. But I don't think I'm going to probably care as much when we get to the end of that document and, you know, I'm sitting at home hopefully watching Maury Povich reruns and retired, right? Who cares are the youth? That's not at all present here. And we have had a tremendous amount of youth that are coming to the podium and telling us their concerns, that are having demonstrations, that are asking for policy changes. When we say meet people where they're at, head out there. Head to the schools. Those are my harshest critics when I get into a high school classroom and they ask me why I made a decision. My kids are actually the worst constituents I have. And that's great because I have to answer to them. And so I think likewise, we shouldn't be afraid to engage them because this plan is going to be most meaningful to them. And in fact, those students that perhaps their parents are hard to reach because of their unwillingness to participate civically for their financial insecurities or just political insecurities that people find, I can guarantee you their children aren't afraid to speak. And so I think we need to expand into that and utilize the classrooms. City of Sacramento did a great summer discover civics and be part of this think tank in their general plan. The County of Sonoma, Permit Sonoma also had a dedicated section about youth engagement. We can do better. I'll just leave it at that. Okay. Vegetation mapping and existing, as it relates to existing conditions, utilizing the tree canopy of 2016. Okay. So I understand the concerns. I also think that there is something that is missing here. And what is missing is that Where is that one? Oh, that one's here. Nothing of this, of what is being asked. We're being asked to use the tree canopy as of today. You're saying we're using the tree canopy of 2016 and you're looking at additional work. But there's an in-between here. And the in-between is what is the anticipated vegetation recovery that is not accounted in the mapping of 2016 as compared to today's mapping, right? There's a recovery factor. My parents' property has lost almost all its trees from the 2020 up in Berryessa Estates. Some of them are growing back. What is that recovery? And I think USDA has a vegetation recovery mapping tool that they utilize, but they utilize it in more of how do we recover from the disaster itself. And so I just, I think there's an in-between here that can be a more accurate reflection of maybe not what is now, because now is still in a devastated state. You know, I know from my parents' property, he didn't used to be able to see the road. Uh, going up to the property now, you can fully see the road. Every single tree along the path that blocked it. Has has fallen from fire so I don't have the answer. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna pretend here and say that I have a suggestion other than I, I. today's landscape is still devastated from 2017 and 2020. So I leave it to you to come up with something that helps us carefully articulate this in the plan as to why that mapping is being utilized beyond just it's a money thing and we need more information. Because even if we had all the money and we had all the information, we all have beyond my hopes that a lot of this vegetation will recover. There's science to say that in fact it will.

I'm done. Okay, I have one minute. Thank you. Okay, so I'm just gonna go through the notes I have in no particular order. There's a lot here, but AG is changing rapidly right now, no doubt about that. I think it's a real challenge for the general plan update and it's something we need to think carefully about how to track. It is very different today than it was two years ago and it will be very different next year and the year after that, I believe. And so I would like for planning staff to figure out the kinds of questions we need to be able to answer about the way our agriculture is changing, the rate of change, the type of change, the locations of change, and to be responsive to that in our planning because we have spent 40 years becoming very, very good at planning around vineyards. And we are most likely going to have to recalibrate the kinds of land use that we have in our county areas in some kind of way going forward. And we're also facing more intense wildfires. You know, this winter is supposed to be very heavy rains, quite likely. You know, we have a lot of things where tracking is very important to allow us to be responsive over time. I would certainly support when you're discussing a vegetation map update with Jim Thorne at the Information Center for the Environment if you also talk about maybe looking at our infrared imagery for NDVI. That's something he might be able to pull together pretty quickly. It's something that if we have Data available for it could really help us track going back to early this morning, which seems like a week ago. It could help us track what's going on with changes to. Vineyard help our ad commissioner figure out where they might need to do enforcement and follow up with landowners on things that are not being actively farmed and might be abandoned or or creating pest and disease issues for neighboring parcels. or creating fuel problems for firefighters, that kind of thing. So just thinking about our cropping changes, you know, right now, that's something I hope we can roll into all of the work we're doing. And this might be a good place to get our arms around that. Let's see. As far as additional priorities or topics for the general plan, I think that, you know, this question about whether or not to keep using 2016 aerials is, I'm not sure if that's the right question. The question is why did we not want to change in the first place and what are we really trying to achieve? And, um, to my knowledge, you know, 2016 was pretty much a peak serial stage for this area, probably over the last probably of all time. Honestly, it was a long period of fire suppression, like 200 years of fire suppression that we were looking at and, um. And in a way, that's helpful because that tells us how much carbon storage is possible. And maybe that's what we want. I don't know. Maybe that's a good reason to use 2016 aerials. But if the goal of changing is to potentially change tree planting mitigation requirements or mitigation requirements on ECPs, I'm going to say the quiet part out loud, then... You know, the point of ECPs is to protect our natural resources like our habitat corridors and our water quality and so on and so forth. And so if that's what we're trying to do, it's not really about aerial photos. It's about whether or not we're protecting those assets adequately with the planning process. And there's other ways to assess that besides referring to a specific set of aerial photos. We can do that by looking at carrying capacity for watersheds. We can do that by looking at habitat corridors. So we have other options available and we have good partners in the community who will be happy to help with that. I think that's going to be a point of ongoing discussion. And it is dovetailing well with climate adaptation needs and fire resilience needs and also carbon storage needs under the RCAP. So there's a lot of things coalescing here and I think that's great. I think we can have some good conversations. You know, we kind of decided not to do a habitat conservation plan. There was some discussion about that a year and a half ago. But kind of the concept of conservation planning or community conservation planning, something like that, you know, I think there's a way to kind of roll that into that carrying capacity concept. And not just for water supply watersheds, but for places that have exceptionally valuable habitat. Because... Yeah, because the pressures are different in different places. But yeah, I certainly support updating our vegetation layer, particularly while Jim Thorne has not yet retired, because he's done both of our data sets previously. He's really good at it. And having the same person do data preparation assures you a very consistent result, and that is no small thing. So yes, please, get that done while he's still there. I think having a report backs about how community comments are incorporated into planning documents is really helpful. That's something I've seen in other participation plans regionally is that people find it much more valuable and rewarding to comment and are more likely to comment again if they understand that what they said was useful and included and reflected in the final product. Reporting out on that in direct ways to the people who are taking their time to put the effort in is really valuable and will only grow participation. I think, you know, there's ways to structure participation without having formal meetings. Formal meetings work really well for everyone who showed up today and that's great. Thank you for being here. There's a lot more people out there who will never come to meetings like this. And so, you know, I absolutely offer any knowledge I can about District 4. There's a lot of great community events. You're never going to meet anyone in Gordon Valley unless you go to their potluck. Okay. Like there's certain things where, you know, I tried to do a town hall there. They did not show up, but I went to their potluck and they were all there. So in the same location, different day, right? That's just where they are. And so please talk to your supervisors about that. We know we each know our districts like the backs of our hands, I think, and we all do door knocking and all that. So there's a lot you can glean from our experience and we're happy to share it. I'm sure I speak for all of us on that. Minor comment, it would be helpful to adjust currency values for inflation because when you compare a current dollar value to something from 2008, you know, in a lot of cases that's like, you know, it could be like double the value. Bye. At this point, and so it makes it sound like a lot of money in comparison when it's, if you adjust it for inflation, it doesn't sound like nearly as much. I just find it misleading when we're not adjusting for inflation for things that are 10 or 20 or longer many years ago. Yeah, just great comments from both Supervisor Ramos and Supervisor Gallagher on incorporating and including people from disadvantaged communities and considering what types of things best describe their situations. Anything that makes it more possible for them to participate, I support, whether that's daycare, providing food at meetings, paying them for their time at meetings, anything like that. You know, as far as I'm concerned, it's well worth the effort. Okay, last page. I think it would be helpful as much as possible to identify quantifiable metrics related to concerns of the community identified in the BDR going forward so that as we move through planning processes over the decades ahead, we're able to look back and really assess any progress or backsliding that we've had. And so any place we can include quantifiable metrics is great, and especially if it relates to the values the community states that they have. Let's see. I already said that one. Oh, just as a concept, like make engagement irresistible. I've done so much tabling in my life, and as soon as I started putting a dish of chocolates on the table, all of a sudden everyone wanted to talk to me. So, you know, like do those little... I know it seems maybe... you know, uh, shallow or something, but people respond to it and just, it's a way of meeting where they are to understand that we're all human and that they're more likely to come over if you have a squishy toy or some delicious fruit or food or whatever at your table, you know, um, lure them in. It's, it's fine. That's, that's how people work. And, um, let's see, uh, Also in those interactions, I would say a well-structured question can bypass the need for a long introduction. And we don't really need to inform J&Q public out there of every detail of why we're doing a general plan and how it's different than the last one. I mean, for some of us, we love that. But really what you need to know from her is Where do you want the community to go? You know, what are your favorite things about it now? You know, whatever your questions are, just kind of structure them well so you get the answers you want as fast, you know, as quickly as possible. Not for the sake of time, but like for the sake of their time and interest level and to just to get the information into the process. And our local radio station has been really good about doing PSAs, especially with the city of Napa. Like they're great about doing their outreach there. And I think the county could do more to be using the radio as an opportunity for outreach. And last comment, and I've run over my own time, is that in the mapping process, if you use light blue, you're going to find you can get more contrast with the other colors and have a lot more tonal range. So I noticed on the online maps, it's like a very mid-range blue for the water. And it's just a very fine point. But you'll find that it's much friendlier for colorblind people. And you can get a lot more tonal range out of your other colors. All right. I'll conclude there. Thank you. And I... Really need to go so I'm gonna hand this over to Vice Chair Alessio. Thank you so much for taking over.

You're welcome. I do want to say there's just a couple more small comments I have that I didn't say before because I took my time was taken a lot by staff and consultants responding to all the community questions. But there's only like very minor, but I do want to say it want to thank Chair Manfrey and Ramos who had to leave with a hard stop and we will be wrapping up I'm sure within a few minutes ourselves. Just one item I just want to share, and this has to do with the strategic initiative establishes four goals. And you have healthy, connected communities, that's great. Environmental sustainability and resilience, that's great. Agricultural legacy, yes. County service and workforce excellence. Those are all great, but there's a couple items that I know that are embedded there and maybe it's a cross-section but it's glaring that it's not identified from the from the top one is economic development that that's it was mentioned how that is we did to health and all policies and thank you supervisor Gallagher of giving a tutorial of how you apply health and all policies in these different areas but also applies to small businesses you know applies to our wine industry and hotels and hospitality. So I just feel like economic development needs to be up on top and somehow listed there. The other, which I know is always in our forefront, but public safety. you know, are fire or police, you know, safe roads and streets. So, but it's in there, but it's under, and it's under the surface in a cross-section, but it's not in the area where it's an identified category from the beginning, and I really think Maybe it's just too obvious, but I'm like, those are really missing for me. So that's all I really have to say. Everything else was really said and then some. So if there's, do you have something, supervisor?

Yeah, and I guess I would turn to staff and the consultants. I have a few more stickies here. I'm happy to give those offline. Go ahead. Don't take long. Okay, great. Okay. So first of all, just to the point that we're all here for a long time, I would suggest that, you know, the scope of any particular meeting or gathering or outreach, we keep as narrow as possible, right? I think for today, for example, we could have probably had one item just on the bdr and and done another on the ideas for engagement um so so keeping things narrow where possible um i love and and uh i appreciate brian what you said of like watch we want to get started we haven't got started yet so I know you're getting a lot of input today on what we think engagement should look like, and I really agree with all my colleagues about, and you guys have this in the data too, about meeting people where they are. I think in District 3, I would say things like the Pope Valley Farm Center, doing something there, you'll get folks, Rutherford Grange, Calistoga Farmer's Market, easels at food pantries. You know, those are, people are making regular stops there. So some easy way to interact, give us your feedback there, I think would be helpful. Haven Thrift in Deer Park is a place that a lot of people stop on a regular basis. I'm sure Supervisor Ramos would talk about events like Meet Me in the Streets. And in terms of Young people, both youth, but also parents, drop-offs and pickups, I think, would be always places to meet people. I know in St. Helena, they have a harvest festival every year, and I have done, in years past, just an easel with stickies. And it's amazing how, you know, with a bowl of candy and a sticky, you engage on a high level and some... some easy points, and then you can have a five-minute conversation. And I think of that as a shoestring engagement strategy, but it's a great way to touch people who are not going to be able to show up at meetings. Wanted to flag the good work that I've seen already on Napa County Connect. We've got it with, thank you, Ms. Dawson, see that with the airport outreach. And I think those breadcrumbs are really helpful because I found that useful to see some of the input and it keeps it really focused too. I liked seeing the data explorer that we saw, looking how you can use that. I'm guessing we can all go online and find that. I'm hoping that for any public workshops, you actually have someone do a live demonstration of that. I think that will be much more useful than just watching a video. So that's that one. In terms of something that I think Supervisor Gallagher mentioned, not only do we want to make sure that we have engagement with our CBOs, but I'd also like to think about ways that we could make sure we're getting engagement from people who access county services. So can we have a board at HHSA? And also for Up Valley, Up Valley Family Center is a great trusted community resource. So having a board there, and when I say a board, I think what I'm trying to get to is the point that A person, if we're going to get engagement from them, they need to know about it, and then they need to have a subsequent opportunity, right? Like, oh, I'm dashing through right now, but when I'm back in a week or two weeks, I'll have something to offer. So some kind of either repeat or something that stays there sustained. In Angwin, the Angwin Market is a huge community resource that the fire department has had. You know, when we've had fire emergencies, they will staff someone out there. And so people are used to the concept of stopping there to give some feedback, look at a map. I think that's really helpful. And I love that we have all these high-tech things, but I think a visual, a low-tech visual of some maps and some easy language, some landscape visuals, I think would be really helpful. I think several people attended a Napa Valley Community Foundation event that was held last year with a guy who's a planner from the city and county of San Francisco. And one of the things he talked about was getting engagement by showing people maps and saying, what do you want the county to look like? You know, that is sometimes the quickest way to get people's feedback. And I loved what Chair Manfrey said so much I had to write it down. A well-structured question can bypass a long introduction. And I think that's really true that we can always give people more information, but when you have someone's attention for a minute, let's get their feedback first and then give them more information. And I also believe that if we can get a first-time comment, we're more likely to engage that person again. And then just some quick feedback on the priorities. In general, those look good, and I know we're not here to wordsmith today. I think one of the things I do want to flag, we've got preserve the agricultural legacy and a resilient rural economy. We talk in there about the importance of supporting the wine industry. I'd love us to say the grape growing and wine industry so that we're really talking about the growing of crops. But as other people have mentioned, and Brian, you mentioned this too, that, you know, we're available, ag land is available for lots of different kinds of crops too. So the concept of working in some of the comments about diversification that we've heard today might be appropriate here. I want to flag the word distinctive in that priority because I think we really need to put some flesh to that. Like, what do we mean? And I think because the more that we can articulate that, then the more we can tell where we're on the same page with people and where we're not. On item two, love the comments that we've heard from colleagues about health in all, but I also want to flag that it says plan for communities where people can live, work, travel, and access services. I'd like to see us reframe that a little bit to kind of talk about, you know, we're not really creating new communities, but we want to improve our existing communities, figuring out a way to talk about that. Similarly, on item number three, that second sentence talks about ensuring development is supported by sustainable water supplies. I think we also want to mention water in the first sentence because thinking about sustainable water isn't just for new development, it's for all of our existing activities as well. And then finally, on the priority piece, I like this create a general plan that is clear, practical, and grounded in current data. I'd love us to add something about readable and non-technical. I'd really like us to have a general plan that uses as few technical terms as possible and is accessible. Yeah, accessible. But we use accessible, we end up using to mean other things. So figuring out something there. I think that is all my comments. Let's see. I guess I wanted to flag, I appreciate Michelle Novy's point about saying, you know, are we in a thriving wine economy right now? No. And so how we make this report, make this update really real for the moment. you know, also flagging that we've been successful for many years. But, and I think this ties in with Supervisor Gallagher's point about, you know, we've seen change in the last 10 years, five years, and we'll see change in the future. So making sure that the general plan says, this is what we're saying at this point in time, I think is important. And appreciate Kayla Mosley talking about how to be a partner And I really think that's where when we do the community meetings, partnering with other organizations, I think we'll get more people in the room and have a little bit more vibrant discussion too. So I think that's it for now. Thank you. You're welcome. Did you get all that?

That's a lot, I know. It's a lot. You know, I was talking to somebody, and actually it was Christine Adamson, our freakishly amazing staff person, about how this community in Napa just really always strives for excellence. It always does. It may not reach it, but it will always strive for it. And that is the expectation of this general plan. is that it's going to be one of excellence. So you're going to see hopefully a lot of engagement, but cautionary with the workshops. So bring the candy, bring the pizza, bring whatever, puppies, kittens, whatever, to bring people in to be part of it. It looks like probably the ad hoc committee or advisory committee is not going to be in the works. I think that's a missed opportunity for us. We are investing $6 million plus into this process. I think it would actually help and create a lot of continuity, bringing those people throughout the duration of the general plan process who have the lived experience. who have the expertise in this county to provide that firsthand knowledge throughout. I just think it's very valuable. So if you continue to think on that, I would appreciate that. Outside that, I don't think we have any other comments. The staff will have any comments or questions before we adjourn. Vice Chair, I have one more question, actually.

One of the things I would love to hear from you all or make recommendations for future is other recently updated general plans that your team has worked on or that you think are successful or readable, all the things that we've talked about. Understanding that NAPA is its own its own creature, but I think that would be helpful for me to just do a little compare and contrast and help visualize what we want to aim for.

Okay, thank you. So on that, does staff have any questions?

No questions, but a big thank you not only to the board, but everybody behind me.

Everybody's gone.

Moreover, while we didn't pack gymnasiums, we packed virtual gymnasiums. So all those individuals that participated in the BDR, I want to thank them, and I hope they will continue to participate as part of the GPU. And probably most importantly, our staff, Christina Adamson, Patrick Ryan, Michael Parker, The ALTA team, the ESA team, we've got a great team, both internally and externally, and I'm excited to be part of this team, and I'm excited for this project, not only for the county, but for the community. So thank you very much.

Thank you. That's a perfect close to this section. So this was just to receive the information and to provide feedback and comments, which we did. I don't see that this is an action item that we need to do anything more. Is that correct?

Excellent.

So let's go ahead and adjourn at 425 p.m. Our next meeting will be Tuesday, September 29th at 9 a.m. Thank you.