But all the projects are absolutely possible.

Okay.

So good evening.

Good evening.

Good evening.

So let's get call this meeting to order.

Wednesday, September 24th.

Or supervisors on the corporate services committee meeting.

Clark, take the roll.

Supervisor Tam.

Present.

Supervisor Miley.

Present.

Supervisor Miley.

There's been a request to move public comment ahead of for our presentation or just a brief statement from our art commission from Rachel.

Okay, so why don't we have the translation and also instructions on this meeting?

Paula, can you give our instructions for Spanish interpretation?

Yes, I'll go ahead and give me just a second.

Okay.

Uh hello, I'm Paula from International Contact, your language host for today.

We have Spanish interpreters for this meeting and interpretation channels have been created.

One moment while I provide the instructions.

Instructions for those joining in person.

Make sure you have the Zoom app installed on your smartphone and that you have internet connection.

Please use headsets so you don't you don't interrupt the meeting taking place in the room.

Open the Zoom app and log into the webinar with the following ID number.

84, sits eight, four four, three zero, two zero nine.

Click on the bots with the three dots.

Select interpretation.

Click on the language you wish to listen to.

For example, Spanish.

Optional if you want to listen to only the interpreted language, select mute original audio.

As instrucciones in espancial serien.

Instrucciones para las personas assistiendo a la reunión presencialmente.

Asegure se tener la applicación de suma installada in su teléfono inteligente, tener conexión internet.

Click in la esquina con los tres puntos, selección interpretación.

Click in el idioma que es escuchar.

Opcional para escuchar solo el idioma interpretado.

Uh, click in silenciar audio diginal.

For English participants, please go to the English channel.

This is very important if you want to hear any interpreted comments into English.

A reminder for English speakers is to speak slowly so interpreters can keep up with you.

Please keep that in mind.

This concludes the multilingual instructions.

Thank you.

Anything else?

Any other instructions?

No.

Okay.

So there's a request to move public comment to beginning of the meeting.

Is that okay?

So we'll take public comment at this point in time on non-agendized items.

All public comment on non-agendized items.

Rachel Osujima.

Thank you so very much.

My name is Rachel Osajima.

I'm the director of the Alameda County Arts Commission with a quick update that my office is working with the Alameda County Fire Department on plans to have public artwork in the front of in public space in front of their four upcoming projects.

Three replacement fire stations and the fire training center in Dublin.

There are two replacement stations in Castor Valley, one is in Palomaris Hills and one is on San Miguel.

And then there's a replacement fire station in San Lorenzo.

We have convened a selection committee unique for each project with community members and fire department staff, and they work together to select six artists for each project.

And you can find out more information and look at the proposals and submit your comments at arts.acgov.org.

And uh the comment period will be up through September 30th.

We also have a display at this library at Castro Valley Library in Dublin Library.

And so we feel like it's essential to have community members look at the proposals and tell us what they think might be a good fit.

All of their comments are collected and given to the selection committee so that they can review that and work sort of as a reflective team representing the overall um thoughts and goals of the community.

So I really encourage people to participate.

And all the artworks will be two-dimensional and different styles and materials.

One artist will be selected for each project, and then their original artwork will be photographed and digitally printed on large panels on the exterior of the building.

So I look forward to the opportunity for people to participate, and then one art when the artists are selected, I will be coming back to the Castro Mac, Edenary Mac, and the members of the Arts Commission will advance the recommendations to the Board of Supervisors and the Board of Directors of the Alameda County Fire Department.

I have some flyers for community members with a QR code, and I'll put them on the table.

Thank you very much.

Lindsay Wright My name is Lindsay, and I'm here with my invoice representing residents of the unincorporated Eden area.

It is unacceptable that mental health is left off of tonight's agenda, especially when housing, poverty, and immigration are compounding stress to the point of crisis in our neighborhoods.

Everyone who is familiar with our area knows the resources available are stretched beyond thin, and we need to do more to address situations before they get to a breaking point.

County administrators' office out of Alameda County Health and Supervisors Tam and Miley.

You can either continue putting unincorporated residents on the back burner, or you can lead with equity and racial justice.

Put mental health on the October agenda and fund this initiative to support Eden families.

Thank you for your time.

Vicky Vivaldo.

Los cambios politicos causa estragos y medio in nuestras familias.

Political change causes wreaks havoc and uh fear and disunity amongst our families.

Ice tactics of taking people just for their color is also causing more panic in our communities.

Causing stress on our children and disunity in our families that are left in limbo.

Who's going to take care of them?

Who's gonna worry um whose worries about our our children?

It's a big emotional stress on us for mental health and also displacement from our from our uh housing.

It's an uh it's another uh it's it's another effect, it affects us uh largely, it's another big effect on us, and it affects our also our wallet.

We want habitability for our families.

This is uh this affects us greatly um fundamentally in the economy and also the state of our country.

We don't we no longer want to be displaced.

We want you to invest in third spaces during a time of eight months, um at least 400 different spaces for community groups to meet in an urban area, not in the unincorporated area to organize and facilit and organized and facilitated by residents.

Um areas for parents in the areas that are not important in non-incorporated areas, ten uh per every demographic group of families in this area.

Amongst these demographic families, people with disabilities and um uh caregivers that are African American, Asian American, Pacific Islanders.

Immigrant parents that are resulting in.

Um that's not clinical.

Therapists that aren't available in Spanish and worried about uh programming.

Uh, 80%.

No, 80%, there's not enough um uh services, social services.

We need attention and uh support that is non-clinic, at least 70% people said that services sociales 75%.

For social services, it was 75% of the responses on the survey.

No disponible idioma spanyol, 81%.

And 81% reported not having um uh Spanish language available.

So nostra demandas como group de Maiden Voice no podemos seguir ignorados somos esta comunidad con necesidades de recursos.

Gracias.

These are our demands from uh my eaten voice as a group.

We can't continue ignoring um our needs uh for this community and our needs for these extra resources, thank you, Elena Torres.

Good afternoon, supervisors.

My name is Selena Torres, and I am active member of My Eden Voice NH Resident of Cherry Land.

I respect respectfully urged you to know to do not overlook and mental health and measure W and budget discussions.

Mental health is a foundation for community safety, housing, stability, education, and public health mental and physical.

Without it, every other investment becomes quicker and less effective.

So please uh ensure mental health committees on the agenda's October.

We already have been seeing the consequences when systems and processes and processes lack support and oversight.

For example, 1.3 billion was lost without without nuclear explanation.

Ensuring mental health resources are resources and training across the community and leadership helps.

Residents and unincorporated areas are already face uh are already facing service inequities.

Excluding mental health from major W and budget discussions only dips those gaps.

Mental health is not is not an optional, it's an essential fundational investment in preventing stability stability and equity by keeping mental health at the center of major W and budget U discussions.

We are not just investing in services, we are investing in the success, safety, and building of every community member in the Lameda County, corporate and corporate areas.

Thank you so much.

Rosemary Vasquez.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

I do come with the same request in terms of the mental health.

Um I know that we have uh two items on the agenda, but we we need to be very, very mindful of where we're using our time.

Mental health is of the utmost importance.

We have you have put lots of money.

And uh we need to make sure that it's being used.

My family's I work at Cherylan Elementary, and I call in to get services, and uh they're being put on hold.

So 50 million dollars, 66,000 people, we should have been able with nobody should be put on hold uh for services.

So we do need to have that conversation, and this was the time to do it.

So we urge you to do it on October as it is needed.

Also, I wanted to talk to you about please um drive by um is Lowelling Boulevard.

I live on Islawelling.

Um I'm a community member in Ashland, that's where I live, and um it is a mess.

Um uh it's not looking good, it's not being managed properly, um, and it's gonna take a long time.

And so I think that um I'm not saying that people don't know what they're doing, but I think that it needs a little bit more accountability on your part.

Um, and I urge you to just get in your vehicle and drive by it.

Um, you will see things that are not correct, and uh um, and I would like to come back in October and see what you think.

Thank you.

Maria Miranda.

All right.

Good evening, everyone.

I hope you're all doing okay.

As we see interpretation is a major need.

And while I appreciate the attempts at including language justice in these meetings, I think we still have a long way to go.

And so I really appreciate our interpreters for being here and trying to work and figure that out with us.

I just want to mention we've been working with Behavioral Health, I think for about a couple years now, since we called Supervisor Miley up to reach to talk about some of the concerns these same community members have had around mental health services.

So with that said, I think, as other folks have mentioned, we want to be put on the agenda.

Please put us on the agenda.

Actually, no, please is very nice, but put us on the agenda for October.

We want to get through this proposal with the support of behavioral health around third spaces for healing, using art, dance, laughter, in order to support the backup in services in clinics with these wait times that are up to like sometimes six months, and people don't have time to be in crisis for six months.

So we need you guys to really create concrete commitments after all these years talking about it.

We don't necessarily need another committee for this.

Thank you.

So our inefficient services with a lot of cut in personnel and mental health, psychologists specifically, with their long wait lists.

Because they may face some addiction, some special needs as well, and they don't have a clear response.

So on top of that, they're not, they are evicted and not relocated, and they don't have anywhere to go.

Enough food is also a problem because prices are high.

Some families temerosas for migration, familias temerosas por desalojo per salute medicum.

So these are families that are fearful with immigration with eviction that also will have a cause due to that.

So these are the people that are less protected in this unincorporated area of Eden, and that's why we're asking you to to listen to us.

Occupamos, para no estar islados.

We need to be together so we're not isolated.

If we're feeling bad, you know, we're together, we can find solutions and have meetings about it.

We are asking for these spaces that are that are healthy that are full of wellness for our community and these spaces that you we ask for so that you let us have them.

I could give you a number.

400 meetings, 300 meetings, five meetings a week.

There's a high need.

Thank you for giving the space, and we're we hope that we're on the next agenda.

Thank you for giving us the space and the time to be able to be listened to.

Thank you.

Kelly, approve.

So uh I'll shout out to the Cherry Land Elementary as a former student there.

I'm proud to have spent a little time there, not too long, but I was I was there.

Um, the county, um, as as has been noted by uh Supervisor Tam recently, the county provides municipal services to unincorporated residents.

So um they need extra attention because there is no layer of municipal services provided by a city government, it all comes from the county.

Um so logically it would be extra attention.

Um but uh the way it this um the uh going back to the redistricting that would happen a couple of years ago, um 78% of all the unincorporated residents or there's 150,000 of them, 78% of them fall into uh one one of these supervisorial districts that's uh district four, and district four is also the most elongated.

I won't use the word gerrymandered because it's too political, elongated.

Um it goes from Oakland to the to Castor Valley and unincorporated to Pleasanton.

And the way it's divided, um remember 78% of the unincorporated, they're all going into that office for their um, you know, for their needs, their political representation needs into the office of District Four, and District Four has an office in Oakland and Oakland uh office in Castor Valley and office in Pleasanton, with about 43% of the population of the district in Oakland, 36% in Eden and Castor Valley, and 21% in Pleasanton.

So that means, you know, split even roughly between Oakland and uh Castor Valley, and then a small a smaller piece, half the, you know, 21% slice in Pleasanton.

Now we're gonna be talking about budget shortly.

Thank you.

Sergeant Morales.

Good evening.

I'm the public information officer for the Alameda County Sheriff's Office.

I'm actually going to try to turn sideways because I want to address our community members with their concerns regarding immigration and what our role is as the sheriff with the sheriff's office.

So we have a very clear general order that we have that talks about our communication with ICE, Immigration Customs Enforcement.

And we do not have any communication with them.

So we will never ask for anyone's immigration status.

Not even if you're incarcerated or anyone here in the community.

We will not ask that.

So I just want to calm those fears for people when they want to report crimes and let them know that you're free to report crimes, knowing that you have the safety of we will not ask you that question.

Because what we don't want is we don't want victims to not report crimes, right?

We want you to come forward.

We want you to tell us what's going on so we can help.

We don't participate in any sweeps or raids with immigration.

We don't we don't do anything immigration related, no sweeps, no raids or anything like that.

Our role, they they have a different role, and we have our role.

Our role is the health and safety and wellness to enforce California law and the county ordinances of Alameda County, right?

Um there has been an issue.

I'm pretty sure you guys seen in the news where uh someone was arrested at the Wiley Manor Courthouse in Oakland.

Um with that being said, there's a there's a uh misconception that we can tell tell any law enforcement agency, hey, you can't come here.

We don't have that authority, we don't have that power to do that.

Any law enforcement agency can go anywhere where the public where it's open to the public, right?

So the courthouse is open to the public.

So when they when they were there, they were in a public area.

We can't stop them from going there, we can't interfere, we can't impede, because now we are breaking the law, and we can't do that, right?

So they have they have they have their laws and rules on what they're doing, and we have to abide by art, but we're not gonna help them in the system, we're not giving them information about anyone's immigration status.

Number one, because we don't have it.

We don't have anyone's immigration status because we don't ask for it.

Um I just wanted to make sure I wanted to come up here and try to hopefully give you guys a little bit of comfort when it if the need arises and spread the word that you guys can come to us.

We're not gonna ask for immigration status.

Please report your crimes.

There's any concerns, if there's any rumors, there's uh there have been a lot of rumors that I've dealt with where people call me, especially different advocacy groups, and said, hey, I believe ICE is here.

I get in contact, try to figure out what's going on, and I it hasn't been in Alameda County, it's been in other jurisdictions, and for the most part, it's been uh I think time's up.

Was it the intent of stuff?

I have no other speakers for public comments.

I mean, there's no other public comment or non-agendized items.

I also want to uh let folks know my staff's informed me that the October meeting will have mental health on it.

So that's what I've been told by my office.

Okay.

So let's go with the agenda for tonight.

First item is an informational item, the unincorporated area budget update.

Good evening, supervisors, uh, members of the public staff.

Uh tonight we'll be providing an update on the unincorporated services special budget.

So just a brief overview of the contents of the presentation.

I'm going to start by doing an overview of the county budget process, show a graphical representation of the budget development process over the course of the year.

Address some of the feedback that we've built into the special budget section of the new budget document based on the recommendations and feedback that we received via the MyEden Voice report.

And then summarize.

So those of you who may have been here for the first meeting in June, this slide will look familiar.

I've also presented this as context in other county budget presentations that I've done.

I think it's important to, you know, inherent in any discussion of the role of counties providing municipal services to the unincorporated area.

There's always going to be a little bit of a comparison in terms of, you know, what's happening in the unincorporated context versus surrounding cities.

It's a challenging comparison.

In a lot of ways, it's an apples and oranges comparison.

And one of the reasons why is because there are just some fundamental differences in terms of how cities and counties operate and you know that the difference in broad powers between counties and cities.

So counties really do lack the broad powers of self-government that the cities have.

Cities have a lot more broad revenue generating authority.

Counties unfortunately do not.

And the legislative control over counties is much more comprehensive than it is over cities.

So the counties are a subdivision of the state.

The legislature may and often does delegate to counties a lot of the functions that had at one point belonged to or really do belong to the state itself.

They can also that can also move in the other direction.

So over time, we've seen the realignment of many state functions, the shift of responsibility to the local level from the state, often to solve a state budget problem.

And so unfortunately, with that shift of responsibility, we often feel this tension of inadequate funding to cover that responsibility.

A lot of our program revenue that comes from the state and federal government provide for those mandated services, many of which are safety net services for vulnerable populations.

And these are services that tend to be best delivered on a regional basis.

And then, of course, the county provides municipal or city type services to unincorporated areas.

And the county's power to enforce ordinances and regulations is limited to those unincorporated areas.

So this next slide is a graphical representation of our budget development process over the course of the year.

It really essentially begins with the board's adoption of the budget policy that typically happens in December.

And then with that direction from the board's adopted policy, we then the county administrators office convenes county staff.

We do a budget kickoff.

We start the early process of developing the budgets for our internal service funds.

That continues on in the first couple of months of the calendar year.

There are, you know, we have a very tight timeline, lots of specific deliverables for the departments that result in, you know, the hundreds of pages that you see in the budget document that we produce every year.

In March, March or April, typically we see the initial budget work group meeting.

This is a stakeholder group of supervisors, county department heads, as well as community members.

The next slide I'll sort of outline the membership of that budget work group meeting.

In a lot of other jurisdictions, they're doing an analysis of revenue projections in January, issuing targets to their departments, and then those budgets are submitted.

So it's it's not as in-depth or I would say open or engaging as the process that we've had traditionally for many years now.

Um we continue in the month of April with uh what we refer to as our early budget work session.

So this is the agencies and departments' first opportunity to present their maintenance of effort budgets to our board and to the public.

Um, and then in April and May, we continue with the public engagement process via the budget work group meetings as well as additional stakeholder meetings we've traditionally done with our labor leaders as well as community-based organizations.

Um, and then once the state releases its uh May revision, we do an analysis of the impacts of that, May revise, and uh departments are uh at that point uh usually submitting reduction plans.

So we have a budget gap virtually every year.

The cost of providing services always grows faster than our projected revenue, and so every year we have to figure out how to close that structural funding gap so that uh the board can adopt, we can present and the board can adopt a balanced budget.

So traditionally, the county administrator's office has presented its recommended or proposed budget to the board in early June.

We also typically have the board adopt that budget by the end of the fiscal year or by June 30th.

By code, uh some counties have a two-step process, and so um others will come back and adopt the budget in uh the state's deadline is October 2nd.

Um so moving on to the next slide.

Um, this is the budget work group membership as it exists currently.

So we have two board members on the current uh on the budget workgroup, the county administrator, the sheriff, the district attorney, the auditor controller, directors of uh some of our largest agencies, Alameda County Health, Social Services, Public Works, General Services, the chief probation officers also on the budget work group.

And then we have two representatives from labor, one that is selected by the labor coalition and one by the management unions, two representatives of community-based organizations.

Uh, this has traditionally been one in North County, and one from South County.

Uh, and then we do have one unincorporated area representative that I've bolded here.

This person is designated by the Board of Supervisors, and then a couple other regional representatives.

So, one rep from the Tri-Valley area, one from Tri-City area, and then we also have two community members, one from the League of Women Voters and one from the taxpayers' association.

So there are 20 total members in this budget work group that helps guide our budget development process.

Um, and I'm gonna turn it over to my colleague Adam to present the next series of slides.

Good evening, supervisors.

Uh, tonight I'll be talking about what is in the fiscal year 25-26 unincorporated services budget.

Um, in June when I presented before this committee, I spoke about many items that have historically been in the budget.

So tonight I'm gonna be focusing on some new additions this year.

Sure, is this better?

Yeah, so just a preview of what's to come in the next several slides.

I'm gonna be talking about several new updates to the unincorporated services budget this year.

Uh, these include key investments by departments, a breakdown of revenue by department, a breakdown of discretionary services and supplies by department, budget unit detail.

So for every department, I'm gonna go over what that means.

Demographic overview of the unincorporated areas, and then selected additional expenditures for both capital projects and school and community programs.

So one new element that this year's unincorporated services budget includes is a demographic overview of the unincorporated areas based on US census information.

So the four charts that we're looking at are much more clearly visible in the budget itself, but they are breakdowns of residents by place, by age group, by race, ethnicity, and then a breakdown of households by household income.

So the next two slides should look familiar, because these are elements that have historically been in this section of the budget.

So I'm not going to spend too much time on them.

This is a breakdown of municipal services in the unincorporated areas.

So just as a refresher, every agency and department in the county provide services to residents of the unincorporated areas, but the five departments that we're looking at on the screen have primary responsibility for municipal services.

So right now we're looking at just the subset of services that are municipal services.

As you can see for the fiscal year 25-26 budget, the public works agency is reporting 187 million in appropriations, and then it's followed in order by the fire department, the sheriff's office, the community development agency, and the county library.

And these are figures that each department is reporting.

The next slide shows a breakdown of these appropriations by major object.

Again, this is going to look pretty familiar from what I presented in June.

You see services and supplies at more than half of this appropriations budget, followed by salaries and benefits, other financing uses, fixed assets, and other charges.

And then one more that's gonna look relatively familiar.

This is a breakdown of funding sources over time.

So here you see additional taxes.

So that's gonna be the business license tax, the hotel and lodging tax, and the utility users tax.

There's available fund balance, property tax, and other revenues.

This is an element that has been in recent unincorporated services budgets.

It appears again this year.

So now these next several slides are going to be new additions that our office made that were not in last year's budget.

This first one breaks down revenue by department.

So previously we have broken down revenue by type, but we have not shown a graph like this breaking it down by department.

So for fiscal year 2526, public works reports 185 million in revenue, the fire department reports approximately 82, sheriff's office approximately 45, the library 14.5 million, and the community development agency 13.4 million.

Just like in past years, the unincorporated services budget includes a breakdown of key responsibilities of each of these five departments, but new this year we're also showing key investments by each department.

So these are investments for the current fiscal year, and this is not comprehensive.

These are selected investments to provide a concrete example of what these departments are spending their budget on.

I'm not gonna go through each of these, but this is in the budget documents.

We include both this graph that you're seeing, and also a description of this category of spending.

So discretionary services and supplies include several types of expenditures that are detailed in that paragraph up there.

This includes rents and leases, repair and maintenance, professional and specialized services, administration and financial services, contracts with community-based providers, and other types of expenditures.

This next new addition is budget unit details.

What we're seeing on the screen is just the top, and this continues for every department of those five providing municipal services.

So what this does is it says for each of these departments, here are the budget units that are receiving appropriations.

And then if you look in the columns, starting from the far right, you see the current year approved appropriation, last year's approved appropriation, and then for fiscal year 23-24, both the approved and the actual appropriation.

So this provides the ability to do a lot more granular analysis than what was previously possible from the unincorporated services budget.

The next two tables.

So up until now I've been talking about municipal services.

The next two tables widen the lens and look at other county investments in the unincorporated areas beyond municipal services.

So on the screen now we're looking at capital projects.

This is a selection of capital projects.

You can see Measure X number of capital investments by the fire department, as well as a number of other investments there.

Measure A1 investments from CDA, priority one projects from the General Services Agency, et cetera.

And again, this is just a selection.

This is this is not all inclusive.

This is another table showing additional investments.

These are school and community programs from Alameda County Health, starting with the REACH Ashland Youth Center investment for 2526.

So both the past table and this table are new elements that we haven't shown in prior years that provide examples of additional investments beyond municipal services.

So as was hopefully clear from the last couple slides, we've made an effort to not only provide more granular detail but also widen the lens and show some additional investments beyond municipal services.

But I do want to be clear that the budget section is not all inclusive, and there are a couple types of investments that I want to talk about on this slide that are still not included in this budget section.

One are what we refer to as mid-year budget adjustments.

These are requests that departments come to the board of supervisors with over the course of the budget year.

And as an example, between fiscal year 21 and fiscal year 25, Alameda County Health invested over 9 million in county funds toward Eden Medical Center.

And because of matching federal funds, the total amount of that associated expenditure was 19.8 million for that associated appropriation.

The other category that I want to highlight are countywide services.

So these are services available to all residents, including residents in the unincorporated areas.

And then as an example, the social services agency serves thousands of residents in the unincorporated areas that are enrolled in these programs that we're looking at on the screen.

These are the total number of clients living in the unincorporated areas as of last month.

So you see approximately 40,000 individuals participating in Medi-Cal, approximately 13,000 in CalFresh, almost 2,000 in CalWorks, as well as individual participating in general assistance.

And then since we're talking about the budget document, I wanted to share a couple updates this year.

We used a new budget platform that has some additional capability.

So when looking online, there's some new search capabilities.

There's a new language translation feature with a drop-down where you can translate the budget document into a number of different languages.

There's also increased accessibility, including read aloud capability in this year's budget.

And with that, I'm going to turn it back to Nellan.

Thank you, Adam.

So moving forward, you know, these slides are just intended to sort of talk about options that we have in terms of next steps.

So what we have on this slide is you know an idea that we uh can potentially pursue.

This can take shape in really different forms.

I think what we've outlined here is an example of how it could move forward.

So we could, for example, engage an external partner to help us take a look at.

Thank you.

To help us take a look at a survey of management models used by comparable urban counties.

Um, you know, we have relationships with our other partner counties and can really deepen that research.

Um we can do an assessment of our current management challenges and barriers to help understand where we have opportunities to more likely move forward and really ensure that the recommendations are tailored specifically to the county of Alameda.

We can look at ballpark cost estimates associated with recommendations as well as potential funding sources.

And then again, this is just, you know, for the sake of example, you know, this is a project that we imagine would take a length of time if it's done in a robust way.

You know, we imagine it would take at least a year, likely longer, with the hope that we would be able to provide a status update midway through the project and hopefully present a much more robust presentation at the end of the project.

And again, moving forward and hopefully segueing to the second item in terms of areas of opportunity.

Again, in response to some of the concerns lifted up in the My Eat Invoice report, we have Adam went through a number of enhancements that we have added to the unincorporated special budget.

I think you know, we have a lot of ideas as to how we can continue to deepen the analysis with the departments that are both providing direct municipal services to the unincorporated areas, but also how we can, you know, work with our departments that are providing countywide services and really better capture the investment and the benefit to the unincorporated areas in ways that we have not uh traditionally been able to really highlight.

Um again, you know, as you saw in the last slide, we have uh thoughts and ideas uh with respect to facilitating and providing oversight over a research project to develop recommendations to move this work forward, exploring additional models of budget input and participation uh to better support robust resident and stakeholder engagement.

Um, website enhancements, I think this is low-hanging fruit.

You know, we're certainly happy to work with District 4, as I understand, has been operating a website uh specifically for the unincorporated area.

We can talk about um, you know, what uh ideas folks have, um, what would be helpful to enhance on that website and partner on those enhancements.

Um, and then um, as I mentioned, you know, just continuing ongoing efforts to deepen the work with agencies and departments to to really better capture county investments in the unincorporated areas.

Um so that's uh that wraps up our presentation.

I'm happy to take any questions.

Thank you.

So I'll see if um Supervisor Tam has any questions in or comments.

Um, Supervisor Tan is on the county's budget um work group as one of the two supervisors with uh President Halbert.

So I'm gonna I defer to her anyway, but I'm gonna defer to her at the moment, and then I'll make some comments and add some questions.

Thank you, Chair Miley and thank you uh for that presentation.

Um just a couple of observations.

Uh first off, when we look at the revenue by department, because we're we're talking about municipal services, which are different than the ones that we've been hearing about, the need where people want family health and wellness services, mental health care, you know, food security, those are programs we provide countywide.

And then you had a zeroed in on or Adam has zeroed in on some of the services that are offered in the unincorporated area.

But in terms of revenue by department, I think my invoice community wanted to understand, you know, like where did the money go?

So what I'm trying to understand is like when you look at the revenues, what is the source of the revenue for public works or the fire department, community development?

Are they all grant funding or where does the money come from?

We can provide uh more detail as to the sources of the revenue by by department.

I think it's it's really a uh pretty robust mix of revenue.

So um, you know, I would point out that for FIRE and the county library, they have their own assessment.

And so it's it's a pretty straightforward um accounting in those cases because those funds really stay within FIRE and within the library.

Anything that is budgeted and unspent for the county library and for fire remains in that fund.

And I think over the course of the couple of meetings that we had, we talked a little bit about fund balance and how that works.

You can see in the budget that those departments, public works also has budgeted use of fund balance.

So essentially what's happening is they're taking savings that is accrued from prior years and redeploying it in the budget.

Right.

So basically, there's a funding gap that's being filled by prior year savings.

But what I'm trying to understand is the amount of revenue, because we don't always cite uh the source of revenue to the a specific source, because clearly all the studies that have shown through LAFCO and through the ones that Supervisor Miley's office had put together is the amount of revenue that you typically generate from a city, whether it's you know TOT tax, whether it's I guess I don't know how many meters we have, but uh all those tax all uh basically the property taxes up, they're not sufficient to meet the needs of the municipal services, not the overall.

That's correct.

Yes.

So the studies that have been done will exclude fire and library because they have their own assessment, those services would continue as they exist, but in a hypothetical scenario where you know an unincorporated area would choose to incorporate, uh, what those studies have generally found over time is that the revenue that's generated isn't sufficient to cover the municipal services.

Um so it will typically show.

I think the most recent study that was done by Berkson and Associates showed you know an eight or nine million dollar gap.

Um, so you know that is a challenge.

I think there is uh, you know, economies of scale that are achieved via the county government structure because you know, central services that all of the cities benefit from are essentially, you know, those services can be provided to the unincorporated areas uh at a lower cost than you know what you would see in a city framework.

So, okay.

Um then the uh the last two questions I had pertain more toward um like some of the uh unincorporated services that um that are more like the health care and the safety net programs that we provide, um, because we like I I just did a ribbon cutting for the Wilmachan Family Resource Center.

They provide family health and wellness, they provide mental health care referrals, they provide diapers, they provide uh access to food, they sign people up for health care insurance, which by the way, anybody that needs to enroll and need to determine whether they should enroll in Medi-Cal should do it before the end of the year so that we can get a better understanding.

Uh, are we tracking um the usage of these facilities?

Because it from the community, it sounds like they don't know the resources are there.

Like Law Familiar provides very robust uh mental health care support in the unincorporated area and in Hayward.

Yeah, I mean, I think we would have to work closely with the agencies and departments that administer those contracts and you know, sort of think about how we can better message and represent the the breadth of services that's provided.

So our existing budget document has a pretty comprehensive list of the various contracts that are funded, both by program as well as by provider.

Um, but I think we could, you know, we could take a look at how we can better represent the services that are provided throughout the county.

Um so that's yeah, that's something we can certainly partner closely with the agencies and departments on to figure out how we can better represent those investments.

Okay, so the last question I had was on the list of stakeholders in terms of inputting into the budget process, you had 20 20 people, and there's an unincorporated area representative uh that is designated by the board of supervisors.

Um you know the the quality or the the type of input we're getting from that representative.

So historically, it's my understanding that representative has for many years come from the San Lorenzo Village Homes Association.

We haven't had an active participant representing the unincorporated area in a few years.

Really, the discussion that's happening at the budget work group level is is quite high level.

Right.

So, you know, if anything, I would suggest we look at additional opportunities for engagement.

I understand uh that it is at a very high level, but uh it was mainly a way for uh that high-level communication to get back to the unincorporated area.

But if we're if the person hasn't been able to attend because of scheduling issues or or whatnot, we maybe look at another representative possibly, but I like um the the next steps in terms of like having a more focused uh work group that is uh gathering input specifically for what's happening in the unincorporated area and zeroing in on the budget needs.

Thank you.

I think that chances are some good questions, and I'm gonna just be all over the place, because you asked a lot of good questions, and I want to follow up on a few of them.

So um yeah, I kind of looked at Peter, because I know the person who served on the committee in the past is Nancy Van Hoffel.

Nancy hasn't served in a while, in fact, she's passed away.

Uh, but we would need if it's gonna be one person, we'd need someone who's kind of really grounded in budgetary uh fiscal matters if it's one person.

So if there is such a person, uh, Slinda, were you on that committee?

Do you want to you want to you want to join in again, Linda?

I I want to what is my we were all pointing to Linda.

Okay, so give get us someone who's got the time to serve, yes.

Get someone, give us someone who's got the time to serve.

Uh so we can so we can appoint that person, us uh um lean and I would make make sure that that happens.

Uh, but it has to be someone who's got the expertise, the knowledge, and the time, yes.

Yes, okay.

First thing.

Second thing, um, we saw a slide up here in terms of opportunities.

Now, what I didn't see anything mentioned about the Macs.

We've got five, we've four four Macs now.

Sonole, Eden, Cashavale, Fairview, and then you know, Halbert wants to produce a Mac in the East County.

So ultimately, we might have five Macs.

Why aren't we trying to utilize them the MACs more in terms of an opportunity because the MACs meet generally once a month?

Cashavale meets three times a month, um, because they're so big.

But what had did have we given any consideration to the MACs?

Because the Macs are an arm of the county.

I mean, they're an official arm of the county, and they represent the community, and quite frankly, the Macs saved me a lot of work.

If we didn't have the MAX, my office would be doing a lot more work because I let me not let me just tell you that.

Because before we had Fairview, we were going to meetings quite a bit.

So I know the Macs they run a lot of interference and a lot of issues, and some things percolate up to the board of supervisors, but some things don't.

So, what why aren't we trying to tap more into the MACs?

We we can certainly look into that option.

Um, one of my former colleagues, Pete Coletto, who I think many of you uh would remember, um, did uh propose at one point a model that would increase engagement um at the MAC level.

And so, you know, I think that's something we can dig up some of his previous proposals and see.

Please do because once again the Macs meet generally once a month.

They're brown, they're brown acted, so no one part of the community can be set can say well you're favoring another part of the community because they're brown acted so anyone can participate it's not like you know special interest calling a meeting and only some people can come to that meeting the Macs are official arms of the county so I really do think we need to be utilizing the MAX around the you know this whole budget uh discussion and transparency and input and engagement yada yada yada right I think the uh from what I recall the results of a lot of the work that Pete had done I think you know what we're really looking for was being able to distill the feedback that was coming at that level you know either centrally here at unincorporated services with the hope that it would return you know and you know come back to the budget work group um and be represented by the unincorporated area representative on the budget work group so I think that would be ideal.

Yeah so I'm hoping Melanie um you and Adam and County administrators office long Supervisor Tam can figure that out.

She's on the budget work group I mean she she knows more about this stuff than I do okay uh let's see um if the unincorporated area were a city you know when we did Eli um we started Eli in 2003 2006 something like that United Livability initiative and that's when we started saying if the unincorporated area were a city it'd be the fourth largest city what would from your presentation what would the budget be for the unincorporated area if it were a city oh I don't know that we've contemplated that question I mean I think some of the reports that have been commissioned attempt to do that.

So if I recall correctly the Berkson and associates report again this would be excluding so what we showed the figures that you just saw this evening showed the numbers reported by the departments providing municipal services at I think it's 375 million four so it's 385 million.

If we were to exclude fire and library because those services would continue as they exist even in an incorporation scenario um we're looking at 275 million but the revenue generated um across the unincorporated areas is on the order of about 50 million so okay so if we exclude fire and library you're saying it's about 200 and what?

275 million would be the value services currently in the budget provided by those departments provided revenue that's generated in the corporate area you're saying it's about 50 million the estimate was about a little under 50 million from the 2023 report so I see okay um it's if we could flag that 275 um expenditures in the unincorporated area revenue about 50 million okay all right um the budget um justice group when they gave us a budget it showed Hayward and they compared the unincorporated area to Hayward did you have a chance to look at that and do any uh analysis or do you have any feedback on that?

Yeah so and generally speaking I think it's it's challenging to construct an apples to apples comparison when you're looking at city government because our we're just fundamentally structured differently um and what's not captured in the current format of our unincorporated services budget is the value of the central services right and how how would we you know um capture the value of the centrally provided services like the auditor controller and the other countywide services that that's you know embedded in the city budget but um you know we don't really have a direct way to because we don't it's challenging to talk about it in a return to source type framework um difficult to sort of parse out the value of those central services for particular geographic areas.

Okay.

Now, you know, uh Supervisor tam and I both represent a portion of Oakland, and uh Oakland's constantly saying they don't, you know, we don't put enough resources in Oakland to do we have a sense.

Now I'm talking about I'm not talking about just municipal, but I'm talking about other because Supervisor Tan was kind of leading talking about this.

The county has a lot of contracts to provide a lot of services.

Do we have a figure from social services, health care, probation, um, other county agencies and departments, do we have a figure how much money we are putting into the unincorporated area?

Because I'm tired I'm always hearing, oh, the unincorporated areas is so underinvested, this, that, and the other.

And I really would like to know how much money are we putting into the unincorporated area from the counties, it's about a six billion dollar budget, right?

Yes, okay, so that's six billion dollars.

You know, I'm a little sensitive in Oakland because Oakland's always complaining about we don't put enough resources in Oakland.

Do we have a sense of how much how money, how money, you know, the value of the resources we are putting into the unincorporated area from all the county agencies, departments, contracts, is that any other uh, so we so we can demonstrate the level of investment in the incorporate area and we can put uh and into this constant um barrage of well, we don't get enough, you know, resources, because I I dare to believe that that's that's a falsity, but I'd like until you give us the figure, I can't say that.

Sure.

So it would uh this would be not some.

So we it's we don't have a figure that we can represent because we because of the nature of the regional services that the county provides, right?

We've attempted to capture more geographic data based on the countywide contracts that we fund, it's it's essentially half of the discretionary services and supplies budget goes to funding contracts, um, but because so many of those contracts are providing services on a regional basis.

This is how the RFPs are constructed, they're asking for a vendor to provide services either countywide or it's regional like North County, South County, East County.

Um, so it's not um we're often not in a position to be able to specifically capture the value of services in the unincorporated area.

I think there are metrics that we can look at to better define the investments, um, so we can work on that.

Yes, I think you know I can see maybe us not being able to do that, let's say for Oakland, but because the unincorporated area counties provide some municipal services, if there's a way that the county administrators office can figure out the level of investment in the unincorporated area, since we are the municipal government, not just the you know, the 300 and some 385, 390, 385 million, we've got that, um, but what are the other levels of investment in the uncorporate area?

Because Supervisor Tam France was talking about um behavioral health and mental health, and that's not reflected here, but it would be reflected in the behavioral health department, for instance.

I so if there's a way of trying to um capture that, I think it would be helpful just so folks could see the level of investment going into the unincorporated area for the hundred and fifty thousand people that live here, yes, roughly.

Yes.

So I I think you know, again, this is an opportunity for the county administrator's office via the budget process to really engage with the subject matter experts and our partners at um, you know, the agency and department level to figure out how we can better capture that information.

They administer the contracts, they know where the services are provided, so to the extent that we can um you know better estimate the value.

Um, yeah, because I think Adam, when he made his presentation, he talked about some of the key investments by departments, and you know, we talked about the funding we provide to you know, Eden um Medical Center or Eden Hospital.

Um as another example, but uh and and there's a good examples, but if we could some kind of way capture the all of the investments to the and even if it's not all because this is 80% of what we were able to capture, I think it would be mind-boggling for people to see in the unincorporated area the amount of investments that are coming uh into the incorporate area from the county uh not just from the departments that provide municipal services but social services health care probation etc etc yeah okay um I think those are all my questions for now uh so very same do you have anything else before we open up the public uh just quickly about the uh additional expenditures when when you look at um like for example the reach ashland uh center and all the services that it it provides that's three and a half million out of the total about four point five million so does the reach ashland center basically uh only serve the unincorporated area for those types of services because uh the difficulty that you're talking about is like we don't really care what address you come from when we provide mental health care services we don't ask our resident well are you from the unincorporated area and are you gonna be moving soon somewhere we we just provide the service right similarly with food stamps they they can go anywhere so I I can understand how maybe difficult to disaggregate but it seems like we spend a bulk of our services on youth and family in the unincorporated area.

Yeah so these these figures again they're selected additional expenditures these are figures that are reported to us by Alameda County Health we you know put out a survey to the departments to try and better capture uh these investments that we haven't traditionally featured in this section because in the past it's really exclusively focused on the city type or municipal services we realize the value in being able to capture some of this additional information so I think what we're seeing is just the beginnings of you know what what additional investment we can really capture and portray.

Okay.

Because it might be helpful um Melanie because it's showing that um the uh process for the budget development and passage uh so when department heads and agency heads are are requested to begin their their thinking uh about the budget and and providing documentation maybe there could be another um um item to ask them to provide uh information and this is all agency departments information on the the level of funding and services they provide in the unincorporated area since the county is you know uh responsible for you know the delivery of governmental services out here and that that could be a start for we can begin to capture some of that just as an example yeah okay let's um call the speakers uh from the public I'll alternate between in-person and online speakers first in-person speaker Elena Torres okay as we discussed in corporate area budget I respectfully urge you to prioritize transparency and accountability not using the short term but in the long term residents that have clear answers to three key questions what specific steps will be the county take to ensure transparent and public reporting of annual budget funds including Monsieur Worp unincorporate funds especially so residents in an uncorporated clearly track progress how wills we track it and guarantee to the turto promise services rather than sitting in use it or diverted which under which undermines public trust who will hold county departments accountable when allocations are not delivered as intended and how will the accountability be visible to the community in its department equally critical is community tracking residents in the areas like Cherry Land already face the deep sky service gaps.

We need to know what systems and data will be used to confirm that resources are truly reaching our neighborhoods both now and in the future to ensure better communication we kindly requesting can we can or municipal agency agency departments publish their uncorporary budgets every December for us to review transparency and accountability will trust and prevent loss of money.

And the promise that you make when you become a supervisor um is fulfilled thank you caller you're on the line we're on item one you have two minutes Charles hello uh my name's Charles Pisano uh I'm San Lorenzo resident of my Aiden Voice Board Supervisor Miley you stated that you have a feeling that there's plenty of investment or a sufficient investment in the community but you don't know there uh and I've heard supervisor TAM state there are the services uh right down the street from my house on Royal and uh they are good they're open they've they're offering a lot of what's needed and there are other sources out there for mental health for food for all these things but when I listen to the community members that's not the story at all so there might be a few factors at work number one you don't know what the budget really is and I strongly applaud you pursuing that and getting down to the bottom of it with the experts.

Number two I don't think you truly understand the community's needs and really in fact communication is poor.

Even if those services are out there and they're more than adequate for everybody people on the street don't know about it.

And I I am not an expert on any of this stuff I'm glad to help if I can but I wish you well thank you.

Rosemary Vasquez I echo what has been said um Chas just mentioned right now he stole my words so stole my thunder um but when my voice sent out that gave the report send out the letter that had a specific questions specific asks and I don't think that none of them have been actually answered so there's no response as far as I'm concerned you're trying and we are in communication and I think that there's a saying the road to health is paved with good intentions I have good intentions and I'm sure your all five representatives have good intentions but they're not being um they're not being utilized and not being handled properly.

I don't have all the answers.

But I do ask you to please look at the letter.

Please answer the specific questions and let's start to work.

Because the letter is specified specifies and asks for specific things that need to be answered in order for the work to continue forward openly.

And it's not being done.

When it comes down to the unincorporated areas, you mentioned that we have resources, but if they're not being communicated, if I doing what I do on a daily basis in my little city, because 900 students in one elementary school, that's a city.

If I don't know what's down the street, 80% of the people that I'm serving don't know either.

So how successful are you in?

So I ask you, I beg you.

Let's let's let's do this.

Because if you answer those questions, and if we get to work with your great staff that you have here.

Because you have great staff.

People that care.

Or not doing the work.

Thank you.

Caller, you're on the line.

You have two minutes, Juliana.

Hi, good evening, supervisors.

My name is Juliana Wise Leon.

I work for Eden United Church of Christ in Cherryland.

And we are proud members of the budget justice committee for the unincorporated communities.

Um grateful to hear the county administrators' office report and grateful that you're taking on this important topic.

And some of the comments that Supervisor Miley were was making made me think, wow, well, you know, so much of all of those issues could be clearer if we had unincorporated specific contracting, as we have had through the ARPA contracts, because one of the things that CBOs face in the unincorporated area is competing with you know large Oakland CBOs.

Um and so it makes it really difficult to build capacity and to stay competitive so that we can provide services in the unincorporated communities, and in order to do that, right?

Well, what is the accountability for that?

And we I continue and we all continue to uplift the need for an office of unincorporated services that would allow you know specific personnel to keep track on those investments.

I do think we don't get the whole story, we don't get the whole uh uh amount of investments that the county is making, and so really orchard to continue building towards that as the community has has pointed us towards uh for many years.

Thank you.

Leo Esclamado.

Hi, good evening, supervisors and county staff.

Uh, my name is Leo, co-director of My Eden Voice.

Uh, we welcome the information and analysis the CAO offices provided.

Um, we hope these reports start a new standard of transparent budget and ongoing dialogue for communities.

I mean, 34 pages versus eight pages, that's a win.

Yeah, so thank you.

We do still have outstanding questions as mentioned by our members.

I think I wanted to uplift one.

Particularly, why is there a reported gap of consistent underspending of what is appropriated versus what is spent in?

I mean, we did still track in those public reports one year was as high as 30% of funds unspent.

So, how do we better communicate that to our members?

Um, that's why our members are alarmed that you know the 1.3 billion dollar gap in the past 22 years.

That was just based on what was, you know, the numbers and uh listed in the past public reports.

So I think what all this leads to is we need a consistent way of having department level reports for the unincorporated area or asked today is we request department budgets that serve the unincorporated area residents be published for all of us to understand annually every December, because once we hit the countywide budget input process in the spring, it's a different focus.

People said, I mean, we've heard it's too high level, and we believe it's too late for our residents to meaningfully weigh in.

I mean, we have one voice to represent 160,000 people amidst 20 stakeholders.

We support the efforts of the budget justice coalition, um, and piloting the community town halls with Max, we're we're we're uh part of that.

Um, but the next step is really to how to coordinate with departments earlier to identify and understand resident gaps, and we hope these conversations can happen in the fall before everyone's respective um maintenance of efforts budgets are submitted, right?

So you know they could easily integrate or at least be mindful of having that look of what's going on uh with uh in the unincorporated area before you jump into the larger countywide process.

So that's all for today.

Thank you.

Kelly approved.

I haven't looked at the county budget too much, but I my eyes are opened here looking at these slides.

I'm amazed.

Um, I know that some of you might be familiar with this budget of the city of Oakland.

Um, I looked at that budget, I looked at the City of Fremont budget, and I found that the Fremont budget, which has um a larger population, significantly more than 150,000 people.

Their budget is 270 million general fund, and this budget is 380 million dollars for fewer people.

It's amazing.

I came here to see it's it's just uh uh it's like Alice in Wonderland, it's like Disneyland on those slides to see those enormous numbers, how much money you're pumping into these 150,000 people unincorporated.

It's incredible.

Public works in Fremont or Oakland gets 15 or 20 percent of the budget.

Here it's getting over 50 percent of the budget goes into public works.

I mean, I I go down these streets, they should be paved with gold.

It's amazing the amount of money that you're pouring into the public works.

And then you everyone here today was asking for more social services, and that all takes labor.

You know, mental health, behavior, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, health care.

All of this is labor.

It's all about labor wages and salaries.

And in Fremont or Oakland, they're spending 68% of their budget on wages and benefits.

That's normal in many cities in California.

68%, whatever.

It's a big number.

In this county, it was 48%.

It's like below half.

That's why there's no service services going in here.

That's why there's these people don't aren't getting anything, because there's no money going into wages and benefits in this county.

This county is this the numbers there.

If I if those were real, the this place would be better paved than Dublin, and it was the mental health here would be better than Los Altos Hills.

Thank you.

Carmen Lopez, Carmen Lopez, good evening, Supervisor Tam, Supervisor Miley, and all who are present here today.

My name is Carmen Lopez, a resident of Fairview, and I am a member of My Eden Voice and its Fair Share Committee.

After learning about the way the budget is distributed in the Eden unincorporated area, according to my item voice's fair share analysis report, I learned that 47% of the budget was allocated to public works agency.

However, we still are lacking sidewalks and streets repairing in the Fairview community, being Fairview Avenue and Hanson Street, some of the affected streets, creating unsafe conditions, especially to pedestrians.

Between 2002 and 2023, a cumulative under spending of 1.4 billion dollars has been reported.

So my question is: why has this need not been addressed?

I know for a fact that the homeowners in this area pay a very high property taxes, and it makes no sense that they are still lacking sidewalks, especially, and some streets are in dire need of repair.

On the same token, the public library receives 4% 12 million dollars of the budget for libraries.

There are only they're only ones in San Lorenzo, Castor Valley, and recently in Cherry Land.

But there are still no libraries in Ashland, Fairview and Hayward Acres, where there is a significant number of students.

I believe these communities also need their own libraries to provide a safe space where children can receive help with homework, improve their reading skills, and receive enrichment act enriching activities as well as providing a friendly space for adults and seniors where they can enjoy reading and expanding their knowledge.

And again, my question is why hasn't this need been addressed?

There being 1.4 billion of unspent money, and how can residents make their recommendations to your offices about these needs?

To ensure better transparency, we are asking can our municipal agency departments publish their unincorporated area budgets every December for us to review.

We need to be provided with transparency.

I am a strong believer that committee needs to have a say in how these funds should and need to be spent.

I look forward to your consideration and comments.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, everyone.

My name is Jimena Bugarin, and I live in the unincorporated area.

I'm part of SLAM.

And what else is more closer?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I wanted to talk about like the opportunity we have in the community.

I've noticed that there is a lot of opportunity, but it's not advertised in a way that everyone knows.

And it's very hard to get into it.

And I've noticed that as in I'm a senior in my high school, and I've noticed I have more free time this year, and I want to involve myself in more academic ways to see what job I want to pursue in the future.

But I don't know where to look for because no one announces anything, and it's hard to do my research.

And when I find things that interest me, it's kind of far out of the area I live in.

And that's not really fair in the area we live in because there's a lot of youth.

And we see, but they're mainly at home because also the area we're around is dangerous, say, or they don't have transportation to go to the public spaces such as Reach.

It's far from where I live.

Yet it's a wonderful place, but it would be much greater if there was more areas like Reach around other youth areas, like other like closer to school.

So after school, you can go to somewhere safe and big that can stay for longer hours than after school.

And this provides more academic growth for the students, and they can discover how they want to be.

And I think that would be really important for the youth.

That's it.

Thank you.

Mimi.

Hi, my name is Mimi Dean.

And I just wanted to say that I really appreciate hearing all this budget information.

But there was a couple of pretty disturbing things.

The fact that like a lot of the public works money doesn't get spent and then gets put back into the budget.

Um, that's pretty sad because we have so much work that needs to be done in our unincorporated communities.

Um, you know, I hope that we can move forward.

I hope that we can get, I would love to see a team of people on the budget committee from the unincorporated community.

I think one person is just not enough.

And um, you know, I might even volunteer for that.

Um, if you take me.

So um, and both Nate and Lena, I thought you guys both answered asked really good questions and made really great comments.

And I just hope that we can move forward on this and really figure out why there's such a discrepancy between the data that my invoice presented a couple of months ago and then the the data that we saw presented tonight.

It seems like it's a big giant difference, and I'm just trying to wrap my head around that.

Like, how could it be so different?

And then, as far as what Kelly said, um, I'm a little concerned if the city of Fremont has such a smaller budget for public works, and um, that's that's that's pretty scary compared to like what the hell is going on with our public of works department.

I know that you guys know that I'm still trying to get Bachman Road fixed between Bohanan Middle School and Hesperian Drive.

It's been four years now, and it's still nothing has been done.

So I'd like to um just mention that and just say, hey man, let's get public works moving.

Thank you.

Isabel Archuleta, Isabel, Archuletta.

Um Isabel Archuleta.

I live in Cashville Valley, a budget for uh for the uh our corporate area is a portion for our community.

We deserve to have to have our community fair share.

Thank you.

Sandra, Sandra Archuletta.

Just want to say how proud I am of her.

She was really nervous.

Um I want to thank you, Supervisor Tan, for acknowledging the Wilma Chan Center.

It's something that we actually started when um Supervisor Brown was around, and it was really uh something that we really wanted to do to honor Supervisor uh Wilma Chan's legacy and the work that she really wanted for um for Hayward Acres, and I also really think it's important what you brought up is like how are the services that we're investing in?

Like, what are those outcomes look like?

Because I think that that's something that's really hard to look at in, you know, with numbers, but also really important.

Like, how is our money being invested and what are the outcomes of it?

I think is something that is hard to think about, but also worthwhile.

Um, I want to say that when we were here last year, the budget was thin.

And I picked up the budget today and it was thick.

And I think that if anything, I know there's a lot of work to be done, but I feel like that's a win, you know.

Like, we've been working at this for about a year.

Um, and progress is gonna take time, but it feels like a win to see such a detailed budget that we're nowhere near where we need to be, but we are better than we were last year, and I just feel like that's a good thing.

So I hope that we can continue to work at this.

I will also say that folks that need to be appointed.

I agree with Mimi when she says we need more people because you know, the communities are very diverse and they have different needs, and you know, we should really consider that when we are appointing people into these budget spaces.

I know it's kind of tough because it's very technical, but I think that we should have people that represent each of the communities or some of the communities and demographics.

Thank you.

Caller, you're on the line.

You have two minutes.

Barisha.

Unmute your microphone.

Oscar Gonzalez.

Greetings, uh, my name is Oscar Gonzalez.

I'm a resident of the Cherryland Unincorporated area.

Uh, I just want to start off by uh expressing my gratitude for efforts to improve the budget, you know, because any help is monumental.

You know, I just want to say that our unincorporated community is just like any other community out there.

It has needs that require satisfying so that the members of our community, so that our families so that they find fulfillment.

You know, families are the heart of our community.

So I think it's without a doubt important to make sure that these families have access to well-maintained parks and sufficient youth resources so that we have a happier community, so that we have a happier unincorporated community.

Thank you.

Ray Raimundo, Archileta.

Good evening, supervisors.

My name is Raimundo Artulita, and I live in Calcio Valley.

I am also.

Families like mine want the same opportunity for our kids.

They're available in nearby cities, safe parks, strong youth programs, and libraries that stay open after your school hours.

But too often these services and unincorporated communities are stressed in.

Without a clear unincorporated area budget, it's hard to know whether enough resources are being invested in the services or families abandoned.

This process you've started to make unincorporated budgets more visible is a huge step forward.

Please continue it and take the next step by creating an office of unincorporated communities.

The office can ensure youth and families in our neighborhoods are left behind and that our voices guide how funds are used.

Thank you.

No.

Peter Rosen.

Hi.

I want to start off by saying I'm speaking on my own behalf as a resident of more than 55 years in the unincorporated area.

Um I had six points that I went through on the PowerPoint, but after seeing the presentation, there's only a couple things I really want to talk about.

So maybe I can forward a letter on those other ones.

But I want to acknowledge thank you for uh Supervisor Tam for recognizing the one of the questions I had was about the um the advocate for the area and the fact now I understand because I never knew who it was.

Now we understand why is because the person hadn't been present for so long, so it's it's really critical we get somebody in there, and I don't have the time, so don't push me on that one.

Um I have a big suggestion on this.

When I'm looking at this, I think there's a level of confusion because I don't think anybody thinks that public works is spending 186,000 million dollars in the unincorporated area out of the general fund.

I believe that this budget would be more helpful if you did a basic thing that said um revenues in the unincorporated area, meaning um you would break it down by general fund and general taxing entities, and then these other sources, which is where I think this is inflated with, which is bond money, uh ARPA money, grant money, some of these other things.

Because my understanding is public works in the unincorporated area isn't a general fund budget line item.

There they get money from if they get grant money or these other things.

So so right now they're doing street improvements in some of these things, but other years they might not.

So this is going to fluctuate a lot.

I think it would be more realistic if we understood that.

I think it would be really helpful.

Um then there's a couple other things I wanted to talk about, but one important thing is that nowhere in this does it show the website with the search and um where the dialing down the new website that's gonna have the budget website.

I think that would be really helpful.

I really appreciate that.

That's in there.

Um I'll just leave it at that, but thanks.

Caller, you're on the line, you have two minutes.

Barisha.

Hi, um, as a resident of Ashland for over 30 years, uh, and a founding member of mine's like and a previous member of the Eli Governance leadership team.

Um it is I have seen uh the atrocities um in our neighborhoods.

Um the budget that was presented.

I don't see that public works is actually doing what they're they're they're not spending that much money on our community.

Um, for example, phase one of the East 14th Corridor Improvement Project hardly has any improvements.

Um, and you skip over to um past the phase two that I was a catalyst for phase two of the corridor improvement project on East 14th Street when it's going into Cherryland on East 14th Street, it has no improvements, it's not even consistent with uh phase two of the corridor improvement project that looks a mess, and then you finally get to Hayward.

Uh and Hayward has all of these improvements, of course.

And so it's it hasn't been thorough.

There's no uh there's no sidewalks and a lot of portions of um the unincorporated area.

There's also um a lot of other problems.

They have they had the pedestrian plan and all these different plans, and they it's been over 10 years and they haven't implemented that.

Um I don't I don't see the money that public works is doing.

As a matter of fact, I had a lot of complaints um to them about different things in the neighborhood, like oh, take I take public transportation and the the even the red um curbs were not long enough, the bus couldn't even fit in there, and I'm like all these different bus stops.

It's up to public works to do this work, and why am I doing the work when they should have been proactive with their own people finding these problems and getting them solved if they supposedly have this much money?

But I don't believe that that is that um amount was correct on the county budget, and again, there's this big report that says we were missing 1.3 billion dollars in the unincorporated area from my invoice, and so I felt that there's a disconnect here in so many different ways, and I'm also concerned about why thank you, thank you.

Your time's up, Marsha Lopez.

Terracita de Jesus.

Good afternoon, uh Supervisor Maile, Supervisor Tan.

My name is Teresita de Jesus and our children that serve Saith Spark jam programs and after the school libraries, those service are often undefined in our communities.

That's why it's so important to the unincorporated areas budget process continued in the office of the ad incorporated communities be great, insured.

That in the office.

Sorry, community be created to ensure the need in our communities admit.

Thank you.

Samantha Ramos.

Hi, my name is Samantha Ramos, and I'm a long life resident of Cherry Land.

I'm a leader of slam, and I grew up here having to see our roads crumble while living in neighborhood cities, have regular repairs.

As a student has long has studied long nights and having to worry about my education, I worry about libraries.

They mostly close down early and they mostly are just basically underfunded.

This experience are daily reminders that the unincorporated residents don't always get the same investments as in incorporated cities.

This is why continue the unincorporated budget is process is a very important to me.

It gives a clarity and a tool of accountability, but transparency is not enough.

We also need a system to oversee by establishing an office of unincorporated communities, you would be giving giving residents a place in eternity process to engage in any guarantee that when funds are underspend, we're also informed and included in deciding of where the where the money goes and where should it be used.

Thank you.

Linda Tangren.

Good evening.

Want to thank both supervisors for their questions tonight.

They've really dug in and I appreciated that.

Uh, but I want to tell you one thing.

I found it exceptionally disturbing that there has not been an unincorporated resident on this advisory committee.

It sends a message about how unemploy how important the unincorporated area is.

And I really think that having said that out loud, I know I know I was volunteered, and I did chair the budget committee on Eli, but the baby steps that we're taking are not adequate for what we're doing.

People complain about their roads and things like that.

And I know I look at the public works uh budget, and I know that they're also responsible for bridges and other things.

So I think that when people see figures like that, it's very disturbing to them because they can't figure out why their roads look like they do, and they don't really comprehend how extensive the things are that public works is asked to do.

I'm not saying we should be satisfied with the job, I'm just saying let's look at it honestly.

Let's do better than we're doing, and let us make sure that there is an advisor on the budget committee because and I will say this: when I was on Eli, I attended a couple of meetings.

If you appoint me to that, you better have them prepared for people who ask questions because I sat there and nobody asked one question, and I'm going, okay, why are you here?

So this is what I do, and you know that's what I do.

Thank you.

We have no more speakers for this item.

Okay, well, the speakers.

So Melanie, Adam.

What are both of you?

Um, initially, can you help us understand the public works aspect of this?

If you have any insight into that, and then can you also help us understand the the issue around the one point, is it three 1.8 billion dollars folks who are alleging hasn't been spent.

Sure.

So I talked a little bit about fund balance earlier when I presented a you know, want to restate for the record that for um departments like fire, the library, public works, um, the library and fire have zero general fund dollars.

They're completely funded within their own assessments, and those funds stay within those specific funds for library and fire.

Um, public works is a very small general fund component.

Historically, it's funded uh the surveyors and crossing guards, and that's it.

The vast majority of their budget comes from other sources, and so if um I think it's important to clarify the figures that you're seeing that um we presented that are reported by the departments as part of the uh municipal services and the unincorporated areas, those are appropriations.

That's the authority to spend.

It's a budget plan.

Um, often what we see due to you know various factors like high vacancy rates or you know, other issues in terms of uh when it comes to planning for capital projects.

I think anyone involved in a capital project or any experience related to capital, will understand that you have a plan, you have a timeline, often it doesn't go or it's not implemented according to that original plan, and so you have to make adjustments.

Um, what you see uh represented as part of the budget figures is some amount of fund balance that goes back into the budget every year.

Um I heard a couple of speakers reference that.

So essentially what's happening is if you have savings from a prior year that's unspent, it can go back into the budget.

Those funds, if we're talking specifically about public works, which as you saw is a big percentage of what's represented as the city type services in the unincorporated area.

Again, it's um not an apples to apples comparison to take a look at that and compare to a city because what you're looking at in a city budget includes all these other central services versus what we're looking at is just the municipal services in the unincorporated area.

Um there, uh anything that's uh unspent, you know.

I think the majority, one of the bigger funds that we're looking at in terms of where you see the discrepancy between spending authority and actuals is in the roads and bridges fund.

So it's you know we could provide additional detail as to um the the differences over the course of time um I my understanding of what's been captured is you know over the years if we're representing a difference between budgeted spending authority or appropriations and actuals you add that up you come up with that 1.3 billion dollar figure but what's happening every year some of that savings is going right back into the budget so um in some ways it's not an accurate representation of what's happening right like if you um are cumulatively if you're cumulatively adding up the difference between appropriations and actuals every year some of it goes right back into the budget so it what I'm trying to say is you're counting the same dollars.

Right.

You're saying it goes back into appropriations but yes what what I I noticed here um because we get a lot of reports about uh a lot of road work like Redwood Road was a major repair Tesla Road I mean this covers the unincorporated area even in East County and the uh the rural area not just the urban counties right yes for public works roads and bridges is exclusively unincorporated flood is mostly unincorporated uh there are a couple components that are not but it's vast majority is unincorporated but we don't make a distinction between like urban uh unincorporated versus rural unincorporated uh not in the budget document it's possible that at the depart the agency department level they have more data okay thank you let's see uh supervision do you have any other questions or comments okay um there was question there was commentary around the office of unincorporated services and we will be taking that up at the Board of Supervisors Transportation and Planning Committee meeting on October the 6th and that's at 9 30 right 9 30 folks you can either attend it's in you know at the county building in downtown Oakland or participate virtually so there will be uh a report on the Office of Unincorporated services 9 30 October 6th Monday um and I know uh the great Claudia Albano will be presenting that report um so she's been working on it and I know my office is going to provide some funding uh to bring on a consultant to help move that process forward uh but ultimately that'll be coming to the board along and that'll be part of Claudia's report um let me see here and don't think an office of unincorporated service I don't think anyone is um naive enough to think it's a panacea but it you know it's gonna be hopefully uh an asset.

Now did I hear Linda Tanger and say you want to be appointed to that budget work group?

Okay.

All right so because I have a lot of confidence in lean um in Linda you know Linda was on the school board in Castro Valley she was also on the oversight committee for measure A right you're on the Eli governance body etc etc yes so I have a lot of confidence that if we appoint Linda to the budget work group um she can represent the unincorporated area very well.

The other thing is if you notice on the budget work group I know folks have said we need to have more folks on it it's limited to stakeholders I mean someone from the Tri-Valley someone from the tri-cities someone from um a couple of community based organizations um someone from the unincorporated area uh two people from labor and just to respond to Kelly I know Kelly's walking out the door trust me we've got 23 24 bargaining units and they bargain very hard and we pay them a good salary.

If you work for the county, you get a good salary.

So trust me.

If it's 48% for public works that hey, I can't explain it, but um the bargaining units definitely um get paid a good money um and then maybe what we'll do is uh I'll let um the budget folks work on this on public works, but we'll we could bring public works in for a meeting here and drill down a little further just on that.

Um when you know we probably won't be able to do it before the first of next year, but we'll schedule that.

Ashley and Tona of my office are listening so we can drill down a little bit more on that, but in the meantime, hopefully um the budget folks will be working to try to get a little bit more understanding around the public works piece.

And was there anything else I'm trying to think that came up?

Um, is um I think it's gonna be helpful if we can further outline kind of that discrepancy between the funding that my invoice through their report came up with uh you know 1.8 billion or whatever, and how um the county administrators' office explained it.

If we could just kind of uh flesh that out a little bit uh uh clearer.

And then in the budget um the approved budget booklet that the um that the that was presented for the whole public.

I thought they also wanted to have something in the budget book.

Am I re recalling that correctly?

The a reference in the budget book.

Well, what am I what was it, Claudia?

So it isn't.

Okay, okay.

It's gonna be in the future budget book, or it's in this budget book for 2526.

It's in 2526, okay.

All right, okay, okay.

If you want to come to the mic, introduce yourself, the great Claudia Albano.

I'm Claudia Albano with Supervisor Miley's office.

Um, I just think it's really important that we start thinking now about the link between the person who sits on the countywide budget committee and the the unincorporated area budget process and questions.

I mean, it's it would be how would Linda or anybody be able to liaise with all the Macs and the community groups, and and what can she really do besides listen and ask a few questions?

She can't really advocate for the advocate the unincorporated area budget.

Where does that process happen?

You know, and I have to also say that the person who was appointed last time was very eager to participate, and she was a matter of fact, came from your district supervisor, and the meetings were called the day before, they were in the middle of the day.

It was very hard for her to be a good appointee.

So I think that what's missing in the conversation, not that we can solve it now, but need to think about is what is the relationship between the unincorporated areas, budget questions, and their process, and uh how and the person who's on this countywide budget committee.

So I'm gonna I'm gonna dip depend on you and Supervisor Tam's office and Linda to figure that out.

Try and read to fire.

Yes, yes, one last comment.

Frank Mellon, Castro Valley.

You're right, that's a formidable task to put on one person.

However, you've already offered a solution, Supervisor Miley, the Max.

And that is you've got these Macs that are sitting out there.

So if that person had a subcommittee of Macs working with her, then she could fulfill the task that you're talking about.

Again, just a suggestion.

Thank you, Mr.

Mellon, who retired by the desire from the East Bay Mud Board.

Thank you.

So I I appreciate what you came up with, Mr.

with Frank, and I wasn't gonna say anything more because I was gonna let them, I was gonna let them figure that out.

But I was hoping something to that effect.

Okay, all right, good.

So I think this has been a good, a good um report this evening.

We have one other item, but I've been told that the director of the public works agency wants to speak.

So I'm gonna allow him to speak.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Alright.

So I just wanted to clarify a few things since uh public works was uh raised quite a bit.

So you see a large dollar value in the pie chart.

Uh I would like to state two things.

One, most of our projects do not just follow uh fiscal year or budget year.

So a single project usually takes us between three to five to seven years, and that money is built up accordingly.

So even though it looks like we're not spending it, we are actually spending it because we have to build it up so that it can get to spend that much money.

For example, we do on Mission Boulevard right now, getting ready to advertise and uh get a contractor.

We started that almost six years ago.

Look for funding sources, design process and all that stuff.

When you add it up, you are spending about 50 million dollars.

Uh and in order to spend that money, we need to get this funding.

So when we budget it, it looks like as if we're not spending that money until it's ready to be spent uh when the project is ready.

So this this notion that we are budgeting and not spending it is actually intentional.

It's the way we build capital improvement.

We don't generate enough revenue in one year to do all these work that we do.

So we have to build these things, put them in the fund balance, and transfer them into uh into the uh budget year when it's ready to be built because we have to put all that money when we do contract with a contractor.

If it's a 30 million dollar project, that 30 million has to be encumbered with that project.

So that's that's one thing I want to really clarify.

There is no build-up of money.

The revenues that we get are number one, gas tax revenues or measure B, sales tax revenues that is countywide uh revenue that's generated.

We get almost no general fund in for public works.

The only general fund we get is like stated earlier for crossing guards, and uh, you know, for the six billion dollar budget, we basically get this year we increased our uh general fund needs by 50,000.

So you can see that we really don't get any general fund money, which is most of the money used for social services and other uh community-based safety net organiz uh services.

So uh I just want to clarify so when people think about public works, don't think we're building up that money, we have to do that in order to generate that.

We only get maybe about 50 million dollars a year and recurring revenues, and about 50% of that is already gone for maintenance work and various other activities like bridges and all those things.

So, in order to build a $50 million project, you're gonna have to build that amount on an ongoing basis.

So I just want to clarify that so that people understand that we're not sitting on a bunch of money uh when that pie chart shows you 180 million dollars.

Believe me, that is not a reflection of that we're sitting on that money.

So I just want to clarify that.

Thank you.

Right, and I think what some of the speakers were saying, Daniel, is if uh they are very interested in knowing what are the actual expenditures um per uh fiscal year uh that public works is either actually has expended or what you're uh proposing to expend.

So I I think that that would also help to provide further clarity.

Sure, absolutely.

But just remember that when we do construction like a project like Lowelling, or it takes about uh a couple of years to build.

So that money has to be budgeted at the beginning, and you show it as being spent.

So it's subject to contracts and construction schedule, subject to consulting in our own design schedule.

So uh we we provide the basic uh timeline, and and I think the reason is kind of confusing is uh annual budgets do not necessarily capture the way capital improvements are done.

Those two things don't add up together, they don't they don't match up in timeline uh in any scenario, any organization, any city, any county or anything else.

Uh another statement I'd like to make is that relative to funding that we generate as compared to City of Oakland, Fremont, anybody else, we are very successful in securing federal state grants and other revenues uh for the unincorporated area since 100% of our road fund goes to the unincorporated area.

We don't do any services in the cities.

And then in the flood control area, if you recall, uh I think the uh Tam might remember that because she tried to help us quite a bit.

We try to raise some revenues uh uh from Castro Valley and some of the uh Ashland Cherryland area, San Lorenzo, and we were not successful.

Uh that was a very minor increase in revenues yet.

Uh that we haven't raised in about 30 years, so uh part of the challenge is in order to generate revenue in the unincorporated area is very difficult and it's very challenging.

So uh in and then these things do cost a lot of money to do.

Uh so I just want to highlight that a little bit.

All right, thanks.

So we'll still schedule public works uh for uh kind of a budget um discussion, uh, one of these one of our future meetings, and then I know folks asked about the library.

Uh we can have the library come in and talk further about the library.

Cause I know the library has satellite facilities.

I think they have one at uh reach.

I don't know if one is it is one at Cherry Land, Charity Community Center, yeah.

One at Cherry Land.

So um so I mean we can have yeah, we can have the library come in and talk about that.

And then when you talk about recreation, hard is our recreation partner, and they do an excellent job.

So if we need if we need more recreation, we can just talk to hard.

You know, they're going through that bond and they might be going out for another one, but they're doing a great job.

So hard to libraries, recreation, we'll do the libraries, we'll do hard to do with the recreation.

40 million.

Okay, great.

See, there you go.

It's another expenditure.

See, if our if our department of this of the county, that'd be another 40 million going into the Ashley and Cherry Land just for our.

I want to take credit for that.

Okay.

Then I then I didn't acknowledge uh Linda Tangren also is on the Castro Valley Mac.

So she, you know, she's worn a lot of hats over the years, uh, in addition to running running against me.

So I have a lot of confidence that Linda can do the job.

Okay.

All righty.

So I think we're finished this item.

Let's go to item two, unincorporated budget uh opportunities.

And I think we're gonna hear from Anna on the budget justice um coalition.

Um my slides right here.

Good evening, uh supervisors.

My name is Anna Raschisa.

I'm with Resources for Community Development, and I'm pleased this evening to report uh an update of the areas of opportunity on behalf of the budget justice uh coalition.

Um we were here uh earlier in the summer in June, and we have some uh reminders and some updates.

So in terms of past information, um we in our June meeting, we did present uh five areas of opportunity that we saw as next steps moving forward.

These are areas that the coalition uh came to in conversation with Melanie attendido uh from the county, the county administrator's office.

Um we worked together to identify areas of opportunity that um for immediate next steps that felt specific, tangible, feasible or doable, and aligned in terms of interests and and uh yeah, capacity to move forward.

Um I'll briefly name the four the five areas of opportunity, and then I'm gonna get into updates on those areas, some which we've already previewed this evening, which is exciting.

Um but the first is uh this year's budget book, um, the budget details specific to the unincorporated area in the budget book this year.

Um item two is advancing uh an interest towards an office of unincorporated services.

Item three is strengthening the online presence specific to the unincorporated area, specifically a county website, the county website.

Item four is a community budget input process, more engaged process than we've seen in the past.

And item five is ongoing dialogue and efforts to work together to advance each of these items.

So we did see this this evening.

We had identified as a goal this year's budget book as a goal for the work.

We are interested in seeing this year additional budget detail specific to the unincorporated area in the final budget book.

So we did preview some of what the county administrator's office is looking at adding to next year.

And we did hear from residents excitement and enthusiasm about the added detail.

And so we did hear an update about that for next year, close to the goal and exciting to see the added detail that the county administrator's office is preparing for the coming year's budget.

That's next year.

Item two, we're continuing to work to advocate for an office of unincorporated services and to scope what that could look like.

We heard some updates this evening from the supervisors and from residents from the county administrators' office about interest in scoping, what that could look like, and doing that in the coming year.

Really, this is something this is something that you know other counties have other unincorporated areas, and they take different approaches to how they manage that within their county government.

So I think there's a landscape assessment to be done really to identify what makes sense for Alameda County specifically.

And so there is still continued enthusiasm to advance that research.

Excited to hear from the county administrator's office this evening that there is still interest in strengthening online presence and working together to collaborate around how we could make the county website that is specific to the unincorporated area as useful and robust as possible for residents.

So there haven't been advances on that so far, but we're excited to continue or to begin to work on that.

And then we have items four and five, which I'm gonna do together because that's where the big updates are.

But item four is a community budget input process working together to identify a more engaged process that could make sense, and we've had some conversation already this evening about that.

Um, and then item five is uh an ongoing dialogue, really just that this is not a point in time exercise.

This is something that we're we're really hoping to institutionalize using some of the existing institutions or vehicles that we have for this work in the county, and then building upon that.

I'm talking about the max.

So, as folks know, or or maybe some folks don't know, there has been, this is not new.

There has been an interest in developing a community budget input process for over a decade.

Um, some of this first came up in modern history around the Eli work led by Supervisor Miley's office from 2004 to 2019.

Um, and then that uh interest was reaffirmed in the county's adoption August 2024.

The county adopted the Alameda County environmental justice element, which um explicitly names and affirms an interest in exploring an Office of Unincorporated Services and other organizational changes focused on coordinating, enhancing and improving public services and civic life in unincorporated Alameda County.

So we're getting started, and we are currently piloting a community budget input process.

I have a visual, so I'll walk you through this, but then we have a visual to sort of summarize.

Right now, this fall, we're taking a three-step approach to testing a more engaged process.

It's the guinea pig phase, the learning phase.

So we're really in a space where we're trying to test different strategies around getting more engagement and more information between the county and the residents, and then to be prepared to recommend something that works and that makes sense.

Step one is the unincorporated area budget input community charrettez or community engagement sessions.

We just finished them last night.

We had two that we tested this year to name key budget issues from resident perspectives.

Um in Cherry Land, focused on the urban unincorporated area.

So we had over 70 residents Thursday night pizza, right?

Come together.

We had all kinds of outreach about that event.

It was a fully bilingual event with members of all over the urban unincorporated area from D3 and D4, coming together to name their focus on budget in the unincorporated area.

Really, like as experts in the community, what are they seeing?

Where are their issues?

What are our assets?

Where do we need to invest more fully and what can we be building upon?

So we feel that that was a great success and something that we can continue to build on.

Last night, we in partnership with Supervisor Halbert's office, we hosted a similar, similar but totally different apples and oranges event, a charrette in Sinnol with 20 residents.

In that way it was very different, right?

To have a conversation with 70 people and then to have a conversation with 20 people.

But that community, that conversation was focused on the rural parts of the county and giving rural residents an opportunity to name the issues that they were seeing.

What do they love about the community?

What are the big issues the community is facing and narrowing down their focus to be able to articulate very specifically where they want to see investments in the future.

That event was held in all English and had about 20 residents in the Synol space just above Bosco's Road House.

In the coming few weeks, we will be engaging the MAX as well as the SONOL CAC.

So excited to be doing that.

We're working on a process that is kind of a mirror or parallel.

So we're asking a lot of the same questions, right?

The idea is that the MAX and the CAC, these are residents, right?

We just engaged residents and the MAX and the CAC are also residents.

So similar questions, a similar process to be able to have those types of messages trickle up.

The goal with those Mac meetings is to do the exact same thing as we did with the resident meetings, but from a Mac or CAC perspective and really leveraging that existing infrastructure, civic infrastructure we have when we developed the MACs to leverage that in some kind of the next step of the institutionalization of this engagement.

So really coming together, I think the thinking right now is in December to digest the learnings from step one and step two and to identify next steps in the adoption of a formal community budget input process specific to the unincorporated area.

So we'll be excited to be cooling that learning and bringing it together.

What did we hear in all of these spaces around the issues and also at the same time around the process that we can use to develop recommendations for what this longer term process could be that we could adopt.

So this is the visual I promised.

We just completed the orange step.

The blue step is the next step that we'll be preparing for in the coming weeks in October.

It's the MAC phase plus the CAC for Sunol.

In November, we'll be spending time calling and analyzing the data that was collected from the six different events.

And then in December, we'll be coming back together for the Big Mac.

That's my update.

We can't do it without you and your staff.

Wanted to think ask for your continued championship of this in implementation of this work and also thought partnership is something that has been so helpful right from the beginning.

And that's a presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you, very thorough.

So let me see if Supervisor Jam has any questions or comments first.

I appreciate uh the presentation very much, especially uh when you talked about the piloting this opportunity for input into the process and the charrettes.

Uh, what I'm trying to uh sort through in my mind is, you know, typically when there's a major project uh there's or an ordinance, for example, whether it's the uh street vendor ordinance or side show ordinance or it there's a road show that it goes through with all the Macs, and similarly, um I would expect that to happen with the budget.

Um, but when the question was asked about how do we get that information communicated through uh the process that we have for the budget, and and we've made great strides.

Obviously, this is the first year that I'm really proud of our budget team that we moved to a digital platform, there's multilingual access pull downs, but how do we um make the best use of the, for example, the representative that we're talking about this evening into that process?

Should that person go to all the MAC meetings?

Should they convene one of these charrettes?

Because it's not just the urban unincorporated, right?

There's the rural unincorporated.

Right.

Yeah, I mean, that's a value that you named right from the beginning, and that's um how we've ended up on this this road show, right?

Is that there isn't one unincorporated community that we can go and just pick their brain and then come back and have the answers of what the unincorporated area is thinking about.

It's an incredibly diverse community geographically, racially, um in terms of interests, right?

Last night we spent a lot of time talking about roads, and although that came up in the urban conversation last week, it was very different, even though it was just about roads, right?

It was hugely different.

Um, and so I think you're exactly right that it really is an incredibly diverse community, and um the vehicle that we're thinking about is something that takes advantage of the existing infrastructure, right?

It's not totally re-inventing.

We have Macs, and that's incredible for this community, and how do we bring more residents to that conversation and more resident voice, and how do we tap that into the county budget conversation at the big level, right?

So I think I've been thinking about it from the beginning, and we've been talking about it as like it there is a quilt and we have a lot of the pieces, right?

And we need to patch them together better so that's a full quilt instead of like a lot of great pieces.

Um, and so you we have seen that with other conversations, right?

Where there's like a tour that you can do, and and we're envisioning a way where we we can do a similar type of tour with the Macs and with residents and and feed that information to the the county budget group.

Yeah uh the one uh thought that I had, which I'll throw out because it's tearing off on what um supervisor chairmiley was talking about, is maximize this opportunity through the MACs because they are a brown-acted advisory council.

Uh, but when my staff attends a lot of these MAC meetings depending on the topic the the level of participation is not quite what you would expect and then you know even when the county goes through its budget process the the level of participation at our meetings is is kind of different so the the board of supervisors has a planning board which basically is only practically dealing with the unincorporated areas it's in includes the entire board of supervisors there might be a role to kind of funnel all the things that we hear from the MAX into that planning board and have it as a potential standing item that we can talk through because the board ultimately will be part of that whole discussion on the overall budget process.

Okay.

Yeah so um supervisor Tam and speaking of uh every month practically uh the community development agency bring we have a meeting where we deal with land use matters um a board meeting all five of us are there is typically the the uh third Thursday of the month yeah typically it's you know sometimes it's it does take place but she was just maybe suggesting that that could be uh a vehicle uh because a lot of the stuff we deal with from planning deals with the unincorporated area not everything but generally uh most of it's on the corporate area when it comes to the board planning uh meetings but it's just another idea but I do think it's important to try to figure out the Mac piece I I think the process you've laid out here is extremely well thought out I can't wait the meeting in December is December 3rd December 3rd that's the date of the next of the the unincorporated meeting for November and December will take place on December 3rd because of the holiday typically the Thanksgiving holiday and the Christmas holiday we cancel the unincorporated meeting for in th uh for thanksgiving and the unincorporated meeting for uh christmas because it's holidays and we have it that uh first Wednesday in December so it's December 3rd that we'll be doing this uh census um um meeting with the Macs and and getting the feedback on recommendations that you've I've been able to come up with so I just wanted to flag that so it's a people's um calendar and scheduled at six o'clock but it's an official unincorporated services meeting uh we'll be taking all this up with the Macs um then and then scrape you're out in Sonol um in terms of I was curious how what's going to be the next step on the unincorporated area website I know Melanie mentioned it and I guess Ashley's involved how what are we gonna do there?

What's the next uh tangible step do we know?

We don't have an immediate next step so it's something that I think there is a lot of alignment on we've heard it from the from you two this evening and we've heard it from the county administrator's office we've heard it from residents so I think it's a really great opportunity in terms of alignment to have a next step but we don't right now.

Okay and then let's see and then oh you might want to come talk in the mic.

So for the unincorporated services website um that has been updated most recently by Celine in District three so that is up, and it did go on the postcards and all the mailing when we did the zip code um place name change.

So that is up and running.

ITD is.

And I think there's interest, sorry.

I think there's interest in in and better leveraging it also, right?

Okay.

Yeah.

Right.

So I guess the budget um uh justice coalition, I guess, you know, following up with Supervisor Tam's office in my office.

I guess those two over there are the principals that are working on it, okay.

Um, so we can really get get that moving along.

And then you said everything for the the budget book for this fiscal year, we've gotten additional information in it.

And so the county administrator's office is looking at for the next fiscal year 26-27, and there'll be input on on what people would like to see.

That's what I understood, right?

Is that the additional details for the coming year budget?

Or is it for the budget that's yet to be finalized?

25-26.

What about 26-27?

Because we're in 25-26, right?

Yeah.

What about 26-27 the next fiscal year?

Because I think they have other input they'd like to provide.

I'm just trying to figure out how that's gonna be um handled.

Do we know?

So I think you know, the the hope is that with this engagement process that you know, rolling out organically, we'll identify opportunities for additional input that you know, just like in the in this year, what led to the outcomes in what we're publishing as part of the current year of the 25-26 budget, a lot of the details that we presented this evening, um, you know, it'd be I imagine for 26-27 be the next iteration of you know, deeper dive, um, capturing those additional investments.

I already talked about the office on incorporate services.

We take that up next month, um budget works uh online.

Okay, and then the budget um uh the community budget input process uh so we hope to have recommendations on that at the December 3rd meeting.

Yes, um, I think there's there's still interest in in deeper research right around what a big process could look like in an office of unincorporated services and just like how we could better deepen this engagement overall, um, but we are hoping to have some findings and some like early learning from this whole um roadshow uh in December.

So yeah, we're definitely trying to use it as a learning process, and we'll be bringing something um in terms of recommendations and findings in December.

Okay, all right, yeah.

I recognize it's a it's iterative and it's a work in progress, and it's not a sprint, it's not a sprint, it's a marathon, and we're we're running that race, we're making things happen.

Okay, and I think I talked to Supervisor Tam, and she's comfortable with uh the two of us appointing Linda Tangren to be the representative from the N Corporate area on the budget work group, so we'll make that happen.

Either we'll do it officially if it has to go through the full full board, or if it doesn't, we'll just indicate that to the county administrators' office so they know.

Um and then Melanie, we need to have a schedule when those meetings happen.

Um, so if if you know if you could talk to Susan, um, or if it's David, I don't know who sets the schedule for the work, the budget work group, um, it really would be helpful because I think that's what Claudia was complaining about.

There's no schedule.

So the other person who was on it, um, you know, couldn't effectively participate, yeah.

Um, and we want to make sure Linda can effectively participate, and then hopefully with Linda getting appointed to represent the incorporated area on the budget work group, uh, she might attend some of these meetings for her own learning as well.

So that all of you, yeah.

Yeah, so that all of you, I'm I'm counting on all of you, Anna, um, to help help us figure this out.

Yes, and I'm confident you will.

Yeah, it's uh we're in figure it out phase, right?

And so we're excited to be in this phase and learning, and and Linda was there last week on Thursday, um, hearing the messages, right, and learning with us.

Okay, very good.

Oh, she is oh great, right for as a resident.

Okay, excellent.

Excellent.

Okay, so let's see if there's any public speakers on this item.

Rosemary Vasquez.

Ten seconds.

Thank you.

I plan to say a lot, but enough has been said.

It's time to the to do the work, and I'm really happy with what is being done.

Thank you.

Caller, you're on the line.

You have two minutes, Marcia.

I'm mute your microphone, Marcia Lopez.

Hola, buenas noches.

Pero gracias at the supervisores for dar su tempo andarnos.

My nombre is Marcia López.

Pero mayormente estoy in the community of Cherylan y Ashland, dando my tempo como voluntaria, ayudando a toda la comunidad desde afirma de cinco años.

Dependemos del sheriff, del departamento de bomberos y the services de emergencias que están bajo presión constante.

But necessitamos más que transparencia.

Necesitamos una oficina de comunidades no incorporadas para que supervise.

Muchas gracias.

Gladys.

Gladys, my Eden voice.

Kelly, Abu.

So there's another little budget component, which is probably not covered by the budget office, because it's 100% solely within purview of each county supervisor.

And it goes under names like prior year savings, and fiscal management reward funds and things like that.

So just to summarize, for example, district three, the supervisor Tam.

She's been uh given out a certain amount of money in the last 12 months, and all of that is published.

All of that is public, it's all open, it's transparent, and you can go line item by line item, and I have, and add up all the money that's been handed out.

And the strange thing is that district four hands out two or three times more money in the same period of time.

So I would encourage the budget office to help district three raise their spending so that they can get more money out.

They're doing a great job of spending, but they uh they're spending it the right way, whatever they're doing, but they need to spend more.

Um now on district four, district four, this is probably not a surprise because these uh little reports that uh that uh that are coming out of my coming out out from me, um they it uh they're they're out there.

Um people know that seventy-eight percent of the of the residents, unincorporated residents are in district four, and the way the pop and uh within district four, the Eden and Castor Valley, the unincorporated is 36% of district four.

Now of those money, of the money that they're that they're handing out, it's about three three or a hundred thousand dollars a little over uh per in the in that 12-month period, so 36% of the population is getting 13% of the money, 13% of the money with 36% of the population.

Um, that should be a mic drop because this is uh but I've seen the same thing in Fremont with district one, so thank you.

Sandra Archiletta.

Good evening.

I am part of the budget justice coalition.

We've been working on this, like I said, for about a year, and we've come a long way.

The uh charrette that we did last week was really cool.

I think that there was a lot of areas of alignment that we saw, and um it's really interesting how we live in different communities, but we face a lot of the same issues, and I think that these processes are so important.

I do agree that um having folks at the max would be a great thing if people showed up a little bit more, and I think that there is an opportunity for partnership between us, which are kind of like a more special interest coalition, and uh the Max That R.

Brown Act.

I think that there is no perfect way to say this is one thing and this is another, but there is a way to collaborate, where it's like if we want that to be the venue, then we can definitely work together to turn people out.

I think that there is a lot of areas of opportunity for collaboration and to make this work.

And I think that by having, you know, county reps, staff working with residents and organizations.

I think that we are making so much progress, and um, you know, it's good to see.

I think that we will continue to do this.

We're gonna make some things that are gonna go great, some things that are gonna like be areas where we can get better, but ultimately I think that this is really good for our community, and as an unincorporated area resident myself, I'm glad to see that these issues are being addressed so that we can, you know, start to have more of a voice in how our money is spent.

Thank you.

I have no additional speakers through this item.

Okay.

So I don't know if uh Stan wants to say anything, but I just want to respond.

So I don't know if Kelly's analysis included the Ashland Reach Center.

Did you include Reach?

See, he's shaking his head, no.

Because you know, I provide a half a million dollars to reach annually, $500,000 just to reach.

You didn't include that in your analysis, did you?

I didn't think so.

So maybe do your analysis to check with my office, because we want to make sure, you know, you got all the facts right.

Cause I, because that's a healthy chunk of change right there every year since Reach has been in existence.

Some years it's gone up to 600 and 50,000 or so.

Okay, so and the other thing, okay, and the other thing, yeah, the other thing, keep in mind, I have a tendency to spend money.

Supervisor Carson, for instance, when he was on the board, he was very tight-fisted.

I have a tendency to spend money because I have a lot of demands in my district, you know, with Oakland and incorporated area.

Uh, and I also tend to call on other county agencies and departments to provide money so that I don't have to use you know my resources.

Maybe I'll get CDA to put money here, and I'll put money into something into Oakland.

So there's some trade-offs that you might not be aware of, but I appreciate you bringing up the discrepancy.

But include that reach money in your analysis, because that's a healthy chunk of change.

I can vouch for that for uh Supervisor Miley.

Uh, but the reason I need to aspire to what he's spending is because this is my first term and I have no money.

I have very limited uh prior savings, as Melanie says, when you look at budgets and actuals, if you don't spend it, you get to have savings the next year to spend it.

But when you don't have it, you don't have it.

And one other thing, because it's all public record.

You know, when Supervisor Carson left office before he left office and supervisor to ham knows this, he had, I mean, he had a lot of money, millions and millions of dollars that he was parceling out to different groups, all that has to be approved by the board.

Mind you, but you know, some of us have different philosophies in terms of how we utilize our resources.

I have a lot of constituents that put a lot of demands on me, and one of my staff, that's pretty much his entire job, you know, you know, being the rainmaker, you know, part sending money to all these different entities that, you know, request funds.

Uh so just I'm glad you raised it, but but but but but I just wanted to kind of get provide a little bit more transparency around that.

Okay.

So we've had open forum.

There's a good meeting this evening.

Thank you all.

We adjourned until October um on the corporate services meeting, and we will be taking up the mental health item then.

And uh we'll hopefully we'll get some feedback from folks uh just what what do you want to see on the agenda uh for that item so I can make sure we have the appropriate county agencies and or departments ready to uh report.

So thank you.

Thank you.