Good morning, everyone.

Monday, October 6th, I'd like to call a call of order.

I think I need the microphone to be in front of me to speak.

Thank you.

I'd like to call a meeting order and ask the clerk to please call the roll to establish our quorum.

Supervisor Miley.

Supervisor Halbert.

Present.

Thank you all.

Our first item is an informational item, the proposed elimination of the site development review SDR for equine.

Activities.

I believe there's a staff, not a staff report.

Maybe staff can introduce this, but we note community member Dan Davini.

Dan, welcome.

Staff have anything to say at the outset?

Uh no, I don't.

We're here for questions as the uh as the discussion progresses.

Very good.

Thank you.

Mr.

Davini, thank you for being here.

I note that we'll probably have some public comments as well.

Those in the public that would like to comment remotely, raise your hand if uh this is the item for you.

And we do have a printout, Dan, of your presentation, but I see you also have it electronically in front of us.

It's yours.

The floor is yours.

I'm sorry, uh supervisor, I can barely hear you.

Um I see that we have this.

And you have it online for those that are watching remotely.

Correct.

So take it away.

Thank you.

Uh good morning, supervisors, uh, staff, council, and guests.

Uh I'm Dan DeVinny.

I sit on the uh Castor Valley Mac.

Uh, but today I'm presenting in my personal capacity and as a member of the uh of the Ag Committee.

Um, I'm here today to uh ask for one small change to chapter 17 of our code of ordinances uh which covers all the zoning.

Um very vast uh uh chapter um but I'm just asking for a point testing.

Or one little change on on one of the permitted uses.

Uh specifically, uh I'm asking that you support our initiative uh that permits horsebording facilities and writing academies without the requirement of a site development review.

Uh the facilities are already permitted, um, but unlike most all other ag uh uses, they require an SDR and they require that that SDR uh gets reviewed uh on a five-year period.

Uh next page.

By the way, I expect my entire presentation just take about 10 minutes.

Um I have four basic uh premises.

Uh I'll support each one of these premises in greater detail uh after I go over them.

Uh premise number one the site development review process is too costly, cumbersome, and time consuming for boarding uh stables and writing academies.

Uh the horse facility operations already have ongoing and continued regulation uh protecting the county and the public from the various impacts.

Um Alameda County purports to support uh agriculture through initiatives, including the right to farm, measure D, and the agricultural uh advisory committee.

Uh I think there's a question as to whether Measure D actually supports uh uh agriculture, but that's a different topic for a different meeting.

Um and then number four, the fourth premise is uh many of the uses that are permitted in the agricultural zone do not require SDRs, despite being potentially far more impactful than the than the boarding facilities.

Uh next page, thank you.

Um so why do I say it's too costly, time consuming, and cumbersome.

Um hopefully we're gonna have uh a few of the operators speak today and they can say it better than I but quickly just going through the process.

Um it starts off with uh a 15-page application, uh, a $2,000 initial deposit uh that needs to get replenished should staff time uh exceed that that amount.

Uh I suspect that that on these applications are fairly complex that staff time does in fact exceed.

I don't know if they're actually charging the operators or cutting them some slack on that, but this might be a losing uh proposition for the county as well.

Uh it then requires uh a survey of the property.

Um sometimes these can be informal surveys, other times it's asked to have a formal survey, which might cost an operator 20, 25,000 to survey a property that he's owned for 20 years, and it has a pretty good handle of uh of what's on his property.

Survey is really for the planning department, not for the applicant.

Uh description of all the buildings, all the land uses, pastures turn out, turnout paddocks, description of the water, power, and sewer systems, listing them activities, a permit history.

The permit history has become cumbersome for at least one recent uh applicant.

They have buildings that are 20 and 30 years old, and they don't have the permit history, but yet that was uh an outstanding condition of the renewal.

Um a stormwater protection plan, and then a traffic and uh and parking analysis.

The next phase of uh once the application is done, it goes out for the standard referrals and um the referrals uh go to the fire department, uh building department, public works, three different divisions within public works, code enforcement, environmental health, again, three different divisions within environmental health, California Water Agency, Animal Control, and then any other parties of interest.

Um I'm from Castro Valley in our area, the Friends of San Lorenzo Creek are always uh notified, and so they can uh attend the meetings in a pine.

Um there's then the potential to go to public meetings.

The reviews don't have to go to public meetings, um, but should they go to a public meeting, it really opens up uh the Hatville McCoy type of a situation, which is the root uh cause of so many of our of our problems in getting uh uh these completed.

Um, they then call for outside reports, uh perhaps a biological analysis, um, certainly a septic system uh uh review, and that's a troubling aspect of this, particularly for for facilities that are already operating.

Their septic system absolutely works, if it doesn't, they need to address it immediately.

Um, but to get a review, they need to hire an outside inspector.

The outside inspector is going to ask that the uh tanks get pumped out, they're potentially going to inspect the leech lines.

Some people have excellent markings of their leech lines, others don't.

So even the process of finding your leech lines uh can damage it, poke a hole in it, and require more work.

Often you'll end up with a very costly process for a system that completely works.

Some of the operators, because of discrepancies with environmental health, as they're going through it, even though their system works, it's easier for them to throw in the towel and just say, doggone it, I'm gonna upgrade my system.

Uh and they could spend a hundred to two hundred thousand dollars upgrading a system that uh that already works.

Uh next page.

Um existing oversight and and and regulation.

This is my second premise.

Um, and the basic idea is these entities are highly regulated, and I don't think they need ongoing planning department oversight.

Um, environmental health visits these sites every two years.

They'll oversee three different functions: the manure management plan, uh hazardous material storage, and a cursory review of the septic systems.

Um public works is tasked with uh the water course protection ordinance uh with any grading issues with any soil importing issues.

Uh so they already have equities in in oversight and regulation.

Um code enforcement um would be uh responding to any public nuisances or or complaints, uh building department, any illegal or dangerous construction, uh, animal control, the care of the animals, uh, and then the agricultural uh advisory committee.

Um, when you folks pass the uh the right to farm ordinance, you name them as the party for uh mediate mediating any disputes.

So they have a dispute resolution uh function.

Next page.

Um right to to farm.

Um I just list these just to list the impacts that all ag uh has towards you know the general population.

It's not to say that that ag operators are bad citizens or bad neighbors, but to really highlight the realities of uh of being in ranching farming and any other ag uses.

Um the uh the right to farm is uh is a disclosure requirement for any property that gets sold within 2,000 feet of an agriculturally zoned um property, and it just lists all the nuisances, uh noises, odors, fumes, dust, fertilizers, smoke, pesticides, insects.

Farm personnel, I don't know why farm personnel are an impact, um, but um uh truck trif uh traffic, uh nighttime lighting, operational machinery, and other uh inconveniences and discomforts.

So I bring this up to point out that it's known by the county that ag in fact does have have uh impacts.

Um my fourth premise uh talks about the uh the permitted uses in the uh uh in the A district.

Um there are 11 permitted uses, and there are 25 conditional uh uses.

Now I'm not suggesting a change to any of those 25 conditional uses, they might cover anything from uh airstrips, cemeteries, landfills, dog kennels, uh cannabis operations.

Um what I what I am suggesting is is a change to just one of the eleven permitted uses.

Um as we look at this list, item A, H, I, J, and K, so five of the 11 require site development reviews.

Only two of those five require renewals of their site development reviews, and one of those is the boarding stables and and riding academies, uh, and the other one is um the occupancy of an agricultural uh caretaker dwelling.

Um they do a check-in every five years to make sure that they're still being occupied by agricultural uh workers.

Um and then I want to briefly run through some of the other impacts of the other approved applications, none of which require site development reviews.

These are all without permission slip, uh permitted uses within the uh the A district.

Um item number B is crop, vine or tree farm, truck garden, plant nursery, greenhouse, apiary, aviary, hatchery, and horticulture.

Um so the planting aspects of that are certainly the impacts are going to include pesticides, dust, tillage, noise, um, apiary uh relates to bees.

I'm sure there's some impacts there.

Uh aviary relating to birds, again, impacts there.

Um item C is the raising or keeping of poultry, fowl, rabbits, sheep, or goats or similar animals.

Um I think back to some of the pictures of the old Castor Valley chicken barns, um uh big structures, uh high density uh uh housing, if you will, certainly has impacts such as smells, insects, disease, noise, water quality, does not require any SDR from the planning department on this.

So those impacts are regulated by other agencies.

Um the grazing, breeding, and training of uh horses or cattle.

Um there's I mean I've given you an abbreviation description of these 11 permitted uses.

Uh some of them go on for several sentences.

That one, item D is just like that.

It just says grazing, breeding, or training of horses or cattle.

Very short and simple.

Uh no limitation on the number, no restrictions on the types of housing, no manure management plan.

Um there's uh there's no discussion of CAFOs, which is a contained animal feeding operation, such as a dairy or feedlot.

So my interpretation, although those are highly regulated functions and industries from the federal, state, and county basis, they don't involve our planning department.

They involve all these other regulatory uh agencies, um winery, brewery, and uh uh olive oil mills, again pesticides, fish hasherties and rearing ponds.

I'm thinking water quality, uh public or private riding or hiking trails.

Um I get the hiking port, you know.

Um I'm assuming writing could be for horses, potentially bicycles, maybe motorcycles.

I couldn't find anything in the ordinance that defines that.

Um of note is item G has absolutely nothing to do with agriculture, but it's an appropriate permitted use for open space in ag properties.

Um so when we talk about the the definition of what is agriculture, I could talk at length about that, and I think that's part of the problem in the interpretation or how our ordinances were crafted, and that at some point there was uh uh a definitional item of are horses ag or are they not ag?

And there's a number of different metrics um to determine that.

Uh the 2018 federal farm bill specifically listed horses uh as agriculture as opposed to as livestock, I should say, as opposed to uh uh to pets.

Um the um our ordinance uh uh allows for the breeding and training of horses without an SDR, and the general application that I that comes to mind when people say how can you have a training facility without an SDR, and it's really in the horse racing industry, um that uh with and I I think the the definitional item is they say that the the training of the uh of the racehorse is is creating value, potentially a saleable item, whether it's the sale of the of the horse or the breeding capacity of the horse.

Um but we have two different defin we have two different applications.

One requires an SDR, one doesn't, and they're essentially the same operation.

They have they have barns, uh they they have the same physical structures, stalls, turnouts, arenas, tracks, things like that.

Uh they have the same type of personnel that are working, feeding the animals.

They have the same uh care operations, the the feeding, exercising, manure management, washing, vet care of the animals, so that they're they're uh semi-i identical in their functions.

One of them does not require an SDR, the other one uh does.

Um the state of California has various definitions of the equine industry as to whether it's agriculture or not.

Um, and they defer to the individual counties to make that determination.

Um at a certain point, I ask who cares what the definition is, and the reason why I'm I'm kind of smart allocky about that is we already allow with the hiking trails non-ag uses on ag land without an SDR requirement.

Um so to me the the horses certainly feel like uh closer to ag.

Um all right.

In conclusion, um most all of our permitted uses in the ag districts have impacts.

Uh the horse facilities are not more impactful uh than many other uses, and the horse facilities have adequate oversight and regulation right now.

Nothing that I'm proposing takes away any of the equities of the various regulatory bodies.

Um the county has been aware uh of this problem since the early 2000s.

Um in 2003 it surfaced with the uh an analysis by some people in the horse industry.

In 2004, the Board of Soups uh voted to form the equine technical advisory committee, uh a member of uh of that committee is uh in the room today.

Um the uh this is a smart group of people, and and they have done a ton of analysis, they've written brilliant white papers, they've had public meetings, uh, they've they've analyzed this ad nauseum um with a lot of input, but unfortunately, in over 20-year period, there's been starts and stops without any meaningful change.

They were tasked with streamlining the use permit process for these facilities, but they haven't been streamlined at all.

And if you do hear from some of the operators uh uh today, uh I think you'll get a sense of the difficulty of continuing to go through that.

Um that concludes my comments.

I'm available for any questions now, or I'm happy to uh return uh uh after uh after public comment.

I thank you, Dan.

Um great presentation, uh very well uh prepared.

I commend you on that.

Um before we go to public comment, I'll see if uh we have any questions.

My colleague supervisor Miley.

Uh yes, yeah.

Thanks for the presentation.

I want to get some clarity.

Are you here speaking as an individual?

Are you representing the MAC Egg or any?

Okay, because it's I just I need to understand what is staff doing on this, because it's highly irregular for a community member to submit a presentation to a board of supervisor committee, because we could have presentations at nauseum for 1.7 million people.

So things typically go through the staff.

Typically, we get presentations from uh community groups, um bodies that are committees or boards of the county, etc.

So this is coming from an individual.

So I need to direct this back to staff.

Where are we with this issue of site development review relative to um horse boarding uh facilities?

So the the uh the equine technical.

I'm sorry, before we oh um I'm uh inclined to let the speaker sit back down, maybe called back up.

But if since this is from staff, if that's okay.

Yeah, yeah, and I don't disagree.

Um typically, certain path, but also typically things don't take 23 years to get implemented from 2003 recommendations to this body, our board, and now the community feels they need to come out maybe.

I don't know, we'll listen and hear, but this is not a typical process, I agree.

Yeah, uh so in terms of the origin of the of the item.

Um it did go through the planning commission as a uh an item that uh Kasha Valley Mac wanted to raise up to the Transportation and Planning Committee.

So I think that was really the origin of that.

Uh went to the planning commission and and they thought it was also suitable for the board, the committee to consider.

Okay, so what I under what I don't understand then why don't we have a report from staff?

If the MAC took this up and the planning commission took this up, why is an individual submitting this to us?

Why isn't staff submitting something to this committee?

Um well, we certainly will and can do that.

I think that we were hoping today is to kind of uh discuss this matter and and understand what the issues are and then return with uh with a report that would kind of highlight uh not only our concerns, not that we have a long list or whatever, but um there are other agencies that are that are involved for sure, environmental health and public works uh primarily.

Um we are through the site development review, we're the vehicle for a lot of those other agencies to weigh in on a matter on the on the project and application, not like a lot of the other things that we do.

Um, and so I think that you know we want to be able to have a full discussion with all those other agencies.

Um I looks like like I see Daniel um on Zoom, uh he probably has some comments and concerns as well that he wanted to discuss.

Um, and you know, we we we weren't asked to present anything today necessarily.

I think again this is coming from the community and to the planning commission.

They thought we should raise this to TMP, and that's why we're here.

All right, well, once again, you know uh I didn't notice that this was a presentation from a community member, otherwise I would have talked to the chair about it.

Um, because once again, we can get, I mean, there are a lot of things we can get presentations from, and we have processes.

So um I I really do think this should have come from the planning department, a presentation to the committee, the entire public can then weigh in on whatever recommendation direction or lack thereof that is being offered, as opposed to a community member submitting something to the board of supervisors, because once again, I don't care if it's 50 years, the point of the matter is we have processes and we need to follow those processes.

What's the status of the quine um technical advisory committee?

What's the status of that committee?

So that that committee has been foreign for quite some time.

Uh one of our staff members is a liaison to that committee.

I think they are tasked, um, as the speaker noted with streamlining the site development review process, the overall review process for site development reviews for uh for this type of land use.

And so it is ongoing.

I think it has kind of started and stopped over the years.

Uh there's been a couple complaints generated from uh that have come from community members, usually adjacent neighbors that want us to pursue a certain item or regulate something a little a little further, or I guess more uh provide more regulation.

At the same time, we are getting uh concerns that uh like the speaker raised about just the process overall taking too long, or that the requirements are so onerous.

And I think that that it is kind of stalled in that process because there isn't really um there hasn't been a resolution.

I think that might be one of the reasons why um it's being raised to you today is that there's some frustration that you know why is it taking so long and why hasn't aren't these issues uh resolved yet or or streamlined to their satisfaction?

So when did we when do we create the equine technical advisory committee?

Because I'm I just I mean I don't recall.

I'm not saying um I'm opposed to this, but I haven't heard anything from this committee.

So when was this committee commit uh created?

Who are the appointees from the board on this committee?

Uh what's been who's on this committee?

Sure.

Um in terms of who's on it, I don't have the list in front of me.

Uh I know that um Larry Gosselin is a member of that.

I believe it's a subcommittee of the Ag Advisory Committee.

Um there's I think three members.

Um, committee of the advisory commission of the commission?

No, that the agricultural advisory committee, committee, yeah.

They're primarily a uh a district one committee, although they're members.

Okay, okay, and so I I believe that they have a number of subcommittees from that.

So this isn't is this an official board of supervisors sanctioned uh technical advisory committee?

Uh the Ag Advisory Committee is they're appointed, so these are a subcommittee of that body.

So I think yes, that would be the R.

So because I know we've we've got a communication here from Kay Milley, and this person suggesting uh we uh and I think Ave and Dan um offered up that we test this a technical advisory committee to come back with a recommendation on what we should be doing around site development review relative to uh horse facilities.

That's my understanding, yes.

So, so if this went to the planning commission into the MAC, why wasn't it directed in that manner?

I mean, the plan commission, the MACs advisory, plan commission is um uh decision-making authority.

I don't understand.

I mean, I'm trying to understand all this.

Because you're it's here before us today, but it's from a community member, and I I expect more.

And once again, I don't want to get agitated about this, but I kind of am.

Well, the the chair of the planning commission is online, and I think that you know you might want to ask him.

I think that there was uh we weren't asked to provide anything to the planning commission other than just uh provide answer questions.

Um, and so I think it is sort of unusual, but that is the what that's what occurred in this case.

And then my final question is uh in neighboring counties, because I know um, like the speaker pointed out, um, we want to try to promote ag and champion ag and be competitive to ag and this that and the other in Alameda County.

And I know uh horse facilities and other counties have um are more or or let's say are more robust.

So do they require site revelment reviews or do you know?

Uh I think it is a mix in terms of uh Bay Area counties.

I don't have the exact number, but I I think that um you know we would support trying to create some parity with other countries.

So once again, I'm once again I don't know who I should be directing my frustration, but we need all this before us before we take up a matter of this of this nature from a community member.

So Sandy and Albert, you guys, you should have worked with the chair and done a better job.

Sure.

We well, we are prepared to come back with the full report.

I think one of the things that we were hoping today is to just get all the issues out so that we can respond um collectively with all of our uh county partners.

Fair enough.

Um, and I appreciate the comment, uh Supervisor Miley.

Indeed, we want to follow our processes.

Um, and if you have more comments or questions uh after public comment, I appreciate that.

Um so now is a time for members of the public.

We take in-person speakers first, three, and then we rotate to online.

How many speaker slips do we have?

So let's call the first two in person, and we'll go to online.

Larry Gostin and Bobby Brittany.

Good afternoon.

I'd like to first of all thank Dan for bringing this matter to the uh public process into the public process, and then thank the transportation planning committee for uh listening to his uh presentation.

I agree.

His presentation was outstanding.

Um I should point out that I am a member of the ETAC, and I wasn't presenting today as a member of the ETAC, but with you know the questions regarding the ETAC, its history, and its role.

Uh if there are questions regarding that, I'd be happy to answer.

And uh I am a retired horse veterinarian.

I came into the Tri-Valley area in 1981 specifically because of the agricultural vibrancy and horse industry vibrancy in the area.

Uh recognized by the courts of California as an expert in the horse industry and horse facilities.

I'm an Ag Advisory Committee member, though not representing that committee today.

I've sat on the border zoning adjustments for 14 years and have been a member of the AEC for about 10 years.

Uh now on an ad hoc basis, I was uh instructed by the county clerk about a year ago to report to this committee regarding uh issues related to the horse industry.

I presented a report uh that uh addressed this particular issue.

I also addressed the need for definitions uh that to be approved that were submitted to the planning department.

Uh this committee directed the planning department to come back to them in about three months and provide a response to those requests.

I don't believe that was ever done.

And so that's an important adjunct that's related to Supervisor Miley's concern about the process and how it's unfolded.

It's just become unwieldy, it's like a horrible cancer that's uh continued for decades, and it does need to be addressed in a format that works.

Yeah, uh, thank you for being here in person and providing commentary.

We have some follow-up questions for you, uh Supervisor Mylan.

Oh, yes, thanks, Larry.

It's been a while since I've seen you.

So um, give me some background on the equine technical advisory committee, because I'm kind of recalling that the recesses of my mind.

So, what what's going on?

Why hasn't this committee come forth with something through the staff so we could grapple with this and deal with it?

Yeah, the ag advisory committee was formed uh shortly after the passage of Measure D 2000, and uh it was formed as a response to Measure D's 2000 uh directive that there be a panel of experts uh to provide direction and lead with the development of policy in Alan County.

Uh the Board of Supervisors approved the membership and the uh uh administrative ordinance for that committee.

Now, uh the first group to kind of rise up within the agricultural community in some response to the formation of the committee was the equine group, and they had a history of uh difficulties of dealing with permitting of equestrian facilities that had only existed for a few years.

That difficulty had developed as a result of one staff member making a decision that equine facilities were recreation, not agriculture, and that's what's unfolded to cause the arguments or disagreements that we're having today.

Uh that being the case, um the Ag Advisory Committee collaborated with the resource conservation district and the uh natural resource conservation service uh component of the U.S.

Department of Agriculture, and we formed a working group.

That working group had over 50 participants and was primarily staffed with Alameda County or primarily participated in by Alameda County staff.

Uh we produced uh about a 30-page report that was approved by the board of Supervisors as a background document.

That report had partial implementation to develop a site development review process, but that site development review never came back to the board support of supervisors.

And that was the only component of the equine conditional use permit streamlining project that was addressed.

Now, with that having uh progressed, there was a sort of a backing off on the adversarial aspect of permitting of equestrian facilities.

Because of that, there wasn't pressure from the horse community to keep the planning department and the e-tact that was formed as part of that report.

There wasn't pressure to keep them active.

A few years ago, complaints started coming back again.

And with those complaints, the Ag Advisory Committee formed a mediation group that was to address a specific problem between one horse training facility and a neighbor.

That problem and that mediation required technical expertise, and because of that, the planning department and the Ag Advisory Committee instituted or implemented the ETAC.

We began operations anew.

The eTAC then transitioned to addressing the many issues that were identified in the Equine C UP report.

We hit a uh pretty significant hurdle when it was explained to us by a staff member that they just didn't get it.

They didn't understand how horses fit into the agricultural uh uh definition.

They didn't understand the difference between training and breeding, and they just didn't know how to proceed.

And uh with that being said, presentation was made to this committee again, very ad hoc, short term.

So you may not remember it.

Uh this committee gave direction, and what uh Dan has been able to do uh, you know, through a process of serendipity is to kind of fire up the process again.

So that takes us to you, you for direction.

Uh Larry, thank you.

Uh well, not exactly related to this, but sort of definitions.

You mentioned a report about a year ago.

How many definitions were supplied?

And just restate again where that is in the process.

Is it just stuck in time?

We started with six definitions just to break the ice, and there's a few more that could be uh moved along, but six definitions were submitted through the e-tech to staff.

Okay, and then this issue was presented as well.

So at an upcoming TMP meeting, we can bring definitions to this board, team.

Okay.

We'll get on that.

Thank you.

Okay.

Next public comment.

Bobby.

Hello there.

Thank you for allowing me to speak.

My name is Bobby Britting.

I'm an individual.

I am a horse owner.

I feel woefully inadequate speaking after Larry, because I'm literally just speaking as a horse owner, and um a person who's boarded horses and owns horses.

Um I think the benefits to the community.

Oh, let me take a step back.

I've I feel like the strong oversight and exceptional expenses leads to a reduction in the um volume of the horse community and horses.

Um, and there's so many benefits uh to having horses in the community, the economic benefits, including um the people who own the barns making a living.

That's trainers, caregivers, the people who sell the horse supplies, hay, tack, equipment, clothing, feed stores.

Um, so there's so many economic benefits.

But then there's health benefits to the community.

Um, it's one of the activities that people could do during COVID.

You had to do it.

You had to go see your horse and take care of it, be outside, breathing clean air, kids were outside riding.

Um, if you put a kid on a horse, that's that there's jokes about how much time horse owners spend riding versus doing other things.

And if you're just a kid showing up to ride, it's probably maybe a half hour of riding to three hours of being outside doing things.

Um, and it's just it's it's so good for them.

Um, keep them off of screens and whatnot.

But also, Alameda County has world-class competitors.

Um, Mike, I'm sorry, James Allison is an inventor, which is almost like a triathlon of horse um riding.

Um we have Tracy Hill, we have in the air nearby area.

Oops, sorry.

We have um Sabine Schute, who won the silver medal at the Olympics a few years ago, and Janae Vaughn, and these are people not in Alameda County, but they're headed that way.

And I would just say barn owners, I apologize for going over.

Barn owners aren't getting rich, they typically made money somewhere else, and they've got other income or jobs.

So if they have all these added expenses, it's it's just a real strength.

Thank you.

I really appreciate you being here.

Follow-up questions from Supervisor Miley.

If you could stay up, sure.

Yeah, so since I'm not familiar with you, could you I'm not familiar with you?

Could you kind of give us a little bit of your background, your credentials?

With respect to horses, yes.

Uh, so you know, going back a long time ago, I've had a horse as a kid, it was like 11 years old, into my 20s, was a jumper, moved to California.

Um, actually, I helped run a barn in the Marin Headland called the Presidio Riding Club.

We were a co-op, they still exist today, not to the extent when I was there.

Um, but I was part of the team that literally helped run the barn.

We didn't have an owner, the United States government owned the Presidio Riding, owns the Presidio Riding Club.

Um, today I have my own personal barn out on Crow Canyon.

I have two horses that are my own.

My pets, I've had up to four horses there.

I also have a show horse at a barn out on um Camino, Tessahara.

So I have been involved with horses for over 50 years.

Okay, and then from your uh perspective, how does uh Alameda County rate compared with other counties when it comes to you know uh horse?

Well, I feel like the horse communities have been dwindling in the last several years.

Um, you know, you know, agriculture in general.

Um I've seen you know I see a lot of big barns out on uh in um Contracosta County out on Camino Tesahara and in Walnut Creek, um, but there's you know very large barns, um, several of them with 50 plus horses out on Camino, Tesahara, and um I think if you go further out, I don't think Marin's doing a good job, but Sonoma, Napa, um also still have big barns, but then way out in um, you know, just south of Sacramento, Elk Grove, Rancho Marietta area.

I think that's where the big barns are going.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker, please.

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

Andrew, you hear me okay?

Yes.

Yes.

Good morning, honorable David Howbert, honorable Nate Miley, and everyone involved in transportation and planning.

This is Andrew Turnbull and Sennol.

Thank you for hearing this item based on the thoughtful work of Dan Devini.

I want to thank David Haubert for encouraging me to work with the Alameda County Ag Advisory Committee.

I'm now a student of Dr.

Derry, Larry Goslin, Chuck Moore, Karen Sweet, Dick Quigley, and Millie Kimbrough.

From my work at the International Horsemanship Foundation, I've learned that horses help humans.

The stories from our grant and scholarship recipients across the United States and Canada are heartwarming and spectacular.

There are more horse owners in the golden state than any other state in the union.

The horse industry contributes 11.6 billion dollars to the California economy.

The economic impact of the horse industry in California indicates it's perhaps the largest industry hiding in plain sight.

During the recent Planning Commission meeting, the commissioners were passionate and unanimously supporting Dan DeVini's excellent work because we need to support horse agribusiness in Alameda County.

There was so much worthy applicable testimony at that meeting that I emailed you a highlighted reference document of the complete proceedings of the agenda item along with my letter.

Let's support Dan's work at the Castor Valley Mac.

Let's support the pro horse agribusiness passion of the county planning commissioners.

And let's renew the county's commitment to fully staff the unfinished implementation of the 2003 Equine C UP streamlining project.

May the horse be with you.

Mark Crawford, you have two minutes.

I just wanted to uh can you hear me okay?

Yes.

Okay, good.

I just wanted to address Supervisor Miley's concern is how this ended up here today.

Uh I guess I'm to blame for that.

Um several ranchers brought this issue, the Castor Valley Mac and uh Dan DeVinny uh kind of ran with it.

It was placed on a MAC agenda.

Um they approved uh requesting that it come to transportation and planning uh and discussions after that.

Uh we decided to bring it to the planning commission uh to uh discuss it as well and see if the planning commission would make a recommendation to bring it to you.

Um the reason staff hasn't been involved a lot at this point is you know, they basically said they weren't gonna do anything on this until they got direction from the Board of Supervisors, and the quickest way for them to get that is to bring this to your committee here, and so that's why it's been done that way.

I don't think anyone's been trying to circumvent any uh process.

It's just it's just rised up, it is raised up organically, and um it's the planning commission and uh that requested that it be put on your agenda, and that's why it's before you today.

I just wanted to explain that.

Okay, thank you.

Supervisor Miley, do you have a follow-up?

Yeah, yes.

Um, Mark, yeah, if the planning commission's request is on our agenda, I mean, once again, maybe I'm just um not as aware of the process as I thought I knew.

Why didn't the Planning Commission come forth?

As opposed to Dan presenting this as a community member, the Planning Commission submit this, and it'd be on our agenda from the planning commission.

Quite frankly, once again, I didn't look at who was submitting, I just looked at the title of the item, and I thought it was either staff was going to submit, planning commission was gonna submit or something, but not an individual community member.

And I think you're aware enough of county processes and procedures, um, and you can understand the sensitivity around one community member submitting something to a board committee as opposed to the commission, a board, the Mac, a neighbor group or something.

Well, Dan did ask me after the planning commission meeting if you know it was something that you know I should present.

And I took the position that really he should present it because he's got such a good grasp on it, as you can see from the presentation he made.

The presentation he made at the planning commission was very well received.

Commissioners that really don't have any background or a lot of experience with AG were grateful and complimented him on it.

So I thought really the best presentation that could be made to you today could be made by Dan.

And that's that's why that decision was made.

Um, and like I said, nobody's trying to circumvent anything.

You know, staff's busy, they only have a certain amount of time.

They took the position that they're not going to move forward on this until you tell them to.

And the only way to get to that was to bring it to you, and obviously not the full board, but to the subcommittee.

Um, so I don't I don't think that we're going to be doing this all the time, but this is just kind of an isolated case.

And to get it to start moving forward, we it needed to be brought to you too.

Yep.

I don't, you know, I don't have a problem with the the um the merits of what wants to be done.

I just have a problem with the process.

So if the planning commission feels something needs to be agendized for this body, um because staff isn't working on it.

How would you go about why in the planning staff, planning department uh agenda is an item saying there's a request from the planning commission in the MAC that this be taken up?

Uh, what's the direction or desire of the board?

Well, we have a number of things that we always would bring to the TNP at the appropriate time.

I think that um again, we weren't necessarily asked to provide a report to the planning commission or to the to this committee today.

Um I think that the both the planning commission agenda is prepared by the chair, and of course, we don't prepare the agenda for for TMP for either uh or either.

Um, and so that that's sort of how this how this uh this uh item occurred today.

I would say that I don't think that staff said that we weren't gonna do anything.

I think it was more that this particular request to eliminate the site development review that we weren't gonna just do that unilaterally without some board direction, so I mean we wouldn't we wouldn't normally do that uh anyway.

So I think that getting some direction, understanding the issues today would be helpful in us taking our next steps um on this particular matter, whether or not we want to remove or eliminate the site development review uh process or not.

Next speaker, please.

Caller, you're on the line, you have two minutes, unmute your phone, iPhone three.

Press star six to unmute your phone.

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

All right, can you hear me?

Yes, okay.

My name's Jeanette uh Baldwin.

Uh I own a ranch on Crow Canyon, uh a boarding facility.

I would like uh to address the board and I appreciate your time.

Um I want to say that under these circumstances, the um site development plans for uh training facilities, uh not being subject to the site uh development plan and boarding facilities having to uh is splitting hairs, you can't treat one the same business, you know.

We're all feeding housing horses um differently, just because you call it something different.

Um I think that there's some fundamental error there, and I believe that the speaker that said that someone just didn't understand.

They decided that boarding horses and taking writing lessons was recreational, not agriculture back in the 80s, set all this into motion, and I'm uh concerned about the future of horse boarding facilities in Alameda County.

Um it is arduous, but you know, I'll go through the paperwork, I'll jump through your hoops, but the money that's involved is astronomical.

Um they won't even get into how much it costs to uh get in to do our sewer system.

And it it was for my house, not even my business.

We uh we don't make a lot of money.

We do it.

There are no additional speakers on item one.

Okay, very good.

Um, a question I have is with regard to site development reviews, it's been suggested that we eliminate the need for a site development review for training facilities.

Under California state law.

Can we do that?

I believe so, yes.

So I'm not sure.

It was just described that many other uses are also excluded from that.

We don't need to do that.

If I recall correctly, and I think we'll have to come back after we do more research in Sandy River Directory of Community Development Agency.

Uh when this uh process going through with the equine TAC committee, uh the equine uh stakeholder group met with the state and the state had noted uh differentiation between sort of between uh equine facilities.

And so we'd have to get back go back to uh what was stated at that time and whether or not uh additional uh changes have been made at the state, but uh the distinction between uh our horse boarding and writing academies were different uh in that uh it you're not breeding or I mean unless you're breeding, then uh and it's an ag it's an ag you, it's considered an ag use, but if you're doing writing stables and and boarding, it's more of a commercial use and recreational use.

So there was a distinction, and I think staff did their best at that time to make that change.

It was CUPs at one point, now is their SERs, and so I mean we can review it.

Uh it's always a good thing to do is uh review um regulations to see if we can further streamline and improve them, but uh I think we'll have to come back to your board with more information and Melanie's here as well.

Melanie, go ahead.

Uh good morning.

Um just to echo what staff said um to say we'd want to make sure that it uh conforms with state law, that it's not in conflict with state law.

We need to do more work on our end for that.

Um any necessary uh SQL work which would pertain to the ordinance, potentially, and then we do need to pass a county ordinance to revise our code, so we could um if needed order a CEQA study of our at our own cost and time, we could as a board, after we confirm whether it conforms with state law, we could just make a determination at some point and move forward with dropping the SDR, but it would require us to understand first would it conform with state law and if seek was required, who determines that whether CQ was required to drop the SDR and if it conforms to state law.

I believe staff typically hires a CWA consultant to evaluate that.

Yeah, we'd have to we'd have to look at the scope of the actual project and then conduct the CEQA analysis on that.

If it's reducing or eliminating the SDR, but we we replace it with something else, then that would all have to be factored into the analysis.

I would replace it with the right to operate facility.

Yes, what I meant by that is that because there's other agencies involved and they have permits as well.

Um there's a clean water permit, for example, that's required, that may be uh sufficient so that um our concerns that might arise out of CEQA might not actually exist if there's another um backstop there to be able to regulate that particular issue.

As I mentioned before, the planning department has been the vehicle mostly for these other agencies to weigh in on matters like manure management, septic system, um to some degree building permits, uh things that are not necessarily planning related.

I think that one of the things that I heard from some of the speakers was that some of the costs that are associated, it's not our $2,000 per uh application fee.

Um that's nominal in comparison to what might be required through like you know, updating your septic system, which I've heard people say it could be, you know, uh hundred thousand dollars, maybe even more.

And so I think that you know, there's there's uh if there's other agencies that are still gonna require those things, then potentially site development review from the planning department may not be required, and CEQA could actually not be such a big deal if those other issues are still covered by other agencies.

Yeah, so um this will be this will get complex, um, I believe.

Uh I would I'm would like to discuss those other agencies and their requirements.

I the feeling I get from some people is every time they try to do something even mundane and simple, it turns into a gotcha moment or a get you moment, which allows our agencies to say, we don't have a current survey, so go survey everything on your property when all you want to do is one little thing.

It turns into need to do redo your septic tank, even though it works properly, but we got you because we can, and I want to eliminate that as much as possible.

I will eliminate that as much as possible to the extent that that I can uh on this board.

Um, and so maybe that's a discussion that we have to have with our health department.

Um we've talked about moving that department outside of the health department to its own standalone department.

If that's what we have to do, then that's what we'll have to do.

Um, but that's something that I hear from the public on too many different occasions.

Uh it was asked uh suspected maybe sometimes the SDR fee of two thousand dollars, while I agree doesn't sound like a lot, it can be to somebody that doesn't make a lot.

In your sub just off the off the uh head, you might not know, I'm not asking for a scientific answer.

How many times do we go back and say we need more than the two thousand dollars?

Does it exceed that based on staff time?

Or maybe it does and we just cut some slack, as the speaker mentioned.

How many times do we actually charge more than 2,000?

Do you have any idea for that?

I I can't answer, I have to go look at that.

Okay, I I think that's fair, that's fair.

Um, so if this is to get direction, my direction, and I don't think it'll come as any surprise.

I would like to have our policies conform to the state minimum requirements.

We must comply with state law.

I can't change that to Melanie's point.

If we drop in SDR, we have to make sure that it complies with state law.

And we if we have to make the case to the state, then we'll have to make the case to the state.

In my opinion, if you have horses, your equine and your agriculture, period, training them, breeding them, letting them live somewhere, whatever it is, that's agriculture.

So in my opinion, if the state will allow that, and if they won't, I want to hear from the state that they say we can't do this, that we would um as quickly as possible streamline our process.

That's our planning department's process, and if we eliminate SDRs, fine, and that we bring to the board the other agencies involved as well to streamline those processes.

Um, that we would, if there are any definitional changes that we need to make with regard to this issue, that we would bring those definitions and their proposed changes to us.

Supervisor Miley, would you be in agreement with that course of action and or anything to add to that?

Yeah, I support that course of action.

The only thing I would add is so what is the timeline in the process for this?

Does this go through uh the planning commission?

Um what's what's the vehicle for moving this uh to the board ultimately?

Um so the uh it sounded like you also want us to confer with our partner agencies and then come back to transportation planning.

Um today you just have the planning department, we don't have environmental health, we don't have public works, um, any other agencies that might be involved.

Um there's a number of them, and so I think that uh it sounded like you wanted a full reporting in terms of what might be.

I would say let's do the f fastest thing we can first and low-hanging fruit, and then bring in the other agencies just to be clear, why over.

Well, the the in terms of your first question about what complies with state law, that that does sound like we could come back and get you that pretty quickly.

Um the heavier lift, of course, is understanding the role of the other agencies and what they would do if the site development review requirement was no longer in place, and I think that might take some more time, but also I think that would be you know very helpful in terms of understanding the um the process that we're that we're under.

So I just don't need to understand between the planning staff and the chair.

So is all this coming directly back to this committee, and then after this committee does what we do, then it's got to go back to the planning committee.

I mean, I need to understand the process.

If we want to remove site development review ultimately, I'm not saying that'll be decided, but if that's the ultimate thing what's the process to remove site development review.

So so it would have to go through our road show.

I mean we probably would have to go to uh ag advisory committee we'd probably start there the max to the degree that they're involved um we have horses in fairview we have horses in um casher valley of course maybe not so much Eden uh through the MAC process planning commission back to TMP and then the full board I mean that that process is is our typical road show.

Okay right so I just want to kind of lay that out publicly so the chair's gonna have uh initially all that's uh all the agencies and the legality piece come back to this committee then if we give direction that we want to move ahead then then I guess you'll give us a time frame on what it'll take before it's back to us.

Okay.

So uh I note we do have that process in place but I also note this has been just a long time do we need to go through a road show like that it's already here at this level can we not just proceed from here on well any zoning code would have at the minimum would have to go to the planning commission for their recommendation that's that's state law um but I think that once we hone in on the issues I mean we could um we could do an abbreviated at least some sort of report to the Mac chairs letting them know that this is developing and that they want to comment that they could there's a there's a couple other forms for them to be able to do that.

The reason that that's a good point I the reason I bel I feel that way is one um I don't want to circumvent one I don't want to do that for very many things this thing has taken a long time we're willing to do that here.

One uh two um I'm sensitive to just our overall workload uh we could maybe work smarter not harder and um and maybe it's uh having one of those bodies or the ag the ag committee isn't is a countywide thing maybe we can direct everybody to go to an ag meeting so that anybody interested could go to one place one time there's no reason why we can't we have countywide commissions all the time people from the tribe valley got to come to Oakland to participate in some countywide things.

Let's have all the people interested in equine come to one place meeting and work smarter and harder that allows everybody the chance to weigh in we notice everybody so they all understand it we have one meeting instead of six perhaps I would be willing I would want to that kind of on this one.

In that case the ag advisory committee would be sort of the convening body to get input from the Max to the degree that they want to so yeah that would definitely um save some time and it would I think provide a good forum to um you know wrestle what these issues that we have supervisor what do you think?

Oh yeah so I just want to make sure we're all clear so make sure the chair is um uh stating what we're gonna do here we're gonna have staff come back to this committee with a report on the legalities and then also all the other agencies we're gonna hear that then we're gonna direct that things move forward based on what we hear to um possibly making a change and that's gonna go to the ag committee for the county the commission and we're gonna invite the Max to and anyone else equine the quine committee and whatever else to participate then after that it's gonna go to the planning commission.

Then after that we'll come to the to this committee and then to the full board.

Yes.

Okay.

I I appreciate that I'll I'll streamline it even further.

I don't know that we need this to come back to TNP to understand the legalities of it.

You could just send us a note or in our weekly meetings let's just do it that way.

Let's go straight to ag committee whenever you're ready.

Let everybody know to go there and then to planning and then here.

So is that fair.

Yeah, that sounds fair.

I mean, it also sounds that the the desire of the committee is to eliminate the site development review and and one hundred percent.

So we would take that as the premise is that if we can, we will eliminate the site development review.

100%.

Yeah, okay.

And if that means the other departments want to have their own permitting, they we can't circumvent state law for the other agencies that need to get a permit.

You mentioned clean water and all that other stuff.

They still have to do that.

We're just limiting the site development.

Separately, we're going to have a discussion with why are we requiring surveys of the whole property for one little thing that people want to go do?

That's a different discussion.

Correct.

And then the definitions, we're going to get those.

I would like not on this agenda today specifically, but it was referenced six different definitions.

Uh let's tackle two of them a month for each of the next three meetings if we can.

I think some are kind of ready to go.

Um, maybe I don't know, but that would be my preference to start tackling some of these technical.

Okay, so they clarify then.

I our next sort of big meeting, then is going to be at the Ag Advisory Committee to discuss this issue, but the premise that we we want to be able to eliminate the site development review process.

Please.

All right, got it.

Supervisor Miley, anything else?

Uh yes.

Um, Mr.

Chair, Mr.

President.

So with the environmental health department, I know we've brought it up at prior TMP meetings, and it was mentioned again today here.

Do we want to have the environmental health department through the uh Alameda County Health come and make a presentation about the origins of that department and why it's structured under the agency?

Do you want to have it come here or do you want to send it to the health committee?

What's your reference as president of the board?

I get direction from you.

Um I'm not sure yet, supervisor.

Yeah, let me think about that.

Thank you for uh raising that.

I'm sure with that, we'll move on to item number two.

Thank you all for coming uh for item number one, those participating uh remotely.

The second item is the planning commission recommendation from oversight of the implementation of the Baker Tilly Development Process Review Report.

I understand we have the chair of the Alameda County Planning Commission, Mark Crawford.

Is this preceded by any staff report at all?

Or would you go straight to presentation?

Uh yeah, this is um again something coming from the planning commission to the TMP.

Uh, we're here for questions at the appropriate time.

Is this where you're also sort of looking for direction and input from the board from us?

Uh yes.

Okay, all right.

Thank you.

Um, with that, uh, we will promote to a panelist, Mr.

Crawford.

I see him online.

I also note that we have a document here, which was the attachment.

Um, we have that before us.

So the floor is yours, Mr.

Crawford.

Thank you.

Good morning, supervisors, and I apologize for not making the June 23rd TNP meeting I had an emergency medical situation in my family.

Um, so I appreciate being able to bring this to you today.

I do have a PowerPoint, which I would like to go through.

So uh this is the Planning Commission recommendations from the oversight of the implementation of the Baker Tilly report.

An overview of uh the planning commission's report.

The Baker is the Baker Tilly uh development process review report.

The planning commission delegated this oversight function to the permit streamlining subcommittee, and the Planning commission permit streamlining subcommittee uh has a process which I'll uh describe.

And then uh wanted to report on staff progress on completing the uh 51 uh recommendations.

Uh so the Baker Tilly Development Process Review Report uh was conducted at Baker Tilly conducted a comprehensive review of Alamity County's development services processes to identify opportunities for improvement and streamline operations at the public works agency planning department, environmental health, and fire department.

This report was finished in July 2023, and the evaluation identified the need to address systemic changes, provided 51 recommendations to enhance staff efficiency.

The staff has completed less than half of those recommendations at this point.

And I've got a uh this basically the staff's uh spreadsheet.

We can go over that later in detail if you want.

Um but there are major reforms that remain incomplete uh in that list of recommendations.

So the report findings, some of the findings were strong leadership is needed to foster teamwork accountability and effective communication across departments.

Uh additional resources such as hiring a project manager and consulting services are necessary to support implementation and addressing recruitment, succession planning, and professional development is crucial to improving staff efficiency and retention.

Um the permit streamlining subcommittee process, the planning commission permit streamlining subcommittee appointees are myself, Commissioners Ryan Nielsen and Rodney Zeiss.

The subcommittee met on March 12th, 2025.

The subcommittee's information request was limited to the planning department progress on recommendations 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, uh 12, and 13.

And we had hoped this limit might yield greater detail.

The specific request was that the planning department described in detail the progress achieved on the below recommendations of the Baker Tilly Development Services Process Review.

A detailed response that includes what has been planned, completed, and a definitive timeline for both is required.

We felt the subcommittee felt this was necessary since all prior requests were answered with a spreadsheet from all four departments that was unacceptably inaccurate.

Initially, we did get a response from Albert in the body of an email.

That response sort of morphed into the full spreadsheet from all four departments that was once again uh unacceptably inaccurate.

These are the six recommendations, seven recommendations that we wanted to hone in on with the planning department specifically.

And I'll go through those in detail here.

The you know, the white is the actual recommendation, the yellow is Albert's response in the email, and uh the light blue here is you know, basically the subcommittee and planning commission's uh thoughts about what's what's actually occurred here.

Um, and I I did go back and watch the June 23rd uh meeting, and you you did have a lot uh of good robust discussion there, uh especially about uh you know recommendations six, seven, and nine, and how those are sort of related to each other.

Um and I I so I thought that was very good, but the problem that we're having is that the the idea of recommendations six, seven, and nine is that you know uh a project manager position is created, where that exists and what department, you know, hasn't been defined, but that's the essence of what these recommendations are here.

And we're getting conflicting information from uh the spreadsheet that they give us, and Albert's uh responses here as to you know interpretation of these recommendations, what needs to be done going forward, um, like his email response here.

This recommendation can be considered complete given planners are actively managing projects and resolving issues.

But then, and you know, uh in in another in the spreadsheet itself, he says that this is outside of our scope of work, and you know, we it's not really something that's likely to get done.

Um, recommendation seven is kind of the same thing.

This this pertains to the building permit process, but it's still uh and and we sort of quasi-agreed, okay this is complete and you heard from Daniel on on June 23rd as to how they felt that was complete um but it did it once again it gets back to and and I I think and I just I watched that June 23rd meeting this morning again just to refresh myself but I think the main problem that we're having here and I think what like the planning commission and the public's expectation from Baker Tilly is that the status quo as it relates to recommendations six, seven and nine is is not acceptable that something needs to be done here instead of and and the staff's view of this is essentially that the portal answers all these questions and handles all these things and it really doesn't you still have a situation where an applicant is coming into the process they don't know the process they don't know the county's process they're not necessarily learning it all on the portal there still needs to be some sort of guidance uh some per person there to help them through the process uh and and that's essentially what recommendations six seven and nine are and um I'll I'll go to more about that later so recommendation eight was identify issues early using comprehensive checklists and pre-application meetings sequencing the process so key issues are identified and resolved early so in the email excuse me the email response from Albert evidently a consultant had been hired in late 2024 to work on this was news to us um you know we're we're we're talking about this back in in March and this had not been disclosed to us this is definitely good news um and I know you had some discussion about this on June 23rd uh about maybe have an M group come to uh TNP and give a report uh I think it'd be probably better to have that come to the planning commission or at least come first to try to see what is going on with that process since we're essentially doing a lot of the leg work for you on this recommendation nine uh ensure smooth project management transmission entitlement and building processes and Albert's response was our electronic system is receiving requests for sign offs on building permits and is in place and used regularly to ensure a smooth transition between entitlements and building permits this is this kind of illustrates what I just said a minute ago where staff is really relying on the uh the portal to be the solution to all of these problems and the recommendations in the Baker Tilly report that's that's not that's not what we were looking for.

It needs obviously the portal is helping in a lot of ways but you know a lot of the people that are applicants they're not land use or you know development experts you know they need a person to be helping them out and I think that's something that we still need to address moving on to recommendation 10 I know you had a lot of discussion about this on on June 23rd as well and uh you know the way this is worded conduct an analysis of and update the planning current development environmental health permit fee structures in support of improved customer service and recovering additional costs for providing these functions this is kind of core to one of the recommendations the planning commission is making and you can see here that you know Albert's email response to us was this recommendation is unlikely to be implemented um and I I think what this comes down to is um is staff efficiency um you know we're we're kind of stuck with the personnel that we have the processes that we have there's discussion about fees and not gone up for 20 years but applicants are are are built an hourly rate for each planner or person that's participating in in a in a planning uh application and those those hourly rates have gone up in the last 20 years um so the the and these deposits that are you know that are uh that are given are just that they're deposits.

They're they're the beginning uh of that process and and those costs.

And the idea here, and this is what the planning commission is trying to essentially say with its recommendation that we need to figure out a way to make the process more efficient.

And if the planning department is only going to get X amount of dollars for this particular application, then it's not going to be like it is now.

Because like it is now, they can spend as much time as they want on it.

There's no automatic efficiency to the system.

And so that's essentially what the planning commission is getting at uh in its recommendation and trying to address uh recommendation 10.

Uh recommendation 12.

Identify and assign a permitting process project manager to work across departments to assist with dashboard development and provide general oversight to monitor progress, discuss issues and respond to requests.

Um this is one of those big ticket items that's still out there languishing that once again addresses recommendations six, seven, and nine.

Um that is still that is still needed.

We're we're over two years out, we're almost two and a half years out since this report has been done, and and zero has been done on this particular item.

And this item here probably has the potential to streamline our permit process and assist applicants more than really anything else we could do.

Uh, recommendation 13 revisit the permit system setup and configuration to incorporate agreed upon changes in the process improvements in this report.

This is really kind of an overarching recommendation.

Uh staff is kind of looking at it like uh the portal is it is is essentially answering all of this, but there's there's a lot of things in the Baker Tilly report that aren't necessarily in the recommendations.

Um, some of these things go outside of those of those recommendations.

Um the spreadsheets, you know, define the current state of staff progress on recommendations.

And I I have the spreadsheets, we can look at those if you'd if you'd like.

Uh, just to give you some sense of what we're sort of battling with is uh the email response from Albert is this recommendation be considered complete given planners are actively managing projects and resolving issues.

Uh, but then in the spreadsheet, it shows that it is complete, and it says this would be a new role for planners, will require more coordination with colleagues in other departments with the goal of creating accountability across disciplines and departments.

So you can see the the information that we're getting isn't really making sense.

Um, and that's uh that's concerning.

So the staff progress on completing the 51 recommendations currently only 37 out of the 51 have been completed as indicated in the spreadsheet, and the subcommittee and the full planning commission are frustrated with staff resistance leading to uh the following recommendations, and this is the list of recommendations from the planning commission.

Um, as far as providing the spreadsheets for all planning applications submitted in 2024 and the next one, everything has been submitted on main start.

The idea behind that was we wanted to get sort of a baseline about where we're at.

Some of the questions that you had asked in the June 23rd meeting about, and you even asked it today, Supervisor Halbert, as far as you know, how many of these applications are going over the deposit.

Um that's the types of things that we that the planning commission and the permit streamlining subcommittee want to hone in once they're once they get copies of these uh spreadsheets from the planning department.

Those are the kind of details that we want to hone in on.

That's that's kind of what we need to do here instead of having you guys try to do that at your uh meetings with all the stuff that you're dealing with.

Um, and I spoke before about implementation of recommendation number 10 immediately requiring all permit fees to be fixed amount.

Um, I think what we meant by that was let's start the process.

We all understand there needs to be a fee study and there needs to be a process to figure that out.

Uh, but we need to start that because uh the system is broken, the status quo is not acceptable.

That's what this report states, and with the personnel and the issues that we have, and they're not being uh a willingness to correct those issues.

We need to change the process.

And if the planning department's only going to get X amount of dollars for an application, they can't be dilly dallying around.

They need to get to uh the completion of that, get it to public hearing, get it done because they're only going to get so much money.

And that's that's what other agencies do.

That's what the building department does.

And it's high time that the planning department started to do and environmental health as well, if they're uh if they're engaged in the same process.

Um, as far as implement an appeal process for applications in all four departments, this is really about while the applicant is going through the application process.

This isn't an appeal after it's been approved.

I noticed that you did have a lot of discussion about that at the June 23rd meeting, and like the fire chief was there, he kind of weighed in on it.

Environmental health was there and stated they had an appeal process that goes to their advisory committee or something like that.

Um, the fire department actually uh, and and uh Chief McDonald's been great since he came in, but the fire department under the fire code actually has is supposed to have a fire appeals commission uh in each jurisdiction where appeals can go.

We don't have that, we never had that.

Um, and I'm not saying that necessarily is how it needs to be, but applicants need a process for an immediate appeal to any of these four departments to be heard right away to break whatever log jam they have in front of them.

And we don't have that now.

And you know, how we get there is something we need to start working on because, like I said, it's two over two and a half years out, and uh nothing's been done on this.

Uh, as far as the environmental health department needs to be a standalone uh department with new leadership, that's not necessarily something that's in uh the Baker Tilly report.

And there are going to be times where we're gonna make the planning commission is going to make recommendations.

We're not limited to the Baker Tilly report in recommendations that we want to make to this committee uh about improvements that need to be made to the process.

Um, but that we know that this is a discussion that's been had and you're having at the board of soups level.

And so we just wanted uh you to know that the planning commission uh, you know, has has thought about this and talked about this and uh agrees with going in that direction.

That was really the only reason for um including that in there.

Uh so as far as next steps go, um, definitely would be nice to approve the planning commission recommendations and direct staff to move forward to address them.

Um there were some things that you mentioned at the June 23rd TNP meeting.

Supervisor Miley asked for a report on moving environmental health out of the health department and making it a standalone department with a board of supervisors appointed director.

You kind of mentioned that again today.

I think that's something that you know you guys need to say, let's let's get this back in the next meeting or two.

Uh Supervisor Howard had asked about the consultant M group making presentation at TMP.

Uh, you can certainly do that, but if you want to save some of your own time, you could have that done at the PC and we can report back to you on that because that might get you know a little uh time consuming.

And then Supervisor Miley asked for a report on all permits submitted in a certain time frame.

That really goes along with our first two recommendations of asking for a spreadsheet from uh planning on all these applications that have been submitted since 2024.

Um, and then to address recommendations six, seven, and nine, pursue the project manager role that would have authority to guide the application through the entire county process.

This could be part of an Office of Unincorporated Services.

This role could also address the appeals process that I talked about earlier.

Also, also there's this issue we've been dealing with, the fire department is not integrated into the portal.

Um, they're not establishing their own portal like the other three departments are.

Um, there's been resistance to that.

I mean, they're they're hooked into the reportal in the sense that they get emails, you know, they get certain things, but they don't actually have their own portal.

And I think that's something there hasn't been a lot of discussion of, and uh, we kind of need to uh have discussion about that and figure out what needs to be done on that.

And that concludes my presentation.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Crawford.

We'll see if we have uh clarifying questions.

Uh Supervisor Miley.

Uh yes, thank you, Chair Hubbard.

Uh, first of all, I want to thank uh Mark Crawford for a very thorough comprehensive uh report uh to this committee.

Uh can your PowerPoint be made available to us and to the public.

Sure, yeah, I'll email it.

Yeah, please do because it's important that we if that we have the public have it.

You know, I just work here, and so I don't always know why we don't have you know PowerPoints and reports in advance.

Um, so I'm not trying to put you on the spot.

But yeah, if you can get this to us and set a good example, that would be helpful.

Because this is you you had a lot of information here, which I think is really, really uh good.

And we're very also appreciative that this committee referred this to the planning commission to follow up on, because as you mentioned, um this committee has a lot that we're trying to uh deal with.

So just wanted to state that.

Next, I want to say is um, I do think we need to have a um a project manager on this, and I think it's bigger than just the planning department or the community development agency.

Uh I know you mentioned the Office of Unincorporated Services, uh, because this is something that involves the entire unincorporated area, uh, both uh urban as well as uh the rural and incorporate area, so it's the entire unincorporated area.

And as I'm the one who started all this by saying if it was uh a city, it'd be the fourth largest city in the county.

So to have a project manager to follow up on the recommendations um from the Baker Tilly report, as well as um, you know, focusing on this as a staff function, because it's really a staff function.

It shouldn't be the role of the Planning Commission to have to do this.

You should be involved naturally, but it shouldn't be the role of you to bird dog this and make sure um this level of specificity is being handled.

There needs to be a project manager, and it and I and I for one think it needs to uh need to be um uh broader than just one agency or department, and I'll wait for the chair to kind of give us some guidance on that.

And then um, and then finally, uh I just want to say uh I think I don't want to be too hard on the county, but you know, we came out of the pandemic, and even coming out of the pandemic um in 2021, 2022, it takes some time to to even you know go through the recovery.

Now it's 2025.

So I do think we're at a good place, and I'm glad the planning commission followed up on this, but I do think we're at a good place now to really um you know make some momentum on this, despite the fact that we've got other challenges, you know, from um uh the present administration.

So those are just some of my initial comments, uh, Mr.

Chair.

Uh thank you very much.

Can I can I can I just uh speak to that really quickly, um, Supervisor Miley's concerns.

Uh on the PowerPoint presentations.

Um this is kind of an ongoing problem uh countywide, really.

I mean, we have the same problem with the planning commission.

Oftentimes staff and this really started with uh the pandemic uh when we were doing everything online.

Staff does these presentations and we don't see them ahead of time.

We don't get copies of them ahead of time, neither does the public.

Sometimes at the planning commission, they're kind of you know slapped on the desk at the beginning of the meeting.

Um, but we really need to figure out what is the deal with these PowerPoint presentations because the public doesn't have access to them.

They're not attached to these agendas.

Um, and I basically followed staff's lead on doing this one here today because staff never gives them out ahead of time either.

Um, but yeah, we we definitely you know need to do that um and figure out how we're gonna do that.

And then on um the Office of Unincorporated Services, I I agree, you know, the Planning Commission isn't necessarily uh the right vehicle for doing all this, but you know, we waited six months, nothing was happening.

Um, you know, and that's when we came back to you and said, hey, we'll we'll do this, we'll do the heavy lifting on this and and lessen your workload.

And there's a desire.

The planning commissioners, uh, there's a desire for us to continue to do this because we feel it's not going to get done otherwise.

Now, if we get a department develop uh department of unincorporated services someday, and they start doing all this, then yeah, by all means the planning commission doesn't need to do it anymore.

But I I think until we get closer to the finish line on Baker Tilly, uh, we need to continue to bird dog this to bring these issues to you so that you're not spending your time on it.

And then, you know, staff honestly has a lot of progress has been made.

There's no question, especially with the portals.

Uh, but staff has really been engaged in trying to uh you know complete the low-hanging fruit, and we're really to the harder uh issues now that haven't been addressed.

And that's that's why we need the, you know, we need the supervisors to get more involved.

I mean, unincorporated services department, you know, I don't know what that process entails, but it needs to start.

It's two and a half years out, and we need to start that, and nothing's been done on that.

Uh, and we we view it as our job to continue to uh you know uh be the squeaky wheel on this and continue to bring it to you, hopefully so it moves forward.

Mr.

Chair, go ahead.

I just wrote briefly.

So, yeah, um Ms.

Crawford, you know, I've worked with you since I've been in office, so we know each other very well.

Um, so no, I definitely appreciate the work that you, you know, the planning commission has done on this, definitely value it, and and I don't think we can wait for an office of unincorporated services to be created.

Um, and you will hear we're gonna have a report on that after this item.

Um, I think to move this forward, we need to have a staff person assigned to this now, uh, and then hopefully uh this responsibility will will become part of the office of unincorporated services uh once it's created.

But that's that's gonna be a while from now.

So I do agree with you.

And once again, I only work here.

I don't know why it takes uh why things aren't made public in advance.

Um, once again, I only work here.

Thank you, Supervisor Miley for your insightful comments.

I see our staff attorney got up and moved to the microphone.

And every time our attorney stands up, I take note.

So I'll recognize our attorney who wants to weigh in.

Thank you.

I wanted to provide some clarity under the Brown Act for PowerPoints.

So they should be provided um to the public and be attached to the agenda at the time they're distributed to the full body.

So your Mr.

Crawford gave a presentation the first time you saw it, should now be provided to the public and the full body.

They're not required to be attached to the agenda, like staff reports or applications, things like that.

Um, but they're often worked on last minute because they are in fact not required to be attached to the agenda.

So that might just be a practical response to that question.

Um, so just to reiterate not required to be attached to the agenda, but once they're distributed to the two of you, they are required to be available to the public.

Okay, great.

We'll make it available to the public.

Um, and the recording certainly can help do that.

Um, let's go to public comment.

Uh any speakers in the room on this item.

Do we have any hands raised from the public?

Very good.

Caller, you're on the line.

You have two minutes, Kelly.

Hi, thank you.

Since we've had so many legalistic presentations, I'd just like to remind you that this is an action item, and you will be taking action on this item.

So, supervisors, I'm concerned how the permit streamlining would slash revenues for the planning department and community development agency.

The planning department gets a lot of its funding from permit fees, not from the general fund.

So this could hamstring them a lot.

I'm also concerned about the planning commission recommendation to make environmental health a standalone department reporting directly to your board.

I'd point out that this consultant recommendation and this commission recommendation directly contradicts the findings of the 2015 grand jury report, which I just now emailed to you, which warned that giving your board direct control over department heads, quote, invites unethical interference into day-to-day operations, end quote, and compromises staff's ability to fairly administer county policies.

The grand jury's recommendation 15-5.

Recommendation 15-5 was for the board to relinquish control of department head hiring to the county administrator to create a buffer against political pressure.

The Baker Tilly Report and Planning Commission recommendation would do the exact opposite.

It eliminates the buffer and sets up direct reporting that the grand jury determined has undermined the integrity of county permitting.

If we seek to create public accountability and we reduce political interference, we must heed the grand jury and ensure county administrative staff are insulated, not exposed to political pressure from your personal political staff.

Thank you.

I have no additional speakers on this item.

Okay, thank you.

Responding to the report, um I would ask with regard to recommendation six, and um tracking and monitoring projects, uh training and empowering planners, and as project managers.

What's the objection to that, if any?

Because that could be sort of professional development, on the job training as part of the day's activities.

That doesn't seem to be a heavy lift.

No, no, it isn't by by any means.

I think that if you read the response that staff gave, we believe that this particular recommendation is for the most part complete.

Um there is do we have training?

Yes, we do have we have well, we have supervision, we have training through projects.

Um, you know, younger planners need to have the that one-on-one with their supervisor to understand how to sort of navigate, you know, our very tricky process.

Um, and I mean, so we we have we serve as project managers for the things that we can directly control, and we try to influence the things that we don't control.

Uh, much like the previous item that we talked about in terms of the site development for horseback and riding, uh, many times we are the vehicle for a lot of the other agencies to chime in on a project.

And that could be, you know, you know, it could be a variety of projects, right?

It could be a big solar farm, it could be um a small subdivision for residential development or what have you.

And so our role as project manager is to eliminate constraints to try to address and troubleshoot problems for the applicant and get it to hearing and get it approved.

Um, that's our that's one of our core competencies.

That's what we do every day, all day.

Uh, we do it well.

And I think that there, when it comes to, for example, resolving an issue from another agency, I think that's where we do run into some concerns because we don't really have the ability to say, you know, to call up Daniel or say, hey, you know, we want to uh we want you to to look at this differently, or we want you to be able to eliminate this particular obstacle.

Um, that's something that we we don't really have that.

We don't have the ability to do that.

Um, having a um office of the unincorporated area or like a more typical city manager approach to these kind of things would be helpful, but in terms of the planning department, we are project managers.

Like I said, that's what is one of our core competencies.

We do that all the time.

It's it's basically, you know, what we our bread and butter and processing permits is to eliminate obstacles for applicants.

I also wanted to mention that um one thing that uh that Mark said, which I do agree on, which is that many applicants don't know the process.

They don't know what to anticipate.

They don't know what to expect.

And so one of the things is that we've been focusing on on the customer service experience through the portal.

Um, we have developed a um we have a development guide that kind of demystifies the process, and we've also uh completed one of the one of the other baker chilly uh items, which is to develop uh a series of checklists, which are the pretty robust checklists, but that is uh uh one of the things that we've accomplished in the last uh few months.

So the development guide and checklists are something that we're migrating to our website right now that will integrate with the with the permit portal so that people do know what to expect in terms of not just the process, but they understand how much it's gonna cost, they understand how long it's gonna take, they understand what kind of hearings that they're in and uh that they have to go attend, um, those kinds of things.

So it really is we've been focusing more on the customer experience, and a lot of that is delivered online and through the portal.

And so I think that um for that particular for that particular uh item number six.

I do believe again that it that's again uh something that the plan department in terms of the things that we can control that has been implemented.

Um there's always uh opportunities for improvement, but I think it's a continuum, it's not something where you just kind of check the box and say that it's done.

I think that project management is um something that's always ongoing on on the job training and and through uh planners developing experience, they get better at it, and uh and so I think again that's something that we feel is accomplished for the most part.

Recommendation eight, consultant hired until 2012 until December.

What's the status of that consultant activities?

Yes, so as I just mentioned, so the M group is a uh consultant we hired in early 2024.

They're doing uh a number of things.

One of them is implementation of the housing element.

Um you may remember the housing element had a series of density buckets, um, and so we want to we wanted to create objective design standards, which is a term of art from the state, is that if a project follows objective design standards, then for the most part they uh they should be entitled to a ministerial approval.

And so the M group is helping us develop that.

Um we also are using them to create the or to finish the development guide and the checklists and and sort of help organize all the many different permits and processes that that we have that that people are required to go through.

So those are the the two big things that they are doing, and they're hopefully wrapping up their work at the end of this year and maybe in a little bit into 2026.

Um, and that was um again, uh really two things it was to implement the housing element and also to implement Baker Tilly.

Okay, um, Mark, could you put up the slide that was the recommendations slide?

Um if you're still online, yes, yeah.

Yeah, I'm here.

Oh yeah, okay.

It might be helpful to have the M group at some point present to TNP their findings.

Um I just throw that out there as an opportunity.

Um, do you want just the slides?

The recommendations, the clean recommendations.

This this frame here.

No, towards the very end of the report, oh, slide that talked about the planning commission, the planning commission recommendations, yeah.

So one of these um here implement an appeal process for applications in all four departments.

Do the departments have a appeal process for each department.

Do we know?

Uh speaking for the planning department, yes.

Any decision from the planning department is appealable all the way up to the board.

Do we know if the other departments have?

Uh they did talk about that last hearing.

Um, I can't speak to the specifics.

Do you know whether that's a recommendation from the M group?

From the M group?

The M strategy, whatever that strategy is.

No, the M group was was meant to implement uh already.

They their job was not to create new recommendations, it was to help us implement the ones that we already had.

Um I am so supervisor halber.

Um, let me interject there.

Albert's answer to that is in regards to after the application is is acted on.

So what we're talking about here and what Baker Tilly's talking about here is an appeal during the application process before the decision is made.

Because some sort of you know roadblock has been put in front of the applicant and they're stuck.

Um so it's an entirely different appeals process than the appeals process we already have.

Okay, or decisions that have already been made.

So maybe if we had the the um body, uh the position, the FTE filled, there could be an internal appeal process to that person.

Okay, it sounds like that ombudsman or barrier breaker uh so to speak would be a logical place for that.

Okay, that helps clarify.

Um no other questions for me, other than to say um I am supportive of I know we're going to hear later next Office of Unincorporated Services status report.

Short of that, I heard Supervisor Miley say that we should be looking at bringing somebody on board before that time comes, because I think that will take some time.

Uh and I and I know we've talked about hiring a body, um, and I know that this uh Supervisor Miley mentioned this really transcends the planning department.

Our own staff recognizes they only have so much authority over the entire process, sort of moving it along, but no real legitimate authority over any other department.

So I'm uh I'm I would like to, and I I note it's an action item, but I don't know that we need to take a formal vote other than to say um I would be supportive of super my supervisor Miley has indicated support.

Let's narrow in on that.

To hire a staff member, I think we have to discuss where they might report, but we think we know the function, which would be um to act as a project applicant, ombudsman, concierge, guide, whatever we want to call it, um, to guide applicants through the process, um, and I would like to send direction to hire that person as soon as possible that they um and I say that because on the airboard that I sit on for the whole Bay Area, air quality management district, they're struggling with the same thing, and they have uh indeed empowered somebody, hired somebody new to do just that, and it reports directly to the chief deputy uh officer for permitting, um, somebody who is on the executive team, uh, doesn't report directly to the executive director but his right-hand person, and so um there's precedent there.

Um industry is appreciative of this, uh applicants are appreciative of this by industry.

I mean the contractors and businesses that work for applicants as well as the applicants.

Uh it's been well received.

So I'm interested to do that as a first step, and then to contemplate what a larger solution of the Office of Unincorporated Services might ultimately evolve into.

But I think a recommendation for me today is to hire a person, Supervisor Miley.

What do you think?

I think you're in going in the right direction.

I would offer my um uh suggestion to your approach, I would uh suggest that the committee take action uh to bring to the full board uh directing the county administrator to uh uh resolve the issue of a project manager, uh and that could be hiring a project manager.

Um getting, you know, I know she has an analyst or at different analysts who work with these different, you know, fire planning, uh public works and environmental health, sign an analyst to this responsibility, but I wouldn't if we if we say hire, that could take i don't know six months, I don't know.

But if we in the if the committee action to the full board, because I get the full board concurrence, direct the county administrator to resolve the issue of bring of uh of um dealing with this responsibility of project manager uh relative to the recommendation six um eight and nine or i think that would probably be what i would offer up as opposed to just more specifically saying hire because we might be able to get a project manager assigned to this sooner than later if we once again direct the county administrator today to to do this so is that to say um ask anything today other than bring that to the full board at a say a planning meeting okay yeah we could bring to full board at a planning meeting with the um the recommendation from this committee that a project manager uh be secured uh through the county administrator's office uh to manage the you know the recommendations that are coming out of the Baker Tilly report okay so would that include the the the report that was made to us today again we're just a subcommittee uh a committee but the planning committee is the full committee so I'm hearing um forwarding this item to the full board through the planning committee and including in that opportunity for providing direction to the CAO to manage this whether be hiring an incremental physician um uh andor before that perhaps stepping towards that um empowering an analyst to take this on um for that I would like it to be a planning department staff presentation to the planning department to the planning committee that we have I would like planning staff to present an item to the planning committee that in coordination with the planning commission if needed uh the presentation we just had uh and adding to that an action item so that it's clearly an action item to direct the CAO to take this on as supervisor miley described so at an upcoming planning meeting this would be a presentation from the planning department um if I may just for point of clarification uh are you saying uh the recommendations from this report or just overall that the basis of of this report will be the initiate the request for a project manager I think it would be your report on the progress to date of implementing the Baker Tilly study including this report is one step in that whatever else you've done with the M consultant whatever else you are planning to do sure and then included the recommendation that we're making that the CAO would weigh in on their recommendation for making progress on either hiring a body or empowering a body to be a permit streamliner.

Okay.

Is that does that clarify Supervisor Miley is that I I think it's pretty clear to me hopefully clear to staff and I'll I'll second that as port as a committee action yeah I don't know that we need a vote we could probably provide that direction is that fair counsel or do you would you prefer at this point that we take an action it's within your committee's um jurisdiction to provide um recommendations to the full board and it is listed as an action item so okay yeah I think it's probably more powerful if we take if we actually okay uh take it up as a okay with counsel I I recommend you take a vote on this item.

Supervisor miley made a motion.

I seconded it.

I guess we'll take a vote.

Supervisor miley?

Yes.

Supervisor Halbert.

Aye.

Approved.

Is that fair fair for staff?

We've completed item two.

Item three is an action item as well uh chair albert, can we take a five-minute recess before we take this item up?

At the request of my thank you wise and more senior supervisor colleague, we're going to take a five-minute recess.

Recording stopped.

Okay, let's um reconvene from recess.

Recording in progress.

We'll now reconvene from recess, asking the clerk to call the role to establish our quorum.

Supervisor Miley.

Present.

Supervisor Halbert.

Present.

Very good.

Item three is Office of Unincorporated Services, a status report.

Is there a staff report or Supervisor Miley?

Please go ahead.

Yes.

To cue this up.

Claudia Albano, who's my deputy chief of staff who will be making the report.

But let me just say that I appreciate the work of both my chief of staff, Tony Heninger, Claudia Albano, and then Brianne Gala, who's uh formerly with RCD, uh, who worked with us to put this uh presentation together.

Um it everyone doesn't know, but you know, Tony Hanninger has worked for the county uh for more than 30 years.

She was formerly the chief of staff for Mary King, and then she headed up the um code co-enforcement division in the community development agency for a number of years, and uh and then uh eventually um uh she became my chief of staff a number of years ago, and then um Claudia Albano, uh she's worked for a number of jurisdictions, both the city of Oakland, City of Fremont, um the Association of Governments, and um she's uh taught community organizing at Cal.

Uh and she's has an extensive and uh tremendous background.

So I'm very very blessed to have competent uh staff, both presently and the past.

So, Mr.

Chair, this this presentation and report will probably take about a good 20 minutes or so.

So, with your indulgence, I know we've heard a lot of meaty items this morning, but this is um another very meaty item.

So I'd like to turn it care of business.

Turn it over to Claudia now.

With that set up, Claudia, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Supervisors.

Uh good morning, Barely.

I'm Claudia Albano, Supervisor Miley's Deputy Chief of Staff, and I want to say it's an honor for me to give this presentation because I've been working on governance issues in the urban unincorporated communities for 12 years, and have really come to understand and appreciate the commitment community members have to improving their governance relationship with Alameda County.

And I also want to acknowledge how much I value their leadership and willingness to stick with this work year after year as they continue to advocate for the structural changes they seek.

The presentation will begin with a background on how the idea of an office of unincorporated communities has developed over time and how it fits into overall efforts to make structural administrative changes into the unincorporated area governance.

We'll also discuss current thinking and provide a next step recommendation.

Although I've been working in the urban unincorporated communities for quite a while, our office's work there precedes me by at least 10 years.

Since he was elected in 2000, Supervisor Miley's commitment has been to ensure that the urban unincorporated areas would not be overlooked, neglected, or as residents say, treated as second-class citizens because of their unincorporated status.

His quest has been to ensure that the county would recognize and fully embrace its fiduciary responsibilities to the unincorporated communities, not only as the municipal service provider, but as the safety net provider too.

And the vehicle achieved that goal has been to build a civic infrastructure that allows for greater community input and participation.

As you know, Supervisor Miley was on the Oakland City Council for 10 years, and Oakland has a robust CBO involvement in community and capacity building and advocacy, which he didn't see in the urban unincorporated communities.

He wanted to grow a community-based organization or CBO infrastructure in the unincorporated in the unincorporated area and began with a holistic view that by bringing together the CBOs and county staff who worked in the urban area, whether they realized it or not, to begin to forge relationships, collaboration, and a better understanding of the particular needs of the unincorporated area.

That organization was founded in approximately 2005 and came to be called the Ashland Cherryland Healthy Communities Collaborative.

It eventually added community groups as they were identified or developed and became a trifecta, binding community CBOs, and county and other public agencies together in a singular focus on urban unincorporated area needs.

And that organization, as it has grown and changed, has been the catalyst for initiatives and campaigns to improve civic infrastructure in the urban unincorporated communities.

A structure that includes having both strong hyperlocal governance institutions as well as strong community organizations in place to facilitate the community's ability to be heard, and isn't that what democracy is all about?

So, what do I mean by a civic infrastructure?

Civic infrastructure at the hyperlocal level is like a three-legged stool whose legs represent the key components of participation in our democracy.

If one of the components is weak, it affects the integrity of the whole system.

The three components consist of accessible government institution, a robust CBO environment, and strong community groups and organizations.

First component is accessible local governance institutions, such as a city council or a MAC.

They provide a pathway for community members and groups like the Cherry Land Community Association or Padres Guerreros or Merchants Association to enter into civic life to advance their ideas and issues.

It is hyperlocal and operates at an accessible community level.

When we looked at this component, our assessment was that the urban unincorporated communities, particularly Ashland, Cherryland, and Hayward Acres, the areas with the greatest need, and an astonishing lack of had an astonishing lack of civic infrastructure.

While Castro Valley had had a MAC for more than 16 years, Ashland, Cherryland, and Hayward Acres had none.

Additionally, with a particular lack of community knowledge or experience in how the system works or how to access it, it's hard for individuals or groups to participate and to know where to go.

I'd like to think that they would know to contact their supervisor's office, but sometimes that's hard, especially if you think you live in San Leandro or Hayward.

The second component is a robust network of service providing CBOs.

What Supervisor Miley found when he was first elected to represent D4 was that there were only a few native unincorporated area CBOs, and that many of the ones that were there didn't know they served the unincorporated area, and that its particular needs were different from those of San Leandro or Hayward, in which the unincorporated area was often lumped.

For example, one CBO was physically located in Ashland, but since their USPS address said San Leandro, they thought they were located in San Leandro and didn't even realize the special needs of Ashland or the broader unincorporated community.

In addition, there was no cadre of mature CBOs that came together to provide backbone support for community development and capacity building in the urban unincorporated area.

CBOs operated in silos.

The third component consisted of healthy organized community groups, including residents and merchants or other interest groups like parents, for example.

In a perfect world, that would start on the block at a school in a faith community with both formal and informal groups where people have the opportunity to get to know each other.

These relationships lead to the ability to organize collectively into organized interest groups, like SLAM, the San Lorenzo Hayward Acre Mobilized, or Padres Unidos di Cherry Land, or the Eden Dale Coffee Club that serve to aggregate issues and community voice and bring it into our civic conversation, our civic life.

So to circle, so to circle back, this is where having accessible governance institutions have the potential to make this infrastructure work.

Neighborhoods and community groups, community groups need to feed into local accessible government institutions like a city council, like the SUNOLCAC, like a MAC, where grassroots people can easily enter the system and get their concerns officially heard and addressed.

So with that framework in mind, I'd like to circle back to the Office of Unincorporated Communities.

As I've said earlier in this presentation, the idea of improving governance in the urban unincorporated communities is not new.

And over time, our office and those of Supervisors Libicker, Chan, and TAM, in coalition with hundreds of community members and groups spanning the communities of Ashland, Cherry Land, Fairview, Hayward Acres, Castor Valley, and San Lorenzo have been researching, investigating, testing, and trying to find ways to improve the relationship, representation, and communication between the county and the unincorporated communities.

There have been LAFCO incorporation studies, polling, research into creating community service areas, a trial run of a budget input process, research on how to change the place names on unincorporated area address, how to create MACs, and more.

And over the years, these efforts had led to significant progress in improving our hyperlocal governance infrastructure.

As the slide shows, in 2002, the East and West County BCAs were created.

In 2017, the Fairview MAC was established.

In 2019, the Eden Area MAC was established.

In 2024, the board adopted the environmental justice element of the general plan, and that had two years of extensive community engagement and vetting.

And what you may not know is that the Ashland Cherryland Healthy Communities Collaboratives was the planning department's primary community partner in this effort, precisely because it has a broad attendance of 35 to 40 CBOs, community and county and other public representatives present at their monthly meeting.

It is one of the only places where a large portion of those interested in the welfare of their urban unincorporated area come together on a regular basis.

In March of this year, this is regarding number five, USPS finally accepted our application to allow unincorporated community residents to legally use their community names as their official place name on their address.

This change has implications for service delivery, data collection, and community identity building.

And we've also launched an urban and rural community budget input process, which is currently underway.

We hope to come up with an efficient, yes yet thorough way to engage community members around the unincorporated budget so that agencies understand what communities see as priorities.

As it stands now, there's no formal way for the unincorporated community to have input.

Yet it has been one of those, yet, community budget input process has been one of those persistent issues that has staying power over the years.

We've also made significant progress in strengthening the community infrastructure.

There's four items I'd like to highlight.

First, the creation of the Ashland Cherryland Health Community Collaborative, which I previously spoke about, and number two, the Mammoth undertaking that was the Eden Area Livability Initiative, phases one, which engaged about 300 people, and two, which engaged about 400 people.

Phase one focused on the built environment and led to the creation of the Cherryland Community Center, the Cherryland Fire Station, and the REACH Ashland Youth Center.

And in phase two, of which there were five working groups, the governance working group was the place where most of the concrete action taken on the governance reforms discussed on the previous slide started.

At the governance meetings, dialogue and relationships across urban unincorporated communities began to grow, which eventually led to a strong base of support from which campaigns for the Fairview and Eden Max and the USPS place name change came.

In addition, in terms of leadership development, several participants in the governance working group went on to become elected officials in their own right.

Number three, and following on the success of the Eden MAC campaign, which took more than two years, by the way, many community members and organizations utilized the momentum from that victory to create what came to be known as My Eden Voice, a coalition of grassroots based base building groups like Padres Unidos and SLAM and the Ashland Community Association and others that come together for collective action.

After three years of incubation by a backbone organization made up of CBO partners and Chan and Miley's office, MEV is now an independent organization with its own nonprofit status.

And lastly, the Ashland Cherryland Healthy Communities Collaborative has grown into a collective impact organization called the Eden Area Community Collaborative, and it includes five working groups, and although it is not incorporated, has bylaws and a voting protocol, and has obtained grants in its own right under the philanthropic ventures foundation.

In summary, what remains is how to bring this work of the governance and community civic infrastructure building over the last 20 years together and to build on it, to institutionalize it.

There's been a growing awareness that without an administrative center, a place to hold the work over time, the county within the county administration that many of our gains could be lost.

So we see the Office of Unincorporated Communities as the key next step in our collective efforts to improve government efficiency, responsiveness, and quality of life in the unincorporated communities.

And there have been persistent community voices throughout the 20 years to lift up the needs of the unincorporated communities.

And there has also been, as this slide shows, repeated recent requests by the community, be it through individual organizations and coalitions for the county to seriously explore the establishment of an office of unincorporated communities.

So what would an Office of Unincorporated Communities provide?

How would it add value?

While there's a lot of potential in this idea, it's not a panacea, as Supervisor Miley reminds me, of course, but as you know, if incorporated, these communities would form the fourth largest city in the county, and short of incorporation or annexation, the creation of an office of unincorporated communities would allow the county and the community to have the continuity, accountability, collaboration, and ability to address special issues like the Baker Tilly report that they deserve.

Specifically under administrative continuity, with elected officials changing over time, a stable administrative function would provide continuity and hold the county's fiduciary and service responsibilities.

It begs the question who's providing administrative continuity now?

It could be a place to administer the MACs, for example, or run the budget input process.

When it comes to agency accountability, who's keeping track and driving accountability across all the different agencies?

Remember, CDA alone has five departments, let alone the other four municipal serving agencies, plus the safety net agencies.

Agency collaboration.

Who is charged with ensuring cooperation?

There are planning documents and board adopted mandates that require interagency cooperation.

And in my experience, it is often left up to the supervisor's office to initiate that quote unquote cooperation, as we see in the implementation of the EJ element, or if it were going after state rhetorical and other philanthropic grants together.

Lastly, addressing specific special issues.

Who's responsible for addressing issues specific to the unincorporated communities that don't have a natural home, like the U.S.

place name project or courting the recommendations from the Baker Tilly report.

So when we talk about options, three have been have come up in conversation.

There may be more, but these are the ones that we've heard about.

The first is to maintain the status quo.

It's and that means the coordinating function for the unincorporated areas is really housed in the service, the supervisors' offices for the MAC agendas and for issues and for constituent service concerns.

Supervisors liaise with the CAO and agencies via board commissions and directly.

Municipal services are by continue to be provided by individual agencies and departments.

The pros are that this is a less, it's a less direct responsibility for the CAO on unincorporated issues.

And it also means that community engagement is diffused throughout agencies or the board offices where they can get greater exposure to community groups.

But the cons are that it lacks an administrative center, continuity within the administration, provides weak coordination among agencies, and relies primarily on the board of supervisors offices for coordination.

Another option is to locate the Office of Unincorporated Communities in the County Administrator's Office.

It would be a coordinating function that is managed by an assistant county administrator and it reports directly to the county administrator.

Now, agency directors currently would continue to report to the board of supervisors so it doesn't wouldn't disrupt the current structure.

The pros are that a placement in a county administrator's office ensures access and cross-agency coordination, non-duplicative, streamlined community engagement.

The cons are that agency heads fear it will add another layer of bureaucracy.

The third option is to locate the Office of Unincorporated Communities in the community development agency.

It would be a coordinating function where a director or manager would report to the CDA director.

Agency directors will continue to report to the board of supervisors as they do now, and it wouldn't disrupt that reporting structure.

The pros are that it's embedded within the primary municipal serving agency that serves the unincorporated area, and we believe it would be less costly, although we haven't costed it out.

The cons are that a placement in an agency signals that the function is less important than if it were located in the county administrator's office, and it would have no ability or less ability to encourage coordination and cooperation across county agencies.

So the recommendation that we would like to bring is that what needs to happen is that the county needs to retain a consultant for six months to research and recommend a design for the Office of Unincorporated Communities, including broader stakeholder engagement, to assess what works, what doesn't, what's missing, and how to add value, to come up with a structure where it would be located within the county, talk about staffing, costs, and it would also also scope out its function, roles, and responsibilities, and would bring updates to unincorporated services and TMP.

This is also part of a larger phasing that we've thought about, which isn't included in our recommendation, but once the phase one design is completed, it would move to the following a phase two redefine refinement of recommendations over four months and undertake additional engagement with agencies, community members, CBOs, stakeholders, special districts, etc.

And they would draft a phased implementation plan and create bring a final design report to the Board of Supervisors and Committees.

We see a phase three is Board of Supervisor Approval and Implation would take four months, and an office could be operational in fiscal year 27-28.

That's the end of my report.

Very good.

Any more to add to that before we go to public comment?

Yes, I would just um once again thank Claudia and Tona and Brianne for putting this uh comprehensive uh report together today.

You know, a lot of thoughts gone into this over the years.

Um this has been iterative uh evolutionary, you know, it's not like we just started thinking about this today, as Claudia pointed out.

This has been something that has really been advanced over the course of time.

We now think we're at a place to try to really seriously move forward with design and uh strategy for implementation, but it will take a little bit more work to get us there, and that's one reason why uh uh phase one we're recommending bringing on a consultant to take us through phase one for the next six months.

Uh my office will pay for the consultant through my office's budget.

We are um, you know, we're setting aside roughly $50,000 to cover that phase one of uh implementation uh work, and then phase two, three, and four.

Uh we're hoping uh that as a result of the consultants' work, we'll get a better sense of what the cost might be for phase two, phase three, and ultimately phase four would be the actual operational uh cost for the office itself.

So this is all iterative, but um my office is willing to pay the initial funding, jump start this to move it along so that we can get moving towards uh the actual creation of an office.

Because as we pointed out earlier, uh with some of these like elimination of the site development review, Baker Tilly study, you know, there's a lot going on, um, a lot takes place over the course of time, and unless we're directed at this and put the resources behind it, this could stall.

And so we just think we're now at a place where we'd like to move this forward.

Uh nothing will be uh approved or implemented uh prior to it coming back to this committee and to the unincorporated services committee in about six six months.

Uh there'll be an update, and then uh we can determine where we go in terms of phase two and phase three, and then ultimately phase four, and we guesstimate that uh the office would become operational during fiscal year 27-28.

Um, and that's one reason why earlier on I was saying that if this office were to take on the responsibility for um being the uh the permit overseeing the permit management uh as suggested through the Baker Tully study right now.

We need a project manager that would do that right now, because this office we don't anticipate will be operational until fiscal year 27-28.

Uh so those are some of my uh quick um uh comments.

And then I also neglected to mention, you know, uh Claudia who's my deputy chief of staff.

You know, she also worked for Don Parada when he was here.

So both Claudia was working for Don Parada when he was here, and Tona was working for Supervisor Mary King when she was here.

Uh I got the uh, you know, two two two folks who got a lot of institutional knowledge even before we got here, Supervisor Halbert.

Wow, that's very uh uh impactful.

Um I have a couple questions.

I I note that you you mentioned that the unincorporated communities, I think you were referring to what we sometimes call the urban unincorporated, would be the fourth largest city.

And that is uh a very profound statement.

Um city governments um devote a lot of time and effort into their provision of services and the like.

And I don't think it was meant to exclude the rural unincorporated, but I want to confirm.

This is meant to include all of the.

Yes, this was really a background of what has brought us up to the current situation.

But since you um board approved the adoption of the East County MAC, it really um perked up our ears that we really need to include the whole unincorporated area.

So at the current time we're going, as you may know, through a budget input process for both the urban and the rural county.

Now, a community budget input process has been something that the urban advocates have been wanting for decades.

Um we've tried a process once and it didn't work very well, so we're we're doing beta community input process phase two, and I've already had a meeting in with the um rural community.

I had it in Sunole, and I'll be going to the Sunole CAC, um, as well as the MACs, and we had a community meeting for the urban area.

So our vision is really, I mean we're learning too through and through this process.

And what I I have to also say that when I had the budget input meeting for the rural community communities, but I came to understand is though we may have different environments, the issues that they raised and the budget implications are very similar, very similar.

So I think that there is uh a need for us to think about the urban and rural communities in one breath.

And if I might add uh Chair Halbert, yeah, we are very sensitive to the unincorporated West County, because if if you recall for many years I represented unincorporated Pleasanton, uh and I still represent unincorporated the Riemann track, and I hope you should represent unincorporated Happy Valley.

So I'm, you know, my office is very sensitive to the uh the rural unincorporated area, so we want to make sure this is the entire unincorporated area.

I appreciate that.

In fact, even parts of Castor Valley, it would be considered rural, even though they're much closer appended to the urban unincorporated communities.

They're still very rural.

That's the interface between rural and urban.

So great, we don't need a separate unincorporated rural versus we'll just do it all in one.

And indeed, issues um I uh that's great.

Um you answered my other question around budget.

Glad to see that I won't ask the number, but you're gonna pay for it, so that's okay.

I don't know if 50,000 is gonna do that, but yeah, we'll right, we'll get that's good, that's good.

I I appreciate that.

Um let's go to public comment, but I will also ask CDA to weigh in on.

I did have one other question.

Are there other so with many other counties?

Uh so Sacramento, for example, has a lot of urban incorporated cities of Sacramento, but they have a great rural area as well that are also almost seemingly urban.

Anyway, did you look at other counties?

Do they have this office?

Yes, there are uh several other counties that do have this office, although it doesn't have uh quite the same socioeconomic makeup as Alameda County.

For example, in Los Angeles, they're mostly suburban communities, um middle class, upper middle class.

Um, and uh we would do a much more comprehensive review of of the other counties and their models when we do this this um this work now.

It just comes to my mind, but I think I think San Diego might be a good example.

Right.

They have many um rural and urban unincorporated areas.

We might just have a great.

And also a very large geographic um county.

Right.

So anyway, just about.

Yeah, no, that's good.

Marin to uh-huh, sure.

And um, CSAC.

Or I knowing their C SAC member.

So we have pretty much that I know.

If you need help, you can do that.

I think that would be good.

Uh let's go to public comment.

Do we have any speakers in the room or online?

Yes, we have both.

Um in the room, Alina Faroux.

Welcome.

Good morning, supervisors.

My name is Alina Farouk.

I've been working at resources for community development focusing in urban unincorporated communities to build local leadership, advance local initiatives, and support neighborhood development.

I'm here today to urge you to establish an office of incorporated communities.

Unlike cities with dedicated staff and departments, uncorporated areas often have no clear structure to address local needs.

When pl problems arise, such as illegal dumping, road maintenance, community planning, residents are left to navigate all the departments and agencies by themselves.

And I've seen how this causes delays, frustration, and real inequities in access to basic needs.

In my five years working in these communities through RCD, I've met residents who are worn down from constantly having to fight just to be seen and heard.

During the pandemic, in partnership with Supervisor Miley's office and community organizations, we came together to form now called Eden Area Communities Food and Basic Needs Committee because we couldn't wait for help to arrive.

We coordinated food distribution sites, brought COVID-19 testing and vaccination sites closer to residents, secure rental assistance for our families, and fought to make sure our communities weren't forgotten in ARPA fund allocations.

None of this progress would have happened if we hadn't advocated it for ourselves.

And I've seen the toll this takes, the exhaustion, the frustration, the feeling of being left behind.

A dedicated office of uncorporated communities will make a significant difference for our communities.

It would provide a stable county function to coordinate across departments, support the Macs and SAC, and ensure resident voices are heard consistently no matter who is in the office.

Thank you.

Hi, this is Kelly.

So the door of representation is being closed on community organizations, such as uh the person we just heard from.

These uh community organizations in Eden or wherever, they don't have their own representatives, their own Dan DeVinnies, their own Mark Crawford's, who are given the privilege of speaking to directly to your board on behalf of their um, you know, issues um at length at the you know, and and are given um uh you know committees to run and and uh and uh and and follow up for years on the uh the issues.

Um the the question here is what is the purpose of the offices of unincorporated service services?

If the main function is to improve the county's image uh public image and uh outreach to the uh communities and tell them what a great job the county is doing, then of course the the uh office should be reporting in the the county office of the county administrator or in the community development agency because these are uh you know PR public relations kind of uh experts.

Um but if the purpose of the new office were to provide to coordinate services and improve services, then of course, all of the counties uh 20 odd departments and agencies, all of them report in directly to the board of Supervisors now, and the only way to have any influence over the fire department over the public works agency would be to have the offices of unincorporated services be in between them and the uh board of supervisors, uh, tied in directly to the Board of Supervisors, not out there, you know, with the fluffy agencies that just do uh PowerPoint slides.

Um, so the only entity that the only way to really uh get this going would be if you gave these people the kind of uh of time, extended time and representation that you gave to the um, you know, the the the Baker Tilly report.

Thank you.

Caller, you're on the line.

You have two minutes, Sandra.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes.

My name's Sandra Archuletta.

I live in District 4 in the unincorporated community of Castro Valley.

Um, I am here to fully support um moving this process forward, I think getting a consultant and really looking at this fade pro this uh phased process is the right move.

Um, great Claudia Albano really put out that trajectory of how we've come to this point.

I started working on these issues, I don't know, like 10 years ago.

And to see all the progress that we've made, establishing the MACs, getting the collaborative going, basic needs, getting through COVID.

That's all been great.

But the fact is it's been really spurred on by a lot of community groups and CBOs and all this organization.

But the key thing that is missing is that you know, organizational structure that's going to actually bring all these things together and find the holes and make sure that there isn't this chronic underspending that is understanding what's going on with the bigger picture because we're just over here trying to plug every hole we can find, but we really need an office of unincorporated communities to look at that bigger picture, to do that forward planning, to start preventing some of the issues that come up instead of us just always trying to fix them.

And so I very much um support this.

I'm very proud to have been a part of this work, and I really commend Claudia for all the work that she has done to bring us all together because she has been an incredible force in this work, and I'm really proud to have been able to be a part of that journey.

Thank you.

Caller, you're on the line.

You have two minutes, Bruce.

Bruce King.

We can't hear you.

Caller, you're on the line.

You have two minutes.

Leo.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Hi, good afternoon, supervisors Miley and Hobbart.

This is Leo Esclamado with my invoice.

We are happy to be part of the civic infrastructure and to have galvanized new voices in the unincorporated area, such as mothers, mobile homeowners to renting families.

We support the recommendations for an office of unincorporated area and establishing better central management in the unincorporated area.

We have three reasons.

First is transparency, or my invoice uh recent report, which found major inconsistencies of transparency and communication is what is being spent and not spent in the unincorporated budget.

And our report echoes this urgent need for better municipal management of the area.

Second, an office increases better collaborations across agencies and sustainability of programs.

Our members report the difficulty of being referred to multiple county agencies, particularly when addressing urgent needs, such as being housed.

So the counties made progress in some efforts, but will fall short.

There's not a central manager looking for the sustainability and adding capacity for county staff to seek out fundraising, identified gaps and programs and grant making opportunities specifically for unincorporated area residents.

The burden of finding local targeted funds cannot be just on residents alone, and we need an office to better manage and sync across all agencies.

Last this is a matter of equity.

It's a scary word these days, but Alameda County continues to not waver from our values.

You know the disparities we face and an office at Uncorporate Area will help agencies publish track reports and synthesize current county efforts to address the social determinants of health and consure investment of funds is directly addressing all our needs.

So thank you so much.

We look forward to a better day for unincorporated residents from Ashland all the way to Sonola.

Caller, you're on the line.

You have two minutes, Bruce.

Hi, this is Bruce King from uh Castro Valley, uh, also with friends of San Lorenzo Creek.

We have a lot of experience working with the county.

And when I say the county, I'm talking about all the Macs and the committees and the Board of Zoning Adjustments and the Board of Supervisors, for a citizen to keep up with all these different groups and entities is really full.

It's a big big task.

And it's difficult for citizens to get a grasp on how the county functions and how to have an impact.

So we highly support an entity within the unincorporated area that coordinates and helps helps uh drive transparency and accountability and helps the citizens so they can interact with their government.

Thank you.

Caller, you're on the line.

You have two minutes, Warren.

Mike, can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay.

Hello, Supervisor Halbert and Supervisor Miley.

This is this is Warren Cushman here.

I have two hats.

I'm, of course, working at Community Resources for Independent Living, but I'm also sitting on the Eden Area MAC.

And I will say that as a member of the Eden Area MAC, it is gratifying to me to see communities come together, make decisions, support each other, connect with, you know, staff, um, and and learn more about the intricacies of the county.

And I think that's exactly what we need to do more of.

And I think the offices, the Office of Unincorporated Communities can help us do that.

There are so much, there is so much to do.

We have budget issues that are coming to the fore.

We have planning issues.

There are public works issues.

There are so many things that we have to grapple with.

And I really do support moving forward, um, you know, slowly and incrementally, which is how the political system generally works.

I have every confidence in Supervisor Miley and his staff that we will move forward.

He's certainly been determined to bring the community along as time is is uh continued.

And of course, we do want to, I certainly want to declare that I'm I am including uh in my mind uh all of unincorporated area, including East County and the more rural aspects of Castor Valley and East County.

We absolutely have to be a family.

And so I'm a supportive of that family and support of this endeavor.

Thank you.

Caller, you're on the line.

You have two minutes, Juliana.

Hi, supervisors.

Um good afternoon.

My name is Juliana Weiser Leon.

I am the director of the Newcomer Navigation Center at Eden United Church of Christ.

Uh Aidon Church has been in this community for 160 years.

And uh we have been committed to supporting uh the needs uh of the unincorporated communities, the uh our residents, people in our community.

They find out many efforts and food efforts and lots of things during COVID, and we continue continue to do that work.

And through that work as a CBO, we realize that the lack of infrastructure puts a lot of strain on CBOs like us to um to just really ask the county uh for many things, and it's really complicated to think through some of the issues when we have so many countywide uh efforts, but we are not looking specifically at the unincorporated communities.

So we're just really grateful to Supervisor Miley for not letting go of this vision.

I know that this is something that uh you know has been talked about since the Eli days and for many, many years from many residents.

So thank you, Supervisor Miley, for holding on to that vision, and thank you to Claudia for not letting go um of this idea that really is uh an investment towards equity.

And also thank you to Supervisor Hobbart, because we don't think of your district as much when we talk about the unincorporated communities, and it's it's been really uh great to have your voice in this process and to know uh that we're working for all of us, for so many of us, uh, for so many community members that deserve a seat at the table and a voice, and you know, for our county to be leading with this equitable approach is something exciting, and I think should happen sooner than later.

It's been talked about for many years.

This is the time, and we are looking forward to see it happen under your leadership.

Thank you.

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

Hey, good afternoon, supervisors, or good morning.

Yeah, afternoon.

Um I am I'm a little concerned about uh how this is gonna roll out.

Uh I am also uh very excited about it.

Uh you know, the work Claudia has done here is is pretty impressive and and the whole team behind her.

Um but the thing that has me concerned is accountability.

Uh at the end of the day, uh, if somebody is doing something badly, whether through personal fault or just you know, policy that that uh a particular agency has put in place, uh what is the end result when when bad policy and and uh you know bad work is implemented, uh, because we see that often in the unincorporated area.

Um a county is just not set up functionally to provide municipal services the way a city is.

Um, you know, despite having uh some excellent supervisors who uh are very dedicated and and care deeply, uh, just this the architecture of the bureaucracy is not there uh to provide the things the way a city would.

And uh one of the things the city has is local accountability, uh both in terms of budget and in terms of staffing performance.

So when code enforcement doesn't enforce code, something happens.

Uh right now, that doesn't happen.

Uh, when things are not enforced, when when uh things go badly for small businesses, there are no consequences.

And so if we have an office that is responsible for delivering municipal services to an urban unincorporated area, uh accountability is key, and unless that is uh a fundamental part of of how this is going to work, I just see us uh doing more of the same.

Um if if thanks.

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

Zoom caller, unmute your microphone.

Mark Crawford, you have two minutes.

Thank you.

I stayed to listen to this item, and from what I'm seeing, the three different options of the status quo, having uh this person under um the CAO's office or in CDA, it's it's really a clear choice.

And I think Claudia illustrated it in some of her bullet points.

Um, the problem one of the biggest problems I'm having now is the leadership in CDA and the planning department and how lacking that is.

Um Matt had just mentioned something about code enforcement, that's a huge issue, and all the unincorporated areas.

Uh, and the new CDA had has done very little to fix that problem.

The planning director who's in charge of it uh hasn't done much to do anything there either.

So I think if we're gonna go through this process, this elongated process and spend all this money to end up essentially with the status quo at the end.

If this person exists within CDA, is not gonna be an improvement unless there's a change in CDA and planning department as far as the leadership goes there.

So it, you know, it needs to be CAO, it needs to uh it needs to be a position that has authority over these other four departments.

Um, because one thing I've noticed just in the and in the way I've been involved, especially being on the planning commission, it doesn't matter how lethargic the leadership is in these various departments, environmental health, planning, CDA, if you threaten their power, they jump off the couch.

It's amazing uh the response that you get from them when you threaten their power and creating this new uh position, I think could be the most effective thing to ever come out of Baker Tilly and um be the biggest blessing for the unincorporated uh area because the status quo is abysmal, and it we need strong leadership to fix it, and we need that strong leadership in a new position over these agency heads.

Thank you.

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

Zoom caller.

Unmute your microphone.

We have no more speakers for this item.

Very good.

I'll bring it back to close public comment and bring it back for deliberation.

And I believe uh Supervisor Miley, an action might be taken, which would simply allow your office to proceed with the hiring of a consultant.

Is that the direct clear action step?

Uh yeah, I would make a motion that uh this committee approve uh moving forward with the creation of an office of unincorporated services, and that um um we move forward with the phase one and the outline of the different phases.

Um that's my motion, and I'd like to speak to it uh if I get a second.

And then I would also suggest that you know obviously with the motion, this would go to the I would have to go to the board planning meeting.

Um, this is October, so the board planning meeting in November.

No other roadshow required.

County council, is that a clear motion?

Thank you.

Um just a point of order.

I believe that your committee would make your recommendations to the full board not to take action on it, but to make recommendation that they do so.

Is that fair enough?

Yeah.

Uh, our action would be to make the recommendation for the full board at a planning meeting in November.

Great.

Just to clarify, thank you.

Thank you.

The motion's been made, and I'll second it and I'll ask the first point.

Can I speak to the motion real fast?

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, just real fast.

Um, because we heard from a lot of speakers, uh, I think all of the speakers, except for one, from the unincorporated area, and all of the speakers except for one, the one who wasn't from the unincorporated area, um, all the unincorporated area speakers were in support of an office of unincorporated services.

So uh, and I didn't organize people.

Obviously, my office is quite capable of organizing a lot of testimony, a lot of folks to come and speak to an item.

We we did not organize folks to speak on this, uh, but a number of people did speak.

But if uh when it comes to the board, if it takes us to organize and bring a lot of folks to speak, uh, we can do that.

But the point is there is genuine uh legitimacy and support for this office in the unincorporated area.

And once again, we are not just looking at the uh urban unincorporated area, we're looking at the entire unincorporated area of which you supervisor Albert, Supervisor Tam and myself are responsible for.

So as we move forward and the devil's in the details, that's why that phase one would be the consultant working out the details and bringing that back to us.

I'm just hoping that um uh you supervisor Albert and Supervisor Tam will be supportive of this, uh both in terms of um uh uh uh verbally as well as uh considering any resources that we might need as we move further into phase two, three, and four.

Now keep in mind when we get to phase four, um, my one thing uh my office is very clear on, you know, for instance the MACs, we've been taking responsibility to staff the MACs.

So ultimately, if we create an Office of Unincorporated Services and Fiscal Year 2728, I would hope as a result of everything that comes out of all this, one of the functions, but there'll clearly be more, would be that this office would take responsibility for the MACs because you'll have a Mac in East County, we've got three Macs in um West County, we've got the SNOMAC, and in my office dealing with three Macs, it's a it's a it's a heavy lift.

So I'm just saying there are there are both budget constraints as well as time constraints and things of that nature.

So if we don't have an office, for instance, and I'm just focusing on this as an example.

If we don't have an office on a corporate services, when I at some point decide not to be on the board of supervisors, and my capable staff are no longer with me and they're no longer working on this.

Who's going to pick up the max as an example?

And that's just one piece of why an unincorporated office, unincorporated area office is uh important.

But you know, Claudia and some of the speakers laid out a lot of stuff, and the consultant that we bring on will actually uh provide all the details.

So just wanted to mention that as a prime example, an important example.

I would agree with that.

I would say that we might not be able to wait that long for resources, whether they are a step in the right direction, the additional staff required that you've been shouldering by yourself in your office for so long.

A new additional Mac out in East County.

We may need to do something about resources right away.

Um we talked about an additional uh body that might ultimately be placed in this uh area for the CAO to bring on streamlining the permitting uh maybe required sooner rather than later.

And and like I said, I'm just blessed to have very competent uh staff.

You know, Tony haven't worked for the county for many years and worked in the administration, and then Claudia with all of her experience over the years, both here in the county as well as other cities.

Uh, if I didn't have the staff uh who are very competent, we couldn't do the work that we do.

Um both the work with the community establishing these backbone backbone organizations, doing the things we do to create that, the three legged school stool, et cetera, working with the Macs, doing all the stuff we do, and then and then you're quite aware of all the other responsibility that my office has, um, as a county supervisor that goes beyond the unincorporated area, which we're a city, be the fourth largest city in the county.

And the only way we can get uh out of not having an office, and Claudia pointed it out in the uh presentation, is if the unincorporate area were to incorporate.

We're not saying they need to, but you know, aspects of it that were to incorporate and or aspects of it were to be annexed, and that responsibility would no longer fall directly on the board of supervisors, just like you know, the responsibility of running Oakland, Albany, Amoryville, Alameda, San Leandro, etc.

Don't fall on the board of supervisors.

We have the safety net services, but we don't have responsibility for municipal services.

So, unless the unincorporated area portions of it were to become a city and become annexed, we're always gonna need something like this in place to ensure uh appropriate accountability, transparency, and um the delivery of quality services.

Thank you.

I know, Supervisor Miley, you just work here.

With that, we've exceeded uh uh rather concluding I want to vote on the motion.

We've got to actually do the vote, okay.

We do.

Supervisor Miley?

Yes.

Supervisor Howard.

Hi.

Very good.

We're now on to item four public comment.

This is a chance for members of members of the public to chime in and weigh in and make public comment on items not on today's agenda.

Any uh item in the purview of this committee, we'll call for in person first and then online.

I have no in-person speakers for public comment.

Caller, you're on the line, we're on public comment.

You have two minutes.

Unmute your microphone.

Caller, we're on public comment.

You have two minutes, Bruce.

Hello, this is Bruce King with Friends of San Lorenzo Creek.

Um, you probably remember in June, the flood control district put out a uh proposed benefit assessment vote to the property owners uh for covering all of Western unincorporated county county areas, including parts of St.

Leander and Hayward.

That vote for 275 million dollars to improve flood risk or reduce flood risk uh failed miserably.

About 20 20 to 25% of the voters voted for it.

Um and which leaves us with uh we still have according to the engineering reports from flood control, a very high flood risk.

Uh it's increased because of climate change.

And uh parts of, for example, San Lorenzo and and Cherry Land, those houses could go underwater, parts of Castor Valley.

Um, and what we haven't seen from the board of supervisors or flood control is what are we gonna do that we've got this flood risk?

Uh we don't have the money to for the capital improvements to reduce the risk, and uh we don't know why the voters uh turned it down.

So um you know, where do we go from here?

Are we gonna wait for a big flood and then say, oh shoot, we should have followed up to to see why it got voted down, or we should have uh asked for a report from flood control to uh come back and tell us in better words what the flood risk is and uh how we are or are not uh addressing the issue.

Thank you.

Caller, we're on public comment.

You have two minutes.

Hi, this is Kelly.

Um, yeah, as it was just pointed out, it seems like the um county uh services, the flood flood control agency, the public works agency, public works agency are out of touch with uh the unincorporated residents because they actually went out to a ballot measure and got 80% rejection of their proposal.

I mean, uh they do they do they have any pollsters, you know?

Do they have they heard about polling and and pub and public communications, that kind of stuff?

Do they know how to do it?

It seems like they're they're they're just completely out of touch because otherwise they would have never gone to the put that on the ballot if they knew they were going to be slapped down.

Um and when when we get this uh, but I am I I do support this idea of uh unincorporated representation, um, and the the idea that oh we we need uh uh but you know if we're gonna be talking about you know uh doing a residency requirement on the com on the commentators, you know, asking are these commentators from the unincorporated area are the like a citizenship requirement sort of thing.

How about if we ask the same thing for the supervisors?

You know, do you know of any supervisors who live in the unincorporated area?

Do we have any resident supervisors who represent the unincorporated?

And if not, you know, maybe we could get some supervisors who could speak in favor of having resident unincorporated supervisors.

Wouldn't that be a great idea?

With we could like do redistricting to encourage that.

It would be wonderful to have more unincorporated supervisors, don't you think?

Thanks.

Matt, we're on public comment.

You have two minutes.

I'll keep it as quick as I can.

Uh I was recently um uh took my seat, uh appointed as um fish and game uh commission and uh something that came up uh was around the blue lines that that uh uh public works has done for our flood control, rather, uh, and how they've removed over half of our blue line uh map for the watershed of Alameda County.

Uh this last meeting was particularly poignant, and then it was the uh enforcement review and uh visitation by our state fish and game officials that are responsible for our areas.

Uh they they cover Solano, Alameda and Contra Costa counties are spread pretty thin.

Uh, but they have particularly difficult time in Alameda County uh because of this lack of blue lines on the map.

Um whereas in Contra Costa and Solano, uh they have great uh backup from the county and being able to prosecute violators.

However, in Alameda County, this is uh a huge problem, and it has been um something that's actually affected the the books uh for the Fish and Game Commission.

Uh largely our role is to collect uh uh the uh the the fines and fees levied against violators and uh disperse those and grants to worthy programs.

But those those things have dried up in significant portion because it is harder to enforce in Alameda County than elsewhere.

Please, please take a look at this again.

That's all the speakers for public comment.

Very good.

I'd like to thank everybody for their participation today, seeing as how the business before us has been completed, we're now adjourn