Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

Morning, everyone. I'd like to call this board of supervisor meeting to order. The date is February 24. The time is 09:00 starting on time. So I'm going to ask everyone if you could please stand for the pledge of allegiance and then remain standing where father Brian Dawson from Saint Paul's Episcopal Church will give us an invocation.

We pray. Holy one who calls us to serve in many ways, give your grace to these called to lead here today. May they be diligent in seeking justice determined in choosing mercy and open to hearing and seeing the ways of your peace. In this holy time of Lent and Ramadan, help us all to find the humility and honesty needed to acknowledge we can and do need each other now and always. Amen.

Thank you, father. Okay. Good morning all. So today we're going to be proclaiming Black History Month. And with me, we have Renee Crawford.

For I know lots of faces know who Renee Crawford is, if you've in the county at all. I think she spent about thirty one years in The Health Services Agency is a social worker, probably the most educated person I've ever met. We always talk about how many degrees you have, but it's so appropriate. It is so appropriate that you are here with us today because of your involvement helping the community. Again, just because of the black community, but because the community in general. You've been a true northern star for us. So today we proclaim Black History Month, and I'm gonna grab my glasses. I blew it again. I'm sorry. Thank you.

There's a few things on here that I want to highlight rather than reading the whole thing because I'm not a great reader. Whereas 02/10/1976 during the United States bicentennial, became the Gerald Ford became the first president to issue the message recognizing Black History Month. And then Congress actually passed the law in 1986 designating February as Black History Month, which is great. But there was fifty years. This is the hundredth year, but fifty years of it was a little different.

It wasn't declared Black History Month. It was a nationally sponsored National Negro History Week starting in 1926. So you have fifty years of Negro History Week, fifty years of Black History Month that is officially recognized in the twenty twenty six Black History Month theme. So this is a century of black history commemoration. Whereas as we celebrate the accomplishments of African Americans in Stanislaus County, we must consider the contributions of organizations such as the Modesto Stanislaus Unit ten forty eight of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, NAACP, and its Economic Development, Labor, and Industry Committee today, and that's who, Renee is representing today.

Whereas the committee encourages greater participation in the trade union movement and the works to improve opportunities in vocational and apprenticeship training, the committees the committee also works to eliminate discriminatory employment practices in industry and government, discriminatory practices in labor unions, wage differentials based on race, unfair dismissals, and unequal opportunities for training and promotion. Whereas Black History Month is a time set aside to learn, honor, and celebrate the achievements of African American men and women throughout the history of America. Therefore be it resolved, this is always the famous line, that the San Jose County Board of Supervisors does hereby proclaim February 26 as Black History Month and urges all citizens, public officials, educators, librarians to observe this month through the appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities. So I'm gonna ask the board to come down. I'm gonna give you the mic while you speak, and then we're all gonna take a picture together if that's okay.

Once again, I am Renee Crawford, community coordinator for the NAACP. And on behalf of our president, Wendy Byrd, and the chapter, we humbly accept this proclamation.

Okay. Now we're going to move on to the public comment period. We don't have any written comments. Now we're going go on to the public comment open public comment period. It's a time for those in attendance to speak on items not already on today's agenda. Please state your name for the record, direct all comments towards the dais. And so it's fair for all speakers, we're going to limit your public comment to five minutes. I do have two speaker cards. The first one is Michael Owens. Welcome, Michael.

Thank you, guys.

Good to

be here, Manny. Thank you for the invite also. So Kelly Quavo's daughter is going to Turlock Junior High. She was attacked by a substitute teacher, but she and her mom and the family is being attacked at the direction of city officials in the city of Turlock who are abusing their positions. And there's a platform called Save Turlock.

It's a paid platform who is attacking a disabled veteran and her family. So what I would like to know is what are you guys planning to do to make sure Kelly and her family are protected? Because I honestly think that is very uncalled for for her and her family to be attacked like that.

Thank you. Thank you for your comments, Michael. Next up we have Milt Treeweiler. Morning, Milt.

Morning. Good morning, board members, staff, community members. Milt Treeweiler. I'm a lifetime Stanislaus County resident. It's hard to understand, but we're not thinking as clearly as we did during the before the COVID pandemic as we went through a series of changes that affect our life. Our recovery from the pandemic is still not complete. Many of us have become delusional and irrational when it comes to making important decisions. We must clear up our brains and begin to think like rational, intelligent people again. We all know that we're responsible for our children and descendants because they're too young or they haven't been born yet. Obviously, we're not going to allow our young children to get into an automobile and drive.

It's our responsibility to take care of them, plant for them, and protect them. Our children and descendants must have food to eat, clean air to breathe, and water to drink. Maybe we don't think about the fact that our Earth is the same size it was when it was created. There's no new water, no new air, and no new land on the Earth since we arrived. There are many different climates on the Earth from the frozen Arctic to the Hot Equator.

We know we can't grow almonds, walnuts, and other tree crops in the Arctic because it's too cold there. Basically, almonds and walnuts and other tree crops need a deep soil, a ample supply of water, and the right climate to grow. The central part of Stanislaus County has all three of these conditions. There's no other place like this on the earth. As our public officials, it's important that you see that this land is protected for posterity.

Since you represent the rural areas of Stanislaus County, you must make rational and responsible decisions. You must think about this carefully because the choices you make today have an impact on the future. The growing area for nuts and tree crops South Of Stanislaus County is getting smaller because of lack of water. The farmers there are already taking out their farmland for protection also in East Stanislaus County. Our ancestors did a good job of providing us with a good supply of irrigation water.

They set up the first two irrigation districts in California in 1878. Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors, you need to come up with a plan to protect this farmland from development. The farmland in the MID and TID Er d I TID erudition districts are already fully economically developed. Stanislaus County produced $3,200,000,000 from agriculture in 2024. That value is higher than 17 states in The United States.

Stanislaus County, one county produced more than Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, South South Carolina, and Wyoming Wyoming and other states. Agriculture is Stanislaus County's number one industry. We're producing food for our state and our nation. There is an abundance of poor soils and wastelands in California and our nation for the developers to build houses on. A plan is needed in the county for the cities and districts to grow up on their infill and blighted areas with high rise buildings.

We can build large numbers of high rise luxury condominiums and high rise luxury apartments and also affordable apartments in other parts of the cities and districts. This will preserve the footprint of the cities and districts in the county, the cities and districts, and then utilize their current water sewer and storm drain infrastructure. The cities and districts can also use their current police and fire service protection by increasing the size of the stations. This will give our, county growth without increasing the taxes and utility rates on the current and future residents of Stanislaus County. The sad part about this is there are few people in Stanislaus County who do not care about the future of our children and descendants.

Please stop the sprawl in Stanislaus County. Build up and not out. We are all responsible for our children and descendants. After thirteen years of attending public meetings, it's like observing madness. There are people here who are trying to destroy the best farmland on Earth. It makes no sense. We are the parents. We are the adults. We are the ones who have to make these good decisions for our future and are for our children and our descendants, And we need to get to work on this immediately. We can't put it off.

You see what Modesto is doing? They're already planning on destroying the best part. The best part in the county is actually North of Modesto. We've gotta work on this. We gotta work hard on this. You've gotta come up with some way. Maybe we can put it on a ballot and vote on this, have all the citizens vote so we can save this land, build up

and not out. Thank you. Thank you for your comments, Milt. Anyone else for public comment? All right. Hi.

My apologies supervisor. Good morning everybody. My name is Julian Phillips. Am here on behalf of senator Alvarado Gill to provide a legislative update for you all. Starting with some recent events, the senator and I are hosting a series of ag and water policy roundtables throughout the district. We held our first one last Thursday with a group of growers in West Modesto. It was very well attended. We are also letting people know that if they would like to host one in their area, if they are grower groups or things like that, we would love to hear from them. Last Friday, we had a meet and greet in Oakdale. We also did a stand RTA tour where we toured the New Depot.

I actually heard about that here at a board of supervisors meeting when we had the sheriff's office talking about security improvements. Was great to be able to show the center some wonderful improvements in the district. Last night we were at the northeast regional meeting for the Stanislaus County Farm Bureau. Some upcoming events in the district. Have mobile office hours tomorrow at the Stanislaus County Law Library. They said they get a lot of people coming in there for passports and things like that. We hope to give them some outreach materials. And then on to kind of like the bread and butter. Recently the deadline passed to bring forward legislation and the senator brought forward a package of wildfire relief bills this year. We have AB ten oh four which is a tax credit for home hardening.

We have SB eleven eighteen which is a 50% tax credit for backup electricity or solar generators up to $5,000 or $7,500 respectively. We also have SB eleven sixty two which builds on the existing law that the fair plan has to do a five year update. This would include the Department of Forestry and Wildlife to identify key areas for fire suppression within the urban and wildlife interface in the district. We also have Leo's law which is SB twelve thirty four which would say that juvenile courts if they request that a parent or guardian submit to a drug panel before releasing a child back into their care that panel also includes fentanyl. Bill was brought forward because of a child that passed away due to fentanyl poisoning in the care of one of his parents.

Those are our legislative package that we are working with. If you have any questions please let me know. Thank you so much for your time.

Thanks, Julianne. Appreciate it. I know we have had an uptick in opioid poisonings. There have been alerts sent out both by the district attorney's office and BHRS recently. Anyone else for public comment? All right. Seeing none, we're going to go ahead and close the public comment period. We're going to move on to the consent calendar before the Board takes action on the consent calendar. Does anyone wish to provide public comment on any matter that is on the consent calendar today? All right. Seeing none, we're going to pull Item D1. Any other Board members want to pull any items? Seeing none, then we'll move forward with that, D1.

Motion to move all

items other than D1.

Second. We have

a motion. We have a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries five zero. Ben?

I just wanted to congratulate Laura Disaronde who is in the audience to be she just got appointed to the Stanislaus Regional Housing Authority. Lourdes and her husband do a lot in the community, and I appreciate you stepping up to even do more. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Lourdes. Appreciate it. Okay. On to item d one, which is the approval to accept the update on the permanent local housing allocation five year plan and to award $1,511,000 in shelter support and 547,000 accessory dwelling unit rehab facilities.

Good morning Chairman Keyes and members of the board, Mr. Hayes and Mr. Bose. I'm Angela Crateus, the county's planning director, and with me is Anna San Nicolas, deputy director of Community Services for the Planning Department. The Permanent Local Housing Allocation PLHA funding was is permanent state funding for housing that was allocated in 2017.

It is administered by the state's Housing and Community Development Department. We are in the first five year cycle, which covers the twenty nineteen to twenty twenty three allocation. And during that time, Stanislaus County has been awarded 6,600,000 in PLHA funding. The status of the funding, year one has been fully committed and expended. Year two is fully committed and still in the process of being expended.

Year three is pending commitment, which is the bulk of what we're bringing to you today. And the deadline to commit that funding is April 30. And then year four and five were partially committed, and we have the final commitment before you this morning. In 2025, we conducted an affordable rental housing request for proposals to produce no eligible permanent supportive housing to utilize the year three funding. HCD allows for the permanent supportive housing to be used for shelter support as a sub activity.

This is what we did back in year two. In addition to the permanent supportive housing, we're also looking to reallocate some fiscal incentive activity funding that had originally been intended to be used to off offset the county's public facility fees when they're waived for affordable housing projects. But the way that the state is interpreting the ability to utilize that funding statewide has ran into some complications where our original intent, we cannot use the funding in that way. So we have been working with HCD on some budget revisions that are pending the board's determination today. And so the actions today are to ensure timely expenditure and to prevent any loss of funding.

So the funding recommendations you have before you today include the shelter support program, which includes 1,600,000, 10% of which would be set aside for activity delivery to for the operation of the program's oversight. Now the selection process that was utilized for this was notice of funding availability. The requirements were the shelters had to be a low barrier. Housing first had to be adhered to as one of the compliance requirements for the state. They had to have no less than 90% bed utilization for the previous year, and they had to demonstrate funding stability or a good plan.

Now, the shelters that are being proposed for funding is Center for Human Services, the Youth Low Barrier Shelter, Haven, Healthy Alternatives for Violent Environments, and ACES, which is a combination partnership with the Community Services Agency and Salvation Army, and the We Care program in Turlock. Now, all the applicants were able to be fully funded in our recommendations. There were some remaining funds, about approximately 111,000, which were proportionately distributed to each of the shelters. So there's about 27,000 additional for each. And the funds must be expended by 06/30/2027.

Now, the second part of the funding recommendation today is for accessory dwelling units. This program we're recommending year three, '4, and '5 for a total of 547,372 to be, excuse me, incorporated into our housing county's housing rehab program. This would help us with affordable housing to preserve and rehabilitate existing housing stock by helping with rehabbing ADUs. If unable to implement this, we would be asking to amend our contract with Valley First Credit Union for our existing ADU loan program. Any questions?

So

this normally comes through a committee, right? Correct.

Yes. When we before we released the request for proposals, we did run it through the community development committee, which supervisors with their own supervisors gray wall sit on.

Chair Okay. You good with it? Mr. We're good.

Chair All right. Just wanted to check.

Any comments from the public? Seeing none, I will bring it back to the board. Ratchet?

I will make a motion to approve staff recommendations. Second.

There's a motion to second. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carries five-zero.

Thank you. Thank

you, guys. Good work on the committee. Then we're gonna move on to item seven, which is a public hearing approval to sell tax defaulted properties, re offer unsold parcels at the new sale and exempt 10 parcels owned by the federal and state government and 95 other parcels from the state tax sale. Treasurer tax collector, presenting Donoran. Good morning.

Supervisors Grewal, Withrow, Gondit and Gondit, CEO Hayes, and Counsel Bose. It's been a little hot minute since I've been up here to talk about this. I believe it was November. But here we are again. We've had lots and lots of activity since I was last here.

The tax default process in California operates under the direction of California Revenue and Taxation Code and under the oversight of the California State Controller's Office. The State Controller's Office maintains a tax manual which can be reviewed online. When a property owner misses an installment, the treasurer tax collector's office sends a letter reminding them to make their payment prior to June 30, which is the end of our fiscal year and is set by state code. So it can be cleared in the current taxing year. If payment is not made, the taxes become subject to penalties and interest.

Delinquent taxes are eligible for payment plans provided taxes remain current. If the payment plan is defaulted upon, it can be restarted until the fourth year. Once it has reached the fourth year, if they default, it goes on the default list. Once a defaulted property has reached the five year mark, it becomes eligible for property tax default sale. A notice of impending power to sell is published in the newspaper listing all the properties at risk of auction.

At risk of auction. That does not mean that they are necessarily being auctioned, It means they are at risk of auction. A list of properties is prepared and a date is set for the auction. The board has the opportunity to approve or deny the agenda item. Once the board has approved the item, we begin our due diligence.

We reach out to property owners and other parties of interest, which may include family members, mortgage companies, other interested parties. Quite often, the delinquent taxes are redeemed at this point in the process, eliminating the need for auctioning the property. Taxes, penalties, and interest must be paid by the last business day prior to the auction at five p. M. The only option is either payment in full or bankruptcy.

A bankruptcy filing with papers delivered to our office no later than 5PM of the last business day prior to the auction will also prevent the auction from moving forward. Once the property is sold, the taxes are distributed to all of the taxing entities on the tax bill, and the excess proceeds can be claimed in the following year, and then distributed based on ownership claims. You can see the timeline that we have been through. It's going to be a full year since we first brought the list. And you can see the list of properties for delinquent tax sale attached to the item.

The list of properties for delinquent tax sale is set forth in the attachment, includes 74 parcels with an amount due of $3,200,000. The list excludes a 101, pardon me, a 105 parcels with an amount due of $2,000,000. That exclusion includes properties that were transferred from Western Hills Water District to Diablo Grande Community Facilities District number one, and then the CFD entered into bankruptcy, so those are not included on the list. Staff recommendations are that you approve the resolution authorizing the sale, and that you authorize my office to offer the parcels that do not sale sell, at a lower price, and finally, that you authorize my office to reoffer parcels that do not get the minimum bid. Oh, sorry.

And authorize my office to exempt 10 parcels which are owned by the federal and state governments from the tax sale as identified in the list of properties exempted from sale. Do you have any questions?

Any questions for Feller, Donna? Checked to see if their house was on there, right? First thing. All right. This is a public hearing. I'm going go ahead and open the public hearing, acknowledge that we don't have any written comments. Does anyone in the audience wish to provide public comment on this item? You guys will take note first. I

did have a question. Unfortunately, I didn't get to look at this item. So I do understand that these are some of the people from Diablo Grande who were here at a meeting couple months ago that I attended. And I'm kind of surprised that some of those people are not here, but maybe they're in the $2,000,000 exemption or at least delay so that they can have the time to do what they need to do to get the situation straightened out and they can claim their water rights and get some water there. So my question is, so were all the members who were at the last well, at the meeting that were a lot of people from Diablo Grande spoke, were they all notified of this, and are they all aware of this?

I'm just surprised they're not here. Thank you.

We'll wait and then we'll answer that question. Good run.

Milk, did you leave your glasses

up here?

Those are mine. Oh.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the Board. Ron McMurtry here. Yes, I do have some questions. Some of this mostly is for my own education from Treasurer O'Reilly. I looked over these items. Very interesting when you dig into these rabbit holes. But one of the things I am unclear about a definition, it says assessee. And I'm like, it suggests maybe it's the property owner but it's not the assessor.

I'm confused. So I would like a definition according to the list of what the assessee the assessee is legally, clear definition. And then please confirm, I just assumed when a tax collector was here last time that this was just for property taxes but it looks like the various tax agencies in the county, if there's delinquency that just goes to the county because I saw something like Turlock mosquito abatement and the fire districts and stuff. I want you to confirm that you guys are responsible when they declare delinquencies on those kind of taxes and water fees, guess. So yeah, please confirm that.

And then are you going to resolve that street on Turlock that is a throughway for a bunch of residents and somehow get that converted into a road or made make that not officially a property anymore? Are you gonna pass it on to the next tax collector to deal with as an exception? Thank you.

Okay. Anyone else? Any questions? Okay. The most question first, Diablo Grande.

So Diablo Grande, Western Hills Water District, which was previously the legal owner of those properties, grant deeded all of those properties in Diablo Grande to Diablo Grande Community Facilities District number one. So they changed ownership. And then the new owner was already in bankruptcy. So those properties are protected from bankruptcy. So everyone who was here before, first of all, of those people were they were neighbors of the properties that were being auctioned.

None of the property none of the parcels that were on the list had houses on them. There were no people living on those parcels. They were just flat land. But now, all of those unimproved parcels that were on the list before have been exempted because they are in bankruptcy, and bankruptcy is one of the protections from auction.

Yep. Okay. Hopefully that answers your question. The those folks weren't actually living on those parcels.

No. They were neighbors.

They were neighbors to it. Alright. And the definition of assessee?

Assessee is the property owner.

The property owner. And then the delinquency of other taxes collected, fire districts and

So lots of special districts including community facility districts, water districts, lighting districts, mosquito abatement districts, fire districts use the property tax bill for their annual billing to the areas that they serve. So what happens is the auditor's office, when they get the values from the assessor, they look at each individual parcel and what districts apply to that parcel. All of those taxes are then collected by my office and the auditor controller will then disperse them to the taxing districts. When taxes are delinquent, those special districts also do not get their money. So the fire district does not get their money when the taxes become delinquent.

The mosquito abatement district doesn't get their money. So it's far reaching.

Far reaching, but that allows them to go into default

Yes.

For that reason. If someone were to pay the county's portion and not pay the fire tax portion or the school

They aren't able to do that.

They aren't able to do that.

We don't accept partial payments.

Okay. And the road he's speaking of, which I'm not familiar with, are you?

That is not an issue for my office. My office deals only with the collection of the taxes. The use of that parcel is an issue between the assessor and planning and public works. Those departments deal with those issues.

So conceivably the road could disappear or

It could.

Someone, yeah. Okay. Very good. Any other people that want to speak? All right. Seeing none, I'll bring it back to the board for action. I'll it back to the board for action.

I will go ahead and make a motion to approve all staff recommendations.

Second.

Motion. Do have a second? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries, five-zero, against. Thank you. So now we will move on to item eight, which is correspondence. Acknowledge receipt of the correspondence and refer as recommended on the agenda. Are there any Board of Supervisor reports?

Just a quick comment. Our Public Works Department acted very swiftly and efficiently in establishing those signs at Shiloh And Grayson. So I just want to thank Dave and the Rhodes crew for for dealing and navigating our weather and unpredictable unpredictable but needed rains that we've had recently and getting those signs installed. So, thank you again.

Thank you.

I chime in on that with public works. There was a pothole reported last week and when we called the office, they were already working on it. So, it made us look really good because it was done like 10 after the call was made. So, thank you.

That's good.

I was just gonna talk and Buck, we you can talk about it too about a meeting that we had last week with the non District East landowners. You know, as the groundwater use management plan was put in place, the county is the stewards for the non District East and non District West to the extent of Riverbank and a couple areas, Del Rio area actually out there. And so we had fairly decent attendance. It was very good. I want to commend our DER staff.

Rob and Christy did a great job, and everybody else who was involved in helping put that together that was out there. It was very, I think, kinda educational for everybody to see what's going on. There's been a lot of rumors being spread out there about just misinformation that's just just not true. And we're we're really focusing on Non District East as a steward. Non District West really isn't in critical overdraft and is not. And so there's not really a need for any actions there by the county. But we share it with Riverbank to the extent. But again, they're not in critical overdraft. Same with Del Rio. And so anyway, just a lot of misinformation that we need to kinda straighten out.

I think we did that at the meeting and we talked about going forward what we're gonna do and have future plans. Hopefully, another meeting that will bring together a smaller group of maybe we ask for individuals that would be willing to participate in a smaller kind of committee that would help us come up with plans and things that we could do to help deal with the overdraft situations out there and how we're gonna go about it. So, anyway, very productive for our first meeting and we're gonna move forward from there. Buck, I don't know if

you go.

Yeah, Terry, I'll go ahead and agree with you on that.

I thought it was a great

meeting and my compliments to DER for setting that up. A lot of great discussions with the property owners out there and they had a lot of great questions that we're going to work on getting the answers to and I look forward to the rest of that discussion in future meetings. It's going to be good.

Very good. And I just want to announce there is an issue with the Waterford Library in Waterford, obviously, and it's going to close on Saturday for an undetermined amount of time. They've got to figure out some smell issues, but we're going to do that as quick as possible. So everyone needs to be aware of that. All right. We're going to move on to legislative fiscal and management report. CEO?

Just a couple of items to reference this morning. The first is I think everyone's aware that there's still this very limited federal government shutdown with the Department of Homeland Security. They have a funding lapse following the expiration of the short term continuing resolution that had funded that particular department. They're still functioning, but some services are changed. We're hoping that there's a resolution there out of Washington pretty soon.

No direct impacts here in Stanislaus County that we are tracking. We are nearing the upcoming time periods to submit local funding requests at both the state and federal level. So our team are working with that on with our federal and state lobby, team, and we'll align with our legislative platform on any request that we put forward, hoping for some success in this upcoming funding cycle. And then the last thing I wanna mention is that this past Friday marked the state bill introduction deadline and we've already received a list from our state advocates on that initial list of bills and what might be of concern to Stanislaus County. So we'll begin that work as we do each year.

And that concludes my report.

Any questions? All right. We do have a closed session before we go to the closed session. I want to thank Bailiff Trevino for your keeping us safe as always. Appreciate it. And we're gonna move on to we're gonna join this adjourn this meeting, go to a closed session. Before we do, Tom?

Yes, we have closed session this morning. We have two items to discuss. The first is existing litigation pursuant to Government Code Section 549,566.9, Subdivision B-one. We have one case there, Alex Brown v. Stanislaus County Department of Aging and Veteran Services. That's in the Stanislaus County Superior Court. The case number is CV2500736. The second item is a conference with labor negotiators. Pursuant to Government Code Section five hundred forty nine thousand five and seventy six, the agency negotiators are Jody Hayes, Joanna Navarro and Sydney Isaias. Labor organization is the Snaslaus Regional Emergency Dispatch Association.

With that, appropriate public copy. Anyone want to comment? All right, seeing none, we're gonna adjourn to closed session.