Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

Good morning everybody. Good morning. I will call to order the April 21st, 2026 regular meeting in the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors. Madame Clerk, please call the role. Supervisor Lavanino here. Supervisor Lee here. Supervisor Caps here. Supervisor Hartman here. And Chair Nelson here. Please stand and join me in pledging allegiance to our flag. Ready, begin.

I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The next item of business is approval of the minutes from the April 7th, 2026 regular meeting of the board of supervisors. Can I get a motion? Hartman moves approval. Second. Okay. Uh we got a a motion and a second. Um all in favor signify by saying I.

I opposed. Motion passes unanimously. Next item of business is our CO report. Um, Miss Misado, do you have a a report this morning?

I do. Thank you, Chair Nelson. Good morning, chair and board members. I just want to highlight an event held by the A commissioner recently. More than 40,000 pounds of legacy and unwanted pesticides were safely collected and disposed of during a recent free commercial pesticide disposal event hosted by the agricultural agricultural commissioner's office in collaboration with the public works department held at the end of March at the San Andos. The event served local farmers, a professionals, pest me pest management businesses, and pesticide dealers. The event was funded by a $200,000 California Environmental Protection Agency grant. And the strong participation, I think, underscores the success of the program and reinforces the county's commitment to environmental protection and public safety as well as a means to help our farmers. So, congratulations to the ad commissioner for a great showing and a great event.

All right. Thank you. and our ad commissioner is second to none. Um, moving along, Madam Clerk, are there any announcements or changes to our agenda today?

Chair Nelson and members of the board, I do have a couple quick announcements this morning. We received a continuence request from the department to continue administrative item number 27 to the May 5th, 2026 board meeting. Administrative item number 27 is from the fire department. It is regarding revisions to the rules and regulations of the Santa Barbara County Fire Department's Board of Appeals and appointment of candidates onto the board of appeals. Additionally, it was brought to our attention that departmental item number four regarding the use and preservation policy for county owned property and county parks and recreation areas was not visible on the online PDF agenda for a period of time over the weekend. While the item remained visible on the posted agenda and available in the meeting details, it was not displayed on the online PDF or accessible versions of the agenda. Out of abundance of caution regarding public noticing, the chair has called a special meeting for this afternoon at 12:30 p.m. to hear this item only. Departmental item number four will now be listed as item number one on the special meeting agenda. Although the item is still anticipated to be heard closer to 1:30 p.m., the earlier time ensures that item is properly noticed in the event the morning agenda concludes sooner than expected. So, if you are a member of the public who is interested in departmental item number four listed on today's regular meeting agenda, please be advised that will now be departmental item number one on the special meeting agenda, which will have a separate Zoom link for those wishing to provide public comment remotely. And lastly, for information on the board of supervisors methods of public participation and instructions on how to provide public comment on items listed on today's agenda or during general public comment, please refer to page two of the agenda. Individuals that would like to provide verbal public comment may do so via Zoom by registering in advance via the link available on page two. If you have any questions, please contact the clerk of the board's office at area code 805-568-2240. Again, that number is 805-568-2240. That concludes my announcements for today.

All right. Thank you, Madam Clerk. And for those of you who may have not picked up on it. So, item four today that was on our regular agenda will be now item one in our special meeting that will be this afternoon. Um, as we mentioned before, it will take place no earlier than 12:30, but will likely be probably closer to 1 or 1:30 based on our calendar. Um the reason why that that again that was done out of abundance of caution. There was a technical glitch this weekend with our um online posting and so we wanted to make sure that we did it properly. Um so that item will again be heard this afternoon probably about 1 1:30. Um but we wanted to have it on there at 12:30 just to make sure that was properly noticed if we needed to have it earlier if we moved along a little quicker this morning. So, if you're here to speak about the immigration and custom enforcement item, that will likely be after lunch after sometime after 12:30 as part of our special meeting once we conclude our regularly scheduled items in this agenda. So, just want to make sure everybody in the public understands that um as we move forward today. So, with that, we're now moving along to the administrative agenda. Would any board members like to pull items on the administrative agenda today? Supervisino

17 and 19. Okay, got those. Mh. Supervisor Hartman, I have right now um 12 and 17 and 19 for you. All right. Um I've got um 12 for Supervisor Caps and then did you have anything, Supervisor Lee? All right. And then I'm also pulling 27 that's being pulled by the department as well. I just have a brief comment on it before we make the continuation adoption. So um that won't be a part of the initial motion. That'll probably be a motion later on. So what I'd like to do at this time is get a motion for the um balance of the agenda. So, it's all the Oh, sorry, Madam Clerk. Are there members of the public that pulled items? Chair Nelson and members of the board. Yes, we have requests to speak from the public on A4.

Okay. A17 and A19. 17. Okay. Give me one second. Give me one sec. All right. So, we're going to go ahead and um I'm going to ask for to adopt the administrative agenda with the exception of 4, 12, 17, 19, or 27. Can I get that motion? Make a motion to move. Motion from Supervisor Labino and I'll second.

Second from Supervisor Caps. All in favor signify by saying I. I. I opposed. Motion passes unanimously. All right. At this time, we are going to go to our um resolutions that were going to be presented today.

Chair Nelson and members of the board. Administrative item number one is sponsored by Supervisor Nelson. It is to adopt a resolution of commendation honoring Jerry Nichols of the public works department as the April 2026 employee of the month in Santa Barbara County. And joining us in person today, we have Jerry Nichols, Kevin Thompson, and Chris Nettton. Whereas Jerry Nichols exemplifies the county's organizational values of accountability, customer focus, equity, and inclusion, innovation, trust, and ethics. And whereas Jerry Nichols, Laguna Sanitation County District's chief plant operator, played an integral leadership role in the district's recent plant upgrade project, consistently going above and beyond to ensure construction, testing, and commissioning stayed on track and exceeded operational expectations. And whereas engineers interested in learning how to refine and optimize design will find a teacher in Jerry who is humble, proactive problem solver with deep technical knowledge. And whereas Jerry takes ownership of his work and accountability for his team by ensuring that reliability of critical wastewater systems, offering consistent support and training for his staff, and upholding the highest standards of public service. And whereas Jerry raises the bar for what it means to be a leader and a public servant. He contributes to a positive, collaborative, and respectful workplace culture, fostering teamwork and boosting morale through his professionalism and consistently goodnatured attitude. Now therefore, be it hereby ordered and resolved that this board of supervisors of the county of Santa Barbara does hereby acknowledge Jerry Nichols as employee of the month for April 2026. PASS. UH, Chair Nelson and board members, in in many contexts, you don't want your wastewater plant operator on the skyline. Uh so we're really uh grateful

for the opportunity and for the recognition from your board of Jerry today. Uh I was just thinking about his job and what he does and uh you know he has to understand biology, chemistry, logistics, mechanical engineering, electrical work, uh computer systems, and a whole bunch of other things that it takes to run these plants. And Jerry's really great at all of that with, as was mentioned, a really cand do attitude and is really good at coordinating his teams for an operation where failure is not an option. So, so thank you for this recognition. And I think Kevin Thompson, our general manager, has a few words to say.

Thank you, board of directors, through the chair, members of the public. In Jerry, we find a leader. Someone who models ownership and humility. Someone not looking for validation but success as a team. Someone we can trust. Having developed technical interpersonal skills through years of dedication both on and off the job. He routinely goes out of his way to share knowledge and encourage others of which I am personally thankful for. And I'm sure others in this room are as well. As chief plant operator, we want him on our side to help lead the operation of an essential facility that serves a community of roughly 35,000 people, a wastewater reclamation plant that serves the town of Orchit and is vital to the county's critical infrastructure. His edification and leadership were key in completing the recent plant upgrade, which will serve the community for years to come. Jerry is someone we want to have on our team for whatever challenges challenge awaits us. Thank you. Thank you, Kevin. Jerry,

I am very honored and humbled to be selected as this month's employee of the month. I want to thank Kevin Thompson and Chris Nen for the nomination. Working for the county is truly rewarding. I've always believed that our role in local government is to serve our community with dedication. I'm proud to work alongside a team that shares that same passion for serving our residents every day. However, this award isn't just about me. Any success I've had is a direct result of the support from my colleagues at Lagona Sanitation and the public works department. I'm fortunate to work with such a collaborative team and this really belongs to all of us who work behind the scenes to keep our operations running smoothly. I'm excited to continue serving our county and supporting my team. Thank you again for this honor. Thank you, JERRY. GREAT. Me too. Chair Nelson and members of the board. Administrative item number two is sponsored by Supervisor Lee. It is to adopt a resolution proclaiming the week of April 20th, 2026 through April 24th, 2026 as National Home Visiting Week in Santa Barbara County. And joining us in person today, we have Kelly Beran, director, maternal child and adolescent health program, Maria Dvilla, program coordinator, healthy families Santa Barbara County, Linda O, public health nurse supervisor, and Cecilia Torres, home educator. And I'll go ahead and read the resolution. Whereas children thrive when parents and caregivers are supported with knowledge, confidence, and

encouragement from trusted, skilled professionals. And whereas home visiting plays a vital role in supporting early childhood development by fostering safe, stable, and nurturing relationships during the earliest years, a critical window for brain growth and long-term success, and serves as an essential tool for advancing equity by connecting families, especially those facing systemic barriers, with culturally responsive strengths-based services that promote health, well-being, and opportunity. And whereas home visitors empower families with practical tools and compassionate guidance to meet the unique developmental needs of children, improving health and educational outcomes while strengthening family bonds. And whereas these highly trained professionals deliver services with deep respect for community context and each family's culture, values, and lived experience, meeting families where they are physically and emotionally. And whereas we celebrate and commemorate the dedication, compassion, and lasting impact of home visiting professionals across Santa Barbara County in partnership with First Five Santa Barbara County, Santa Barbara County Health, COM, and the community partners who implement home visiting services. Now therefore, be it hereby ordered and resolved that this board of supervisors of the county of Santa Barbara does hereby acknowledge the week of April 20th through 24th as National Home Visiting Week and urges all residents to recognize the vital role of home visitors and their unwavering commitment to health, safety, and success of our families and our community. Passed and adopted today. Good morning, Chair Nielson. Supervisor Lee and members of the board. My name is Cecilia Torres. I am a home visitor with the Healthy Families America program with County Health. On behalf of home visitors across the county, I extend sincere gratitude for your recognition of home visiting week, honoring the professionals who support families

during the earliest, most critical years and highlighting home visiting as a cornerstone of a strong family support system. I stand in celebration with my colleagues from the MCH field nursing and healthy families America teams who are holding pictures of home visiting in action. Home visiting programs connect pregnant and parenting families with trained professionals who offer professional guidance and practical tools at no cost. Using evidence-based and informed models, these services promote healthy pregnancies, strengthen parenting confidence, support self-sufficient, and lay the foundation for long life learning. I would like to share a story of a family that I've worked with. Their name and sensitive information has been changed for privacy. I was introduced to Lupe and Carla by one of the public health nurses. Carla Lup's three-month-old beautiful daughter was born with special needs spinoipida and a cleft foot. At first, her mother felt overwhelmed navigating the medical system, managing calls from multiple providers and scheduling numerous appointments. With only her partner, Juan as a support, she asked, "Would you be able to help me with everything that I need for Carla?" We started with small steps. I suggested using a calendar and by the next visit she proudly brought one given by the public health nurse. Together we organized appointments and discuss transportation, calling Ventura Transit to get her started. Over time, Lupe grew more confident, independent, scheduling appointments, arranging transportation, and advocating for her daughter's needs.

recently when their daughter required surgery to drain fluid. Lupe approached approached it with strength, asking information, questions, and seeking support when needed. The family has come a long way, turning early challenges into confidence, resiliency, and self- advocacy. That all started with support of a home visitor. Through home visiting programs like Healthy Families America, we partner with families facing complex challenges, building on their strengths through trusted relationshipbased support. We help families navigate housing, health care, employment, and child care, walking alongside them to ensure they remain supported every step of the way. By recognizing home visiting, you affirm commitment to healthier families, stronger communities, and brighter futures for the county's children. The right support, families can overcome challenges and thrive. Home visitors are true different makers. Santa Barbara County Home Visiting Week honors their impact and dedication to stronger families. One visit, one family, and one child at a time. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you ladies for being here and thank you for the work that you're doing. Yeah, that's great. Thank you. All right, Madam Clerk, will you please read A3 into the record?

Chair Nelson and members of the board. Administrative item number three is sponsored by Supervisor Lee. It is to adopt a resolution proclaiming the week of April 19th, 2026 through April 25th, 2026 as National Library Week in Santa Barbara County. And joining us in person today, we have Brandon Boddet, library director at Santa Barbara Library, Elizabeth Sceto, library director at Galita Library, Don Jackson, library director at Santa Maria Library, Lauren Trillo, executive director at the Santa Barbara Library Foundation, and Sarah Ble, director of the Lonpoke Library. And I'll go ahead and read the resolution. Whereas libraries serve as community hubs, partnering with schools, businesses, and organizations to maximize resources, increase efficiency, and expand access to essential services, strengthening the entire community. And whereas libraries provide free and equitable access to books, digital tools, and innovative programming, ensuring that all individuals have the support they need to learn, connect, and thrive. And whereas libraries nurture young minds through story times, STEM programs, and critical literacy initiatives, fostering curiosity and a love of learning that lasts a lifetime. And whereas libraries empower job seekers, entrepreneurs, and lifelong learners by providing access to resources, training, and opportunities that support career growth and economic success. And whereas dedicated librarians and library workers provide welcoming spaces that inspire discovery, collaboration, and creativity for all. And whereas libraries, librarians, and library workers across the country are joining together to celebrate National Library Week under the theme find your joy. Now, therefore, be it hereby ordered and resolved that this board of supervisors of the county of Santa Barbara does hereby acknowledge the week of April 19th through the 25th as National Library Week and encourages all residents to visit their library, explore its resources, and celebrate all the ways that the library helps our community find joy. PASSED AND ADOPTED TODAY.

GOOD MORNING, CHAIR Nelson and supervisors. My name is Lauren Trillo. I'm the executive director for the Santa Barbara Public Library Foundation, and happy National Library Week. Great to see you all again. Um it's an honor to be here today to present this um resolution and share library love. Behind me are just 100 of over 1,000 love letters we collected from the community during Valentine's Day. And we wanted to share them with you. Just messages from the community about what the library means to them. Over the past year, we've seen a renewed sense of connection among libraries across Santa Barbara County. There's a growing spirit of collaboration with leaders coming together, supporting one another, and exploring ways to strengthen library services for all of our communities. I'd like to recognize the outstanding library leaders with us today. Sarah Bel from LMPoke, Elizabeth Salceto from Galita, and Brandon Badet from Santa Barbara. I have to mention today is his birthday, so happy birthday, Brandon. Um, thank you all for your leadership and your commitment to the communities you serve. Today is National Library Workers Day, so thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Um, at the Santa Barbara Public Library Foundation, we believe deeply in the power of public private partnerships, and we're excited about the opportunities ahead to help build stronger connections and expand support for libraries countywide. Thank you for protecting library funding that keeps this ecosystem alive and accessible to everyone. We are committed to keeping you all connected to your libraries and look forward to sharing our spaces uh with you and the impact they have on our communities. I encourage everyone to visit your local library this week and use the most important card in your wallet, your library card, and discover all that it has to offer you. Thank you.

Thank you, LAUREN.

Thank you, Chair Nelson, supervisors. Um, I have some remarks to share. They were written by Don Jackson, the Santa Maria Library director who is unable to be here today in person. Um, I am Sarah BL. I'm the library director for the LMPoke Library. Thank you for making this proclamation recognizing the importance of libraries in Santa Barbara County. As library directors throughout the county, we see firsthand the positive impact libraries make on our county communities. From thousands of children who attend our early literacy story times beginning their paths to later academic success to teens or adults needing jobseeking resources and seniors who attend our informative adult programming, giving them new skills and providing vital connections. We hear countless stories from library patrons about how the library has made their lives better, often in powerful, life-changing ways. There is no doubt our local libraries are an essential component to improving the quality of life in Santa Barbara County and we thank you again for this important recognition.

Thank you.

All right, we're going to skip uh A4 for a moment. We're going to come back to A4, but we're going to go to A5. Madam Cler, can you please read that in the record? Chair Nelson and members of the board. Administrative item number five is sponsored by Supervisor Nelson is to adopt a resolution proclaiming the week of April 19th, 2026 through April 25th, 2026 as courtappointed special advocates CASA volunteer appreciation week in Santa Barbara County. And joining us in person today, we have Kim Kby Davis. If you can please make your way to the podium and anyone else you'd like to join with you. I'll go ahead and read the resolution. Whereas for more than 30 years, courtappointed special advocates, CASA of Santa Barbara County has worked to asssure a safe, permanent, nurturing home for all abused and or neglected children by providing a highly trained volunteer to advocate for them in the court system. And whereas CASA volunteer advocates are appointed by the juvenile court to represent the best interests of children who have experienced abuse or neglect, ensuring their voices are heard in the courtroom, classroom, and community. And whereas in the past year, CASA of Santa Barbara County served 550 children, the highest number in the county's history, reflect reflecting both the increasing need for child advocacy and the power of community involvement. And whereas this vital work was made possible through the dedication of 232 CASA volunteer advocates who together contributed 14,996 hours of service to children in the dependency system. And whereas these dedicated volunteers helped achieve 168 cases, closing in a safe and permanent home, offering long-term stability and hope to children throughout Santa Barbara County. And whereas CASA volunteers also submitted, 179 court reports, ensuring judges received critical child-c centered information when making decisions that profoundly affect the lives and futures of children in foster care. And whereas CASA volunteers come from communities across

Santa Barbara County and exemplify the spirit of compassion, civic engagement, and commitment that strengthens our entire region. And whereas National Volunteer Appreciation Week provides an important opportunity to honor these individuals who give generously of their time, talents, and hearts to support and uplift children in need. Now therefore, be it hereby ordered and resolved that this the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors proudly recognize CASA of Santa Barbara County and its volunteers for their extraordinary service and declares April 19th through the 25th as volunteer appreciation week in Santa Barbara County, honoring the profound impact Kasa volunteers make in the lives of vulnerable children. Passed and adopted today. Chair Nelson and supervisors, I want to accept this wonderful proclamation on behalf of CASA's small and very powerful staff and our hundreds of CASA volunteers. We serve the most vulnerable children in the county from age zero, day of birth, until their 21st birthday. and we can only do it because of the many volunteers that we have. Over my career um with CASA, we have had nearly 1,000 members of the community step up and become CASA volunteers. And I do want to recognize that both Joan Hartman, Supervisor Hartman, and Laura Caps, Supervisor Caps, are part of the CASA family. When I started with CASA, I remember um bringing a quilt made by one of our wonderful quilting ladies group um to Supervisor Hartman for the teen she was serving at the time and I look forward to wonderful stories um from Supervisor Caps. It is hard work being a CASA volunteer and we we understand that

it's not for everybody, but we absolutely cannot do the vital work that CASA does without the community and it is hard right now. It has been for several years to find those CASA volunteers. So the the CASA team is working harder than ever to find those people who will step up and be part of our team. And now I would like to introduce our board president, Heather Ames, for a few words. Heather,

thank you, chair, supervisors, and the board for recognizing CASA of Santa Barbara County as we are humbled by this honor. As board chair, I'm super proud to support CASA's mission and to make the individuals who make this work really possible. A special thanks to Kim Davis who has had over almost 20 years of leadership of this amazing organization, to my fellow CASA team board members. They've been amazing and especially for the the CASA team for their tireless work. I think as Kim said, this team works um amazing throughout the entire community from Santa Barbara to Santa Maria and they are very passionate and dedicated to the work they do. This is a passion job, as many of you know, to do the work that they're doing. It is also um a difficult job at times. We also really do want to thank all of our community members and volunteers because as Kim said, without everybody's time, energy, effort, and support, this would not be possible. And we have served many, many children, over 500 last year in our own communities with more on the wait list. So, we continue to spread our awareness. this um honor is so wonderful and recognition for us because this helps us get more out in the community and share our story. So I am very proud and very humbled to accept this um along with Kim and the staff, the fellow board and our volunteers who we are very proud to be recognizing on Wednesday for our volunteer appreciation dinner. So thank you again for this award. Thank you super supervisor Hartman.

Uh yes I just wanted to make a pitch um that this is very gratifying to be a CASA. Uh you're the one person who gets to explore the school, the natural family, the foster family and and understand the full range of issues that uh affect a child's life. And um the in my situation, the child I was with changed living situations over the period, the seven-year period. So I was the one constant in her life. And uh it it really made a profound effect on me. And so it it's something that um you're able to allow enrichment opportunities that otherwise wouldn't exist. And CASA as an organization really supports that. Um they they bring in opportunities and suggest things and connect you to other CASAs um so that you can do things together. So it's it's a tremendously supportive organization doing really critical work for children. So I encourage people to sign up.

Thank you, Supervisor Hartman. And I just want to make a plug on how important they are. You know, we just went through some budget workshops where we're potentially um seeing some significant cuts to our childare welfare services. And so, um without CASA coming in the gap for a lot of these kids, there would be um huge gaps in services for some of our most vulnerable. So, again, this time it is one of the most important times to step up and be helping these children. And I, you know, if it's wasn't for our community, you know, not everything can be solved by the government, right? And some things need to be stepped up by people in our community, you know, the faith community and as well as our volunteers. So again, thank you for those of you who are serving as cases.

All right. All right. We're going to move to A6. Madam Cler, will you please read that item to the record?

Chair Nelson and members of the board. Administrative item number six is sponsored by Supervisor Nelson and is to adopt a resolution proclaiming May 7th, 2026 as the National Day of Prayer in Santa Barbara County. And joining us in person today, we have Beverly Taylor, Veronica Leech, and Rochelle Melon. Whereas throughout history, America has faced trials and triumphs, and Americans have responded in prayer, seeking courage and comfort, inspiration, and joyfilled celebration. Faith compels us to seek and cling to the light in times of darkness and spread light to those in need. And whereas from the first gatherings of our founding fathers, elected officials have prayed and entreated those they serve and represent to join them in prayer, including the authors of our declaration of independence, wrote that they the representatives of the United States of America and General Congress assembled appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world and carried on to present day to present day in presidential proclamations such as last year's invitation to join him in asking for God's continued guidance, mercy, and protection. And whereas a national day of prayer has not only been a part of our heritage since it was declared by the first centennial uh Congress in 1775, but it is a public law established in the United States Congress in 1952, approved by a joint resolution and amended by Congress and President Reagan with public law 100-307 in 1988, affirming that it is essential for us as a nation to pray and directs the President of the United States to set aside and proclaim the first Thursday of May annually as the National Day of Prayer. And whereas in every state across America, the observance of the National Day of Prayer will be held on Thursday, May 7th, 2026 with the theme, glorify God among the nations, seeking him in all generations based on the verse in 1st Chronicles 16:24, a prayer of thanksgiving. Tell of his glory among nations, his wonderful deeds among all peoples. Whereas and whereas in every state across America, the observance of the National Day of Prayer

will be held on Thursday. And whereas unified prayer is mobilized across America every first Thursday of May on the National Day of Prayer as neighbors come together to join their hearts and voices in reading sacred scriptures and attending services to seek God for the city and country where we live, learn, work, worship, serve, and desire all to thrive. And we express our faith and exercise our freedom in prayer. Then unite our hearts and voices in personal prayer and public gatherings across America with fervent praise, repentance, love, and humble intercession for our neighbor and nation, holding fast to the promises throughout the holy scriptures that the Lord hears and avails much as he answers the faithfilled prayers of his people. Now therefore, be it hereby ordered and resolved that the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors recognizes May 7th as the National Day of Prayer in Santa Barbara County passed and adopted today. GOOD MORNING, Chair Nelson and supervisors. On behalf of the community of prayer locally here in Santa Maria and the National Day of Prayer Task Force here on the Central Coast, we thank you for issuing us this resolution recognizing and honoring the gift and privilege we have to gather and pray over our city, our county, our state, and our nation. This is a monumental year as the National Day of Prayer celebrates our 75 or 75th year and of course America commemorating the 250th year as a nation. The theme for this year's National Day of Prayer is from 1st Chronicles 16 in the Old Testament which proclaims glorify God among the nations seeking him in all generations. This year we will uh declare our personal rededication focusing our own hearts in our own communities where God

has established us. We will gather together to pray, to celebrate, and to rededicate ourselves back to the Lord and in covenant as one nation under God, committing to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as Jesus loved us. Thank you for your support. Thank you. All right. Our next item is A7. Madam clerk, could you please read that into the record? Chair

Nelson and members of the board. Administrative item number seven is sponsored by Supervisor Nelson. It is to adopt a resolution proclaiming the month of April 2026 as National Poetry Month in Santa Barbara County. And joining us in person today, we have Joselyn Lumi Lumi Bao, Chrissy Kurt, and Sarah York Rubin. And I will go ahead and read the resolution. Whereas the United States Congress and the Academy of American Poets have designated April as National Poetry Month in recognition of poetry's power to enrich culture, elevate expression, and strengthen community. And whereas the county of Santa Barbara proudly supports programs such as poetry out loud and youth poet laurate, which encourage young people to develop as creative thinkers, civic participants, and future leaders. And whereas the board of supervisors commends Ernest Brigetti High School for its success in the 2026 poetry out loud program and further recognizes the outstanding efforts of teachers Chrissy Kurt, Aaron Robinson, and Caitlyn Bernardo. Bernardo. And whereas we are pleased to honor this year's poetry out loud student participants for the remarkable achievements, eloquence, and inspiring creative expression. And whereas the board of supervisors extends special congratulations to regional champion Josh, excuse me, Joselyn Lumi Bao, who represents Santa Barbara County at the state poetry out loud competition alongside students from 48 countries across Cal counties across California. Now therefore, be it hereby ordered and resolved that the Board of Supervisors of the County of Santa Barbara does hereby acknowledge this resolution proclaiming April as National Poetry Month in Santa Barbara County and honoring Ernest Regetti High School for its founding achievement in poetry passed and adopted today.

Welcome Justin. Thank you and good morning. I'm Jasine. I'm from Ernest Regetti High School. I'm a junior and I recently competed in the state competition at poetry out loud in Sacramento. And for you today, I will be performing a poem that I performed at that state competition. Awesome.

An apology by Julia Wardau. For a warm word spoken, I spake perhaps too sharp a word for one bred up in modesty. But base and justice trivial scorn on honor heaped had angered me. The smile of courtesy forsook these lips so timid even for good while over the palenness of my brow flash crimson the indignant blood. Nor could I to the contest bring the trained weapon of the mine snatching from reason's armory such shafts as grief had left behind. Grief for the faltering of the age. Grief for my country and my race. Grief to sit here with Christian men that boast their wants of Christian grace. I say not that the man I praise by that poor tribute stand more high. I say not that the man I blame be not a pure worth than I. But when I move, reluctant lips for holy justice, human rights. The sacred cause I strive to plead lends me its fervor and its might. And I must argue from the faith which gave the fervor of my youth. or keep such silence as young stars that only look and live God's truth. Thank you.

Thank you.

That was awesome. Yeah. I just wanted Supervisor Caps. I'm just incredibly impressed both by your words and your delivery, your poise, your passion. Thank you for sharing it with us today.

Yeah, thank you. And on behalf of a proud rigetti warrior, myself, way to represent and I actually I just wanted to take the moment just I was thinking about it. This is why we have meetings up in Santa Maria in part, you know, this full room of people from the Santa Maria Valley that are big part of this community and you know, um it's really important that this board travels to Santa Maria. this is not how all counties work that we have meetings in both both half of the county. But I think it really shows um you know us wanting to come and and interact and and also appreciate the people all throughout our county that are doing amazing things. So thank you.

All right, next item is A8. Chair Nelson and members of the board. Administrative item number eight is sponsored by Supervisor Lavanino. It is to adopt a resolution proclaiming April 24th, 2026 as Arbor Day in Santa Barbara County. And joining us in person today, we have William Ortega and Udy Loza. If you can and Chris Nettin, if you can please make your way to the podium.

Whereas Santa Barbara County has a long and prosperous agricultural history of growing annual and perennial plants for products as well as landscape benefits. And whereas the residents of Santa Barbara County treasure the valuable landscape trees provide on both public and private lands and consider them to be essential living features that contribute to their quality of life experience. And whereas the natural beauty of our urban forest and county landscapes as well as the enhanced beauty of the planted and developed landscape environments add to the many qualities that draw visitors and new residents to one of California's most beautiful counties. And whereas four of the largest incorporated cities in Santa Barbara County have for many years been proud and active participants in the Tree City USA program sponsored by the National Arbor Day Foundation. And whereas April 24th, 2026 is National Arbor Day. And whereas as governing stewards responsible for the planting and care of all trees growing on county public lands, as well as promoting and encouraging conservation of valuable trees growing on private private lands. Now therefore, be it hereby ordered and resolved that this board of supervisors of the county of Santa Barbara does hereby acknowledge Friday, April 24th, 2026 as Arbor Day throughout the county and encourages all citizens to recognize the multitude of benefits our community derives from the conscious acts of planting and properly maintaining landscape trees and requests that all institutions of primary and secondary education throughout the county. Seek ways to observe this important day and to teach students the value of trees in our lives passed and adopted today. THANK YOU, BOARD. UM, MY NAME IS BILL ORTEGA. I'm from public works transportation. Um, I'm in urban forestry division. I've had the pleasure to go to each district except for meeting Lee. Uh, was with DOSS, but it will be nice next year for you and it's nice to finally get to the fifth. I appreciate this. I met every one of you and I had a good time with every one of you guys at these each event. I'm here

to receive the Arbor Day proclamation for a resolution for the county of Santa Barbara. This will be our 23rd um annual year being certified and also certified Tree City USA. So, it's a big thing for us with the growth award. Uh we have over 8,500 trees that are maintained by the county and we also respond to trees that fall down outside that are private and a lot of little things we have to deal with edge letters and and meeting homeowners and let them know what trees are protected and letting them know the rules. Urban Forestry is not just a tree company. We are also a hardcape. Our guys are also concrete finishers. Our department is one of few in the county of Santa Barbara or California that have cross trainin hybrided crews. Very proud of our team. Our team um is is very hardworking gentlemen, men that are are well established. I have Anthony RmIrez, our tree inspector. He's been here for uh 23 years. I have been at the county for 25 years. Um am I wrong or are you 24?

30.

30. Sorry. 34. And I'm 35. I get it's it's going fast. Um, I'm waiting to retire. I can't do it. But anyway, thank you for uh the proclamation. I appreciate the recognition. And also with Anthony, I appreciate you. It's really hard to do half of what I do without them. I also like to thank uh our our manager Udil Loza and our deputy director and director Mustafa and Chris Snett. Thank you guys for supporting us and helping us in our our department and giving us the the staff that we need, the equipment we need and and also the Arbor Day is also part of this event that helps us get recognized and and we get to do it with the children. Let them know what what the trees bring to the city and how it enhances it and it's it's it's a fun event. Thank you everybody. I appreciate it. I'm going to have parks department come speak and and uh represent parks and their maintain system.

Thank you, Mr. Thank you.

Good morning everybody. Uh my name is Dominic. I'm a park ranger for the county of Santa Barbara North Sector. I'd like to thank the board uh recognizing Arbor Day and all the hard work for the county. Uh thank you, Bill, for bringing us along and continuing to pro provide and all the superior work you do throughout the county. I'd also like to thank our director uh Jesus Armis who is committed to providing quality services, equipment, facilities for our community. Uh Waller Park has been blessed to have many contributions, volunteers, just one of the many parks that we take care of uh contribute to the tree population in the park. And in years past, we've been presented with different uh grants. Uh just a few years ago we got the 300 trees um donated or given to us from a CalFire grant. Those trees were planted all through Waller Park by volunteers and staff. I just wanted to recognize some of those uh groups. Ken Knight, the Rotary Club, Friends of Waller Park, and other volunteer groups that were part of these plannings. Uh our tree budget. Um we share it countywide in the entire parks division. uh the budget's minimal. So, a lot of the numbers and vendors that we use were limited on. So, we uh therefore have a staff that takes on a lot of the the tasks. Um I'd like to thank that staff. Ersali Dominguez that's here. Uh Brent Cloud, Jesus Dalg or I'm sorry, Justin Dalgus, Marvin Solario, Mark Guy, and Tina Schneider. And uh thank you again board.

Thank you, Dominic. Yep. All right, that brings us to our last resolution be presented, but this one was uh actually pulled by the public. So, we actually need to do public comment on this one prior to adopting it and presenting it. So, would you go ahead and just uh read the item into record? Don't read the resolution yet. Let's let's have public comment specifically on the resolution and then we'll then go through the formal part.

Jar Nelson and members of the board. Administrative item number four is sponsored by Supervisor Hartman. It is to adopt a resolution proclaiming the week of April 19th, 2026 through April 25th, 2026 as National Crime Victim's Rights Week in Santa Barbara County. And we do have three requests to speak from the public on this item. We are going to begin here in Santa Maria with Karen Howenstein. Then we will return to Santa Barbara with Elsa Granados and Bruce uh McKG. Karen. All right. Thank you. Uh let's go ahead and do two minutes. So we can we got quite a few things to address on our administrative agenda. So thank you Miss Houndstein.

Karen Howenstein lifelong resident of Lumpoke. Nepotism, cronyism and political party manipulation creates victims of every citizen in this county. That's what we should be thinking about because of what I've discovered has been done to the Lamppoke Valley. And I know there's no PC code for what's been done to my LMPoke valley, but stifling growth in the form of owned residences and homes in Loke by placing a perimeter around LPoke of commercial industrial strawberry farming. It's very very apparent. I feel that is a crime to every citizen of my valley. I do not like that it's being done and the political pandering that's happening that's controlled our county for years that's allowing it to happen along with the money laundering and all this organized crime activity which is happening right here in our county under our noses and is being ignored by local law enforcement because they're so partisan.

Thank you Henstein. We will now go to Santa Barbara with Elsa Granados to be followed by Bruce McK who is our final speaker on this item. Yeah, I'll make sure I close public comment on this item. Elsa.

Great. Thank you so much uh Chair Nelson and members of the board of supervisors. My name is Elsa Granados and I represent Standing Together to End Sexual Assault. Some people call us Sta for short. I want to thank you for the uh upcoming proclamation and recognition of victim rights week uh to highlight all victims. April is also sexual assault awareness month and at StSa we are truly grateful for the partnership with many county departments especially through SART the sexual assault response team. Last year, I approached all of you in relation to SART nurses and each of you without exception immediately recognized the importance of encouraging more recruitment of SART nurses and I appreciate uh your support and leadership. I ask that you continue to support SART. The partnerships with the county are so important to the healing of survivors of sexual assault. Uh studies show that the initial interaction with law enforcement and medical providers uh sets the tone for how survivors will look at their healing. I know that fiscal decisions are especially tough now. Sta knows that all too well with the changes in federal funding, but please think of survivors of sexual assault as you think about your fiscal decisions. I ask that you use your leadership to encourage continued collaboration on the issue of sexual assault countywide through SART. I ask also that at some point this week uh to commemorate victim rights week that you reach out to one person who

works on SART and thank them for their work with survivors of sexual assault. They're very hardworking people and we see their compassion and humanity every day that we work with them. Thank you so much. And we will remain in Santa Barbara with our final speaker, Bruce McKG. Bruce,

good morning. Uh my name is Bruce McKG. Uh I was a county firefighter. I'm retired uh for almost 40 years and uh this u national crime victims week ends on April 25th and April 25th is the 40th anniversary of a crime that happened a brutal rape and near murder out at uh Lake Los Canos. I responded on this and uh the victim to this day has uh has not been vindicated. The investigation has stopped and I wanted just to make uh you aware of this that you might want to look into it. It's been 40 years. Uh it was so brutal. Uh when I responded to her uh she was completely naked, strips stripped face down in the dirt unconscious. Her uh face was uh a lot of head trauma. Her jaw was broken in three places. Um her upper jaw was uh pulled from her skull. Um and I could go on on this. Uh but uh she was brutally raped and left for dead. uh if it wasn't for her bravery and uh going throughout the night crawling on her belly trying to get to a a street or where somebody could hear um she would have died and uh luckily in the morning that's when I responded to her the next day and um her name is uh Tammy Andrach uh and this is 40 years ago and uh one of the things I I think it's not one of our u gleaming um success stories. Uh and in fact, she went back to find out where

things are happening with this and and there's nothing. In fact, they said they purged her information. So, if if nothing else, if you can give uh look into it and get her information and all the pictures and uh investig investigative notes u to her, I'd appreciate it. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. We appreciate your and that concludes public comment on administrative item number four. Right. Sheriff or sorry, Supervisor Hartman, I move adoption of this resolution. Okay, I'll second. Okay. All in favor signify by saying I

I oppose. Motion passes unanimously. At this time, we'll now present this resolution. Thank you guys for sticking with us. U Madam Cler, could you please read item A4? Uh the resolution for A4. Yes, Tro Nelson and members of the board. Joining us in person today, we have District Attorney John Saverok and victim witness assistant program director Megan Riker Writing Child. If you can please make your way to the podium with anyone else you'd like to join with you. Whereas over 4,000 individuals are directly harmed by crime each year in Santa Barbara County and each crime affects our community, family members, friends, neighbors, and co-workers. And whereas the Santa Barbara County District Attorney Victim Witness Assistance Program is designated by the Board of Supervisors as the primary provider of support to victims of violent crime and provide services such as crisis intervention, resource and referrals, orientation to the criminal justice system, court support and advocacy and crime victim compensation to help mitigate the negative impacts of crime. And whereas this work is not done in isolation and strong partnerships with community- based organizations are essential to ensuring survivors receive comprehensive support, protection, and access to justice. And we are and we recognize and commend the vital work of our community partners, advocates, and allied agencies whose dedication ensures that survivors receive compassionate care and advocacy and pathways to healing. And whereas this is particularly meaningful as April 2026 marks both child abuse awareness month and sexual assault awareness month, underscoring our shared commitment to protecting and supporting survivors. And whereas National Crime Victim's Rights Week is not simply a week of recognition, but a meaningful moment to honor the impact of crime on survivors and the essential services that support them. Now therefore, be it hereby ordered and resolved that this board of supervisors declares the week of April 19th through the 25th as National Crime Victim's Rights Week in Santa Barbara County, thereby reaffirming the county's commitment to respecting and enforcing victim's rights

and expressing our appreciation to all of the victims and crime survivors who have turned personal tragedy into action in order to build a more just community. Passed and adopted today. Thank you, Chair Nelson, Supervisor Hartman, members of the board. As mentioned, my name is Megan Reinchild, and I manage our countywide victim witness assistance program. uh the work of our program would not be possible but for the people standing behind me who are advocates in our office and uh victim compensation claim specialists as well as our community partners in North County rape crisis. I want to thank you for joining the district attorney's office and our partners here today to commemorate National Crime Victims Week April 19th through the 25th. This year's national theme is about community and unity. And today, as as Elsa mentioned in South County representing StSA, I'd like to shine a light on one of our partnerships and a prime example of our community of victim survivor service providers as demonstrated by our sexual assault response team, aka SART. I think it's timely to mention SART. um not only given the comments of the individual in Santa Barbara. Unfortunately, these cases impact all of us in our communities. And being that it's sexual assault awareness month, I appreciate the acknowledgement of the survivors who are still out there and some of whom may have never reported. The SART team provides timely child forensic interviews and medical forensic legal exams to victims in a time of crisis. And I think it's worthy of

mentioning to the community that uh sexual assault forensic exams are also available to those who don't wish to engage with law enforcement. I think that's important because so many people are reticent to report, but they want to know that they're okay medically. Each year, the program provides approximately a hundred exams to survivors of sexual assault and over 250 child forensic interviews through our partnership with COMM to children aged 3 through 13. Runs the gamut. Physical abuse, sexual abuse, survivors of human trafficking, and exploitation. And we cannot and have not done this work without the support of this board and the CEO's office. and appreciate that ongoing support. the District Attorney's Office, Victim Witness Assistance Program, Law Enforcement, North County Rape Crisis and Child Protection Center, Sta COM, Child Welfare, the Public Health Department, and specially trained physicians and nurse examiners all make up the team that ensures survivors of sexual assault are subject are subjected to a limited number of interviews and receive proper care in a safe and supportive environment in which they don't have to endure the trauma. of the incident alone. This is our supportive community and I appreciate every one of them so much. We're also fortunate to have partnerships with our local hospitals, cottage, lump valley medical center and dignity who have made regional sites possible and accessible to survivors countywide both children and adults. I want to give a special shout out to North County Rape Crisis Child Protection Center, Ann McCarti, a dear friend of mine and the executive director who's retiring this year. Um,

and has been just an incredible champion not only for the SAR program, but more importantly for the community and for sexual assault survivors in North County. She also helped us when we were uh standing up our human trafficking task force with access to the individuals, the youth in juvenile hall and providing advocacy to those individuals who were identified as having been trafficked or exploited and providing the advocacy necessary to engage in services. I also want to take a moment to commemorate and me remember Allison Wales who's the embodiment of advocacy work. I think it's fitting that one of Allison's quotes was healing starts on Tuesday. Uh survivors are often looking for someone to share space with them in their trauma and their grief and she did that. that was her whole career. Uh that was her life's work. And I know um the impact of her loss is felt by the more than 4,000 individuals that she served over her career, but also her friends and colleagues at the North County Rape Crisis Center. Even while battling cancer and nearly to the end of her life, she showed up for the community and survivors. And I think that's just the embodiment of the work that we do. and I want to honor her here today. So, with that, I just want to take a moment to honor her legacy, standing alongside survivors of sexual assault, honoring all of the advocates in our community, the victim witness program, our staff and team who embody her caring and compassion. And as such, we're designating the the

Sart Lumpoke House as Allison's house. Her memory will live on for all of us. Thank you. Thank you, MEGAN.

Chair Nelson, members of the board, the District Attorney's Office is the voice of victims in the court system. It is our privilege, our honor, and our duty to provide support and to provide that voice for victims. In these chambers, we're often times talking about programs, FTEES, money, pods, uh whatever it is. But what we have to realize is that behind every collision involving an caused by an impaired driver, every murder, every sexual assault, every case of child abuse, every time a farmer can't harvest that day because of theft. Every burglary, every robbery, every case of domestic violence, there is a victim, there is a loss, there is a harm, there is often times trauma that is unspeakable and unimaginable for most people. So, I want to thank this board for this proclamation, for recognizing the people that are brought into the criminal justice system through no fault of their own and are bearing the brunt of the harm caused by criminality. Thank you.

Thank you, Supervisor Hartman. Uh yes, I I'm so grateful that Mr. McCrae um McC uh kind of set the tone for what really is the impact of some of these horrendous crimes and expressed my appreciation to the V victim witness program because uh it's it's not just a narrow conception of the role. uh this program is really the connective tissue that brings together the entire community in caring and I think that that's um that's extraordinary to go beyond the narrow bounds of your office to pull people together and and to develop innovative programs and to support them uh especially for women and children. And so I just really appreciate the the visionary approach with which you uh do this job. That is a very demanding job clearly. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Supervisor Hartman. I think we're that's concludes our resolutions. We'll be moving on to our pulled items by either the board or by the public. And I believe the first item up is A12. Chair Nelson and members of the board. Administrative item number 12 is from the auditor controllers's office. It is to consider recommendations regarding the sheriff's office overtime analysis report for July 2025 through February 2026. All right. Thank you. Um this been pulled by a couple of uh my colleagues including myself. Um I know uh Supervisor Hartman was just asking me if the auditor is available. Do you know if the do we know if the auditor is available?

Yes, Chair Nelson and members of the board. Our auditor uh controller Betsy Schaefer is available via Zoom. Okay. So, I'll kick it over to you first, Supervisor Hartman.

Sure. Well, thank you so much for um following through and I I wonder uh Miss Schaefer if if first of all you would just summarize your the results uh as they've um changed for this period. Define the period and and what what your conclusions are. And um to our auditor controller, Betsy, we can see you, but we can't hear you. Believe you might be muted. Sorry about that. Um thank you uh supervisor Hartman. Uh the the basic report is showing um generally improvement for this time last year and by improvement I mean decreasing costs and decreasing um hours overall. Um and we went through sort of a highle um summary showing year-to- date hours and year-to- date costs and then we reviewed those um eight uh observations that we uh originally presented last month I believe. So, um, given that we're going to have, I think, six reports, uh, from you, I just wanted to understand a little bit more ho how things work. So, when a deputy records overtime, what information are they required to enter? And is there any explanation of why the overtime was needed?

Yes. Um, there are certain earning codes. Joel, I might have to ask you to jump in here. Um there are certain earning codes that track when uh a deputy codes or uh works overtime and those are listed in that report. Um uh we added those uh I believe as a request uh from the board. Um and it shows um basically costs by earning code. Um there are on the time sheet they can also per each pay period um they can code or put a note by uh the the reason for working that overtime. They can do that. They don't always do that. And then can you check overtime records against any independent source dispatch logs or deployment records to verify the hours were actually worked or are you limited to the time sheet itself?

We only looked at the time sheet itself um for these reviews. We did not reach out to the sheriff to ask for the schedules. We hope to be able to do that in the future.

Okay. Um, so is there any information that you don't have access to, but that would really help you do a more complete analysis? Um, probably interviewing some of the sheriff deputies um and the managers would probably be helpful. Um we have been also talking to um human resources and county council sort of about what is allowed and what um you know what are sort of standard practices. Um so I don't know if that helps but

that does thank you very much. All right. Thank you, Supervisor Hartman. Other questions from the board on this item? Uh, Supervisor Caps.

Yeah, thank you. So, just uh again, thanks for the report. It's very chalk full of a lot of numbers, which is good. Um, uh, just to focus on the big numbers. I do see that it states that there has been improvement, which is welcome, uh, a welcome sign. But I just want to understand the improvements broadly speaking because last year uh the sheriff's department was I believe four or five million over budget and overtime but now we're on track for 9 million. So um how how can I reconcile the improvements there? Maybe that's

Yeah, I don't really Yeah, I don't really know operationally what the sheriff did. And maybe I mean is that because the overtime budget itself has increased? I believe it's 10 million this year. We have under Welsh here. Okay. Good morning, supervisor caps to the chair. Yes, our overtime budget was increased to $10 million. Okay. Okay. So the the pie has gotten bigger. The pie has gotten bigger. Um so has our our vacancies. And so we're we're still trying to kind of balance the operational need for the overtime as well as fill in our vacancies and trying to get closer to that $10 million.

Okay. So um again, it's it's good good news to see that we're seeing some drops in in overtime usage. um especially since the previousou with the deputy sheriff's association is still in place and there hasn't been new hiring. So that means that some internal controls have been set in place and I was just hoping you could describe what some of those are.

Absolutely. I appreciate the opportunity to explain what our team has been doing the last 4 months and continuing to identify only overtime that's operationally necessary for our custody branch, for our law enforcement branch, and our support services branch. What my team and our our team has been able to do is really just look at our organization and see what additional managerial and supervisory controls we can put in ourselves. Uh, and to be honest, uh, there was a slew of them that we're able to do. Uh, a few of them I'd like to discuss today. Um, one major thing that we're able to work with the deputy sheriff's association on is decreasing the mandatory uh, overtime shifts in our custody division. As you recall, uh, we I think they bid about a year and a half ago on 19 overtime shifts per um, shift rotation. That is a lot of overtime. Uh, that's mandated on our on our employees. This last rotation, they're down to two, which is great. Uh we capped the number of supervisors uh per shift per custody facility. We decreased um our law enforcement overtime shifts from a 12-h hour shift to an 8 hour shift, which it doesn't sound like a lot, but when you get into the hundreds or thousands of shifts, those four hours actually start adding up. Uh we implemented managerial controls on how many staff can be on vacation uh on patrol and in the jails, which limits the amount of overtime shifts that we're we're sending out. We implemented additional overtime controls and supervisory management on um just the approval process. We reintroduced paper overtime slips which sounds archaic but it gives our supervisors and managers more oversight and insight into why we're we're doing the overtime. You you brought up a question or maybe Supervisor Hartman. Why is that deputy sheriff working overtime? Well, besides the memo section in their time sheet, they're also writing it down and that supervisor is signing it. that deputy caps worked overtime because Deputy

Nelson was on vacation. So, it gives us that extra level just to double check, hey, let's just make sure this overtime shift was really needed. We're modifying our quarterly training hours to reduce the amount of backfill overtime that's needed.

We implemented phase one of our demandbased staffing, which I talked about last week, which is really putting deputy sheriffs out in the community uh when they're needed. So less staff when it's less peak time and then more staff when there's when there's higher call volume. We added a managerial control for overtime approval in all branches. We increased our data unit uh automated reports which really I talked about a little bit last week but almost gives us a live view of our overtime. So really per unit per bureau down to you know each employee why they're working how much overtime they're working where they're working it and why. And we feel that that's going to not only give us trends, but it also could potentially flag any uh potential fraud in the future. It just gives us again more oversight and control over overtime. We reduced our extra help staff by 25%. We are bringing down some of our discretionary service levels that could impact weight times and for the community, but we're doing in the best interest of being the fiscal stewards that I know you want us to be. We also removed overtime availability for HR and criminal records as well as supported sunsetting that SMA side that allowed managers to get extra help overtime on a secondary time card. This is just just kind of a short list of all the things we're doing, but we've shown that we can continue to, you know, crack down on overtime where it's not needed, but then still support the operational overtime that's needed because we have so many vacancies.

Well, thank you, Under Sheriff Walsh. That that was quite a list and again I've commended you um during the budget hearings for increased communication and perhaps uh I mean you just demonstrated that just now and perhaps you could provide that list uh for us as you've just done. I think it's really helpful. Uh just speaking of extra time I I know that the audit or the the report I should say it's not an official audit uh demonstrated that extra help is 130% 138% of its budget. You just mentioned that you're making some progress there. Can you is it possible to describe give an example? Sure. You know to because of our vacancies we are we're kind of hamstrung on yeah

utilizing extra help and overtime to to fill in those gaps. However, our team uh you know, when we got formed four months ago, we really were able to look at all of our extra help lines and we were able to eliminate the ones that were either redundant or that we believe didn't really meet that need for operational uh security for the jail facilities and for our law enforcement branch. So, we're able to sunset a lot of those, but we'll still need to be able to keep some of those extra help lines in order for us to function.

Okay. So I um I know that um you're new in this role, so this is something that we can relate to uh when you inherit things of previous uh administrations, but can you these these this list does beg the question, why were these controls not in place? I mean, overtime blowing through overtime budgets has been an issue year after year after year. So can you speak to that at all?

Sure. Supervisor Caps through the chair. I I I truly, you know, I'm not one to to throw down my my predecessors or or the previous groups, but I really do feel that sometimes um organizations, agencies, leadership teams just need a reset. And while we're still under the leadership of Sheriff Brown, our team was able to come in fresh eyes, uh outside the box thinking, and really just pull together some new ideas to tackle the age-old problem of you don't have enough uh staff, you have tons of vacancies, but all eyes are on you. Where's where's the middle ground? and we feel that we're showing the board in our community that we could can be good fiscal stewards but also maintain safety and security. Um so I think it was just that reset and getting that outside the box thinking.

Okay. Well, last question. I mean we did uh you know the most severe example was the arrest that occurred from uh actual abuse of the system, actual criminal abuse. Can you speak to uh controls that have been put in place, lessons learned from that incident? Absolutely. for the future going forward.

Supervisor caps to the chair. A lot of the managerial controls that we in instituted really did come after the lessons learned. This individual, as we know, was a supervisor in our organization. They were entrusted with not only monitoring overtime use for themselves and their colleagues, but also for the for the custody deputies and deputy sheriffs that work for them. It was a violation of trust for us, it was a violation of trust for you as well as the community. It doesn't happen a lot in our organization or profession, but when it does, I can assure you that it stings and it it it sent shock waves through our organization. But we learn so much from it. And a lot of these managerial controls that we that we instituted, including bringing back paper overtime slips, as archaic as they are, really is going back and just slowing everything down, making sure we look line by line, shift by shift to confirm that that overtime was actually needed. We learned a lot. We don't know what we don't know. And our supervisors are entrusted with the ability to modify uh calendars, schedules, and that's what this person exploited. We're able on the back end to tighten a lot of that up as well as introduce those controls that we we believe and we want you to rest be rest assured that if this were to ever happen again, it would be immediately flagged. Uh and then we could we could we could tackle it head on.

Well, hopefully it never happens again. Of course. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Supervisor Cap. Supervisor Lee. Thank you, Chair Nielsson. Um, Under Sheriff Welch, I just want to say thank you. I do see a difference in what you and your team have been doing. Um, you're new to this role. I know how it feels, but I do trust that you will do your best. So, my question is, can you talk about the vacancies that's um you have in your department right now?

Supervisor Lee through the chair. Like I talked a little bit about last week, we we unfortunately just had a retirement season and we had a big one. Uh we lost a ton of people in the law enforcement support and custody branches, which is not unusual. Uh it just happens to be a bigger retirement class. So right now, um we have 60 hard vacancies. So uh on the law, custody and and support staff. And then we have 34 soft vacancies. So those are people that are on injury leave, on FMLA or other types of leave. So putting those together, we're about 94 uh down uh temporarily and permanently. And that's why we do still have an operational need. I mean, if you if you were to do the math at is it 1,650 hours per uh employee, you times that by 94, you get, you know, I think 155,000 hours that's not being worked when these people are out. That's what the men and women of the Santa Barbara Sheriff's Office are stepping up and doing as far as overtime and extra help. So, it's that it's that kind of uh thin line that we have to walk to be good fiscal stewards, but also to maintain that that service level that the community deserves, and we do that with overtime and extra help.

All right. Thank you, Supervisor Lee. And so, I have a few questions. You just mentioned those vacancies. Um, with those soft vacancies, we're still having to pay those employees typically that are on some level of leave. Is that that's correct? But those 60 vacancies are potential um cost savings. Is that Chair Nelson? That's that's correct. There is some you know those that are out on 4850 there there is some sort of leave that goes through through workers comp for for those but the majority of them yes are just on regular leave

are still hitting the department. Right. And so and that's I guess that's one of the things I'm realizing too is that one of the reasons that drove our overtime was the fact that we we hired up. I mean something this board has been asking the sheriff's department to do for over a decade. And I think you guys have been, you know, as a leadership of the department, you know, really leading that and fully staffing um to the the highest levels that I've seen since I've been with the county. But that also drives overtime up, right? Is that do I understand that correctly,

Jar Nelson? That's that's correct. Yeah, it's almost a double-edged sword because you you get all these employees in, it takes them between 8 to 12 months to train them. Um, so they're not productive assets. Have you heard have you you've heard before? Um, so yeah, it's it's either one or the other. either you you have vacancies and you you're running overtime behind the vacancies or you get the bodies and they're just not they're not ready to hit the streets or the jail for about 12 months. And then that also then highlights the budget concern, right? Because in the past um we've been able to use existing salaries and benefits without going to overtime of the um unfilled positions. I mean that's where the overtime hit first before it went into our overtime budget. Do I understand correctly?

That's correct. So now that we hired those people, there wasn't as much money in that fund. So it really became more apparent to everybody involved was that there was this large number where in the years past that may have not been as obvious because it might have been papered over by um vacancies. Is that correct? General, that's 100% accurate.

Okay. So I just and I think that's kind of one of the things that's going on here and that I'm you know as we go through these reports I think this is really great that we're putting as many eyes on this as possible that but that's something that kind of jumped out at me is this you know partly is a um you know yes there needs to be more controls and I and I'm really confident in this management team that is we're hearing the controls that you're putting in place but the other two things is the hiring. You know at some point once we hire up we're going to have to have a more realistic overtime budget. you know, we haven't had a budget for overtime um like we do for other departments in part because we've had those salary savings for years. Um the other thing is still that a lot of this is driven by theou um that we have with the deputy sheriff association. So Max, you might have one more question for our auditor. Were you able to at all be able to differentiate the difference between um you know over time that was kind of generated through theou that the board has with the DSA versus what was driven by um you know operational changes and controls by the sheriff's department.

No, I have to say I don't think we specifically were able to do that. Um, we're still um putting the pieces together on what's allowed on theUS. So, and like I said, we did not um we're still learning on what the schedule the scheduling impact is.

Well, and I think that's really thank you uh um Auditor Schaefer for that because I think that's really important and part of this discussion and we need to see the all the pieces to be able to make the conclusions that um we are making or we're starting to make here. And so, um, I know that we're in act active negotiations with DSA right now. We're it's it's actually, um, I don't know if it's a good or bad time to be in labor negotiations, but we are. And it's an opportunity for us to have some of these conversations about some of these things that are, um, not best practices, but they're they're they're legal and the contract that this board has uh, has agreed to with the deputy sheriff's association. So, I'm really looking forward to getting our arms around that and understanding fully, you know, our personal responsibilities of board as well as the responsibility of the sheriff's department. So, um, thank you for that. I know Supervisor Hartman has some additional questions, and I know, um, uh, Cher Brown wanted to make a comment as well. Supervisor Hartman.

Uh, yes. C, could you explain why a full 12 months before um, new recruits are productive assets, both custody and law enforcement? Absolutely, Supervisor Harbin through the chair. So when we we hire our our custody deputies or sheriff's deputies, they they come aboard and then they have to go to an academy. Um we have our core academy for our custody staff and then our uh basic peace officer academy at Alen Hancock College for our law enforcement. So we hire first. We don't hire from the academy. We we send them

Supervisor Hartman through the chair. We we we do both. Uh, but the majority of our hires are um either from within our organization and then they're they're promoting to a custody deputy or sheriff's deputy, but there are times that there's I believe what you're we're insinuating there's unsponsored cadets that put themselves through the academy and we absolutely look at them and we we try to recruit them if they can um meet our backgrounds. Um that absolutely happens. But the majority of time like we're about to send uh seven custody deputy cadets to the custody academy. Well, thosemies are either four to six months long and then when they once they get out, they have an additional four to six months of actual field training in the streets and in the jail. So that that gives you that 10 to 12 month timeline where they're actually unfortunately not productive assets.

And then what commitment do we have from them after we've invested that much that they'll stick with us for a while? Well, supervisor Harman through the chair, we do have that um three-year program with custody deputies where we're giving those those those incentives. That's Yeah, but that's a different program.

Appears to be working for the custody staff. Um everybody else, there's been some court cases that show it's it's not quite legal to to hold them to some sort of agreement as far as hire and paying us back for the academy. So, I I defer to county council on that, but really we just try to make it as welcoming of of a place to work. Um, and we treat them more like family members and we just try to get them try to retain all of them because we know we're all all of us are looking at the same pool of recruits and candidates. Uh, so we try to we try to get them and hold on them as long as we can. And and then my last question um you went through almost a dozen things that your um innovations and management management tools that you've implemented uh which is really impressive. You were speaking rather fast and I wonder if you would go back about the data the how in more detail how that's working.

Absolutely. Supervisor Hartman through the chair. So when when we came in in December, this this new team was formed, we were getting a lot of of reports from our data unit as far as hours worked and overtime. What we've asked them to do is almost double that uh and give it give us more um timely data reports so we can really attack anything that that looks kind of out of out of wax immediately. Before it was looking kind of at a high level. So our three branches we have law enforcement, custody, and op support. Now it gets granular into how much did Deputy Nelson work last pay period, where was it, why why was that, why was Deputy Nelson working? So we can really get granular and and confirm that it was operationally needed. It just gives us a huge amount of oversight. It's timely. Um there's only so much you can do months later. So this this gives us to us the Monday after that pay period and we can really just sink our teeth into it. So, I'm I'm just trying to make sure, you know, oftenimes we don't gather the information we need at the get-go and then you can't really analyze later on. So, how does this data relate to the time sheets and the paper um now approval?

So, the data is taken um directly out of the systems as far as so for example um let's just use solving patrol. So that would be one of the granular units that we now get to see how much overtime was charged to solving patrol this last pay period. Then what we can do is we can look at the time sheets, compare them to the now the overtime slips as well as the schedules and make sure all three things match. Okay, there wasn't there was an excessive amount of people on over on vacation. There wasn't too many, you know, people at training. So we can really exercise our managerial controls over our staff to make sure that again that overtime is is is being worked when only when it's operationally needed. And then would the auditor have access to that to look at those three levels?

Uh supervisor Harbin through the chair. There's there's nothing the auditor has has asked us that we haven't give them. We're completely transparent. Uh anything they need, any interviews, any documents, we are an open book. Thank you. So just can I just clarify? Yeah, absolutely. So it's not just paper. It's it's an paper in addition to the other systems. Okay. Thanks for asking that. Thanks. Thank you, Supervisor Hartman, Supervisor Caps. I want to let Supervisor or sorry, Sheriff Brown um he rose his hand. He's on um on Zoom. Sheriff Brown.

Thank you, Chair Nelson. And um I apologize to the board and to you that I'm not there in person. I am at a state sheriff's uh conference and u was unable to get there today. But I um I just wanted to clarify uh several points that were made by Under Sheriff uh Welsh. Uh the first uh with respect to the overtime amount or the overtime number, it's really important to remember that this number has really borne no real relationship to the historical use of our overtime. As I as I mentioned in some detail at our uh previous meeting where overtime was being discussed, uh the the overtime budget number is uh artificially low and always has been. And the reason for that is because it is less expensive for the county to cover the amount of hours that are required to um run the jail and to uh run our patrol operations with the use of overtime. than it would be if they uh if if the county was able to uh be in a position and hire people. Uh the overtime costs are are less than the actual costs of a of a a full-time employee. Uh so I just want to make that distinction. And although the number is 10 million, it was raised to 10 million this year, but that still really bears no relevancy to what our previous use was and what our anticipated use will be this year. We are anticipating a significant reduction in the overtime because we have been able to um excuse me, we have been able to uh put a lot of these controls and a lot of

these things into place as you've heard from uh under Sheriff Welsh that uh really came about as a result of the the the dire financial situation that the county has found itself in. In preceding years, the sheriff's overtime uh was was rectified essentially at the end of the year with uh fund balance uh from other budget sources. And um again, it was it was it was done as as as uh as as uh mentioned um because it was a less costly alternative. Um, the second point I'd like to point out is that the custody sergeant that was um, sadly uh, engaging in time card fraud uh, was discovered, was uh, identified, was investigated, and was arrested by members of the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office. And he is currently facing criminal charges as a result of that. um breaking of the trusted bond that he has had with our organization and the law enforcement profession. And as under Sheriff Welsh indicated um uh that was a very tragic situation and something that uh uh just was uh absolutely um very very difficult for our organization to to handle. And then lastly, uh I want to point out that the the number of vacancies um that we currently have of the 60 vacancies, and I don't have the the exact numbers in front of me. I'm sure that under sheriff um Welsh does, but the actual number of sworn vacancies uh is more on the order of about around 20. And as he indicated, that is that's for the custody side. And that is because of the fact that we had a significant number of retirements in the

recent uh past that that typically uh occur effective on the last day in March. And then uh as far as our u uh sheriff's deputy positions, the numbers are much smaller. And in the case of the custody deputies, we are about to begin an academy that will, I believe, have eight of those positions uh taken up and uh and filled. Uh, so I just wanted to make those points of clarification. All right. Thank you, Sheriff Brown. Uh, Supervisor Caps, and we actually have one public commenter on this item.

Okay. Yeah. I mean, I think those clarifications were actually really instructive. We we didn't discuss this much in our budget hearings, but it appears we should have because if a if a budget overtime budget is deemed irrelevant. Uh that's a real issue that that gets to the crux of the issue of why maybe controls weren't put in place to make sure that that budget was adhered to. And so I just want to make sure that the conversations are being it sounds like uh held now to make sure that that uh there there's agreed upon number because that's how fiscal management works and there has to be a budget and it can't be fungeible. That's not how we spend taxpayer money. So, I I understand that the the budget currently is 10 million, but um we don't have our budget director here and we that was last week's work, but I just I found that that explanation very clarifying that that it seems to be that's why we've had these issues in the past is that you can blow through a budget if if if the sort of the number isn't deemed relevant. Um I just find that really bewildering. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Supervisor Caps. Um this uh time we're going to go to public comment on this item. Um Madame Clerk and I'm going to also close public comment this time on this item. John Nelson and members of the board we have one request to speak from the public on this item. We're going to remain here in Santa Maria with Karen Howenstein. Karen. Okay. Miss Hstein, you have two minutes. We're going to we have quite a few other items that are pulled. So we're going to keep all the administrative items down to two minutes so that we can move through the um the agenda and get to eventually to departmental items. Miss Houndstein.

Yes. This is a great example of where the rubber meets the road because this board likes to hang itself on national issues. We can see a definite cause and effect. When you allow millions of people into our country that are ineligible for law enforcement employment and then you expect our our systems to support them. What we're dealing with with our sheriff's office for now 10 years is a lack of eligible candidates for the positions. How are we going to solve that? We can see on a national level how horrendous liberal policies have allowed a whole bunch of ineligible candidates into our midst along with a bunch of fentanyl and our sheriff's office has to deal with that every day directly. This problem that we're having with the budget rests squarely on those liberal policies which are failed failed our our country and our our state. And I would like to know just for my own curiosity, what happened to the $4.1 million that John or that Searno's office and Dudley's office took in from 1807 West Highway 246 through the Cisneros family? What happened to that $4 million? Couldn't it have gone to support our law enforcement budget? Where did that $4.1 million go?

And that concludes public comment on administrative item number 12. Okay, back to the board. Um I believe this is a receipt and file. I'll move to receive and file. And so the what the need a motion? Yeah, I do need a motion. So is it A through A and B? Uh so moved. I we move to receive and file uh A and B. Second. Okay. Okay. Any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Oppose. Motion passes unanimously. All right. Next um item is I believe A17. I'm clerk. Can you please read that in the record?

Chair Nelson and members of the board. Administrative item number 17 is from the community services department. It is to consider recommendations regarding the professional service agreement with CJM Petroleum Consulting CGM CJMPC to conduct amortization study. And we did uh receive four requests to speak from the public on this item. Okay. So, um let's go ahead and go to public comment on this first. Um and then I will I just have some questions um on it. Um so, we'll go to the public comment on this item first. And again, we're going to keep public comment on administrative agenda items to to two minutes. At this time,

we will remain here in Santa Maria and begin with Andy Cowwell. Then we will go to Zoom with Pasha Mandavi. Andy,

Chair Nelson, members of the board, Andy Caldwell representing Collab. What I'm always amazed at is the ignorance or ignoring the fact that upwards of one half of every barrel of oil doesn't go to energy. It goes to, for instance, the tires on EVs, right? The parts on EVs, uh, plus 6,000 other products, uh, which fill hospitals and industry and manufacturing. If you had your dream world where we banned oil and gas operations, where would you get the 6,000 derivatives and byproducts? You're wearing d byproducts of oil right now. All five of you. The other thing is uh the ignorance of our constitution. Our constitution created immense wealth in a rapid amount of time because intellectual property, surface rights, private property, and mineral rights are always protected against the takings. And you have to ask yourself, with the critical shortage of oil and gas in this state that has led to refinery closures, we used to have 40 40 refineries. We're down to about seven or eight depending on how you count. Two more have said they're going to leave. If they do, every expert in the industry says California is beyond the point of no return. So, how do you justify to the poorest of the poor that they're paying2 to $2.50 more per gallon than anybody else in the country, including Hawaii? This is a waste of dollars. It's going to invite litigation, which is a greater waste of dollars, and you're threatening the livelihood of people that are managing a critical resource for our economy. How do you justify, Supervisor Lee, you wouldn't be able to run your restaurant without these? Um, and again, you couldn't run your public works department without it. The list goes on

and on. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Cwell.

We will now go to Zoom with Posasha Madavi to be followed by Tara Reno. Pasha, Good morning uh members of the board. Uh my name is Pasha Madavi. I'm a resident in Santa Barbara living in district 1 and a professor at UCSB. Uh I am here to urge the board of supervisors to approve staff's recommendation to conduct an amortization study of onshore oil and gas extraction operations uh which are an essential component to expediently drafting an effective ordinance to phase out oil and gas operations. Two weeks ago, in front of the county planning commission, I presented research for my team at UCSB in conjunction with the community labor center led by Carmen Rhodess, which conducted a 10-month research study on the demographics of the oil and gas workforce, the economic impacts of a prohibition on new oil and gas drilling and a phase out of existing oil and gas operation as well as public attitude on these issues. It's a 54-page report. Uh it's it's quite long in which I submitted as public comment to that hearing, but I'll focus on one set of results here which are centered around the question of phase two of the county's proposed ordinance on the phase out of existing oil and gas operations. Note that this is distinct from the results I presented to the planning commission as these were focused on phase one to prohibit new oil and gas operations. These results come from a public opinion survey of 2714 residents across Santa Barbara County randomly selected using a state of the science methodology to capture a balanced and representative sample of county residents. We found that 60% of all county residents support an ordinance to phase out existing onshore oil and gas drilling in the county uh and operations in the county for which the amortization study before us today recommended by county staff is an essential component for a timely analysis of this ordinance. In other words, three out of every five county residents support this. And it's

not just a north versus south county story. We find majority support in four of five supervisor districts. Uh including 71% support in district 1, 68% in district 2, 60% in district 3, 40% in district 4, but 54.7% in district 5. As you can see, the public supports this ordinance whether in north or south county. So I urge the board to approve staff recommendations. Thank you. Thank you. We will now go to our final speaker, Tara Reneo. Tara.

Good morning, Chair Nelson and supervisors. My name is Tara Renifo and I'm a senior attorney with the Environmental Defense Center. EDC wants to thank staff for their work and their responsiveness and openness to speak with community members who reach out with questions. We request that the board authorize the chair to execute a professional services agreement to conduct an amortization study of onshore oil and gas extraction operations. This is a critical next step to eventually achieve the county's climate action plan measure to develop a sunset strategy for oil and gas operations in the county. Thank you. And that concludes public comment on this item.

All right. Uh my first question I had was for uh Director Armis and then I have a question for my colleagues. Um when the climate action plan was developed, it was developed without the this piece but then it was added in, right? Is that correct, Chair Nelson? When the climate action plan was presented to the board, there was an option that essentially moved us in a direction of analyzing oil and gas more uh independently and more thoroughly and the board adopted that course of action. So I guess a continuation of that direction. Sure. But to meet the the goals and the numbers, they did not include this, right? That is correct. So, this was just kind of an extra uh add-on, if you will, to climate action plan.

You'll recall, uh, Chair Nelson, that when the the cap was before you, we did not have state authority to deal with oil and gas. And subsequent to that action, the state legislature approved and the governor signed legislation that extended that authority to the board and it was subsequent to that action that we embarked on this process. So then were the calculations for this action recalculated back in the climate action plan and adjusted accordingly? They were not. Okay. They were not. So the climate action goals can be completed whether we have this or not if if we're successful.

Well, we were not able to uh independently identify the oil and gas components simply because we have less of ability to control many of the components there and that's why they're not incorporated into the cap. And you'll recall that the climate action plan was adopted in part to also provide some environmental clearance for subsequent uh development activity in the county um in a more economical way allowing the environmental review process to be conducted.

All right. Thank you for that. Um I guess and then my question is for my colleagues um with this is this is uh $250,000 of general fund that going to go toward the amortization study and I was just um curious if there's anybody that uh you know in light of where we are budget wise you know $250,000 of general fund is you know another IB put patrol or it's somebody it's it's you know potentially multiple uh child welfare workers and I I just thought in in the um frame of what the budget hearings that we just had knowing that this is not necessary for satisfying our um our climate action plan, whether there was any desire to maybe uh put this on on hold right now while we're going through the financial challenges that we are as well as understanding um that there may be executive orders coming down the pipe that may make this moot. And so, um, you know, knowing that that environment, I didn't know if we wanted to embark on this contract or maybe we wanted to take a step back maybe for a period of time and re-evaluate, um, whether this is still, um, prudent to go through now. Um, I I I don't have a whole lot of hope, but I thought I'd at least ask the question. Um, so I I think it's important question to ask knowing that where we're going and where is ahead of us, you know, um, it's one thing to spend this funds if we know that there is a conclusion on the other end. It's another I mean I I know that my colleagues want to do things that will actually end to a result especially when we're spending this amount of general fund in these challenging times. So I guess sa Hartman that was my question for my colleagues to see if there's any any desire maybe to to back off of this for now. So

uh uh at least speaking for myself um no I think we have to keep moving forward on on important initiatives and before we can have an honest conversation about property rights mineral estate values or tax revenue impacts we really need the facts and right now we don't have them. Amortization is a legally recognized constitutionally sound tool precisely because it takes property rights seriously. It gives operators a reasonable period to recoup their investment rather than simply shutting them down. Uh I think we owe it to every resident breathing that air and living near those wells to understand our options and a study doesn't phase out anything. It gives us the truth and that's what I'm after.

All right. Thank you, Supervisor Caps. Supervisor or sorry, Supervisor Harris Caps.

Yeah, I would agree and I appreciate the the attempt. Um it's always good to have a discussion up here and uh and I just remember I just go back to the report of uh you know the health impacts of living near um wells and and the long-term effects and I do see these um these costs. I know that there's a lot of work we have to do and we'll do it responsibly. But I do see that in the long term um these investments as we've done with investing in solar right here um above the parking lot uh do do pay off and we did budget for this $250,000 in the budget. So I'm pleased to see that it's within that. So good job director Armis um in getting a contract that is within the budget. I know that that was in question. Thank you.

All right. Not seen anybody jump up. Uh supervisor Lavanino. Thank you Mr. chair. Hey, nice try. You know, like it's it's my job. What do they say? A little something for the effort. I I I'm totally on board with you. I mean, it

I know we all have priorities. I think we're we still just have still the bruises and the scar tissue from going through that budget where we're cutting essential services for people. And today we were honoring libraries at the same time we're cutting library funding. So, um I think we have to realize that um you know, we're we're spending money to permanently eliminate a long-standing revenue stream in Santa Barbara County. And without something to replace it, and I know what the push has been, the the replacement revenue stream is let's go out and tax the residents more. And when the UCSB professor said he pulled and it pulled well in my district, Measure P uh was the poll. Measure P was eliminating oil and gas in Santa Barbara County got crushed. So until we do another ballot measure where people say, "Hey, this is the direction I'd like to go." Then maybe I would be able to get on board. But um the thing that that that bothers me the most about it though is not just the 250,000 but it's really that how we feel about the relationship of oil and the environment. Um, and I know people believe very strongly about this and and but the reality is we aren't this does nothing to con to curb the consumption of oil. And that's the issue because really all we're doing if we're successful and we eliminate oil and gas in Santa Barbara County is you just push it down the road. You just push it somewhere else. Because until we get right with the world and say, "Okay, we do believe in climate change. We do believe all these things and we're going to change." That's one thing. But number two is change your behavior. I, you know, yes, we have done some at the county and I've supported those things of, you know, easy ways that we can change, but um I won't be able to support this.

All right. Thank you, Supervisor Levanino. Supervisor Harmon, just an interesting fact. I heard from our secretary, California Secretary of Energy, uh, today we have more EV charging stations than gas pumps in California. We are making this transition. Interesting. All right. Um, not seeing any other things. I do have a few more questions about the amortization study. Um, uh, so I saw on there that you guys have amortization of, um, mineral rights as part of that.

The, uh, consultant, if the board approves a contract, will evaluate that issue. Uh, it's going to depend on two factors. the extent to which the information is available and much of that is private. If that information is not made available to the consultant, he will rely on u standard assumptions to determine value and then uh calculate uh the impact associated with that analysis and then the amortization of that separately than the amortization for the well owner. Right? So that's a different category. So they're going to advertise um down their

I mean because mineral rights are a property, right? piece of property um protected in the constitution. So that's going to get advertised down. So explain that to me how that works. What's uh Chair Nelson, what's difficult on the mineral rights question is um we've done some research on that topic. Uh many mineral rights owners uh are compensated only to the extent that production activity takes place. And so if there is no production activity, the mineral rights owner receives no compensation.

Sure. And so that component needs to be uh taken into account. And then in the typical definition of amortization, of course, you recognize revenue, subtract operating expenses and capital investment and then realize what the return is to the uh owner of that uh activity. a different situation with respect to mineral rights because they may not be incurring uh expenses as we know it in terms of capital investment. So the consultant is going to do his best but there are a number of complicated factors here a a good part of which is dependent on the the party that's extracting the oil and the party that owns the mineral rights uh being willing to share some information with a consultant. So, but I guess I'm just trying to understand. So, let's try this. Maybe farming instead of oil. So, if a farmer has a piece of property and there is a crop on there, but we don't let him go onto his property to harvest that crop, how do you how do you wrestle with that? Because that's what we're talking about here, right? So, the mineral rights owners have a piece of property, right? Do I understand that right? It's, you know, mineral rights are historically and constitutionally protected property rights, right? It's an asset, but we're not letting you get your asset. So, I'm just help.

Well, so I've actually try to put this in my own mind in the context of a land use activity. Sure. U that you might have an agricultural field, but you're not allowing cannabis to be uh grown there or to be uh extracted, if you will, Sure. from that parcel. And so it in some ways there's there's some parallels here in the sense that simply because one owns the mineral rights doesn't mean that extraction will be permitted and therefore value may not exist. So um but it's agricultural zoned it's maybe cannabis is in but you can do some type of agriculture operation there. Sure.

So what kind of uh extraction would we allow if it wasn't oil for for mineral rights owners because it'd still be agriculture. you still be able to do something on the property. We're talking about potentially excluding them completely from the access to their assets. And of course, uh you're not anywhere near making that determination through this study. This study is simply trying to understand if there are financial ramifications. And if there are, and your comments have long indicated that there are, uh, it means that a reasonable period has to be established to allow the owner of those rights to get a return on that, uh, ownership status. So, we would maybe need to give access for them for a period of time, their mental rights before we able to discontinue it.

It's conceivable. Okay. So this actually might lead to more oil and gas production in our county or there's a realization that there isn't more to extract from that particular mineral right that's owned by individual A. Okay. All right. Uh so then the other question I had about the study was capital reinvestment, right? A well does not just you don't stop working on a well. Is that a part of the amortization study as well? Yes, it is.

Okay, good. Well, again, I can't support the amortization study, but I'm glad that's included. And I really um hope that we can figure out how to if you if the county does move down this route with especially with mineral rights owners, you know, um I often say, you know, the government can do lots of things, but we just need to pay people for what we take from them. I mean, that's a basic, you know, um bill rights uh concept, and I I I if we go down this route, I just think we need to count that cost instead of just board that on a property rights owner. Chair Nelson, I think everyone on the staff's team recognizes that this is a significant decision for the board and u the the support for undertaking this study is to make certain that the board has the best information available to to make an informed decision. We may not like the conclusions. We may think that they move us in a direction that we don't want to move in. On the other hand, they may reveal that moving in a particular direction over a specified period of time works for a number of individuals, both the property owners and the public. And the information that will be gleaned from this study, I think, will help the board uh make that determination. In other communities, they've applied that in the context of of the next phase of the study where they've uh identified a pretty extensive period for um uh the amortization to be realized.

Okay. And one more thing that I thought about when you were talking um you're saying that this is not this is for the future on what we do with the mineral rights owners property. Um but we're also part of this includes a a ban now, right? So, how how are we figuring that out? Cuz we're, you know, I know that the planning commission just approved something. It's come back to board. So, we're actually going to do something now where we're going to say you don't without knowing the number. So, we're going to exclude them the rights to their property now, but we haven't studied that yet.

Excuse me for interrupting you. I apologize. Uh, Chair Nelson, the the matter that was before the planning commission recently and will be before you in a in a short while relates to uh new permit issuance. It doesn't relate to activity that may be conducted by folks that have um vested rights. So those with vested rights will continue to um have access to that that activity.

Vested rights for a well but not access to your your mineral rights. Well, to the extent that um well, I don't know how you can separate uh a mineral rights as a as a concept of value if permits aren't allowed for extraction. Okay. So, the county would stop their ability to access their heart. Okay, great. Thank you. That's my question. All right. And I just want to make a comment on on that study or the survey. I mean, um, not a scientific survey on our communities, you know, especially when you pay people to take surveys, it it sometimes has a different outcome than, you know, either a an election. Um, I guess I'm not surprised that professor tends to act outside of his areas of expertise, so I guess he's getting into statistics as well. Um, anyway, moving moving along. Um, does somebody want to make a motion on this item? Super Hartman.

Um, I'll move staff recommendation and I'll second. All right. Can we do a roll call vote, please? Supervisor Lavanino, no. Supervisor Lee, I. Supervisor Caps, I. Supervisor Hartman, I. And Chair Nelson, no. Motion passes 3 to two.

All right, that brings us to item A19. Madam Cler, can you please read that in the record? John Nelson, members of the board administr John Nelson and members of the board administrative item number 19 is from the county executive office. It is to consider recommendations regarding the support for assembly bill AB2257 county departments of corrections and rehabilitation.

All right, this is pulled by quite a few members of the board. Um I personally pulled it um for a couple reasons. One is that I just wanted to make sure the public understood why this is showing up on the administrative agenda. There's some questions out there in the public about that. Um, typically a lot of our support letters from the county come right from our legislative committee and I know that I've asked and others have asked to make sure that um, anything that might be controversial or might be slightly outside of that come to the board so we could all weigh in on our personal feelings here. Um, I know once we had one come to departmental item, but I I do like the administrative agenda as a place where if it's not um doesn't need to be a full discussion because all we are doing is commenting on legislation. Um, you know, some people in Sacramento care what Santa Barbara County thinks, many do not. So, we have minimal impact on this legislation and often often legislation changes. So, um, you know, I like to reserve the departmental agenda for things that have of a higher level of discourse and impact for our board. So, um, that's why it's on the administrative agenda. Um, I'm glad it's on here so that I get to weigh in personally. Um, but uh, I just wanted to explain that for the public that was a little misunderstood on why this showed up on today's agenda the way it did. Supervisor Caps.

Yeah, I think just along with your clarification, it seems as though information went out that we're actually taking action today to take over our jails. So, you might want to clarify that. Yeah. Or I can clarify that

tomorrow. Uh I mean that's the emails that we got. I think thanks to some communications that went out. Uh so public comment uh that is not the action that is being taken today. It's it's about weighing in on a piece of legislation that would give counties the option, but nothing would change regardless of what this board does today. So, I just think it's really important to have accurate information when we're dealing with um public discourse. All right. Thank you, Supervisor Cap. Supervisor Labanino. Sorry. Um let's go to public. I'd rather hear from the public first if there Supervisor Hartman.

Yeah, I I want to hear from the public, too, but I I understand Ethan Bertrren might be available. Um and if he is, I would very much like to hear from him.

All right. And before we go to public comment, I just wanted to get my my position on this as well. you know, I um took a look at this legislation. I tried to take everything seriously, especially that comes from our assembly member because I think that there's obviously some type of um thought of his, you know, his county in mind when he writes uh legislation. Um so, I I think that that and uh I I want to do him um proper by by researching this. you know, I met with some of the uh Napa County supervisors where this happens and um um it's not necessarily a smooth uh process and it's not something that I don't think would necessarily fit in Santa Barbara County. Um and so I I've got some deep concerns about it and I'm likely not to support this. Um but I just, you know, um it's it's an idea. It's a concept. I know it's been done in other counties. Um but there's also good reasons why um it's under the sheriff's department now and and hopefully would continue in Santa Barbara County. So, with that, um, let's go ahead and go to public comment. Madam Cler, how many public commenters do we have on this item?

Tro Nelson and members of the board, we have four requests to speak on this item.

All right, let's go ahead and go to public comment. And let's keep it again at two minutes and then we'll um I know that Suza Harman has asked for Mr. Bertram from the umman's office um to comment. So, we'll we'll go to him after public comment. Joe Nelson and members of the board. We will begin here in Santa Maria with Larry Barren to be followed by JC Hunter. Larry, good morning. Chair Nelson, supervisors. I'm Larry Barrett representing Indivisible Santa Barbara. At last Friday's uh budget workshop, we heard reference to the Murray stipulated judgment governing conditions in our county jail. Um I'll read a portion of the most recent correspondence from the Murray plaintiffs. The reality is that Santa Barbara County will very likely be unable to provide the staffing or legally required treatment and services in a jail system with current or higher population. If the county is unable to provide the staffing and services, this class council will proceed with a federal court enforcement action. Now, it should give us pause that Murray Council doubts the sheriff's ability to manage our jail per the stipulated judgment. Greg Hart's AB2257 provides you with a management alternative to create a department independent of the sheriff to manage the jail. And this option may be critical for you to avoid another lawsuit. Now, let's be clear. This bill does not take any existing power away from the sheriff. It only provides you with a future alternative. Even if you're happy with the performance of this current sheriff, you may not be thrilled with that of a future sheriff. So, please support this

bill to provide you with an improved ability if needed to address how our county jail is operated. Thank you. Thank you, Larry. We will remain here in Santa Maria with JC Hunter to be followed by Andy Cwell. JC,

good morning. JC Hunter from the Santa Barbara County Deputy Sheriff's Association. The DSA is opposed to AB 2257. Uh this is this is a uh bill that will replace a dulyeleed sheriff and his responsibility or her responsibility for being in charge of the uh jail with an unelected non-law enforcement bureaucrat. Now reasons given for this is that well maybe if we do this we'll take care of the staffing problem in the jail. Oh contrary. The staffing problem is the result that this county habitually fails to pay a competitive wage to the deputy sheriffs. When you fail to pay a competitive wage, you don't get enough people to put in for the job. And when you do hire somebody, they leave. How about the overtime? Maybe this will take care of all that overtime. No, no, no. The overtime is the result of not having enough deputies working. Why don't you have enough deputies working? Because you don't pay them enough. The reality is that this county has really not been appreciative enough of Sheriff Brown. For the 20 years that he's been working here, I have witnessed him work some miracles. One of his miracles, probably his first one, was getting the Northern Branch Jail authorized. Now, people probably don't realize it, but Sheriff Brown is clairvoyant because he said at that time what? That that jail should be larger. So here we are 12 years later having to enlarge the jail. We should have listened to the sheriff. So rather than replacing the sheriff with a bureaucrat, what's the answer to this whole problem? I'll give it to you. The answer is you five. Later today, you're going to be going into close session to talk about the DSA's contract. What I need you five to do is band together. talk to your negotiators and the bureaucrats that are in the room and

say, "What we need to do is get the deputy salary up to a market rate wage and I guarantee you all of these problems with overtime, all of the staffing problems will disappear." Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hunter. We will now go to Andy Cowwell and we will go to Zoom with Ethan Bertrand. Andy,

Chair Nelson, members of the board, Andy Caldwell representing Collab. And for a clarification, all of our communication said this action is to support Hart's bill. All of it said that. So, somebody misread it. That's on them, not us. One of the things I think that's uh critical here is separation of powers. We don't want you to control the sheriff. We want separation of powers. We want a professional law enforcement person elected to run the jail. And the consent of the governor. He's been elected how many times? Five times already. and he's not only been elected to run our county, he was elected as a leader of the state sheriff's association and the national sheriff's association, which means he has the respect from his peers all across the country. The only place he lacks respects is right here. And I believe it's always been a battle of egos more than it has been of finances. And I want you to start barking up a different tree. Like one of the things in Hart's proposal is people with mental health, mental illness are languishing in our jails. You have a behavioral wealth department that has spends a quarter of a billion dollars every year, has nearly 500 employees. So every four years you're spending a billion dollars. Why wouldn't the people in the jail who are committing crimes mostly while having alcohol, mental illness, and drug problems, be the top priority of your own department? Why not break down that silo? You can have all the uh send a dozen or two dozen people into that jail from that staff and maybe you solve the problem yourself rather than blaming it on the

sheriff. You know, the people in the jail should be your highest priority because they're costing the county a fortune. Please respect the office and respect the will of the voters. They've elected him four or five times and he's gotten more votes than any of you. Thank you, Mr. Cowwell. We will now go to Ethan Bertrren on Zoom. Ethan,

thank you and good morning, Mr. Chair and supervisors. Ethan Bertrand here, district director for Assembly Member Hart. We apologize we can't be with you in person today. We're actually in Sacramento presenting this very bill. So, Assembly Bill 2257 would restore the authority that counties previously had up until 1993 to establish an independently led Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. This agency would be led by an appointed director. As has been stated, our goal with this legislation is not to replace the workforce of our jails. Uh, in fact, our legislation makes it clear that individuals who work for county jails today could continue to work there if a county, and let me just underline, if a county made the shift. Additionally, our bill clarifies that if a county made the shift, uh, custody deputies or correctional officers would still have the same peace officer status that they have today. So, this is not a proposal to take custody operations and give it to a non-law enforcement entity. Um, it really is an agency that would function in the same way as the current uh, corrections under the sheriff, but having the accountable um, leadership at the top uh, that is responsive to the board of supervisors budgetary and policy directions. Um, so as has been stated, this is merely restoring a choice. Many counties, including your own, may choose to maintain a sheriff run jail. And if that is in the best interest of public safety and fiscal accountability and rehabilitation, um we support that. But what this will do is by giving a second option that counties historically had, uh your board and

other boards of supervisors throughout the state would have more leverage that right now uh is lacking as far as um advancing the county's uh financial and policy interests in the administration of the jail. As you know, boards of supervisors have full legal and financial liability over jail issues, but have very little authority to prevent these issues going forward. Um, which is a very difficult situation where your board can be forced to pay out legal settlements or pay for overspending by an agency but not have any authority operationally to prevent those.

Thank you, Mr. Bertram. Um did uh any other supervisor wanted to hear a little bit more from Mr. Bertram on I and as far as public comment is that's your public comment. Thank you. Well, just one question. All right. Yeah, sir. Supervisor Caps, do you have some questions for Well, I heard this uh in legislative committee, but just to refresh my memory, what what when was that authority uh changed? Mr. Burch, would you I think it was 1993. Is that correct? That's correct. So that's correct. Okay. But I think that that was news to me. So that that the boards of supervisors used to have this. So thank you.

All right. Um so back to the board. Did you want to any other members? Uh Savino Sav I have questions. Okay. I have are we in deliberation?

I think we are on this. Is there any further questions about it or caps? Again, I just uh I I just feel like uh I feel disheartened by the the emails that we got um because um and even the commenter this this isn't this is a choice and I think that that is the key to this legislation that Assembly Member Hart is very thoughtful as you well know. You served with him. um he might have his perspective. You might not agree with it, but he is providing counties with a choice and none of the emails that we received in opposition to this uh thanks to the blast that went out which did not include that information. And I just think in this day and age with so much division, we have to have accurate information. And it was just really disheartening to see that uh people were led astray uh including our public comment from the deputy deputy sheriff. Um that this wouldn't automatically make counties take over jails. And I just think it bears repeating because not one of the emails in opposition to this stated it correctly. Um and so I just my support for it in the legislative committee uh with Supervisor Hartman was because of that choice. It doesn't mean that that's what we would do. Doesn't mean that that's what we would force upon counties. Um, each county is different. Each county has its own dynamics. We have our own dynamic. It's different now than it was when then Supervisor Hart. So, I mean, we we we would take it under consideration potentially if if and that's a big if, if this becomes law. So again, because of that choice which the state of California provided to counties prior, and we'll get into this much later with item D4, I think local choice uh choices is what we're standing up for in our county. That's what I that's what I wanted to say.

Thank you, Supervisor Caps. Appreciate that. Supervisor uh Lavino, this supervisor Hartman.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. You know, I guess if you kind of couch it that way that it's a choice. We don't have to do it or we could do it. We don't have to do it. You know, the pressure would be to obviously this is available. You you we need to go in this direction. It'd be like I think almost like if there was legislation that said, "Well, we could do two-year terms for supervisors or four-year terms for supervisors." The public would be showing up wanting two-year terms. you know, though there's term limits, if when you say there's a choice, people are going to go in a certain direction. I I really look at this as a kind of a referendum on on Sheriff Brown. Um creating something that you take away and heard local control and I read it in the report. I don't think there's anything more local than a local sheriff. Um it's not Sacramento making, you know, coming down and imposing. It's not it's not DC. It's the guy sitting that comes into our meetings just about every week. So, replacing him with a department, an agency, a director. When I hear those things, that just means money to me. Means more red tape, more bureaucracy. And um as was pointed out, I mean, you've got a sheriff that yes, I've had disagreements with him on policy. Um but he's been elected five times starting in 2006. Five times the he's faced the people and five times they've sent him back resoundingly um as they wanted him for another four years. so well regarded statewide, nationally. And when you look at like you're going to replace a person with a master's, not replace, I know it's an option, but you're theoretically saying, I've got somebody with a master's in public administration from USC that's been running a department for 20 years. Um, is absolutely qualified

to go out and I guess we would appoint members of this commission. It's going to be totally political. I love Assemblyman Gray Hart. Totally respect him. He has a amazing optimistic outlook on life that I I tried to emulate. Um I just disagree with him on this policy. Um I just look at this as as another Sacramento end run and uh I don't like it so I won't be supporting it, but I also appreciate the ledge committee bringing it to us. Thank you.

Absolutely. Thank you, Supervisor Levveno. Supervisor Hartman. Well, I am supportive of uh this legislation and um endorsing it on behalf of Santa Barbara County. One of the great frustrations that I found in this job is that we up here are the ones who are liable for decisions over which we have absolutely no control. It's our name on the lawsuit, not the sheriffs. It's our budget that has to pay the settlements. uh whether it's federal civil rights litigation, wrongful death claims, procurement of equipment uh that could not be used due to basic planning oversightes, a custody key handoff system that resulted in overtime liability and required a settlement were on the hook for the management failures and we have no tools whatsoever. If we at least had this choice, I think we would have a little bit more leverage. So, I'm I'm I'm very frustrated at being on the hook for something I have no no ability to influence.

All right. Thank you, Supervisor Hartman. Supervisor uh Lee. Thank you, Chair C. So, I'm going to be supporters of this agenda item. Um, I was able to reach out to assembly member Greg Harden and ask him the questions that we all did and he answered them perfectly perfectly because he's really putting himself out there for this. I think he's giving us choices, right? More tools in our toil to do what we can. So, I'll be supportive of this.

All right. Thank you, Supervisor Lee. And as I mentioned before, um, I've got some concerns about this. Uh, you know, boards come and go and, um, you know, sometimes they get political. We have certain things that happen on the national level that in impacts local decision- making which may not be necessarily fair to that process. Um I I want leverage too. Um I would disagree though that it's on us. It's on us as represents of the taxpayers, but the taxpayers also um elect Sheriff Brown, so it also is shared there. And I do think actually his name ends up in every single lawsuit when the sheriff's department gets sued along with the board. I think we're all on those lawsuits together. Um I think eventually, you know, we're accountable to a county budget, but you know, um these things, he's often criticized for these things, too. He does not get off scots free. Ultimately, the electorate decides to send him back. So, um you know, like I said, I've I've been frustrated by the the sheriff over the years. I've supported some of his opponents um as many as other people, but I also, you know, I know there's this partnership that we have to have and it's a kind of a balance of power sometimes because I do think that boards don't always make the best decisions either. Um, so, um, I I listening to some of the other counties or at least Napa, uh, county that has been gone through this, um, they're they're moving more of a direction to potentially returning it back to their sheriff because they've seen that this is not an ideal situation. Um, when you're having, um, nonsworn custody, I know that Mr. Bertram said that that would not change. That's not the model that exists now. And so, um, this would be something that's an unproven model that would be out there. Um, I'm not comfortable with uh this as a leverage piece at this point, so I won't be able to support this, but again, I'm I'm glad that we brought it forward so we could each weigh in with our thoughts on it. Um, I think it's it's an important part of the conversation. Uh, Supervisor Hartman.

Yeah, I I just wanted to make one comment about visibility. These issues of liability come up in close session. There are things that the public really never knows about, but we have to deal with. So, I just want to put that on the record. And some of it's driven by the sheriff's department, some of it is driven by past boards um and you know and policies that we put in place or lack of investment in capital that we have not we failed to make as well. So um can I get a motion on this item? I would move that we support uh Assembly Member Hart's bill.

So it would be adopting A and B of A19 because that's a motion by Supervisor Hartman. Final second. A second by Supervisor Cap. Can we do a roll call vote, please? Supervisor Lavanino. No. Supervisor Lee. I. Supervisor Caps. I. Supervisor Hartman. Hi. And Chair Nelson. No. Motion passes 3 to2.

Okay, great. So, we have one more administrative item and then we're going to take a small quick break before we get to our public cont commenters. I know there's public commenters in the room that have been waiting quite some time, but we have a translator that needs to take a quick break here. So, let's go hit A27 and that will be our last item in the administrative agenda. Chair Nelson and members of the board administrative item number 27 is from the fire department. It is to consider recommendations regarding revisions to the rules and regulations of the Santa Barbara County Fire Department's Board of Appeals and appointment of candidates onto the board of appeals. And as noted earlier, the department requests a continuence of administrative item number 27 to the May 5th, 2026 board meeting.

Thank you, Chief Huff. Um my understanding is you we got this brought forward with along with candidates um and it's going to come back on on May 5th. Uh you know, one of the thing concerns I had was um I wanted to make sure that I could actually have input on my appointment for each of our districts. And so I just kind of wanted to pull it actually just to highlight that. I know Supervisor Caps already has an appointee here. appreciate the fire department offering a slate of candidates, but I do think it's important for all of us to take you guys out of that. And so I just want to make that for the record that I um so I'm going to be appointing somebody from um my district to serve on this. I think it's important that we have that um independent guidance from all of our offices on who ultimately judges the the appeal from the fire marshals. So um do I understand correctly that by May 5th we'll be able to have that in place for us to be able to make those appointments? Yeah, Chair Nelson through Chair Nelson, not through the board or through the chair. You're the chair. Uh, yes. So, we are working through some other uh issues as well with council and uh the clerk's office, but we should have it ready on May 5th.

Okay. Excellent. Thank you. So, I just wanted to, you know, highlight that uh and and let for my colleagues also that you might want to find somebody for this board maybe from the list of candidates that the fire department has has found, but there's also other people in your community that might make um make more sense for each one of you. So, just wanted to take this opportunity to pull that item or highlight that item. Uh the the uh the department's asked for continuance on this to May 5th and so I'll go ahead and make that motion if there's no further comment and to continue this to to May 5th. Any get a second on that? Second. Okay. Any further discussion? All right. Um all in favor signify by saying I

I oppose. Motion passes unanimously. Okay. We're going to take a short fiveminute break. I know we have public commenters here that have been waiting patiently and I want to get to you. Apologize for such a long administrative agenda. Also, those people who want to be here for item four from the regular meeting or item one in the special meeting that we said that would start no earlier than 12:30, that's going to be at least 1:30 at this point, potentially as late as 2. Just want to make sure that you guys are aware of that. If you guys are paying attention at home, um we still have a few items before we get to that. So, um, just want to let you guys know that, um, it probably will not be heard any earlier than 1:30 or 2:00 at this point. Thank you.

Okay, welcome back to the April 21st meeting of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors. We just finished a long uh administrative agenda and now we're getting into our uh at this time public comment. Um this is public comment for items that are not on today's agenda. Madam Clerk, do we have uh general public comment today? Chair Nelson and members of the board. Yes, we originally had eight requests to speak from the public in general public comment. I do believe at least two of our members um have stepped away and will no longer be providing comment, but we will begin here in San Maria with John Ronv to be followed by Don McCrae. John.

Okay. And just before I get to John, um for the members of the public that were here that had to leave because it got a little long, um it is my apology for that. Uh um I would request that you submit your public comments in writing. we will still read it and still take it into account. So again, we try not to do what we did this morning, but unfortunately sometimes these meetings get away from us. So I just wanted to apologize on behalf of of the entire board as our as the chair for that that delay. So um John, please. And at this time, I'll go ahead and close public comment. Uh good morning, Chair Nelson and members of the board, county staff, and all others in attendance. Uh my name is John Roner and I wanted to introduce myself as the new public affairs manager for SoCal Gas. Okay.

I cover St. Louis Abyispo in Santa Barbara County. I like to say my coverage territory is Hurst Castle to Carperia. Nice.

And having recently moved to the central coast, I got to say it is truly uh remarkable to be here and and it's something special here in both these counties. Um I took over the role of public affairs manager after Tim Mahoney retired last year. He was in the role for about 27 years. So very large shoes to fill. Um and I just wanted to to state that SoCal Gas remains committed to supporting local governments, communities to provide safe, reliable and affordable energy delivery today ready for tomorrow. And please don't hesitate to reach out and I look forward to reaching working with all of you in the future. Thank you.

Thank you, John. I appreciate the introduction, our reintroduction. And we will now go to Don McCrae to be followed by Eleanor Lind. Don

Chairman Nelson board. My name is Don Mcgra. I'm a a homeowner at Nwood Terrace out in Orchit. Also on the board of directors. We have a situation with St. Joseph's High School. About a year and a half ago. St. Joe's built a new softball field. It's been discovered that they built it without permits, never applied for one. Uh the issue we have is we have numerous homes that are adjacent to the softball field that are receiving foul balls in their yard. And I don't know how long it's been since any of you played softball, but softball is a misnomer. It's not soft. And these things are going 50, 60 feet in the air and then returning to Earth in people's backyards. and had a broken window last week or two weeks ago and people can't go in their yard when they're out in their backyard when they're playing because it's not safe. Single hurt you. So anyway, we've talked to the school and tried to to get them to mitigate it and we've discovered that they have now applied for a permit retroactively without addressing any of the issues that we're having with balls in our neighbors yards. Um we have one one neighbor has a bag two weeks ago had 29 softballs in it. So they're not they're coming in there quite often. School refuses to to to even talk to us about it. We've asked them to to cease operations until they can fix the problem and they refuse. U they told us that they've ordered the material to raise the they do have a fence. It's wolffully short. They've they've ordered the material supposedly to raise

it 30 feet. I'm not sure that's high enough. It might it might get it to 50 ft. I don't know. But we're asking the board to to direct the planning commission to look into this. And we've contacted the planning commission. They're well aware of what's going on. But there needs to be a new design on the on the back stop to stop this cuz we're receiving damage in our homes and we're all invested in them and of course uh we'd appreciate if the board would direct the planning commission to do something or planning department to do something about it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McCra. We will now go to Eleanor Lind and I believe Andrew Philpot is no longer uh in the room. So we will go to Karen Howenstein following Elanor. Eleanor.

Thank you chairman and the board. Um I'm also speaking for my husband Andrew Fpot because he had to leave to go to work. Um I'm a homeowner who lives along Foster Road. Our property is directly along the softball fields um of the third baseline and I'm here to formally we were here to formally object to the current location location of the softball field. Um I've been to other fields um across our uh area and no one has a three foot easement between a field of play and a property. Um it's always it looks at like at least 30 feet um for safety and noise etc etc. All the public schools seem to comply to that. Um we've had numerous balls as he said um that have kept that have keep coming in. We had at least 12 or 15 12 that we've kept, three that we've um hit back or given back. Um they've come into our yard, hit my planters, my roof. if I can't be in my space um you know five six seven days a week because they're playing weekends they play almost all day and they're usually there from 3 to about 6 or 7 um in the afternoons um we're afraid for our safety the balls are coming from like you said 40 50 ft up the the netting is about um 32 feet right now they want to put another 8 ft on that you know in the meantime but Um, so having the field so close to our property negatively affects our property values as well. And um, I can tell you if this field was there when we bought 3 years ago, we would not have bought this place. You could see what that looks like from our property. It is right there. Um, the noise from the boom boxes

as well that they play during the practice and in between innings. Um, it it also is so loud. Um, it's intrusive and not just outside, but when we're inside, we've had Zoom calls in our office that Andy has to do or I have to do with people and we can't hear I mean, we can hear that it's it comes across through the Zoom calls so loud. Um, so we're respectfully requesting that the county takes action to uh deny their requests for approvals for their amendments and move the field, including the structures, to a safe and more appropriate distance from our properties. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you, Miss Lynn. And my staff will get a hold of you, Mr. McGra, and meet with you at some time, not today, but in the future. Thank you, sir.

Thank you. We will now uh go to Karen Howenstein. Then we'll go to Zoom with Christy Lozano. Karen, Karen Howenstein, North County resident. I'm here talking to you right now because I have to point out for the record the hypocrisy and favoritism shown by this county towards Verizon Corporation regarding the 5G antenna that is being placed on the corner of Rucker Road and Parisma Road. Now, I've researched this and I found out that our completely corrupt planning department planned this. They actually changed the way the county deals with environmental impact reports to do this. SQA is being ignored because exactly where they're placing this 5G antenna used to be the middle of a pond in a wet land that is the drainage for a protected state park. Now, all of those environmental factors that are being triggered and then all of these regulations that are being ignored stands out like a big sore thumb to us. But what really impacts the property owner is the fact that we're personally aware of dozens of cases where this county has denied

residents the ability to build homes because of the conflict created by the line of sight. The Horizon line of sight, which for this particular 5G tower, is being placed less than 200 ft away from the front porch of a longestablished home. Now, in my personal experience, that never would have been considered ever as applied to a residential homeowner or property owner. Why is Verizon being shown such favoritism?

This all has to be placed on record. Thank you, Mr. Sign. We will now go to Zoom Christy Lozano to be followed by Gina Corez. Christie,

good afternoon board. Um, the best thing I saw you do today was uh bring for a day of prayer uh in May, which is awesome. I'm a person of prayer, so I really appreciate that. Um, but it does seem hypocritical as in my observation, you don't follow any of those rules with regard to your honored position of of governing over our county of Santa Barbara. And so I want to point out the hypocrisy of that. And there's a lot of hypocrisy to honor the library, but to cut their funding, to honor victim's awareness month, but to scrub people from the record. To uh honor the sheriff and the hard work that the sheriff does, but to not support what he does, and to vote against him three to two. And so I think what we what we are tired of is the dog and pony show, the the show that continues to go on to act like you care but you don't to decide who's going to be the bad guy this this week and pass the buck and so it never lands on anybody. And we have a lot of problems to fix in our county. We have a ton of problems. ICE is a problem. We have a congressman who could go to DC and he could advocate for our our illegal community or our immigrants that have been here for the last 30 years and he could do something about that. But he doesn't. Instead, he creates drama to try to stir up people's emotions so that they'll continue to vote for him. Indivisible does not represent Santa Barbara citizens. They inter they are for their own agenda as many of you sitting on that board are for your own agenda. But here's the good news. There's a simple solution. We can vote on June 2nd. And

as far as I'm concerned, you all need to be voted out. But let's start with Laura Caps. Let's start with Steve Lavalino. And the distinction between Laura Caps and Elijah Mack. Elijah Mack will listen to people. Laura Caps never listens to people. She's a robot for whoever she works for and she follows that agenda. So, if there's anything that we can come together on as a community of homeowners and business owners and people who actually care is to vote for people who care for people and who will listen to people. And I know there's people running for election that do. And so that's who we need to put in these positions because your position is very important. You are representing we the people. But as far as I'm concerned, I don't think any of you represent we the people and we need change and we need change now and that can come as quickly as June 2nd. Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Lozano. We will now go to Gina Corez, who's our final speaker in general public comment. Gina.

Yes. Good morning, Chair Nelson, members of the board. My name is Gina Curos. I'm here today to ask for a formal investigation of this board into the operational practices of the contracted service provider, Good Samaritan. In my previous employment with the Committee for Social Justice, where I served as the outreach coordinator, I was contacted by several residents at La Pasada with complaints that they wanted to file. I assisted them in filing grievances and delivered them on May 19th, 2025 to the homelessness assistance program manager at the community services department. A few days after those grievances were submitted, the executive director of Good Samaritan made retaliatory actions towards me. I made several attempts to get a response from the grievances only to be ignored. I will not let the voices of those people be ignored. They deserve answers and there needs to be accountability for publicly funded programs.

Today, I am requesting an investigation by this board into the operational practices of Good Samaritan at all sites that they are contracted. Secondly, I would like an independent review of every grievance that I submitted to the community services department. Thank you.

And that concludes general public comment for today. All right, that now Oh, that now brings us to our first departmental item. And before Yeah, we're going to have this first departmental item and then we'll be going into close session. Um I believe that's right. Yeah. All right, we're going to go ahead into department item number one. Then we're going to go to uh close session and the lunch break. And then we'll be coming back for items D2 and three. At this point, if you're here to um comment on item D4, I know there's a lot of public interest in that item. We're looking at approximately 2:00 for that item at this time.

Chair Nelson and members of the board. Departmental. Item number one is from the planning and development department. It is a hearing to consider recommendations regarding the first reading of an ordinance adding chapter 52 to the Santa Barbara County Code titled local housing marketing program case number 26 OD3 which affects portions of first, second, and third districts. All right, Miss Plumman, you're up.

Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the board. So, uh, when the board was considering the update to the housing element that was adopted a few years back now, hard to believe, um, there was a lot of discussion about the desire to have local people occupy the new units, particularly on the south coast as they get constructed. So, the housing element included program 20, which was about local preference. And the program directed the staff to essentially look at creating either guidelines or an ordinance that would try to balance prioritizing locals getting into these units and fair housing law and in ensuring that we continue to comply with SB649. Um the act the implementation actions from program 20 were twofold. The first had to do with um setting up a program for affordable housing, capital A affordable housing. And that's an item that you're going to be hearing later today through CSD when they're amending their inclusionary housing program and their guidelines. The other was to look at what we might be able to do for market rate units, which is really uh sort of an unchartered territory, if you will. Um, so we spent a good deal of time doing research across the state and even including some other states to look at both programs that address affordable housing and look for something that addressed market rate housing. We haven't found anything related to market rate housing. We did find examples where there were um other jurisdictions that had adopted programs for capital A affordable housing and they seem to have gone unchallenged. Um there are other jurisdictions on the

south coast that have tried to look at this issue. And um the city of Golita about a year ago um looked at capital A affordable and moved forward with something along those lines, but they declined to go into trying to do something for market rate. Same with the city of Santa Barbara and I don't think the city of Carperia has anything. So really I think we're sort of on the cutting edge here of trying to do something. Um it's maybe not as much as we had hoped we could do but it's something we felt that would get us started down that path. Um, I did want to mention that we did spend some time with the development community talking to them about a potential program because I didn't want to be in a position where I would bring something to the board that the development community would complete completely oppose and then potentially file some kind of suit against the county or something along those lines. So we wanted to make sure we had something that attempted to address the issue but also was um I think reasonable and manageable with respect to the financing constraints some of the development community expressed. So with that introduction I'm going to turn it over to the staff to present the program that we have that really mo mostly focuses on um sort of intensive marketing efforts for our local community. Um today I have Alex Tuttle, deputy director. Um I want to introduce Kathy King who is the uh the new supervising planner in long-range planning. She has replaced Alan Bell and then Laya Spring who's one of our planners in um long range planning. So u Miss Spring, if you would go ahead and start the presentation.

Thank you, Lisa. Good afternoon, Chair Nelson and members of the board. As Lisa said, my name is Laya Spring and I will be presenting the local housing marketing program. This program introduces a new chapter to Santa Barbara County Code, chapter 52, titled the local housing marketing program, which includes requirements related to the marketing of new housing units in the south coast region of the unincorporated county. The primary goal of chapter 52 is to increase opportunities for the local workforce to access local housing. Chapter 52 comes out of the 2023 to 2031 housing element update that was adopted by this board in December of 2023. The housing element includes a suite of programs that are directed for staff implementation including program 21 local preference which is intended to improve opportunities for local workers and residents to obtain local housing. Chapter 52 was developed following outreach to and including feedback from the development community and in collaboration with county community services department. Um you will hear from the community services department a little later related to local preference for deedrestricted affordable housing and the inclusionary housing ordinance. Chapter 52 is focused only on non-deedrestricted housing, meaning housing that is free from legal restrictions on the rental or for sale price or income limits for occupants. Chapter 52 is limited in applicability to the south coast housing market area. The county is divided into five housing

market areas or HMAs. And as you can see on this slide, the south coast HMA in green, doesn't look very green on this slide, but it is. Um, extends from the eastern boundary of the county to Gaviota Pass where Highway 101 turns away from the coast and heads north. It also uh the southern border is the coast and the northern border is approximately the ridge line of the Sanz Mountains. The South Coast HMA is characterized in part by a jobs housing imbalance, meaning there are more jobs in the South Coast than there are homes for the workers that fulfill those jobs. And recent studies have found that approximately 28,000 workers commute into the South Coast HMA daily. In addition, 15.3% of the commu commutes that end at the south coast travel 32 miles or more versus 9% of commutes to the north county. And compared to the statewide average, almost two times as many people employed in the south coast travel 50 miles or more to work. The consequence is air pollution, including greenhouse gas emissions, traffic congestion, and decreased personal time for workers to spend with their families and in their communities. The South Coast HMA also has a low vacancy rate. The rental vacancy rate is currently around 2% and as anyone who has tried to rent or purchase a home in the South Coast region knows, it is a very competitive market for housing. So a critical first step for securing housing is timely awareness of housing opportunities which brings us to chapter 52. So given the unique characteristics of the south coast HMA, chapter 52 only

applies in that region. It also only applies to five or housing developments with five or more primary dwelling units. So it would not be triggered by accessory dwelling units or ADUs. It also only applies to the initial sale or rental of those units and again only applies to non-deedrestricted units. Chap Chapter 52 essentially requires developers to prepare, submit, and implement a local marketing plan. It requires that the plan be submitted and approved prior to planning permit approval and that it be implemented 21 days prior to marketing for general audiences. The local marketing plan must include uh newspaper ads in both English and Spanish, notification to local employers, jurisdictions, and housing organizations, online marketing focused on the South Coast andformational flyers. In addition, when applicants for rental or for sale units generally have equal qualifications, chapter 52 encourages prioritization in line with what's shown on this screen. So, first priority is encouraged to be given to people who work in the South Coast HMA but live elsewhere. Second, to people who live and work within the South Coast HMA, and this includes folks who have experienced a no fault eviction within the last two months. Third is people who have been hired to work in the South Coast HMA but live elsewhere. Fourth is people who live in the South Coast HMA but work elsewhere. And finally, people who live and work outside of the South Coast HMA. In terms of environmental review, the package before you today is not a project as defined by the California

Environmental Quality Act because it will not result in any direct or indirect physical changes to the environment. Staff recommends that board the board take the actions listed in the staff report and summarized on your screen. This concludes staff's presentation and we are available for any questions. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Questions from the board. Supervisor Lee, are there any plans to work with nonprofits or cities along with this plan?

Supervisor Lee through the chair. So, we have um we are open to working with any of other city jurisdictions. I have spoken with their planning directors in the past about moving forward with a concept like this. They express some interest, but um haven't done so yet, but I'm happy to reach out to them and talk to them about what we are doing. Um, also happy to work with any of the nonprofits in the community like Santa Barbara Foundation or or any of the other ones that might have an interest in what we're doing. That that's a fantastic answer. I would like to see that that we work with our fellow cities and nonprofits. They could really help us accomplish this goal. Sure. So, thank you.

All right. Thank you, Super Lee. Supervisor Caps and Supervisor Hartman.

Sure. I have some comments, but right now just have a couple questions. Uh um do we I I looked to try to find statistics on the rate of second homes in the unincorporated and I was able to find some estimates for Monaceto for Supervisor Lee's district roughly 10 to 15% and growing. But I'm very concerned about that and um with all of the new developments coming to Galita uh it's currently estimated at 3%. I just wondered if you discovered that or in talking with developers um because that is forefront in my mind when I think about all of the uh the building that's happening. Just wondered if you have a source or any kind of intel that you might be able to share.

Yeah. Uh Supervisor Cavs through the chair. So we don't have a statistic. We have anecdotal information. Yeah. Um a large portion of the units that we're seeing developed on the south coast are rental. Yes. And so we have much less of a problem with that in terms of having them be second homes. But the for sale units, uh, it can be an issue. Yeah. An issue. There there has been some discussion of, and I, this would have to be something that would be approved by the voters, but having like a second home tax. Yeah. Something along those lines. Yeah.

Yeah. Um, yeah. Again, I just I hear that that real fear from my constituents is that these homes are going to be gobbled up as second homes and not people actually living there and and that really does weaken the fabric of a community. Um, and I think that Galita currently the estimates I saw is just really like a 1 to 3% but again that's an estimate. Um, but Hope Ranch is closer to Monosto more like potentially 10%. So anyway, my second question was why six weeks? Um, I have some opinions about that being way too short, but did was that a number you negotiated with developers? Uh, Supervisor Cass through the chair. So, it's a good question. Um, I had originally um talked about 60 days there. I got a lot of push back from the development community. um they have some fears about uh their um financing companies having concerns about that. So we ended up I think they wanted 15 days.

Uh there was some discussion of that 30 days posting a flyer on a bulletin board settled on six weeks. Um and and the truth of the matter is I think is um they can start marketing early. They have they get anxious if they get to the point where they can't reach out broadly when they're ready to be in occupancy um because they want to make sure that they don't have units sitting around vacant. But um so we ended up picking six weeks um but certainly that's up for discussion with the board. Okay. Okay. Like I said, I have quite a few comments about that uh six weeks, but I will let uh Supervisor others ask questions.

Supervisor Hartman. Um yes. Um let's see. I guess I'll start with the Santa Enz Valley and did you consider that HMA? Um they have some of the same conditions uh as the South Coast and um so I'd like to hear what you have to say about that.

Yeah. Um, Supervisor Hartman through the chair, when we started this effort, we were really mostly focused on the south coast because of the problems we've had on the south coast. I understand your question and that you and I think it's kind of true for some of our other housing market areas in the county. There's they're approaching the same kind of problem or have reached it that we've had on the South Coast. So, um I we did we did not include it, but we can certainly have that conversation today. I don't think it's a problem to expand it to other housing market areas. We may need to um come back more than once

to do that because our noticing was more focused on the south coast market area. So just briefly, I mean, SP CAG data shows that um fewer than 20% of the workers in in Buen anyway actually live there. Now, we we would be worried about the bigger area, the unincorporated area, but I I think that's true. Um that's just the only number I could get. Median home values are, you know, 1.2 million. The long-term rental market is essentially non-existent. And this is a backdrop over uh 700 short-term rentals and those I think are um not even all of them. So So I I I am very interested because what you haven't really addressed yet is some of the preferences that you're describing here fit in the next ordinance that we'll be talking about um in terms of ranking, right? And and so I I think that that's important to have consistency. I'd like to see the valley included in both.

Um I I think Supervisor Hutman through the chair I un understand your reflections and um I think what I would say is one of the reasons we've focused primarily on the south coast is because the number of units that were going to be developed there. We don't have as we have I think one site in the housing element that is focused on um uh in Sanz. So that that's kind of another explanation as to why and some in Los Alamos too. I think that's in the area, right? There are new units coming online in Los Alamos, but they were not identified sites in the housing element reszone process. I see. So this will only apply to the reszones.

No, it will apply to all projects, new projects that are coming in. So it could certainly be expanded and impact new projects that are being developed in the other areas of the county. Okay. Um, and I guess we'll want public comment, but I one of the issues I think we want to have evidence that really supports this. So, I did a little research and would like to get that in the record um at the right time.

Okay. Thank you, Supervisor Har. My question was about why this doesn't apply to deed restricted units. Uh, Supervisor Nelson, um, these we we are working with CSD on the deedestricted units because they manage those deed restricted units. So, there is going to be a local preference um, for deed restricted units and and we can actually do more with capital A affordable deed restricted units. Okay. So, I'm really interested in that. Um, I've seen it throughout my career in in county government that we build a lot of these projects and then somebody takes a voucher, rental voucher from LA County and comes up and takes one of those units.

And what I find that does nothing that's worse for promoting affordable housing in a community is to have people to solve that problem for another community and not our own. I believe that most people in our county have no issue with building affordable housing for our county. I think what we have a problem for is being the retirement community or the final destination for somebody from another community that's not solving that problem for themselves. And so, um, that's an area I definitely want us to to lean into is on the deed restriction. So, um, as we we head into that, um, I think that's one of the areas that we absolutely need to make sure that we're assuring that we're having local um, residents that are in need of those units to get those first. Um, as far as this program, I mean, I'm I'm interested in it, you know. Um, I know you reached out to me and asked me about the Santa Maria HMA. Um, I like to hear though from the development community and what the impacts are. I have not fully vetted it for what that looks like. I don't know the math if it changes in Santa Maria or Sanz or in South Coast. I have not dug into it, not knowing that this was potential on the table. I am interested, but not necessarily ready to give direction on that today for um parts of my county. Um I wonder maybe even in the future um could these be conditions that you know like those you know Los Alamos project probably come to the planning commission that the planning commission could ask for these uh these to be on those projects you know if it's not in HMA as as a condition I wonder if that's a within the purview on a casebyase basis so that maybe some of those developers can say yeah I can do it or some of them say hey for xy or z financing reasons I cannot um maybe some more flexibility And so I I just kind of want to highlight that because I think that those Los Alamos projects are going to be coming to the PC in the future. I don't know if they'll make their way up to the board. Um but there's an opportunity there that that might be added as condition if the planning commission thought it was appropriate.

Um Supervisor Nelson through the chair. I um because it wouldn't be codified, making it a condition might be particularly challenging. But what we can do, and we do this a lot, is work with the applicants. if they're willing, they can include it in their project description and then it becomes condition number one of the project. And so I I'm happy to work with the develop development community for some of the projects that are happening outside the south coast market.

Yeah, I think these this is in practice is is a really good idea no matter where. I mean this is a good planning. Um, what I get concerned about is does it is it just another mandate that ends up costing more to build the housing, therefore we get less housing because we can only put so much regulatory load on projects before people go elsewhere. And that's also happening in our county as well. So, I don't want this to be the straw that breaks the camel camel's back. And so, that's why I would I would prefer to maybe have some of those discussions in Santa Maria and Sanz or more specifically Los Alamos on what are the the what is the math for that developer? um because I think that would help us, you know, and and your staff negotiate that in the future. So, I guess that's my feedback based on what I'm hearing from you too. And also, um my other feedback is let's lean in hard on the on the deed restricted units for Santa Barbara County residents. I mean, that's there's no purpose for us to have gone through this whole entire exercise to not get the benefit for our residents. That would be tragic. So,

um Supervisor Nelson, I just wanted to make a few reflections on the comments I heard from you today. Yeah,

we when we met with the development community, we included a broad range of developers. So developers that were developing in LMPoke, developers that might be developing in the north part of the county. So we had a lot a pretty wide group of people that we spoke with. It's my understanding that this is not a financial burden. This marketing program is something they're already doing. And so they have they all know the ones the key developers that we've been working with know about this item today. You might hear some public comment, but I haven't heard anything that says it's a problem from a financial perspective at this point.

All right. Good to hear. All right. Uh, Supervisor Hartman. And then we I think we have at least one public comment at this point on this item. Why don't we go to the public comment and then back to Is that correct, Madam Clerk? Chair Nelson and members of the board. Um we did receive an additional request to speak. So we have two requests to speak from the public on this item. We are going to zoom with Steve Fort and we'll be followed by Hillary Lynch. Steve.

Hello. Thank you. Uh Steve Fort with uh SPS Land Use Consulting. Uh I I'll be fairly brief today. We we have several clients um that are working on housing projects in the county and at least one of them participated in the group that helped develop this. Um but unfortunately they were just alerted of this item this morning and haven't had a chance to really absorb and digest or vet the ordinance. And I hate to be that person, but we'd like to request that this get continued in order to give them a chance to uh to uh you know to vet the ordinance and the impacts of it and and what what what it would mean to a project if this was placed on it uh uh via conditions of approval. We we support the the program and the concept for sure. Um but we're just we we'd like to be able to take a look at what is this going to mean in the form of conditions of approval. Could it create problems with financing of nonrestricted uh um construction of housing? Um so again, just to be very clear, we're not against the concept. We just like a little more time um for our client who participated in the process to review the ordinance and vet it a little bit. And I did have a question too for staff is that would this apply to projects that are deemed complete and and you know locked in under SB 330 as to the ordinances and and standards that applied at the time they were deemed complete. Uh thank you uh appreciate your time and hope you give this some consideration. Thanks again.

All right, Mr. Ford. Thank you for your comments. And we will now go to our final speaker, Hillary Lynch. Hillary, we're going to go ahead and close public a comment on this item. Yes. Actually, I was here to speak on the ice. Is that appropriate now? No, Hillary. I'm sorry. It's going to be at um about 2:00 that that item is going to be heard. Thank you. So, um this is the first one. Thank you. And that concludes public comment on this item.

All right. So, back to the board. Um I think Mr. Ford had a a at least a question there. And I was maybe also thinking I know he's asked for a continuence. Um only member of the the development committee that's been here to comment on this. Um this is the first reading, right? There'll be a second reading. We're going to continue this to May 5th. So Mr. Ford um I know it's not a lot of time, but we do have another bite at the apple here is my understanding. Um but typically that's more uh uh without ch perform, but um but there is another opportunity. isn't set in stone after today, but hopefully if there's anything that's alerting between now and then that comes up that the board might be able to um make some amendments after that, but I I don't think this forecloses the opportunity for you to continue to have public comment on that. And then would you mind uh commenting on SB 330? Um Director Plowman.

Yes. Uh Supervisor um Nelson. So it's it's likely that it would not apply to SB 330 projects that are deemed complete. Um although I would strongly encourage those developers to include this voluntarily and I I will be making my pitch to them because they've known about this for quite some time. Sure. Okay. So it' be an optional thing that they could and so the SP330s are those builder remedy projects is that or is that another I'm sorry. Could you repeat are those the builder remedy projects? Uh those are SP330 applies to multiple projects but they are but builder's remedy would be included in that. Okay, understand.

All right. Uh Sue Reser Hartman then Sue Reser Caps.

Yeah. So I just want to explain um and put in the record why we think this is important. And first on the jobs housing imbalance, the cities of Santa Barbara and Galita have a jobs to resident worker ratio of 1.44 44 and 1.51 respectively. And that's SPAG's Arena Supplemental Report. And what this means in plain terms is that for every 100 people who live and work on the South Coast, there are 144 to 151 jobs located there. So the excess jobs, 41 to 51 per 100 residents, must be filled by workers commuting from outside because there simply isn't enough housing for them locally. on the commute burden. As of 2022, nearly 27,000 workers commuted daily on the south coast from outside the region. According to SPAG, from 20 from 2000 to 2016, the number of Ventura County residents working on the south coast increased by 47%. So, the Coastal Express was specifically implemented to um help deal with this commute volume as is now um really the lane in the train uh that we're seeing developed right now too. On rental supply collapse, SPAG's January 2024 travel patterns report documented a decline of approximately 40% in available rental housing over the past decade in this region. on school enrollment. Um, the Santa Barbara Unified School District has lost more than 2,250 students over the past 10 years, shrinking from 15,593 in 2015 to 13,36 in 2025. According to the California Department of Education data, so the district's own superintendent attributes this to um birth rates, immigration, immigration, and housing. the Galita

Union has declined from approximately 3,800 students to um uh 3,395 over the same period. So these are specific quantified jurisdiction specific findings about the labor market area and that specificity is exactly what um a constitutional standard requires to justify treating the south coast differently from other parts of the county. So, I would ask that the SPAG regional housing assessment, the SPKAG January 2024 um understanding regional travel patterns report and the California Department of Education enrollment data for Santa Barbara Unified and Galina be formally entered into the record as exhibits supporting these findings.

Okay. Um, how do we exactly do that? I mean, I don't necessarily oppose that, but not having them here or just do we make reference to them? I want to, Mr. Chair and um, members of the board, I mean, the the information is already part of the record. Okay. But if um if we want to include like the actual reports that could be done um as for the next item like the next time when it's continued. Okay. So that can be put in the record between now and maybe the May 5th second. Okay. All right. I just want to figure out the functionality of that and I don't oppose that. Supervisor Hartman that no objection here. Supervisor Caps.

Yeah. Thank you, Chair Nelson, and I fully support uh Supervisor Hartman's uh request, and I, you know, she and I partnered on the housing element and shared a strong emphasis on making sure that there's local preference, and I appreciate uh our planning division for bringing this forward. Um, where I'm going with this is the little leverage we have is in this marketing plan and I'm going to request that we increase it from six weeks. Um, and I'll give the background first, but just to, you know, I have a background in communications and marketing and and uh any standard marketing plan is six to 18 months. Six weeks would barely scratch the surface and reach people. Uh it's a it feels like a check in the of the box and I know that you um you did what you could and I heard sort of along the way that there was push back from from developers and uh that really disappoints me because I did I did want to bring us back um a little trip down memory lane. Um but why it's important is because this this discussion about local preference as you gave the statistics this is about the character of our community. Um, this is about and specifically the one I'm proud to represent. This is about giving a people a chance uh to live where they work. And this is the whole reason why we are fighting so hard and we all share this value. I I know it. Um, and this is just such a minor tool to basically give people a heads up that hey this housing is coming. telling the tech companies in G in in Galita that tell us that the hardest thing that they are up against is that they can't hire people because they see how expensive it is and how hard it is to find housing or they're losing people because or people are sharing uh you know three three people in a bedroom. I mean, this is the most essential thing that we hear all the time. And yet, um, the developers, if that, you know, if they if they're

bulking at 6 weeks to just do basic marketing, we know how involved the Chamber of Commerce is on this. So, there's already such support from our businesses to do this. So, it's not like they need to go out and sort of create something in a vacuum. They just need to plug and play with a marketing structure. Uh, we have that consortium. We already, as Supervisor Hart Hartman mentioned, the school district is building housing in Santa Barbara. LMPoke is building housing. We're all sort of in this together and the developers um I know uh they need to be part of this to make sure that Galita doesn't become Orange County. I feel so strongly that if we don't make at least this very basic tool of a marketing strategy so that people who already are working here or and living here or maybe you know living in LMPoke but working in Galita get a chance to hear about this new development that might be opening off on Hollister. That's exactly what we're talking about. Otherwise, they're going to get beat out by a higher bidder from somewhere else in LA. That's literally what's going to happen here.

It's happening.

It's happening now. And just because they want a little, you know, financing assurance, I I just don't buy it. So, um I just to go back um to the reszone process because not every developer was going to get a reszone. So they started making promises after promises to me in my office um you know of parks and child care centers and and it got to the point where I kind of started to get a little uncomfortable that these conversations were happening in my office. I mean they're well intended and good people. I'm not degrading them at all. And so I had the idea and thankfully it was supported by the board. Um let's have this in public. I just thought we should have some spotlight on this because the public should know what is being promised so that there isn't sort of any error of any kind of backroom deal. And so we had that workshop and I went back and looked at that and that was in um May of 200 May 3rd 2024. They all emphasized that these projects were going to be for local people. Every single one. And that was the premise by which they got their reszones approved. That's why we approved them. And so to hear, you know, that they are bulking at a six week or an 8week marketing campaign to give an an employer in Galita employee in Galita a chance. It just it's just really disheartening because, you know, these are people who want their kids to be able to live here. I know that. I've talked to them about that. I mean, a lot of them are from here and I guess their kids are doing okay, but it's just it's just really frustrating. So, I I I mean, I was trying to think of the right number. Um, the lowest I would go is 12 weeks,

honestly. Um, but I could 6 months would be more appropriate for a marketing campaign. Again, it's not We know the law. We know we h we have respect for fair housing laws. We we understand the history. There was redlinining in this country. There was discrimination. We understand why fair housing laws exist that are federal. This doesn't stop someone from getting that apartment. This just means that other that locals get the first heads up about it, but it doesn't it's not binding. It's just a tool. So I think we need to strengthen the tool. Thank you. I

I got a question based on supervisor Cap's comment. So does that 6 weeks as proposed now begin once they have occupancy? Does it happen anytime in the development process? Is this there's a six week window? you know, help help me with that because I mean, I know there's there's rarely an exact date on when occupancy is going to be obtained for a project, but I mean, you kind of know six months in advance on when at the best case scenario that when the project's going to be ready. So, I'm I'm

so Supervisor Nelson and Supervisor Caps and members of the board, um, in my conversations, there's they might not know their rents that early because the market's changing and that's one of the things we require in our marketing plan. So they I understand the desire to get the information out as soon as possible so that people have an opportunity to maybe get out of another lease that might be more expensive and then get into one of these units. And so you know you can start marketing kind of at any point. you might not have all the information that that we're expecting, but so I think there is room probably to start early, but I haven't had I've just had a little bit of feedback on that front saying, "Yeah, you can kind of start your marketing when you when you want to, but it's I

Yeah. So, we say six weeks in advance of initiating their regular marketing um is when they need to is is what our requirement would be. So, it's it is certainly something the board could consider extending that. Um, you could talk about that today and come back for the second reading uh with a recommendation and and u see if there's feedback in between those two hearings.

Well, I just again I was just curious on how that plays out. So, I I don't necessarily have all the right answers. I'm just, you know, I'm walking through this with the rest of you. um it just seems like that there's a a bigger lead time and and and one of the you know if if drilling down in on the how much rent if that's the headache piece I mean I think there's you know there's some marketing that could be done before the rents are solidified you know right so and maybe that maybe that's the hypo compromise is that you know rents it ranges all the time

ranges and then you know maybe that needs to be tightened up within six weeks of opening up to the router market that might be a compromise that might help those who are concerned about nailing down the rents if if we're afraid that that locks it in. Is that is that kind of what that the development community is is concerned about that if we write down on a piece of paper this is what the rent's going to be and it somehow have to lock that in for a six week period. If you will give me one minute I'm going to look at our code. Hold on a second.

Sure. Okay. So I think it's we we have some clarifications here that I think are going to be important for the board to understand. Great. Thank you.

So the way the code reads is the developers shall implement local marketing plans at least 21 days before any other general general marketing. So that's a that's a time frame that we'll want to talk about. The other sections that talk about newspaper advertisements is at least one time per week for six weeks. Um and then uh online advertising that targets persons living and working in the south coast and social media posts and uh with and the geo fencing marketing that they do have to appear on at least four social media sites at least one time for six weeks and and is that 21 days.

Okay. So it's so really it's only there's some overlap between those those time frames, but I think if you wanted to expand it, it would we would focus on the the 21 days. Yeah. All right. I'm not sure I'm that I'm guiding this conversation. I mean, I was just I was asking for some clarification. I I again I'm amanable to what Supervisor Caps is looking for as as much as it can be defensible. Do you want to continue on that threat, Supervisor Caps, with this and I'll go then I'll I'll go to Supervisor Lee and then Supervisor Herman, your lights. Oh, you're all right. I'm done.

Okay. Supervisor Lee and then Supervisor Herman. Were there any incentives that you offered or spoke to the developers about or create thought about creating tier system where you say 12 weeks, 16 weeks, 18 weeks, we give you different incentives? Supervisor Lee through the chair. We talked about that some but honestly couldn't identify any incentives that would really be meaningful for them. Really? Yeah. In our process in our process, right? So our process is a regulatory process. So I don't I didn't have a tool to create an incentive that would get them to go longer necessarily that we we couldn't identify one.

Okay. I mean, they got they got the reason uh part of the they already promised a local preference. Um it was it was part of their presentations. Um anyway, I just just you weren't on the board then, but um they they they promised that they would be selling and renting to people who live here. And of course, you know, the devil's in the details of how that was going to be happened. And now we're getting to those details. But that was that was what they all they all promised. Thanks for that uh background. So just a followup question. So you said that they start six weeks before regular marketing. So what does that mean?

So um Supervisor Lee through through the chair. So I I misspoke. Okay. It's 21 days. Yeah. It's three weeks. Okay. Before the program. I I I had read the other section of the code which is we have to have these notices in six weeks at least one time for six weeks. So um that is my fault. No problem. Yeah. So would there be marketing outside of the industry standard for marketing? Is that something just ask me to do something different?

Uh supervisor Lee through the chair. So when we developed this list of uh like the strategy components in terms of what elements they would want to incorporate into their marketing plan, we actually did work with uh and saw a couple examples of marketing plan and strategies that developers had. Um and this really isn't um I wouldn't say it's a wide departure from the typical industry standards for marketing uh in terms of what uh tools they'd be employing. So um you know for that reason we didn't uh believe this would create a burden um or a challenge for the development community to implement

and and supervisor Lee through the chair that developers said as much um that that this a marketing plan concept was something they could live with. Uh so it's it's the timing of how far in advance we want them to start working with the local community and um I mean our I we will follow the board's lead. I think expanding 21 days is probably a good idea. Great. All right. Thank you, Supervisor Lee. Supervisor Hartman, then Supervisor Lendino.

Um I'm very supportive of at least three months. Um, and I I think Supervisor Caps really lays out the rationale. Um I I have a question and that is you've set out these preferences here that also go into the next um inclusionary ordinance discussion and and so they these two fit together handinand glove even though they're two departments but you've been working together and that's one reason why I think the Santa Valley or maybe broader ought to be included.

Okay. Um, so I I would I don't know if I give direction and that will come, but uh I I couldn't overstate or underscore what supervisor what chair Nelson has said. We have support for housing if it goes to locals and and especially um for lowincome housing, but when you bring people from out of the area, then that really makes it hard for people in our position to support these housing projects. So, we've got to make sure that that um extends beyond just the South Coast because that's an issue for all of us. Thank you, Supervisor Hartman. Supervisor Lavanino.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I'm supportive uh of an increased timeline. But what worries me the most about all of this is that what Supervisor Caps was mentioning was we heard all these promises and at the time I remember thinking, "Wow, man, these are a lot of great projects, you know, with parks and meandering things, but I knew none of them were enforceable." And so you kind of rely on people sticking true to what they what they offered. You know, we're going to hear, well, market conditions change, this changes, you know, we can't do this. We'd love to do that, but we just can't do it.

I'm worried this is this is one, and this is the easiest one, right? This is just a marketing plan. I know.

So, uh I hope I'm wrong, but uh well, it's not looking good. Uh uh Supervisor Lavanino through the chair. I just I want to take a minute. I don't do this a lot, but I'm going to this time because this is something that's really important uh to me personally and and I know to this board. We are getting most of those things. We are getting those parks and I have put a lot of effort into making sure this happens. We're getting those parks. We're getting things the developers are working with us in ways that they might not have to because of SB 330 and other things. So, we are really the department and public works department and CSD were looking out for the community and trying to get as much as we can out of these projects. And I'm going to tout the work of all of our staff. They're doing a great job. And uh so I just want to say to everybody, I really appreciate that work. Uh and we are committed to to getting as much as we can for this community and for your board.

Can I respond to that? Yeah. Yeah. I just I I hope it wasn't intended. What I was saying was not intended uh as a slam on the staff. I think they're always defending um and doing what we've what we're trying to get done as well. I just know that uh you know when it gets down to dollars and cents, we generally lose out to the market. So, um appreciate all the the the hard work that's being done and continue to hold everybody's feet to the fire. We appreciate it. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Um where we at now? So, I guess at some point we need some direction or some a motion with some direction here. So there's there's A through E, but it sounds like we're asking for some maybe some amendments here on some of the time frames. I heard I heard uh I think I heard 12 weeks from Supervisor Hartman. I know Supervisor Caps had some strong feelings in those areas, too. But help help me help me help you.

Sure. Um yeah, I um I 12 is the minimum I would do if there's support for that amongst this board. Um again, I just would wish it would be sincere and they they could start now. I mean, uh they know what their projects look like and but I would be um I think if if Supervisor Hartman is on board with with 12 weeks, that's fine with me. Does that sound good, Supervisor Hartman? I mean, I would go longer. It's just we haven't vetted that with the development community. So I I I could go either way,

but I think we may get a lot of blowback and be slower at getting this adopted if we don't um reach out. So let me try to land this. Uh so let's go 12 weeks. And I think what I'm hearing is that um they were worried about specific rents. Maybe a a rent range might be something that might help soften it for some of these developers, you know, as as a I don't know if that that language needs to be adopted there to kind of help.

Yeah, Supervisor Nelson. Um I'm we'll take a look at the code language and I'm happy to reconvene a meeting with the development community and sort of talk to them about the recommendations that are coming out of the board. So if you were to recommend 12 weeks now and including the Sanz market area, I can work with that information and in between our hearings, talk to them and and get feedback.

Yeah. I mean, I'll just be clear uh because I don't I just don't want this to get muddled. I'm not I I wouldn't be interested in supporting something that goes low and lower than 12. Um and I also just want to make sure that are they working with the Chamber of Commerce? Are they part of There must be dialogue. I believe they all are. uh supervisor caps through the chart. I believe that's correct as well. Um that there's there is a most of the developers tell us particularly in the rental market that they want locals and so they're doing the best that they can to get locals because those are the people that tend to stay, right?

Um so they are doing work with the chambers and I think there many of them are members of the chamber and yeah so I think that is going on. Yes. Okay. and I have reached out to the chamber to talk to them about being involved. Kristen Miller talks about the fact that she's in her place. She says this publicly, she's in her place because of some program like this where she was able to hear about it. Yeah. First and so anyway, so I'm Yeah, I uh I will move that we in uh support staff recommendation with an increase to 12 weeks and bring it back for a second read. One second. Let's make sure we got uh council and everybody's hearing this correctly are a concern. If you need us to clarify that, we're happy to.

Yes, sir. Chair and members of the board, since it's a first reading, so a lot of times when you hear these ordinances, we're at a different stage, but since we're on the first reading, we just need to make clear what changes you're making by section, which I think planning is prepared to do. So, okay. Could please read the by section, which we're identifying.

I do. Um so under uh 52-5 under local to marketing plans we would change subsection D to read um 12 weeks before any other general marketing plans. So that would we would also recommend that under 52-6 the local marketing plan strategy that in the newspaper advertisements they would run at least one time per week for 12 weeks. Uh that's subsection A. And then in section 52-6 subsection C, it would also be changed uh to to talk about social media post happening one time per week for 12 weeks. And then under subsection 52-7, local marketing materials content, subsection D, we would say rent or for sale prices. We would change that to price ranges.

Does that correct what you're looking for? And then we would wherever we in subsection 52-1 we would expand the housing market areas to include Sanz and then um and then uh we just want to supplement the additional findings that I placed in the record as part of the motion. I think there's also subsection 52-3 on applicability subsection A subsection B should include the Sanian is yeah and anywhere else it's referenced in our ordinance we will add that the housing market area I will second the motion

okay so we've got a a motion and a second based on the amendments that uh has been discussed to the board caps to Hartman um only I'm not trend their wrinkle in this or take this longer. You know, when we talk about incentives, um you know, uh something that your department might be able to do is work with developers on occupancy and hitting that right date. And I know that's sometimes driven by the work that they're doing, but also sometimes it's worked, you know, it's it's a coordination. And I think that that might be something you guys can potentially promise from the building department side on, hey, we're going to hit occupancy on this certain date. We're all going to work together. We're going to sit down. We're going to maybe do a plan to get you that because I know that's one of the big impediments for um that. that. So, I'm just throwing that out there. You're trying to find incentives just something for you guys to think about as you guys try to entice in developers into this idea. If they could have more time certain on when their occupancy is going to hit, you know, I I think that they're that that brings a lot of value, a lot of value to a developer. So, just throwing that out there as an idea, not to mess up what we're doing right now, but just going to as an idea. So, so we have a motion, we have a second. Any further discussion? Super Lee, did you want to make a comment?

I just say, Lisa, thank you for your hard work on this. I I see it. Your department really cares. So, thank you. All right. Thank you, Supervisor Lee. All right. Uh, Supervisor Hartman, you have another Yeah, I just wanted to say thank you, too. I've been hammering you to do more than this. And, you know, legally that this is the best we can do in our our state in particular. Maybe there's some changes in state law that could get us a little further. But I I know you're distilling in this a lot of research and a lot of work and it's much appreciated.

All right. Thank you. Um is clerk okay? Can council you guys all both okay with the motion right now? All right. So we all and I think the board's we understand what the motion is. So um I think I can just do a voice vote here. Uh all in favor signify by saying I. I opposed. Um motion passes unanimously. All right. So, we were going to break for lunch at this point. Um, community services asked if maybe we could do D2. That's about 20 minutes is what they're they're guessing. Um, is does the board want to have lunch or do you want to knock that out? They're so closely related. I don't want to do it. All right. Hey Jesus, you win. All right.

I was going to make you wait because of earlier just teasing. and chair Nelson, members of the board, uh before we proceed with departmental item number two, um I did want to briefly make a quick announcement for any members of the public who are following along. I know there are a few who are currently logged into Zoom. Uh the the staff of the clerk of the board's office has done every effort to reach out to anyone who has registered for the regular meeting for departmental item number four. Um my apologies regarding um the prohibition of unauthorized use of county owned property such as immigration enforcement safeguard the integrity of county administered elections and the protection of ballots once they are cast and evaluated from supervisor Lee and Supervisor Cap's office and we have instructed those individuals that have signed up for the regular meeting that we have a separate Zoom link for the special meeting since that item was moved to the afternoon today. Um so if you are tuning in via Zoom or watching from home and you've registered for the regular meeting um please log out and register for the special meeting. You will find that agenda also available online. Thank you. We will now go to departmental item number two. Departmental item number two is from the community services department. It is a hearing and consider recommendations regarding a first reading of an ordinance to amend county code chapter 46A inclusionary housing.

All right, Mr. Charmas.

Thank you, Chair Nelson. Members of the board, appreciate you considering this before your break. Uh much like uh planning just presented some efforts on the marketing front, we want to speak to what we do on the uh inclusionary side. And this afternoon, we're going to hear from some of our staff members. But in terms of the big picture context, uh we've been doing a a fair amount of work on this area, having some success throughout the community. But uh as a reminder, we try to come back to the board at least once a year with some updates, amendments to this ordinance based on changes that may have occurred in state law or changes that have become apparent to us as we interact with the nonprofit community and also the profit the market rate folks that are developing partnerships with the nonprofits to um realize affordable units. Joe Desvonic, our assistant director, and Andrew Kish, our housing program specialist senior will be making the presentation and then at at the end, I'd like to offer a couple of closing remarks. Mr. Dvanic.

Good afternoon, Chair Nelson, members of the board. Uh, I want to take a moment and explain why we're bringing this item to your board today. Over a decade ago, our county adopted county code chapter 46.

Chapter 46A. Thank you. County Code Chapter 46A articulates our county's inclusionary housing ordinance. This is the ordinance that reflects the local policies aiming to create affordable housing by encouraging or even requiring developers to include a specified share of below market rate units in their market rate rental or homeowner developments. Because it has been over 10 years since staff has proposed any substantive updates for this ordinance, it's clear that the need for affordable housing has increased significantly over that time and state housing laws have evolved just as much. And as Director Armis just indicated, we continue to bring our county into compliance with state laws as they evolve. During your deliberations regarding the county housing element last spring, your board recognized this and directed staff to continue to update chapter 46A in such a way that it supports increasing our supply of affordable housing while also reflecting current state housing laws. So that's what we're here to do today. We're propose for your consideration. And for the details on this issue, I turn it over now to Andrew Kish, one of CSD's senior housing specialists and our resident expert on inclusionary housing.

Thank you. Assistant Director Desvotic. The housing element update program 4 requires the county amend the inclusionary housing ordinance by making any changes required to comply with state law. For example, state density bonus law. State density bonus law allows a multifamily housing development to be eligible for various incentives. One example, when the multif family housing developer partners with an affordable housing developer, they can construct affordable housing on the project site or offsite. Presently, county code chapter 46A only allows developers to fulfill inclusionary housing requirements through development of affordable units on the same project site. The recommended amendment will allow for off-site development of affordable units within one mile of the market rate project site. This amendment ensures the county's inclusionary housing program alignment with state law and increases financing opportunities for developers to build units that will help meet the county's regional housing needs allocation or reena goals. Next slide, please. Both state and county HCD recognize our South Coast housing market area as a region with an unusually high housing cost to income relationship. The goal of the second recommended amendment to chapter 46A is to preserve the availability of deed restricted units built on the south coast HMA for those applicants who either live or work within the same housing market area. This prioritization is necessary in order to provide affordable housing opportunities to lower inome individuals residing in neighborhoods and communities experiencing significant displacement pressures. So, Chair Nelson, wherever you are, and members of the board, um, thank you for your time today. Uh, here we present staff's recommended actions on this item for your consideration. And as always, we look forward to your questions, comments, and direction. I now turn it back over to Director Armis.

Simply, Chair Nelson and board members, just wanted to uh expand on a couple things given the discussion you just had on the market rate. If I can draw your attention to the ordinance itself, which is page three of five, it may help address some of the concerns that were raised about the other areas in our county. You can see under section seven there, there's really u something that can be grouped into two parts. The A and B apply regardless of where one resides or works in the county. And then C7C is a subset of that specific to the south coast because of the higher costs of housing in our area. So I think um in this structure we can address some of the issues that uh supervisor Hartman raised about the Sanz Valley and we can amplify on those and certainly when we come back with our any amendments to uh rates for inclusionary we can elaborate on how that might be achieved. The second thing I just wanted to apprise you of um you did receive some correspondence from Habitat for Humanity uh asking you to u provide direction on a number of areas and uh we can uh at the staff level indicate that we're more than happy to explore all of those. We think that there are ways to move that forward. uh we obviously as someone mentioned earlier need to make sure that the devils in the detailed components are properly addressed but we think there's uh a way to uh properly address all those concerns. So um simply want to indicate that we're supportive of moving forward. We think that we've addressed the south coast versus other areas of the county but happy to answer any questions a board may have.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Armis. And we do have public comment from Habitat. I do you guys like to go to that to get that? Um, so let's go to the public comment. I believe Nelson and members of the board. Yes, we have one request to speak from the public on this item. We're going to zoom with Jessica Wish with Shandelabra. Jessica, confirming you can hear me. Okay. Uh, yes we can. If you could just speak a little bit closer to your microphone, but we can hear you.

Okay. Good afternoon, chair and supervisors. I'm Jessica Washan Delarra, CEO of Habitat for Humanity of Southern Santa Barbara County. Habitat is a nonprofit affordable home ownership developer and we build and repair permanently affordable homes for lowincome working families. These are deedrestricted ownership units specifically. I first really want to thank uh staff Lucille, Andrew, and Jesus for your partnership and the progress made so far. We especially want to recognize the milestone of moving towards local preference. As previously discussed in the agenda, Habitat does not want to slow anything down. We want to help strengthen it. As this moves forward, we respectfully ask that staff be directed to work with Habitat on mutually agreeable terms that better incorporate nonprofit developers and the unique financing and long-term affordability covenants that our model requires. The reality is really that building housing here is an incredible uh incredibly hard thing to do. We need smarter partnerships. Developers can build at scale and Habitat can ensure those homes stay affordable for local families long term. And Louies may fund housing someday. Partnerships like this create real homes for real families. Now, this is bigger than any one project. It's a chance to modernize policy so it turns good intentions into actual keys in the hands of local families. Thank you for working with us.

And that concludes public comment on this item. All right. Thank you, Jessica. want to hear from uh staff on that because I think that's a big important part of the discussion is, you know, Habitat is one of the great partners both north and south um and making sure that we're not messing up the good deal that they've got going with their um their families.

Thank you, Chair Nelson. We do have a history of working with Habitat. In fact, there was a project uh in 2019 in Carperia where the county provided some financial assistance to allow some develop a economium project to move forward that subsequently uh Habitat was able to um sell convey to an eligible household. So, we do have a history of working together. Uh we're supportive of the requests that they've made. We want to obviously take a look at the details to make sure we don't run a file of any other provisions in our regulations, but we think there's a a path forward. And so we would support the request that you provide direction as indicated by the speaker.

And would we have time to potentially make some of those changes between now and the May 5th second reading? Um I I would suggest not. I think this needs to be baked, if you will. and we indicated to Habitat that we thought a 3 to six month period was likely and they didn't see a a problem with that time frame. Okay. Just wanted to understand that conversation. Thank you. Um, Supervisor Hartman. So, if need be, you would come back to amend this ordinance in 3 to 6 months. Correct.

And a few other questions. So, the offsite is a mile. Is could you give me some justification for that distance? I'll let um either Mr. Kish or Mr. Dvanik speak to that.

Supervisor Hartman through the chair. Um the state currently requires u in a multif family project in order to be eligible for the density bonus concessions and um etc. They need to ensure that the affordable units are located within close proximity of working center or work centers um transportation and then schools. Um we found that the onem radius is consistent with other requirements within county code um particularly under chapter 44 as well and it's close enough to accommodate for these projects that are um needing this accommodation to take advantage of particular financing. So, um, normally what we've seen so far is that these affordable projects will be within closer proximity, potentially adjacent, um, but a mile gives them more latitude and flexibility.

Thank you. And and I'm sorry I wasn't tracking director Armis about the Santa Enz Valley and the preference system. Could you um summarize that for me again? Yes, if if I can draw your attention to uh, is that in the ordinance language itself? Yes, it's uh actually in the ordinance it's uh section three and then when you look at it is there any way we can pull it up? It's uh as that is done it's

page three of five if you happen to have it in that format dott red line you clear up a I think you go this way. This is it.

It's attachment A to the U to the board letter. Oh, we're on attachment B. We're looking at the red line, though. Yeah. A is that Yeah, attachment A. Okay, we're there. Okay. And then it at the it should read page three of five at the bottom. Is that evident on your p5? Oh, there we go. It's up on the screen. Uh, okay. Jacqueline, I think we'll enlarge it for everybody's or Lucio. Okay. And so, uh, Supervisor Hartman through the chair. If we take a look at section seven there,

you can see uh it introduces it to indicate that that's applicable throughout the county. Um, okay. As a preference structure. All right. And so A and B really apply regardless of where one may reside or work in the county. And then C because of its higher uh factors applies to the south coast. Okay. Okay. And I think that speaks to your concern about this. Okay. And and even more broadly. Yes.

Okay. And then just would like you to talk a little bit more about um the housing authorities and how this they have their own requirements and how this might fit with it. The housing authority has indicated to us that under their opaces they have a bit more latitude and flexibility as to how they identify uh prospective tenants and um they're not dependent on our regulations for that authority. We haven't examined that more fully. We've accepted it as their representation. So instead of being stricter, they believe they have more latitude.

I I suppose one could argue that they've they have a more liberal approach to selecting. Yeah. Okay. Selecting tenants and and I I guess yeah, that's the concern. Yeah. Yeah. All right. and and there's nothing we can do about that because that's federal law or

Well, I think based on conversations um that we've had over the last couple years, especially with Hesbarco, they're very committed to trying to identify serving Santa Barbara County residents. They they go to an extraordinary length, including some early uh marketing, if you will, apppropole your earlier conversation. Okay. Thank you. Um, supervisor caps. No. Okay. Just remind me. So, the inclusionary housing, it's applies to all housing projects or is it a certain amount of units? Mr. Ke is our expert. Sure.

Chair Nelson. Um, the inclusionary requirements under chapter 46A apply to residential developments of five or more units. Gotcha. Just wanted to clarify that. And so then walk me through how the ADU the construction of ADU is a supplement. So that's an option too is like if you're building five units and then you just want to throw an ADU on the same site, that would be that would be one of the options potentially. Chair Nelson to satisfy the workforce housing income category requirements. Yes, an ADU is an option for a developer um to satisfy the chapter 46A. And that's where the ADU piece that you guys are changing comes into play.

Uh we're not changing. Are you just changing some of the language the the Oh, for the secondary dwelling unit. Yeah. Yes. So, it's just uh if that's is that what you're referencing? Yeah. I'm I'm just trying to understand how the ADUs factor in some of this uh just the definition. So, instead of referring to them as secondary dwelling units as we have in the past, um now we're referring to them as ADUs instead. But the the option for a developer to satisfy inclusionary requirements under the workforce income category can still be satisfied through building an ADU to meet those requirements. So, how does it help that we're switching to ADU versus a secondary dwelling unit? Just semantics. It's just a title definition. Okay. Chair Nelson, I

mean, they're two different things and I know that planning had mistakenly deleted one of those once. Um, but I mean they are two different things in our county. They're not intended to be different here. And and just as a refresher, we did bring forward the ADU amendments to you about a year ago when the this uh section was modified to address the workforce housing. Could I? Yes, please. Supervisor

ADUs are fasttracked and in exchange for that my understanding is that they're not for short-term rental and that was kind of the distinction between residential second units that went through that process and ADU. So I guess my question on these is are there restrictions on short-term rental of these for the supervisor Hartman through the chair? Um absolutely restrictions on any deed restricted unit um they are not permitted to be rented unless the owner um applies for a hardship exemption to the program. So there's no rental or short-term rental for any ADU produced through chapter 46A through the deed restriction that'll be covered.

So some of them are going to be rented though, right? What I think Mr. Kish was saying was you can't rent it out as another source of income. There could be a rental component because you have a tenant in there, but you're not renting it out um for a visitor for someone else. Gotcha. For short-term rental, correct? Okay. But I mean, they are rental units. Yes. Okay. Just want to clarify. Yes. Thank you.

All right. So, any further questions, conversations? Are there any there's no further amendments? Um All right. I'll just make my comment. Um, if we were voting on chapter 46A, I probably wouldn't be supportive, but I since we're it's already adopted and we're we are tinkering, I don't mind tinkering with something that's already adopted. Um, I typically think that inclusionary housing, all although well intended, is one of the reasons why that we have a lack of affordable housing. Um, but I mean, we're already far down that shoot. So, I'm not going to fix that. But I think what the the improvements you're making is um in the spirit of what the the board's trying to get done even if the economics might not work out. So supervisor Hartman.

Well, I would just a a small rejoinder to what you're saying. Uh they get a lot of benefits in terms of setbacks and density and parking uh to make up for the cost I think. So just want to put that out there. Understood. Supervisor Caps. I just sorry I I I just wanted to appreciate the work director Armis particularly as it relates to the issue with habitat. We met with them yesterday and I um and and I know Lucille Boss you've done that the same and that just shows a good collaboration going forward. So I'm happy to support. All right. So, somebody will go ahead and make a motion and

I'll move A through E in today's board letter with additional direction to come back in 6 months with um changes as a result of discussions with Habitat within 6 months. Can I just clarify if I may? My understanding is that it would be beneficial for Habitat if the motion would indicate that the board is directing the staff to work with Habitat to address the issues identified in their letter. So moved. Okay. Um that's what I meant. So I guess you've captured it better. Uh thank you. So that's the motion. All right. I'll second. All right. Second. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying I.

I. Opposed. Motion passes unanimously. Thanks. All right, so we're gonna go ahead and break for close session here. Um, Madame County Council, would you mind uh telling us what we're discussing today in close session? Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the board. In close session today, the board is scheduled to consider conference with labor negotiators. Employee organizations are all bargaining units, unrepresented employees, managers, and executives. And the agency designated representatives, our CEO, Monom Miaato, and human resources director Christine Schmidt. And and the time estimate is about 20 minutes. Um I'm thinking 30. Okay.

So, um let's try to be back in a half an hour. Is that if that can if we can roll through it? Is that How about we come back at two? Come back at two. Somebody now. Yeah. Two o'clock. Two o'clock. Well, actually before let's let's talk a moment. at 2 o'clock. Um supposed to be at departmental item number three which is 45 minutes at at 2 o'clock. Um and then so that we anticipating hearing item um four at potentially at 2:45 at this point Mr. Special meeting

the special meeting previously department four. So, so let me ask this question and okay, we'll come back. Is there a potential for us to recess the regular meeting and come back to department three? So, Mr. Chair, members of the board, just with the technology, it's a really difficult to have you can't have two meetings running at the same time. Um, but my suggestion time-wise, I I'm not sure how long item three will take or how much public comment there is. So, I don't I don't want the public to wait until 2:45 in case it runs earlier.

Okay. Well, we're going to try to be back here as quickly as possible is is our commitment to the public and we'll try to get through department 3 as quickly as possible so that we can get to department item number four. We know that a million people in the public have been waiting and we apologize for the delay. Just sometimes the speed of government is what it is. So, um, so, Mr. Chair, will is it possible we might come back before two if we're done? Yeah. No earlier than 150. No earlier than 150. Thank you.

All right, welcome welcome back to the April 21st meeting of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors. Um, we're coming back from close session. Madame County Council, would do you have anything to report from close session? Mr. Chair, members of the board, the board met in close session for one item, conference with labor negotiators for all bargaining units, unrepresented employees, managers, and executives, and the board took no reportable action.

All right. Thank you. Our next item on the agenda is departmental item number three. And for the public out there that is wanting to speak on um what was formerly department item number four, but the first item in our special meeting, um it will happen at the conclusion of this item. So, we're going to try to get through this one appropriately fast and then get to that item here probably in the next half an hour to 45 minutes. So, just for those of you that are watching on TV, that will be the next item up. Chair Nelson and members of the board, departmental item number three is from the county executive office. It is a hearing to consider recommendations regarding options related to the implementation of an office of inspector general pursuant to government code section 25303.7.

All right. Miss Warren, take it away.

Good afternoon, Chair Nelson and supervisors. My name is Ra Warren, deputy county executive officer, and with me today, I have Tanya Heightman, assistant CEO and principal analyst, Napali Miller Rubio. I will be taking you through today's presentation regarding options for oversight of the sheriff's office, including the option of the Inspector General. Auditor Betsy Schaefer and her staff are available virtually via Zoom and will also be able to answer questions. On February 10th, 2026, the board received a report from the auditor controllers internal audit division regarding overtime usage with the sheriff's office. The auditor's analysis addressed increasing overtime costs and noted opportunities to improve the sheriff's administration, monitoring, and reporting practices. Following that presentation, the board directed ongoing monthly reporting on overtime at the sheriff's office and an evaluation of the board's authority to establish an office of inspector general pursuant to Assembly Bill 1185. In addition to the inspector general option, staff worked with the auditor controller to develop an alternative option within the auditor's office focused on fiscal oversight of the sheriff's budget. Assembly Bill 1185, which is codified in government code section 25303.7, details the authority of county boards to oversee independently elected sheriffs. It authorize authorizes counties to establish a sheriff oversight board, an inspector general, or both. Turning first to the inspector general role. The inspector general would have independent oversight responsibilities related to the sheriff's office. In other jurisdictions, the role has often focused on internal in investigations, use of force incidents, and custodial conditions. The inspector general has

the ability to review matters related to sheriff operations, can can subpoena documents and witness testimony, and has access to certain personnel records subject to confidentiality requirements. The inspector general may not interfere with sheriff investigations, and subpoenas may be challenged if they impede those functions. We reviewed the potential advantages and disadvantages of the inspector general option, including staffing and costs. Potential advantages include that an inspector general would have independent authority and would be appointed by the board, would have broad scope of review, and subpoena authority to obtain information. Potential disadvantages include a higher annual cost, which is estimated at approximately $536,500 for a minimum staffing structure, including an inspector general and one support staff. The need for specialized expertise in both law enforcement operations and fiscal oversight. Potential delayed implementation given the time associated with recruitment, on boarding, and initiation of the work. the potential for overlap with existing oversight mechanisms currently occurring at the auditor controllers's office and the county executive office and the absence of direct operational control over the sheriff's office making the inspector general's role purely advisory in nature. As an alternative to an inspector general, your board could approve a dedicated internal audit position within the auditor controllers's office to focus on financial and operational oversight of the sheriff's office. Areas of review could include overtime compliance and controls, budgetary and financial management, internal controls and financial systems, contract and

procurement compliance, and revenue receivables and asset management review. The internal audit option offers the following advantages. The auditor is particularly primed to conduct fiscal auditing and budgetary oversight given the expertise in financial accountability and internal controls. The auditor can implement the work more quickly with the use of existing audit infrastructure methodologies and expertes. and the auditor position carries a lower annual cost estimated at approximately $180,000 for one senior auditor position. However, disadvantages include a more limited scope as compared to an inspector general, a lack of subpoena authority, and reliance on existing audit authority to access information. As with the inspector general option, this option does not provide operational control over the sheriff's office. In addition to the two options that we have discussed, your board could considered a phased or combined approach. This slide lays out potential options for your board's consideration. In some, your board could one, establish an office of inspector general at an estimated annual cost of $536,500. Two, establish a dedicated internal audit position for sheriff oversight at an annual estimated cost of $180,000. Three, implement a phased approach, beginning first with an internal audit position and allowing time to evaluate those audits and potential management improvements while retaining the option to later appoint an inspector general if necessary. This option would cost between $180,000 to $536,500 annually depending on whether an inspector general is ultimately appointed. Four, your board could implement a simultaneous approach by establishing an

internal audit position and also establishing an inspector general for a limited scope or term through contracted services to address specific issues or areas of inquiry as they arise. This approach would include an annual cost of about $180,000 and a recommended $250,000 in one-time funds to be set aside for when the need for limited scope engagements arise. And lastly, the board could evaluate the current measures that the board recently instituted, including overtime monitoring by the auditor's office and enhanced internal controls through the county executive office, as well as the sheriff office's efforts to reduce overtime before making additional oversight decisions. Under this option, staff could return to the board annually or at the board's discretion to assess the progress and to reconsider an inspector general or in an internal audit position. This this would have no cost implications at this time. In closing, today's recommended actions appear here on the slide. In some, we ask the board to receive and file the report and provide direction on the board's preferred oversight approach. This concludes the presentation and we're happy to answer any questions. For ease of reference, we'll return to slide eight which details the board's options before you today.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Warren. Questions from the board. Supervisor Lee. So, I got a question about option two. Do you think that the auditor position will save the county money? Thank you, Supervisor, through the chair. Uh the second option is the auditor position and it is it is less expensive than the inspector general position. So in that sense yes it would save if we were to choose that option. Just clarify that neither one of these are budgeted at this point. Right. So they both will cost us money if correct. That's right. Chair. So, can we anticipate any money that we find that could save us money down the road or just the cost of having an auditor

supervisor through the chair? I'm not sure what the cost savings would be to be honest with you. I think we would have to wait to see what the auditing functions would determine and to see if there were any cost savings that could be found by the auditor. However, because it is an advisory position, um it is still something that would be advisory in nature. and just recommendation. Thank you, Supervisor Lee. Go ahead, Supervisor Caps.

Along those lines, uh just revisiting our previous item, uh roughly how much was in how much overtime has been um reduced in the last several months? Um do you know that number associated supervisor through the chair? don't know that number off top of my head but it is pretty um pretty substantial uh the reduction that has occurred. Uh a lot of work has gone into it right I think what you're uh calling out is the fact that a lot of that was generated by the observations that the auditor's office had that um uh led the sheriff's office to make some changes.

Yeah. or and I could make previous points about wellpath contracts and and penalties a million dollars. So I mean had we had this sort of level of scrutiny in the past to supervisor Lee's question, we could have I mean revisionist history, but we could see potentially millions of dollars of cost savings. It's in my in my uh opinion. All right. Thank you, Supervisor Caps. Uh, do we have I don't think Do we have one public commenter?

Yeah, you have. Sorry, we're just checking on public comment here before we get too far. You said we have one public commenter on this item. Okay. Um, I have a couple questions. Um so again it's not yet budgeted for this she this year and this is only this position is only advisory. Um some of these things are already getting done right now right within the function of the auditor's office. The auditor is looking at this and has carved out money within their own budget to continue to look at this I think every couple months, right? Is that what we've Yes, Chair Nelson. Um the direction from the board was to do a monthly audit report um on sheriff's overtime for the next six months and today was the first report from the auditor. And so and that's within the existing budget right now.

Yes. So that would fit more like an option five that you had that was which was a no cost option at this point. Yes. Option five would essentially be to wait and see what the current um measures that the board has taken, how those pan out, and then to return at the board's discretion. Not only the board, but the actions of this uh management team at the sheriff's office that seems to have taken a little bit of a churn as well as the negotiations that the board will be going through with the um DSA potentially as a way to potentially reduce some of those costs as well. Yes, that's right. Okay. Thank you. Um, Sarman, you have some questions before we go to public comment. No, more a statement.

Okay. All right. Let's go ahead and go to public comment. I think we have one speaker. Actually, um, the sheriff would like to make comment and I want to make sure that he's available to comment first. So, let's actually hear from the sheriff prior to hearing from public comment. Sheriff Brown. Thank you, Chair Nelson and members of the board uh for the opportunity to speak regarding the proposed consideration of establishing an office of inspector general for the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office. I appreciate the chance to provide some context, some operational information and considerations that may help support a thorough and informed evaluation. As I have shared with the board in prior presentations, the members of the sheriff's office and I remain committed to professionalism, transparency, accountability, and continuous improvement. At the same time, it's important to understand that significant oversight changes can carry operational significant financial and staffing and legal implications that merit very careful review and early engagement with the departments uh that would be affected in this case ours. My concern is this uh that the proposal which would have a significant impact on the sheriff's operations has been brought forward without any prior discussion uh with us or with any opportunity for subject matter input. When communication occurs late in a process like this, it limits the ability to provide practical context, operational detail, or workload assessments that would be useful, especially when considering such a significant uh policy uh change. Because of that, I want to offer several key considerations that may assist the

board in their decision today. The first is operational insight. The sheriff's office can provide data, facility information, staff impacts, and process understanding that helps ensure any proposed changes align with actual operational as well as financial realities. The second is workforce capacity. New administrative or compliance requirements, even when well intended, would add significant work workload for members of our agency who are already spread extremely thin and would result in managing a host of significant additional responsibilities as well as their primary ones. Third, there should be consideration of the existing oversight landscape. The Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office already interacts with a broad network of regulatory, auditing, licensing, and investigative entities at the state, federal, and local levels. And understanding how any additional oversight structure would integrate with these existing systems is important. The fourth is the cost and the resource planning. Any change of this nature requires evaluation of the long-term financial and staffing impacts. Impacts that would further limit the board's ability to provide for levels of staffing for the sheriff's office that are currently inadequate. The last point is the need for collaboration and communication. Early and ongoing dialogue helps ensure that proposals are informed by operational experience and aligned with ongoing improvement efforts, labor agreements, and practices, and actual need.

As I mentioned, the sheriff's office is already subject to extensive oversight from state authorities, licensing boards, employment and labor regulators, correction standards agencies, workplace safety agencies, civil rights entities, grand jury inspections, and internal county review functions like the recent inquiry and review from the audit auditor controllers's office. These bodies audit, inspect, review, license, investigate, and regulate many aspects of our operations on a regular basis. Additionally, the sheriff's office has made significant ongoing improvements in its hiring, staffing, stability, training, community engagement practices, facility operations, and service delivery. These efforts are the result of coordinated planning and partnership with county staff and they continue to evolve as needs and laws change and many of those have been in regards to overtime which is the driver of this proposal. The problem is the tool that is being proposed to fix the overtime issue is not designed or suited to do so. As the board considers this idea, I respectfully offer the sheriff's office as a resource to provide operational context, data, and subject matter information that may support a comprehensive understanding of how any potential oversight changes would interact with our existing systems and day-to-day operations of a well functioning but resource constrained law enforcement and corrections agency. I'd also like to um just briefly mention the fact that my executive and financial teams consistently meet with the CEO's office

and other county stakeholders to uh offer not only transparency in this issue, but genuine teamwork in all issues. And we have tried to be good team players with this with our county's one uh one county, one future um uh determination. And I believe that this uh proposal is something that is first of all uh not required. Secondly, uh would be extremely expensive. I think that uh with all due respect to the CEO's report, I think the the notion that this could be done for $500,000 is just not borne out when you look at at studies. And I spoke to the sheriff in Soma County. Uh Sonoma County is very similar in size to us, slightly larger, but they've had a program like this for uh seven or eight years, I believe. And their program is a $2.5 million annual program. Marin County is just getting started to put one together. Also, um a similar size to us, a little smaller. Um they're just getting started, but their budget is in the 700,000 plus range. and uh some expect it to grow more than that. The remaining entities are large law enforcement agencies like San Diego, Los Angeles, uh Sacramento, San Francisco, and all of them have programs that cost millions and millions of dollars. This is not a um uh something that can be done on the cheap. And uh I I would strongly recommend against even considering it for the situations that we're in now. When when inspector general's offices have been brought into communities, they have been brought in because there have been

problems with excessive officer involved shootings, with uh use of force issues, with uh police misconduct issues. uh none of which apply in this instance to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office. And uh what we're talking about here uh is is dollars and cents and we're talking about overtime. And as I mentioned before, the reason that we have an overtime problem is because we've had unrealistic overtime and staffing for many, many, many years. And it has been tolerated. It has been condoned. Uh there's been a wink and a nod at it because as I mentioned before, it's cheaper to pay for the overtime than it is to fill the positions that should be filled, particularly in our jail. Study after study after study has recommended increases in the number of people in our jails and there has been no action taken on that those issues. So, it should be no surprise that overtime and extra help, which are the only two remedies that are available to us in the sheriff's office to address these problems, have gone up. Um, I think that we can do what needs to be done. I think the concerns are there. I think the proof is in the pudding. Even in the short period of time, as a result of the dire financial situation that the county is in, we have made changes that have significantly reduced our overtime. And I would encourage you to um as you look forward to the the the work and the challenges that we all have to face ahead that we make sure that we're not doing something that is going to um be ineffective and also potentially open up the uh community to a significant amount of liability and litigation. Sonoma County has been in in entrenched and currently is still entrenched in

litigation uh between the county and the deputy sheriff's association uh and the sheriff and it is just uh it's not a pretty picture. So I do not believe that that's appropriate for our county and our recommendation uh is that you adopt uh option five on the CEO staff report. We will continue to be transparent. We will continue to cooperate and work and frankly we would welcome the additional um resource that we would have in the form of a uh somebody from the auditor controllers's office or a position an additional position in our financial division that would uh ac accomplish the same thing. We uh we don't have that. We run a very very small uh exceptionally small finance uh department and the resources that we have in that area like in most areas of the sheriff's office are inadequate for the job that we have to do. So, I appreciate your uh your attention and again recommendation is that you allow us to proceed, do what we can this year. uh we'll engage in discussions with the CEO's office and uh look for hopefully some better uh things in the future, but the recommendation would be to not spend or commit money that is desperately needed in other areas to uh this uh proposal which um although I'm sure well intended uh is really something that is totally inappropriate. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Sheriff Brown. And at this time we'll go to go ahead and go to public comment. We have one speaker. Is that correct? Yes, Tron Nelson and members of the board. That is correct. We have one request to speak on this item. We're going to remain here in Santa Maria with Larry Barrett. Okay. We're going to go ahead and close public comment on this item. Mr. Barrett,

good afternoon. I'll introduce myself again. I'm Larry Barrett from Indivisible Santa Barbara, Chair Nelson Supervisors. We received a audit report this morning that was described as not an audit um confirming that the sheriff is indeed blowing a $9 million hole into his overtime budget that he described this morning as irrelevant. Um the issue this lays before you is how do you conduct your oversight responsibility under these extraordinary circumstances that occur year after year after year and appear to pop up as a complete surprise on an annual basis. So staff has laid two options before you although they've sliced and diced them. One is the appointment of an inspector general with subpoena and other powers to truly figure out what's going on inside the sheriff's office. This would not only help you get to the bottom of why these practices are occurring, but will also enable you to get answers to other questions I've heard you ask, but they're never answered, such as why are ICE arrests of those released from the sheriff's detention so much higher than what's being reported by the sheriff? and how how is it that so many of his officers were engaged in these overtime practices, but only one of them was charged with I have not heard answers to these questions. I do not believe the auditor can reach them. You do have another choice. Let's keep in mind as we're talking about dollars and cents. Um, we've approved a $200 million expansion of the North County Jail that the sheriff will be operating and the sheriff's budget itself is another $225 million a year. The costs that we're talking about here are fractions of a penny on a dollar. If you buy a house and overspend on the

house, you wouldn't listen to a real estate agent who tells you it's not worth spending the $300 for the home inspection. and you can go after the black mold with a little bit of baking soda and a toothbrush and save money that way. It's not the place to be spending money when we're talking about expenditures of this size and a pattern of of budget overspending. Um that an auditor could certainly point to and say they can give you a monthly report as opposed to a yearly report. An auditor is not equipped to dive deep down and try to figure out what is really the problem. But mostly this comes down to oversight. The buck for oversight is here. Um you five are responsible for the fiscal oversight of the sheriff's office. you have before you a reasonably priced proposal to use a state law authorized means the office of inspector general which is the best form of oversight that the law provides you I really can't see how you can afford not to adopt the very best means that are available to you to get to this problem

thank you thank you Barrett and that concludes public comment on this item okay so I know Harman you have statement. You any I've gotten one more question. Are there other questions from the board? I guess my one question I have um for the CEO's office. Has there been anything that we've asked from the sheriff's department as part of the review on the overtime or recently that we're not getting at this point that we would be able to get through this process? Chair Nelson, um I think you'd have to clarify when you say this process, the IG process or the auditor process in general because it's a little bit different what they might be able to obtain. When's the last time we've asked them for something that they haven't given you?

I wouldn't say that that that's an issue of not giving us something. The timeliness of some of the issues recently are is something that we continue to work on. Um there are some some outstanding requests to the sheriff's office. I don't believe it's a indication that they're not going to provide it. It's a timeliness um issue for the most part. Um the overtime, however, has been a longstanding issue that I just want to be clear that we came to this point because there were many many requests that the board made for additional information that we were not able to provide you with um because we could not get it. See you.

Um, Chair Nelson, I think the auditor is online and I think that's a question if you're asking there's anything that hasn't been provided that she's asked for. That that'd be great. Yeah. Auditor Schaefer. Thank you, Chair Nelson. No, we um we provided or we've requested very limited information from the sheriff actually. Um and what we have asked for they provided um um there anything that was not investigatory they have provided. So I'll say that.

Okay. So I guess outside of an actual personnel issue specifically I mean that would make that would make sense for a lot of reasons. Um, so yeah, I'll go ahead and I'll come back to my other questions. Um, Super Hartman, you want to make your statement?

Sure. Um, for me at least given my now almost 10 years here is it's not an issue of simply compliance. It's it's really about system performance. And I think the case for establishing an inspector general is not based on any single issue but on a consistent and wellocumented pattern of administrative and operational challenges that have persisted over time. Importantly, most of what we know about these issues does not come from anecdote, but from independent assessments, KPMG, grand jury reports, internal audits, and repeated budget expansion requests. Taken together, these sources present a coherent picture. The sheriff's office is an outlier among county departments in terms of persistent cost pressures, recurring administrative issues, and continual requests for additional resources even after years of increased funding and efforts to fill vacancies. At the same time, and this is important to acknowledge, the board of supervisors is part of this system through approval of budgets, memoranda of understandings, and side letters, including provisions that have allowed managerial staff to work significant extra help overtime hours. The board itself has contributed to the framework within which these outcomes occur. So, it's not about assigning blame, but about recognizing that the current structure spanning the sheriff's office, labor agreements, board decisions has collectively produced results that warrant closer and more coordinated oversight. So, let's just review the independent KPMG report. Uh, it identified structural issues that remain relevant today. misalignment between staffing levels and workload, inefficient use of available data for operational

decisionmaking. These findings were not misconduct. They were about administrative and operational efficiency. A series of grand jury reports have highlighted recurring issues across different aspects of the sheriff's office. Mandatory overtime 2022 um grand jury demonstrates that overtime was embedded in the staffing model particularly in custody where mandatory overtime shifts are required to meet minimum staffing levels. I mean we may want overtime but there's a balance and I don't know that we know what that is. 2022 vehicle idling identifies basic resource management inefficiencies including lack of enforcement policies related to fuel use and vehicle operations. The Coroner's Bureau 2022 uh finds that fee schedules had not been updated in decades resulting in loss revenue due to lack of administrative capacity to perform routine financial functions. The wellpath contract 2024 identifies contract oversight gaps, including payments for unfilled positions in delayed or inefficient insufficient performance tracking. These reports span an array of different functions, staffing, operations, finance, and contracts, but point to the same underlying issue, administrative systems that are not consistently functioning or improving over time. And I think that is the issue that I'm after. It's not just overtime. Um, but let's think about how the overtime issue, I mean, that came from us. It didn't come internally from from the sheriff's office. So, there's there's just a pattern where we see issues are identified repeatedly, corrective actions are proposed, the same or similar issues persist over time. And it's it's not lack of information. Um we we've commissioned these different

reviews and jur grand jury findings. We we've tried. Um so it it it seems that the outcomes maybe they're improving somewhat now, but this pattern didn't just start. It goes back for my entire 10 years. Um there's no sustained independent mechanism across both the sheriff's office and board level decisions to ensure that identified problems are addressed and that improvements are implemented and maintained over time. So an inspector general scoped specifically for administrative and operational oversight would help address this gap by providing an independent continuous line of analysis that complements both departmental management and board decisionmaking. This role would not duplicate existing audits or focus on law enforcement conduct. It instead would evaluate how systems function across the department, staffing, budgeting, contracts, operations. Assess how board approved policies, labor agreements, and funding decisions interact with operational outcomes. Identify root causes of recurring issues. Track implementation of recommendations from these audits, from the grand jury reports, and other reviews. We kind of they get lost. They get they just go off into the ether. um and provide continuity and accountability across budget cycles and and leadership changes. So um that's why I think we really do need this function. I'm I'm um I know we're in a very difficult budget situation. I I might be willing to go along personally with with four where we start cultivating with a auditor position in the auditor's office. Um we have put financial support into the

sheriff's office and we still haven't gotten back what we what we needed. So, I I think um that would cultivate the the soil and and establish some procedures, but I ultimately would like to see us create an ordinance that gives us that authority uh that we could use uh if if need be because I would be irresponsible sitting up here to just keep going along as we've done before. it it just isn't making the kind of change that that is required. And and I think it's clear this isn't all just budget shortfall. We hear this from the sheriff and I I have a great deal of respect for the sheriff and he deserves all credit for the culture that he's created of uh deescalation and and uh a sympathy for those suffering from mental um illness. But the day-to-day management has not been the strongest suit in this department. And uh again, we have to pay the bills. And we found that you can with the pressure with with visibility make the changes, but it doesn't it hasn't happened without that.

All right. Thank you, Supervisor Hartman. Supervisor Capson, I actually have a couple questions now. I thought of started talking.

If you want you can if you want to ask your questions first. Um, actually I have a question for Under Sheriff Welsh. You know, cuz I think a lot of what we're hearing is a lot to do with the reporting and the oversight and you know, this is something I've talked in my meetings with the sheriff's department about just your financial team and what you have um within the sheriff's department to evaluate all the complexities of that. you know, you're running all these different organizations, a jail, corner's office, patrol, um, contract cities, and then what's your finance team look like that has to manage all that as well as lots of contracts and grants and lawsuits. And so, can you talk to about that for a moment? Because I think maybe if you're looking for help, maybe we should actually give it to them to be able to do that some of that work. We did.

Well, let's hear from under sheriff Walsh. Uh, thank you for the the question, Chair Nelson, and members of the board. I was actually able the last few weeks to reach out to the other 58 under sheriffs or 57 under sheriffs in the state of California just to get a good idea of what their total operating budget is, their total amount of FTEEs and their total amount of FTEs in their fiscal departments. And while I only got about half of the responses, that's still about 25 responses, which I which in COP work is actually pretty good. Yeah.

Um and I was able to look and see that we are our agency, we have about 11 fiscal personnel right now. um one being the CFO and we compared to other organizations, other sheriff's organizations with similar operating budgets were we're significantly underststaffed. Um and it's just been consistent year after year. The delays that I believe the CEO is talking about are most likely due to uh requests to our fiscal teams who are just overwhelmed in the sheer amount of work that they're doing because they're so grossly understaffed. It it pains me to see how understaffed they are because there's so much to do and we want to be good uh partners with CEO and other members of our of our county team, but we just don't have enough staff to keep up with the with the demand of work.

Okay. So, is there any kind of is there a ratio typically to budget to fiscal staff that you've seen out there? There there is and we're we're continuing to kind of we want to give you a a good product. So, let us continue to work on that um stat sheet and and I'll get it to all five of you.

Okay. Because I I think that you know, one of the things I'm hearing is that you're not getting some information, but also I'm seeing this as well, you know, and I know you guys have these tough decisions on do we put another corrections deputy in in the jail or do we hire another fiscal person? I mean I mean the sheriff has their budget and they have to as we just saw with this the workshops last week you guys have to make some determinations on the allocation resources and it's hard to take a cop off the beat um to put them in you know behind a desk to to to shuffle papers but I mean I think that's where we're trying to find that balance and so I just wanted to make sure that was part of the narrative here. Thank you. Thank you.

So under sheriff ro just a quick question. How long have you been on the sheriff? Um about 4 months and a couple days. Four months, right? So, but still pretty pretty fresh here. So, yes, I uh super lead through the chair. I've been with the organization for 27 years. Um I've been in in upper management for about four and a half years. Uh and in a supervisory role since 2012. So, thank you. All right. Thank you. Do you have a question, Super Leanino, or just statements, comments? Okay, let's go to comments here. I think Super Caps, you wanted to make a comment here and then

Yeah, I mean I um I support where Supervisor Hartman is going. Uh on the one hand, because we're in such a tight budget year, it makes the challenge hard because to find the funds, but but the flip side is we need the cost savings. And I do believe that the scrutiny has yielded the savings. We just seen it with overtime pay. Uh we're seeing we will see it hopefully with a newou with UCSB. So that part of the responsibility from UCSB. I mean there's so many areas in which you you sort of look under a rock and you realize that you can uncover some costs. And I would, you know, I appreciate the cooperation uh that's happening and I would hope that that this level of oversight is welcome if you are underst staffed. And I don't recall these kind of budget requests coming for more uh fiscal staff. Um in the short time that I've been a supervisor, uh it's been in other areas, but certainly that would have been welcome in the in the years that we were had more funds. Anyway, I I uh I just know that this position, either one, would more than pay for itself in a budget of $223 million. And that that's not an indictment. That's just a fact. I mean, there is so much that can be uncovered. And I um I just appreciate uh again that we are taking a look at this because again ultimately this does come to the board. I mean just the amount of time that this board spends on these issues is evidence enough that something you know needs to happen that's different. Do we just keep having hearing after

hearing and board item after board item on on problems that get revealed? Is that is that the pattern that we just continue or do we actually formalize it into a position and give some more teeth and I think we do need more teeth.

Ses Labanino and then I have some comments as well. So, first off, this is a $223 million department with 730 people dealing with people that I mean, we would like everybody to kind of behave like we are in this in this room right now, but we don't see what this department is dealing with on a daily basis. So there's actually people out there whose life it is to steal, rob, inflict damage on other people in property. And so, you know, I look at this department, I go, okay, where where are the headlines that I read about other departments? You know, um, a lot of the scandals involved, there's not. It's mostly fiscal. I mean, what we're all talking about is is that we're frustrated because we don't have a firm grap firm grasp on the budget and how money is spent. But we've got a whole department that's called the audit controllers department that now we are connecting them into try to figure out what's going on and get a better handle on it. I was kind of surprised when I saw that when we saw the auditor's report, it says it's not an audit. I understand and we're just basically reporting on what the numbers are and maybe that needs to be beefed up a little bit so that we get in there and figure out what's going on. But to go to the level of, you know, getting subpoenas and I mean I think it's a lot of overkill. Um, also the other thing I just wanted to point out was I I don't think I've ever seen the the sheriff's department represented better than it has been over the last couple of meetings. And maybe that's because there's more scrutiny on it, but I think it has to do with a lot of the new team that we have. Um, you know, it's just a

it's a sharper focus. It's better better answers. um a commitment to doing better and that for most of the 10 years maybe wasn't the case. Right? So, I'm willing to say, "Hey, uh I understand there's an issue. I understand there's a problem. Uh we're lucky that we don't have some of the issues that are plaguing other sheriff's departments, you know, with gangs inside the the the department and those types of things. So the fact that we, you know, have a fiscal crisis, um, I think also lends me to kind of come down on the side of let's find somebody whe, you know, whether we just make it a direction that what the auditor is looking at right now comes back with a little bit more teeth than just reporting. But um and I don't know how the mechanics of that will work cuz I don't know if we've actually had a firm audit of an inside department since I've been here,

right?

And you know, so it would be interesting to see how the mechanics of how that would work. So anyway, I I'm for something a lot less than an IG and I think it's just using the assets that we have right now and the resources we do to get a better fix when the sheriff's department themselves said, "Yeah, this is not our strong point. We didn't get into law enforcement. We didn't get into this uh to be accountants and and and I understand we have professionals that are doing that. We just don't have enough." And so you're right, Supervisor Nelson, when I'm sitting here, I'd rather have a deputy on the street or a custody deputy in the jail than another financial person, but then it leads us back to this same spot that we're in again. So um I'm for using the resources that we currently have and maybe beefing that up somewhat inside the um auditor controllers's office.

So actually, I do have a question. I I I want to be respectful of the of the auditor's department, but we've only seen one audit in the three three plus years I've been here. Why do we have to add a senior auditor? If if we went in that direct if we went with um option

three I just again I I not I don't have eyes on their department uh in terms of staffing but it does beg the question of who's doing audits. So, supervisors, I think I asked the auditor controller to answer the second part of that question, but the auditor does present to the board an audit plan that says these are the audits that I'm going to conduct. And sometimes they're very general, sometimes they're specific. Um, I've seen audits that come through on departments. There's required to do certain types of audits, but there is a plan and your board has the authority to direct the auditor to look at certain areas to do certain audits. So just overall and I don't know if my staff having talked to the auditor if you'd like the auditor to a answer the question about the position and the scope that we've written. Um could that be done within existing resources?

I think it's most appropriate to have the auditor respond to that. Yeah, I I will turn the question back around me as she gets to the to the Zoom. Um if it's on on us to request audits or direct audits and we we just haven't then I I own that. So, Miss Schaefer,

thank you. Um, you know, um, we do present, um, an audit plan like, uh, CEO Miasado just presented or, uh, described, we do this every year. Um, you may not realize this, but every quarter we present the treasur's audit. There's several mandated audits we do. We also supervise audits. Um, we have the annual external audit that, um, occurs. Um we supervise that with our um external auditors Brown Armstrong. Um they also do the single audit which is an audit of all the grant programs. Um our staff uh I mentioned at our budget workshops is um only has five people. Um and two of those are the supervisor and the division chief of audit. Um there we um we just completed um we also get requests for audits um by departments and we just uh completed a request from FIRE for an accounts receivable review. Um we did a um we worked with Nief Higs on an external audit um on an they were an external firm and then they did an internal audit for uh CSD for their homeless grants. Um so and I believe we're presenting um the audits that we can present to the board um as frequently as we can. So, uh, we have a we're working. We have a we're working. We have a busy team. So, I'm I'm sorry that it may not be um as public as it as some of these um audits um you know, can be. We're as public as we can be. We also spend a lot of time on the whistleblower um administration. Uh we probably get a whistleblower

report probably a few a week. Um and those take a lot of uh investigation and followup. Um I'm I'm sure I'm missing something here. Uh Supervisor Caps. Um No, that's helpful. Thank you. We we really are working hard there. So thank you. I wasn't aware of those audits. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Supervisor Caps. You know, my my concern this whole discussion is that we are making progress. You know, we we have a better relationship with the sheriff's department. And there's so many things that we work on with the sheriff's department that us having a cooperative relationship is really important. And I think there's this balancing act of political pressure from our body with um you know also giving them the autonomy to run their department as an independently elected official you know and finding that right dose of pressure is I think is what we we're all striving to kind of figure out you know is the only reason why things are better is because we're we're threatening of all these other you know political consequences or is this just really a change in the management and the staffing and and um just the evolution of this board's relationship, CO's relationship with the sheriff's department. And I'm just really concerned about if we go down this route with the um that the dose might be a little bit too much. It might eventually poison that relationship. The difference between medicine and poison is dose. And I I'm afraid this board if we go too far that it will become some point that the relationship will not be as strong as it is right now. We've had some huge successes recently. And so that's why I just caution us. I'm not going to support this at at this point, but um you know, I think that we're we're already getting what we need um because things are coming in our direction. I'm just afraid that this might be pushing too far at some point here. Um and um we might go backwards and that would be a travesty is I think we're making a lot of progress with the sheriff's department on some of these issues. So that's that's my thought. I would prefer option number five at this time. continue on the pathway that we're going see if we can we can um add on some of the most recent successes that we've had and um and build from there.

Supervisor Lee and then Supervisor Herman. So I do agree with you that option five is what I'm supporting as well. I do believe that we need more sheriff oversight, but I really want to give under sheriff and his team a chance. He's still new at this and I think I have seen the improvements. I do but believe that he's trying really really hard and working with all controller Betsy is trying let's give her more clear concise direction so that she can give us the best report back to res

would anybody be open to option three which we actually give more uh dedicated auditing uh the overtime changes have come from this board and from the auditor I I yes, we have a more responsive executive team on on the sheriff's side, but I think that um it is a balance and um I think option three provides more resources and can uh can keep the sustained attention on the fiscal side in a way that we haven't done before. And I think it's um just asking if there might be any support for that.

Before we get there, sin, I'll let everybody answer that question. I'm not trying to cut you off. Um any of these options are going to need to come to some budget hearings, right? Is that what we're looking at? Because we've just went through this workshops. What's that? Five, except for five. Yes. But I mean any of these ones that cost money are going to have to come in budget hearings with a list of the other restorations or or other cuts that we might be seeing in June. Is that correct? Correct. Supervisor um Chair Nelson. Um yes. If you decide if you if you direct us to do one of these options and it costs money for next year's budget, we would discuss it at budget hearings with all the other asks that you've made of us.

Okay. So, we aren't actually going to make that decision today. We're just going to um potentially bring one of these back or or none of them back um in in June, third week of June. Supervisor, we would like to give it if if you have a choice of what you'd like to pursue, we'd like to know because in as part of the recommended budget, we will be um it may not be in the budget yet, but you've given us a list of your priorities and we want to figure out if they can be funded, like you said, if we get state money. And so if the board majority told us to do one of these options, we would look to see between now and June if there is state funding to help offset, we would then try to fund it.

Okay. Well, so I'll give Supervisor Hartman a chance to to lobby for the number three. I I think I have heard three potential number five votes, but I will again I'll give you some the difference to So what do you you're hoping to get direction on bolstering the auditor's office? Yeah. Yeah,

kind of um establishing consistent ongoing um review of the fiscal side of the sheriff's office. So, it's not just a oneoff or a six-month thing, but we we really keep um the visibility on this budget and I think that would give us more information and um maybe that would be enough. Um but uh you know if if if it revealed that ongoing problems then maybe an IG would be something for the future but I think this at least is a an important step in the right direction. Uh supervisor Capsson and I do have an answer for you that hopefully might thread the needle.

Yeah, I think I mean I think that that would be helpful because again you you know the first part of this report that was early on our agenda just says this is not an audit. This is not an audit. So it would be great to see what what an audit would actually look like and and actually give her the full authority. And so that's good rationale for me for uh number three.

Well, here let's and and here was the compromise I was going I was thinking about here is let's let's get through our six months and that does two things. One that gets us to see if we we're making the progress we're hoping to and at that point we also have seen what the budget initially looks like for the year. you know, even when we decide our budget on the third week of June, there are a lot of things that are balls are still bouncing at the state and federal level that we're going to have some impacts on. Get us through the six months here. We have to actually see if we're making the progress that we hope we would. If we're making the good progress that I think that we will continue to make, there may not be a need for this additional audit. And if we're not, then I I'll be right there with you. If we're not making progress, then I I would support that. But I see us going in the right direction and I'm not ready to to to leap to this level of of additional oversight when we're going the right direction as it is right now. Supervisor Hartman.

Well, um, we're focused on the six month just on overtime. What I tried to say in my remarks is I think the issues have been uh broader than that. And I think that having somebody dedicated to exploring these issues and and making recommendations, again, the board is not blameless here. We've done some things that I wished we'd had somebody flag what the implications were when we made those decisions. So, I I think it has to be sustained with somebody who's developing the relationships and the expertise and comes in with the credentials. So, um, you're, uh, kicking the can down the road doesn't fully, um, satisfy me.

Supervisors, may maybe I can ask a question of the auditor. So, what what you've asked the auditor to do is review over time and follow up on her last report, which is pretty extensive, um, looking at time cards, and that's what was the that was the assignment, and that's what they're doing. Um, one thing that we have in the board letter that we've talked about if you wanted a um a dedicated auditor, we list a bunch of things that would be part of the scope, but I want to ask the auditor if under the existing purview of what the board's asked on the payroll review. One of the things that stands out to me, I think that's important is looking at internal controls and financial systems. Is that is that review possible um to be part of what your review is currently on the overtime? because I think we want to know are the internal controls um and the systems required by the auditor that we all follow or it's good management and budgeting practice are those being followed so could you actually look at that as part of the review you're already doing?

Yes. Yes, we could add that to it. We've been looking um like I said data focused only looking at what's already been um posted into our um you know that shows as data but we've not looked at what their processes are for um scheduling or for um how things get approved um and reviewed. uh we haven't compared to their policies uh both internal we've looked at just theus um so there is other work we could do there all right thank you miss m miss shaver supervisor leave and supervisor leanino

so what if we set some money aside and come back in 6 months and if we all agree that something needs to be done we have the money to fill that position right away is that something that could work well I think that's something that we can potentially discuss in budget hearings yeah Um I mean I think we don't know what those numbers are yet. So I mean that this could be a topic that comes up at that time but I don't think we have a set aside of onetime fees funny monies yet. I think we spent them all. We spent we spent more than all um last one. So but that could you know it could be decid I I wouldn't be surprised if this comes up again here in June but um I don't think there's a set amount of dollars right now. Serino.

Thank you Mr. Chair. Well, uh, great discussion. I'm going to go ahead and make a motion. We'll see where it goes. It, uh, we go move items A through C. And this and the B being the direction would be that we land on, um, option five. But at during budget discussions, um, we discuss maybe setting aside a little bit of money so that we figure out if things don't go in the direction that we're able to to fund it. So, I'll go there. I'll second it.

Okay. All right. Is there further discussion on that motion? I'm not seeing any. Um, did you want to Okay. All right. So, we have uh no further discussion. Well, let's do we need to do a roll call vote on this? All right. Can, madam cler, can we do a roll call vote? And the motion's for option five. Supervisor Lavanino. I. Supervisor Lee. Hi. Supervisor Caps. Hi. Supervisor Hartman. No. And Chair Nelson. I. Motion passes 4 to one.

All right. Thank you. All right. This concludes our regular uh scheduled meeting of the uh board of supervisors. We will now uh be recessing this meeting and beginning a special meeting um on the uh which was previously department item number four that was brought to us by supervisor caps and supervisor Lee um dealing with uh um immigration custom enforcement and other issues surrounding their engagement in our community. That will be a special meeting that will begin in a brief moment. We're going to go ahead and recess this and then we'll get that meeting started momentarily.