The council comments just below the public comments tonight.

I think it's important while everybody's here to hear with the council, some feedback.

And I am also after attending a supervisor's meeting last week and getting a minute and a half to speak and getting through about one paragraph of the idea.

I kind of felt uh slatted.

So tonight um public comment will be five minutes instead of three.

So I will give everybody an opportunity in this room and online an opportunity to speak.

And um if you don't need to use the five, that'll be great.

But if you have the time.

Um so um let's um get the speaker cards.

How many um folks do we have online?

We have nine attendees online.

We have no speakers online at this time.

Okay.

I am gonna leave the online open for people to sign up until probably say 6 30 or so, and um, or until public comment is done.

So um do you would you like to start with um do you have the cards?

Robert Brahm.

Yep.

Hello, the better.

Just stoop over here.

I'm basically the arburist for Castor Valley.

51 years of studying the plant kingdom, professional botanist.

This is all I've ever done.

And I mostly want to speak about the California Bay leaves.

50% of the trees out there on the eastern, or I'm sorry, the western side of the creek.

50% of them are California Bay, the most flammable or combustible leaf in California that's native.

It excludes all your eucalyptus, of course.

You can readily light them on fire with a cigarette lighter green, and they'll self-sustain the flame.

I've I'm an old mountain man, I've climbed mountains for my entire life in the Bay Area.

I always burn bay leaves.

So get to my point.

If a fire were to start anywhere and be on that side, you wouldn't be able to put it out.

The fire trucks can't shoot of a water hose 300, 400 feet over to the mountainside from the road.

And there's a few places they can pull into dirt, but you wouldn't get it out.

It would burn the whole canyon unless you have air support, of course.

Drop dropping that red fire retardant.

Um at the beginning of the canyon, the bays are equally on both sides.

It's narrow.

Um the bay trees prefer a little bit of eastern uh shade and deep canyons where there's better soil, and they choke out the oak trees, so there's actually more bays than oaks out there.

Oaks aren't flammable at all.

You set them on fire, take the fire away, they go out.

That's the way they're constructed.

Um, you do have some silver silver dollar eucalyptus out there, iron bark eucalyptus, and perhaps a couple other species besides bluegum, the big one.

But uh, this place is a fire trap.

There's no other way out unless you have a helicopter, you're not getting out.

Nobody gets in, nobody gets out.

And that's what if it's a fire storm with 40, 60 mile an hour winds.

Um that's about all I got to say on that.

I've got a long track record.

If anybody has questions, can I ask questions?

All right.

That's the combustibility rates of California Bay.

It's number one.

You can look it up anywhere on your phone or computer.

It's it's everywhere.

All right, that's all I got.

Right.

I want to make it clear tonight.

This is um public comment, and we can't engage back and forth with the um speakers.

So, but we'll take notes.

So Leslie Hardy.

Hi.

My name's Leslie Hardy, and um I don't think I have five.

Well, I do have over five.

My name's Leslie Hardy, and I'm a resident of Cole Canyon.

I've been my family has owned the property approximately 60 years, and I've resided there over 41.

I have lived in a modular, a thousand square foot modular, because I haven't been able to build a home.

Um, and I live on a large parcel, so I've dealt with a lot of the restrictions.

I've complied with Measure D.

I've complied with the agricultural zone.

I've had cows, I have horses now.

I have a small business.

I have a conditional use from it, not only for my modular, but for my business.

I also comply with the freshwater storm water for Cole Canyon Creek.

Um I'm five miles in, as I said, and I'm very, very clear on the canyon.

We have property on both the west side and the east side, and on the west side, we butt up to the park department, and on the east side, we butt up against the Bullenter Canyon.

Um if you have a four-wheeler, you can get out.

Um, and that's about it.

I've been told because I have really, really nice fire roads that I groom every single year, that the fire department um is very familiar with our property because we're a staging area, and I have been told many times that they will shut the canyon down if there's a fire, they will close it.

Um I used to live at Green Ridge, I'm very familiar.

Fire would go directly to Green Ridge, fire would go directly to Columbia.

We would all be locked in, boxed in, as everybody is saying, in Cole Canyon Road, and basically let your horses go and make your way on the west side towards the park department, or make your way towards Bullinger Canyon.

Um I've also been told it's about seven minutes that it would take over the whole canyon, Cole Canyon.

Umpassionate side is kind of how I look at it.

Um, also is like I said the other day, you see something, you say something, and that's the way we all look at it in this world right now.

And I am seeing something, and I am saying something very, very, very clearly.

This is a fire danger.

It's not about the children not being able to have a camp or a school, it's about a fire danger, and it's horrendous what would happen after hearing Robert and his expertise on the type of trees, it would be awful.

They the mosaic school does have other locations, and they should go to another location.

Um, with the restrictions on the large piece of property that my family owns, it's just amazing to me that they are able to get away with what they're able, they're trying to get away with.

I could not build on the west side because I have a bridge.

It's a Caltrans bridge, but it was made by some construction friends of mine, but it's not uh didn't clear the pass.

So I cannot I couldn't afford a Caltrans Bridge 30 years ago, and so they would have to tear their bridge down and start over.

Also on a compassion side, we all live there, and it will not take six months to do this project.

It would take over 10 years, probably or more.

And we'd all have to live with that.

Um, the people that live across the street and next door would have to live with it.

We'd all have to live with the in and out in the up and down the canyon.

It's virtually impossible now to have a hay truck come in to deliver hay or anything of the sort.

Um, we have to restrict our size of a truck to bring in anything for the horses or anything else for building.

So over and above.

Um the clean water that I've had to put up with and do for the county in order to have horses on my property.

Again, a very large piece of property.

Every year I have to reapply, and I have to have an inspection, and I do exactly what the county wants me to do.

So I don't understand how they can have this amount of kids or adults staying there, living there with a septic system, and it's gonna have to be pumped out.

I have 40 clients that possibly come every day, and I have porta potties, and they are full, and I have them cleaned once a week, if not twice a week.

So just imagine how it would be if they had, and it's gonna go into the creek and it's gonna go into our water.

Um, we don't have the water.

I'm very fortunate because I've put in 13 tanks to supply my land for my horses.

These guys um don't have the area to put a tank in extra tanks in.

They don't have the area, they're gonna have to chop all the trees down.

That in itself is gonna be a violation.

There, it's just um heartbreaking.

It's a great program.

They have other locations, they should go to another location, and um I could talk to you guys all day.

Um, I've had my experiences there, I've been there all thank you.

I did extend the time to five.

So five minutes, I did it.

Please stay in it.

Rex Warren.

How are you doing?

My name is Rex Warren.

Our family has lived out in Cole Canyon.

I'm third generation.

My kids are fourth generation.

Owned a property out there.

In fact, the site of the mosaic project is uh was my grandparents' home site.

Um it burned down years ago.

So we know that property well.

Um for estate reasons.

When my grandfather passed away, we had to sell properties.

Um the property now that has it's across the street, south of this across the street, it has two homes on each parcel.

There used to be a roping arena there.

Um this is regarding the water issues.

And another piece we had to sell across the street, which is now the Sheik property.

A guy Riffkind, Dick Riffkind, he did a tree farm there.

And uh when he would water, he had a very good well when he had fill his tank and water.

Um we could not uh water our rope and arena for roping events on every Saturday or every Sunday, and then Red Barn Stables, which is now the winery, they would have water issues also.

So the experts they've had for this flawed experts, okay.

If they were experts, why would it take them five times drilling to find two, very uh, you know, limited wells.

One I think is a gallon and a half a minute, and the other is four gallons a minute.

They're gonna have to pump 24 seven to meet the needs of that, and then haul off the brine water.

Um the other thing is you guys have heard all these things before, but the ABC, the winery right next door.

Um, there was no resolution to that because our planning director has not heard back from the ABC.

Now, me, I'm in real estate also development stuff.

If I don't hear back from someone, I call them the next day and the next day, sometimes two days, two times a day.

But to not hear back from a state agency in 10 years' time and still approve this project, that's embarrassing to me.

Okay, to have you know a department in Alameda County.

Um, and then the Board of Supervisors still approve it without resolving that issue.

No, that's unacceptable.

The Williamson Act, uh, we have another guy, Dick will be talking about the Williamson Act, but we've uh it was originally under, they were large parcels there.

It was originally under the larger parcel parcels, it got other parcels got sold off and subdivided split.

Um this piece is a substandard parcel under 40 acres.

Um it's not class A soil, okay, and is it is not producing commercial agriculture right now.

That's you know, and someone will talk more about that.

Um, the right to farm ordinance right next door, that was a unresolved issue.

It's both a state ordinance and a county ordinance.

Um the septic system on the site is a one off system.

There's no other system like it in uh Alameda County.

That's not allowed under the lamp documents.

My recollection of that.

Um then the other thing is the Board of Supervisors loves to get you know public input.

They have numerous boards and commissions, and you know, I'm on the advisory.

Chuck, I don't even I can't even count how many he is on, and we get on these things, and we're supposedly the experts in the field for this stuff, and then you make comments, and the board of supervisors don't listen to it.

Okay, so ag advisory, this item was never presented to the uh ag advisory committee.

It's an agricultural property.

Um is agricultural gonna be the main source of income as required.

No, I asked Albert about that at the WBZA, and he said, you know, I don't even know what that commission does or who they are, and it was mandated to that they have that committee in commission by Measure D.

And this is our planning director who made that comment.

Who doesn't know?

So I'm gonna let everyone else go because I know people are gonna talk on some of the same subjects.

Thank you.

Dick Schneider.

Good evening, counsel.

I'm Dick Schneider, and um I only got a minute and a half, like everybody else.

Uh I'm sorry.

Five.

I only got a minute and a half last week.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Sorry.

Okay.

So I wanna go over the Williamson Act violations first, and if I have time, I'll get into the Measure D violations.

So the Mosaic Project violates the Williamson Act in four ways.

First, an application for compatible use determination has neither been made nor obtained as required by county uniform rule two, section three A1.

And I'm gonna quote concurrent with an application for a development permit, use permit, site development review, or renewal of a conditional use permit, the owner of the contracted land must apply for and obtain a compatible use determination from the county.

Close quote.

Neither has occurred.

There's no application in the record, and there's been no determination in the record.

Two, no, no determination has been made as required by Uniform Rule 2, Section 3A2.

Quote, there is that there is an existing commercial agricultural use on the property that meets the threshold established in Uniform Rule 1.

And two, whether the proposed use or development meets other required findings as described under sections 3B3, B4, or B5 below.

So that's also was never done.

The EIR shows a compatible use plan going forward to collect baynuts and acorns and for chickens to produce eggs.

But in fact, the county's uniform rules require that there be an existing commercial use on the property that has produced the required annual income of 10,000 per year for three of the five years prior to filing an application for compatible use determination.

In short, there's neither evidence of a there's neither evidence of an existing commercial use on the property, nor is there an application for compatible use determination in the record.

And both are required by the county's own uniform rules.

Third, no conditions are quote, imposed on the permit that will avoid or mitigate impacts to agriculture that could occur on contracted lands or on adjacent lands.

Close quote.

Immediately adjacent to the subject parcel, as many of you know, is twining vine winery.

A very successful vineyard and winery, indeed, the only remaining commercial winery in Castro Valley, Twin and Vine will be impacted by the proposed school use.

Yet no conditions of approval are to be found in the project CUP to protect agriculture on this neighboring property.

I won't go into the details.

Government code section 51201 says, as used in this chapter, unless otherwise apparent from the context, the following terms have the following meanings.

Recreational use is the use of land in its agricultural or natural state by the public, with or without charge for any of the following walking, hiking, picnicking, camping, swimming, boating, I won't go on.

Or sports for which facilities are provided for public participation.

Any fees charged for recreational recreational use of the land as defined in the subsex subdivision shall be in a reasonable amount and shall not have the effect of unduly limiting its use by the public.

The word public is used three times in the definition of recreational use under the statute.

There is no evidence in the record that mosaics, outdoor school, outdoor recreational camp will be available for use by the public with or without charge.

In fact, there's absolutely no mention of public use in the EIR, much less are any potential impacts from public use analyzed or mitigated in the EIR.

Sorry, do I still have some some time?

45 seconds.

Okay.

Measure D violations.

This is a school.

This is not an outdoor recreational camp.

The mosaics literature and in their tax returns refers to schools, teachers, students, curriculum, guest lectures.

The word recreation is not used in their mission statement, not in their articles of incorporation.

And in their tax returns, program service fees, revenue shown on the school's federal 990 tax return are listed under business code section of 611600.

This business code is for educational services.

By contrast, recreational and vacation camps are listed under business code section 721214.

This is in the North American industry classification system from the executive office of the president, Office of Management and Budget.

So all their income is educational, not recreational.

So I'll leave it at that.

Thank you.

If you're online and you'd like to speak on public comment, please use the raise your hand function.

Matt Turner.

Good evening, everyone.

Got two items here.

Um, and I'll be well under the five minutes.

One is um few people know that about 13,000 Castrovalians live in the Oraloma Sanitary District.

And for the first time in its 115 year history, Oraloma Sanitario District is moving from at-large elections to by district elections, and it is up to the public to help draw and review these maps.

So if you go to my website, you map it.com.

I'm the demographer hired by Orloma to work on this.

Uh, it's free, it's anonymous.

You don't have to sign up for anything or give anybody your information, and you can participate in drawing the maps that'll determine the democracy for the next 115 years of the Orlando Sanitary District.

Uh, and then to the business at hand for for everyone that's that's here for the uh project that was approved.

Um, I mean, I see this as exhibit A of why we need to get incorporated.

Uh, we have a fantastic supervisor and supervisor Miley.

He listens to us, he cares about us, he has skin in the game.

Uh, and he doesn't have the other votes required all of the time.

Some of the time he does.

And he's and he is a very savvy and good politician in terms of uh when it's possible, he gets the votes and he does look out for us as best he can.

But in something like this, when we can be overruled by people who don't live here and don't care about us, that's a problem, and it's always going to be a problem.

Um, someday Supervisor Miley won't be our supervisor.

And uh, and as he attests, when he first uh became supervisor here, he had a lot to learn.

He didn't know anything about Agland or uh, you know, many of the unincorporated communities, you know, he didn't know what a fair view was.

And uh he learned he set up a Mac for the fair view and for the Eden area.

Um he's he's put in the time and knows, but even with somebody who's as great a champion as he is, we got the smack down here from people who don't live here and don't care about us.

It's time for us to do something about that and take the reins and control our own destiny.

Thank you.

Katie, Katie Burdett.

My name is Katie Burdett, and I am the current uh president of the board of directors for Castor Valley Parent Nursery School.

It's a co-op preschool here in town located on Christensen Lane on the same road that um Shabot Elementary is on.

And I am here because our school has been serving this community for 75 plus years.

Uh, we have primarily three to five-year-old students who are there on campus.

It's a co-op, so parents have to volunteer, meaning uh parents are on campus every single day.

And my husband actually went to this school um 30 some years ago.

It's a wonderful school.

Um, I have two kids who've already gone through the school, and then I'm gonna have a two-year gap, and I'll be back with my third child.

Um, so I have a great love for this school.

And the reason I am here is because our school requires families who come to park.

We have a conditional use permit because we're located in a neighborhood.

Um, parents have to park on the street.

We have parking rules that are all very clearly mapped out, but we do have to often cross the street at a stop sign with a crosswalk.

Um, and we have parents on the regular, almost hit by cars.

Um, we have people, we have ring cameras, and so we have footage.

People are constantly blowing through that stop sign at like full speed or just you know, the far worse than the California stop, right?

Um, and we have small children who are crossing with their parents every day.

We have 50 kids on campus throughout the day, 25 in the morning class, 25 in the PM class.

We have 50 kids on campus throughout the day, 25 in the morning class, 25 in the PM class, and we have parents who every single day have to not only come drop their kid off, but bring them back to their car.

And it is mind blowing to me how the driving is on here.

This is also a thoroughway.

Like, not only do we have Chabot Elementary, we also have the high school that's behind us.

Um our school is run.

We have a one paid director, and then it's all parent volunteers who run it, right?

And so the naturally the board of directors and everyone that there's turnover every two years, right?

You're only there for a few years.

Our school has already reached out to Alameda County.

We have started doing a petition, and we've done this years ago.

A problem, obviously, is that we've sent parents to go door to door to try and get enough signatures.

Um, most people just don't come to their door.

Um, so like you'll literally see them through the window, and they'll just stare at you and be like, no, I'm not gonna come to the door to talk to you.

Um, I have called the county, I have called, I've contacted CHP, I've contacted Alameda County Sheriff's Department.

Um, we are uh practice under the business license of the adult school, Cash Valley Adult School, because all of the adults who would um go to the school, we are actual students at the adult school, and our students going to the preschool is like considered our lab for our class at the adult school.

Um, they are not able to help us.

Castor Valley Unified School District is not able to help us because they don't recognize us like as a school within their district.

Um, and so I am here simply because I find it absurd that we have kids on the regular who are almost getting hit by cars, and that I can't get anyone to call me back or respond to my emails.

I can't have anybody from any of the agencies that I reach out to.

I had one officer, um, police officer, um Jen Pabst, I believe is how you pronounce her name, who got back to me and she gave me a call back and told me to come here and to do public comment and hopefully this would be the way that we could get our children not almost hit by cars on a daily basis.

So I don't know what happens next after this, but I wanted to bring this to your attention.

Thank you.

Martha, Martha McFarland.

Five minutes.

Wow.

Okay, five minutes.

Wow.

Okay, so when I came to you guys and we talked before, I talked about the road and how unsafe it is.

Uh, guardrails down, all kinds of damage, it's never repaired.

We have when we had the flood, we all had to help in petcha.

Um, and then when I got to the meeting over there, I was like, well, maybe that's not a good enough topic.

Let's talk about fire.

Let me remind everybody about the Oakland Hills Berkeley fire and how quickly it happened.

Um, it was sat dormant, uh, blah, blah, blah.

Um, a day later, everybody's losing their life.

I mean, it was crazy.

And the fire, the retired fire person that they had there said, oh, fire only behaves one way.

Fire only behaves one way.

So I had a minute and a half.

I had a whole bunch of stuff that I had read off of the um the report.

Uh I've forgotten the name of it now.

Uh I didn't bring it today because I thought today was just to speak about how you were not heard.

But you know, the fire hydrants, they said the fire was so hot and then it made its own wind source, and that um the the streams out of city fire hydrants were being bent.

They weren't even going straight.

My fire hydrant, when I built my house 10 years ago, only had to have 2,500 gallons of water in it.

That's it.

That's four minutes compared to the fire water that is there at the butt and get into any of that because I only had a minute and a half.

Um, I feel like we've had a gag order put on us that we cannot talk to any fire people.

We can't talk to anybody, we can't get any of our experts because they won't come out.

They won't say anything.

So we're stuck with that.

I honestly believe that what's gonna happen here is somebody's gonna be speeding because we don't have any speeders on Call Canyon, right?

And nobody wrecks, nobody wrecks, there's no speeders.

So somebody's gonna be speeding and they're gonna take out a tree, their car is gonna burst into flames, and as we know, the trees.

Oh, that's right.

Mosaic says that the cattle farmers are really doing a good job at keeping the grass down.

Thanks, guys.

We don't all have cows.

Um, this property is way too freaking steep.

I've ridden my horses on it all the time.

You if it they act like, oh, we're only gonna build on two acres.

That's all they have.

All the rest of it is too freaking steep.

Their soils engineers gonna have a field day laughing at them if they if they ever get that far.

It seems like they're making fun of us.

They're just like taunting and laughing.

And then this article that came out that said you guys were a bunch of yahoos, and and the freaking uh, I mean, it's just it's crazy.

We had a lady the other day when we were here on the uh Mac board say talk about ADA compliance.

What?

We're gonna let it can't be built that's on a steep freaking hill that nobody, I don't is are there elevators?

Are everything I see is stairs and and tall buildings and what?

What where did where did how's that happening?

How how is any of this happening?

And I think a lot of us are literally getting physically ill because we know what what is there?

My when the reservoir was removed at the beginning of the canyon, my wells systematically started going dry.

I'm going to have to redrill my wells.

These guys are closer to the head of the creek than me.

So once the reservoir is gone, I can't do anything about it.

I can just drill more wells.

Woo-hoo, no problem.

I've got plenty of money.

Now, these guys come in and they take up water.

Oh no, they're in a special system.

They won't affect me.

But once they do affect me, what can I do?

Nothing.

They're in.

And once they're in, all they do is start ordering the water truck.

And now we got more traffic on the road, which they say, and and everything they just say is it's it's not a problem.

The noise isn't a problem, the traffic's not a problem, the fire's not a problem, nothing's a problem, nothing's a problem.

All of the reports, all they say, nothing's a problem.

You know, we're gonna lose all of our.

I mean, I love to sit out at night, have my glass of wine and listen to the coyotes.

And they're beautiful, but that's not gonna be a problem.

They're gonna be gone.

And if they're not gone, I'm sure they're gonna call the park warden to come out and start euthanizing them.

It's horrible.

Carolyn Millen.

Hi, MacBoard.

Thank you for hearing our concerns once again.

As we reflect on this entire process, which we feel has been mishandled from the start.

I was pleased in general with uh, excuse me.

We feel this has been mishandled from the start.

I was very pleased in general with Mac and BZA meetings proceedings, not just because we had unified judgment in the same direction, but because I did not feel like our opinions were thrown to the side without pondering them first.

I am aware of other land zoning projects that have been turned down in the past in Canyonlands agricultural zoning.

In unincorporated areas, which has so little ability to represent the citizens' appeals to the county proceedings, it is not equitable to allow the county to prepare an EIR for a project such as the scope and impact of the mosaic project.

The 10 years of time and energy that the county put into planning for the project made them directly biased to push forward and approve the project that they worked so tirelessly on.

That bias showed itself again and again throughout the process in these ways.

When letters were submitted for the EIR in a timely manner, some were withheld that should have been legally included in the DEIR process.

One of those letters was that of the Faro Grundy, who submitted a letter on behalf of the State Department of Conservation, re the Williamson Act.

His comments were supposed to be included uh in the final EIR, uh, so that they would um be considered um because they did not fit into the state's Williamson Act contract.

He checked the clearinghouse, and indeed his letter was sent, but not included in the evaluation for the EIR.

He and I worked on the phone through the application of the CUSA Williamson Act, which he felt was not applicable because of its lack of compatibility with the state standards.

This in turn allowed for a loophole in the evaluation that the Williamson Act isn't adhering to the state's set parameters, but a loose set of rules that can be easily bent in the direction that the county wants it bent.

This makes us question which other letters in opposition were left out of the process.

Is this why so many of the agencies never responded to the EIR?

Many other residence letters were also withheld during the initial DEIR process, not included in public comment.

These letters contained vital information that was to be mitigated within the FEIR.

Instead, Alameda County dealing with each individual comment, they grouped the comments into themes and then addressed the themes.

This was not okay because many of our comments never were addressed during the EIR.

The majority of the items that were addressed were deemed little to uh not significant impact.

They deemed our concerns as feelings and not fact, despite the fact that we live in the canyon lands and know best, like the fact that most of our wells do dry up.

Most of them do.

Most of us struggle with water.

Um why wasn't the agricultural commission included in the process?

This seems like negligence to exclude the input of our representation for canyon lands and agricultural lands.

During the BOS meeting, the county supervisors asked for some direct questions, asked some direct questions to Albert that were skirted around, and some that went unanswered, even though at previous meetings, the same items were addressed and had been addressed throughout the entire process of the EIR, which is very misleading to the BOS.

The COP is only going to be reviewed every three to five years.

And that's is that the only thing holding them accountable?

Who determines this?

Um and the finding number three that Nate Miley had such a hard time with was the use, if permitted, under all the circumstances and conditions of the particular case will not materially um affect adversely uh the health and safety of persons residing or working in the vicinity to be material to materially detrimental to the public welfare or injurious to property or improvements in the neighborhood.

There was no proof of this um approving this cup finding, but it was passed anyways.

Um I have many more things to say, but I'm gonna kind of skip on down.

Um I have a hard time with the fact that you guys, the board who's supposed to be advising the by the um board of supervisors, was only given a minute and 30 seconds.

Um that's ludicrous, and I find that that we don't have representation if they don't take your guys's opinions um to count.

Um of the other things that I'm concerned about is Albert Lopez didn't mention the fact that there will be development outside of the two-acre parcel.

Tons of water tanks are gonna be put in that are gonna be empty.

And um also uh many firefighters have come to us personally talking to us, and so did Calfire uh captains, but they were unwilling to go on record because they feared the political ramifications if they did speak publicly about this.

And that to me is very concerning.

And also, never mind, it's in the letter.

Uh so is the letter from uh Pearl Robert Batinett, Robert Batinic.

Good evening, council members and community members.

I'm speaking today today on behalf of the board broad coalition of civic leaders, community organizations, residents, and business owners from across the unincorporated areas of Alameda County, including Ashland, Cherry Land, San Lorenzo, Fairview, Sonol, unincorporated ink labs of Hayward, and the Livermore.

Sorry.

So I'm just gonna go add lib here.

Um we need the community cameras for for our safety in the in the city.

It's used to track mainly uh criminal activity, such as stolen vehicles, their helicopters are are immediately notified, and they can track wherever the stolen vehicle goes, and they can track its tracking of it through the cameras throughout the the Castor Valley area.

I urge everybody to not to not to remove the cameras, but they're a great tool for the safety of us in the community of Castor Valley.

I've been a resident here for over 55 years.

Sorry, I'm just gonna but in really quick.

Uh, this I this is for public comment for items not on the agenda.

So this item that you're speaking about will be um just a few items down.

It is on the why you call me.

It is.

So you so I'm done.

Save those comments because we'll read back to you.

Do not leave.

Okay, great.

Fair enough.

It'll give you an opportunity to reload that phone.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Yep.

That's okay.

Edward Escobar.

All right, my name is Edward Escobar, and um, I'm strongly opposing there's a Senate bill 1135.

And um, I want to be clear about this because it's really important that uh you have uh a state senator, Aisha Wahab, who is uh playing political games.

Um, and what she's doing is being vindictive.

There's uh a supervisor, Alyssa Marquez, who they both served on the Hayward City Council together before.

And since there's a certain amount of money that supervisors get that's discretionary, they could use it for homeless to help feed the needy, so on and so forth.

So get this.

What happened was um Alyssa Marquez supported Melissa Hernandez in her run uh for Congressional District 14, Swal Wells District, and so of that, then Aisha Wahab, state senator is proposing this Senate Bill 1135 to remove this discretionary amount of money for the supervisors, and it doesn't just impact uh Alyssa Marquez, it impacts all supervisors.

So if you want to cut the political games out, be aware that this is what's going on, and as I heard earlier, uh you guys are sick and tired of these games and not being given the voice that you so deserve.

Your unincorporated areas, don't allow yourselves to get stepped on.

I'm Edward Escobar.

We did the recall of the mayor of Oakland, the recall of the DA of Alameda County.

We helped install the new DA who Ursula Jones Dixon, she's doing a tremendous job.

How do we know?

Because the victims tell us, and we care about them.

When you hear the pleas from a woman, a mother whose son has been brutally murdered and they were not being listened to.

That's why Pam Price had to go.

That and a whole lot more.

Um, I believe in reform, but not her version of it because why?

It wasn't working.

And we cannot afford to play games.

We are not guinea pigs, and we can't allow our elected officials to do that to us.

Um, otherwise, we are part of the problem if we're not a part of the solution.

So I want to bring that to your attention because it is an item at the Board of Supervisors that's going to be mentioned, and that affects what's able to come back.

Nate Miley won't have discretionary um uh funds that he can use to help out specific things that are not being voted on by the rest of the board of supervisors.

So keep that in mind, and that is uh SB 1135.

If you have any questions about that, you can feel free uh to ask me later.

But let's stop the insanity.

Let's stop these political games at the expense of the people.

Let's put people first before the politics.

And politics actually is defined as the affairs of the city.

So we need to hold them accountable to do the job, the affairs of the city, and handle it properly and not for their own political gain.

All right, not at our expense, not Castro Valley.

All right, thank you.

Well, good speaking to you.

I want to speak about the mosaic project.

I live directly across the street from where it's being proposed.

I built my home there uh about 15 years ago.

I've owned the property for 25 years ago.

And um I have a couple points I want to make that need to be put on the record that weren't properly covered at the Board of Supervisors meeting.

I'm very disappointed that they uh uh they passed this because considering this board was 5-0 against it, and many other agencies were against it.

Um they're only on 37 acres in a small two-acre envelope.

Um the sewage field that's gonna serve this proposed 100 acre or 100 um persons um sewage field is going to be insufficient.

It isn't it, they're gonna have to pump sewage out of there because they it can't service that.

I have a field bigger than that right across the street.

It's not it wouldn't service 100 persons in the number of gallons of sewage that's gonna come out of that project.

Um so that needs to be brought up.

It needs to be new evidence brought up and submitted to the board for your reconsideration vote uh of the three that are uh that voted for it.

It definitely needs to be done in a timely fashion and brought up back to that board for reconsideration to show them from an evidence standpoint that it can't service that kind of project.

The field just can't be big enough.

The project is not big enough.

I live on a property that's three times the size.

Um this is second item.

It's it's it's uh it's a zoning change.

And how's that gonna affect the rest of us?

If you're gonna change the zoning on this property and start permitting these kind of um projects, what's it gonna do for me?

I've I've got 118 acres across the street.

Am I gonna be permitted to have some kind of project like this with all this kind of people on it?

And everybody else up and down the canyon, are they going to be permitted?

Are you going to change the zoning to accommodate everybody?

Is it going to be right for everybody?

So those two items I think need to be addressed.

There's a lot of other ones.

I can't cover them all.

I'm not an expert in all this.

I'm just a little old landlord out there and a cowboy, old cowboy.

So thanks for your time.

Jim Millen.

Jim Millen.

Thank you for allowing us to speak about this issue.

First, I like to say the fact that you all on the council, the fact that you were totally disregarded in your advisory role by the board of supervisors, and the fact that you unanimously voted this project down is ridiculous.

You clearly understood the laws issued for this canyon land, and you all have common sense and logic to understand the dangers of putting this kind of school in this land.

And specifically, you, Chairman Moore, were not allowed to speak for more than the 90 seconds that the rest of us were allowed to speak, leaving you no time to voice your concerns in your official capacity on this case.

He clearly understood all the risks of this camp and understood the laws of this land, and he understood that his constituents voted so that these laws would be enacted and they expect them to be enforced.

I feel that he was genuine and passionate regarding these things and the safety of the children in regard to the fire danger.

And for that, I think he should be congratulated.

The three members who voted to approve this project, however, I believe proved themselves to be utterly untrustworthy.

I've never participated in these types of meetings before this, but I do follow politics pretty closely, and these politicians proved, like many others, that they will do just about anything for a vote.

They completely disregarded all the facts and logics and logic that the residents who live in this canyon and know this land very well, presented to them and chose to affirm the project anyway, showing utter contempt for these residents.

They completely disregarded Measure D and the Williamson Act in the letter of the law and the spirit of the law.

Their farming consists of children being used to forage for their garbage crops of bay nuts, miners' lettuce, mushrooms, and acorns, none of which have any marketable value, and one of which could even poison and kill them.

For none of these crops will they be sowing, watering, cultivating, or harvesting, only foraging what is naturally occurring, apart from any effort from the mosaic staff or children.

They have no evacuation plan.

Should a fire start in the canyon, and I've brought this up every time, and I still haven't heard it addressed.

If the road is blocked and they have to hike out, and disabled kids in wheelchairs cannot hike, are they going to say no kids in wheelchairs allowed?

That should be absolutely answered.

ADA compliance is something that every other institution that deals with the public would have to deal with, and especially regarding safety measures and evacuation plans.

These council members let the staff planner of this project get away with all of his lies and false information and abundantly rewarded him for all his hard deceptive work.

But they don't care because we're not, we're not in their district.

They were too afraid, too driven by votes, or worse, to care about the residents of this canyon or the lives of these children that they are putting at risk.

They have shown they don't care and they have proven they are absolutely unworthy of any trust in the future.

Recent California political events have shown that we don't need to get screwed by more bad politicians here.

Council member Halbert strategically chose the coward's way out by letting others do the work while he chose to hide behind his abstention vote.

His vote wouldn't have even affected the outcome of the decision, but he was too cowardly to even take a side proving what kind of leader he is.

Absolutely zero zero of his constituents in Livermore should ever think that he will do the right thing and standing up for them if a similar iss issue should arise, at least if there's an election on the horizon.

They have no, they should have no confidence in him or his conviction to do what is right by his constituents or the law in the future.

These politicians need to realize that they cannot disregard the truth and the literal laws of this land and side with deceivers and liars and expect to keep a thriving political career.

And again, I believe a thank you to Nate Miley is due for the fact that he did what he was voted in to do and for having the conviction of his character.

Thank you all again.

Linda, Linda Fusanati.

Good evening, and thank you for uh allowing us to come and speak.

I uh, you know, half the group actually um for the mosaic folks, they actually got the two minutes.

Um I was one of the unlucky ones, like uh Mr.

Moore here that only was given 90 seconds.

So I I guess I want to dive into what I was gonna say, but first I would just like to say I'm Linda Fuse and I I'm a 30-year resident of Castor Valley.

Um I uh I guess I am just sick about how our supervisors that are supposed to represent us, don't seem to understand the laws that regarding ag and in land.

And I I just don't understand how could they be in a position like that?

It's an important position, and they don't understand.

That's just not okay.

You know, there the math they tried to do didn't didn't really work.

It didn't we I know other people have spoken to the math and the calculations and how much you're allowed and all that.

It doesn't pencil out when you look at the facts, yet the planner lied about it.

He said, Oh yeah, it's good, you know, it's all good.

So supervisor, supervisor uh uh one of the supervisors said, okay, I guess I guess we're good.

I guess I guess that works.

So um enough complaining, I guess.

I'd like to just go into what I was gonna say at the meeting, if you don't mind.

Um so I do want to say, you know, mosaic's mission, I think we all kind of feel this way.

It's it's admirable, you know.

I respect what they do, but it, you know, it's just really about where they want to try to do it.

I'm you know, it's I'm a mother.

I I my property, my husband and I live right across I mean, our property is uh the full length of what the mosaic property is.

And of course, they don't own this property.

You know, they're leasing it for a dollar a year.

So, you know, that's that's interesting in and of itself.

But anyway, um, it's admirable, but really, you know, what keeps me up at night is the fire risk.

And uh it would bring, you know, just more danger for my family.

We've we've spent years worrying about wildfire, of course, and you know, we live in a place where the threat is very real.

A spark can turn into tragedy, really, in just a moment.

So studies show that um young children with their curiosity can unintentionally cause fires with a school full of fourth and fifth graders, the risk only grows.

You know, you're really talking about effectively doubling the amount of people in the canyon.

Um, and that's just right across from my house really, really worries me.

Um, the final EAR is supposed to ensure our safety, but the plan they presented is deeply flawed.

It uh, you know, again, doubles the number of people.

We we live in a box canyon with one way in and out, and it's just it's just risky, you know, and it feels quite reckless um for them to even propose this and then for the board of supervisors to approve it.

It's just still just amazes me.

Um the evacuation plan that they put together relies on buses that are too big and heavy for our narrow, winding road.

You've heard other people talk about that, but we've seen many buses, larger vehicles, trucks get stuck on a regular basis in our canyon.

We have all kinds of pictures.

We share these pictures um with the various committees that have weighed in on this.

And I I guess they just maybe just don't think that's a big problem.

Um, you know, all those things would have would block our escape route.

So in a fire, there's really no time to wait.

Every second counts in the fire department.

Um, as others have said, they would close the road to everyone but emergency vehicles.

So, but do you really think parents would stay away if their children were in danger?

I'm a parent.

I'd I would probably have a really hard time not wanting to go in somehow by paths, you know, to try to save my children.

So I think that they would just disregard it and it would just be a mess for not only the children, but for us residents that live there.

So if you picture a school being built right next to a winery, hemmed in by steep wooded slopes with the Columbia housing development with over 500 homes just above.

It's just a scary thought.

Fires are not a distant possibility, they happen every few years in our canyon, and our emergency escape routes are they're rough, barely passable.

You've heard others talk about it.

But you know, most of our routes are only practical for a handful of people with off-road vehicles to get out.

And the fact is there's no guarantee that the school would even get the fire authorities' approval for their plan because frankly, what they have is not enough.

And I see my time's up, so I have more to say, but I think you get the idea.

I appreciate the work you did, and I'm sorry that the WBZA and the MAX um determinations were disregarded.

Bob, Bob Fusinati.

Hi, my name is Bob Fiusanati.

I'm a 30-year resident of Castro Valley.

I normally am talking about the obvious fact that this is a school.

Um I can reiterate, let me reiterate a little bit of that before I go on to some different points.

But their first two applications listed as a school.

The third application, they took out the word school and put in the word camp.

I expect them to say and do whatever they can to get their project approved.

So I hold no animus toward mosaic for the way they've misled everybody on this entire project.

However, the failure of our planning department is monumental.

They were basically incompetent throughout this entire process, and it's beyond me how this happened.

I do not know what kind of pressure they're under, but something happened.

This is the third planning person that they've had on this.

I don't know if the other two finally came to their senses and that they removed them because they did.

I don't have any clue what's happening in the background.

All I can tell you some obvious things they did to get this to pass.

One of them is they managed to tall the sleeping quarters, a concrete poured physical structure, and then call that temporary.

That structure will be there, but long past my life.

They'll say, well, it's temporary because it doesn't have water.

And then I ask, you're telling me it doesn't have a fire extinguisher.

Oh no, it's got fire extinguishers.

But and your dining drams show it has electricity because it's got lights.

So what exactly is that temporary?

Why is that temporary?

I asked that question over and over again, did not get an answer.

Their kitchen, their dining hall, somehow miraculously not included in the living quarters calculation of the square footage, along with the cabins, not included.

In fact, you add up their buildings, and it's over, it's right now, it's right at 20,000 square foot in the reduced size.

But Williamson Act and Measure D make it clear that has to be less than 12,000, not 20,000.

In order to get there, they excluded a lot of things that I don't understand how they're excluded.

I mean, I I really just don't get it.

I I mean, it's just I I totally get Mosaic pitching it that way.

I don't understand how the planning department shakes their head up and down and say, yeah, I agree, that's a temporary building.

Um I'll go back to the school thing.

If you know who Mosaic is, they're they're everything they say and do is about the mosaic school.

That's their teachers, they call them teachers.

They're their um basic letters of incorporation say it's a school.

Dick mentioned their tax records.

They've never once filed anything that has to do with agriculture in any form.

They only talk about the school, the school's revenue, and what the school does.

Now, how and I've I've asked Albert Lopez many times and never get the answer.

Why is it you call it you don't call it a school?

Well, they filed as a camp, is what he says.

And I says, Well, what about all this evidence that it's a school?

What about the fact that their curriculum all they did was take out the word school in their curriculum?

They didn't change anything.

All they're about is teaching.

What about the fact that all the schools that go there counted as time toward going to school?

How do they exclude that?

How is it not?

They're truant in my mind, if it's not a school.

And if and it's truly a camp.

Why isn't it just during the weekends or the summer?

Like camps are.

And I have brought this up and brought this up.

And I don't know why it doesn't stick.

I don't, I don't get, I mean, I would love to hear plannings, coherent argument about why this isn't a school or how they managed to not include these sleeping quarters in this.

I I mean, if I could build a house and not include the bedrooms and the kitchen, I get to build a hell of a big house.

Let me tell you.

Pat Sullivan.

I'm a big supporter of the Colkigan neighbors that have spoken, but I'm here for a different subject matter.

I am Pat Sullivan.

I live here in Castor Valley, and I am involved in developing 11 units on Anita Av.

Just some quick notes on your building department.

This project started with a conference call between the main owner, a potential builder, the architect, and myself.

I remember it well because it took, I took the call in the parking lot of my daughter's school an hour before her eighth grade graduation.

During this call, we discussed the new density bonus law, and we decided we would go forward with a plan to build 11 townhouses, 10 market rate units, and one below market rate.

With this plan, we went to the county building department.

They were supportive of the plan and gave us a short list of things to do.

Then we could go to the Mac board.

We complete we completed these items, and then we went before the MAC.

Despite my architect's complete explanation of the project and the applicable density bonus laws, the board denied the project.

Undeterred, we pushed forward, completed more county requirements, and finalized the blueprints, and 10 months later, presented the same project to the Mac board and were approved.

Mac approval, smooth sailing from here on out, right?

Wrong.

Now the cumbersome building department really slowed things down.

Was this their first project ever?

They just presented one hurdle after another.

They asked us questions they didn't even know the answer to.

They said they needed an easement from the owner to the owner.

When asked how on earth we do that, they said they didn't know, ask a lawyer.

We did, and it cost $4,000.

When things finally looked good, and we were sure we would get the permit soon.

We interviewed a few builders and suppliers, signed the contract with one, knowing the permit was coming soon.

They went to work compacting the lot and doing final grading.

Then work stopped because we didn't get that final permit.

One year later, on April 2nd, just last month or beginning of this month, we got the permit.

Next step, have a surveyor mark the corners so we could start the foundation.

Surveyors booked booked, he won't be there till May.

Coincidentally, my daughter, who was graduating from the eighth grade when we started this project, is finishing her first year of college at Colorado State in May.

Yes, five years to get approved.

I don't expect a businessman like myself to get much sympathy from you or anyone in this county, but I must remind you that five years ago I agreed to build one below market rate unit in these past five years of delays.

Where has that person been forced to live?

Thank you.

Alana Alanakoski.

Alana, Alana Koskey, thank you, and good evening.

My name's Alana Koske.

And first of all, I would like to thank each one of you for your consideration and concerns for the agriculture and rural areas, specifically in regard to the assessment of the Mosaic Project.

Thank you.

I um it's obvious that you understand the Col Canyon community and you've listened to those who are going to be most affected by this school.

I also appreciate the efforts of the West Board of Zoning Administration and the Supervisor Miley for taking a stand for the residents and their concerns.

But I would like to express my frustration with those involved in this process.

I was extremely disappointed in President Hobbert's lack of ability and decision making to take a stand on this project.

Yes or no, it's not hard.

Additionally, it was quite obvious that the blatant bias of the planning department, as many have spoken to tonight, specifically Mr.

Lopez.

The project is simply not the right use for this land and does not comply with what the residents voted for in Measure D or the Williamson Act.

The site has been in the Williamson Act for years and has not been in compliance.

Yet the county is willing to give them a year pass and overlook the current lack of compliance.

During the Board of Supervisor meetings, Supervisor Tam also misquoted the maximum 12,000 square foot requirements for residential buildings, stating it was 20,000 square feet.

And she seemed to make her decision of Measure D compliance based on this erroneous information.

When Supervisor Miley brought up the ABC and the spraying of pesticides at the winery next door, Mr.

Lopez conveniently never addressed the sprain.

The ones who should have gotten a chance to weigh in on it.

Finally, I can't believe that the Board of Supervisors did not allow time for a representative from the MAC board, the advisory council for this specific area to voice their opinion on the ruling of this project.

Seems quite obvious that the decision had been made prior to the meeting and that they were just going through the motions, even thinking that they would be done by two o'clock and be able to use that room for another meeting.

Obviously, these meetings go on forever.

Finally, I want to address the bridge, which I didn't get to at the meeting.

The bridge that is on the property was built in 1995 and was not and was inspected by the fire department in 2002.

And according to what I found out from a firefighter who I won't name, they um don't have a process for re-certifying these bridges.

I don't know if that's true, but according to the fire department, they don't they don't know of a process.

And so I was able to see the map of the access for these bridges that the fire department uses, and it shows that it used to be rated for a type one, which is a regular fire engine, and now it is rated for a type six, which is a pickup truck.

So basically, they said we don't want to drive over these bridges because we don't know it's too dangerous, it's not worth the risk of taking a type one over these bridges.

Yet the water storage for the fire suppression and the fire hydrant is across the bridge.

And the bridge is 70 feet long.

From what I understand, and I'm not a firefighter.

What I understand is they need to be within 20 feet of a fire hydrant to draft from it.

And it's not pressurized system, it's gravity fed from tanks.

Anyway, all of these things are really concerning to me as a mother and a grandmother whose children and grandchildren live on the road.

Um I live at the very, very end, six and a quarter miles in.

And if my grandkids can't make it out because there's a fire and the road spot, I will be back.

John Coskey.

John Coskey King MacBoard.

My name is John Coskey and I live at the end of Cole Canyon Road with my wife Lana.

Our kids live about at the four and a half mile marker, and so does my mother and her husband, and soon to be three grandkids.

Uh I want to first thank all of you for all the energy and um time that you put in to research and really understand this proposal.

Um, you know, twice you've come in and unanimously denied it, and your voice wasn't heard at the Board of Supervisor meeting.

I'm not surprised, but I am very disappointed uh at the Board of Supervisors and Alameda County Planning Department.

Uh I applaud Nate Miley for standing up, uh digging into it, coming up with the right questions to come to the right conclusions to understand what this project was really about.

Uh the president um of the board of supervisors showed lack of leadership by not even casting a vote on this highly visible project.

The three deciding voters relied on a flawed EIR and planning department recommendation to cast their approval votes in a hastily manner, so hastily that it makes you kind of wonder what's going on in the background.

Um the voices of the Canyon land residents were also cast aside and silenced by the siding voters and the planning department.

The voices of Alameda County residents who approved measure D were cast uh aside and ignored by the deciding voters also.

Their votes their votes will open a floodgate of more developments and erosion of the ag lands over Alameda County in an area where right is wrong and wrong is right.

This will make a permanent scar not only in the agricultural areas of the county, but on the government which the people have elected and pay their salaries to represent the to represent and follow the rural law and the truth.

That was my speech since I got a couple extra minutes.

Um who's gonna do the oversight on this property?

Of course, these are all just kind of rumors, but we hear they're gonna have other activities going on there, which will go against what they're allowed to do there.

Teachers' conferences, maybe corporate events.

They're setting it up to house all kinds of stuff.

And then originally in their website, they talked about 30,000 kids to 31,000 kids.

They retracted that, but you know they're just gonna have a slow creep into doing more and more out there.

And who's gonna be over siting it?

Is it us, the canyon?

Are we to call the PD to come out or whoever we call?

Um, something needs to happen there.

Also, as Alana was saying with the bridge, they have the hammer head on the other side of the bridge.

But if the engine can't even go, they're not even gonna use a hammerhead.

And it brought uh brings into all the other issues of uh drafting the water and um and everything involved if there is an incident or a fire.

Um again, thank you guys for everything that you guys do.

We all really do appreciate it.

This is a great group of people with a lot better things to say than I have to say, and um I'm proud of all you guys that are speaking up against this project.

Thank you.

Bruce Bruce King.

Hi, I'm Bruce King with Friends of San Lorenzo Creek.

Um, I've been providing comments on the mosaic project for quite a few years, but I'm not here to talk about the mosaic project tonight.

I'm here to give you an update on the status of our multi-use trails uh that are in development um slowly.

Um about three years ago, uh the hard and public works got a 28 million dollar grant for act for the active transportation program and in uh the state and uh to build a multi-use trail, the San Lorenzo Creekway from the Bay to Castro Valley.

That's eight miles of multi-use trail.

Well, then the last year, supposedly uh Public Works and Hart have come up with an MOU so they can decide who who does what in terms of uh designing it and and operating it and building it.

Um they currently have an RFP out to uh hire a consulting firm to do the buildable design of the multi-use trail, the San Lorenzo Creekway.

In addition, Hard has a uh a um a project right now and a grant to build to start the um the design of the foothill trail, which is gonna go from Grove Way over to A Street.

And uh so they're working on that right now.

And of course, the foothill trail eventually goes from Groveway and Castor Valley to South Hayward, and so segments of that are getting built over time.

Um there is an event this Friday.

Um it's called the Trails Day event that Hard is put is sponsoring at the Douglas Morrison Theater from 12:30 to 3:30.

They're gonna be giving uh going out walking segments of the foothill trail near Grove Way and segments over near A Street and let citizens see what's being built.

But uh they're also gonna have the National Park Service there, and they're gonna give some walks over to the Deanza site because in 17 March of 1776, the Deanza party stopped at San Lorenzo Creek in Hayward and camped, met uh a Native American there too, and uh so they're gonna be it's kind of a trails day event, but it's also an opportunity to get out and see uh some of the uh what's happening uh in terms of trails development in the area of Castor Valley between Groveway and A Street.

Thank you.

Keith Seaburn.

Castro Valley Mac members, um want to express a gratitude for giving us the opportunity to vent to reflect, um, and to uh revisit at this point.

Um I think it's super important that you know that we the voices of the canyon lands and the unincorporated areas really appreciate your deep thought and your deep study of the issue regarding the mosaic uh project.

You as well as the uh West County BZA, I think provided really thoughtful 12-person deep many hours of thought as far as what was allowed, what was going to happen, the ramifications, the positives and the negatives, and you rendered your decisions unanimously in your cases twice to be able to deliver that message then to the Board of Supervisors who rely on you to give some learned opinion and also the fact that you leverage their time because in reality, the Board of Supervisors, I somewhat feel for them because their cast is very broad.

They have a lot they have to do, a lot of issues that are not planning issues or not land development issues.

There are a lot of other things that they have to do, and it's a shame they have to get saddled with doing issues like this that is important to all of us and yet maybe somewhat minuscule relative to what their responsibilities are, but that is why they rely on you and why are we they rely on the BZA to come up with decisions and they should take those decisions and examine them more carefully than I'm afraid they actually did.

I applaud Supervisor Miley for giving just consideration and taking his time almost at the behest of not doing that by the um by the Board of Supervisors last week.

Supervisor Miley was also, I believe, falsely accused by a local radio news station for effectively stacking the deck in his favor and against the Mosaic Project.

But if that news organization would have done just the slightest bit of study, they would have realized that where else, except from Castro Valley, was the Castro Valley Municipal Advisory Committee going to be comprised of.

Um and community development is that they took over 10 years to arrive to this decision, 10 years of your time, of our time, of their time, and yet they didn't give due to consideration.

And the problem with that is over those 10 years, did they once reach out to the neighbors that were going to be affected?

Did they once reach out to the businesses that were going to be affected?

The answer is no, they didn't.

I can say that because we are the business next to them.

We are the neighbor next to them.

They never once said, What are your concerns?

Maybe we can deal with it.

Not even once.

So how is this exactly trying to help or be equal as far as their bias against it?

They were not.

In fact, they were patently one-sided.

And that's a shame because that also shows exactly how much or how little planning the planning commission actually does.

It's a shame.

Um of the amazing parts, you know, when it comes to environmental health, is they talk talk about this great magic septic system.

Well, we have that same system.

We were allowed, we were forced to have to do that.

And yet we were told that anytime we had more than 35 people attending an event, we have to bring in portable toilets.

And yet, apparently theirs is absolutely magic, just like their wells.

I really appreciate everything you guys have done.

I don't know where this is gonna go next.

I really thank the citizens of the county and the community, and especially of our canyon, for voicing their opinions and being behind this.

Thank you, everyone.

Lindsay, Lindsay was Mirsky.

Hi, my name is Lindsay Wizamerski.

I live in the canyon.

I want to thank you guys for taking the time to really listen to us.

Uh, the WBZA, Nate Miley.

Um it's nice to feel her.

Uh a couple things that I did on the background is I kept asking myself, why haven't we learned from our mistakes?

And I actually got in touch with uh an article, a newswriter, uh, Jay Matt, her article, Paradise Redo.

And basically, they she looked at what happened in Paradise and why it went so wrong so fast.

And I I actually emailed her and she emailed me back a very thoughtful response.

She lives in Hawaii, where they just evacuated all of those um residents, and she says it comes down to planning, and it comes down to evacuation.

And uh it's really upsetting that we don't learn from the mistakes that have happened in the past.

Uh, it's a really interesting article.

I suggest you guys read it.

Some other things I just want to point out is um the William Snack tax credit.

We in the canyon get a tax credit.

We have to show how much we produce and you know what goes on on our property.

I know the mill, you know, people in the canyon who don't have the William Snack farm their land more than the Mosaic Project would, and they don't get the benefit of the tax credit, and that's really bothersome.

The last thing I want to say is we're in the process of building a barn, and we couldn't build our barn where we kind of wanted it because we had to have a secondary drain field just in case our first one failed.

I don't see that on the plan that a secondary drain field is even required.

Our house has 10 bathrooms, two different septics that feed into each other.

It's a very sophisticated system, and why don't they have a second drain field required?

Thank you for your time.

Steven, Stephen Wisomerski.

Thank you, MacBoard for everything you guys do.

Obviously, we all appreciate it.

And I'm sorry that uh after all the effort you guys put into this, that uh you were you know shunned in such a way there at the Board of Supervisors, it is an atrocity because you all are in ag obviously, at least three of the board of supervisors have no idea uh where their food comes from and why you are so important.

Uh at the beginning of the Board of Supervisors meeting, uh, Supervisor Tam said, I just need you all to tell me why one of the findings isn't, you know, you can't prove one of the findings to be valid.

I was like, well, I can give you reasons why findings two and four aren't valid with the Williamson Act, right?

Their properties below 40 acres.

Our contract is the same number as their contract, even though it's not supposed to be.

Weird how that happens after the years.

But how are they even in Williamson Act when they're below 40 acres?

If we don't care about 40 acres anymore, then certainly, you know, people like the Millens should get Williamson Act for the amount they farm.

And I don't know how much you guys have, but I know it's not four and a quarter.

They do a lot more than they'll ever do.

So it's like, why do we even why do we have a minimum then if we're not gonna uh abide by it?

Uh finding number three, not doing harm to your neighbors, and uh, like it's been said before.

Uh everything was as conveniently kind of swept under the rug with ABC uh for twining vines about well, we couldn't get comment back from them.

Just because you don't know the answer doesn't mean the answer is going to be the one you want.

And the fact that they just let that slide when I brought up that they only say, oh, transfers and new permits.

So effectively, when Teddy and Keith want to sell, how much is that going to diminish the value of their property because they may not be able to get a tasting room there on site?

And nobody seemed to care.

Uh obviously, it seems like this was decided well before the meeting ever started.

Uh, there was certainly enough talk between the mosaics and a couple of the supervisors that there was something going on there, and it's just an atrocity when you guys put in all your time, the Western uh board puts in their time, and you're not considered relevant at all in these matters.

Um, I saw a couple of comments on Facebook on all these posts, I'm sure everybody else has that were uh a bit concerning that talked about how well your opinion is of the old way, and you know it's not relevant anymore.

And I think that just goes to show how little people here in the city understand what ag is and where their food comes from.

And I hope that uh with a few things that the Alameda County fairgrounds are doing, maybe we can start to bring that back because you guys still are relevant, we all are relevant.

And uh, if we go away, well then Measure D, Williamson Act, all of that.

You're gonna see houses as far as you can you can see through the canyons, and you're not gonna have any of this place that Mosaic wants to so desperately have for these kids.

Um one thing that's been bugging me that the mosaics like to say was that well, this road is so much better here than uh what they had down like in Santa Cruz, and it was just so hard for me not to just stand up and cry BS on that because I know exactly where their camp is.

It's on Zani Road, it's where I grew up.

Parents had many acres there, and I spent many summers riding my bicycle nine miles to the lake on Loch Loman.

If you had a good rifle with a scope, you could hit the CDF building in the helicopter uh like a mile and a half down the road.

So, you know, you could turn a set of triples around in front of their bridge there going down there.

And the fact that they're able to just you know whine and dine the way the story goes, like, oh, it's just Santa Cruz is so unsafe.

No, it's not, it's not unsafe at all.

That road's huge, you know, makes uh this thing look like one lane, and um the narrative is just really atrocious that they've been able to sit there and and perfect because we aren't given the time to respond back.

I mean, that's pretty obvious when uh Chuck, when you were not granted to be able to speak in official capacity, and I'm sorry that happened to you.

You deserve better than that.

You all do.

Thank you for your time.

Christy, Christy Picotto.

Hello, and thank you very much, Matt Committee, um, for helping these great people who are agricultural property owners.

Um, I'm a realtor, as some of you know from my advertising, and but the reason I'm bringing up I'm a realtor is because as a realtor, we tell people about zoning, and we give them disclosures about zoning, and we tell them about Williamson Act, and we tell them about all of these things so that they know before they buy the land.

Mosaic is well aware of all of the things that are wrong, and they have been, and they have not addressed them at all.

They've just skipped over them, and I'm so disappointed because I'm actually a person who, as a realtor, spoke with the mosaic group because they were looking at a listing that I had, which was agricultural.

And I told them there are many different things that go on with each area of agricultural, and you really have to understand it, and you can't change it because of the Williamson Act, measure D.

And you can't change it because of the Williamson Act, Measure D.

All of these things.

So make sure it's something that you buy that you can actually place your school there.

Well, years later, here we are today.

And they haven't listened to the community.

They haven't listened to the MAC committee.

They've only talked about their school and how great it is, which it is.

But I'm so disappointed in the planning department.

I'm so disappointed in our three supervisors who didn't take the time to really learn what agricultural zoning is, what measure D is.

It shouldn't have gotten as far as it has.

And it's just time to stop this because it's going to change it to urban.

And then urban is going to change it to housing.

And then there is no more agricultural in Castro Valley or Alameda County.

So please, thank you once again, Matt Committee, for taking time to understand.

But please revisit this.

And please, you have a committee.

It's called the Agricultural Advisory Committee.

And it's the committee that is supposed to advise the supervisors.

Guess what?

I called the agricultural advisory committee, the person in charge.

And she never was asked about this.

Mosaic Project.

Mosaic Project chose not to ask to talk to them and to learn more about agricultural and the zoning and the rules and regulations behind it.

So Mosaic actually is teaching the children to not obey laws, rules, and regulations because they're placed there.

And they're for the public.

Anybody can look it up.

So please revisit this and please deny this project.

It is not, it is agricultural, not urban.

Thank you.

I've lived in the canyon.

Families lived in all these canyons.

I'm not going to go over, I think everybody's covered it pretty well of what was done wrong.

But one thing I would like to say is I called the ABC on Friday.

Albert Lopez says he couldn't reach them.

They called me back this morning.

No problem.

And I'm a nobody.

You could see the two women, the three women that voted no had no concern of being interested in it.

They were worried about their appointment at 2:30.

One had to be someplace at four.

They'd had no interest in taking care of business the way they should.

So that's you know, pretty much the bottom line.

I just want to let you know I called the ABC.

They were all interested and give more information.

I didn't, I don't have all the facts, but I just wanted to see if they return my phone call.

So and and I really think I don't know how to do it.

I think we should impeach him, throw him out.

Albert, they need to get rid of him because he's not doing justice for us.

He's there for us, not himself or what he got on the side for this.

So anyway, thank you very much.

Ruth, Ruth Blay.

Hi, my name is Ruth Bly.

I've been a resident in Cal Canyon for 50 years, and um, I have a degree in geology, a master's degree that I got at Cal State Hayward.

And I really didn't get the chance to talk about they brought up this fractured geology being the reason that these wells have their own distinct aquifers, which on a 30-acre site, just visualizing a distinct aquifer, two distinct aquifers for these two wells is I don't know, I can't do it.

I can't do it.

I mean, geology as an arm-waving science, it's not something that can be proven until you actually try to produce that water.

And then when that water is not produced, what happens?

There's nothing, there's no recourse for anyone, like all the neighbors that are around this property, and there's several.

When their wells run dry, they have to truck in water, and then even if that takes it all the way up the canyon, because it really is one great big aquifer.

I mean, are we starting the water wars?

Or everybody drills deeper and deeper.

Or are we selling our horses and selling our cows because we can you know no longer afford to buy the water for them?

So and that's never addressed in this.

And so we're, you know, a couple years into this, the wells run die.

What's everyone gonna do?

And it ignores the fact that the reason the zoning is so large is because it's an appropriate usage of the land.

The resources are there for that type of zoning.

Couple houses on a hundred acres, yeah.

You have the water for that.

This project, which is not a camp, it's really a campus, it's a school that is landscaped, and the kids are gonna go out there and it looks like I mean, it looks like a campus.

It looks like it has landscape, landscaping.

This is not nature.

Their experience with nature, I think is going to be fairly limited.

But then again, it's a recreational facility that has no recreation.

There's no lake, there's no courts, there's no horseback riding.

Um I just I and I don't think there's gonna be any hiking because they have 30 acres on the side of a hill.

And if they improve the acreage, they're gonna end up with landslides and things like that happening there.

So I just don't understand this project.

I don't understand the protections that were set aside to protect the zoning, the Williamson Act, Measure D, all those things are completely ignored.

And then there's no protection if it doesn't work the way they say it's gonna work.

They say it's gonna work.

I don't believe it.

And if it doesn't work, what happens to everybody?

Thank you.

I don't think I used my time.

I felt so rushed in the other one.

Brian.

Brian Morrison.

I don't live in Cole Canyon, but uh 1977 I did at 17031 Cole Canyon Road, that site.

Lived there for eight years till 85, till I met my wonderful wife and got married and moved into town.

I was offered that site by the Warren family to buy.

And uh it was a drought, if you remember 77, 78, and that uh we had Delucci Wells.

Uh anybody remembers him down by Perry Key on Mission Boulevard, a little Italian guy, dug a lot of wells in that canyon.

We dug three on that site over by the two by the equipment shed.

We hit uh kind of uh gas.

Uh the well that's there that is working for the project now.

We dug.

That was the third one we dug on that side of the road.

It's very shallow, basically creek water.

Um I also am a cattle partner in the canyon, and uh I run cattle in there.

We were hauling water, as everybody knows during this last drought, in order to just keep the cattle in water every day.

Um also a little fun tale was you know, um with the Warren Boys, we used to have to deliver a water tank trailer up to the nudist colony because they would run out of water too.

That always was uh interesting weekend.

Yeah.

And um I sat online uh 10:30, I got online for this meeting uh and raised my hand at 10:30, and uh never was called on.

It's weird that the people from the mosaic got called on online, but I never was called on the whole time.

So I thought that was a little unusual.

Also, I never seen the planning um gentleman that was in charge of planning presented this two or three of the meetings that I've been to with you guys, and uh he said we a few times, like he was part of the project.

So all this is on recording.

He also said um in one of his statements there, the planning guy said about three classrooms.

Remember, he said he need they needed a minimum of three classrooms.

Well, if it I mean he's calling it a school right there, and then the CEO, when she got up and spoke, she said outdoor education facility.

So I mean, that's taped, I'm assuming that meeting.

Uh the county council woman said students twice in her statement.

So for me, um Cole Canyon has an organization.

I would appeal this immediately, and then I would sue.

Um, I would sue.

Uh let's have fundraisers, whatever, let's let's go after them.

Because the reason that this gentleman said that they recommended passage.

Uh, that was the county's council recommended passage of this, that it was okay to go.

Those three supervisors that gave them cover to go and said, Well, do we ever go against that?

You heard her say that.

We never go, okay.

Well, if they said it's okay, we must assume that all of the eyes are dot, and it's okay.

So uh as far as water goes, I can tell you when I lived there, it was two horses, me and my dog, and we ran out of water in July, usually.

Yeah.

So it didn't matter what you did.

I think the only thing that I've ever seen grown there was pot.

It wasn't mine, it was uh from uh somebody came and planted it in a creek there.

Yeah, but um uh as far as the watershed goes, uh uh that back of that hill, there's no way there's no trails on that piece of property.

It used to be a large piece of property, that's why it's in the Williamson Act.

That was the main house for the rest of the whole ranch, the whole rest of the 2500 acres.

So it was in the Williamson Act because it was that.

But the fact is is that um that side of that hill is like 45 degrees.

The only place they can build is that little spot.

That's why I didn't buy it too.

Plus, the reason there's a new bridge in there is because in that big storm after the drought, I think it was 81 maybe, that wood bridge is gone.

It it went down all the way to the far corner because that that creek rose 12 feet overnight.

And it hadn't it's done that before.

I even parked my truck on the other side of the bridge thinking that that might happen.

And then I could walk out through the winery.

They had a bridge, I had a trail to go around, I could get out that way.

But I'm just telling you that uh bad spot, I would sue them.

Thanks.

Peter Rosen.

So, first of all, I'm speaking on my own behalf right here.

I just want to say, um, so I want to echo a lot of what Brian said.

He he actually took my thunder on this.

I was going to encourage you guys to keep up the fight.

While I don't live there, I believe in what's right, and I'm a critical thinker and I look at some of this, and some of this just doesn't pass the smell test.

Um Williamson Act.

I mean, what they're using the ag what they're calling ag use is not really ag use, and the way that they're generating money is it's more of a donation, it's not really an agricultural use, which I think is insane.

Um, I'm primarily concerned with the long-term water impact on the neighbors and the aquifers, and um the biggest thing that I can point to right now is the process.

Uh they talked about staff, you need to follow staff.

Well, this is the same staff that went to the MAC and went to the BZA.

And I remember when, as I've heard someone else recently say that when the supervisors used to listen to unanimous decisions from both the BZA and the Mac, that actually meant something.

And when the supervisor for this area said something and advocated for it, that meant something.

And if people are going to go there to to make some comments and advocate in favor of this, who have never even been to the site, never even seen it, never been down there and understood that the issues that all of you understand, I think that that's um unfortunate.

I think that that's um unfortunate.

And so I'm just disappointed with the decision, and I want to encourage you to keep up the fight.

So thanks.

Yes.

Unmute your microphone.

Yes, I just wanted to thank the little bit.

Sorry.

I just want to thank the MAC council members for uh doing the work to help the community and also uh support Nate Miley because he's always represented his constituents really well and given voice uh to the community, especially in the unincorporated area that's been oftentimes still overlooked.

Um especially uh Nate Miley's position in public safety.

I feel like he's done a lot of research, has a lot of experience, and uh has uh made many informed decisions to help keep us safe.

Um I was robbed, my vehicle stolen a couple of times, and I just feel like we need greater public safety.

Um so I stand with with uh Nate Miley and his work um on that.

Um because safety does uh have to come first.

The other thing I wanted to just raise uh awareness of is Aisha Wahhab has been just not doing a good job representing us.

Um, she's uh fairly uh to be blunt and frank, vindictive and retaliatory, and her politics has got really dirty, and especially with the racist that are being run, she's going for Eric Swalwell's seat.

And I just don't like to see uh just the how dirty the politics has gotten.

And I think we'd really truly need a voice for the people and somebody who's not such an ambitious political climber that's willing to do these you know things, um, retaliatory things.

People are afraid to stand up to her because they know how vicious she could be.

So I just want you to be aware and keep an eye on that to protect our communities to make sure that our interests are represented and we don't put leaders that put themselves ahead of our needs.

Um I would yield the rest of my time, but thank you so much for your service.

I appreciate it.

You're on the line, you have five minutes.

Linda.

Good evening.

Uh, thank you for this opportunity to address the Mac board.

Uh this document is a flawed document, and I am surprised that it was passed by the board of supervisors.

But a board we all know is only as good as the staff that supports it.

And I have to say, I don't usually call people out uh because I think it's very inappropriate and I do it a different way, but this time I am doing it.

Number one, the planning director, Albert Lopez has really done a great disservice to the Castor Valley community, and she should be called out on it.

And the second thing I want to say is I'd like to introduce myself, Linda Tangren, as one of those legacy voices that Michael Kuziak referred to in his KQD ED comments.

We should take a look at the fact that we are not protecting our children.

We have people who are recommending something be placed in an area that statistically may never have a fire, but we should never vote on the bet on the cum.

I really feel that if we had a fire in that area, it would sweep through the canyon, it would come up into Columbia, take out Van Oi School, come over to the Green Ridge area where I happen to live, and the Briar Ridge area and the Cavendish area, and then take out Canyon Middle School.

I don't think anybody has addressed the fact that you have two schools in the area, and what happens to that, and what would we do on the six o'clock news if we had animals that were caught in a fire in that area?

We are always appalled at the livestock, et cetera, that are caught in fires or floods.

Do you know what reputation we would have there?

I am always puzzled that people who say they want to do so much for children put them in harm's way.

And I really need to say, don't let this drop.

Continue that fight.

You have an avenue here because this document was created with great bias.

And people need to speak out.

So that's all I have to say.

Thank you very much for the opportunity.

We have no additional speakers for public comment.

Do we have any more speakers in the room that have not spoken that would like to speak?

Nobody online.

Nobody more in the room.

I am going to close the public portion of this.

And I am going to move to council comments.

And I would like to start the council off with a chair's report.

And the chair's report is basically a couple of weeks back.

The MAC voted to have me go and represent the MAC at this meeting.

And I took it pretty serious.

So I got up at two o'clock in the morning, a couple mornings ago because I couldn't sleep and researched all the wells in the area.

I drew water wells, so I was very concerned about this.

I made a very lengthy report about five or six items on the ag issues.

And I reached out to Supervisor Halbert, and David informed me that he was going to be out of town, and the meeting would be ran by Lena Tam.

I had asked Supervisor Halbert for five minutes to kind of give a background of the Mac and what we voted on and why we voted on it.

And so I reached out to Supervisor Tam's staff and I got back.

You can have two minutes.

And I started in on the right to farm and how important that was to the agriculture community.

And I thought, wow.

And I kind of argued about a little bit, but it didn't go anywhere.

What did I learn?

And um, and I want to share with this council here that we are an advisory board, but your advice is only good if people have open ears to listen to it.

And I would say to this council, it's particularly disturbing when you're an unincorporated area, and the very people that vote on the way you live, you don't get to vote on them being supervisors.

And you're sitting here going, whoa, you you don't know how we live.

And you're telling us how we're going to live, but I don't get to vote on you being a supervisor or not.

So it made me walk away with a lesson.

And these are only comments.

There's a couple of ways you can overcome that.

Is one you become a city, maybe a municipality, or temporarily, maybe you do some research on the other supervisors that are running and make darn sure that when they say they support agriculture, they mean it.

And you can support them in a lot of different ways when they mean it.

And if they don't mean it, then you look for the person running against them that does mean it.

And we need to start doing more of that if we're going to remain unincorporated, because um we can't live with one supervisor that represents us, and the other three supervisors totally disrespect his opinion.

And the other three supervisors totally disrespect his opinion.

And that's what I felt like because I felt like Supervisor Miley did an outstanding job of representing us at the Mac.

The feedback that we had.

I felt it off, it fell on deaf ears.

And I would have to agree.

I was appalled at the EIR, the lack of information, the accuracy of the information, and how a plan and director gets away with it.

And we somewhere along the line, some action needs to be taken.

I don't confuse Everett with results.

I look at results.

And now it's time for this community to start getting some results.

So it's very frustrating.

And uh for a um an entity that's supposed to be a um an advisory board and then a governance board of the WBCA, and then our supervisor be completely disignored.

And he is our representative.

And he did a great job, by the way.

Um I am going to go to the council here for comments because I wanted to give everybody an opportunity tonight because we didn't have an opportunity at the Board of Supervisors meeting to share these things.

So I will start with uh councilmember um Davini.

Um this can be a situation, Councilmember Davini and Council members.

This is only comment, and um we cannot have any debate or questions asked back and forth.

So I just want to make sure it's ground rules are clear.

Uh chair, I'm gonna follow your rules as this is not agendized.

I'm not gonna speak to the uh topic that has been so popular tonight.

However, I am gonna ask that you've somehow find a way to agendize this for future meetings so that we could have a coordinated response from the Castor Valley Mac to the Board of Supervisors, be that a letter or uh another uh attendance at their meeting.

Uh, but I think it warrants a meeting that we can discuss this uh that's properly agendized to respond uh to their vote in lack of uh acknowledgement of our unanimous decision.

Well, that was the shortest time you've ever had, Davini.

Councilmember Mota.

Um, yes, I want to acknowledge um I'm gonna be quick also, but I do want to speak to everyone that spoke tonight.

Um I wrote down everyone's name and concerns, so I want to address you uh directly.

Robert, Lindsay, Rec, Rex, Dick, Matt, Katie, Marilyn, Carolyn, Robert B, Edward, James, Jim, Linda F, Bob, Pat, Alena, John, Bruce, Keith, Lindsay, Stephen, Christy, John, Ruth, Brian, Peter, Tron, and Linda T, 28 speakers tonight.

All of you guys said the same consensus.

Um, you care about where you live and folks that are making a decision on where you live and what you have to do to protect yourself, your family is absolutely unacceptable.

I I'm totally in agreement of what you're going through, and um, I'm here as your advisor to still fight um for you and listen to you.

And um it's just sad.

Um I just wanted to let you know.

I hear you, I stand with you, and I stand by you, and I'm gonna continue to fight with you.

Thank you for your presentation tonight.

Councilmember Feedback.

I want to say I totally agree with the last two statements, um, 100% on both.

I also uh would look to the chair to maybe is there a way that we can be heard and make sure that we're heard, and umhow point out the what's going on.

And I've heard I I know some people in a different county, and they have a Mac board, and they they have told me that Mac board is not heard.

I would hate to have that reputation here.

So I'm looking to you and the others here on the board.

How can we make sure that does not happen?

That's it.

Councilmember Davis.

Uh thank you, Chair, for uh bringing this and allowing the opportunity for the uh members of our community to speak on this.

Um I'm fully in support of all the residents and their concerns and maintain my support against this particular project.

And that concludes my comments.

Councilmember Thomas Thank you, sir.

And uh I also want to appreciate uh Board of Supervisor Nate Mali for standing up for Cascavelli.

Um we voted seven nothing, right?

That says a lot, and we brought up all the issues the safety issues, septic issues, water issues, you know, um, and also the evacuation route, they're using canyon middle school.

How are they gonna take the bus down there?

All this stuff were discussed, and we went seven nothing.

And after that, we went to the BZA.

I thought I was thinking maybe a couple of people there will vote against it, but it didn't happen.

They looked, they read their stuff, they read their stuff, they said three nothing, hey, we're going for it.

I don't think supervisor TAM supervisor fortunate.

Oh, I said it right.

Supervisor Marquez, they didn't read anything, they just did what is good for them.

They just did what is good for them.

That's not fair to Castro Valley.

And then, you know, for us to come here, come back here.

I'm upset, you know, because people come out here, listen to us, we're advisory council.

We hope that when you have a unanimous seven-nothing vote, they read the stuff that didn't.

All right.

So I I just want again, like everybody said, I agree with them.

This needs to be come back, and you guys need to fight, and we are with you.

And one more thing, I wrote it down.

Oh, yeah.

There's I don't know on an emergency situation like fire or you know, there's a flood.

I don't know how they're gonna get the kids out.

You know, if the if the it's one way in, one way out, right?

So I don't know what they're thinking.

It's just it's just these all these issues were discussed.

Um, and but I'm also disappointed in the planning, uh, planning department.

I don't know what they're looking at.

Uh something shady is going behind the back, and I feel it, but uh we keep fighting.

We you know, we're all together in this, and you know, people who want to call us, you know, Yahoo or idiots or whatever you want.

We love Castro Valley.

We stand up for Casavelli.

All seven of us, you know, we might disagree, maybe we might go five to two, four to three, but this situation here it was obvious.

Seven nothing.

If you read your stuff, it's seven nothing, three nothing.

If you don't read, you shouldn't be a board of supervisor.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, and I'm gonna apologize to you and to my fellow council members because I'm gonna take a few minutes here and uh ask your indulgence.

Um I am not replying to any comments made tonight.

These are my own thoughts.

Um, just how we're supposed to do this.

Um, but I am absolutely furious at the travesty that masqueraded as a board of supervisors meeting last Thursday.

It was ridiculous.

Um, never have I witnessed such a blatant disregard for the people in a district, um, such disregard for the welfare of the citiz of the citizens, such willful ignorance of our county's zoning laws.

The people of Castro Valley, especially Cole Canyon, the Canyon lands, uh the agricultural community, and the supervisor's office uh were sent a very clear and threatening message through that meeting, and that is that we own you.

Um I don't like it a bit.

Going into that meeting, the supervisors had 10 votes from two different bodies, the municipal advisory council and the West County Board of Zoning Adjustments.

Those 10 voices spoke as one in.

The supervisors knew in advance that two civic bodies had said this is a bad fit.

Nobody has ever said, gee, this project is not worth anything.

No, what has been said is that the location chosen for this project is not good.

Big difference, big difference.

So going into uh going into the meeting on Thursday, two unanimous votes.

Um, what we also know is that the EIR was um, pardon the vernacular crappy.

It really was.

It it ignored key elements, it glossed over elements, it was not worthy of the EIR.

Now Vice President Tam was chairing the meeting because President Halbert was remote, and she granted approximately 80 people the chance to speak, about 80.

Pretty evenly divided.

I think I counted three people on the pro mosaic project site from Castro Valley.

Equal number, 40 odd people, opposed to the project being located on Coal Canyon Road from Castro Valley.

Okay, so you've got you've got two municipal bodies, 45 citizens who say bad idea.

So what do you do with that as the Board of Supervisors?

Well, after the public comment, Supervisor Miley was given as he should have been the first chance to speak.

It's his district, it's contained in his district, it's his constituents.

Supervisor Miley distinguished himself.

Um he was incredibly well prepared on the zoning issues, he was incredibly aware of the concerns of the residents and the businesses in the canyon lands.

He was concerned and aware of the impacts outside of Cole Canyon in Columbia, Green Ridge, that area.

Um he was aware of the dangers to the children, uh, wildlife dangers, ADA problems, uh, fire dangers.

And he said, uh he said what you would hope a supervisor would say.

I mean, I'm paraphrasing here, but he said when you're faced with dueling experts, and he's talking about water and fire for the most part, when you're faced with dueling experts or the people who are living with the problem, you either you either put your trust in the people who are sitting behind the computers and creating reports, or you put your trust in the people who are living the problem.

I, Nate Miley, put my trust in the people who are living the problem.

In a board of supervisors meeting, that's called setting the stage.

It really is.

It's a clear, unmistakable message of what he believes is right for his district and the people in it.

So next up, Supervisor Bass.

Um she ended her comments by saying, I put my faith in the professionals on county staff.

I support the staff recommendation for approval.

Ignoring two civic bodies unanimous, ignoring 45 speakers who live in the area who live the problem, ignoring the the supervisor whose district this is in.

All right.

She was followed by Supervisor Marquez, who had no original thoughts whatsoever, and basically said, I'll join Supervisor Bass in supporting staff.

Wow.

Um should be noted that neither Supervisor Bass nor Marquez have constituents in the unincorporated area.

Hmm.

Okay.

So there's your decision.

Bang, done.

Three, two, it doesn't matter.

Three is all that counts.

Um what wasn't, no, I'm sorry, what was heard during during the staff presentation were conditions of approval that had not been heard anywhere else?

Operating conditions of approval, hours, days, people, times, etc.

Those had not been submitted to this body to the West County Board of Zoning Adjustments, they were introduced as part of the submission to the Board of Supervisors.

Now think about that.

How can a conditional use permit get to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors without having conditions of approval vetted by two civic bodies?

Is that staff ineptitude?

Is it manipulation?

I don't know.

Is it something else?

It's not usual, and it certainly is not good.

And how could three supervisors support a conditional use permit that came to them without having the transparency of the conditions of approval vetted by the community?

So three supervisors rejected a unanimous vote by the Castro Valley MAC, three supervisors ignored a unanimous vote by the West County Board of Zoning Adjustments.

Those same three supervisors overrode the wisdom and wishes of the supervisor in whose district this project sits.

None of them will see their faucets run dry and have to truck in water because their neighbor has depleted their water supply.

None of them will go to sleep at night, wondering about a bonfire that's blazing yards away from where they live.

And certainly no one on staff and none of the three supervisors will have their livelihoods threatened by wrongly interpreted zoning laws.

I am absolutely fried by the arrogance of these supervisors who ignore the unanimous votes and then trample on the supervisor who was standing up for the lives and safety of his constituents and his community.

Why would they?

Why would they?

You could guess that it's all about optics.

Oh, I support education.

I'm I'm I'm supporting inner city kids.

Um it's all about headlines.

We've already seen them.

Um, and it's all about, I hate to say it, but campaign contributions and party lines.

Not good.

Mark Twain quipped, people get the government they deserve.

I we deserve better.

Um and I do I do want to talk for a minute about uh what someone brought up, what was brought up earlier.

Um there's some flack in the anti-social media that's going around people pointing fingers and saying, NIMBY, NIMBY.

Um if someone moves into the house next to me or the property next to me and approaches my local government with seeking permission to block my driveway, tap into my water supply, and then hold a bonfire for a hundred people, 200 days a year.

Yeah, I'm gonna fight it.

I'm sorry.

Um so you know, take take the shaming and the finger pointing of NIMBY on down the road, get it out of here.

Um, and while you're doing that, uh try to find some compassion for your neighbors because apparently you don't have any.

Um, and then climate change.

I'm sorry to keep going here, but um the county has approved uh the climate action plan and the environmental justice element, both of which deal with the effects of climate change, global warming, uh more frequent and longer droughts, more condensed rainy season with more intense and violent storms that will cause flooding that will cause liquefaction of soil that will cause trees to fall, all of which makes life miserable for people in Cole Canyon.

And guess what?

You know, the people who worry about these worry loudly about these impacts don't seem to think they apply in Cole Canyon.

They do supervisors, but it's not in the environmental impact report, it's not in the staff report.

It's not in the staff report.

Why?

I only see two paths.

There's three courses of action with two paths.

The first, the first is if you feel you have information about willful disregard or misinterpretation of the Williamson Act, Measure D, the zoning ordinances in unincorporated Alameda County.

Get your facts together, send them to Supervisors Bass, Marquez, Tam, and Howbert, and ask for a reconsideration.

That's the only way it'll get back to the board as a reconsideration.

If you have strong feelings, experience with pesticide spraying, the impacts of having a school, a school next to a winery or an agricultural interest.

Please make that clear to the supervisors.

Hopefully, um, I have no illusions that any of the other supervisors are listening tonight, but I do have hope that maybe one of their staff might be online and might say, hey, boss, you need to hear this.

You need to listen to what these folks are saying.

Um, it's recorded and it's gonna be there, and the supervisors can dial in and listen to what's being said, what has been said, and I hope they do.

Um the other paths, uh, hate to say it, but let's make it as difficult as we possibly can for the three supervisors who threw this community under the bus.

Um, let's make it really hard for them to retain their offices.

Let's oppose their fundraising efforts.

Let's oppose their re-election, as our chair says.

Um let's vote with our feet.

Um, we need to let them know that they don't have support in this community until they start listening to us and valuing us as the community that we are in Castro Valley.

The second path to pursue is as has been mentioned, the path to cityhood.

Um, I seriously doubt we would be in this situation or a similar one if we had a homegrown planning department.

Not likely.

Um to be really honest, I have not put my full energies behind the cityhood movement and efforts because they have excluded the canyon lands.

Um I urge the group calling itself Castor Valley City to have faith in the power of a united community to value the historic and the current role that agriculture occupies in Castro Valley and to rededicating themselves to uniting this entire community under the banner of incorporation.

That's all I got, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Vice Chair Mulgray.

Um, I I would have to agree with uh 100% of what uh our vice chair shared.

Um really disappointing to me and hurtful was this attitude of not in our backyard.

I want to make it very clear.

It's not that the case at all.

We showed those folks an additional site that was in our backyard, and it wasn't suitable for them.

And it was in the canyon lands, but it was easy access and safety for children.

I really resent the fact that somebody accused me of not my backyard when I was really concerned about the children of this community in case there was ever a disaster on getting in and out of a one-lane road.

That is absolutely insane, and though that to me is fighting words, and I will not put up with it.

So anyway, that's enough.

Uh, we got any more comments from the council here.

I would like to ask everybody to stay for the rest of the meeting because we have a couple other items on this agenda, and uh one of them is really is gonna require some feedback if we have enough time to get there, because this meeting will be over tonight at nine o'clock.

Okay, it will be over at nine o'clock.

I've been here many nights at 11.

Tonight's it's over at nine.

Just a heads up.

So let's move on to the next item on the agenda, and that is our fire department.

Um our deputy fire chief is Eric.

Uh, do we not have to approve?

Oh, I'm sorry, we've got the minutes that's been so long.

I move that we approve the minutes of uh March 16th.

Second 26.

Any discussion on it?

Roll call.

Councilmember Devini approval of minutes.

All right, Councilmember Davis.

Aye, Councilmember Phoebe.

Aye, Councilmember Mota?

Staying.

Councilmember Thomas.

I Vice Chair Mulgar.

Can I see the staff report?

Just kidding.

Aye.

Chair Moore.

Hi.

Minutes approved for March 16th.

Thank you.

Sorry.

Well, good evening, everyone.

Thank you for those that don't know me.

My name's Eric, and I get the privilege of overseeing our Capital Projects program.

And I just quickly want to mention that I'm here tonight because of community support.

And I just want to recognize that when a community does come together, there are good things that come about it today.

And so I just want to recognize that we're here today because of the community and the money that they put into supporting the fire stations and a 90 million dollar bond that was passed by the community.

Um, so I'm here on good news and really positive updates.

I did um I've come to this committee quite a bit, and I wanted I've made a commitment to come to this committee so we could be as a department front and center and really sort of showing off what this community is about here in Castor Valley.

So I'll try to keep it short, Chair.

Um, as I know you want to be in bed by 9 15.

So we'll work on making sure that that's a reality for you.

Um, so if we could just start on the slide and I'd probably go quickly through the first updates, but in 2020, we did get the Measure X um community uh our fire station bond approved.

It was 90 million dollars, as I just mentioned, um, and it's gonna support our unincorporated areas.

Next slide.

So there's three fire stations that are currently under construction.

We've got one up in Palomares Hills, one in the middle of Castro Valley Station 25 and our station 22 in San Lorenzo, though we're all in various phases, and I'm gonna highlight those phases uh tonight.

They're all being uh built under design build method, and we're working with our public arts committee to make sure that we represent the public art space and the fire stations.

Next slide.

So for those that don't know, our fire station number seven is up on Palomaris Hills, it's right at the top next to the community center.

We are rebuilding a fire station that houses houses three individuals.

And I'm gonna give you a few updates here.

This is a conceptual design, and let's go to the next slide.

So we have started construction.

Um we are well underway.

We've cleared, we've installed the underground, the foundation work is complete, and as of a week and a half ago, we poured the slab on station seven, which is a huge milestone for us.

I don't have the pictures of the slab, but I do have a lot of pictures that I'm gonna share with you.

Next slide.

So this is an aerial view of the footing of the fire station.

You can see on the top part of the drawing that's where the fire station is gonna be located, and on the bottom section um that's been sort of um a dugout.

That's where our our apparatus building to support three additional apparatus that currently sits out in the sun.

We'll be able to house under um to get it out of the element.

Next slide.

So here you can see some of the footing work that was completed, um, which was a feed in itself to get the utilities there, but we do now have the foundation, the the the footings.

Go to the next slide, please.

Just a little bit more work of our vapor barrier that we put in to make sure that the water doesn't leak from the bottom back into our fire station.

Next slide.

And then here it is right before the pour.

We had to get our our um PowerPoint in ahead of time.

And so unfortunately, I wasn't able to give pictures of the slide or of the slab.

And next slide.

So our next goals um for this quarter two is to begin the superstructure.

So we're gonna be starting um this week on framing up the actual building.

So we're we're gonna be framing in June.

We're gonna start the mechanical, the electrical, plumbing, and rough end work in June.

So we've got quite a bit ahead of us, but if you've been up there, we are definitely moving at a good clip, and we're super excited about that.

All right, now I'm gonna pivot to station 25.

This is our sort of our middle uh Castro Valley station, it's on San Miguel.

This one's gonna house four individuals, and we have accomplished a lot in this small space.

So, what we have done, next slide, please.

Is we've uh we've uh stood up our interim fire station.

I believe I came here about a month ago to let you know that we were moving.

We did successfully move to our interim fire station.

I'll have pictures of that.

We have demolished and torn down our old fire station 25.

It is no longer standing.

And we are finalizing our build our permit process with Alameda County environmental health, so we can actually tear up the driveway and the all the asphalt that's there before we go below grade.

We have to make sure that we're signed off with environmental health.

We are in the last stages of that.

We're actually messaging our community that surrounds that as we speak to make sure that they're aware of what we're doing as we move forward.

Next slide.

So here's a picture, maybe an iconic picture for now.

It's no longer standing, but that's what our fire station looked like about three weeks ago.

Next slide.

And here's a picture of our new interim fire station that's on the corner of Marshall and CVV.

For those that know it's right across from the what was the old Ride Aid, and there's a new supermarket there that's thriving with a lot of people.

So it's really good to see that that commercial space being used there.

Next slide.

Here's a picture of our temporary apparatus bay.

You could see our tiller truck actually fits in that apparatus bay.

We're wanted to again make sure that our um apparatus stayed out of the element and that it was weather tight.

So we have our apparatus bay.

And to the right, you'll actually see the repurposing of the CV sanitary boardroom as our day room now.

So really clever use of a different space for a different top for a different idea, but we've made it work really well.

Next slide.

So here's our next steps on station 25.

We're gonna continue on the site cleanup for the month of May.

We're gonna start escavate uh excavating and getting ready to do some of our below ground utility works in June.

Um the foundation work will be in late June, and then we are committed to having a groundbreaking ceremony.

I'm still working with supervivor supervisor Miley's office to make sure that we have a date that works well for him because I do feel he's a critical component to be at this groundbreaking since it is his district.

So we're working hard to make sure that we could get the appropriate people there at station 25.

Next slide.

And that's my update for today.

I told you I wanted to keep it brief, but I did want to share some of our milestones that I felt were really important to this commit this um commission that has supported us from day one, and we're um moving along as as projected, and we're super happy to be here.

So I'm happy to take any questions or comments.

I want to go ahead and open us up for public comment.

Do we have anybody online?

And we have any speaker cards on the item.

I have no speakers for this item.

Uh in person or online.

Anybody in the room would like to comment or speak on this item.

Okay.

I uh we want to close up.

Oh, Ruth.

You got to come to the podium, Ruth.

I I gotta record your Ruth.

You gotta come to the podium.

Um, I love everything I saw.

My question was are we eventually gonna get fire insurance again?

Because I live in the canyons and it's a fire hazard.

Okay, uh, any other comments from the community?

Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and uh close public portion and I'll uh go to uh Councilmember Davis for comment.

Thank you for the update and I have no questions or comments.

Councilmember Thomas.

Just a quick question is on track, right?

Timeline, everything is going on track.

Yep.

We're I should have put that in the agenda.

I know we're probably not supposed to have dialogue, but we are supposed to finish station seven by the end of this calendar year.

So we're projected to be moving in around January of um station seven, and then station 25 is about 14 months out once we actually start the underground utility.

So I would project somewhere about spring, early summer for station 25.

But yes, we're still on track.

Also, funding is good.

Funding's good.

Yes, thank you.

Uh Councilmember Davini.

Uh thank you for the uh presentation, uh Deputy Chief War.

Um great to hear that it's uh ahead of schedule.

Uh we'll on schedule, I should say, on schedule, because uh my expectation it's gonna just be behind.

I mean, we see all the commercial delays that that occur.

We had this gentleman talk about five years uh of making almost no progress.

We saw the CV SAN building take forever to build so many public works projects, and you are exuding confidence in in government, and I thank you for that.

Uh it's beautiful to see these updates and to see things on schedule.

Only other question is the Chabot station going to be covered by Measure X, or will have you identified funding for for that station yet?

Sure.

Well, for those that don't know in the audience, we got as I mentioned, we have 90 million dollars.

Our first three fire stations are projected to be at 65 million dollars, which gives us about 25 million dollars left to build um what we're gonna build is two fire stations.

And so the fire chief has committed to using some of our general fund money from the fire department to get two fire stations.

So the short answer is yes, measure X will cover the Lake Chabot fire station um as well as our Ashland fire station on 164th.

I am currently in phase two, uh phase two of the projects for that.

I didn't share that today, uh, but we do have a CEQA going out for those two fire stations as well as our um architect and engineer.

We're under contract negotiations to finalize that.

So we are rapidly gonna be right behind these three fire stations with two more.

Thank you.

That's it.

Uh great job.

Presentation amazing.

And you are moving very quick.

Station 25.

I drive by every day.

I'm like, wow, it's gone.

It's really gone.

So yeah, great job.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I know you're interested in making sure that we had a uh traffic plan, and I hope that we met our mark on that as well, because we definitely have been trying to message that community there on what's coming.

Customer Feeback.

Great job on the presentation.

Everything's looking good.

No comment or questions.

Bye, Shermulgro.

Thank you, Deputy Chief.

Uh, good to hear and congratulations.

I mean, this is this is great progress.

And um, you know, what we don't see is all the work that goes on behind this and before this.

And I I know you've been working crazy.

So thank you for that.

Um just one question.

What remind me what's happening with the current station on Palomaris, the existing?

It's it's not being torn down, is it?

It's not.

So that is one of our only buildings that we occupy that's not owned by ACFT, so it's owned by the county in general services.

So we will be moving out and we will be pivoting that sort of occupancy back to the county.

Gotcha.

Thank you.

Good luck.

Keep keep fighting.

Thank you.

Um thank you.

Uh well done.

Um, just a quick question.

On that particular building that would be turned back to the county, as I'm assuming it's GSA.

Correct.

Yes.

It'd be kind of like our Castro Valley library.

It'll sit empty for 20 years.

Uh thank you.

That's kind of what I thought.

Yeah.

I couldn't help it.

I'm sorry, Eric.

Um thank you.

Well done.

We really appreciate your coming and giving us these updates.

Um I didn't see any murals this time.

I was I think you're probably safe with them for next time, right?

Said you wanted to be done by nine.

Yeah.

I was trying to comply.

Thank you.

Um, um, we have no more comments for the council.

And uh this is not an action item, it's just uh an informational item.

So we uh thank you for coming and look forward to seeing you on your next uh phase here.

Maybe in about three.

People's updated on the ribbon cutting.

Yeah, you'll be invited to the ribbon cutting this group, and then I'll try to get on the agenda for maybe July.

Um, that we should have some more cool pictures to see.

That'll be great.

Okay, thank you for having me.

Thank you.

Okay, next item on the agenda is um our sheriff's department update and um on the technology side.

So um we have uh Sergeant Fenton Carly.

Thank you.

All right, good evening.

I'm gonna uh do my best here.

Uh I've got a pretty extensive presentation.

This is uh extremely important information uh related to public safety, uh specifically the board of supervisors is voting uh tomorrow afternoon.

And so uh as a representative of the the sheriff and the sheriff's office, uh the information I'm gonna give you is so you can formulate your own opinion uh as residents, uh business owners and uh community members on what we should be doing here.

Uh but if your voice is not heard at the board tomorrow, the board is gonna vote however they want.

And I can tell you at the last board meeting, uh, there weren't any unincorporated, there were no Castor Valley, Hayward, San Lorenzo, Ashland people that uh that showed up to the meeting.

And I believe most of the uh the people there was there was one or two, but a majority of them uh were not uh people who live here and have a vested interest.

So uh next slide, please.

Uh I'm the sergeant of our real-time information center.

I've been with the sheriff's office for about 20 years.

Uh for the last three years, I've dedicated uh every moment of my life to uh acquiring technology so that we can stay ahead of the criminal element and really protect this community and enhance our public safety.

Uh the real-time information center is dedicated to uh providing timely information uh to our first responders.

So not just law enforcement, but uh public works.

We have a great relationship with the Alameda County Fire Department, uh paramedics, and our outside agency law enforcement partners.

Next slide.

Traditionally, we have uh been very siloed uh within law enforcement and not good at sharing information.

Uh, we're gonna cover primarily the license plate reader technology, but I'm also gonna talk about how that uh works with the other technology that we've acquired.

Uh public safety has to be a priority.

And the people that live here, uh I think assume that uh that that is um what is being looked at.

And I think sometimes that uh people get distracted because they assume public safety is always occurring.

We are doing our our best.

Uh the fire department, the the police department, sheriff's office, highway patrol, uh, but we need technology.

Uh we need to stay up with the times in order to uh really provide the best level of service.

And Alameda County's goal is to be a crime-free county.

Uh without the technology, we're not going to be able to accomplish that goal.

Uh, specifically, when we look at the implementation of technology, the sheriff's office is committed to uh being very transparent on how we use that, uh, accountable for what we do with that technology, but most importantly, community collaboration.

This is one of probably 15 meetings in the last couple of weeks that I've attended where we've tried to provide as much information and educate uh people that live in this area as to what we're doing and how we're doing it.

Next slide, please.

So, what is a real-time information center?

Well, three years ago I asked the same question when the sheriff told me she wanted me to build one.

There was not one in the Bay Area, it didn't exist.

Uh, California, especially that we're in the Silicon Valley, you would think we were uh the spearhead of technology and come to find out that the rest of the United States is already uh operating these real-time information centers, had uh significant infrastructure, and most of us in this area lack that.

Uh, since then, San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, and the Sheriff's Office have made significant investments.

Uh on the left is kind of the concept of what I think people think it is.

On the right is really where we started, which is one TV and a computer and me.

Uh, next slide.

Uh, over the last three years, we have significantly done research and invested in technology.

We've built a state-of-the-art uh real-time information center that's based out of the Eden Township substation in Castro Valley.

Next slide.

Uh, currently I supervise that uh unit.

I have a sheriff technician, uh crime technician, and as of the end of this week, I will have a deputy assigned to me full time.

Uh we're in the process of hiring a senior crime analyst as well.

So uh hope to have uh five people working within this, and you're gonna see that uh the technology that we use and how we use it.

Next slide.

So there's four components of a real-time crime center or real-time information center as we like to call it.

Uh, the names are synonymous.

Uh, the first is staff.

It doesn't matter how much technology we acquire, how many things we buy, if we don't have people to vet that information and then distribute it to the line staff, the deputies out in the field or the detectives, that information is pretty much useless.

So uh we're finally getting the staff that we need.

Staffing is certainly a challenge for law enforcement across the United States right now, uh, and we are or no different.

Um, but we are properly staffed now.

The the main component is our license plate reader technology is the first piece of technology that we have invested in.

Uh, and we started using these cameras uh over 10 years ago.

Uh it's not until now that all of a sudden uh it seems to be a hot button topic.

And I don't know, well, I do know why it is, and we'll kind of talk about that a little bit.

Uh we've had these license plate readers on our cars for for years.

About three years ago, we switched vendors to a vendor that uh has a product that's far surpasses the others.

And the results are are there.

I have a lot of statistical data to support that uh that what I'll share with you.

The second piece to this is we've incorporated Panthilt Zoom situational cameras or community cameras in high crime areas.

There are several of these positions strategically throughout Castro Valley, and those feed real-time information into uh our our center.

I have some videos and things I'll show you.

And then the last part uh is our drone first responder program.

Currently active uh in the San Leandro and Cherry Land area, but soon to be coming to Castro Valley, probably within the next two or three months.

We're actively working with East Bay Regional Park Police uh for a site location and eventually working very closely with Chief Moore here to uh possibly use uh some of the fire stations as a launching location.

Next slide.

So the real-time information center has taken me three years to build.

Uh the sheriff fully supports this.

Uh, we have made a substantial investment into technology.

Uh as you saw before, that was a circle.

It is a pie.

When you take a huge chunk of that circle or pie away, it significantly impacts our operations.

Uh, all of these systems uh are uh in in integrated, they all talk to each other, they all work together.

Uh the license plate reader is is a huge component.

Next slide.

So there has been news articles, you may have seen it related to Flock Safety, who is our vendor.

Uh there's been a lot of misinformation that's been given.

Uh so I'm more than happy to address any of the things that come up uh related to that.

It's important to know that the sheriff's office started uh investing in in this infrastructure and picked this vendor out of uh vetting numerous other vendors.

And the rest of the county saw the benefits and the impact that we made and they followed suit.

Uh every single agency, law enforcement agency in Alameda County uses Flock safety.

And we share that data, that information with those other agencies.

Our crime groups are transient on a daily basis, unfortunately, they go to work to commit crimes, and they start by committing crimes in other areas, sometimes even other counties.

And as they travel, we at these real-time information centers share information and communicate about criminal activity.

And if we get a license plate for a car, we're able to prevent that crime from happening in our jurisdiction because we know it's coming through this network of cameras.

Next slide.

I want to point out that uh Governor Gavin Newsom supported Flock Safety and implemented over 300 of these cameras throughout uh the Bay Area along our freeway on ramps and on-premps, and they have made a substantial impact in the freeway shootings that have uh occurred and kind of plague the East Bay.

These cameras are not top secret.

There's nothing special about them other than they're doing the work that a police officer would do.

They're just doing it more efficiently.

Uh they are in a public place where there is no right uh or expectation of privacy.

They are not looking at anybody's personal uh dwellings, and we're not looking at people.

We are taking still images of vehicles and license plates that are in a public place, no different than a police officer driving around looking at your car running the license plate on their computer, which we've done for centuries.

The images that we get are high quality, and you the they help us find the needle in the haystack.

These systems are linked into the Department of Justice's stolen vehicle system, and the Amber Alerts, missing persons system.

They they give us an alert when a vehicle drives by the camera, and that where our attention then is.

Instead of searching the entire city of Castro Valley for a vehicle, now we know exactly what intersection they were at and what direction they were going.

Saves uh a huge amount of time and a lot of wasted resources when we're attempting to find somebody or or find a vehicle, a stolen vehicle, I should say.

You know, we we use this for we had somebody with dementia who walked away out of their home, took the car keys, got in the vehicle, and drove off.

Her husband reported this.

We were able to flag that vehicle.

This is a public safety tool, not a law enforcement specific tool.

And within 15 minutes, we got a license plate reader hit on A Street.

It's very specific location, and she didn't uh drive past the next camera.

We knew she had to be in this area.

We flooded that area with deputies, and in a very short amount of time, less than 10 minutes, we located her parked in the parking lot of Costco, and we were able to bring her home safe.

That's the power of this technology.

Next slide.

The deputies also are issued cell phones that are issued by the county.

Um, everything that is done on those cell phones is tracked.

It's for professional use only.

And there is an application that we can get the alerts to our cell phones.

So when we have investigators out in the field who may not have a computer, they still receive these alerts for missing persons, stolen vehicles, you name it, onto their phones.

Very high speed technology.

Next slide.

So it's important to note that groups like the Oakland chapter and Vallejo chapter and Richmond chapter of the NAACP have supported this because of the impact it's made on human trafficking investigations.

Additionally, the Center for National, sorry, the National Center for Exploited and Missing Children also has uh publicly voiced their support for flock safety, specifically both of these uh groups as uh significant vendor making an impact.

Uh we use this tool to find kidnapped children and to help find victims of human trafficking, which are priorities in this county.

Next slide.

I should note that the uh the district attorney, the new district attorney in this county uh made a statement um at the meeting that I was at recently uh that almost there isn't almost any case that doesn't come to her office that does not now involve some piece of technology, specifically mostly the use of this license plate reader technology.

It is solving crimes all over the county.

More importantly, though, there's already thousands of existing cameras in this county.

They're privately owned by businesses and residents.

However, when we respond to the call, the image on the right there is generally the video that we get.

It's not very high quality.

These systems are expensive to maintain, uh, and they don't capture license plates.

So rarely are we able to get anything that's very usable.

Uh, we may see that, hey, that's a white Toyota.

But then I ask you, how many white Toyotas are out driving around in Castro Valley?

How do we find out who did that car?

Well, the image on the left, that's what we get from the license plate reader.

We get an image of the white Toyota and now a license plate, and that is a piece of investigative information that helps us.

Next slide.

I have three really important case studies here.

Uh, the first one down in San Lorenzo, uh, this individual, the picture on the left that has the red circle around it.

That is privately owned video uh security footage.

It's certainly great footage.

It shows a newer model white Toyota camera.

However, I can't see the license plate.

So for an investigator, very difficult to try and figure out what car that is.

Uh this individual uh was following our victim.

So the white Toyota camera is a suspect vehicle, and this individual went to an ATM in Hayward, withdrew some money, and then was followed to his house.

As he walked up to the front door, two suspects armed with firearms, ran up, robbed him, and shot him in the leg.

Luckily, he survived.

Uh uh we immediately used the license plate readers that were in the area of the robbery, and there was only one Toyota camera.

Now we have a license plate.

We flagged that vehicle.

It was an exact match to the video uh footage that was provided to us, and we found that uh in Oakland and arrested both of those suspects, and they were positively ID'd uh as the shooters.

Next slide.

Castro Valley.

We've had two separate homicides that occurred in Castor Valley.

This is one of them that we use this technology to solve these cases.

This was back in December of 2022.

This was at night up uh uh off of uh Center Street area and Redwood in that general area.

Uh, this individual was shot numerous times as he got out of his vehicle.

We had a dark colored vehicle, and that is all we could see from video surveillance cameras.

Uh, we utilized license plate technology in and around that area.

And guess what?

There was no other vehicles for about 15 minutes in that area.

Only one.

And it was the exact match with the tail lights from what we saw in the video surveillance.

We end up then as an investigative lead.

Keep in mind, this just points us in the direction of a car.

There's numerous other things related to the investigation that take place.

But now we have a lead, and we work those leads, and we end up finding out that that is in fact the car.

And the uh the woman who was a registered owner, her boyfriend was the shooter.

We were able to arrest him, recover the murder weapon, and he was charged with murder.

Um, or that case was presented to the DA, I should say.

Uh next slide.

Uh, this is uh in December of this year.

We get a call from a citizen, a resident uh up in Castro Valley saying that an individual had some pornographic images of children on his cell phone.

We responded.

Uh we were able to search the device, and we found that to be true.

He was arrested.

The device was his cell phone was confiscated and he was booked into custody.

Unfortunately, this individual made bail almost immediately and was out of custody within several hours.

Our special victims unit detectives immediately started working this case, wrote a search warrant for the phone, and uh were able to identify some of the children in these uh photographs.

So these were not children that he had downloaded off the internet.

These were actual photographs he had taken of children that he had uh molested.

One of those being his own child.

We immediately obtained a felony uh warrant signed by a judge.

And then in the real-time information center, I used the license plate readers to flag this individual's vehicle because he knew we had his phone.

He didn't go home after making bail.

An hour and 26 minutes after we flag that car, that vehicle hit on Mission Boulevard in Hayward.

Patrol went to that area and they found him at a hotel hiding out uh immediately and arrested him.

No further victims can be victimized by this person now.

That's the impact of this technology.

Next slide.

We talked about National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

I can't express that enough.

We utilize this technology for Amber alerts and missing persons.

Next slide.

Interesting statistics.

California Highway Patrol, uh, their last uh statewide statistic said that almost uh over 25% of all stolen vehicles occurred in the Bay Area for the entire state of California, a quarter of those occurred here.

Unfortunately, 42% of the 25 occur in Alameda County.

When you look at statistics, we implemented this technology widely with our new vendor, Flock Safety in 2023.

We were taking over a thousand stolen vehicle reports in the unincorporated unincorporated portion of Alameda County.

Since then, we've cut that number in half.

Criminals know not to come here because we're going to catch them.

We've also been able to recover thousands of stolen vehicles much more quickly than we would have in traditional methods without these license plate readers.

Next slide.

So I asked, how do you quantify crime that doesn't occur because it's prevented?

And a good example of this is on uh Saturday night.

I was working and we received an alert on our license plate reader technology for two lost or stolen plates out of Oakland.

That generally means that someone is up to no good.

They switched license plates, they stole them from another car.

And uh commonly, that is a criminal tactic that is used when people are committing other auto theft, auto burglary, or residential burglary.

Within one minute of getting that alert, the deputies located that car.

We had air support overhead, we set up spike strips, and we tried to traffic stop.

That car failed to yield.

A pursuit was not initiated, and instead, we were able to use the spikes and deflate all four of those tires.

At that point, then we have low speeds, we initiate a pursuit on the freeway, the person runs across the freeway.

We end up getting two people in custody.

Inside that car, as it was coming over the hill in on Miramar into Castro Valley, were burglary tools, shaved keys used for auto theft, and a whole slew of other tools that were used for copper wire and metal theft.

I guarantee you we prevented crime that night.

Next slide.

The Richmond Police Department also has flock safety, as well as about 90% of the other jurisdictions and cities within the Bay Area.

While their city council decided to pause Flock for three months so they could discuss this topic further, crime exploded.

Their auto theft went up almost 29% in those three months, and apprehensions of auto theft suspects decreased almost 70%.

They brought this information to the city, and the city immediately turned the cameras back on and renewed their contract.

Next slide.

They provided them with the license plate.

Richmond didn't have access to the license plate readers.

They weren't able to find this car.

Who knows what happened to that victim?

Very frustrating for law enforcement.

They had the tools in place, but they weren't able to use them.

Next slide.

It is our data.

Uh, is going to be used for nefarious activities or unlawful activities, such as providing data or information to ICE or immigration or federal authorities.

That's false.

Um, or that we use any of this for gender-affirming health care or reproductive services enforcement, which is also false.

We certainly don't use this uh for any sort of personal use.

Uh, and we we don't do any sort of enforcement against uh people based on their race, uh sex or religion.

Those are all um violations of the United States Constitution, first of all, and/or uh California state law.

Next slide.

Uh any unauthorized use of this system would serious uh be obviously those people would be subject to serious penalties, disciplinary action, and/or criminal prosecution.

Uh so just to be clear, uh Flock Safety previously, several years ago had a national lookup tool that has been disabled.

No one from outside California can use these cameras, they cannot conduct any searches.

Uh they don't even see our camera network.

Uh the federal government certainly can't access our cameras, and neither can I or the border protection.

Next slide.

Uh guardrails have been set in place.

Deputies can't even search for certain things.

They have to select from a predetermined checkbox of approved uh violations or laws.

They have to provide either a CAD event number for a call for service or a report, and then they have to provide a specific reason as to why they're accessing this.

Uh Alameda County Sheriff's Office has probably the most comprehensive automated license plate reader policy in the state of California.

And we just updated it again today.

And it should be noted that we uh meet with people who may not agree with the technology so we can hear their concerns.

And recently we have done that, and we actually made some changes to our policy based on their recommendations.

So we are open to that.

Next slide.

You can scan this.

This is our transparency policy or portal, I should say.

It's available on our website.

If you scan this, it will take you to that.

Our policy is posted there, our statistics are posted there, as well as uh some information which we'll cover if we have time, uh, based on our drone first responder flights.

Very uh transparent and open.

There is nothing here to hide.

Next slide.

Uh obviously, we're not posting specifics about criminal investigations, um, but you can see how many searches were conducted, how many hot lists were done, etc.

Uh, our policy is General Order 5.42.

That is available on that transparency portal.

Um, and it's it's very uh it's obviously it's been vetted by county council and adopted by the sheriff.

Next slide.

Sheriff Sanchez herself has met with the CEO of our vendor, Flock Safety.

Uh, we went through uh some concerns that we had.

Those were immediately addressed or dispelled.

Um they have worked with us and really put some of those guardrails in place based on our recommendations.

Um the sheriff's office has been a catalyst for change uh and positive change.

We really want this tool to be something that the the residents and community feels comfortable that we're we're using it correctly.

Uh next slide.

Biggest part is uh we we have, in my opinion, in the Bay Area, one of the most comprehensive community-oriented policing units.

Uh, we have great relationships with our our community members, our residents, and all of our organizations, such as the Mac, and we really value the the partnership and your input.

We are here to protect you and provide services for you.

And uh your your input is important to us.

Next slide.

This is me doing a presentation similar to this at uh my Eden Voice, which is primarily uh a uh Hispanic uh group for Ashland Cheryland.

Um, again, you know, reaching out to all of our community partners and community groups to make sure that we hear their concerns and that they feel uh comfortable with the use of this technology and and how we're implementing it and trying to dispel rumors.

Next slide.

All this information feeds into the system called Flock OS.

Uh, it brings everything into one pane of glass in the interest of time.

I'm going to move quickly through some of these slides because it is nine o'clock.

Next slide.

This is the view of our uh community cameras, uh, some of which were in Castor Valley.

They are no different than traffic cameras.

We are not manipulating these cameras, meaning we're not zooming in or changing their position unless we're getting a call for service, and there's some sort of law enforcement related action.

No one is sitting in the office watching you do errands as you go to Safeway and things like that.

Next slide.

So before the deputies are even detailed to the call for service, I'm able to hear what's going on.

That means we can access the cameras and start figuring out really what's going on.

This provides the deputies who are responding much better information and intelligence so they can make better decisions before they arrive.

Next slide.

So at this time, right now, if we were to get an alert for a stolen vehicle, uh, or someone was to call and say uh their car was just stolen, one of us would be working on the license plate reader cameras to try and get a direction of flight.

The other person may be using the situational cameras to see if we recorded the incident that as it happened, and then I would be launching the drone.

Next slide.

All of these things work together.

You can go ahead and press forward.

These are the two drones currently that are on top of the Eden Township substation.

And hopefully we will have a similar deployment in Castro Valley in the next few months.

Uh these drones are flown like uh, I don't know how else to say it, like a video game from my computer.

So there's no one on the roof.

Uh I we have FAA certifications, uh pilot licenses, and we have FAA certified radar on top of the roof for deconfliction with other aircraft.

If you hit next, the video should play.

Or not, you might have to click on them.

Okay.

Drones come out of those boxes and fly.

I hope the last video plays.

Um I already mentioned this, but we've acquired a bunch of other software platforms that I'm not going to bore you with right now.

The primary focus is the license plate readers, but all of these things that we've acquired, they all talk to each other.

They all work together.

Uh I'm certainly open to entertaining uh or not entertaining, it's not the right word.

I'm more than happy to give you information on all of these systems if you would like them.

Um, just in the interest of time, we'll we'll move forward.

But the all of these things work together.

Next slide.

This is a view from the drone.

As we're flying the drone to calls, the camera is not pointed down at your residence.

I don't care what you're doing in the privacy of your own home.

We're responding to specific call locations.

And then once we arrive in the area or on scene, then we use the camera to zoom in on the specific area that we're we're responding to.

Uh, the drone is on scene uh right now, almost 70% of the time first before any of the responding deputies.

And on this screen in the middle, those are automated license plate reader hits.

So if you can see on the box on the right with the uh the green diamonds, those are stolen vehicles as it's traveling through our jurisdiction.

We're able to launch the drone because these systems talk to each other.

Next slide.

Uh so far, uh, this is from January.

We've had 142 drone responses, and like I said, we're almost on scene 70% of the time.

The drone has located 81 people out of uh 142 calls.

So very useful tool, and it works in conjunction with these other tools.

Next slide.

Transparency portal shows uh where the drone is flying, what it's doing, what call it's going to, what area.

There's a purpose behind it.

We're not just flying drones around uh the county uh spying on people.

None of this is uh a lot of this technology has been misrepresented as surveillance technology.

We're not surveilling anybody.

This is alert-based or call for service response.

Next slide.

We're connecting with our businesses, and uh this is a portal that allows businesses to voluntarily uh put some of their camera systems into the Arctic on a live basis.

It's all voluntary, they get to pick which cameras they want to feed in.

But now when we get a call for service in an area where maybe we don't have uh cameras, now we can look at that business's cameras and say, yes, there is a break-in happening right now, and we can get appropriate resources faster to that location.

Not to mention maybe have some sort of suspect description or vehicle information to give them.

Next slide.

This is a map of Alameda County.

Uh, I think you might have skipped one.

Did you skip the slide?

I think this is the video.

This is a um.

So this image represents the the county area.

Uh, if we turned off the license plate readers everywhere in white, has this technology.

Unincorporated area, including Castro Valley would become this black hole for lack of a better word, uh, where the criminals are going to see that there's no technology here.

I'm going to come here to commit my crime.

Um, and we've seen that in other jurisdictions where they turn this technology off and crime goes up.

So this is the significant impact of losing this technology.

Next slide.

On the Sheriff's Office website, uh, we created a video, and there's some additional literature.

Uh, there's also uh if you have social media on either Facebook or Instagram, we have several use cases and videos that we've posted that show how we use this technology and how it works.

On the back table uh is this document.

And I would uh hope that all of you grab this, um, take a look at it.

It talks about uh the meeting tomorrow is at three o'clock in Oakland.

And we we need you to show up and voice your opinion, whatever that opinion is.

But I hope uh we've given you uh enough information to formulate your own opinion.

Um we we do need to keep this technology.

It's gonna be there will be a significant public safety impact to this area if we lose this.

Uh next slide.

I believe that's probably it.

Um, that video is available online.

I would encourage you all to go watch it.

It's uh very impactful.

And that is all I have.

I appreciate your time and sorry I ran uh nine minutes over.

No, no, you we started it, we're gonna finish it.

So um we will uh go to public comment uh in the room and anybody online, and then we're gonna go to the council and then uh I'll look for staff comments and then we'll be out of here.

So let's go to um anybody uh Robert Battenich and then Edward Escobar for item seven.

Thank you, Sheriff, for your presentation.

You've just uh proved that this technology is necessary for the safety of all of us in this community.

I've been robbed uh 24 times in San Leandro.

I have um warehouses in San Leandro, and I was robbed 24 times because we don't have any technology in San Leandro like this.

And and I live here in Castro Valley, and that's why I'm here to endorse it.

This is a great technology, and it it's good for the community.

We have any anybody online.

Okay.

I'm founder of coalition for community engagement.

I'm here representing a broad coalition from across Alameda County.

Tonight I speak about public safety, community protection, and the critical moment facing Castro Valley and every unincorporated community in this county.

Over the past five years, our coalition has been deeply involved in major public safety efforts across the Bay Area.

We played a lead role in the successful overwhelming supermajority recall campaigns in Oakland, Alameda County, as I told you earlier.

We worked to successfully pass the public safety Prop 36, voted in overwhelmingly by a supermajority of California voters by 71%.

Those efforts were driven by Californians who felt their concerns about crime were being ignored.

We also helped lead the push to save public safety cameras from removal and support its expansion in Oakland.

And more recently, we supported the community effort in Richmond to restore the flock license plate reader program after it was shut down, as the officer just mentioned.

In both cities, residents, especially small business owners, working families, and immigrant communities made it clear that these cameras were helping to deter crime and support investigations.

But none of these victories came without resistance.

In every case, we faced organized opposition, extremist groups, and nonprofit grifters that promoted false narratives.

Extreme hypothetical scenarios with inflammatory false claims that public safety cameras were harmful, or that defunding the police would somehow improve safety.

These narratives were used to justify policies that effectively defunded the police and weakened public safety capacity at a time when crime was rising.

And one of the most damaging narratives we saw again and again was the way some opposition groups used the plight of undocumented immigrants as a scapegoat to justify undermining public safety for everyone.

Community members have stated this tactic created fear, confusion, and division.

So let's set the record straight.

Flock license plate readers do not report to ICE.

They do not report to Donald Trump.

They do not collect immigration information.

They capture only images of license plates and basic vehicle identifying traits.

Nothing more.

They do not capture faces, they do not identify people, they cannot be used for immigration enforcement.

Law enforcement can only access the data after a crime report is filed, and access is tightly controlled, logged, and audited.

And here is the bottom line that we have seen.

There have been zero deportations as a result of flock license plate readers.

Zero.

Not one case has ever been documented.

That brings us to Castro Valley.

Right now, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors is preparing to make a major decision about the future of public safety in unincorporated areas, including Castro Valley, Ashland, Cherry Land, San Lorenzo, Fairview, Sunol, and the unincorporated enclaves of Hayward.

Two supervisors, specifically Marquez and Bass, that you've heard about tonight, that do not represent any unincorporated areas like Castor Valley, have made it already clear that they oppose the Flock Public Safety Camera Program.

These supervisors are putting ideology before public safety, using what ifs.

Unacceptable people, unacceptable.

But there are five supervisors total.

We only need three to vote to secure these public safety tools for unincorporated residents.

So this is the moment then for Castor Valley to make its voice heard, as the officer had said.

Unincorporated communities do not have a city council or municipal police department.

You rely entirely on county-level supervisit supervisor decisions.

And that hasn't gone too well, has it?

So when tools like Flock safety cameras are restricted or removed, there is no local safety infrastructure to fall back on.

The impact is immediate and deeply felt.

Businesses and residents across Alameda County have repeatedly stated that cameras help deter crime assist investigations and provide a sense of security, especially in areas where response times can be longer and resources more limited, like Castor Valley.

And just as we saw in Oakland and Richmond, we already heard of some of the same misleading mayor narratives resurfacing at the Board of Supervisors by the usual ideologue suspects.

Our coalition has learned to recognize these patterns.

We have seen how quickly misinformation can shape policy if community voices are not present, organized, and vocal.

Common sense, critical thinking, and sustainability factors must shape policy.

So let me say this clearly.

This is the moment for Castor Valley to step up.

Because if we don't, we will get stepped on.

Castro Valley wants law and order, not the chaos that many Oakland residents have been struggling with.

And believe me when I say this, you don't want to be known as crime tourism destination.

We have seen what happens when public safety tools are removed and when false narratives drown out lived experiences.

Castro Valley refuses to go down that path.

So here's what we need from you.

Show up at 9 a.m., which is public forum or 3 p.m.

to address the agenda item to speak during public comment in person or online.

Join us at the 11 a.m.

press conference that we're holding to stand with the residents from across unincorporated areas.

Okay.

Sorry.

Anyhow, if you have any questions, I'll be here after the meeting.

Yeah, because this is really important.

Extremely important.

Thank you all, though.

Okay.

Umline caller, you're on the line.

We're on item seven.

Hi.

Hi.

Alice.

Thank you.

Uh, my name is Elise.

I am a Castro Valley resident.

Uh, and I voted for Nate Miley, and I am urging the county supervisors to cancel the county's contract with Flock and develop a policy that will ensure enforceable privacy protections and accountability for the use of ALPR and other camera technology, regardless of the provider or vendor.

While we may have confidence in the sheriff's department, we don't trust their partners.

As the sheriff's department has no ability to actually control this data in a meaningful way.

We cannot hold confidence in their statements about the community's exposure to risk in this regard.

Close neighbors, Santa Cruz and Santa Clara have canceled their flock contracts due to privacy protections promised by Flock, such as disabling national lookup tools, blocking out of state discovery, blocking ICE and CPV sharing that were not fully implemented due to loopholes, workarounds, and the systems being easily hackable.

While Flock promises safety, they actually make our communities easier, pray for bad actors.

This network makes it possible to case entire cities, tracking the daily patterns of every person within it, such as when individuals are away from home, daily travel habits, where they take their children, etc.

This info is valuable to criminals, and it's an invasion of our privacy.

The county cannot truly limit access from hackers or flock employees.

404 Media demonstrated how easy it is to hack and download Flock data.

ABC News and the San Francisco Standard, as well as other news outlets, have exposed how Flock has lied and misled uh officials to gain contracts.

Um, and the many ways um sorry, and the many ways with acts uh those with access to flock networks have abused data, including flock sharing data with ice, despite publicly stating they do not partner or hold contracts with ice and employees abusing flock access to stock exes or spy on children.

Reliance on flock data has already led to several false positives for crimes.

A notable example was the case in Colorado when a woman was falsely accused of accused of patch package theft based on flock data that was treated as infallible.

Similar to a lot of the cases that we have heard here tonight.

Um she had to go to great lengths to prove her innocence innocence, despite little very little effort to assume her guilt.

There is currently no true way of enforcing existing policies due to the nature of the technology.

And that is why I encourage the board to cancel the contract and remove the cameras until it is possible to truly ensure the privacy protections and retain full control over camera data.

Lastly, it is expensive.

Over 800,000 annually for tech, you cannot fully control.

I believe in public safety.

I think that cameras and ALPR technology can have a place in public safety, but I think there are better ways to do it.

And I do not think Flock Safety has proven themselves to have a good track record with trustworthiness.

Thank you.

Last speaker, Tuan.

Unmute your microphone.

Got it.

I just did it.

Thank you so much.

I really appreciate your hearing this important item because public safety is absolutely crucial.

So my work vehicles, my vans were stolen and my tools were all inside.

This happens quite often, too often, as we just saw the presentation.

Alameda County is just very vulnerable to all this crime.

42% of vehicle thefts happen in our communities.

And it's really important for me to make sure that our families are safe, our workers are safe, our immigrants are safe, that we can continue to go to work and provide for our families.

This technology has helped recover many stolen vehicles.

It has helped prevent a lot of repeat robberies.

You know, unless you stop a criminal, they just continue to go down the street and rob one store after another or one vehicle after another.

But this vehicle, because I've followed this uh issue uh fairly closely across multiple cities because there's been controversy about this.

But uh really one on the one hand, you have a hypothetical uh deportation of immigrants, and it's really fear-mongering.

On the other hand, you have actual criminal, violent criminals that are being taken off the streets.

These are hundreds of criminals that aren't just robbing, they are like uh the cases where uh the police chief in Richmond were citing that they need help with the flock cameras on to solve were like attempted murders, actual homicides, uh, human trafficking uh in Richmond.

One of the most egregious things was a young girl being kidnapped, her cell phone was on and was pinging in the city of Richmond, and they needed to turn on the flock cameras for a few minutes to identify where she is and rescue her.

But the cameras out of abundance of a caution of caution had turned it off.

So they couldn't rescue this young girl, and who knew?

Who knows what happens to her?

In Berkeley, the flock camera help capture and arrest a very violent criminal.

He had a prior history, he assaulted, raped women, and he ended up torturing a young girl and and then setting her on fire.

These are serious heinous crimes, not just robberies, although they help with robbies, but they also solve shootings, uh homicides.

Uh they help stop uh child traffickers, rapists, and those people that assault seniors.

Uh over four of a six thousand cities and communities evaluated uh license plate readers, and almost exclusively over 99%.

They independently chose flock because it's particularly effective, and the company is not some fly-by-night company.

They have been very responsive.

They have patched when the technology needed patching.

I believe things are not black or white.

We need technology because we are severely understaffed in a lot of uh our communities as far as officers, and they're asked to do a lot to respond to 911 calls.

Uh Oakland pauses camera system.

There was months of debates at committee at city council.

I was there for some of it because we follow public safety, you know, part being part of the recall panel prize and being with victims and and families of murdered children.

We wanted to know what we could do for our family uh for our families and communities.

And these cameras provide an effective tool to stop violent criminals, sociopaths who really need to be separated from society so that the rest of us are protected.

So I encourage you to support the responsible use of technology and to make sure that our community stays safe.

I'm also an immigrant.

There's been a lot of talk about ICE deporting people and fear mongering over Trump.

But immigrants are community members too, and we need protection.

And if they really want to go and protect immigrants, they should actually have people at the courthouses because ICE is showing at the courthouse, it's arresting people.

So I asked to align with 99% of the communities out there.

Sorry, sir, your time is up.

Time's up.

Thank you.

Umless somebody wants to speak in this room.

I am closing public comment.

Okay.

Um before whatever you say is gotta be on that microphone.

This is the first Mac board meeting I've been to.

I came for the issue of of the cameras that we should have them and and the use of them.

And I've watched you guys, gentlemen, um, how you operate, and I've seen the community here.

Um, I think it's wonderful that uh we have a voice here.

Okay, and but the trouble is our supervisors aren't listening to us.

Thank you.

Okay.

Closed.

Okay.

I am going to counsel for comment.

Uh we'll start with uh Councilmember Davis.

Well, due to the lateness of the hour, I have a few technical questions I'd like to ask the sergeant.

I can do that offline though.

Yes, no problem.

I'll provide you with my you can call or email me.

I'm yes, open book.

Great.

Thank you.

Do we have your email or it's on here?

Okay.

Great.

Thanks.

Thank you, Cher.

Sergeant, uh, thank you for being here.

Thank you for your service.

Um my question is there any who's raising the issue regarding privacy?

I saw I heard the caller, but I feel like this is a best system, you know, to catch criminals and go after them, find them.

So I don't understand the privacy issue, you know.

Uh, specifically, uh, we've had a couple of organized nonprofit groups that appear to be organizing against flock safety, uh, no matter what jurisdiction it is statewide.

Uh, and then at the last board meeting, we did have a handful of people who live in this community, residents that did speak, but a majority of the people that spoke uh spoke either on other issues uh and stated they were from other places in the county and did not live here.

So we're seeing some opposition, uh, not really from anybody that lives in this jurisdiction and actually works here, has a business or or resides here or sends their children to school here.

So that's uh I will say to answer your question real quick.

I I don't need you to hear me now.

I don't need you to uh do anything other than understand what it is, and then I need you to voice your opinion, uh, whether it's via email, phone call, or show up to the board meeting tomorrow.

The board of supervisors needs to hear you as the people that live here what you want.

And that's what the sheriff's office wants to do.

We want a partner and we want best practices.

So to answer your question, that's what we're looking for.

Thank you.

And um, you know, myself personally, I'm uh I'm a big supporter.

You know, uh usually in the parking lots, I see that blue blue lights, those are all cameras.

I like to park underneath those because it's it's free parking.

Everybody's scared of it.

But I love to park underneath.

So I think I think it's a great idea.

And uh I support it.

I strongly support it.

Cash Favali needs it.

I don't know why it's not there showing red.

We should have had it a long time ago.

Thank you.

And just to be clear, the red is if they vote no tomorrow.

That's what will happen.

Right now, all of that area is all white.

It is all covered.

They all talk to each other.

Every jurisdiction has the cameras.

The red is if we get a no vote tomorrow.

Then we are the area of the county that does not have this technology, and everyone else does, including Berkeley and Oakland.

Quickly, you know, if you're on the internet, Google knows where you are.

You're on the iPhone.

Google an iPhone knows where you are.

So if you search for the nice shoes, next thing you see is a whole bunch of shoes showing up.

So everybody knows everybody's tracking you.

So this is not going to make a difference.

This is good for our county, and this is good for Cashville Valley.

Thank you.

Council War Davini.

Uh thank you, Sergeant uh Cully for the uh for the rush to presentation.

I I hope you can come back sometime and we can have a reasonable slow conversation.

There's so many questions that I would love to ask.

Uh um, particularly about your drone program that we weren't really able to dive into tonight at all.

Folks in the uh in in the room, you heard the call to action.

Uh, there's a meeting.

I haven't seen the agenda, so I don't know exactly how it's set up.

Uh normally with the meetings, there's opportunities to speak on specific agendized items.

Um, this is not gonna be on the consent calendar, I'm assuming.

I have a presentation of the same one tomorrow.

That's at 10 o'clock in public comment.

And in addition to that, everybody gets to talk at open session about anything else that might be on your mind.

Geez, what can go wrong tomorrow at the Board of Supervisors?

They've had performative votes in the past that are absolutely scary.

They just defy logic.

And I wish you uh uh the the the greatest success in in carrying three of those votes.

Uh I am surprised.

Four folks in the department.

Why aren't you guys up to 15, 20 people in this division?

It seems like like like there's so much more progress that you can make.

Um, I'm gonna have a meeting with the sheriff next month, and and I and I I'm I'm hoping that she's a uh a firm supporter of all of these technology programs.

Um, and I will press her on that because she's an elected position as well.

So all I could say is good luck tomorrow.

And I'm glad all you folks stuck around for this portion uh of the meeting.

Uh uh, everybody call in, please.

I will accept your invitation to come back and provide more information on uh all of these things.

Uh absolutely.

Thank you.

Chairman Mona.

Thanks, Chair, and great presentation.

Thank you.

This is um great information.

We need to hear it.

We need to understand how um this is gonna protect our community.

And is this is uh um a great thing.

I have one question about um your um roadmap.

Is there anything that you're gonna be doing after this yes that we're gonna get tomorrow?

Um is there gonna be anything that you're gonna build once we get this?

Is there something else that we can so without going too far down the rabbit hole?

Yes, and uh tomorrow's vote really is to for lack of a better term to pay a bill.

This is a retroactive contract vote.

We're already 10 months into a 12-month contract uh where we've been successfully using flock services.

So this vote uh is just to pay the bill, but it's more than that because it's foundational, it sets the stage for in July when we come back to the vote uh to the board for uh a vote on all of these items since they all integrate and work together.

Uh and if the board votes no on this tomorrow, that is gonna have a significant impact on our our contracts moving forward.

So kind of two piece tomorrow's a battle in the in the greater war for lack of a better term.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Council Member Feedback.

I think great you did a great presentation tonight.

Um it seems like this would be very helpful to our community.

I have some questions, but in an effort of time, I'll pass.

It sounds like um I wish you good luck tomorrow.

Thank you.

Council More.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Sergeant.

Um, great job.

Strongly support.

Um, we'll probably call in tomorrow if I can't, I'll email.

But I I look through your presentation and I can't find an email.

Is it behind one of the QR codes?

Uh the email addresses, it's a handout or handout.

Uh, all of you were given a copy, and then there's copies on the back, sir.

Thank you.

Yes.

Thank you for I think a terrific presentation.

I was looking forward to it.

I'd like to have a little bit more time, but I um I completely support it.

I support Sanchez.

I think she's doing a great job.

And I really think that it's great to that she's uh pursuing some technology to help us protect our citizens.

Um I think the one thing the government has a job, and that's to protect the citizens.

And um anyway, you guys do a great job.

We appreciate your response here in Castor Valley.

And um, I don't have any questions.

I will certainly make a call um to my supervisors and that I have a relationship with and say this is a Mac issue we'd like you to support.

You know what I mean, guys?

You owe us one.

Uh two things.

If uh if you send me an email, uh I will respond to you in a timely manner.

So I'm certainly open to all of that.

And then I'll just end with um uh in the city that I live in, flock came up.

Same exact issues.

Um as a citizen, as a resident uh community member, I went to the city council meeting and I voice voiced my opinion.

I wouldn't put something in your community that I wouldn't want in my own.

So um it's it's a super important piece of public safety, and I really appreciate you guys sticking around in all of your time.

So thank you very, very, very much.

And uh with that, that's the last item on the agenda.

Do we have any staff comments?

We are we're gonna continue the next item.

I said it would be out of here by nine.

I obviously wasn't good at reading the watch.

So um, but we are out of here.

Uh, no comments from me, Chair.

No comments.

Okay, great.

This meeting is adjourned.

Thank you all for coming.