Remarks by Joan Hartmann
126 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 6
“Yeah, Daniel didn't want a resolution and he didn't want a party and so we're having to sort of shoehorn it in this way because we couldn't let it go unremarked. He's just been an extraordinary person. I think He was the kind of department head who ran his department well and very responsibly, but he also was ready to pitch in. It was noted that he served as director of what was then our County Public Health, but he also just pitched in on things like Workday or any other county-wide effort. He was there. I served with him also on the CINCAL board and he rarely missed a meeting and he always…”
“Well, I just wanted to remark that there have been a couple of areas at the jail where we've seen some significant improvement. The medically assisted treatments stayed stable despite really high demand. And the discharge for MAT patients is really strong. So glad to see that. And the multidisciplinary meetings for patients with high complex needs, that's really great. I wonder, Director Hamami, if you would talk about safety cell monitoring. I know that that's where scores have declined and that's a focus area for the future, but I think that's really important. And then the mental health…”
“If I may interrupt, why the shorter stays? What have you done to reduce the stays, the time?”
“So the takeaway is that the collaboration is working well and that we are getting improvements, some quite significant, some we still have to work on. I had forgotten that CalAIM was going live in October. That is a huge Should I say, we have a big hypothesis here that by getting people care arranged during their stay, afterwards they're going to follow up. And we may not have the kind of recidivism that we've had before, especially with medically assisted treatment, but also mental health care. And so first of all, congratulations to everybody. I had no idea I participated in a task force.…”
“Yeah, so this is to be built with the OASIS center there to share infrastructure. So how much of the infrastructure and site work that also serves OASIS will be allocated to them and how much to the library? That cost maybe belongs in a separate budget line to understand that better.”
“Okay, and then what would the new annual operating and staffing costs be? I'm not sure that that would be your, in general services, it might be for CSD. But we're already struggling in our library system to manage staffing and operating costs every year to fund operations. So I just, this is a big new facility. We're already sort of struggling. What's anticipated for O&M over the long run?”
“And have have you applied for the California State Library buildings forward program for funding? And I know that that focuses on disadvantaged communities, but it is helping in in Goleta with their renovation.”
“Yeah. And then in Goleta, when they wanted additional library services and they weren't yet a city, they formed County Service Area 3 and taxed themselves. Has there been any discussion of doing that in ORCID?”
“Yeah, well, I have serious questions about the cost of this. I'm eager to hear from everybody, but we have a real Cadillac version. And I know that when we did a community center in Isla Vista, we really worked with funding that we had. We didn't expect the county to bond for this, especially at a time when we're already working really hard to put the money together for the jail. So I guess I do have a question. For the jail, as we bond, and this may be for our budget director, we're waiting for the probation office to be finished, if I understand, to have adequate collateral to fund the…”
“Yeah, I guess I'll make one final comment right now. I know there's a lot of people who support libraries and community centers, and I think they're hugely important. But the county has a long list of projects, capital improvement projects. And we look at those in a context, and that's coming up in March. I know that in Orkut, we need a fire station, a new fire station. The old Orkut fire station needs significant work. We have a fire station in Goleta that we're trying to fund. So I think understanding what the broader range of capital improvements projects that we're looking at would be…”
“Yeah, I just want to go back. This land where Oasis and the library would go, if you remember back, that was for passive recreation zoning. And so this board worked very hard to get that rezoned so that these projects could move forward. And I would say I was a very strong advocate in that process. I served on a library ad hoc committee where we looked at the exorbitant rent that ORCID has to pay, and I was a huge advocate for saying we really need to acquire a building so we don't have to pay all this money in rent. And throughout my tenure as a board member, community spaces, trails, parks,…”
“Yeah, I'm just trying to sort out the five-year forecast, our budget, and then the capital improvement program. And the five-year forecast that you're doing, how does that incorporate some of our other capital improvement projects?”
“try to bring down the cost of that ongoing debt service even further that would be looked at in the context of the available one-time funding other priority projects and things like that so could you do several five-year forecasts as supervisor lee suggested the the more expensive project the less expensive project and then without the project or just with a phased project”
“Yeah, further discussion. The five-year forecast really deals with our annual budget and what the interest would be. So it would be, you know, three million if we go for the desired project. But again, it's a time where we've been firing social workers who work in child welfare. So that's a hard thing. And next year, I don't know yet, but we're projected an even worse year next year than we have this year. And then what we don't have with the five-year forecast is our capital improvement projects. Do you want a fire station or a library? In ORCID. I mean, these are capital projects. So I feel…”
“I'll move A through C in today's board letter. I'll second.”
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
“No other questions? Madam Clerk, is there any public comment?”
“And Madam Clerk, I'll close public comment.”
“So back to the board for questions. Supervisor Capps.”
“That it? So I did have a couple of questions. Will we be submitting an analysis of levels of risk of our population? And do we have that analysis over time? How it's how it's been changing? Or is it constant?”
“I guess that's the one that you would submit to the state.”
“And does it track it over time so we get a better sense of if the population has changed? I sometimes hear that with a lot of diversion, we have more higher risk people. And so I'm just interested in who does that analysis? When will we see it?”
“So I guess what I'm struggling with, or maybe in talking to some of the people who've come before us today, is a concern that our facility isn't flexible enough to handle people in different classifications. And so they're eager to see some kind of an analysis of that. I'm not sure which it is. I suggest I think a CEO, Heitman, does, and maybe you could elaborate on my question.”
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
“You were ready for that question. Those are all the questions I have, Supervisor Lee. Just comments. So Supervisor Levinino, why don't you start us off on comments?”