Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

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Good morning and welcome to the August 11th meeting of the Tulare County Board of Supervisors We will start this morning with the Pledge of Allegiance led by Supervisor Macari and then a moment of silence thank you all right let's get going here we got a long agenda so um our next item will be board of supervisor matters and i will start to my immediate right with supervisor valero

Thank you, Chair. Well, good morning to Lurie County. It was a great day yesterday as two school districts celebrated major accomplishments. For Cutler-Rosie Joint Unified and Orosi High School specifically, a new career technical education building will be added to the campus. It will be a state-of-the-art facility where nursing and green technology labs will exist to further enrich the learning experience for students. I had an opportunity to share a few words yesterday morning at the groundbreaking and celebrate this milestone for this community. At Dinuba Unified, the new Dinuba Intermediate School opened its doors for students. Dinuba Unified will now have two middle schools as it continues to see growth across the city. I had the opportunity to share a few words there yesterday evening as people gathered to cut the ribbon and host a special back to school night event. I WILL BE ATTENDING THE MEDAL OF VALOR AND PROCLAMATION CEREMONY FOR T.C.S.O. DETECTIVE HOPPER THIS AFTERNOON AND THEN THIS WEEK'S ACTIVITIES INCLUDE AN IVANHOE SENIOR'S MEETING THIS AFTERNOON FOLLOWED BY OUR QUARTERLY ELEANOR ROOSEVELT COMMUNITY LEARNING CENTER BOARD MEETING. I HAVE A YOSEMITE SACOYA R.C.D.C. MEETING THURSDAY FOLLOWED BY A GOLDEN RESOURCES OF SEVILLE COMMUNITY MEETING AND THEN LATER IN THE WEEK I ALSO HAVE SEVERAL MEETINGS WITH CONSTITUENTS AND THAT IS ALL I HAVE CHAIR.

Thank you. Supervisor McCurry.

Well, good morning, everyone. Just a couple quick things. We've been involved with the guerrilla fighter units and trying to get VA benefits for the Laotian people there that help fight. I've been going to NACO and pushing that. Normally, when you put in for it to get on these boards and commissions, you apply. You put in for it as a process. I got a pretty good surprise when I received a letter from George Dunlap, the new president of NACO, where they have appointed me their veterans military services Advisory Council so I think I was pretty excited about that not even applied for it they put me on it and they talked about how I've been unwavering in my commitment and I think those you know me I'm pretty stubborn and so I keep going so maybe it paid off but I'm really excited to be that and I will be bringing this ask Israel to bring us back to the board as an agenda item so the board can solidify it that this is one of my assignments for the next year And the last thing I have is I received a phone call from a friend that some people were calling him in panic because they were in the middle of an immigration process and they needed a document from the sheriff's office that they already had but for whatever reason the process was changed and immigration was not accepting that and these people who had less than 24 hour notice and they were looking at being denied. So Elizabeth, I want to thank her. She's brand new and she's my rep and she did an amazing job on this. I called her and she started making contact. The people could not actually accurately describe to us what they needed, so she called the attorney. and got the information and then I spoke with the Under Sheriff Sigley and the Sheriff Boudreaux and the Sheriff's Department and we all got together and we got this letter for these people in a matter of a few hours. And they, and this is what I told Elizabeth, this is why we do this, they were calling in just tears, crying, they were so happy that we were able to help them in their process and get this moving forward because my understanding, and I may not be accurate, but my understanding was they were looking at imminent deportation. And so we were able to help them. They had the right to be here, and it was just tied up in a process. So Elizabeth, thank you. You did an amazing job. She's brand new, and she just ran like a champion on it. But this is why we do these things. There's a lot more to cutting ribbons and doing stuff. And when we can help just one family like this, it makes it all worthwhile. That's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you, Supervisor. Supervisor Townsend.

I was waiting for it. Thank you, Madam Chair. Appreciate it. Good morning, everyone. Yeah, a few things. Just wanted to give a shout out. Last week, Supervisor McCarty and I attended the Good News Global Prison Ministry dinner over at Visalia First. I just want to thank Rick and Kendall Williams and others that sponsored and volunteer for that organization. It's a life-changing ministry of the folks that are incarcerated. They also... honored Senator Shannon Grove for her support of that ministry over time. Also last week, along with Supervisor Macari, I did receive my NACO presidential appointment as Vice Chair of the Public Lands Steering Committee for Land Management. I've been doing that for multiple years now through NACO, and it's a California State Association of Counties appointment, and then that goes to National Association of Counties, And the president, in this case, George Dunlap, sends the letters out for those vice chair assignments. So really proud of that. And I think it does make, in the case of Supervisor McCurry, it made a big difference in getting a resolution on the platform. And with the public lands, over the years, there's been many, many resolutions and some federal legislation that's come out of those lobbying efforts. This week, today I'll also be attending the Medal of Valor ceremony over at CVC for Detective Hoppert. Tomorrow there's a ribbon cutting for VARCOM. They did a last mile project for broadband out in Tarabella, a second one actually, and It's going to reach about 1,400 homes along with some schools and some businesses, probably affecting close to 5,000 residents. So that's a good conclusion to that grant that came out some time ago. Thursday have my check-in with their Helping Human Services group and on Monday we have Tulare County Association of Governments and Tulare County Transportation Authority right here in the chambers in BOS chambers. Also wanted to give a big shout out to Charlie, Charlie Normans here, our chief, and for the Hatchet Fire. You guys got right on that along with Cal Fire. Of course the Cal Fire hit it from the air and our guys were up there as well. About a 600 acre fire and it spread pretty quickly, threatened a lot of structures up in Springville. As far as I know, no structures were damaged, is that right? Yeah, no structures. I think everybody was healthy and I don't think animals were harmed. So everybody really got on top of that one. The community came together, but really wanted to thank Charlie and his team for all their support on that. And that's all I have to offer this morning. Thank you.

All right, thank you. Supervisor Vandepoel.

all right thank you madam uh chair a few items to go over yesterday we had a meeting of the greater queer groundwater sustainability agency and this is uh we're entering into the 2026 water year and our first year of really seeing a pretty significant reduction on our ramp down schedule for water extraction about 90 percent of historical overdraft was allowed up to this point That 90% drops down to 70% starting this water year. So the cut downs and the restrictions are really starting to hit the ground and, you know, just a difficult time in agriculture, but we're trying to be as creative as we can to create water opportunities and, you know, the Greater Queer Groundwater Sustainability Agency bought I think it was 1,000 acre feet or 500 acre feet of new water from outside of this basin to bring in for the purpose of helping us allow ourselves to continue to extract groundwater. So it's a difficult time, but the GSA is sure working in a creative way to keep agriculture in production here in our Cahuilla Basin. I am not going to be able to make the Medal of Valor presentation today. I had a meeting that was scheduled several months ago and I do obviously wish I was able to be there and pay my ultimate respects to Deputy Hoppert for the sacrifice that he contributed in serving our county and the public tomorrow we have a department of child support services backpack giveaway at maple school that is happening at 8 a.m and again child support gave a presentation at our last meeting highlighting some of their outreach activities for child support awareness month and i think it's just really great that they're doing this district-wide and Nice to see him in Tulare and I hope that event goes well. I would try to make it, but I have a Tulare County Employee Retirement Association meeting at 8.30 tomorrow in Visalia. So I'm not gonna be able to be there, but I will also have an HHSA director check in this week on Thursday morning. And then lastly, I, like Supervisor Townsend, wanted to mention that we have a Tulare County Association of Governments meeting here in the board chambers on Monday. That's all I've got.

All right, thank you. Just a few things. I, too, will be attending the Medal of Valor ceremony today for Detective Hoppert. Tomorrow I have a Workforce Investment Board meeting, and then we have a meeting with the Visalia Chamber of Commerce. Supervisor McCurry and I will be doing the State of Local Government presentation luncheon on August 27th. along with Mayor Taylor and Vice Mayor Wynn of Visalia, and then numerous meetings and check-ins throughout the week. On Monday, I will also be attending the TCAG meeting here, and then I will be covering for Supervisor Macari in his Regional Transportation Agency meeting, right, still? Okay. And then lastly, I just want to mention Last week, Visalia lost a champion, and former council member Greg Collins passed away. And let me tell you, Visalia would not be the city it is today without the growth, the planning, and whatnot. And a lot of that led for many years by Councilman Collins. So I just want to wish Dorothy and his children my condolences. And that's all I have to say on that one. Thank you. So we will now move on to public comment period, and under state law, matters presented under this item cannot be discussed or acted upon by the board at this time. Comments should be relevant to matters within the board's subject matter jurisdiction and not repetitive of previous speakers. At all times, please use the microphone and state your name for the record. Madam Clerk, do we have any public comment?

Yes, we do have one. Richard Randolph.

Good morning, Mr. Randolph.

Richard Randolph and I have a couple properties up in Heartland, California and I have some concerns about the church camp up there and their noise that they're drawing up there. They're using amplified devices I have a decibel reader over 110 decibels on amplified devices just The area is basically designed, granted the church camp's been there not quite as long as most of the cabin owners have been there, but they've gotten worse and worse over the years. So they're using bigger amplified speakers. They're using sirens. just kind of going crazy on the noise out there. So I've tried to work with the church camp leader last year. He promised me that was going to happen this year, and it's just gotten worse. So I'd like to know I've talked to some of you already, but what is the conditional use permit on using amplified devices at 6000 feet? For a church camp, is there any time limitations? Numerous cabin owners have called the sheriff's department on noise complaints. The sheriff's department says, hey, we can't do anything until we get a decibel reading. Now we're starting to use decibel readings on that. The other issue is the church camp has grown tremendously. And parking up there, they're parking along the side of the road. We can't get vehicles past. They're parking on both sides of the road. They're having new construction up there. they don't have any type of road uh people directing traffic or anything else like that so you can't get two vehicles past the road dry creek road going up they're not using turnouts as they're coming down when we came down on sunday 27 vehicles and a conga line coming down at 20 miles an hour dry creek road and numerous people were getting frustrated trying to pass but You know, when you're trying to pass in a conga line, there's no safe place to do that either. But it's a safety issue. Also, they bring large buses up there. And there's like four major switchbacks up there. And they constantly get stuck on there, sometimes blocking traffic up to four hours. So we've tried to talk to CHP about the traffic, the parking, the sheriff's department about the noise complaints. But my question is, is they're building a new building now and they're going to even increase the size of the camp. And I'd like to know what the conditional use permit for them to be able to use amplified devices up there and that they need to have a designated parking area where it's not along the roadside. Also, a couple weekends ago, I had my kids and grandkids up there, and we're playing in the creek, entered the creek from private property, and we have church camp members telling us we can't be in the creek, we can't be playing down there, that that's church camp property, and they're basically claiming the whole area for themselves. So my question is, I'd like the board to look into their conditional use from it. Is it safe for them to have, I'll wrap it up, is it safe for them to have 350 campers up there and 75 vehicles up there?

All right, thank you. And I saw you talking with Supervisor Valero and our folks from RMA beforehand, so I'm sure they'll be following up with you on that. Thank you.

And I appreciate that very much. Absolutely.

Thank you.

Do we have anybody else? Thank you, manager. That completes the public comment forms that were submitted. I have a caller on remote. Good morning. Good morning, Rick.

Yes. Good morning chair and members of the board. My name is Rick Gorham. I'm a resident, a lifelong resident of Tulare, California. Lately, I've been following the discussion surrounding the proposed global stack project in Tulare County Fairgrounds. After watching the recent Tulare City Council meeting and hearing there is a fact-finding effort underway that involves you guys, the Board of Supervisors, Tulare City Council, Alex Macedo's office, and other state and municipal government agencies. I decided to do some independent research of my own. I'd like to share what I found today, not as a conclusion, but as information that I believe that may be useful to the Board of Supervisors in the continuance of fact-finding and evaluating this proposal. So here it goes. What happened was in 2023, the state came in and they said, For decades, the fairgrounds has been emergency response or resilient centers. Particularly in that year in 23, the Tulare Fairgrounds helped the city of Porterville with their floods. When that happened, they decided to knock down the first Tulare Chamber of Commerce building and the Ellie Auditorium. The Department of California Food and Agriculture already approved $11 million. On Martin Luther King and K Street adjacent from the Land O'Lakes in that 34,000 square feet lot will be emergency resilience center. It has nothing to do with Stack Global at all. This emergency center will house in case we have floods or natural disasters like fires. Also, it can help with a lot of the plants, such as Saputo Land O'Lakes, if we have any emergency evacuations of their employees. When it is not a youth center, it will, well, sorry, when it is not an emergency center, it will be used as a youth center. It will include a banquet hall, a dance hall, a conference room, and then volleyball and basketball court. Again, this has nothing to do with Stack Global, and it is a state-funded project. ABC 30 already did a news article in 2023. In September of 25, they had a groundbreaking ceremony. So it's nothing to do with Stack Global. It's an emergency response center. Now, what is a Stack Global?

Rick, you have about 10 seconds left, and you'll be muted. I apologize.

Okay, I will just... just um recommend that the board keep fact finding on this project and learn the difference between the emergency resilience center and the stack global project thank you guys and have a wonderful day thank you for your comments rick do we have anybody else that includes public comment

Okay. Nobody in chambers for public comment anymore? Okay. Then we will move on to our consent calendar. These items are routine and usually approved by one motion. Before action by the chair, anybody like to pull any items or comment? I do have one I would like to pull, which is item 17. But if not, I'll entertain a motion for the approval of the rest of the consent calendar Okay, we have a motion by supervisor Valero with a second by supervisor Townsend. Please cast your votes Motion passes 5-0 I just have I actually got a media inquiry also on this read as far as the funding for this project and if it's measure our money or

You know developer agreement paying for this so if you can give me a quick update on that, of course Yeah, this is a good opportunity We'll be seeing a lot of action in that intersection area in the next 18 months or so as Caltran realigns or reconfigures the Caldwell or Avenue 280 interchange so The project is primarily, that project, the interchange project is primarily funded through Measure R, and as part of that work, the northbound off ramps and the intersection with Drive 88, which is the frontage road that comes up there, needs to be shifted to the east a bit. So that's where 272 comes up and it gets shifted over. So this realignment does tie in nicely with the ongoing development of Sequoia Gateway, the development interest there, which is south of Caldwell. And a few years back, specific development interest at Sequoia Gateway caused us to work with Caltrans and TCAG, who oversees the measure, our funding. We pulled this project out of the Caltrans work so that we could expedite it and do it in conjunction with the Segway Gateway development. At the time, Great Wolf Lodge was looking at going in there, so we wanted to make sure that that all worked ahead of time for the intersection. That development slowed down a little bit, and so we needed to do the work to make room, basically, for the interchange. So we redid the development agreement, we pulled it out, Measure R is funding the work, and we will be doing the project itself. So to answer your question, yes, it is fully Measure R funded, but it would have been, had the Sequoia Gateway project not been there, done with the Caltrans interchange. So we kind of ended up doing it at the same time. We were hoping we would do it ahead of time if the development came. We're not doing the frontage improvements. It's just the basic road realignment so that when the development does come along, whatever interest that works, they'll build that out, build the medians, build the curb and gutters, build sidewalks that are appropriate for that development in the location there.

Supervisor McCarr, you have a question? At the end. Are you done?

Yeah.

It's the end.

Yeah, no, I don't wanna take anybody's question. I just, you know, the thing is people are looking at Measure R and I know Measure C in Fresno County has caused a lot of questions. And so we're getting a Measure R and what people don't understand, even though we try to promote it is, and I may not have the numbers right, but Measure R has brought in something like, and Reed correct me if I'm wrong, something like $600 million is what we've locally raised funded, but it's brought in something like $9 billion of leveraged funding. So, yeah, Measure R does get used for some of these funds, but it's paid for itself time and time again over. So people, we need to start educating people about it because there's a huge misconception about it and it is an enormous benefit to the county. And it's called self-help because that money stays here. doesn't go to the state where they put their hands into it and give us a small percentage back like everything else we get so it is i just want to clarify you said measure are asking about the media i think they need to get that message out of what the true benefit to our community measure already is all right thank you reed so uh with that i will entertain a motion

We have a motion by Supervisor Macari, I'm assuming for approval, and a second by Supervisor Valero. Please cast your votes. Motion passes 5-0. All right, well, we have no public hearings today and no untimed items. Madam Council, do we have a need for closed session today?

Yes, Madam Chair, there is need for closed session. Item E is off calendar, and I do anticipate an announcement out.

Okay, and with that I do have a recusal. I have a financial conflict of interest under government code section 87100 regarding closed session item IHSSA because I receive income as an IHSS provider. will not attend the closed session for item IHSS a and I will not obtain or review any non-public information regarding the governmental decision the clerk is requested to make this announcement announcement part of the official public record of today's meeting so with that that ends our regular session for today thank you all for being here and we'll see you next week All right. We are back from closed session. Madam Council, do you have a report out?

Yes, Madam Chair. Reporting out for item C, the Board of Supervisors directed legal counsel to defend and authorize the defense of individually named defendants, including those to be named later with a reservation of rights. In the case of a state of Michael Pinon et al versus County of Tulare et al, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of California, case number 1-26-CV-05959. The adverse parties are the estate of Michael Pignon, AP, GP, Successors in Interest, and Rafaela Garza. The case involves an alleged violation of civil rights and excessive force. The motion to defend was made by Supervisor Larry McCurry, seconded by Supervisor Dennis Townsend. The motion passed 5-0. This concludes today's report out.

Thank you, Madam Chair. That ends our meeting for August 11th. We'll be back in chambers on August 18th.