Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Welcome to the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors. I would like to announce that we have hearing devices are available on the left side of the I would like to announce that we have hearing devices are available on the left side of the dius and the board chamber our T-coil compatibility. I would like to announce that we have hearing devices are available on the left side of the dius and the board chamber are T. Quail compatible for hearing devices which can be really helpful. Speaker slips are available at the back of the chambers and over here by the dius. So please fill out a speaker slip if you're planning on speaking. I ask you to join us for our flag. So please Right me start Pleasure to flag the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God Indivisible with liberty and justice for all. All right. Okay, so we'd like to hear some changes, posted changes, added consent item 22. Yes. Yes. Reagenda, do you do new announcements or do I announce it? I can do it. Thank you. Number have a question for the council. I have a question for the council. I have a question for the council. I have a question for the council. I have a question for the council. I have a question for posted prior to the semi-to-arrow notice and requirement. Very good. Thank you so much. OK, so we're going to open the consent agenda, and we're going to begin by opening public comment. And so if you'd like to speak to the consent agenda, please, please submit a slip. We'll start with Whitney Cheney. Follow by Ken Doer. Good morning, board. On behalf of Visit SlowCal, the county's official destination marketing and management organization. I just wanna take time to thank you for recognizing this week as a national travel and tourism week in May as California tourism month as the region's second largest economic driver Tourism strengthens our local economy supports thousands of jobs and helps preserve the communities that makes low-cowso special Visit slow-cow remains dedicated to serving and promoting these diverse communities as an attractive travel destination and dynamic place to live and work. Thank you. Thank you, Whitney. Ken. Good morning. My name is Ken Dewey. Mike Brown, wherever you are. I hope you're not watching on the magic box at home. But I want to thank you for all your years of service. I want to thank you for the education you taught me about world history. I want to thank you what you taught me about government and I hope you enjoy your retirement because it's well-deserved. Mike, congratulations. Thank you. Followed by Greg Haskin and Mark Lamour. Good morning, Board. Greg Haskin representing CoLab. I'm here to speak on item six, the resolution that Mr. Dour just referred to honoring Mike Brown. If you love what you do, it's not work. And for 14 years, Mike Brown loved representing the business and agriculture communities before this board for CoLab. CoLab is a watchdog organization. We pull back the curtain, we shine light on things that need to be a little illuminated. We read the fine print. And sometimes people love it, sometimes not so much. Excuse me, but that was really Mike's passion. Mike is after a career of over 60 years, he's retired, 14 years here, talking to you folks almost every week. And we hope that he's enjoying his retirement. We appreciate Mike very much and we appreciate your acknowledgement of his work. Thank you. Thank you. Mark Lamor. I'll be Gary Kirkland. Good morning. I'm Mark Lamor. I'm the division director of homeless services and housing at Transitions Mental Health Association. And back in 2013, a collaborative group got together to address a very serious issue we had at the time with what are we going to do with some of our most chronically homeless disabled community members. And the collaboration got together including behavioral health, department of social services, housing authority of San Luis Obispo and several nonprofits. And I want to say that group was spearheaded by Laurel Weir who had a very innovative idea on a housing first concept that would provide housing for our community members. So at that time, I believe supervisors, our supervisor Gibson was on the board and we pitched that idea and the board took a chance on us And here we are 11 years later. The program is still going strong. We still... idea and the board took a chance on us and here we are 11 years later the program is still going strong we started at 50 we went to 60 70 now we're currently at 80 clients that we serve and these are the most acute clients that we have in the county that are experiencing homelessness. The program, as I said, started in 2014 and we have served over 238 clients during that period of time. We've developed what's called a modified act program, which is an aggressive community treatment program, and our team consists of a registered nurse, licensed therapists, drug and alcohol counselors, peer support, program managers. Clients that we serve, it's a housing first model. They have to be chronically homeless, they have to have a permanent disability, and have to have some type of connection for one year with the county. Currently, the demographic peaks we serve over 42% of the clients are over 55 years of age, and 43% are in the 35 to 54 range. We serve 36% female, 63% male. Clients, 76% report have a mental disability, 37% substance abuse disorder. We extited 168 clients and close to 70% of those went to some type of what I call a positive conclusion that can include permanent supportive housing, family reunification, some of them needed higher levels of care, which include institutional placements. So it's been an amazing program and I really appreciate the board taking a chance on this and I appreciate their continued support and I'm strongly advocating that this program continue. Thank you. Thank you. Nice report. Mr. Kirkland. Followed by. Go ahead. Okay. Gary Kirkland from Atasca, Darrell. Thank you very much. I'm here to praise one of the greatest men who ever lived, and that's Mike Brown. He has stood up sometimes all by himself. He's defended free enterprise, capitalism, a smaller and more efficient government, freedom of speech, private property rights, freedom of religion, and he has done this sometimes, like I said all by himself. He stood up against Colmney and slander by vicious people who worship government, who want to take away our freedom of speech. They want to take our property rights. They want to take away our freedom of religion, and he has fought hard to against those people even by himself. He is a great man, and I'm here to praise him for that. I like to cite something for him by Dylan Thomas. Do not go gently into that Good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Good wise men at their end, no darkest right. Even though they're wise words, now I'm getting mixed up. Anyway, I won't complete it, but I do want to close with this. Happy trails to you until we meet again. Happy trails to you. Keep smiling until then. This is just part. Happy trails to you, Mike Brown. Thank you very much. Thank you. The last speaker slip I have is for Dev and Drake. Do you want to wait, Dev and until we have a presentation? Great. Okay, thank you. So I'm going to any other public comment. Seeing none, I'm going to close public comment and bring it back to the board and ask for a motion on the consent agenda. Supervisor Gibson. Madam Chair, I'm going to request that we pull item six for a separate vote. But before I do that, I'm prepared to offer a motion to table this item because it is extremely divisive. If I thought that I saw two more votes down the dias, which I don't, I would offer that so we could avoid the conversation. But with that, I'd ask for separate vote on six. Okay. Separate vote on six. How about the rest of the agenda? Make a motion to approve the rest of the agenda. Okay. Second. approve and second by supervisor Paul Dink, approved by supervisor Sean. As for a roll call, please. Supervisor Pashon. Yes. Supervisor Paul Dane. Supervisor Gibson. Supervisor Marino. Yes ma'am. Chairperson or Tees Leg. Yes. Okay. We'll go back to item six. Madam Chair, if I'm right. It's a sad day that we find this item on the agenda, a resolution proposing to command one of the most consistently partisan and divisive commenters that has ever appeared in this chambers, an individual who violates our rules of civility regularly. And I think the question of our support or opposition to this really speaks to the question of what we value in terms of our public discourse. The resolution and the individual often spoke to his career in county government. That career was distinguished by a two week unpaid suspension for comments made that equated all Muslims with terrorists. A few years later, it was distinguished by the County of Santa Barbara paying out $925,000 to settle a claim against this individual for harassment and the creation of a hospital work environment. When he left, the employee of the County of Santa Barbara in 2009, a majority of the board spoke to their relief and pleasure because his divisiveness had impeded the ability of that county to actually accomplish the mission that it set forth. So then he comes up here drawing something like $98,000 a year pension. The tell us that our county is broke, which it was not, that we had borrowed too much money, which we had not, and that our pension was about to collapse, which it is not. And that was just really the introduction to a long history of providing misinformation and frankly false information that enabled election fraud conspiracists and climate science deniers. And in trying to encapsulate the true scope of this toxic commentary that we heard on a regular basis, I really think something that this individual wrote earlier this year speaks most eloquently to why we should oppose this resolution. This was the newsletter of his organization on January 12th, while fires raged in Southern California, while folks had their homes destroyed by those fires, while folks died in those fires. The graphic I think you can see there is some apparently well-heeled people partying around the pool while the landscape burns in the background. And the text underneath in all caps reads as follows. For decades, the palisades, Malibu, Brentwood and Santa Monica have voted 70 percent for leftist, unaccountable regimes in candidates, no fire breaks, no brush control, no saltwater cisterns connected to high-volume marine pumps, instead anti-nuclear pro-marine sanctuary climatists, DEI extoling, mass transit loving, but not for them, high CO2 footprint elites. Meanwhile, the maids, nannies, gardeners, pool guys, waiters, and waitresses, truck drivers, delivery guys, and everyone else lives down in the flats on in $3,300 per month, 75-year-old crumbling two-bedroom apartments, many in gang-infested graffiti covered and homeless littered dystopian decay. You can flee the next fire in the dark in your mandatory, uncharged electric preas. Now some may choose to try to excuse this as the rant of eccentric uncle at the Thanksgiving dinner table, but I find this profoundly disturbing, inhumane and frankly cruel. And so I come back to whether this board wants on its record, support for an individual who's put forth that sort of commentary on a regular basis. My values are that we do not, and thus I'll be voting no. Thank you. Supervisor Prashan. Yeah. I'd like to just read something from the Code of Civility, which I signed as chairman over eight years ago, and this board still operates under. It's on the back of your speaker slip. So it says, respect different opinions. We will invite and consider different perspectives, allowing space for ideas to be expressed, opposed, and clarified in a constructive manner. That's why I put this forward. I don't always agree with everything that Mike Brown has said, but I do agree with a lot of it. And every individual up here, if we do it respectfully, I think that gives us the opportunity to hear from different opinions and form our own opinions. So I put this forward, I would appreciate votes on this. Mike Brown is retiring. He has rendered a service to this county and it done an exceptional job. So I will be making a motion to approve this resolution. Thank you, it's supervisor Paul Ding. Thank you Madam Chair. With all due respect, Supervisor Pashong, I too agree that Civility is important. I think this particular board has Kind of led in that arena I think that we promoted consensus building and Civil discourse and what maybe wasn't an era of that prior. But to put, you know, an item like this on the agenda, trying to lift up a member of the community who has engaged in incredibly divisive politics is different than promoting civility. And so I guess I would just add to, I don't know if it's a good precedent for this board to set to honor paid lobbyists. We have so many wonderful volunteers in the community that show up to our meetings who are dedicated, who devote their time and energy and go over and above promoting the public interest. In this case, I cannot support a resolution and support of a paid lobbyist. Thank you. I, for clarification, I don't believe he's a paid lobbyist. I think he works for a 501C3 and he is the watchdog group, but understood. He's paid the lobbyist board. He is paid the lobbyist. OK. Supervisor Moreno. Well, this speaks exactly to the reason I've been bringing forward. Do we do presentations or what we do in all of that? And having an exact policy. So that would be so helpful. And I hope we all remember this when we have this conversation. Again, however, I have received just a handful of emails. And basically what I've. Again, however, I have received just a handful of emails. And basically what I've responded is, like I understand that Mike Brown can be a polarizing figure. He's a watchdog and he has come and he has criticized this board on many occasions and he's also come and been complimentary when he's done things that he thinks we're doing well. And so this resolution is not a way that we are saying we agree with everything that he's done. We're simply recognizing his years of public service and thanking him for that. So I have no problem supporting this resolution. Okay. Thank you. Madam Chair, I would like to follow on by 9. Okay. Mr. Pashong only spoke to two of the points on our rules of civility. The other three go as follows. Be courteous. We will treat all colleagues, staff members of the public and staff and members of the public in a professional and courteous manner, whether in person, online or in written communication, especially when we disagree. Again, I offer the item that's hanging on the dius here. Disagree constructively, we will strive to advance solutions to community issues when faced with disagreement. We do more than simply share our concerns with differing positions. We work to propose a course of action of mutual benefit, of which, of course, there's none in the item that I'd pose there. And again, that's representative. And finally, debate the policy, not the person. We'll focus on the issues, not personalized debate, or use other tactics that divert attention from the issue. And this is an extraordinarily personal attack on a series of folks who had the fallen considerable misfortune. So, onward, don't think we need spend much time on this. I think we've got much more important work to do, but it's very clear in the votes that are to come the values of the board members. I thank you for the opportunity. Okay. Go ahead. You can make a motion. I'm going to say a few things now or yeah. What do you say things? Yeah. I think I will. Thank you. Okay. So, yeah. We received a lot of communication regarding this item. And I certainly understand the outrage and the concerns, particularly with the backdrop of our current president and the actions being taken to shut down all of the sending voices in this country. But I value democracy and I value free speech, even if that speech is difficult to hear. And in our quotasability, we pledge to make an honest effort to understand views and reasoning of others by trying to understand them. And not listen to fault, fine fault. Try to provide thoughtful discussion and to lead to best possible outcomes to respect different opinions and to treat all colleagues and staff members in a professional manner. So while it's oftentimes that we don't have that come towards us, we have to continue to model that behavior in the public. So we do try to debate the policy and not the person. And while I often disagree with Mike Brown, there are times when I do agree. He shows up and he presents his case. And I know he represents a coalition of constituents. And if one ignores the segment of the county because I don't agree or someone doesn't agree with their politics, that is a danger. And it's a dangerous approach to take. A matter of fact, this is the approach that this our president now takes. They do not want to hear from those who disagree. They do not want the participation of those who think differently. And that's exactly what you would like me to do. In my opinion, this foments more hatred and I won't do it. I remember when Mike was so outraged by our sound bath system for behavioral health. This is a small item in the big picture. There were a lot of things that I certainly didn't agree with, whether it was the electioneering issues, other items, but this one I think is one. And this was a behavioral health grant. There was an innovation grant, and it was something that I strongly supported. And he just rambled on this thing. He was just so upset about it because it was what, we first called it the sound womb. And just the name itself took him down. And so we now call it the sound bath. But we presented it, the behavioral health presented it. And in the end, it supervised a prosciung voted for it. And it has been an amazing success. And it's been foundational for healthy outcomes, for a population that struggles with addiction, PTSD, and other behavioral issues. I think that really in the bottom line that we hear on this board must listen and work with each other because whatever happens out there in the world and all of the things that are thrown and all the terrible nastiness that's out there, we must see and hear you and try to make a better place for all. And I think that that's really when Supervisor Prashong asked me to agendize this. It was, you know, Mike serves a constituency. And he has provided a public service in so many ways. Yes, it's oftentimes outrageous, oftentimes offensive. However, again, we made our points here in regards to speaking to this. So we can go ahead and take a motion and we'll get it. And for the record I call it the sound egg. I'd like to make a motion to approve item six. I'll second. Please. Supervisor Cousin. Yes. Supervisor Marano. Yes, ma'am. Supervisor Gibson. No. Supervisor Paul a good idea. I'm sure that's a good idea. I'm sure that's a good idea. I'm sure that's a good idea. I'm sure that's a good idea. I'm sure that's a good idea. I'm sure that's a good idea. I'm sure that's a good idea. I'm sure that's a good idea. I'm sure that's a good idea. to approve item 22. Is that true? You'd already approve this. We had to do a motion for reconsideration if you'd like to actually bring that back. I'll make a motion to approve item 22. Is that- You've already approved this. We have to do a motion for reconsideration if you'd like to actually bring that back. So what we're gonna do is that I'm going to bring item 22 back. We're gonna do our presentations and then I'd like to bring item 22 back. I'll make a motion to bring item 22 back open. Do we need a- Motion to reconsider item 22? That's exactly right. Second. Thank you. Okay. Do we do voice vote? Local. Voice vote is fine. Okay. On favor? Aye. Okay. Thank you. Sorry about that. Well, now we're going to move on to one of my most favorite subjects, which is recognizing the importance of foster care. And this is a submittal of a resolution for claiming May as National Foster Care Month in the County of San Luis Biscoe and will bring up social services. And we have Nancy Cooster here for us. And I'm going to read this resolution this morning, please. the city of San Luis Obispo is committed to ensuring all children have the community and the community. The community is committed to ensuring all children have the community and the community. The community is committed to ensuring all children have the community and the community. The community is committed to ensuring all children have safe, stable, and loving homes when they cannot remain with their biological families. And where is more than 420,000 children nationwide, including 28,000 in California, are currently in the foster care system. And where is over 200 children and youth in the County of San Luis Obisto are in foster care. And whereas the Department of Social Services continues to actively recruit more resource families to ensure children have nurturing homes in which they can heal, grow and thrive. And whereas National Foster Care Month recognizes the critical role of resource families in providing nurturing, stable homes, and highlights the ongoing need for more families to support local children. And whereas this month-long effort, which is mirrored across all 50 states and the District of Columbia, celebrates resource families and encourages more individuals to positively impact a child's life through foster care. Now therefore, be it resolved in order that the Board of Supervisors of the County of San Luis Obispo State of California, here by proclaim, made 2025 as National Foster Care Month, and encourage all residents to join in raising awareness and supporting foster care and resource families in our community. Thank you. All right. This is yours Nancy. Bring up the staff. Thank you. Thank you for letting us.. Thank you. Please take the mic. Good morning, everyone. My name is Nancy Cuser, Deputy Director for Child Welfare Services, the Department of Social Services, and also a Force 5 Commissioner. I want to thank the Board of Supervisors for recognizing May as National Foster Care Month here in San Francisco County. Every month our department receives around 325 reports of suspected child abuse and neglect. Our social workers work tirelessly to stabilize families and keep children safe. But when children cannot remain safe with their parents, they are placed in foster care to avoid further harm. Today over 200 children, teens and transitional aged youth are in foster care in our county. Whenever possible, we place children with relatives, but only about half can be placed this way. That leaves around 100 children needing non-relative homes and with only approximately 20 to 30 community-based resource homes is a challenge. We need more families to step forward to offer healing, stability, and hope. If you want to make a difference in a child's life, please visit slowfostercare.com or call 805-781-1705. Now we invite you to hear from two of our dedicated resource parents, Karen, Cathcart and Rishalmors. In the video, you're about to see they share why they chose to foster. The difference it makes in the lives of children and why more families are urgently needed to step forward. Their words are a powerful reminder of how each of us can make a lasting impact. Thank you. Foster Care is a critical safety net for any community. When a child's home environment is deemed unsafe, they may be placed with a resource family, which could be a relative, a non-related extended family member, or a certified community-based home. These families provide a safe, caring, and stable environment while the child's biological family works toward reunification. Resource families are an essential component of our ability to care for youth in foster care. We had room in our home and room in our hearts and we just wanted to help families that were struggling get back on the right path. Love kids, we've worked with kids our whole lives and this was kind of a natural way to bring that back into our lives and we had room in our house and it was just something kind of on our hearts that we've wanted to do for a long time. Unfortunately, like many counties across the state, we're experiencing a severe shortage of resource families. This means fewer opportunities to match children with families that best meet their specific needs, which can lead to placement disruptions and compounding existing trauma. Last May, the Department of Social Services launched the 75-25 initiative with a goal of developing 75 new community-based resource family homes by the end of 2025. 25 homes for teens, 25 homes for school-aged children 6-12 years old, 15 homes for children ages 0-5, 70 emergency foster care homes, and 3 shelter homes. If successful, this initiative will transform our ability to provide better placement matches for youth and care, support existing resource families and strengthen our overall foster care system. We encourage interested individuals to attend one of our bi-monthly virtual informational meetings to learn more about how they can help. Together, we can reach our goal and provide essential care and stability for our county's most vulnerable children. The advice I have for anybody considering becoming a resource parent is to just do it. When you get to watch these kids come into care and watch them just heal and flourish while they're in your care and then to see, you know, some of these happy endings that you get a front row to see. So I would say just do it call and get the information to get started. Thank you. Thank you. Devon Drake. Thank you Nancy. Madam Chair, members of the board, good morning. I'm Devin Drake, director of social services. I just wanted to take a moment and thank each of you for keeping this in the forefront. As you saw in the video, we still have a great need for resource families. Obviously, our goal be to not have to have resource families. And I have to give credit to my staff who have worked incredibly hard to reduce the number of children coming into the system through preventative services and the many organizations that are listed in the board letter who support this type of attitude, but they're still the need. And I would just put out, you know, anyone listening, if you know of anybody making the recommendation because it would be great if we could have abundance of resource families so that as we receive a child into the system that we can actually look and say, where is this child going to succeed best? Instead of, well, we have these two beds, so let's see where we can put this child. So just thank you again for keeping this in the forefront. And again, anyone listening if you're interested, please get in contact with us because we are in need of more resource families. And I do want to thank all the resource families. They do an incredible job. It is a difficult job and kudos to them. So thank you. Thank you. Any further public comment? Seeing none, I'll bring it back to the board and supervisor Paul Ding. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to say great public public services announcement. I hope folks at home are listening and people can step up. Thank you. little bit I just echo my colleagues' comments. Thank you for all of you who work in the space into those resource families. It takes a full community to do this. Thank you. Yeah, Abston, I'll add my thanks to the resource families into the staff. I love the 75, 25 concept. I've been working on this for a year and a half. You know resource family doesn't just mean taking a child into the home, but it also can mean being a emergency response family. So a child, if you have an extra bedroom, a child could that has to be taken away in the middle of the night has a soft place to land. that's something that we need as well. So there's many ways to serve in this capacity to help these children. I encourage you to reach out to our staff and do that. And I also want to recognize the Family Care Network because the work that they do with our foster youth throughout the county is very valuable and other partners too that work with us. So thank you. All right. Okay. Now we're going to move on to item number 15, which is a resolution recognizing May as affordable housing month in the county of San Luis Obispo and supervise a marino. We'll be reading this with Linda Belch coming forth. Thank you chair. Whereas safe, stable and affordable housing is a fundamental necessity for individuals and families and provides the foundation of health, economic stability, and community well-being. And whereas San Lucisbospo County, like many communities across California, faces a significant housing affordability crisis, with rising costs placing home ownership and rental housing out of reach for many residents, including low income families, seniors, veterans, essential workers, and whereas according to data provided by the U.S. Census, 66% of very low and low income households, and 37% of all households in Sanlos Obispo County, County experience housing insecurity, highlighting the urgent need for affordable housing solutions. And whereas the County of Sanlo-Sabispo is committed to expanding access to affordable housing and recognizes that a diverse range of housing options is necessary to meet the needs of residents across all income levels. And whereas investments in affordable housing development, preservation and supportive services play a crucial role in reducing homelessness, strengthening local economies, and fostering inclusive communities. And whereas no one jurisdiction can solve the housing and affordability challenges alone. And whereas between 2020 and 2023, the County Board of Supervisors, City Councils, Slocock and other partners worked collaboratively to develop the regional compact, regionally aligned housing elements and the housing and infrastructure regional framework. Putting into action a united framework to unlock the region's potential to develop an adequate supply of housing and resilient infrastructure that supports economic prosperity. And whereas the county's Department of Social Services homeless division and the Department of Planning and Building work collaboratively with local governments, nonprofit organizations and community partners to support the creation and preservation of affordable housing opportunities. And whereas affordable housing provides an opportunity to raise awareness of the housing challenges faced by many in our community, and to promote policies and initiatives that expand access to safe and affordable housing for all residents. Now therefore be it resolved in order that the board of supervisors of the county of San Louis Obispo State of California does hereby proclaim May as affordable housing month in San Louis Obispo County and encourages all residents to support efforts that increase access to affordable housing and enhance housing stability within our communities. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Linda. It's alright. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Linda. It's alright. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Wow, yay. You're here with us. I'm going to have a good time. I'm going to have a good time. I'm going to have a good time. I'm going to have a good time. I'm going to have a good time. I'm going to have a good time. I'm going to have a good time. I'm going to have a good time. I'm going to have a good time. I'm going to have a good time. I'm going to have a good time. Alright, once we get big smile, we're going to have three, two, one. One more time. Three. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Balsch. Thank you so much. Good morning. Chairwoman and members of the board. My name is Linda Bouch, Deputy Director of Adult and Homeless Services. Thank you so much for proclaiming May as affordable housing month in San Luis Obisco County and for your continued leadership and support of this important issue. Within our incredible community, housing costs are a barrier for many. Over 65% of low and very low income households are cost burdened by their rents or mortgages, meaning they pay more than 30% of their gross income on housing-related costs. 37% of all households in San Luis de Bispel County are cost burdened. These statistics are not just numbers. These are our neighbors who work in healthcare, agriculture, and our service industries. These are our seniors and our veterans. While we have made progress with the County of San Luis Bistbo supporting the creation of over 1,300 housing units in the past decade, there are still much work to be done to develop housing opportunities that are accessible for all. But this month is about more than just the numbers, the projects, the dollars, or the data. This month it's about the people. With the help of our community partners, we are highlighting how lives have been transformed for the individuals and families that found stability, safety, and hope through affordable housing. By sharing stories directly from community members, many of whom who have overcome great challenges, we highlight the impact of local housing investments as part of developing a thriving community. As we like to say, investing in housing is investing in people. With that, I'd like to share a short video with the board and community that helps to share some of these stories. Thank you. Thank you. San Luis Obispo County, a place of breathtaking beauty, thriving communities, and a high cost of living. Finding affordable housing is more than a challenge. It's an obstacle to living and working here. There is hope. Local organizations and city and county officials are working on solutions. So we have nine single-family units, three bedrooms, one and a half baths, the beautiful little backyard for each of them with a community space that features one of our playhouses. So we provide home ownership opportunities to locals in San Luis Bisco County. They're all so hard-working families. They put their sweat love tears joy into every moment of their lives. They're coming from all sorts of situations, but we've housed a number of families who've come from Echo or occasionally from their car. I was all over the place because I'm a survivor of abuse and I was in and out of shelters. Sp spent a lot of time at Echo. I came across Oak Park, Word of Mouth, just being like, oh, affordable housing. It's really hard to find it. Since moving here, I have been able to really dive deeper into getting the healing that I need for my mental health. I couldn't believe it when I was told how much my written would be. I was like, what are you kidding me? I couldn't afford to get my daughter some new shoes for school. This semester, I'll take it. But the difference it makes coming here and knowing that our families have affordable housing, it means that they can then put the money to other things like food. Before I would have to kind of help around, I had occasionally had to pay rent checks and stuff like that. And I think it's helped my stepdad since he made me work. I didn't have to pay anymore. I was like, well, asking a little tear, so it was cool. So I literally came from like nothing, living in a surrounded area full of tents, full of haddics, and like the disease, there was just everything and anything keeping me in it. And I want everybody to know it's possible to get out and get this. Well, it's beautiful. It's more than I could ever ask for, you know, a long time coming. We know investing in housing is investing in people, and together we can build a stronger community for all. Fantastic. Great. Thank you. Okay. Any other public comment on? Fantastic. Great. Thank you. Okay, any other public comment on housing month, affordable housing month. Seeing none, I'll bring it back to the board and Supervisor Pashong. Yeah, I just want to thank you everybody for what they do. Just something that came from that video. We just served Investing and housing is investing in people. We have great people in this community, so I appreciate all you do. Yeah. Supervisor Moreno. Yes, Ditto, and also investing in housing is investing in economic development and overall prosperity for our entire county. So thank you. Absolutely. Supervisor Pauling. Thank you. Just want to thank the Housing Authority of Slow Paso, Housing Authority, People Self-File Pousing, Housing Trust Fund, all those organizations working with our homeless services division staff, working with our planning staff, is all kind of building towards something even bigger and better than where we have been in the past. And you know, this resolution talks about our regional housing compact and the regional housing infrastructure framework. We're moving the needle and there's a lot of momentum, but we need to do more and the work never stops. But thank you for all the people that are in space. Thank you. Supervisor Gibson. Thank you, Madam Chair. I echo my colleagues' comments, but in the end, I think we should take that as a challenge to this board to have the political will to do what's necessary to make this happen. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, that's great. I don't think we've ever celebrated this before. Yeah, so this is really good. It helps us recognize the importance and that we have so many partners and we are moving forward on many things. And I think that between our nonprofits on the homeless side, as well as the housing division, excuse me, the housing nonprofits, and then our homeless division, and then with us in the economic development world, we're really starting to come together and make some things happen. But you're right, we definitely need to challenge ourselves. And we talk about the land that the schools have that are now available for teacher housing or otherwise. And we talk about the excess land that we have at the county and the things that we can be doing. So these are conversations that we want to have that are going to lead to action to change people's lives. So thank you. All right. Last resolution today, a very important one. This resolution proclaims May 11th through 17th, 2025, as National Peace Officers Week, and May 15th, as National Peace Officers Memorial Day. So I asked Sheriff Parkinson or a representative perhaps to come on up, and Supervisor Paul Ding will be reading the proclamation. Thank you, Chief Paul, for being here. It would be my pleasure. Whereas National Peace Officers Week and National Peace Officers Memorial Day was established in 1962 by President John F. Kennedy to recognize all law enforcement officers and pay special tribute on National Peace Officers Memorial Day to those officers who have lost their lives in the line of duty for the safety and protections of others. And whereas within the San Luis Bistbo Sheriff's Office, Sheriff's deputies provide important services to the citizens by maintaining the safety and security of the County of San Luis Bistbo. And whereas the County of San Luis Bistbo Sheriff's Office collaborates with all municipal law enforcement agencies such as the Rural Grande Police Department, a task to derro police department, Cal Poly University Police, Cuesta College Police, Police Grover Beach Police Department, Moro Bay Police Department, Slow PD, Paseroblos PD, Pismo PD and California Highway Patrol. And whereas, if you understand the difficulties and challenges these professionals face every day, they are entrusted not only with the responsibility to keep our citizens and communities safe by maintaining the safety and security of the County of San Luis Obispo, but to sacrifice their lives each day and are asked to educate community members, diagnose and treat the sick and mentally ill. These professionals perform these duties with the utmost compassion and ensure the best care is given. And whereas we pay special tribute on peace officers Memorial Day to those officers who have lost their lives in the line of duty for the safety and protection of others. These observances provide the opportunity for us to show our appreciation to the heroic individuals who have chosen law enforcement as a career and face extra ordinary risk and danger in their everyday roles. And whereas the County of San Luis Bistbo will recognize the valuable contributions and accomplishments of the Sheriff's Office, Sheriff's Deputies and local municipal law enforcement peace officers for the important role they play in preserving public safety and maintaining a high professional level of care for the community at large. Now therefore, be it resolved and ordered that the Board of Supervisors of the County of San Luis Obispo State of California does hereby recognize and appreciate the ongoing public service of the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office and local municipal law enforcement agencies provide to the residents of San Luis Obispo County for National Peace Officers Week and Direct, the flag to be flown at half staff on Thursday, May 15th in observance of National Peace Officers Memorial Day. Thank you for your service. Come forward. Thank you. Okay. Thanks, Rick. Thank you. Okay. Thanks for being here. Thank you. Hi. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your service. Thank you. Good to see you. Hi. You again. He's back. You don't retire. Good. All right, my turn. It's my turn three, two, one, two, one, three, two. Thank you. Very. Okay. Nice to have you here, Chief Paul. Please. Good morning. Nate Paul, Chief Deputy with the Sheriff's Office. Here on behalf of Sheriff Parkinson and under Sheriff Nicholson, both of whom are out of county. Also pleased to be joined today by my counterpart, Chief Deputy Justin Nelson, and all seven commanders from our patrol divisions. So when I say thank you to this board, how do you say thank you for recognition for a week that is anchored by an event that is ultimately a memorial event where we recognize our fallen. And peace officers' memorial is an opportunity for the industry to come together and recognize those that have given their lives in the year prior and in the past. A situation which has nearly touched our agency in the recent past and very much touched our county in the recent past, so it's tangible. How to arm and in women in tanning green and in blue come to work every week. It's because we're answering a call and we feel your support. And you as the elected leadership of our county lead that support. You not only talk to talk, but you walk the walk. So on behalf of all of us, I say thank you very much because this board absolutely supports us and next week when we we lower our heads to remember our fallen will then raise them look to the future and look towards serving this county for the days to come. So thank you very very much for this recognition and for being here to support our agency. Beautiful. Thank you. That was really, really well said. Thank you. Any others that would like to make comment at this time? A bit truly camera shy. I can see that. They're standing behind you. Well, you serve them well. You've represented well. And so I'll bring it back to the board and ask Supervisor Moreno. Yes, I mean, beyond thank you for your service that always goes without saying, but the strength that it takes for you to do the job that you do when there is so much at risk, not just in the community, but for you personally, and to be able to grieve losses and then come right back to what you're doing. Most of us can't imagine what that takes from you. And so that you are willing to do that. And I certainly hope that the support that we're providing is helping in that way more and more every day and the more we find out about how necessary that is, that health, that mental health aspect of it too. So thank you all for your willingness to serve. Thank you, to Vice President. Again, thank you for all you do. This, I know, I speak for North County, but we appreciate everything that you do, everything that you have been through because it is not an easy job. And you see people at their worst sometimes and you do it with grace and understanding and professionalism, so thank you. Yeah, Supervisor Gibson. Thank you, Madam Chair. Indeed, I don't want to follow you making comments again, Chief. You said it all. And I think back over the last couple of decades, the amount of change that your profession has seen and how you all have adapted and yet there is still a consistency of commitment to public service with the most tangible offering on the line in the sense of a piece officer's life. So I hope that piece officers Memorial Day is one that can bring some reflection to the wider public and some support for those who have lost loved ones as they've passed in the line of duty. So I can thank you much for bringing it to our attention. Where's it falling? Thank you, Chair. I also want to extend my appreciation for all you do at the management level. And of course, everybody who works in the department and the other public safety agencies that serve. And of course, it's our pleasure to be able to honor those who have fallen in the land of duty. There are no words for that, but I appreciate what you do. Thank you. Yes, I'll add my gratitude and solemn respect to particularly Chief Benedetti's family, who we lost here in May of 2021. I know we've just hit the Santaversary and it is certainly a stark reminder of what can happen out there in a day and then to go from that to doing the kind work that you do with so many of our seniors and I know in my community answering all sorts of calls. And so it's a breath, a breath of experience and generosity that you offer as well as your professionalism. So we're grateful. Thank you. Okay. All right. So we're going to close all our presentations and I'm going to bring back item 22 and the public works department regarding the roundabout closure was the item that was my request last week in regards to the timing of the closure. And so if we can open that one up, there's just a few things. First I want to say, how much I appreciate. We had quite a week in Public Works first off in that, you know, ask for a quick turnaround and on this report and to be able to go back and see if there was another way to work around the July, August closure. And in the report, it was shown that there was a way to do this. And as it was stated very clearly that no matter when we have the shutdown, there will be impacts. But the critical piece, and I'm looking straight at my friend out from Whitney Cheney from Visit SoCal, will be our communication. And our communication and organization to make sure that we're informing the community, the visitors, et cetera. And when I talked about it a week ago was it was, you know, we had a call on South County water. The very relatively slight record of some bacteria shown and it of course shut down all the water systems. And it really, you know, it wasn't as life-threatening, but of course we had to shut it down to make sure that it didn't. And it was a good reminder for us on how important it is for everybody to get registered through our alert systems and all and also to prepare for items such as this whenever we have. So it was much, so we're a work in progress and learning. So if you'd like to come forward and at any time, Mr. Diyadati or Mr. Wadal in regards to this item and you can offer up anything. I, you know, we had a conversation yesterday on the things that I think are important to note. I'll just run through them quickly and then maybe you want to make note to them. You know, again, we really looked at where can we have the least amount of impact during summer month. But I also want to talk about the emergency route that people need to know what's been established as far as an emergency route. Should there be an emergency? To the bike routes coming from the north or coming up from the south, people use Avala a lot for their Sunday morning cycle moves and go have their coffee. So that. And then of course we talked about an expansive communication strategy and more expansions and lists of events. And then the dates of August 18 through September 26, which we will have some impacts within that. But again, I think it's a better path for us. Sent it to my constituents in Avala, those who have lived 30 plus years there who are paying attention, parents, et cetera, feel like this is a more comfortable shutdown time for us. The bulk of the tourism coming to a little bit of a lower amount. Second week, when's the children return to school? So Mr. Dada Dadi, any comments? Yeah, thank you Chair John Dada, Director of Public Works and I do have a speaker slip in for public comment to talk about the oil notice that occurred last week. Our staff report does discuss I think the two big issues that were brought up last week, one can it be shifted and how much and how impactful and then what would happen if it was shifted moving it to another calendar of events. And we put that table in there. As you noted, it does show that there are some other events. So there will be people impacted, but it is feasible. CalPortland has been a great contractor on this project and for a nominal, we're talking about $15,000. They are able to start the schedule, August 18th and still, they think meet the 40 day closure construction timeline. So that is feasible if your board wants to direct us to, to take that path. As far as your questions are concerned, an emergency route, it is in the contract. They have to maintain a 16-foot wide emergency access route for first responders to come in and out, but in the event of an evacuation, it could be utilized for that as well. Available Bay Drive is still open all the way to Ontario. So there is that road available to Ontario as well, but we would be utilizing the 16 foot access road in a large scale emergency. A bike route we will have for a bike end-ped that will be an access route behind the construction zone as far as we can to keep that open for commuters through the 40 day detour. And lastly on communication, we had a great discussion about that the other day and we planned it be very proactive in notifying the business community and residents of Aval leading up to the closure and then during the detour being very communicative with folks that will be subject to the D tour. Thank you so much. I think that we will continue to talk with our partners on the communication. There's a few items there. We can take that offline. But in the meantime, I'm pardon me. Yes, go ahead. Question. Yeah, please open up to the board. Thank you, Dr. Questions. Supervisor Marano. Director, I'm assuming you've had conversations with various segments of the community, whom this will affect. Yes. Yeah, we've had, we update the Avalot Advisory Committee and we've talked to some of the businesses and car shows that have brought up and were concerns to us. We've directly communicated with them. We have written responses right now to everyone who has from the last item submitted concerns. We have written responses that we'll be providing to them in the next few weeks to continue the discussion with them and how we can mitigate the impacts that they think they'll carry. Okay, so as you have shared all of this with them and showing them the two different options, the pros and cons of each, what is the feedback? Does the community largely say, hey, we really want this time frame or we want this one or six one haptism another? We really overall, what is the community have a really strong feeling that it has to be this or? Yeah, I think, the ones who are now potentially going to have it shift are relieved. But generally speaking, the concern over the summer months being the peak and the most impactful, they would like to see it shift to August. Okay, and in your professional kind of experience and looking at this, what would you say would be the like the ideal option? All things consider the impacts getting the project finished and going safety all the rest. Yeah well we're we strive to be a data-driven organization and we had a traffic study conducted before the project to evaluate that. And it's challenging through the summer and the fall. The three-day weekend will definitely be impactful, but the mitigation efforts in the contract to have the flagging all day from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. with the ability within half an hour to add additional flaggers. We think we can mitigate the traffic concerns any time of the year. Thank you. Thank you. Any other seeing none? Very good. I think that we've got a better handle on this. I'm going to open up public comment. Are there any public comments on this item? I'm seeing none. I'll close public comment. And again, I'll make a motion to approve the staff report with the new changes of dates and the addition of all the other items that we've discussed. Second. Thank you. Okay, roll call please. Chairperson, our teeth leg. Yes. Supervisor Bashong. Yes. Supervisor Gibson. Yes. Supervisor Paulie. Yes. And Supervisor Murno. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. And I want to thank staff again. Again, this was a heavy week and really appreciate you putting your attention to this matter and of course working with Cal Portland so much gratitude and thanks to the community for their feedback and on our partners and our business community too that we're going to be working with so thank you. Okay, so now I'm going to open up public comment for items not on our agenda and we'll start with you Mr. Didadi regarding a general consent item here, an update. All right. Well, good morning again, John Diadadi, Director of Public Works. I want to take a moment to update you in the public on the boil. Notice that occurred last week. Ezra was reported in the media. This was an incredibly rare and unusual event. It was described as unprecedented, and I think that is a very fair assessment. For over the last 50 years, we've treated Lopez water for the five cities, and this is the first boil notice. We test the water at the treatment plant daily, weekly within our distribution system, and have never exceeded the sample that has warranted a boil order. Our responsibility over the next few weeks will be the following. We're We're going to continue to work with the state on attempting to find the source so we can prevent this from happening again. We're going to communicate to the public. First, our protocol for treatment and testing. I know there is a strong interest in desire and learning more about how we test the water in this distribution system and how the regulations keep their drinking water safe. test the water in this distribution system and how the regulations keep their drinking water safe. We're also gonna provide information on how this specific situation happened once we know more. And lastly, there'll be some education on the alert systems, how you can sign up, how they function, and people get notification in the events of these kind of emergencies and others. We're also going to hold an action after action review and learn from this event and make any warranted changes if something like this were to occur again. I want to thank all step county staff, the city, CSD school districts and the division of drinking water for coming together and collaborating on this event. Our goal was to have a unified and amplified message and we worked as we worked to end the Boyle notice. And from my perspective, I think we were very successful. I also appreciate the community's understanding and help getting through the week. It was a major inconvenience, but truly is an example of the public health system working. We have high testing in place on purpose, and when there is a potential compromise to the system, we take action to protect the public until the issue is resolved. As more information is known over the next few weeks, we're going to communicate that out to everyone. So thank you, and I'm available for any questions. Okay, thank you. Seeing none. Yeah, thank you very much. Paul Bischoff is next for a public comment. Good morning. My name is Paul Bischoff and I am a home builder doing a project in Oceano currently. And my concern this morning is the disparity between permit exploration for the building and the permit expiration of the solar that is required by the building. And so currently we have a project that's a 14 house project and we were required to as one of the conditions of approval for the building permit, we had to get a solar permit, the energy code requires it now and that's fine. And so your guys' code it's 19.02.020 and it's a section that talks about it's a little bit unique the county has a deal where it says it's subsection P permits for buildings with a floor area of 1000 square feet or greater. Shall remain valid for a time period of three years. And permits for a building with a floor area of less than a thousand feet or four. And then this is the concern other miscellaneous work. Shall remain valid for one year. So what we've been, we kind of fell in the cracks where the solar permit. For some reason the solar is a different permit even though it's required by the original building permit. And so we had our solar permit expire while our building permit was still active. And the fact that we were required to get the solar permit in the very beginning of the process as a condition of approval for the building permit. Like I think this is just one of those weird, you know, felt through the cracks kind of deals. And so my request today would be, I think it's an easy solution that if staff got directed to say, if there's a solar permit, you know, differentiate between a solar permit that just, hey, I have a house and I wanna add solar versus a solar permit that's required by a new building. If we had the differentiation between those two and you directed staff to say, if there was a solar permit that was required for a new building and the new building got three years, then the solar permit could have three years as well. And, you know, that seems like a new building and the new building got three years then the solar permit could have three years as well. And that seems like a pretty reasonable and hopeful resolution to that. We're faced with 14 expired solar permits and so we have to jump through all those hoops to get them going again and pay the fees and all that, it seems unnecessary. So anyway, that's my request this morning and thank you kindly. Thank you. Thank you for bringing it to our attention. Okay, filed by Guyip Powell. Hello, I was here last time, and I still haven't gotten the answers to my questions. Is it legal? I have another question. Is it legal to ignore a public records request? Again, my request is how many unsolicited ballots went out during the last election period, how many duplicate ballots went out and then also how many postcards went out informing people that they would be automatically Which to me is Outragesley insane registered at whatever 40 to address that they had Done when they did a 40 net the post office of the DMV So I would like the answers to my questions and I'd like to know is it legal? As one of the citizens that I witnessed, I actually filmed her when she got an unsolicited ballot at her office, which is also where the postcard ended up going. And she was told because she hadn't registered that she should use that ballot to vote. So is it legal now to vote from an office address? So, and I'd really like the answers from our county attorney, and I'd like the answers from the city administrator who are supposed to respond to public records request. And then the other thing is, is that the district attorney's office has a public ethics unit. And are they investigating this, this, you know, these type of what I believe are unethical at the very least and possibly illegal behaviors by Elena Canos and ignoring my requests, behaving in this way and not stand in y'all, not standing up to the governor to make sure that our elections, you know, do have integrity and that every voice is heard and every vote vote is counted properly. And will you stand up against this ridiculous dictate not to even have to show ID to vote or prove that you're even an American citizen. I mean, what election could possibly have any kind of integrity if we don't even have that simple law or a rule in place? So I thank you for your time and I really look forward to the answers to my questions. Thank you. Thank you, followed by Darsha And I think that's that's it. So if anybody has any other public comment for items not on the agenda, please come forward. Yes. Good morning, Darsha. Sevens also speaking on election integrity today. And to further what Ms. Powell has discussed there, there has been an executive order from President Trump issued on March 25th of 2025, and that executive order I will, I think I can call it up here pretty quickly, by the if this is called preserving and protecting the integrity of American elections. March 25th, 2025. By the authority vested in me as president of the, by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America is hereby ordered. Section 1, purpose and policy. And I will just read the first paragraph here, despite pioneering self-government, the United States now fails to enforce basic and necessary election protections employed by modern developed nations as well as those still developing. India and Brazil, for example, are time-voter identification to a biometric database. While the United States largely relies on self-adestation for self-attestation for citizenship, which is a huge issue. That means I declare, I check the box by under penalty of perjury that I am a citizen and eligible to vote. That is self attestation, unacceptable in any community for voting. So, while the United States largely relies on self attestation for citizenship, in tabulating votes, Germany and Canada require the use of paper ballots counted in public by local officials, which substantially reduces the number of disputes as compared to the American patchwork of voting methods that can lead to basic chain of custody problems. Further, while countries like Denmark and Sweden sensibly limit mail in voting to those unable to vote in person and do not count late arriving votes regardless of the date of the postmark. Many Americans elections, American elections now feature mass voting by mail with many officials accepting ballots without postmarks or those received well after election day. To further, I'd like everyone to go back to that, but to further comment on this, we have Orange County, which has six congressional districts that has to this state, been noted that there were 1.8 million registered voters, but 2.1 million vote by mail ballots were sent out. 300,000 additional votes. when we come down to I have 13 seconds I will instead go to this notice in the new times new times slow.com where there are monies owed to people in this county if they do not respond by June 17th then the county will be able to take these monies over to the General Fund. Darsha A. Stevans $388. So note it. I have copies for anyone if you would like these. Thank you very much. Okay. Seeing no further public comment, I am going to close this item and I'm going to open up another item, but I see a light on so please sir. Thank you chair. I would like to respond with brief comments to the item raised by Mr. Bischoff. I have been contacted by Mr. Bischoff and do believe that we have an issue there that needs to be resolved. So I'd like to make a motion for planning staff to investigate the issue of solar and building permits having different expiration timelines and to return with an ordinance for the board's consideration to address that particular issue. I'll second. Thank you. Thank you. President Paul Dinkham. Voice votes fine. Voice votes fine. Okay. All in favor? Hi. Hi. Thank you're right. I think you're right. I think you're right. I think you're right. I think you're right. I think you're right. I think you're right. I think you're right. I think you're right. I think you're right. I think you're right. I think you're right. I think you cities area, not just a rural Grande, but you know, there's still concern in the community wanting to know the facts and you know how the particular what the source was of the particular water quality issue timeline associated with decision making as well as you know a desire to learn more about how people can get signed up for reverse 911 and understand our alert slow function which are completely different. So I look forward to that next phase of outreach to the community to really encourage people to be engaged in signed up. So in the event that there is a future, water quality issue like this, we respond even better. Thanks for the report. Very good. Okay. So let's move on now to our board business. And we will introduce the administrative office for item 18. Clerk. Item 18, introduction of an ordinance amending chapter 6.23 of Title 6. So the code fireworks to include enforcement provisions hearing date is set for May 20th. Good morning chairperson Ortiz Lagan Board of Supervisors me a Travellian administrative office before I begin I would like to amend the subject and recommendation to read chapter 6.32. as well as attachment 1 to correct the section numbering and add a reference to title 23 under the administrative fine appeal process. The corrected attachment is filed with the clerk of the board. This item is an introduction of an ordinance amending chapter 6.32 of title six of the county code to include enforcement provisions. According to the National Fire Protection Association, fireworks pose a threat to the safety of our communities with an estimated 31,000 firework-related fires in 2022 and nearly 10,000 firework-related injuries in 2023. In response to a high volume of constituent concerns regarding the use of illegal fireworks, the board voted on July 16, 2024 to create a fireworks ad hoc committee. The committee members include supervisor Gibson, supervisor Paul Dean, county fire chief John Owens, Sheriff's Office commanders Ian Dowdy and Stuart McDonald, planning and Building Director Trevor Keith, and Deputy County Council Ben Doer. Committee was facilitated by the Administrative Office. Other key stakeholders include a five-citizen fire authority representative and collaboration with the Firesafe Council. The committee was established to study options and develop recommendations to address the use of illegal fireworks throughout the county. Through a series of meetings, the committee reviewed existing county fireworks regulations and evaluated consistency with neighboring jurisdictions. Additionally, the committee evaluated increased enforcement methods and challenges such as timing and capacity constraints. Enforcement methods discussed included use of drones and aircraft by law enforcement officers with the Sheriff's Office and Cal Fire and liability for social hosts. This presentation will begin with an overview of the slides discussed during the ad hoc committee meetings covering existing rules and regulations related to fireworks within the county. Then I will provide an overview of the proposed ordinance amendments. Fireworks are regulated at the state and county level. State regulations establish different classifications of fireworks and prohibits the sale and use of all fireworks with several exceptions. Some exceptions are related to permitted firework displays and for the sale and use of fireworks classified as safe and sane by the state fire marshal, where local ordinance permits. State regulations apply to the entire geographical county prohibiting the use of dangerous fireworks throughout the county, unless permitted, like a professional permitted firework display. The state code includes an exception for the sale and use of fireworks classified as safe and sane by the state fire marshal where local ordinance permits. The county has adopted the state fire code with an amendment that prohibits use of all fireworks, including those classified as safe and sane. State code specifies that a special district, such as a CSD with fire authority, may adopt an ordinance related to the use of safe and sane fireworks within their district. However, the code also states that where the city or county in which the special district lies has adopted an ordinance related to fireworks, the city or county ordinance will supersede the special district ordinance. While county code prohibits use of safe and safe and safe fireworks throughout the county fire jurisdiction, county code includes an exception for the special districts such as CSD where county code would otherwise prevail. Within the county, three cities and two CSDs with fire authority have adopted local ordinances that permit the use of safe and sane fireworks. Within the geographical county, there are a number of fire authorities. County fire authority includes the entire geographical boundaries of the county, less the seven cities and several special districts. The shaded area of the map is county fire authority. You can see the seven cities, Camp Robert, Santa Margarita, and five CSTs. Because of the state code on special fire districts, the county code on safe and sane fireworks prevails over CST, firework-related ordinances, but not over city ordinances. However, county code includes an exception to allow CSTs to regulate Safe and St. Fireworks within their district. Three cities have adopted ordinances to allow use of Safe and St. Fireworks and two CSTs. Safe and St. Fireworks are allowed within the boundaries Moro Bay,, Oro Grande, Grover Beach, San Miguel, and Templeton. Enforcement and penalties at the state level address only dangerous or illegal fireworks, not safe and sane fireworks. County code does not currently establish specific penalties related to violations of County fireworks code. However, any violation of County code is a misdemeanor which would allow imposition of administrative fines and also criminal prosecution. Implementing penalties for violations is executed at the local level by law enforcement. The proposed ordinance does not amend the county's existing regulations on the use of safe and sane fireworks, but adds provisions to allow for increased enforcement methods. It establishes penalties for violations and includes a provision for the recovery of response costs, such as the salary and benefits cost of enforcement officers for the amount of time spent responding to a violation, or for the cost of disposal of seized fireworks. The proposed ordinance establishes social host, minor, and spectator liability. This means that the property owner, leaseholder, or host of a gathering will be liable for a violation of the fireworks code occurring at their gathering or on their property. Any person responsible for a minor who violates the fireworks code will be liable for the violation, and any spectator present during an unpermitted fireworks discharge will be in violation of the fireworks code. The ordinance defines the enforcement officer as any county employee with the authority to enforce the fireworks code, such as county fire, the sheriff's office, and the Department of Planning and Building. The administering department defined as the Department of Planning and Building will administer the notices of violations and fines as well as the appeal process. The recommended action is to introduce the proposed ordinance, amending chapter 6.32 of Title VI of the San Luis Bispo County Code, and set a public hearing from May 20th, 2025. If the ordinance is adopted on May 20th, next steps will include continued development of a communication plan facilitated by the County Public Information Officer with County fire and the sheriff's office. The plan will communicate the county's fireworks regulations and their proposed new regulations and associated liability and fines. We have representatives of county fire and county council available for questions. Thank you. Do we have any questions from the board at this time? Seeing none, thank you very much for the presentation. I'm going to open the site and for public comment. And I do have some public comments, I think, here, right here. OK, so April Paz will be first. Good morning. Hi, my name is April Paz, and I'm a proud resident of Oceano, a member of the Vitality Advisory Council, and a dedicated volunteer for the homeless coalition currently. I'm here today to urge you to reconsider the efforts to ban legal safe and sane fireworks in our community. As someone deeply engaged in both local government and community service, I understand the importance of public safety, but I also understand the importance of supporting fundraising opportunities that serve our people directly. Safe and sane fireworks are not just a celebration of independence. They're a critical source of funding for local nonprofits, youth programs, and community groups. When we remove this option, we don't stop fireworks from being used. We only shift the purchase and the profits elsewhere. People in Oceana will still buy fireworks. They'll simply drive to other towns or worse purchase more illegal fireworks and we have enough of that already. I've gathered over 200 signatures from Oceana residents who feel the same way. I've also submitted letters. I believe they maybe reached Supervisor Paul Ding within the last two weeks, hopefully. Okay. I respectfully ask that you listen to the voice and work with us to regulate, not eliminate. Thank you for your time, a consideration. Thank you. And then I have these if anybody would like them, but I think you said you. Thank you. Okay. Kim Rose will be next. Good morning. My name is Kim Rose. I'm also a member of the Vitality Oceano Council. However, I'm here today to speak as a resonance. On behalf, I'm not speaking on behalf of the council, but I respectfully urge the board to please consider a car about in this ordinance for Oceano. To continue the sale of safe and safe fireworks, over the past year, we've supported many local long profits and these groups are struggling with budget cuts, which is only gonna continue to get worse. Right now, we are working with the Five City Homeless Coalition helping you provide meals meals and need. The firework sales help raise money for these important nonprofit groups. It's critical for them to maintain this budget. I hope that these are important to all of you as we ask for your support and preserving the fundraising opportunity that helps sustain this final work. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Okay, any further public comment on this item? Seeing none, I'll close public comment and bring it back to the board. Mr. Paul D. Thank you, Madam Chair. Well first, I want to extend my appreciation to members of the public who came and advocated for Oshiano. I've certainly been in touch with a number of nonprofit organizations, church groups that really rely on the funding associated with selling safe and sane fireworks in the community of Oshiano. First, I want to just kind of give the big pictures to where we are today and why we're here. The problem that the ad hoc committee of comprised of supervisor Gibson and I and staff, Cal Fire and the planning department, et cetera, set out to address was illegal fireworks and better enforcement related to illegal fireworks. A related issue as part of the divestiture of the Oceano Community Services District from fire service responsibility, in which case the county took over that service and has contracted back with five cities fire authority, is that the general prohibition in our unincorporated areas on the use of safe, insane fireworks and the sale of safe and sane fireworks now applies to Oceano. So it was mentioned that there were efforts to ban safe and sane fireworks in Oceano. It's kind of the reverse of that. That happened as a part of the divestiture and now what I'll be asking of the board is if the board would be willing to be because of the contract relationship with five cities fire authority essentially make an exemption to our prohibition on the sale and the use of safe and sane fireworks in the community of Oshiano. And I'll explain my reasons. I've been down this road before when I was on the Royal Grand A City Council. The couple members on the council wanted to ban safe and sane fireworks and the sale. And the community showed up and not only did we hear from churches and nonprofits who rely on that funding, but we heard from community members who enjoy that tradition in South County of being able to come together as family on the Fourth of July and light sparklers and things like that. I understand the general need to focus on fire prevention efforts, and I think illegal fireworks are certainly a major risk and we need to tackle that. And that's what this particular social host ordinance does. But in terms of the South County tradition of, you know, families coming together and using sparklers and whatever else, you know, qualifies as safe and sane, I would like to maintain that tradition and I hope hope that the board would support me in that. The procedure is a little bit complicated based on my discussions with our fire marshal, but I certainly think it can be done. Well, just on the general subject of where we're at here, I think the social host ordinance gives law enforcement and our firefighters, the tools to essentially hold those accountable for who are actually violating the law in the sense of using illegal fireworks and especially the aerial fireworks that we know present that true fire risk. So I support the social host ordinance. I also think that one of the things that was discussed ad nauseam at the committee level was the need to educate the community not only on any changes before we make those but to also ramp up enforcement efforts. And that wasn't something that was mentioned in the staff report, although it was discussed extensively at the committee level. There were two options that were presented. One was we could contract with a drone operator to do enforcement in South County, for example, or throughout the county in areas that we know are problematic areas, like Oceano, which generally, I'll just say it pops off on the 4th of July with a lot of illegal fireworks. Based on the discussions that our staff had with various contractors, it's my understanding that they're not available and you've got to essentially contract with them well in advance of the 4th of July season. And then another option was to contract with the Cal Fire law enforcement Unit that would provide additional resources I'm told that we also missed that timeline here. I don't know if the CAO has any additional information to provide on that or if The Cal Fire County fire chief John Owens wants to weigh on that Thank you very much It's up to you as chief Owen if you'd like to weigh in on this. Chair, Board John Owens, County Fire Chief. Just similar to the drone issue, it's a matter of a lack of staffing or manpower. The pool of people that we pull from are used throughout California, uh, uh, California, interdicting fireworks at ports of entry. Those programs are ramping up and already planned for well in advance. So this is something that just like the drones or aircraft enforcement methodology will have to plan very far in advance to put in for next year to see if the staffing is available for that. And then of course, just like the drones, there's a cost that will be incurred for that. Thank you. Just a follow up question on that. Thank you, Chair. We had talked about the idea of seeking costs for recovery associated with any additional costs for either a drone contract or the coutfire contract. Is that our general estimation that we would be able to recover. Okay, just wanted to make the point that there's a fiscally responsible way to potentially ramp up enforcement. Thank you. The one thing is those that you do have to come up with the money up front first, right? And then depending on how many Enforcement, you may or may not cover the cost. Okay, very good. Supervisor Marino. Yeah, I'd love to see as much of the information getting out there and as much prevention as we can. So I had had a conversation with staff and I was asking prior to the meeting about the potential because we have 2037 vacation rentals in our county and And I think it would be a good thing for us to be officially communicating with those vacation rental owners because they have agreements with anybody who comes to rent from them that these are the rules of the house. If you don't go according to these rules, you will be liable in some way. And so to make sure that that's in there, that they know the importance of that, they put that in there. So then you can't have a vacation rental owner claiming, like, well, I had no idea. And, you know, kind of pointing fingers. And so I think that could help with the prevention side of things, you know, also enforcement. but is that maybe staff could speak to that possibility and how we could do that? Okay. Supervisor Gibson. Thank you, Madam Chair. Let me add my thanks to supervisor Paul Ding and all the staff folks that worked on the ordinance amendments that you see in front of us. I think speaking to the ordinance amendments first, this is a good first step. I think the social host provisions will give us another opportunity to hold those accountable. And but I think at the same time, we need to understand that this is not a solution in and of itself, that the enforcement and the monitoring of that is gonna be key. So this is only introduction. I look forward to the final reading. Let's get this in place. So we're ready for Fourth of July. As to the question of exempting Oshiana, I have to say that I respectfully disagree with my good friend and the distinguished gentleman from the Fourth District. This is a consequence of the Oceano CSD divesting itself for the fire services that the community comes under the regulation that's in place widely through the county. And so my, I can't support issuing this exemption for a couple of reasons. One of them is that that prohibition is in place for a reason and that is to protect the community and conversations with our county fire senior management. They informed me that overall safe and sane or otherwise not differentiated. There's somewhere I forget where it was 16,000 fires that are reported is the number that sticks in my mind. I may be way off due to fight that are known to be due to fireworks and nationwide some 9,700 injuries of folks due to fireworks. So I take it and I would let the chief contradict me if I'm wrong that the fire service would prefer that safe and safe fireworks not be used or sold in any community. I think the other reason to oppose a particular exemption, particularly at this point in the process, is that all the other communities who are covered by this could quite reasonably wake up and say, well, what about us? So I think we're just not at a place where that is something that would be, how shall I say, considered and executed in an orderly fashion. So at this point, I understand the burden that it puts on those who have profited from the sale, I get that. But I'm afraid that in my book, the interest of the public safety, I'll raise an exemption to what is in place widely through our communities. Thank you. Supervisor Prashan. Yeah, I would actually be supportive of looking at this ocean of question and figuring out how they can keep it. I be honest with you, these are, they've been doing it for years. It's not something that they just started. I respectfully say that. So obviously having to figure out, you know, with Cal Fire and figure out how we get this done. But I'm open to hearing the discussion on it. I have two communities that have safe and sane fireworks. There's not a lot of fires started with those. I mean, it's the legal stuff that starts the fires or in pass robles. It's the homeless population that starts the fires. So we're dealing with that, but I think that we have the opportunity to really look at it. So I would be supportive of that. I don't. I certainly, I mean, we know about it. So I mean, if we decide not to do it, we are kind of taking the right away that they've had for, I don't know, how many years. Maybe you could tell me how many years they've been selling safe and safe fireworks, but they're, you know, they enjoy it and quite frankly, they're kind of fun. Yeah. I'll provide my comments at this point. I, you know, I hate being a killjoy in regards to having fun and fight and fourth of July and all of that. But how much money are we talking about as far as the how much money is earned? It's quite extensive actually for each non-profit. It's not just like in the range of a couple grand. It's more, I think I've heard numbers like 5 to 10,000 per year. Yeah, so it really is very difficult because obviously this is desperately needed income at this time. But the fire prone areas are what they are and what we've seen, I mean, we just don't know what to expect anymore. We had a bad wind day in the middle of July even and what can happen, that's my concern. We can't, one hand say no fireworks and then say you can sell some. It just doesn't ring right. Particularly, I know my constituents would be very concerned about that throughout lots of places. And the other thing is that we have a lot of communities that are underserved, quote unquote, that would like the opportunity. And so we start here with those Shiano, then we got other places. And it's really, it's very difficult. And I do agree that, you know, if those 18 people would have voted for the fire department in the end for that little bit of assessment, they'd still have their own jurisdiction to deal with this. But in the meantime, now we have this responsibility. So I can't support it and I apologize for that. I think the last thing I'd like to say is thank you for working on this subcommittee and coming up with some real accountability measures here in regards to the issue of fires. And we're back at the conversation of resources. I mean, that's what we really have to take a look at here is that we all want things. We want to have more vacationer and we want more of this of this, more of that, but we need the resources of our public safety and that's where we're still coming up short and until we figure that out fully, I think it's hard to just piece me all things together. So go ahead, supervisor Paul Ding. Thank you, Chair. I certainly understand the perspective that you and supervisor Gibson are coming from. I will just articulate a couple counterpoints for your consideration. The first is that you do have a city in your district Grover Beach that does currently allow it, along with the city of River River Grande. Oceano is more of an urban area. It's not a rural area covered in some of the high fire severity zone mapping that we've seen. We do have exemptions in other communities that a supervisor Pashong mentioned that Sam McGell allows it, Temple 10 allows it. In this particular case, because of the unique nature of the contract relationship with Five Cities Fire Authority, where they actually provide enforcement related to codes, I think that we could probably reach an agreement through a contract amendment or even included within their existing scope for them to provide the resource associated with inspecting the fireworks stands, et cetera. So I think we could do it in a low cost way. And then the kind of final point I would make is that the The use of safe and safe fireworks in Oceano is going to occur whether it's technically legal or not. And in this particular case, I would not want to complicate the decisions that our law enforcement are making in the field as it relates to, you know, is this family using a sparkler, breaking the law, or somebody who's using an illegal firework, like an aerial firework that has that greater fire risk. And so those would be some of the counter-vailing considerations. I hope you might consider. And because this is an introduction of the ordinance, I'm sure we'll hear more from the community at the next meeting when this item has heard. So maybe I could encourage you to keep in up a a mind and then just trying to count votes here. I didn't hear Supervisor Moreno weigh in on this and maybe you're the swing vote. Yeah, hey, look at that. I think what I would need to see in order to do this would it couldn't be just a carve out for Oceano. It would need to be fire saying, hey, we think from a public safety perspective, if there are certain criteria that are met, anybody countywide, any community could apply for something. And then fire could say, yeah, your name, based upon their expertise. As a policymaker, I am not willing to outweigh what fire is telling me right now. They are the public safety experts. Regardless of how many years there have been safe and sane, I love fireworks. I get that, I do. And I understand the fundraising aspect. But to do a carve out and then other communities saying, well, how about us? So unless we say as a board, go develop some sort of criteria whereby certain communities can request carve outs and then there's equal opportunity and I don't know that we want to be putting the effort there because we've got we debatement we've got the fire hazard severity zones we're dealing with there's a lot of things that art staff are working on right now and I don't know that that would rise to the top but that would certainly be this board's decision but unless it is unless it's even you know kind of across and open opportunity, I'm not open to a carve out. I think that was very well put in regards to our experts on this. So at this point in time, I think this is just the notice of the- On those staff's's recommendation. Yeah, I'll second. And under discussion, I'll be supporting staff's recommendation to adopt the social host ordinance and be making subsequent and continued arguments at the next hearing to advocate for the position I've articulated. Thank you. We'll call please. Supervisor Gibson? Yes. Supervisor Moreno? Yes ma'am. Supervisor Pashon? Yes. Supervisor Pauline? Yes. Which our person are teeth like? Yes. Yes, five minute break please. Okay. Okay, I'll bring it back to the board here. And we'll go with to the final item this morning. And we'll let the clerk introduce when she's ready. Item 19, an update regarding County Bridge Maintenance and pavement management programs and provide direction to staff regarding road fund priorities for program performance measures, strategies and funding alternatives. Thank you and we have public works. Good morning members of the board. I'm John Wadell, Deputy Director of Public Works. Myself and Josh Roberts, our Transportation Division Manager, will provide the update on Public Works as bridge management and pavement and pavement. Bridge maintenance and pavement management program and some of the key points is Josh is going to walk you through the PowerPoint slides and then we'll be available for discussion in questions but some of the key points that we go through is just that you know bridges are moving forward and it's a key success in public works. managementivot management is also hanging in there, but buying power continues to decline. And that this coming fiscal year, 25 and 26 will have some significant costs related to bridges and then that will be impacting Pivot management. Take it away, Josh. Yeah, thank you, John. Good morning, board members of the public, Joshua Roberts, Transportation Manager, Department of Public Works. There's a lot happening in the bridge program, especially when you include the storm-damaged bridges and big financial impacts that are going to be seen next year. And because the county share of the bridge project funding really comes from the same pot of money as the pavement plans, pavement management plan, we wanted to bring that forward as an update to this board as well. I'm gonna go through a lot of information here. There's gonna be data, numbers, it's a lot to consume. Sorry about that in advance, but please ask as many questions as you want at the end. We're happy to revisit slides and go over anything that you need. This kind of starts back in 2022 when we brought you some recommended policy and practice changes to both the bridge and pavement programs. We also highlighted some significant funding needs. And today I really can't emphasize enough that the update that we're bringing now is really a result of those adopted program changes supported by the board at the time and you know highlight the funding impacts. And while there's no formal formal action for today, we do would appreciate we would appreciate your board's discussion some feedback on just all these practices. returning to this board for all of these projects when they go to construction award over the next few years. And we just want to make sure we're all pulling the same direction. Back in 2022, we asked the board to support a zero deficient bridges policy. This performance measure replaced an old goal to have the average bridge agent in the county of 50 years. And really the purpose here was to align our practices with federal funding eligibility. In addition, we also asked the board to support staff and exploring alternative funding methods to deliver the bridges. And thankfully your board did both. Also back in 2022, we were forecasting to need in the neighborhood of $2 million a year in local matching funds to advance these bridge projects. About a million dollars of that was unidentified money. And we have made multiple requests through budget adjustments with the annual budget to receive that that $1 million backfill and that was granted just the one time in fiscal year 21-22. Another big program gap that was noted back in 2022 was that several bridges were on track to actually be ready for construction ahead of their program federal funding and we wanted to be be able to enter into a short-term loans through the advanced construction program offered by CalTrans to deliver these projects without delay and then receive future reimbursement from CalTrans. Sorry for the busy map here, but you saw this or you've seen it before I think in the 2022 report and this map Really was to highlight some of the substantial backlog in the bridge program and talk about some of the project funding uncertainty At the time at least projects like Toro Creek East the Jack Creek bridge or was know over AG We had no programming timeline for construction. They were in the CalTrans system. We were advancing them through project development, but CalTrans answer on when can we build it was? We don't know. Fast forward, however, and we are on track to complete the Jack Creek Bridge and Low Press bridges this summer, and we just wrapped up Dover Canyon and the El Camino bridges last year. Looking forward, staff is now on track to deliver five more planned highway bridge program projects in the next several years over the three plus construction seasons and that's in addition to the three projects as a result of the storm recovery at chimney, cichetti and Creston roads. So if you're doing the math here, I'll give you the answer. It's 17 bridges delivered between starting in 2017 once we get through this current spat of projects. And finally, the county is advancing five more planned highway bridge program projects that are eligible for federal funding, including the recently nominated Walnut Avenue Bridge in Santa Margarita. Now, much success for this program and being able to deliver all these bridges goes to the board, it goes to admin for supporting the use of the short-term and dance construction loans to award these contracts. Public Works secured $9.2 million cumulative funding for three projects, and that was Lopez Bridge, Jack Creek Bridge, and Dover Canyon. The really good news here is that most of those funds were either not needed or were quickly repaid. And that's because once the contracts were awarded by the county, that gave CalTrans and the Highway Bridge Program the confidence to go ahead and move up the timing for reimbursements and which ended up aligning with our payments to the contractors. Near term projects are going to need to continue to take advantage of these short term advance construction loans. But we would reasonably expect to have a similar result from CalTrans that they would program those funds to align with our reimbursements. I'll run the flip side. the bridge program is still on average a million dollars a year short in local matching fund. Since 2021, staff has requested a total of $5.5 million in one time fund support for various projects. 1.3 million was granted in 21.22 as I previously mentioned. That means that the $4.2 million gap was funded through reductions in the payment management program. Again, advancing the near term highway bridge program projects that I talked about. Last slide is going to require $9 million of short term advanced advanced construction loans. Looking out to this upcoming year, there's $7.1 million in unidentified, excuse me, there's $7.1 million in unidentified local match funding that's necessary, and then going out into future years, again, that $1 million shortfall will continue. The big hit this next year is South Bay Bridge. South Bay Bridge requires about $6 million in match funds, which is a lot of money, but the South Bay Bridge is an excess of a $30 million delivery project. And so that's 6 million of the 7.1 identified shortfall. Local match shortfalls either need to be funded through one time matching funds or through reductions or delays of the pay management projects. Separate but related here obviously are the storm damage projects from 2023. This created three new projects, the chimney, cachetty, and Creston Road, the three seizes we like to call it. And right now we're projecting total construction costs for those projects in excess of $20 million. I do wanna spend a little time on this table. This is a summary of table three that's in your staff report. First I want to talk about this first line which is our planned projects. And of note again is the 7.1 million in local match funds that are needed this next year to mostly to advance the South Bable of our project. Both the Wazna Townsite project and the Wazna over or our Grady Creek projects. Those will be ready ahead of their programmed funding. So again, staff is recommending that we receive short-term advanced construction loans to move those projects forward. Timing for those loans would be in 26, 27 and then again in 27, 28 respectively. Now looking at the second line, which are the unplanned storm recovery projects. Those are projected again to collectively cost an excess of 20 million. That includes $15.7 million in advance construction in this upcoming fiscal year. A little bit of little ray of sunshine in that news, however, is that the Creston Bridge project, which was damaged in the storms, is actually eligible for FHWA funding. The $6.7 million construction estimate has already been programmed in the highway bridge program. Those funds will be available as the project proceeds, but the bad news is we cannot receive those funds until the project is completed. So we will have a little bit of a leg time. That remaining $9 million, however, that's all chimney rock. That's FEMA funded, and again, it will also be ready next year. the funding approvals are still in process and I cannot commit to any date or any amount of funding just really in FEMA's hands we are seeking full reimbursement of those costs but timing is totally uncertain. Same story on Kachetti Road Kachetti has a 4.55 million construction estimate and it's still going to be hung up in that FEMA uncertainty. In 2022, we also updated your board regarding the pavement management program at the time. Staff recommended keeping the counties target of having an average PCI pavement condition index of 65, but we also added a suggested performance measure that at least two thirds of county roads would be rated at a six-year better. And the idea here is that this would give you both a breadth and depth to the condition of the roadway. I do have some good news here. How are we doing? Well, the current countywide PCI is a 60. It's not at the 65, but that's a fair number. And in your upcoming budget, you'll notice that 65%. So almost two thirds, we're almost there. 65% of roads are rated with a PCI of 60 or better. So, again, going back in the time machine to 2022 staff also recommended making incremental improvements to two roads using alternative delivery techniques, such as cold patching and chip ceiling. That's a technique that's pretty commonly used in Monterey County. in Monterey County. And then finally, since past practice, again, pre- 2022, practice had been to just minimally maintain the rural roads. Staff recommended at the time that we established some minimum standards for all roads and the results of which are now published in our annual payment management update. Up to this current year, payment funds, again, before any reductions for the bridge program, but payment funds have generally leveled off at around $10 million per year. Back in 2022, staff reported that $10 million was the bare minimum to maintain just not improve the county wide's PCI. Using alternative funding techniques the county wide PCI has also leveled off as kind of expected. This summer 2025 is our triennial every three year county wide pavement assessment so we have of interns and consultant drive every single mile of the county. And. every three year countywide pavement assessment. So we have interns and consultant drive every single mile of the county and perform inspections on all the service conditions. And then we'll report those in a major update to this board spring of next year, probably in a may time frame. However, of note here is that it kind of looks like a rosy picture, but really the double is in the details. The level of PCI is the result of cheap fixes on poor condition roads. We have to date at least been lucky we've had minimal degradation of our good condition roads, but the upcoming assessment will show how while we're doing balancing our roads projects with limited available funds. At the same time that we've been trying to stretch out these available funds to balance the bridge program needs, the pavement program needs, we've had some outside pressure. 2022 the road fund was consistently $5 million short of achieving anywhere close to the goals established by this board and we've only really seen minimal revenue growth since that time. Local matching funds for bridge projects have averaged about 25% higher than we had forecast back in 2022. Given the rates of inflation, we feel somewhat fortunate that we've only seen a 25% increase. And then we'll get into this in the next slide to a little more detail, but construction cost, escalation, and road fund contributions to countywide overhead have frankly soared. In 1718, for instance, the cumulative cost to overlay and service treat roads was in the neighborhood of $400,000 per mile, which at the time we thought was expensive. Last year, those costs were almost a million dollars when those contracts went out and we are projecting similar costs for this upcoming year. five years ago the road fund contributed about 1.4 million to county-wide overhead. That's for the ITD, the IT department, and for our largely for our liability insurance. This next year's budget, we are contributing $5.4 million for those same-light items. And again, for, I'll do the math for you. That's a 300% increase. We remain focused on our core roadwork. So routine maintenance, such as potholes, patching, treacherimming, sign maintenance, et cetera. Those remain fully funded. The annual payment plan update is in process right now with the results of this summer's assessment to accompany a major update next year. Plan payment work for next year will be reduced or delayed depending on the net impacts from the bridge program. Level off revenue, increased construction cost, increased overhead costs are anticipated to remain long term. We We don't expect those to go away. And again, I'll just go back to the short-term strategies of low cost improvement, service treatment projects. Ultimately, still will result in a declining PCI countywide. And again, today's presentation is somewhat informal. You'll be able to see all these projects come forward individually as we bring them forward to construction. But likewise, your staff, excuse me, likewise your board may choose to direct staff to return with some program or project specific recommendations. And in doing so, again, here we would just ask that the board would consider the possibility of making potential changes to the pavement or bridge programs, looking at alternatives to supporting revenue increases at the state level and or reducing non-essential maintenance responsibilities. That concludes the formal side of the presentation today. We're happy to revisit any slides and discussion points. Very good. Thank you so much. I see supervisor Pauline's line is on. No surprise. Thank you, Chair. That wasn't a dig because I like to like- No, it wasn't. You definitely need to find out about this situation. Yeah. Can we get that last slide up? And just want to first talk globally here. Thank you for the presentation and the staff report all very well laid out. And I think obviously, you know, it's not a rosy picture and we've got to make some tough decisions. So first I want to start with the option for consideration of reducing PCI goals or targets. I'm trying to ascertain what orders of magnitude we're dealing with in terms of decision making there. Like if we were to say, reallocate funds from road maintenance to some of these bridge projects that need financing or local match at what cost benefit we're looking at. And if we have like well one million reduction in you know local funds to PCI and reallocation to a bridge project would result in a reduction of PCI by how many points or can you just help give me a point of reference for the options for consideration? Sure, and one thing that was in the staff report doesn't really, we didn't really cover in detail in the presentation that the bridge program, I mean, we are leveraging millions of dollars of federal funds for the federal bridge program. So our local matches a small part of those costs. We're bringing those into that money into our county. We can patch potholes if a bridge is impassable, but whether it's collapsed or is weight rated, if they're not structurally sound, we can't get through. So we prioritize the bridge projects. And that's why these in over the last several years and moving forward the plan is to continue to fund these existing bridge projects and deliver them and leverage that federal money. So you know part of the message is there will be an impact on payment management. You know this is kind of an informational update, but to not just kind of leave it on the table, just wanted to have the opportunity for discussion and direction, if there's direction to staff on besides additional funding for these items here, if there's things to consider, we would look into those and what would a, you know, we'd look at other agencies, you know, what would are there other agencies with lower PCI targets and how do they manage that then with that lower PCI? So you know, that'd be example there on the payment as we would, we could explore that if there was interest and come back in the future, but we do need to move forward with our bridge projects and fund those and get them into construction. And as you mentioned, that's generally the kind of staff recommendation as indicated in the staff report is a prioritization of the bridge projects. Thanks. One of the things that the staff report discusses, I don't know if it's under the umbrella of reducing or slowing bridge projects, but on page five it talks about the sequencing of the WASNA road over AG Creek Bridge as it relates to the Chiketti road crossing. And I know we talked about this a little bit in my office yesterday. Essentially what the staff report says is that the Wasnabridge project is expected to be shovel ready late 2627. Timing for delivery of this project is further complicated by the Chiquetti Road Crossing, which as we know is destroyed in 2023 in the heavy storms. Originally planned as the detour during construction of Wasnab. And because Chiquetti will not be constructed until 2027, the Wazna Bridge is planned to be constructed in 2028. So we're looking at obviously Chiquetti originally intended to be a detour point during the Wazna Bridge construction project. Given the uncertainty associated with the state regulatory permitting environment for the Chiquetti project. I guess my concern is that we'll be linking the construction of the Waza Bridge project to that uncertainty by postponing it to be after the Chiquetti project is theoretically permitted, approved, and constructed. Thus delaying both projects further. Now I'll remind the board that the Chiquetti road went out in January of 2023. It's been over two years and the community has suffered that impact. What I'm suggesting I think is more reasonable than the prior request, which was, hey, can we get a temporary bridge installed at the county's cost at Chiquetti, which was a challenge because of the fact that we would have to pull that bridge out during heavy weather events or during the wet season. What I'm asking today is if we could re-sequence the project to put the Wazna Bridge first because it's almost shovel ready and install a temporary bridge at Chiquetti to maintain detour access during the construction of the Wazna Bridge project, giving us more time to get through the permitting process associated with Chiquetti and then construct after the Wazna Bridge is completed the full Chiquetti repair project. And then I know that there was an open question as to whether the costs associated with that temporary bridge install at Chiquetti could be Reimbursed as a component of the was the bridge construction project and I'd be interested in your in your perspective and thoughts on that as an option Okay, well those two projects There's a lot of uncertainty with both of those they are unrelated. I know as even as we were putting this table together, we were, which one, what order would these go in? So there's that uncertainty there. Could Chetty, could be ready to be constructed in in 27? If it gets the permits? Wasna could be ready, could also be ready to be constructed in 27. We have timeline, we have time within our bridge program to push it out to 28. So we could try to build them both at the same time, we could switch it, we could keep state with what's in here. So there is that uncertainty and we're moving them both forward. Yeah, we would not want to if Cachetti didn't get his permits, we wouldn't want to move both of them out two years. We would try to move up Wasna as we know more. And then that would essentially what you're discussing of Wasna having Wasna in 27, Cachetti in 28. And then there would be the need for a temporary bridge. As we'd have to work with FHWA and CalTrans to see if we can have that temporary bridge as participating in the federal cost, which would be helpful. If not, then there would be a few hundred, several hundred thousand dollar price tag for that. And I in terms of one of the the main reasons that public works was opposed to installing a temporary bridge Atcha Ketti now was not only the cost, but it was the seasonal Factor associated with the wet season and the low water crossing and having to basically install it if we had installed it right before the dry season, then pull it out for the wet season. In this particular case, it could be timed with the construction duration of the Wazen Bridge project during the dry season and installed not with the plan to remove it, which would make for a more fiscally responsible approach and a better sequencing approach. Yeah, that's correct. I mean, after the storms, when we looked at temporary bridges, the cost to install it and then rent it, and then the cost to take it out and put it back in each winter was a big price tag. And there is a secondary access there. With the current, with House Layout in here, if Concetti was reconstructed first, it would just remain open going forward. If Wozna is constructed first, we could put a temporary bridge on Concetti and then take it out for the rainy season and then that next year, Concetti would remain closed as it was rebuilt. Unless the timing of permitting was good enough to kick that project off, right? The actual Chiquetti full repair. Right, yes. Then it would be closed for while the new bridge, while it was being repaired, and the bridge was being constructed, it would be right closed for that year. So it would be open for a season, and then closed for another, like probably your plus, and then we open permanently after that. Okay, so from your professional staff perspective, we have options here that that would be within the realm of reasonable approaches as opposed to, you know, yes, explored previously. Okay, that's helpful. I guess is there a funding concern related to the sequencing here? Because again, we're looking at a recommendation or a soft recommendation around a discussion related to either reducing PCI targets or reducing or delaying bridge projects but it's my understanding and I'm rereading that section of the staff report it looks like we're pretty good in terms of seeking reimbursement for the Chiquetti project and then the bridge replacement program for the Wasm Bridge project. Is that correct? Yes, we are with Kachetti. It's in FEMA's process for hazard mitigation grant, which would be reimbursed. We're uncertain of the timing, of course. And then Wasn is in the federal bridge program and moving forward with the program funds programmed out in the future, but as we get closer We'll know more and expect those typically will be moved up and and again just confirming the was the bridge project shows that we're shovel ready by fiscal year 2627 is what the staff report says what month will be targeting? Well typically we need a project to be ready to advertise in the fall so we can advertise it and open beds have a contractor on board Just by December or January so they're ready to go as soon as the rainy seasons over like heck ready to That they'll be under contract and working but ready to get you know into the the creek and since the very as as soon as possible at the beginning of the construction season. So we would need, except we'd need to be ready to advertise in fall of 26, 26. 26. Well, of 26 to construct in 27. Okay. So yeah, I think that's the key point there. As opposed to what's indicated in the staff report where it says the Wazen Bridge is planned to be constructed in 2028, I would just prefer that we've re-sequenced to target advertising for bid in fall of 2026 for the Wasna. Assuming we- and Bridges plan to be constructed in 2028. I would just prefer that we've re-sequenced to target advertising for bid in fall of 2026 for the wasna, assuming we can get that temporary bridge brought back to our board and approved by the board in terms of the funding component. And then the final comment I'll just make is a global comment, and that's to the board in general. We have a couple categories of SB 1090 funds that are just sitting there. And we haven't made a financial decision in the context of our overall budgeting process related to how to spend those funds. My records indicate we have one category at your mark to infrastructure, 2.1 million, another for roads, 1.1 million, as available for future projects. And I guess I'll pivot back to staff and just ask, if you had an extra 3.2 million, what would you do with it in the context of these recommendations? Well, it would depend on the timing, but if it was soon, that would go into the road fund and offset the bridge program needs, or the payment management. It would essentially benefit payment management. It would go to payment. Okay. I just, in the absence of a strong staff justification for why we should keep that money parked, I think that this would probably be one of the best financial decisions the board could make as we look at funding shortfalls in the context of this item. It looks like our CAO is turning on his light. Supervisor Pauline, through the chair, I think one of the things that needs to be articulated here on this presentation is the lack of funding available for several of these projects. We still have a considerable amount of general fund needed to be able to get some of these projects up and off the ground. The department has worked well with the County Administrative Office over the years to partner up and front general fund costs to the department that have a high likelihood of reimbursement and or other tools that you know where we can work together, front a short term loan and then get reimbursement back. I would remind the board that we have over 30 something million dollars still out on loans. We're, you know, expectations of FEMA money getting repaid and other loans out there as well. And some of these bridge projects that the department has articulated here today are high cost. Multi-million dollar loans needed in order to move some of these forward. And that really wasn't maybe pressed upon too much, but we're still looking for general fund to be able to loan out substantial amounts of money to be able to get some of these projects off the ground. So is it true that we have $10.90 money that could still be allocated, hopefully towards economic development type of uses. But yeah, absolutely the board could. We could bring something back to the board, have another discussion on board's priorities and where they want to allocate things within that funding account and we can have that conversation. But at this point, I think those are pretty small dollar amounts compared to the department's needs right now and I would defer back to John Waddell or staff to be able to articulate maybe a little bit better on some of the unfunded portions of some of these projects. Okay sounds good and what I'm hearing from you is that even though we may have an account designated as infrastructure or roads, it could be in the context of our budget decision-making process that the board decides to reallocate those one-time limited funds to economic development or something. Supervisor, I would say that they're absolutely available for infrastructure and or anything else the board. Okay, thank you. Those are my questions. Appreciate it. Thank you. Supervisor Marino. Yes. I'd have stopped to bring up the slide that shows the county overhead and insurance charges the increase than that net increase slide. There it is. Okay. So 82% of that is driven by insurance. So could you give us a sense of what is causing that and maybe what control we have, what steps we can take to minimize and mitigate that? Sure. And really these insurance costs, they're part of the cost of doing business, but insurance nationwide, and even for us as consumers, car insurance, homeowners insurance have had really steep increases in the last few years. With ensuring a public agency, we've worked with our risk management. They've, and they've been working with our insurance carriers to understand the issue. It's related to a lot of things, disasters, but also just the real, the large increase in liability claim settlements and judgments. So we're seeing the liability where an issue may have been a few million dollars a few years ago and now it's tens of millions. And so just our our insurance carriers and others nationwide are just they're their their costs have greatly increased and they need to remain solvent and so a lot of the rates are part of that. We're also working with the risk management and county council to you know do everything we can to really increase our risks and you know whether it's you know in our in our road system sidewalks how we operate how we document things we work in really closely with county council to you know keep those with minimum whether it's following up on accidents and being proactive so we do what we can but it really is coming from the nationwide trend of greatly increased settlements and verdicts. We are taking some proactive steps, though, to possibly reduce or mitigate that. We're not just throwing up our hands and saying that's the way it is, and this will increase another 82% in the next four years. Because I mean, personally, my insurance didn't go up 82% in four years but I do understand the the nature of liability and all those kinds of things so thank you. Supervisor Gibbs and you had your light on now it's okay very good how about if I open public comment then and I'll save mine too for that time. We'll start with Eric Lockhart, please. I'll buy a mic for her. Good morning, thank you for your time. Eric Lockhart, I'm a resident of the Branch Mill, Chiquetti, a corridor there. My wife and I have been there for about five years and we've been following this bridge process since it was damaged two years ago Just a few points. I want to hit real quick. I want to support Supervisor Paulings recommendation to change the order of these bridge repairs And I want to further add to that that if that was the case that the temperature caddy bridge be expedited to be put in sooner than just before the Harris Bridge project. It's needed now, it's been needed for two years. So if that could be a possibility of expediting that, put that in now, it's needed now, it'll be needed for the Harris Bridge project as well. I'd like to provide my perspective as a resident of the area for the last two years since the damage. The county, the staff has metrics, has a waste of monitor, different goings on out there, but it's pretty minimal compared to being a resident out there. We see, we feel the traffic congestion every single day and it's definitely been impacted significantly since we've been out there. That includes not just vehicle accidents, but wildland fire structure fires, we've seen it all. It's a rather large community out there. It's hard to get to and it's even harder to get to right now. Not just the additional access from Chiquetti, but now you're funneling it all into two routes, primarily a Harris Bridge, but you also have the Cherry Creek into the backside of the village. So just last month with an a period of a day and a half, there were four critical vehicle accidents, all in that branch mill corridor, one of them with severe injuries. There was just another one a few days ago. We're watching these people, there are friends, our neighbors getting into these accents. They've always happened out there, but we're seeing the numbers increase. Okay. Also, just within a few days of that, there was a fully involved structure fire. Just four doors down from my house. I was actually at work here in the city at the Fire Department here. My wife calls me and says, Hey, they're our neighbor's house is on fire, not their house. They have a building on fire, unfortunately, it wasn't their home. Nobody was injured. She could hear their screaming from our house. And I'm here to help us. Unfortunately, I wish I could go help. And I couldn't get there. This bridge wouldn't have saved that building, but it could have saved the extent to which the damage that occurred. But with regard to the vehicle accidents, the congestion, this would significantly improve that situation. And I feel like we don't need to wait until we have lives lost or more critical incidents occurring. I'm thankful for the additional new surfacing at Chiquetti and Lopez Drive, but I think your indexes will be close to 100% on that for a while, since no one can really drive on it. So thank you. Thank you. Mike Fuller. Yeah, Mike Fuller. And I do, I live about a quarter mile from the Chiquetti creek crossing there. And I do appreciate supervisor Paul Dean's comments about during the water issues getting involved, you know, and I'm always a big proponent of getting involved in these things. Yet I was not afforded the privilege. I just learned about this about an hour and a half before I showed up here. Even though I was on the list, I didn't get any kind of notification except for my neighbor. So excuse me for not being fully prepared, I would like to have come way more prepared. That's what I would have been appreciated. But some of the things I think they need to be considered on this project too that you may not be seeing as this Eric was talking about. There's a tremendous amount of safety issues I sat on my porch that overlooks The Chiquetti Road and the low water crossing. I've watched emergency vehicles coming from San Luis Obispo with it for example last summer I think it was or summer before and there's the was in a fire out in was in the town site Thankfully, it wasn't somebody's home, but I watched a fire truck turn down to Ketty Road to get stuck at the creek, turn back around, and then have to go clear around, probably at least five minutes of wasted time. There's a lot of emergency issues at the was in a bridge for those who don't know it are real familiar that it's very narrow on my way to work this morning. I was crossing it. There's a farm tractor crossing it with an implement behind it, took up the whole bridge. So if you know what happens there, then the stacking happens from traffic on Lopez Drive, heading from Lopez into the village, going westbound, and they start backing up because they can't cross the little narrow bridge. And when they're backing up, there's a corner right there that people can't see. They're coming from Lopez, 45 plus miles now, and we have a lot of collisions there. So this is just to name a few. I don't sit at my porch and watch things. I have a full-time job. And it just so happens, I've seen a few of them in my few minutes observing it. But then there's the individual issues for those of us living out there. I've timed it. It's four to five minutes extra time for all of us going to San Luis making the loop. I don't know about the other projects because I didn't have time to look at them. But it's four to five minutes each way. And just the time we take in our time, our fuel, we're in tar on cars, three years, four years of time. I don't know what it's going to take. We could probably pay for this bridge, you know, with the wasted money. We'd probably all been, had we known this, been willing to contribute. And let's just say get it done. I am well aware, being involved in this kind of stuff myself, that the government costs are a big part of the, these increased costs to make these projects happen. You know, I see the costs going up and up and up, but the sooner the better, we've waited two years already with a tremendous waste of individual citizens money living out in that community. And I just think it's a huge waste. So I would promote anything that could speed up the project for safety and personal waste of time and financial resources out there. Some people get a temporary bridge or whatever you can do out there would be great. Thank you, Mr. Fuller. Todd Talley followed by Rosemary Talley, closing out our public comment, please. Good morning. My name is Todd Tally and I'm an owner and the CFO at Tally Farms. I'm a third generation farmer in the Eroi Grande Valley and the loss of the Chiquetti Road Crossing in 2023 has been incredibly disruptive to our fourth generation farming operation at Tally Farms. Not only has the closure resulted in longer travel times for our tractors, line trucks, and other vehicles, it has also increased the amount of time that it takes us to haul our perishable produce from the field to our cooler. This longer journey can impact the quality and shelf life of our fresh produce, especially on warmer days in the summer, in the fall months. Of equal concern for us is that the current detour, which forces us to use the Wasna Bridge, requires that our large trucks, oftentimes, with large machinery in tow, make a dangerous turn from Wasna Road on the Lopez Drive. Our biggest fear, and that of our insurance company, is that one of our large vehicles becomes involved in an accident as it makes that dangerous turn with the limited view shed into the fast-moving traffic on Delopa's drive. These disruptions and concerns are shared by our farming neighbors as well as the residents that you've heard from so far this morning, and in particular the multigenerational generational Iketa family farming operation. We plead with you to approve a fix sooner rather than later to Chiquetti road crossings that are agricultural industry which contributes so significantly to our local economy can operate efficiently and more importantly safely. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. And last speaker, Rose Mary Talley. Good morning, and thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak this morning. I'm a resident and an owner of Tally Farms. That I am requesting that you proceed with the funding for the temporary bridge at the bridge at Wausna Road is unsafe for the large farming vehicles that are forced to detour from Cicaddy Road. It is also unsafe for small cars, as I have barely escaped being rear-ended twice, as I was forced to turn left from Lopez drive onto the bridge. In the case of emergencies or fires, there is no quick way to get to branch mill road, the Wasna Valley, or the branch school for emergency vehicles. We urgently need this crossing to be expedited. And I thank you for considering this appeal. And thank you. Thank you, Ms. Talley. Okay. No further public comment on this item. I'll bring it back to the board for discussion and supervisor Paul. Thank you, chair. I've already made my kind of case, right? As it relates to Chiquetti, I'm very frustrated on behalf of my constituents. To those of you that came today to speak out, I appreciate that. You know, just want to respond to one point that was made about the project cost being the driver for Chiquetti. That hasn't actually been the case. The project, as indicated by staff earlier, is funded. It's the permitting timeline because it's a low water crossing and that requires going through the approval of the Army Corps of Engineers, the California Fish and Wildlife, a whole list of other agencies that, unfortunately, because this is a steelhead trout crossing, make us go through a whole bunch of red tape, and it's completely unacceptable. I asked when Senator Laird was out to look at Locust Lake over another issue that is completely unacceptable when we look at how environmental groups have forced us to release water that we shouldn't be releasing. When Senator Laird was there, I said, let's look at Chiquetti too. We went out there and I showed it to him. And he said, this is an example of government getting in the way, right? We need to just get this done. this done. Our staff have been trying to expedite that project through application of a grant that would streamline the review and approval process by those regulatory agencies. We didn't get the first grant. We have reapplied with a letter of support from Senator Laird. He used to work in the resource agency at the California state level. So I'm hopeful that that may help. Again, my point here though is that I don't want to tie the Wasna Bridge, and it's also referred to as the Harris Bridge, the construction of that project to getting permits for the Chiquetti repair. And as is indicated here in the staff report, and as was discussed, it seems like we can re-sequence that to really put that was in the bridge first, with a temporary bridge installed at Chiquetti to maintain access during the construction at project and then pursue a Chiquetti repair afterward, a full repair. So I would move that whatever direction our board takes that we include that direction to staff. I would also support, you know, allocating funding right now to install a temporary bridge out there, but I know the board wasn't supportive of that in the past. But I would be interested in board member comments on that. Now on the separate matter of looking at pavement condition, looking at the cost of our bridges across the county. I think this was a good report. I support the direction that staff is going in terms of prioritizing bridge replacement projects, pursuing the federal funding opportunities that are available. And ultimately, I've made my case clear before. We need new revenue in Slow County. And so if this board decides to put a measure on the ballot in 2026, that's public safety focused on sheriff and fire, I would hope that roads would be the third priority and that would cover infrastructure and bridges as well, in terms of where that local new revenue source if the voters approved it would go. So those are my comments. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Gibson. Thank you, Madam Chair. Supervisor Pauling is quite correct. This is a matter of money and so many of the things that are that we deal with on this dius. It sounds like, sir, you have a good handle on the complexities of a couple of bridges in the semi-rural areas. And I would, I'm not, I guess I'm not expert enough in local conditions to argue one way or another. I think your intent is to make things as efficient as possible. And my responsibility on the other side is to make sure that we're being financially responsible in terms of deploying our resources given what they are. So I think staff made a compelling case that trying to do a temporary bridge immediately at Chiquetti is just, it's not gonna be a wise expenditure funds and I haven't heard information to the contrary. The inconvenience, I acknowledge the inconvenience. I had brought to mind my folks, as they were in their 80s, lived five miles out and back a Cambria. Had a major slip out that closed the road for about a year that left them with one car parked on one side of the gap and another car parked on the other side of the gap and the necessity of hauling groceries by hand across that so that they could get there. I get the inconvenience that happens when roads fail in rural areas. But again, it sounds like we're well that Supervisor Paultings well on top of how best to address that. And I think the conversation he had with public works is correct. In general, I think we do need to move forward on our bridges. It pointed out that the failure of a bridge is a complete closure of a road, as these examples identify. And if that comes in the short term, at least of a little bumpier amount of pavement, then until we get that revenue source in place, I think that's just one of those things we're gonna have to accept. You know, as I was listening, what I realized, and we've had this conversation yearly, going back as long as I can remember. But, you know, I think it might be helpful. You referenced, in a gentleman from Public Works referenced that there is a survey of pavement condition index going on that will be done this summer. When that's complete, if a given supervisor were interested, I'd be interested in a little sampler of what different PCI's actually look like. If you could give me some locations where the PCI is say 95, 85, 75, 65, 35, whatever it is, I'll go out and drive them myself. I think we tend to get wrapped up in a two-point reduction of PCI as if it's significant. I'm not sure that it is. And I'm not sure that a PCI of 62 is much different from PCI of 57. So just a random thought I'd certainly be interested in that. And finally, in the conversation, a couple of other things touched on the overall question of liability deserves a wide conversation in terms of our allocation of resources. I would look forward to that. does what commitment this board wants to make in terms of our allocation of resources, I would look forward to that. As does what commitment this board wants to make in terms of economic development, our significant source, and to my mind, our only source of that is the remaining 1090 funds, which I understand to be quite flexibly allocatable. I don't know that putting them into smoothing pavement is the best economic development strategy. I have my thoughts about what this is. Probabilities indicate that my colleagues may have other thoughts too. May or may not be aligned with my own, but I think that that conversation at the right time would be helpful. in terms of the direction. I think is a recive in file basically, the direction it can stay the course and work out the details in district four, make sense. Thank you. Supervisor Pachan. I do think an expenditure on roads is definitely warranted, but you've heard me talk about roads for nine years, certainly in my district, and Bitterwater Road is probably a PCI of two, but we'll find out, so, you know, but there's nobody lives on it, so that's, you know, it gets a lot of time to get ignored. I do, I am interested in the FEMA money, because we're not alone. There's the, every county in California, and I was just in Washington, D.C., with a number of counties and they're dealing with the length of time it takes to get the reimbursements, right? And that's what I think, well, for what I've heard today, that's whole. with Jeff's in Washington, D.C. with a number of counties and they're dealing with the length of time it takes to get the reimbursements, right? And that's what I think, well, for what I've heard today, that's holding us up a lot. So I'd love to get a list of the money we're waiting on. And I'd like to also know if our lobbyists, because we do pay a lot of money to lobbyists in Washington, D.C. and Sacramento to help us out if they're pushing that effort. because that to me is money that's there. It's on its way. And you've heard me talk about this because of chimney rock and the temporary bridge that we have on there. I'm not so sure the temporary bridges are the end all be all because there's a lot of equipment that can't get across those bridges because they won't pick, they, they limit the size and the weight on them. But I think that, it's chimney rock, because which was, it's a FEMA bridge. And so my assumption is it'll get done next year. I think it's on the docket for next year. But I do think, from that standpoint, if we could get a list of those, we could, you know, figure out a of strategy of some sort to be able to try to work with FEMA to get that going. Because it's tough right now, and all that money's being, I know that they're doing the analysis, but it's the analysis paralysis by analysis, and I think we've got to be able to push that free. So thank you for doing this because this is not an easy discussion to have. Yeah, well, if I can respond on that quickly, as far as a report on where we are with FEMA, we have our storm, 223 storm recovery update coming in two weeks to the board, so we will have that information will be in there. And yeah, we are, we are working with our lobbyists and our congressional delegation to push on FEMA. It's a it's a it's a universal thing and but we want to continue to be this squeaky wheel. Yeah so yes and so I was we were together actually a supervisor Marino and I and public work staff in Washington DC there to lobby FEMA we. We never did get the doors open. Nobody was answering the phone. It has been a very frustrating issue. I thought we had 43 million out. You noted 36. I could have sworn it was 43. But the fact is is that we need all the help we can get to loosen those dollars at the federal level. So I know the FEMA staff want to help us. It's the matter of the administration that has been screwing with them. So that's going to be really important. And those uncertainties as we look at the funding and how you've got the mechanisms, I think that's my concern about where we spend our money because we do have the uncertainties of what's going to happen at the federal level on any responsibilities that they have to us. And their idea of what FEMA is and isn't. And I think that we're demonstrating right now how the impact of families, businesses, agriculture, which feeds people, are impacted by not being able to repair these bridges. I really commend you Supervisor Paul Ding for coming up with a strategy on the temporary. I do think that it's important though that I would support that. I think that whatever it helps to get us to that temporary bridge considering we've got these years backlog. Now, it seems like 23 just happened, but here we are in 25. And you know, while we talk about 27 and 28, there's still a long way. So I think it would be great to have that switch over and to get that temporary bridge, but I do agree with Supervisor Fashon that there's limitations on temporary bridges. And we would definitely need to make sure that it was able to hold the kinds of trucks and equipment that are necessary to be able to get over. So that's part of that further conversation. But I support you in doing, you know, you've been trying to fix this and I really want to help too. The one thing that I wanted to ask, or maybe a couple, one is that we had a risk manager position being put in today and I think is that some of the stuff that the risk manager would be helping with is to address our insurance challenges. Madam Chair nice way to tie that back absolutely you know where we have that position hopefully they've got to prove this morning it'll be out on the street and we And we're looking forward to filling in its higher level position than we've had here in the county. And it's intended to really focus on some of these issues out there and working with Council's office and my office and the Department leadership to really try and address as Supervisor Morena said, those preventable things, making sure we're doing everything we can on the prevention side and then lowering our amounts. it frees up additional resources to really put towards those department priorities. And it is amazing. I mean, I think that all of us that have had experiencing insurance hikes by sitting there and talking and finding out, oh, if I did this, we can shave off a certain percentage or whatever dollars. So I'm really happy about that. On the permits with Fish and Wildlife and the other agencies, people hire expediters. And I don't know if that's something that would be available to us in regards to continue to lobby towards these emergency situations in regards to Fish and Wildlife. I know they have it all over the district and all over the state. but is there more that we can do? I mean, you know, you have Senator Laird who did run Fish and Wildlife Natural Resources Agency, but yet nothing's really changed. Just by stating that this is us getting in the way and blah, blah, blah, where are we in actually seeing changes? And, you know, if you were a private industry, you would hire an expediter to help with certain things. And I just wondered if there's other things that we can be doing. So that's just throwing that out there. But I think other than that, I think it's important to do exactly the way you're doing it in regards to forsaking pavement for bridges. bridges and again something that we would think about for us as a county that we haven't done in a many, many years is coming up with something for public safety which could incorporate a whole bunch of things that we really need. So with that, Mike. Yes, yes, go ahead, Supervisor Merino. Thank you just because several of you brought it up is the temporary bridge. And for me, there are two aspects to it. Obviously capacity, does it handle the traffic and the types of vehicles that would be coming across, but secondarily, and I think Mr. Watt El mentioned this, it would be determining whether or not that would be a reimbursable cost. So I am concerned that we had several hundred thousand dollars onto something that would be more and out of the general fund or taken away from other projects. So that I'm not willing to do if it is reimbursable to a significant extent that I like to see those numbers. Thank you and Supervisor Pauling. Thank you to staff. Have any response on that? Yeah, just following up on the whole Cachetti, was the discussion. Yes, we're going to be continuing to follow up with CalTrans on whether a temporary bridge can be reimbursable. And so whether that's a yes, no, or maybe. If it's a hard no, we'll probably still push back on it, but have to live on it. If it's a yes, great. If it's a maybe, we'll continue to push on it as well. But to say, over the next year, we'll have more certainty, right? We would need to be going out to bid on one or either of these projects in the fall of 2026. So over the next year, as we're going through design on both, pushing both of them as hard as we can and through permitting and permitting and design on Kachetti and final design on Wazna. We will, especially keep supervisor Pauline informed. And I think a key, and sounds like a key decision point, though, is the funding source for a temporary bridge. Yeah, that would be my request, is once we know you can bring that back maybe on a consent agenda item report or whatever works. I think there is a fundamental decision that the board would need to make. It sounds like the board majority's supportive of the re-sequencing. I want to make sure that that's reflected in the record because the staff report, again, mentions the WASD bridge, is planned to be constructed in 2028. We're reversing the sequence. Like you said, if both can maintain on a design timeline, we're retargeting, you know, again, fall of 2026 for a bid award that's great. One other comment just to the resource question is if we were able to throw more resources at the permitting related to Chiquetti. I mean, we've been trying to add more project managers to your division. Could you speak to that? Well we have our environmental division, that leads our permitting and they are, you know they have a good team, they have a temporary position allocated, forced storm recovery, I trust that they're on it. It's really comes down to the agencies and and of their lack of responsiveness at sometimes and then just the long process that they require. And with Chiquetti, we also hired a design consultant that contractors active there in design we're moving as fast as we can, we're project managing that that can go concurrent with the permitting approval process. Yes, and we need to continue along on design as we go through the Environmental Review and permitting and be at key milestones as we go through that. Right okay. All right well just one final comment on the I guess the SB 1090 discussion. I wanted to note for the record that when I spoke to the 2.1 million in the Infrastructure Fund or the 1.1 million in the Rhodes Fund that's over and above 2 2.5 that we have in the housing fund or 1.1 in the safety fund. So it'll be really interesting to hear what those board priorities are in the context of the budget discussion and how we earmark funds that are just sitting there that are one time again we have a budget situation we're trying to deal with and that's how do we reduce cost year over year and balance the budget but when we have this one time funding source I think it's important that our board makes some serious decisions based on priorities. Okay as long as that recre sequence has been noted in the record I'll just conclude my comments there and I guess this is a receiving file thank you. Madam chair. Yes sir. if it pleases the board, I'd just like to add on to John's comments. So I'm going to have to go out and see if there's any comments there and I guess this is a receiving file. Thank you. Madam chair. Yes, sir. If it pleases the board, I'd just like to add on to John's comments. And I would just say quickly that I'm just to be clear about the bridge program. We're not asking the board to make a decision today about and discretion for staff to go out and seek alternative funding so we could mash our foot into that gas pedal. That has not stopped since 2022 and we certainly are going to be bridge projects as for as quickly as possible and ready when they are and if Cachetti is ready next week you're going to see me again really soon and if it's if it's the other way around it will will certainly be here so. Great. Please don't think that staff or the board is choosing winners and losers. That's certainly not the case. The good news is these are somewhat good problems to have that we have a lot of projects that are underway. Frankly, the outlook in 2022 was dismal with so many projects stalled out. We're now, there's actually a light at the end of the tunnel to complete these deficient bridge projects. We just want to get there as quickly as possible and use those funds as wisely. And then lastly, on the payment management program and to supervisor Gibson's comments, I pulled up the board letter from 2022 and it's not the roads that we drive every day that are killing us on the countywide PCI. There's as Supervisor Prashank points out and picking on poor old Pitterwater Road, those are the roads that are killing us. We have 120 miles of very poor condition, very low-traveled roads that on average, and I'm sorry, I don't have the exact number in front of me, but they had a PCI, I think, back at the time of under 20. So they were sufficiently eroded at the end of their useful life. It's those 120 miles of roads that are killing us. Outside of those, the roads that are a little more heavily traveled and better condition, back in 2022 at least, that at average PCI of 63 given recent investments, I suspect that that number is probably closer to 64 possibly 65 today. And that's something that we'll be looking forward to bringing back to your board this next year after the assessment's complete. Thank you. Thank you, Public Works for your presentation. And again, that was a receiving file. So we'll close that item. Thank you everybody for being here and advocating. And now we go to the last item of the agenda, which is we're going to go to the last item, and then we'll do our, we have a closed session, right? So the last item on the agenda is for any supervisor who has announcements or things to share to do so. And seeing none, but I see, Pantas, do you have some things, sir? Madam Chair, briefly, the board asked my office to coordinate within the community about reductions in state and federal programs out in the community. And I just wanted to make sure that the board was aware that we have our survey out there. We're waiting on some results. They're starting to trickle in at this point. But the Community Foundation of San Luis Vizpo, director, Michelle Fries, has also has a survey out there and there's soliciting a lot of folks that they work within the community the communities also and we're going to try and merge some of that information together report back to the board at a further time. That sounds great. Thank you for that. Any other supervisor have a report on anything? No we just note that some some nonprofits did very well this past weekend with certain dancers and aluminum alliance certainly out shown and thank you supervisor Are you sure that you're going to be able to do that? I'm sure you're going to be able to do that. I'm sure you're going to be able to do that. I'm sure you're going to be able to do that. I'm sure you're going to be able to do that. I'm sure you're going to be able to do that. I'm sure you're going to be able to do that. I'm sure you're going Moreno, for your efforts. And as one of the dancing with the stars, and it was really spectacular to say the least. And I think that I heard that because they added a third day that the results were $500,000 of fundraising done for our Luminoliance friends. Yes preliminary numbers in 510,000 so pretty exciting three-day event tremendous effort and thank you to many of you who attended and donated and supported Luminat appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you. With that we will close this item and we'll go to our closed session and a council. Sure so the board is going to meet on close session items numbers three and four. I think it will be about 20 to 30 minutes tops. We will have to come back and quickly. Yes. Actually I looked at the government code and it says that you actually have to come back back into open session before adjournment in order to make those disclosures. It does not allow us to go to the next meeting. So, yeah, so it confirmed. Right. So I'll open public comment for any item on the closed session, seeing none of closed public comment. And we will adjourn to closed session and return once we're finished and close out the day. Thank you. Okay, thank you. We return from closed session and I'll have the county council report out. So the board met in closed session and took no reportable action. Thank you very much. We will close today's Board of Supervisors meeting and we will adjourn until May 20th. Thank you.