you you you you you you you you you you you you you The board of directors of the San Luis Obispo Public Facilities Corporation. This is a request to hold a Board of Directors meeting for the San Luis Obispo Public Facilities Corporation to elect officers and approve the minutes of January 5th, 2021. And the recommendation action is as follows. Hold a meeting to elect new corporate officers, specifically Director Debbie Arnold as president, as the current Board of Supervisors Chair, Director Dawn Ortiz Legge as vice president, as current Board of Supervisors, vice Chair, and the County Administrative Officer, Matt. Matthew, I see a, we're going with Pete Pontes as Secretary, as current Ex officio clerk of the board. And the County Auditor Controller, Treasurer, Tax Collector, James Hamilton, as Chief chief financial officer as current auditor controller treasurer tax collector. Officially the longest title I think here at the county. Yes. So and then we also beyond the election of the officers need to approve the minutes of the prior meeting which was held January 5th 2021. You can't be being on that body, it only needs everywhere for years. So we're going to, I don't have any requests to speak on this, anyone interested. Then we're going to ask the clerk for a roll call vote on this item. Make a motion to put item five. Thank you. Second. Perfect. Okay, motion, second. Roll second roll call please supervisor Gibson. Yes, supervisor T's leg. Yes supervisor Psiong. Yes Provider Pauline. Yes, person Arnold. Yes The Board of Directors of the Sanlo Subispo Public Facilities Corporation does now adjourn and the board Reconvince as the board of supervisors. So we're going to move on then to our general public comments and open public comment. And once again, if you're interested in making a public comment, there are speaker slips at the back and speaker slips at the front, and you can just hand one over the dice. So we're going to start a public comment with a Troy finger, followed by Marley Schmidt and Ann Quinn. That blankie you read, like, means it's working. Yes. OK, thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Thank you for this opportunity to speak about an item not on the agenda. Since 2023, supervisor Prashan has been recusing himself from the Bob Jones Active Transportation Project votes due to his acceptance of a campaign donation from Ray Bennell on May 4, 2023. Bernal's donation should not have been returned. Since the law, SB 1439 went into effect on January 1st of 2023. And it specifically states elect officials are prohibited from receiving a contribution exceeding $250. During the time a matter is pending, and in May of 2023, Supervisor Prashan knew that a vote involving Brinnell was coming. SB 1439 also states that the recruesal period is one year from the time of the donation. Our Nell's donation was made in May of 2023, and now it's August of 2024. And Supervisor Prashan is not required to recuse himself anymore. It's not the law. I'm here to ask for his and all of your support next week in improving a resolution of necessity, i.e. eminent domain, for a sliver of rape and nails property adjacent to Highway 101. Just like the trail on Madonna Inn property, except that this one will also provide critical fire protection and a fire evacuation route in addition to transportation safety. I waited for the year to be over per SB 1439 and no of supervisor Prashan's long history of supporting fire safety and transportation safety throughout the County of San Luis Obispo. Supervisor Prashan, I urge your review of the Fire Safety Letter from Rob Lewin, that I'll turn in for public record, and your yes vote on this matter. Thank you. I'm Troy Fing. Oh, you heard my name. And do I hand this to you? Thank you so much. Thank you. And then we have Marley Schmidt and Ann Quinn. Good morning Honourable Chair and Supervisors. My name is Ann Quinn and I am the co-chair of the Civil Discourse Committee of the League of Women Voters. And my name is Marley Schmidt and I'm also on the committee. We thank the board and the county staff for your continued efforts towards civil discourse and supporting the code of civility by adding it to the back of the appearance request form. Many months ago the legal women voters was approached by an elected official serving one of the on one of the many school boards in our county. The board member expressed concern for the struggles and challenges that school boards across the county were experiencing. She expressed a need for tools to support respectful and productive public engagement. It was from this request and many observations of public engagement with elected officials that we revived our civil discourse committee from 2018. The code of civility was established with the goal of restoring trust in our public institutions, encouraging respectful interactions, engaging in empathetic, courteous, or orderly communication in a way that provides a safe space for democracy. We have the code available in Spanish, and we thank you for publishing it on the back of every speaker form. We have a variety of tools that an organization could add to their repertoire of tools to foster and support respective and effective engagement. This includes the code of civility, a brochure with helpful tips, and a link to our website with additional resources. As the co-chair of the Civil Discourse Committee, we request that the board schedule a future agenda item when the civil discourse committee could give a 15 minute presentation on the code of civility and present to you a list of topics for future free public forums that offer solutions. We will leave you copies of our brochure. Working together, this can happen. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker, Mike Brown, and Michael, be followed by Juanita McDaniel. Madam Chair, board members, Mike Brown representing CoLab, we would request that you get together with Santa Barbara County and designate maybe an ad hoc committee or somebody in each county and go meet with the chair and the executive director of the Coastal Commission and explain to them directly the problems of their concurrence with the federal consistency process for both the Marine Reserve and the Van and Berg issue over the Sonic Booms. And so what they did last week is approve both and recommend that the marine reserve be approved gushingly without any real interest in what all the poor people that get affected were. And you can study the Monterey version to see what some of the things are. Go to the CoLab weekly update of last week and look at the appendices on that issue. As to the Air Force, the Air Force been working with them. They're the Space Force and the Air Force for a couple of years on all the stuff related to adding more launches, which is a key of your economic development plan and Santa Barbara counties, economic development plan. You've spent millions of dollars over the last few years on reach to promote that and the commission added belatedly after all that time, two or three conditions, two the consistency involving sonic booms. And I just want to, this is huge, verbiage, it affects all sorts of things, all types of life forms and humans, and basically torpedoes the whole program and the Air Force after being confronted with this at the last minutes and we're not going to agree to them and the commission said, oh good, we're going to approve them anyhow and give you a conditional consistency and then when you violate it, we're going to get you in court and try to get it enforced anyhow. So you're doubling down on that and you're having the, of course, the Marine Reserve will have a huge effect where they can come back and whack people with that thing. And you really need to take action. Thanks to John Pashong wrote a great letter on his own to the commission asking them to desist, but they ignored him. They ignored a letter from about 10 congressmen, including Carbohal. They ignored pleadings from everybody. So thank you very much and I'm available for any questions or assistance. Thank you. Our next speaker, Juanita McDaniel, followed by Becky Hallet. Good morning supervisors. My name is Juanita McDaniel and I've been the inspector for our adoptive poll with our task-to-year Republican Women's Club for the past four years. The test get a Republican women and the Estero Bay women federated for over a decade have enjoyed participating in the adoptive poll program until the last primary in March. We and the Estero Bay Republican Women Club applied to volunteer services to the adoptive poll, but denied the opportunity because of an internal decision from the county recorder, Elena Cano. I emailed to Miss Cano and said that the League of Women Voters were accepted with no problem. I sent her a website of their position saying that they were progressives. And Miss Cano wrote back to me that progressives were not a recognized political party for the state of California. Even though they are clearly biased and lean heavily towards the left, please check out their website. So as volunteers wanting to exercise our rights to participate in the election process, we apply to adopt a poll under the Slow County Tea Party. This is also a recognized political party, Ms. Caino did accept that application. My club felt that the public and the Board of Supervisors should be aware of the bias that was shown of our Women's Club and other organizations that have offered their services for so many years without any problems. She had written to me that they would have to, they wanted to have a non-partisan approach to the polls and that really bothered our Republican club because members we know we never damage the integrity of the election process. I sent emails this past month to Elena Cano and the precinct officer to ask when we will know if we are going to be adoptable. I have not heard from her. And I just heard that she was on the television asking for people for the adoptable. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Becky Hallett will be the next speaker followed by Josh Cross. Good morning. Thank you so much. My name is Becky Hallett. I'm from Pass Robles. I'm also the president of the Atascaderra Republic and Women Federated. I'm here to speak to you and the public about grave concerns. I have regarding our polling places and something that I experienced during the last primary. So following up with what Juanita said, we were assigned to a polling place under the Tea Party. The polling place was in the community center of a small, 100 plus year old church about a quarter of a mile off of El Camino Real in the center of the taskadero. There were two precincts there. The signage was not very visible, making it difficult to find even during the day so you can imagine what it was like at night. The parking was even worse because there were hardly any spaces for the voters, let alone the volunteers. It was also not very ADA friendly at all. My shift was from four to closing, which took us all into the evening. The lighting was so bad that the voters could not see their ballots in their voting booths. So the Assign County employee had to rush to Harbor Freight to purchase small flashlights for the voters to use in their voting booths so they could see their ballots to be able to purchase small flashlights for the voters to use in their voting booths so they could see their ballots to be able to vote. We the volunteers had to keep moving our tables closer to the lighting so that we could read our roster and tabulate accurately. We had a hard time even packing up our materials because we could not read the instructions properly. My, the most disconcerting to me was that our roster was about 90% tympalton residents. Why would you have tympalton residents cast their votes in a precinct in Mid-A-Tasca Dero? We only had 12 voters come in the entire day and the few voters that did come in complained they had never voted there before that they had always voted somewhere else. Some even stated they did not know where to go and somewhere astonished they did not have a precinct at all. This is unconscionable to me. With all the rhetoric about disenfranchising voters. You would think that the logistics of polling places and precincts would have the best interest of the voters in mind and thus make it easier for them to cast a ballot. Every voter should be assigned a precinct no matter how far out they lived. This caused great chaos, confusion, frustration, and apathy. So my question is, was this all done on purpose or was it the ineptness of the County Clerk recorder and her staff? If so, that's very dangerous. And I ask that the board look into this matter as soon as possible. Thank you. Thank you. Josh Cross and Josh will be followed by Jose of Corona. Good morning, supervisors. Good morning, staff. My name is Josh Cross. I'm the CEO of the Ataskarot Chamber of Commerce and I'm pleased to be here this morning. My name is Josh Cross. I'm the CEO of the Attasca Road Chamber of Commerce. I'm pleased to be here this morning giving you a much needed update on the GITRA business online program that you funded in 2023. The project was funded in October of 2023. We got things kicked off in about January of 2024. And the idea of the program is to help San Luis Obispo County small businesses get a website. And the websites are intended to be pretty simple. They have hours of operation and about page, maybe a menu, contact information. So pretty basic website. And the impact that this program has made has just been tremendous. And I'm joined here today by my colleague Jose Guadarama, who's going to talk more about the impact it's made. But we feel like it has really helped to uplift all of, especially North County, the project can expand to all of Slow County. So much so that we submitted it for an award to the Western Association of Chamber Executives and was recognized as the top program in the Western United States this year in the Chamber Conference. So the program is not only successful, it's being recognized by other communities as a program they may want to adopt in their own cities. The program funding extends through about May of next year and we would love to come back and tell you about the full impact that the program has made and we would also love the opportunity to talk with many of you and county staff about opportunities to continue this program especially as we see a need more so on the coast and in South County. So with this thank you so much for your time thank you for investing in this program. Thank you for all that you do for a task at Arrow. Thank you Josh and Jose Guadalama will be followed by Tom Tancran. Good morning. I'm Jose Guadalama, the program manager for Gator Business Online with the task at Arrow Chamber of Commerce. I'm thrilled to share some exciting updates about our program and the positive impact on our local businesses. As of now, the Gator Business Online Program has been a tremendous success, our mission is to help local business transition into the digital age by offering these complimentary website services. This initiative is designed to support businesses in establishing a presence online without the financial burden. Since the beginning, the program has proudly supported 131 businesses, providing them with customized and purpose-driven websites tailored to their needs. Through our efforts, we have saved local businesses over $100,000 in costs that would otherwise be spent on website development and maintenance. By offering these services at no charge, we alleviate the financial strain on businesses that might otherwise spend $1,000 or more annually on digital support. Additionally, our program includes essential digital literacy training, empowering the businesses and their owners to effectively use their online presence for growth and success to come. We are also committed to inclusivity and have made sure that our program includes Spanish translations of all services. The supports are Hispanic owned businesses and ensures everyone has equal access to digital resources they need. I encourage all businesses listening, startups for example, also those without websites to take advantage of this opportunity. Apply for the program and get your free website by visiting gear business online dot CO dot co. Looking ahead or go to create 200 businesses websites showcasing our ongoing commitment to supporting and empowering the local business community. One case study I did have in Paso Robles was translating the material into Spanish, Monatica Restaurant, for example, in downtown Paso Robles. Came across them doing my field marketing calls, and obviously it was a little intimidating for them to understand what digital, what website was. Luckily, I speak Spanish and I was able to really take my time and really translate the material, but at the same time, see the impact that this program can really do for everyone in all businesses, just a smile on their face when I show them, hey, like a your mobile version, hey, send it to your friend, send it to your sister, send it to a family. Just seeing the, you know, the wow factor after that and just successfully publishing their domain and successfully creating the menu. And simply, all they wanted was there many of it to be visible to get people in their door because they were so new. Just that, for example, is just one case study of how impactful this program is. And I know there's a dire need in the future as we see digital evolving fast. So thank you for your time today and it was nice meeting you all today. Thank you. Thank you. Last request to speak Tom Tenquin and if anyone else wishes to speak on open public comment items not on the agenda, please bring a slip up. I'm just going to say thank you to several county folks. First I'd like to say a big thanks to supervisor Bruce Gibson. You came out to our emergency preparedness exercise and helped us achieve one of the highest scores we've achieved in quite some time. I'm going to say thank you to several county folks. First I'd like to say a big thanks to supervisor Bruce Gibson. You came out to our emergency preparedness exercise and helped us achieve one of the highest scores we've achieved in quite some time. So we hope to see somebody again next year. Thank you, again. Secondly, I'd like to thank clerk recorder Connor and her staff. My wife recently went down and visited her to file for her second term as a Questa Board of Trustees. And she found her recorders, Ken, of staff, pleasant, efficient, and very helpful. As it turns out, she's running under pose so four more years. Finally, I'd like to thank you, the Board of Supervisors, for approving the request, for the equipment needed to quickly and accurately tabulate future election results. It's a little appreciated fact that computers do are much better at tedious things like counting votes than people are. I volunteer as an election worker in the past and have seen first hand the layers and procedures that ensure fair election. So thank you for supporting her and thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Murray Powell, Temple and Resident, Tag Bice Chair, not representing Tag today. So the upcoming item number 29, which is a violation of free speech that's coming to the board here very soon today, brought to mind the supervisors procedure manual. And actually looked at that before. I thought to mind the supervisors procedure manual. And actually looked at that before. So I was just taking them. I'm sorry to interrupt your thought pattern here, but did you want to speak? Is this I'm asking you if this is pertaining to item 20? It's a separate item. I just wanted to be clear. Not the item, not 29. I just referenced it because clear. Not the item. Not 29. I just reference it because that's where I picked up on this. Okay. Thank you for the clarification. So we start over a little bit here. Continue. Just continue on. I'm sorry to. Anyway, so what I wanted to ask about is item number, I'm sorry, in the procedure manual, it's on page five, it's item L, it's about ex parte communication. And it brought the mind that there didn't seem to be very much ex party communication being done on this board every time. And when it is, it's very brief. So real quickly, I like to read this. It's only a couple lines. So any member of the board has X-Party Communications related to subject matter and the hearing paraphrasing. Communications, so she'll be a reporter of the board in an open session, including sufficient detail as to provide adequate information. So anyway, involving in the passable basin situation, which you've heard a lot about, we've gotten documents from other public entities, public documents saying that there are certain board members that are meeting with these other entities in the back room, in my opinion. And I've never heard any ex party communications presented by these members. And I'm not going to name them today. We're going to be filing complaints with the DA and with the AG, the California AG on this. And we believe that there are several many important boats that have been done by these individuals that are really illegal and all need to be reversed. So if you have any questions, get a hold of me. Thank you. Thank you. Our last request to speak darsha's step-ins. And again, if anyone else wishes to speak on items, not on the agenda, bring up a slip. I have a copy for you. Darsha Stebans, rural San Miguel. I'm again speaking on election integrity following up from the comments that have been made previously. Concerning our elections and precinct locations, precinct workers, I've spent the last, I don't know, two and a half, three years, maybe even four years at this point, trying to improve the process, trying to improve, it's cutting in and out, trying to improve the process, trying to improve our systems here in our county so that we can have elections that are accurately transparently and verifiably Certified, I'm here to let you know that we have had elections in our county that I believe in my opinion Should never have been certified So here we are again and we have people coming forward that have been working the elections for over 10 years and their voice has not been able to be heard and every time I come forward I have examples of things that have occurred in our county that are disturbing. If there's even one vote that's not counted, that should be counted, it's disturbing. It's concerning to me. And so I'm here to support the women that have come forward, the Republican women specifically. They were denied their ability to have an adoptable by Miss Cano. I have never ever been disrespectful to Miss Cano or to her staff. Every time I've been in there I've spent hundreds of hours in that office counting the votes, watching the votes, observing the counting, observing the processes only to be told in some instances that I was not allowed to be there and there was nothing observable occurring. That is an infraction. That is something against the code. I'm here also today to speak about this notion that machine counting is somehow more accurate than hand counting. And I bring to you the county 1% manual tally elections code. And it states code section 15360E that this is where they're doing an audit where they select 1%, that's not actually 1% of the counted votes, it's 1% of the vote-by-mail ballots that have come in before election night, and some of the 1% of the precincts. The voter verified paper audit trail shall govern if there is a discrepancy between it and the electronic record. It has always been the gold standard to have hand counted ballots. If there's an error and there have been in the 1% manual tally, that error is then corrected by the hand count. Thank you. Thank you. And that concludes, I don't have any other request to speak so that concludes our open public comments section thanks to all that have come in to share with us and we're going to move on now to our. Can you chair? I'm sorry. Supervisor Pauline. Thank you. Just wanted to ask council to clarify for purposes of the public's edification, the difference between ex-partate disclosures on quasi-judicial matters versus legislative matters. Yes, good morning, Rita Neal, County Council. So ex-partate disclosures are required on quasi-judicatory hearings such as appeals because they are quasi-judicatory. We want to make sure that both the applicants and the appellants and the audience understand what information the board has received prior to the hearing and who they've talked to. Those disclosures are not required on legislative matters such as passing ordinances. So there is a distinction. So what's in the rules of procedure applies to your quasi-adjudicatory matters. Thank you for that clarification. Just wanted the public to understand why we aren't disclosing, making x-parta disclosures at every meeting. In fact, when we have hearings based on appeals, that's when we would be making those disclosures. Thank you, Chair. Sure. I'll follow up. I have a follow up question on that for our council. Thank you. I think part of that public comment was talking about brown-at-bodies where members of those bodies are meeting not noticed meeting off meeting beyond together beyond noticed meetings of that brown at body. So that is not acceptable. Correct. You have a you have a brown at body. We have members. They are actually meeting beyond their noticed meetings. If they're getting together outside of a meeting that is needs to be remedied correct. That's what I was hearing from the sprites. So under reading meal so under the brown act more than three of you cannot meet together or with others. So if there's less than three of you and less than three of another body, then that is not a brown act violation. But if there's more than three of you from this body and more than three from say a city council, that would be a brown act violation. And in some cases where that what we're talking about now and some of these brown act bodies that have weighted votes, what the issue is is you can't have the majority of the vote meeting outside of a notice meeting. That's correct, yes. Thank you for that clarification. Okay, any other comments from the board here? Perfect. Okay, then with that we're going to move on to item number 28 on our agenda and we'll ask the clerk to introduce that item, please. A request to receive an update on the strategic plan and the work of the rural county representatives of California and its affiliated entities. Okay, great. And today I'm excited to welcome Marianne Marmerdam to the county here representing rural counties. She'll take away, but I want to say ahead of Marianne, she's been just a wonderful representative for agriculture statewide for many, many years. And not many. Yeah. Not many, many. But I coming from agriculture family, I want to thank you, Marianne, for all your years that you've served. You're most welcome, Madam Chair. It has been a few years despite my assertions to the contrary. Good morning, Madam Chair, members of the Board of Supervisors. My name is Maryam, I'm a dam. I'm the Senior Vice President of Government Affairs, or RCRC, World County Representatives of California. Thank you. And I thought I'd take a few minutes this morning. Please interrupt with questions as they occurred to you, otherwise we may never get to them. And with that, let me get started here. So RC RC is an organization made up of 40 counties. and I want to start by thanking you for your membership and for entrusting us in Sacramento to advocate on your behalf as well as be a service provider in various issue areas and activities. RCRC is made up of four divisions, as you'll see on the board here, government affairs, economic development, business development, administration, and finance. The last one is essentially internal, and we have six affiliates. Our oldest affiliates, Golden State, Finance Authority, and NHF have been around for roughly 30, 35 years, and our newest subsidiary, Israel Advancement Institute, and it was resurrected by our board about 12 months ago. I'll spend a little bit of time going into some more granularity on each in a few minutes, but let me get started with that, which guides us. And our board adopted about four years ago a strategic plan. It was the first time in recent memory when we went through a board initiated activity that guided what our strategic plan would look like. There were four main areas that the board identified, equitable access, impactful advocacy, healthy communities, and operational excellence. All four of these major pillars are to support our vision, which is to become the premier service provider and innovative, premier advocate and innovative service provider for rural counties in California. Having said that, and I want to recognize Mr. Gibson, the chair of CSAC. We do work with our sister organizations, including CSAC and the League of Cities, for example. But we do find ourselves from time to time really taking a deeper dive on those issues that affect rural counties particularly and in the way that we our board has defined that county's under 600,000 that have essentially a resource-based economy. For the most part that's recreation or agriculture, we still have a little forestry and certainly forestry issues do dominate some of our advocacy activities given the recent presence of major wildfires in many parts of the state. You'll notice in our strategic plan that the board identified number of issue areas under each, under which we then at the staff level attempt to identify where can we integrate across the visions of the organization, and where does advocacy take prominence? What does that advocacy look like? I would just note for your own information that broadband housing health services and forestry issues have probably dominated our portfolio of conversation and work over the last four or five years. As long as I have been involved, which either means I'm not a very good advocate or the issues are so challenging that we have a lot of opportunities still to provide solutions and provide solutions that work for all of California. Let me just note that the last component here, operational excellence, is really internal to the organization. And it does provide us as leaders, staff leaders in the organization, a template upon which we base our guidance to our teams, as well as how we direct our own activities, as it relates to the organization ourselves. The board looks to us to provide that operational excellence. So with all due respect to our sister organizations, we can stand proudly among them as being as good a service provider as any of the others. And yes, that is a point of pride for RC RC staff. Perhaps it's to our detriment, but it is something we think about from time to time. Let me move to the area that I am most familiar with and probably is what RC RC is best known for, at least in Sacramento and Washington DC circles. And that is our state and federal advocacy. I want to note that our advocacy efforts at both the state and the federal level are guided by policy principles, which are adopted every two years by our board and directors. And they basically articulate what are the priorities within the various issue areas that we at the staff level will take action on, will engage in, and will advocate on behalf of. In addition to our policy principles, our board does have the authority to establish ad hoc in any given year and not every year do we have an ad hoc and those four ad hoc are limited by design to being chaired by one of our four officers and that essentially frankly was a way to recognize that we at the staff level have only so much bandwidth. And we really need to focus the ad hocs on those specific issues of greatest import and where we need the greatest guidance because our policy principles may not be robust enough. This year we have two ad hocs, one addressing the Williamson Act and one road infrastructure. The Williamson Act, well, it is dearly beloved by RC RC member counties. It is also recognized that perhaps it needs to be brought into more contemporary standards. The world is changing very quickly and that includes the world that involves the protection of farmland or the conservation of farmland. And it was brought most recently to the forefront by some of the very real challenges that we see in areas where Sigma is looking to fallow farmland. And that is particularly in the southern San Joaquin Valley. And we recognize that if you as a landowner are no longer able to farm a portion of your land because of water constraints, whether it's surface or groundwater, you still have land that you would like to see have some sort of economic benefits, some sort of return on investment. One of those returns on investment are solar fields. Now I'm not arguing on the policy for or against, I'm just acknowledging that we've got some changing environments that we're trying to find appropriate ways in which we can still conserve that farmland, perhaps make it available for future generations, and still give the landowners some return on investment. As appropriate within a specific county. I'll also acknowledge a personal bias of mine. I, my, my sensibilities are offended and this is a personal thing. When some of those folks who argue to cancel Williams and Axe more quickly, for example, do so in a way that diminishes the investment that our counties have made for the last 15 or so years to underwrite the Williamson Act program with essentially no support from the state of California. Yet those cancellation fees still go to the state of California. That I find a bit offensive as a professional working on your behalf in the advocacy world. And it's one of those areas I think that our ad hoc is looking at in terms of what can we suggest as an alternative to that. That's probably enough on Williamson Act, unless there are any particular questions. The road infrastructure ad hoc is really looking at the changing, again, changing environment. We're moving into more EV vehicles. Our road's still need to be taken care of. What is that situation, for example, mean in terms of gas tax revenues? Where are we going to get the resources for rural counties which tend to have more vehicle miles? And fewer automobiles, fewer residents pumping gas and developing a gas tax revenue stream. And the road infrastructure ad hoc is looking at again, those sorts of situations that are on the horizon in terms of a changing environment. I'll stop there on the ad hoc. I'll just note that under our state and federal policy advocacy areas, you'll see several common denominators. I'll talk to a couple of them and happy to answer any questions if there are any in the other policy areas. Say the forest health and Wild Fire, I should probably defer to your CAO. He probably knows more about this issue than I do. But I'll just acknowledge that we have had tremendous support at the state and the federal level for revenues going into Forest Health. I think Cal Fire has really stepped up to the plate. What we view to be the greatest challenge is pace and scale. As well as US Forest Service stepping up to the same kind of level of engagement as Cal Fire has. And it's a continuing challenge. We have a few more million acres left to attend to. And then we have the very real problem. What do we do with all the resulting overburden? And we have overburden that will be available for years to come at the current pace and scale. And in a few minutes, I'll talk a little bit about one of our strategies to address that overburden. But bottom line is, even if we can move pace and scale more quickly, we do need to find a resolution for the over burden and we also need to figure out how to deal with it so that we can move forward with strategies like prescribed burns. And that's continues to be a question at both the state and the federal level. Water and drought, what can I say? It's an ongoing, the changing climate means that we will continue, in my opinion, to struggle with water supplies in this state. I think we do have some opportunities to take advantage of both off-stream storage, as well as groundwater banking that we're moving forward on. From our perspective, and I think this is true for many who are dependent upon water rich economies, like agriculture, that you do need to do a more thoughtful job of thinking about how to manage precip versus snowpack. The other area that I'll talk a little bit more detail in a few minutes is broad band. We've been very active in that space and have set up a new subsidiary. Housing is an ongoing challenge with respect to how do we provide housing not only for our own workforce, but to bring in economic development and health care access. A rural hospital, a rural health care in particular, is undergoing a lot of stressors, as you well know. In particular, our labor and delivery units are being shut down. They're very expensive. And I was talking to one of Supervisor Lopez in Monterey County, his constituents, having to go over an hour to get child, our prenatal care and postnatal care for their child once the child was born. It's not unique to California and one of the most significant impediments to a robust health care system is Medicare reimbursement rates. We are working with Congress Member Jared Hoffman, represents the North Coast of California. He's got a measure to increase health, sorry, Medicare reimbursement rates from $0.75 on the dollar to $0.85 on the dollar on average. It's a step forward. It's not the solution, but it is a step forward. We also have had some state investment in some of our failing hospitals, but it will continue to be, I think, a healthcare crisis for rural America, let alone rural California. Finally, I just want to acknowledge that we have increased our presence in front of the Public Utilities Commission. This is for both the energy side of the PUC House as well as the telecom side of the PUC House. And we even dabble a little bit in the private water company side of the PUC House. Public Utilities Commission, I've never practiced in front of them. They are a strange creature unique unto themselves. Their processes are completely different than any other public process that I'm familiar with. And so it has taken us a little bit of time to get familiar with not only the process, but how to be most effective in our engagement. And I think we've done a pretty good job, particularly on the energy side. As you know, PG&E is one of our largest service providers in RCRC member counties, as well as Southern California Edison. And we've had our challenges with, from our perspective, bringing the IOUs to compliance with some of their responsibilities, particularly as it relates to power safety shutoffs, EPSS shutoffs, and managing their vegetation around transmission lines. Having said all that, we are also very concerned that we're not investing in our energy infrastructure sufficiently to meet the challenges of a 2035 all electric California. If that is indeed where we want to be, we have a lot of work to do in order to bring our transmission capabilities to the level needed for a reliable energy supply. And that's not to mention some of the areas in rural California where greater investment in microgrids and the like will likely be the future if we want to have the same sort of reliability. I think I've probably spent enough time talking about advocacy. So I think unless there are any questions. Thank you, sir. Let me move on to our affiliates. And frankly, all the work that we do in our advocacy role is only afforded to us by our affiliates. And frankly, all the work that we do in our advocacy role is only afforded to us by our affiliates, particularly Golden State Finance Authority and the sister entity National Home Buyers Fund. Golden State Finance Authority has been around for 35 years or so. It has invested in affordable housing solutions, energy financing, such as pace as appropriate and infrastructure financing. We pulled up the numbers for San Luis Obisible County since 1993. I just say that overall since its inception, Golden State Finance Authority has provided financing closing down payments in loan finance assistance on 1st and 2nd to over 85,000 families, almost 86. $667 million in closing and down payment assistance and over $16 billion in loan financing of first and seconds. And that is largely within rural California, but we also do work with some of the cities and counties. So we're very democratic and where we go to do business, but it's all with an eye toward how can we help low and moderate income families get into housing primarily but not exclusively in rural areas and As I mentioned National home buyers fund is our national affiliate It probably has the most room to grow its program of work is similar to GSFA and we do do some work in California as you'll see since 2002 we didn't we've done some activity in San Los Obispo County and HF has been around for 22 years it was developed because we saw an opportunity to take our GSFA program nationally. We have provided funding to 52,600 home buyers and over $461 million in down payment assistance. So I think by most measures it's a pretty successful program to screen as it might be. It's also the program if my colleague, Fredis Ferguson, who wants these programs or here, would tell you's a lot of room to grow as we look to other states, including states in the Midwest where we see some of the similar opportunities. One of the most exciting programs in this space, at least from my perspective, and I think from our board's perspective, has been the opportunity to help county employees purchase homes in their county of residents. As you can see, we have provided that funding or that assistance to 101 county employees and it has been very well received by most of our counties. I think for several of our counties, Lee was Nevada County supervisor there who said, this program was key to bringing a couple of their professional staff into the county so that they could purchase a home and afford to live there. So it's been very, very successful, well received. Again, we think there's a lot of room to grow to help you recruit and retain employees in your key positions as well as in your service sector positions to help your counties run as efficiently as possible. Let me move to then one of our newest affiliates, and that's Golden State Connect Authority. This was stood up about 20 months ago now, and it was in recognition that between the state and the federal governments, we had a lot of opportunity for grant and loan dollars for standing up broadband in our underserved areas. And with all due respect to our friends in the telecom sector, many areas that they present as being quote unquote lit up, in fact only light up one address. And we see a dearth of service in many of our areas, particularly those hard to reach areas in the mountainous parts of our state, but not exclusively. I talk to our supervisor from King's County places like here on, don't always get service places like Gonzales and San Miguel or maybe not the first to get service. Imperial County we've got several communities there again don't have good service. The board recognizing that stood up Golden State Connect Authority. It is chaired by two of our board members. As you can see we have 26 member counties in this particular affiliate and as you can see, we have 26 member counties in this particular affiliate. And as you can also note from the PowerPoint that we have been able to at least be competitive in several grant offerings. The Federal Commerce Department's of Economic Development Administration has a grant that we've been very competitive with. We've been able to get later grants, local agency technical assistance grants for 39 of our regional areas and more recently we have been successful. Well we're not quite successful yet. I'm getting a little ahead of myself, but we're terribly close to being successful, to receiving 37 FFA grants that will help underpin the bonding authority to allow us to move forward with our vision of a menisably owned, open access, broadband capability in our underserved areas. Regrettably in this particular state budget, the funding was reduced from its original $750 million to $50 million, which quite a haircut as they say, but it will allow us to do some three to four regional projects and the project probably closest to you and geographic proximity is the South Selina's family project. I believe we are also working with San Luis at this Spill County on a couple of projects and it's very exciting to see us so terribly close to groundbreaking. We believe we'll be doing that first groundbreaking toward the end of this year. And it'll be just great to see these services provided for communities who today don't have the telehealth, teleeducation, economic development that is all dependent on a robust, reliable, commercially viable broadband connectivity. So GCSA is that, which we believe will provide that. I will note that even though it's municipally owned, it is available to telecoms or ISPs who want to access it because we believe that competition is good. And if you'd like to join, feel free to. But we're going to take the responsibility for making sure that fiber gets lit up in the areas that are currently dark. The next affiliate that I wanted to spend a few minutes on is Golden State Natural Resources. In his prior life, I want to thank your CAO for helping us move things along. It's all very incremental, but every step is a step forward. Golden State Natural Resources has been envisioned for about five or six years now. It's only been, I'd say, the overburden would be taken out of the forest. We're not talking clear cutting. We're talking that material that has limited or no value, or is just in an area where there's too many sticks in the ground. I think that's the right term, sticks in the ground. Some of our landscapes we have about 700 trees for acre, I'm told, and a healthy forest is closer to something around a hundred to two hundred, depending on where you are. So we have a lot of material. The idea would be to take this material out in concert with the U. the US Forest Service and we're going through the EIR process now. The idea would be material, would be pelletized and we're looking at a couple of commercial marketers, including Drax, which has a very robust presence in the marketing of these industrial-sized pellets. People say, well, why pellets? What's the market value there? What I'm told is under the Paris climate, a corn, for example, places like Poland, Japan, South Korea are looking to move away from coal to meet their obligations. And this is about as close to a drop-in replacement as you can find. It is, even our board would tell you, this particular strategy to preletize material is a bridge material. This is not a long-term solution. We're hoping that other wood-related products will be developed over time. But in the meantime, we have to get rid of this material. Otherwise, it becomes fuel load in the forest floor. So one way or the other, it seems that it would be prudent to manage it. And these finished pellets would be shipped by rail from the two sites eventually to the Port of Stockton for overseas sales and transport. We are working with the Port of Stockton, very encouraging. The ports have been very helpful. We're working with our friends in labor to secure an appropriate labor contract. And we're also working with the community. As you might imagine, the community around the port is stocked and has some reservations. It's a kind of community that typically gets, from their view, dumped on by industrial processes. And we're working very hard to minimize any negative effects as is our obligation. In fact, we think it'll have a positive good overall to minimize any negative effects as is our obligation. In fact, we think it'll have a positive good overall when we can manage our forest fires a little more efficiently. And we're also hoping to, we're working with them, hoping to bring in some opportunity to remediate their food desert, because that part is stocked and really has some challenges. So how can we bring in urban farming? How can we improve their tree scapes in that area to help improve the community as part of our being a good neighbor in the port of Stockton? Let me move on to our next. I think I'm getting close to the end of my time if I haven't overstayed my welcome at all as it is. The last JPA that I wanted to talk about was environmental services, regret that San Luis the Pacific County is no longer a participant. That happens. We come and we go. In the meantime, ESJPA did just receive a grant from Cal Recycle to help our counties manage their obligation under SB 1383 and SB 54. It's a $330,000 grant that will provide technical assistance to our member counties who are struggling to meet their waste diversion goals, particularly in the organic waste stream. So we're very excited about that. ESJPA was started some 30 years ago as well. And it was originally developed to help Kupas address hazardous waste like oils. And over the years, it has grown to become an entity that helps our member counties look at the waste stream more broadly and try to do a better job in meeting our state obligations in that space. And then finally, our newest, our resurrected entity, Rural Advancement Institute. And this one I'm really quite excited about in a different way. our resurrected entity, Rural Advancement Institute. And this one I'm really quite excited about in a different way. You probably recognize as well as anyone, Rural counties often have a difficult time working with our urban neighbors. Our interests are a little bit different. Our priorities perhaps are a little bit different and our stressors are are a little bit different, and our stressors are perhaps a little bit different. Yet we also are bored under R-A-I, recognizes that if we don't do something to become better neighbors to our urban counterparts, things won't improve. And that's not a tenable position to be in. We need to work with our urban neighbors. So the RAI board has embarked on two components, two arms. One is an educational arm. And that's to do a deeper dive into some of these very complex areas and come up with data to support our anecdotes with respect to various issue areas. For example, last year we did a deeper dive working through CSU Sacramento on housing. What constraints do rural counties have as it relates to housing? We now have a research paper that gives us a little bit of data in terms of what is actually going on in the counties. This year, our board, just yesterday, authorized an agreement with UC Santa Barbara to do a deeper dive on emergency healthcare. And how can we provide better services, particularly as we have to go longer distances? Interestingly enough, it was very difficult to find a research institution who had any expertise in this. You see Santa Barbara is one of the only ones in the country that has any type of expertise. So we're very pleased we'll be getting a bit of their time to look at this. It's about a nine-month research project and we hope to have the results in about this time next year. And the second leg of this particular stool has to do with tours. We did our first tour last year to use Semite and we characterize it as behind the recreational curtain. We have about half a dozen senior leaders, a legislator's and senior staff from both the Assembly and the Senate come with us to look at what makes your somebody work. What are the housing constraints? If you get injured as you're enjoying your recreational opportunity, what does your health care look like? Where do the folks who make your experience so positive live? What are some of the new recreational investments that are being made in and around your semit, that will help advance and enhance your recreational experience? It was about a 48-hour tour, and we got a lot of positive results from our urban members who participated. They had no idea of the challenges that made their experiences despite those challenges, still so positive in places like your semit. Yesterday, the board approved a second tour, and it will be in the county of Monterey. Supervisor Prashong can tell you a little bit about what it might look like because it reflects supervisor Lopez's county and the chair meeting in some major respects. One of the board members, a supervisor from Merrill Post of County, when he found that we were perhaps looking at an opportunity visit, Pebble Beach as a recreational site, did volunteer to do around there just to make sure it met our standards, you know. I'm not sure he was taken up on it, but it was very sporting of him to make that offer. Anyway, from an advocacy perspective, we think this will be a really good tool for us to have to help bridge the bridge divides on issues that really affect all of us, but that rural counties haven't really had an opportunity to amplify. So with that, I'm happy to entertain any questions. Thank you for your forbearance and for your attentiveness. And again, thank you for your membership in RSCRC, Supervisor Pashong. Thank you for being so consistent in your presence and providing us guidance sometimes. And I will say, Supervisor Gibson has also made himself available and it's been really nice to see the collaboration between the two organizations. So thank you. Madam Chair. Thank you, Marianne. Any questions or comments from the board? Supervisor Teesleg? So that was great, man. Really? I'm so happy to have you here first off and to really give us a very broad But some real specifics too on all the programs that are available that I think that we really need to you know Remind ourselves on time and time again of what's offered Just a couple of quick things you, looking at the Williams-Synacht and being a former utility-scale solar developer, having to go and ask for Williams-Synacht to be taken out in order to develop, you know, I think that there is some kind of a win-win. We always said, you know, it's kind of interesting because we're really harvesting energy. And the way that you can build today is a little bit lighter than even when I was doing it 10 years ago. So within so many years that farm can come back up and that soil will be rested and who knows what can happen next or what we're going to need next. So I think, you know, really like hearing how the approach is trying to look at the challenges that we have right now, but knowing that we are evolving and changing so quickly, that we have to be flexible in those ways. I think the one thing that, you know, going back to the agencies and environment in particularly for rural areas, so much of for us when we look at our creeks, and when we have these atmospheric rivers and creek flow, and yet a lot of the creeks are privately owned or shouldn't say they're privately owned. The cleaning of them is the responsibility of the landowner in that surrounding area. That becomes a real challenge for rural individuals that are having to go back to those agencies to say can I clean the creek so it doesn't overflow. So you know those kinds of items, nobody understands that, but those that are in the lands. And then lastly, I will be reminding Congressman Carbohal regarding Jared Huffman's efforts on the Medicare. We really know that our rural designation is truly challenging us in a number of ways, obviously, in getting new medical professionals, but having urban costs and yet still having that rural rate is just very, very stressful. And so I'm happy to hear Congressman Huffman's efforts and gonna bring him some more. Maybe they've already joined forces, but we've been talking obviously about it. And so it's really helpful to have you here and give us all that information. It's a start. It's a start. Supervisor Pichão. First off, thank you very much, Maryann, for being here today. It was great that you had the slide about the Golden State Finance Authority and helping 389 individuals and families in our wonderful county. For people, we have, and I know it's at also $3.3 million in down payment assistance. How do people tap into that? Just there's people listening at home right now. Wanted to make sure that we were on the record on how people would go about tapping into the down payment assistance for home Sierra San Luis Obispo County. Well, like we all say these days go to the website, the GS and I don't mean that flippantly. The GSFA website does have guidance on that and we do have several professionals that are available to answer any questions. Typically we work with select lenders and communities. And those lenders are also listed on the website that, and those lenders know how to go through the process. A deeper dive than that, supervisor Prashan, I'll have to defer to my, have someone get back to you or defer to my colleagues who work in this space. I'll put it up on social media too when I get that information. So thank you. Supervisor Gibson. Thank you, Madam Chair. And, Mary, thank you so much for being here. I realize that I've worked with you for virtually all of the very few years that you've been involved in public policy, RCRC. And this is the first time that I remember RCRC coming to actually address our board. It was certainly my pleasure to represent this board to add RCRC for four or five years back in the odds. And what I gathered there is a real appreciation for the culture of RCRC in terms of its practical approach to getting stuff done in government. You talked about many of the affiliates that RCRC has stood up and are doing great, great work on the job. I think just for the benefit of the public, you know, they should check out things like Golden State Finance Corporation. We will be seeing the fruits of Golden State Connect starting to manifest themselves. But what the public probably doesn't see as much as the advocacy that RCRC does in cooperation with CSAC and the League of Cities. And what has always impressed me is all RCRC's expertise in getting to the regulatory side of this great behemoth government that governs this state. It's all well and good to approach our legislators and try to get good policy passed. But that's really just the start. And RCRC's ability to drill in and understand regulation of septic systems or regulation of organic waste and how it affects the vast mass of our state. And that's one thing I realize as we look we think of California with 39 million people as a crowded place. But you know in fact there are a whole lot more counties of the 58 that are rural than our urban and a whole lot more acres of California that are rural than our urban and those acres support our urban friends considerably in ways that our urban friends don't I think fully appreciate. It's fun being a midsize county so I can connect with both of them but I can tell you in my work with CSAC, RCRC's focus has deeply informed our policy positions and when I had been in Washington and laid down a policy position that I can say has supported by all 58 of California's counties, I've literally seen eyes widen and expressions of surprise and delight come from the agency and the elected officials. So I want to just pass on my thanks to you and your board. Our neighbor Supervisor Lopez, chair of RCRC, is a great supporter and the distinguished gentleman from Mariposa that is to follow him is another great supervisor in this state. So I wish you all the well and certainly both as a county and as the state association officer look forward to further collaboration. Thank you. And you're most welcome for my attendance. I regret it's not here. Been not here before now. Especially as a part-time resident of the second Supervisorio district. I know it's really offensive isn't it? A bit. I wish it's really offensive isn't it? A bit. I hope we try to remedy that. I'll get over it. But we do come at the county's invitation from time to time. We do try to insert ourselves. But for different counties, it works out differently. I think we've done a better job over the last three or four years in reaching out to counties and making an attempt anyway to visit. I think our president, Pat Blacklock, has been to all 40 counties now and hasn't presented at board meetings at all 40, but has visited all 40 instruments from time with your colleagues in the other 39 counties. One of the things a supervisor gives in that you touched on that I think has been both an opportunity and a challenge and the legislative as well as the regulatory arena is the differences among California counties. You know our member county imperial is vastly different than our member county Del Norte or M O D O C and the counties in the center of the state and here are central coast counties and one of the things we do try to take a little bit of effort and time with is educating policy makers on those differences and what fits in your county made up fits so well in your county and your county may require yet a third approach. And that's been challenging in a state as geographically large and as demographically diverse as California is. But if it were easy, what fun would that be? Well, if you've seen one California county, you've seen one California county. Right. A maximum that we do yeah I was reminded of that on sunday afternoon we had the closing session of the olympics on and they showcase la as long as being actually my place of birth so I was kind of happy about that just being very parochial. But it left the impression with one that that part of this coast was California. And I thought, oh no, no, no, no. We'd be so much better and bigger than that. But it could be worse, I suppose. At any rate, Madam Chair, unless there are any further questions? No, no. I just, I also wanted to thank you for being here and that presentation was great. It really highlighted the benefit that our county gets from being, having the membership with your organization and not just the policymakers, but also the citizens. How many programs you have? I mean, it was really good presentation. So we appreciate you being here today. Well, let me assure you that supervisor Prashan and his predecessors on our board before that, do try to keep us honest in our activities. So you have been well served over the years by your representatives. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, I'm sorry. We didn't open this up to public comment. Thank you, Marianne. We'll open this item up to public comment. I don't have any request to speak on this item. So we will close it to public comment and thank Marianne once again and move on to item number 29 on our agenda and ask the clerk to introduce the item, please. Consideration of amendments to the Board of Supervisors rules of procedure. Retaining to the use of county equipment for public comment and add clarifying language regarding the strip of behavior and unreally conduct. Okay. Looks like county council is going to present on this. Okay. Good morning. Read a kneel, county council with my trustee assistant, John and Solabahair, down in the well. Today we're going to talk about and ask the board for some direction regarding amendments to the board's rules of procedure. Next slide, John. Next slide. There you go. On July 9th, the board directed us to look at possible amendments to your rules of procedure for purposes of preventing obscene speech during board meetings. This request arose following some public comment where sexually explicit photographs and videos were displayed. During that item and following that item, our office did a pretty deep dive into First Amendment law. And one thing is very clear, it's very nuanced and making on the spot decisions, particularly in public meetings for what is protected by the First Amendment and what isn't, is difficult. There are certain types of speech that aren't protected by the First Amendment. Besides obscene speech, criminal threats, defamation, there's a list, a short list of items that aren't protected by the First Amendment besides obscene speech, criminal threats, defamation, there's a list, a short list of items that aren't protected by the First Amendment. Our focus today is on obscene speech. There's a Supreme Court case from 1973 called Miller versus California. And that case defined what obscene speeches and also defined that it's not protected by the First Amendment. And that definition is a three-part test. The speech appeals to the purient interest in sex. The speech depicts something that is considered patently offensive based on contemporary community standards. And the speech lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value in 1973. A lot of commentators and courts have said, well, that's the type of speech that you know it when you see it. It's obscene, you know it when you see it. I think as society norms have evolved, social media has evolved, different political viewpoints have evolved, these three factors become a little more difficult and discretionary to assess and again particularly in the moment. So as a public agency we are able to regulate speech based on time, place and manner restrictions and the most common place you see this is in public comment. We generally allow three minutes for public comment. The Brown Act says we have to allow public comment, but it doesn't say how long. So if we've had particularly a lot of people in the audience, the board chair will say, okay, we're going to cut public comment to one minute. That's because you're talking about the time place of manner you're not talking about the content of the speech. Public agencies can't regulate speech based on content or viewpoints as long as it's within the subject matter jurisdiction of the agency. And when we talk about subject matter jurisdiction, we've had times where perhaps someone is talking about an event that happened in Montana. Well, ultimately you could cut that speech off because whatever's happening in Montana is likely not within the subject matter jurisdiction. But if someone is simply criticizing an ordinance that this board has passed, you can't cut that speech off because you would be cutting off the viewpoint. So we've made some potential recommendations for what the board can do to revise your rules of procedure and the first one is make no changes and rely on staff to make a determination during the meeting whether the speech is protected. There's some difficulties in this and I think we saw that on July 9th. You'd have to stop the meeting. You'd have to have staff make an ad hoc analysis of whether the speech is obscene or not. There's certainly potential for disagreement and disruption during the meeting. And one thing that is even more difficult, particularly if a party is playing a video, you'd have to make the determination and try and figure out how to blur out obscene speech and allow the rest of the video to play. So it makes it a little unreasonable to try and enforce not allowing obscene speech at a meeting. Next slide, John. The second option is you can prohibit the use of county equipment during public comment. We had checked with some several other counties and some counties do this. It is a valid restriction on public comment because its content and viewpoint neutral. So no public comment or would be allowed to use the county equipment. They could still hand out to the board. They could hold up things for the board, but they just couldn't broadcast it on the county's equipment. This certainly makes the meetings run more efficient as sometimes people are struggling to put thumb drives into our computers and it limits potential disruptions. We do recognize that this would be a change for some of our public speakers who are very used to using our equipment during their public comment. Next, John. So this would be the proposed rules speakers would not be allowed to utilize video, audio, or other media or digital equipment owned or controlled by the county during their public comment on the consent agenda, during the public comment for items, not on the agenda, board business items and other items on the agenda. We did put in one option on this on the next slide, which is the rule would not apply to appeals for applicants and appellants. And the reason we put in this exception, or at least for the board's consideration, is for those using a USB drive, they would have to submit that to the clerk, not the clerk of the board, 24 hours in advance. And this is just more for a safety issue. Now, these computers in the computer aren't attached to our entire county system, but there still is some risk if someone brings in a USB drive on the fly that has some malware or something that could impact our computer system. Another option you could require individuals to submit any materials that they wish to use during public comment period in advance for review and approval. So you could say 24 hours or 72 hours before a board meeting, you'd have to provide us anything that you wish to broadcast honor equipment prior to the board meeting. Again, this sort of is problematic. And again, it leads to potential claims of first amendment because there's likely to be a difference of opinion between staff and the public commenter as to what is obscene and not obscene. So we could be subject to objection and legal contest on something like that. It additionally adds additional work prior to report meeting for staff to review all submissions and make a determination and then potentially having to blur things out of videos or PowerPoints. Another thing that we have put into the proposed amendments to the rules of procedure has to do with disruption. And it does really tie into the type of speech that's allowed at a board meeting because oftentimes, and I think we saw it on July 9th, there was some disruption, some upset in the audience and even on the board about the speech that was being projected that day. There's also been an amendment to the Brown Act in an effort to assist public agencies in dealing with disruptive individuals. So this updates this particular language updates from the Brown Act that individuals who are disruptive groups of individuals, if they are disruptive and they make the meeting infeasible, the chairperson can warn those people and their failure to seize their disruption could result in the removal of the meeting. It also gives the chair the opportunity to recess the meeting and if it's reconvened and the individuals are still willfully disrupting the meeting, the chairperson may order the removal of the individual group or group of persons. And although this has essentially been available to boards and councils and public agencies in the past, the Brown Act has more clarified that so we have added it to the rules of procedure. So, today we're just asking you to consider the proposed amendments and provide direction for staff for further action. We do have the red line version available if the board would like to look at it. One thing that I should say about the amendments, we clarified some of the order on the rules of procedure for purposes of clarity. Mostly what I've talked about today are within the proposed amendments and it's up to this board whether you want to adopt them or make changes or go in a completely different direction. Thank you questions of the board to revise your gifts. Yes ma'am. Thank you Madam Chair. I just wanted to confirm we are agendas to make amendments today or we not. Yes you are. Okay. And while I have the floor, just one question. In looking at the proposed language, it indicates that it proposes, this is under public comment section A, item three. Speakers not allowed to use certain equipment for items on the consent agenda, public comment items not on the agenda, board business items, and other items on the agenda. I just want to be sure that that covers public hearings, which are on the agenda listed as such at that point. That's right. It does include that. We were trying to include appeals and anything else that potentially could be on the agenda and it applies to all public speakers. Right, okay, and the exception under appeals, I think is reasonable, we can talk about that. Yeah, again, that's because when you have an appeal, again, I think we put it in the board letter, there do process rights implicated. So the applicant and the appellant should have a little more leeway. The risk is low, not, it doesn't exist, but it's low that you would have some obscene material from an appellant or an applicant in their presentation. Okay. Thank you. I would hope that it would be low that it gets, we're gonna be voting against them if it. So I asked this to come back because of the pornography that was shown and I left the meeting. So I don't know actually went on after, I didn't need to see that kind of thing. But the discussion, I got a couple calls on this and from people in the community that are worried about the 24 hour advanced notice on the, because they do change their presentations, you know, upwards of two or three hours before and so they would be locked in at 24 hours. Is there any way around that to be able to help, you know, people that are presenting legitimate information during the hearing or whatever it would be, that they wouldn't have to present a USB drive 24 hours a day. Yeah, we could certainly strike that from the proposal and maybe when we're having staff contact the appellants and the applicants to come in that they would use brand new thumb drives instead of those that have been reused, we can't force them to, but that would help to prevent any malware and getting into our system. That would probably just be an easy request to make to them. Thank you. So for our case, Lane. Thank you. I think that makes a lot of sense because, I think, you know, for applications that are coming in, they things do change in those last 24 hours. And so, I, but I also think that they are willing to have that equipment that's been approved by, by staff or however it is figured out. But some way to be able to amend or edit, you know, is going to be important in order to keep the, keep the real business that's supposed to be done to accurate and all of that. So I'm glad that Supervisor Prashong asked that question because I had that same question. Thank you. And a supervisor, Pauline. Thank you, Chair. On that, and I know that we're not in deliberation. We'll go to public comment. But could we modify that specific provision related to appeals to at least include language that would permit or set the expectation that County Council would have the ability to review the information either right before the hearing or during the hearing is that something we could do? You mean just for appeals for appellants and applicants? We could do that as long as it's an option I don't know that always needs to be a requirement but an option to have staff review it prior to the presentations. In lieu of the 24 hour. In lieu of the 24 hours, yes. Thank you. And I have a quick question. John, do you mind pulling up on the screen the last option for revisions? The one that came right before recommendations? Please. That one. So I just wanted to ask our council. I think you said that we'd had revisions or some, the brown, this came from Brownack revisions, but really I think it's been, whether it's our policy or whatever that this proposed language is really something that we do anyway, correct? I mean, as the times, the turns that I've had being chair, I always felt like if there was an individual or groups of persons being disorderly, we've had to do that before. We've had to shut down the meeting before. We've had to do that before we've had to shut down the meeting before we've had to take a recess before so This is something that we've used our discretion and had at our disposal for many years, right? Yeah, I mean you know we try and Deescalate the situation first but in this instance now the brown act has codified it and we think it's important for people to understand that that is what could happen they will be removed. We could literally, if hopefully not, but have law enforcement come in and escort them out and we've maybe had to do that at times too. And the thing I think the point I'm trying to make is this has been at our disposal always and we've used it before and I'm sure we'll use it again sometime, Swinn over to all different lot of ways and we've used it before and I'm sure we'll use it again sometime when all different kinds of topics and issues that are heard in this chambers. It is and I think that when the legislature went ahead and amended the Brown Act, as you know what's been happening across the state is public meetings are tending to get more disruptive and so there's an effort trying to balance the people's right to speak in a 10 board meetings and participate and then also keep people safe and letting other people know you can't be disruptive in a public meeting. So that's where I think the impetus those amendments came from. And I was just asking the question to illustrate that we have in two places places but our option to just Carry on as we have in the past or this option this is really an option that is something that we've had in our Quiver for a while. Okay. Thank you. With that we're going See any lights on so we're going to go out to public comment on this item and I don't have any requests to speak. We do. Okay, we have, if come forward, please, if you want to speak. I don't have any other slips. Okay. Okay. Chair, board members, Mike Brown representing COLab, any government policy, you know, the first question is what problem are we trying to solve? And this problem came as a one individual put up this material, which violates community standards. And I think she's kind of known this has been an issue for her I guess with some school districts in the North County but I've been doing this for 12 years and I never saw anybody before this presenting a material like this so this is just a one-off I mean it's not like a bunch people are coming back every week to or she's not coming back to present this. So what problem are you trying to solve? And I think what's really happening here is that you're seizing on that incident to use it as an excuse to put in more restrictions that don't have anything to do necessarily with the period video. So for example, new rule five that could be picked. First sentence says public comments should be directed to the chairperson and the board as a whole and not to any individual supervisor or attendee. And, you know, there's been some courts in I think Orange County, which have said this isn't necessarily right. I don't think that decision was a record, you know, that applies to everybody. But we don't think that's right. We think you should be able to confront your elected public servants. and if they're doing something bad or wrong or whatever, you should be able to say that. You know, you can't go to real libel or slander or something but you can sure as hell say your policy is dumber than now. You know, and the second one is personal attacks that are not related to county. This is number six, threatening language, slanderous language, carrying out will not be tolerated. Well, slanderous is in the eye of the beholder. And so how do you know if it's slanderous or not? So if Karen Veeley had come in here a few years ago and said, Adam Hill's doing these things, people might have said it was slanderous, but by the time law enforcement and witnesses and everybody got done, some of those bad things were absolutely true and not slanderous. So if somebody thinks you're doing something bad, you know, and they're not attacking, you know, your finances or your family or something like that, just what are you trying to accomplish? I think county councils right leave it alone to do pick number one. Thank you very much. Thank you. Did I see anyone else that yes please Marie? And if anyone else wants to speak please come up and bring us a slip and then we can call your name. Thank you. Yeah. Turn that in. You put on the screen. It's page three of the edited procedure manual page. A couple of references to that, you don't mind. Okay. We get, there's a note below. Oh, there you go. Thank you. Marie Powell again, not representing tags. So, few questions. Looking at this screen, so once again, we're limited to three minutes. And there was a letter, I only saw one letter on this. I'm actually amazed that this place isn't full just to defend free speech rights, but whatever. So anyway, so now in the letter that was sent on this agenda item, it's in your record, she made a great comment is that pictures are worth the thousand words. And you've seen that in hearing and after hearing. So maybe we need to extend this three-minute rule because if now we have to sort around and describe things that are clearly evident with a photo on that screen that we need more time to accurately and comprehensively make our comments. So that needs to be looked at. Other items that I have problems with here is, let's see here. So, Rita Neal in her review talks about community standards. So where's the definition of our community standards that you guys are going to look at to determine what should be allowed and what should not be allowed. I've never seen one so that needs to be worked on. So let's see what else we have. Somebody mentioned the 24 hour device thing, that's a problem. And let's see what else I want to take more time than necessary here. So, define appeals. So, there's a special item on here where appeals do allow use of this equipment. So what are the definition of appeals and what are the definitions of the appellance and the applicants. And the other item that I have is, so I understand that this limitation is only on board meeting, uh, public, uh, board public meetings. So there's all other agencies and boards to use these, uh, this equipment. I assume that there's no restriction for the public using this equipment on any of these other commission or board meetings or hearings. Is that correct? So you got a few things here I think that need to be cleared up in this whole revised procedure manual. Thank you. Thank you. And our last request is to speak'Archeus Stebans. Hi, d'Archeus Stebans, rural San Miguel. I find it quite ironic that we have a limitation of First Amendment rights during public comment, especially ironic that we've just paid for as taxpayers and citizens of this county a whole new audio visual system that we're now limited in use as a person who has come forward to the board for public comment and comments on the agenda items. I have used the audio visualual system in the past. Last time I was not able to get here in time in order to give that to the clerk ahead of time, but it was one that had been approved and had been viewed. I have 29 minutes of mostly Democrats, but liberals, progressives, whatever you wanna call, where they were countered, they were indicating that the voting machines can be hacked. I'm using words from people who use supposedly as a board agree with, and I'm using their words, not my words. And I think that that visual representation I've also had a video of Supervisor Gibson when he's up in Sacramento, speaking how he's supporting ACA-1 and limiting the voter threshold from two-thirds majority to 55% to raise taxes on the citizens of the county that he's supposed to represent% to raise taxes on the citizens of the county that he's supposed to represent, and then coming to the county and indicating that he's fully supporting Proposition 13. So those kinds of things I think are very, I find it obscene in some ways that that's being spoken about. But nonetheless, I think it's important for the people of this county to be able to see that, and visually it does make an impact. As far as the video that was shown, I had a first row seat for some of that, and while I didn't like it at the same time, the whole point of that presentation was not about trying to press the First Amendment rights. It was that the First Amendment rights were being used in San Francisco. And what was cut out of the public meeting time frame was an interview with police officers in that park in San Francisco. This is supposed to be the public record of that meeting. And all they were saying was we're allowing the First Amendment, we're allowing these people to walk around naked and it's not violent. So that's what the police officers were saying. We're not stopping this because it's not violent. So that's what the police officers were saying. We're not stopping this because it's not violent. So maybe we should adopt that same principle as long as it's not violent. Thank you. Okay, no other requests to speak? We're gonna bring it back to the board, supervisor Gibson. Thank you, Madam Chair. Let me start it off if I mind. I think the first thing that I'm sure this board understands and that County Council will confirm is that the right to free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment of the US Constitution is not an unlimited right, especially as it exists within the conduct of our meeting. And they want to indicate that the events of the July 9th meeting manifested a threat to the orderly conduct of our meetings, and it certainly manifested an offense to the community standards upon which this local government is sworn to serve. It may be rare, but I do believe it does need to be mitigated. And I want to thank County Council, first of all, for the very careful analysis of the various First Amendment issues that are here, the particular, the matter of disruptive behavior, which is syndicated, has been a topic of conversation throughout the state and the very challenging definition of what constitutes obscene speech. I think that the proposed changes to our rules of procedure that are brought forward are absolutely appropriate. And I think the key benefit of them as it's laid out in the analysis is the fact that they are content and viewpoint neutral. I would also point out to those who make public comment before this body, that appearances in the comment period either for items not on the agenda or any other items on the board agenda is not the only opportunity to provide information to this board. The agenda is published nearly a week ahead of time, far outside the bare minimum requirements of the Brown Act. And in that publication, it is made clear, means by which individuals wanting to comment on a business before this board can submit information that becomes part of the formal record. So to me, the denial of the use of the county's audio and visual equipment here in the chambers on the day of the hearing is a minimal in position, a minimal restriction on the ability of the public to comment on the proceedings before this board. And again, I believe that minimal restriction is absolutely appropriate to mitigate what we can expect to be increasing threats of the kind of behavior that we saw on the 9th. I would suggest, you know, for one thing, I'm okay with the idea that we don't have to have a balance. I, the exception for a balance and applicants in an appeal hearing is fine. I'm okay with the idea that we don't have to submit their materials 24 hours. We have means of doing that. It does require the judgment of council or delegated person to assess the of doing that. It does require the judgment of council or delegated person to assess the content of that. That's something that I think in general we should avoid, but I think the threat within the context of appeals are low. I do think there might be one clarifying modification to make in item three under A under public comment, where it indicates the speakers will not be allowed to use utilized video audio or other media digital equipment. I think we should probably say aside from the microphones that are provided at the lecterns for the purpose of public comment. So just make sure that we know we are to provide microphones that will go into the feed. But I think beyond the verbal comments, any written materials that speakers would like to present to the board are absolutely appropriate means of communicating with the board and an absolutely effective way of communicating viewpoints to the board Not needing then use of the overhead projector or the computers for public power points So I'm supportive of that with a couple of with what's proposed for this with a couple of small modifications and Hope we can get this done Thank you chair. I'm in general agreement with supervisor Gibson. Have a couple additional comments, but just to, I guess, start going back to the last, well, two meetings ago, I think it was that we encountered the public comment that we did, which was of a divisive nature, which I would refer to as patently offensive. We are here today and we are, I think, needing to change our policy and update our policy. The idea that this was a one off thing and it won't happen again in the future, I think isn't consistent with the reality that we are a very polarized country right now, we're a polarized community. We see that public comment, which was intended to allow the public to show up at our meetings and share feedback with us and the community about items within our subject manager's jurisdiction is commonly, unfortunately, abused and was in that particular case. So I think we should expect more of that and plan accordingly and that's why rules of procedure changes are necessary in my opinion. So I do support the proposed change to the rules of procedure adding language with regard to dealing with disruptions of our meeting. I don't know if you spoke to that specifically supervisor Gibson, but that one is pretty self-explanatory. It's as our county council clarified, it's been codified in the Brown Act and we're simply just codifying that language. Regarding first amendment rights and protecting first amendment rights, obviously first amendment rights and the right of free speech are paramount. In addition, promoting civility is critical in our meetings and I really appreciate the representatives from the League of Women voters here earlier today talking about the code of civility. And I do have one extra comment on that. I'll circle back to you. But the question is whether use of our county video equipment is necessary to protect the right of free speech at our meetings. That's really the question that we're dealing with. And the answer is no. Perhibiting the use of county equipment would be a valid restriction on public comment as long as it is content and viewpoint neutral and would make the meetings more efficient and would limit disruptions and unruly conduct. In fact, this is common practice in other cities and counties where they don't allow video presentations to be made using county equipment. I also agree with Supervisor Gibson. You made a great point that folks have the opportunity to submit those type of materials to our board, individual board members in advance of the meeting so we can review that and that's a very effective way to communicate your concerns in more detail to us. So I do support the prohibition of using county of equipment with the exception for applicants and opponents as discussed as well as striking out the language regarding the 24 hour notice. I think we want to make sure applicants and appellants during hearings on projects have the ability to use equipment and provide presentations. And then I also support supervisor Gibson's comment on clarifying the language regarding the prohibition on audio video equipment to of course allow the use of our microphones during public comment. And then my final comment is just again about the code of civility. Copy of our code of civility that was adopted some time ago by this board was provided by the League of Women Voters. It's also reflected on the comment card that we provide to you as members of the public when you fill out that comment card to speak. I think we should incorporate that code of civility, excuse me, right into our rules of procedure. So we can reference it as we talk and encourage, as we engage in deliberations and promote civility to the community and to our board. So if the board would be interested, I would simply ask that we incorporate the code of civility on the back of the comment card into our rules of procedure. As an appendix would be fine. So those are my comments at this time. Thank you. So, Vice-Operation? Yeah. Appreciate everybody being here. Certainly the public commenters on this. You know, we had, and then the given, the public comment today gave me a lot to think about because when we first talked about this, this was in my reaction to some pornographic material that was shown here in this chamber and also broadcasts, so everybody knows it was also broadcast out into the community. I didn't think it was appropriate, we should have shut it down, we couldn't, and so I think we were probably in shock, I think, probably everybody appeared and everybody in the audience was in shock when it was with the shown. There are some points that have come through the council's offices, they built this out that I completely agree with. I do think that the Brown Act language that has been adopted by the state of California probably should be included. But listening to the three public speakers, each one of them has actually I know for a fact, because I've been here for eight years, they've come to the podium and they've used the overhead projector and they haven't shown any a fancable, you know, and negative, nasty, you know, you know, information on that overhead screen. And so they are factually trying to do that. So I understand kind of where they are. And now I don't always agree with those three speakers that come look forward, but they have every right, I believe now to be able to do that. I don't want to cut out them, you know, and fringe on their first amendment rights, which they've had for the last eight years. So I would, I actually am leaning towards, you know, supporting the first consideration. I think they said that we could do nothing though. I think adding the Brown Act language in would be a good thing. Adding the code of civility, which I was chairman of the board at the time that I signed that. I also got it put on the back of the speaker slips, which legal women voters also participated in. They were very helpful in that effort to get the seven cities on board. We got, and I looked at it the other day because it hangs outside my office. And there's only one thing, Ed Waggy and myself are the only two people that are still serving in that capacity on that. So, but I do think that we may be going a little bit too far. And so today, if this is the language that's adopted, I will be voting no, but if it is adjustable, I would love to be able to allow, continue to allow, and let's have the staff make the decision on objectionable material. I think that's one of your recommendations, and we could shut that down. And we've had to do that in the past. We had very beginning. We had two days of meetings on, I think it was on bringing in trains into the refinery in South County. And there was some pretty negative and nasty, you know, discussion there. It was, it was brutal. And I made sure that everybody had directed it to me as the chairman. And so I took it for two days. I think we had over 150 speakers, if I remember correctly. So I mean, we've gone through that, but a lot, there was never any pornography. I mean, we're talking about the oil industry, so there wasn't any pornography. But it was, it was a tough conversation. But everybody there had the First Amendment right to be able to say their piece to this board and to address this board so that's my thoughts. Okay and I just like to say this I appreciate the work that County Council's done on this but this has been interesting I think when that particular public comment section came up, it was a matter of trying to decide for me too as the chair, with a lot of discretion on whether we're going to take a break or stop what we're doing, was it legal to post those things while we were having our board meeting, was it legal? So of course, I looked down, I think it's the first time in 12 years that Ken and Council wasn't looking at me first before I was looking at her or something or so it's still in my mind it's just a matter of what if it's legal it goes if it's not legal it doesn't go. We were struggling with that question I think and so today in today's presentation one of the slides in the presentation we just saw from John, talks about that. Obscene speech is not protected by the First Amendment. It still doesn't go quite so far to say it's illegal or not. Legal, I'm still, and I guess I'm taking all of this to mean that's still a little bit discretionary. But obscene speech speeches defined and it goes on about a few things. Offensive based on contemporary community standards and many people would say that was offensive based on, I'm hearing it from my colleagues, contemporary community standards. But I think what we were missing or what I maybe I'm the only one that took away from the whole presentation, the presenters were offended by the material as well. That's why they were here presenting because they had been for months trying to present or talk about it or bring it into bring it to the public's attention that these were things that were going on in public. So what we saw were I understand what we were seeing was a pride celebration being held in another part of the state, but in public, out in public space. With law enforcement all around, we saw in the presentation TV and media commentators doing interviews during that, and we were seeing those pictures. Then it moved into actual textbooks that are being used in our schools. That were offensive to the presenters, and yet they by trying to bring up their objections, nothing was being done about it. So my takeaway was, at first, it was pricing, because it was pretty graphic. But once I realized as there were objections from the diacere they were saying we don't like it either we think this is offensive as well why aren't you community leaders doing anything about it and so that was my takeaway so I at that point I'm almost appreciative that you know it was being maybe brought to us in a way that was going to get our attention and boy, did it get our attention. So then that part about obscene speech and that sort of thing and the discretion. But I'll say the being able to use the county equipment, which is really the public's equipment in my mind, to when they come here to speak to us as a board. I always appreciate the ability to, or I feel like the projectors and the overheads and the equipment, at times enhances the ability to present information to us. We are supposed to be representing the public. And when they're trying to talk to us so many times over 12 years, I've learned things from public comment, because none of us are an expert in everything. So when someone that does know more about it or is paying attention to something like this, I didn't, I hadn't looked at what was going on at the pride celebrations in other places. So that was new to me. Back to that, one of our speakers brought up. So what problem are we trying to solve? And if the problems disruption, we already have. That's why I asked John to show that last slide. I've always felt like we had the ability to stop something that was disrupted and several times since I've been a supervisor We've taken a break and just stopped the meeting and that stops the problem and we've started meetings again and still had Disruption and stopped it again and we've even gone so far since I've been here over a decade to have folks from the Sheriff's Office come in and take people away that can't seem to not disrupt the proceedings. So I don't think we need to make any changes. I'm not in favor of making any changes and as a matter of fact, I'm not in favor of more restrictions on citizens that want to participate in the public process and I'm not even in favor of things that will discourage citizens from communicating on issues before the board. So for that reason, I guess I'm in the middle of doing nothing and or maybe just reinforcing that last slide that talks about our tools that we have for stopping disruptive behavior in the board the bar. Right. Perseiding. So, vice-director, thank you, Madam Chair. Public comment, also known as public consultation, is a process that allows the public to share their input on public issues. This can happen in a variety of ways such as through written submissions, public meanings, or deliberative groups. We really support public comment because we all do learn things during public comment. The issue here is about content and the content issue is that it's a very dangerous line between trying to say that's offensive, that isn't offensive based on the eyes of the beholder, based on the intent, based on a whole bunch of things. The issue that I have is that we don't know if that was the Pride Festival in San Francisco, just because supposedly that's what it was. Going back to it and looking again from people from San Francisco, that was called the Folsom Street Festival. That Folsom Street Festival is a festival that does not allow children, does not have this, you know, has has a certain corndog area. And every time we would say something to somebody that about well we had this thing happen to us, they're like that was Folsom Street. That's what Folsom Street. That's the problem with YouTube videos, that's the problem with supposedly experts saying things taken in context in today's world with the kind of media capabilities and AI capabilities. We don't know what's coming out of the screen. We have no idea whether anything's accurate if it's relevant to the topic, whether it's relevant to the thing that the speaker is speaking to, whether it's the relevancy of it. People put insert things and edit things in ways now today that it doesn't matter. What matters is your voice. What matters is what you write down. What matters is if you want to show us pictures, you can show us pictures. Have the pictures, send them to us individually. Have a meeting with us. That's consultation. You can print those pictures. You can share them here and show those pictures. So that is, that does nothing about that changes. All the changes is that we're getting these supposed experts, supposed newscasters. That's, I'm sorry, but that is not public comment. I wanna hear your public comment. I don't wanna hear something that's manufactured someplace else, and I'm supposed to do something about what is going on up there or anywhere else. Can't. That has nothing to do with the relevancy of what we're trying to do. And particularly in that case, that was nothing but pure offensive nonsense. And so I just, I mean, I am very disappointed in anybody thinking that somehow that we're trying to limit public comment. By no means is that happening here. I really want to say that we have some serious business and challenges to do and we need to be working together as a community to really address the things that this board has the purview of doing, whether it's our health care system, whether it's our public safety, fire, all of these things that we've got to really work on. And what we're seeing is just purported information. That doesn't mean anything. If it's coming out of your mouth, if you want to say it, and if you want to share that information with us, great. That's what we want to hear. That's what's important to us. So I can't do anything about what's happening in San Francisco. And somehow that's going to be all attached. I'm not sure. But I really just want to say that in regards to our limits on what we can do, I think this is the right way. I want to make sure that when people do come here for business, whether it's application otherwise, that they are able to show their materials, so we can make good decisions on that. The other stuff is really more, I would call, what's happened in the media anyway, infotainment and not really a public comment kind of approach. So I'm supportive of making the changes at this time. You know, we'll see if people can behave, who knows? Maybe we change it back. I'm not sure, but I think that it's important to allow for the real business to happen and to make sure that we have an opportunity to conduct ourselves in the way that we can move forward in a day's work here doing the people's business. I just want to say a supervisor Ort the point of making a motion here on the matter of refining the what audio equipment we're using. Did council have specific language? Sure. If you want to put this up on the screen and that. So the what we've heard from I guess a majority of the board is two changes, aside from microphones. It's highlighted on number three, and then also deleting the 24-hour requirement for applicants and opponents to submit the USB drive in advance. Okay. So that is microphones that are under control by the county, meaning the ones that are at the. Seeing no other discussion, I would move approval of the staff recommended changes with the modifications shown on the screen right now. Would you consider, I'll second that motion. And addition of the code of civility as an appendix to the rules procedure. Second. In under discussion, I do think it is time for us to all be signing the code of civility as was mentioned earlier. We do have a whole new group coming in and things so if we could maybe put that in there or is that so? We want to add our signatures to the version that's in the appendix as of taking this and we could have, we could suggest other future boards that if they make modifications to the rule, procedure they update those signatures in the appendix containing the rules of civility. I think that's a great idea. My second holds. Okay, we have a motion and a second, and the other discussion. Yeah, I just to add that, on the code of civility, it took us about six months to get everybody together to be able to do it. And so we do have, as I stated earlier, led that with a number of local elected officials in the cities. I think we probably, because Mayor Wagi is the only one myself and him him, that has signed it. We may want to look at bringing people back together to be able to sign at the new mayor's after the election in November when they're sworn in. But I will be voting against this today from some of the previous reasons. I still think that we should do something. I think we've got a pretty good idea of what it would look like if we did not pass this, but I'm probably gonna be outvoted here. So, but I appreciate it that the staff coming together and coming up with some ideas here to move it forward, but I'm gonna be voting no. Okay, and I'll just say once again that the irony of all this is the presenters that day that presented the quote unquote offensive material were trying to show how this offensive material is being out in public spaces and in our local textbooks, public school textbooks, and that they were offended by it as well, and they were not seeing any reforms being made. So again, this was information being brought to public leaders here to inform us that this was offensive to some of our constituents, and they were trying to express themselves. So this discussion on this reminds me, I couldn't help but think it reminds me of the day that this board said they wanted to protect prop 13 while we voted to support taking away an important part of prop 13 and that was the votey threshold. So again, I'm going to go back, I'm not supporting this. I'm not in favor of more restrictions on citizens participating in the public process. And I'm not in favor of anything that will discourage citizens from feeling comfortable commenting on the issues that are important to them, which this issue that we're discussing in this one particular case was very important to those people that came and presented that day. And we all agree that while it was important to them and while it seems to be important to you all, it was something that was offensive happening all around us and they wanted to see reform. So we were all on the same page, but again, I am not supportive of more, pretty more restrictions on public comment. This is a public place for people to be able to comment, speak to us. So with that, we'll call for the question. Supervisor Gibson? Yes. Supervisor Paul Dean? Yes. Supervisor Pashon? No. Supervisor Ortiz Leig? Yes. And Chairperson Arnold? No. Okay, we're going to move to item 30, close session. I'll open up this item to public comment. I don't have any requests to speak. Is there anyone? Okay. We'll close public comment and ask council for a time, estimate. Yes. Read a kneel county council. We're going into close session on sub items 3, 16 and 17 and we should take about 30 minutes. Okay, don't. Then we're going to turn to closed session and we'll see everyone in. Gonna say it'll be about 11 45. Ish. you you you Okay. Okay. We're back and we're going to reconvene the meeting and ask council to report out a closed session, please. Good afternoon, Rita Neal. County council, you met in closed session and the board did not take reportable action. Great. Thank you. We're moving on to item 31 and ask the chair or I guess I can introduce this really quickly. This is any supervisor asking a question for clarification, make an announcement or report briefly, and here's her activities. In addition, supervisors may request staff to report back to the board at a subsequent meeting, concerning any matter or may request that staff place a matter of business on a future agenda. Any request to place a matter of business for consideration on a future agenda requires the majority vote of the board. So any board discussion? Madam Chair. Yeah. Supervisor Gibson. Madam Chair, I'd like to make a motion here in a second to bring back piece of business before the board. Just for context, item 15 on July 9 had three subparts to it involving the Paso Basin Cooperative Committee. One of them was a request to approve the budget that the five GSAs of the PBCC had approved at one of their meetings. That budget was originally presented in an item that was before this board on June 18th. Item 15 on the ninth past, three to two. The two other pieces of that item are not at issue, but the approval three to two by this board of the modified budget puts us at odds with the other four GSAs in the PBCC. It is not a matter of budgetary issue for this board. It is a matter of a spending plan for the monies. We have already budgeted within the county budget. I know that may sound a bit confusing, but it will be amply explained in the staff report. I would like, so my motion is to return with an item to approve the adopted budget of the Paso Basin Cooperative Committee, returning it to be consistent with the budget that the five GSAs approved at the PBCC and to agenda that for our September 24th meeting. I'll second that motion. Okay, and your motion is to bring this back. Yep. Okay, we'll do a roll call, a roll call vote on that. Supervisor Gibson? Yes. Supervisor Paul Dean? Yes. Supervisor Pashon? No. Supervisor T's leg? Yes. And Chairperson Arnold? No. Okay. And we're going to move on to any other board. I just wanted to make a comment. I wanted to thank the San Luis Bussell County Parks and Rec Department for keeping the pools open. In my district, we had an incident and they were able to get some security to keep the Shannon pool open and it will be able to keep it open. I think three more days this hot summer. I was out there Saturday. It was 101 degrees and people were loving that pool. So appreciate all that the Parks and Rec department does to be able to help the community that I represent, including San Miguel, Templeton and Shannon. To my rise of Paladin. Thank you, and I had two brief reports. One was about Parks and Rec. I wanted to thank them for facilitating a workshop in Oceano over the new playground replacement project this weekend. It did a really good job. We had a bunch of people attend from the community and it's really needed to see that project move forward. The second one was I attended on behalf of this board the Mental Health Diversion Court graduation program last week at the courthouse and it was really inspiring to see the graduates who made it through that program and their families and the support networks around them, but also our staff from our behavioral health department, the probation department, coordinating, working with the courts, our public defenders office, district attorney, really making sure that these folks have an opportunity to stay out of jail and improve their lives. I just wanted to share that with you, that it was, I think we had five graduates, and it was a great day. Thank you. So if I saw a tea slank? I think we had five graduates and it was a great day. Thank you. So, Pfizer or T-SLAQ? Yeah, those are both great things. I'm so glad that we went ahead and spent the money on the pools in the first place. I think it's just one of the most important things we can do is ensure that young children have an opportunity to swim. It's a life-saving skill. It's something that I think we should really be focused on in the future as well. I just want to note that I'm really happy after just a few months of having a new CAO. And I just want to say thank you to Mr. Pontez for diving into many things and what an honor it is to have him here with us and I know we got a lot to do, but you're just really a really great addition. So I just wanted to make note of that. Thanks. I agree with those last comments, but what I really wanted to say, I wanted to thank all of you that had anything to do with our new system. I know it's been challenging over the last couple of months. You had to keep it all. Keep the machine rolling and put all this together. But today has been nice. And it's been perfect, right? No glitches, maybe you were seeing them, but we weren't seeing them. So yeah, thank you for everything you've done on that. And we're happy to have our new system up and running. I don't see any lights on. So I'm gonna open this to public comment. Close it to public comment. And we'll adjourn our meeting, the next meeting will be held here to stay August 20th. 9 a.m. Thank you. Good. All right.