Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors 12/12/17 AM Session

And welcome to the December 12th Cruz County Board of Supervisors. Could we start with a roll call. Supervisor
Friend here, Coonerty here, Caput yeah McPherson here, chair Leopold here.
Well could you please join us in a moment of silence and the Pledge of
Allegiance. good morning Mr. Palacios so there are
any additions or deletions from today's agenda. Yes, there are on the consent
agenda item number 17 there's additional materials a revised board memo. On item
number 20 there's a correction the item should read approve the appointment of
David Hammer CEO to the emergency Medical Care Commission. On item 33
there's a correction the item should read adopt a resolution. On item 44
there's a correction the item should read adopt resolutions accepting
unanticipated revenue and take related actions. On item 46 there's additional
material a replacement page 43 of attachment a.

On item 48 there's a
correction the item should read adopt resolution accepting and appropriating
unanticipated revenue in the in the amount of 33 mm 217 dollars from FEMA
and Cal OES for preliminary engineering and geotechnical services and in the
amount of three thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight dollars for Blue Ridge
blue mountain ridge zone residents for emergency repair work. There's also on
item 48 additional materials there's a replacement board memo deleted
attachment a and revised attachment B. On the closed session the item should read
item 50 and there's a revised agenda page eight
along with that closed session item and then finally on the regular agenda item
63 there's a replacement board memo a clean and strikeout underlined copies a
Memorandum of the planning director dated December 11th and includes United
United feast schedule worksheets thank you [LEOPOLD]all right thank you now I'll turn to
members of the board to see if there's anything on the consent agenda that
they'd like to comment on or pull. good morning Supervisor Caput. [CAPUT] Good
morning nothing to pull I'll make a welcome item 20 and 21 David Hermosillo
to be appointed to the Emergency Medical Care Commission and 21 appointment of
Sam Cooley to the Fish and Wildlife Advisory Board and then on item 44 that
would be the approve the contract for the behavioral health office building in
Watsonville.

It's going to be really wonderful for the community down there
and I appreciate all the work you've done with that James and I also
appreciate the options that you offered on those trees that are in the parking
lot and I think you've received some emails on that. They're rare Italian
Pines and they're the last ones in the area and we had an arborist look at it
and there's about three to four options maybe we can we can save them and use
one of the options we received from your report thank you very much [LEOPOLD]Good morning Supervisor McPherson [MCPHERSON] yeah
I'd like to comment on a couple of items on the consent agenda and not to pull
any of them but items nine and forty-seven just that to get this report
on the excess revenue of our County library fund
and we're gonna be getting of a cash flow report in February end of February.
On the number for item 47 the request for qualification for construction of
the Felton library this is a big deal in the San Lorzeno Valley it's been long
desired and it's finally going to happen I think we'll begin
I hope construction in the spring sometime.

I want to mention also on
items number 11 the progress report on development of drop-in day centers both
for the north and south county for Santa Cruz and Watsonville very much
appreciated and I'm glad we're making a move in both sections of the county in
the north and south. On item number 12 on our vision Santa Cruz report I want to
thank Nicole Colburn from our CEOs office in particular for really getting
this together and for everybody who is participated in that this is really
important to the people of Santa Cruz County for our future.

I appreciate they
turnout we had the first meeting of this division of Santa Cruz County in Santa
Rosa Valley was very well attended I encourage people in the public to help
us look at what we want to do in the future in Santa Cruz County there will
be more meetings and coming up. On item 23 the public after in the aftermath of
the Bear fire Santa Rosa Valley there's a measure or an item here to waive the
landfill fees for victims of the Bear Creek fire so they can have free access
fee. I would like to see a sunset date may be added to that so they could do
that until the end of February so they have enough time to to do that
to get the necessary materials to the landfill and there's also on the consent
agenda items 45, 49, 50.

These are items all relate to the riparian improving of
our roads last winter's storm recovery for
and hiring a consultant to update what with the the county pavement management
plan and for our capital improvement plan for 19 for the ship for this fiscal
year for 2017-18 this efforts going to take years but we
have a really good start I want to compliment the public works department
for putting some things together there are folks I've heard from that want
their road fixed yesterday and we just have a process and a some limitations on
funding of what we can do but we do have more funding than we have in the past
because of measure D and Senate bill 1 by the state legislature so I just want
to compliment the Public Works Department for putting this package
together we're getting there as quickly as we can and I think as efficiently as
we can thank you[LEOPOLD] thank you good morning and a Happy Hanukkah to my colleague
Supervisor Coonerty thank you[COONERTY] Thank You Mr.

Chair happy Chanukah to you a couple
items to comment on no items to poll the first is Supervisor McPherson mentioned
is item number 11 which is a Day Services Center for homeless people, I
want to thank city and county staff for working on it we clearly are in a crisis
and we need a an interim solution until we can find a more permanent solution.
Again I want to emphasize so I said previously I don't want the search for a
perfect location to be the enemy of a good location and I'm hopeful that when
we get a report back on homeless issues. On January 9th we'll have a day services
center open at that point. On item number 12 which is our strategic plan I want to
first of all commend the staff for doing really good outreach and reaching out to
many members of the community and I want to emphasize that we got to make sure we
reach out to the underserved and spanish-speaking communities to make
sure that their voices are heard and go to them and make sure that they they
have weigh in on the future and priorities of this county.

On item number
15 I want to thank Watsonville Mayor Oscar Rios for connecting
and facilitating the donation of the surplus firetruck to our new to
Watsonville new sister city in El Salvador. This is a great way to
repurpose a truck and to deal with what would otherwise be surplus County
property. On item number 24 which is our FEMA policy I want to add additional
direction that we notify our members of Congress of this so that we can get
their assistance when needed in getting resources to deal with storm damage and
then on item number 31 the whole person care initiative this is an exciting
issue t'v and I want to thank HSA and Director Nguyen for their leadership in
making this happen and I like to add the additional direction that in each future
quarterly reports that the numbers of enrolled clients is included and that
also the geographic location where those clients reside at the time of enrollment
is included this is this is a gives us the ability to see where clients are
being rolled and how we can partner with other agencies to increase enrollment
and then finally on item number 33 I want to thank first five Commissioner
Director David Brody and Alan Timberlake from HSD for their good work on "Thrive
by Three" and it's as we've said before this is really exceeding all of our
expectations and it's a really tremendous opportunity it's nice to see
money and resources being allocated to help moms and and their kids and young
families as they as they work in the first key years of life.

Thank you [LEOPOLD]good
morning Supervisor Friend and happy Hannukah to you as well [FRIEND]Thank You chair
I have nothing to pull and I have nothing to comment on good morning[LEOPOLD] all
right well I have a number of items to speak about, there are many many things
on this agenda I'm not going to talk about them all but I but there are a
number of them on item number 12 which is the vision Santa Cruz county process
I too want to commend the staff the meeting we had in Live Oak I thought was
a very very good meeting and there was good conversation I see some of the
who were at the meeting or here today they could also speak to that and I also
want to reiterate what my colleague mentioned about ensuring that we do this
process that includes all the members of the community and have specific outreach
to the spanish-speaking members of our community and our staff and others are
willing to help. On item number 29 which is the releasing the request for
proposals for dental health care services we know because we've seen the
the the research and the report about the need for a great dental services in
Santa Cruz county especially for people who can least afford it we received some
great services from dientes who's celebrating 25 years and I hope they'll
be seriously considered as part of this RFP process.

On item number 32 I want to
thank the Health Services Agency adding these new staff members for the mobile
emergency response team program is really critical to the success of all
the programs we'll be talking about a number of them later on today but the
the the the commitment and ensuring that we have the staffing to be able to
effectively run these programs will mean that our entire county will experience a
better quality of life and it will be better services for people most in need.
On item number 38 which is accepting over 1 million dollars worth of funds
for some park projects located in the first district I want to thank the staff
for all the hard work members of our Commission who who have supported this
and doing all the work that we can to make sure that we get these parks built
I really appreciate the outstanding effort that we've seen so thank you very
much for that on item number 39 I'm really glad to see that we're going to
be going out for design services for the Live Oak library and annex I think this
is exciting and the conversations that have been
held so far with the institutional members will be greatly enhanced by
seeing some designs and being able to talk to the community about it
so.

I'm very excited on item number 41 I'm glad to see that we're moving
forward with a pre development loan to mid-penn housing for the 17th in
Capitola Road there's a lot of work that still needs to be done on that project
but one of the things that people told us they wanted to see is they want to
see affordable housing at that site and I'm glad that we've where we are
negotiating with a partner who knows how to do that well so thank you for your
work. On item number 49 which is the agreement for the county pavement
management program this is going to be a really key document for us it always is
a key document for us but the landscape has changed with the introduction of the
measure D funds the SB 1 funds the commitment that this board made to add a
million dollars to our road programs and I think when this report comes back and
we have the presentation we need to take
0:19:19.150,0:19:25.360
a look at the designations we've already
made for some of these funds especially relates to the storm damage and have
some information about how these additional funds will help us with
changing the known backlog that we have a projects I think it's good we're in a
new era with with our road funding and we have to treat it that way.

I think
that's the last item so now I would look to see if there are members of the
public who would like to comment on consent items can please come forward
tell us which item you're commenting on [ARNOLD]Gary Richard Arnold 22 and 24 we just
gave a pledge of allegiance to a country indivisible and I believe that we should
end race-based Commission's. As you can see from sitting up there the audience we have people
from every race here
and I believe it's detrimental to equality is detrimental to the community
integrating and we see each other as individuals not as racist. So I wish you
would in these race-based Commission's. On 24
there's prejudicial application of services for instance in the Moran
lagoon over there there are trees that are thinned and trimmed and taken down
to about sixty percent to protect some residences there it happens at an
attorney that works for an insurance company occupies that particular house
you had 30 yards away we find the remains of a gauntlet of guillotines and
huge eucalyptus trees overshadowing other houses in that area there
continues to be root balls that are high in the ground with three or four five
feet deep halfway covered with shrubs places where
children dogs and other people can get hurt.
I believe it's the repetition of those trees falling on houses and even the own
your own construction of bathrooms there has been not misfeasance but malfeasance
because anybody can look at those trees see the three-foot roots planted in
landfill from the harbor on a slanted cliff is dangerous and any arborist that
approves those and you should fire him [LEOPOLD]thank you good morning[STEINBRUNER] good morning
Becky Steinbruner resident of Aptos Hills.

I would like to pull item number
11 and put that on the regular agenda for discussion because I read that your
board is considering declaring a local state of emergency and I think that
needs to be discussed more publicly. I'll move along because my time is moving I
also want to point out that in number nine regarding the library funding I I'm
confused that we now have a 4.5 million dollar access in our library
fun and not long ago when measure S was being campaigned it seemed like we were
in dire straights and things were going to get shut down if it didn't get passed.
Related I want to point out item number 13 a lot changes code to allow
philanthropic naming of libraries and again this is another fundraising tactic
that I'm confused by if the libraries are in such poor state of in such
excellent state of financial health.

Number 39 also related is the Live Oak
library annex which i think is deceptive to use that term when in the description
of the initial contract going out to MiG it described this facility as having a
very small collection of books. I think it's disingenuous to use measure
S funds for this building there is really a community center and I'm not
opposed to building that that facility next to the Boys and Girls Club of Live
Oak and the Simpkins Swim Center but let's be honest here about what it is
and proportionally use measure S funds if at all for its building I also
protest the use of MIG they push through the Aptos village plan they were the
ones that handled the recent Live Oak not Live Oak but pleasure point
community meeting and that was nothing but a railroad job that's incredible.
Item number 15 I'm really glad that the rescue unit not the engine will be given
to Watsonville and repaired and sent to El Salvador and I want to make sure that
the excess engine 39:12 funds when that's auctioned off do indeed go to the
county fire fund and not some other use Item number forty-one I want to make
sure that in the Capitola road 17th Avenue
affordable housing the Merriman house is preserved it could be used for the
health facility that is scheduled to be there.
Please don't demolish that.

Number 17 I want you to deny the extension of the
cafeteria license related to number 11 let's house the homeless people there
for the not house but for the day center there it makes sense and the county owns
it and we could do it now thank you [LEOPOLD]thank you
item number 11 will become sixty four point one good morning[IVY] good morning
Supervisor Leopold board members I'm Maggie IV with "Visit Santa Cruz County"
just here to thank the board for your continued support of the tourism
marketing district. Approval of our annual plan is item number 10 on your
consent agenda. I want to thank Supervisor McPherson for
his continued service on our board. Just a couple of pieces of good news about
the tourism industry hotel occupancy is up 2% this year which is actually quite
higher than the state average which is fairly flat in our neighboring
communities and this last year we released new research about our
international market so the long-term planning of the marketing district has
allowed us to do a lot more emphasis on longer-term market share building of the
International visitation of California.

We partner with visit California and our
international visitors make up 13% of our visitors now versus 8% just a few
years ago we've welcomed a lot of UK visitors Germany, Australia, and Canadians
as well so thank you for your continued support and happy holidays thank you
[LEOPOLD]good morning[POTTS] good morning my name is Trisha Potts and I'm from Watsonville
and I'm here to talk about number 38 just to say thank you we're on to the
next phase literally four years ago this week the parks department got an email
from me saying we needed to work on what became known as the Chanticleer Park
project the "Leo's Haven" and you know it's just really rewarding to see that we're
moving into the next step and I'm here to say thank
you to Jeff Gaffney and Will Fort particularly Will today because he's
responsible for dealing with all the crazy details of this project as well as
Mariah Roberts with the Chanticleer park neighbors and you know this is a big
project we've done a lot and we have a lot to go forward with and so I just
leave you with a story today when I get overwhelmed when I think about how big
this project is it's it's the kids and the families that I'm meeting and I just
met a mom and a grandma from Watsonville and they slipped in a donation from a
commission from their last real estate development and with them was their nine
month old daughter and granddaughter Abby and she has Down syndrome and as as
we were talking they said this is where Abby's going to get to go to play and
you know Abby wasn't even born when we started this and so it's really exciting
to see this happening and thank you so much for being willing to move forward
with this public-private partnership thank you [LEOPOLDthank you
a good morning [ROBERTS]good morning Mariah Roberts from Chanticleer Park neighbors
and really quick I have some things I wanted to say about item 38 but I also
just wanted to remark also about the animatics the library annex and one
thing that I've been hearing just as a Live Oak citizen is the acknowledgement
that libraries have really taken on many different forms in our current
environment with technology and how they fit into the fabric of our lives and so
looking at what a library can be versus historically what they were which was
more of a repository for books so it really excites me that there's some
creative thinking about how to use a space and how to increase access to
information so as Tricia mentioned in June of 2015 you all voted to adopt the
MOU for the county and our private nonprofits to move forward with this
private public partnership and that was the start of us really being able to
move "Leo's Haven" at Chanticleer Park forward so that partnership which was
worked you know so much work that went to lead to
that with former CEA Susan Mauriello staff from perks department has really
given us the blueprint that has allowed us to have the success that we've had we
hope that that can be an example for other private public partnerships and
projects in your various districts going forward we welcome any questions about
that today in your consent agenda number 38 item number 38 you are voting to move
forward and to go into the next phase from the counties side and so we feel
really good on the private side about our fundraising and where we're at and
we just want to acknowledge that partnership that it takes both of us and
all of us to make this happen and that this is a significant next step for us
in the process so thank you for that here's to the next little bit we're
gonna get there okay thank you happy Chanukah[LEOPOLD] and thank you to both of you
for the great a fundraising event you held just two weeks ago
that we enjoyed Johnny Cash we got to dress in black and it was it was a great
event and it raised a bunch of money so congratulations Supervisors Tom del
conte vision recycling no worries I'm not here to do any protest appeals or
anything like that we had a nice conversation about the green waste yard
waste program you voted another direction that's fine
as you know I'm not real comfortable talking in front of the public like this
I wouldn't be here but the guys have asked me to come and talk to middle
managers and the not to appeal the from a consent agenda because we'll have oral
communication oh I don't think so so you might want to just wait right now we're
just doing the consent agenda items Tom I just want to well just wait a moment
we'll finish that and then we'll come up for oral communications let's just
finish the consent agenda like give me another shot to relax a little bit right
yeah [LEOPOLD]these are items on the consent agenda
[MIAN]and I'm Leslie Mian from the Blue Mountain Ridge in the Santa Cruz
Mountains about consent item 48.

I just wanted to say thank you for Bruce's
staff people Ginny we just met with Jenny and Marcella from Public Works
we're in the first steps of being able to form a sub csa in csa 23 to repair
our road from the storms and to be part of the county infrastructure of
maintaining our road and it is such a relief to us to be able to do that and
we have an arrangement with the Santa Cruz County Bank that they're working
with the county to help us fund repairs so we don't have to spend fifty thousand
dollars out of pocket right now and just the opportunity to do that we were just
thanking Jenny and Marcella for being here because this is the county serving
its people so thank you [LEOPOLD]thank you is there anyone else about items on the
consent agenda [GARRETT]number nine library funds the young
woman who spoke before me it's talking about libraries and traditionally what
they've been and what they could be with technology.

I object to making libraries
Wi-Fi hotspots because it's a biological health hazard and also a problem for
people who already have disabilities functional impairment due to microwave
exposure especially damage to children married if we're gonna get the same funding so funding of the libraries
funding should not go to more technology in the libraries it should go to making
library safe place to read that are not
microwaved and I've given you this before Wi-Fi in the library convenience
or health hazard and all the libraries now are toxic places where this
detection meter is just like in here you can't go to a place where you're getting
assaulted involuntarily and harmed by microwaves I've given you this before it
shows brain cell damage from microwaves library should be safe places there's
technology that it's documented to be dangerous really needs to be removed I
helped pay for libraries with my taxes I rarely go in because I don't feel good
and it's hard for me to come here but I feel it's my public's citizen responsibility
to try to give you direction and alert the public to the facts of the harm of
wireless microwave technology thank you [LEOPOLD]thank you other items on the consent
agenda you don't get a second bite at the Apple[STEINBRUNER] community because there's no
video of the meetings proceedings on the screen I just want to make sure it's
being recorded that's all thank you [LEOPOLD]I'm assuming it's being recorded
someone will tell me if it's not being recorded seeing no one else for the
consent agenda I'll bring it back to our board for action there were additional
directions on item number 23 and 31 is that clear to the clerk 31 was about the
having us sunset on the on the waiver fees at the end of February and on item
number 23 24 as well 24 was just notifying our members of Congress oh
yeah sorry thank you for that correction [COONERTY]so I'll move the consent agenda as
amended[LEOPOLD] motion by Coonerty seconded by McPherson all in favor signify by
saying aye any opposed motion carries unanimously
now we've reached the communication portion of our meeting
this is the chance to address the Board of Supervisors on issues under our
purview but not on today's agenda you'll have three minutes to speak green light
will come on when it's when you start yellow light when you have one minute
left and a red light when you should end good morning [GUIWRITER]good morning chair Leopold
members of the board and Happy Holidays I'm Reid Guiwriter, chair of your Santa
Cruz County Housing Advisory Commission affectionately known as the HAC I want
to make two points today to tell you a little bit about the HAC and its recent
activities first the HAC formed ad-hoc committee some months ago to engage with
the many great organizations working to tackle the current housing crisis in our
County the goal was to flush out common action items among these groups that
could then be implemented over time by the county under your leadership the
county is a robust housing program already
that said the ad hoc committee did generate several recommendations for
your consideration the written report is included in today's agenda as
correspondence the HAC vice chair Jan Brown will speak after me and provide
you more details on these recommendations and second this is my
second year as the chair of the HAC when Supervisor Coonerty appointed me
several years ago the HAC suffered from apathy and at times could not muster a
quorum I'm pleased to report to you today that with the recent appointment
of several commissioners by your board the HAC never lacks for a quorum we
have an organized agenda we have we routinely have a healthy debate about
housing issues in this county and I'm very proud of that we enjoy working with
their housing staff and the Commission thanks to you for the opportunity to
serve in this very important role so with that now Jan Brown will talk to you
a little bit about the HAC can they report thank you very much thank you
good morning good morning Thank You Reed [BROWN]chair Leopold members of the board the
HAC ad hoc committee spent the better part of a year gathering input from
public agencies and private organizations seeking solutions to the
housing crisis the goal of gathering that input from more than a dozen
stakeholders was to collect information about their work and to hear suggestions
about potential action by the county in addition to the four incorporated cities
stakeholders included affordable housing the housing Advocacy Network mid-penn
housing new way home / envision housing and the Monterey Bay Economic
Partnership what we learned essentially is that some of what is supported by
these groups is already underway or in the pipeline for the county largely by
way of a sustainable Santa Cruz County plan however due to staff resources and
other constraints we found that the work to implement the sustain the sustainable
Santa Cruz County plan is not happening quickly enough to stimulate the creation
of a substantial amount of affordable housing or additional housing in the
market generally so on November 1st the HAC unanimously passed the following
recommendations for board consideration the first were the first two our
priority recommendations that could be achieved in the short term while the
others require additional coordination with the planning department they are to
expedite implementation of the sustainable Santa Cruz County plan to
include zoning ordinance changes density recalculations and fee adjustments by
providing adequate funding and other resources for the planning department to
hire additional staff or consultants to complete the work secondly to streamline
the planning process to encourage housing development that better meets
the needs outlined in the housing element of the general plan thirdly to
review underutilized commercial and industrial parcels throughout the county
to determine whether they are suitable for housing and then allow for a process
to rezone and establish by right development standards fourth to
proactively work with the owners of large private property to determine
sustainability or suitability for the encouragement of housing development
lastly to seek a local funding source for affordable housing creation
including possible support of a countywide housing bond proposal being
considered for the November 2018 ballot by private advocacy groups so as you
consider both the affordable housing program update on your agenda today and
the ongoing vision the Santa Cruz County Planning process we would just ask that
you consider the HAC recommendations or possibly schedule a discussion about
our recommendations on a future agenda and lastly I just like to thank my
fellow commissioners who served with me on that committee and they our
commissioners Nancy Abbey Kent Washburn and Linda Haines thank you very much
[LEOPOLD]thank you and thank you for your work on the on the Commission good morning [ARNOLD]good
morning chairman Gary Richard Arnold and we quickly trying to talk about
individual rights and the policies and influence on the board here most people
associate the ACLU with the First Amendment and other rights let me quote
from the founder the founder was Roger Baldwin
he says I'm for socialism I seek for social ownership of property communism
is the goal and he added when power is achieved as it has been in the Soviet
Union I'm for maintain it by any means necessary you know the ACLU is given
Supervisors our congressman the man that provided the protocols for the Planning
Department received awards from the local ACLU we know that he Leon
Panetta who received an award sent military information to Hugh DeLacy
a communist spy we know that the Planning Board and Supervisors have
accepted both the United Nations and World Bank
operating protocols from Dan Heffley the 60 pages adopted by your planning
department it was Mike Rotkin the head of the local ACLU and his thesis at UCSC
that reported and is available online how to take over a town that has been
done the influence of the newspapers here which is either endorse or oppose
most of the people up here of course was run by Dow Jones for a number one of the
editors was Mr.

Bruce McPherson who received money from Katrina Luanda a
triple agent from Communist China as editor from over 65 million seniors at
the time he hired Claude pepper to be the senior columnist Newsweek and time
called him red pepper Saturday Evening Post
column pinko pepper US News and reports said pepper is a foremost advocate of
Russian policy pepper wrote the foreword to a Brooke
book that was created in the Soviet office he also worked for a group
specialized in pro-soviet propaganda Claude pepper the person
Bruce McPherson chose also hired Charles Kramer who was a member of the wear and
Pirlo spy rings I want to mention that Mr.

McPherson and the rest of you
continued to maintain two plaques on the courthouse steps of Hugh de Lacy a
communist enforcer in fact he belonged also to the wear and Pirlo spy rings and
I think it's time for the lazy grand jury and the Sentinel whose has recently
been bought out there's a good article by in Bruce Bratton's series but this
county does not represent the people and it shows despite we've got Californians
running and fleeing from fires that they're gonna send a firetruck to
Central America while their fellow citizens burn thank you [LEOPOLD]thank you it's
not fact to follow but good morning [LAUREN] good morning my name is Lauren and I'm from
Scotts Valley Supervisor McPherson I'm addressing you today about your
persistent inflammatory and divisive statements regarding the select
committees of South Bay arrivals super majority recommendation to return to the
historic Big Sur flight path you have needlessly then alarming the public by
saying things like it would just be a disaster if it moved back or it will
just be moving noise as a member of that committee you know full well that the
FAA our congressional representatives save our sky Santa Cruz quiet skies
NorCal your fellow Supervisor john Leopold who put forth the proposal and
all of us affected by the surfer flight path are doing everything in our power
to make sure that the Big Sur overlay is as quiet or quieter than it was before
when it received only one noise complaint from our
area in the year before it was moved it is in everybody's best interest to make
this transition successful and the Select Committee process a model for
communities across the nation but your failure to communicate that intent
Foster's fear and division among the people you were elected to represent
your efforts to keep the surfer path moved over people who had no warning or
voice in that decision basically endorses the idea that a flight path can
be moved anytime and anywhere with no due process and under that way of
thinking no community is safe from what we have endured please join us
help make this work make it better than it was before make this a proud
accomplishment in your long and impressive career and not a sad footnote
in the memory of a community that felt you let them down [LEOPOLD]thank you good morning [CRANE]good morning my
name is Tony Crane I'm representing a neighborhood in Aptos I'm here to
formally and publicly protest what we consider an egregious abuse of public
trust in the implementation of the second-story program in our neighborhood
and the placement of a facility in that neighborhood I want to make it clear
that I'm not here to protest the program itself it serves a needy community
however I am here to protest the unethical and incompetent process by
which the facility was chosen we've provided irrefutable evidence of this
Supervisor Friend is in receipt of some of the information that we have and so
I'm hoping that all of you are aware of what's gone on
I mean that was our way of trying to bring it to the board in advance but
it's irrefutable evidence of a calculated plan to misrepresent the
intent and scope of the facility given absolute misrepresentations of the truth
to the public in order to circumvent the process that needed to be handled a
public hearing you know mitigated negative declaration
all those things that are associated with putting a commercial facility in
any area let alone a residential area so I'm hoping again that you guys have
received that information and that you're taking it very seriously because
there are we are alleging serious violations of the public trust
certainly unethical possibly illegal that's to be determined but I just hope
that you guys do understand that we're serious about this and that you will get
the information from Mr.

Friend or I can provide it to each of you so that you
can make an informed decision on what is to happen with this facility in the
future they've recently just requested a change to the description of the program
to fit it in under the misrepresentations that have been put
forth to the public but it has allowed them to begin operations by
misrepresenting things they've actually misrepresented information to the County
to County planning and so this is a pretty serious issue so again I hope
that you do take it seriously and thank you very much [LEOPOLD]thank you thank you for your patience Mr. del
Conte [delConte]as I said this is kind of the last place I want to be today but the workers
and the middle managers asked me to come in just say a word and
try to get some straightness on on their pride and what they do on the on the
properties you may know that we have had filed an appeal we have known they want
me to go through with that I don't want to and I think that would be futile so
we're not going to go through with your appeal so that's something you may need
to know but they did want me to come and express some of the pictures that were
thrown up or from years ago they realized that they're not a perfect
bunch but the workers that work in this in in this region and the people of this
community that work on the landfill on behalf of the recycling facilities are
extraordinary individuals they're they're great people they have a lot of
pride they were offended at some of the pictures they felt that you know over 12
years cherry-picking pictures from long ago to put up some of them were more
recent and they recognized that they take responsibility they'd they wish or
we wish that there would have been more than a minute to explain some of those
items but nonetheless they are what they are but I just want to speak on behalf
of the the extraordinary people that are in production and middle management that
you have working and we're forwarding those to Keith Day those individuals all
of them were making all those available but you know they felt that I make sure
I'm not missing anything from my notes they're a great group of conscientious
people fortunate to have them here I've been fortunate enough to work with them
I'll take credit for finding them selecting them but that's about it the
David we have a David that works up at Ben Lomond and another David that works
out at Buena Vista they're very they have a lot of pride in what they do and the
safety record is bared out is borne by the state of California that has to do
with the workers comp are their safety record our safety record is 29 percent
better than the industry average and just they just wanted to point that out
and I wanted to point some of that out as well but I wouldn't be here if it was
just me they asked me to come so please don't believe all the things that you
saw come and see him David and David have
asked me to ask you come see the facility before they closed it down and
they will close it down nicely but it is a good facility and something that you
should be proud of thank you[LEOPOLD] thank you good morning [BRODY]good morning members of the
board I'm here to come in and item on the rig respondents list I believe I'm
in the right place my name is David Brody I'm the executive director at
first by Santa Cruz County I'm here this morning to thank the board and in
particular chair Leopold for issuing the proclamation declaring January 2018
Positive Parenting Awareness Month this Proclamation as well as recent
actions of this board taken as early as this morning demonstrate that our county
and each of you fully understands the incredibly important role of parenting
and caregiving and what it plays and how it plays in supporting not just the
well-being of our children but our entire community it's for that reason
that we are incredibly proud at first five to serve as the backbone
organization of the Triple P positive parenting program an international
evidence-based program that with funding from first five as well as the county
through your Health Services Agency has helped literally thousands of parents
improve their parenting practices reduce their stress and anxiety and most
importantly build positive healthy relationship with their kids which I
know each one of you can very much appreciate this board will remember that
about a year ago first five issued a five-year report on the Triple P program
and just as a refresher I have brought executive summaries for your perusal in
your free time we like to always remind folks of the important work that we're
doing together combined with other parenting programs and supports in this
county like the parent leadership committee in Live Oak and organic
formation of parent leaders to the array of home visiting programs that we have
brought to bear in no small part because of the work of this board our County has
created in Santa Cruz an environment for parents that doesn't just talk the talk
but literally walks the walk and we are greatly appreciative to all
of you for that on behalf of the first five Santa Cruz County Commission I ask
that you of course maintain that appropriate focus on the importance of
positive parenting and that you once again and thank you for once again
recognizing January 2018 as positive parenting Awareness Month thank you very
much[LEOPOLD] thank you and thank you for all your work and your partnership Thanks
good morning[STEINBRUNER] good morning Becky Steinbruner resident of Aptos Hills I
have a request I'll make again and it's a very simple one that your board have
the binder of supporting materials for issues you're discussing here in the
back of the room there's now a sign saying you can go to the board's clerk
of the board's office and get them but then you have to leave the room and you
don't hear what's being said at a time when you want to hear what's being said
it's a simple thing just move the binder of materials that support what you're
talking about and what the public needs to be informed about here so we can read
last-minute things please I want to let you know that I attended the recent
scoping CEQA scoping session at UCSC regarding their proposed student housing
West project I was appalled to see that there were only four members of the
public there it was very difficult to find I always get lost at UCSC there
were no signs and I really would like to ask this board to reach out to UCSC to
do better outreach within the community have community meetings for their
scoping meetings for whatever the next step in the CEQA process is have them
in within the community not just up at UCSC
and there were no students there either my next issue is discussion about what I
saw is a very odd parliamentary procedure during last week's hosted
rental I've never seen that there two motions allowed on the floor at the
same time I have never seen that the second motion introduced is voted on
first and is allowed to kill the first motion I know your board uses a
different set of rules not Robert's Rules and I couldn't remember what they
were to look them up but I would like some explanation of that I also want to
point out that following Mr.

Del Conte a discussion with you that vision
Recycling's bid was lowest it was the lowest bid by two hundred and eleven
thousand dollars public works director Mr. Presley has told me when contracts
were taken for the Aptos village project they had to take the San Luis Obispo
contractor because the county has to take the lowest bid but that isn't what
happened with vision recycling and Keith day and I think it was pretty
interesting that the County Public Works staff delayed making a decision before
your board until the eleventh hour when you could no longer kick the can down
the road and I also think it's interesting that after your August
meeting and request for a second RFP County Public Works started visiting
intensely the facility and writing up the very smallest things
thank you[LEOPOLD] good morning [GARETT] good morning, Marilyn Garrett part of Radiation Alert Network. I am very appreciative for people who
come and speak at this meeting and I would encourage people who are watching
this to do the same because I think all of you need to see and hear from the
public directly especially and grateful to Becky Steinbrunner and all the work
she does to try to make the community a better place and you would do well to
act on her suggestions very well to do that
on behalf of the public it's disappointing to me that I rarely see
that I saw a new documentary called just it's just out "Generation Zapped"
and it's about exposure of children and many of you here most of you sitting
here have young children or young adult children yet in the film they interview
people medical professionals and they show the
harm to children and what happens to the fetus what happens to young people with
microwave radiation exposure damage to the DNA the thought processes their
symptoms I recommend the film I read a new book
this year"the invisible rainbow history of electricity and life" and I was
thinking of that book this morning and I've gone back to it there's a chapter
called the irritable heart one of the symptoms also listed on this graph that
you have received symptoms near cell towers radiation fatigue sleep distrubances one of
them is cardiovascular problems and what we're seeing is heart strokes and heart
attacks in younger and younger people the signaling of the heart is interfered
with and the microcirculation I've showed you I'm not a medical
professional retired elementary school teacher but I can understand the basics
and read about them the blood cell abnormalities affect the circulation
related to the heart arrhythmia and strokes and I just heard on the news
today that when you know it's like so many heart
attacks and don't know all the causes but this is one thank you that Ed Lee mayor
of San Francisco today certainly[LEOPOLD] anyone else like to address us good morning[DUFFY] good morning Board of Supervisors could you use the microphone so everybody could
hear you oh okay now the 26/11 which my neighbors which was my grandparents home
have decided that they want to build a fence you know that song don't fence me
in well I've got a I'm not much land just an acre and a half don't fence me
and but it's too late because my neighbor has been building a fence right
along my driveway so I can you can't go out my front driveway without seeing a
fence that surrounds my property which ruins my my view and also it encroaches
upon the creek which is a riparian corridor so I can't get to the riparian
corridor now because there's a fence there you know when you're walking on
your on your property that's been your property for a long time and all of a
sudden there's a fence there because some people who bought the property
think it's okay to just go ahead and build willy-nilly it's ridiculous also a
couple of things in the area there's a huge trailer which is on the property at
a kind of off of a word of the where the park is there's a couple parks around
but there was one is a is a huge trailer that just was dumped and it's a longer
riparian corridor to when you go along that riparian corridor it's all around
Soquel and around especially around the area around where that the parks are
it's just getting ridiculous I don't know how to do you is whether
I'm supposed to spend millions of dollars to to get a bunch of lawyers to
come and say no this is his property and and and you can't build there or and it
is not only that not only is it is it as a private property but it's a scenario
of parks and everything I really confused I've been confused over the
years and and now it's a it's really confusing when it's there right on the
property line I don't know whether you could get the sheriff's involved in it
or so so and I figure out whether it's whether it's a local issue where there's
a state issue or comfit I don't know exactly how big the issues go or exactly
how they all wander around I would appreciate getting some feedback instead
of we'll be getting to it yeah I like that some feedback about active programs
actually is happening to us all give the exact address is 2613 and 2611 Monterey
Avenue Soquel thank you okay thank you is there anyone else who would like to
address us in oral communications seeing none we'll go to our regular agenda our
first item is item 57 which is considered report and recommendations
for a revenue agreement with the state Department of Health Care Services for
provision of drug medical services expansion and take related actions as
outlined in the Memorandum of the Health Services Agency director included as an
attachment to the implementation plan for drug medical organized delivery
system there's a revenue contract 18 are zero five seven four amendment one DHCS
for DMC ODS there's the ADM 29 amendment for the 18
are zero five seven for state DHCS and there's the AUD 60 resolution I see
we have staff up here and maybe they'll explain to us with all those numbers and
letters mean but good morning and welcome good morning chairman and
members of the board I'm Giang Nguyen director from the Health Services Agency
thank you very much for taking the time to consider this very important item to
our County with me this morning we have our director of behavior health Eric
Rivera and our drug and alcohol administrator Miss Shana
Zoara they will join me to provide you aboard with a brief presentation
regarding this drug medical organized delivery services system expansion for
our County first I will start with acknowledgement and thinking your board
for your leadership throughout the year to support us with this very important
item as you recall last year you authorized for our agency to explore
this option to work continue working with the state to review our
implementation plan and to come up with a financial model to ensure
sustainability and to expand Medicare traumatic health services to our
community so our staff under the leadership of Mr.

Rivera and Shana Zora
who's a welcome addition to the team we work really hard with the state
department of healthcare services to negotiate state general funds
contribution and also other necessary items to ensure that we have a
reasonable contract with the state and the feds for sustainability to expand
drug medical services for the residents of Santa Cruz County so I want to thank
Eric and his staff Shana I also would like to thank all the contractor
providers that worked very closely with us throughout the last few years to
receive training necessary training to roll out this implementation our alcohol
and drug commissioners who are a big part of what we do for traumatic health
services here all of the stakeholders all the county departments been involved
helping us with this project especially the probation department and the
Department of Human Services who also contribute financially to the budget of
this drug medical expansion and our partner in criminal justice systems as
well so with that I will hand it over to Mr.

Rivera and Shana for the
presentation and we'll try to make it quick
the report is rather lenghty because we want to make sure that you
have enough information and we'll try not to repeat the information or
presentation today thank you so much thank you good morning I just like to
provide a couple of introductory comments again I want to express my
appreciation to the board to Giang and her staff as well as to Shana and her
staff who have been working tirelessly over the last couple of years to move
this project forward we've been engaged in in very long negotiations with the
state and with the federal government around the implementation of this
program and over the last couple of years have experienced a number of
delays one of which was due to negotiations around funding particularly
future funding for the program and then new requirements that the state and
federal government put on the county in terms of our implementation plan and new
requirements that we had to meet so I'm very happy that we're at this point it
gives us a unique opportunity to expand these services in the community which is
a critical need that's been identified for a long time so again my appreciation
to everyone involved in this project I think I think we have a very positive
opportunity here before us today and with that I'm going to turn it over to
Shana who's gonna go over a brief presentation for the board good morning
Supervisors thank you for the opportunity to deliver this information
to you so I'm just gonna walk you through and I want to make sure that
your microphone is on is the green light at the bottom pushed yeah you if you can
get closer to the microphone people will definitely hear you how's that great
perfect good morning so I wanted to just take a few minutes to walk you through
the overview of our drug medical delivery system so DMC ODS drug medical
organized delivery system is defined as a pilot program to test a new paradigm
for the organized delivery of health care services for Medicaid eligible
individuals with substance use disorder so what this does is it opened up the
opportunity for anybody who has medical and has a substance use disorder that
meets medical criteria to get expanded service access the DMC IDs is defined as a continuum of
care model utilizing the ACM criteria the American Society of addiction
medicine it provides increased administrative oversight to our system
it also improves care and efficiency through additional utilization controls
in partnership with the state it does require the use of evidence-based
interventions with many of our providers are well versed in and already providing
but it will expand that opportunity and increase coordination with other health
systems so we're assuring that we're providing holistic care to each and
every individual with a substance use disorder in our community California is
the first state to gain federal approval for service expansion under the drug
medical 2020 waiver and each county has been invited by the state to consider
participation and opt into this program 40 counties have submitted programmatic
and fiscal implementation plans as of December 1st only seven counties have
signed an agreement with the state so we are in the beginning waves of this
process the program does become an entitlement so we want to make sure the
board is aware of that in terms of just potential risks in opting in our budget
which is currently having a deficit a year or two of about 1 million dollars
is a based on approximately on a 100% increase in clients IRB's we want to
double the folks that we're serving and that deficit increase or decreases if
that projection is higher or lower and is potentially impacted by changes on a
federal level in front of you have a continuum of care model which sort of
exemplifies how folks can move through the system we offer early intervention
as well as two levels of outpatient services outpatient and intensive
outpatient services which are similar in service delivery but different in dosage
so folks who need more intensive care would go into the intensive model and
then we also have our residential services which in the drug medical model
are really used as crisis stabilization for folks who are in imminent danger the
understanding is that utilizing the AE Sam assessment along the way we can stay
continually in tune with where the person is and what their specific needs
are and move them in either higher or lower care depending on their needs at
that given time so the American Society of addiction
medicine criteria provides us guidance for both the beneficiary as well as the
provider so the beneficiary in coming into this system has an initial
assessment where we determine what their need is and we place them with a
provider the providers have also gone through drug medical certification
processes which is quite rigorous and have been determined to be appropriate
to provide various levels of care so that we make sure that we're matching
appropriately the individual with the provider that can best serve them so as
I said the assessment culminates in a matching between the beneficiary's
individual need and the liver care offered by that provider and the
beneficiary is reassessed throughout the treatment episode so we're not
necessarily just placing them and saying you're gonna do X number of prescribed
days of treatment but on a weekly basis their provider will be continually
reassessing that person to assure that they're still meeting their level of
care need and if they're not meeting that need to move them to higher or
lower care appropriately it also provides us some specific array services
including early intervention and prevention we will have outpatient and
intensive outpatient treatment some expansion and residential treatment
narcotic treatment programs withdrawal management which is formally known as
detox services physician consultation case management recovery services and
24-hour access to treatment resources so it is a full spectrum we will be able to
expand our service capacity significantly in Santa Cruz by opting
into the waiver it will improve our quality of service through those
administrative oversights we will provide expansion of medication assisted
treatment for folks particularly struggling with the opioid disorder that
is currently an epidemic we will have more integrated care in which the
providers are communicating leisure therein in new ways and making sure that
they're working as a coordinated network and it also is in support of the
strategic plan that has been adopted by the board it gives us the opportunity to
renegotiate rates with our service providers to assure that they have the
necessary resources to meet this increased level of rigor in our system
again it shares the best practice integration stronger collaborations
across our provider network really coming to the table and working together
regardless of what provider that person has initially access care through and it
increases our accountability to the state through those oversights we have
built the system so that there are three primary gates three ways that folks in
our community can access services one is through our HSA access team which
historically has primarily focused on mental health services but we'll be
expanding with drug medical to be the County primary gate to substance use
disorder services each of our providers will also serve as a gate so that
anybody who's in need of services can come to the access team or can go
directly to the provider who can then assess them and either provide them the
level of care or if they don't offer that level of care refer them somewhere
else in the network to get that care and then we also have the HSA service
coordinators who are brokering those referral processes primarily through our
partners with criminal justice and child welfare services so in phase one network
expansion there's a chart in front of you are three providers that are
currently DMC certified and ready to go January 1 with implementation our Janice
encompass and sobriety works and you can see here that Janice has some
residential expansion in the works encompasses also looking at the
potential for expanded residential services and all of the providers can
expand greatly with their intensive outpatient and outpatient services to
expand with the need without a prescribed cap and we have two providers
pvp SA and new life who are working on drug medical applications who would like
to opt into the network with us which will expand our ability for services and
you can see in front of you that their numbers for expansion as well all in all
our current capacity is 87 residential beds and 178 outpatients lots throughout
the county in phase one we'll be able to increase
to 103 residential beds and we do not have a cap on outpatient slots so the
number of people that come in needing services is the number of folks that we
can provide services for and in Phase two with onboarding new
we will have 141 residential beds that are available to the community through
drug medical services and no cap on outpatients thought so we're looking at
a significant expansion all in all I think that there are some incredible
benefits to our community and hope that you have all of your questions answered
okay thank you very much now I'll see if members of the board have any questions
Supervisor Coonerty sure well first thank you for your work you've had to run a
gauntlet of federal and state processing requirements and I appreciate it and
clearly this is a huge need in our community and can be a real benefit one
of my questions came from the fact that with only seven counties participating
and people can transfer their medical or you know come here and sign up for
medical how do we how are we concerned about impact from out of County folks
coming here and using up these these very precious slots in capacity yes
that's a very valid question thank you for asking so under the stays rule
counties who accepted a contract with the state would have options to serve
out of county medical beneficiary we could either serve those clients through
our contract providers or we would return those people's back to their
county of origin due to the limited size of our county and this is a new
initiative to expand services we realize that our capacity is very limited we
want us to be very successful we want to focus our service for the residents of
Santa Cruz County at this time only so our approach would be con to contact
those counties where those people come from to return them back to the county
and refer them back to the county of origin for services so if they wanted to
transfer their medical to this county we could we have an ability to say no
and and if and if they arrive here and they're not signed up for medical and
want asunder for medical do we have an ability to to see how long they've been
here or to stop to figure out some sort of way to establish residency HSA is not
does not have the authority to sign up or not sign up people from attic ow that
would be HSD responsibility but I think under the rules
anyone who like to resign in our County they would have the ability to apply for
it and it's it's the county's process to to go through to determine eligibility
okay and if there is there a local preference that we can we can use in
that process because our department is not in charge of Medicare eligibility so
I cannot answer that question because I don't understand the rules very well we
have to be careful with federal and state rules on Medicare eligibility okay
one thing that I can add is if a beneficiary has Medicare services in
another County and wishes to transfer them then it's quite a complex and
rigorous process and it takes a long time we're looking at a minimum of 60 to
90 days and so often the person will be better served if we were to get in touch
with their county of origin and talk to them about potential resources that they
would be matched with services quicker going that route than to try to transfer
their medical into Santa Cruz County okay great
other questions Supervisor McPherson yeah I just want to say congratulations
this has been a missing link for substance abuse treatment that we've
needed to address for medical patients for a long long time I know it's taken a
lot of work as you've mentioned to just want to say congratulation
congratulations I think this has been the biggest missing piece for our
services to the homeless and the frequent offenders that we hear about
day in and day out week in and week out and I think that their chronic we need
to address their chronic intoxication and public or other minor offenses that
they might have but just as long as the treatment is
available and that in essence County residents have priority I think it's
going to be a very very positive program for Santa Cruz County I just had a
couple questions that I wanted to ask in the cover letter the to this it points
out that if the courts ordered a person to a 90 day residential treatment and
that person does not meet isom criteria then residential service providers would
not be able to claim and receive federal funds
thus they might decline accepting that person HSA staff met with relevant
county departments in the court to provide information regarding the state
requirement for the DMC ODS program what does that mean so what that means is
that anybody going into a residential service under drug medical and needs to
meet medical necessity and that may or may not be true for someone who is
looking at criminal justice issues so what that means is that we would cess
that person and determine whether they would meet drug medical eligibility for
residential services and we've had a number of conversations just in the past
few weeks with our criminal justice partners about how we're going to manage
this there are sort of twofold concerns one is folks that are currently
incarcerated that have a mandate and then there's folks that come down the
pike and how we're going to work with our criminal justice partners around
that in terms of the folks that are currently mandated on are in custody we
dug into those numbers there's actually quite a few there's only three right now
folks that are in custody that are mandated to treatment and so what we're
doing is we're working with our partners around other funding stream
opportunities such as a B 109 for example to pay for those treatment stays
for those folks that are kind of caught in the middle of our transition and then
on an ongoing basis working collaboratively with the court systems
with the district attorney in public defender's office to determine how we're
going to meet both the needs of the community in regards to that as well as
work within the confines of the drug medical system okay thank you I
appreciate that I mean I think it's a really important piece I think that the
board member both the the one category in the letter that said excitement with
precautions it's probably the way I feel I think this is very exciting and I
think it's we know that the substance use disorder problem in our community is
great we've we've done a number of different things to to try to make it
better we hear from constituents about these concerns and they manifest
themselves in public in in ways that are really challenging for the community so
I'm really glad that we have this new program and I also understand it costs a
lot of money I I note that when the President is Commission on opioids said
declare a national emergency that the President stops short of declaring
something that would actually provide more funding and that just shows you
something about compassion is to acknowledge a problem but not provide
resources is not is not an effective way of declaring that the nation has a
problem you made sure to make it clear to us that this is a new entitlement
program and the document points out that this is federally approved until
December 2020 so you know the the the health care land landscape at the
federal level is still changing after a year of real attacks we don't know
what's gonna happen with the tax bill their failure to pass children's health
insurance program is not a great sign for thinking that there's a even
reasonable view of health care at the national level let's say this federal
support goes away what is what will be our responsibilities for entitlement
after December 2020 if the if the federal government has withdrawn support thank you for that question also it is
the concern of counties there have signed the contract with the state
so I actually asked this question at the most recent SESAC meeting to the
director of the health state healthcare services agency she recognized the
unpredictability x' issue going on at the federal level right now
however this day has a strong commitment to request the feds for a renewal of the
waiver beyond 2020 and speaking with her in private and her staff in private they
basically say they would ask for a one-year extension pending who might be
the next president or so so that it can negotiate a better deal at this point we
have a plan if we do not receive federal funding or state state general funds for
this contract beyond 2020 we would work with our community providers and with
all the stakeholders to decide how to bring recommendation to your board to
ensure sustainability and not impacting the residents of this county so it's
it's too unpredictable but we do have a plan that we can get out of it that's
why we need to launch this carefully and not totally expand it to the point that
if there's no additional funding or adequate funding we could have a way to
mitigate the impact so I don't have a definite answer for you Supervisor but
we do this with a lot of precautions and that's why as as you notice they're only
seven County at this time is sign up for this contract but I was told recently at
the last state meeting that there are other 22 counties are ready to sign up
by the end of this new calendar year coming up so I think there's hope for
additional counties coming on board yeah I just wanted to ask one last question
about that you said that were part of this first wave there's gonna but you
also talked about 40 other counties looking to do it and is the expectation
that all 58 are gonna do it or is well most of the counties do it so to be
clear this seven is inclusive in that 40 so it's 40 total the counties that have
submitted plans they had a deadline with the state saying if you intend to opt
into this you must submit and approved both your implementation and
fiscal plans and those counties all went through that process it was 40 yes
correct and have approved plans with the state so they have clearance to go
forward with it and my understanding is that you know
many counties are sort of watching the counties that have already gone live to
make sure that they do their due diligence in creating a plan that's
going to be successful but I anticipate that yes as Giang said many of those
counties are intending to opt in right though I think the help and increasing
capacity I see some of our our partners here in the audience it's gonna be
really critical because we know the need is great and we know the number of
people who say that they're ready for treatment is great and our resources
right now do not meet that need and so the closer we can come to having
treatment on demand the more successful will be about about helping people
overcome substance use disorder Supervisor McPherson yeah this projected
annual budget is over 22 million dollars I have what's do you have any idea about
what the total cost we how much we spend on substance abuse directly a year in
year out and I know this would include the human care services and so forth and
probation department is there any estimate of how much we spend to the
county so currently our annual budget for substance use disorder in Mr.
barreras budget is about six point eight or nine million dollars per year so
we're going to go from six point nine to twenty two point four and most of it has
to do with federal funding that we would be able to draw down as a reimbursement
so we have to provide services claim it in order to draw our federal funding and
it requires a match a local match and the way we come up with local match is
of course net county cost and any non-federal funding including a be 109
from the probation department and HST kowax dollars amount for substance use
disorder and our two eleven help realignment funds that we
receive from the state through sales tax and vehicle license fees so we going
from seven million to twenty-two million dollars a year this is a huge expansion
and most of it is federal funding and requires a lot of leveraging and also
require a cost reporting in cost settlement up to five years after each
fiscal year up services that would provide it so it's a lot of work now
I'll open it up for members of the public who might want to comment on this
please come forward good morning Supervisors my name is Trish
Williams I represent pvps a power of value prevention and Student Assistance
we do support the county's request to go forward with the drug Medi-Cal we see
this as a viable way to continue funding ensure services in the South County
especially for the commutes that we serve this is especially true given the
nature of the medical or marijuana becoming recreational access coming in
January we're anticipating a greater influx of need for services so we
support this and we appreciate your support as well and together we can
change lives thank you thank you good morning morning chair Leopold Fernando
Giraldo chief probation officer Santa Cruz County just want to say a few words
about the possibilities of the drug medical waiver and expansion when we
first heard about this at the probation department we were pretty excited about
the prospects enthusiastic about how many more people we could serve we know
that 65% or more of our individuals on probation suffer from some form of
substance use disorder and as we know addiction does drive criminal behavior
so for us is really about public safety I think being able to enroll folks in
the appropriate level of care and as we as was mentioned this is an
evidence-based response using the risk assessment matching folks with the the
appropriate level and dosage it's precisely what I think will work so we
know there's going to be challenges we've talked about a few but we've met a
lot of challenges in the last decade of the changes that we've taken place in
California so I I think this is this is very promising for not just the
probation population but an entire community thank you thank you thank you
for your work good morning good morning I had the same question that you
Supervisor Leopold's Supervisor McPherson brought up about the large
expense to the county approximately 22 million a year and the unsteady
situation we have federal funding upon it's very pertinent here so this to me
seems quite risky in terms of County funding and also the amount of people
served often thinking we had health care Medicare for all we would have a lot
better health care system that I'm having to do what seems to me this kind
of band-aid approach to gushing health care I am aware that approximately a
hundred thousand deaths a year or because of doctor prescribed drugs
medications used as directed and this previous gentleman who spoke talked
about adjusting dosage it all sounds like the program and I have a question
for you when I finish here yes treating drugs with drugs and
also think a lot of the drug problems health problems are invented in our
inequitable economic system where there's massive
unemployment a lot of poverty that we shouldn't have
and that's related to was also kind of dismayed that I think it said that
tobacco addiction it's not part of this and that's that's a big problem
and then there's a an addiction that does not addressed no one cell phone
addiction people are constantly going in to entrain and on their phones all the
time there is a health and immense and a lot of children are experiencing it it
seems to me one of the largest areas of addiction to the cellphone radiation is
not a minute here it wasn't clear to me I'd like to see instead of a broad drug
with drugs that there be use the word holistic care but I'm like that
elaborated upon because there's great benefit to occupy sure homeopathy
naturopathy thank you could you respond to that please what we will hear the
testimony and then we will answer questions
good morning Supervisors Rudy Escalante with Janus's of Santa Cruz I just want
to commend HSA staff for all the hard work that they've been putting in
working with the stakeholders holding several meetings working through the
process to understand how this is all going to work
we're very supportive of the Medicaid expansion we received a grant to expand
from 24 beds to 40 beds at our facility thanks to the California Alliance so I
think there's really strong partnerships in Santa Cruz County there is a huge
need as you saw the bed space if you think about the population that we have
here in the amount of beds that we have the resources are extremely limited and
we haven't even really talked about our youth those under the age of 18 so there
is a growing need for it I think there are going to be some challenges we've
all admitted that but I think we're committed to working together to try and
get over these challenges and some of the unknown potholes that exist out
there from this expansion but I think it's a great opportunity for our clients
and for our community so thank you thank you and thank you for your work good
morning good morning Supervisors k-12 teaching programs officer and compass
Community Services I also want to say congratulations to our partners for the
Herculean task that you have undergone in bringing this to our community and we
want to express our full support it will allow us at encompass to expand service
provision we are working on an expansion of our "Si Se puede" campus and this will
allow the treatment funding to bring that from a 23 bed facility to a 40 bed
facility which will be fantastic as as chief her Fernando said it is an
incredible opportunity to be more strategic about how we're using our
treatment dollars the assessments allow us to ensure that we are looking at
acuity and we are placing people where they will be most successfully treated
that means greater health for the community it also allows us to continue
to do something that we strongly believe in which is operate in community and in
partnership to have community impact this is an issue that we know affects
our entire community as Supervisor Leopold you were saying earlier working
together in a more strategic manner is going to allow us to use these resources
to their best impact and with evidence-based practices and in a
collaborative effort and we just feel very very strongly that this is exactly
what this community needs to address substance use disorder thank you thank
you good morning good morning board ellen timberlake director of the Human
Services Department I just want to echo our wholehearted wholehearted support
for this expansion I really want to thank a director Nguyen and her team for
the efforts that you've put forth to expand the service in our community on
behalf of our department similar to Fernando many of our clients and
participants in services need these services desperately and we've always
been very appreciative of the service support that we've gotten from the
Health Services Agency and their partners so we are thrilled with this
expansion and very happy to be a contributor to the process thank you
thank you good morning good morning Nicole Cadle on behalf of "Sobriety Works"
and I wanted to start by thanking HSA and all the effort you guys have put in
it really means a lot to the service coordinators they've given us a great
opportunity to work on collaboration amongst the service providers so that we
can really provide a network of care for all the individuals in Santa Cruz County
and I know that the number 22 million dollars seems like a huge amount but in
2014 when we looked to the statistics it was 208 million dollars that the county
spent on medical beds and jail beds and ER costs and so by expanding these
services we can drop that two hundred and eight million dollars down reinvest
it into our community and neighborhoods and healing Santa Cruz county which is
really what we all want to do and we will be able to focus on these clients
and be able to give them that medical care that they need through the criteria
and its really great to be able to expand these services and truly truly
serve the clients who need it the most in this county and I know you all really
want to benefit everyone who really needs it and it's really exciting to be
able to live in a community who's opening their arms and their hearts to
the people who really need it the most so thank you all thank you good morning
good morning my name is Becky Steinbruner I'm a resident of the Aptos
Hills and I've read through not all of the documentation but as much as I could
and it does seem like a lot of money and and what worries me is the entitlement
that the risk that the county's taking on with an unknown level of
reimbursement for residential treatment I also in talking with the resident that
spoke before you about what's going on in the estate's neighborhood in Aptos
regarding sort of a different treatment but again a residential treatment
facility nonetheless that process has been completely clouded to the public
and I have concerns about these may be a proliferation of these residential
treatment centers springing up in our residential areas about staff not being
forthcoming about what's really going on and the public is completely left in the
dark about what is going on and not fairly represented to any state or
federal agencies that are providing funding so I want to make sure if this
occurs regarding this pathway of treatment that any residential areas
affected are early on brought into the process are given full factual factual
information and are truly in support of what it could do with their neighborhood
I applaud this treatment process I also question the county's proliferation of
permits for wine bars and brew pubs on pretty much every corner it's almost
like Starbucks was a little bit ago it's making alcohol consumption a trendy
thing to do and I don't think it's healthy for our society even though it's
a good tax base for our community thank you very much thank you is there anyone
else seeing none I'll bring it back to our board for discussion our action yes
I I will move approval of the recommended action and
then I'll have a comments something there's a second okay motion by Coonerty
seconded by Friend so I just want to say I understand there's a risk but there's
also a risk and not doing anything and you see the need every day and you see
families and individuals struggling and you see the impacts in the community and
I just want to take a moment to recognize director Nguyen and RHS a team
because for so long I think we've all felt like our health care system waited
until the severity had reached a the highest possible point this is the way
our national system is set up so that we're paying enormous costs on the back
end after people have suffered after families have suffered and after there's
been tremendous impacts of the community and through this program and a bunch of
other programs I actually feel like we're moving towards a health based
system where we're recognizing that if we can intervene with the appropriate
treatment at the appropriate time we can serve people better which seems common
sense but unfortunately it takes an enormous amount of innovation and real
leadership in order to make that happen and and so through your efforts today
this is a major is a major step to move forward and to improve the health of the
community and so I want to thank you thank you for everything you've done all
right other comments Supervisor McPherson I
and just in response to the one of the last speakers about the amount of over
two hundred million dollars spent on medical beds and jail beds and so forth
that are attributed to substance use disorder is there any way we can we can
track that putting this program in place had an impact on that those jail beds or
medical facilities so we can see this cost us a lot but it's saved us over
here you know is there some way that we can match that I'd like to have that
come back in a you know year after or whatever is appropriate that we could
have some kind of a measurement in that regard Mr.

Chairman may I respond to
that certainly thank you so counties are
working with the state utilizing UCLA to do an evaluation outcome study for this
drug medi-cal program so we certainly will work with them to provide input so
they can look into comparison before and after in terms of impact on society on
cost and on utilization and quality of care for the individual in this program
thank you others
I will also want to thank you for the work that went into putting this
together I know that you'll be going to the Santa Cruz City Council in January
to talk about our services on mental health and addiction services and I hope
you provide them information about this program and also explain to them the
risk that the county is taking in ensuring that this these services are
available to people who needed here in our community I think it's it's we we
don't the the public doesn't understand the all the different ways in which the
county is working to address critical health problems like mental health
services and addiction services so I think it provides a good opportunity to
explain and this is a great program all in favor signify by saying aye any
opposed motion carries unanimously thank you it
is now 10:40 we have a 10:45 item I want to suggest that we take a brief 5-minute
break and we will start exactly at 10:45 to do the green business awards and then
we'll then we'll come back for the for the other program you which is item number 61 presentation of
green business certification awards to exemplary new Santa Cruz county green
businesses as outlined in the memorandum of the Director of Public Works there
are a list of the Green Business Award recipients and I'd like to introduce the
Marisol Goulet Department of Public Works pretreatment program specialist is
here to present the item good morning Marisol I hope I pronounced
your last name right yes on behalf of the Public Works Department we would
like to present to the board the businesses in the county that have met
the criteria to become a certified green business the county's green business
certification program is an incentive based program designed to encourage
businesses to meet and exceed environmental standards while conserving
natural resources the business is receiving the award today have
voluntarily reduced water consumption retrofitted lights and made other
electrical modifications to reduce energy consumption
they've also reduced solid waste the recycling and smarter purchasing and
have gone above and beyond regulatory requirements by implementing pollution
prevention practices and their businesses the county's certification
process involves a series of rigorous audits by environmental and conservation
experts to come up with the best available technology to prevent
pollution and conserve natural resources these businesses are the industry
frontrunner that meet and exceed exceptional environmental standards they
have invested significant time effort and financial resources to ensure that
they meet the criteria for certification the California Green Business Network
has been operating as a non-profit for the past two years and was recently
notified that the organization would receive a one-time appropriation of 1
million dollars from the state to just hurt several new programs as well as
fund existing programs it's expected that once the funds are received
existing programs like the county of Santa Cruz will receive $20,000 each in
funding additionally PG&E
has once again renewed its support by offering funding and training for
another year as we gather to congratulate these newly certified
businesses we would also like to thank the board for your support to keep this
program successful thank you thank you the name and of the businesses that have
qualified for this year's Green Business Award will now be read so that
representatives of these businesses can stand together as a group to be
recognized for their effort we'd like you to please remain standing until we
have read the names of all the businesses and the members and members
of the audience please hold your applause until the end of the reading
I'm gonna get to start with the businesses in the first District which
I'll announce the first isness first District business is receiving
certification include the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office Tracy – doll
home space Denis and Michael Beit BG salon Santa Cruz Karen Horton and the
Soquel Creek Water District by Campbell and in the second district we have add
manor with Sandy Manor ABC daycare with Hilda Fernandez Airport automotive with
Ryan Hart Coast rehab with Jerry Van Dyke Capital Soquel Chamber of Commerce
with Tony Castro Capitola Self Storage with Joshua Nathan ocean champions with
Chris Laughlin and Sotolo bar and grill with Ashleigh Bernardi and in the
third District I'd like to recognize Santa Cruz Waldorf School and Pacific
elementary school and Carrie nopales the fourth district I'd like to acknowledge
good wood products from Summit views and Jennifer young fruit area quit saw and
Maria Pena did I pronounce that one name correctly
for fruit fruit area example thank you in the fifth District I'd like to
recognize Benedict DDS & Associates will you please join me in giving a round of
applause to these businesses on behalf of the County of Santa Cruz I want to
thank each business recognized today for their continued support of the county's
green business program we invite the business representatives to gather in
the hallway where Public Works staff has arranged a reception we're not going to
be joining you I see Supervisor Caput already found the food but we're gonna
continue on with our with our no no he found it he found food somewhere else it
sounds like Terry Dorsey made chocolate chip cookies ok alright well we won't be
joining you today for the reception but I just want to acknowledge the hard work
that takes to get the green business certification and the importance that
plays in our community you stand as true leaders in the communities thank you
very much so we'll go back to our regularly
scheduled agenda which is item number 58 which is consider recommendations for
redesign of the SIP and pack program submitted by the Health Services Agency
on behalf of the PAC Executive Committee and take related actions as outlined in
the Memorandum of the Health Services Agency director started to have you come
and go Chairman's and members of the board I'm genuine from Health Services
Agency thank you very much for taking the time to consider the items in your
board regarding the recommendation for PAC program redesign I want to thank our
PAC executive team members and all the stakeholders who've been involved in the
evaluation and looking at the evaluation findings up from CSUMB and also working
on options for the program redesigned ere Carrera is with me this morning and
he has been instrumental in looking at the redesigned and health in the system
of care framework and working with stakeholders in order to move forward to
the recommendation in front of your board today so with that I would like to
hand it over to Mr.

Rivera for the presentation good morning thank you and
thank you board for allowing us the opportunity to review these
recommendations with you today I want to express a special thank you to the
workgroups that developed these recommendations the clinical workgroup
the housing work group which was facilitated by Rainey Mar and the
criminal justice work group which was facilitated by Judge Jeanine Guy and
district attorney Rose M as you recall from prior meetings the pact pro
Ram in its current form was evaluated by CSUMB CSUMB came up with a set of
recommendations eight recommendations for how to improve the pact program and
I wanted to spend a few minutes walking through those recommendations as they
give some context to the overall redesign process that we considered the
first was looking at alternative sources of funding for the program and
opportunities to leverage additional funding such as the item listed in
number two specifically around drug Medic-Cal funds to support the provision
of services to pact recipients third recommendation was around looking at
alternative sentencing models which is something that the criminal justice
group looked at clarifying the program terms and conditions for who graduates
from the program or who gets dismissed from the program which was
recommendations four and five how we can enhance case management information
systems with clear indications of progress and establish periodic
assessments one of the areas that they specifically recommended was looking at
the use of an electronic health record to record assessments and progress notes
in number 7 looking at alternative types of treatments such as harm reduction
approaches and create jewed occasion options and all of these recommendations
were considered by the three work groups within a larger framework of assumptions
that we use to develop the recommendations that you hear about this
morning what are the initial observations by each of the groups was
that the participants in the prior pact program were homeless and all of the
individuals were homeless many of whom were chronically homeless in the
community and that presented a number of challenges to effectively working with
them and providing services to them the current approach to working with into
a homeless court involved in not court involved is not necessarily an
integrated approach and it often supports a model based on siloed care we
have a number of different homeless programs in our community that are each
touching this population and often which door you enter into services dictates
the types of services you're able to access as a homeless individual a
broader approach to working with the homeless population could increase
access to a larger array of services in the community and serve more people the fourth assumption that we worked on
in terms of developing these recommendations was that the planned
drug medical expansion that we heard about earlier today provides access to
not only more services but access to new services not previously reimbursable
under medical such as case management the fifth assumption that we worked
under was that we felt very strongly about the importance of maintaining the
presence of our specialty courts and court processes to support the unique
needs of individuals served by the court and the resources that those court
programs offer and hence you'll hear recommendations for the creation of a
new packed court the sixth assumption was looking at how we could redeploy
existing staff to the courts to create an efficient effective service delivery
system and provide that oversight for management of services in the community
so the importance of maintaining a linkage to the core programs to what
this redesign model would be would ensure that we have effective outcomes
for the people who are ultimately served by the new program so what came out of
the redesign recommendations are several key principles first being how we can
improve collaboration among service providers
through the creation of a new multidisciplinary team which will meet
two to three times weekly so very frequently to coordinate the different
services and referrals from the community local businesses the court and
law enforcement number two is maintaining a focus on the
homeless population so looking at a broader system of care for the homeless
population with a special emphasis on individuals who live in hotspot areas
throughout the county for example in downtown Santa Cruz and number three is
maintaining and formalizing the bobbly pact court as a specialty court program
similar to what we have with the Behavioral Health Court number four is
supporting a broader more efficient focus on working with the homeless and
designing a system that links homeless individuals with the right services at
the right time including court-involved individuals who have had repeated
contacts with law enforcement in the community in terms of the proposed model
we're proposing a new collection of service providers that fall under one
umbrella that we're currently calling Santa Cruz hopes or Santa Cruz homeless
outreach proactive engagement and services team this hopes teams brings
the various homeless providing agencies such as a downtown outreach program the
downtown streets program the homeless services center our different County
programs the homeless persons health project under one umbrella to ensure
that we have coordinated services in response to the homeless population who
are referred for services and there are three phases that I wanted to talk about
this morning in terms of how we approach these referrals to the hope team the
first step is an initial triage and that's probably one of the more
important pieces to the model in terms of determining through an initial
assessment what our immediate response is going to be is this a situation that
requires an immediate visible response in the community
or can it be referred back to the team for a response and a more coordinated
effort amongst the different team members in the second step for doing an
outreach engagement and assessment continued assessment process through the
team who receives a referral for a homeless individual and we're
determining the level of their mental health needs substance abuse needs and
whether or not they're involved with the court there's an outreach and engagement
process for individuals to determine their treatment readiness based on an
evidence-based motivational interviewing process as well as introducing a harm
reduction process for individuals who may not be ready for treatment but
nevertheless we want to remain engaged and connected with them in the community
particularly for those difficulty engage individuals in step 3 we see a referral
based on four different tracks that are again based on the level of severity of
their mental illness substance use disorder and whether or not the
individual has an involvement with the court for individuals who have a mild or
moderate mental health issue mild to severe substance use disorder they'll
end court involvement those individuals will be directed to the bobbly pact
court and at that point there's further assessment by the pact court and the
district attorney's office to determine whether that individual is appropriate
for services through the pact court or whether they might be referred to
another more appropriate service venue for individuals with a severe mental
illness milder severe substance use disorder and court involvement they will
be directed towards the behavioral health court tract for individuals with
a mild to moderate mental health issue mild to severe substance use disorder
not currently involved with the court they will be connected with our homeless
persons project and our integrated behavioral
health program force treatment services and finally for those individuals who
are getting not court involved but have a severe mental illness and any degree
of substance use disorder they'll be connected with county mental health
services and our partners community organizations for for continued
provision of services so what we're trying to accomplish is folding the
prior pack program into a broader system of care leveraging additional resources
for this population increasing the numbers of clients served and
establishing a new packed specialty court we continue to have a focus on
priority cases particularly those who did not fit into the existing Act model
that we have today we're currently working on developing specific outcome
measures for the new program and we have outcomes defined for each of five
different domain areas system outcomes health outcomes community outcomes
criminal justice outcomes in individual outcomes and we're looking to finalize
those different outcome measures and make a recommendation back to the
executive committee on which ones to proceed with right now we have about 28
different outcome measures and we're still working on determining which ones
we can effectively measure and report on in the future
our next steps include going back to the City Council after today's meeting and
providing a similar presentation to the council on these recommendations
finalizing our outcomes and reporting domains beginning to launch our
multidisciplinary team meetings beginning in late January early February
and recruiting for new positions that are called for in the new model
beginning later this month and during the month of January if we we do proceed
with with these recommendation and that concludes my presentation this
morning and I'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have thank you
for the presentation I'll see if board members have questions Supervisor Coonerty
had just Supervisor thank you I congratulations again in the follow up
to the the item that we just discussed this is a really a very good example of
how a government established in a program seeing how its work and staying
on top of it and I think there's been some tremendous successes with the pack
pack program that began as the bobbly downtown accountability program in 2013
but I think the collaboration between law enforcement the Public Service
Agency the health care workers and the courts is really a very something to be
recognized and it's a very positive move I think that having this in place but
then seeing some of the shortcomings of it but seeing how to address those the
best way we can and doing it pretty quickly – I mean we had to have some
years to look at how well it worked and it's worked very well in a lot of
instances but I think we can we are going to be doing a better job and I
really want to thank the people who have gotten who have collaborated to get this
a new new vision of how we can address this problem because it's one that
people talk about every day in our community and it's something that I'm
really glad to see that we're going to update it and I think we're gonna have
more positive results because of it thank you I just had two quick questions
when you talked about the outcomes you said you hadn't completely worked them
all out did the individual outcomes include the
housing piece or the shelter piece yes they do great the other question I
wanted to ask is that we recently read in the paper that that there were some
City Council members who were questioning whether they were going to
fund this program if we don't have the participation of the
the city of Santa Cruz what would what would happen what would we do with this
program yes thank you for asking that question at this time the budget is
built upon petitioners very active participation
financially with the city of Santa Cruz if the city of Santa Cruz City Council
decided to not fund this program our staff would need to return to your board
with recommendation we would have to review and evaluate the impact and we're
frankly speaking if we don't have funding from the city it's really
difficult for me it's agency director to request your board to implement this
program without the support from the city as well so but we need to work at
our team come back and work with the pack executive team work with
stakeholders and bring back the recommendation to your ward but it would
be very difficult without the funding support from the city to implement this
program okay thank you thank you now I open up to see if members of the public
have any comments good morning nice to see our district attorney Mr.

Rosell
thank you I didn't have much to say I just wanted to say that we appreciate
the board's support that this program was started as Supervisor McPherson just
alluded to by Bob Lee and I was the person that was assigned to this program
when it started and I just want to say that through the vision there was a
cooperative vision it was a vision that encompassed law enforcement mental
health treatment providers the court public defender and probation and that
vision kind of continues and so what we have today is a cooperative effort once
again and the court portion is one portion this addresses a much larger and
broader sort of population in a comprehensive way so I just want to say
that it does continue the original vision I'm pleased as the district
attorney of this county to see that and we have had tremendous positive sort of
results out of it and I think that what we're going to
have here is a way to serve sort of a larger population some of those
court-involved and some of those not court-involved so I want to thank your
support and I want to thank all the hard work that's gone into this thank you good morning Judge Guy morning thank you
I just want to acknowledge the work of all the people that came together to
really look at what was a collaboration outside of a bigger system of care and
to look at that to figure out how we can more effectively give services to the
individuals that are going in and out of our courts the PAC program has been in
place for 3 and 1/2 years and it has been a collaboration between all
different court partners and through the county and we have expanded that program
to the point where I think we have served between SIPP and PAC
approximately 300 people these are the folks that are going in and out of our
court and justice systems repeatedly costing the taxpayers and the county a
lot of extra money and services and time so we have been really working to try to
address that issue through the one of the breakout groups that was mentioned
one of the groups that really were tasked to assess where we go from here
what do we do I will report that a 16 page report was put together from our
justice system group putting together recommendations addressing four of the
eight recommendations from the CSUMB research so the issues regarding
graduation that criteria acceptability different types of phasing all those
issues are addressed and in a redesign recommendation that was put forward from
our justice system group also the court has expanded as well we have added a
collaborative court coordinator Nicollet Lea is now working to work with the
county agencies and all of you to address a better communication between
our behavioral health court our pack court as well as our Veterans Court
our Aperol reentry Court so we now have for what we call collaborative courts I
know that the word that's being used as specialty courts but it's collaborative
courts because it really is a collaboration of everybody across all of
our systems to work together with our folks that are in these four courts so I
will be stepping down from the pack court judge basket will continue the
work she was already part of this group and these protocol and outline
recommendations but I will be stepping in the shoes of Judge Moore so I'll be
working with you all in the behavioral health court and still one of the
collaborative courts in the county so thank you for all of your consideration
and we're very pleased with the communication and the idea that we're
going to be working together collaboratively and putting together a
system of communication as well as service so thank you thank you thank you
for your input is there anyone else who would like to address us seeing none
I'll bring it back to our board for action Supervisor Friend Thank You chair
and I appreciate the work that's gone on to this over the last few years I do
think it's important to reflect a little bit on the history of this program and
some of the concerns I have of the actions that the City Council took
recently in regards to continuing this program this program was created it came
out of a in essence the city task force along with Bob Lee at the time to
disproportionately benefit the city at that time I mean issues that were
occurring downtown I would argue that the program still disproportionately
benefits the city benefits the police department benefits downtown businesses
I agree with Judge Guy that has ancillary benefits throughout the entire
county but the reality is is this is also a significant task of the county
from both the staffing and financial ask on a program that really
disproportionately benefits the city I would say I was disappointed by the
rhetoric that came from the majority of the City Council with their last meeting
for a program that in essence they asked for a program that they've had a seat at
the table the entire time for and a redesign that they also asked for this
was it's very reasonable to review a program to do programmatic review we do
it on everything else we do through our departments and to see how we can make
it better and I think exactly what you've
it is a much better program than actually what we had before I think that
moving forward with this is the right thing to do but I can't we can't as a
county just simply fund programs that have a disproportionate benefit to
another entity when the other entity is a partner only part at the time I
believe that that what we should do is we should move these recommended actions
but we should make the actions contingent upon full participation from
the city and if the city elects to not do their funding I would like to direct
that you come back at the first possible meeting after that city decision for
this board to consider whether or not we want to continue with the program I
think that the either the city is a partner or they're not if they don't
want to be a partner then let them let the City Council make that statement at
their next meeting so with that emotion they do move the recommended actions
with the addition of requirement that the city participate in funding and if
not bring back to us and second that and I appreciate well first let me start by
appreciating the importance of this program specifically Judge Guy district
attorney Rozelle and then the HSA team who's been a really have been fantastic
and bringing people together this population was the population
essentially nobody wanted to serve because they're so challenging and with
a bunch of agencies that hadn't worked together traditionally to really
collaborate and find collaborative solutions and because of leadership and
because of a commitment to doing right by the community we have a really I
think we have a good program that is being made even better by the work
that's being done I expect that the city the city should participate and in my
conversations with council members I would expect a unanimous vote when it
comes before them because they should they they should see the benefit of this
of this program that that is that is really being called for by members of
the the of the entire community but pacifically in Santa Cruz as as vitally
important to the public safety of the city and the county and so
so I'm hopeful that they'll come back and and continue to be the partners that
they have been and I support this recommendation so there's a motion by
friends seconded by Coonerty Supervisors I just wanted to mention that from the
outset I I worked very closely with father Neal Coonerty about this in
putting this in place who was just adamant to get this done as was stated
with the urgence of the city of Santa Cruz so I I do appreciate you know what
we have done in the program that we've had but to take a look at it so quickly
and say this is how we can even make it better and I'm convinced that we can if
we get the funding for it with the city and the county we're gonna have a bigger
and better program to serve a lot of people who need it most Supervisor Campion should clarify
exactly what the motion is I actually am prepared to vote on the whole proposal
right now but it seems like it would be delayed you know it's it's to move the
recommended actions okay so just simply make them contingent upon the city
funding which by the way the program is contingent upon anyway so if the city
funds it then this moves forward if the city doesn't fund it then the additional
direction is to have our health staff come back at the first possible meeting
after that to talk to us about what to do at that point thank you
is it clear to the clerk of the board then I will call the question all in
favor signify by saying aye any opposed motion carries unanimously
thank you for all the support and help from all of our partners in this process
next we will move on to item number 59 which is a public hearing to consider
amendment to the Santa Cruz County Code Chapter 17 point 1 0 regarding
affordable housing ordinance certification of CEQA exemption and
related actions as outlined in the memorandum the director of the planning
department there are a number of attachments the ordinance chapter 17
point 1 0 the clean copy the ordinance chapter 17 point 1 0 the strike had an
underlined copy the sequin notice of exemption and the summary of job
ding linkage fee good morning good morning Julie Conway and managed the
county's housing program we are returning today to follow up on a report
on the county's affordable housing program that your board heard on October
24th that included recommendations for which you provided guidance and approval
in concept and directed staff to return with a draft ordinance language for
further consideration as a reminder to listeners the county's affordable
housing program began after passage of measure J in 1978 which required the
county to adopt policies to ensure that 15% of residential development is
affordable to average income households the county has maintained an active
housing program since that time returning regularly for a review of the
program and adopting policies that seek to address the county's changing housing
need in 2015 the county retained the services of Kaiser Marsten associates to
conduct a nexus study and feasibility analysis that resulted in an updated
affordable housing program establishing an affordable housing impact fee or hif
which is a local source of housing funds besides the impact fee approach the
board also decided that for a two-year period developers would have the option
of meeting their affordable housing obligation by providing an affordable
unit or paying hif with direction to staff to return in two years with a
follow-up report which we did in October in preparation for the two-year review
Kaiser Marsten was again retained to analyze the development economics of the
housing program to ensure that we're not constructing an obstacle to development on October 24th the Board Supervisors
received the scheduled update of the housing program and provided direction
as I said to return with proposed amendments and we also included a
request for further analysis of the affordable housing impact fee for
non-residential development and a return to the housing Advisory Commission or
the hack for a second time to further discuss on-site inclusionary
requirements for rental housing in today's draft ordinance our provisions
for the updated affordable housing impact fees for residential ownership
projects and commercial projects requiring on-site units at 15% for
ownership projects of seven or more units including maps subdivisions being
used as a rental housing and to incentivize rental housing by
encouraging the use of the density bonus program and charging a fee rather than
requiring on-site units staff is recommending that one of the
recommendations from October be revised which I'll discuss later in today's
report one of the key features in today's proposed ordinance as a change
to the fees for residential ownership projects this chart reflects that hif
the board discussed in October the fees continued to incentivize construction of
smaller homes with a graduated fee scale and includes additions remodels and
replacements at the same rate but only for net new square footage over 500
square feet 80 use will be charged hif as an addition and will also exempt the
first 500 square feet so the rate of hif 480 use of $2 per square foot has not
changed but the first 500 square feet will be exempt exempted and that's
consistent with the overall approach 280 use that your board discussed last week
hif will be waived for any Adu that enters into a deed
restriction for affordability the unified fee schedule which will be
considered by the board later today reflects these changes the hif for
commercial development reflect the October direction of an increase to $3
per square foot for commercial uses other than certain agricultural
buildings as requested staff reviewed commercial development permit history
to determine whether the hif would create a barrier to mom-and-pop
commercial developments 182 permits only nine included net new square footage
over half were under three thousand square feet the majority of the permits
are for tenant improvements that are not subject to H I have staff is
recommending that H I have continued to apply to new commercial square footage the board's October Direction included a
request for a further discussion of the affordable housing requirements for
rental projects on November 1st the housing Advisory Commission discussed
rental housing policies acknowledging the need for rental housing and the fact
that the market is not producing rental market driven rental at this time the
hac recognized that the inclusionary housing requirement is not a primary
barrier to building rental apartments but that low density and other
development standards are likely the greater hurdle a density bonus
provisions of County Code section 1712 allow for up to 35% additional density
along with concessions on development standards it's been the county's policy
for some time to allow HUD fair market rent and the density bonus program
provides an opportunity to get some restricted units and also address a
badly needed community housing need so as I mentioned in 2012 your board
adopted the policy of allowing owners County affordable rental units to charge
HUD FMR rather than the measure J restricted rent so I've Illustrated up
here the difference and we are finding that since we put this policy impro in
place more and more owners of rental units are choosing to rent bulger
holders we are also finding that the builders who are interested in market
rental projects using a density bonus are very interested in this because it
helps level it out and make it easier to actually build so it's worth
acknowledging that that we have that policy in place so the housing Advisory
Commission recognized that the market is not producing rental housing at this
time and recommended the continuation of the current policy of charging the
nominal $2 per square foot the heck also requested regular reports on rental
projects that are submitted for approval with the intention of revisiting this
program in the future should the market and our density standards start to be
producing in market rate rental projects the 15% inclusionary requirement results
in an on-site affordable unit with a 7 unit project this was recommended in the
October report we also recommended that the developers no longer have the choice
the on-site unit be required and the board would retain its ability to let a
project pay the fee and that makes sense so developers and property owners need
the county to maintain consistent policies when it comes to inclusionary
housing those elements become built into expectations for price and the two-year
experiment in developers choice has not increased the rate of development and
unlike rental housing it does it has not prevented subdivision
projects from proceeding we continue to see them come in at all stages and they
hasn't slowed them down or increase them by changing this so upon reviewing the
development economic staff believes that requiring on-site affordable units for
projects of seven or more represents an overall balanced approach to encourage
construction of homes and provide permanent affordability in 15% of them
for this difficult market in October staff recommended that a change be made
to the program to require hif when building permits are issued this was
recommended because the current system of payment when homes are sold was
resulting in home home buyers for facing an unexpected fee and it wasn't part of
their financing so since the October recommendation we've met with a number
of parties who said that payment when the permit is final
would actually facilitate development rather than when it is issued
so it'll relieve carrying charges during the construction period so by doing that
the fee would be included in the cost of development and but it would address the
issue of an unexpected fee for the homeowner so we're actually recommending
that this provision be incorporated into the ordinance which is a change from
what we discussed earlier after discussing it so it is recommended today
that your board hold a public hearing to consider revisions to the Santa Cruz
County code chapter 1710 determined the proposed project is exempt from sequa
California Environmental Quality Act approved the ordinance amending the
Santa Cruz County Code Chapter 1710 in concept and direct the clerk of the
board to place the ordinance for second reading and final approval on the next
available agenda thank you thank you are there questions I just had two one was
is on the last change you suggested about the fees when the final building
permit yeah that's also the certificate of occupancy would be at the same time
or we order it we what we do is we find all the building permit rather than
issue is Evo so at the same time it's the same term it's the same it's the
same term I just wanted a bit clarity second is since our meeting has the
housing Advisory Commission look over yes yes they met on November 1st as
described in the report and discussed this item again and they had also
discussed it at their September meeting okay Thank You Supervisor Friend Thank
You chair thank you miss Conway for your work as always I do have some questions
but I guess maybe really where I'm at is I'm I'm just not sure what the best
process is you're moving forward I mean this is a very I think that we can all
agree want to build more housing the more the right type of housing I should
say and we also want to build more affordable housing and so we need more
housing even at the market rate the more affordable market rate and as well as
just deed restricted affordable and we've had a lot of conversations about
this I don't want to take an action that in any way shape or form would reduce
any of those things from happening and I've had planning over the last few
years has come before the board to talk about the difficulty of building but
also given timelines of how long it takes from a land acquisition standpoint
a financing standpoint of providing the standpoint an actual construction
standpoint one of the things I'm concerned about is I'm not totally
convinced that to a two-year review is really long enough on this change we
spent a year and a pretty significant discussion obviously there were court
cases that impacted the need for that discussion but that led to the
significant revision in 2015 but if you were a developer the change between then
and now to go through all those steps I think is a very quick decision to say
that maybe it didn't quite work do you feel that the two-year reviews
given enough data to the planning department to really move down a road I
guess it's not really a different rose going back to the road in many respects
we used to be down and that you have enough data from the few projects that
were cited in the October report to really say that this is a necessary
change at this point so as you know we were directed to return in two years so
that's what we did and what we also did is we wanted to make sure that we
updated and reviewed the development economics because as you know we agree
that we do not want to present an obstacle to development so we reviewed
that with our economists we do believe that these are that the 15% on-site at 7
units is as reasonable in a balanced approach we had that reviewed
specifically for feasibility because we didn't want it to be an obstacle the
other thing we looked at is and it's difficult I mean it's it's a policy call
right but you know we have not seen project speed-up and we haven't seen it
slowed down we've had an inclusionary ordinances or 40 years it is a known
commodity I do think that it that consistency is important because you're
right it does happen over a long horizon negotiations for land are happening over
a long horizon which is why you know the the decision I think consistency is
important so that those were factors we took into approach when we were when we
were talking about this a Cathy Molloy proteges planning director I mean to
your point though I think it is fair to say that pre development you know
someone identifying that they a piece of land that they want to put together a
project good putting their team together and going through that two years is a
short time to come up with a project get it submitted to the county and so I just
wanted to confirm that that I appreciate their point so I appreciate that so miss
Conway I guess my point is is that we had consistency for 40 years
we wrote that consistency now we're trying to go back to another thing so if
we were arguing consistency we would probably maintain what we're doing for a
longer period of time to see whether it changes the trajectory from what we had
had in the last 40 years and it's not a it's not a value statement of the
efficacy of measure J per se it's just that we have had I considered the
affordable housing component over here and there's a whole suite of other
things of the board's looking to change in order to make development easier
through the code mod and the sustainable Santa Cruz component over here but I also
view them as part and parcel if you have a developer that says maybe item four or
five of concern is the inclusionary requirement it's not number one which is
consistency or costs or in essence that insecurity of knowing whether or not the
project will even go through so we obviously have to modify to the degree
we can the codes that allow for the densities allow for the corridor
locations to happen but if this is still one of the 20% of the decision making
process and I don't want to make that decision in a vacuum I feel like what
we're doing is is pulling it out and making it in a vacuum and and I remember
the discussion we had a robust discussion actually hit that time two
years ago as to whether we should change it and we had a difference of inspect
'full difference of opinions at that time my colleague and Rebekah
recommended a one-year review and you know I made the motion for a two-year
review but I didn't anticipate a wholesale change back at two years I
just I just considered this in essence a check-in and this is more than a
check-in recommendation it's a it's a full-scale change so I'm this is one of
the few times that I'm really not convinced yet what's being presented to
me as the right direction I don't feel comfortable necessarily at the direction
there are certain things in here I'm not as concerned about I think some of the
feet asks aren't aren't at the end of the world it really just comes down to
the inclusionary component and whether or not that's going to if it's a word I
don't know disincentivize I mean incentivize became a word since we've
been adults I guess but did to discourage development is something we
just don't want and I recognize that that this said this is a difficult
conversation for people in Santa Cruz County to have and people don't like the
term growth and I like but I mean realistically what we're talking about
as a new kind of development to both meet the needs that we haven't met for
the last 40 years and to meet the future needs or these
aren't single-family homes and suburban areas that's part of the code mod but I
just don't know whether the inclusionary is there and that's where I'm torn on
this I appreciate you answering those two questions but I think that these
should be more of a holistic discussion that we're having right now which is my
hesitancy I'm voting just on this element thank you let's open it up for
public discussion then please come forward crowded room this has in this
morning KC buyer from the Senate Santa Cruz
County Santa Cruz area Chamber of Commerce chairman Leopold and and
Supervisors thank you for meeting with us over the last couple of weeks is your
staff brought this forward in October and now again for a hearing today and I
want to compliment your staffer also meeting with us and giving us their
insight of how they got how they arrived at their position today we just
respectfully disagree on a couple of items and we we believe as Supervisor
Friend said that two years simply put is not it's not a lengthy enough time to
make an evaluation whether a program is working or not ask any developer in
Santa Cruz County how long it takes to get a construction permit just ask that
question and it's not two years it's more like seven years and in some cases
more like fifteen years depending on the location what we are recommending is
that you continue this item and bring it into a more holistic conversation with
the community and the stakeholders we're not against inclusionary zoning we just
think if it's got to be done right and it's got to be done where there's land
used opportunities where that type of development can be placed I call it
right size right location you're going through as a loan modification program
but that's a year and a half away now you want to put this particular item in
front of it and then ask the developer to say okay build those seven units and
by the way make me one or two of those units inclusionary
and he's got he or she's gonna ask you the question where's the land where's
the available land to do that where's the the landowners willing to sell at a
market rate so that you can build those units all of those questions are
unanswered in this report I respectfully appreciate Julie and Kathy's work on
this and for meeting with this and I just respect having an opportunity to
talk to the CEO but please take a look at what you're going
I think there's better judgment ahead thank you good morning morning chair
Leopold board I just want to echo more of what Supervisor friend said in terms
of taking some time and having a more holistic approach to to this kind of
policy spectrum of dealing with housing affordability generally my loan won't
take up too much of your time when we sent you a letter we've sat down and met
with most of you as well as staff in the CEO so I'll tell you a little bit of
time in terms of we would love for you to to continue this to a later date so
when we can have a more holistic assessment of the impact these policies
may have but to tell you what we're gonna do in that time in that time we
would compile performers we will compile compile statistics that would give you a
local context or on how these policies are being implemented currently we
provide you with case study analysis of looking at other areas that have
addressed this justice issues and drafted their own inclusionary
ordinances I would definitely point towards the city of Santa Cruz which has
brought in multiple consultants just on inclusionary ordinances and just on the
kind of nuances and different kinds of balancing approaches you can take
whether it's incentive structures or whether it's cheering different fee
structures we're happy to provide this education to host some of these meetings
and to just provide more local context around the impact that these policies
might be having so we would encourage you to continue this ordinance to a
later date at which time we'll use that time to provide more information more
context not only help you to inform you make a better decision so thank you and
thank you good morning good morning Tim will will be speaking for affordable
housing now and today I'm here to speak for the approximately 13,000 people who
are on a housing authority waitlist for affordable housing
which several thousand our section eight applicants and for the four hundred and
sixty seniors who did not get spaces in the St.

Stephen's Project so that's our
name affordable housing now not several years from now now all those people
needed now not later I would like to point out that for years and years and
years as mrs. Conway pointed out all across the state of California
there have been 15% inclusionary requirements and builders have built
everywhere including our own area with a 15 percent inclusionary requirement the
only thing that has changed is that now they want to wait and not have an
inclusionary requirement when they get through with their study they'll say we
can't have it it's a disincentive well they made the same arguments before and
they still built in this environment with the most expensive housing sales
and the most expensive rents that's a preposterous argument I'm sorry I don't
buy it anyway we also have a disagreement with
a chasey on the rental requirement on the inclusionary part of the rentals if
you do the math it still doesn't make sense okay if you build say a forty unit
project with a thousand square feet in each unit that would give you with a
fifteen percent requirement six affordable housing rentals if you pay
two dollars per square foot that's $80,000 that doesn't even buy half of a
unit you the average I think is 130,000 so it makes no sense at all if I could
just make one more final statement you have a minute left okay so as was
brought out there is a there is a substitute of doing section AIDS and it
would seem to me that a developer would like that because they lose no money at
all to get the same rent yeah that they would otherwise however if you're
building 12 1,500 square foot units it doesn't make
sense so with smaller units it would be better
otherwise what we end up with are units that are affordable only to the most
prosperous people so please take action don't wait
thank you thank you good morning good morning Kent Washburn former chairman of
your Housing Advisory Commission I understand two of my colleagues where
you're this morning when I had a court hearing and couldn't be with you
I think the item before you represents good staff work I support it and and its
recommendations not because I think it's a final step or a solution I think I'm
just looking at the same elephant from a different side as Zack and some of the
rest of you are seeing it as only a partial you know one step and a long
journey that needs to be taken concerning the needs of of our community
for low and moderate affordable housing we're not getting the job done that's
and we file farther and farther behind every year we rank in the least
affordable housing market statistics every year nationwide not just in
California in terms of the difference between our our median income and our
median real estate prices I think to some extent today's a directive which
staff our today's proposal which fulfills a directive made two years ago
reflects the time two years ago when we didn't see as much of an emergency today
from the from the standpoint of of the widening gap I think it represents
rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic after it has hit the iceberg the iceberg
meaning the tremendous need for affordable housing your staff didn't
have a directive to to steer around the iceberg or the power to steer around it
all well they had was a directive to to take
care of deck chairs and it's a good idea to keep them out of the way when when
people are headed to the lifeboats but we have people in our community the
elderly and retired people with health problems people who who can't get good
work on with with needs that are not to being met
I have four recommendations for you first of all turn the hack loose the
housing Advisory Commission its mandate says to conduct a continuous study of
housing issues and report to the Board of Supervisors on its work I think you
should should give us more work your staff will tell you that it needs more
staff time so give them a little more funding please Julie Conway since I met
her about four years ago always just trying to get more than twenty-four
hours a day to to take care of housing needs and she keeps failing and she's
not getting any younger so give her give her more stuff bite the
bullet of the political debate that we all know needs has to happen here in
order to think outside the boxes of the best I helped to write measure J when I
was a law student clerking for County Council and Gary Patton was was moving
that forward so I've been part of this for a long time and help us to think
outside the box Thank You interns do go on to great
things good morning good morning board members my name is Tom burns and while
I'm affiliated with affordable housing now I'm here speaking for myself this
morning and hadn't planned to speak but I just think this is a really important
item we all agree that we have a housing crisis in Santa Cruz County where all
people can respectfully disagree about what to do about that
and I really am pleased to see the board making a number of initiatives I wish
they could go faster to address this problem sustainable Santa Cruz the
funding measure that will hopefully be on the ballot next year and others but I
don't think the inclusionary housing program needs to be thrown in the
basket with all those other things and in fact stand strongly on its own two
feet it's the one program that provides dispersed affordable housing units and
it's the one program that provides affordable housing for moderate income
people which you know is a huge need in this community and not to say the
measure J has come close to meeting that need but it's something those other
efforts are going to take years if so if this is put off today we're talking
about leaving this as it is for many years to come
in the decades of working in land-use in Santa Cruz I can't think of one
situation where I heard a developer say if it weren't for those inclusionary
housing programs requirements we would be able to do X Y or Z they complain
about a lot of things but that was not the main thing that people complained
about in fact I'm sure the economics have all changed but one of the previous
speakers referred to development performance I went through a number of
those at the time and it was really clean and really simple the land value
was based on the number of market rate units that could be built on the site it
was not based on the inclusionary requirements so the developers paid for
land based on that they were able to recover most of their construction costs
on the sale of the house and again that's not why they complained rental
housing is more complex and I understand the need for trying to create
inducements for more rental housing but to have the opportunity which I didn't
realize till last week already on the code that allow section 8 renters in
those units seems like a win-win for section 8 voucher holders who can't find
units and developers who are seeking better cash flow for their projects so
in conclusion again it's great to see the county taking seriously this issue
affordable housing but don't hang this one up it stands on its own and it
provides some really good small but everything's going to be small
how it comes for the community thank you you is there anyone else who would like
to address us seeing none I'll bring it back to the board Supervisor McPherson
yeah I'd like to make some comments before I ask for continuance of this
item and I planning department saying oh my gosh we've spent a lot of time on
this already I know but I think if we want to solve our housing crisis we're
gonna need to change our ways in some ways that haven't been done before
for nearly 40 years now since the passage of measure J and a short
two-year term of the amendment to increase the fee structure affordable
housing really hasn't put a dent in what's available out there for us and we
have an ever-growing number of residents to be clear that the county has slowed
population growth as was desired with measure J even as it as we continue to
grow in this county ever so slowly but we've seen as permit for marketplace
housing equipped along at a the 50 level year in and year out people kept adding
up here and 15 percent of very little doesn't mean very much we now have what
we have adult identified as a housing crisis here and I'm not for accepting a
bill that any cost mentality but I'm and I'm not pointing our fingers at our
planning department who has followed the constant continuous string of ordinance
that has been approved by the County Board of Supervisors over the year and
implemented by County administrators and and really some of those decisions on
housing or out of our hands when it gets to the Coastal Commission possibly site
limitations for housing taking place the up and down marketplace when
additionally we always have to address some very limited infrastructure
opportunity's here we have or should we say realities that we have in issues
such as water and transportation but I think if we don't if we don't change our
housing our planning processes so people have a better understanding of what we
want for them we're gonna have the same conversation at 40 years of two years
for down the road so I believe some of the we've we've heard from the Housing
Advisory Committee earlier today and right now and I do believe some of the
ideas from the consortium of the housing advocates as they're called I guess and
others that has merit and we should continue this I don't know how long we
want to continue it I think three or four I don't wanna have this thing go on
for another two years I think we ought to address some of the issues that have
been brought up here and by those interests that have been mentioned but
if we could come back in three or four months or a short period of time and air
some of those proposals openly and consider including them in our housing
and I do believe our Planning Department has been listening to what others have
to say but some that really particularly make sense to me
there's establishing a new mixed-use policy for instance that more housing
units are needed to make a commercial venture go if they're mixed together I I
think that that has been discussed possibly adding ad use is partially
offsetting our affordable housing inclusion of 15% establishing a bonus
which has been been mentioned by the Planning Department for including in
conclusion area for any affordable housing and maybe even establishing
buy-rite zones we have limited properties here for housing to take
place but we have a tremendous need for that to take place
and so I I would I'm just not comfortable and I do appreciate again
what the Planning Department has brought forward to us since our
October meeting but I think there still needs more there's more that needs to be
done and that we should take into consideration more seriously I've
mentioned a few I'm sure some other of our other board members have some ideas
as well but I think we really should be different as was stated think outside
the box and who really say if we're gonna address this housing issue and in
particular affordable housing let's include some of these suggestions that
have been mentioned and discuss them more thoroughly and come back in three
or four months five months and really be in a position I think to make a better
decision Supervisor Caput with the what's the current fee that we have for
a unit that's five hundred square feet or less is there a fee right now $2 per
square foot of we're actually suggesting that we I want to be sure I'm clear
about what type of unit you're talking about if there was a new single-family
home of 500 square feet proposed which would be unlikely it they tend to be
more in the neighborhood of a thousand square feet when they're small that unit
would be charged two dollars per foot an addition or an ad you would deduct the
first 500 square feet and then after that be charged two dollars and then I
was looking at it is rent you know control controlling the rent it's part
of the agreement and it did say like for one bedroom would be about 1044 but if
they if they were put on Section eight they're getting about double yeah what
you're referring to is the rents that can be charged on affordable units
that are controlled by the county so for for many years the measure J program has
had a provision they're called investor owner units they are allowed to be
rented the rent is set and required to be affordable calculated at sixty
percent of median income the board changed the policy in 2012 to allow for
the higher rents and the reason for that was really we were having a crisis which
has continued to find for find units that people with section 8 vouchers
other tenant based subsidy can use we have found that that provision of
allowing fair market rents to be charged is actually proving to be very
interesting to to developers looking at building rental housing because they can
have deed restricted units and remember under the density bonus program that is
currently in place chapter 1712 which is consistent with state law
thirty-five percent of those units are deed restricted as affordable in
perpetuity so forever so the landlord is agreeing to do that that that agreeing
that they will always rent to low-income households and charge them an affordable
rent so the fact that your board has that policy actually is we believe an
incentive to density bonus projects and we believe that not by the number of
projects that have come in for approval but by the number of developers that are
coming to talk to us about density bonus projects which would get us additional
units they do tend to be small so because their rental units and they tend
to be smaller units which we want more of thank you I had a couple comments
that I wanted to make when when we made this change a couple
years ago I didn't support it I thought it was it wasn't a good policy strategy
it was there was no clear information from developers that said that it was a
real effect on them and the board decided to try something in those two
years which people have said is not a very long amount of time I think in my
district alone there was five units that were not built so we got to ask
ourselves how many years do we want to do this do we want 10 units to go away
15 20 units one of the speakers says it takes 15 years to get a permit so should
we wait 15 years to try to figure this out we didn't I appreciate the staff
work on it because it didn't just you know look at themselves and try to come
up with something that they thought would work out they actually talked to
economists and they looked at at financial numbers and they had Pro forms so this isn't a casual recommendation
and I appreciate the testimony from our former planning director he has spent a
few years looking at development projects in Santa Cruz County
and so I take his testimony seriously meanwhile we there's another side that
says well give us time to put together something you know try to figure it out
when I met with the the representatives here they didn't provide me with any pro
formas or economic information it was just what they thought and they had
clear ideas of other things we should do I respect that and I saw a draft just
yesterday of the Monterey Bay Economic Partnership
paper on housing and there's some things that we're doing and some things that
they that they'd like us to do but we're not making we're not this change is not
being suggested casually it and the other thing that I would and it not only
has it been studied but it's been reviewed by our volunteers as part of
the housing Advisory Commission not once but twice they have stated pretty
clearly where they stand on it and just to be clear this doesn't take away the
ability for a developer to pay and in Luffy it requires them to come to this
board that that's far different than then then a mandate so I support these
changes and I think we should make them down and I think that that that it will
make a difference to those who say those five hundred units that were created by
measure J since the time that that that measure passed is not enough I would
argue show me a better strategy to build 500 units of dispersed housing in Santa
Cruz County at no cost to the county and we could argue that it should have been
more and that that that that if that if we had some different policy we wouldn't
be in the housing crisis were in I would argue that's just not accurate it's
there are communities across California some who have inclusionary zoning some
who don't some that have changed it and we have a housing crisis in California
this board has led an effort and been unanimously supportive over that for
around sustainable Santa Cruz we should be talking about how we get that
environmental work done on the sustainable Santa Cruz done quicker
because if we had that done that we can make those mix
use changes they would talk about we would have those new zoning pieces in
place we wouldn't need to wait so I say with this is these are good
recommendations based on real facts reviewed by economists supported by our
Housing Advisory Commission and even approved in concept unanimously by this
board just a couple weeks ago so I think we should move forward with it and
doesn't mean we stop the discussion it means we continue to discussions and we
work hard and maybe we need to think about strategically do we need to
provide extra money to planning to get the sustainable Santa Cruz County plan
done quicker but I would I don't think we should miss this opportunity sure so somewhere in between the
comments of the my fellow board members today I support returning to an
inclusionary option at the board's discretion but I also appreciate
Supervisor McPherson's ideas around looking at other changes we can make in
order to create incentives for not only more market rate housing and more
affordable housing but also smaller housing in both those categories and I'm
not sure our fee structure is doing quite enough when I look at some other
jurisdictions to really look at how we can use these fees to create incentives
on both the market and and the affordable category and so I think wait
a couple months bringing maybe a few I don't want to wait for the code
modernization and have the two although I agree with Supervisor Friend that the
two are intricately intertwined but I do think our there there may be some
interim things we can do to add a little nuance and to add some other incentives
in order to get the kinds of housing that we so desperately need
so I'd support you know a short delay that allows for some some more
conversations within the context of assumed
if there are the votes that we move towards reinstating the inclusionary
piece but what what else can we do to make sure that that we maintain market
interest in smaller units more units and more on obviously more affordable units so I'm not sure do you want to you want
to attempt a motion sure so I'll move to continue this item until the second
meeting of March whatever whenever that is
go second let me ask a question are we not going to change the the the the fee
structure or anything else I mean I'm just I I still I still have some
questions around the fee structure and because because of the size my interest
in in creating some incentives so I wasn't quite ready to go there yet today
all right so there's a motion by Coonerty II seconded by Caput to continue this
item to when second meeting of March 2nd meeting in March March 20th I'll just
say I don't support the motion I think we could make these changes and still
continue the discussion and come back on March 20th and and make things even
better I I think this is a missed opportunity
this would will be a missed opportunity and you could use the same reasoning to
put this decision off forever and always and as some time you have to just sort
of you know make a clear decision and and move forward and continue to use all
the tools that we have to accomplish our policy goals what is the staff
recommendation to actually vote on it or continue it no I can vote on it you have
in your packet red line of changes to chapter 17 10 of
the county code so there's a number of provisions that have been discussed from
the last meeting in this meeting that includes some changes so the
recommendation was to hold a public hearing and discuss the changes to the
code and may make a decision one way or another okay so to make a final vote on
it right now rather than continuing yeah it's on the screen right in front of you
I don't know do we have any other comment on this of the motion or
anything yeah okay all right I just don't want to you know throw I hear your
point there and I just don't want to make it a lot harder on your staff so
okay all right at all support the motion if there's no other comment I'll call
for the vote all in favor signify by saying aye
opposed no it's on a 4-1 vote we vote to continue this matter till March 20th
that brings us to the end of our morning session of the hall we got one more
sorry we'll move to item 60 which is consider reappointments of Julie Hill
and Allen Smith the law library board of trustees for term to expire December
31st 2018 I'll take a motion motion by McPherson seconded by Caput all in
favor signify by saying aye any opposed motion carries unanimously that ends our
morning portion and we will be coming back at 1:30 to hear the remaining items
on our agenda will be taking closed session at the end of that

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