Morning, everyone.

It's about 10 15.

I'd like to start the Tuesday, October 21st special meeting of the Board of Supervisors for Alameda County.

Into session, I'll ask the clerk to please call the roll.

Supervisor Marquez present.

Supervisor Tan present.

Supervisor Miley excused.

Supervisor Fortunatabas, excuse President Halbert.

Present.

We have a quorum.

Thank you very much.

Our first item up is to have public comment on closed session items.

These would be closed session items only.

I note that the balance of our calendar.

We will take public comment on those items when we hear those items.

So if any member of the public would like to make comment on closed session items, now would be the time to turn it as a speaker slip to the clerk or raise your hand online and be recognized.

As always, we'll take in-person speakers first and then online.

Do we have any speakers on closed session items?

I have no speaker slips.

Oh, I think this gentleman.

Can you speak in the speaker slips are out front?

They're out front, yes.

So we have one member of the any online.

No online speakers.

We could add board comments even though it's not on the agenda.

Go ahead, sir.

Oh, can we turn the mic on?

Press the button.

Oh there it goes.

Can we restart my time, please?

Uh pursuant to five USC 29 uh CFR.

I would like to tell Christina Lagarde, the IMF that you love and bank of Cosapo to begin procedures.

Um I am requesting a redactment of the Western Alliance Zion and Fifth Third Bank for the beginning of the process of uh theater and compliances of the United Nations dispute term um tribunal.

We will begin the wonderment of bond holdings of the tri-regional authority based on applicant uh deviance is in the Elton Anderson and the Rockefeller Ames and uh Rothschild the States and view of the picket fires.

I wish to move against the city of Oakland uh the Simon Property, Shurion via the United States and 21th Century via the United States for Oakland Exploration, as well as the City of Oakland, uh, or excuse me, TWK Inc.

V the United States.

I am requesting a redactment of validity um based on the procedures I wish to file and court law and federal claims, malice gross, intentional, blatant uh negligence, a requirement of all the cases and procedures in Barrett be the United States.

I'd like to confirm that a plutonium 249 isothermal nuclear warhead as well as the um the blue angel is fully optimal at the request of the United States and has an exact date that is issued in view of my asylum and procedure combat based on being a prisoner of war and the application in Wayne Rate be the United States.

I move against the application boy v.

Thayer, and the lee against uh therapy of the state of California in view of procedures of redactment.

In these applications, these are the federal filing forms that have identified it in procedure.

I wish to mitigate it at cost assessment against the state.

In the view of the state, I will be filing against the state attorney general for requestment of procedure.

Thank you.

That's the two minutes.

I appreciate you.

All right.

Any other speakers?

No additional speakers.

All right.

Um, I recognize uh Supervisor Tim.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

I just wanted to uh offer some board comments and wish everybody uh happy Duali.

This is the second uh day of a five-day festival where we're hoping that light prevails over darkness.

And I also wanted to uh thank the county's uh Office of Emergency Services, the Sheriff Department, and the County Fire Department for partnering with my office and the City of San Leandro this week past weekend to host a very successful emergency preparedness uh workshop.

We had started this.

This is our first um to continue the work that uh former supervisor Carson has started uh in his district with emergency preparedness because of the issues around earthquake and wildfires and flooding that are in our respective districts.

We had over 20 booths and we had um interpretation services in Mandarin, Cantonese and Spanish.

Our Asian health services organizations also offered uh interpretation in Vietnamese Vietnamese, and my staff had translated each of the slides into Spanish and Chinese as well.

Um we had an amazing group of volunteers with the Vita Scott and raising leaders, and uh the Wilmachan Resource Center also provided volunteers as well as the Interact Club from the San Leando High School.

So this would not have been a success without all their help.

So I wanted to publicly express my appreciation to them and also the um 20 different participants that had booths, including Falc and a number of organizations like uh the East Bay SBCA because in emergency you need to know what what happens and how to manage the pets that are part of your family.

So uh wanted to express that.

Thank you.

Very good, thank you.

Any other remarks?

No other public comment.

Uh that said, um I have been advised that uh indeed there are some items in closed session that are pressing, and so um, while the rest of the agenda is set here, I note that we may decide to uh move some of the items, for example, item three might be moved forward when we come back to open session.

But for now, I would like to um uh recess into closed session and um take up our open session items after that.

We're going to reconvene now to open session.

I'll ask the county uh council.

Is there anything to report out from our closed session?

Excuse me, supervisor.

Can I take the role?

Let's take role first and then report.

Supervisor Marquez, excuse Supervisor Tim.

Present Supervisor Miley, Supervisor Fortunatabas, President Halbert.

Present.

Thank you.

Anything to report out from closed session.

The board did not take reportable actions at closed session.

Thank you very much.

We'll now proceed to our agenda.

Uh, I note that there's a request to proceed with the budget and finance update.

That will also include public comment.

So I'll now turn it over to our county administrators team for a budget and finance update.

Mr.

President, uh, this is at the board's request for another quick update on state and federal budget.

So that will be provided by uh Amy Schreigo from my office.

Uh good afternoon.

Um, just wanted to quickly run through where we're at with the both our state and federal legislative and budget updates.

Um, as we as we know the state ended their session um Monday, October 13th was the final day for the governor to sign our veto bills.

He signed a little over 1100 of the over 1200 bills he had, um, vetoing 123 bills.

Um this session, the legislature and both the assembly and senate were limited to 35 bills introduced by each of them.

So there are just over 2800 bills introduced, and about 1,100 of those are now two-year bills, so can be taken up next year.

Um there was a Senate leadership transition at the end of session, and that will take effect on November 17th, with the new Senate pro tem being Senator Monique Limon, replacing Senator Mike McGuire.

And the legislature will reconvene on Monday, January 5th, and the governor will release his budget by January 10th.

Some things to keep in mind is that the LAO will release their next budget forecast in mid-November, which will give us a sense of what the governor will be using to determine his budget for next year.

This is a snapshot of the county priority bills that were assigned or vetoed by the governor.

As we mentioned last time, he did sign our county-sponsored legislation, which was carried by Senator Aragin, and he did veto a bill that we had opposed position on, and our environmental staff worked very hard.

Environmental health staff worked very hard on.

And then here are the bills we took positions on that have become two-year bills.

So we'll continue to track these next session.

There were a few bills that were of particular importance to counties.

I'll just mention a few here.

SB 707 from Durazo is an open meetings bill relating to updates to the Brown Act.

And we're going to have to start working on this immediately.

So our team is working with the clerk's office and with county council to make sure that we're in compliance.

And then AB 339 from Senator Ortega is about local public employee organizations, and that's something that we'll be working on figuring out how we implement as it relates to public agencies providing notice before RFPs and RFQs for services that could be provided by public employees are put up to bid.

And then just to follow up on again on the HR1 impacts to California, particularly as it relates to SNAP and CalFresh.

Just overarching, want to remind, remind everyone that we are still awaiting federal guidance on the new work and immigrant eligibility rules.

So there have been no changes yet.

Moving on to the federal government, as you all know, we are in our fourth week of the shutdown, and the funding proposals are still stalled in the Senate.

They did return to session on Monday to vote on the House passed continuing resolution for the 11th time, and it did fail.

And the House remains out of session and has been out since September 19th.

Just a reminder that the Senate Democrats are withholding their votes until Affordable Care Act premium subsidies are addressed, and the Republican leadership has said they won't negotiate on that.

So we are at a standstill.

And then just to highlight as it relates to SNAP, yesterday, the governor did uh send guidance to uh local counties about CalFresh benefits, sharing that um if no action is taken by the federal government by October 23rd, that CalFren CalFresh benefits will be delayed in November.

In addition, um there is some data that's being held that makes it difficult to even project benefits for the following month.

Um, so uh those are some things that are going to start impacting us locally.

Um certain states that have uh reserves for some of these programs are able to continue operating them with those reserves, but um as the governor indicated yesterday, we will we will run out of of those resources uh towards the end of this month.

And there are there are also some other payments here that are listed that are impacted as it relates to our Medicaid disproportionate share in uh hospitals, um, some of our child welfare services that get um uh block funding, and um some programs that have advanced funding like CDBG and home, they're able to still operate because they uh fund it on the on the front end, but some of those things are not getting processed because there's not staff to do that.

Um as that has been raised uh at um some of your other committee meetings, um the Senate did pass their version of the National Defense Authorization Act, and there were some amendments of note that I know our county is interested in as it relates to the deployment of the National Guard.

All of those amendments did fail and were not included in the Senate's um past bill.

And then just following up on one policy of interest.

Um as we've heard, uh, the light heat program was not included in the president's 2026 budget.

Uh, just as a reminder, the president's budget doesn't mean a whole lot in terms of policy that's enacted.

It's just a proposal.

So, and um, and as a reminder, LIHEAP was not part of HR1, uh, so it does need to go through the separate appropriate congressional appropriations process.

It was included in the Senate Appropriations Committee bill.

Um, and that package is awaiting uh vote by the House.

Um, and if Congress passes just another CR, it will get level funding from its 2025 year.

Um, and if they pass a new bill, uh there will be some level of funding that splits the difference between this what the Senate and the House have proposed.

I'm happy to take any questions.

Um, thank you for that update.

Um I would um like to better understand uh how the process would work in terms of what the governor had talked about uh with respect to the SNAP program and mechanically, what does that mean for our residents?

Great guidance.

Hi Andrea Ford HC Director for Social Services, we don't have what the mechanics would look like.

Um we're just being told that um benefits cannot be loaded onto EBT cards, or even when um the shutdown is no longer shut down, the timing of when those benefits might be released onto EBT cards.

So we don't have information detailing those specifics.

So basically, it's uh whatever funding is on the EBT card.

If they exhausted, it doesn't get replenished.

Whatever's on the EBT card is available to recipients.

The new benefits for November will be delayed.

Okay.

Thank you.

And um, what I would hope we could have is clarity around a program that has already known to be cut from the federal government, that if we don't take action today, it won't be backfilled or it needs to be backfilled or it won't happen.

Another bucket is at risk.

Don't know.

They've indicated maybe they're going to cut it, but they haven't yet.

And another bucket are going to be things that they've committed to do, but it's in limbo because we're in a shutdown.

So it's ready to go.

Everyone agrees, but it's stalled because we're in the shutdown.

Paused.

If we could understand those three before we make any decisions, any more decisions, we've already made decisions to spend dollars.

But before we do any more, I would like to understand that better.

Because without understanding prioritizing, if it's been cut, that's a higher priority, perhaps, than if it's at risk.

And I say that, and indeed, it could have been cut, and it could be still a lower priority than something that is at risk.

Could still be a higher priority.

We always have to prioritize things, but it's more important, I think, to keep in mind where it lies on that spectrum of it's been cut, it's been threatened to be cut, it's just in limbo.

Do we have a sense for that?

Or is anything been cut outright?

We do have a sense of what is at risk and what has been talked to talked about.

We have a really big picture sense of you know, cuts to CalFresh, cuts to Medi-Cal.

We also know the numbers much bigger than the resources that we have, so that that's where prioritization needs to come in as well.

Okay, well, and many of them are being phased in as opposed to you know one drop dead date.

So we're all tracking.

I know the department heads are all tracking through their own associations as well to try to get a better sense, and it's something that's being discussed at the PAL meeting every week.

So we're you know, we are trying to monitor that.

There isn't a clean list of this is being cut on this date, and this is the total impact.

Something might be announced to be cut today, but not take effect until next year.

Correct.

Yeah, like Medi-Cal.

Okay, um, I also note that we're in a situation where coming out of a pandemic where we spent hundreds of millions of dollars given to us by the federal government, and we've gone away from that for a year or so, although some of that spending tapered on until I think till the end of this year or next week.

2026.

So we're still spending money, ARPA money, but yet there are also there are things that we funded during ARPA because there was a need.

We were sheltered in place for part of that time, and people couldn't go work, and so we had some expenses that surged because of the pandemic that funding surged to fill that need, that that need went away as the pandemic wound down, and so we need to, I think be very clear with ourselves.

Are we going to backfill ARPA funding?

Are we gonna backfill things that came upon us during a pandemic with our measure W dollars?

Or are we gonna recognize that COVID came and went, ARPA money came and went, and the services and funding have come and gone.

And so as we talk about programs to fund with Measure W, I would like to specifically understand which of them were funded during ARPA, and are we as a as a body going to backfill ARPA and keep it going or not?

So I I would like to make sure that we call out those resources and those fundings and those programs that were ARPA related.

Thank you.

Supervisor Marquez.

Uh thank you, President Hubbard, and thank you, Amy, for the updates.

Um, from my perspective, I'm just really worried um to be frank, it feels like um we're almost back to the pandemic days, right?

We are in crisis mode in terms of all the threats and the impacts from the federal government.

So I'm just wondering, are we in terms of county staff looking at this in terms of like triage, like really coming up with a plan to be responsive to the threats that are most imminent, even though we don't have a lot of clarity, I just want to have a better understanding.

I mean, there's a lot coming at us, but I do uh feel strongly that we need to be in triage mode and try to minimize.

As you said, we don't have enough resources to fully backfill, but um hopefully our collective goal here is to minimize the hits and the harms.

So I don't know if there's strategy meetings.

I just want to have a better understanding of like what are what are the frequency of those touch points with department heads.

Yeah, so um we do have those meetings.

We've been using those to develop our measure W expenditure strategy, and our team um will continue to meet as we work towards developing our five-year strategic expenditure plan, and that is really informed about understanding what those like hard number impacts and figuring out how we prioritize based on the needs we already know exist in our community outside of those threats and incorporating trying to mitigate to some degree some of those.

Obviously, we don't have the resources to do it all.

Yeah, it's almost like a financial pandemic given the budget cuts or financial triaging that needs to happen.

We're doing that with the department heads kind of as we speak, is what uh yeah.

Andrea and Anika C and D can can jump into the three of them along with Kimberly, we've been meeting pretty regularly to understand what we know, what we don't know, where gaps are, and how that informs our long-term plan going forward.

Do we have comments from staff?

Would anybody care to comment on Nika?

Or how are we how are we handling this triaging this?

Good afternoon, supervisors uh Anika Chowdhury, interim director for Alameda County Health.

Um, so I I think you'll also see in a couple of later presentations today how we're planning to do some more uh uh coordinated coordination.

Um but for the purposes of things like the big Medicaid cuts that are coming down the pike, you know, our agency has uh been thinking about it for quite some time.

We have several work groups uh initiated within the agency to kind of think about um how we partner with our various health partners to understand the data impacts to understand the um, you know, impacts on people, impacts on our community providers, and impacts on the county itself in terms of the decisions that we're gonna need to make.

Um, and as Amy mentioned, there is uh a lot of planning we've been doing anyway, because before the election, there were uh in the health space some really significant changes that were underway with Prop One with CalAim, with um essentially the health system being asked to do more with the same or less.

Um so whatever planning we've been doing on that end, it's all gonna kind of dovetail together.

Um, and then you know, of course, working closely with social services to stay on top of um there there's so many um intertwined impacts that will happen.

Um, and we really are dependent on a lot of state guidance that doesn't exist yet to really help us figure out exactly what implementation triggers that we might need to pull.

Andrea?

Yeah, I concur with both Amy and Anika.

A lot of the work we do relies heavily on when we get guidance from state and federal governments.

Um, so in terms of triaging, we will triage based on the information we get from them.

But in many instances, we can't go ahead of what the state and federal instructions are to us.

So planning, um, I would say triage exists in planning and that sort of thing, but again, um, oftentimes we need to have our our systems program to take on certain changes.

We can't get ahead of that.

So, so but we have control over, I think we will be ready to respond as quickly as possible.

Noting that we cannot backfill all of the possible cuts.

Maybe it's uh important that we have a list of those things that will go away.

We can't backfill everything.

Something will not happen that used to happen, and to be mindful of that because anything on that list ought to be of lower priority than things that we are going to be backfilling.

So again, that's just another bucket of things that have been cut, things that are at risk, things that we know we can't backfill.

Okay.

Any other questions before okay, Supervisor Portsonato Bass?

This may be more of a comment.

Um, I um am glad that uh Amy Schwiger was able to mention uh the federal shutdown and the governor's announcement um in terms of if this continues past Thursday, the CalFresh benefits being impacted.

I think that is an immediate irreversible cut, and I do want us to be very mindful of how we meet that need, knowing that seniors unhouse immigrants and furlough government workers are relying on the food bank and other sources.

Um, so I can speak to that more when we get to the measure W discussion, but I do think we are getting information almost every day about what's going on in that particular CalFresh uh news, um, appears to be a real cut versus something that is at risk that I would argue we need to triage.

Thank you.

We're sort of building an airplane as it's in flight.

No other questions, we'll go to public comment.

Anyone that would like to comment on our budget and finance update, in person first and online.

If you're online, raise your hand.

Do we have any speakers?

No online speakers, and I do not have any speaker slips for in-person.

If you can speak and then fill one out and give to the clerk would be appreciated.

This is on the budget item we just talked about.

Okay.

Um I would like to validate the questions.

Um, um, if we're going to have to do that, and willing to address questions, you maybe or for the hospital regional question.

Um, um, procedures, view of what is known as the report.

We put into state record uh against tri-regional county authority, including federally classified information FCS 0, uh 053 uh two one and view of blatant gross, malice and intentional negligence.

I mitigate against executive orders with the requestment against the budget based on the view of uh project open hand uh using my litopate and that of the Cardosa view of the United States against the state.

I wish to challenge that in all appellates under the Williams Act in view of the PAC and RIFTA Act and view of blatant gross and intentional negligence.

I wish to submit a requestment against the tri-regional bond authority for it for open exploration in Michigan, Georgia, New York, and Oregon for blatant gross and malice and intentional negligence where power of attorney was taken without my consent.

I wish to open up exploration against the impeachment process and put into the record under five USC 29 CFR CFR into validity and ask that this be an open copy against the deposition.

I ask that only representation be uh Jenniwook, uh Yang, uh Jeffrey White, Anthony Michael, and John Kevin Alden Anderson.

Uh no one else.

I do not give permission for anybody else for representation or allow anybody else i'll move against UN executive orders for compliance as a procedure based on the war uh department of War, and we'll be submitting requestments for procedures of redactment.

In view of the budget, I do request that that be wondered based on uh executive order 13219 for negligence no it is our next item we're going to skip over item two is that okay with our county ministry is that okay with the rest of we'll go to item three update on board initiatives I note that we have a planned break from 145 until two at which time we have a two o'clock set matter to take up we can choose at that time to open the set matter and then delay it or to adjust our calendar accordingly but we have 25 minutes before we take a break for measure who's to staff report uh president habit members of the board um we're back before you on measure w at your board's um direction and have a number of things that we're going to um cover i want to acknowledge that this is a really a collaborative effort um with our our health agency social services agency community development agency and general services agency um coordinated by my office and we're gonna go through a number of things i want to just um walk through the um agenda for you because it's quite a bit there and want you to understand what we're going to be presenting today do we have a printout of this presentation okay so if I could suggest that we receive the staff's presentation ask questions have public comment and deliberate in that order I guess thank you so we want to just provide some background to set the context again um have a brief update on um the home together fund uh planning update from AC health uh we're gonna talk some more about the essential county services fund and the expenditure plan that your board um already approved and provided direction for the current fiscal year both using one time and ongoing funds um update you on um the next steps with regard to the five year strategic expenditure plan related to the essential county services fund that your board approved and then provide also update on um some of the components of the essential services fund you would ask for an update on um immigration and refugee services coordination through the social services agency uh medicaid coordination that will be presented by our social services and AC health um directors as well as food security and all those fall within the components that your board determined would be funded through a portion of measure w your board also requested that we come back for additional discussion about potential additional investments of measure w related to essential county services for the current fiscal year and then we will conclude with um staff recommendations and seek board direction so uh we've reviewed this before this is our timeline and voter approval for for the public uh this is an overview of the actions taken to date going back to December 2024 all the way to last Tuesday where your board um authorized an expenditure for immigrant and refugee services of 3.625 million dollars as a reminder these are the principles that the board adopted in uh alignment with vision 2036.

And just to provide your board with the big picture overview, when you first considered measure w and how to allocate those funds, you'll recall that there were funds that were held in escrow because they were collected pending um release of some litigation.

But this is in summary, your board in total allocated of 1.83 billion that we expect to receive, knowing that this tax measure goes another five years, and we have estimated the receipts for the next five years.

Based on that, we expect a total of 1.83 billion dollars, and your board's decision was to allocate 1.4 billion of that towards the home together fund, including 586 million of one-time funding and 816 million of projected ongoing funding.

You allocated 258 million dollars to an essential county services fund, 54 million one time ongoing and estimated 204 million, and you established a prudent reserve of 170 million.

So just wanted the board to understand the allocation that you've agreed to in terms of the framework, and we're going to focus now on Home Together Fund to get a quick update, and then the rest of the presentation will focus on the Essential County Services Fund.

So we'll turn it over to Jonathan and Anika for a planning update on the Home Together Fund.

Good afternoon, Jonathan Russell, Director of Alameda County Health Housing and Homelessness Services.

As Amy said, we have an update here on wrong direction.

On the Home Together Fund uh planning.

By way of outline, we're going to briefly focus on both the implementation thus far and then also a staffing update as we began giving you last month.

The two primary areas of focus for the implementation update are the shelter bednight rate increase and transition planning, which we'll uh do jointly with the social services agency, which of course agency director Ford is here, and then also another joint uh process that we'll be launching soon, which is uh the first release of capital funding for expanding permanent supportive housing or permanent housing in general for individuals experiencing homelessness, which we are doing jointly with CDA, and I believe uh HCD uh director uh starrett is also available online if questions come up.

This next slide is an is an overview, admittedly, with a lot of detail, of uh which we shared with you last month, um, just kind of tracking the major initiatives through the different priority areas, uh, some timelines and launch windows as we update those and some dependencies and planning notes around staffing and others as we move forward.

Uh highlighting here, as I just briefly said, that it is these three areas in yellow that we're really providing updates on today, which is both the expansion of interim housing through the RFI we completed earlier this year, where up to 300 beds will be added new interim housing and shelter beds, and the first of those will be coming on as soon as December as we move forward uh a letter to your board in that time uh and the balance of those launching before February.

And then the for more deep discussion today, of course, the updates to the increased operations support for our existing shelter sites funded by the county through the bed night rate.

We'll talk about that in some detail and then the capital as well.

First, focusing on the increased operations support for existing sites.

Um, by way of history, which I know you you all know well, we have consistently dealt with shelter cliffs, cliffs for many shelters, uh including those that have been funded by the county's bednight rate uh over recent years.

Last year, jointly with social services agency, we identified one-time funding to fill uh critical gaps in the for a subset of those shelter providers.

Um, and the current plan we're talking about is really a two-fold um plan that will happen over a period of time to both increase the operational support using the home Together Fund for the existing county funded shelters, and to over the course of the next 18 months develop a transition plan to transition the contract holding and operations and oversight of those sites from the Social Services agency uh to H as we increase the bednight rate.

So the goal is really to leverage Measure W, of course, to increase that bed night rate, to transition the shelters, as we said, and concurrently to go through the process through a shelter standards update work group to support uh really system wide improvement of the shelter standards for context or shelter standards are uh a set of standards that are managed by the county for all county funded shelters are required to subscribe to those standards.

So we have heard consistently uh a desire to update those, and we agree H uh will lead that effort in close coordination with our ongoing community engagement around Measure W, really centering those with lived experience to help inform what an updated uh shelter standards would look like as we go through this process, knowing that the county would be significantly increasing in its investment in the existing shelter and the expanded beds, uh which is all the more reason for us to have a more robust and direct involvement in managing the operations, the performance, and the outcomes ultimately.

So the requested direction is really a two-part approach to address the current bed night rate gaps.

So we know that this transition will take time uh to move to a new bedrig night rate, and so in the interim, uh our requested direction would really be to support AC Health H and SSA, working with our emergency shelter providers to again bridge the near term gaps through the existing contracts with SSA over the course of the next year, and then by January 2027, the beginning of that calendar year to launch uh expanded, more cohesive county shelter system, where the administrative transition of those current bednight rate shelters would both be transitioning to H, a new rate and structure of those contacts, significantly expanded contracts would be launching, and then we would also have system-wide standards and improvement metrics for quality to really drive housing outcomes across the system that would launch concurrent with that and the expanded rate.

Um, and then the other main update area shifting from interim housing operations funding to permanent housing new development funding.

Uh, this is a this will be launching as as soon as tomorrow, a new RFP jointly with our CDA HCD partners to focus.

We will really be the first of the portion of funding that has been dedicated to creating new permanent housing, so capital set aside from the home together fund to expand housing for individuals experiencing homelessness.

This will be the first release.

It will be a subset of the funding of a phased release that will gradually expand or quickly expand to serve other targeted project types.

So there's a wide range of housing types that we want to pursue, as I've said before you all, from the perspective of expanding and having uh, as uh President Howard has said many times, a hair on fire approach.

We believe that we need to pursue an everything everywhere all at once, very pragmatic approach to expanding housing units for people experiencing homelessness.

And this would be the first that is a really time-sensitive opportunity to create a local capital budget.

What's that?

He said, Oh, okay, jointly.

My misquoting Supervisor Miley's hair on fire approach.

Um the initial RFP would be focused, as we said, on new construction housing development that would be released jointly with between ACH and CDA.

It's really designed as an alignment with the Measuring W's guiding principles to be a last-in funding source to help projects get completed quickly.

That would be approximately 40 million dollars released in this first RFP, again, potentially as soon as this week coming out, and this would be expected to leverage with other sources and state tax credits and others that are those processes, those applications are going in for developers as soon as uh the first part of the year.

So this would really be a quick action to shore up and leverage those dollars to bring on up to 250 more units.

And what is the online term?

It depends on the timeline for the project, but the no sooner, many of these, many of these, if they are to receive the tax credits, and I think uh CDA staff a year too, that they would have to they would have to launch, they would have to be uh break ground in the actual physical development of the site by the end of this calendar year, this our next calendar year, which would be which would make that happen much more quickly.

So the opportunity is to is to happen faster than a you know a five-year timeline.

I mean, in most cases.

It will break ground by October 26.

Keys uh online cannot hear if you're not if your mic is not on.

Sounds like maybe middle of 28.

So just to be uh realistic with timeline, it's not a shelter bed that we're opening up right away, it's a couple years away.

Okay, that's correct.

That's correct.

And at a and a cost of to the whole community of about a million dollars a unit.

We might be providing 40 million dollars of funding, but somebody's gonna be spending upwards of a million dollars a unit.

I think I think a million is an overestimate, but with all sources, yes.

You know, these units are in the hundreds of thousands to develop new construction.

Uh again, I hasten to add, this is in order to access resources that our local community would not otherwise be maximally competitive for.

So it's a local investment to to triple or quadruple that investment by drawing down these other sources, and it's not the only thing we're planning to do.

It's a time-sensitive release to support uh expand it to buy units essentially for homelessness in projects that would then be competitive at the state.

But early next year, our plan is to open additional rounds of capital that would be focused on other projects that could happen even more quickly, such as acquisition or rehab of existing buildings, for example.

So it's a it's uh uh the first release that is time sensitive, but not the only targeted project type we would want to fund.

And these are all in the pipeline.

All of these are projects that are in the pipeline uh and ready to go.

So the RFP would target projects that are in the pipeline and have gaps uh that need an additional funding source.

That would become in the form of it could be go towards the capital side of the project or what we call capitalized operating support was essentially uh ongoing operation to subsidize the project in the form of rental assistance or property operations.

Crucially too, and this is this is an expansion of the targeted unit types.

They would all be dedicated to serving individuals experiencing homelessness, but they would not exclusively be permanent supportive housing only.

So we would be seeking to expand another category of housing that we've long talked about as a great need in our system, which is dedicated affordable units for folks that have fixed incomes but might not have as acute needs as those on the permanent supportive housing pathway, and then also supportive housing that goes beyond the basic supports of what we might call garden variety permanent supportive housing, uh, to fund what we call enhanced supportive housing, our permanent supportive housing plus that has additional, often intensive medical uh needs for individuals that would have additional physical health care services tied to those units as well.

So it would be a spectrum of housing types that would be eligible for for funding.

I would like to understand at some point a unit by unit basis, what the fair market value of a unit is and the rent that we do collect, calculating and reporting out that subsidy in total for the units that we've do we fund?

We fund.

Do you have a separate topic you can get to me any time in the next year?

How many units we currently fund through our partners?

What's the fair market value?

What's the amount we actually collect, and what's that delta, which is a subsidy?

The tenant portion versus the subsidy portion.

Tenant portion versus the fair market value of the unit.

Yeah, we can look at that for the projects we have direct contracts with.

Now the referrals would come through coordinated entry, which H and H manages to ensure that we're prioritizing individuals experiencing homelessness in the county, working in partnership with a local acquis uh local partners, depending on where the projects are awarded.

Again, the goal for this RFP as all others is to prioritize a regional allocation of the funding in alignment with the point-time count.

So matching the need uh across uh for homelessness across the county and the diversity therein.

And then, of course, as I said, later releases uh would really focus on an expanded uh focus on acquisition rehab conversion, smaller innovation projects uh to make sure we are pursuing all opportunities to expand the housing opportunities.

And then the last update I hear uh update I have here is just an updated on the status of our proposed staffing needs that we brought to you first in summary last month.

Uh again, that estimated need is currently 41 additional FTE.

Um, as we talked about last month, we now have eight total of those positions that have been approved and are in the uh uh near to or in the recruitment or hiring process, and 33 that are pending review.

Uh Chair will recognize advisor Fortnite.

Thank you.

Um, before we move on to the essential county services fund, I just had two questions regarding the home together fund.

Um, in terms of the capital RFP, when will that be issued and when will the decisions be made?

And specifically, I'm hoping they will be made before uh January when our affordable housing partners will need their um will be looking at tax credit financing.

The RFP will be released this week, potentially as soon as tomorrow, and the intention is to do a quick turnaround uh of the review process uh in 45 days or so or less to have those decisions made by end of year in order to have an awareness of what projects would be, including uh commitments uh for the 2026 rounds of uh tax credit applications.

Okay, thank you.

And I'm sure they're in touch with you about the time sensitivity, indeed, yeah.

And then in terms of the in terms of the um the shelter beds, approximately how many providers are um you working with in order to meet those near-term needs regarding shelter bed rates and such.

We don't have an immediate list.

We would need to jointly go through the process to uh with SSA to open up conversations with those existing funded uh bed night rate partners what their gaps are to identify.

Um, and so I don't have a a number but um of the total 670 some beds.

That's you know it's a quite a bit of providers that are that would be in the mix there for potential funding.

Um that's correct, 674 current bids, and then we'll have a board letter coming forward for um restorative pathways to add additional baits.

But as Jonathan stated, we have started talking about the next steps, and that will include which um emergency shelters or shelters in general are in need of funding.

Great, thank you.

I appreciate that.

Thank you, President Halbert.

I just wanted to follow up on Supervisor Fortunato asked this question.

So uh I I agree, and I I um endorse the two-part approach that you recommended with respect to the shelter bednight rates, because obviously uh there are immediate needs right now that we need to be very responsive to, but in terms of um like when that gets kicked in, you said that will be coming to the board um next month, you think?

The first staff with the two pro what's coming to the board um is a request to add additional bids.

And so Jonathan and I will need to work through how we augment current bednight rate funding.

When do you think that would happen?

I think in the next few months, our hope would be, and the commitment would be to fund from this fiscal year forward, which is which is where for many providers the clips began.

So starting in July.

So there would be some retroactive funding there.

What we need to determine is the best mechanism to do some bridge funding that what before we start the kind of new fixed bednight rate, uh, you know, about between 12 and 18 months from now.

But the point would be to shore up as we did last year retroactively from July through uh early next year to stabilize those existing shelters.

And I think we need to just decide to determine the best mechanism to uh to identify those gaps and then to augment existing contracts.

The SSA would augment the current contracts with home together funds for this patch funding essentially before we launch the transition and new rate.

Yeah, it's just that some of the providers have been uh concerned about that patch that bridge funding, and they wanted to understand the certainty in terms of their ability to plan as well.

Yeah, and would we have been in contact and I think now with your board's direction can have more explicit conversations with them that it is coming, the timeline as we identify the sort of procedural mechanism to do so.

Okay.

And then um with respect to the capital uh RFP, um, I I know it's designed to be last in funding for projects that can be online as quickly as possible, but when when we talk about a lot of these projects that are entitled, um they depend on whether it's you know the city of Oakland's measure you funding, for example, the state tax credits, the federal tax credits.

So, like we end up in this weird chicken and egg situation.

So who comes first or which funding source needs to be identified to leverage other funding sources?

Yeah, checking chicken or the egg is a good analogy.

Um in this case, I mean, it depends on each project status of where they started.

Um, likely many of these projects, and just to be clear, this is for um uh near shovel projects that are new construction, not exclusively for uh tax credit applicants.

There may be others, but it's really designed with the focus, of course, to be available for those those specific projects.

Many of those have local commitments already identified.

So one of the things that's built into this RFP is is uh require for a letter of support from directly from the cities uh jurisdictions within which uh the projects are.

So we'll be working really closely to make sure it's also aligns with those local city priorities that they support and say yes, these are our top ones that we want to propose.

And oftentimes not to get into too much of the weeds of how the TCAC or the tax credit works, is it's really about funding that can that can be a tiebreaker score because this is so competitive.

So this funding is to to make these projects ideally potentially most competitive, and it also would be funding that we would pull back, pull back.

So essentially the commitment would be great, you get it to go submit for this.

If this project isn't awarded and are ready within 12 months, we reserve the right to pull that back and put it to different purposes to be efficient and not have this uh depend on future future rounds and you know, hopes and dreams of awards that might not come.

It's really to sort of test and see if we can drive higher performance across the county uh for these first two rounds, um, and then go from there to either move it forward or uh reallocate it to different uses.

Okay, thank you.

We're at a point where I've been advised we're gonna take a break and 15 minutes, and so whatever the next presentation is called what essential services.

Be focusing on the essential services fund and related issues.

So we'll come back in 15 minutes to do that.

We're going to essentially recess.

We don't have any closed session to discuss, or do we?

Should we do a working low session?

We're gonna re re recess into closed session.

Yeah, I'm sorry, Supervisor Miley, you didn't get a chance to ask your questions yet.

Please do.

Yeah, I just wanted to follow up too on the shelter.

Yep.

I just need to understand.

So with the measure W money, we're looking to uh provide more funding for the shelter rate.

Yeah, so if it's one amount, we're looking to increase it, okay, with measure W money.

Uh or what if um a shelter um is looking for funding to continue?

Are we gonna use measure W monies to uh supplant the I think the the intention, my understanding, and I think this is pending further conversations, of course, with SSA uh and the county administrator is for Measure W to not supplant the current investments that are roughly between nine and ten million dollars per year of general fund for the current bed night rate, but to be additive to pay the difference to increase that rate and cover full operational costs.

So it would be a combination on top of to increase that rate in addition to our current investment.

So we would expect that the shelters that are presently operational at whatever rate it is to continue, and we're gonna augment that with additional funding.

Correct, provided that they want to continue, you know, uh operate with those expanded expectations candidly that we would be putting forward to increase the investment, and would also be very important for us as we'll be doing this year and through next to work with them and our city partners, who in some cases have partial funding making up these current composite budgets to ensure as we become uh a more full funder that any existing investments, particularly from other jurisdictions can be planned accordingly, whether those continue within that project or they're put to other homelessness uses.

Um so we would really have to that's part of the timeline we need here is to look at each individual budget and make sure that as we increase our investment, we're not doubling.

Um, and any investing investments are put to other homelessness uses to continue to expand the impact in the community.

And then I know you mentioned we're going to expand the number of shelter beds.

Is it is that going to be an RFP process?

How that becomes.

Yeah, we did an initial RFP process several months ago uh to bring on up to 250 additional non-congregate interim housing beds.

Uh, we can we concluded that process and we're currently in negotiations uh to bring on what will be uh just shy of actually 300.

So we exceeded our goal with that initial funding that was set aside in December 2024 for two years of operation.

So we will have those nearly 300 beds coming online between December and February and the increased bed night rate over the course of the year.

Um so by January 2027, when we're paying the full operational costs of those 670 some plus new beds, so we'll call it 700 beds plus these additional 300.

The county will be the full operational funder and contract holder for roughly a thousand shelter beds together, okay.

Now, one other thing, just to make sure I'm clear.

In the past, we've had um warming centers and winter shelters, and sometimes some of those providers have wanted to go, you know, um you know uh 360 days a week.

So were they factored into this expansion?

If they chose to be, um, it's a separate um there are they're not factored in though.

So you'll you'll have a winter um shelter board that are coming before you I think next month, and we have just entered into three-year agreements with cities, unlike before when it was one year agreements, so they are separate from what Jonathan has as far as for emergency shelter.

So is there any once again?

I'm not trying to um say a winter a provider of winter uh shelter or warming centers need to uh be a part of our shelter system uh annually for the entire year, but can we offer that as an option with some of the measure w monies if they want to?

I think that's I think that's part of the system-wide analysis we would do, which is we know we're adding 300 beds.

How does the assumed operational costs of those 1000 beds what does that look like year over year for the county in combination with our other investment areas?

But our hope would be uh budget pending, federal forecast pending, uh, that we would be able to continue to create a targeted opportunities to expand beyond the current bed night rate and the 300 we've already added.

So those conversations would certainly be welcome with those providers should they have interest.

Okay, um, and we would need to look at that in terms of our modeling of again, always that balancing between our prevention investments, our shelter, and our new housing investments to optimize the system.

But the real focus is with these new beds is flow through our shelters right now.

Right now we have a very impacted shelter system where we can create new beds and folks can be in there for hundreds of days, and that's not necessarily optimal.

My issue, Jonathan, is when I was on social services over the years, we had providers that wanted to go and provide shelter, but we weren't providing the funding.

And they could just, you know, they were interested in going uh year-round, and we weren't providing the funding.

And if they are interested in doing that, I want to add more shelter beds.

And I know you're we're concerned with uh throughput or flow through, but if cities are going to be um abating encampments that's we need to have a place for these folks to go to.

So that's what I want to try to produce is and maximize as many beds as possible.

So if there's abatements taking place, we have a shelter bed for folks.

That's right.

Yeah, we would be we would be happy to facilitate those conversations and and know that uh in our current shelters, the more movement we create in addition to new shelters, also create more beds.

So both both ways additive, I think is certainly part of our vision for the home together fund and the updated home together plan.

And then supervisor, just one last comment.

I would say over the last two or three years, we have had one winter shelter that has converted to year-round.

So we haven't prevented that from happening.

My last lingering question is I believe there's a stock, a plethora of maybe I've heard rumors of between the thousand and fifteen hundred vacant units, maybe some that are in need of repair or rehab that could be brought onto the market, sitting off the market that could be brought onto the market with um very quickly with little cost.

Are we in discussions with the rental housing providers?

And help me understand that.

Why are they vacant?

What is the extent of the needed dollar amount cost and time cost to bring those units online?

Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot uh that could be gleaned from our housing plan, Alameda County Housing Plan, and in discussion with HCD around kind of this the broader survey of the rental housing market, and that's not my core expertise, but we have been in conversation with rental providers of various kinds and Ebra and others around a vision for potential opportunities to do uh low-cost investments to bring units dedicated to homelessness online again uh with the the everything everywhere all at once vision.

My answer is yes, let's explore that.

Um is that uh provided for in this funding?

In this funding, this is this what we're talking about today are two buckets of funding, one for shelters that currently operate that need more funding, and another for uh new development, uh new capital.

So that would not be covered here.

That could potentially be covered in early 2026 expanded capital RFPs that would be for acquisition rehab and bringing new units online by other other means.

So there will be a phased process uh where those could potentially be um prime candidates for uh for expanded investment if they were dedicated in perpetuity for homelessness uses.

I guess the quickest to come to market, quickest to key items.

We are delaying to the first quarter of next year to start something that isn't gonna come on for a couple of years to key.

And we have people in the streets, we're clearing encampments.

I saw that council member from Oakland this weekend clearing encampments.

Where do they go?

And the closest to key, the quickest to key things that we could either go buy and or rehab and short shorter than a couple of years rehab and bring online.

Well, to be clear, there is no silver bullet and any, but the devil would be in the details of those units that are potentially out there.

Many of those are individual units in existing projects or single family homes or small rental sites that we would have to look more into.

I will say the county has been very aggressive and in jointly with our city partners in pursuing the state's home key funding, which is exactly as you've described, acquiring and converting existing projects.

I think there's 17 projects across the county.

So I don't think this is uh foregoing what could happen quickly to do what could happen slowly.

I think it's phasing the opportunity for the county to bring in investments that it would otherwise not get from state and federal sources, because there is no way for us to expand housing without leveraging those sources.

So I think it's a fiscally prudent uh process that would not slow down any uh acquisition and rehab approaches in the coming months.

Okay.

Very good.

Thank you.

We're going to recess in the closed session for 15 minutes.

We're gonna re-uh convene from close session.

There's nothing to report out from closed session.

I'll ask the clerk to call the roll to reestablish our quorum.

Supervisor Marquez.

Excuse Supervisor TAM, excuse Supervisor Miley.

Supervisor Fortinat.

Present.

President Halbert.

Present.

We have a quorum.

Thank you very much.

We'll proceed then with the next uh portion of our measure W update, the Central County Services Fund.

Ms.

Anika, is this you?

Or Amy, Miss Amy.

Uh so while Cheryl's pulling up the slides, um, so this is a recap of where we are with our Essential County Services Fund.

And as a reminder, we established six buckets within the Essential County Services Fund.

And we've updated this slide to reflect the lead department for each of those buckets.

Um if you have questions about the things in those buckets or the progress with the uh resources that we've allocated in those buckets, and those are the lead departments in each of those areas.

Yep, there we go.

Let's see.

And so just uh um to recap where uh what we did at the October 7th meeting.

We established a one-year expenditure plan and um prioritized one-time capital investments and immediate known needs, and um you've directed staff to develop uh comprehensive needs assessment to prepare a five-year strategic plan and bring that back to you all to be uh incorporated into the um FY2627 budget.

Um you can see here just the uh financial breakdown of what that looks like 39.35 million in one-time capital investments and 25 million in immediate known needs, which totaled 64.35 million in allocations for this fiscal year.

And a refresher of the one-time capital investments that were approved on October 7th.

Um, these are uh align with our um priority buckets.

Illustrates the immediate known needs fund of 25 million dollars that was approved on the 7th.

Uh you can see here in the different categories.

We have service stabilization, which includes uh seniors, two million previously approved as part of the budget process, uh two and a half million was set aside for immigrant refugee supports and newcomer outreach, two and a half million for medical outreach and retention, 1.5 for LGBTQ, uh 3 million for LIHEAP contingent on loss of federal funding, and 4 million for Prof one impacts for a total of 15 and a half million for our food security programs.

We have six and a half million one time, which includes the four million previously approved for the food bank for prepared meals, and um their food acquisition, uh 500,000 for food recovery, a million for prepared meals, and one million for recipe for health and SNAP ed cuts, and then a flexible contingency pool of three million dollars.

That is where we got to our 25 million flat yeah go ahead and we'll share this one thank you yeah okay thank you so much um just wanted to clarify with respect to the food security programs um there was advocacy before we adopted our budget for this um current fiscal year with respect to I believe it was four organizations that were going to be losing their ARPA funding and I my understanding is that is not captured here correct are you referring to the prepared meals that were funded it was SAN or organizations um not recalling all their names I know one for sure is uh it it is prepared meals it is a did that include um eating united church and unincorporated yes that's here that's the one million line item for prepared meals and the supplemental food security programs okay do you happen to know the name of the four organizations that this covers no it's KCCEB Eden Fair Resources and Spanish speaking unity council got it okay thank you for that clarification.

Just to clarify that's what we've already approved others in need maybe in other districts around our county can still make that request that's a question for all of us yes there's money in measure w but it is important to say that we should that's not the old those aren't the only people that are going unserved with prepared meals that's just the four that came forward and asked for money.

So all four did not come forward I think it's one or two that came forward only one or two came forward okay all right thank you.

The amount the one million dollar amount was identified based on continuing the current level of funding it had been previously funded through ARPA.

Okay so to our earlier discussion um we had a pandemic ARPA came we had money the question is do we continue an ARPA legacy program ongoingly we answered that question as yes in a rush one time everyone upon us decision to go make it's been done do we continue it do we do it for others to create more legacy kinds of programs like that if the needs there the needs there yeah I was I was holding off on speaking to this but yeah um I think the need relative to food insecurity is there although and with the pandemic what we found out is that the need was greater than what we were budgeting.

So with the pandemic we're able to provide additional money to meet the need for food and security um and you know upwards of a hundred million dollars we knew that that wasn't sustainable after the pandemic because we had cares back funding and we had ARPA funding um but we knew that wasn't sustainable but the need was greater prior to the pandemic it was even exacerbated during the pandemic but we have more resources to put into food insecurity during the pandemic now what I'm struggling with is and hopefully the agency director will be able to help us with this is we've got all these requests.

You know, I keep pretty impressive the seniors, but we got the seniors who are the triple A providers.

We've got um food delivery uh around of with the food bank, we've got that piece, we've got uh prepared meals and concrete meals, this that and the other.

What I don't understand is is there any overlap and are there any efficiencies?

And um, and with the money that folks are requesting, uh, do we have a sense of um of if we're funding one organization to do multiple things that another organization is also doing?

So I hope we get some clarity on all that today, um, as we go forward, and then I also think the the fact that um it's my understanding the seniors the two million here, but they're asking for an additional three million on top of this two million.

Uh that's my understanding as well.

So, and what I have to understand is when you say the seniors, I got seniors too.

Yeah, it's all they're not part of this.

Yes, yes, yeah, yes, yeah.

County wide.

So, I was part of this.

Who talks to Ridgeview Commons seniors?

Because they're they're seniors, they've been slipped through the cracks for they've never been picked up that I know of.

And so with these seniors, we're talking about the seniors who receive food through the triple A uh providers, and in Ridgeview Commons, I'm sorry, Andrea Ford Agency Director for Social Services.

They're not a triple A provider.

So, what does that mean?

Triple A provider, and I guess what I'm asking really is what are the qualifications of defining of need?

Because I believe that there are people that are in great need, but we don't even know who they are.

There's mobile home parks right off of South Front Street in Livermore that I'm not sure we've ever been to before.

There's um well, there's food recovery, that's something that that is a very small amount of uh we haven't even talked about food recovery.

We talked about food delivery, but we haven't talked about recovery yet.

That's, I mean, that half a million dollars was just a number we we picked up.

So I totally agree with you, Zoopervisor.

We have to figure out what that need is, but we can't just have it be, I don't think, just what we've um that we happen to know about today.

We need to be exhaustively looking for all the needs throughout the entire district.

When you say it's not a triple A, what does it mean?

Okay, area agency on aging.

Yeah, so how is that?

Let's go back.

When did that start?

And how did you get into the system for area aging?

They are a triple A, it's called a different triple A, maybe, but it's maybe area agency on aging in district one that never got looked at.

I don't know, it's the funding the area agency on aging.

Yeah, you know, I think it's really important.

I don't know if you can get all your questions answered today, but I think it's really important to um go back to what Amy Schregel presented at our last work session and a little bit today as well, and that is to use a year to do an assessment of what that need really is, so that we can come up with a five-year plan.

Ridge View Commons, I just heard about I think maybe two months ago, and they're getting fed by open heart kitchen.

Is that correct?

They stopped that about a year ago, but yeah.

I I think they're okay.

So um my recent information, which is about three weeks old, is that they're still being fed by open heart kitchen.

No, hasn't happened for a year.

Ronnie's been giving it out of his pocket, basically.

Okay, and um, so just looking at that particular property, and I think it's 200 units within Ridge View Commons.

Um, when I looked at a residence there, no one was actually receiving CalFresh benefits because of their income level or Medi-Cal.

So that's what sort of came up in a system at that time.

So that's the qualification.

Is that you're already on CalFresh?

It's not a qualification to be a triple A provider.

I'm just saying I don't know what the need is for that particular property.

Got it.

Okay, thank you.

No, I'm just raising it, and hopefully, when Amy finishes her presentation, the agency director will be able to provide a little bit more context for all of this.

Yeah, we're gonna get to details about food, uh food as well.

So uh so last week at Tuesday's meeting, this is a um more detail about the funds allocated for immigrant and refugee supports.

As you'll recall, we had set aside $2.5 million for immigrant and refugee supports and newcomers outreach, and the request was for $3.57 million for extension of community contracts and $50,000 for the public defender, which put us over the amount available by 1.1 million, and so those funds came out of the three million dollar flexible contingency pool that was part of the Essential Services Fund.

And this is a detail of the immigration contract amendments that you allocated last week, and social services will bring forward the contracts when the augmentations are complete.

So starting this month and going into next month, we are going to be just to back up a little bit.

There are four deliverables that are part of this process to provide the framework for the uh strategic expenditure plan.

And uh the first is the needs assessment, and that's gonna highlight where investments will make the greatest difference and help us identify core spending priorities and outcome measures for the five-year plan.

And um then we'll be able to move into data and policy analysis to ensure the expenditure plan aligns with our um with any external policies.

So we know we have these factors that we need to take into account and that we optimize all of our available funding resources and maintain our fiscal responsibility.

Uh, and then we plan to do some equity mapping that allows us to target the resources effectively throughout the county, ensuring our investments address structural inequities and reach the communities that need them the most.

And then we will finish up by doing a service gaps assessment to be able to translate all the identified needs into actionable program investments and ensure that the resources we have fill the gaps and strengthen our service delivery.

And uh we will integrate all of this information that we're gonna pull together into the strategy and um be able to model different funding scenarios and validate our priorities, engaging um stakeholders both in the county and outside of the county and be able to produce a uh five-year strategic expenditure plan for the board to adopt so that we can move forward with investing the remainder of the Measure W resources in a way that's transparent and um addresses the needs of our community and the will of the voters.

So I'm gonna turn this over to Andrea to talk about um our uh immigrant immigrant and uh refugee service coordination.

Thank you, Amy.

Um, in response to Supervisors Fortunato Bass and Marquez, chair and co-chair of the All Act for All Ad hoc committee.

The Social Services Agency is proposing an interim solution to coordinate immigrant and refugee services, pending a needs assessment from the Zellerbach Foundation.

This response covers two years but can be adjusted based on receipt of the needs assessment.

By way of background, Alameda County is home to 563,000 immigrants, making up 34% of the population, including 251,000 non-citizens and 172,000 children with at least one immigrant parent.

The Social Services Agency proposes establishing an interim structure to coordinate immigrant and refugee services, advocate for inclusive policies, and integrate community perspectives into county planning and programs, pending guidance from the Zellerbach Foundation.

Immigrants and refugees contribute immensely to the county's economy, culture, and civic life, but face significant barriers to accessing services.

In the current climate of deportation fears, misinformation, and shifting federal policies.

The county must take a coordinated, culturally responsive approach.

The Social Services Agency already offers a range of immigrant and support programs, including cash aid for refugees and non-citizens, employment and language services, and assistance for survivors of trafficking and crime.

These are largely funded by state and federal dollars.

Our programs, listed above, one through seven, also promote social integration and equity with services like community orientation, immigrant outreach, and free interpretation to ensure access to public benefits.

The proposed team will coordinate and expand on these services.

Advocate for inclusive pro-immigrant policies, amplify immigrant community leadership and voices, embed immigrant perspectives into county planning and decision making.

The proposal supports Alameda County's Vision 2036 goals of fostering a thriving and resilient population, building safe and livable communities, and promoting a prosperous and vibrant economy.

The coordination team, which will consist of two individuals, and I'll get to that later, will be guided by our North Star, our vision to continue as a welcoming Alameda County where all immigrants and refugees are safe, valued, and empowered to thrive.

The purpose of the initiative is to enhance and coordinate support for immigrant and refugee communities, ensuring equitable access to services and integration into civic and economic life.

The coordination team will lay the groundwork to accomplish this by providing resource coordination, policy advocacy, and community engagement across immigrant communities, county departments, and partnered organizations.

We propose a two-year plan as previously stated, and that's just based on a conversation I have with a board member.

And that two-year plan, the interim coordination team will operate under a two-year phase plan that emphasizes deliberate action planning followed by implementation.

The focal points of year one and two include hiring staff, working with the Zellerbach Foundation to conduct a needs assessment and develop a comprehensive action plan, implementing priorities from the action plan, and establishing systems for accountability and performance measurement and monitoring outcomes.

Year one, action planning.

In the first year, SSA will recruit and onboard an interim coordinator manager to direct the office's planning, coordination, and evaluation.

The manager will partner with the Zellerbach Foundation to conduct a countywide needs assessment and develop an action plan.

The action plan will map out existing programs, identify gaps, and coordinate across departments such as the public defender, public health, the sheriff's office.

This framework will guide the interim office's operations until permanent structures are in place.

Year two and beyond, should that be required.

The second year will focus on expanding capacity with new staff and operationalizing the action plan by launching initiatives and establishing accountability systems.

The interim coordination team will evaluate progress against action plan objectives and include results in an annual report to county leadership and the public.

Two-year performance roadmap, and this is based on a results-based accountability framework.

This two-year performance roadmap lays out how we'll move from planning to results.

In the first year, the team will publish Alameda County's very first immigrant and refugee action plan in partnership with the Zellerbach Foundation should they choose to do so.

This plan will map out current services, identify gaps, and set funding priorities.

Within the first 60 days, the coordination team will also launch a visual directory of county and community partners.

This will make it easier for residents and providers to navigate available resources.

Throughout the year, the manager will keep the board of supervisors in the loop with monthly policy updates.

At the end of year one, the coordination team will publish a progress report that will highlight what we've accomplished and how we've engaged stakeholders and what's next on the horizon.

In year two, the team will plan to host or participate in over 12 engagement events, connect with more than 1,000 residents.

It will also release an updated action plan and year one progress report.

By the end of year two, should we still be involved?

We want at least 80% of our stakeholders to say they feel engaged and informed about how the team is putting the action plan into place.

A clear path forward.

In year one, the coordination team will partner with Zellerbach to conduct a needs assessment and shape the oversight structure through community input and coordination.

In year two, should we still be involved?

The team will build on that groundwork by hiring staff, launching key initiatives, and evaluating progress.

The long-term vision is to position Alameda County to lead with clarity, coordination, and adaptability regarding immigrant and refugee affairs.

In the second phase of responsiveness and transparency, the coordination team will strengthen the county's ability to respond swiftly and effectively to urgent and emerging immigrant and refugee needs.

We'll also introduce a public dashboard so residents can easily track the progress of the initiative, ensuring transparency and accountability every step of the way.

What you see next is a proposed staffing structure.

So right now we have our policy office, which is managed by the policy director, and the proposal is to have an interim coordination of immigrant and refugee services reporting directly to that individual through a project position.

Right now, we're calling a senior management analyst and then secondarily a management analyst.

The interim coordination manager will lead, design, coordinate, and oversight of immigrant and refugee initiatives and partnerships.

The community engagement and policy analysts will focus on research, data analysis, and community engagement to inform policy and evaluate impact.

Housing, the interim coordination of immigrant and refugee services team within the social services agency temporarily.

Mirrors the state structure where the immigration services bureau lives within the California Department of Social Services, a two-year budget overview.

It's important to mention that we don't have existing staff who can take on this work.

So we're proposing a budget that will cover year one and year two, should year two be needed, and that amount is 450,000.

It'll cover staff salaries, benefits, communication, and evaluation.

The investment will fund two positions, and that would be the manager and the policy analyst, and ensure the office has the tools to effectively serve our communities.

Next, you have a best practice across California slide that's not advancing currently.

So across California counties are leading the way with models we can learn from.

They offer legal defense and housing assistance, citizens, citizenship support and community workshops, grants and DACA services, refugee resettlement partnerships, and countywide equity initiatives.

In addition, Contra Costa County's Employment and Human Services Department recently issued a 4.7 million dollar request for proposal to launch the services and access for everyone.

The acronym is SAFE Center.

It would be a three-year initiative that will coordinate immigrant resources across several areas, including legal aid, education, health care, economic opportunities, and social connections.

Together, these models show how coordinated equity-driven immigrant and refugee initiatives can strengthen community well-being and belonging across the state.

This is what we hope to support with the interim coordination of immigrant and refugee services.

Thank you.

And are there any questions?

I recognize Supervisor Marquez, followed by Supervisor.

Thank you, President Hammer, and thank you, Director Ford and team for this comprehensive proposal.

I highly support it.

Thank you.

This is what we've been wanting and needing for so long.

So thank you so much for being so comprehensive and thorough in bringing this proposal forward.

I appreciate that you did mention Zellerbach many times because I've been very public that I've been in communication with them.

Just want to share, we received great news yesterday that philanthropy is going to come in at $100,000 to advance the study, but we can't share the details yet in terms of who exactly is supporting those efforts, but we do have 100,000 commitment with more details to come in the near future.

So just uh thank you for propelling this work so that way we can secure those commitments.

Um, I won't speak for my colleague, but this is a priority for district two, just knowing the population in the county and wanting to align services, be more thoughtful and strategic in that coordination.

So this is um a great start to that.

I'm really uh excited and want to know how soon do you think these positions will post in terms of the recruitment?

I may we'll just be excuse me.

As soon as we can get by in our approval from your board, and we can start the process of recruitment.

Okay, so if there's support from my colleagues today to advance this work, how soon could a board letter come before us to um adopt this request?

So we'll support advance the work and um the staffing that's needed.

I would say um with and six weeks of board letter can come forward.

Okay, great, thank you.

And then I guess I'm gonna ask HR to um, once we approve the positions, what what's the timeline to go out and recruit for these two positions?

Do you want to speak in the mic?

I don't know if you guys want to share a mic.

So it depends.

Uh if the classifications are existing, then social services handles their own recruitment and uh they can uh advertise for those positions as soon as possible.

If it's new classifications where we have to create the classification, then we would partner with social services to create the classification, go through the civil service process.

So it can be about three to four months to create a new classification.

But again, if it's an existing classification, then the department already has that built in and can start recruiting for it right away.

So is one of them existing?

These are existing civil service classifications.

Great.

Okay.

If you said that already, think you didn't catch that.

Thank you.

Followed by Miley.

Thank you.

Um, I definitely appreciate our county administrator and our social services director, as well as others that you've consulted with being very responsive to the work that we have moved forward around immigrant and refugee rights, and I am supportive of this plan, as well as the funding allocation.

Um, I wanted to just um ask so the two there's two positions that would be created, um, and they would be under the existing policy director.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

And um the recommendation is to create two project positions because for now this is an interim.

Yes, it is interim.

Okay.

And then um I've had an opportunity to connect with um others in other counties, including Santa Clara County and Contra Costa County, who do have offices of immigrant affairs in San Francisco as well.

So you've um already started to look at those models.

So thank you.

Um I because this is interim, I do feel like we have to also make sure we don't get too attached to the structure that we might create over the next one or two years and just be really open to feedback for how this will work here in Alameda County.

And so that could mean um it might be structured, say under the CAO or some other thing.

And so I just wanted to say that out loud.

I definitely appreciate SSA taking this on, especially given everything that is on your plate.

Um, and I want to make sure that we are also um as we do the engagement and the analysis, we're very open-minded in terms of receiving community feedback and looking at how in Alameda County the structure will work best.

Um also appreciate the acknowledgement of working interagency, you know, certainly the public defender, um, AC Health and other agencies are also engaged in this issue, so that will be important.

And then lastly, I wanted to note that in Santa Clara County in particular, they've had their office much longer.

It's also much more um comprehensive.

It includes um equity very broadly, and on their board agenda today, they have a couple items related to immigrant rights.

One of them is an immigration enforcement response work plan.

And so to our county administrator in particular, as well as to our department heads.

I wanted to draw this to your attention and I'll send to our county council as well.

I'll send a link to the public documents.

I think it's really important that they are looking at if there is increased ICE enforcement and possibly other um activity, that we as a county are prepared and have our own response plan, including not only with our community partners but also internally as a government agency.

So I hope that we can also look at this and as we build our staff capacity that they can also look at how we collectively as a county, including our front client facing departments, can really help support our community at this time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um just for the record, I'll assure you that we will not get too attached to this interim process.

Um and also um slide 15 of 16.

It identifies best practices across California and Santa Clara is listed.

Um and I'll just repeat that we plan to um learn from what they're doing as well as we move through this process.

Thank you.

Yes, I appreciate already seeing that the best practices are included in here, and then I think my packet is missing two of the slides.

So if this does get uploaded, which hopefully it will, hopefully, that will include all the slides.

Yeah, so apologies.

Um there were some last minute changes made, and so once it gets uploaded, we'll have the information that I just presented from.

Um, so apologies that you all have a different version of it.

Um supervisor, I'm sorry.

Supervisor Marley, followed by Tam.

Yeah, thanks for the um presentation.

The um, so Zeller Bark, they're gonna put a hundred grand, it's a hundred grand per year.

No, um, let me clarify a commitment has been made.

No details have been um, I'm not authorized to say who is funding it just yet.

So at the moment, 100 grand for the Supervisor Marque has reported, yes.

The entire two years.

So the balance of this would come from measure W.

Thousand dollars is to fund a study, not these positions.

So what's the budget amount?

And I'm asking that 450,000 be allocated from measurement.

So 450,000 plus the 100,000 from the Zeller Block Foundation.

Zellerback will just use that.

I mean, that's for a needs assessment to determine what the future of an office might look like.

Okay, so that 100,000 is not connected to your 450.

That's correct.

So your 450 needs to come out of measure w?

That's correct.

Okay, that um just that the clarity, and then um, um, will the this the study is then to determine on the creation of an office of immigrant services.

That's what the study um the staff and the Zellerbach money will help us to um kind of understand and and actualize.

Yeah, we will look at best practices that are listed here.

Many of the cities, I'm sorry, the counties listed.

Uh it has been part of the proposal, the discussion for that uh comprehensive analysis that will also include community engagement.

So the details are still being discussed, they have not been finalized, but the good news is that we have our first commitment of a hundred thousand dollars.

It's going to exceed that, especially since we're going to engage community at large to get their input.

Um, but so it's a parallel process.

This is future thinking to give recommendations on what the future office should look like, but really commend uh director Ford and our CAO for coming up with an interim process and plan.

Yeah, I think it's very appropriate that the social services agencies taking this uh responsibility on.

Um, and then when I look at the best practices, um, you know, and particularly counties.

I'm not talking about the city and county of San Francisco because that's an anomaly, but counties, you know, none of those counties under best practices have this located in the county administrator's office.

So it's just an FYI.

Um, we'll stay open to the feedback.

Then what will the study also look at sustainability?

Yes, and and once we finalize the details uh for the study, it will be in close partnership in conjunction with um social services.

Because we need to have a funding stream to sustain this beyond measure w because measure w is not you know guaranteed.

Yeah, and measure w is not funding the entire operation, it's funding two interim two project positions.

So when we look at the five-year strategic plan, which is extremely important, because I appreciate um Amy pointing that out from the county administrator's office, we're talking roughly about 200 million dollars.

So we would the strategic plan would kind of determine what what the needs are, what the priorities are, uh, where we need to um allocate resources.

Cause I because I do anticipate we're gonna have to triage what we uh you know, the needs and the priorities are gonna be gonna go beyond our ability to fund everything.

So I guess I think this is a good start, but I don't want to um raise expectations based on the five years strategic plan that this will be something that will be sustained, but I think that needs to be factored in.

If it's not in this of the five-year strategic plan, what's the sustainability uh aspect of this?

Thank you, and I agree with you.

Um I think I heard at the either the last board meeting or work session.

Um, I believe Supervisor Marquez and you all are trying to um working with the San Francisco Foundation that try to raise 10 million dollars or that's for the basic needs fund.

Uh yes, yes.

So um myself and Supervisor Fortunates are working tirelessly with outside private funding to secure as uh many dollars and investments in Alameda County.

So just want you to know we are doing our part to um bring in investment so we're not um fully utilizing what's available since the needs obviously go beyond this very important and needed um population, but as we're hearing it's it's not the only need in the county, right?

I think that so thank you for taking us on in this um presentation.

Supervisor Tam.

Questions, comments.

Um thank you for this presentation and uh basically helping to synthesize a lot of the work that um the ACPAL committee had put together.

Um I just had some follow-up to the questions that um supervisor Miley had.

So when we uh look at the 450,000 dollar request for measure w, this is on top of the 3.6 million dollars that we had um earmarked for immigrant and refugee services at our last meeting.

And what I'm trying to understand is that's all coming out of the flexible contingency fund that was part of the one-time measure W, or is that part of the five-year plan that we're planning on moving forward with?

So the dollars that the social services director mentioned just mentioned are not reflected anywhere yet in what the board has already approved.

What you approved last week was the two and a half million that had already been designated, and above and beyond that was an additional 1.1 or 1.2 million that reduced the three million dollar contingency.

So in the initial plan that you the board adopted out of that 25 million dollars, there was three million set aside as the flexible contingency.

The board's already tapped into that by 1.2 million, so you have basically, you know, just another 1.8 million to allocate based on your plan for the current year.

I do think you know, as every as has been said, you should focus on the five-year needs assessment and planning, and even with doing that, the amount that your board has allocated for the essential services fund, it's 24 million almost 24 million one time and 170 ongoing based on the board's allocation of Measure W.

So it's slightly less than 200 million that would be part subject to the five-year plan under your current allocation methodology, unless you want to shift more dollars from home together into the central county services okay so the the proposal really is to have the 3.6 3.7 plus the 4500 for immigration for immigrant it would be that amount plus the 450 that director forward has requested for interim um oversight okay and and so what supervisor marquez is talking about is it's basically uh philanthropic dollars for a study not for operations and what I'm trying to um get a handle on is I I mean we're doing our best to be reactive but for you know in all honesty the county doesn't move that fast when it comes to uh dispersing or allocating funds and so I I don't want to be in this position of having to deal with you know this whack a mole thing okay here's the latest issue that's coming up let's react to it here's another issue that's coming up tomorrow or two days from now so it would it be prudent uh to like earmark some funding so that social service even though the 45000 is for their staffing and operations to react to some of the things that are to build in some contingency for their operations because you know right now we allocated funding to groups that haven't finished using their funding uh until March of next year and then we're allocating more funding on top of that so I just want to make sure that we don't have to keep coming back to us and and dealing with our our process and deadlines.

Well that's why initially we built in the three million dollars out of the 25.

I mean it looks it appears that the board wants to fully allocate that and I guess you know the caution is just that going forward we know we have a finite amount of money just because the measure expires in another you know five years and based on your board's allocation methodology it was 20% so we're projecting what the annual revenue is going to be and 20% on an annual basis is 34 million dollars for the essential county services fund.

So that that's the ongoing amount so it you do need to really think about your priorities because you've already committed 64 million dollars in the current year and the annual allocation of measure W going forward for the essential services fund is 34 million dollars so I think you really need to manage expectations.

I totally agree with you and I'm I'm thinking like even beyond because we don't at this point uh beyond the overall bigger picture understand the full extent of HR1 and how much of it we can strategically backfill and I you know our social service because I serve on the social service committee they've been doing a phenomenal job because they've had the experience uh during the pandemic in dealing with uh the eligibility requirements which will be phased in next year when it comes to medical uh you know like ABOD for example able bodied uh work requirements that are part of uh the the new eligibility requirements we we don't have a handle yet they're doing their ultimate best right now to get everybody enrolled in medical while they can so we can have a handle of who might not be eligible or who might fall off so I want to be able to plan for for some of that contingency uh going forward so if we end up using all of our contingency here that means we don't have any room to react and and just to put in perspective the comments about you know ARPA.

Your board was always very clear that that was one-time funding and that there was no exp expectation that it would be replaced, but I just want to put that in perspective.

It was $660 million dollars between CARES and ARPA that the county allocated and that as you know was largely to um AC Health and to the Social Services agency for you know clearly there were needs out there um during the pandemic but I just you know we're not you're not gonna be in a position to be able to replace all of that and have you know sustainability around your commitments on measure W and address the federal and state funding cuts.

So I mean we're talking about a huge universe potentially um and and it's just not realistic to think that we could backfill all of it even if that's you know what you wanted to do.

I share the sentiment of needing to prioritize I think that immigrant and refugee services have always been needed and will always continue to be needed.

A big question mark is at what level because when you have changes in administration when you have changes in just the macro environment of how many immigrants we have versus not how much funding we have versus not what's going on in that space versus not that adjusts accordingly but we have always been an immigrant and refugee um space and we will we will always be I'm not sure I mean I know 34% 563 some of those are tech worker immigrants and their families and some of them are less resourced okay so I don't there's a spectrum of the so services that they need um but I think we're always going to need it.

Now what a two-person department I don't that's just meant to start it off right a two-person team I wouldn't call them a department two person a two-person team yeah so we have to be realistic about about that um uh so I guess I think it's always going to be needed it's just a question of sometimes it's gonna be needing more resources and sometimes less resources dependent on what's uh the going going on around us but I also see you know for example the legal rights so if we're talking about somebody that needs legal services because they're being evicted from their unit like that's a different legal resource that exists in a different environment versus they need to know their immigration status right so I'm assuming that that somebody in social services will be able to help them navigate you need to go to this legal resource versus that legal resource who's gonna be the owner of that navigation for the immigrant and refugees so that's the importance of coordinating with with multiple county departments and agencies.

So I listed just a few but um I didn't list CDA uh but but whichever county agency or department is in control of that particular um area and that's a we'll coordinate with so they'll know those different tentacles of services yes in our agencies.

Yeah okay um and I just want to really just call to light it says coordination so it doesn't say we're doing everything we are coordinating with others as well okay and remind me again how versus Santa Clara what's the how many do they have five staff five staff department okay and many other counties go beyond immigrants and refugees they're looking at social justice equity issue it's very broad so that's why this study is needed to just really conduct that analysis what's um what department what do departments look like in the nine Bay Area counties and potentially analyzing some count some offices in Southern California to provide that analysis.

And so then um just being fully transparent and recognizing the uh space that we're in today are we none of this, or we have to be mindful of not doing something that has unintended consequences of running a foul of jeopardizing perhaps additional resources that may be available to us, say at the federal level.

How are we going to be cognizant of not doing something that um costs us going forward with say the administration?

Or do we have to even be worried about that?

I would say as of today, um, what I'm speaking to you, I'm not worried about it.

Um, but it's with with everything we do, we have to be cognizant of what's happening at the federal and state level.

Um, not just around immigrant and refugees with everything that we do.

Um, I think we talked about before using measure W to fill in all these gaps at the federal government, the holes that they're leaving.

So we have to be careful there too.

We have to be careful try to fill in gaps that the state is creating because they'll say Alameda County doesn't need anything.

So it's just following that state and federal landscape to get a sense of what needs to happen.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um, I would just say the staff has been very um what's the word alert to any impacts from the federal government or the state government on county programs and resources.

So I think as long as they keep that transparency before us, so if we know we make this decision, it's gonna have this impact on resources that we're dependent on for something else.

That's that's our call.

But I think they've been pretty transparent in that sense.

Fair enough.

Seeing one last question before we go to public comment hint hint.

Uh oh, we have one more, one more presentation before public.

Um, this is quick.

For the best practices, I would like to see Contra Costa County included.

Um they have an interesting structure whereby their office reports directly to their board.

So there are many different types of structures that Zellerbach uh can look at and report back to us.

Okay, and I will just repeat what I said about Contra Costa County.

Um they have a RFP that they just released, um, an amount of 4.7 million dollars over the course of three years for their safe center.

Um, that's what's being proposed right for this, but um, they also have um they lack a dedicated office of immigrant affairs, it's Office of Racial Equity and Social Justice efforts to advance equitable policies, coordinate across departments and engage communities.

So they do have the work, it's not being called the same thing correct.

Again, we are looking at Contra Costa.

Okay.

They do have the work that's sort of coordinating around immigrant affairs, and they even have their rapid response embedded within their public defender's office.

So it's just one more example to look at.

Thank you.

I think they have a whole separate division for veterans' affairs as well.

Is that not right?

They do.

We're not talking about them today.

Well, they do though, yes.

Veterans are people too, right?

Let's move on to the next presentation, which is Medicaid Medicaid coordination.

Uh good afternoon, everyone.

Uh so at your last work session, uh, there was some discussion around uh the medical impacts and uh the variety of meetings, etc.

that we're having and uh the board had asked uh me and the social services director to come back with a proposal for um how we could be coordinated around this this process.

So just a couple of slides here.

Um I think uh everyone here is well aware of the complex and shifting landscape that we have before us.

Um so over the next three to four years, we're gonna be seeing major policy changes phasing in at different times, both for um uh Medicaid at the federal level, which will impact Medicaid at the state level, um, and then a lot of associated programs as well uh like CalFresh and CalWorks, etc.

Uh, this will of course have a significant impact on our communities, uh uh, notably in that there's narrowed or uh eliminated eligibility for certain community members, and at the same time, increased requirements for people who do remain eligible for the program.

So a lot of people getting kicked off of Medicaid and it becoming really hard for people who are eligible for Medicaid to stay on.

Um and then, of course, there's some really complex uh and intertwined implementation challenges.

So this means significant revenue loss for our safety net providers.

It's increased administrative complexity and cost for social services agency.

There are a lot of policy and funding implications for Alameda County Health, which sort of leads the indigent care responsibility.

And of course, as you've heard a couple of times today, there's multiple state and federal guidance dependencies, where, for example, the work requirements, we're understanding from the state that they're not going to have guidance on how to implement those until June of 2026.

So there's a number of existing meetings that are happening.

So just to run through them quickly, the board health committee, you know, generally has the scope for policy and budget, anything, anything having to do with health and homelessness in the county.

And we do have it's chaired by Supervisor Miley, Supervisor Tam is the co-chair.

Our agency works with Supervisor Miley's office on agenda making, et cetera.

And we regularly bring in our CBO partners and which includes Alameda Health System, Alameda Alliance, as well as the clinics and other providers.

And we also have a practice of doing joint meetings with social services and public protection occasionally.

Similarly, for social services, chaired by Supervisor TAM and alongside Supervisor Fortunato Bas.

The that meeting happens once a month, occasional joint meetings with health, and they focus on everything having to do with in the social services scope.

The BOS Act for All subcommittee is focused on multiple areas related to the state and federal impacts, including HR1.

And this is an ad hoc committee that's been meeting about once a month, occasionally more often, and they've held one joint meeting with health over the summer.

Supervisor Bass chairs this and Supervisor Marquez attends.

And there's regular participation from county agencies and community providers there.

District 5 also has a Medi-Cal working group, which includes participation from our agency, Social Services, Alameda Alliance, the Clinics, Alameda Health System, as well as representatives from our state and federal delegation.

And this is a group that's recently started meeting, but you know, at a cadence of about one or two times a month.

Then next one is a community provider advisory group.

This is a group that's co-chaired by me and the health committee chair, Supervisor Miley.

And this is a group that we had actually started last year to kind of think through the major systems changes that were coming in space for health.

So really looking, it includes providers from across behavioral health, public health, and homelessness spheres for us.

And again, some of those core partners like the alliance and the clinics and AHS are participants there as well.

And Medicaid has become the key thing post the election for that group to focus on.

And then, of course, ongoing safety net collaborations.

There's a number of meetings that both AC Health and Social Services have with the clinics and the alliance and AHS, and sometimes they're individuals, sometimes they're together.

This is a visual representation of what I just talked about.

So just to this is really more of like a 3D model rather than just a regular Venn diagram, but essentially, you know, you've got the different committees as well as the community engagement processes that we have going.

And I just want to note that health pack is not something that was on the previous slide, but that's one of the major things that is going to be affected by whatever happens with Medi-Cal.

And so at the center, you'll see that you know Medi-Cal strategy and impact analysis is something that overlaps with the scope of all of those work groups and committees, and there's also significant uh overlap in who participates and what we're talking about and the analysis that we want to do.

So taking all of that into account, uh what we're recommending for you as a path forward to help us all stay coordinated and connected and sort of have a cohesive countywide response, is that social services and AC Health would establish a backbone team.

And this team's role would be to, you know, track work across the different tables where we're already meeting, reduce duplication where we can convene and coordinate the safety net partners, you know, including the core partners as well as uh the broader scope of partners, sometimes on an ad hoc basis and sometimes regularly, depending on what the what the meeting needs are.

Um we would coordinate with the board offices to ensure that we're aligned in policy and priorities.

Um and initially uh this group, you know, the backbone, the focus needs to be on understanding the data elements because we're also finding that um there's a real need for us to all to be working from the same numbers, uh thinking about policy and regulatory analysis so that we're all interpreting them the same way, and you know, continuing to think about what the impacts are and identifying any points for urgent response.

And then longer term, obviously, as you know, because this is going to be a three to four year endeavor, thinking through um how we can be coordinated in our responses.

Um, and then we recommend a joint health and social services every other month.

The backbone team would work with the board offices to help agendize and make sure that you know things that are coming up from the various stakeholder groups are are being agendized there for policy and budget discussion.

Um, and uh the backbone team would also support the Medi-Cal working group uh at D5 and uh the CPAG would continue to meet quarterly, but essentially there's uh a team that's dedicated to making sure that um the same information is being heard in different spaces and it's not duplicative, and you know, we're not hosting multiple meetings for with the same folks.

So a visual depiction of that, um, a concentric circle approach where you've got the backbone team uh with the board offices, AC Health and Social Services.

Um I do want to know that I've said key health partners here, and that's the Alliance, because they are our uh Medicaid plan, um, AHS and CHCN, because between those two organizations, that's the vast majority of Medi-Cal enrollees as well as um health pack enrollees.

Um, and then of course, there's a broad range of uh safety net partners who will be affected by all of the changes that are coming.

So that would be incorporated in the community partners scope, um, and then ultimately at the county governance level is where we would have the joint committees so that we can talk about um options and you know actions for the the board to take.

And I will stop there for any questions.

So just uh one clarifying question is this a response and a recommendation for what was said at a prior meeting where Supervisor Miley said a blue ribbon.

Yes, committee would then be satisfied with this recommendation as opposed to adding another committee.

We think so, but that that's what that's the recommendation.

That's recommendation, okay.

Because I am uh sensitive to creating additional committees and creating additional departments and put it in priority perspective and not only that, but we talked about other things like Office of Incorporated Services and all the other departments we're creating.

Um so I wanted to clarify that.

Thank you.

I'll go to Supervisor Miley first, and then colleagues.

Yeah, thanks, um President Albert.

Uh, thank you, Annika, for the presentation.

You know, first of all, you know, I've been on the board for 25 years.

I got on the social on the uh health committee once Supervisor Carson um retired from the board.

Uh so for 20 years I served, actually 24 years I served on the Social Services Committee.

Uh it wasn't as though I wasn't interested in health, but I I was willing uh to be clegial and let Supervisor Carson and Supervisor Tam take the lead on health.

We brought in homelessness under health, etc.

So there's you know there's a lot of work going on in the county that could keep me busy without me having to impede my will on the jurisdictional responsibilities of the health committee.

But there are opportunities when I could weigh in on health matters when it came to the full board.

You know, I didn't create a COVID working group for district four.

Uh when we're going through a pandemic uh crisis, um, you know, I think it would have been a strict distraction.

I'm very sensitive, and maybe it's just because I've been here a while and I've and I've uh I see staff and I recognize staff and I know staff they they talk to me that we're not getting the best efficiencies if we have staff going to multiple meetings that are doing overlapping responsibilities.

Um, and I know um the agency director uh basically came forth with uh a plan to try to uh you know reconcile some of these um these challenges, but I would submit we have, and unless the board wants to change um seniority, unless the board wants to change operational jurisdictions of existing standing committees, unless the board wants to uh not pursue priorities.

I mean, there are things the county administrator's office should needs to be working on in county council that quite frankly um we've been waiting for quite a while, even before HR1, even before Trump's re-election, any of this stuff.

Um, even before Prop one, I mean, there were things they were still behind on.

And now we've got all these other matters as a result of HR1, um, as a result of Prop 1 and the money going being taken away from uh prevention as a result of you know the homeless crisis, uh etc.

etc.

That is uh once again raising the need for staff's engagement and to be engaged and give their best thinking uh collectively, uh uh comprehensively, and in a in a manner that we get the efficiencies and the best for our staff.

So to have them going health to skelter, and that's why I only recommended a blue ribbon.

I'm not wedded to a blue ribbon, I just threw it out as a possible context because I know um when I joined the board uh there was a crisis around uh general assistance, and so I mean there was a big uproar around general assistance.

So the board created a blue ribbon of which I and Supervisor Um Gail Steele served on with uh folks from the community uh to try to deal with uh the issues of uh GA assistance with the blue ribbon, and I just thought of that as a model, but I'm not wedded to that.

But what I am wedded to is trying to make sure our staff they aren't spread so thin that they can't do their best work.

And in this case, we've got the hospitals, we got the clinics, and I talked to Dr.

Noha yesterday, we've got the you know, the centers that are in health centers that are not federally qualified.

Uh we've got agencies, we've got so much that needs to be consolidated and worked on so that everyone can provide their best input as uh stakeholders as we're trying to maneuver through this and recognizing once again we the needs will surpass our resources.

And if folks are not giving their best thinking, how we're gonna address these needs with the resources we have, all we're doing is um uh is you know kind of spinning our wheels and being um what's the word, um, not as efficient as we could be.

And quite frankly, uh we'll burn staff out, and we'll see staff that you know are not or discouraged and maybe not even want to continue working for the county, which doesn't serve, you know, us or the public good.

So I'm just once again, once again, saying that I think the agency director tried to come up with an approach, but I do think we've got two committees, social services and healthcare, where jurisdictionally these matters belong, and that's where it should rest.

We shouldn't have individual supervisors giving staff direction and saying produce this as an individual supervisor because it's taking away from the greater good of what the entire board wants to see accomplish.

So I'm just stating that based on my own observations, take it for what it's worth.

Appreciate what you've brought forth today.

It's an effort, um, but I don't think it really satisfies uh what I think needs to occur.

But I do appreciate what you've brought here.

I do think joint meetings between the two committees would probably be the uh the best approach to try to reconcile all these matters uh that we're trying to um uh confront uh presently.

Supervisor Miley, thank you for that comment.

When you say this doesn't um necessarily address, what what do you what would you prefer to see?

We'll put up that one slide, the Medi-Cal slide that has all the circles.

Yeah, look at that.

I mean, I think if we took away the D5 Medica working group, you know, once again, I didn't produce the uh community advisory, the community provider uh advisory group, supervisor Carson came up with that.

Once again, he came up with that, that's what the staff's running with.

I didn't produce that, he produced that because he thought it was the best thing to do.

Um, so we have the CPAG where all these bodies come together anyway, and we've invited social services to join the CPAG, and we have a CPAG meeting next week uh as well.

So I would definitely feel that um and and even Act for All, I would focus Act for all on immigrant issues, immigrant services, and limit it to that.

I mean, we just saw a great presentation from the social services agency director on the need around immigrant services.

Have that focus be lasered on that and pull that piece out of this as well.

So those are just some of my humble suggestions.

You don't have to take them, I won't be offended, but I'm just throwing it out here for full transparency.

I guess um, can you remind me CPAG?

Is that one of the committees that, for example, okay.

That's not something that the board president, um, it's not a standing committee on the board.

Yeah, the the community provider advisory group that the CPAG, as we lovingly call it, is the um it's a stakeholder engagement process that Alameda County Health uh chairs uh co-chairs with the um health committee chair, and it was initially intended to be a space to uh during 2024.

We met multiple times um to really think about being ready for what's coming this year in terms of Prop One changes, homelessness changes.

Uh we have a public health community health improvement plan, and really the idea was to have all of our providers be in a space, but not all of them, but representatives from all of the areas of our major work uh to be um to be able to hear and understand from each other and really help us align so that we could ultimately align our resources for things that you know support all three of those areas of work.

The last meeting of that group in 2024 was the day before the election.

Um, and then uh this year uh we've so far uh this next meeting will be our second meeting.

So I think one of the gaps that people feel in that space is that it's not meeting frequently enough.

Um, but you know, it it's sort of the thing about these spheres is that each one sort of has its own thing.

Um and is you know, it it has its own jurisdiction, it has uh like the systems planning that we're doing, we're going to continue to do that, right?

And so, remind me who from district one?

There's nobody, Melissa is on the list.

She's on the list.

Melissa's on the list, um, and I couldn't tell you the uh I know uh Trivaly nonprofit alliance is one of the providers at the table, um, and there may be other ones.

Yeah, and uh President Howard, this was something once again, Colleen put together with Supervisor Carson.

You know, I didn't know anything about CPAG and I didn't, I wasn't concerned about it, but once I became chair of health, Nika talked to me about it, and I said, okay, let's continue the CPAG effort.

But this was something the two of them engineered because they thought it would be in the best interest of the county.

I don't discount that.

I just the best interest of the county has to incorporate the entire county.

And so D5, Medi-Cal working group.

I'm assuming by the name that that's just district five.

I might ask the supervisor to check on that.

What is that?

Thank you for asking that question.

Um, maybe if I could also just speak to uh Act for All as well, and um I do have to respectfully take issue with some of what my colleague from District 4 said about the work that I am leading uh with these two groups.

Uh the Act for All committee, which we have uh touched upon in prior meetings, is it was specifically formed to look at what is happening under this current administration, which is not normal by any means.

We are seeing that in so many regards, um, specifically looking at how our most vulnerable residents and communities are being impacted by policies and budget of of the federal administration.

And through the presentations and the discussions we've had, we've seen recommendations from Act for All reflected in the Measure W Essential Services actions that we have taken.

So everything from Medi-Cal enrollment, LGBTQ, immigrant rights, uh food security, senior services, those are things that have been discussed at the committee and then brought to the full board.

Um so I do believe that we have been consistent with our charge in terms of looking broadly at the impacts of the federal government on our vulnerable communities.

The district five Medi-Cal working group uh was convened by my office at the request of a number of the health care providers, which Anika mentioned.

And part of that also came from Act for All, where we were hearing that as of the end of this year, December 35th, 2025.

Those who have unsatisfactory immigration status will lose their Medi-Cal coverage forever.

And because of that, um, several organizations came to our office asking if we could help convene a meeting that also included our staff around what can we do with this looming deadline to ensure that people stay enrolled or re-enroll.

And so um that D5 uh work group has only met twice.

The last meeting was open to everyone.

I believe we had staff from districts four and district three there, and it really is looking at urgent issues.

So there's an urgent deadline, December 31st, whereby if folks don't enroll or re-enroll, they will not have access to Medi-Cal.

That could impact thousands of our residents.

And so this group is specifically looking at how do we align messaging and how do we align outreach and work with everyone across the county over a very short period of time to ensure health care access.

And if it's not needed, it doesn't need to meet.

It's really about addressing these urgent issues and meeting as needed, whereby CPAG meets quarterly, and the uh board committees meet uh monthly or bi-monthly.

So I'm really trying to um take what has come out of the act for all committee with our health care partners and be responsive, address an urgent need, and again, if it's not needed, we don't need to be meeting, but I'm also willing to have myself and my staff add capacity uh by playing that convening role.

Um, and other offices are welcome to it.

Do you see though how um my earlier comments of these are always needed, always have been and always will be, but at tur times like now, they need to surge up.

And maybe at other times searched out.

They they're not as needed as much.

Depending on the macro environment of either who's in office or how many immigrants and refugees we have at what sometimes these ebb and flow.

Supervisor Miley.

I think said, said we're I think we're in a lot of agreement in that I think he's just trying to say streamline so that these aren't concentric circles, but rather maybe more bars with certain activities in them segregated separately from other activities so that we're not tripping over each other.

Um so I I kind of think we're saying the same thing, and instead of having a different group though, it could be that the departments are surging up for the to cover the those things that were mentioned as opposed to fewer, bigger, better surged up when needed, crunched down when not, as opposed to adding additional layers.

I anyway.

Um this is a symptom of I'm just gonna call it, I just feel like lack of communication, right?

We often feel like we're in the dark, we're in the dark today.

Um, yet again, many of us have been very vocal.

We need information in advance to process how can we come to these meetings prepared and informed when we're getting the information at the same exact time that the public is getting it.

So we have to figure out a way.

Um I know there's a lot of pressure on staff, but if it needs to be memos on this is what we're working on, if we need to have more regular check-ins, but I think the act committee was formed because we weren't seeing a response, we needed to be responsive to the community.

So hopefully we can course correct.

I'm confident that we can, but I I share the frustration because we all of us do, even staff.

Everyone interfaces with the public every day, and we are getting all these demands and asks, and there's not always a coordinated effort, nor is there information given timely to the public.

So I think it's just cable to.

So what do we think about the recommendation that staff has made?

We should give them feedback on that.

Anika, you can uh respond, of course, but we want to get to your recommendations too.

Yeah, I just I I appreciate the the conversation, and I think maybe a point of clarification is that the intent is not to start a new thing, um, other than perhaps more uh frequent uh joint health and social services, which I know is still a calendaring issue for for those two very busy committees.

Um but the idea is that you know, with a dedicated backbone team, we can sort of um start to align some of these efforts in ways that you know, as supervisor for Tenato Bass said, if one of the meetings needs to phase out, if we need to readjust how the CPAG is done, if we need to add in other pieces, um it's just a way for us in the Social Services Agency to be coordinated and making sure that we have the time both to do the work on the back end and meet with community providers and bring you the information and to sequence it out so that we can say, you know, this needs to go to a stakeholder process, whereas this needs to go to a board committee, right?

So just kind of trying to um lay that out, but uh and and to be a little bit more coordinated about it.

Your your recommendations include a continuation of the D5 Medical working group uh uh working on urgent issues with the backbone team.

Um it does not include correct me if I'm wrong, I don't see act-for-all on here.

I'm I act for all, I'm assuming that's an ad hoc board committee approved by your board, and so If this was just the recommended we continue to have those meetings, I would leave that up to the board.

Um I think that for purposes of this conversation, it's about how can we coordinate the work around Medicaid and have the data and the information and that available?

Would your recommendation be that MediCal not be discussed in those that committee because it's discussed in one, two, three, four, five, six other committees?

Would that be okay?

Maybe council could I please I'm just trying to clarify the recommendation and what's the best professional staff's advice is agnostic of which board committees exist.

So I'll be a little more definitive.

Well, I don't have um, you know, I'm not professional staff, I don't give health care um advice in that way.

But one of the things you've heard me say before, so I wanted to say it here since it's very on topic, is that when you have the joint board of supervisors, health and social services committee meetings, that's actually a meeting of the full board because it includes a quorum of the board.

So if you are trying to look at efficiencies, and so that staff is not trotting the same things around to multiple different places, um, that those presentations, if it needs a joint committee of the board, meaning it needs a quorum of the board to hear it, it just seems to make good sense that it be heard at a board work session.

Um, those committees are advisory committees, so they can't make decisions.

So that means that when it comes, it's going to have to come back to the full board.

So at least if it's being heard, if these items are being heard at a meeting of the full board rather than these committee meetings, um, then you know that you've done that, and then it can go to an action item if that's the next step.

But I think you can you can put an action item on any meeting of the board of supervisors, um, but the you know, I I do believe some things do warrant study feedback and additional meetings, but the idea is if you're trying to, you know, I'm not suggesting that you act without sufficient foundation, but if the goal is to um give staff some additional time to actually do the work and eliminate so many meetings, um, that would be one way.

Um, it seems like in you know, my 14 years in the seat that this trend of so many joint committee meetings is new and that it didn't happen with the frequency that we're seeing it happen today.

Call it a joint committee meeting, but indeed it could act as a full board meeting, taking action.

And I think it should it should be noticed as a full board meeting, would have to be, for sure.

Um thank you, President Halbert.

Um I understand and I appreciate uh staff's recommendation and proposed structure.

Obviously, they're trying to be everything to everyone all at once, right?

Um, because they're accommodating all of us, um, but having served on both the social service and the health committee and the Alameda Alliance or Health, and uh understanding the need to respond to what was happening during the first of the year with the new president, it made sense to try to get um some concerted way of putting together that um that forum for frankly the community to vent their fears to express their concerns, and um what I've also seen, because I also have my own stakeholder committee meetings, which doesn't have a name and doesn't have a committee, but I have found the same groups go to CPAG, go to the Act for All committee, go to some of the committee meetings, and I'll and go to each of the supervisors' office, and at some point it becomes more um how should I say it politely?

Um shopping for funding, and what I have found with the committee meetings is that they're very um informational when it comes to the level of detail that are provided, more so than what you have on a very jammed board work session or board work agenda.

For example, during uh Supervisor Carson's last year in office, we had the staff come in and spend a good amount of time on each impacted group.

Whether it's the LGBT community, the black community, the Asian community, uh, uh, you know, the um Hispanic community, each one of them were part of this whole disparity study.

And one of the reasons he wanted to form the community provider advisory because we were heading into the situation for funding from Prop One was shifting away from the prevention part into more of the housing part, and we needed to understand what that meant for a lot of the community members.

So I have talked to um the AC director ahead of time, and I don't have any major concerns with the structure.

I think it will work.

In fact, I've talked to my chief of staff to see about um adding a social service committee meeting, having it twice a month, and one of them being a um a joint meeting with healthcare if needed to address this issue on Medi-Cal.

And and hopefully maybe the people that attend for AC for all on Medi-Cal issues, hopefully the people that um go to the D5 meeting, they can come to our joint committee meeting and have that uh more fuller conversation at that joint meeting instead of um trying to you know force it within a board work session where sometimes we don't even get to some items, like I know the sheriff is patiently waiting for her item right now.

So um, so I I think this structure will work, and I am fully committed to working to make sure it gets scheduled accordingly.

Okay, Supervisor Miley.

Yeah, thank you, President Howard.

Yeah, just a couple of things I wanted to react to.

First of all, the uh the joint meetings have occurred only as a result of the demand for joint meetings.

Um, if you know, maybe the demand wasn't there in the past, there seems to be more demand for joint meetings, but that would be the structure for uh engagement of the public to the board of supervisors through a committee or through a joint committee type of uh meeting.

First thing.

Secondly, I mean, we can have meeting paralysis.

I can't remember which staff person was talking to me about it, but it can become like meeting paralysis.

Staff are going to so many meetings that there's just paralysis.

Um, and I'm kind of, you know, maybe because I uh chair the health committee now, I wasn't as um, I mean, I was dialed into this, but wasn't as concerned about it with Supervisor Carson Chanmer here.

He's like, you know, let them handle that, that's in their lane.

But since I'm now chair of the committee, you know, I worry about the health care, agent health care, the Alameda County Health, because they've got so much under their plate.

You know, I we saw colline grow that agency.

It's got homelessness, which is a major item.

We got the EMS contract, which is another major item.

We got Measure W, which is another major item, and and you know, and there's other ongoing issues that need to take place uh in programs that that agencies is handling uh with four departments, public health, environmental health, uh behavioral health, and um the office of the uh agency director, and within that office is a multiple slew of things.

So I just get worried about that agency being spread so thin that they can't do the job that we're expecting of them.

Um so I just wanted to re-emphasize that once again.

You know what?

You know, I don't have a district four uh working group that requires or ask all county people to participate in.

If I have a district for working group, it's for district four.

Um, it just seems to me we've got folks going uh all over the place when it's not necessary.

If we want to have effectiveness, we need to consolidate.

I don't know that this really consolidates.

It just clarifies that you're gonna have more joint meetings.

It does offer that, and it suggests that um there's a there's a through line of staff um to support agendas and you know, make sure that things are there.

But uh, no, I just wanted to uh remind everybody it's a joint uh recommendation.

Everyone keeps looking at Anika saying AC Health, but um SSA is just as large with just as many departments, and we have just just as many demands on myself and my staff.

I don't want that to thank you.

I want that to be lost.

We have one more presentation called social services by the numbers, and then we can have public comment.

That's at least I'm looking at it's an update on food security, which is another component of the essential services fund.

Is that Amy or Andrea?

That's Andrea for social services.

And after this presentation, and after we make questions and comments on this presentation, we will then go to public comment on all of these presentations.

Is that right?

All right, okay.

Yes, after the social services presentation, we have some concluding comments and want to get to the issues that the board had also asked us to come back with in terms of your interest in making additional investments in the current year.

Thank you, Susan and President Halbert.

Um, again, I don't know if this presentation will answer all of your questions today, but um it will certainly provide some enlightenment and some insight.

Um, so again, by the numbers, a 10-year review of contracts to address food insecurity.

Um good afternoon, President Halbert and members of the board, Andrea Ford, agency director for social services.

I'm pleased to present a comprehensive 10-year review of SSA's investments in addressing food insecurity across Alameda County.

The request was initially made by President Halbert a few months ago when he wanted to know just where was the money being spent around food.

Um, I think the request was for countywide.

This is a first start.

This is just showing where SSA is making those investments.

The data spans fiscal years 2015 through 2025, providing valuable insights for future planning and resource allocation.

What you have in front of you are SSA's food investments over the 10 year period.

Um over the past decade, Alameda County has administered 294 million dollars in contracts to combat food insecurity, a significant commitment that reflects our values and priorities.

This investment was distributed across 225 separate contracts with 50 different vendors.

The broad vendor base ensures we're reaching diverse communities through multiple channels from large-scale food banks to specialized senior nutrition programs and emergency distribution network.

It represents a sustained decades long commitment to community nourishment that has touched thousands of families across every district in our county.

What you have before you here is contracts by the year.

Um the chart tells a story of how we responded to unprecedented need during the pandemic while maintaining long-term commitment to food security.

The pre-COVID baseline prior to fiscal year 21, our annual food and security investments averaged approximately 15 to 20 million per year.

Fiscal year 21 and 22 saw a dramatic surge due to one-time ARPA and CARES Act funding, which together accounted for over 51% of our total decades' expenditures.

Approximately 150 million dollars in just two fiscal years.

Even as emergency one-time funding phased out, fiscal year 26 allocation remains more than three times higher than pre-COVID levels, demonstrating your board's continued commitment to addressing food insecurity as a priority.

This is a look at our contracts by type.

Our 294 million dollar investment was strategically distributed across four key areas, each serving critical but distinct needs.

The first being emergency food distribution, 36% of all funding at 105 million dollars.

Our largest single category supporting rapid response food distribution during crisis includes mobile pantries, emergency food boxes, and immediate assistance programs.

Second is our Alameda County Community Food Bank investment, which is 25% of the total budget at $72.9 million dollars.

Partnerships with anchor institutions that serves as a backbone of our food distribution network, supports warehousing, logistics, and distribution to hundreds of partner agencies.

And then the third is senior nutrition programs, 21% of the budget at 62.7 million dollars, recognizes the unique needs of our aging population.

It includes congregate meals, home delivered meals, and senior specific nutrition services.

And then the other initiatives is um 18% of the budget at 53.4 million represents innovative and specialized programs, including food recovery, culturally specific food programs, and nutrition education.

The balance portfolio approach ensures we we've been meeting both immediate hunger needs and building long-term food and secure food and security infrastructure.

Next are the food provision contracts.

When we examine specifically how food reaches our residents, we see strategic investment across three models.

Food procurement and distribution at 200 million dollars.

Second is emergency prepared meals, which is a much smaller allocation, and then finally, food recovery initiatives, which is even smaller than that investment.

The next slide.

So that's um over 10 years, 290 million, 294 million.

294.1 million.

So that's roughly 29 million per year.

Roughly 29 million per year if we average it out.

I know it didn't average out because it was a big spike during the fiscal years 21 and 22 with care with one-time cares and RPM.

Yeah, it's since I was here, I knew, you know, once again, that we could only provide that level of funding because we had CARES Act and ARPA funding of the agency director uh prior to you, Lori Cox.

You know, she uh drummed in to the board uh that we can't sustain this after the pandemic, we just can't sustain that level of investment uh in food and security.

We don't have the resources, we do have resources with measure w.

So the issue is what proportion of measure w can we appropriate towards food and security?

You know, we got the seniors, we could get as you pointed out food recovery, congregate meals, um, you know, food delivery, the food bank, food bank was averaging over seven years, I mean, over 10 years, about seven million dollars per year.

So, what level uh should the food bank be at this point with the funding that we have available through measure W proportionally speaking?

So, are you suggesting that in order to go forward, we need to do some type of comprehensive analysis because some providers get funding to do all three, and there might be duplicative uh requests here.

Um, yeah, that that is a recommendation I have.

As you can see, there are multiple contracts on the street.

We don't know what the duplication really is or where the um gap analysis should be, but we well, I should say we we do need to do a gap analysis to determine where the need really is.

And at this point, none of it is sustainable because we're talking about a um a measure that expires in 2031 currently.

So then what happens beyond 2031 should it not be extended?

Um, yeah.

And you know, I have a lot of empathy.

I mean, once again, we recognize the need.

Nobody's dismissing the need.

And I have a lot of empathy uh for community-based organizations recognizing, you know, the president of a community-based organization, United Seniors, uh, but the the issue is uh even during the pandemic, and I don't know if the county has a um reconcile this yet through our systems, um, you know, because we wanted to, you know, we've had conversations with the county administrator about this.

We have two, 300 uh CBO uh contractors.

Some of those contractors get funding from multiple sources from your agency, from healthcare, from this department, that department.

So they have multiple sources that they're getting funding from from the county, but we've never reconciled so that XYZ, CBO, they're getting funding from eight different sources.

What does that amount to?

And isn't there is are there any efficiencies there, any duplication there, so that XYZ corporate uh CBO doesn't necessarily need to get this amount of money to provide this level of services across its um mission, it can get this amount of money and some of those uh resources that we uh save can go to uh either other CBOs or new needs that we need to address.

We haven't uh Susan, we haven't quite addressed the issue of looking at CBOs and all the multiple streams of funding they get from the county.

So we do have a summary by provider of which departments they receive funding from.

We haven't done the full analysis in terms of the sources, and what we have not required is that the CBOs provide a composite budget that shows their entire budget with not only county funding but other sources.

So we only, as I understand it, and agency heads can speak up, but what they receive is the budget is the budget for the county funding, not their composite budget of all funding.

And I'm not saying this, we don't I'm not trying to punish CBOs, but because the needs are so great.

We we I think in order for the county, I'm looking at my responsibility as a fiduciary, we need to figure out how best to appropriate limited resources to accomplish the greater good.

Following up on that, Supervisor Miley, I would suggest that the better we know our CBOs and everything that they do and how they do it, and watch them doing it and holding them accountable for doing it and seeing the results on the ground, will only improve the amount of goodness that we can get, and we can lean into the ones that we know are doing a great job, and we can back off from the ones that we don't even know enough about because we don't spend enough time with them, and I'm I hear that they have some are better than others.

I would love to learn more about all of our CBOs very deeply, fewer, bigger, better, because we know them, and especially the ones that rely on us heavily.

I know there are some that only rely on us for a small amount of their total proportion, but we have to know them.

My question, though, for um Ms.

Ford, pre-pandemic, it looks like six, seven, eight million dollars, post-pandemic, looks like twenty million dollars.

Now, was we were we woefully and adequately funding food pre-pandemic, or are we?

That's a big jump, six to twenty.

Are we did something change and all of a sudden after the pandemic people need more food, or did we were we not doing what we should have been doing beforehand?

Do we know?

I say that because I know that there's probably no upper limit on how much food we can put in the system, no upper limit.

It can grow, but we have to somehow understand how to Miley's point earlier, how to be laser focused on the most impactful need, the ones that need it the most, exactly what they need.

I know during these two years we had prepared food.

People could not leave their home, they couldn't go buy food.

We were packaging meals and delivering it to people's homes, like free DoorDash for seniors because they couldn't leave their home.

It was unprecedented, including homeless encampments, and homeless accounts.

Yeah, so that that's not gonna, we're not suggesting that we backfill that activity, right?

Because it's not needed anymore.

We're past COVID.

So the things that we don't need anymore, we have to get away from, and the things that we absolutely need, we need you you to tell us, and I I just have to note it's three times pre-pandemic levels, as you mentioned.

So is that the right size?

Or where do we draw the line?

Yeah, I can only I'll fight for as much food as we need, okay?

I just need to know where that is.

Yeah, I can only repeat what I said a little earlier today, and what Amy has um sort of reemphasized over the last couple of meetings, and that's that we don't know what we don't know until an assessment is done of what the need really is.

Um I do know that there are some districts, some cities that have done needs assessments, and in some of those cities, um food is not at the top of their priority list.

So I think we have to look and see what's out there and what's not out there, we need to try to create it to better answer some of your questions.

Okay.

Thank you.

Other supervisor fortunate.

Thank you, Director Ford to you and your team for laying out all of this information.

My observation is that the need for food is as great, maybe even greater than it was before the pandemic, largely due to the economy and economic insecurity and the cost of food.

And um I know that our food service providers have come to all of our offices, including the Act for All Committee, saying that we need to really ramp up our provision of food.

So I want to remind the board again that um on September 9th, I believe it was when the Act for All committee met, we had a number of food providers, the food bank, community-based organizations across our districts, as well as um AC health staff uh present some information to us, including a proposal for boosting the food system um network with 20 million dollars to help meet some of the short-term needs for food.

Um, we know that we're facing tens of money on top of the 20 that we're all in the future.

That was their request.

I'm not advocating for the full 20.

Yes, that was their request.

Um, and we know that we're gonna lose tens of millions in CalFresh.

We know that the governor has said that with the uh federal shutdown, if the government doesn't open up on Thursday, that the CalFresh payments will be delayed.

And so I do want to say again, um, and again, I that presentation was in I believe our September 23rd board packet.

I mentioned it at our last work session.

I would like to see if we can get closer to 10 million, um, to help the organizations that are really stretched right now procuring food as well as distributing it.

Um, and you know, this is a network that is growing, it was very strong during COVID, it's growing again, and it does include folks in all of our districts.

So, you know, we had a conversation about this at our last work session, and I do want to see if there is interest in meeting more of that need given what we know today, have that so to the your point.

Um we know that the federal government and or the state government is absolutely cutting food, or it's because the shutdown hasn't been resolved, and therefore SNAP will go away based on that.

If tomorrow the shutdown stopped, would that need still be there?

Or if we appropriate it for now, are we going to say that it's because of the shutdown and when the shutdown ceases to happen that that will stop happening?

What are we actually asking to be approved?

Yeah, I think it's two buckets.

Um, there are proposals through HR one that will cut some benefits for individuals, but then the second is the federal shutdown, which will delay um issuance of some benefits.

So it's really two separate buckets, and so I don't know which one you want to prioritize over the other.

Yeah, I guess we should be ready that if it's cut, we're ready, and when it's delayed, we're there, but if it doesn't get cut, we don't spend it.

And if the delay is resolved, that we stop spending it, so that we're not left out there with money appropriated thinking it might get cut and then it doesn't, and spending it.

Money appropriated for money that may temporarily be needed because of a shutdown, but then gets resolved, so we don't need to spend it.

As long as we're smart about it, I could support something like that.

In other words, providing the provision of those services matched up with the need of funding that actually went away or the delay that is continued to be there, not resolved, unresolved.

Okay.

And we have we're close enough to this to know if the funding is cut, we're ready to go.

But if it's not, we hold the funds, and if the delay is there because of the shutdown, we're ready to go, but when that shutdown is resolved, we're not spending anymore.

Are we close enough to the way we react to those things?

Yeah, I think it sort of gets back to that conversation about triaging.

Um, but you know, and also a comment made by Supervisor Marquez in the past.

Um government government moves pretty slowly.

So I can't say that we're ready to react immediately, um, because yeah.

Any other questions before we go to public comments?

Oh, we have another slide, Miss Amy, another, a whole nother section.

So we just wanted to um remind you that in the 25 million that you allocated um in this essential services fund for immediate known needs, there was three million dollars set aside in a flexible contingency pool for unforeseen essential service needs in this fiscal year.

And at the last meeting, uh, one point one two four five three seven was allocated to immigrant and refugee services, which leaves a remaining um 1.875, uh, in that flexible contingency pool.

Was it meant for additional services or that's just what couldn't have been from that bucket already?

That's what came out of that bucket already, uh, with last Tuesday's board action.

So it was three million of the 25 that was set aside for essential services, and then the $450,000 today uh for the two staff position that's coming out of the 1.875.

If that's your board, that would be up, that would be up to the board.

I think that what we wanted to show is we had set aside the three million in contingency, you made a decision to take the 1.1 out.

You know, there's 1.8 that your board had allocated for the current fiscal year, which you could tap into.

Um we you know wouldn't recommend you go beyond that because as you've heard, we need to do a needs assessment in a five-year plan forward.

So basically you only have 1.425 left.

Well, if the board makes a decision that you want to allocate 450,000 to social services, I mean it has to come from somewhere.

Do we know?

Um, I don't know if our auditors online, um, or actually our treasurer.

Um, how are we doing?

I I mean, I know unemployment rate is up, we know the economy is bad, we know people are being laid off, but do we have a sense on whether or not we're on track to receive um the sales tax revenue that we're projecting?

I would need to validate that again.

I you know, my guess is that we are in terms of what we estimated for the current year.

Okay, and I also recall our assessor before budget discussion talking about how many um outstanding payments there were for property taxes.

Do we have an update on revenue coming in from his department?

Well, that's uh his um department determines what the growth would be in property taxes, which impacts our revenue.

But I think what you may recall he was mentioning was there are some large pending assessment appeals that could significantly impact the county in a negative way.

Yeah.

So I'm just wondering, I know I know this is a measure W discussion, and the need and the urgency is being realized now.

Um, and I know that we want to be prudent, uh, we do have 170 million dollars in reserves.

We also have another funding source.

So I'm wondering if there's any way we could look at drawing down.

I'm not gonna say number because I don't know if we're all gonna agree, but if staff could come back with a recommendation on how can we um because it looks like based off the requests that were presented to us today, and we still haven't heard from the public.

Obviously, those needs exceed the 1.8 million.

Um I'll say that I want to see a full complete plan and some level of assessment.

Um, and I'm willing to look at things that we know are cut uh and um or things that we uh are significantly at risk, we but all of it to be uh what we know is cut and high priority before we spend something that we think might get cut and isn't, and um I don't discount that there are plenty of people that need, and the as supervisor Miley said they're all important, they'll always be there, and they have been there all along, but the question is, um, if we start chipping away at this without knowing, so I'm willing to do that for things that we know have been cut.

Supervisor Ford's not a bad thank you.

Um, I I would just like to share that I really feel a lot of urgency around enrolling people into Medi-Cal.

I feel a lot of urgency around making sure people have food.

I mean, that is just like one of the most basic things that we can do as a county to make sure make sure people are healthy and have some opportunity to thrive.

Um I will put a number out for food, and you know, we can have discussion about this after public comment, and that's uh 10 million, which is half of what the community organizations have asked for, whether some of it is now or some of it is later.

I do think we have to do something with the looming uh with the shutdown possibly continuing, probably continuing, and knowing that there will be people who will lose their access to CalFresh.

Um, and we do have 23.85 million in one-time funding that we have set aside.

We also have the reserve that Supervisor Mark has named.

So there are other sources of funding, and that's not to say that I think we should just fund anything, but I do think that the need for food is a very, very basic thing, and I want us to be able to meet the urgency that I know people in the community are feeling, especially our service providers who are seeing seniors and others every single day.

Um, but I think it would be important for us to also go to public comment so that we hear from the public and that can help inform our our decisions.

Thank you.

Supervisor Tim.

Just ask for a quick clarification from Supervisor Fortunat Bats.

So based on immediate known needs of out of the 25 million uh we're allocating uh six and a half for um food security.

It's the 10 million dollars inclusive of the six and a half, so it would be including 3.5 if you take out uh the food recovery piece, it'd be four million.

That's in addition to what we have allocated.

So it would be on top of that, that would be my desire.

Obviously, we need to discuss uh discuss it and come to alignment.

It would be in addition to that because that's 6.5 million is meeting uh the loss in the federal ARPA funding.

There's just a much higher need for food than has previously existed.

So that's the backfill ARPA understanding.

That's the backfill ARPA.

Much of what we have already allocated is backfilling ARPA because the need for food is so great.

Um, did you finish your question?

Uh not, well, I I didn't see all of it as backfilling ARPA because some of it wasn't funded by ARPA.

Uh, for example, um, like the recipe for health programs, and so uh I'm understanding that the requests total for food is going to be 16.5 million from Supervisor Fortune O'Bass.

Is that correct?

That's correct, in order to meet um at least part of what the community is asking for, okay.

That clarifies, Supervisor Miley.

Uh, well, it's not clear in my mind.

Does that 10 million or that 16 million include the seniors from the triple A providers in the senior request?

Does it include that or is it different?

Is there, I mean, is it duplicative?

Is there some overlap?

Or is that is it 10 plus three, or is it 16 plus three?

So the 10, the 10 additional uh, so 20 million is the ask that came to the Act for All meeting in the beginning of September.

Does that include the senior triple A providers?

No, I don't, I don't believe it does.

So this is for um more procurement uh by the Alamina County Food Bank, which has a network of 400 partners throughout the county, um, expanding CalFresh through market match, and that is so families can stretch their benefits.

For example, you go to the farmers market through a store, and you have that matched, um, and then supporting community-based organizations in the food distribution as well as the food recovery, um, and just really strengthening that ability to get food out to people.

Yeah.

So once again, I would submit, you know, obviously, food insecurity is a big big deal.

It's a major issue and concern.

Um, but we I know we've got seniors who rely on home delivered meals.

We've got seniors who rely on going to congregate sites.

Um, we've got um other seniors who are part of um senior organizations that we're relying on ARPA funding to provide either home delivered meals um or um concrete meals.

So I need to understand if they're being uh you know, that if that need is going to be covered, uh, if it's not being covered by 10 or 20 million going to the food bank, then that causes me a lot of consternation, and I couldn't support that.

I'm just saying that.

And is it 16 plus the 20 that we're already doing on an annual post-pandemic basis?

So that's going to be 36 million, whereas before pandemic we were at six, now we're gonna increase to 36 post-pandemic.

Is that what we're saying to Supervisor Miley's question?

That's what we're trying to clarify.

That's what I'm hearing.

Yes, uh I I don't discount it.

Um there's no upper limit.

Uh uh there's not gonna be an upper limit.

It could go as high as in whatever they want to request.

There's no upper limit.

People need food, and that's a fraction of what people spend on food.

I mean, that's a fraction of what people spend on food.

Um, I president Halbert, I I would like to see more information because I had worked very closely, for example, with the food bank when we were trying to find a food hub in um district three.

So I I asked for a composite budget from the food bank and they provided it, and they provide a number of funding support to community-based organizations as Supervisor Fortune Alabas outline as one of the line items they have for their requests, but when I when those same community-based groups come to us, whether it's Meals on Wheels or Tribe or Unity Council, uh, they're asking for funding in addition to what the food bank is providing.

So I just need to understand whether there's like major overlap or duplication.

A gap analysis is what Andrea mentioned.

Let's go to public comment.

I'll just make one last comment.

So I support this request, I just need more information.

I obviously want to hear from the public as well, but I think right now the idea, my priority is to preserve what we currently have.

That's what I want us to focus on.

So I'm hearing there's duplication, seeing heads being nodded in the audience that that's not right or it is right.

So we just need clarity.

Um, so I don't know if we're gonna get to a number today, but I hope that we can um within a couple weeks land at I'm willing to invest more money.

Obviously, we to defer to staff on where that's gonna come from.

Not hearing others recommend other pots of money, but um, there is an urgent need, so that's what I'd like us to focus on.

In person first, online, after that.

I note 109 people online.

How many of them?

Uh, if you're online and wanting to weigh in on this item, and how many speaker slips do we have in person?

I have 20 speaker slips.

Okay, and um we're gonna cut off the ability to send in the speaker slip, and we're going to ask people to raise their hand.

11.

And then that's it.

11 plus 20 is 31, two minutes each is an hour, roughly, could go less if people say ditto.

Our first three speakers, and by the way, we could also do an exercise that my colleague Fortunato Bass loves to do.

If we're all gonna say the same thing and we're here for the same reason, we can all stand up and then exercise your expression of speech that way.

But everyone can have two minutes, three in person first, okay, online, Rochelle Loglett, Furnace Cruz, Juan Martinez.

Please state your name.

What is that?

So that would be a hi, my name is Juan Martinez, and I live in district four.

During these difficult times, this program has not only been beneficial but life-saving these last few months.

My working partner and only source of income for our household was fired and had broken his leg.

I can confidently say that between then and now, if it were not for this program, we wouldn't have been able to eat, and we would have just had to deal with that.

This program is a beacon of hope for those of us who are struggling just to keep ourselves afloat, and we hope that you recognize that it's not only necessary but worth the investment.

I am asking you to please support Fresh Five and Salva Grocer Initiative Food Distribution with two million dollars that is needed to fill the in the gap from the federal government's funding loss from the fiscal year 2025 to 2026 for the food security of our county.

Thank you for keeping your community your commitment to food security in our county.

Thank you.

So it's Juan.

Please state your name so I'll have it for the record.

So the next speaker, please.

Juan Cruz and then Martinez.

Martinez.

Our first name?

Juan Martinez.

That was one okay.

We have Rochelle Logwood.

Yes.

Hi, my name is Rochelle Logwa.

I live in District 4.

First of all, I like to thank y'all for having us have this open conversation.

This program is helping out so many people, especially the scenes and disability clients in our area.

We are all paying our bills, getting by the extra help and eating healthy is a truly a blessing.

Being able to go to these stores next door within walking distance, is greatly appreciated in our area.

The vegetables and produce help so many families that starving by the end of the month, hanging out in those stores.

You learn a lot about the area.

We appreciate all the produce and everything that you guys do.

We have a lot of seniors in our district.

Hi, Nate.

I remember when you first started.

Mr.

Malley, I'm sorry if I didn't say it correctly.

I remember you when you first started, Eliya Harris.

I remember Mr.

Wilson, all those.

I come to a lot of these meetings.

But one thing I do want to say is in the district that I live in, we have a lot of senior citizens.

We have a lot of disabled people.

And what I do is I go door to door and I carry the groceries for them when I can.

And a lot of people don't want to come to these meetings because they don't think they're going to be heard.

And that's not the case.

We sit here and we listen to y'all and y'all listen to us, and we gladly appreciate it.

Because at the end of the month, when you don't have no food in your house, you don't know what people do in these areas.

You got people going in garbage cans eating.

You got people going next door eating.

You got people doing food out the house.

I feed a lot of people out of my house.

I'm on disability.

So I don't care if the light bill get cut off.

I do care if we eat.

That's a necessity.

I appreciate y'all's service.

Hope y'all hear us.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Tamika Ridley, and I live in district four.

I am a participant of the Fresh 5X program.

It has helped me and my 10-year-old son tremendously by stretching my EBT food money.

If we lose the Fresh 5X program, it would be devastating to us.

As of right now, my 10-year-old son is eating more than he usually is because he's uh growing through a going through a growth spur, you know, puberty like most kids as age.

And we are always running out of food now.

Really, we uh would we would like the it would be beneficial if the pro if the county would increase the food budget for the Fresh 5X program.

And I am asking to please support Fresh Five X and Sabah Grocers Initiative Food Distribution with the $2 million that is needed to fill in the gap from the federal government's funding loss for fiscal year 2025 through 2026 for food security for our county and uh thank you for keeping your commitment to food security in our county.

Hello, my name is Adriana Martinez.

I live in District 4.

I'm a participant of Fresh 5X for every EBT, one dollar I spend on produce, it gives me $5 to buy more products.

Food is very expensive nowadays.

Finding healthy affordable options is also very difficult.

Programs like Fresh 5X are essential for low-income individuals and families to be able to afford healthy fresh products and to keep their diets healthy.

I am asking to please support Fresh 5X and Saba Groceries Initiative Food Distribution with $2 million that is needed to fill the gap from the federal government's funding loss of the fiscal year 2025-2026 for food security of our country.

Thank you for keeping our your commitment to food security in our county.

Lance, go ahead, please.

Unmute your phone.

Hello, my name is Lance Kwan, and I'm um with Spectrum Community Services.

Um I'm here to talk about um how LIHEAP currently serves about 2800 households in Alameda County.

We serve seniors living on fixed incomes, families with young children and people with disabilities.

LIHEAP empowers folks experiencing low income to cook their own meals, turn on their lights, and stay warm in the winter.

LIHEAP is not only compassionate, it's cost effective.

Every dollar invested helps prevent homelessness, keeps children in stable housing, and reduces the burden on the county emergency services.

Supervisors Spectrum has been trusted for decades to deliver these services efficiently, equitably, and with compassion.

But contracting takes time.

We know that county staff will do their best work with us, but waiting on an act of Congress to determine the needs of LIHEAP will put our clients in jeopardy during a government shutdown.

Please direct county staff to prioritize the issuance of our contracts so we can print the gap, prevent the gap in our services that would severely affect our most vulnerable populations as an essential service net safety service net organization.

It's just it's really rough right now not knowing if we're going to have funding and whether or not we might be being forced to be for our loading staff that are that are trained and also not being able to set up our operations in time so that way we can meet the needs of our community.

Thank you so much for your leadership and your commitment to prevent a service gap and save LIHEAP.

Susan, go ahead, you have two minutes.

Hello, thank you, Supervisor Halbert and members of the board.

My name is Susan Houghton and I'm president of the board of Sunflower Hill.

We are a Tri-Valley-based nonprofit dedicated to creating affordable housing and essential support services for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

I appreciate the difficult decisions facing this board, and I applaud the work that staff is doing in trying to navigate a path forward.

As you know, I've spoken several times about the need to ensure that our population, the IDD population, is represented in the Measure W conversations.

Today I heard many discussions about planned funding for the traditional homeless, seniors, refugees, immigrants, and to groups providing food and security.

I did not hear any mention of programs or funding specifically for individuals with IDD.

Yet there are more than 26,000 folks in the Greater East Bay who fit this criteria.

Their lives, hopes, needs are real, and I urge you to consider how all sectors and how all geographical areas in the county might be able to benefit from Measure W.

For Sunflower Hill in particular, we're looking for capital assistance to build affordable housing, and we will apply as part of the RFP comes in coming out tomorrow.

However, if I heard staff correctly, the plans for the RFP will only fund 250 units, which makes it very competitive.

Can you please clarify if this is going to be a yearly RFP?

Will there be subsequent RFPs in 2027 and beyond?

As I've mentioned before, Sunflower Hill is specifically interested in being considered for a $5 million capital allocation to build our 60 unit grace point development in Dublin.

Our second request is to ensure that you consider us for essential services.

All of the residents at Urby Ranch are on Social Security.

They are on Medi-Cal.

They are on CalFresh.

They are paying rents of 30 to 60% AMI and doing so without housing vouchers.

Please consider this important population, the population of the IDD, and ensure that we can have an equal voice at the table and equal geographical representation.

Thank you for that consideration.

Good afternoon, supervisors.

My name is Marty Shinkle-Klujian, and I'm the LIHEAP Utility Assistance Manager at Spectrum Community Services.

I wasn't able to join you have heard before, currently serves about 2, I appreciate the opportunity to be able to attend online.

And we serve seniors living on fixed incomes, families with young children, and people with disabilities.

LIHEAP, its strength is meeting people where they're at.

We empower folks experiencing low income to cook their own meals, to turn on their lights, and to stay warm in winter.

The weather's getting colder and it's it's only going to get colder.

And that is what makes the worst about a government shutdown is colder weather with no certainty about energy support.

Lightheap is not only compassionate though, it's still very cost-effective, and every dollar invested helps prevent homelessness.

Spectrum has been trusted for decades to deliver these services efficiently, equitably, and with compassion.

But contracting takes time, we've heard this multiple times during the presentations from staff that government is not able to move quickly.

So what I am asking though is to please direct county staff to prioritize the issuance of our contract so that we can prevent a gap in services for our clients.

We do know that the county staff will do their best to work with us, but I will say waiting on an act of Congress to determine the needs of LIHEAP.

It's only going to put our clients and your constituents in jeopardy during a government shutdown.

I thank you for your consideration and your time and wish you a great rest of the day.

Lucia, Maria, Carn Coronica.

No, no, okay.

You have two minutes.

Spanish speaker, um, she'll say it in Spanish, and will I can I translate?

Can I interpret for English after she finishes?

Yes.

Okay.

I'm interpreting for her now.

Hello, my name is Maria Luisa Perez, and I live in District 4.

To have fruits and vegetables close to my house has been a very healthy change for my family.

I have two children, and that they have benefited significantly.

I myself do not have EBT, but I still benefit from program from this program, Fresh Five X, because now I have access to fruits and vegetables close to my house at affordable prices.

My husband has been um has been suffering from diabetes for about eight years, but so that is one of the reasons that it's important for me to cook healthy meals, and so being able to have access and to be able to buy fruits and vegetables close to my house has helped my husband's diabetes to stay more controlled.

I am asking for you to please support this program with two million dollars so that they can fill in this uh federal loss funding, and our community really needs you to be able to have more food security, please for this coming year, for this coming fiscal year 25-26.

I give you thanks, and I am counting on your support for this program.

Thank you.

Thank you for translating.

Can you ask for her husband who has diabetes?

Has he been given information about a program called Food is Medicine?

Okay, it's just a um cure.

I was curious whether she had been talking.

Thank you.

Of course.

My name is Robert Harley.

I'm sure you remember.

I'm here for district three.

A lot of them can come.

I'm still here again in the separate deal.

Mike has changed since the last time I was here.

Got in the mail this morning.

They're gonna cut my medical.

So now I gotta think about what's going on next.

We don't get the funding.

Yeah, my life might change for worse.

I'm hoping it's funding.

We'll keep going.

Maybe my life would be better like it's been since I started the program.

It gets to me.

As you notice, a lot of people have been up here speaking about this program.

You can see that it's helping.

A lot of people need this program, and it's really helping them.

And I hope we can continue doing this.

I've been doing it from my heart coming here to speak.

Perfect now.

It makes me feel even better.

So please continue funding this for us.

We really need it.

A lot of other neighborhoods need this.

And I appreciate everyone.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Thank you.

Now I'm speaking for myself.

Um not interpreting.

Please state your name for us.

Yes.

Um, hello, my name is Carmen Alvarez, and I work with Salva Grocers Initiative.

Uh, that is located in District 3, and I also live in District 5 here in Alameda County.

Um, with what we do with Saba Grocers is we work with corner stores located within Alameda County, and we help them bring produce at accessible prices for disadvantaged communities, or as some people call them, food desert areas.

Food insecurity is something that our community struggles with on a daily basis with the snapcats that are coming up, the ones that already had happened, the upcoming work requirements that are effective of November 1st, and the ongoing government shutdown, the result is hunger and not food on the table with Fresh 5X for every dollar used in their with their EBT car, participants get five dollars to buy more produce.

Elders and families with children or families taking care of elders are the primary recipients or participants in our program.

Our model is not charity, our model is to boost small business, create agency for our communities, and partner with local farms and organizations.

Fresh 5X is an economic solution to address deep social inequities in food security in our county.

Please support Fresh 5X and Sava Grocers Food Distribution with $2 million that are needed to fill in the gap that the federal government funding costs or we lost for fiscal year 25-26.

We need food security in our county, and we are counting on your support to continue with this program for for the upcoming um year.

Thank you so much for your time and for your support.

Thanks.

Do you want to come next?

Caller you're on the line.

You have two minutes to speak.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Yes, hi, my name is Aveli Ramirez, and I live in district two.

I'm here to ask you to please support Fresh 5X and Sava Grocers Initiative Food Distribution with 2 million dollars that is needed to fill in the gap from the federal government's funding laws for fiscal year 2025-2026 for food security in our county.

I see a no residents from other districts benefiting from uh fresh 5x because they are able to access fresh fruits and vegetables close to home.

Keeping real food affordable and accessible is most important in our community.

Please make um fresh 5x uh available in every every district in our county, please.

Thank you for your time and for keeping your commitment.

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

Okay.

Hello, this is Tony Panetta and Chief Impact Officer for the Alameda Health Consortium and the Community Health Center Network on behalf of the eight federally qualified health centers that constitute safety net delivery system for large portion of Alameda County's Medi-Cal patients.

I appreciate the thoughtfulness that has been put forward by the staff in terms of their proposed structure to develop a community needs assessment for continued funding and the work and consideration that the supervisor putting forward for Measure W funding.

I do want to lift up one of the comments that we heard from uh a commenter just recently regarding notification of uh Medi-Cal benefits.

This is an example of an immediate need that we have seen an investment already authorized with Measure W funds to focus on Medi-Cal rental activities, which will be critical going forward.

I do want to also appreciate Supervisor Tam's comments that we know that there will be implementation effective dates in 2026 and in 2027 that will result in a loss of Medi-Cal coverage as well as other insurance coverage that will increase need for secure safety net healthcare services going forward.

So we would encourage the continued framework using the community needs assessment and reserving funds to ensure that there are sufficient one-time funds available to meet the already known needs that are coming as a result of federal and state policy changes that have future effective dates, but the laws have in fact changed, setting those implementation dates in stone.

Thank you.

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

Please state your name.

Every week we meet people who are doing their best and are still struggling.

Seniors on fixed incomes, parents skipping medicine to afford groceries, and workers whose paychecks no longer cover rent.

This is the daily reality for thousands of people across Alameda County.

Right now, things are getting harder.

The federal shutdown has already slowed food benefits, and even the government, and even if the government starts again, we know that delays will last.

People will wait weeks, and seniors will go without food.

On November 1st, the new federal SNAP rules will make it harder for older adults, veterans, and unhoused neighbors to qualify for help.

California is expected to lose billions in CalFresh funds if we don't do something, and our county will feel it first.

I've heard a lot of concerns today about the focus and limits.

Our request isn't uh not necessarily open-ended.

It's based on clear data.

The media need that's still not being met.

County funding has already made a difference.

Shorter wait times, faster enrollment, outreach to encampments, and more meals for elders at home.

Every senior I've spoken to, and I've spoken to thousands, supports this funding because it gives them relief and respect.

This is not about charity, it's about stability.

County investment keeps people fed when larger systems break down, when people have food, they have dignity, health, and the power to continue moving forward.

Thank you.

I don't know what I'm already know.

In person, we'll have Liam, Danielson, Nicky Albarares, and Wendy Peterson.

All right.

Good afternoon.

Um thank you to the board for uh hearing all of our stories.

Um because you have heard so many stories from Sabah Grocers, um, I will not be redundant.

Um sorry, also let me just say I am a um resident of uh district five.

Um so I will not be redundant, but what I will say is that we uh very much appreciate the board's allocation of 6.5 million to food security, and what we're asking for is an additional 10 million dollars with two million dollars for Saba Grocers to continue our program and to help us with federal cuts that we've already experienced this year.

The last thing I'll say about our program, fresh 5x, is that during these EBT pauses that will most likely happen and other emergencies that may occur.

Fresh 5x, unlike many other programs, has the ability to plug residents with benefits directly, so that they can keep buying produce where it matters most.

So in order to maintain these investments and to keep people healthy, seniors, children, mothers, and other vulnerable people, we need your immediate support.

Thank you.

So I yeah, oh, and I also have some comments emails that you have receive as supervisors.

Folks have been sending you emails, so I have some hard copies that I will give to the clerk.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, supervisors.

I'm Wendy Peterson with the senior services coalition of Alameda County, and on behalf of our over 40 member organizations, I want to express our deep appreciation for your appropriation on October um seventh, um, authorizing the immediate needs funding.

Um the prepared meals programs uh have been without funding since July.

Putting the vulnerable monolingual elders that they serve in jeopardy.

The life program, as you know and have already heard today, is at risk of shutdown.

Um there are very few business days left, you know, relative to uh the work that has to proceed to move these uh contracts forward, and we urge you to act quickly to expedite contracts for these programs.

The need for additional funding to increase capacity in the suite of services contracted through the area agency on aging is almost as pressing.

These programs form a safety net for diverse economically insecure and very vulnerable seniors throughout the county in every every single district.

Um the programs are meals on wheels, brown bag, congregate fund, concrete, congregate Dining, also case management, legal services, visiting, caregiver support, fall prevention.

The baseline funding currently for these programs is not adequate.

All we can tell you is that there's more need out there in the community.

Um we don't have capacity to need it, and it's growing.

Harriet.

Okay.

Hello, my name is Harriet Sicklin, and I'm with Family Bridges.

I just first want to start off by saying thank you for passing the immediate known needs on the seventh.

Um, I am part of their housing and community services department at Family Bridges.

My team and I support those who are houseless living on the streets, helping connect them with uh critical resources and doing de-escalation work, pulling those who have fallen through the crack.

However, we know that this work does not work in silos, and that with limited funding, collaboration is critical critical.

So in the spirit of collaboration, I'm here today for my fellow organizations department, Hong Fuck and Honglock, which are adult daycare centers serving the seniors, many of whom rely on essential senior services.

But I'm also here today in solidarity with my senior service coalition, who have been asking for to follow the action for additional three million for services, and then also for fast contracting of these essential services that we've already talked about.

And honestly, I don't have the capacity.

Um so please continue this work and keep and to get a push through.

Thank you.

Online, we have Caitlin.

Lisa, you're on the line.

Yes, I can hear you.

Okay, thank you.

Good to suppose this, and thank you for focusing on prevention during the uh proportional one transition and the Michelle W.

My name is Nisa Newcome director of Mental Health Association for Chinese communities.

In case that stays with me in mode amendment with so mental illness.

Our team water with his family and police can locate him and connect him to care before he up on the studies.

Every date we see how uh the mental health support keeps people safe and housed.

Yet recently, because their families at risk of losing access to health.

We hope the county to include community panels.

Now, mental health association for tries community in Michael W.

Proportional one chance to funding.

So keep these prevention efforts strong and accessible across all communities.

Thank you.

Paula, you're on the line.

Good evening.

My name is Jana Shankon.

I work for Family Caregiver Alliance.

We support family caregivers in Alameda and surrounding counties.

And I live personally in District 4.

I just want to say ditto to the Senior Services Coalition of Alameda County Comments.

And thank you for all you've done, but just stress urgency for some of these time-sensitive programs and contracts.

Thank you.

Paula, you're on the line.

Carol, you on the line.

Oh hi, got it.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay.

Uh thank you so much, Supervisor, for having this meeting.

Uh we am my name is Carol Wen.

I'm a senior deputy director, and then a co-founder of Mental Health Association for Chinese communities.

Well, when we it's so good that to hear everyone's talking about everything that we need in this community for us, behavior health prevention, it's not something that uh we needed, it's a necessity.

Our nonprofit has been dramatic cut off with federal funding.

We have our warm lines 929 every day to help people at least a thousand calls every month.

We have our support groups that uh uh help people come to us uh the weekly and they come and eat with us.

So all this that we need a funding, so we really grateful for this uh uh this our meeting right now that the uh the supervisors taking care of this.

So and then we collaborate with all the other nonprofits to work this together, but we are very special because we we are Chinese, we speak mostly Chinese, but we help people uh around us also.

So hopefully, uh we're really grateful if we can get funding from the behavior health prevention, the four million dollars from the four million dollars.

Thank you so very much.

Thank you.

In person, we have Laura, Laura Covet, June Lee.

Hi, I'm Laura Calvert with Spectrum Community Services, and first I want to thank all of you supervisors for supporting the Lightheat program.

Um, but let's be clear.

I have already lost federal funding in a normal year, the state gets a contract in October.

We get a contract starting November 1st.

I usually start needing to use those funds in the middle of December because the need is so great.

Um I know that this year we're gonna get a 37% decrease cut in this funding here in Alameda County because there's been a redistribution to the Central Valley um portion of the state.

Um I am concerned greatly that there are only about three more regular board meetings before the end of the year, and that if you don't act and ask staff to start contracting with me, there will be unintended consequences of a gap in funding.

So in January, when our extremely low-income families that rely on to keep the lights on, also get hit with health care issues and and no food assistance, et cetera.

This is gonna make people on the edge become homeless.

When we look at who we're serving, I am continuing to only serve the neediest of the needy who are coming to us.

We are turning away two-thirds of the applicants who are coming to us, given this funding level.

I'm not asking for extra.

I'm asking for us to be efficient by not closing us down on January 1st, not making me furlough on Alameda County residents who work for us, not having five small businesses who rely on our services as well as subcontractors, having them have to lay off their staff.

Let's prevent any of those things from happening by simply asking staff to get the ball rolling.

Let's get a contract, and if everything works out really well, we won't need to use it.

But I can't count on that because I can't control Congress.

Hi, my name is Chun Li, CEO of KCCB.

First of all, I would like to really thank you for passing the immediate known needs funding on October 7th.

Under the category, there are some urgent and time-sensitive needs that need immediate attention to expedite the process, such as Lai and then KCCB's Bill of Love program.

As of today, since July 1st, that there are 250 seniors gone without foods, which is about 12,500 meals.

So they're waiting for this funding.

And then we're actually still existing contract relationship with a social service agency.

Um, and then that's ready to be augmented as quickly as possible.

So that I can go back to my senior who sent me a letter.

He's 104 years old, recipients of this program for many years, and then that was a gift, you know, from the heaven, according to him.

He's on, of course, SSI, and then have mobility issues.

And then he told me that no matter what happens, I still thank you and the government, and then he will thank the government and the program.

If he goes to heaven, he's gonna send more money.

And then he gave me, he just pulled out $20 and then he gave it to me.

So that I can go back to him, say we can feed you again.

And then we are solely providing services to seniors, and then we don't have any overlap in other meal funding, and then we are two of the four providers under the similar contract under SSA, because we're you know, we came forward, two of us came forward because we are senior services.

So please expedite the process and let us you know continue feeding our seniors.

Thank you so much.

And then I'm gonna just distribute this letter to you.

It's handwritten Korean letter.

Who is the third person?

Kim Olsen.

Hi, Supervisors.

Kim Olsen, Director of Advocacy for SOS Meals on Wheels.

I'm here representing the nearly 3,000 homebound seniors that we serve each year in every district of Alameda County.

Also, our 520 volunteers and 58 staff members who make it possible to deliver nutritious meals and wellness checks to our most vulnerable neighbors.

Noni is one of those seniors.

He's 68, he uses a wheelchair, and although he's on an extremely limited income, he's still able to live in his Oakland Hills house, which he originally built for his mom 32 years ago.

Like most of our clients, he is not able to access traditional food pantries, requires a specific medically tailored diet, and like half of our clients lives alone, which makes those wellness checks crucial.

This came up last Tuesday when Noni fell out of his chair.

He was unable to get up off the floor and he was unable to get to his phone.

That could have been horrible, but thankfully, a meals on wheels volunteer was on the way anyways.

They found him.

They called emergency services, he got the care he needed.

And when I called him just two days later, he was back at home, he was healthy, and he thanked us for being a godsend.

That is a success story that cost about $15 for the full program price per meal delivered.

Prolonged health complications and financial impacts to his life were avoided with that simple act.

Because our volunteers and our program infrastructure had uh were able to provide to look to the health and wellness of our isolated neighbors.

CBOs like ours are perfectly positioned to be the most effective and cost-efficient solution for our service delivery delivery.

We encourage you to act on the senior service coalition's additional $3 million funding recommendation to build capacity.

The senior population in Alameda County is growing faster than any age group, and the fastest growing segment of that is those over 85.

We need our CBOs to be positioned to meet this need, and to do that, we need to act quickly.

We are trying our best as CBOs to do that in the private sector, but nationally, funding from private donors only accounts for one percent uh going towards senior services.

We need your help to fill that gap.

Thank you.

Paula, you're on the line.

Caitlin, can you hear me?

Yes, thank you.

Um hi, this is Kaitlin Shann.

I am the Executive Director at Legal Assistance for Seniors.

I wanted to thank you for passing the immediate needs funding on October 7th.

We also strongly support the Senior Services Coalition's capacity building recommendations.

Thank you to Supervisor Mali for continuing to keep that on the radar.

And I urge you to act quickly to exploit contracts for our sister programs that have an urgent time-sensitive needs, including LIHEAP and the Prepared Meals program.

I would invite you to see the 3 million capacity building recommendations as an investment not only in the senior services priority area and in homelessness prevention, but also in helping older adults navigate the federal and state policy and budget changes and insulating this vulnerable population against some of those impacts.

For example, in addition to providing free legal services to older adults in matters like housing and elder abuse restraining orders, legal assistance for seniors also runs the County HICAP program, which is essentially Medicare Counseling.

With the coming cuts and changes to Medicare and Medical eligibility, we're already getting thousands of calls from older adults needing help navigating these changing rules with different timelines and increased health care costs.

All it takes is one uncovered hospital bill to completely destabilize an older adult's life and quickly lead to a loss of housing.

All of these programs are trusted connections for diverse older adults who increasingly are needing help as they face economic hardship, changes to public benefits, health challenges, and the resulting fear and uncertainty.

Thank you so much.

Paula, you're on the line.

Rosemary, you on the line.

Hi there, this is Anya.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

My name is Anya Minahan, and I'm the development manager with the Mercy Brown Bag program.

I want to say thank you for your support of senior services.

On behalf of the 10,000 seniors, Brown Bag serves regularly across all districts.

I'd like to share this important message from one of our clients, Roberta, who could not make it today, and she is from Supervisor TM's district.

She says, Thank you, Brownbag, for this past year of life-saving groceries.

You consistently provide most of my food, all of which makes me healthier and improves the quality of my life.

Please keep up the good work.

Mercy Brownback has grown over 60% in five years and has never turned away a hungry Alameda County senior.

Your support is a big reason for this.

We have applied for a capacity and food recovery grant to contribute to contribute toward growth and combat federal cuts.

Thank you, supervisors, for your consideration.

So in person, it's PC.

Monica?

Yeah.

Thank you, Board of Supervisor, for approving the passing of an authorization for immediate needs funding.

My name is PC Finnit.

I am a program director at KCCEB and also a resident of District 5.

KCCB is also supporting the senior services coalition recommendation for the 3 million capacity funding under the Essential Services Fund.

We definitely urge you to quickly expedite the contract and bring it to your board as soon as possible for LIHEAP and also the prepared meals, especially the $500,000 for KCC EB meal program.

As my CEO stated, today 250 local seniors have gone without more than 12,000 warm nutritious meals.

Our seniors are already facing acute food insecurity and financial hardship.

We also hear devastating report.

Some of our seniors are left with only $20 a month after paying their rents and bills.

And the fear of losing SNAP benefits under new federal changes is causing immense mental health distress and anxiety right now.

This urgent crisis cannot wait.

KCCEB already holds an existing contract with SSA that can be readily and easily augmented, eliminating the need for a lengthy RFP process.

Knowing the depth of the board commitment to our seniors, we ask you to use your authority today to direct staff to fast track this augmentation.

Moving this funding forward is the only way we can immediately resume service and begin feeding our senior without further painful delays.

Thank you for your leadership and support.

Thank you, Board of Supervisors, for your time today.

I'm Monica Kirkland with Lendy Peterson and the Senior Services Coalition.

And with that, I do just want to respectfully ask for the clarification on a few items that have already been echoed by the sentiments of my colleagues.

But what is the plan to expedite contracts so that the prepared milk providers can resume service as soon as possible?

Can their recent contracts be extended and augmented?

And if so, how quickly?

And what is, is there a plan for the additional recommendation of three million for increased service capacity?

Again, we are aware of what you've already approved, and we are grateful for that.

But we want to expedite the uh contract so that uh others don't suffer it when it's time for the money to be um uh distributed.

So we just want to thank you again.

Good afternoon.

Uh supervisors, thank you for supporting provision and earning intervention and work on the Major W Superposition One transition funding.

My name is Jet Liu, Deputy Director of the Mente Health Association for Chinese communities.

Recently, our team had an Asian woman who broke down at the police department.

After years of building and uh housing instability, she spoke a legal little English and had been living in her car.

We call her around your shelter and collect her to the supportive housing.

When she signed the lease, she cried and said, I finally have a home.

Some of mental health association for child communities federal funding exists long before COVID 19 and the supported provision for years, but after we sit raising the costs, we have had a scare back outreach, short-term one-night hours, and awesome support groups and community programs across our office in Oakland, Oakland, Chinatown, Castro Valley, and the Fremont.

We clean earning mental health intervention that prevents homelessness.

We hope the county will include the mental health association for charge communities in Major W proposition one transition funding, so we can continue to provide those critical phone I support.

Thank you so much.

Hi, I'm Carol Mahar, and I'm speaking on behalf of Spectrum Community Services.

I had good morning, and then I had to cross it out.

Good afternoon, and now I guess it's good evening.

Um we are Alameda County sole provider of the low-income home energy assistance program.

For more than four months, I've heard overwhelming support for this program from each and every one of you.

We deeply appreciate your words, but your words are no longer enough.

We need action today.

We didn't ask our clients to attend this meeting because they've already shown up again and again, sacrificing their time and energy to share how much lie heat means to them, only to see no action.

We believe you've heard them and us loud and clear.

It's time to direct staff to begin contracting immediately for the January to June 2026 bridge funding under measure W.

Without that direction today, services will stop on January 1st, leaving thousands of extremely low-income residents without help to keep their lights and heat on this winter.

Contracting takes time, and we're running quickly running out of it.

Any further delay will guarantee a shutdown for allowing staff halting operations and wasting public resources to rebuild later.

Please also confirm this as a sole source contract with Spectrum, the county's only LIHEA provider to prevent further delays.

Please act today and prevent a service gap and save LIHEAP.

Beyond the immediate crisis spectrum also supports the senior services coalition funding recommend recommendations for both immediate needs and future capacity building.

We see every day how seniors and families are struggling to stay housed warm and healthy.

The coalition recognizes that short-term emergency assistance must be paired with long-term investment in the systems that are already proven to work.

These programs are not luxuries, they are lifelines.

Thank you.

I would like to speak go ahead, please start my time.

Yes, bruh.

Please start my time.

All right, I'll give that, Brett.

Okay.

Hi.

In view of the SANS Act, RIFTA PACT Act and the Williams Act.

I ask and request that the project open hand uh be moved to the Alameda Food Bank based on the application of interagency application.

The view of Cahill Cardgill and the application power of attorney.

I ask that in view of Cardoso via the United States that it be mitigated and put back into contempt.

I asked press charges and identify it via Dream San Francisco, safe San Francisco that the charges that were used be in full open exploration and be identified in interagency appellate and interagency uh application.

I asked that the family count uh the family county be reviewed based on family hiring and knowing it.

In view of seven years ago, the ECF and billing, the same contract negotiation for the management analyst, was a position that I applied for, is known as uh via the EEOC.

In compliance uh to questions to prayer under ALTO.

Alto was taken and sit in view Lincoln University and TWK Incorporated via the United States.

They use food versus food stamps to be identified as fast food, not using all of the free uh food banks as a predominant way to justify uh view of Cardoso.

I ask that that be understood to Jewel Osco and in view of contempt as the son of Edward uh Theodore, uh the board member that we review finances under the DREAM Act and the Sunshine Act and compliance.

This was known as another 2.0 as a view to CBO or cost benefit uh applications via contract negotiations or predominantly what the FBI and deputy FBI director did, which are the father and uncle.

Thank you.

That would could you just say LIHEAP?

Just say it.

Then will you get it all in?

That was a great job.

Thank you, I'm David.

Next speaker.

That was the last speaker.

Wow.

Amazing.

Let's bring it back for deliberation.

I think we have some things that we have to take action on.

And I'm gonna recognize Supervisor Miley.

Thank you, President Howard.

Well, let me first of all thank all the speakers.

Apologize that you had to wait so long to speak, but appreciate your comments.

And you know, I would point out once again, based on the staff presentation today, we have 1.875 million less 450 million 450,000 that we can take from the funds that were uh set aside as um uh extra that we could more or less play with or utilize.

Then if we want to go into the one time, that's 23 million.

Uh we have requests I think that far exceed um the let's say the 1.4 million, as well as if you include um the 23 million.

I think you know, the the board would need to be um the wisdom of Solomon to try to kind of figure all this out.

Um first of all, I think let me ask the agency director from um social services with La Heap.

When will that move forward?

And will that be sole source?

What's the next step on La Heap?

If your board directs sole source, it'll be soul source.

I think it was um discussed before that they're the only CPS that provides um services.

And um, I think your board approved was it three million um a week or two ago for LIHEA funding?

Yes.

Um, so staff will be working to bring that forward.

Yeah.

So will you be bringing that forward?

Yes, when I know next week is October 28th, then we're not meeting on the 4th or November 11th.

So will we get it next week or will we have to wait until um November?

I think the request was they would like to have it in place by January so that it won't be a cap and services.

So you'll probably bring it at our November November 19th.

18th meeting, the very 18th meeting.

That can be a gold eye endeavor.

Okay, November 18th meeting.

It's gonna be sole source.

Uh it uh qualifies for sole source, they're the only provider, and that can move that along.

Now with LIHEAP, uh, should we, because I think we discussed this last time.

Should we discover that there's additional uh concerns with LIHEAP because of federal government action because it's sole source and they have a contract?

Should any of that be triggered down the road, you can bring forth a contract extension and uh uh contract um uh augmentation, yes.

Um yeah, and I think at that at our last work session, Supervisor Tam, I don't want to speak for you, but supervisor TAM did ask what is PG and E's role in this.

So I'm not sure if you ever got clarification.

Um I don't have more information about that because I I know the PGE and the California Energy Commission uh also provides um support uh for utilities that for low-income residents.

Yeah, but at this point, I'm not concerned about PGE.

I'm not disrespecting Supervisor TAM.

I'm looking for November 18th to get the sole source underway.

Then let's suppose come February we know that PGE is gonna throw in some money or not, or we know LAHEAP's in trouble.

You can bring forth contract modification, augmentation, etc., with your board's approval of an amount, yes.

So I want to get that that off the table okay so November 18th and we've got that clarified um now what about the prepared meals how soon can that be performed your board hasn't voted one way or the other on the you don't have additional money at the moment for prepared yes so what you have approved so far is two million dollars for triple A providers for their contracts to be augmented those will come before your board on October 28th.

Okay.

And then um you already have two million right there is the one million for prepared meals that were the continuation of the ARPA contracts.

Which was part of the October 7th action yeah I heard Supervisor Miley ask a different question though.

You've got the one million now but I'm talking about in terms of the request for triple A providers.

Yes that you all approve the two million dollars so we can augment their contracts that was replacing at one time ARPA funds and then SSA was directed to replace ARPA funds um with county general funds and so they lost that two million again the board voted to augment the current contracts of two million right that is coming before your board on October 28th okay for the augmented contract okay and then the one million for the prepared meals I would have to talk to staff only have limited staff I'll talk to staff and so that was KCCE B and I think before this meeting started the question was um what were the names of the four contractors and I also heard um I think in the back that the contracts can be augmented they can be augmented those contracts expire July 15th and it was our funding.

So those contracts have um have already expired so they'll they we'd have to issue new contracts for the prepared meals and you will you need to RFP that it would be based on your board's direction okay and can I ask a clarifying question here are you recommending that we take a program that came to us during the pandemic funded by ARPA given to us one time monies are you now advocating I think that we would just continue that program that's what I'm hearing it was an ARP approval no I'm not I'm not at the moment oh you're clarifying I'm trying to get clarification so with the one million dollars for prepared meals there's no contracts that you can extend or augment at the moment that's you'd have to RFP that or get the board to waive that's correct if we want to consider but we do have one million that we've allocated and approved for prepared meals it's just a question of how we're gonna proceed on that is that correct I'm just trying to get clarification oh Susan can you speak is your is your mic on so the summary that's up now shows what your board approved on October 7th the 25 million for immediate known known needs and that includes the one million additional for prepared meals okay and as supervisor halbert's been pointing out the prepared meals and you clarify that none of those providers are under contract.

That's that's correct the contract expired july 15 2025 right so we need to address that some kind of way okay then um the the three million the board would have to decide whether or not we want to uh support an additional three million or some amount thereof for um the triple A senior providers that's accurate yeah because at the moment that hasn't been all right those are I think my clarifying questions at the moment thank you.

Any other clarifying questions?

Because I I to what I said before, the things that are absolutely essential, that we know have been cut.

I heard LIHEAP make a very clear, concise argument statement, rather, and I would like it to be validated by our staff.

These are clients that have always been served by LIHEAP, always had some sort of funding subsidy for their energy.

Funding that they've been counting on already ongoingly, not one time funded for ARPA.

We know already is going to be cut.

To me, that is something that we absolutely have to fund.

And I would prioritize that pretty highly.

Is that the case?

Yes, and I think your board prioritized it with the three million dollar approval.

And it's gonna come on the 18th of November.

That's your endeavor to do so it would be covered.

They don't need any more than that to cover what they've always had.

Not adding more people that need it, but which we also have to understand if that happens.

Is that right?

I would have to rely on um spectrum to answer my question.

Is that spectrum?

Yes or no?

These are people that like you're you've been serving already ongoingly.

Um, thanks.

Thank you.

Um the LIHEAP program works um with with households applying for assistance.

They may apply up to once every 12 months, basically.

Um, and because we are don't have enough funding to fund everybody, like we were during ARPA.

During ARPA, we were funding everybody.

I'm not asking you to pre-ARPA.

We we were mostly funding everybody.

During during ARPA funds, more people knew about us.

So we continue to have more people who are qualified who apply.

We cannot fund every one of them.

So some of them might get funded last year, and this year they might not get funded.

Depends on their circumstances at the time that they apply.

So somebody who never applied to LIHEAP before might apply to LIHEAP next week and get funded for the very first time.

Does that make sense?

Okay, so if three million is what you're asking for now, that's an annual amount.

No, no, no, no.

No, that's six months.

Okay, six months.

What did you do before 19, 2019, 18, 17?

Well, we're we're back to those those amounts.

That's where we are.

It's back to pre-pandemic dollar amounts.

I'm not talking about how much money we were giving out during um the COVID-19.

The three million will get you back to pre-pandemic.

Because we were more like 10.

The three million now will get you back to pre-pandemic spending.

Yeah, it will keep us steady from where we are right now.

Yes.

I mean, you need to adjust for inflation at least, and energy costs have gone up.

I'm not adjusting for I I did not come asking for an adjustment of that, and you're right that everybody's bill has gone up.

Um we're able to to help people up to a maximum of $1,500, is what the current rules are.

That's a rule-based thing.

Okay, yeah.

Okay, I appreciate that.

Thank you.

So the things that we've historically funded, getting them back to pre-pandemic, maybe plus a little bit, that we know are going away.

What are those?

Those are things that I'm willing to, I think we should be pulling the trigger on.

They're immediate cuts to service, like LIHEAP.

It's not asking for anything more than what we I mean until you do your needs assessment.

And I know you talked about the recommendation from Zellarak is a year to do that.

Maybe we can get it done in six months.

We can't wait that long to understand the needs assessment, but uh how else are we going to do determine?

I'm a little l more supportive of what I just heard from LIHEAP than I am around.

I don't know, I know we've had requests for 20 million extra in food, but that's where I see we're already at three times pre-pandemic at 20 million, and if we add another 16 on top of it, that's six times pre-pandemic.

I don't know that that's tied to um a funding source that got cut and that service will discontinue to people that have always needed it so I'm a little while I'm fight for all the food I think we need I I don't know how to triangulate that versus maybe we could ask what does Contra Costa County give to their residents in food.

What is Santa Clara San Mateo what are other Bay Area counties on a per capita basis supply to their food or maybe said another way they're all in system providing a food realizing that we're only a small part of the food bank's budget but you know how do we get a handle on what is a county's need for food as it relates to all the other counties that are providing food and I don't I just don't have that I can't understand I don't understand the how we get that which number what's the right number pre-pandemic three times pandemic six times post pandemic or prepandemic so I'm that's well that's what I struggle with but I we what we I think need to do now is to give direction on what to fund that we haven't already approved so that we can walk out of here with that next step and then at some point this is only a fraction of measure w I guess remind me when are we going to come back with the full 800 million dollars worth of spending and 1.8 for the 10 years one time money part of the one time money that we recommended forward and we've got to part of our five year one seven recommended five based on the point of the that's two thirty out of the one that we um right so do we have a motion to approve the something else go ahead supervisor for not asked I do have a couple clarifications and then I'll go back to food.

Just in terms of clarifying what we have already agreed to support uh October 7th regarding the LGBTQ plus community what is the plan for um disbursement of those funds is that an RFP?

Um supervisor we're working with the team in AC Health who has a couple of different uh venues that they're exploring we're looking at existing contracts that may be able to be augmented as well as uh thinking about uh potential different things that might be needed but the plan is to bring back a proposal for you.

Thank you for doing that work um do you have a sense of timeline yet nothing right now sorry okay thank you and then in terms of the uh behavioral health prevention Prop one impacts four million dollars um can you remind me how that will be allocated and what that process is yeah so right now we have it um earmarked for the behavioral health department to um uh incorporate into their uh BHSA planning.

So the BHSA transition and the uh um some of the cuts will hit as the new BHSA plan is in uh in place in July of twenty twenty six um but it's my understanding from the behavioral health team that there are also um you know program reductions that may be happening during this year.

Um so overall, there was about eight and a half million dollars that is in the current MHSA prevention and early intervention category, where it's just prevention programs, which are not allowed to be funded under the new Behavioral Health Services Act infrastructure.

That said, there's a lot of other uh balancing that uh the department's needing to do because we're expecting um just a decrease in revenue alongside uh not being able to um have all the programs fit all the new buckets of of Prop One.

So it's currently put in there as a flexible component for them to think through for their planning as they bring forward the next three year plan.

Thank you.

And specific to the um UELP community, is there anything, uh any more information in terms of how that particular community will be able to move forward?

I know there's the Prevention Matters Coalition, I believe that includes a lot of those groups, but not all of them.

Yes, the uh uh UALP is the underserved and ethnic language providers group, and so they largely provide prevention services for behavioral health.

There are some who are attached to larger organizations like FQHCs, um, and so they're working with behavioral health in a different way to figure out if they may be able to mitigate some of the um costs either through billing or through being able to uh provide early intervention services, which are allowed under the Behavioral Health Services Act.

And then there are a number of smaller providers who don't have uh the resources to be able to do specialty medical billing who are a component of uh that group you mentioned.

And so that is part of what um we had recommended that that four million could be used to support that.

Um, and I think as behavioral health uh brings additional information forward to you, they'll be looking for some uh affirmation on that priority.

Okay, thank you.

Um and I know we want to get to some resolution.

I do want to just note for our awareness that the Act Committee has looked at reproductive justice as an area that is under threat by this federal administration.

The county um maybe two board meetings ago signed on to the plant parenthood lawsuit, where I believe uh those services are under threat or defunding because of HR one.

So I do think it's important for us to monitor that lawsuit.

It could very well impact the services that are provided here in Alameda County, and that may be a need that um could become imminent depending on the outcome of that lawsuit.

And then finally, um, I am really I am really interested in seeing if we can do something additional for food.

Um, I understand the senior request is 1.7 million out of the three million that they just requested today, and so to Supervisor Miley's comment, um, if the 10 million request that I put forward included the 1.7 million, um, you know, would there be board interests in potentially moving forward that with that using some of the one-time funds that are available?

Um, and in terms of Supervisor Halbert's question, CalFresh does have new work requirements that go into effect next month.

So this is an imminent cut.

I know our social services agency is doing a lot of work to determine exactly uh what the extent is of that reduction and impact, but that isn't an immediate cut that is taking effect next month because of these work requirements for CalFresh.

And of course, we know that there are some furloughed workers who are going to the food bank.

There's a lot of stress on not only the food bank but the um prepared meals and the distribution as well.

And I'm particularly interested in seeing if there is more that we can do, up to 10 million, so that there is some immediate support.

I'll just add one comment.

I think short of a miracle on the state has informed us they will not be ready to implement November.

To implement ABON work requirements.

I said short of a miracle, um, California Department of Social Services has informed counties they will not be ready to implement ABOD work requirements in November.

Exactly.

I was just responding to one of Supervisor Fortunato Bass's comments about um ABOT work requirements going into effect next month.

The state said they will likely not be implementing it next month.

What is the uh ABOC?

It's a work requirement that if certain CalFresh recipients don't meet the work requirement, they could be um cut off of CalFresh.

So that's a new thing before they didn't have to have a work requirement, now they do.

It's re-instituted, it's not new, it's been in place um often on for a number of years.

You either have to go to work or look for a job or do something, you know, and because of that reinstitution, are we saying that that's gonna require an increase in demand for food?

If Calfresh recipient loses CalFresh eligibility, then they will need another resource for food.

So I'm just trying to clarify.

So we're saying that because if it was instituted and you're saying they can't institute it anyway.

But if they were to institute it, and somebody were to not meet that requirement, therefore they would not have free food, that we would then find another way to give them that food.

I wouldn't say free food, they would not have CalFresh benefits.

Cal fresh benefits, which is the ability to buy up to a certain amount of food on a card, with no cost to them.

It's not like they have to pay half the bill, right?

That's a card that allows them to buy food.

It's it's an EBT card that's loaded with a CalFresh allocation amount.

Yeah.

Okay.

Based on household size, income, a number of factors go into it.

I mean, I'm just trying to understand you didn't, and I get maybe there's gonna be time for people to understand what they now have to do because it hasn't been it went away and now it's coming back, so people might not understand.

But because of that loss, we're gonna give up to 10 million dollars of food to somebody that didn't qualify because they didn't either work or look for a job.

I think that's why you're trying to make when that would be.

Right, when the actual cuts would be effective, yes.

That's the point Andrea is trying to make, but I think the point my colleagues trying to make is because they're making people do that, the ones that don't do that are gonna need food.

So we need to find a source to give them food.

And the ones that don't um meet the work requirement or don't meet an exemption.

If they meet an exemption, they don't have to comply.

There you go.

That's they're they're complying if they meet an exemption.

I mean, I guess at some point we should decide how long do we want to provide that safety.

Yeah, I get it, it's a safety net.

You didn't do the requirement that's instituted, but you didn't know about it, you didn't have time to gear up, you didn't do it.

Are we saying ongoingly, like, it seems almost like we're going to try to thwart this new requirement?

President Halbert, we I don't understand.

We do have leadership here from the food bank.

Maybe they can clarify some of these questions or provide some insights since they are closely tracking this issue as well.

Come on up.

And thank you for being here as long as you have Reggie.

Yes, so just so just in regards to um the able-bodied adult workers group, so the the main thing is there's two things.

One is that the requirements have changed, and so there's folks who are older who are now required to be able to meet those requirements around work requirements that were not on that beforehand, and so there's a lot more people who are likely to not meet those requirements, which could increase the number of food to secure people, but beyond that, just because of the changes in the amount of that's going to be allocated, there are also just a number of people who are not eligible who are not going to be eligible in the future that were eligible prior to that.

And so there's going to just be a number of people who are going to need free resources that were typically going to be getting that resource from CalFresh previously.

Okay, they were re eligible, but now the requirements change, so you're no longer eligible.

That's a bucket.

There's furloughed people that never needed before, but now they're furloughed.

That's an increase.

Correct.

I get that.

And then there's those that you did qualify, you can still qualify, but if you fail to qualify, then we've got to solve for that.

Yes.

Clear.

Okay.

So for those that were in eligible but now are no longer eligible, that's a cut in my mind.

If you were recently furloughed and never were on before, but now you are because of macroeconomic, you got laid off, that's an increase in the need.

I get that.

I'm still a little unclear on you qualified before, you still can qualify, you didn't meet the test.

Can you make the test up next month?

Can you, you know, how long are we going to just have you skip the test when you could, whatever it is, find a job, look for a job or whatever.

So I'm a little unclear about that.

But for those that are newly furloughed, sure.

For those that were previously eligible, extending that, I get that.

I just don't know if it's 10 million dollars because again, we were at five or six million before pandemic.

We're already at three times that, and now we're pulling out 10 million.

So how do how do we triangulate on how many people that are out furloughed?

Like if I were to just say up to 10 million, but only for those recently furloughed or unemployed for those previously eligible and now no longer eligible because the rules changed, I could live with that.

Up to 10 million dollars, but for those occasions, but otherwise, if we just one, I just don't know where the 10 million came from, and two, I don't know where it's going.

Uh I know where it's going in the first two buckets that we just described.

I know where it's going, newly furloughed and unemployed and previously eligible.

And I'm willing to make a motion that we do that, but but for limited to those groups, that's just me.

Marquez and Fortunato Bass and Tam, but we've got to give something to them, somebody's gonna lose otherwise.

Well, I know Supervisor Bass.

Um made a suggestion.

Now, are you saying of the 10 million 1.7 would go to the seniors?

Correct.

That is, that covers of the three million that covers the one point seven, one point seven.

And then the food bank would get eight point three million.

Correct.

Okay, correct.

Okay, and we would take it out of that uh 23.

Uh 1.4 million that's left over, and then there's 23.8, which would basically leave about 13, 13.5 or something like that that would be carried over for the strategic planning effort with the 170 million.

Correct.

Okay, correct.

And just just as a reminder, there was a very good SSA presentation at um social services in July regarding this program that actually looked at how how many people in each of our five districts would be possibly impacted by work requirements.

And while it may not go into effect next month, it I believe it's going to go into effect this fiscal year.

So that's what I'm trying to get ahead of.

Yeah, and so that doesn't cut the food, it just puts requirements for a job or finance for or work.

Or meet an exemption.

So there's exemption, yeah.

There's exemption criteria, and one of the things I believe Reggie was speaking to is um in prior ABOD regulations, some populations were exempt and they are not exempt under the new requirements just for like homelessness before it wasn't exemption, now it's not an exemption, but that homeless person can meet another exemption, they just can't meet a homeless exemption.

So Mr.

President, well, just so I could conclude.

I think I'd be willing to support Supervisor Bass's uh position, 8.3, food bank or the food providers, 1.7 seniors.

Then I think we need to also direct staff to do something with the one million prepared meals.

Either we're gonna RFP that or we're just going to have them.

You know, I don't know supervised how Howard has advocated that we not, you know, extend anyone under ARPA, but we have to decide what we're gonna do with that one million prepared meals.

We also have to find out again, and I did find out right you commons 200 units, every single one of them making less than 50% of uh median income.

So there's people out there we don't even know about yet, don't even know about and and um I'm a honestly a bit incredulous that because some people are on some committees, and because some people have been served for ever and ever and ever, that we're taking care of them when other people in the county haven't even known about some of these things, and so I'm willing to go along with that.

We should be open it up to anybody that applies for the prepared meals.

Sure.

So you want to RFP that want to RFP it with enough money to serve all of our districts.

So I would suggest we RFP it then and we see what the agency gets back in terms of qualified RFPs, and if it's over the million dollars, then we you know we address it at that point in time.

When we say RFP, the needs assessment is gonna go out and find everybody that is not being served.

RFP means we throw it out there and see what comes back, and sometimes only one person applies.

That's nowhere near serving the needs of the community.

I'm saying what I'm suggesting if we've already approved one million for prepared means, if we let the agency RFP in, any CBO can apply uh the group you're talking about, the four that were funded during ARPA, as well as others, they will then determine based on RFP who qualifies and how much money can be appropriated.

Then if it if those who qualify and the money that can be appropriated is greater than a million dollars, then we address okay at that point in time, not like Congress.

I'm trying to reach some type of compromise here, so we don't have to have a county shutdown.

The Democrats and Republicans can't agree, but we can we can come up with some compromise, the five of us.

Supervisor Miley, I am just concerned about the gap in services that was alluded to by some of our public speakers today as well as in the past, and so can the RFP be done in such a way that there isn't a gap in services, awarded before the current funding runs out.

So we run out of time, yeah.

Then July 15th.

Right, I understand the contracts that run out.

So I'm hearing a lot of different commentary, and I know staff would like to digest and process and potentially come up with a recommendation.

So maybe if we could just at this juncture give feedback on what we would like to see and yet another proposal, and I don't think we're quite there today.

We're gonna be splitting hairs on who gets what and the format, but it it sounds like there's support for the 450,000 um for the two positions as an interim um staffing option for the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs.

I'm just I'm gonna, if you don't mind, President, I'm gonna try to like move us along because we've been going at this for a very long time.

So is there any objection to staff deciding on that?

I'm not saying what source yet, because we have a long list of items we've got to sort out.

I'm just trying to get us through.

Is there enough support for that request?

The 450?

Yeah, the 450,000.

I don't think there was ever really no objections on that.

Okay, so that one's squared away.

Um outstanding requests from senior services coalition is the three million dollars, which does include some food programming, which we just discussed.

We've set aside a million dollars.

We need to go out to RFP, um, because the services have already lapsed.

July 15th is my understanding.

No, you're mixing you're mixing them up.

Yeah, the seniors.

Yeah, the seniors want three million supervisor bass is guessing what point seven.

Okay, so let me get clarity on that then.

Then 1.7 added the 3 million from the senior services coalition is specifically for food.

Okay, thank you for that clarification.

So is that right?

Is that everyone's understanding?

Out of their request for $3 million, $1.7 is specifically for food programming.

As long as we can clarify, and it's not to augment all the contracts because there's an array of services that the triple A provider triple A providers provide.

Yeah.

So are we just targeting those with food-related contracts?

This question.

Yes, okay.

I believe so.

Is that what the request from I'm seeing nods?

Yes.

So I so I so I think it's so is everyone in supportive staff analyzing and figuring that out.

The three million, which includes 1.7 million specifically for augmenting current food programs through the triple A contracts.

Okay.

I thought 3 million was already reduced by 1.2 something, which led it to 1.7, which we then said you're gonna take 450 out of 10.

But let's not talk about where the money is coming from, just trying to see what there's consensus on in theory so we can try to figure out what is that total number?

Where is it gonna come from?

That's I think an after question.

First, we need to find out is there consensus on these initiatives?

What is it that we want to go up and bat for at this time?

I need clarification before I can consent to it.

Um, so we have uh what we approved on October 7th was the food bank and prepared meals for 4 million, and then separate from that was the line item for prepared meals for the four groups that had received ARPA funding but no longer receive ARPA funding.

So the prepared meals that are part of the four million with the food bank, um, who does that go to?

Um, Reggie, if you are prepared to speak to the scope of work that you all submitted, and that particular board letter will be on your agenda November 18th.

So do any of those prepared meals go to seniors?

Those prepared meals were specifically for unhoused populations, and so they're gonna be passed through dollars from the food bank to CBO supervide meals to the unhoused populations.

Uh is there an intersection between unhoused and seniors?

Absolutely.

Well, so the seniors are in house, but they aren't the triple A providers.

Correct.

Okay, so the one point seven that uh supervisor Marques is talking about is for triple A providers.

Yes.

And they're they're part of 225 contracts that we have for food.

And of them, how many of them are providing our triple A providers?

I I don't have that level of detail today, but I can get that for you.

Yeah, my point is if you're dividing 1.7 million around, you know, with a hundred providers versus like you know, 20 providers, you're you're gonna get um a diminishing amount.

But uh through the chair, I think there's what are there five triple A providers?

This is just a they're saying just for home delivered.

Oh, yeah, that five that's just home delivered and then congregate.

I'm I'm Ms.

Ford.

Maybe I I'm guessing around 10 of us.

Okay, um, total for congregate and home delivered.

Okay.

So that includes SOS meals on wheels.

Okay.

What about today?

We heard um unfunded needs from the IDD community.

These are folks that can very much on the edge of being able to live by themselves, yet they provide they're all zero income or social security or very, very, very, very, very low income.

And they're just a community that we haven't even scratched the surface on.

They came to us and asked, and if you rank prioritize them, they would be seem to be pretty high on the list cognitive disabilities.

So I'll be willing to augment by some number to just call it another million dollars for IDD.

I it seems to be a nice round number if we're gonna go make up round numbers.

Well, I just think through the chair, that helps to move us along once again, and I'm just working off of what Supervisor Bass had suggested.

If in Supervisor Marquez, if we do the 450, we do the 1.7, we do the 8.3, we do another million for the um the disabled community.

Um, I think that leaves us.

Yeah, and I think 300,000 for reproductive rights of Supervisor Bassett also mentioned, or is that incorporated somewhere else?

There was a request that came for the act if um you can also just track more broadly than parents had lawsuit.

Okay, that's fine.

Okay, sorry.

So given that just a few item, and if we're gonna really close a loop on everything we're tracking, there's one more request that came to the Act Committee, and that is um resettlement agencies.

I know we allocated funding um when say like in the last six months, but their needs have increased as well.

So I think we should also be mindful of um that request um resettlement agencies dealing with refugee public.

And that's not included in the money we've already appropriated through 3.5.

No, but I'm I'm just if we're gonna be thorough and complete, like all the asks that have come our way through committee and through public comment, that's being comprehensive.

So I want to make sure fully disclose that as well.

I'm always gonna ask, is it tied to we have an influx?

There's an influx, there's a lot of um Ukraine, Afghanistan, there's a lot of people with compromising statuses, um, at risk of losing housing.

I mean, the list goes on and on, right?

But that came to act committee as well in August, I believe.

That came in September, and there was information in uh last week's board letter about this.

There are some potential changes that I think go into effect next fiscal year that may very dramatically impact um the funding available for resettlement.

So I'm wondering with all these asks if staff can do like an analysis of the imminent threats within the next six months while they conduct their thorough analysis that's gonna take longer.

I'm just trying to figure out if there's kind of an interim option.

Having experience with this population, I don't deny that over the last couple of years we've had a lot come in that maybe are still hanging on by a threat.

I just I don't I don't know enough to confirm that, but I have no doubt that's a very distinct possibility.

I don't know how how else we do confirm it, but we have indeed had a lot in the last when we pulled out of Afghanistan and when Ukraine happened, a lot of people came our way, and they're thinking.

Some of them were lucky and taken in by others.

Some of them are still hanging on by a threat.

Supervisor Howard, can I just summarize where we are?

And I know there were some supplemental requests that were mentioned um just recently, but uh my understanding was talked about the 1.7 for seniors, the eight point 8.8.3 for the food bank, which comes to a total of 10.

There was discussion about the 450,000 that the social services agency is requesting for additional staffing for immigration coordination.

That those total 10.45.

And I'm subsequent to that, there were a couple of other requests that were mentioned.

And whoever else is below would otherwise qualify as group or need for the I don't have an answer for it, but I just know that there is a few comments all the way up.

But that's for I think that's where the well, the last one is resettlement agencies, and how much what was the dollar.

So there is a request for 10 million over 3.5 years to get through this administration.

And that's what I I think we need staff's analysis.

Like I'm just gonna be honest, just because these asks are being made of us, we do have to be prudent.

Like just because you throw out a number doesn't mean we're not gonna fact check.

You know, we have to do our due diligence.

That's no disrespect to the CBOs, but there's a lot of figures being thrown out there.

So I think we need to give staff time to hear all this information, process it, do a little bit more research, and come back with a recommendation.

Because I could throw out $500,000 million.

That doesn't make any sense.

What's the rationale behind it?

So and I will offer that I will offer that um before we brought you the recommendations for the one-year expenditure plan.

We did map out the implementation timelines of these cuts, and so like the resettlement agencies, we heard that at the act committee, but those don't come online until past this fiscal year.

So they were not included in in our immediate known needs, um, but it really was our look at triaging what was impacting us now.

And I think the issue is what Amy just said is the staff's looking to put together the five-year strategic plan.

So what can go can be pushed off to that, let it be pushed off.

Let's just deal with what we need to do with that today.

Yes, yes, our goal is to bring back a needs assessment and a five-year plan, you know, by the end of the first quarter of next year, if possible.

I mean, that's a heavy lift, too, but that you know assumes that we're able to focus our attention on that planning.

So I'm sorry, through the chair, I agree with Supervisor Marquez about the needs assessment because uh I think we all got the request from Pastor Langford for workforce development to reconfigure the Jeffrey Pete building or 10 or 20 million dollars, right?

So I think it's um I need to understand.

So if we're doing, um we're adding another 10 million dollars for immediate needs for food.

So what happens in the five-year strategic plan?

Each of those five years, what what's going to be asked of us?

Our um our our plan our planning is going to be looking at what the projected needs are, factoring in what we know about uh snap cuts, what we know about unmet needs we had already in the community.

We're you know, we're never gonna be able to meet all the needs with the available resources, so it's going to be about where we target target those resources based on uh what needs are identified and areas where there are not other resources.

And that's kind of what I was trying to understand, frankly, with the 10 million dollar request, where the gap analysis is where the needs are, and and how best to strategically look at it from a composite budget standpoint.

But it sounds like we're and and I'm I'm having a little bit of um a tracking issue right now, trying to understand what's being asked and and you know what's being negotiated between uh meals for seniors, meals with the unhouse, meals for people who did provide fund, do we did have ARPA funding and eight ARPA funding, and how's that all rolled in together?

And I think if we try to look at it again back to the one year, right, which is the current fiscal year, 25-26, which is where we started, and that was the original recommendations.

Um, as Amy stated, were based on one year knowing that we wanted to do an assessment going out for the next you know, five years.

So that's what that's 64.35 or funds to be expended in the current year, the only deviation the board had was what you approved last week.

Uh but some of those contracts got extended through September of 26.

I already passed well, the the funding that was approved to augment those contracts extended them through September of 26.

So it it crossed over into the fiscal year for the first quarter.

So Mr.

President, maybe we could just I don't know if everybody will have clarity, but maybe we could take one item at a time and you know thumbs up or thumbs down, and or you know, or or you know, no opinion, and we could advance each item one at a time.

CAO can repeat what she was doing, and that way we could all weigh in where we are.

She did a great job.

Yeah, great job.

You want me to go through the items that you'd identified was senior the senior meals 1.7 million.

I'm good with that.

Not reduced by 450,000 like we talked about earlier.

Because at one point it was 1.7 minus 450 for the two positions, or just a total 1.7.7, which is strictly for the meal.

So the triple A, the senior coalition letter, just so we're all clear.

Yep, okay.

So I think we've got okay, okay.

Right.

You're running the meeting.

I think we're gonna support it all and let's just get it done.

Okay, then but we're gonna be talking about this ongoingly, I think almost every meeting.

Because there's things that we've applied for, or we'll just do it with board letters going forward.

But go ahead, let's do it all.

Okay, the next item that you considered was food bank 8.3 million.

I don't have enough information to be given for.

Yeah, okay, um, and then 450,000 for social services staffing.

And then there was a million for IDD.

Is that I think it would be wanna, but couldn't there be a way to embed programming in everything we're doing for that population?

We're not excluding them.

Can staff speak to that?

I'm in support of this population, but I just question what have what do we do with them today?

Um, SSI.

I imagine there might be some programs within SSA as well, but in uh through the public health department, we staff the developmental disabilities council, which is uh a regional um coordinating body, and so I'm happy to work with them to bring back some additional information or share it with the board over email.

And all the housing projects with measure W, they would be able to apply just like any other provider, correct?

Uh that was our intent in terms of some of the requests, but I think we're talking about a different organization.

I've worked with that population for decades, and they're gonna go just be in any of our measure W apartments.

I don't think so.

Why don't we just compromise to say 500,000?

Yeah to start with.

Yeah, so we could just rather just carve it up and give it to each of our districts, and you guys get a bigger half on it.

No, let's let's compromise 500,000.

I mean, this is just for the next six months, right?

This isn't in perpetuity, so that's true.

The population needs to be kind of and it's growing and aging, just like our seniors.

And can you clarify what that five hundred thousand would be for?

Food for IDD.

But they're looking for food or housing.

Can that be included in your eight million, which you seem to have a majority vote on?

No, I think you want to target it towards the food bank is I think we just need to broaden our approach and do more targeted outreach to be more inclusive.

I think we're allocating dollars that are expansive.

We just got to change our outreach efforts.

For me, it's a matter of priority.

I think they're one of the highest priority populations that is not being served, and therefore but no disagreement.

I'm I'm just trying to uh encapsulate all the the figures that we have.

The 1.7 was gonna go into the 10, which is now 8.3, and then you know, now it's 500,000 for um yeah the ITD, um the disabled uh population, and that's where food shouldn't it be coming out of the same pocket.

Saba grocers wanted two million out of the ten million, so I assume that's encompassing the eight million.

I would just I would suggest the the five hundred thousand for the disabled intellectually um disabled community um be um targeted to that population for their needs, whatever those needs are, separate from housing, yeah, it's categorical to them.

Yeah, I'm happy to support that.

I just need to know.

Are we carving that out in addition to all the fundings that we talked about?

Yes, yes.

Susan was kind of it'll ever list.

The list will always grow.

It will never stop.

Susan was going down the list and we were trying to see what we have at least three of us comfortable with advancing.

And then we'd got into that one.

Dave suggested a million.

I was saying maybe cut it in half so we can at least target that community and move on.

Did you get three thumbs up?

I don't know if we got three.

Yeah, five hundred thousand or five, five hundred thousand.

It's like a reverse uh auction.

It's where the Mendoza line.

I guess that's right.

In the strategic voting system that we have.

Can we do a secret ballot?

What else?

What's the next one?

I think it should be rolled into the food.

Um you could take it out of the food bank money, that's fine.

Supervisor Tan, we already got three votes on that.

Okay, then you don't need mine, is what you're saying.

Yes, I'd love to get yours, but we got one, two, three.

Got it.

Yeah.

If you and Nikki want to join us, but I'm trying to reach.

I certainly president Halbert on the budget committee.

I'm just trying to be mindful of our county's finances.

So if that's if that's a list, where how much is that where does that work?

Okay, so here's let me just read the list again, and then we can talk about what is available for funding.

So 1.7 for senior meals, 8.3 for the food bank, 450,000 for social services, 500,000 IDD, that totals 10.95, that's my hand math.

You have 1.875 of the contingency remaining, which means you take about nine almost 9.1 million out of the 23.85.

So that will still leave 14.8 million of one-time money to add to the 170 ongoing.

And I think you just need to be mindful of the investments you're making in the first year are not sustainable going forward based on your board's allocation of measure W to Essential County Services.

So last week, be aware of that that the annual the annual allocation is $34 million a year, and you'll have about $15 million dollars of one time in addition, and that's for the next five years, unless the board opts to make some changes in your allocation methodology.

Who likes the rounded format?

It's okay, unless we just a second, well lest we um repeat this discussion, which I anticipate will happen uh many many times, uh maybe in the next few months, either at a joint meeting that we all end up going to, adjourn agendized appropriately, or until this money's gone, we have to get clearer on we we went through a lot of I'm not sure this, I'm not what about what about that?

And I don't know if that's where and I don't sit on the committees.

I I'm on TNP and planning, but somewhere we have to be um get to this point of clarity, so I think from more efficiently okay, that's all yeah.

If I could just if we move ahead with what we decided today, the board, the staff's gonna bring an action to us based on what we decided today to vote on at a board meeting, okay.

So that's gonna cover that portion, then the rest is going to be considered part of their strategic plan.

Okay, yeah, and and I think this is good, it's just me speaking because once again, measure W.

If we didn't have measure w, we need to be having these conversations, it'd be even more difficult.

But because they have measure w, we can have these conversations.

I think we've come up with a good compromise.

We need to try to um spread the largest so that people feel that measure w is serving them so that they'll want to potentially reauthorize it down the road.

And the action we've taken in the past in this in the steps we're taking today, I think demonstrate a willingness to be you know as expansive in trying to serve the public good with measure w as possible, just on the essential service piece.

We still got you know stuff that's gonna come to us on the home together, but at least with the essential service piece, I think we've we've we've got it there.

Because when they come back, they'll with the strategic planning piece, yeah.

The strategic plan that'll look at the mental health, look at any other food, and look at whatever priorities there are, and they'll come back with um some thinking around all of that for the you know for the next five years.

That's just me saying, and when we do like this.

Um, thank you everyone for uh moving this forward.

Do we have a sense when the board letter will come?

Will it be so we'll make every effort to bring what we can forward next week, knowing that your board's not gonna meet again till the end of November.

I think you got some estimates of when some of the contracts may come forward.

I'm talking about bringing forward the augmentations that the board approved today so that we can actually tie down as supervisor Miley mentioned the allocation for 2526, which is going to be approximately 75 uh million dollars, and so we can move on to doing the needs assessment in the five-year plan and get back to the board, you know, as early as we can in the new calendar year, so that you know we can begin that discussion for the ensuing five years, so we're clear we have not touched the reserves, correct?

Not the 170 million of reserves okay.

I'm talking about the reserve specific no, no, so you're talking about the measure the measure w reserve of 170 million, and just be reminded that that is the reserve to back up the entire measure w, not just the essential county services fund, entire 100% allocation, not just the essential.

Yep.

Thank you, staff.

I know this was painful, but it was also productive.

So thank you.

Okay.

Are we ready to adjourn?

No, we have a line.

No, yeah.

It's Kimberly go ahead.

I had a hard stop at five.

I've already pushed that back.

I know the understanding.

I had a hard stop at five.

Okay, it's what we're talking about.

Yeah, the projects.

This is the update on Santa Rita Capital projects that the board requested that we provide.

I know unfortunately the sheriff had to leave, but the under-sheriff and commanders here.

Yeah, you guys can keep running the meeting on the works.

Yeah, I gotta go.

Safe travels, President.

Vice President.

Oh then you got who's the Vice Vice President.

Me happy to talk to you about Richard People.

Okay.

Thank you.

No, I'm serving the agenda.

Yes.

That's great.

Let's let's take a five-minute recess.

We'll be back in five minutes.

Okay.

I'll do roll call.

Yes.

Good evening.

I'm gonna reconvene the meeting for Tuesday, October 21st.

And if we could please start with the roll call.

Supervisor Marquez.

Present.

Supervisor Tam, excuse Supervisor Miley.

Present.

Supervisor Fort's not a bath.

President Halbert.

Excuse, we have a quorum.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate everyone's patience.

Since we are obviously very delayed in our 2 p.m.

set matter, and this item often um does not uh make it to our gender.

We we pass it by.

So I want to make sure we allocate time to our set matter, which is Capital Projectslash Facilities at Santa Rita Jail.

Um this is a status update on the projects at the jail, and I'll ask Director Gasway to kick off the presentation and thank you for your patience, as well as the under sheriff and everyone else from the sheriff's department that have been patiently waiting.

Thank you.

Thank you, Supervisor Marquez uh Kimberly Gasway, director of GSA.

And uh we provide a facility projects at the jail in support of the sheriff and behavioral health care.

So Anika Chowdery here, and um the under sheriff representing the sheriff's department.

So Santa Rita Jail was constructed.

I think it's important to understand in 1988 and opened in 1989.

It has 18 separate self-contained housing units, a core building containing central booking, release and administration, a service building containing laundry, commissary kitchen, and warehouse.

It is the county's largest uh facility and operates 24-7.

Um, and now it's uh over 30.

Do the math or something years old.

Projects responding to court ordered mandates are currently underway at the jail, and there are two court-ordered um agreements.

One is the accessibility improvements that were stipulated in um settlement agreement in 2016, wherein we're doing multiple projects throughout the facility for accessibility.

And then in February 2022, as most of you know, there was a consent degree with the Northern District of California approved for Babu, and that mostly outlined specific behavioral health services and other programming by the sheriff to be provided at the jail.

And these required many capital renovations in order to be in compliance.

So the county has approved and continues to develop capital projects to address major maintenance, safety improvements, as well as meeting these court ordered mandates.

Your 2026 and 2030 capital improvement plan has category two for Santa Rita jail.

We two years ago segregated Santa Rita jail projects from all other projects in the plan so that we could really track this large investment.

The current capital plan has 557 million allocated over the next five years for the jail.

And that, as I mentioned, deals with the ADA projects.

We are upgrading the security network infrastructure, which is beyond its useful life.

We have health programs and services projects, including safety enhancements to address inmate safety throughout the facility, enhancing outdoor recreation for Babu in order to provide out-of-cell time for inmates, and then there are behavioral health and sheriff staff areas as well as confidential treatment spaces being provided.

We have a major maintenance project underway and we're working on remodeling the kitchen.

This is the entire schedule of projects that are currently underway.

You can see the different phases.

These are not optional projects.

One of the things that was shared when we started getting into especially into the babu.

There's been a lot of questions about the deferred maintenance of the jail and a lot of our infrastructure upgrades to support Babu, require upgrades to major maintenance systems.

And your board is regularly hearing about systems where we have roofs leaking, pipes bursting, sewers failing, generators, so on and on.

The next slide shows the logistics site map.

This is a significant coordinated effort between GSA, behavioral health, and especially the sheriff's department.

So these this is all the areas within the jail that we are doing work currently, and we have to move inmates out of one area to do the work in that area and then move them back.

So it's a significant addition.

We have to have inmate escort.

I mean, inmate we have to have deputy escorts for all of our construction work and they get screened coming in and out of the facility, as well as the support that the sheriff is providing to behavioral health.

So we have to map out all of those staffing issues in order to ensure the safety of everyone at the facility why this work is happening.

Some quick descriptions.

So this is the accessibility, a few pictures for you of the upgraded improvements where everything is ADA compliant.

So we have accessible desks, cells, bunk beds, showers, and toilet facilities have all been constructed or have been constructed for upgrade.

This project, the final phase of this project began in 2021, is anticipated to be completed in the summer of 2026.

So I mentioned this is the security network infrastructure upgrade.

It is not directly called out in the Babu Consent Decree.

However, it is significant because it includes cameras and the ability to monitor people within the facility at all times.

And the project began construction in 2024 and it's anticipated to be completed in the spring of 2027.

Did I skip go back to the fun picture?

So enhanced outdoor recreation and reconfiguration and recreation yards.

So we're currently putting in new yards as well as modifying existing quasi yards, and this is for uh consent decree Babu compliance to ensure that inmates are getting adequate amounts of out-of-sell time.

This project began in 2024 and is anticipated to be complete in the spring of 2026 with occupancy of the outdoor rec yard expected by January 2026.

I know I'm trying to get you through these.

It was determined that inmates are better served by having treatment within their housing units, and this the new sheriff at the time we appreciate she gave some housing unit space up in order for us to start that work.

So we began reconfiguring housing units to accommodate treatment areas as well as the additional staff that the sheriff and behavioral health departments both have to hire.

So some of the work has already been done.

So housing unit 31 was complete.

That's space for behavioral health staff to move into.

Phase two is now we're working on space for the sheriff and how in that same housing unit to be complete at the end of 2025, and future phases are currently in development to reconfigure space in the intake area core building to support additional consent degree compliance areas.

So there will be additional projects coming forward.

I want to make sure the board is clear about that in order to meet our full compliance with Babu.

The next slide is the treatment pod conversion.

So these is one of the requirements of the Babu consent decree, required confidential interview space and therapeutic areas to provide treatment for staff.

If you some of you have been around for a while, remember at one time we were talking about putting a bunch of phone booth type things in the jail, but instead we began converting housing units for treatment.

The construction of phase one of this project, Pod C and multi-purpose room improvements and housing units one, two, nine, twenty-four, and thirty-five, were completed in the summer of 2025, and installation of furniture continues.

There's some furniture delays right now, so we're hoping to get that complete soon.

This is another area where future phases are in development, and there will be additional confidential interview rooms and inmate program spaces as well as on-unit observation stations to support additional consent decree to compliance effort.

I do want to share with you that we do have the monitors who come out and they walk the space with behavioral health, the sheriff, because they have a number of programming changes that they had to make, but they also GSA participates in some of those walkthroughs of the site to ensure that we're um building the spaces in a way that meets their recommendations.

I was gonna say requirements, but I believe it's our recommendations.

The next one is the critical operations project.

You'll see at the top that fun picture.

That's a completely uh corroded pipe.

Dublin has a problem with pipes out in the dirt, which was high amounts of salt.

We know we're working on the fire training center right now, and we're having to look at what types of materials we put underground.

So we have a number of issues plus the heat weather out at there, in addition, the aging infrastructure.

I'm often asked about what is included in this scope for this project.

So there are we are replacing two generators and associated electrical infrastructure system.

I just found heard the generators were out again the other day.

So we're replacing aging generators.

There's a new uh steel above ground water tank.

We're concerned about the existing tank and its age, and we may cannot go without water if that fails, as along with the second 12-inch water main for redundancy.

The building management system that's the controls of system within the whole facilities being fully replaced, including all controls and fire panels.

The fire life safety system, which is beyond its useful life, is being upgraded.

123 commercial grade doors are being replaced in order to connect with the fire life system.

They have to be replaced.

The HVAC system is undergoing insulation removal and reapplication in fact in fan enclosure of each housing unit in the core buildings, along with basic maintenance, any unserviceable HVAC equipment or inaccessible duct work will be replaced or cleaned as necessary.

The interior ring road within the secure perimeter, which provides emergency vehicle access to the housing units, is um being replaced, and the final stages of the Santa Rita water line, which was has been moving in phases, is going to be completed.

The roofs on multiple housing units will be replaced with new insulation, roofing membranes, flashing and safety feature.

This project addresses safety and functionally obsolete systems and equipment due to age of the 24-7 facility, and the board awarded the design bill contract June 2025.

Construction is expected to be completed by 2030.

The next project that we're in the middle of is the kitchen renovation project.

So right now it is this is a progressive design build.

This is just a conceptual layout of the future kitchen, but the design build company will come in and make the full recommendations.

We did have a kitchen expert for detention facilities come in and work with us on this procurement as well as um evaluing what we had.

We looked at cook chill, cook serve.

I mean, there was a lot of work putting into what is the plan going forward, and so then um, so we're gonna replace.

I don't want to go too far down that route, but anyway, replace the outdated equipment currently operating beyond its expected useful life.

We have equipment failing all the time, and they're gonna also look at reconfiguring the layout for more efficiencies, and we'll demo and reconstruct the kitchen interior replacement of all furnishings fixtures as well as the demolition and reconstruction of the underground utilities that are associated, including plumbing, interior finishes, and other interior and uh elements, and then we will upgrade the roof on the kitchen and replace the building management system in that part of the facility, security and fire life safety systems, like we are the rest of the facility, and this is to address safety and functionally obsolete systems and equipment, and the board awarded this design build contract September 2025, and construction is expected to be complete mid-2027.

The big thing I just uh we're still working on master planning with the sheriff's department and also some with behavioral health to finish our compliance with Babu.

There will be some additional recommendations for treatment areas, the chapels being renovated.

We're looking at the medical services area.

I learned that the um pharmacist apparently is in his office, is right in the middle of pharmacy, which is a licensing issue.

So we're trying to uh figure all that out.

But they are going to be coming forward first internally, they're finishing their plan, uh, and then we'll bring that forward to the full board for the next phase of projects.

Questions.

Thank you for the presentation.

I know this is um something we've been asking for since before the budget season.

So thank you so much for compiling it.

And I know we've taken multiple board actions on this item.

Um, with respect to the projects and prioritizing those that um are required due to litigation.

Um, have we experienced any significant delays with like uh workforce materials?

Um, things pretty much on track, or are we aware of any known delays or barriers?

Um there are have been a couple of issues, like for instance, I mentioned some furniture.

There's a slight delay in in that happening right now.

We um had some challenges with the outdoor rack.

What was going to be required for the shade structure was going to be significantly expensive, and so we had to go back and redesign something that we could get done quicker but less expensive.

So we're or there's always in construction something that comes up that but we just try to find a way to pivot and move it forward.

The um biggest one I believe was the safety enhancement project, which was projected at I want to say, let me say the number off the top of my head.

I think it was between nine and 14 million dollars, and what happened is we found out that um a number of the units, the equipment within the jail has lead.

It's old, and so the paint um was gonna have to be, you know, if they're grinding corners and stuff, there was a significant lead hazardous material abatement issue, and so we were looking at that project coming in like double.

So what we decided to do is pull back and rebid it.

So that contract, um, I think it already came to your board or it's coming to your board uh to terminate that contract with that contractor and then and come with another plan forward that will be more cost effective.

So we're constantly um, there's a lot of moving parts.

Okay, and then um this question might be for more for the under sheriff or uh interim AC Health Director with respect to the population at Santa Rita jail, it is significantly significantly decreased.

So are there any changes with the settlement agreement or um what's like the status update with respect to that, knowing that the population, which is a good thing, is um a lot smaller than when we initially started this work.

So this is under Sheriff April Luckett behavior me for the Albany County Sheriff's Office.

Nothing has changed.

We haven't gone back to the courts to renegotiate our consent decree that we're currently under.

The population has decreased substantially since we did enter into this agreement, but for the population that we are currently serving, all of the provisions still apply.

And how many housing units are we currently utilizing?

So I believe it just so I think we're utilizing all of them.

I think what happens is one closes so that they can move bodies into another one to do construction.

So that's what's happening.

They're kind of uh rotating.

Housing unit 31 is the only one that has been completely closed down from the incarcerated population and it will be serving as uh space for behavioral health staff as well as sheriff's office staff.

Okay, and um when do you um so there are still board letters coming before us right for projects?

This is ongoing.

Um there has been a lot of community engagement on this.

So I'm wondering if when items come back, um, if we could have, even if it's just like four slides, some type of background information, PowerPoint just to give the public a little bit more detailed, um, that would be very helpful.

And then if we could just please be a little bit more respectful and use language like individuals that are incarcerated.

I know we throw a lot a lot of lingo around, but just want to be sensitive to uh the population that we're serving.

Thank you.

Are there any other questions or comments before I go to public comment?

Supervisor Miley.

Yes, thanks.

Thanks for the update.

My issue is can you just walk through the the security andor safety protocols?

So everybody who goes in there to work, there's a background check on them.

That's correct.

Okay, so there's a background check thoroughly, and then um every the other tools are counted for, they're escorted in, then escorted out.

That's correct.

There's another inventory taken when they go out.

That's correct.

Okay.

Because you know, my big thing is always safety, safety, safety.

Absolutely.

Yes, all right.

Thank you, Supervisor Personal Bass.

Thank you for the presentation.

Um are there additional up?

Are there additional upgrades uh in order to meet uh compliance with various mandates that need to come to the board for approval?

So yes, we are uh finalizing master planning to be fully compliant.

And so part of that is our work with um the sheriff's department behavioral health to figure out where we are with the staffing and additional individual counseling spaces that are going to be needed.

So we converted housing unit 31 initially for staff, then we're moving to the next, and we did one area for uh treatment.

We're seeing how that works and what that flow looks like, and then there will be a next phase of that same thing.

There's also the medical in the core area that's gonna be uh revised.

So we are in the middle of that planning right now and working with the monitors, but those will be coming forward.

Okay, and so that will need the board's approval, and is there a funding source identified yet?

It is part of your capital plan, your long-range capital financing plan.

Okay, it's it's part of the long-term capital planning.

Obviously, as with any projects, we'll look at more restrictive funding or dedicated funding to the extent we can secure that um first and use general funds as the last dollars.

Okay, thank you.

And then to the under sheriff, um, how big is the jail population right now and what's the capacity?

So, as of right now, the total population is 1479.

Uh, we are rated to house, I think, close to 4,000 individuals.

That hasn't changed.

So, although that we have made those changes, all of the bed space that's actually there hasn't gone away.

We've only lost some beds based on our ADA um conversions because we have to take away bunks to allow for ADA compliance.

And are there projections of the average capacity?

I'm just wondering if we're upgrading sort of beyond the capacity that we're um that we're at and how much is necessary, just knowing this is such an expensive project.

Right.

So we um uh Ms.

Gas Director Grassway has an amazing team, and during the master planning process, we are looking at that.

We have experts that are forecasting sort of what our population would look like, and then there's calculations around how much we have to you know look for over and under those numbers to make sure that we don't run into a situation where we can't house uh what we need to house at the jail.

Thank you.

Of course, any other closing remarks before we move on to public comment?

Just two other things.

Um, one is you had asked about the PowerPoint.

So we do have two board letters coming on October 28th.

It's more about our CM firms.

We're switching construction management firms.

So those are coming.

It's not um it's a dollar-for-dollar switch.

So one contract's going lower and the other one's coming up, and they're almost exactly the same.

So I just wanted you to be aware of that.

Um, I'll do my best to prepare um something so people understand.

The other thing uh the um under sheriff mentioned I do want to state that um the cla we are not we're working closely with the monitors.

We brought in many uh detention experts, behavioral health experts in these fields to not um add capacity to the jail.

Part of it is which we've mentioned before is the classifications have changed.

So we it may have been 4,000, and it's only 1479 right now.

The way you have to segregate people based on the behavioral health, mental health needs, among many other categories.

Um it's not the jail that was built in 1989 where it was county short term, it just is a completely different model.

So I think at some point when we're done, they may be looking to BSEC for um their rating in the future, but we're not adding bed space.

So I want to be clear about that.

So the footprint could be more expansive given the specific unique needs of the individuals.

That's correct.

Okay.

I would like for the record, we don't segregate people, we separate people for their safety.

Okay.

Okay.

I know we can want that on the record.

No, that's okay.

Um, thank you for clarifying.

Um, is there a component of and I don't know, I'm sure there's more technical terms.

I'm just gonna name it how I know it, color therapy.

Are we looking at what colors are we painting the wall?

Are we putting additional plans, foliage?

Like, can you speak a little bit to the aesthetics of the facility?

So that is part of the consent decree.

There is uh requirements for behavioral health to make some improvements in our therapeutic housing units regarding colors and things like that.

I don't know if you have more information, but that's pretty much it.

They're working on paint colors, murals, um, and then the structure out of cell time in those housing units is specific to the population sort of mental capacity and what their needs are.

That's good to hear.

Thank you.

Um, do we have any public comments?

We have one in-person speaker, Zach.

Zach, would you like to speak on this item specifically?

Thank you.

Let's do one minute.

It's been a long day.

Come here to here, ask it in the state value of pre-post fires, mitigate the differences between the juvenile home and the airport based on airport bonds, compared to high school bonds, valuating the road bonds in view of publicly traded jails, view of the system, or double and posted to indemnity clauses in the sewer compared to the electric bonds.

Uh augmentation wouldn't be identified in view of tri-regional authority crossed pellet in view of the school.

And the school bonds are identified based on it.

The view of the state, I do ask that the uh call mice, I don't know, um, be able to issue a contempt of juror at a review of the awardment of the land survey as honor.

Um, Mr.

White, uh, valuate a applicable expressionism to land survey management based on indemnity holdings and uh US TUG V United States tug totally in view of application to expressionism.

This would validate 21st century based on reholdings compared to bond holdings and tri-regional authority based on cost expedition based on expenditures.

Well, I ask that this be looked at as a tax abatement.

Issue and tri-regional authority agreement based on applicable expressionism.

Thank you, under the Sunshine Act.

Thank you, Zach.

Um thank you for this report.

We appreciate the update, and we're now gonna move on to um item number two from our open session.

This is report on county operational issues.

Uh thank you for your patience, um, directors and water.

We appreciate you.

We need a mic though.

We need to get you a mic.

This is good news, supervisors.

Um Margarita Zamora, director of human resource services.

Good evening to your board.

First, thank you so much for your support uh for your leadership in when we initiated this project back in 2023.

We had no idea we were gonna be where we are today.

This project has had um some of the most comprehensive transformations in HR, uh, in the county of Alameda with over 40 implemented changes.

That's gonna be so our purpose was clear to modernize policies, procedures, and practices to meet today's recruitment challenges head on.

This work reflects our change commitment to building the county of Alameda as an employer of choice.

If you see on the slide are ambassadors of our recruitment marketing phase, uh Nicholas Moss, County Health Officer, Julisa Ross, Rios, I'm sorry, deputy sheriff, and Billy Johnson from General Services Agency.

Initiative number one in re-engineering the recruitment selection process included the greater greatest number of changes and improvements in uh recruitment for in the county of Alameda.

Key achievements include integration of job apps, which is our applicant tracking program with revised forms and checklists, automation of ad postings and candidate communication, improved website design and candidate experience.

These changes have reduced bottlenecks and increased efficiency in how we attract and engage with our candidates.

Initiative number one continued.

Additional achievements, achievement items number seven through 12 include greater departmental access to job apps, which we used to control in HRS.

So departments now have a greater ability to move facilitate within the program, automated minimum qualification screaming, screaming, screening.

It's been a long day.

Streamlined interviews with scheduling and notification automation and documented best practices for Vid Cruder.

It's an online interview process on its use.

All of these contribute to faster hiring timelines and better candidate experience.

Items 13 through 18.

This is where we're forward looking.

We implemented text messaging reminders to candidates, resume parsing technology, full automation of appointment process.

That's expected by January of 2026.

As of now, 95% of the plan improvements are complete.

Other initiatives two through four, the classification system, including the promotions and provisional appointments.

Some highlights include updating the outdated job titles, which continues to evolve with our changing vernacular, increased promotional opportunities, clear provisional appointment guidelines.

And these initiatives support both retention and fairness in county career growth.

Initiatives five through seven, the recruitment marketing, planning and hybrid work.

With recruitment marketing, we developed a new logo, tagline, the modern look of our employment opportunities landing page, our website.

Initiative number six, planning, we streamline supplemental questions reducing the applicant burden, and on hybrid work, we implemented survey results and training programs that helped our managers and employees adapt to a flexible work environment.

A huge thank you to ITD, not here, our partners for creating and engaging and inviting and professional HR employment landing page.

It's easy to navigate, and we continue to involve and enhance that landing page.

Initiative eight through nine, the TAP program and employee referral incentive program.

TAP employees receive clear salary administration and training, and our employee referral incentive program encourages county staff to recruit for hard to fill positions.

It's friends, family members, neighbors.

We have filled 73 hard to recruit positions through this referral.

Initiatives 11 through 12, our charter civil service rules and flexibility and promotion, the key changes in recruitment opening period reduced to 14 days from 25.

Civil service rules are updated to avoid unnecessary and necessary delays.

Salary ordinances were revised ordinance was revived to guarantee at least a 5% increase on promotion, and these changes reflect a modernized competitive employee-centered approach.

In November 2024, your board directed us to expand recruitment marketing into a full-blown campaign.

As of September 2025, we now have freeway billboards banners across 12 county buildings, shuttles, and band signage.

Thank you so much, GSA, for all your hard work and support on that.

We also have a big presence on digital and streaming platform and on local radio stations, as well as a stronger presence on job fairs.

HRS will be requesting authority to use additional 20,000 of our prior year savings to expand the visibility further, particularly to lease buildings and expanded vehicle signage.