Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the Board of Supervisors. Supervisors, having met in closed session as to all items, with the exception of labor negotiations, there is no reportable action. We will resume closed session on labor negotiations at 1230. Thank you.

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

I'll second.

You're first and second. All in favor, aye. Aye. All right, motion passes.

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

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

Okay, besides the event that's going to be on the Indigenous Fashion Show on Saturday, which is from three to nine, tickets are still available. Girls Inc. is doing their Taste in Treasure, which will be on September 26th. Let me make sure I have the date right. I'm pretty sure I have the date right. September. Yes, 26th is, and it will be at Dam Vineyards. Tickets just went on sale. Please support our local students by attending this event and sponsoring Girls, Inc. The last item is I did attend the CSAC Board of Directors meeting in Sacramento yesterday, or not yesterday, last week, and there were a couple of things I just wanted to report out. Our topics were all about propositions. As the chair of CSAC, Government Finance and Affairs. We were given three propositions to review and make recommendations to the Executive Board. During that Executive Board meeting, we have Proposition 2 that was no position. That is increasing state's rainy day fund, ACA 20. So CSAC will be taking no position. On Proposition 3, which is provide permanent funding for schools and health care by extending existing tax on high income, that one was supported by the CSAC Executive Board of Directors. For Proposition 43, which is limit voters' ability to raise revenue for local government, this one was very important for rural counties, especially when it comes to hitting that. majority or supermajority when it comes to initiative petitions on potential tax increases. That was opposed by CSAC, and I was very much part of that discussion. Proposition 1, the Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act. I understand not only did CSAC support this proposition, but RCRC, I believe, also supported this proposition. And with that, that's my update from the CSAC Board of Directors meeting. Thank you.

Thank you.

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

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

Yes. If you'd like to make a comment in chambers, please provide a speaker card on Zoom. Please press star 9 or the raised hand icon. And in chambers, we will start with Josh Mercier.

Good morning, board chair and members of the board. My name is Joshua Mercier. I'm a deputy director with the San Benito County Health and Human Services Agency. I'm also the vice president of the Management Employers Group. And I am a part of the administrative arm of Health and Human Services. I oversee programs that ensure the safety and security of some of our most vulnerable populations in the county, our kids, our older adults, and our disabled community. This last year has been enlightening in terms of the process of negotiations. There were many things that I wanted to say, but I'm gonna focus on the thing that I think is most important. San Benito County invested in me in 2008. They took a chance. I became a social worker wanting to protect kids, and they gave me that platform, that opportunity. And over the last 18 to 20 years, I've had the opportunity to grow, not just with Health and Human Services and the county itself, but through various public sectors. The county brought me back onto its team nearly seven years ago as we faced one of the most interesting global crises I think any of us have experienced. But I've learned a lot. I've had a lot of great mentors here. I've had a great platform to learn from mentors across the state. Two concepts were taught to me in my tenure here. One, this concept of political acumen, the ability to understand and effectively navigate the informal dynamics, power structures, relationships, and decision-making processes within an organization or group, influencing outcomes ethically while building trust and achieving goals. The other, emotional intelligence, reading the room, reading the people that you're working with, collaborating, engaging. This last year has been an opportunity for me to take those concepts and have some really tough conversations. I know that there are some decisions that need to be made with regard to the MEG bargaining group and the members that it represents. And I just want to encourage all of you at the table to continue to do what I know you to do, why I came here and why I stayed here. Continue to act with empathy, continue to act with grace, humility, passion, commitment, but most of all, integrity. Thank you.

Next in chambers, Enrique Arreola.

I just wanted each Board of Supervisors member to have a copy of it in case I'm cut short. My name is Enrique Arriola. Good morning, members of the Board and members of the public. I am Deputy Director for Health and Human Service Agency. Today I'm here on my own time. As a deputy director, I oversee community services and workforce development, programs within workforce system, housing, homelessness, oversight of the migrant center. I've been an employee for 18 years. I started here June 2008. I don't think I mentioned it. I'm here a long time. Let me have a second. So during this 18 years have been really an amazing ride. I love working for the county. I love doing what I do here in San Bernardino County, helping those that need assistance, those households who are either homeless, on the verge of becoming homeless. We do a lot of work. It's never-ending. It's really difficult to solve homelessness, and we do the best we can. My unit within CSWD is a grant-funded unit. Most of the funds we have to seek funding, so it's very, very engaging, very difficult to always sustain operations at the shelter. So a lot of the work happens behind the scenes. to be honest with you. So there's a lot of time that we put into unpaid, should I say, time that's donated. I think over the last year, there's been a general sentiment that employees are not valued. And I'm not saying it from what I think, it's what employees are saying that I'm hearing from staff, that I'm hearing from MEC membership, and for different reasons. I also wanted to point out the data points that I pointed out last time, which are in the sheet that I provided you. Hopefully you get a copy of that. So for fiscal year 2526, 5359 hours of unpaid time that was donated by MEG employees. but they also took 1,675 hours of paid FLSA. I mean, but that's still a difference of 3,684, 3,684 hours at $80 an hour. And the Senate estimate, that's $428,720 of uncompensated time. So at a prior board meeting, Supervisor Kosmicki made a comment saying that we are selfish. I respectfully disagree. Having donated that much time and having all the commitment from all Meg employees, that is far from being selfish. So I just wanted to make that point again. And I value everyone and thank you very much for your time.

I have somebody on Zoom. Valerie, you've been unmuted and you have three minutes.

Oh, thank you very much. What I'm concerned about is the El Nino coming and the planning from the county. So far, I have not heard anything with our public works, the emergency people. What has the Board of Supervisors done to protect the community from a super El Nino which is supposed to be twice as big as the one in 1516 that wiped out levees and created havoc in the Lovers Lane area. So if If the Board of Supervisors is not taking the lead on protecting the county and looking at everything that can be done and notifying the public about, not to scare everybody to death, but a matter of being cautious, taking a look around your home, what are the things that you can protect yourself by doing things. It's To me, irresponsible for the Board of Supervisors to have neglected this so far in the whole year. This has been predicted for a long time. And the 26, 27 winter time between December and March is predicted to be super heavy on us. One storm after another. And we have experienced that at other times in shorter periods without creating catastrophe. But you're betting on a same old, same old kind of scenario. And I'm not seeing that this is doing the public any good. Our parks are going to be inundated. The bridge at the historic park and the Anza Trail, these We're looking at doing what's possible in those areas, but we're bracing for what's going to be a difficult year ahead. So thank you very much for listening.

Thank you. And that concludes public comments.

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

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

If you'd like to make a comment in chambers, please provide a speaker card on Zoom. Please press star nine or the raised hand icon. And I have no public comment.

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

I move to approve.

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

Supervisor Zenger?

Yes.

Supervisor Sotelo? Yes. Supervisor Kosmicki?

Yes.

Supervisor Curro?

Yes.

4-0 vote. Motion passes.

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

Good morning, Chair and members of the Board of Supervisors. Thank you very much for having us today. This is the second reading of the ordinance following the voter approved tax for the cannabis cultivation. This is for adoption of the ordinance to update our code to reflect what was voter approved and that range. Also before you today, within the item is that resolution that was discussed last week. As you may have seen within the draft, it has sections that are to be filled in and discussed today as far as what the specific rate will be. And we can approve that with direction today or come back with that final draft next week or the following week.

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

If you'd like to make a comment in chambers, please provide a speaker card on zoom, please press star nine or the raised hand icon. I have no public comment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah, I just, you know, I make it clear. I prefer to have these conversations in public as opposed to private conversations with a lot of, especially when we're talking about something like a tax rate, which, you know, the folks that are in this industry and the so-called stakeholders, you know, there's going to be a, they inherently will have, you know, we want to have a good collaboration and a partnership, but they're inherently going to have, you know, if we choose a rate that is, you know, too low, they're going to essentially profit from that. So I want to make sure that those conversations from this point forward are in public. We were on the ad hoc. We did have a range of people that were involved with coming up with the ordinance and the proposed rate that ultimately went to the voters. And thank you to the voters. It was pretty overwhelming to see. I was a bit surprised that it was such a wide margin that we saw on the ballot. And when it comes to the rate, I don't think I don't think there's a perfect science to it right now. I think it's one of those things where we have had discussions with different people in the industry, people on our staff, about what would be a rate to start off with that allows for significant runway. Because, again, I don't want to repeat myself too much, but you know the intention here is that we don't have to go back to the voters for quite a long time and that's why one thousand to ten thousand that's why the rate was so wide when people were asking well why is the range so high so that we don't have to keep coming back to the voters adjusting it and the idea was to have it on the lower side of the one thousand to ten thousand but not at the lowest side so that there's room uh if there's a catastrophe in the industry or if there's something that we're missing there would be room to go down, but also significant room to go up over time gradually. I think for me, I envision there being an analysis perhaps after year one And then to probably from there either at some point we can either start off with the intention to do a CPI sort of increase over time or we do, you know, maybe give it a year because this is kind of a pilot in a sense. And that's kind of the way that I view this. I don't think this first year is necessarily anything that. we are committing to long-term. It's a pilot. We want to see how it goes. We want to see how it works for the industry. We certainly want to gain revenue. That's the, you know, from our intention, that's the point as well. So that's why, you know, the conversation, because it's 1,000 to 10,000, the conversation, I think when the stakeholders were in the room, was more closer to, you know, 2,000 so that you could have room to go down still to the 1,000, but there would be that significant room what super uh chair and i don't want to take words out of his mouth but it's already kind of on the record what chair zanger had uh kind of broached as the folks think you walk into the room um was perhaps looking at 2 500 as a rate but again i think that's all up for discussion and we would i think hopefully still like to hear from the stakeholders especially considering public comment situation um we had to go out and do closed session i think the chair will i'm sure will be amenable to that um but he threw out 2500 i'd like to hear from the stakeholders and and then have a collaborative dialogue and just come up with a rate and not be too fixated on the exact dollar amount because i don't intend for this again this is like a this is we're giving this a try just to see for the year and then from there um you know my thought was do the year and then at that point get a firmer rate and then go with the cpi going forward unless there's some sort of large fluctuations in the um in the market thank you two versions are you guys okay if we go out to the yeah that's fine so we actually have one on zoom right and then so let's do that first and then we can hear public comment from audience members here okay darren you've been unmuted and you have three minutes

Okay, thanks. Yeah, thanks. I appreciate your time. I was actually I was on this call for over an hour, then I was brushing my teeth. I couldn't spit the toothpaste out fast enough. But um, yeah, I appreciate the opportunity to discuss. I think 2000 is a fair starting point. My understanding is that Santa Barbara County was aware that their taxes were too high. So they've allowed the cultivators there because they're a revenue-based tax model. So they've allowed the cultivators to funnel revenue through the distro license, which is 0%. And my understanding is that the effective rate most cultivators are paying now is about $1,000 per acre. The better news about San Benito is all the growers that I know are growing organically, so they're good stewards of the land, and I actually feel like we're people that are exemplary models of agriculture enterprises, and I think it's a good potential for a long-term relationship. I think 2000 is a good starting rate. A CPI adjustment could be challenging because the prices for our commodity is just going down every year. And so obviously if there's any input cost that's continuing to go up while our prices are going down, it compresses margins and makes it very challenging. And the worst thing you want is operators that can't, survive and they have to close up shop because they usually don't leave things in a good orderly, in good affairs. So I would just always be willing to work with the industry and make sure that it's sustainable for everybody. But we also want the county to have some revenue as well and make this a revenue generating activity. So I appreciate the opportunity to provide input.

Thank you.

Thank you. I don't have speaker cards on the gentleman in the chamber so if you want to come up just state your name to the microphone that's there in the middle.

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

I'm Aziz with DNA Organics. You guys have been great to work with, and we really appreciate you being so progressive, and we really want to work with you guys to help the county get more revenue. I'm sorry. I'm a little out of breath. I had to run here from the coffee shop. We think that $2,000 an acre is a fair rate in terms of that additional $500 per acre that you suggested, Colin. $500 for individual growers per acre adds up to quite a bit. And we think as a lot of this new cultivation comes online and the market progresses, given federal rescheduling and all that stuff, there is going to be more price compression over the next few years. And 2000 kind of puts us in a comfortable range to prepare for that. So, you know... We think that would be great. Thank you, guys.

Thank you.

Good morning, Gordon. I'm a little bit out of breath, too. We had to run for not quite as long as I expected. My name is Jake Brooks. I'm from Brook Hollow Ranch. First off, just like Aziz echoed, the staff in san benito just credit stephanie abraham you know melinda the rest of the team and just you guys stroking up this industry for the industry for cannabis um you know we came out in 2021 when there was a different board composition and a very very different tax rate um you know cannabis is an agricultural commodity so the best way i would liken the current rate structure to economic terms is an average ground lease in holster is about Ranching is 75 an acre. A regular row crop lease is anywhere from 500 to 1,000 an acre. $500, our operation is just around 140 acres of canopy. An extra $500 is $70,000 a year. That's a new tractor. It's a new piece of equipment that can help us be more competitive to the industry. So many is a very competitive rate, but I think for the long term of this industry, you know, I think all the operators here and it's a pretty, pretty big industry, but it's pretty small community growers. You have a good, good base of people here. People in the industry do things the right way. They've got established businesses and we're all very, very eager to create a good industry for this county and to create a very good diversified crop for this county. But that difference between $2,000 and $2,500 is a big difference. We think a moderate $2,000 tax rate is still a good amount of revenue for the county, but it's a good base to build off of until the county grows to its full capacity. Another thing to flag, I think, for the county that we've seen, and We did it to where we basically applied for the acreage that we wanted to grow. I think the county does need to assess something to where the county can welcome in operators, and they don't tie up a large amount of cap all at once. If you tie up a lot of the cap with gross acreage, let's say you tie up 200, 300 acres, but you only use 100, I don't want to get to a position where the growers under... don't get to the expectations that the county gets in terms of tax revenue. So I think outside of setting a moderate tax, the county should look at either rates upon acreage applied for in the cap, or how much you're using, or some type of sunset period So you're very optimistic and you want to grow 300 acres, but the business didn't work and you can only do 50. We should be able to welcome people in or let people expand who want to expand. So I think there's a few things in the ordinance that should be looked at collaboratively, but I think a $2,000 break rate would be a very good starting point to build a foundation for the future. And we're all here. We don't want to be here for a year or so. We want to be here. We're trying to build out a business that sort of supplies the national market should that time come. So I really appreciate the time and appreciate all that you've done so far.

Thank you.

Hello, everybody. Thanks so much for welcoming this proposal in this county. I think my name is George Workman. I'm from Refined Genetics. I'm one of the owners. We operate in Monterey County, Santa Cruz County, and now San Benito County. So we really understand how all the different structures and how things can work for the county. We've seen businesses come and go over the last six years. we see what it takes to make a successful business in this emerging market. Really, the make or break is rent and taxes. If you see a lot of the failures, there's a lot of good operators, people that knew what they were doing, but the make or break was the rent and the taxes. While $500 might seem like a nominal amount, I encourage you guys to look at it from a standpoint of margin can be looked at by just one acre, you get that extra 500 bucks. But without that 500 bucks and you're just at the 2,000, you could do more acres. And so having more acres in the county, I think would be a better way for you guys to look at this is like, how can you make this more competitive, more attractive, more enticing for growers? And then I think that will in turn lead to more revenue for the program. So appreciate your time. Thank you.

Thank you.

I believe that's everybody. I don't have anybody on Zoom. Anybody else in the chambers? No? Then that's all of them.

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

I do. Thank you. So I'm hoping, in a perfect world, we would not be making a decision on this today on our rate. I think that what I would like to see is I really would like to see us come up with a... an ad hoc that consists of the stakeholders, of law enforcement, of planning a building. I really think there's a lot we need to consider in this. There is not only the economic part of this, but there is also the safety, the enforcement, all of the different things that go into into this item. I've spent a lot of time, I've had a lot of conversations, I've talked to different counties, and I want to make sure we get this right. For me, I agree 100% with Supervisor Kosmicki. I would like to see whatever we do, it be a one-year pilot program. and with that kind of revenue. My concern is, and first of all, let me say, to the stakeholders and to the people that spoke today, thank you. Thank you for what you're doing. Thank you for being a part of this conversation, and I really commend you on the dedication and commitment that you've had. You've taught us a lot sitting up here, and I absolutely recognize that you all are trying to do it right. I want to see the program that we bring to this community as a model, hopefully, that is a successful model, and that's why I want to give a lot of thought and care to this. It is a privilege to come to our community and to do this, or to be doing this in your own community, right? And because I feel that way, I also want zero tolerance for bad apples. and we know that that's going to happen, but I want to be intentional about how do we handle all of that. I think that on the whole, you know, with the permitted, if you're going to secure acreage, you're going to have to pay on that acreage. I'm not saying at the same rate, but you absolutely, if you're going to secure and you're going to lock up acreage, you've got to pay for it, in my opinion. And so... I get that maybe we can figure out a reduced rate, but again, there is so many things that are going into this that I believe we need more time. We need to have more conversations. We need to bring everybody to the table. How much is it going to cost us to cover our costs? I talked to the sheriff. He needs at least two bodies. He thought two would be sufficient assigned to this program. What are we going to need in other areas? How do we make sure that we at minimum are covering our costs? How do we make sure that we have programs in this community with this revenue, this tax revenue coming in, that we can do prevention and education for our youth. So for me, this isn't about just collecting a tax, but collecting this tax and what can we do for our community? How do we keep this community safe? I think that you know, I really would like to see, I really, I am not comfortable setting that rate today just because there are so many unknown answers. And so much of it is kind of unknown, right? We talk about what $500 more could mean or what $1,000 more could mean. But I really don't know what all of the numbers mean. I don't know what the revenues are that potentially are brought in from an acre. There is so much unknown. And so as one supervisor, I am asking my colleagues, please, let's give this a little bit of time. We are exempt through 2026. So this is passing and we have the cannabis tax rate is from 1,000 to 10,000. I'm comfortable moving forward with that. And nothing changes with that. What we need to do, though, is spend a little bit of time and not make a rushed decision on this because effectively this isn't going to take effect until 2027 anyways. Am I correct in that, Rebecca? That this is, we are exempt for the rest of 2026. And from what I also understood from our last meeting was that when we set this rate, we can discuss and set that rate essentially. I mean, the resolution would take effect right away.

Correct. It's immediate.

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

Thank you. Supervisor Curl.

So I appreciate all the comments from my colleagues so far, and I agree moving forward with this ordinance update, absolutely totally support it. Where I'm struggling, a little like Supervisor Sotelo, but a little different. I am looking at this from a how can we set a rate and then come back in a year and say, whoa, that was way too low. I would rather set a very conservative rate and then come down. And the reason why is because of some of the things that Supervisor Sotelo has brought up. I think the zero tolerance issue is very important, but also staff, I want staff to be engaged in this program and have their feedback presented to us about what is the cost of the bad apples. And I'm not, this is not to any of you. This is, you know there are bad apples out there and they make it terrible for the rest of you. And that's not fair. But we need to be able to have a program in place of if you have a bad apple that has not gone through the correct process, what are the fines? Are the fines going to be able to cover the costs that county council time has spent, that the sheriff's time has spent, that environmental health may have spent? You know, whatever department is engaged in that, and how do we bring the data from some of these investigations that have happened from our prior bad apples, how do we get the staff to bring those numbers to us? What did it cost when you had to do a raid? What did it cost to actually get rid of the product? How long did it take? How much time? Because if we knew those numbers, I would feel much more comfortable about the number setting, because we'd be able to see where our revenue, where our costs and our revenue are coming from. Right now, I will tell you, I'm not even in the ballpark of the number that I'm looking at. I don't even want to say the number that I'm looking at. It's over $3,000. So right now I'm not sold at two until we know how much it's going to cost and that the staff have looked at this program and made a policy or procedure on how we're going to deal and find and recover our costs from the ones that aren't paying. Because it shouldn't be coming out of the revenue that's being generated on the – above board track, I'm trying to use my words very carefully. The above the board track, the people that are doing it the right way and are keeping it out of bad hands versus the ones that are putting it in bad hands, those are the people that I want to make sure we're addressing before we set a fee. Because if it's a fine that we need to look at and because that's not part of the cannabis ordinance and we're dealing with maybe a hemp permit that goes bad, those are the ones that I wanna make sure that we're looking at both ends of it before we actually set a number. And we do have some time. I mean, we definitely wanna get this done sooner than later. I just think we need the staff. So I would support either the ad hoc or a special board meeting after the staff have actually come together and have staff present what they feel the impacts would be on each of their departments. If we want to keep it in the public and not have it be an ad hoc, then let's have a special board meeting. Let's have the staff prepare presentations from each department. Let's bring some of those numbers forward, and then let's look at what the outcome is.

Thank you.

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

You know, this is going to be what it is until next year anyway, so we do have a little bit of time. My concern, though, partially, where I think there's a little bit of urgency, is that there's this looming question mark for the industry and those involved, the growers, and they don't know what's going to happen, so they can't really plan, they can't forecast, and so it makes it difficult for them in that regard. And so that's one reason I think I would like to – I understand there's not – maybe not – at this meeting today but sooner than just the last minute at the end of the year. I do want to move forward so that they have some clarity on what they can do going forward. I understand there's a lot of question marks still. I think I'm leaning toward the idea of a special meeting as opposed to an ad hoc where we can just line out what we need to know and get it hammered out and figure it out as opposed to an ad hoc sort of back and forth with a drawn out period and I'd rather just do it out in the open like was suggested. And I'll just remind everyone that it is, as Senator Crosby mentioned, this is a two-way door. You can go backwards. You can move around. Whatever we set does not mean this is what it is forever. It doesn't mean that's what it is for even however long. We can reset it whenever. So nothing is set in stone with however we move forward. So those would be my thoughts on it. And just in regard to some of the public comment, I fear that there is this, just based on the comments, there's this idea that it was sort of, the board was sort of in agreement of $2,000 and then we're moving to $25,000. That was, just to be clear, that's not the situation. It could be $3,000 and down to $25,000 or up to $35,000. There was, just to be clear, it's not like we were all, okay, $2,000, actually we're going to bump it to $25,000, and then the industry is saying, hold on, that $500, it's like, look, that could be the low point. So just to be clear, that's not exactly how things went, just so that everyone knows. But with the comments I've heard, I'm okay with the special meeting idea. I think that makes sense. I don't know if Supervisor Kazimicki, do you have follow-up thoughts after hearing that?

Yeah, just briefly, I think everybody's making good points. And, you know, we have time, but I also agree with Supervisor Zanger's point about... getting it done sooner than later we also are running up against the timeline with the budget um so i'm not so sure perhaps the ceo can chime in at some point about timing and if we are trying to do this as soon as possible through a workshop of some kind when that could potentially happen that works with the schedule on the budget and then lastly i would say if we do a special meeting just to ensure that you know the stakeholders that it's more of a free-flowing conversation as opposed to just you know you got your three minutes get your speech right um because we got to get this right and and i think um i'm fine i think the public meeting i think that that would be a good idea to just get it done together so it's not we're not having to go back and forth if you have two people that maybe come to an agreement the other two we only have four board members the other two may disagree and that's going to cause more problems if we need to basically um get consensus i think in the same room thanks

Yeah.

Or did you wanna, go ahead, CEO.

Good morning, Supervisors. We can schedule a meeting next Wednesday if everybody is available as soon as Wednesday next week?

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

So the following week, two weeks from today?

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

Sounds good.

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

I would rather have not considered that amount until it actually happens. Okay. That's a conservative approach. Okay. Yes. Yes.

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

is there any additional areas that need to be excluded and i just go ahead rebecca i see you over there thank you um we can absolutely bring that as part of the presentation and discussion it sounds like if we're willing to set a special meeting where there's ample time covering the fines the code the collection and reviewing it all as well as the individual departments and their roles and discussion of it we can include the as part of that conversation, and it would follow the appropriate adoption when it comes to changing any of those codes relating to zoning.

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

Mr. Chair, members of the Board of Supervisors, if I may. I just wanted to follow up on Supervisor Sotelo's enforcement discussion. And you're absolutely correct. This Board is absolutely correct that it must aggressively enforce the code. as to those that are engaging in illegal unpermitted unlicensed activity and we must be able to protect those that are in fact complying with the law they are permitted they are doing everything right under our existing code and so separate from this but related I do intend to bring forward within the next 30 days a program for abatement of some of our most significant nuisance activity that occurs within this county and to deal with some of our most significant nuisance properties where the property owners have failed to address compliance and more aggressive means are necessary. And one component of that will necessarily be the abatement of these illegal grows and any activity that is in fact unlicensed within the county. And so that will be coming forward. We'll also be addressing that in the same manner through this process that you're suggesting.

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

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

Yes, Supervisor. The way that this will be structured is that we're going to be focused on assessing liens on the real property that would then appear on the property taxes. State law specifically allows us to recover all of our attorney's fees and costs, which are going to be your most significant costs, in addition to the actual cost of all county personnel responding and handling these problem properties. So that will increase quite quickly, and it becomes a significant cost

means of deterrence for these property owners thank you thank you yeah and i just piggybacking up pretty much similar vein as what supervisor curl said um a couple things i you know i do not in principle i appreciate what so far as the tell us said because we've got to cover costs with something with these issues but um in principle i don't necessarily agree that the legal growers should be paying for the mishaps of the illegal growers so that we just make sure that that's clear. That being said, I think if you have a year as a surveying mechanism, a pilot of sorts, we'll get a better idea if there are so-called legal growers who are needing to be dealt with and over time we'll get a better handle as to what potential costs there may or may not be from the legal side when they do cross over and do things that are less appropriate thank you thank you okay so we have consensus on that to hold a special meeting with all these items to discuss and set it right at that point good

Okay.

So to clarify, is the ordinance also being continued or are we willing to take action?

No, no, it's not being continued. Sorry. Okay, is there a motion then on that half of the item at all?

I move to approve as recommended.

Second. First and second, can we have roll call vote, please?

Supervisor Zenger?

Yes.

Supervisor Sotelo? Yes. Supervisor Kosmicki?

Yes.

Supervisor Curro?

Yes.

4-0 vote. Motion passes. Okay.

Thank you very much. That concludes our public hearings for today. Do we need a five-minute break or should we move to regular agenda? Yeah, take a quick one. It's a five-minute break.

All right.

Thank you. Okay, we are back from our break. We move on to regular agenda item 3.1. This is to receive a presentation on the transfer station analysis and staff's recommendation of the resource recovery park site as the preferred location for running the landfill.

Good morning, Chair Zanger and members of the board. Today, we are providing a brief overview of the county's transfer station planning efforts, including the analysis completed to date and next steps for the board's consideration. As directed by the board in March 2025, staff has continued evaluating two county-owned sites, the John Smith Road landfill and the property across from the landfill that was previously considered for a resource recovery park. I'll first provide a brief refresher on the landfill prior expansion efforts and the Sanitary Ad Hoc Committee's work to provide context for where we are today. Sangeeta Lewis with Lewis Engineering will then present on the analysis of the two potential sites. The landfill was established in 1968. It has approximately 58 acres of a waste footprint with overall 95 acres. The county owns the landfill. It is operated by Waste Connections, and we have several agreements since 2005 with the operator. Rates are adjusted annually by COLA and subject to change in law provisions. The county's latest capacity analysis estimates that the landfill will reach capacity in June of 2035, leaving us with less than 15 years of capacity required under AB 939. The landfill operator previously pursued an expansion that could have provided additional capacity, but that project was denied by the Planning Commission, and the operator subsequently withdrew its appeal and terminated the expansion effort. While a future expansion application cannot be ruled out, there is currently no proposed expansion. Given that uncertainty, the county needs to continue planning for future disposal capacity and evaluating alternatives, including the transfer station options we will be discussing today. I also want to briefly highlight that the landfill expansion process was conducted through a transparent and extensive public process. This slide provides a timeline of some of the key public outreach and review milestones, including the EIR process, a community town hall, local task force engagement, and multiple public hearings before the planning commission. I'm including this simply to provide context for the extensive public process that occurred around the prior expansion. proposal in 2004 the board established the sanitary ad hoc committee to evaluate the county's long-term solid waste needs and future landfill options i'd like to thank supervisors kuro and zanger for their participation and work on the ad hoc that work led to the board's march 2025 direction to further evaluate disposal alternatives alternative technologies and the two potential transfer sites transfer station sites Ultimately, the question before the board is, how will we build a reliable and cost-effective solid waste system beyond the life of the existing landfill? That means looking at the combination of disposal, transfer, and service options while considering cost, capacity, environmental impacts, transportation, regulatory requirements, community acceptance, and implementation timelines, just to name a few. This slide highlights several potential long-term system scenarios for consideration. These include direct hauling to a regional landfill, developing a local transfer station, or combining a transfer station with a longer-term exclusive hauler or franchise agreement. As the board looks towards the future, we have an opportunity to address both disposal capacity and increased material recovery. These are not decisions the board is being asked to make today, but potential components of a future system to keep in mind as we continue our planning. Regardless of the approach ultimately pursued, continued investment and diversion will remain an important part of that system. I'd like to now welcome Sangeeta Lewis.

Good morning, supervisors. Appreciate the ability to be here today to talk about the work that's been done by staff to date on the transfer stations all waste management strategies. County staff started the process of developing solid waste management plans soon after Waste Solutions Group's landfill expansion was denied by the Planning Commission and then they did not appeal it. So to that end, county staff met with the facilities that are shown on this map to understand their soil waste management systems, available disposal capacity, and the potential interest and feasibility of accepting San Benito County waste. What we found was that some of the neighboring jurisdictions, such as Salinas Valley, Santa Cruz, and Merced, are not currently accepting out of county waste and have limited remaining capacity available themselves. The two facilities that have capacity and interest in San Benito County waste are Regen Monterey at the Marina Landfill and Waste Management at the Kirby Canyon Landfill. We also talked to the neighboring jurisdictions about potential for partnerships on alternative technologies, and we are continuing those discussions with them, although there's not an established alternative technology currently present out there to partner with. We also worked in parallel with Waste Connections in evaluating an in-county only landfill option. Waste Connections let us know not too long ago that they were not interested in an in-county only landfill option. In addition, staff has been tracking the RJR transfer station facility as it pursues its permits to expand the facility and see if there's any potential there. So in looking at the alternatives, it seems like the transfer station option is certainly one of the options that is something that can be done and is feasible to be done in the time frame that we have. We looked at potential sites and looked at zoning as far as what sites within the county have the appropriate zoning. This map shows the public, quasi-public sites that are available. As you can see, there's not very many of them. The one on the furthest right is the current landfill and resource recovery park. The PQP zoning allows for landfills, recycling, and resource recovery. And it is our understanding from planning that a general plan amendment would not be required for siting a facility in the PQP zoning. So with that in mind, staff focused on two sites where it seemed most likely that approval of a transfer station could be obtained somewhat expeditiously. The first location is the John Smith Road landfill site at the entrance facility location. And the second is the resource recovery park, which is just a little bit further down the road. The first option that we looked at and drew some conceptual plans on, and I know these are hard to read, but basically this site, the transfer station would be located in the entrance facilities of the current landfill. Because this transfer station would have to be ready for use prior to the landfill capacity being depleted, it would need to be constructed while still maintaining landfill operations. Therefore, this option maintains existing scales and entrance and exit roads. The transfer station is limited in size to about 16,000 square feet. It's hard to tell on this drawing that you're seeing, but there is a loadout tunnel on the south side. There's some fairly extensive retaining walls that would need to be built. for allowing some entrance and exit ramps. There is a bypass lane on the north side. In this scenario, the public inbound traffic would go over the existing inbound scales and into the transfer station and then exit through an exit scale that would be added. The transfer trailers and commercial vehicles would use the existing outbound scales and the commercial vehicles would enter the transfer station whereas the transfer trailers would go over the existing outbound scale and through the loadout tunnel, where there would also be a scale. There is a small area for recycling, which would allow customers with only recycled materials to deposit the materials right next to the scales area. Once the landfill is closed, there might be additional on-site areas for recycling. As far as the transfer station structure itself, we did visit Salinas Valley Waste Management Facility at Holon Road, where they construct a tensile fabric building, and that kind of structure might work for San Benito County. The second location we evaluated was the Resource Recovery Park location, which is a little further down John Smith Road. Because of the space available on this property, this option allows for a much larger transfer station that's about 45,000 square feet. It also incorporates a larger area for recycling with a Z wall to allow customers to deposit recyclable materials. There's also a lot longer queuing lane with separate scales for public and commercial vehicles and a bypass lane for customers that only have recycled materials. An outbound scale house and a new intersection would be required at John Smith Road. So we presented these two transfer station options in March of 2025 when we were last here to present to the board. And the board directed us to more fully explore both these options as far as environmental and cost considerations. And that's the work we've been performing to date. We contracted with Grissetti Environmental to prepare a comparative and environmental analysis of the two sites. This slide summarizes some of the key environmental categories. It doesn't include all of them, but the report does have a list of more environmental categories. I just highlighted the ones that were the most critical as far as Grissetti's analysis. On this slide, the LTS is environmental impacts that were considered less than significant. SM is ones that are significant but mitigable. And the plus and minus kind of indicate whether it has less or greater impact. Of these categories, the two that have a more significant impact for the resource recovery part than the John Smith landfill, our aesthetics and noise. Obviously, the John Smith landfill entrance facility is an existing facility that has been disturbed land, whereas Resource Recovery Park is a new site. So as we get further into it and have more designs, we will look into the environmental impacts a little further. Staff also contracted with JRMA who are specialists in the design and operations of transfer stations to analyze the two options from a design and operations perspective as summarized on this slide. As you can see in the table, The resource recovery part transfer station allows for a building that is more than double the size of the John Smith Road entrance. So the option has ample space for resource recovery operations, allows a tipping floor storage capacity of two days instead of one day. I think the minimum requirement is one day, but it allows for a little bit more storage. But the resource recovery facility option does require four new scales. and not some of the existing infrastructure that's at John Smith Road landfill. The most notable issue with the John Smith Road landfill transfer station option is the limited queuing space between the scales and the transfer station building. This could lead to traffic backups, particularly on a crowded weekend day with a lot of public traffic. JRMA concluded that the resource recovery park option was the preferred option and that the John Smith Road landfill option was not really feasible, given the queuing limitations. Also, the resource recovery option allows for more flexibility for future expansion and further resource recovery operations. So the cost, it's always the big question. So the transfer station gate rate estimates have three major components. The capital cost to build a transfer station, the operating and transportation costs to collect the waste at the transfer station and haul it to a disposal facility, and the disposal costs. Given JRMA's review of the two sites, we focused the capital cost estimate primarily on the resource recovery site, but I think the cost would be similar for both sites. We estimated a capital cost of $20 million for a transfer facility with some recycling capabilities. The estimate includes some engineering and permitting costs, and we had these costs reviewed by both JRMA and a contractor who has built many transfer stations. The transfer station contractor also felt that a very rudimentary transfer station could be constructed in the $10 million range, but it probably doesn't have all the bells and whistles. So when we convert these capital costs into a cost per ton and amortize it over 20 years, assuming about 85,000 tons per year, it comes to a low-end cost of about $6 per ton and a high-end cost of about $12.50 per ton. We estimated operations costs based on the costs we obtained from Santa Cruz County for operations of the Ben Lomond Transfer Station, which is about a 300 ton per day facility and similar in capacity to what San Benito County would need. Santa Cruz County runs its own transport trucks, but we also looked at third party hauler, and that is what affects the range and costs that are noted on the table. Finally, we have disposal costs, and we spoke with both Regen Monterey and Kirby Canyon Facility regarding disposal costs in current day dollars and obtained from between $65 to $77 a ton. Therefore, the range in transfer station costs is from about $111 to $142 per ton. These costs do not include administrative fees, financing fees, or other costs that could be incurred by the county. The current gate rate for regular trash at John Smith Road landfill right now is $67.50 a ton. The county has historically kept that gate rate low at John Smith by paying waste connections that COLA increases directly rather than increasing the gate rate. However, since out-of-county waste ceased, the county has had to increase the gate rate to adjust for COLA. For comparison to other facilities, we found low-end transfer station gate fees of about $70 per ton at Holon Road and Madison Lane in Salinas Valley, which are older and smaller facilities, and up to about $300 per ton at a Bay Area facility. The typical rates for transfer stations are about $150 to $180 per ton, so the estimated cost of about $111 to $142 per ton for building a new transfer station are in line with other transfer station facilities in the region. We also looked at what the transfer station would cost as far as the franchise rates and worked with Recology to develop these costs. Recology estimated an increase about between 12.5 to 18.5%. for a new transfer station and the increased disposal cost. So for a, the current rate for a 32-gallon residential can is $42.50. That would increase the rates to between $47.80 and $50.38. For a one-yard commercial, the current costs about $219.50, and it would increase to about $246.91. to $260.25. That concludes my discussion today, and I think Selena's going to wrap up.

Thank you, Sangeeta. All right, based on staff's analysis, staff is recommending the resource recovery park site as the preferred location for the transfer station and is seeking the board's direction on whether to move forward with this site. Developing a new solid waste system would require multiple phases of planning, design, environmental review, permitting, financing, and procurement. Given the county's limited remaining landfill capacity and the county's obligation to plan for adequate disposal capacity, there is a need to be advancing this work now. If the board supports moving forward, the next phase would include conceptual design at 30%, so we can have that ready for an EIR. Financial analysis, including a preliminary cost estimate, financing options, and rate analysis, further rate analysis. JRMA, which provided additional analysis of the transfer station design and cost, has provided a preliminary estimate of approximately 500,000 for this next phase over two years, and staff is recommending 250 000 for this fiscal year as the basis for proposed budget adjustment from the county solid waste fund which staff would bring back to the board for consideration if authorized staff would still follow the county's procurement process to solicit and select a consultant for this work thank you thank you let's go to public comment if you'd like to make a comment in chambers please provide a speaker card on zoom please press star 9 or the raised hand icon

Thank you. And you can use the podium, not the one over there in the middle, please.

Good morning. My name is Maureen Nelson. I'm a resident of San Benito County. Thank you for the presentation on the landfill and the progress that we're looking at. I really would like to stress that we need to do a much better job, more thorough education of children in school because they take it home to their parents. and to the general public of San Benito County of what is recyclable, what is compostable, and what should be in the trash can. I live in a very nice area. I live in Santana Ranch. I have young neighbors that honestly don't know how to separate their trash. So what do I do? I go through everybody's trash that is close to my house and I separate it for them. Makes me crazy. We need to educate. We can extend the life of a landfill that we currently have and we can also reduce the amount of So-called garbage that isn't garbage going to a resource center or a transfer station. Education is key. Start young. Enforce it. I was told a couple years ago that there were markers on my bin. I said, thank you very much. I recognize the markers. They peeled off. So to tell me, look at your bins to see what's recyclable is a fallacy. We need to do a better job. Start young. When kids take information home, parents listen. And kids are the impetus of change. They are our future. Take advantage of that. Educate them now. I know, I harp at this all the time. I ran a recycling center in Boulder, Colorado. I worked for EcoCycle. The director is known for zero waste, travels the country, travels the world, is well known, Eric Lombardi. I speak from experience and I speak from degrees. I also have three degrees in environmental science. A little over the top, I understand. But we need to really emphasize this. We need to educate, and we need to make it easier for people to abide by it. We can do it. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning, supervisors. My name is Bridget Borman. I also want to make a comment on the resource recovery part. I'm so proud that we don't have a landfill expansion and that the focus will be on a recovery park. I don't know if you remember the Don't Dump on San Benito when we had this horrible plan of a landfill expansion. I don't know if you guys know that Hollister was on, San Benito County, the city of Hollister was on the verge, verge of becoming a dump town. Every time I see these dump trucks driving on 101 toward Monterey, and sometimes I see, of course, they're still driving, by the way, on Fraser Lake and Fairview Road, still to the dump, those 20-ton trucks. I still wonder where they're coming from, if they're really from in-county. I really wish, I wonder if we can do an audit on these big 20-ton trucks. Because I know San Benito County of Ecology, we only have these smaller trucks that come to your neighborhood, pick up your trash. Because we need to preserve the landfill. As long as we can, I know it's now nine years, nine years will go by fast. I just want to remind maybe to listeners also what I learned about since I've been working on it, don't dump on somebody, don't trash. People generally don't want to talk about the trash. You dump your trash in the garbage, it gets picked up and it disappears. But it goes into land. Basically, we're just throwing our garbage in a dump. And everybody needs to be aware. I mean, there needs to be a greater awareness. It's in the ground forever. And I just want to also make the supervisors aware we have... El Niño coming in the wintertime. The landfill is an open pit. It rains on it. There will be a massive, massive rainfall. Please check out NOAA websites. And it will rain on the landfill. It will be a disaster. And so I can't wait for the landfill to close and get it capped so we don't have to deal with the effect of the water seeping through the garbage and then you have to disleach it and maybe... leaking out these toxic liquids from the landfill and pollution of our groundwater. So thank you. I want to applaud you for this plan of the Recovery Resource Park. And I just feel we as citizens, we need to be aware of what we're throwing in the garbage. It's literally forever in the ground. Thank you.

And that concludes public comment.

Thank you. Questions from board members?

I'll go first.

Yes, sure.

Thank you for the presentation and all the hard work that you guys have both done and all of the consultants. And I want to thank Supervisor Zanger for being such an active participant on the sanitary solutions ad hoc. I don't think any of this is a great answer for our community. With rates going up with PG&E and potential shutdowns of energy sources, we're going to see utility rates go through the roof. We also are going to see utility rates on trash go through the roof. want the most economical and environmentally safe program moving forward. I do want to say for being on the local area task force and seeing all the work that's being done with the educational system with the schools, with the teachers, just giving the award to one of the best schools, South Side Road just happens to be in my district, that that school has been recognized for their incredible recycling and composting. And I just, I want the public to understand we are a small rural county with very few resources. And you may want us to be the perfect county of recycle. We don't have necessarily the resources to do that. It's about engagement of the public. It's about our schools. It's about doing it as a team. It cannot fall on five elected officials, right now four. To me, education is absolutely invaluable, but that comes from parents, that comes from grandparents, that comes from the community. It is not always on government to solve these problems. I want to defend staff because they have done an incredible job with the youth programs, with the poster programs. The artists of our youth are amazing. So a little off topic there, so let me get back on to my questions. I see that we don't really have the public, quasi-public, yeah, the PQP. We don't have very many locations. And you stated that it doesn't take a general plan amendment. We talked about some other locations in the county and the fact that this location, these two locations that are being discussed are up in the hills, but you have to drive through town to get to them. Have we really dived into other locations that may be without so much truck traffic coming through our community? I know we talked about a couple of them and none of them seem to work out. I just want to make sure that the public knows this is a conversation we've had. So if you could just kind of address why we're kind of stuck with where we're at right now.

Yeah, we've looked at county-owned properties throughout the county, and we've also looked at industrial zone properties, which is very few, and then these properties. And the two that the county owns do appear to be the most logical for this project at this time.

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

Yeah, at this time, with the services that we have, you would still have that self-haul. What you're seeing today with the landfill, that self-haul could still occur, as well as the transferring out of the vehicles, which I think we estimated potentially 10, 10 to 15. Yeah, 10 to 12 transfer vehicles out of town.

Transfer vehicles. Okay, and just so, I don't believe we are, we're still not accepting any out-of-county trash. If trucks are being seen right now, these trucks, there is a reclamation project going on with Granite Rock that has nothing to do with the landfill. If you're seeing a large quantity of trucks, they're not trash trucks, unless I'm missing something. These large quantity of trucks that you see, and if these trucks, these haulers are on Fairview, we need that reported to the county because they're only supposed to be on 25. And it goes until the beginning of September. So I just want everyone to understand truck traffic isn't just trash traffic. It's also, you know, we've got lots of minerals that come in and out of our community. Cienega Road always has trucks on it. Union Road always has trucks. I just want to make sure that the public is aware all traffic is not trash traffic. My biggest concern is rate control. Santa Cruz County has gone to a transfer station and in this transfer station, they have seen a rate increase of all the residents. I'm just gonna ask the question very bluntly. With a transfer station and we haul out to other locations, we do not have control over those rates. Those rates are controlled by where the trash goes.

That's correct, the hope would be to do a long-term agreement that is in the best and most benefit of the county.

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

We presented so far just to the integrated waste local task force and we would be happy to provide a presentation to the cities as well.

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

We have not had that conversation.

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

Resource Recovery Park.

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

We're expecting that exemption to be gone in 2037.

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

Thank you. Who else, Supervisor? Supervisor Kosmicki?

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

trucks going to the landfill and dumping the self haulers including commercial entities are to provide an origin of waste documentation to the landfill upon uh arriving at the gate scale house so um there's who reviews that though the landfill gate staff that's not the colony at iwm that would be the contractor correct waste connections you know i think

not to be accusatory, but I do think just as a way to ensure that, again, I just think it would be a good practice to have some sort of mechanism. I don't know what exactly that would look like, but I do think that the concerns are valid concerns. And if we don't have a mechanism to ensure that there aren't out of county trucks, I do think we should have some sort of, whether it's an audit or periodic sort of thing. I don't exactly know what that would look like, but I do think it would just be responsible. And again, it's not to be accusatory whatsoever. toward the contractor, but there is a lot of money at stake here, and in theory, if we're not having any sort of mechanism to ensure that that's not happening, then obviously we're vulnerable to that happening. So I do think there should be some sort of, I don't know how staff could work on some ideas to look at how that's done elsewhere, because there aren't many of these places anymore that are allowing out of county waste but there is a lot of money at stake here and and one would be incentivized to skirt the rules if there was no accountability to skirting the rules again i do want to i do want to underscore i'm not accusing anybody of anything i just think that that would be a good practice

We can certainly look at other landfills and how they're tracking this, what the tools we currently have or what I've mentioned. Yes, but we also have our reports that we receive monthly from the landfill operators. So those are tonnage reports. among other reports. But the 10-inch report, we can see the trends if there is increase in over years, over months, by day. So that is another way that we're tracking and making sure things are averaging.

Yeah, and that's great. I just think there's a little bit of a guessing game involved there. And have the have has the tonnage gone up it seems like that 15-year window has shrunk pretty quickly in my broad recollection that this 15 years was not 15 years when we said it was 15 years because we're down to nine years now and that that raises a red flag to me um because that means there's a lot more trash going into that landfill than we were expecting and so again not accusing anyone of anything it would just be a good practice to have something in place to hold the landfill operator accountable and to make them know that we're watching to ensure that there aren't any breaking of the rules going on Because I am concerned hearing that. I got to say, I'm concerned hearing anecdotally about large trucks going in, whether it's Granite Rock or others, it does concern me. And I do think that we should put something in place. As far as education, I do want to say IWM does a fantastic job. I mean, there are limitations to what you can do and what people read and what people pay attention to. When I go to the movies, am I actually paying attention to the commercial or is my kid throwing popcorn or whatever? But we are doing a lot of things. Maybe we look at, you know, maybe we do another brainstorming at some point, and I trust staff, you guys are professionals, you know what you're doing. Maybe take another look and see, is there another way we could do this with evolving technology and social media and AI and all this stuff that's going on? I do agree that education is, it is crucial. I mean, in an ideal world, everybody would just get it and even i mean i have to say like i i've been enlightened over time as well and you know i'm personally i consider our household to be very cognizant of you know what goes in which bin but we're not perfect either and i keep learning and it's like you know i was at your event in san juan i think last year and uh talking to one of the executives, the name of the company, the Recology, I guess, and just chatting about, hey, you're the big shot, so what does your garbage situation look like? And he basically said there's almost nothing in his trash bin at the end of the week, which means they're putting, which means, There are flaws in the system because most of us have probably full trash bins at the end of the week. I know we do. I got kids. But we also have a recycling bin that's full. It's that compost bin, I think, where a lot of people could probably... use more education for instance like i didn't know that paper towel can just go into the compost bin so for quite a while i'm just admitting this here we're guilty you know we're putting paper towel in the trash it's gross you know like i didn't know that but now we're as much as we can putting it in compost so i do maybe circling back to education agree with that um i will say on just pushing going back to the topic at hand there's a reason why most of these landfills are not allowing out of county waste we've heard loud and clear from our residents that they don't want out of county waste because of the impacts on the quality of life on the infrastructure on the roads you can tell me you're going to pay you can throw seven figure dollar amounts at me all day long but is it really is it really covering those costs and i would say it's it's probably not because fairview road needs to be expanded at some point down the line and if we have these large trucks coming from i guess i just i'm reiterating that i'm not going back on the south county thing so if the contractor is you know pulling back as a negotiation tactic then pull back all you want if you want to talk about uh in-county waste only then let's have a conversation because i've been very consistent about that and i know even some of the folks here may not want to hear that but if economically and environmentally doing an in-county expansion makes the most sense and i still want to have that on the table and uh i will say i agree with the notion of having conversations with other what conversations have we had with other potential contractors, operators. I guess I'm making a lot of statements, but now I'm asking a question. What kind of conversations have we had outside of our current contractor?

We've had conversations with Kirby Landfill Waste Management about use of their landfill.

No, about our landfill, about expanding in county.

We have not had those conversations.

So we're solely in talks, and now we're not in talks, with one contractor. uh contractor and i'm suggesting that let's open the door to having conversations with other contractors others that may be interested in looking at an in-county only expansion and maybe that's not feasible i'm just saying that that should be part of this conversation because these numbers are eye-popping um and we have to have all of our options on the table uh you know saying yeah

I just wanted to say that the land that surrounds John Smith Road landfill right now is not, I believe is owned by Waste Connections. So expanding that site is difficult with another operator, contractor. And I think there's some restrictions within the agreement as well.

Well, maybe that's something that needs to happen as a closed session conversation then. I don't want to wade into anything legally. But yeah, so if they bought all the land, and again, I'm going to zip it. As far as the cost per ton, $111 to $142 per ton, as opposed to the $67.50, That's gonna be a concern of our residents. It's a concern of mine. So I think we have to keep looking at options to get that number down, basically. I don't think that, I will say though, that this is a balance between economics, environment, and quality of life. and um the residents at some point when we have all the options on the table including talking to other potential contractors i just fully encourage the residents to come out and tell us which option you want because there's going to be an option that's uh a pretty significantly higher cost, and I'm hoping that we can find some options that are more comparable to somewhere close to the range of where we're at now. If somebody goes, and here's the other question I have, going back to Recology, have we done an analysis of what impact this would have on everyday residents who are just getting their trash picked up, as opposed to folks that are hauling to the landfill?

Yeah, we did provide a slide. I have it on my screen right now if it wants, 16.

It's page 16.

The projected transfer station impact on the franchise fees or the rates. So this would be the rates that residents pay, commercial entities pay, the current rate.

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

Thank you.

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

That's what the analysis, we would provide different options. So we are recommending, in addition to the conceptual design at 30%, a financial analysis that would look at how this can be financed.

Because, I mean, I think that's going to play into a huge part of this decision, right? And giving – you know, if we want to give the public all of the options, that's a huge part of the consideration. Is there a way for us to get that information? I mean, we just – essentially what you need is the $250,000. I mean, I feel like there is some – We do need to spend some money to really research this and get this information. I think this is kind of critical for us to weigh all of the options. You kind of know what you have existing, but you don't know what the opportunities are kind of looking to the future. We know that it's going to cost money, but what exactly, how is that going to play out, and what is the true impact to our residents? Would we know that after this potentially, like, you know, do we have to spend the whole $250,000? Is it, okay, yes. Do we have to spend, I think you said it was a two-year phased approach. Do we need to commit to the $500,000?

This is an estimate that was provided based on both the conceptual design and the financial analysis. And Sangeeta, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think we would do

the financial analysis until we did the conceptual design at 30 percent and then okay i mean i yeah i mean i appreciate supervisor cosmicky's comments regarding you know looking what potentially is there another operator that would maybe want to come in um I think there's so many variables right now and it all is so much money. And so, yeah, if I had to pick one, I like the smaller footprint on the John Smith side, but I get that that also may not work for our community moving into the future. So I see the benefits on the other side. So I guess if we were gonna look at it, that would be my preference is to look at the one that realistically would meet the needs of our community today and 50 years, 100 years into the future, hopefully. Yeah, I don't know about spending the money quite yet. I don't know. I guess we'll have to kind of see what the board wants to do about that or if we need to have another meeting prior. So that's it. Thank you.

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

I typically have, like, a sheet of all my rates. I'm hoping Sangita remembers.

Yeah.

I... I think I did mention it, but right now the rate of $67.50 is pretty low comparatively, and as I said, that's been historically low because the county has paid the COLA, and rather than increasing with inflation every year, it's been, I think, $58 to $67 for probably a decade or so. So quite a long time. I think the average that I mentioned in my presentation was about $130 per ton. As I said, there was, I think, one facility that was up to $300. There are some facilities like Salinas Valley has Holon Road and Mass and Lane, I think, are about $70 per ton. They're older facilities.

So we're at $67.

Yes.

You said $130 was like kind of the average-ish.

Yeah, for transfer stations.

And then what would we be looking at, though?

We were in the range of $112 to $140. So in line.

In line with the others.

With what the going rates are in the Bay Area. Okay. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, in terms of the two sites, we spent a lot of time on this at the ad hoc level, I remember. And as far as I remember, it's basically like a... there was a non-starter to end up at the, to stay at John Smith. We have to go across the street to the resource recovery park. So if we're gonna move forward, I would, obviously I would agree with Saf, that's the site to move forward to. I remember that we looked more closely at some of the traffic issues that were brought up and it was actually quite a problem. So if we move forward, it certainly would be at the resource recovery park, I would suggest. I am open to exploring the idea of, alternative operators that Suarza-Kosmicki brought up. I thought we talked about that, but maybe I'm misremembering. I thought there was a reason. Suarza-Crowe, do you have a memory of that?

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

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

Yes, for the 30% conceptual design and to begin the financial analysis.

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

So we would do an RFP. That estimate was provided by an existing consultant, but we do want to go out to bid for that work. So our intent was to come back with a budget adjustment if you approve this funding amount today, and it could be very well that we don't spend this full amount from the county's solid waste fund based on the proposals that we receive.

Okay.

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

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

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

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

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

Supervisor Zenger?

Yes.

Supervisor Sotelo? Yes. Supervisor Kosmicki?

Yes.

Supervisor Curl?

Yes.

4-0 vote, motion passes. Thank you.

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

Thank you so much.

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

Good afternoon, everybody. I'm here to present the opioid settlement funds that the county has received since 2022-23 fiscal year. And this is kind of just a general informational presentation on how we use the funds, how the funds are allocated, and how we use them for the county. So in California, the whole nation basically had a lawsuit against manufacturers and distributors and entities who fueled the opioid crisis and epidemic that had gone on nationwide. California in late 2022 had decided to join in on this, and so they did the first round of lawsuits against big opioid manufacturers such as Janssen Mar Pharmaceuticals, which we know is Johnson & Johnson. From there, additional pharmaceuticals were found to be part of the settlement agreement, which became the big three, which were McKesson, Marisaurus, Bergen, and Cardinal Health. These were the distributors of the opioids. And then in 2023, a secondary lawsuit came about, and it became against the pharmaceutical companies such as CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart. And so additional funds were distributed to various states across the nation, California getting a portion as well. And these monies and settlements were provided to all states and cities. So San Benito opted into this settlement agreement, and so we received the funding for this nationwide lawsuit that took place. So the intent of these opioid funds is to utilize it for basically any just misuse and abuse of opioid products, treatment and mitigate opioid use and disorders and mitigate other diseases. including those that have been injured as a result of opioid crisis. So currently we have two accounts within our own county. That's the abatement account funds and subdivision accounts. Each of these accounts have their own rules and regulations on how you can utilize these funds. And so these are the two funds we have available to us as a county. The abatement funds are basically used to help with, 50% of those funds are used for high impact abatement activities. On there, you can see a list of six high abatement activities that we utilize these funds for. And currently, the two departments within our county that utilize these funds for these abatement activities are Health and Human Services, under their public health umbrella, the Opioids Task Force, and Behavioral Health as part of treatment. So we'll continue. There's also the subdivision, and the subdivision is to be allocated for any defense or any kind of defense kind of funding to support with that and remediation for projects and such. So those are the two fundings that are available. So currently for the fiscal year, since we received this funds back in fiscal year 22-23, as a county, we received about a little bit over a million dollars of this opioid settlement funds. In 22-23, as you can see, we received $231,200 from Janssen and the three big corporations that were in the first group of lawsuits in 23-24 143 000 and so on and so forth currently in um as of this presentation because this presentation was put together in june um we had utilized 170 000 of the 1 million dollars that money number has now gone up we've currently utilized I believe up to an additional $485,000 on top of the $170,000. So we have a little bit less funding available in our opioid settlement funds. We currently have at the end of fiscal year 25-26, we have about $359,654.27 available. And we'll go on further in the presentation just to kind of tell you how the funding was used. So for the portion of the funding, we've been using it for the Opioid Task Force. This is, again, part of public health. It's comprised of county partners, community partners, as well as local community-based organizations that take place in this. And what they use this is for several of these high abatement projects here. They use it for addressing any needs of the community, especially those individuals that are vulnerable populations or populations of communities of color, which would include people that are sheltered and unsheltered or non-housed in our community. They do it for prevention and education purposes, and they also use the funding for naloxone distribution and also training on naloxone. So, for fiscal year 23-24, the Opioid Task Force did about 80 presentations and educational outreach activities for the entire community on opioid use and misuse and alternatives to opioid use and supports. They also reached about 7,400 people in the community providing some kind of education and support on this. They distributed 3,400 naloxone doses as well as trained those on how to use naloxone. And they did about over 1,000 fentanyl test strips were distributed for those that are unfortunately still using, but we want to make sure that it doesn't result in death. So the test strips help to do testing on what they're using until we're able to get them into treatment. And they also did some postcard mail. So some people in 23-24 may have received something in the mail about opioid settlement or opioid dangers in the community. So they also distributed that information. And they also placed naloxone distribution centers. So they're kind of like that take a book from those little kiosks that they have for the grab a book, leave a book kind of kiosk. They did that for the kind of chaos for the naloxone distribution. They did the same thing for 24-25 and they're continuing that project again for 25-26 and probably for the foreseeable future as this is an epidemic that has not gone well across our community. So for fiscal year 25-26, we used $85,000 of the opioid settlement funds to fund their efforts for the opioid task force. For the Behavior Health ARMA things, we use the abatement number two, creating new or expanding our SUDS treatment services. One of the things I do want to mention is that the Opioid Task Force and those people who are involved in that did a community-wide survey on how do they want to use these settlement funds that are coming, how does the community want them to be utilized. And what we saw was a lot of them wanted to use it for prevention, education, and treatment. And so that's kind of been our goal to use the funds in that way. So we, as Behavioral Health, our last year, fiscal year, used $400,000 to cover treatment for 20 clients who stayed a total of 1,777 days. And the cost for those beneficiaries was $730 a day for residential care. for ongoing treatment at these locations. And so the total cost for their care was about 400,000. And the treatment facility that we did use, since we do have limited treatment options here in our community, the majority of this was covered by a for-profit organization that we utilize here. And their rates are far beyond what the county gets and the state gives us for residential care. There are $300 more a day than our other nonprofit in this community. So this is the only funding that Behavioral Health is able to utilize because for-profits cannot benefit from other kind of funding streams. So how the funding works is that the Department of Health Care Services oversees the entire funding stream that comes through. The funds remain with the County Executive Office. They're not held with Behavioral Health or Healthy Human Services. They're held at the County Executive Office. Behavioral Health is responsible for helping to do these presentations and do the paperwork to get the books in order and get all the distribution that we need to to the state. We have to make sure that everything that we do is in alignment with the latest Behavioral Health information notice that comes through. Each year, the state does a new information notice and guidelines on how the opioid settlement funds can be utilized. We have to follow the National Opioid Settlement Agreement, Exhibit E, and we also have to utilize the HIAA that I discussed before, those six points. Once the plan has been, once the team has met and these individuals who can meet those standards have met, they develop a plan. After the plan is developed, the plan has to be submitted to the Department of Health Care Service for authorization. And once they authorize it, then the plan is approved, we create a budget resolution as behavioral health, we come to the board and request an allocation of these fundings to support with these abatement projects that we have been given the green light by the Department of Health Care Services to do. Again, each year we need to report to the state on how the funding is utilized. Our reports are due every September 30th, so we have one that's coming in September 30th. Behavioral Health Ethics currently is in the process of doing that work to get the expenditure report completed and done before the September 30th deadline. That will kind of just map out how the funding is used. So the future of the Opioid Settlement Funds is that it's only an 18-year project. So our fiscal year started, our clocks start at 22, 23 fiscal year. So we have 18 years of this funding. It'll basically sunset June 30th of 2038. And the funding will have to come in some kind of other means and some kind of other way to continue to support the community. Again, each fiscal year, the funding kind of fluctuates, but we get anywhere from 85 to $120,000 annually. It depends on whether or not a company kind of declares bankruptcy. That will depend whether or not they're going to pay. So the funding fluctuates. So based off these timelines and the agreement we have, we're doing our best to not only use this fund for immediate needs, but also to try to strategize on what we're going to do in the future when this funding basically sunsets. So this is basically how our settlement funds are allocated. We as a county get funds, and the City of Hollister as well gets funds. I'm not quite sure what the City of Hollister is doing with their funding, but this is what we are doing currently with our funding that we get as a county. So that's basically the settlement funds that we have.

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

If you'd like to make a comment in chambers, please provide a speaker card on Zoom. Please press star nine or the raised hand icon. And I have no public comment.

Thank you. Questions, comments?

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

The option we do have is to explore other entities that can offer the same kind of level of care. They may not necessarily be in our community. The issue is that for-profit is in our community, and they offer a type of service that not a lot of entities offer. And so to be local and close to home is a reason they were utilized, and we use them. And on top of that, they also have to be Department of Health Care service certified. And this for-profit got that. So there's a lot of hoops.

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

We've negotiated where they were able to cut down the rates 50%. Okay. But the 50%, it still does not meet our rate. Reimbursement. Let's say our reimbursement is $400 per person per day. Their rate is about $730 a day, and so we cannot use our substance use disorder block grant, which we usually use for those things Medi-Cal doesn't cover because it's a for-profit agency. So we have to dip into some of our realignment or the reserves, or we increase the Medi-Cal billable and services we do and generate revenue that way to cover the difference.

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

For-profits, it'll be myself and the deputies, which will include our fiscal deputy director, Ramona Bond, and then our deputy clinical director.

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

hollister has their own separate funding city of hollister does have their own separate funding for their residents for their residents to do similar they're under the same rules as we are and so i think they get significantly less but they get 50 of what the county gets but they still have their own available funding stream

This is just me trying to make sure we make the money go as far as we can.

I hear you.

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

We've had a meeting with the city of Hollister and the way they wanted to utilize their funding, and they felt it best to utilize funding to do a crisis mobile system, which the county already pays for. So we told them we didn't feel it was best use of the funding, and then conversations stopped.

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

Thank you, Rachel. Thank you for being here and putting this presentation together. I've sat on some of the opioid task force calls, and I think I've attended some of the different events that they've had in county, out of county, and the work that you all are doing is really tremendous, and I appreciate everything you're doing. I think that the... The issue is very, very real, and we need to do everything we can on the education and prevention side. I'm just curious, with the $400,000 that you guys are taking annually, and then it looks to be about $85,000 annually, has there been any work between... both departments, HHSA and Behavioral Health, kind of looking and looking at like a five-year, 10-year, get us through to 2038 and what can this look like and how can we, you know, where is there more funding needed? I mean, you're going to run out. I mean, you're kind of the 400,000 overage or, you know, annually every single year. And so how are we able to meet the needs of this community kind of looking towards the future and kind of how do we leverage the funds that we know that we're getting right now kind of moving into the future? Yeah. Is there some kind of foundational things that we could be doing right now that can help set us up for when this funding stops? And I don't know the answer to that. When we were talking about for-profit, does this go back to the agreement, the RFP appeal thing? Yes. Okay. But I understood it. We... In that, we moved forward with the other company.

We did. We still have, but we still have a contract available for that one company that is for profit. It is still, the contract will sunset at the end of this fiscal year. June 30th.

Okay. So what you are looking at, though, is that typically, and I mean, if there is any way that we can keep people local in dealing with crisis moments like that, right? As one supervisor, I would love to see that. I think it would be worth having those negotiations for that specific instance. You know what I mean? For those specific issues of kind of that seven day, 14 day, not a prolonged, but kind of that initial, I would love to see us be able to figure that out. And I don't know if we can or not. I mean, looking at the dollars, it's very, very different. And I think that sometimes, like, oh, for-profit, it sounds so bad. But it's not. It's not bad. They're actually able to do things that a nonprofit facility would not be able to do. They can do scholarships. They can make up the difference elsewhere. And here's the thing. They're not receiving grant funding and other things. So the cost of doing business is a lot more for them. They are providing a great service, though, and really filling a need in our community and other communities that we greatly, greatly need. You know, I want to do everything that we can as a board to support and help in this prevention and education. And then when we do have instances of crisis, we are able to kind of do what we can to make a real difference in people's lives. So I would love to see if we could work together. And I know that you guys are, but what does this funding look like? I mean, we're going to run out of that very, very soon. I mean, there's not going to be an overage. And then you're going to be dealing with the reality of we're receiving $85,000 to $120,000 annually that isn't enough to cover all of the needs that we have and dealing with real crisis and in something that is hitting so many communities so I really appreciate everything that you have done and I look forward to continuing this discussion I really appreciate you putting it into a presentation and seeing I know we would get different reports here and there and so I look forward to the conversation of you guys working together as departments, maybe with the city of Hollister, and I'm guessing that even with the city of Hollister, they're paying for mobile crisis response We opted to go with an operator that provides that, a contractor, and they had police officers that were trained in that. And so I'm guessing that they feel they are still, you know, they are still addressing that. They are still probably making sure their officers are trained and doing different things. So I really, really, really appreciate everything that you're doing. And I look forward to the continued conversations with the city of Hollister, behavioral health, health and human services, and really identifying, continuing to identify what the needs are and the desires of our community, what their wants are, and doing everything we can to make our community safe and address these tragic needs. Thank you. Thank you.

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

Thank you.

All right, well, thank you very much.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

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

Yeah, I mean, it's pretty self-explanatory. We've already sort of alluded to it as far as El Nino and just have received concerns. I think everybody's cognizant of the fact that we're hearing more and more about this upcoming El Nino and that it could be one of the worst, if not the worst. multiple decades so the idea is just to have that conversation give direction get all the information we can as far as what we can do in this window that we have as far as cleaning out creeks and any other preventative measures and then also just to ensure that we are fully prepared because we're obviously if this is a very bad situation then we can do all the preparation we would like to do but there's still going to be impacts to deal with so just on the preparation side, and then ensuring that we are fully prepared for the worst possible scenario.

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

Yes, when I was at CSAC last week, Monterey County and Santa Cruz County are being proactive and are starting to either move forward or have already requested a pre-state of emergency, which would be working with Fish and Wildlife to be able to allow residents into their stream beds to be able to clean them out. I really think that we need to get on board with that. that uh we're really putting political pressure on opening the accessibility to areas that that even though environmentally they don't want us touching we need to get in there and get those cleaned out and it's not i also recommend adding to it an educational component for preparation um from uh our either our office of emergency services or administration however we're dealing with it right now But in order to do education about preparation and if we are able to lift some of those restrictions of fish and wildlife, how people can go in there and prepare their private property to be able to help facilitate in the flow of this large amount of water that is going to cause major problems.

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

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

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