Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

all right good morning everybody i will call the order the july 14th 2026 regular scheduled meeting of the santa barbara county board of supervisors madam clerk will you please call the roll supervisor hartman here supervisor lavanino here supervisor lee here supervisor kaps here and chair nelson here please stand and join us in pledging allegiance to our flag First item of business is approval of the minutes from the July 7th, 2026 meeting. Can I get a motion?

Hartman moves approval. And I'll second.

Okay, I have a motion and a second. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? The motion passes unanimously. Next item of business is our CEO report, and we have Assistant CEO Wade Horton here. Mr. Horton, do we have a report this morning?

We do. Thank you, Chair. This morning, pleased to share the newest video in Your County, Your Services series. These segments run on Channel 20 and appear on our monthly newsletter, on CSBTV's YouTube page, and across county social media in both English and Spanish. Today's video highlights the county's on-demand permitting options. Through the online citizen access portal, residents can quickly obtain permits for common home projects, all without needing to visit a county office. Let's take a look.

Welcome to Santa Barbara County. Let's explore what the county does for you. Your county, your services. The County of Santa Barbara is making it faster and easier than ever before to get permits for many common home improvement projects. Through the County's online Citizen Access Portal, residents can apply for and instantly receive permits for eligible projects like electrical panel upgrades, water heater replacements, residential solar installations through SolarAPP, and like-for-like gas, sewer, and water line replacements. all from the convenience of a website, saving customers time and a trip to the county office.

With Acela and the rollout of Citizens Access and our online portal to submit applications, now everything is digital from our application forms to plans, submittals, but also a permit process completely digitally.

We've gone from a 95 to 99% paper submittals now to online, almost 100%. So it's very convenient for both the applicant and for our staff. And we've saved over a thousand hours of staff time since then.

It's done three main things. convenience, time saving, and visibility. You can be on site, you can be at your home, and you can submit these permits. And then the visibility is huge. You see each step exactly where your permit's at. If you've got corrections, you can see it in real time, exactly how it's going. And then of course the time saver. I went from three weeks to four weeks waiting for a permit to be approved to some of them solar instantly. You know, that's I mean, that's game changing for any contractors or subcontractors out there.

Our online citizens access portal splash page, you can choose from any of these apply directly permits. And then under building, of course, is where you'll find your on demand online permit. You can apply and receive your permit at the same time.

On-demand permits are great because it allows an applicant to submit an application through our system for simple small projects. They will get an automatically issued permit and you can get it right away. The system is set up so that you can receive notifications as the project proceeds forward. You can always also pick up the phone and talk to us and ask us questions about that process. We're happy to talk to people.

At the County of Santa Barbara, we're committed to delivering services that are efficient, accessible, and customer-focused. Visit the County of Santa Barbara's Citizen Access Portal to learn more.

And later in the agenda, the board will receive an update on the county's implementation of Acela permitting and licensing system, including countywide progress and priorities for the next phase. And that concludes the report.

All right. Thank you, ACO Horton. I thought, yes, it was an infomercial for item D4 later today. So stay tuned. All right, Madam Clerk, are there any announcements or changes to today's agenda?

Chair Nelson and members of the board, I do have a few announcements this morning. An addendum was posted on Friday, July 10th, 2026, amending today's closed session agenda, adding an item under conference with legal counsel, existing litigation, paragraph one of subdivision D of government code section 54956.9, regarding Leslie Torgerson versus Vita County of Santa Barbara et al., Santa Barbara County Superior Court case number 24 cv05608 the edition included in the addendum has been posted and made available online to both the board and the public additionally we received a withdrawal request from the department to withdraw administrative item number nine administrative item number nine is from the community services department and it is regarding the state of california department of state hospitals authorizing resolution and memorandum of agreement for good samaritan shelters life house 2 in northern santa barbara county and again the department has requested this item be withdrawn from today's agenda so if the board can please add that to the balance of the administrative agenda that would be greatly appreciated 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 who wish to provide verbal public comment may do so via zoom by registering in advance using the link provided on page two please note that zoom is available solely for the purpose of providing verbal public comment and is not intended for viewing the meeting alternative viewing options are listed on page two of the agenda if you have any questions please contact the clerk of the board's office at area code 805

568-2240 or by email at sbcob at county of sb.org and that concludes my announcements for today all right thank you madam clerk and um i skipped over before we started today's meeting i really wanted to take the time and recognize a really important leader in our community that passed away just recently so i wanted to change it over turn it over to supervisor lee or did you want to say something Okay, Supervisor Capps to officially open our meeting in honor of a great local leader. Supervisor Capps.

Thank you. It's my honor to pay tribute to former Mayor Sheila Lodge, who passed away this last week at the age of 97. In a word, Sheila Lodge was a force, is a force. uh it's hard to imagine santa barbara without sheila lodge and she was a force it could be said that no one had more of a consequential impact on the city of santa barbara than sheila lodge having served 12 years as mayor then on the planning commission even in her 90s on the historic advisory commission she served this city just with such compassion and such commitment she was a force of a person her integrity her quiet determination she would poke those of us in elected office with such the right combination of making sure she got her point across in a way that was effective not too assertive but definitely not mincing words some a way that i admire so much and she was also a force because of the way that she was a trailblazer for so many women who have come in her path she was the first female elected woman mayor of santa barbara we've had so many since in fact as a kid she was my mayor and so i just assumed that all mayors were women so

anyway it's my honor to pay tribute to sheila lodge a force yes i just want to say that sheila was incredibly well loved and respected and we call for a moment of silence i don't want to say that she passed because she would hate that so um she lived a well good life yeah

Supervisor Hartman, real quick, before we go into a moment of silence.

Yes, I also wanted to add that when I was elected to this position, one of the first people to reach out to me was Sheila Lodge, offering her help. And on housing issues, she was a confidante. She was always calling, writing, sending ideas. So she really did symbolize Santa Barbara at its best, and we'll all miss her.

Thank you, Supervisor Hartman. And with that, I ask the public to join our board in a moment of silence, remembering the life and legacy of Sheila Lodge. Thank you. All right. Well, in her memory, and we will continue on. The next item of business is our, again, administrative agenda. We had initially item A9 has been asked to be withdrawn. I have items A11 being pulled by Supervisor Lee and A16 as well. I have Supervisor Capps and I both pulling A33. Madam Clerk, are there any other items being pulled either by other board members or by the public?

Chair Nelson and members of the board, we have no request to speak from the public on the administrative agenda, and I have no further requests from the board.

A35.

Okay, an A35 by Supervisor Hartman. So I'm looking for a motion for the withdrawal of A9 and all the items except for A11, 16, 33, and 35, which we'll take up after we do our resolutions. Can I have that motion?

So moved.

Moved by Supervisor Hartman.

Second.

Second by Supervisor Capps. All in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? The motion passed unanimously. All right, before we get into our uphold administrative items, we'll go ahead and do our resolution. Will Madam Clerk, will you please read administrative item number one to the record?

Chair Nelson and members of the board, administrative item number one is sponsored by Supervisor Nelson. It is to adopt a resolution proclaiming the week of July 19th, 2026 through July 25th, 2026 as probation and pretrial services week in Santa Barbara County. And joining us in person today, we have Chief Probation Officer Holly Benton, Deputy Probation Officer Daniel Nava, Deputy Probation Officer Erica Floyd, and Juvenile Institutions Officer Cynthia Sixten. Now go ahead and read the resolution. Whereas during the week of July 19th through the 25th, 2026, criminal justice professionals and communities across the nation will join together to celebrate probation and pretrial services week. And whereas the probation department today consists of over 300 dedicated professionals working collaboratively to deliver evidence-based programs, to justice-involved adults and juveniles while focusing on the enhancement of public safety, the reduction of recidivism, the protection of and compensation to victims, the endorsement of equitable and appropriate pretrial release, the promotion of crime prevention services, rehabilitation, and restorative justice principles. And whereas probation officers and juvenile institutions officers provide an efficient and cost-effective use of public resources by supervising approximately 2,400 adults and approximately 230 juveniles within Santa Barbara County. The probation department conducts pretrial assessments and currently monitors over 500 individuals on pretrial supervision using the least restrictive options necessary to ensure public safety while allowing them to remain in the community. And whereas the probation department is an essential connector in the justice system, reducing recidivism by carefully balancing direct human services with research-based interventions, probation department staff display a high degree of professionalism, commitment, and pride in the work they perform for the courts in our juvenile justice facilities with local law enforcement partners and in the community. Now, therefore, be it hereby ordered and resolved, this Board of Supervisors of the County of Santa Barbara does hereby acknowledge the week of July 19th through the 25th as Probation and Pretrial Services Week and recognizes these officers for their significant contribution to making Santa Barbara County a safer place to live. Passed and adopted today.

Thank you, Chief Benton.

Thank you, Chair Nelson and supervisors. I am Holly Benton, the Chief Probation Officer, and it's my honor to represent the dedicated officers and staff of your probation department today and to thank your board for recognizing the important public safety role of our probation and pretrial professionals in our community and our Juvenile Justice Center every day. As we've done for the last few years, with me this morning to receive this resolution are three of our line officers who represent Adult and Juvenile Services and our Juvenile Justice Center. And each will introduce themselves to your board and briefly share their perspective about their work.

Good morning, Supervisors of the Chair. My name is Daniel Nava and I'm a Deputy Probation Officer assigned to the Juvenile Division, which is a remarkable one as it offers hope. Juvenile probation officers take on many responsibilities. We explore youth diversion opportunities, author court reports, supervise youth in the community, and support reentry for youth at the Juvenile Justice Center. Wearing many hats, we impact youth and families at different points in their lives. Today, I want to speak about the Youth Serving Secure Youth Treatment Facility, or SYTF, commitments ranging from 18 months to seven years at our Juvenile Justice Center. I have been working with these youth for approximately three years, and we currently have 27 such youth. The work I do with them is varied and involves mentoring, monitoring their compliance, mentoring them, referring them to evidence-based programs within the facility, intervening when they are in crisis, supervising youth and family reengagement, and working on reentry from the moment they are committed to the program. Each youth's reentry plan is unique and can include furloughs involving community college tours across the state, equine therapy, and employment readiness training. Many youth have demonstrated success in the SYTF program, resulting in reductions in their commitments and their ultimate productive return to the community. I am proud to work with these youth who have been able to overcome obstacles, show that mistakes don't have to define them, reintegrate into the community, and ultimately lead better lives. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

good morning my name is cynthia sinxto and i am a juvenile institution officers at the santa maria juvenile justice center working at the jjc has been a dynamic experience with each day bringing new opportunities and challenges that make our work both meaningful and engaging The position has strengthened my ability to communicate effectively, remain calm under pressure, and work with youths from diverse backgrounds. As juvenile institution officers, we are committed to maintaining a safe and secure environment while helping youth develop the skills and accountability needed for positive change. It is an honor to be part of an organization dedicated to protecting our community and providing effective juvenile detention and treatment programs. I am proud to represent the Santa Barbara County Probation Department and the dedicated professionals who work every day to support public safety, rehabilitation, and positive outcomes for the youth and families we serve. Thank you.

Good morning, supervisors, to the chair. My name is Erica Floyd, and I'm a deputy probation officer assigned to the adult supervision unit in the Lompoc office. My current caseload consists of a diverse group of individuals placed on probation for a wide variety of offenses. Some are new to probation, while others have demonstrated consistent compliance with court ordered conditions. For many individuals, meeting their assigned probation officer is the beginning of their journey towards rehabilitation and success. We often meet them at one of the most stressful moments in their life after making a poor choice or a mistake in judgment. It is not uncommon that they have spent some time in jail and have experienced loss, whether it is a job, a relationship, or something of value to them. Following their sentence hearing, clients can often feel overwhelmed or intimidated and do not know what to expect after being ordered to report to the probation department. When they walk through our doors for the first time, we can often see the anxiety in their expressions and body language. This is what we train for, a delicate dance of easing their fears while ensuring they understand their terms and conditions to ensure accountability and success. My favorite conversation happens at the end of the intake process when we get to talk about what comes next. This is my opportunity to be an agent of change and to remind the individual that their future does not have to be dictated and that their probation grant can be a roadmap to a better life. A grant of probation is merely a chapter in their personal story. I'm grateful and honored to have the opportunity to address your board today. Thank you for your continued support of the probation department and the work that we do.

Thank you very much.

And again, we just want to thank your board for this recognition and for the resolution today.

Before you guys go, Supervisor Hartman.

Yes. Well, when I'm out in the field, I always hear such great things about our probation officers. And so it's really a thrill to have you come in person and talk about your job. My ears perked up on equine therapy. You knew it. So could you describe that, what that program is, how it works?

I can describe it briefly. I can't give you a lot of detail about it, but we do have furlough capability in the JJC and we take youth to see the horse, to interact with the horses. For some of these youth, it's sort of I guess you could say it unlocks a different side of them. And there's a gentleness about interacting with a horse that just changes their demeanor and their personality and makes it so much easier to reach them, talk with them. It can have dramatic impacts on their ability to communicate, and it can have impacts on their behavior as well. So it's been quite impactful for some of our youth.

Yeah, that's exciting to hear. I'm involved a little bit with therapeutic writing, and whether it be autism or PTSD with veterans, it can have a profound impact. So I'm so excited to hear that you're using it in probation with young people. Thank you.

Thank you, Supervisor Hartman. Supervisor Adam used to always say, the outside of a horse is good for the inside of a man. And so I think that that's a quote that's appropriate here. But thank you guys all for sharing your work out there. It's invaluable and it's appreciated by this board and our community.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you very much. Probation and pretrial services. We'll go ahead and move on to the administrative items that were pulled by the board and the public. And we're going to go ahead and start off with A11, which was pulled by Supervisor Lee. Madam Clerk, will you please read item A11 into the record?

Chair Nelson and members of the board, administrative item number 11 is from the Community Services Department. It is to consider recommendations regarding the approval of Workforce Housing Development Exclusive Negotiating Agreement, ENA, 117 East Carrillo Street, APN 029211025, and this is in the first district.

All right. Supervisor Lee. Good. Thank you, Chair Nelson. I just want to ask Director Armas for an update about How's things going and have they found a nonprofit partner yet?

Thank you, Supervisor Lee, through the Chair. We're at an exciting point, we believe, with this project. We've had a number of significant developments take place. First, and if I can just take a couple of moments to put it in context, we've had a couple of conversations with city officials with Santa Barbara to make sure that the path forward is one that is consistent with the design standards that the city has and that we're aligned in terms of their objectives for the downtown and the county's objectives with this important housing project. very positive reaction. We continue to make sure that the architectural design standards that apply to the downtown are adhered to and so we believe that SOLA appreciates that point as well. With respect to the notion of a local partner, we indicated to you last time that the SOLA had an obligation to identify a partner. They have identified a partner to take responsibility for managing the property. This entity is very familiar with our county, is very familiar with Central Coast. They're in the midst of final negotiations. The agreements are largely at the at the one foot yard i said or yard at one foot point but they've asked that we not disclose the name until they finally complete those discussions we're very very optimistic that they will reach agreement i spoke to both representatives as recently as friday and both assured me that it's just a matter of some final word tweaking. But in substance, the agreements are acceptable. There aren't any, to quote, any deal breakers in the agreements. So we're very optimistic. And as noted in the ENA, the SOLA has a number of performance standards that it must meet over the next six months, following which, if they perform, we'll come back to you for additional actions on important legal documents.

Yeah, no further questions for me. All right. Any other questions from board on this item?

No, I'm just...

Supervisor Capps.

Just a comment that I'm appreciative of how quickly this moves along. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Supervisor Lee, for pulling this. Let's go ahead and get a motion to approve this item. Got it. I move staff recommendation 811. And I second. Okay. So that's A and B. And it's been a motion for a motion and a second. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? The motion passes unanimously. Next item of business is department number, give me one second here, 16, also pulled by Supervisor Lee. Good. Madam Clerk, will you please read that item into the record?

Chair Nelson and members of the Board, administrative item number 16 is from the County Executive Office. It is to consider recommendations regarding a third quarter fiscal year 2025 through 2026 update on cannabis taxation, permitting, and licensing.

All right, Supervisor Lee. Good. So I have a few questions about this. The first one is, are we required to have appeals for license revocations? And if anyone... From CO's office potentially? Yes.

So Supervisor Lee to the Chair, yes, we're required by Chapter 50 to have an appeal process for license revocations.

Good. And are we required to have appeals for license non-renewals?

Appeals for license... Non-renewals? so if it's a license denial there's also a requirement for an appeal process okay and the final question is are we required to have the appeal to go before admin judge or are there other options that we can explore chapter 50 says that we need to go before a hearing officer okay and the hearing officer that we currently use is the office of administrative hearings good so we could amend that and change that It's likely that there could be a conversation about how to look at different possibilities, yes.

Okay. So that's my questions for now. I do have some comments later. Okay. If anybody wants. Any other questions on this or comments?

Mr. Chair, I just want to add to that on the administrative judge. Chapter 50 defines hearing officer pretty broadly, and administrative law judge is one option, but there already are other options existing in the code.

OK. So there are some options that we have within what's already in code. It may not need to change the code. It may just need to be a decision. Supervisor Lee, do you want to make some further comments or? I do. Supervisor Cavanaugh. OK. Just back to you.

So I just want to say that I have been really frustrated with this current process. The carpentry community has been very patient and inspecting solutions. And it's been quite a while since they have seen anything. So I believe that our board wants to deliver that these solutions to the community so I wanted to direct staff to explore different ways of hearing appeals and to come back down the road in the future with options that we can consider so if so we like to potentially add that to the motion today is as a staff direction to look at some additional options that we might have under the current code it's not changing the code

but other options might be there. When would you like that reported back to the board, Supervisor Lee? Would you like to have that done offline or would you like it come back as an item? As item. Okay, so future administrative item on that that you can eventually pull if you have some additional questions? Yes. Okay, so the motion would be today, if we're going to adopt this with the staff direction, would be staff recommendation with directions of staff to come back with appeal options within EXISTING CODE CHAPTER 50 CODE RIGHT I GUESS IT'S THE APPEAL OFFICER I GUESS I'M TRYING TO FIGURE OUT EXACTLY THE CONCERN THE HEARING OFFICER WHETHER WE USE THE OFFICE OF SORRY WHAT WAS THE NAME OF THE THE ADMINISTRATIVE LAW JUDGE SO IT'S THE OFFICE OF ADMINISTRATIVE HEARINGS ADMINISTRATIVE LAW JUDGE AND THAT'S THROUGH THE SANDBURGH COUNTY COURTS OR THROUGH LOS ANGELES OKAY right so we're so surprisingly you're concerned about potentially maybe some other entity besides them you're not necessarily satisfied with that that process correct it's just been too long and it drags out okay faster done sooner okay like i always say more information is is better and so if that's something that the staff could look at and bring back to us okay uh and what time frame would you hope to get that back from staff publicly say within the next six months okay next six months hopefully sooner but yes next six months so we can move that forward okay so that would be would that be your motion yes that'll be my motion with the comments made by uh chair nelson okay

right um is there a second on that or supervisor caps do you want some further comment i certainly appreciate supervisor lee's leadership on this and i agree that the process has been it's time to review it and has been frustrating for the people that he represents and i'm happy to second okay so there's a motion a second is there further discussion on the motion okay not seeing any further discussion emotion um

I guess I'll call the order. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? The motion passes unanimously. All right, next item of business is item A33. Madam Clerk, can you please read that item into the record?

Chair Nelson and members of the board administrative item number 33 is from the sheriff coroner's office. It is to consider recommendations regarding the California Forensic Medical Group CFMG 2025 annual report for health care services at sheriff's jail facilities.

All right. Thank you. And Supervisor Capps and myself also pulled this item. So go ahead. Supervisor Capps, you have some questions.

Yeah, thank you. I have several questions, but if you would like to give some overview, you're welcome to, or I can launch into them, whichever you prefer, Chair.

I'm sorry, I don't have your name. Sorry, David Harmon. David Harmon.

Anyway, I can just launch into, I just have maybe three different categories of questions. The first, I just do wanna recognize that there's been a lot of progress and this is a very challenging work that you all do. The healthcare in the jail is, so complex, it's taking two very difficult professions and putting them together, healthcare and those who work in our jail. So I have deep respect for both professions and the complexity of treating people in a secure environment, very transient coming and going and what that means. So I just wanted to start off and I appreciated the tone of the report. I did read it and the opening letter and just the way in which the collaboration rings through very clearly that this is a strong partnership. And I want to start with the good news that was very much called out, which is the progress on the medically assisted treatment program, the MAT program, and that massive increase. I think I did the math and it's 68% increase of those who've been served, 1,216 individuals up from 726. And so I was hoping you could speak to that program and specifically how people are doing once they leave the jail, if you have any information about that. Because the report highlights discharge planning and referrals and 30-day prescriptions. Do you have any further information you can elaborate on those who have been treated by the MAT program and how they're doing?

I have limited information as I'm a custody lieutenant, so I'm the health services lieutenant overseeing the contract between WellPath and the sheriff's office, but I'm going to defer to Dr. Adam for some of that. So the MAT program has largely increased the amount of population that we're serving. in regards to what happens after they get released i'm going to defer to dr adams because she has more insight on that she's the county health doctor but they are set up with like you mentioned the 38 meds their an appointment is made um all of that is done ahead of time to just get our pre like work on their pre-release when they're getting out but while they're there they're still working through that program and getting those services and yes the supervisor catherine the chair and the program is

really progressed. I mean, it was already progressing when we started, but it's really a great program. And they've done a lot of work in the year that we've been here on the discharge planning. Matt Hamlin is the supervisor of the MAT program, and he does a great job at making sure that the patients have appointments when they are released and medications called in.

Great and I know when Supervisor Hartman and I hosted that jail health care workshop a couple years ago this was one of the primary takeaways is that we really needed to increase this program and so clearly that we've seen results we and it has 68 percent in one year but I just wondered if if it's possible to to track the connection between this program and efforts to reduce overdoses emergency room visits or reincarcerate reincarceration are you know the those who participate in the program are we tracking then if they if we see them again

Right now we're putting processes in place with CalAIM to be able to do that. There'll be a closed loop back to the facility as far as who shows up for their appointments, and hopefully down the road it'll be in overdoses, you know, how many people showed up at the ER. Those kind of stats are in the process of being developed as far as how we are going to do it.

Okay. Yeah, I just think it would be really interesting data to see if we do have an overdose and they did participate in the program. Not ideal, but the flip side, if those who did participate in the program are not going to emergency rooms, are not re-incarcerated, and are not experiencing overdoses, that would just be another feather in the cap of what a strong program this is and a sign of how important this investment is. I see assistant CEO Heitman here.

Please add if you'd like. Supervisor Capps to the chair. I can't help but interject into this because it's an exciting portion of CalAIM that I think it's a good opportunity to highlight. As part of CalAIM, there's a portion that's called behavioral health linkages. And it is the warm handoff, essentially, to those providers in the community. And MAT is a focus of behavioral health linkages to ensure that each of the individuals that, as Mr. Harmon indicated, are getting an appointment, that they're actually showing up at that appointment. So they would be the ones to help us make sure that that happens. Behavioral wellness is actively increasing that program. When the jail goes live with CalAIM in October, BeWell needs to be fully operational with behavioral health linkages. But they are using this time in advance to start their ramp up, and they are actively engaged in assessing, connecting, and beginning that data collection about who is actually making it to the next appointment. Not only for their medication-assisted treatment, but for their behavioral health care as well. Great.

Good. Well, that's interesting data to see in the future. OK. Well, my next question has to do with staffing, because I know that's also been an area of focus. And the report notes that there's been 22 new positions. And I just am wondering if these positions have been fully filled. And also if you can speak to vacancies and turnover rates for physicians. I know these are very challenging positions to fill, so I don't ask this question lightly. But if you could speak to staffing shortages and if those are affecting care, anything that, any lessons learned or challenges that you are really hoping to change in the upcoming year.

Supervisor Capps to the chair. So the vacancy rate right now is around six and a half percent. It's been fluctuating between five to 10%. uh which would say their vacancy rate is quite low they fill their positions fairly quickly when they do have somebody leave for you know whatever reason that they have a vacancy or created as you can see in the board letter that was submitted the numbers for the shift compensation has started to drop but also what's not in here is the next following six months of this year 26 it's gone down dramatically it's actually below the six-figure mark per month that they're having to give us in staffing credits for unfilled shifts. So they are making significant improvements in that area. And since those 21 positions was granted by you guys in the last contract, they have filled those positions.

Okay, great. So the 6% is this current year, 2026? Or that...

That's correct.

Okay, so that must be an improvement because I understand from the report 2025 there was 1.8 million in credit, so that must be more than a 6% vacancy. So we're making improvements.

Yes, that's correct. Also, the numbers don't necessarily correlate with the vacancy rate. It's more of the shifts that were unfilled. So if they have someone who calls out sick, goes out on maternity leave, and they don't have somebody that can fill in, those vacancies still show as a vacant shift, and we get a credit for that specific shift being unfilled. So the position may actually be filled, but if someone is out for whatever, vacation, sick, family leave, medical, whatever, that is still going to be a credit to us.

Okay. Okay, great. So the trends are moving in the right direction for 2026 in terms of staffing vacancies?

Yes, that's correct.

Excellent. All right, now my next questions are related to grievances, which again is a big category of this report and something that's been a focus on it in terms of the numbers. And I think it's hard for the public to understand how high the grievances are. And an area that I previously or that I learned by this report is that The person or the team that reviews grievances is actually outsourced, that is a contract, and I'm not sure if someone from the sheriff's office can speak to this, but I've sometimes made some criticisms about our county using contract workers for things that could be used in-house, but this is one concern that I have, is that sort of the complaint department is not internal when it comes to health care in our jail. And I just was hoping someone could speak to that. I don't know if that's CEO Heitman or somebody from the jail. Because to me, it would seem, I'd like to ask the question, if you're looking at grievances and an outside person and no disrespect to that person is the one sort of taking in those grievances, how then are those lessons learned and incorporated so that there'd be fewer grievances in the future? And is there a movement to move that entity, to move that process in-house?

Supervisor, caps to the chair, Tanya Heitman, ACO. The Sheriff's Office, specifically the custody division, is monitoring the grievances and they do have some staff that are tracking the grievances. But as you called out, there is a contractor that is reviewing those and is the primary contact with the family members or other loved ones that have concerns about what's happening within the jail. It was put in place many years ago at a time when the system was very different and over time it hasn't really evolved as much as we would like. We are in discussions now with the custody staff about shoring up grievances, both the tracking of them, the response to them, ensuring that grievance forms are available on tablets. There's a number of different initiatives ongoing around grievances. and I am discussing with them the possibility of moving that grievance coordination with the family members in-house or looking at how we can do that differently that will engage it more with our current environment and our current level of advocacy so that everything is fully aligned.

Yeah, I appreciate that. And I just want to make sure, I mean, the nature of my question is that the grievances are taken seriously and are incorporated into learning and planning. Because again, the vast majority of the grievances are deemed unsubstantiated. And I just hope that they're not sort of dismissed.

I agree. It's an important element, and I think it would be helpful for there to be more dialogue about the grievances. But I will say that there is a certain number of the grievances that are not sustained because they are multiple grievances potentially over the same thing, that when individuals are in custody and they're frustrated with the environment and everything that's going on, Sometimes they're making grievances over something that is not actually appropriate for a grievance, or they've submitted five grievances for the same thing and it's already been resolved. So some of it is legitimate, not being sustained because they're inappropriate. But others maybe deserve a closer look in terms of, doesn't mean that we did anything wrong, but that there might be opportunities for improvement, might be opportunities for further engagement with that inmate or with another loved one that may have more information.

Well, that fills in the gaps for me. That gives some context. And my last quick question is, I know that this board has moved to position county health director to provide some ongoing audits of health care in the jail. And I would like an update on when that next audit would be coming to the board.

Supervisor caps through the chair at the next. We did a board letter in March and our next one will be in September. And then moving forward, we plan to kind of align our

they'd have an annual report we would do an annual report as well i'm definitely putting you on the spot with this one but i just i'm hoping that that process has been productive um doing the audit yeah that's just the oversight and the process yes okay yes in the board letter it'll all be laid out but yes it has been productive okay and we have seen improvements

And I think that's something that we see across the system. What we're hearing is that the Sheriff's Office is very happy with the level of collaboration, the assistance that Dr. Adam and her staff are providing. There's a lot more beyond the auditing that Dr. Adam's able to do in care coordination, ensuring that the care that WellPath is providing in collaboration with, say, a local hospital is better coordinated and more seamless. So there's some very specific medical insight that she's been able to offer that is immensely valuable. And I think across the system, we can safely say that everyone's very pleased, including WellPath. They've benefited from her assistance as well.

Well, those are my questions. And again, a lot of really positive information here. And I just acknowledge how complex and intertwined a lot of this work is. And the fact that so many of the inmates are getting this medically assisted treatment with their addiction is just very reassuring. Thank you.

Thank you, Supervisor Capps. I think you stole most of my notes actually there, so that's great. I won't go as in-depth as I was planning on based on some of the questions that have been asked and answered, but I will go kind of in reverse order on the grievance process. So those numbers also reflect people who just, if they leave our system, like if they are released and their grievances,

then unsustained is that how that works or do we pull those out of the numbers because i mean those obviously are not necessarily addressed if somebody's transferred or or pulled out of the system i think lieutenant harman can answer that chair nelson it uh is not pulled out it's still looked at but if they were released before the grievance can be answered that's documented but it's still if there is an issue that can be fixed for future interactions or addressed that will still be logged and documented So there's still an internal process to all of our grievances. They're submitted to, if it's a medical grievance, it goes to the facility coordinator of the particular jail that grievance was received in. They review it, review the chart. They will document an answer or response, determine whether it's founded or unfounded, and then that will come to me for a review as well. If I have any questions or concerns, I'll go back and... look over it with them and then make the final determination. It's signed off and then it's logged. And so the grievance report that you guys are referring to from earlier, that's all that data collected and compiled after that. But each individual grievance does have an internal process and how it's handled.

So even if the grieve party is no longer and custody that still gets investigated all the way through or do you guys reach back out to that person and go through that or does that work?

There's not really a way to reach out to them once they're out of custody but we will still look at it and based off of what information we have try to figure out you know determine whether it was founded or unfounded.

Okay and just a discrepancy I saw in the reports is the grievance amounts were different between what the sheriff reported and what Will Path reported I don't know if there was a reason for those being different amounts I don't know if anybody CAN SPEAK TO THAT. I THINK THE SHERIFF REPORTED I THINK THE SHERIFF REPORTED 548 GRIEVANCES AND WELLPATH 548 GRIEVANCES AND WELLPATH REPORTED 507. REPORTED 507. SO THERE WAS A DISCREPANCY OF

Reporting error clerical error, but something to be looked at so there's some consistency Hopefully our numbers are the same that is something that's still I think some of the kinks are being worked out We have had to change the grievance process quite a lot since the Murray settlement and that is one of the things that's been a constant thing that's being reviewed and we're trying to correct and get better with a lot of that too is some of the I don't know if that accounts for all 30 of those or 30 some odd difference that an account but some of our grievances will get routed directly to our quality assurance unit for an ada purpose and that still falls under medical but if that's not getting routed to medical they don't know about it so medical is reporting on the ones that actually go to them versus which ones that we see as medical because if it's an ada it's still going to be a medical issue okay thank you lieutenant harman and i would actually just kind of where supervisor caps was mentioning about um a third party reviewing this you know i'm actually uh

I don't necessarily have a concern with that, but I do wanna see public health get a chance to review that. And because I think public health is kind of our ears and eyes into this relationship. I mean, I think that's one of the reasons why we put that in place. And I was gonna ask Dr. Adam with her involvement in the reviewing of those grievances.

Supervisor Nelson, or Chair Nelson, we are involved in the review of the substantiated grievances, so WellPath has a process, their CQI nurse looks, any substantiated grievance, it's a corrective action plan, and then that is brought to the MAC meeting, which is monthly, and then they go over the corrective action plan, and then we monitor the corrective action plans to ensure that they're enforced.

Okay, that's helpful.

I think, Chair Nelson, that you bring up a very good point, though, that we have an opportunity now with county health that we didn't have before that could reduce our costs as well as make it a little bit tighter and more efficient.

Again, I have a lot of confidence in public health, especially our Dr. Adam, who's been the main point person for the county here, to be able to, her ears and eyes and her team to review these on behalf of this board. Transitioning over to the vacancies, because that's been one of the areas I've been pushing on for quite some time. YOU KNOW, I'M GLAD TO HEAR THAT NUMBER IS COMING DOWN BECAUSE I THINK THAT'S THE START IS MAKING SURE SHIFTS ARE FILLED BEFORE WE CAN DELIVER THE LEVEL OF CARE. HOW MUCH HAS THOSE VACANCIES LED TO CLINICAL ISSUES, RIGHT? I MEAN, IT'S ONE THING TO HAVE VACANCIES AND EVERYBODY IS GETTING SEEN, BUT SOME OF THESE ISSUES THAT WE'VE HAD EITHER WITH THE REMEDIAL PLAN OR WITH SOME OF THESE GRIEVANCES, HOW MUCH OF THAT HAS BEEN DRIVEN BY VACANCIES. ARE WE LOOKING AT THAT AT ALL?

SO CHAIR NELSON, YOU ALSO BRING UP A VERY GOOD POINT THAT GOES BACK TO SOMETHING THAT SUPERVISOR CAPS ASKED IN TERMS OF THE ALIGNMENT OF THE REPORTING OF THE AUDITING FUNCTION and the timeliness of that attached to the WellPath report because as you're seeing today, you're seeing the WellPath report without the audit and really it only gives you one view into the system. When you combine it with the audit results, you have a much more wide view. and can see where staffing impacts particular audit areas. Maybe others are more policy driven or administratively driven. But as part of the auditing process, when there are concerns raised, WellPath will have an opportunity to indicate what their plan to remediate that concern is. And in the past, we've often seen that those were very directly tied to staffing concerns. So going forward, we do anticipate County Health bringing the next report, as Dr. Adam indicated in, I believe, September. really would like to align the well path annual report with an auditing report so that in the future you have a really good um wide view of the the situation and that the well path report comes within 60 days of the close of whatever period if it's a calendar year or a fiscal year either way that it comes more timely so that the board can see in more real time what has happened and how it's being addressed

That's great. I think what we're looking for is the whole picture. And I think that's the kind of missing piece here. But I mean, having Dr. Adam here is also important, because I think that that even when we have a report, we have her presence to and review here. So that gives me a lot of confidence in moving forward. So I'm satisfied with where we're at today. Looking forward to having that aligned in the future. And happy the progress that's being made. So thank you. All right. Any other questions from the board? And Madam Clerk, is there any public comment on this item? I should have asked that earlier.

Chair Nelson and members of the board, we have no request to speak from the public on A33.

OK. So this is a receiving file. Can I get a motion?

So moved. Thank you.

Second. So a motion from Supervisor Capps, a second from Supervisor Hartman. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thanks. All right. One more administrative item, if we will. And that is item A35 that was pulled by Supervisor Lee. Madam Clerk, can you please read that into the record? Oh, sorry, Supervisor Hartman. Look, deer in the headlights there, Supervisor Lee. Sorry about that. Please, Supervisor Hartman.

Chair Nelson and members of the board, administrative item number 35 is from the Social Services Department. It is to consider recommendations regarding a memorandum of understanding with Federal Correctional Complex, Lompoc, for the provision of eligibility workers to conduct informational presentations.

All right, thank you. Supervisor Hartman.

Sure. So I was delighted to see this. I see that the agreement goes back to 2015. And I just wondered whether the CalAIM work that we're doing at our jail is spilling over to the federal facility or if they're entirely separate. What do we see going forward?

At this point, this item is just to update the request of the federal correctional complex. Our ongoing 11-year process of going out to the prison complex approximately four times a year to provide information about our programs. We're not actually signing people up at those encounters and our presence there is at the request. of the federal correctional complex. So I imagine that there's potential for some things to move in that direction. But at this point, this is distinctly different in terms of the nature of the activity than what we're doing locally with the jail.

Yeah, so I would be interested in understanding more about that. I know people in the city of Lompoc, for example, that's where some of the people at the facility come and to make sure that they have the warm handoff and the supports that are needed as well. So how in our county system would we begin to explore whether that's a possibility?

I can ask the staff that are engaged in this project to try to find out more data related to how many of these people when they're released actually stay in our county. One of the interesting things of course is you know some of it's a federal facility so a lot of these people will be going to other parts of the state in which case what we're sharing with them on our visits would still be relevant but if they're leaving the state going to other places then it wouldn't So we can dig into looking at, you know, how many of the people when they're released stay local and then have that conversation about what more could be done to have them be more like beyond just informed, but kind of be in line for being engaged with services at the time of their release. So we can certainly pursue that.

Okay, that would be great. And I know that you're a short timer. So if you'll let me know who, you know who would be following up with this, then then I can be in touch because I think it's a really important thing to at least explore.

Right, yeah, and Assistant Director Rachel Lipman is the person that's, you know, over these programs, but I'll have conversation with staff to ask them to try to see what data we can get regarding, you know, where these people are actually going, just kind of not the people we're meeting with, but just in general how many people stay in the county versus go, and that would help us understand, you know, the impact any sort of further intervention could have.

Thank you so much.

All right, any other questions on this item? Seeing none, or Madam Clerk, is there any public comment on this item?

Chair Nelson and members of the board, we have no request to speak from the public on A35.

All right.

Move staff recommendation.

All right. Got a motion from Supervisor Hartman?

Second.

Second by Supervisor Lavagnino. All in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Motion passed unanimously. All right, that concludes our administrative agenda. This is now time in our meeting for general public comment. Madam Clerk, is there any requests to speak on general public comment today?

Chair Nelson and members of the board, we do have one request to speak from the public in general public comment, and we are going to Zoom with LaWanda Lyons-Pruitt. LaWanda?

Good morning, Chair Nelson, members of the board, LaWanda Lyons-Pruitt, representing the Santa Maria Lompoc branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, you know us as NAACP. I'm here today because my heart is very heavy. And my heart is heavy over the ice killing of Johann Sebastian Guerrero, age 26, yesterday in Biddeford, Maine. Mr. Lorenzo Salgado-Aroja on July 7th in Houston, Texas. And then lastly, I just want to acknowledge the death of 18-year-old Nolan Wells in my home state of Mississippi on July 4. To me, just these three deaths represent racism, racism that is being normalized it can't be normalized we will never let it be normalized and we're never going to be silent and we're going to speak out we should all be our hearts should be heavy we should be outraged all three people were human beings there was mr aroha smiling, celebrating his birthday with a cake in front of him. There was Mr. Guerrero saying to ICE, I tried to stop. This cannot be normalized. And then we have the Patriots, or whatever they're called, on July 4th, on Metro Subway, reminder of the past Ku Klux Klan with a young African-American woman there in the midst of all that. We cannot normalize eyes being at our jails, blocking our lobbies, blocking the doors. I know of one of our members and his wife who was at the North County jail and they were just doing hospitality with coffee and doughnut. I scooted them out of the way, actually lifted them out of their chair and moved them out of their way on county property. This cannot be the norm. ICE has a badge and they're supposed to be law enforcement. But many of us know we should call it what it is. They're thugs. They're glorified thugs. And they're killing Americans. Not just Americans, but our residents. And we need to be outraged. Thank you.

Thank you for your time. Thank you.

And that concludes general public comment for today.

All right. We will now begin our departmental item. And we'll start with the department item one. Madam Clerk, please read that item as a record.

Chair Nielsen and members of the board, departmental item number one is from the treasurer, tax collector, public administrator. It is a hearing to consider recommendations regarding California Municipal Finance Authority issuance of qualified 501 bonds on behalf of Step Up Housing.

Right. Mr. Hagan.

Good morning, Chair Nelson, members of the board. I am Harry Hagan, treasurer tax collector for at least another five and a half months. I am. So this item today before you is a TEFRA hearing or Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982. I just kind of try to remember that. Section 147F of the Internal Revenue Code provides the process for a qualified nonprofit organization to access municipal funds. Part of that process for you is for you to hold a public hearing, being the jurisdiction of where this project is located. And so this item was heard by the Debt Advisor Committee in June, and it was recommended that you hold a TEFR hearing so that issues that relate to this project can be vetted by the public or by yourselves. And so members from the project, Michael Potter is available in person, and Anthony Stubbs from CMFA, which is California Municipal Finance Authority, which is the issuer of the debt, is here also, or he's on Zoom, that can discuss any of the financing issues In summary, the financing is an amount not to exceed $60 million. The project is estimated right now at $45 million. It's located in Orcutt. And the most important piece I always like to remind you is that you're not responsible for the repayment of the debt, either legally or morally. That is the responsibility of the applicant, Step Up Housing in this case. And if you have questions regarding the project,

um or the financing representatives from both organizations should be available to answer those questions all right thank you uh treasurer hagan uh are there any uh actually any questions from the board at this point i i've got a quite a few actually so i'll get into them in a minute but i also want to see if there's any public comment on this item chair nelson and members of the board we have no request to speak from the public on departmental item number one All right, I guess my first question for you, Mr. Hagan, is the reconciling the request for $60 million versus a $44 million project and why such a large delta?

So that might be a question better for the project, the applicants. I can tell you that most of these types of things does have a cushion in case something happens. I think 83% of it is for the acquisition of the project. The rest is for either the reserve or for rehabilitation of the units. And I think the rehabilitation would occur as people vacate those units, but I'm, not the expert on this project by any stretch that's not our role as the county all right i guess i'll probably want to hear from the um

project i don't i don't know are you the potential purchaser or are you the representative of the current owner yes i'm actually from the california municipal finance authority thank you jared suzuki anthony stubbs my colleague is on vacation so i'm filling in for him um the purpose for the delta so the 60 million dollars is what we call a not to exceed amount and as mentioned the current project costs were around 45 to 48 million dollars and the reason there's a not to exceed amount is if there are unexpected project costs that arise, anything that would bring the total tax exempt bond amount above that 60 million would require an additional TEFR hearing. So we'd like to add a PERCENT CUSHION IN CASE THERE ARE UNEXPECTED PROJECT COSTS SO THAT WE DON'T HAVE TO COME BACK AND DO AN ADDITIONAL TEFFER HEARING. THE ACTUAL BOND AMOUNT THAT WILL BE ISSUED WILL BE SOMEWHERE IN THE $48 MILLION RANGE. CURRENT PROJECTIONS ARE SUCH THAT IT'S THAT NUMBER.

SO THE ACQUISITION PRICE IS $33 MILLION, BUT THEN THERE WILL BE ANOTHER $15 MILLION OF ADDITIONAL? I DON'T KNOW.

Hello, Supervisor. My name is Michael Potter. I'm the chair of the Board of Step Up Housing. We are a nonprofit organization mission statement devoted to creating and supporting affordable housing. This project Norwood, I'm sorry, this project in Orchid that we're acquiring, the total debt is going to be forty five point seven million. And of that, we have a purchase price of $33.2 million. We've got $4.9 million in plus little bucks extra with respect to reserves, both for the debt and including items that we're going to spend on the project. Beyond that, the additional funds are with respect to the debt issuance costs. SO THAT'S HOW WE GET THAT.

JUST FOR A PUBLIC AND JUST FOR A PUBLIC AND TRANSPARENT PROCESS IT'S A LOT TRANSPARENT PROCESS IT'S A LOT OF SOFT COSTS OF TAXPAYER OF SOFT COSTS OF TAXPAYER SUPPORTED BONDING SO I JUST SUPPORTED BONDING SO I JUST WANTED TO CALL THAT OUT. WANTED TO CALL THAT OUT. ANOTHER $12 MILLION OF SOFT ANOTHER $12 MILLION OF SOFT COSTS ON TOP OF THE PURCHASE COSTS ON TOP OF THE PURCHASE PRICE SO THAT'S WHY I HAD SOME PRICE SO THAT'S WHY I HAD SOME CONCERNS AS WELL AS NOT TO CONCERNS AS WELL AS NOT TO EXCEED. I guess a minor issue compared to what my bigger concern with this project is is that um you know this these units are ready um our market rate for the Orchid area is that my is that correct uh they it's a market rate project that is yeah it's currently a market rate project but the rents actually fall below the affordable housing numbers some of the ami numbers that you guys will even actually have to rent these out so actually by deed restricting it um we're actually going to potentially have rents go up in some of these categories right

With respect to this, we're going to put deed restriction on 20% at 50 AMI, 55% at 80% AMI. The rents from they we put on the regulatory agreement, think of it as kind of a self-imposed rent control. We're going to have a rent reduction on 33 units. That's 26% of the project for an average of 13%. and increase in other areas uh we could increase in other areas um as rents go up both 80 ami and 25 at market uh those will go up we project you know usually by cpi but they will be the 80 ami rents are going to be capped so 75 of the project at 20 at 50, 55%, 80, those rents are going to be restricted with respect to the allowable increase each year determined by HUD.

Sure, I understand. And my point is, and this is a point for the board, is those numbers are actually higher than the current rents? so i know this is different for the south coast where you don't have this problem but the current roads we're in right now are a couple hundred dollars up to about six hundred dollars below um even like section eight standards it's actually um in orchid our market actually works because we have a balance of supply i mean and they're still high for a lot of people's purposes but they're still significantly below some of these deed restriction numbers so this is actually where INJECTION OF AFFORDABLE HOUSING CAN ACTUALLY KIND OF MESS UP A MARKET BECAUSE NOW THESE ARE NOT AVAILABLE TO A MARKET RATE TENANT IN THE ORCHID AREA SO I ACTUALLY HAVE SOME CONCERNS ABOUT THIS ACTUALLY BEING A PUBLIC BENEFIT SO BECAUSE OF THAT ON TOP OF THE FACT THAT WHEN WE APPROVE THESE BONDINGS AND DO THE TEFRA HEARING WE'RE ACTUALLY I GUESS AUTHORIZING THESE TO BE POTENTIALLY MOVED OFF THE TAX ROLLS So you're talking about over $300,000 off of our property tax rolls every year that would come into the County General Fund or distributed between the county and schools. So I don't see a public benefit here. I mean, I know what your mission is, but i think that maybe makes more sense in a market where you have some out of alignment where market rates are maybe um above affordability numbers but unfortunately for you in this circumstance you're actually going to be raising rents by making it an affordability project which is a concern for me and my constituents okay so that's a concern

One thing, just because permitted rents under an 80% MI under a regulatory agreement could be higher than market, they won't be higher than market. Market is going to dictate with respect to what the rents are. So just because we'd be permitted to increase the rents or charge more, that doesn't mean people are going to sign up for that. And as I said before, immediate with respect to 128 unit project is 33% of the units will receive a rent reduction. As we go on in time, the reason we came up with this program in 2021 is because we saw communities where rents are going up five and six percent, and then some years they don't go up at all. This regulatory agreement is going to run for 15 years. So while the benefit today may be 33 units, the benefit in four or five, six or years could be the entire project.

what i'm saying is right now 100 this project for falls under affordability um in the county um under our standards that we just went through our housing element so again i don't see the public need to take these into a deed restricted situation actually i do think as a a what i've seen with a lot of these developers like yourself that go into these projects you do need to top up those rents to those affordability numbers to make the whole thing pencil and i get that and then you guys can use subsidies to do that so what i'm saying is a manipulation of our market in the orchid area that is obviously working so i'm all i'm all for these tefra hearings when it you know it's new construction where we're adding more inventory to our system but you're going to be taking off 120 plus market rate um units from my inventory in my community that's going to have an impact we don't have you know thousands we have maybe a thousand or so so it's a big percentage of our units that can be taken out of the market which is going to have other impacts across the board so again i can't make defining this as a public purpose and public good and so um you know i actually oppose this and i'll make a motion to do so um at the time that uh we proceed so ALL RIGHT. OTHER QUESTIONS? SUPERVISOR LEVINEAU AND SUPERVISOR HARTMAN.

IT FEELS LIKE WE'RE, YOU KNOW, LIKE, IN THE EIGHTH OR NINTH INNING HERE. TOTALLY. AND I'M JUST CURIOUS, LIKE, WHAT KIND OF COMMUNICATION'S BEEN GOING ON BETWEEN DEVELOPER AND DISTRICT OFFICE? BECAUSE, YOU KNOW, THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I'M HEARING ABOUT IT. I GOT IT ON THURSDAY AFTERNOON. OKAY. YEAH. SO, YEAH. I mean, is there a shot clock on this, or is there an opportunity for these two to sit down and kind of figure this out? I mean, obviously, we don't want to shove something into the fourth district that they don't want, that doesn't work, but at the same time, we're a county dying on the vine for housing, so... NEW HOUSING.

SO I'M WONDERING IF THE BOARD SO I'M WONDERING IF THE BOARD MIGHT WANT TO DO A CONTINUANCE MIGHT WANT TO DO A CONTINUANCE ON THIS. ON THIS. IS THAT AN OPTION? IS THAT AN OPTION? I DON'T KNOW IF THAT'S IT SO WE I DON'T KNOW IF THAT'S IT SO WE CAN HAVE SOME DISCUSSIONS BUT CAN HAVE SOME DISCUSSIONS BUT AGAIN IS THIS CONCERN FOR OUR AGAIN IS THIS CONCERN FOR OUR OFFICE THAT WE'RE TAKING OUT OFFICE THAT WE'RE TAKING OUT MARKET RATE AND HOW THE IMPACTS SO THERE HASN'T BEEN ANY OUTREACH TO OUR OFFICE AT THIS POINT. TO OUR OFFICE AT THIS POINT. WE HAVE THESE BIG PACKETS OF WE HAVE THESE BIG PACKETS OF MATERIALS. MATERIALS. WE HAVE A THOUSAND PAGE EIR WE WE HAVE A THOUSAND PAGE EIR WE HAD TO CUT THIS WEEKEND. HAD TO CUT THIS WEEKEND. THERE'S ONLY SO MUCH I CAN DO THERE'S ONLY SO MUCH I CAN DO IN A SHORT TIMEFRAME. IN A SHORT TIMEFRAME. USUALLY THESE ARE PRETTY We just usually approve a bunch of them. And maybe that's why the applicant thought that that would be the case here. But I think this is a difference one. I did talk with County Council whether we have potentially grounds to do that. And sometimes tougher hearings, we just have to approve them. But I believe that this one, there's actually enough here that we would have a legal defense and actually denying this one if we can't come to an agreement on what that looks like.

Yeah, I'm sorry. We have been in contact with the debt advisory committee. Right. And also, I did send a letter to Supervisors Nelson's office and your chief of staff on June 16th, offering to come down and answer any questions. I hadn't heard back, so maybe that was just a miscommunication that you didn't see that or weren't aware of it. We are in a very tight timeline. In the projects that we acquire in the real estate world, when they go to sell it, usually the market rate players will go in and have a 30-day due diligence and 30-day close if they're able to do that. then it X's us out. We can't perform. It's very difficult to acquire properties with bond financing. So again, the timeline is crucial for us. We were hoping that we could get the TEFR approved because we have a closing date of August the 6th, and that's going to be it for us.

All right.

got two options here and i don't know what the votes are going to be um and actually supervisor hartman you want to make some questions and i can well um yeah i'm i'm that this comes so late and that the applicant actually did uh reach out to your office gives me some pause but what gives me the greatest concern is um we have these hearings and um we don't have any review internally by our housing people to let us know is this a good project overall i quite frankly don't understand from the debt advisory committee perspective how much debt were allowed in our county how this is allocated whether so i think it raises some bigger questions for us going forward um and uh i'd like to see that addressed somehow i i feel like i want to ask staff and we don't have staff to ask about this it's not really our treasurer's job to do that kind of analysis of the housing impacts I guess I'm curious, it seems to me you're upgrading these units, you're not just buying them so that if the rents would increase for some of the units, then you're getting improvements for those. We don't know what's gonna happen with the pressures of The development at the base, the doubling of the daily population there, I assume it's going to drive prices up. So I'm really attracted by the deed restrictions going forward. I'm not quite sure what to do.

ALL RIGHT. SO GOING BACK TO, SORRY, SO GOING BACK TO, SORRY, WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST NAME AGAIN? WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST NAME AGAIN? MICHAEL POTTER. MICHAEL POTTER. MICHAEL POTTER. THANK YOU, MICHAEL. THANK YOU, MICHAEL. SO I'M GOING TO MAKE A MOTION TO SO I'M GOING TO MAKE A MOTION TO DENY IT OR WE COULD GO AHEAD DENY IT OR WE COULD GO AHEAD AND MAKE A MOTION TO CONTINUE. AND MAKE A MOTION TO CONTINUE. I COULD MAKE ONE OF BOTH THOSE I COULD MAKE ONE OF BOTH THOSE MOTIONS. MOTIONS. I DON'T KNOW IF I'LL GET A SECOND I DON'T KNOW IF I'LL GET A SECOND OR I'LL GET SUPPORT HERE. But would you want some time to continue? Again, I apologize if you reached out to my office, that didn't come to my attention, or else I would have been happy to have had further conversations with you. I don't know if it continues as the same thing as a denial for you for your financing purposes? It essentially is.

I mean, we're not asking for any... We're asking to implement a federal program with respect to the debt. We've lined up the capital markets that they would invest because of what we do in our product. They're investing in the bonds. So, and we're putting on this regulatory agreement that will go for 15 years. So I'm sorry we can't reduce rents with respect to 100% of the project from day one, but we can do just our little part.

WELL, MY FEAR IS THAT WE'RE ACTUALLY NOT GOING TO REDUCE RENTS AND SO WE'RE ACTUALLY GOING TO TAKE MORE OUT OF OUR MARKET, THE MARKET THAT'S WORKING. AGAIN, IF WE WANT THESE THINGS TO WORK, WE SHOULD HAVE A HEALTHY MARKET AND THIS TAKES THAT OUT OF THAT MARKET. SO I'M CONCERNED ABOUT THAT FROM AN ECONOMIC POINT OF HAVING SOME BALANCE THERE IN MY AREA. SO AGAIN, WE HAVE TO MAKE A PUBLIC, YOU KNOW, THAT THERE'S PUBLIC GOOD ON THIS AND IF IT DOESN'T ACTUALLY REDUCE RENTS LONG TERM OR, YOU KNOW, WE DON'T SEE THAT HERE, I DON'T SEE THE PUBLIC GOOD HERE. um i'll end up making a recommendation um chair yeah but do you mind if i do make my motion you guys can we can comment on the motion all right actually i'll go ahead and let's i'll go to supervisor caps and then supervisor hartman before i make a motion supervisor caps well i just had a question if there's any value to even just tabling this till the end of the meeting to have more of a conversation i just um

I'm just in an uncomfortable spot because this isn't in my district. Didn't dive into it the way I would have had it been. So voting on something of these consequences that's usually rather routine, I haven't had a chance to do.

Okay. Would my colleagues, maybe I can talk to the project applicant at the break and maybe get some more comfort. I'm not sure if I can, but would anybody have a problem with me just continuing to the end of the meeting? No, but I'd also like to know, so what is the plan? What's your plan for Knollwood? Right now, it's operating healthy, right? I mean, it's providing rents that are... Yeah, but it's for sale.

Well, somebody's going to buy it, right? We don't know who's going to buy it. It could be somebody that you don't like buying it and raises the rent.

Sure, but right now, the market works right now, right? I mean, that's the whole point. You know, their one bedrooms are $400 under the Section 8 numbers right now. There are two bedrooms are up under the Section 8 numbers by $560 a unit. I mean, so there's already the market and these are pretty, the market market's working and what i'm concerned about is this doesn't have public you know they're asking for us to say yes this is a public good for our market i'm telling you i'm concerned about that from a economic point of view when you take out those out of a mark they're not no longer market rate that impacts the rents you know um the subsidies that come into typically um deed restricted um it changes the market and so that actually may actually have the the inverse impact and that's what i'm concerned about and so that's why i I CAN'T MAKE THE PUBLIC GOOD DETERMINATION ON THIS ONE. BUT MAYBE I CAN TALK TO MR. POTTER OFFLINE HERE DURING A BREAK.

uh maybe make a suggestion if we can um tap for hearing with respect to the uh allowing public comment on this um if once we get through that and then with respect to the overall financing uh if the taffra is being concluded then i can have a discussion with any of you offline or after the meeting and if you don't approve it with respect to that then we won't go forward with the project because we're not going to go forward with the project if we don't if the county in which we're in isn't going to be supportive the rents they're going to go up anyway all we're asking is a regulatory agreement that would restrict those rents so if market goes up the rents go up or mark goes down rents go down next and that's happened in the san marco market recently yeah so market goes down that the rents go down under our program as well

I'm going to go ahead and continue this item to the end of the meeting here. Maybe I'll get a chance to talk to Mr. Potter on a break. So I'm going to suspend the hearing. Madam Clerk, or Madam County Council, can I just, as Chair, move this to the end of the meeting?

Mr. Chair, that's fine. You're just trailing it until the end.

Okay, I'm going to go ahead and trail this to the end of the meeting. Hopefully I'll get a chance to talk to Mr. Potter during a break. All right, so we'll go ahead and I'll trail that, and we'll go ahead and move on to Department Item Number 2.

Turn also the members of the board departmental item number 2 is from the community services department it is a hearing to consider recommendations regarding a consumer price index adjustment of the fiscal year 2026 through 2027 library special tax rate for County service area number 3 greater Kalia and this is in the 2nd and 3rd districts.

She young.

chair nelson members of the board of supervisors today you will be receiving a brief presentation on the csa library measure l special tax levies for 26 fiscal year 26 27. The Community Services Department annually coordinates changes to the CSA-3 Special Library Tax by the Los Angeles CPI. Measure L was a voter-approved measure in 1990 for library services delivery in the Goleta Valley. For 26-27, the adoption of this resolution, the parcels in CSA-3 will be increased by 3.2% the Los Angeles CPI for the calendar year 2025 per its resolution. This increase will result in total assessments of approximately $263,000, a $9,000 increase from the prior year. Staff recommendation are as follows. Adopt a resolution that confirms the report and adjusts the fiscal year 26-27 library special tax by 3.2% and determine that the adoption of the resolution is not subject to CEQA. This concludes my presentation. I'm happy to answer any questions.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Young. Any questions from the board on this item? Madam Clerk, is there any public comment on this item?

Chair Nelson and members of the board, we have no requests to speak from the public on this item.

All right. Supervisor Hartman, do you have a question or want to make a motion?

No, I was ready to move staff recommendation.

All right. Got a motion from Supervisor Hartman.

And I'll second.

Second from Supervisor Capps. Any further discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion passes unanimously. Moving right along, we'll go to Department Item Number 3. I guess this also Mr. Young as well.

Chair Nielsen and members of the board, departmental item number three is from the Community Services Department. It is a hearing to consider recommendations regarding fiscal year 2026 through 2027 ORCIT and Providence Landing Community Facilities District Special Tax Levy. This is in the fourth district.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Young.

Good morning again Chair Nelson, members of the Board of Supervisors. Today you will be receiving a brief presentation on the Orchid and Providence Landing Community Facility District Special Tax Levies for Fiscal Year 26-27. The Community Services Department annually coordinates changes to the Special Tax Levy for both community facility districts. ORCID CFD provides funding for sheriff, fire, parks, and flood services within the CFD. The assessment was unanimously adopted by the board in 2003 as a condition of development aimed to mitigate fiscal impacts to the general fund. Per the CFD's original resolution, the special tax is to be adjusted annually by the greater of 2% or the Los Angeles CPI, which is 3.01%. With the adoption of this resolution, parcels within the CFD will be increased by 3.01%. All right. Providence Landing's assessment was approved by the board in 2005 and maintains a 12-acre community park. With the adoption of this resolution, parcels within the Providence Landing will increase from $672 to $692 per parcel, a $20 increase. In recent years, Providence Landing has experienced increased park operation and maintenance costs, which is driving the need to increase the assessment for the first time in 15 years. the proposed special tax levy is adopted to if the proposed special tax is adopted 267 parcels will be levied generating approximately 184 000 for park operations and maintenance this increases this is an increase of five thousand four hundred dollars from fiscal year 2526. Staff recommendation are as follows. To adopt resolutions levying the special taxes, to certify the list of parcels subject to the special tax levy, including the amount of the tax to be levied on each parcel, and direct the clerk of the board to file the certified list with the county auditor controller. And then finally, to determine the levying of the fiscal year 26-27 ORCUT and Providence Landing CFD special taxes are not subject to CEQA. This concludes my presentation.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Young. Questions from the board? No? Okay. I have a few questions. In the Providence Landing Park there, so make sure I understand, and this is somewhat rhetorical, just I wanted my colleagues to get a little of the history here. The people who live in proximity to Providence Landing pay a parcel tax that pays for that park that's there. Is that park just for their use?

No, Chair Nelson, that park is open to all members of the public.

Okay, and so it's a county park paid almost 100% by the surrounding property owners in that neighborhood. Yes, that's correct. Do we have any other examples of that in the county? not to my knowledge i didn't think so i just was wanting to to check um and the assessment that they're paying right now it's been flat for you said 15 years essentially right so they've been able and so the relationship is a little unique so what happens is the assessment is is pulled uh from these houses and then they actually run a um Is it a company or a nonprofit? They run a nonprofit that runs the park, right? The neighborhood, you know, some of the HOA members.

There's a Providence Landing Housing Association that really takes in the funds and then decides how those funds are spent.

okay and then it maintains this park um and they do a pretty low number considering the the quality of the park the size of the park and whatnot and this also um just for um is also a big fire safety zone for the area it's got a huge public benefit but there's little to no subsidy from the county on that chair nelson that's correct okay and right now the rate is is set at something below what we could charge though too right and there is a there is a max rate um do you have that number by any chance don't have that number um offhand but i roughly it's about 50 okay so we're paying as well with 50 so um so even though we're making an increase this year it's significantly lower than the maximum that was described when it originally was kind of founded um lower than what people are disclosed when they purchase these properties as well that they're in a cfd so i just wanted to point that out and so we collect these funds and then we send a check to them and that's done i think by the 15th right they'll get that money by tomorrow, at least the first installment.

Chair Nelson, that's correct. All those documents are in process. As soon as this item is adopted by the board, we will process the payment to the HOA.

Okay, great. Thank you. And then shifting over to the Orchid Community Facilities District. So that pays for part of the Orchid Community Park, but also that's paid partly by the General Fund as well, my understanding. And then it gives money towards flood, a small amount. But a predominant piece of that goes to fire and sheriff. Is that correct?

Supervisor Nelson, that's correct. Fire and sheriff receive approximately 80% of these funds.

Okay. And do you know of any place else in the county where we, any residents that pay on top of their, you know, for additional fire and sheriff services?

Chair Nelson, we do have CSAs that

for fire and sheriff but not for not for fire and uh sheriff okay to my understanding right typically for public works libraries um streets things like that okay great well and again the reason i just kind of bring that up so i just want to get on the radar it's it's very unique the way it's done in orca it's um and then the fire piece was actually before the fire attack shift as well so you know there was so um something that's always been a conversation i'll just say is the fact that orc residents are paying multiple times for the same services where other places that doesn't necessarily happen um and uh so just just wanted that on the radar for other other people that are sometimes interested in these types of things i do know the board with the support of um the ceo's office and the sheriff's department we did move some of the sheriff's costs now into paying for the community resource deputy so that we're actually seeing actual net benefit of actually increased services in the Orchid area. So that's a change that's coming from these funds. And so I just wanted to point that out since I had that opportunity to. Again, it's an area I think that we should continue to look at, especially in the Orchid area, as we look at investing in that area where they do pay more taxes than other areas proportionately. Yes, it's disclosed when they buy their homes that that's an extra tax there, but it's also something where I think we have an obligation to make sure that services delivered that are commensurate to the taxes that they pay. So something that I just wanna always put on the radar. All right, with that, are there any public comments on this item? I have a question. And then I'll Supervisor Lovenia?

What does the county provide for that park financially?

Supervisor Lavagnino, if you would clarify. Providence Landing or Orchid?

Providence Landing or Orchid. Yeah, Providence Landing.

So... actually very little in terms of actual services. I guess just oversight and administration.

I was just looking at their website, and they were talking about that it's funded some by the county, and I was just kind of curious what portion that was or what.

Supervisor Lovenino, through the chair, Jesus Armas again. Largely when this project was approved, it was predicated on the CFD being formed to support those operating expenses and to reduce the impact on the county general fund. our level is relatively limited we provide some oversight and some management but through an agreement when the project was first approved the county agreed that we would effectively contract with the hoa to take responsibility for maintenance and as chair nelson has indicated it has worked well the hoa has done a credible job there we we think the park looks good One of the reasons why these are so different is these are the only two CFDs in the entire county. Now that may change depending on some activity in the South Paterson area, but this is a unique situation. It is not unique, however, in other governmental agencies. Cities and counties frequently rely on CFDs as a way of lessening impacts on general fund operations.

just a follow-up question who has insurance liability in respect to this particular park the hoa does so i mean i think that brings up a point that's something i you know will be advocating for in the future just um you know i haven't had the problem spending my entire time working with the board i inherited it from supervisor hartman after redistricting um but i do think that there's probably a good um reason for us to be greater partners financially i know that they you know try to run they run a tight ship over there already and they provide quite a bit of services that not only are they doing park maintenance they're also doing reservations and they're also doing additional um You know, they have 4th July out there. They do a lot of community benefits. This is not just for Providence Landing, but for the entire community. You know, we don't have a Parks and Rec Department, but they're the closest thing that we do have in the Vandenberg Village area. So I do think that it is ripe for additional county investment when times are better to help lessen the impact on the HOA as they manage this asset, county asset for us. So that's just an editorialization on my part. um what i did wanted to get to is it was there was there any public comment on this item members of the board we had no request to speak from the public okay so no item number all right so no public comment on this item um so again i'm okay with just uh raising by the cpi at this point for these two items um again it's something i think it needs constant evaluation it's some it's again a unique uh tool that we were using in the 2000s in our county that is unique to these areas and and sometimes um isn't necessarily equitable and something that i think we should look at as a county is to try to make sure you know if they're paying more that we we give them additional services for those types of things if they're already paying their property taxes on that as well so um just a general philosophy that i have that i hope that we can find ways to um really show um a commensurate uh uh uh action on the board an expenditure for what they're paying extra so with that also i would support the motion supervisor hartman

Well, I just wanted to underscore something I heard Director Armis say, and that is that we may have more CFDs given parks and trails under our housing element. So we'll have to think about this in a bigger context, but I'm prepared to move staff recommendation.

Okay. Motion by Supervisor Hartman. Second. Second by Supervisor Lee. Any further conversation on this? Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. opposed motion passes unanimously okay we're gonna go ahead and just take a five-minute break here before we get to department item number four All right. Welcome back to the July 14th, 2026 meeting of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors. We're back here in Santa Maria and coming back after a short break. And we're having department item number four. Madam Clerk, will you please read that item into the record?

Chair Nelson and members of the board, departmental item number four is from the Information Technology Department, Planning and Development Department, the Public Works Department, the Fire Department, and County Health Department. It is a hearing to consider recommendations regarding the progress of the Acela platform implementation and plan future updates.

All right. Thank you, Ms. Sherwin.

information officer and we are here my colleagues and i to provide an update on how the county is using acela software the county has been using acela for over 20 years i believe it was 2008 or almost 20 years i should say 2008 is when we first adopted acela and in the last six years um we have gone to move too quickly here go back one there we go in the past or over the last six years we have moved from the on-premise version of Acela software to the cloud version of Acela and all five departments that are using Acela are now in the cloud so that was a big lift to move to the cloud so that was A real win, I would say, for the county to move now to that platform. And so this morning you are going to hear from each of the different departments. We have five departments that use Acela. As mentioned earlier, Public Works, Planning and Development, the CEO Cannabis Division, County Health and County Fire are all using Acela. And so you're going to hear from each of the different departments on how they're currently using it. When they're finished, I'll come back up and provide a bit of a summary of the roadmap of where we're going with Acela in the next few years. So two years ago, what we observed was that each of the departments were using Acela, but there was a need for some improvement in regards to just overall collaboration. Overall, are we utilizing Acela as effectively as we could be? So we recognize that we really needed to form a steering committee involving all of the departments that are using Acela coming together on a monthly or bi-monthly basis to discuss how we're utilizing it, how could we more efficiently use it, how could we collaborate, just create better overall visibility into how each department is using Acela. So we did, we formed that two years ago and that's been a really beneficial committee to working again more collaboratively together on Acela. And so ITD is part of the other five departments where we sit in on that steering committee. And then in early 2025, what we also observed was that each of the departments were using different consultants or third parties to do some of the work with Acela, to provide some guidance with Acela, that type of thing. And we recognized that we really needed an in-house Acela expert to come in and look at how the five departments are utilizing Acela and making recommendations on best practices. And so we brought in, an individual from a company called Tech Systems who had a lot of experience with Acela, and his name is Orlando Mora. So he came in as a contractor over a year ago and has been instrumental in helping us better understand where we could go with Acela, how we could utilize it. much more efficiently than we had been. And so he is part of that steering committee and has also been working with each of the five departments on more effective ways of using Acela. So that's been very beneficial to have his expertise in our journey of using Acela. So that's been, as I said, very beneficial. Breakdown of the overall licenses. You can see that Planning and Development is the largest user of Acela. Over 50% of all licenses are assigned to their department, followed then by Public Works, County Health, County Fire, and CEO. So that's just a breakdown of the number of licenses, Acela licenses, by department. So I'm going to turn it over to my colleague, Lisa Plowman, who's going to give us an update on how Acela is being used in her department.

Thank you, Chris. Good morning. Next slide, Joe. So just some history on Acela. As Mr. Cherguen mentioned, Director Cherguen, in 2008, Planning and Development purchased the Acela software to allow for permitting. It wasn't online permitting, but it was a software that we used on premise. And that lasted up into 2022. And it was a self-hosted environment just for planning and development applications. And then in 2021, we migrated to the cloud environment, which was a big step, as Director Chergwyn mentioned. And then in 2022, in July, we completed that migration, and that was the fundamental step to allow us to move to online permitting. In 2023 of July, we completed the online citizens access improvements that had been working on. So we developed master applications both for our planning permits and our building permits, which facilitated the online permitting. And then in 2024, we continued to make improvements to the citizens access portal. And that included changing our credit card vendors to be compatible with the cloud environment, developing these on-demand permits, which you saw a well-prepared video by Kelsey. We have to appreciate that this morning. And then developed an automated system that sends notifications to applicants at different stages in the permit process. and then it also enhanced the communications between the county departments that review these applications that come through um next slide please So this is a slide that shows two different screenshots, screen captures. This is what the applicant or the public can see when they go into the Acela system through the Citizens Access Portal. On the left is a planning record, so that's a planning permit. and it lays out the different steps that have transpired. And the green checks are completed tasks and the hourglasses represent tasks that still need to be completed. So in the planning record, you can see that the application was submitted, staff was assigned and in this case you can see that the only two departments that actually need to review that permit are flood control and transportation under public works the other departments were not sent that application because they're not a reviewing department then on the right side is a building permit record same sort of setup you can see what has been completed and what is still in progress and so this gives the applicant the information they need to understand like which departments have completed the review and which departments are still in progress completing their review and so this this has been really a fundamental shift for applicants who used to have to spend time going to the different departments to figure out what was happening with their permits Next slide. So this next slide, this is a video and we have Mr. Joe Dargill here with us, who's our Deputy Director of Permit Resources Division. And he's gonna give an intro to this video and then present it.

All right. Thank you, Director Plowman. So earlier this morning, you saw a video that showcased the on demand permits. And this next video is really intended to build upon that and show the applicants view from the very beginning to the end of the process where they get an issued on demand permit. So I'll go ahead and play. You got the IT director standing right behind you.

Chair Nelson and members of the board, perhaps we could just come back to the room and planning staff is going to look for that video online played in another way.

sorry for the delay we have two videos for you so this is an important step i have a question so what yeah while we're waiting supervisor hartman

Yeah, I noticed that a number of the permits are to be over the counter, like water heaters and things. I recently had a water heater changed out, and I don't know if I got a permit or not. I mean, the repairman came, and so how do we sort that out?

Supervisor Hartman, through the chair, usually your contractor will OBTAIN THE PERMIT AND THESE ARE THE TYPES OF CHANGES THAT DON'T ALWAYS GET PERMITS. IT REALLY DEPENDS ON YOUR CONTRACTOR, WHICH IS ONE OF THE REASONS WE WANTED TO MAKE IT REALLY EASY WAS SO THAT PEOPLE plan for an improvement like this get the permit online and then be able to implement it so it's it but you know it just depends on whether the contractor pursues it and and do you have education programs out there i mean a water heater you want it that same day really um so i just wonder how widespread people comply with that or how they know anyway right yeah that's a challenge for us to track definitely are we ready

uh yes director plowman and members of the board the video is ready thank you

Thank you, Mr. Dargo.

Yes. And back to you, Director Plowman.

Yeah. If we can get that other video queued up, that would be great. So the next slide, if you can move to that. This just shows how we have steadily increased the number of on-demand permits over the last few fiscal years. And so as people are getting more familiar with the system, they're actually using it. You can see just this year, Solar app was one of the steps that we took to create on-demand permits. We've had 524 this last fiscal year. So that's great. Those are applications people can get online and the solar provider can make that happen in 20 minutes or less. Next slide. so there are some permits that cannot be on demand but they are simple permits and this is one example that we wanted to share with the board that we're consistently working to try and minimize the time it takes to issue a permit like this so this is a re-roof permit and normally you would think that should be an on-demand permit but there are certain circumstances where there are conditions attached to a structure perhaps it's a historic structure about the roof type and so the team has to take a look at the actual application uh to ensure that there isn't a condition associated with that we did have one situation it was a moody cottage and they put a metal roof on it and that was not permitted under the historic structure so um but this shows that we've we've been declining in the time it takes to move these through the system this next slide we talk about the future enhancements and our roadmap for this next fiscal year so we're going to continue to increase the on-demand permit types which include hvac heat pumps and window replacements those type of simple permits we are implementing an online inspection scheduling system standalone streamlined adu building application uh and then an online film permit application uh the next item is e pre-permit hub or what we call our digital plan um room and this is and you can move to the next slide um thank you So this really is an enhancement of a system that we had put in place when we moved to the on-cloud version of Acela. Acela did not have this product available yet and so we were working with other software but this product ePermit Hub is really going to refine the process and improve it I think significantly and this has to do with our joint plan review between all departments. So we decided to move to ePermit Hub. We kicked that off in April of this year, following board approval of our contract. We're expected to go live in March of 2027. And the benefits of this system, and we have a video showing you what it's going to be like for the plan reviewers, but it allows for digital file validation, meaning it automatically validates the files that have been submitted by the applicant to the county. um it controls the sheet version so it makes sure that each department is reviewing the same set of plans before we had an online system you you didn't know which department had which set of plans and that could complicate things it increases the transparency with the joint review of the departments um because you can see the comments that are being made by other departments and then it allows for automated publishing which means you can stamp the plans in the software and then the conditions that will be visible to the field inspectors on this on the plan set and the applicant team And this, so the next slide is the video that we wanted to share with you of what ePermit Hub environment is like. And this is an example of what our plan reviewers will be able to see.

So if you could play that, please.

I realize that video moves pretty quickly, but it does. And that's some pretty jazzy music. But the last part of that video shows how the applicants can go into that environment and answer the questions that are posed by the plan reviewers. And I think that's a very useful tool for the communication back and forth. And with that, I would like to turn it over to Mr. Chris Sneddon, Director of Public Works.

Hi, good morning chair, members of the board.

Oh, there we go.

in public works we did start off working in the planning and development platform years ago and then in 2021 we developed our own module for flood control for development review and those were it works together with the planning and development platform but it has technical resources and things that we use in water resources specifically and it's developed for our workflows We then used that to branch out in 2024 and developed a module for transportation. And in that module, we actually folded in not just development review, but all of our encroachment permits and other permit types. And then our surveyor, we implemented that module last year. And so with that, all of our divisions are up and fully running, and we're moving into kind of the fine-tuning mode of our Acela implementation. and the the improvements are similar to the things that lisa just talked about a lot of the improvements and the way we really think about it is in terms of customer service and communication and transparency that's like one big uh benefit to this acela implementation and something we want to keep on our mind as we improve it The other thing is efficiencies, building in efficiencies wherever we can. And then the data, using the data that's given in the system to improve what we do. So if you look at the graph on the right, you can see there's a pretty tremendous number of permits that we're having our system at any given time. And so that's a lot of different customers that we have the opportunity to have a good experience with the county and to try and make their experience better with the county. and so we we keep that in the front of our mind as we're developing our workflows the other thing is with these numbers is even if you're making a small efficiency improvement if you times it by the number of applications that you have in that can be a huge efficiency saving for the county as well and that's also what we keep in mind as we look uh forward to the future yeah is again keeping in mind ways that we can improve all these aspects of what we're delivering particularly with efficiencies and the communication tools and so in data so like looking at the right we can have different kinds of reports different kind of performance metrics that we set up or key performance indicators and then acela will give us reports on how we're doing on that The other thing on efficiency and customer experience is trying to eliminate that kind of lost time or those gaps when an application is sitting in somebody's court and it could be moving. And if you go to 10 years ago and people used to walk in with 12 printed out plan sets and go to multiple buildings and drop those off and get comments back there was a lot of lost time and figuring out where things were and at what stage the permit was in so we're really trying to eliminate those both internally where it is with the different departments as well as is it in the applicant's court or is it in the county's court and these kind of workflows and visualization tools are really good for that to make sure that we're not having miscommunications or lost time on applications that they're always kind of moving. the future items in terms of e-permit hub mobile apps gis those types of things the the resources that chris talked about earlier in terms of having a dedicated fixed resource who can implement things consistently across the department and can know exactly how we're doing what we do so that They can make targeted improvements that are customized to specifically what the county does is really critical for what we're doing. So we're looking forward to using those resources to continue to improve efficiency and workflows and automation and reduce redundancy and all those great things that this program can do. And with that, I'm gonna turn it over to the fire chief to talk about their department.

Before we go over to Chief Huff, so you had that E-Permit Hub as a future item. So where are we at with the implementation for planning and Public Works with E-Permit Hub?

So as was noted on the slide, we kicked it off in March of this year and we expect to have it fully implemented, or we kicked it off in April and we have it fully implemented in March of 2027. that's okay for your department is that that's for all departments that's for planning and development that's for planning and development and then i i know public works is also investing in e-permit hub and i'm not sure what their schedule is exactly okay yeah what i should say is they will be working in our environment so all the reviewing departments will have access to e-permit hub when they're reviewing planning applications Public Works will be using ePermit Hub for applications that are specific to Public Works.

Yeah, Chair Nelson, and on a similar timeline.

Okay, thank you. Yeah, thanks, Andy. Okay, go ahead, Chief Huff. Good morning.

So this has been much more than a software platform. It's been a real transformation to the fire prevention division throughout in the way we do business. We used to operate very much in a silo. In 2023, we went online with Acela in the cloud version internally. We did this so that we could get used to the workflows and set processes and get our staff familiar with the product. In 2024, we went live externally with the public. The online applications minimize the need for customers to travel into our offices. Applications can now be submitted 24 hours a day rather than during business hours. The system automatically captures required information, reducing incomplete applications and staff spends less time processing and doing logistics for reviewing plans. In 2025, customers now have the visibility to see where they are in the process. That leads to greater transparency and fewer status inquiries, and staff can now focus on inspections rather than logistics. From a leadership point, people expect to interact with government the same way they do with banks, airlines, and even Amazon. This really moves us towards those expectations. Next slide. So in the future, future state, we continue to refine our processes within the fire prevention division. And the biggest thing I can say is in August of this year, we're gonna start accepting credit cards via this platform for all permits and fees within the fire department. And that's a significant change for us. We also utilize this platform for the three cities that we serve. So there's a lot more than just the county. It's actually interfacing with all of our cities. And that's all I have. I'm gonna now hand it over to Lars Siefert from County Health.

Good morning. The County Health Department Environmental Health Services has also migrated to Acela for its permitting, inspection and billing management. While EHS is currently on a separate instance of Acela, the platform is the same as the remainder of the county departments and programs and retains the same customer experience overall.

Next slide.

Since 2002, Environmental Health Services was utilizing Envision Connect, now considered a legacy Acela product. EHS migrated to the Acela Civic platform in May of 2023, and we currently manage approximately 128,000 legacy permit records in our database, going back for quite some time. EHS has continued to implement product improvements with the goal of allowing all applicants to interface with the system and to create uniformity in the applicant experience across the county and that's where we're really pleased with the process that we're all coming together and really increasing the visibility and also the connectivity across departments. Next slide. There are currently a couple of unique aspects to the environmental health version that are still outstanding due to work process flows and state requirements, and I'd like to highlight these for your board today. For example, many permit records managed by environmental health have specific permitting and ongoing inspection requirements under state laws, such as for our CUPA or our program that oversees hazardous material handling. public water systems that serve small communities, and for solid waste facilities such as landfills or other transfer processing facilities. A large number of these permit types of health permits are renewable permits, which is a little different, and these annual operating permits are issued and renewed on an annual basis, with some of our common categories shown here on the screen. EHS processes approximately 8,000 permits per year for renewal eligibility, in addition to reviewing other on-demand permit applications and plan reviews. Another quick, unique aspect of environmental health regulatory programs are state data reporting requirements. Most notable, the California Environmental Protection Agency requires that CUPA actually communicates its data, its acela data, directly with the state's environmental reporting system. So EHS uploads and syncs Asella inspections, permitting and compliance data directly into the state's database at least once every two weeks. So these are a couple of things that are just a little bit different from the other county departments and programs and why some of our initial work has been on a separate tenant or instance of Asella Civic Platform. For our on-demand, next slide please. For our on-demand and EHS plan review projects, we're currently coordinating these with planning and development. And as you saw on an earlier screen, the EHS plan review step is actually just built into the workflow process in the planning and development acilla platform. EHS has continued to support also processes for joint review of construction plans and we are seeking methods to integrate common project information where we can so that applicants have the most current information on their permit application review status and we think that's important for just that coordination across our permitting environment. Other enhancements on our near-term implementation plan include incorporation of County GIS into Acela Citizen Access, establishing opportunities for permit holders to renew permits and pay annual invoices. This would be a huge customer benefit, and that's something that we're striving to move forward as well. and to increase access to public information such as information about food inspections of our local food facilities. We want to make this information readily available to the public online so that they can have insight and eyes on things that are interesting to them and their health and environment. Also, we're standardizing our food and facility inspection checklist. Using Acela actually has given us an opportunity to standardize some of our processes internally, and I think that will be a benefit to the public as well. So this concludes the County Health Department update, and I'll hand it back to Chris Chergwyn.

Thank you, Lars. So I'm going to wrap up this with looking at the future. What's our roadmap for Acela? So go ahead and go to the next. Thank you. So as you already heard, Planning and Development is integrating ePermit Hub. And then Public Works is also scoping that as well and looking at how that could be used in their department. Like any software company, they're always coming out with new modules, new upgrades, things like that. And so Acela has what's called a public portal and an open counter, which just think about that as it's kind of their upgrades or their new modules. And so we are definitely going to be moving in that direction over the next few years. One of the complaints about Acela previously has been just the citizen access or the user interface of Acela has not been the greatest interface. And so Acela has really put a lot of development into that aspect of their software. And so that's what public portal and open counter do. They make that citizen user interface much, much better. The other thing that we're looking into is using AI as part of this process. So Acela will be implementing in the future AI into their software. That comes as part of these packages. But we've also spent some time, we've met with three or four other companies in this space that specialize in different aspects of this process using AI. And so we're just seeing what's out there and seeing are there tools out there that continue to improve on the overall process? And are we taking advantage of what's out there in the market today and in the next few years? And so we're We're continuing to meet with those vendors and making sure that our roadmap is really well informed and that we're heading in the right direction. Through all of this, though, you can see it's a software that's heavily utilized in the county. Prior to ITD bringing on an independent contractor to help guide us, it was difficult to wrangle all of this and say, okay, are we all heading in the same direction? One of the things that we're looking into right now is taking that independent contractor role and does it make sense to make that at some point in the future an FTE rather than an independent contractor because the amount of usage of Acela is only going to grow in time. And so it's a critical software application. And so we're looking at that. And then I already touched on AI. So we've been meeting with companies in that space as well. So that's what we're looking at over the next few years. We've made significant strides over the past few years. And I believe, you know, if we come back in a year or two with an update, you'll see quite a few upgrades and improvements in the overall permitting and licensing ecosystem. So any questions for us? Yes. Let's go back to the board for questions.

Supervisor Capps.

Well, I'm thrilled with this. It's really, well, first of all, it's just great to see you all integrated and talk about breaking down silos and working together. And this is just a tremendous achievement to provide such a advancement with having everything online. And I agree with Chief Huff. This is what the public expects. They don't really differentiate between how they order something in the private sector and how they expect their government to be. So thank you for striving towards that. I know it's challenging. So I wanted to start with speed because i think a major reason why we make this kind of hefty investment is for faster approvals and what i didn't hear yet is it does this track how your work improves both internally and externally for the user is there ability to do that so all of you or any of you could answer

Supervisor Capps through the chair. So it's a very good question and it's something we are monitoring. It depends kind of on the permit type. So yes, like the speed of these on-demand permits or the smaller permits, those move more quickly. When you get to a more complicated permit, that has a lot of factors in it. um in terms of like applicant participation in the process as well as what's happening among the departments but i think one of the things that's been really fundamental to this process is we've developed what we call service level agreements with all the departments that set forth time frames for which applications need to be reviewed and so we are tracking that and and then we work with the departments if we have a slowdown in one department because they maybe are missing a staff person we make them aware of the slowdown and so i do think it has increased the pace at which we can review applications and we're tracking the data so we know where to put the focus in terms of moving things more quickly so i it will I think over time just get better and better. And and I think the use of AI will really help us when we can bring that on board is I think one of the issues with AI and Chris hasn't had a chance to talk about this is the cost is quite high. In the in the with the companies that we've been interviewing and talking to the and the tools are getting better So we think the cost is going to come down and the tool is going to improve and so I think that will help As well. I don't know if any of other departments want to speak to this

SUPERVISOR CABS TO THE CHAIR. I THINK THAT'S WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT AND SOME OF THE THINGS THAT WE'RE WORKING ON IS GETTING EXACTLY THAT INFORMATION AND WORKING ON REPORTS THAT REALLY SPECIFICALLY IDENTIFY AREAS WHERE NOT JUST WE OR ANOTHER DEPARTMENT AT THE COUNTY BUT THE APPLICANTS, THERE'S AREAS WHERE THEY COULD SPEED UP THE PROCESS AS WELL ON THEIR END. SO THAT'S EXACTLY THE TYPE OF REPORTS THAT WE'RE TRYING TO BE ABLE TO GENERATE IN THE COMING YEAR.

So does the technology do that itself? Would it issue these reports?

Yes. So the technology definitely can do that. It can provide improved reporting. And the nice thing is that it's because we're all sharing the similar cloud environment is that we have access to the data in the different departments. And so, yes, software or SLA definitely can do what you're looking to do. i think the next iteration where ai gets involved is ai brings in the intelligence to early on detect things quickly right and then alert us say hey this needs to be changed uh and so i think we'll see further uh enhancements in terms of overall just the process when when a seller starts embedding more ai into their solutions sure like the applicants are slowing down on this feature or something i mean that's a basic yeah okay anyone else

the other thing it's going to help us do internally is set new kpis and performance standards which were outdated so we're we're in the process of you know it needs a little bit more time to kind of see where we're at but that'll help also it'll help us uh you know with staffing levels and workloads and all all these other things as well so there's more to come Right.

So my next question really had to do has to do with the user experience because and if you all have invested in how applicants or how your so-called customers have evaluated this. I saw in the video that Joe has gone through the process but has a non-planner, for example, gone through the process because I did see a lot of acronyms and I'm a foe of acronyms. But have you invested in that in the user experience to make sure that it's as user-friendly as possible and not through the lens of county folks?

Supervisor Capps through the chair. So we agree that the user experience is not what it could be. And that's one of the things we're investing in with Acela is that we want, well, they've committed to improving the user interface. I mean, I am a planner and I did apply for a permit through the city and the Acela experience was not great, right? So through the citizens access portal improvements, um and the um what we used to call permit wizard but it's going to be open counter that is going to change the interface and it'll make it easier i think for the general public to be able to come in and apply online and not be sort of pulled into a world that they don't necessarily recognize so yes that that's foremost in our minds is to make sure that it's as friendly as possible for the applicant. I mean, is there a process for feedback? Oh, we have a process for feedback. And I mean, Mr. Juggel, you work with the general public at the counter quite a bit, and you might be able to reflect on this.

uh yes uh thanks director plowman and members of the board so we we do get feedback from the public from time to time about a cella and i know we do yeah that's right and um there are limitations to the things that we can improve and then there's also things that we do have the ability to update and so we are working constantly to um work with our our folks and the acela folks to improve those and we we track any feedback that we get as well so that we can kind of know from short term as well as long term what changes that we can integrate into the system.

Okay. Well, I'd be really interested. It doesn't have to be a board item or anything, but as you're learning, particularly on those two fronts, just how review times have improved both for the applicant and for your staff, and then also, too, just how you're constantly improving the user experience. I just know I'm not in the tech industry, but certainly have friends who are, and just how much they invest in that user experience and constantly are iterating as things get more intuitive. And I just think we... it's one thing to make this huge investment, but if people are giving up partway through, we're losing. So I just would love to hear in our follow-up conversations about those two things. But again, my comments do not mean to detract from my overall enthusiasm for the progress here. Thank you.

Thank you, Supervisor Capps. Supervisor Hartman.

Well, it is great to see this kind of integration. I think one of the biggest issues has been for anybody applying for permit is the linear nature of it. And then you go through this process, and you hear here that you need something different that you didn't expect, and then you got to start over. So the e-permit hub, I guess, is going to be our solution to that issue. um and and so we're going to have it by march of next year and could you just elaborate a little bit more for me so i better understand and can explain to others that we're finally resolving this so supervisor hartman through the chair i think what i would like to say is migrating to the cloud environment

we have that process in place now where people can understand and see where their application is so that's been in place for a couple of years and that's really improved communication i think between the applicants and planning and development as well the other departments what e-permit hub is going to do is it's going to improve that make the user experience better for the people who are reviewing plans and then allow the different departments to be able to see the comments from the other departments it'll have preconditions loaded it makes it easier for our plan checkers to assign conditions or changes

to a particular um plan set i don't know mr dougal do you have something you want to add because you're working very closely with it uh yes thank you director palman so i think there are a number of improvements that e-permit hub will bring to the system uh i would start with the at the beginning when an applicant is uploading plans that interaction is going to be more intuitive and that it will the system is going to be able to identify more issues up front so that it doesn't go to staff first and end up in a resultant loop where it just back and forth. And so a lot of those small issues can really be identified before they click submit. So that is going to be an improvement. The other thing I would say about the staff view of the system will be that comments on plans as well as just overall comments for the project will be better communicated in a more intuitive fashion that an applicant can then see in a clearer way that then is responded to more directly in the system. And so when staff goes in and sees that an applicant has responded to uh say an incompleteness item or an inconsistency with code the staff can see how they responded and then immediately right then and there they can say accepted or rejected and so there is a clear chain of custody for each of the items and so I think that's going to speed up the overall process and make it more clear for for the public

So the example I always give was my own experience with an ADU or a residential second unit and getting my LUP and using the existing septic and then learning down the line I needed a whole new septic larger and two. So those things people need to know up front and I guess I'm asking is do they get that now? Is that e-permit hub? That's the exemplar of

what goes wrong with the linear process. Right. Supervisor Hartman through the chair. So today I think that problem has been mostly solved because what happens is the application comes now in online and it gets distributed to all the departments at the same time. so that those different departments can be reviewing and providing comments all at the same time. So it used to be a lot more linear in that an applicant would take their roll of plans and go to one department, the next department, and then the next department, and they would learn things as they went. Our objective is to try and get all of that information to the applicant up front so that they have that in their first round of review.

Okay, so the applicant will get the feedback, so they've got to integrate it in their own mind what that's all requiring. Correct. So one thing that I've heard some people say is, well, this requires new training of staff to be saying the chain of custody. And how has that process gone, and is it really working? I mean, it's a big change for employees.

Supervisor Hartman through the chair. So the department has invested quite a bit in training our staff as we've taken each step to improve the system. And so each time we make a change, we pull our teams together that are going to be affected by that change and we do a training. And so we're constantly monitoring that. one of the the objectives of developing the permanent resources division that we did is and putting mr dargill in charge of it is he is really overseeing a lot of that with the help of the other deputies but he he is sort of the point person as we're making this transition and so i think that's been helpful but we do invest a lot in making sure our employees understand the system and we just it's continually fine-tuning right

you know as we find a problem we then train our staff on it so to some extent the technology is shaping the workflow and and how we have to adapt and and i think in some ways that's a good thing so that's sort of internally um you think oh we do this technology and it's done but it requires a lot to go there's a lot of work that goes in behind it yes and uh and your coordination i think is really symbolic of what we're eager to see i guess the other thing that i'm just trying to understand more is it'll allow us to get more analysis and more reporting across the board about and about how time is spent and uh GIS where things are happening. And so I think, you know, considering the kind of reports we're going to want to generate will be an important aspect of this because that will provide the feedback and that will provide more information. to all of us about um you know how development and projects are occurring in our county i don't know if you could speculate about that at all but it seems to me like it's going to be um give us it's going to open new horizons i like this we're we're lifting to the cloud uplifting our our our whole operation

Yeah, I can briefly respond to that. So, Supervisor Hartman, through the Chair, the data is there. And so, really, now it comes down to what are the different reports that we're looking for. And I think each department is going to have their unique reports. But then I think there's going to be others, the board, you know, the CEO's office, that may want to see kind of a summation of reports. reporting and so it's really a matter of the technologies there we have the technology so it's a matter of developing those reports we've already begun the integration of gis into acela and so we're already starting to see some reports coming out from combining maps and everything into acela and so i think we're just going to continue to see improvements and more and more of those reports as time goes on

And I think building on something that Supervisor Capps noted, you know, a report card to the community or how we're improving things. I mean, I think that that would be really helpful, or we're expecting a lot of new growth in North County, you know, how we would track that. I think it gives us a tremendous opportunity to be more, to let our community know more what we're doing, not just on an individual permit, but more globally, countywide.

Agreed. All right. Thank you, Supervisor Hartman. Supervisor Lee, and then I have a couple questions as well.

Thank you. Great work. I'm very impressed. So my question is, is there anything we can do to speed up the film process? Is that a question for a different director or Lisa?

Supervisor Lee, through the chair. right now the the we transitioned the film permits to our development review division and they do get processed fairly quickly um but that this on-demand film permit is the step that we want to move towards so that it is even faster than it currently is good yeah thank you and there's a question for chief of is there a surcharge of using credit card payment is it three percent four percent on top of it

Yeah, I'm not sure. Let me check with the right hand.

Yes, it was a typical surcharge. I think we commonly charge .

Yeah, you need to speak into the mic.

for 2.95 for all the people watching on tv go ahead uh yes there's a common surcharge that we charge for processing in that 2.95 it seems like the number okay and the we'll be able to take ach as well so not just important and that's at 1.5 percent i believe good thank you for confirming that dollar fifty the one point five fifty k yeah thank you that's my questions

right thank you thank you for that yeah i think that's important to have the ach option i know that um treasure tax collector offers both and you pay for the credit card piece if you need to or you can use the ach is either free or dollar 50 is nominal so that's that makes a lot of sense well um i just wanted to um say that how happy that i'm that we are where we're at today um I was staffed before I got elected and I spent so much time chasing down projects. And it was always a lot of finger pointing. Applicant said it was the county, county said it was the applicant. somewhere was being mailed somewhere between south coast and north county and who knows if it was in the mail or not or whether somebody was just making that up as an excuse. Well now I think we have a system in place where there is some accountability for both sides and I think that was what hugely important. It's actually one of the issues that I had when I was running that said that this is something that I wanted to see happen and you know we got that started in 2021. I remember I met at that time with Director Plowman and Mr. Wilson and I was aghast when they told me it would take two years to implement this and now we're here five years later. AND WE'RE GETTING THERE. I SURE HOPE EVEN WITH THE E- PERMIT MARCH OF A GOAL WE CAN HOPEFULLY GET THAT SOONER. I THINK THAT'S A REALLY IMPORTANT PIECE IN THIS SYSTEM THAT WE NEED TO GET TO. SO I'M APPRECIATIVE OF THAT. TO GO ON THE THREAD THAT SUPERVISOR CAPS WAS PULLING ON ABOUT TRACKING THIS TYPE OF STUFF, WHAT I WANT TO EVENTUALLY SEE IS REPORTS ON HOW LONG THINGS ARE SITTING ON WHOSE DESK. know way that you improve processes is create a little competition you know and be able in accountability and some daylight i know when i have a constituent that asks you know what's going on with the project i go on there and i look at and i see who's that and sometimes our office makes phone calls and say hey you know how much longer should they expect and amazingly it's usually done that day and so things are sitting on people's desks and um you know and it just needs to be reviewed And I know everybody gets busy. But if we can tighten those things up on our level, that's going to be a huge benefit to our constituents and the public. And that's going to move the speed of business through as possible. If we can get rid of these roadblocks on our end, I think that's helpful. Are there alerts that kind of pop up? I mean, I think that's something that'd be really important too, is like if it's sitting on, you know, when it gets transferred to fire, does fire get an email saying that's there or if it's there for longer than a week, does it come back up? Are there tickets kind of, I mean, how does this system work? Because that seems like that would make a lot of sense to me on the accountability of just work management is that, you know, as soon as something's been there for five days or three days or whatever, that it goes, hey, have you reviewed this yet? And then if...

goes past a certain point does it go up elevated what does that process look like mr dangle uh yes mr chair so there are a number of of ways to track different um different tasks that that have yet to be complete so one of the ways is a filter system and that's the daily use that that users will go in and they see all of their different a list of all their projects that they have in the queue and so those and those can be ordered based on the due date and severity so that's the primary tool because it's the most user friendly for staff because you can just click in right there and clear the task review the plans get it done we also do have email notifications that can be sent out depending on the permit type So that does take a little bit more work in development of the like a scripting that the tech behind that. And so in some cases for on the planning side for like a development review case, if there's a discretionary permit, we do have notifications to staff for the Permit Streamlining Act 30 day legal requirement to get feedback out. within if you're within five days you get an email every day until that task is cleared and so that that is something that could be expanded further to other tasks it that's not the only task those notifications live on we have multiple tasks like that that notifications exist like that

I think that's where the power of this comes from is when you guys are able to get that back up. Because again, we're all busy and you're managing 20, 30, 40 projects. You forgot that one dropped off. It pops back up. I mean, that's where the ability to get some type of benefit. The other question I had was, will this allow kind of time tracking for staff? Like when, you know, when they're in the environment, that's when they're tracking their staff time, you know, we're very, very expensive. And so, you know, like a law firm often when they're working on a case, they kind of log in and they're getting their time tracked. And it also has that workflow. So there's greater accountability to their client. Is there any piece that we're going to have in here to kind of have some time tracking for our staff, our very expensive staff? Because I think it's really important for us to be able to see what that is. You know, you're paying $300 an hour. What are you getting during that $300 an hour? And so if you're, you know, working and opening that file, that's a big part of the tracking system. Again, that's what happens in the private sector. Are we getting some of that accountability as well?

Mr. Chair and members of the board. So, um, when someone is in the, the environment, there's a number of records that could be open at any given time. So there, there is not currently a tracking mechanism to show like, Hey, this, this, this planner or the staff members in this record for this number of time. But, uh, different departments do have time tracking methodologies in place in Acela. So, for example, the planning module for planning and development, planners log all of their time that's spent to a case to that case. And so in Acela, in the powerpoint slide that director plowman had up that showed the status of the planning and building permits if if you were to drill down into those items you can see the comments from staff as well as the the associated hours for that comment and so staff um that information is available to the public okay well i think that's really important something we should look at i mean we are the most expensive agency i think in the state on our staff time um and so it's really important to be able to show people

what they're getting for that time and having that level of accountability, not just writing it down. And, you know, so again, I think it's another piece that we should be looking for in a seller as a way to track that back to your actual charges that you get is that data sell the time. So all right. Those were I think those are my thoughts. Any other questions from the board? Madam Clerk, is there any public comment on this item?

Chair Nelson and members of the board, we have no request to speak on this item.

Okay. So I believe this is a receiving file, directing staff to work on recommended future priorities. I think the idea is that we want implementation of AI. I know I support everything that was up there that they were looking at that Mr. Sherwin had mentioned. Bringing on staff, I think having an analyst there that kind of looks over other departments, I think is really important. So I think we can adopt these recommended actions. Can I get a motion?

Move A through B on our staff recommendation.

A through C?

C. Second.

Second from Supervisor Capps. Any further discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you.

All right, thank you. All right, we're definitely behind schedule, but I think we can get to the next item before we break for closed session. So while everybody's transitioning, Madam Clerk, can you please read them item number five into the record?

Chair Nelson and members of the Board, Departmental Item Number 5 is from the Community Services Department. It is a hearing to consider recommendations regarding the 2026 Community Services Department Homelessness Update to the Board of Supervisors.

All right. Thank you. And if you're here for the solar item, that's going to be after closed session, which will be somewhere between, I think, 45 minutes to an hour. Just so you guys are planning your lunch break, that's going to be solar item will be after closed session lunch. So... With that, we've read this item in the record. Director Armas.

Thank you, Chair Nelson, members of the board. Jesus Armas with the community services department we're here as part of our annual presentation to the board regarding our experience and our efforts at addressing experience with and our efforts at addressing homelessness in Santa Barbara county we have in prior years provided a lot of data which we're also going to share some information with you in that respect but also want to highlight a couple of important initiatives that you'll hear toward the concluding part of this presentation WITH THAT, AS A BRIEF INTRO, LET ME INVITE OUR ASSISTANT DIRECTOR TO TAKE THE NEXT STEP AND ALSO INTRODUCE OUR COLLEAGUE.

GOOD MORNING, CHAIR NELSON, HONORABLE MEMBERS OF THE BOARD. I AM THE ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FOR SANTA BARBARA COUNTY'S HOUSING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DIVISION IN THE COMMUNITY SERVICES DEPARTMENT. Today I'm here with Jet Black Merritt, the County Homelessness Assistance Program Manager, and together we will provide your board an update on recent efforts to address homelessness in Santa Barbara County. In today's update, we will present the following information. First, that will start us off with an overview of the key trends seen in our homelessness response system over the past year. where we'll look at overall numbers, then Jet will dive into some specific subpopulations and talk a bit, I'm sorry, specifically about vehicular homelessness. Next, we will provide a snapshot of the funding landscape relative to homelessness programs, and then we will provide an update on encampment resolution efforts and an overview of encampment locations around the county. In our final segment, our team will present how staff proposes to reshape the future of homelessness response and prevention in Santa Barbara County. So first, let us present the larger trends we saw this past year in our homelessness response system. Because we explained in much detail last year as to why HMIS numbers provide the most accurate and in-depth method for understanding the true nature and extent of homelessness, I will not be diving into that topic this year. However, suffice it to say that comparing the two sources pit versus HMIS side by side over the years demonstrates a few points worth mentioning. First, the overall number of people experiencing homelessness in our county is far greater than unsheltered pit counts efforts convey. In January 2025, the unsheltered pit count results concluded that nearly 25 individuals should be the benchmark we use when describing how many people in our county were experiencing homelessness. However, a more informed annualized number provided by our HMIS system indicates that the real number is in a ballpark twice that amount. Second, we noticed the trend of an increasing unsheltered pit count number, while the HMIS data actually demonstrates a slight decrease in overall numbers through the years. So again, when making decisions on how and where to spend what is becoming increasingly difficult funding to secure for homelessness, it's imperative that we remain well informed and continually improve our ability to understand the true nature of it. Here we see the top five trends in our homelessness response system. As mentioned in the last slide, the good news is we have seen this 6% decrease in overall homelessness while Well, first, pardon me. Sorry, regarding the neutral trend, we're not seeing any noticeable changes in the geographic distribution of homelessness throughout the county as the overall numbers in each region appeared stable. I missed the second trend there, which is the number of people accessing services for the first time decreased by 31%, which is also a tremendous trend in a good way. Moving to our two troubling trends shown in red, the first is a significant decrease in the time that people are remaining unhoused after they are entered into our Coordinated Entry System, or CES. On average, the number of days people are remaining unhoused after CES enrollment is now 190, 190 days, which represents an increase from 134 days when compared to 2023. And finally, our last negative trend is the number of people transitioning into housing. While it's still fantastic news that just over 1,400 people have transitioned out of homelessness and into permanent housing during the past calendar year, which is a number that actually represents a slight increase when compared to last year, it is a 7% decrease when compared to 2023. So next I'll turn it over to Jet to discuss a few more topics regarding overall trends in our homelessness response system. Jet.

Thank you. So the chart on the slide shows a very distinct crisis and correction cycle over a five-year period for individuals accessing homeless services for the first time. HUD defines first-time homelessness as someone who has not had an episode of homelessness in the past two years. During the pandemic, emergency funding and eviction moratoriums acted as a dam, keeping vulnerable households stabilized. When those supports ended, there was an influx of people falling out of housing and entering the system for the first time, which peaked at over 2,200 people in 2023. The good news is what happened next. There was a steady decline from 2023 through 2025, as Joe has just mentioned. This downward trajectory wasn't an accident. Instead of waiting for people to enter shelter, we began to scale upstream interventions like shelter diversion and prevention pilots. This drop was also supported by the local rollout of California's CalAIM initiative. By partnering with SenCal, we unlocked healthcare-funded community supports to catch medically vulnerable residents on the brink of homelessness and keep them housed. Next slide. Next, I'd like to talk about the local system map. This visualization is generated through HUD's Stella Performance Platform, which is a tool designed to track how households move through a local homeless service system. Rather than looking at an individual or static point in time, Stella tracks unduplicated households over a multi-year period to identify specific service pathways. The exact combination of emergency shelter, transitional housing, and rapid rehousing that households experience before exiting the system and moving on to market rate or other subsidies. This map outlines the localized system pathways and outcomes captured through calendar year 2025. At the front door of the system on the far left, 2,735 unduplicated households were served within the homeless service system over the course of the year. From that point of entry, Stella maps how those households were distributed across different initial interventions. 66% of those households entered emergency shelter or safe havens, spending an average of 158 days enrolled. 22% bypassed the emergency shelter entirely and moved directly into rapid rehousing. 10% utilized transitional housing, staying housed for an average of 144 days, while 2% engaged directly from street-level homelessness to permanent supportive housing. Moving across the diagram to the point of housing, which is that dashed line about two thirds to the right, are the exit metrics. It took an average of 190 days for a household to successfully enter permanent housing after their initial system entry. This timeline highlights the systemic bottlenecks and the efforts required to navigate from crisis to stability. When looking at exits to permanent destinations on the right, the overall system exit rate to permanent housing sits at 32%, representing about 509 out of 1,610 total exiting households. However, looking at the data by specific Stella pathways, it reveals where the system achieves the fastest housing rate. Households that engage with rapid rehousing achieve a 71% permanent housing placement rate. Permanent supportive housing pathways yield a 43% exit rate to permanent destinations. Households exiting directly from emergency shelter without transitioning into a housing program only achieve a 17% permanent housing success rate. This confirms most households require dedicated subsidies before permanent housing can be successfully obtained. Finally, the bottom of the map, Stella tracks system recidivism. Among households that successfully exited to permanent housing, 8% subsequently returned to homelessness. On average, those system returns occurred within 100 days of exit. Ultimately, the Stella mapping process underscores that while the front door of the system faces heavy volume, the utilization of rapid rehousing and supportive pathways remain the most effective drivers for permanent housing stability. Next slide. So next I'll dig into some subpopulation details. This data looks at the percentage change within distinct demographics from 2023 to 2025. Over this three-year period, there was a 3.2% decrease in families with children and a 4.2% decrease in children overall. While we are successfully keeping families from falling into the system and moving those who do into permanent housing quickly. 22 percent spike in youth ages 18 to 24. transitional age youth many exiting local foster care justice systems or experiencing family instability are hitting our local housing market and falling out of stability traditionally adult services aren't built for them and this spike underscores the urgent need for more pre-housing loss youth specific models and supportive services as well as prevention in reach at local schools The older adult population grew by nearly 7%. This silver tsunami consists heavily of fixed income seniors who cannot keep up with permanent housing. Once seniors enter our system, their medical and mobility vulnerabilities make them difficult to house, causing them to stay in our database longer and requiring them to seek care out of the area and away from their homes. Santa Barbara County needs low income elder care facilities, of which there are currently none. On a positive note, our veteran population remained completely flat at 0% change, proving that when we have dedicated, sustained federal and local funding pipelines combined with a one-team approach, we can successfully hold the line. Next slide, please. Next, I'm going to talk a little bit about vehicular homelessness. which is also a growing demographic trend within our county, as I'm sure you're all aware. There's been a notable rise in vehicular residency and between 2022 and 2025 point in time count data revealed that the number of individuals living in vehicles grew from 675 to 962. Historically, the homeless management information system did not differentiate whether someone was living in a vehicle or strictly unsheltered outside, making the static point in time count the only available metric. Moving forward, however, vehicular status is being recorded in HMIS to allow for real-time tracking and reporting. County staff partnered with researchers from UCSB and SimTech Solutions to develop and deploy a qualitative survey in place of the annual point-in-time count this year. This study specifically focused on individuals living in vehicles who had not yet accessed traditional homeless response services. Field work was conducted by trained outreach staff at known vehicle clusters alongside a self-administered option. The analysis indicates that a significant portion of the population consists of working households facing systemic barriers to traditional tenancy, despite maintaining a stable baseline of income and a history of housing stability. There were several key trends from this study. Economically, these individuals continue to actively contribute to the local economy. Nearly 44% rely entirely on employment income, concentrated in low wage or informal sectors such as hospitality, domestic work, or gig labor. Affordability. The median household income for these respondents sits at $2,000 per month. While this provides a consistent financial baseline, it's not enough to sustain a home. The need for prevention. The data reveals a degree of prior housing stability. The majority of this population is not experiencing chronic lifetime homelessness. 50.7% transition directly into vehicles from traditional rental housing or even home ownership. This highlights an ideal window for targeted prevention and diversion interventions. And then there's the housing intentions. When asked to rate on a scale of one to seven how important near future housing is, the answers were evenly distributed with about one third indicating it was very important, one third were ambivalent, and one third said they had no intention of finding an alternative living situation. The traditional homeless system is primarily built to serve the most vulnerable, chronically unhoused individuals who actively present themselves for help. To address this growing vehicular population, support systems must be intentionally designed to realign with income realities, high housing costs, and flexible service needs. Resolving this issue requires affordable housing and homelessness prevention to become a core function across multiple departments. To this end, interdepartmental coordination of services and strategies has already begun, which we'll discuss later in the presentation. I'll turn it back to Joe.

So now we move on to our encampment resolution efforts. So after four years of encampment resolution efforts, totaling nearly $21 million in state funds and over $1 million in federal ARPA funds, CSD efforts have removed over 1300 total encampments across the county, 686 of which were on county controlled property and involving over 900 individuals who are living in those encampments. Of those 900 plus individuals, over 330 of them have achieved permanent housing. Here you can see the locations of known encampment sites around the three geographic regions of our county, South County, Mid County and North County. the orange dots represent vehicular homeless encampments and the blue dots represent traditional outdoor encampments and parks creeks riverbeds and other areas next we move on to the homelessness funding landscape so we wanted to show your board the current posture of our funding sources The dollar values you see here represent the value of all current contracts overseen by our Homelessness Assistance Program team by fund type and source of funding. Overall, we are currently managing $32 million in contracts, with $24 million coming from state grants, $7 million coming from federal grants, and a little over $600,000 from the County General Fund, which are specifically used to support warming shelters and shelter operations. As the bullet points next to each chart indicate, state funding continues to be appropriated only on an annual basis, which makes long-term planning difficult. This past year, new wrinkles have appeared as the directives that guide the spending of federal and state funding have become decoupled, requiring a lengthy legal analysis to accompany every grant application so we can properly assess and mitigate risk to the county before accepting or sometimes even applying for funds. But despite these issues, the tremendous funding landscape you see here represents the success and is due to our outstanding technical capabilities and tenacity of our homelessness program staff led by Jet here sitting next to me. In fact, just in the last month and not included in the totals being shown here, CSD applied for another $11 million in SURF V grant funding and just today, Your board approved when he asked for permission to apply for another $12 million in substance abuse outreach funding geared toward our unhoused population. And this substance abuse outreach funding is from a federal source with which CSD has never interacted before. So my point here is that despite the dwindling resources and growing political friction between federal, state, and local governments, our team just keeps our head down, move forward, and we've actually grown our grant base in the face of this chaos. So next I'll turn it back over to Jet to describe to your board some new approaches we are taking across the county to address and prevent homelessness.

So in addition to adopting the Homeless Management Information System's annualized data as the primary metric for reporting homelessness, CSD is strategically moving toward prevention and retention. The objective is to expand the current system from a traditional reactive model to include a comprehensive proactive framework of prevention, diversion, and housing retention, collectively known as PDR. Recognizing that early intervention is the most cost effective solution to housing instability, the strategic focus centers on investing in housing problem solving strategies. The goal is to stabilize individuals and families before they ever enter the shelter system or experience unsheltered homelessness. The program utilizes the standard Homelessness Prevention Assessment Tool, or HPAT. This tool objectively assesses how vulnerable a household is to falling into homelessness. Operationally, the prevention program relies on a coordinated network of countywide access points. This network includes the Bilingual Housing Problem Solving Hotline, coordinated entry sites, and targeted community outreach. When an individual or family in a precarious housing situation connects with one of these access points, they are directed to a Good Samaritan Homelessness Prevention staff member. This specialist engages in targeted problem-solving conversations equipped with the authority to offer flexible short-term resources to resolve the immediate crisis. however cutting flexible funding checks is only a small part of the prevention work using trauma-informed motivational interviewing techniques case managers walk clients through all of their options help navigate to more affordable units as needed and most importantly work to craft a long-term stability plan when a client is once again stably housed they're left with a suite of tools and resources so they can maintain that stability next slide This slide illustrates the operational flow of the homelessness response system in Santa Barbara County. So these are real numbers reflecting our system. It provides an overview of the shift that must take place to achieve functional zero. On the left, system entries average 230 individuals per month. This represents the continuous volume of individuals experiencing new or recurring instances of homelessness seeking services. On the right, system exits average 197 individuals placed in housing per month. While local programs and community partners work hard to maintain a steady rate of placements, monthly entries outpace monthly exits. Because incoming volume exceeds outgoing capacity, the system creates a substantial backlog in the center. Currently, there are 1,187 individuals on the housing queue within the coordinated entry system. These 1,187 individuals represent varying levels of acuity, vulnerability, and prioritization, all competing for a limited pool of permanent housing. As a direct result of this imbalance, the timeline at the top indicates that it takes an average of 190 days, more than six months from the moment an individual enters the coordinated entry system to the day that housing is secured. And you'll remember that number from earlier in the presentation in the Stella mapping system. These four metrics are what define the framework for us to achieve functional zero. Next slide. Achieving functional zero does not mean that all housing crises will cease entirely. It means the regional response system is structured to resolve those crises immediately. To reach functional zero, the current equation must be inverted and turned into what you see on your slide now. Expanding system capacity, specifically through permanent housing placements and targeted homelessness prevention is required so that monthly exits consistently equal to or exceed monthly system entries. By establishing this equilibrium, the metrics can shift. The average duration from system entry to permanent housing placement should drop from 190 days to 45 days or less. The housing queue should be more dynamic. The backlog of 1187 individuals is eliminated. The queue becomes community dependent, meaning it functions as a fluid short term triage registry rather than a long term waiting list. Functional zero does not mean a housing crisis will never occur. It means that when it does, the system possesses the immediate capacity to ensure the experience is rare, brief, and non-recurring. I'll turn it back to Joe to talk a little bit more about how we will achieve this.

So in our update to your board last year, I commented on the complexity of homelessness and alluded that staff was working on a better overall approach to address that complexity. More specifically, last year, I stated that many economic, social, and political factors converge to influence the ability of any particular community to foster an environment where housing can be attained and maintained by the majority of its residents. For example, cost of living, wage disparity, inflation, exorbitant property values, lack of affordable housing, drug proliferation and addiction, reduced public health and social services availability, all just to name a few. Most of the phenomena that start and grow homelessness in our community are simply beyond the scope of anything for which the community services department could provide meaningful solutions. So rather than establishing a goal to quote end homelessness, we found it more achievable and therefore more worthwhile to set a goal of making homelessness less frequent, more brief, and working to achieve a dynamic where the number of people exiting homelessness is at least equal to or greater than the number of people entering homelessness. A more succinct way of phrasing this concept is simply to say that our goal should be to eliminate chronic homelessness and achieve functional zero. I said this last year, and now we have adopted that mantra as our mission statement. But in order to set the path of making this aspirational goal a reality, staff realized what I mentioned a few sentences ago, that this issue is far bigger than CST. So in order to make a meaningful impact, we would have to enlist the leadership, resources, expertise and funding already addressing housing instability, food instability, as well as homelessness elsewhere in other county departments. We needed to identify what those elements are and then unify us into a team. So after eight months of high level discussions and planning, last month we received the concurrence of the department directors of the behavioral wellness, county health, probation, social services, and community services departments to establish a unified yet interdepartmental team to bring all of our county resources to bear in a synchronized way to prevent and reduce homelessness. The sheriff's office and public defender will also be playing major roles in this effort. Now, because there are still a series of policies and procedures that we intend to be developed and approved by the end of this calendar year, not too much detail can be described here today. But I do want to personally acknowledge the courage and selflessness it took for each department director and their teams to give up a little bit of individuality for the greater good and demonstrate an enthusiasm to participate in the Santa Barbara County Homelessness Alliance Response and Prevention, or HARP as we call it. To create a foundational structure, JET surveyed each of the participating departments and distilled down what their individual goals were when addressing homelessness from their perspective and used that to build the operating principle and goals of HARP. These four principles are shown here, funneling together, becoming the energy, structure, and language that will compose this effort. Because this is a receive and file presentation, we're not here today to ask for any resources. But I did want to take the opportunity to allude to some of the major coordination efforts we will be making throughout the county soon. One of the fundamental needs is a unified data hub. We do not want any single person to fall through our safety net cracks anymore. So multiple data systems have to learn to talk. It won't be easy, but the county has already started efforts along these lines already, so I know we can do that. We also plan to heavily leverage Workday to help us track and coordinate resources from a unified homelessness perspective. And I'm sure we can do that. And finally, although we do have the nod, so to speak, from the service oriented departments that actually affect housing instability and homelessness directly, we will be eliciting action from any of the support departments to better establish the authorities needed to function the way we think we need to in order to optimize every dollar and every day that we work toward this mission. So Chair Nelson, members of the board, thank you for your time today. listed here are today's recommended actions to one receive and file this presentation to acknowledge the required sequel considerations and as always we look forward to your questions comments and direction i now turn it back over to director armis for his final thoughts and comments

I would say there's a lot of information shared with you and I know the meeting is extending, so let me be brief. We're most proud of the effort and the success we've had in bringing the different departments together to break down the silos that have been discussed previously, to get a commitment and express commitment of working together. to look at how we can effectively jointly utilize existing resources to achieve the mission of addressing chronic homelessness and realizing functional zero by the end of the current period of the housing element. A lot of work to be done, but we think we're on the right track and we're very appreciative of our colleagues in the other departments and their willingness to sacrifice a little bit for the betterment of the community. Thank you.

Thank you, Director Armas. Questions from the board? Supervisor Capps.

Yeah, thank you. That's an incredible amount of information, and I appreciate the way it was presented. And I really appreciate working with you all. Your department is exceptional to work with how fast you are in responding to the public, often a public that has some concerns. Usually for my office, it's around encampments. But it just is a well-oiled machine, and the results So thank you for just, again, tackling such a challenging human issue that's based in compassion but with such professionalism. And I have to say, you know, this harp, It's actually a wonderful acronym of bringing everyone together. And I wanted to ask on that, and teeing off of Director Armis' last point of bringing folks together, are there outcomes that you're hopeful for in the first year of this? Or is it just merely getting everyone on the same page? Are you looking for faster referrals, fewer assessments, shorter times for outreach? Have you gotten that far in terms of some specific tangible goals?

Thank you, Supervisor Capps, to the chair. We're still working through some of the details, but I would say that sort of big picture objectives would be to recognize how we really braid the funding resources from each of the departments to affect a meaningful outcome. because often each of us will look at it as our individual resource and looking at joining them together is a pretty impressive opportunity to realize results without necessarily seeking additional resources. Joining them together produces a better outcome, we think. The other, I believe, is kind of an organizational cultural shift that will take time in terms of everybody beginning to view this as a collective area of responsibility, not an individual area of responsibility. And that's where we think we will realize some success. It's great that we have the director's endorsement, but we also need to make sure that at the line level we're all rowing in the same direction.

Yeah, I believe other jurisdictions have actual departments where they tackle homelessness, whatever they might call it. So it makes a lot of sense. And I appreciate this. I'm interested in this emphasis on prevention. It makes a lot of sense. And since I've been supervisor, I've learned a ton about how homelessness is really a housing issue. And so really that previous departmental item on faster permitting does actually is a homelessness initiative in large part because the more that we build affordable housing, we will be preventing homelessness. And we are building a lot of affordable housing. I'm particularly excited about the biggest affordable housing project that will soon be built in my district on Hollister, 253 units, I believe. But in addition to building more affordable housing, What are some other prevention strategies that you are most enthusiastic about that you would like to share or elaborate on?

Supervisor Capps, through the chair, I think what the county does as a whole in its essence is homelessness prevention. Small business support is homelessness prevention. Education is homelessness prevention. And so by elevating the concept of the homeless as an insular thing and expanding it much broader and saying everything that we do is working to prevent homelessness how can we work more closely to do that i think that's going to be one of the greatest achievements of harp is actually expanding what is homelessness and what could be homelessness

Yeah, that's an important point to often to think about. I mean, in the same way I would argue we're also in the business of preventing poverty as well. And especially now, too, just to editorialize, and you can certainly add to it, with federal funding becoming less certain, banding together is all the more important, if you wanted to add to that, how this potentially could save some resources.

And I think to answer you a little more concretely, by developing a unified data hub, as they've done in San Francisco and Los Angeles, we could have very targeted prevention efforts. We could say, this person has access food stamps, they're falling behind on their child support payments, and they're connected to our behavioral wellness system. they would be a perfect candidate for a homelessness prevention service, whether or not they recognize that they may be falling into homelessness. And so being able to offer someone services before they even think they may need them, I think we'll be able to really control the inflow into the system.

An example is having conversations with the Department of Social Service, who often is seeing the symptoms that were just described. And that gives us an early alert and potentially allows us to intervene at the front end rather than after the situation reaches a more serious level.

Yeah, that was the entire concept of HARP really was to bring together. I mean, we're looking at these different departments and to use a submarine analogy, everybody has these different periscopes that are sort of in one direction and fairly limited in their breadth. And as you said, like social services, they can detect when people are starting to experience perhaps housing and food insecurity and other issues. We have no aperture to see that. Behavioral health sees folks who are falling into issues that may lead them to homelessness, and we're only finding out people are homeless after they show up in an encampment a lot of times. And by bringing all that information together, and that's why we mentioned a unified hub of data, we can almost from sort of an AI perspective see those trends that are appearing and tackle them before they develop into homelessness, which is what we're trying to do here.

Yeah, and I wanted to talk about vehicle homelessness. Again, that's something that as we go out and about in the community, people are still surprised about how many people are living in their cars. And I think the majority of them are working. And we just did a wonderful event about the new family site, the new Dignity Move site that will have families living there, children. And again, had to... share the information with neighbors that these are not necessarily children that are on the streets and the parks, but many times living in cars or living with relatives. And I just am wondering if you can elaborate on the report, if there's anything from this report that will alter or change your strategies when it comes to vehicular homelessness.

Yeah, like Joe mentioned, we are positioned to respond to homelessness as a crisis. And so I think the tricky population for the vehicular population is the group of people who are there because they want to be there. They've decided that the math of living indoors does not make sense and they can live a fuller life if they forego paying rent by living in their vehicle. And our department is not equipped to deal with that we have lots of you know come inside we have shelter ways to serve people who want to be served but i think we're going to have to look beyond the services available through our department in order to address that kind of cultural shift where wages are just being outpaced by the cost of rent, so it just makes more sense for people to live in their cars. But we are going to continue using encampment response dollars as well as outreach workers and partnering with New Beginnings to reach those people who do want to come inside and do want to seek help because that's what we're able to do in this instance.

Yeah, that's a challenge. So you just mentioned encampments, and I just, I do want to use this opportunity to let the public know that they're There are ways in which if there's an encampment near your sports field or is it concern to you that we do have an encampment team, we do respond to constituents and it seems to be slightly more frequent maybe the word is getting out that we do have a response and I just again want to commend how responsive you all are and if maybe Joe you can walk through or what does that look like because again I do have some, there are some encampments near softball fields and uh and i so i get i've been getting some some requests to just you know some concerns and questions can you walk through the process of how you handle that and what the public can do if there is an encampment that is causing concern or at least questions

So ideally what we wanted to get to, and this sort of ebbs and flows through time in terms of our communication. So I think what we need to do is get, we have a flyer that simply has two items on it that people need to know. It's an email or a phone call, but generally email, it's an encampment response email that goes to me, Jet, and our encampment response manager. Catherine Soto-Vazquez is sitting there. And so when we get those emails, we generally will acknowledge response, you know, receipt of the email within 24 hours and then address the concern in 72 hours in some way, hopefully resolve it. Or it might take, if it's a large encampment, and we may take a little longer to address it. But that is the goal. And I think like when we went to, our team went to Lompoc and we were talking with their public safety commission about some issues and then we shared that flyer with everybody so everybody was well informed i think we just need to do a better job of getting that that back out to your offices so you could share them with constituents because really what's probably happening now is that If you live in Santa Ynez Valley and you walk out and there's an encampment across the street in a field of several people that you've never seen before, you're going to call law enforcement and say, what are they doing there? Or code enforcement might get involved. And all of our police departments and sheriff's offices around the county know to call us. They know our email, most of them. So we just need to make sure we circulate that information to those agencies as well so they can call us first or simultaneously with law enforcement, depending on the situation. But ideally, we would like to have that knowledge out there to everybody so they can contact us directly. And a lot of them do. I mean, it's nonstop with the emails. So we stay on that. But I do think that we, like I said, we sort of ebb and flow on that communication. We probably need to circulate that again.

Yeah, no, again, you're very responsive when we reach out. And a lot of times the constituents don't, you know, they're apologetic. They don't really want to, you know, be that person. But they also do have concerns and sometimes they're in the roadway or near a bus stop and it's an impeding and so i just appreciate how uh you respond with the right protocols that have compassion as part of it and and we do have shelters and we have places and and the right protocols so thanks for explaining that i do think it might be a good time to circulate that information so those are the all my questions thank you chair all right all right thank you super cap supervisor lead and supervisor hartman thank you can you um talk about the challenges and progress you made with rv encampments has new beginnings

been looking to places where we can ask these RVs to go?

I may ask our cabinet response manager. She manages the Surf 3 contract, but I can say that just RVs have always remained a difficult you know problem in the vehicular homelessness area because a lot of folks are just they're just more attached to them they are dangerous by nature if they're not well maintained they have you know very sophisticated electrical systems and other systems involved in them that if they're not maintained they can cause great harm they also as we know have they will have their own internal water and sewer systems that can spill out into any part of the community they park But the main issue is the size doesn't really, if we accumulate a large number of RVs in one space, we don't really have a place that would be amenable to that. I think in the county are acceptable to the community because of all the issues that I just mentioned. And the fact that people are very reluctant to leave RVs in particular because they do see that as their home. So we're kind of in this crux situation there. I really yeah, so we don't have a good solution for that one. That is something that sort of alluded us for for quite some time and I don't know if you have anything more Catherine if you want to come up to chair there and add, but that's something we're always thinking about and just have not cracked the code yet.

We do work with New Beginnings to identify new lots within different jurisdictions. So they are working in mid or here in South County in Goleta. They have space for RVs. It's always limited because of the size. As we've said, there's a lot of ordinances with oversized vehicles that create that limitation. But we've also, through the SURF programming, have been able to secure storage space. So as individuals with RVs enter shelter and or housing, we can store their RV as they're transitioning and are able to then let that RV go. I know, you know, other regions are doing better, mid and north counties specifically. We're seeing that reduction there and are still seeing high density in south county region for RVs.

Thank you. And how's the coordination with the cities and state? So you guys worked together.

Yeah, I would say through the multiple venues that we communicate with the cities, especially on our affordable housing side as well. We have consortiums and all sorts of agreements. We have elected leaders forum that we bring in members of the community. We usually will take this presentation sort of as a roadshow to all the cities. I think I met you there just before you came to the county. So we stay in pretty good contact with some, it depends on which city it is. Sometimes we're talking to the city manager more. Sometimes we're talking to sort of a code enforcement officer. Sometimes it's the chief of police. So every city I could give you the person that I talk to directly is different positions that they kind of take homelessness on as their their thing to do but um yeah we have i mean i feel like we have great communication with the cities um and uh as far as the state i mean it's as good as it can be it's mostly a lot of emails and and sometimes they get wrapped up in you know their their bureaucracy but i don't have any real complaints there's been some turnover i think and a few agencies up there but it's it's good they know who we are for sure and we know them thank you

All right, thank you. Supervisor Lee, Supervisor Hartman, and then Supervisor Lavagnino.

My first question has to do with the shelters and the practice of purchasing or reserving beds and that that is limiting our full use. I didn't know that that happened and just wondered if you could explain that a little bit more.

Supervisor Hartman through the chair. Yes, it's a practice that's not terribly common across multiple jurisdictions. We just had a new provider come into town and they were sort of surprised that that's how we ran things. But it's creating this artificial scarcity where our bed capacity sits at our bed utilization sits at about 90%. But we regularly hear from outreach workers as well as departments with reserve beds that they do not have access to those beds. And so there's some misalignment there.

So who reserves them and how and What purchase, what right do they have to them? How do we unwind that system?

So a bed purchase is based on bed nights, and it's done by county departments or external organizations. One of the external organizations that come to mind is Cottage Hospital. So I know community services typically through the SURF program will reserve beds, behavioral wellness for behavioral wellness clients, probation for people exiting the justice system, as well as Department of Social Services typically for their adult protective services clients. And so it allows them to say, these are our beds. No one will go into these beds except for our clients, and we reserve the right to refer an individual to those beds. If an individual is not referred to that bed, it sits vacant for that evening. And so that means that someone coming in off the street would not have access to that bed because they're not a referred client. And so the practice of reserving beds came about a few years ago, and it's almost like a game of chicken where if one department does it, another department has to do it. And then the external agencies have to do it just to make sure that they have beds that are available for their clients. So it's a it's a double edged sword where we have clients that are able to leave the jail and go directly into a reserved bed. But then we would have a BeWell client who would not have access to a bed, even if there's a bed sitting vacant. And so we're working across departments to create a county master service agreement for one specific shelter. And we're seeing how that goes and how we may be able to work this system where age service providers are still able to receive compensation for reserving those beds, but it's not at the exclusion of individuals who need those beds. And so it's an evolving system. But the concept of purchasing beds is not typically common practice across other areas.

Does money actually Does money actually change hands?

Yes.

So it's a benefit to us, so we don't want to give it up, but we want to figure out how to restructure.

Or a facility operator may factor that into their operating budget. We're going to have reservations of X number. We'll calculate that in our budget. and we know that we're assured payment and what is being described is trying to reach a better equilibrium where we have the capacity but not restricted use of beds such that they're not available when the payer is not even using it.

My next question is How many permanent beds do we need to be coming online every year to meet functional zero goal?

Supervisor Hartman through the chair. It's a very nuanced answer because if you think back to the slides, we have the four elements of functional zero. We have the inflow, the outflow, the number of days people spend in the system as well as the housing queue. And so to call out a specific number at this point, it would be an inaccurate number because we need to be able to get that number of days people spend in the system down to 45. Once we achieve that number, then we will know, all right, this is the golden ticket number for permanent beds that we need and shelter beds that we need. But until we get that number down to 45 days, we won't know our optimum inflow, outflow, or number of permanent supportive beds.

That's a terrific answer. Thank you. And that was an amazing chart. I guess my other question you intimate. I mean, I guess what I keep thinking how expensive it is to build and and you have a teaser in there that maybe our our short-term housing at in Santa Maria maybe these houses can become permanent and I just I get I mean I know the location couldn't but I just what is your most creative thinking about how we're actually going to get people in housing I gather some of these houses now have a lifespan of 90 years, 100 years. So, I mean, it's not the kind of house we think of as a residential unit, but it's better than living in an encampment and it may be better even than living in an old RV. So just...

Let me offer one observation, Supervisor Hartman, through the chair. Think of the project that Supervisor Capp made reference to a few moments ago. We're looking at the Cayo Real campus in a manner that responds to the needs of families over a longer period of time. And those units are viewed as permanent with a 55 year commitment. So we think that moving in that direction will ultimately be appropriate. The question, of course, will be what kind of funding is available to support those kinds of significant undertakings. The other is, as mentioned, better utilization and better management of existing resources. The discussion we had just a few moments ago about available beds can also help us in that respect. And then ultimately, where we emphasize the prevention side, that's where we're going to make the most progress. If we can prevent the condition of homelessness in the first place, we will have made significant progress.

so um that leads i guess to my last question or comment so our hmis system was upgraded and and now all the providers at least community people use that and now you're i at least in my mind you're going to develop something like an acela for for internally so that we better coordinate is that a good way to think about it

Supervisor Hartman through the chair. Yes, so right now we use the Homeless Management Information System as our system of record for homelessness. What was interesting is when we had the HARP meetings with manager level staff and we showed the same numbers that I showed you for functional zero, everyone in the room said, well, those aren't our numbers. And I said, yes, that is exactly the point. We want to know your numbers. And so what they're doing in Los Angeles is very interesting. They have a data hub that HMIS feeds into and DSS, their system feeds into it as well as behavioral wellness, as well as probation. And that hub is what their system of record is. And so the homeless management information system would not change, but where that data goes and how it interacts with other data generated by the county would change. And then whatever that future system would be, would be the system of record for tracking homelessness prevention and reaction.

And so I imagine there's lots of issues of privacy to work out and SenCal would be perhaps a partner as well at some point.

Absolutely. We do have the health care privacy concerns. There's also privacy concerns from the justice system as well as all the concerns around the funding that comes through the Department of Social Services. And so we'll be interacting probably quite frequently with county council to figure out how to navigate through all of those different privacy concerns as they come up once we move forward with this process.

so next year instead of the acela team we're going to see okay all right thank you supervisor hartman supervisor lavenino

Yeah, and that's what I was going to mention is that it's really cool that on some of these big ticket items that we've seen so siloed in the county for decades is that we're getting everybody on the same page. And so, you know, I don't have any questions. I just, you know, it's been a big issue in Santa Maria. And this team has really done amazing work and really just turned everything around where everybody It's actually hard now to go out and find an encampment somewhere. You got to know where to look, but it's just not in your face every single day like it was. And so it's great for the community. It's great for those suffering from this. And you guys just do amazing work. Really, really happy.

Thank you. I want to piggyback on that, too. I think that in the Santa Maria Valley, I think we're maybe the shining example. And I think that's been a combination of the work that you guys have put into it, but also a combination of enforcement. You know, we've called a spade a spade. We've really in this valley said, hey, sleeping outside is often trespassing or there are legality issues there. I don't think that it's legal to sleep in your car anywhere in this county. even if you're on private property and go to planning development it's not allowed to sleep in a car it's not allowed so i think you know party is setting that bar and that expectation and and it's not to do that because we're we're heartless but because we want people to move towards services we want people to get case managed so that they can move through that process and i think when we cut holes in the safety net and let people fall all the way through, is that's where there's a problem. And I think in Santa Maria, we've done a really good job kind of firming up that safety net and saying, hey, if you are experiencing these issues, you need to go and get the help that you need. We have all these services that we're bringing along to you. If you like them, they're available to you. If you're not, this may not be the place for you. And I think that's really what I hope that we can continue that mentality because we know that obviously housing's a piece of this, but also there's mental health and addiction piece. As was noted here, there's some people that choose this as a lifestyle. And again, we have to tell them that, I'm sorry, it's nice that you want that as lifestyle, but it's not legal. We have a social contract. We have laws. And I think it's really important that people abide by those. And I think that it's really important to distinguish the definition of homelessness, because I think that there's part that we're talking about here that are those that are encampments or in vehicles. But the definition is much broader than that, right? I mean, when you guys are looking at those numbers, you're talking about people who live in, multiple people live in homes, qualify often for being homeless. We also, you know, like multiple families, right? I mean, that's under the definition. We also have, obviously those that are in shelters are still considered part of our homelessness numbers. Is that correct?

Chair Nielsen, yes, to an extent. To make it more complex, there's two definitions of homelessness. There's the McKinney-Vento definition and then there's the strict HUD definition. McKinney-Vento is what school districts use and they count what you're referring to, doubled up couch surfing, that counts as homeless. For our purpose, it's literal homelessness. So people sleeping outside in places not meant for human habitation in vehicles or in shelters would be considered homeless for the numbers that we're able to count under HUD rules.

Okay, perfect. I think it's really important for us to make sure we know which definitions we're using when we look at those different numbers. When we are working on the vehicular homelessness issues, that's something that I'm, you know, it's kind of come to my attention more recently. You know, I think it's really important that we cite vehicular homeless shelter opportunities in places that are, you know, appropriate, that aren't necessarily near sensitive receptors, and also in areas where the need is, because, you know, something that I've noticed seeing some of our providers are maybe looking in areas where there's no homelessness now, bringing in safe parking programs and i think that that's a challenge you know um you know i think everybody wants to deal with what's going on in the vicinity but if we're transferring um you know i guess uh homelessness services from one area to the other i think that's that's problematic i think that's something that we need to be have our eyes on especially with providers is um really getting our arms around those problems um in a more strategic way than than just uh kind of passing um the responsibility out to different areas that are addressing those concerns for themselves um so i mean i don't think people that are communities that are addressing the homelessness issue in an effective way that the results should be just to also put more homeless services there you know i think there's you know i think we all have to be looking at that in a more regional perspective and i think that's important uh strategy So.

Supervisor Nelson, last year I think you suggested and your colleagues approved prohibiting vehicular parking proximate to agricultural areas. Are you suggesting that we should take a look at something that deals with safe parking in relation to sensitive receptor locations so that we are clear about where they can and cannot be cited?

it's concern when you look at it it's mostly maybe near a school um is something that i think we should be looking at as far as again where appropriate you know i'll be the first person to go fight for it and have a community meeting but i think it needs to be done in a strategic fashion i know that there's been some proposed that next to sensitive receptors um in the north county i think in the south coast and i think we need to keep an eye on those and maybe have something in place to direct those to more appropriate locations when possible right other questions from the board see whether your light's still on are you just okay um before we uh take make a motion on this uh madam clerk do we have any public comment on this item turn nelson members of the board we have no request to speak from the public on this item excellent well um i think that's because everybody has such good questions and it's such a great presentation nobody had any additional questions so uh any other questions from the board or from staff that like to um give any further comments to

If I may, Chair Nelson, I just wanted to express on behalf of our department and HCD division in particular, our appreciation to the board for the support you've provided both financially, allocation of resources, and assisting us as we embark on dealing with some very difficult and sensitive issues. It's clear that the board views this as an important community issue that needs to be addressed with empathy, but also clarity. And so we've appreciated the dialogue we've had with you. And of course, as I look at Mr. Horton, we can't be remiss in acknowledging the strong support we received from the CEO's office and making sure that this receives the attention it deserves. So thank you to the board and to the CEO's office.

Well, thank you, Director Armis, and again, thank you to the CO's office as well. With that, I'll go ahead and take a motion for staff recommendation, which I believe is received and filed with direction.

So moved, A and B.

Okay, second. So motion from Hartman, second from Lee. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes unanimously. right so we're going to go ahead and break for closed session here um before we break for closed session we'll be coming back um we may have the tefra finish up the tefra hearing before um hitting utility scale solar i've requested some additional information that if i have that in time i think we can get that one knocked out and then we'll finish up the day with utilities uh scale solar um hopefully so uh before we um at this time um madam county council can you please uh read out to us the items discussed in close closed session today

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the board. In closed session today, the board is scheduled for one item of anticipated litigation, significant exposure to litigation based on the facts and circumstances listed in the agenda, as well as anticipated litigation for deciding whether to initiate one case. and three items of existing litigation. Torgerson versus the county, which is the Santa Barbara Superior Court case, and then two cases in the Federal Central District, Flying Goat Cellars versus the county, and Sable Offshore versus the county. And the time estimate is between 30 and 45 minutes.

I think it's going to be at least to 45, so let's go ahead and plan on being back no earlier than 1.30. All right, welcome back everybody to our July 14th, 2026 meeting the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors here in Santa Maria. We're just returning back from our lunch closed session. Madam County Council, can you please report out from closed session on the items that we talked about?

Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the board. The board met in closed session on one item of anticipated litigation based on the facts and circumstances listed in the agenda, one item of deciding whether to initiate civil litigation, Torgerson versus the county, Flying Goat versus the county, and Sable Offshore versus the county, and the board took no reportable action.

All right, thank you.

we're going to go ahead and return back to our departmental item number one mr chair sorry i apologize the board did take one reportable action which is um the site the board did authorize unanimously to initiate civil litigation and although we don't report yet on what that litigation will be, but it becomes public after we have filed.

Okay, excellent. Thank you very much. With that, we'll go ahead and return back to Department item number one, the TEFRA hearing.

John Nelson members of the board departmental item number one just as a refresher is from the treasurer tax collector public administrator it is a hearing to consider recommendations regarding California municipal finance authority issuance of qualified 501c3 bonds on behalf of step up housing all right thank you if I could just

take the chair's prerogative as well as just this is in my district um i asked for it prior to um lunch to be continuing to later on in the day so i had a little bit more time to talk to um uh step up housing the potential buyer that's applying for um these tougher bonds um and i was also trying to work with planning staff to better understand what this means actually for a housing element or housing element inventory so i'm still getting some more information i'm going to still continue to work with mr potter i'm not yet to the place to be able to vote for it but I am a lot more comfortable with it right now. So I'm not going to be making a motion to deny it at this point or asking for a continuance if one of my colleagues wanted to continue to pursue it. I probably would be abstaining today as I work through some of the particulars with Mr. Potter. as we over the next couple days on making sure that I want to my goal here all along is to make sure that I'm protecting a market that's working and making sure that the rents stay competitive where they are and it's a healthy housing market in this in the Santa Maria Valley at least the unincorporated Santa Maria Valley that I represent so that's the goal that's I think we're both committed to getting that accomplished and so we're going to keep talking that through so just want to update the board on the discussions and as part maybe ex parte communication on the conversation I've had to this point

um so reporting that back out to the board i do believe i need to make public comment available if there's anybody in the public that'd still like to speak on this item john nelson members of the board i am not aware of any members of the public who would like to speak on departmental item number one but i will look to the audience to see if anyone would like to make any comments in regards to uh the latest all right so i think um

Mr. Hagan, I think you guys are still looking for potentially a board. You brought this to us. I think it's up to us now to take action on your recommended actions here. Is that correct?

Chair Nielsen, members of the board, that is correct.

Okay. All right. So we've had a robust discussion. and an update and now we have uh recommended actions um it's gone through a debt advisory committee and has been forwarded here to the board um yeah i'm prepared to move um a through c in our uh board letter today um but i would like to ask a question so

As Mr. Potter explained, I believe that that creates the authorization, but you can still have meaningful conversations about this.

THAT'S MY UNDERSTANDING AS WELL. AND THEY'RE IN A TIGHT TIME FRAME LIKELY THEY WILL BE MOVING FORWARD THE NEXT WEEK OR TWO TOWARDS CLOSING. THEY'RE WITHIN THAT PERIOD OF TIME THAT THEY NEED FOR CLOSING. SO IT PROBABLY THE EXPECTATION SHOULD BE NOT THAT THIS IS NOT GOING TO GO THROUGH. THE EXPECTATION SHOULD BE THIS IS GOING TO BE MOVING TOWARDS THE PURCHASE AFTER THIS DECISION IS MADE TODAY. SO I DON'T WANT TO SEND THAT FALSE OPINION THAT I MIGHT TALK THEM OUT OF IT IN SOME WAY SO I DON'T COME TO THE CONCLUSION BUT WE ARE GOING TO WORK ON TOGETHER COMMON GOALS TO PROTECT THE LOCAL HOUSING MARKET.

SO I HAVE A MOTION.

SO A MOTION BY SUPERVISOR HARTMAN.

I'M GOING TO SECOND BUT ALSO WITH THE FIRST OFF I WANT TO SAY THANK YOU TO THE CHAIR FOR KIND OF WORKING OUT YOU KNOW WE DO GET THESE TREMENDOUS AMOUNTS OF INFORMATION RIGHT AT THE LAST MINUTE ALWAYS AND SO THE FACT THAT YOU HIGHLIGHTED THAT AND WE'RE WILLING TO TO WORK THIS OUT I THINK SAYS A LOT. I WOULD ENCOURAGE YOU TO ALSO BE CONSTANT COMMUNICATION WITH THE FOURTH DISTRICT SO THAT THIS MOVES IN THE DIRECTION THAT WE ALL HOPE IT IS AND AS SUCCESSFUL AS IT IS. SO WITH THAT I'LL GIVE MY SECOND.

SO WE HAVE A MOTION BY SUPERVISOR HARTMAN AND A SECOND BY SUPERVISOR LAVANINO. ANY OTHER FURTHER DISCUSSION? SEEING NONE, COULD YOU DO A ROLL CALL?

SUPERVISOR HARTMAN?

AYE.

SUPERVISOR LAVANINO?

AYE.

Supervisor Lee.

Aye.

Supervisor Capps. Aye. And Chair Nelson. I abstain. Motion passes four with one abstention.

Thank you. All right. So that concludes Department Item 1. Thank you for sticking with us, Treasurer Hagan. And thank you guys for both for being here. All right. Moving along. Our sixth and final departmental item for the day is Department Item Number 6. Madam Clerk, can you please read that item into the record?

Chair Nielsen, members of the board, departmental item number six is from the planning and development department. It is a hearing to consider recommendations regarding amendments to the county land use and development code, case number 24 ORD 28, article 2 coastal zoning ordinance, case number 24 ORD 29, Montecito land use and development code, case number 24 ORD 30, comprehensive plan land use element, case number 26 GPA 5. coastal land use plan case number 26 gpa 6 and uniform rules for agricultural preserves to adopt the utility scale solar project

Good afternoon, Chair and members of the board. As Ms. Alexander indicated today, we have the utility-scale solar program for the board's consideration. We have Zoe Carlson, who is the lead planner on the case, Matt Hernandez. This is his first board hearing, so he is one of our newer planners. and Whitney Wilkinson, who's our supervising planner, and Alex Tettle, who's our deputy director. So I'm going to turn it over to staff, but I did want to let the board know that, you know, the department has taken us quite a bit of time to get here for a variety of reasons, challenges, getting consultants and whatnot. So I think it's been a long time coming, and I think we're glad to be able to bring this recommendation forward from the Planning Commission to the board. There have been some requests that the board will hear from outside parties about possible changes and we can talk about those through the process about what's viable and what's not viable based on our environmental review. With that, I'm going to turn it over to Ms. Carlson.

Thank you. Greetings, Chair and Supervisors. My name is Zoe Carlson and Matt Hernandez will be presenting with me today. We will begin with a brief overview and background on the project including the prior board's direction. We will summarize the proposed amendments before you today. We'll talk through the recommendations from the Montecito Planning Commission and the County Planning Commission. We'll discuss the environmental review for the project as well as staff's recommended actions. In 2014, the current utility scale solar regulations were adopted, which established a 600-acre utility scale solar photovoltaic overlay within the Cuyama Valley. And this overlay was created to allow for the development of a utility-scale solar project that has since been developed, as well as a subsequent project that left very little remaining capacity within this overlay for utility-scale solar projects. And in 2019, your board adopted the strategic energy plan which included recommendations for increasing renewable energy development, including solar. So in 2021, your board directed us to make the amendments to allow for utility scale solar in agricultural, public utility, industrial, professional and institutional, as well as coastal related industrial zones throughout the county. Your board also directed staff to make amendments to the uniform rules to allow for utility scale solar on land that's under Williamson Act contract. In 2022, after an unsuccessful solicitation for a project consultant, we did get a successful second solicitation for a qualified consultant to support us in preparing the amendments as well as developing the programmatic environmental impact report. And in 2023, staff kicked off the project through researching other jurisdictions' regulations for utility-scale solar and developing our initial framework. We did conduct outreach with solar developers, landowners, and other interested parties to better understand the range of interests for solar within the county. We also presented to the Agricultural Advisory Committee or AAC at various stages throughout the project. And they were supportive of solar on agricultural lands and were concerned about restrictions for solar projects that would supply power for onsite agricultural operations. The screen is not black. A particular concern with the AAC was an increased need for electrification of farm equipment and the need for solar to support that. Staff did also secure a $100,000 grant from the California Clean Energy Planning Program for the development of the ordinance amendments. The utility-scale solar project includes amendments to the land use and development code, the Montecito land use and development code, as well as the Article 2 coastal zoning ordinances. We also have companion amendments to the land use element and the coastal land use plan for consistency. And our package also includes amendments to the uniform rules to allow for limited development of utility-scale solar on both prime as well as non-prime contracted lands. A programmatic environmental impact report was prepared for the project that does require a statement of overriding considerations. The proposed amendments in all three zoning ordinances include a tiered permitting structure that would be created for both solar energy systems and facilities. And they clarify the permit requirements as well as establish development standards for solar systems and facilities that include battery storage. The amendments also clarify but do not change the permitting requirements for standalone battery energy storage systems. The proposed zoning ordinance do include amendments to remove the existing utility scale solar photovoltaic overlay from the land use and development code. I'm now going to talk through the permitting structure in a bit more detail on the next slides. So solar development is classified into three tiers with the smaller tier one solar energy systems and the larger tier two and three are solar energy facilities which I'll discuss on the next slide. The permitting structure for these smaller tier one solar energy systems did change as we went through the planning commission process and this slide shows the current proposed tier one solar energy system permitting framework. Tier one systems could occur in all zones and in the inland area they would be exempt from planning permits. Within the coastal zone they would still continue to require a coastal development permit unless they were mounted to an existing building in which case they would be exempt. Tier one includes building integrated and rooftop or roof mounted systems as well as solar canopies that allow for parking or some other use below them. And all of those can be of any size. Tier one also includes small ground mounted systems up to including half an acre on undeveloped areas or up to and including five acres on developed or improved areas. Staff is also proposing up to an additional quarter acre of paired battery energy storage systems for these types that would allow for a total project area of up to 5.25 acres. There are also restrictions on how power is used for certain tier one projects in certain zones. For agricultural resource management, recreation, residential, and mountainous zones, power must be produced primarily for onsite use, whereas in all the other zones, it could be used for onsite as well as offsite use. Although these tier one systems would in many cases be exempt from planning permits, they would still require building electrical, plumbing, and solar use permit. This slide shows the proposed permitting framework for the larger solar energy facilities. The tier two facilities are called community scale solar energy facilities and they're greater than half an acre and up to including 30 acres. Tier two facilities would be allowed on agricultural, professional and institutional and various industrial zones and would require a minor conditional use permit. Tier 3 facilities or utility scale solar energy facilities would include projects greater than 30 acres. And Tier 3 facilities would be allowed in the same zones as the Tier 2 facilities. However, they would require a major conditional use permit. For both the Tier 2 and Tier 3 facilities proposed within the coastal zone, a coastal development permit would be required. And for projects in the public utilities zone, both tier two and three facilities would require a development plan, and that would be in lieu of the conditional use permit. Both tier two and three facilities would be allowed on undeveloped or existing developed land and would be subject to various applicable permit requirements as well as development standards. Staff is not proposing a maximum size of utility scale facilities because there are various factors in addition to discretionary review that may constrain the size and the location of these projects. And Matt will discuss these on the next slide.

Thank you, Zoe. As mentioned, Tier 3 utility-scale solar development would be constrained by several regional and site-specific factors. Proximity to transmission lines and substations as shown on this map is one such constraint. While zoning may allow utility-scale solar in certain areas, development potential greatly depends on whether a project can connect to the grid in a cost-effective manner. Other factors may also affect whether it is cost-effective to develop a project. These factors include topography and other site conditions, environmental and cultural resources, geotechnical conditions, and natural hazards. Projects would also need to comply with development standards that I'll discuss in greater detail on the next slide. As mentioned, these amendments include development standards for solar that are more rigorous for the larger tier projects. These standards build on existing solar standards for utility-scale solar in the LUDC, incorporate applicable measures from the program EIR, and include best practices to improve consistency. All solar projects, including projects that are exempt from planning permits, would need to comply with applicable development standards in the zoning ordinances. These standards include site coverage, size, height, sensitive biological resource protection, and other requirements associated with paired battery storage. There are also standards derived from mitigation measures in the program EIR and from solar development standards retained in the existing zoning codes. For example, projects must avoid conversion of prime or important farmland where feasible and permanently preserve offsite agricultural land at a rate of one to one if conversion is necessary. Battery storage would be allowed as an accessory use to a solar energy project and would need to be commensurate in size with the solar system or facility not to exceed a quarter acre for tier one projects. In order to allow solar development on lands under agricultural preserve contract, amendments to the uniform rules are also needed. Staff worked with the Agricultural Preserve Advisory Committee, or APAC, to discuss and refine amendments to the uniform rules consistent with board direction. The map on this slide shows agriculturally zoned lands in green and those subject to uniform rules and agricultural preserves in red hash. This represents 68% of all AgZone lands. The proposed uniform rules amendments would allow limited commercial solar development on Williamson Act and farmland security zone contracted lands. The amendments also include solar related definitions, prohibitions for open space and recreation contracts and procedures for solar use easements. The table on this slide shows the proposed standards for prime and non-prime contracted lands. On prime land, solar development would be limited to 10% of the premises or 10 acres, whichever is less, with a minimum premises size of 40 acres. On non-prime land, solar development would be limited to 10% of the premises or 100 acres, again, whichever is less, with a minimum premises size of 100 acres. There's a minor difference between staff and APAC's recommendations for limits on premises size on non-prime contracted land. Staff's proposal is allowing up to 15% of the premises or 100 acres, whichever is less, whereas APAC recommended a more restrictive 10% standard, and that recommendation is reflected in the proposed amendments shown here. Staff presented both staff's proposal and the APAC proposal to the Agricultural Advisory Committee, and the AAC was supportive of staff's less restrictive proposal of 15% of the premises. Your board has discretion to select the APAC proposed amendments or different limits to the uniform rules as you see fit. Staff presented a previous iteration of the ordinance amendments to the Montecito Planning Commission. The MPC unanimously recommended adoption of the CZO and MLUDC amendments as originally proposed by staff and also recommended certification of the program EIR. The Planning Commission received comments from the Clean Coalition requesting fewer permit requirements for certain small-scale solar projects. At the request of the County Planning Commission, staff returned with revised ordinance amendments that downshifted the permitting requirements for a number of small solar projects. This included solar canopies, certain ground-mounted solar projects, and allowed a slight increase in the size of paired solar and battery storage projects that qualify as Tier 1. The Planning Commission also recommended a 16,000-acre countywide cap for Tier 3 utility-scale solar facilities. This would limit the total acreage to about 2% of total agriculturally zoned land within the unincorporated county. This proposed cap is not a requirement of the EIR and your board has discretion to change or remove the cap as you see fit. Staff also incorporated the changes from the planning commission made to the LUDC and CZO into the MLUDC for consistency as shown in attachment E of the board agenda letter. The county planning commission also recommended adoption of the land use element and coastal land use plan amendments, as well as recommending the certification of the program EIR. The county prepared a program EIR for the utility scale solar amendments project, and the draft was circulated in August through October of 2025. Future solar projects will be able to use the analysis of this program EIR as a part of their own environmental review. The final program EIR identifies significant and unavoidable impacts related to three issue areas, aesthetics and visual resources, agricultural resources, and cultural, tribal cultural, and paleontological resources. These impacts are primarily associated with the larger tier two and tier three solar projects. Because the specific locations and designs of future facilities are unknown at this time, some impacts would remain significant and unavoidable even with the implementation of mitigation measures. The final program EIR also identifies potentially significant but mitigable impacts in a number of issue areas such as air quality and biological resources. The mitigation measures identified in the final program EIR have been incorporated as development standards in the zoning ordinances where possible. Where not possible, they would be applied as mitigation measures for future projects that tier from the program EIR as applicable. Because the project would result in significant and unavoidable impacts, certification of the EIR requires a statement of overriding considerations. As required under CEQA, the program EIR evaluated alternatives to the proposed project. First, the no project alternative, the county would not approve the proposed amendments and utility scale solar facilities would continue to be allowed only within the existing 600 acre utility scale solar photovoltaic overlay. Staff worked with APAC to develop alternative two, which would limit or prevent the development of tier two and tier three solar energy facilities on lands that qualify as prime under the county's uniform rules. This alternative would also establish additional limitations for facilities on certain non prime contracted lands. Finally, alternative three would remove the potential for tier three utility scale solar facilities in the coastal zone. The program EIR identified alternative three as the environmentally superior alternative. However, it would not meet the project objectives to the same extent as the proposed project. The County Planning Commission discussed and considered this alternative, but ultimately recommended allowing utility scale solar in the coastal zone. Finally, staff recommends that your board make the required findings, including CEQA findings and a statement of overriding considerations. certify the final program EIR and adopt the mitigation monitoring and reporting program, adopt ordinance amendments to the LUDC, MLUDC, and CZO, adopt resolutions amending the land use element, coastal land use plan, and uniform rules, and finally adopt a resolution authorizing submittal of the local coastal program amendments to the Coastal Commission. While staff is recommending approval of the Planning Commission and Agricultural Preserve Advisory Committee's recommendations, the Board ultimately has discretion to make changes to the limits, such as the countywide cap on utility-scale solar development, as well as acreage limits for utility-scale solar on contracted land. That concludes our presentation, and staff is now available to take any questions that your Board may have.

All right. We have lots of questions, or maybe some of us do. Supervisor Hartman.

Yeah, I'm happy to start out. This started long ago and the world has changed radically since we started. One of the big areas where it's changed is the new field of agrivoltaics. And that is that with the design of solar arrays, it's not either or, it can be both and. And so you can mount the arrays higher, you can get them further apart, you can track them with the sun so that the plants can get more sunlight. So our EIR finding that it has an impact to agricultural resources, the Williamson Act, and the cap that is being proposed seem to come from an either or model rather than a both and model. I met yesterday with the Strawberry Commission and they told us how in Ventura, because of the March heat wave, that they're gonna be in the red this year. And because of the current heat wave, today's a great day for this discussion, um strawberries in santa barbara county are going to be lucky to break even the benefits of agrivoltaics is that they can reduce the heat stress and air temperature they can lower water evaporation they can provide more worker comfort and additional farm income. So I think we, I mean, you have to manage it well, and you can't, but strawberries are a really good crop that can be grown under So I just, I want to put that out there for us to think about because I believe this kind of marched forward without this knowledge and it's a new area. They're doing a lot of this in Europe but it is particularly well suited for strawberries that like cooler climates and we're seeing warmer climates here and it is our biggest agricultural crop. So I don't know if anybody has any thoughts about that but that's where I'm coming from.

uh supervisor hartman through the chair um agrivoltaic certainly came up in the consideration and preparation of the eir and also drafting of the uniform rules on ag preserve and and as you noted it is sort of an evolving and and somewhat of a newer technology or approach so i don't think we saw enough um evidence or uh case studies to necessarily treated differently than other solar projects. There's certainly nothing in our code that would prevent an agricultural property owner from doing the agricultural takes. But it's also we were a little reluctant to necessarily require a farmer to take that approach as opposed to just doing more of the typical or historical approach of the ground mounted. So that's kind of where we landed is there's certainly nothing that would discourage or prevent someone from doing that, but we also didn't want to sort of distinguish it from the other type. And as was noted, there is no upper size limit for outside of the ag preserve for solar. So a project could be designed in a way that would accommodate both types of uses.

Okay, maybe I'll come back to this later.

All right, Supervisor Lee. Good. I had a couple questions about Cuyama. So has Cuyama hit its 600-acre cap yet?

Supervisor Lee, through the chair, I believe there are two projects, solar projects that were developed within the 600 acre overlay and it's very close to the cap. It might not be quite at it, but I don't believe it's feasible to develop much more solar within that existing overlay.

So how would this proposed 16,000 acre cap affect the current Cuyama cap?

Supervisor Lee, we're proposing to remove the cap on the overlay to allow it in the broader county. So the cap for Cuyama would no longer apply.

Okay, good. Thanks for confirming that. So if there's a leak or spill or fire, would the materials in the battery storage be toxic? Meaning how would they affect the groundwater as well? Do you have a comment about that?

supervisor lead through the chair so you're you're asking if there was a fire at a solar facility if there are regulations or safeguards in place if to to essentially prevent those prevent toxic releases yeah especially battery storage so there will be um medications to prevent that right Yes, there are a number of development standards that we would apply, especially to the larger tier two and tier three projects that require safety plans, plans that would prevent fuel ignitions during construction and operation, emergency management plans for response so that fire and other first responders have procedures in place should an incident occur.

Good. Following up. So how would the county prevent applicants from dividing one project into multiple tier two projects?

Supervisor Lee through the chair. So Both a Tier 2 and a Tier 3 are both conditional use permits with the same standards that would be in place. Really the only difference is the decision maker. A minor CEP is zoning administrator versus a major CEP is the county planning commission. So I don't know that there would be much incentive for a developer to try to sort of parse out their project into multiple Tier 2 projects as opposed to taking it forward as a single application. But as with all of our projects that come through our door, we look at the whole of the project. And if an applicant is proposing multiple smaller projects that all function as a single operation, then they'd be treated as a single application and processed accordingly. Good. Thanks for that.

My last question is, so let's say someone comes in with a 40-acre solar project on the Gaviola Coast. Does the honor confirm that is appealable to the board, correct?

Supervisor Lee, through the chair, that's right, it is.

Thank you, that's my question. All right, thank you, Supervisor Lee. Supervisor Capps.

Yeah, thank you. This is a landmark day, because I know so much work has gone into this for several years and through different bodies. I wanna pay respect to the Planning Commission and the work that they did and all of you. So thank you for getting us here, almost to the finish line here. And if you could just speak to the importance of storage and how, I know it's in the presentation, but if you can just elaborate to what the components are for because it's one thing to just to capture the sun but to to store it and how you're addressing that i know the clean coalition has weighed in on really making sure that we're not just focusing on uh solar but also on battery and the potential for this ordinance going forward to have have battery storage as well

Supervisor Katch for the chair. Yeah, thanks for that question. And, you know, it's interesting because this project has been in the works for a while and there's been a lot of advancement and increased understanding over the years. When we started out, the board direction was to provide and accommodate for solar. There was no discussion at the time of battery storage. So that was more or less our marching orders from the onset. But we have, over the years, over the last few years, as we've heard more input and received more information and increased our understanding about the importance of battery storage for these types of projects, we have looked for opportunities to accommodate the situation where you want to combine or pair battery storage with a solar project. We shied away from focusing on standalone battery energy storage, just because that has a lot of separate issues that may come along with that. But we have tried to work with the Clean Coalition and their requests and the Planning Commission and through our amendments provide for the sort of the typical combination where you have battery storage to support a solar project. And I know in their most recent comment letter There's a request for addressing at least some limited battery storage, standalone battery storage, which we're prepared to discuss today and how that might be incorporated into the overall package.

Yeah, I mean, could we discuss that or do you want to get to other comments?

The battery storage? Yes. Yeah, I think, I mean. I'm ready. Let's do it. A lot of discuss there, yeah.

I mean, I do see the merits of having some element of this. I understand that there's some procedural but they've made a compelling argument as to why, I mean, this as it is now has solar and battery connected, but having the ability in this initiative to be able to have standalone, at least to some degree, and that it can be moved forward with this package is something I'm very much interested in.

Okay. So in anticipation of this question, we did put together a backup slide that we could pull up to this, you know, perhaps pull up. But as we wait for that to happen, so the request from, or the discussion at the, I'll start with the Planning Commission. The discussion at the Planning Commission and the request that was made at the Planning Commission was to allow for a standalone battery energy storage up to a quarter acre. And sort of in line with what I was indicating earlier, the staff's position was we were focused with this project on paired battery storage and we're trying to stick within that scope of work. So the Planning Commission recommended against addressing standalone battery energy storage, but did carve out the opportunity to allow up to us additional acreage specifically up to a quarter acre for paired battery storage in support of a solar project and so the request the new request or has has expanded slightly from that and is now a request from anywhere from a quarter acre up to an acre uh for a standalone battery storage that that could be processed through an exempt or could be exempt from planning permit Our EIR did evaluate battery storage as a component of a solar project and so there are some opportunities within the context of the EIR to sort of have that cover our an amendment to the project to include standalone but there are some limits there in terms of what was assumed in the EIR and what was evaluated and so staff would recommend that we focus on sort of that quarter acre size allowance for standalone battery storage which the EIR did evaluate and did contemplate as part of an accessory to a solar project And so feel like the EIR would, that allowing for standalone would not trigger any new impacts or require any new analysis that wasn't already considered in the EIR. But going beyond that could very well require additional analysis and analysis. and sort of delay the project or require more work. So I think staff's recommendation would be to allow for the standalone battery storage up to a quarter acre, which again is in alignment with what the Clean Coalition's original request had been and would support sort of the microgrid type of project that you often hear about. And the other consideration is where would it be appropriate to site those standalone battery storage projects? It's one thing where it's supporting, say, someone's solar array in their backyard, which would be a limiting factor in terms of how big that battery storage would be. But if you start allowing these standalone batteries, battery storage projects perhaps in a residential community that might not be the most appropriate place for that so staff's recommendation would be to confine those standalone storage areas to more of our commercial and industrial zones as opposed to our residential and recreation zones and our resource management zones which are you know more of our very constrained very hilly topography mostly in the south coast We think we can do that. What we would do is process or prepare what's called an EIR revision letter, which essentially explains how that amendment to the project would not trigger or result in any new impacts that weren't previously evaluated and not require any recirculation or preparation of additional analysis. that does take a little time so we would request if you board wants to move forward with that that we have a continuance to be able to come back to you at a later date with that package

That's great. And the Clean Coalition showed a picture of the Velocito energy storage project in Carpinteria right next to a substation, which seemed like a good use. So yeah, again, I'm supportive of trying to see what can work. And if it's a quarter acre and wouldn't have the impacts that would need a CUP, that would seem like it could. So anyway, I'm supportive.

Thank you, Supervisor Capps. Supervisor Hartman, you wanted to comment on that? I've got some comments too, but go ahead.

Sure. Well, it's on that point of battery storage, and I'm with Supervisor Capps on this, that I'd sure like to see it. In many markets now, battery storage is cheaper than building a new gas plant. And California now produces midday now, more solar than the grid can use. In 2024, the state curtailed or couldn't use about 3.4 million megawatt And that was a 29% jump from the year before. So that's clean power that we've already paid for and we're just throwing it away because we don't have enough storage and we can't really shift it to the time of day when we actually need it. So I think that is really central that they're not just nice to have, they're the thing that captures the investment that we've already made. And what happens with these batteries, if we restrict it just to solar paired projects, then it ignores all the solar that we've already built. And these stand-alone batteries can be sited close to where they're actually useful for the grid at substations and congestion points. So I think that's why we need to decouple them is to try to take full advantage of the solar arrays we already have and to be able to site them where they would be most useful. So I'm really eager to see that we move forward within the EIR that we did to the extent that we can with the revision letter, because we're going to have much more electricity demand coming, and we want to get ahead of this. And batteries are the way to do it. Batteries are what saved us from more PSPSs, because we've got that as a reserve. the PG&E and SCE both threatening PSPS events today, they can actually tap batteries that's in their queue to go first to prevent brownouts and blackouts. So we need to step up with batteries. And I see that Das Williams was here. I just wanted to note, oh, there he is. He started this effort when he was on the board. And I hope when he comes up in public comment, he could talk a bit about the technology and how it's much safer now than it has been in the past and new developments that are occurring that will make it even safer in the future.

I'll defer to President Lavagnino and then I'll ask my questions. Go ahead.

Yeah, I think we're probably going to say the same things. You know, I was really actually shocked. I didn't know that what you referenced that we are producing, I saw it in the last week's presentation of that we're actually producing more solar than we can actually use in the day, which is amazing. That's something that I wasn't sure we would get to when we got there relatively quickly. so i don't i'm not anti-battery storage i think that it makes sense that that's where we would go what i am opposed to though is um exempting anything um until people get comfortable that this is the this is a safe um uh form uh and There's reasons why people don't think it's safe. There have been accidents in the past. And obviously, as somebody that supports the oil and gas industry, I understand that there are problems with any energy that you're going to have things happen. Anytime you have man plus energy, you end up with problems. And it's how we address those problems or how we anticipate those problems and One of the things I don't want to do is get in a position where we're we're citing a battery storage unit in an area where someone's going to have a concern and they don't really have the outlet to come to public comment and talk about it. So I think what we saw up in San Luis Obispo, the problem there and I, you know, I can hear all day that it's different technology and that's great. The concern that I have is that I don't want to get in a position where something doesn't come to the Board of Supervisors, a decision is made, a project is approved, it then falls into, it becomes a problem that there's an accident. Board members are then on the hook because we are the forward facing folks that are supposed to be reviewing this and they never even saw the project because it was approved at a lower level. So I don't have any problem with battery storage as long as it's transparent, we do proper noticing, people show up, we hear about it, people get information, we vote on it, and it moves forward. I think that's all I'm looking for. Yeah, I want to give a shout out to staff. I know this was a long time coming and the way we kind of hitched the wagon of battery storage to the end of it makes sense. We don't want to start off, we don't want to approve this and then go, hey, let's kick off a 10-year battery storage ordinance because by the time that gets done, there'll be a new technology.

Micronuclear at that point.

Yeah, micronuclear in your backyard. So I'm down for all of this. It just needs to be open to the public, transparent, and transparent.

that's all i'm looking for yeah you know i could jump in um on that that's where i'm at as well i'm i want all these things to be permittable but i want to make sure that there's a review process and they're not exempt that um you know i think people elect us to be able to be their eyes and ears out there and if we say right now that it's allowed everywhere with a permit and all you have to do is check the boxes and you get your permit then I think right now we're proving it in a lot of different places that we're probably all uncomfortable with potentially. I know I am. And so I think that's where that's as important is I think there could be projects that are exempt if they're within certain setbacks. You talk about zonings, I'm talking probably more setbacks from sensitive receptors and certain zoned areas, you know, urban areas, residential areas. residential neighborhoods, urban, rural neighborhoods, things like that, that we could look at. I think that's the big thing is trying to move it away from populated areas. So I think if they're closer to those, if there's shorter setbacks, those are things that should move up the decision making tree for us so that somebody has an opportunity to potentially either bring it to the board or it goes to the planning commission. They have a hearing and they can appeal it to the board if necessary. So I think that that's a really important deal. The Clean Coalition had their little picture that they had in their letter to us. But if you scrolled out just a tiny bit, You end up seeing a church, a high school, and a bunch of houses. And I think that you may be fine in Carpinteria, but I don't think that necessarily fits in all of our communities. So having battery storage. I know that, as Supervisor Hartman mentioned, that the technology is better than what it was in Moss Landing, I'll remind us all when they built Moss Landing, they thought that was the best ever and that wouldn't happen. And so there's a lot of things that you can't foresee in the future. And that goes to one of my other issues that I'm concerned about on the environmental impact on batteries is I don't see anything in here on impacts to groundwater and to soil from potentially a fire or any type of issue. So I think that's a big question that agriculturalists have been asking for quite some time. We have groundwater basins here that are essential to what we do in this county. and um battery acid leaking i don't know whether toxic substances that are in batteries that could end up in there i've not yet seen a study i've asked about it in other places and nobody's has been able to provide something to me to say hey this is fine so you know development standards would probably have to be some type of liner to make sure that doesn't happen if you look at most battery storages they're on concrete pads surrounded by you know dg but usually it's dirt on a lot of these uh um areas so that would go there would be no barrier for penetration so that's something that i'm really concerned about and making sure that we if there's a fire and then you're applying water to try to put it out or whatever substance you are how is that contained You know, we do all these things for oil and gas. I don't know why we're not doing them for battery storage as well, because these are all things that we're talking about and those factors for not having the same conversations with this industry. And so it sounds like we're probably coming back with something potentially that we're not getting that done today, but I just want to put on the record the things that I'm concerned about before I can eventually approve something. So I'm looking at distances from sensitive receptors. on top of the zoning and then I'm also looking at potentially impacts to agriculture not just immediately but you know long term especially if there's an incident how that's done and who pays for it at that point you know eventually if it's insured and bonded for that that might be something that needs to be in place to make sure that that liability, when that company goes out of business, that doesn't end up on the landowner, doesn't end up on the taxpayer in those circumstances. Supervisor Plowman, it looks like you have something to respond.

Supervisor Nielsen, I wanted to just, we can certainly look at these issues as we come back, and so that might help you with the decision that you want to make. One thing I did want to say is that in oil and gas, we have areas of containment, right? So those are the types of things that can be included in these types of projects, and it sounds like what you're looking for.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

not trying to create an excuse to not approve them i just want to make sure that containment is important for all this and i think nobody argues with that but i don't i don't see that in the environmental document yeah and i don't see that in the standards and so that's what god gives me concern when we're actually asking looking to maybe expand the best here is is that okay what are we doing about those types of things so those are my those are my concerns on the best conversation And I was kind of surprised to be honest with you. I knew we were going to have utility scale solar and then I opened up all my stuff and I realized how much this is kind of a battery ordinance for the most part for us, or at least some of the big changes that we're looking at. So those were my initial questions. Other questions I have, the discussion of the cap, you know. and what goes into that cap. Because I think there's been a lot of comment on the cap, at least from our agricultural organizations. Right now we have, you know, I think it's been recommended at 16,000 that came out of the Planning Commission, is that right? But I think our AAC, our Agricultural Advisory Committee that we all point people to have recommended 8,000. I think they also recommended that we look at making sure that's divided north and south or PG&E and Southern California Edison.

Yeah, Supervisor Nelson, their letter recommended we divide that 16,000 acre cap between north and south of the one area of the county wasn't burdened with all of it, right? I think they have some concerns that the agricultural land, that's the way I read the letter.

Actually, I think they recommended 8,000. AAC. Or actually, one of them recommended. yeah i think the grower grower shipper recommended 8 000 split and then aac i think it was 16 000 split okay yeah gotcha so i'm very interested in the gross shippers position um and i was also understand i want to make sure i understand what goes into that cap number do the existing inventory already have in cuyama would that be a part of the cap as you guys have it um designed right now

MR. CHAIR, BOARD MEMBERS, IT WAS REALLY DESIGNED TO APPLY TO NEW TIER THREE PROJECTS. SO THE EXISTING, I MEAN, IT COULD BE STRUCTURED EITHER WAY BUT THE EXISTING SOLAR PROJECTS AT CUYAMO WERE NOT CONSIDERED TO BE PART OF THAT. OKAY. SO 8,000 NEW. 8,000 NEW.

NEW POTENTIALLY. ALL RIGHT.

and then why tier three and not also bringing in tier two into that cap uh supervisor nelson uh board members the um the focus was just on the tier three at the planning commission discussion just because there is no upper limit to the size of those facilities so there was concern that there could be just a runaway train that comes through with the community scale they're already limited to 30 acre in size again this is something that came through the the hearing process so there's it's really up to the board's discretion on on how they'd want to uh focus that but um that that was the the thought process i believe in coming up with that number uh and focusing in on the utility scale for those larger projects okay so my thought is that you know if we're trying to limit the impact agriculture doesn't matter whether it's a two or two or three i mean it's still acreage out of agriculture and and there so i mean you

it matters for three it matters for two you know as far as the ag impact if that's what the cap's there for so just wanted to add that as part of the conversation as well um and that's where i met on that is i like to see two and three and i i like the 8 000 number split north and south on southern california and pg e is where i'm at with that the other um issue that growers shippers brought up was the request to expand the tier one on-site exemption up to 15 acres I think it's at five acres right now. And so there's, and I do appreciate that solar adjacent to especially coolers is a really big deal for agricultural operations to be able to, defray some of the cost have some redundancy i think even the battery storage is going to be really important for those so again i'm not anti-battery storage i think there's time and places to make sure they work especially in those cases i guess that's behind the meter is that what we call that when it's the battery storage when it actually helps the on-site facility and not utility scale so i think that these are really important pieces um would we be able to admin this to have the 15 acre exemption that they have in the gross shippers letter that request WITH BOARD DIRECTION TODAY?

MR. CHAIR, BOARD MEMBERS, WE COULD CERTAINLY LOOK AT THAT AND SEE IF THE EIR or if that would create any uh potential issues with the eir evaluation okay um and have that when we come back uh at the next hearing um i will note that um as currently uh set up uh there is no for the tier one category there is no size limit if it's a solar canopy type of design on an area that's maybe already improved or disturbed um so if they were doing they they could you know there could be a scenario where they could get that 15 acres uh with the solar canopy design if they're not taking out like an active ag area or something like that that's a tier one i'm talking about just and that would be tier one yeah i'm actually aggregating tier two and two or three where we might be taking agri agriculture out of production to do solar not disturb areas so uh an exemption for uh 15 acres on uh that would that could entail a room a loss or removal of agland i'm sorry i got back to my my cap on there i switched on you sorry Say that again. So currently under Tier 1, the exempt category, there is no size limit for the solar canopy design where it allows for the dual use. So you could have a scenario like with an AG cooler where if they're proposing the solar canopy over say like the parking area or some disturbed area, already improved area, they could get up to that 15 acres and still fall within the Tier 1. But it is limited to areas that are already disturbed or developed.

um as opposed to taking out like undeveloped or active ag land okay i think it's more the undeveloped is what they're looking at because we do have a lot of just um the topography throughout our valley is not some of the topography is not necessarily suitable for agriculture production but it's still adjacent to maybe a cooler you know because we have these coolers that are kind of strategically throughout the valley um you know there's hillsides that are appropriate for um you know that are adjacent to farm fields that might be eligible there so i think that's what we're kind of envisioning when we're talking about making sure that expansion is a little bit larger because it still might be agriculturally zoned ground but um might be greater than the five acres that's contemplated here yeah supervisor nelson i think we will take a look at what what the eir analyzed and what might be feasible and we can advise when we return if we do more on this on the battery storage one last point is i think we need to have a definition of kind of battery storage that's behind the meter and in front of the meter right so i think in front of the meter is more of a utility right so it's a part of the microgrid system versus behind the meter which is kind of kind of protecting your your investment there and how you're going to use it on site right so i think i don't know if those definitions were really delineated when we're talking about

um battery storage but i think that's something important as we develop this out uh mr chair uh it's interesting you know our current um regulatory framework for solar uh essentially has two categories we have utility scale which is limited to Kweama, the 600 acres in Kweama. And then there's everything else. And everything else is sort of the behind the meter. So you can't do any sort of commercial solar that is being... sent back to the grid uh anywhere but uh that 600 acre quiama valley and we were criticized by the uh solar industry for the way our regulatory structure is currently set up because because of that so through this process we've kind of tried to move away from the sort of regulating based on behind the meter front of the meter and focus more on the use in terms of you know the size of the facility and how it's maybe situated on the on the physical environment so That's how we've sort of structured the tiers and allowed for the, I think the expectation is that most of the tier projects would normally be for onsite use, but not necessarily limited to that in most situations. And the battery storage would allow for sort of some flexibility in terms of how that energy is used. We do indicate that in certain zones like residential zones, ag zones, our sort of resource management zones that they're really situated or it's best that those be primarily preserved for the on-site use as opposed to becoming mostly a commercial operation.

Yeah, I think the issue comes in front of the meter, behind the meter, it's the impact and the who benefits from that impact, right? I think of people, the impacts on their site, it's a risk that they're taking for a personal benefit for their property versus it being a, know a regional solution right where the impacts on that property but in fact you know it helps the whole entire community but it it most directly affects that person or the people that are adjacent to that so that's where i think there's a difference with the way it's received is based on the you know who benefits for the potential negative impacts that might come from a battery storage project and i think that that matters to people it matters to me so all right supervisor hartman

I guess the first issue is the split between north and south. I don't know exactly what you consider north, but if it's above the tunnel, um there's a lot of ranch land i mean most of the ag is is above the tunnel so if you were going to do something like that i think it would have to be proportional to the ag land rather than just a so-called 50 50 split that doesn't make any sense we've got a lot of landing on the gavita coast I don't think it compares, but let's look. I'd like to see the acreage because I believe that above the tunnel is a lot more and some of the Gaviota Coast is above the tunnel.

I'm sure we do. And I think the idea was Southern California Edison versus PG&E if we're trying to split the load. So whatever that looks like.

Yeah. Is that a really relevant distinction here?

Yes.

PG&E versus SCE and how many acres of solar?

Yeah, I think so. For the impact?

I guess it depends again if it's in front or behind the meter, but I don't think that's a relevant distinction either for this purpose. I'd like to talk about exemptions. I think having every battery project come to the Planning Commission and the Board is a very expensive thing, especially for a very small project. and especially when we're trying to expedite and streamline i i would think maybe a zoning clearance if that were um but i i guess i'd like uh our planning staff to once again remind us of the implications for the different levels of permit

SUPERVISOR HARTMAN THROUGH THE CHAIR. SO EXEMPTIONS OBVIOUSLY ARE EXEMPTS. SO THERE'S NO PLANNING PERMIT AND STRAIGHT TO BUILDING PERMIT. SO THERE'S NO NOTICE, NO no opportunity for appeal zoning clearance is a permit but it's not noticed it's not appealable so if the concern or interest is to make sure people are aware of an application or have an opportunity to object or voice their concerns in a public forum a zoning clearance would not accommodate that sort of your lowest tier to allow for more of that public component would be a land use permit Right now, standalone battery energy storage is actually allowed in a number of our zone districts, but it's a CUP, and there's no distinction whether it's a quarter acre or five acres. It's a CUP across the board. There may be one zone where it's a minor CUP, I think in the PU.

Public Utilities.

Where it's an LUP in the PU, Public Utility District. We don't have a ton of those around the county, but there's a handful.

all right thank you all right any other questions from the board before we go to public comment i think we got a good amount of public comment on this item all right madam clerk uh we have public comment chair nelson members of the board yes we have uh 14 requests to speak from the public on this item okay we will begin here in santa maria with joshua uh madrano to be followed by claire weinman all right we're gonna go ahead and close public comment at this time

Well, good afternoon, supervisors. This is quite the meeting. I do not admire you having to sit through everything, but I do admire the fact that you go through everything so diligently. My name is Joshua Medrano. I am the executive secretary-treasurer of the Tri-Counties Building and Construction Trades Council, and I am here in support of the staff recommendation to move forward. As you all know, with the building trades, we are on the forefront of technology, And when we start coupling battery storage and we start bringing that in a conversation, there are knee-jerk reactions. I do commend you for wanting to learn more about these systems. The Building Trades is happy to offer tours of local facilities to bring in guest speakers that are experts on the subject matter to help qualm some of those concerns. If we can be of any service, please reach out to us. I know that we have quite a few supporters on the line, so I won't take up too much of your time, but please reach out should you have any questions and look forward to you moving forward as staff recommends. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Josh.

We will now go to Claire Weinman to be followed by Ben Schwartz. Claire?

Hi, good afternoon. My name is Claire Wyman with the Grower-Shipper Association of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties. We appreciate the robust discussion that you've been having on this today, and we support a diverse and resilient energy portfolio for the county. We're here today to respectfully request two modifications to these sweeping amendments to safeguard our county's agricultural vitality. First, as discussed, we request expanding the tier one onsite use exemption from five acres up to 15 acres for active agricultural operations, especially essential infrastructure like coolers and processors. This expansion is vital. It would allow local operations to better incorporate, incorporate renewable energy, manage rising power costs, reduce strain on the grid, and maintain crucial operational resiliency through public safety power shutoffs, natural disasters, and KSO events when guaranteed uptime is essential. SECOND, WE URGE THE BOARD TO ESTABLISH AN 8,000 ACRE COUNTYWIDE CAP RATHER THAN THE PLANNING COMMISSION'S MAJORITIES RECOMMENDED 16,000 ACRES. AND WE'D LIKE TO SEE THIS CAP IDEALLY DISTRIBUTED THROUGHOUT THE COUNTY. THIS ACREAGE TOTAL WOULD MEET THE COUNTY'S NEEDS. INDUSTRIAL SCALE SOLAR AND BATTERY ENERGY STORAGE SYSTEMS ARE RELATIVELY NEW TECHNOLOGIES THAT PRESENT UNKNOWN RISKS. We remain deeply concerned about the threat of best fires and smoke plumes to agricultural employees, lands, and crops, as recently witnessed in Moss Landing. PG&E and KSO recently contemplated adding new additional high capacity voltage lines in Santa Barbara County, in northern Santa Barbara County, so we can't count on existing grid and substation capacity as the limiting factor. We can't risk the disproportionate conversion of prime farmland, particularly in Santa Maria and Lompoc valleys. Furthermore, the rapid growth and high resource consumption of data centers, which have caused grave concerns in places like Imperial Valley, warrant caution. If a blanket cap is adopted, we urge the county to exercise discretion to distribute this acreage equitably across the entire county rather than allowing disproportionate concentration in a single area. AS ALSO DISCUSSED, WE NOTE THAT ONLY COUNTING TIER THREE PROJECTS TOWARDS THIS CAP CREATES VULNERABILITY FOR AGRICULTURAL RESOURCES. THESE COMMON SENSE ADJUSTMENTS WILL SUPPORT NIMBLE AGRICULTURAL OPERATIONS WITHOUT PLACING AN UNDUE BURDEN ON ANY ONE PORTION OF THE COUNTY. THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME AND CONSIDERATION OF AGRICULTURE'S CONCERNS. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU, MS. WYMAN.

WE WILL NOW GO TO BEN SCHWARTZ TO BE FOLLOWED BY BENJAMIN OAKS. BEN?

Good afternoon chair and supervisors. My name is Ben Schwartz and I'm the policy director with the Clean Coalition. We are a nonprofit and have been involved in this process since the very outset. The first task that I worked for with the Clean Coalition in 2019 was actually identifying this issue and commenting on the strategic energy plan. So first I'd like to thank the staff and the planning commission for getting this process this far. It's definitely been challenging. and the clean coalition along with community environmental council and the sierra club santa barbara ventura chapter submitted a letter to the board recommending adoption along with an amendment for at least or up to one acre of energy storage we are happy to hear the dialogue that has occurred today and definitely support 0.25 acres of STAND ALONE ENERGY STORAGE. THIS IS IN LINE WITH OUR INITIAL RECOMMENDATION TO THE PLANNING COMMISSION. AND I THINK THE FACT THAT THE PLANNING COMMISSION WAS WILLING TO INCLUDE UP TO .25 ACRES OF PAIRED STORAGE DEFINITELY SETS THE FOUNDATION FOR INCLUDING STAND ALONE ENERGY STORAGE. I'D LIKE TO POINT OUT THAT THE County has passed a strategic energy plan as well as an energy assurance plan that specifically identify energy storage as crucial to meet the county's reliability and resilience goals along with effectively decarbonizing. And this is the exact type of policy that will help enable that. But standalone storage is a critical aspect of it and should not be left to the future. In the current market, about 80 to 90% of new net energy metering projects, so that's typically rooftop solar, those are projects that are either solar plus storage or a standalone storage. That's also true for the larger utility scale queue as well. Solar plus storage is dominant and standalone storage is dominant. And we are continuing to see more programs developed that allow everyday folks like myself or you who have solar and storage on your roofs to help participate not only to help the local grid, but also to help the broader grid and delivering real substantial megawatts of energy that ensure that our grid can continue to function. I'd also like to point out that the local grid store project in Goleta has been called on before in 2024 to help ensure that the grid can help continue to function and stay online so i do think it's very important that we look at the benefits of energy storage and the value of it in the context of the county and the state goals But I also do understand that considering the potential hazards is warranted as well. I'd like to point out NFPA has a number of studies on contamination. And when we are concerned about batteries, the type of batteries we use now do not produce battery acid. So that's no longer an issue. There are others. There are systems in place for drainage, for safety, for grading. And I'm happy to talk about that with you. Thank you.

we will now go to benjamin oaks to be followed by spencer brandt benjamin good afternoon chair and supervisors my name is benjamin oaks a policy intern at the clean coalition and i'm here in support of adopting the amended utility scale solar ordinance with the allowance for small scale standalone storage local solar is crucial for developing microgrids which ensure that vulnerable customers are guaranteed resilience during grid outages This is a real opportunity for the county to modernize its utility scale solar policy and enabling communities to access the renewable energy and storage they need to ensure a reliable and resilient flow of electricity. This not only addresses the county's energy needs, but also its economic development goals. This policy is critical for the county to meet its energy goals, as outlined in the 2019 Strategic Energy Plan. The proposed ordinance would align with the county with CEQA and streamline permitting for local solar and storage projects on the built environment. As it currently stands, this ordinance requires all standalone storage to have a conditional use permit, the same permit burden as massive utility-scale solar farms over 30 acres. The proposed amendment includes standalone storage projects up to one acre in tier one, streamlining these projects from a planning permit requirement. This proposed amendment is a natural extension from the framework adopted by the Planning Commission, which is for 0.25 acres of additional storage paired with solar and storage projects. 0.25 acres of standalone storage will always have a smaller footprint than 0.25 acres of storage paired with solar. Regulating small standalone storage projects similarly to large-scale utility solar projects produces inconsistent results and artificially reduces the viability of these projects. The Planning Commission supported an additional allowance for repaired solar and storage projects, but they acknowledged that they were not the right entity for making this decision. The Clean Coalition agrees with the County Planning Commission that the Board of Supervisors is the right body to add this amendment because the Board created the framework for the utility-scale solar ordinance and now has the opportunity to make sure that vision is complete. approving this amendment represents significant progress in achieving the goals outlined in the strategic energy plan and it unleashes local renewable energy where it's most beneficial if passed this amendment will ensure that the county is poised to achieve its energy strategy while avoiding the need for another years-long process of aligning the state of aligning with state law to streamline small energy storage projects thank you for your time we will now go to spencer brandt to be followed by dos williams spencer

Good morning, Chair Nelson and Supervisors Spencer Brandt here on behalf of Central Coast Community Energy. I just want to take the time to add a little bit of color to some of the questions that you have received today, both from yourselves and members of the public on the issue of energy storage safety. The most compelling statistic that we have found comes from the Electric Research Policy Institute, which found that in the time period between 2017 and 2023, energy storage deployment grew by 25,000%. But during that same time period, energy storage failure rate, which failure includes heat incidents and fires, but it also includes other malfunctions, that rate declined by 97%. So that is really a reflection of what we see with the advancements in technology. which is really the changing of battery chemistry from the former nickel manganese cobalt to the lithium iron phosphate, which is really the standard across the industry at this point in time and really has promoted greater safety outcomes. I can tell you that from a legislative perspective, 3CE has supported energy storage safety, including Senate Bill 283, the Clean Energy Safety Act, which requires local fire authority consultation by applicants that are proposing battery storage with the local fire authority. It also requires the local fire authority to be involved in inspections as a part of the project and requires the facilities meet the rigorous NFP 855 standard, which is widely regarded as the toughest safety standards in the industry. I also want to share that the issue of energy storage safety is something our policy board has grappled with as well. One of the incidents that has been referenced by a number of speakers at the Moss Landing facility is in our service territory. And so we are very familiar with how the County of Monterey has had to tackle energy storage safety. They've done incredibly extensive monitoring in the aftermath of that incident, which found a number of things, including no evidence of heavy metal contamination soils at six monitoring sites conducted by the University of California, no air quality risk to the public health throughout the life of the incident as monitored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and no contamination to drinking water tanks or wells really um there is certainly a lot of community concern when you see the images that you see on tv but i think it's important that our decisions are grounded in the science and the actual environmental monitoring of an incident like that thank you very much for your time thank you mr brad we will now go to dos williams then we will go to zoom with anna citron das

Good morning, Chair Nelson and supervisors. Das Williams, on behalf of Central Coast Community Energy, we are a not-for-profit, locally governed energy provider serving more than 1.2 million customers across five Central Coast counties. Our job is to procure affordable, reliable, and clean power for our customers who are the residents of the communities you serve. Here's something we've learned doing that job. Solar is essential and it's the most cost competitive resource available to us. The cheapest power we can buy on your behalf. We have over 918 megawatts of solar in our portfolio and that's new power purchase agreements, new steel in the ground. But solar is only part of that equation. You need storage to go with it. It lets us take the midday sun we've already paid for and shift it to six, seven, eight in the evening when demand peaks and grid power is most expensive and dirtiest. Local storage has been hard to come by, even though it is permittable in this county. And so the question is, like many things that we want in this county, how do we make something possible to be truly permittable, not just in theory. And so we hope that as a follow-up, you could expand tier one, I mean, tier two for a minor CUP requirement for mid-size battery projects we support. uh the quarter acre exemption uh that's a that's only enough to build three megawatts that's like one stack that's amount that uh one little property is going to use not uh truly what you would call a a utility scale project but let's not forget why we why we started this effort solar right now utility scale solar is not legal in the County of Santa Barbara. That means not a hypothetical rancher, a real rancher in Los Olivos that wanted to do a community solar project and now can't. If you do not pass this ordinance, they are out of options. They cannot go find a developer for a utility scale solar project. It means that the farmers of Cuyama cannot entice PG&E to upgrade their transmission because there's not enough acreage left in the cap there. Why would PG&E upgrade the transmission for a handful of remaining acres? And so, You know, I remember the many discussions we've had over the years that the birthplace of environmentalism needs to permit solar. That is still a central question, and we hope you move forward and pass the ordinance today. Thank you, Mr. Williams.

We will now go to Zoom with Ana Citrin to be followed by Isabel Stice. Ana?

Hi, good afternoon. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Please proceed. Great. Good afternoon, Chair Nelson and supervisors. I'm Ana Citrin, Legal and Policy Director for the Gaviota Coast Conservancy. This ordinance is an important step forward to achieving a sustainable energy future for our county. As part of your approval, we urge you to include important protections for agricultural land, including the countywide acreage cap for Tier 3 facilities on agriculturally zoned land and protections for Williamson Act contracted lands that sustain open spaces and the agricultural economy on the Gaviota Coast and throughout the county. We also urge you to retain all mitigation measures and development standards that protect the natural and cultural environment from the adverse impacts of large solar facilities. Thank you.

We will now go to Isabel Stice to be followed by Steve Koldrian. Isabel?

Good afternoon. Can you hear me well?

Yes, we can. Please proceed.

Amazing. Good afternoon again, Chair Nelson and supervisors. My name is Isabel Stice and I'm representing the Clean Coalition in support of adopting the amended utility scale solar ordinance with an allowance for small scale standalone storage. I want to start out by saying we greatly appreciate the work of staff and beginning the conversation to include tier one treatment for standalone storage projects up to 0.25 acres. With my time today, I wanted to touch on a few points important to consider in this conversation. First, standalone storage represents an opportunity to provide significant value to Santa Barbara County particularly given the county's unique geography and established resilience priorities the street the strategic energy plan recognizes the value of local storage in addressing the county's exposure to grid disruptions and the energy assurance plan emphasizes its importance in maintaining operations at critical facilities during outages since the ordinance update began in 2019 the importance of these local resilience solution has only grown as was highlighted in our submitted comments by the fact that in 2026 santa barbara county was found to rank in the top one percent of counties nationwide for disaster risk Along with these outages, local customers continue to experience reoccurring problems with voltage fluctuations and power quality issues that can disrupt businesses of all sizes and critical facilities even when the power remains on. To date, broader utility solutions have not fully resolved these issues. Allowing appropriately sized standalone storage would give communities and businesses access to a local resource that is uniquely positioned to address these challenges in real time. As discussed as well in our written comments and comments today from Ben and Benjamin of the Clean Coalition, I just wanted to again emphasize that the 0.25 acre allowance for paired storage recognizes that compact storage projects with limited land use impacts can qualify for streamlined permitting. Applying that same principle to standalone projects we believe would be a reasonable continuation of the framework developed through this process. Small-scale standalone storage systems support strategically located systems such as batteries near substations, community microgrids, and resilience hubs that can provide substantially greater resilience and grid benefits while maintaining a relatively small footprint. as a last quick important note i wanted to emphasize that a tier one treatment for standalone storage systems would not remove regulatory oversights these projects would still require existing building permits and existing building and electrical permits compliance with the development standards fire department review and all required inspections overall the exemption of tier one treatment to standalone storage would build on the progress already made by staff advance the county's resilience goals and maintain existing safety and code requirements. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

We will now go to Steve Coldiron to be followed by Nancy Avose. Steve.

Good afternoon. My name is Steve Coldiron with the Operating Engineers Local 12. I just want to voice our support for this amendment. And, you know, although we do support those that work in oil and gas, we also recognize that, you know, amendments like this give us a pathway for our local workforce, for our communities, and for getting clean energy to the communities as well. That's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you, Steve.

will now go to nancy avosi to be followed by michelle ambrys nancy hi can you hear me yes we can please proceed nancy honorable supervisor yes oh you know what we are um having a little bit of time hearing you you're breaking up just a little bit

Okay. Can you hear me now?

Oh, yes. That's nice and clear. Thank you.

Okay. Great. Chair Nelson and honorable supervisors, my name is Nancy Avose and I am the executive director of the Santa Barbara County Action Network, SBCAN. As an organization that is committed to advancing a sustainable future for Santa Barbara County, we strongly support the proposed utility scale solar ordinance amendments. We believe that this is an important step towards reducing our dependence on oil and gas while expanding access to clean, renewable energy. For decades, our county has been deeply tied to the oil and gas industry, and while that industry has played an important role in our local economy, we know the future is clean, renewable, and sustainable. This transition is also an economic opportunity. Expanding utility-scale solar will create local jobs in construction, electrical work, engineering, operations, maintenance, and the skilled trades. Santa Barbara County is uniquely positioned to lead this transition with nearly 300 days of sunshine each year. Pairing utility-scale solar with battery storage allows us to capture clean energy during the day and use it when demand is the highest, improving grid reliability, reducing dependence on fossil fuels, and making our energy system more resilient. We appreciate that this process has included comprehensive environmental review and mitigation measures to address potential impacts. Responsible planning means balancing renewable energy development with the protection of ag land, sensitive habitats, and the character of our communities. We are encouraged that solar and energy storage facilities on ag land can be designed to be reversible, allowing the land to remain available for agricultural use in the future. We encourage the board to adopt these amendments and to include standalone battery energy storage systems in the ordinance. Storage maximizes the value of local renewable resources by ensuring the clean energy we generate doesn't go to waste. For that reason, we also encourage the board to permit standalone battery storage systems of up to one acre where appropriate. We appreciate the board's recognition of solar energy as a viable and important part of Santa Barbara County's energy future. Let's power Santa Barbara County with what we have in abundance, our sunshine, our skilled workforce, and our commitment to resilience. Thank you to county staff for all of your work and for preparing recommendations for standalone battery storage systems. Thank you.

We will now go to Michelle Ambriz to be followed by Martin Rodriguez. Michelle?

Good afternoon, Chair Nelson and County Board Supervisors.

My name is Michelle Ambriz. I'm a policy advocate for CAUSE, Post Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy here in Santa Maria. I am here today in full support of the county moving forward with the amended solar ordinance and encourage the board to include up to one acre of standalone battery energy storage systems, which would allow us to maximize our energy efficiency. In a time where cuts to healthcare pose a significant threat to your constituents, improving the health of residents of this county should remain a priority, meaning that moving forward with solar energy can alleviate the damages air pollution has on public health, which include anything between cancer, respiratory disease, heart disease, and other conditions. Our county should jump at that opportunity. Approving this ordinance gives you the opportunity to not only cut millions in mortality costs, but also improve the quality of life for thousands of people, especially the lives of people of color who have historically been disregarded for so long. so long as big corporations and industries can make a profit despite their massive amounts of pollution. I think the county is on the right track to protecting its constituents by prohibiting new oil drilling projects, but we shouldn't just stop there. Our communities want clean energy, we need affordable energy, resilient energy, and we need our local government to start putting the needs of community over big industries, especially right now. because of this cause and myself are in full support of the solar ordinance and yeah thank you to the county staff who has worked tirelessly on this and thank you to the board for the meaningful discussion we will now go to martin rodriguez who is our final speaker on this item martin

And Martin, we have unmuted you on our end. If you can please unmute on your end to provide your comments.

MARTIN RODRIGUEZ, Good afternoon, Chair Nelson and Board. This is Martin Rodriguez, I'm workers local 433, president of Tri-County Building Trades. We support the amendments to the county codes. There is some room for improvement on the battery storage, but we're on the right track. Any job creation for the skilled and trained local workforce is a plus. Having board discretion is generally a plus. We're at a crossroads with our energy right now with the killing of the offshore going on and the embattled oil and gas industry. I mean, this is all we have left at the moment. I feel like this is a plus, just like my friend Das spoke. I mean, here in California, this is the ground zero for this clean energy. But you can't get anything built, so this will go a long ways to rectify that problem. We are in full support of this and thank you for your time. Thank you stuff.

And that concludes public comment on this item, right?

Thank you. Alright, back to the board. Actually have a question for staff before we get too much further on kind of understanding what we're going to get done today versus what might get done at a future hearing. so can you help me where we're at with this i mean we're having this conversation of batteries and things that we want to add and you know before us today what what's before us today what's potentially deferred to a future meeting that you guys can't get done today i think that's helpful for maybe starting our conversation there so

Mr. Chair, Supervisors, so what's before you today, the package does not address standalone battery storage other than clarifying how it's currently permitted and regulated. So if you were to take action today on the current package, it would just be, it would allow for the paired battery storage that is ancillary or supportive of a solar, but not standalone. There's the 16,000 acre cap that the Planning Commission had recommended that your board is considering the sort of the pros and cons and how to maybe assign that. So if your board has interest in modifying that cap in some way or eliminating it or however, we would need to get direction on that. That in particular, depending on the board's interests could be a pretty simple straightforward fix that could be done today but when you add elements like standalone battery storage or expanding the exemption level for solar on ag properties to support on-site use those are the types of changes that we would want to uh come back to the to your board with with further uh discussion and a review of what the sqa analysis would allow us to to modify without having to do additional work okay one of the other items i see on my list is the the ag apex 10 limitation on non-prime versus

15%, which is what the staff recommendation was. So there's a gap there. Sure. That we need to give direction on.

And appreciate your direction on that. Again, that's just changing to a number. So that's something that can be done pretty easily and quickly. Yeah, what's in the ordinance package today, it represents the APEX recommendation of that 10%. So if your board did want to adjust that to 15% or some other number, we would want that direction. so that we could return to your board with a full package that would hopefully represent everything you're interested in. um the other things we heard today is uh if we are to to explore standalone battery storage that we'd be looking at perhaps some information on appropriate setbacks from sensitive receptors and opportunities for ensuring proper containment and treatment of hazardous materials and i believe that's it okay um

So we need to talk about cap when you talk about Okay, so it'd be the only only best that has been approved today potentially would be something with a solar component, right? That is correct. Okay, so it would basically be fed by that adjacent solar power. Therefore, And what side of the grid is that on? Is that going to be before or after the meter?

It could be either. It would just have to have some relationship to that solar, but how that solar is used would not be restricted to on or off site. But how it is written and presented is you couldn't have like a two acre battery storage supporting a half acre solar. So it has to be commensurate in size to the solar facility.

Well, I think that actually might be fairly important in this conversation about siting. Because if you're going to do a solar site, it's usually going to be somewhere that might be a little bit more remote than adjacent to a sensitive receptors.

right is that i mean that's kind of is that are we seeing that certainly for the the larger tier two and tier three that's what we would anticipate for the smaller tier one um which would be permitted in all zones you know there's the potential i think what what we've seen a lot of you can just look across the street or those solar canopy type of designs on existing developed built environment that could potentially support a battery storage element to that there are the code does establish minimum setback requirements which come primarily from the fire code so where they have depending on the size of the battery and the type of the battery system would dictate the appropriate setbacks from adjacent structures as well as from adjacent property lines and sensitive receptors okay

Gotcha. All right, so let's take these issues out. I'll go ahead and any further questions actually for staff before we can start to deliberate. So, to Res. Hartman, you have some additional questions for staff or do you want to start deliberation?

I can do both. Okay. Unless there are other questions. With regard to the cap, if we set a cap, how hard is it to up it if we wanted to do that in the future?

Good question. Supervisor Hartman through the chair. Not hard. I mean, you know, you're now saying we're coming to you several times a year with ordinance amendments, including like cleanup packages here and there. Again, the cap is come out of the hearing process so it's not like triggered by some CEQA component or something like that. So it's really a policy decision that could be modified at a future date.

Okay, so what I would favor is exploring expanding tier one from five to 15 acres for solar arrays. I think that that's a good idea if our environmental analysis would allow for that. With regarding a cap, you know, eight, 16, why not 10? But I would like to see that distributed throughout the county as grower shippers said. In South County, we have 147,000 acres of agricultural land. and 500,000 in North County above and below the tunnel. So there's a lot more agricultural land in North County. So I think a cap we should distribute proportionately in other words. And then that gets us to the issue of standalone battery. i would i think we could go up to a zoning clearance but in i i am not for making small battery storage onerous it's very expensive to go through to the to the planning commission or going to the board i mean it's it's five or ten thousand dollars So I would like to see that come back with a revision letter and with clear development standards for containment and what setbacks would look like.

So let me ask some questions for clarification. The 5 to 15, that would be an amendment that has come back, not today? Is that what I heard from you guys? Right. Okay, so that's going to be deferred and I do think that's a great idea. I'll absolutely concur with that. proposing maybe the uh the cap to be maybe 10 and maybe distributed north and south based on acreage agriculture acreage okay i know that maybe another way to look at is electrical use too north and south so maybe that's something again that's why i was that was the point i was trying to make was you know demand um so that's kind of that was where i was going at so um So that's so you're thinking maybe bringing it down to 10. So kind of a little bit of a compromise there. And then, of course, it could be brought back at a later date. As far as standalone best, you're saying that should come back or it needs to come back. It sounds like it has to come back so that can be deferred. So that not necessarily that might be a fight for another day as we kind of determine what those setbacks look like and what those additional development standards might look like. so today's decisions would simply be the cap and the distribution of that cap and um

that's going to be deferred right we're going to defer that as part of staff recommendation i was trying to get i'm trying to get down yeah so as to get trying to organize our meeting i just wonder could we come back with all of it yeah making some decisions i think it's odd to try to split it up

So were you saying defer everything until a future meeting?

We make a conceptual motion.

Yeah, Mr. Chair. So we have a suggestion. You could certainly give us a conceptual motion about what the board supports today and then give us direction what to bring back. We were planning to come back on a date certain. We were looking at September 1st.

Sounds good.

As a date. And so you could say, yes, we support the current program. We want you to look at these additional things. and this is what we would like to do with the cap. You could do all of that today and then we'll come back on the first for final action.

Okay, I'm willing to do it. Does that sound right to the rest of the board? Everybody's okay with doing that?

Yeah, I just want to remind everybody that we're just doing an ordinance that we can change. Okay, so many times have we gone back to the cannabis ordinance yep so yeah so i'm saying is we're i don't want anybody to get in a fight over what acreage is and all this because we can we can figure that out as as the thing matures and we'll fix it yeah and i appreciate the compromise that supervisor hartman's trying to bring about here so i'm with you so i think you've got a bunch of feedback from us you know we're um here so i think um

Sounds like, could most of us agree to about 10,000 acre cap to start? And then we could figure out some different.

I was with 16, but I'm open to listening.

And we could always bring it back. If we hit the 10 pretty quick and it doesn't seem like it has massive impacts to the community. Based on impact. I think the whole idea even I hate to say the cannabis cap was it was it was like hey let's see what we get to and then reevaluate the system and I think that's what really everybody thinks the cap would be is just a little bit of a break to make sure we don't go overwhelmed and over speculated and see some massive impacts. It's just it's really a check valve for the board to come back to us if we hit the cap.

i think there's a lot of people out there think that we'll never hit the cap or even get to 8 000 right you know that we have a lot of solar already so i think it might be an easy ask in that sense so but please i'm okay as long as we have a date certain i will note that this item was also going to be with an item related to oil and gas which is a part of a big picture to move us away from fossil fuels and so and that has been kicked twice so if we have a date certain i'm on board

September 1st. Mr. Chair, Supervisors, I did want to get clarification on the cap. There was discussion, right, as currently presented, it's only applicable to Tier 3. There was some discussion about applying Tier 2 towards that cap as well. So appreciate your board's guidance on where you stand with that. Supervisor Hartman.

Well, I'm with Supervisor Capps. I wouldn't have a cap, but I'm, you know, in the interest of compromise and working together, so I would be eager to hear how my colleagues feel about the combination.

I would rather, as a safety valve, let's put both two and three in there. If we hit 10,000 acres, that's going to be front page news, right? I mean, that's a big deal. So if we hit with two and three, come back to the board see what those impacts are to the community are they significant then maybe we stop there if it's if it's not that significant that we're just taking up pretty much land that doesn't have a lot of productive use and there's and there's a big demand out there then i think the whole board will be open to to going further i think it's an opportunity for us at 10 000 gosh that's a big number to say okay what do we how do we want to proceed with the county from there and agrivoltaics they're going to come and save our strawberries AND SO I THINK THAT'S A NUMBER THAT WE'RE LOOKING AT AND SO I THINK THAT'S A NUMBER THAT WE'RE LOOKING AT AND MAYBE BRING BACK JUST A COUPLE AND MAYBE BRING BACK JUST A COUPLE OF DIFFERENT WAYS FOR US TO OF DIFFERENT WAYS FOR US TO DISTRIBUTE IT NORTH AND SOUTH IF DISTRIBUTE IT NORTH AND SOUTH IF THAT'S AN OPTION. THAT'S AN OPTION. HARTMAN BROUGHT UP AVAILABLE HARTMAN BROUGHT UP AVAILABLE LANDS. LANDS. MAYBE LOOK AT ENERGY USE. MAYBE LOOK AT ENERGY USE. A DATA POINT FOR US TO LOOK AT. Any thoughts on the 10% of non-prime contracted land that APAC had recommended versus the 15% that staff had? I was really indifferent there. I don't know what anybody else thinks on that number. We've got to give some feedback on that one.

Then I'd go for 15. Okay.

Again, these are non-prime contracted lands. I don't think it's, neither one of the ag organizations really called that one out. That was more of an APAC concern. So I think we're okay with staff at this point. Moving forward, you're gonna come back with some best permitting options, right? That's the next, that's part of this as well. And I know that I had asked for and insisted more containment issues, just making sure that's kind of vetted out. know one of the things that you know we hear from people advocates that it's very safe now well i think one of the ways that you determine safety is through insurance and bonding and that might be something that we need to make sure projects have is that because if it's really if it really is that safe it'll be really cheap to insure and bond it if it's really not that safe it's risky the insurance and bond markets will tell you it's expensive so maybe that's maybe some bonding for um potential Catastrophic. Maybe look at that to come back.

We will look into that.

Yeah. And so that might be something nice to add to it. All right. Any other issues?

I just want to piggyback on that real quick because I think Spencer brought up some really good points about what the science is. You know, perception's reality for us for a lot of this stuff. So a lot of times people haven't been educated about what the new science is. They're still looking at the videos of Moss Landing, and that's what they're talking to me about. So I need your help and everybody else's help to get everybody educated on that as well. I think we can do that through these hearings and kind of talk about the new technology is, but the fact that, you know, we just need to hear more about it and learn more about it and teach more about it.

I would love that because we do have another side that's actually fearmongering on this issue. And it's not helpful. I mean, it's a technology that is being vilified. It's kind of hilarious. And as we've been sitting here, we got an email from our director of emergency services about tonight and the heat warning and shutoffs and SCE is also sending out notices. And so this whole effort is about resiliency. That's why we need batteries. That's why we need solar. We need to be moving in this direction because of resiliency. And we're up against a lot of like a very orchestrated misinformation campaign. So the more that we can educate, I think everyone's in agreement. I'm all for it.

So let's use that platform.

And we're members of the JPA 3CE. They invest our money in these various projects. So they know a lot. So we should, you know, it's not like they're just another one. We're part of them. They're part of us. So we should rely on them for some information about this.

Thank you. And I just wanted my last thing, and I'll just preview that when I in September 1st, when this comes back to us, is that I am still looking at the permitting tier of exempt, you know, a 15 person farm tour takes a zoning clearance, a, you know, a small drainage improvement, a greenhouse, those take LUPs, getting a potentially exempt battery storage being easier than those things just does not seem equitable in our planning um code and so i mean i understand the need but these things are fairly significant land use changes and when you have when we have permitting structures that make those things higher levels just does not seem to fit is my thought so that's the part i'll be looking at when we bring this back to the board on the first

UNDERSTAND. ONE CLARIFICATION, MR. CHAIR, AND CHAIR HERTMAN, WHEN WE'RE TALKING ABOUT THE GROWER SHIPPER REQUEST ABOUT UP TO 15 ACRES BEING EXEMPT ON AGRICULTURAL LAND THAT WAS PREVIOUSLY DEVELOPED. OKAY. I JUST WANT TO MAKE IT CLEAR THAT THAT'S WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT.

AND I WOULD SAY PREVIOUSLY DEVELOPED AND NON PRIME OR It doesn't say that in their letter, but I'm going to say it for him because I do think that that's something that should be looked at. I mean, if there's a hillside that can't have production at productive agriculture on it, I think that should absolutely be.

So what we'll look at is what we can cover in the existing EIR. And so if we can cover something like that, then we can, if it has been analyzed in some capacity.

Okay, great. Supervisor Capps.

Sorry, Chair. Yeah, absolutely. We were punting, so I didn't do closing comments, so I'm doing it piecemeal. But this is my last comment. I just wanted to thank the speakers. We really had a diversity of voices. And, of course, our environmental community that's been pushing along here for a long, long time on this. But also we had labor here today and I want to take Joshua Medrano's invitation up to come see one of these projects and actually really learn about it up close. So again, just thanks to everybody who turned out and who has been there all along for this for a long ride. We just have a little bit longer.

Okay, so do we need any actually action today?

i think just uh mr chair i just want to make sure that uh staff has captured all the board's corrections so lisa could you read back and reaffirm yes um everything that you're going to be bringing back thank you yes so on the cap thank you good point we're going to bring back a 10 000 acre cap uh that would include tiers two and three and those would be options for the board to discuss we'll give possible distribution options for the board um we will include a 15 cap on non-prime ag land so we will change that in the uniform rules with regard to best permitting we will provide more information on the containment standards which exist and actually do we we do talk about it in the eir some uh question about whether we can bond require bonding for those facilities in the event of an accident and then also we'll look at setbacks to sensitive receptors for standalone best at 0.25 acres and then We will look at the up to 15 acres of exempt solar on agricultural lands. Okay. And under, yeah, the tier one.

Great, thank you. I think that was really well, but Sue had a good point. What would be sensitive receptors? What would you?

Residential uses, schools, those types of things. Okay, yeah. Fairly well described in the environmental review world.

Okay, great.

Not ecological.

Right.

Right. Okay. Are we all comfortable with that? So with that direction, can I get a motion to continue this to September 1st?

I move we continue this till September 1st.

Which direction? Yes. And a second from Supervisor Capps?

I'll second. Okay.

All right. So we have a motion and a second. Any further discussion on this motion? All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passed unanimously. At this time, we're actually going to briefly go back into closed session. One of the items that we were discussing as an update.

Yep.

So for four of us. So Madam County Council, would you please read what we're going to go back into closed session to get updated on?

thank you mr chair members of the board the board previously recessed a closed session and report i reported out on the only reportable item at that time which was a decision to initiate litigation and we are returning to closed session on one item and that's sable offshore core versus the county and the time estimates about 15 minutes we'll be back in 10 or 15.

Welcome back to the July 14th, 2026 meeting of Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors. We're coming back from a brief second closed session. Madam County Council, can you report out from closed session, please?

Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the board. The board met in closed session on one item of existing litigation, Sable Offshore Corp v. the County, and the board took no reportable action.