Testing one, two, three.

Thank you very much.

We continue.

This chart represents some of the production and impact we have provided in specifically Oakland on the left hand of the chart and countywide on the right hand.

Every number on these charts represents a household that received assistance before a larger crisis occurred.

Statistics tell us how many people we serve, but the stories that I'm going to share with you show how healthy homes has changed lives.

During a home assessment for deteriorating pain, staff discovered a severe hoarding condition that posed a much greater health and safety risk.

Months later, the homeowner told staff that his home and life had significantly improved because of the coordinated support.

Recently, the department came to your board to receive approval to request permission to apply for a state climate climate resiliency grant in partnership with public health to address impacts of heat in the unincorporated area.

Healthy housing is both a public health intervention and a housing stability strategy.

Okay.

Healthy homes began in 1991, focused on childhood lead poisoning prevention in four CSA cities.

But as housing and health needs evolved, so did the department.

In 2013, we became the Healthy Homes Department.

Today we address issues beyond lid, as I mentioned, including moisture, asthma triggers, falls, and accessibility.

Our responsibilities have expanded, but the organizational funding structure has not.

Over the last three decades, costs have increased, housing risk have expanded, and countywide responsibilities have grown.

Today's work includes lead prevention plus modern environmental and environmental and housing challenges.

Healthy homes continues to secure state and federal grants for its work.

However, many grants are temporary, restricted, population specific and geographic specific.

We now have a countywide mission supported by a fragmented funding structure originally designed just for four cities.

And with that, I will turn it over to Team Civics to talk about the polling.

Thank you, Director Williamson.

Thank you, President Albert and members of the board of supervisors for having us.

My name is Jeremy Hauser.

I'm a partner with Team Civics.

We are a political consultant.

We are a political consulting and communications firm that specializes in working with public agencies to address their revenue goals through the ballot measure process.

I'm joined today by Jessica Polski with EMC Research, a nationally recognized opinion research firm that did the work to uh help us understand if a ballot measure for the Healthy Homes Department might be feasible.

I'm also joined by Danielle Wood from NBS.

She's joining remotely.

Um BS are the tax experts that did the underlying analysis to help us determine multiple different funding options and eventually land on a potential parcel tax as a recommendation for a potential long-term funding solution for the Healthy Homes Department.

As was mentioned, we are going to present the results of some polling that was conducted in October of last year.

In that polling, we tested a parcel tax measure at two different rates.

The first rate, which would give the department the resources they need at a $15 million annual revenue level, and then a second fallback rate that would get us the minimum needed to keep the department running as is, which would be a $5 million rate.

And with that, I'm going to kick it over to Jessica to walk through the results of that polling and explain the methodology that went into it.

Thanks so much.

Brief summary of the poll results on this feasibility study related to a potential parcel tax measure as mentioned.

We were looking at the feasibility of a measure for the November 2026 election.

So what we did was sample likely voters, likely November 2026 voters.

The sample included 800 interviews with these voters.

So keeping in mind an overall margin of error, plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

You can see here on the slide, split A and split B are shown.

We tested two different amounts with unique sets of respondents.

The margin of error within each of these two splits is for 400 interviews is plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.

So over the course of the survey, we asked about a potential parcel tax measure for different times, and you can see what the results were over the course of the survey summarized here for the split A amount, which was a higher dollar amount that would provide the necessary level of funding at $78 per parcel, and then split B, a $26 flat rate parcel tax that would provide the minimum amount needed.

So initially, what we see when we ask if voters would support or oppose this parcel tax measure within split A, we saw 55% would vote yes for split B, the smaller amount, 56%.

There's no statistical difference between the two amounts, but both of them fall below the two-thirds threshold for passing a tax like this.

Then we provided additional information in the survey about some of the components that could be funded through a measure like this, as well as some of the potential benefits of a measure like this.

And after that information was provided, we then asked respondents again, given what you've heard.

Would you vote yes or no on this measure?

We do see a minor increase in support at both of the amounts tested with support going up to 58% for both samples, still short of the two-thirds threshold, however.

Then we also provided some of the things you might hear from an opponent of a parcel tax measure like this.

So simulating opposition messaging.

We then asked again, given uh what you've heard, would you vote yes or no?

And you can see opposition has a pretty significant impact with support for the measure going down to 45% for the 78 dollar parcel tax and 47% for the $26 parcel tax.

And then finally, at the end of the survey, we asked about an alternative type of parcel tax measure, a square footage, one that's based on square footage of building area of each parcel.

Um, and so this would have been associated with a either three cent per square foot or one cent per square foot parcel tax, uh, and would have uh the annual average cost per household would have been lower than these two flat rates.

Uh even still we see a little bit of a rebound, but not as much of a rebound in support that you know would be necessary to pass at the two-thirds level.

I just wanted to briefly share some of the uh components as well as the informational messages that did uh resonate with voters in the communities.

So throughout the county, uh sorry, throughout the CSA.

Um on the left hand side, these are the top polling components of a potential measure.

And these are just important to help us understand what would be the priorities of the voter community.

Um, those include preventing toxic lead exposure, providing lead testing, uh, protecting the health and housing safety of vulnerable populations, reducing home contaminants, reducing hazardous mold, pests and other triggers, uh, an exemption for seniors and low-income home homeowners, uh, modernizing data systems to protect resident information, and providing home safety upgrades for aging adults.

And then on the right hand side, you can see a summary of the informational messages that resonated uh among the uh most strongly with the voter community, the top two uh really around protecting uh communities and especially vulnerable communities from lead uh dangers, uh, and then the bottom two uh protecting uh communities, especially vulnerable communities from other health hazards and health risks within the home.

So with this data, uh we did come to a few conclusions.

Um certainly we see that a parcel tax measure does not appear feasible uh in the current environment.

We are seeing voters are pessimistic uh about the economy.

They were back in October, and from other polling we've done in the area, we're seeing that trend has continued.

Uh, we are seeing voters are particularly sensitive to cost of living concerns.

On top of that, we also see from this polling that voters are largely unaware uh of the activities of the Alameda County Healthy Homes uh department.

So uh we do think um that uh increasing awareness would help lay the groundwork for uh any potential future measure measure.

Um, despite all of these uh indicators, we do see voters share the department's priorities in keeping residents safe from home hazards.

And so with that, I'll hand it back to Jeremy for some recommendations.

Thank you, Jessica.

And just to underscore a few points that Jessica made.

Um, we are in incredibly economic uncertain times right now, and we are seeing the impact of that in voter support for ballot measures, particularly ballot measures that uh raise revenue via a tax increase.

Um it's our recommendation based on this polling that it looks like it's a no now.

I also would say it does not look like it is a no forever.

And there's really some good data that we can glean from this research that could help inform future efforts to Jessica's point.

I think there is certainly some education to do to the community at large about the critical mission of the Healthy Homes Department.

Those who use it and know it love it and really rely on it for some really key services.

Those who don't don't understand the critical health and safety components of the mission of the department.

So if the board were to be considering a future measure, it'd be our recommendation that before that there'd be some public education outreach and engagement to help connect the dots for voters so they can see the role that the Healthy Homes Department plays in the community.

And you know, it might not feel like it's close, but the uh primary and general election in 2028 are right around the corner.

Our presidential primary is going to be in March of 2028.

The deadline to qualify for that ballot is going to be December of next year.

And then of course we'll have the presidential general election in November of 2028.

The deadline to qualify for that ballot would be in August.

Uh, and so it, you know, we would really recommend that the work that the department has been doing would continue uh and really help connect the dots for voters and use the findings of this survey to really help folks understand the types of services that are available to them.

Uh and with that, I think we're happy to answer any questions about the the point research or next steps.

Let's go to members of the public.

Anyone in the room or online for this item.

President Howard, we do have two people that have signed up in person for this item.

Mark, even off and Almass.

Oh, okay.

So apologies.

Anyone online for this one?

Showing no hands online.

I'll go to I'll close public comment then and go to comments from the supervisors.

I'll recognize our Oakland supervisors, um, Miley, Fortunato Bass, and Tam.

Okay, thank you, Mr.

President.

Yeah, I want to thank the uh the staff from the Healthy Homes uh Department and the Community Development Agency for working on this.

Um as you know, I'm on the joint powers authority for the um for lead abateman.

And some of you know, in fact, I hope to start the JPA back in 1991 when I was on the Oakland City Council with Pleblo, the community-based organization that was really pushing this.

It was a major issue at the time, addressing lead abatement in pre-1978 homes.

And um it was cutting edge and um really um uh revolutionary, and it uh you know, to assess $10 at the time was a real big deal.

I've been a very strong proponent over the years.

Um since I've joined the board, I've been on the JPA at different times.

We've had other supervisors on the leading lead abatement JPA supervisor, former supervisor Al Sai Bicker, and former Supervisor Um Wilma Chan.

And I know we've um considered efforts at raising the um the assessment, looking at other forms of uh of expanding the JPA territory, um, and also allowing us to do more.

Uh the you know, the department's done a remarkable job uh leveraging the funds they get in from uh the uh through the assessment and providing services uh more comprehensively.

Um I'm I'm um I'm I'm chagrined that we don't have the ability um to move ahead at this point in time, because like I said, I've been waiting for our ability to move ahead for probably at least two decades, 20 years.

And um, I don't know if conditions will be better in 2028, maybe they will be, maybe they won't be.

But clearly at this point in time, I don't think um conditions are favorable for us to try to uh expand um the uh the ability to have resources going into um healthy homes uh for lead abatement and doing all the other services uh that they would that they would provide.

So I'm hoping that um the department through the agency will be able to um raise this profile as best it's best they can over the next few years because anything it does to raise this profile isn't gonna be um uh let's say uh deficient or or or or hurt, it's gonna actually uh promote.

Um, and if we're not at a place to look at 2028, I'm hoping at some point we'll be at a place to uh provide more resources, and if we can't provide more resources through um a parcel tax ballot measure, an assessment or whatever, then the board might need to look at other uh ways that we can enhance the ability of this department to do the vital services.

It's performing, not just uh um in the four cities, uh Alameda, Oakland, Emoryville, Berkeley, as and that incorporated area, but um comprehensively throughout the entire county.

So once again, it's with a saddened heart that we're still at a place where we can't expand this, but I I just hope that we can begin to contemplate what we might do, uh recognizing that 2028 might not produce a better environment.

Uh because as I said, this is something I've been wanting to see us do for the last um two decades, quite frankly.

Supervisor Fortnite.

Thank you to our staff for the programmatic report and to the pollsters for the information.

Um this is incredibly important work for all the reasons that were mentioned in terms of protecting children, seniors, and all of our families.

I am curious to hear about um, you know, knowing that we collect about $2 million per year, and the report shows the minimum that we were hoping uh we could potentially collect with a future uh measure is five million dollars.

You know, what is the gap in terms of the service need that is out there?

You know, for example, are we hearing more are we getting more requests than we are able to meet?

Is there sort of an unmet need that exists?

Thank you for that question.

So the services provided um based on the $10 is is voluntary, and we're currently able to provide services for everyone that requests it.

So we're we're able to do that.

But if we were to raise the profile and get more people requesting, then we might have a have a bit of a of a gap there, supervisor.

If that if that makes sense.

That that does make sense.

Um so if the recommendation is to do more public education about the program, stakeholder engagement, et cetera.

Um, and you know, I I agree with looking to 2028 in terms of perhaps that being a more favorable time to seek expansion uh and to go back to the voters.

Uh what does public education about this program look like, knowing that we don't want to overpromise any services we can't meet.

That's something that we will be evaluating, looking at what resources we have to do the public education.

Our public education um now really consists of very defined timeline campaigns.

We do things for Healthy Homes Month and Lead Poison Prevention Week, but that we don't have the funding to do things of a wide wide breadth all year long.

So we have to hit very small little incremental pieces.

So we're look we'll be looking to try to find additional funding or the grants to do some increased public education and outreach for the next steps.

Okay, thank you.

Really appreciate that.

Um, and knowing that a number of the cities um that are subject to the CSA fee are in my district.

I would love to have just a little bit more connection and engagement so that as you're reaching out to Berkeley, Emeryville and parts of Oakland, I'm happy to help.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Supervisor Tam.

Thank you for the presentation and the update.

Um this is a very important program.

Uh especially when we're uh trying to keep children safe because the toxicity levels in two to three year olds are um pretty detrimental.

Uh the question I had is I I know the federal government through HUD has put together um lead abatement programs that people apply for directly.

Do we, and then usually it's administered through the county.

How much do we typically get from the federal government for that?

So we currently have a uh HUD Let as a control grant, and that grant is 5.6 million over 48 months for specifically lead-hazard remediation of the homes across countywide.

Um has that has that amount stayed kind of steady or has it gone down?

In the last 15 years, it's been pretty steady, just to give you a sense when department started in 1991-92, Alameda County um was one of the first ones, and that grant was somewhere around 10 million dollars.

So it has gone down quite a bit from the beginning.

Okay.

Um my sense is I mean, in I know Supervisor Miley has been doing this for two decades, and then my predecessor, Supervisor Chan and my bicker, this has been a very um critical issue for them.

But and then, but in terms of looking forward and understanding um that this is really a public health issue, that um I think there might be more prudent ways in which we could fund this through like our measure A allotments and or measure W because uh measure W through our essential services fund.

Uh we we try to offset cuts that we get from the state and the federal government.

I I think uh that might be more prudent and trying to get a parcel tax or like five million dollars here or a couple million dollars when it's probably much more um effective to get it through like like 170 million dollars a year instead.

Yeah, we have problems we will certainly look at uh other uh measures and whether or not we qualify with uh with our program certainly sounds like uh it's a possibility.

Uh so we'll explore that further.

I know the charge uh was to look at um expanding you know uh the fee, the CSA fee and now parcel tax.

So we'll look into that as well.

Yeah, I I appreciate that.

And um and based on the survey results and the research, it sounds like a lot of the messaging around toxicity and the importance of healthy homes is resignating and and maybe if we had to like renew measure W, for example, we could include some of that in the future.

Thank you.

Supervisor Marquez.

Um appreciate the update and all of the work that's been done.

Um it's unfortunate that um there's not uh support for this at this time, but I understand why, given just everything that's coming before um our community members, but definitely support the outreach.

I don't know if there's been any conversation with public health, PSAs, like what additional um efforts and please see all of our offices as a resource.

I think all of us have newsletters.

Um so please design material.

There's a difference between posting something in a newsletter versus Instagram.

There's formatting and icons and all that kind of stuff.

So please give us like uh media toolkits so we could help elevate this information because I do feel with more knowledge, more people would be inclined to support it.

But thank you for bringing in and just um thank you to Supervisor Miley for his steadfast leadership on this.

And um, let's get ahead of it for the next opportunity.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

So with regard to additional awareness education, do we have an idea of of what that would look like?

Like we talk about community forums or specifically what, for example, um harm to children.

In my mind, that's huge.

Um it's maybe more important or um resonating with voters more so than say something else.

Do we do we have a feeling on what would be the most impactful education and awareness to move voters?

I'm happy to take that.

And I think there's really two considerations here.

I think the first is the message itself, and the second is who hears the message, right?

And from the for the message itself, I think it's pretty clear from the polling.

We need to be we we shouldn't be afraid of talking about the very real health impacts that are at stake here and that are prevented through this service.

I think we also need to tell a little bit of a story about how it is funded and how the funding challenges that the department faces are putting a strain on the resources and the end outcomes that the department aims to give to the community.

The second component I think might be the most important, which is the audience itself.

Um when you put a measure on the ballot, it is up to the voters to decide whether or not they use the service once, 10 times or never, or whether they've heard of it or not.

They still have the democratic right to cast a vote, yes or no in support of a measure.

So future efforts from our perspective should look broader and look to be communicated to the entire community, whether or not they use the department, whether or not they have awareness of the department, so that they understand what is at stake from a funding perspective and what types of services could be cut.

And to me, that is probably the most important component is you know, we can sit in a room like this and speak to an echo chamber where everyone is in agreement and understands what's at stake here, but there's tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of other voters who might not know.

Uh, and yet they're gonna get a ballot um in a future election where they can determine the fate of this measure.

And so from our perspective, that really is the most important consideration is yes, what is the message, but also who is hearing it and who is receiving it.

And public agencies can, you know, send that out in many different ways.

You can do social media as we've discussed.

We could do you know, digital and video promotion, direct mail.

There's lots of ways to get you know unbiased information out to the community so they can have a better sense of uh the current status of the department.

Do you have a sense of what level of awareness and um education?

You know, is this gonna what would be the cost to produce the level of awareness and education required to get to yes on a ballot?

Or do we not do we not know yet?

We don't know.

I I will just caveat that any public information on behalf of the county would never be about getting to a yes or to a no, right?

Counties have to be agnostic in terms of revenue measures, but they can provide impartial information about the department, the services it provides, and the funding gap.

I would argue that a lot of that information can be pretty compelling, uh, but it's important to know that any work done by the county would be uh unbiased and informational.

Uh to put a number to it is is tough off you know, off the top of the head.

We're in a large county with lots of voters who consume information in lots of different ways, and they are constantly uh getting inundated with information from many different sources, and so you know that would require a little bit further explanation to put a dollar amount to it.

Um I do know we did test awareness generally of the department um in the polling, and Jessica, I'm wondering if I can kick that to you to report the numbers of what we found there.

Absolutely.

Uh yes.

So just in asking, do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of the department, or have you never heard of it?

Uh, we see a large majority, 70% who have never heard of it or are unable to offer an opinion at all one way or another.

So it's a large portion.

And you may have said it, but I may have missed it.

This would need to be countywide vote, and the uh assessment per home of either 78 or 26 dollars would be on every home in the county.

We we actually only explored within the current boundaries.

So the four cities and unincorporated areas and those numbers that we produced were assuming that uh a future measure could look at a countywide effort, but that would be you know different numbers, different economics.

The numbers that Jessica has presented, that's 70% who did not know that was within the current boundaries.

Well, okay.

Thank you.

Again, Supervisor Miley.

Yeah, I think that's I mean, that is really really startling because the JPA has been around since 1991, doing a lot of good work, leveraging resources, and to have 70% or more not know about the JPA, uh lead abatement home um healthy homes department and the work that they've been doing is just phenomenal.

Um it's disappointing, but you know, can't argue with facts.

The um I think what would be helpful is it's all based on healthy homes.

But if we could expand the scope and the authority of healthy homes, because I know uh supervisor bass and I we you know we live in Oakland, and we do know you know there's issues of lead in the water at OUSD, and I know for a fact there was requests to see what what we could do about that.

We couldn't do anything about it under Healthy Homes and through the JPA, but it's that kind of thing.

If we're able to look at expanding the scope of healthy homes, it is not just about homes, but it's about um lead, you know, dressing lead, homes, water, etc.

It's not just about lead, it's about mold, it's about this, that, and the other.

If we expand the universe and the scope of this department and the JPA, I think the threshold for voter um, you know, palpability would rise because I do know people are concerned about lead and water.

They're concerned about more than lead and homes, certain about mold and other things in homes, etc.

And I know I don't think that was polled, or was it?

Did you guys ask about any of that, or did you we did uh the overview of some of the components of what the measure could fund?

Uh that covers what we polled.

Those are the top um sort of most important priorities uh among those that we tested in the polling.

And how did that resonate?

They do resonate and they are important to voters, so it's not that they don't consider this important or find you know uh the information compelling.

I think uh it's it's probably more a question of uh you know overall priorities in this current uh environment.

Gotcha, gotcha.

All right.

So I do think that would be a plus.

Now the other thing I want to ask the staff, what's the status of the um uh the settlement dollars that we're trying to work out with the city of Oakland?

Because I really think that might produce an opportunity for additional resources.

I know Supervisor Tam, she hit on a lot of things, and I definitely support and I'm concerned about and would be um uh open to uh exploring further because you know measure W might be our our savior for a lot of things down the road, but um short of measure W, do we have the resources through the settlement with um the opium?

Is it opioid?

What's it what's the settlement?

Is it led?

What's just let's let on opioids.

Yeah, we got so many something.

That's another one.

Yeah, that's it.

That's the other thing.

Yeah, that's something else.

Um, supervisor, we are in discussions with the city of Oakland staff in negotiations currently.

So we will be coming back to the board with some um results on that.

So we are talking now.

Yes, it is it is moving.

But that could be a chunk of change that we could tap into for a few years, right?

Well, it's the the total amount is uh 9.5 plus some interest, so somewhere around 10, 10 million that's at stake for that for those lead settlement funds to be used in the city of Oakland, yes.

Okay.

All right.

So I hope City Oakland policymakers, decision makers, officials, sir.

Listening in, or we'll listen to this meeting and get that get that resolved so we can tap into those resources because we need their collaboration.

Correct.

Okay.

Both both jurisdictions have to agree.

Come to we'd have to come to you for the approved MOU.

That's correct.

Thank you.

I'll recognize Supervisor Tam.

Thank you.

I just um want to get some clarification on that because I've had conversations with council member Guile and I think you and I have had some conversations because he wanted a million dollars to deal with lead abatement in the schools related to water using the settlement funds.

But when we check on the legality of it, the funds have to be used or something associated with lead paint.

It couldn't just be used for lead abatement in general.

Is that still accurate?

That is entirely correct.

Yes.

Residential homes, lead paint in residential homes, not in schools and not in water.

Thank you for the clarification.

So then we'll uh Ms.

Rivera move on to the next item.

Yes.

Is that right?

That yes.

You want to introduce it?

Uh yes, we can do that.

And uh luckily we have Team Civic still here who also conducted the polling for for that.

Uh so just as a reminder, your board at your last work session uh on June 4th, uh approved a contract with uh Team Civics.

So uh uh and that would be to explore um uh the possible amendments to Measure D, which Measure D is also called uh Save Open Space Lands Initiative, and that was approved by the voters in November 2000.

So uh Team Civics EMC, they also had polled uh for this uh project.

And um they explored a range of concerns from the agricultural community as well as uh possible modifications to the board uh authority uh with regard to uh land use modifications as well as awareness of measure D and support.

So with that, I'm gonna just transfer this over to Jeremy and Jessica to give you the results of that polling.

Jeremy and Jessica, I know we are short on time.

Will you have the opportunity to go through this?

We will okay, thank you.

Appreciate you asking.

And thank you, Director Rivera.

Um, I'm gonna spare you the details of the background of our firms given we just walked through that.

But Jeremy has our team civics, Jessica Polski with EMC research, same consulting team, different project.

Um really some background about this work that we're about to walk through.

We were retained to explore possible amendments to Measure D.

Um, test specifically a measure that could qualify for the November 2026 ballot.

The deadline for that ballot is August 7th.

Uh, so short on time, and then also present recommendations on future amendments should they not uh qualify for this the ballot this November.

Um before I can get to Jessica to walk through the results in detail.

I just wanted to give a little bit of a high-level summary.

Um this research, like frankly, most of the polling that we've conducted in the past six months shows an electorate that is volatile that is concerned about cost.

Uh, and all of that makes a 2026 measure challenging.

Um we focused this poll on one potential amendment that would give the board of supervisors by a vote of four fifths the ability to make technical land use amendments to measure D.

We did that because again, we wanted to test something that we thought could qualify for the ballot before the August 7th deadline.

So the poll focuses on that measure, but it's not the only measure we test.

We also look at other potential amendments that would require CEQA, would require a longer uh runway in order to qualify for the ballot.

So we could begin to understand voter perceptions about these issues and present some recommendations to you all about future considerations for an amendment.

So with that, I will kick it to Jessica to walk through the numbers.

Thank you so much.

I will give you while we're uh getting to the next slide.

I'll just overview the methodology for this survey.

Um so this survey, in contrast to the one that we just presented, included likely November voters from across the county.

So demographically and geographically representative of likely voters from throughout Alameda County using mixed mode methodology.

We did conduct 800 interviews.

So the margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

And these results, these data are fairly fresh.

We conducted the research last month through early this month.

Reiterating a few of the key findings, and then we'll share more detailed results.

Uh, we see that voters countywide do indicate that supporting local family farms, preserving open space, and making it easier for future generations to live and work in this area are high priorities for Eastern Alameda County.

So again, we asked about priorities for Eastern Alameda County among voters countywide.

Uh, we did see that the proposed measure that would amend measure D to allow the Board of Supervisors through a supermajority vote to make technical or administrative amendments is initially supported by under half of likely voters in the county.

Initial support is soft, and we do see support fluctuate over the course of the survey, uh, depending on the information that's provided.

Uh speaking of the different kinds of information that we provided over the course of the survey, we will share that detail.

But we do see that a short explanation on essentially what this measure that we tested would do causes a drop in support.

Um, other potential amendments to measure D that we tested in the poll are not widely supported.

They're not widely opposed, um, but also you know not widely supported at this time.

Um, we also see information about the benefits of amending measure D is compelling, uh, and we see an increase in support for the proposed measure with additional information.

However, we also see that opposition information is also very compelling, and we see a corresponding drop in support after we explain opponents' arguments.

So, starting with uh some uh opinions of local uh likely voters, we asked how much of a priority do you feel this should be for Eastern Alameda County?

And each of these items was listed, and we asked on a scale from one to seven, one is a very low priority, and seven is a very high priority, how they would rate each one.

And you can see all of these items, uh, most of them are fairly widespread priorities, particularly supporting family farms, specialty agriculture and local food production, preserving open space, making it easier for future generations to live and work here, preserve agricultural uses.

As you move down this list, you can see uh lower portions rating each of these as an overall priority and particularly a very high priority with diminishing portions of dark blue.

That's those rating this as a seven.

Uh so building more housing, uh supporting local wineries, supporting opportunities for local wineries and farms to attract more visitors and attracting tourists.

Although the uh low priority numbers are fairly small, you see diminishing numbers on the priority side.

So here is the potential measure that we tested as a possibility for the November ballot.

Uh, you can see that this was uh presented to respondents, and we asked if the election were held today, would you vote yes to approve or no to reject this measure?

We see a roughly even split of those who would say they would vote yes and those who say they would vote no.

But what's noteworthy is that uh both support and opposition are pretty soft, uh meaning that initially uh nearly half were undecided, but when prompted further, do you lean toward voting yes or do you lean toward voting no?

They lean one way or another.

So you can see roughly half of the yes and half of the no are in those lean categories.

Um that really tells us that there's a little bit of confusion initially about what this measure means as worded.

So uh we did provide immediately after asking if uh they would support or oppose the measure.

We provided a little more context on what this measure means, what it would do.

This is a summary of you know what measure D was.

It was passed in 2000, and here are the things that it established.

And then this proposed measure would amend measure D to give the board authority to make technical and administrative changes to the East County area plan with a minimum of four of five supervisors voting in favor of the changes without requiring a voter ballot measure every time a change is needed.

So with that information, we said, okay, given what you've heard, would you support or oppose this measure?

And you can see while we saw initially 48% approve.

That number drops to 41% after this explanation.

The portion who say they would vote no goes to a majority 57%.

And we ask on a scale from one to seven, where one means you strongly oppose, and seven means you strongly support.

How would you rate each of these?

And so certainly what you can see here is that opinions are a bit divided about each of these potential amendments.

The one on the top would set the minimum large parcel agricultural agriculture parcel size as a minimum of 20 acres instead of the current 100 acres.

You can see there's some opposition and some support for that, a good portion in the kind of neutral territory, increasing the amount of square footage allowed to be built in the rural agricultural zones, going from the existing 1% of lot area to 10% of lot area.

Here you see a little bit more on the opposition side, moving the urban growth boundary in Livermore from Greenville Road to the canal east of Greenville, a large portion of uh kind of neutral responses, but also some uh opposition and some support.

Authorizing the board by a supermajority vote to approve these uh technical and administrative land use changes as sort of tested in the ballot question in the poll.

Uh, we've got divided opinions there as well.

And then uh finally repealing measure D to allow the board to make land use changes to the East County area plan with a majority of vote.

We do see a majority uh opposed to that idea.

On this next slide, here is some other information that was offered in the survey about uh some of the things that could be beneficial with the measure that we tested, which was again uh changing uh by allowing the board of supervisors by supermajority to make changes to the plan.

So the the top informational item there that the measure would allow safe affordable housing to be built on agricultural properties in East Alameda County, so farm workers can afford to live near where they work and not have to commute hours every day.

This is a top uh piece of information.

62% finding that convincing.

Um pointing out that currently only large agricultural corporations can afford to operate in eastern Alameda County, and the measure would allow large farms to be to be divided into smaller parcels.

That is compelling to 59%.

The ag heritage message here that there's a history of family farms and locally grown produce.

This measure will support local family farms, 58%, finding that convincing.

The measure would allow long-time farm families in the county to subdivide their land and provide future generations the opportunity to establish their own farms and agricultural businesses.

This is convincing to 57%.

And then the last two on this slide around how the measure would maintain strong protections for agriculture and open open space, about half find that convincing.

And then finally around how this measure would create more opportunities to build housing to help support a more affordable housing market.

Just over half find that to be convincing.

On the next slide, um here are some of the things that you might hear from an opponent of this proposed measure.

Um, so after each of these, we asked how convincing this is to vote against the proposed measure.

And you can see uh opposition is compelling, especially messages that are focused on maintaining voter control at top one about how measure D ensures that voters get the final say.

This would change that.

Now 65% find that convincing is a reason not to support the measure.

Measure D has protected open space for 25 years.

This measure could weaken those protections.

Two-thirds find that convincing is a reason to vote against it.

And then a few other opposition arguments that are summarized on the slide.

All of these are convincing to about half or more voters.

So on this next slide, you can see this is the vote progression over the course of the survey.

As you'll recall initially, voters were essentially evenly divided between support and opposition for this proposed amendments.

After the additional context, as you saw, opposition went up to 57%, support went down to 41%.

Then after the positive information on some of the benefits of a measure like this, we saw support rise to above a simple majority at 57%.

And correspondingly, opposition drops.

But then after opposition, you can see that the position swing back and opposition goes back up to 57%.

So certainly a lot of fluctuation in support and opposition over the course of the survey, depending on the information provided.

So that takes us to these conclusions, and I'll hand it back to Jeremy.

We do see that the proposed measure to amend measure D does not appear viable for the November 2026 ballots.

Although we do see that voters identify supporting local farms as a top priority.

Most are weary about the proposed amendment.

Support for the proposed measure fluctuates substantially depending on the information provided.

That again leads us to this conclusion that the measure would be highly susceptible to opposition.

We also think despite all this, that an informational outreach effort to help voters become aware of measure D, what it does, and potential amendments and what they would do could lead to viable amendment options in the future.

Thank you, Jessica.

Just a few final considerations and thoughts before we turn it over for questions.

You know, not to be a broken record, but in an economic turbulent time, we're seeing polling that's pretty volatile.

And so, like with the previous measure, it you know, it's looking like it's a no now, but not a no forever, right?

Because in looking at the polling, we tested a number of different amendments.

Those amendments weren't widely unpopular, uh, but clearly there is significant need for further explanation behind those amendments, the impacts they could have and the consideration for why they might be put forth in the future.

Um with that in mind, future planning efforts uh for a future amendment at a future election date should start early.

Um, if there are measures that require CEQA, obviously you need the runway in order to uh make sure you've got the time to get a measure back before your board before the deadline for whatever election is that you're considering.

Uh, and as we've mentioned previously, with other efforts in a vacuum without information, voters tend to vote no, they don't tend to vote yes.

And so um future efforts, regardless of where folks stand on the issue, um, really should lean into stakeholder engagement, public outreach, and education so that they can understand um what is under consideration with these amendments because clearly looking at these numbers, there is a high level of voters who really don't understand what it is that is being asked of them.

Uh and that concludes our presentation on this topic.

Happy to answer questions when appropriate.

Uh thank you.

We'll go to public comment in the room first online.

Uh first three in the room online, next three rotating back and forth.

How many speaker slips do we have in the room and how many hands raised online?

President, we have three in person and three with their hand raised in Zoom.

Great.

Uh, for those online, if you're interested to speak on this topic, please raise your hand.

We'll have two minutes for each speaker.

Again, first three in the room rotating back and forth with online.

And if we call the speakers, they can come to the podium and be ready to speak after the speaker before them finishes.

Yes.

We can have Glenn Kirby, Almaz, and Mark approach the podium in no particular order.

Please state your name for the record.

I think it's a pretty straightforward.

I'd urge you not to go forward with placing this on the ballot.

Also, um, just as a reminder, at the last meeting there was a commitment to completely disclose the polling results, and I understand there are questions on rating Livermore Valley Wine Growers Association, Greenbelt Alliance, Sierra Club, and local government, and I think those results should be shared with the public.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

Thank you, members of the board.

Uh, my name is Glenn Kirby.

I live in Hayward.

I have to say I'm very pleased and not at all surprised that the conclusion of this report indicated that uh something for the November ballot would be unviable, not viable.

Um I continue to have some concerns about the process, how we got here.

Um this contract with EMC.

Um I don't believe should have been publicly funded, given that the purpose, the stated purpose of the I uh IFRP was to re-establish the Board of Supervisors as the legislative authority to make amendments to Measure D.

That I believe is um clearly intended to circumvent or nullify the will of the voters for Measure D.

And um is not permitted by California Government Code 54964.

So looking into the future, uh I hope that um no further funds will be spent on this effort, particularly given that after 20 years, it appears as though the voters in Alameda County still very much support uh the East County Area Plan as it was amended by Measure D.

So um thank you for that, and and I hope this continues to uh get public support for a long time to come.

Thank you.

Almaz.

Jane Kramer, Jane, Miss Jane, Jane Kramer.

I think this uh measure needs me to be aired in the public.

It needs a lot of further discussion and clarification.

Um, for instance, how are you where are the water resources for small farms or large firms?

The objective is great.

I'd love to have local access to food, but we have to have the resources to make sure that happens.

And you've got the valley.

Who supplies food to Alameda anyway?

You have to solve that problem.

We're gonna get the water resources.

Desalinization might work, except that it puts pollutants back into the ocean.

Um where is the accountability of 20 acre farms being the norm and excess development in the area um prohibited.

There's just a whole lot of unanswered questions to me.

And I just think that the public needs to discuss it long term.

Thanks.

Thank you.

We'll now move to our Zoom users.

We'll have Donna, Tamara, Kelly A, and then JB.

Starting with Donna, you may unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Good afternoon, supervisors.

Um thank you for providing the summary and sharing um the results of the survey.

Um it's uh very um interesting to see that um the results uh of um those who uh were surveyed uh surveyed uh oppose amendments to measure D.

And that validates that Measure D is uh widely supported by all those living in Alameda County in the cities, rural areas and East Alameda County.

Measure D was written to protect and preserve agricultural interests and um farming and ranching, and that um was also showed um in the survey to be um very popular still.

Um wineries and open space were valued as well.

Measure D hasn't endured because these resources continue to be important and valued by all Alameda County residents.

Measure D does not need to be amended at this time.

Um Measure D was uh a voter initiative passed by the voters, and the survey indicates that um any changes need to be passed by the voters, not by the supervisors.

Um again, it's very interesting.

Conclusion also that the more information voters have, the more opposed they are to changes and amendments to Measure D.

So I ask you to honor um what the voters passed in 2000 and continue to support.

And I urge you not to place this on the ballot uh because it does not look like um the majority would pass this.

So again, thank you for your time in this summer.

Thank you.

Cameron.

Hi, this is Tamara Royce.

Can you hear me?

Hello.

Okay, sorry.

Okay, this is Tamara Royce.

I'm here on behalf of Friends of Open Space and Vineyards.

Um, I think these results comport with what I brought up at the last time when this was discussed.

This tracks uh very highly with the Tri-Valley Conservancy's poll showing strong support for open space um in Alameda County.

Um I think it's really important that we note that people don't want their voting rights taken away from them.

This was, I think, uh a really bad time to even consider doing something like that.

And um we certainly see that this is not a good idea.

Um, I also think it's important to point out that some of these proposed ideas uh are in conflict with the UC Davis study that the Tri-Valley Conservancy did, which showed that we need mid-sized wineries and grow uh grape vineyards in the Tri-Valley in order to support economically the continued success of the wine industry.

So anything that would create more 20-acre parcels, uh, that didn't work in South Livermore, and it's not gonna work if we try to impose that on Measure D.

It's not good for the wine country.

I think what we need to do is if we are serious about trying to find ways to make agriculture more productive in our area, we need to work together to do that.

And this ballot measure is ill-conceived because it just was rushing to judgment.

And I'm grateful the survey was done uh because it does support what most of us in the environmental community already know.

Uh I would like to have access to the survey materials as promised.

I think it's very important that we are able to document what people think.

Thank you for your comments.

Moving to Kelly A.

Kelly, you may unmute and begin your comments.

Thank you.

Um I think this survey has pearls of wisdom, gold nuggets of valuable information.

Uh it found support for local farms, but there's sour notes in the countywide public sentiment, with notably less support for wineries and tourism.

This is um a serious, serious message, a serious warning.

Um the the funding for these two surveys we just heard, the lead abatement and the measure D, uh the lead abatement uh contract was uh signed a year ago, over a year, a year and a half ago, and uh your your staff knew that it cost 200,000 to run one of these surveys, and then they pretended like they could do a an info informal survey for less than 100,000, but Team Civics refused to take that deal.

And they uh they the price came out to be 150,000, which is probably what it should cost.

I think staff was delusional.

Thinking that they could get a cheap survey.

Now, the housing survey uh asking about housing construction on measure D lands, it's not credible.

It's uh a pipe dream, a mirage.

If you look at the luxury managed mansions and new homes built in East County on empty hillsides and green fields, they're all priced at the upper end of the market.

So we're not going to build low-income housing out there, are we?

Because that's not what's happening.

It's not going to happen.

Um and look at the drop in support when people were told that the proposed ballot measure uh g uh gives more power to the board of supervisors.

Um this uh survey, in fact, had more or less a referendum on trust in the board of supervisors versus trust in um you know local conservation groups and trust in the Sierra Club.

And if that uh the the Sierra Club and local conservation groups promote educational efforts to explain the benefits of Measure D, similar to the recently completed detailed economic study sponsored by the Tri-Valley Conservancy.

I think we have a great opportunity to explain to the whole county how great Measure D has been and is.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Moving to J G B.

You may unmute and begin your comments.

GB.

Hi, this is Griffin uh B.

Miller, and I just um calling in uh very interesting results.

Thank you to the supervisors for for doing this poll.

I appreciate the uh the use of public funds on this one because it is just eye-opening to see where the voters have sentiment.

And as a farm operator in Alameda County, uh, it's good to know that when there is not a lot of trust among the electorate for anybody, it seems from these polling results.

Uh, they do show I think there was uh farm farm farmers and farm workers were the most trusted among those polled.

So I think that's very telling.

And a few of the other callers who are referencing, you know, if we don't need agriculture because they have ag in the Central Valley, that that doesn't really hit home for me.

I think we should want to have agriculture in our county and farms that our children and my children can be able to visit uh to see where their food is grown and get them closer to the source of their food.

I think that's a fantastic thing that we should all want and not have to drive an hour to the Central Valley to a different county to be able to support their farms.

I think we should want to support our own farms here in this county.

And to uh I think there was another comment that was saying that wine country and farm workers don't need 20-acre parcels.

And that was not something that I saw in the poll results.

So my only suggestion is for anything that we do moving forward, I think we should ask the farmers.

Because they are deemed to be the most trusted by our voters.

Let's ask the farmers.

Do the farmers want to be the ability to go from 100 acre minimum parcel size to 20-acre parcel size?

And what would their what would be their arguments for making that change?

If they're the most trusted source, I think we should ask the farmers.

So I'll just reiterate um Board of Supervisors.

I hope for whatever path forward we choose, we involve the farmers and we ask the farmers what they need to be able to succeed in Alameda County.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yep, thank you.

Um I want to point out that the original Measure D in 2000 passed with 57% of the vote in favor.

And these results show that after arguments, 57% of the voters still support Measure D.

I think that's important.

There's been no loss of support for Measure D over these 26 years.

I also want to note, though, that when collaboration occurs, about ballot measures can be created to amend Measure D and get voter support.

In 2022, the environmental community worked with the wine industry and others and the equestrian industry, put a measure on the ballot, and it garnered just under 70% of the vote.

So working together rather than seeding control, seating authority, um back to the board, I think is the way to improve things.

I'll leave it at that.

Thank you.

And our last speaker, Shirley Windowski.

You may unmute and begin your comments, Shirley.

Okay, thank you so much.

Um I'm from Dublin, and I've lived here for 39 years already.

And I am just um grateful that uh this the poll turned out to be the same result as what we're seeing attempted at the national level.

When there are from this administration that we currently have, there are efforts to take away voting rights.

And people are starting to realize that's one of the most valuable things we have as citizens of the United States.

So in the same poll, when you're essentially saying that the public's voting rights are going to be taken away, that's indicative also of the trend that people do not want to lose their voting rights.

So thank God this poll indicated that.

And also I am still disappointed that public funds were used to um use to for this poll.

I would like my taxpayer money to be used a lot more widely.

Well, wisely, I'm sorry.

And I do want to thank the two supervisors that did vote before to not have this even be polled.

Um I appreciate their efforts on that.

And anyway, I think the poll survey uh is very, very good.

I'm very happy with the results.

And please again, please use taxpayer money much more wisely in the future.

We really would appreciate that.

And any attempt to even take away our rights to vote, that is gonna be a no-no guaranteed.

Thank you.

Does that conclude public comment?

We did have one last speaker that raised their hand.

Yeah.

Then that will be the last speaker.

Thank you, President.

Gene King.

You may unmute yourself.

The president has allowed you to speak.

Yes, I'll be very brief.

I just agree with those people who have spoken out that how important it is for the whole community to vote on this.

And it was very important with Measure D that was voted on by the people of the Alameda County.

And even though we want to talk with the other people, we want to talk with the farmers, we want to talk with the landowners, we want to reach a consensus, it's very important with this big decision about what we're going to do with our open space and our agricultural land, that the uh final say comes from the voters because it affects everybody in the whole county as to the open space and how much we like it here.

So uh let's again let's collaborate with the different decisions, but then let's make sure that the uh whole area gets a vote on this, and it is not up to the supervisors, is not up to a small group of people to do it.

Measure D has saved our open space, and as I said before, we have learned something from Measure D.

We have learned something that 20-acre parcels for agriculture for the wineries is not the right amount.

What they really wanted to do was to have another middle middle sized winery out in the South Livermore, because that's what makes it work correctly.

The small parcels do not make it work.

So, anyway, thank you for conducting the survey.

Thank you for all the information, and thank you for allowing the input for the citizens.

Okay, uh again, uh that closes public comment.

I would like to thank uh team uh civics and uh EMC EMC for the results and um different people can view the same data and come to different conclusions.

I see this as a roadmap for making changes to Measure D in the future.

It gives us a lot of data and information for where we should go that will garner more public support than other places, and so um I never want to embark on a mission without this kind of data.

I think that it's a little bit of uh conflation um with regard to voter rights.

Indeed, the voters of Alameda County are the only ones that can make any change to what they've already voted on in 2000 and what they've already voted on in 2022, and nothing that this board or this poll would do could possibly circumvent that.

Um, I don't know that the voters understand what a technical amendment is.

I don't know what the voters think of when they see the term four-fifths supermajority.

So a lot of things were confusing in this poll, and um, and that's okay because we did the detail to look at the other things like supporting family farms, making it easier for generations, talking about farm worker housing, which is extremely important, and by the way, allowable under Measure D.

Bless you.

Um, so technical amendments, you know, not so uh easily understood.

I also agree with uh the need for collaboration.

We proved that when Supervisor Miley and Supervisor Hagerty went through 10 years of collaboration with quite honestly um uh a wide range, but located in East County.

This is a decision that all Alameda County residents need to weigh in on.

What do people in North County think about East County uh and preserving um uh for providing for harmwork farm worker housing, uh allowing for family farms and the like.

Sorry, pleased to see that preservation of open space ranks very highly.

I don't know anybody that doesn't like open space, myself included.

I love open space.

We have to understand exactly what that means, though, because open space, the hillsides very important, much more important maybe to some than open space, wide, flat, arable land that can produce bed and breakfasts, wineries, and the the like, 20-acre farms and the like, which we see in other parts of our world flourishing.

And so this is a great starting point, in my uh opinion, for where we can go next.

I agree with the speaker who said let farmers decide about the future of agricultural land, let farmers decide what they need.

Um I re refute any notion that 20-acre vineyards don't work.

Um indeed they nothing in here talks about that, but let farmers decide what size farm should be uh uh appropriate.

So um, but we do need to do it collaboratively together.

We do need to do it countywide, and I think we do need to lean on the experts in ag and open space to do that.

So that's my opinion.

And um I I just want to make sure the public dollars spent in this way, and we spent public dollars on a poll for healthy homes, we spent public dollars on a poll for the this is this is fairly common.

I mean, we didn't break any laws or rules by spending the money we did on this poll.

Is that right?

County council.

Case law is very clear that you can do polling with public dollars.

Yeah, and in addition to that, for the unincorporated parts of Alameda County is very synonymous to how cities operate in corporated communities.

They're often doing polling, they're often adjusting their general plan, they're often um evaluating the economic um opportunities of land use and land opportunities.

To my knowledge, we haven't done any economic um feasibility of uh how we might unlock the value of unincorporated Alameda County, East Alameda County.

Um, and so that would be a whole separate discussion that every government agency is allowed to do for the jurisdictions that they govern.

And so um more to come on that, but thank you again for the results of this.

I'm going to go to Supervisor Miley and then um Supervisor Tam Marquez and Fortunatum Bass.

All right.

Thank you, President Halbert.

Uh, before I make my comments, one quick question.

The um the 800 folks that were polled, uh, was that universe countywide?

Yes, they are uh demographically and geographically representative of likely voters county-wide.

Okay, great, thank you.

Well um I pretty much want to associate my uh responses to what President Halbert said, um, for the most part, but not totally, but for the most part.

Um having been on the Oakland City Council, and people have heard me say this had nauseum back in the 1990s, uh, and then having to support Measure D.

We supported it because both as a uh resident of Alameda County and elected official in Oakland at the time, because we wanted to preserve open space and prevent urban and suburban sprawl.

That's what we wanted to do and preserve agriculture.

I've stated that before.

I think this was a good use of public dollars.

You know, the supervisors were elected to be fiduciaries of the public dollars.

We've got a lot of public dollars were responsible for uh over six billion dollars is the county budget, despite the fact that some people through Senate Bill 1193 want to try to take away some of our discretion, which I don't think is um legally uh appropriate, but that's another story.

Let me not get distracted.

Um, but I do think this was a good use of public dollars because it was very informative, and I think uh some of the speakers spoke to the fact that this was informative.

This provided information both for me that I already figured as much, but also provided new information that I might not have uh been aware of.

And I think as Supervisor Halbert pointed out, it does provide a roadmap, potentially if we want to move ahead with um some type of um ballot measure, obviously, not this ballot measure, but some future ballot measure.

And I think as one speaker pointed out, when we looked at putting a measure on the ballot the last time, relative to measure D, we spent a lot of time with a lot of stakeholder meetings, a lot of stakeholder meetings.

I think Liz um in the county planning department basically were responsible for convening uh you know, many, many, many, many meetings with stakeholders to come up with collaboration with the ranching and equestrian industry um stakeholder groups from um the environment and other entities that wanted to have a role so we could come up with a consensus around a bad ballot measure that we thought for the most part we we could pass without opposition, and that took a lot of work, and I think that's what's kind of outline kind of outlined in the conclusions that if we want to do a measure D, it's gonna have to go to the voters, and it's gonna have to be something that we have consensus around, because if we don't have consensus around, it's like the third rail.

People are not going to be um supportive, and and we kind of roll the dice.

And then some speakers f spoke to the fact that they thought this was uh an indictment or something on the board of supervisors.

I would remind folks that even with measure D, the county put a measure on the ballot to um that was a companion measure that voters could vote on in addition to measure D, and the whatever measure one would be the prevailing measure.

So that was a different set of county supervisors.

None of us were on the board at the time.

So it's not the the question of who's on the board of supervisors, it's a question that people are not necessarily comfortable with the county supervisors making the decision around land use measures of a significant uh scale in uh East County.

And if they and if we want to make changes around land use, they want that to be through uh the ballot.

I know we tried to do a technical amendment, which is allowed under uh measure D, but the votes would do a technical amendment uh on the board.

There wasn't sufficient votes at the time to do it to that technical amendment, and had we done a technical amendment, we might have been challenged in court and we could have maybe ascertained what would be the parameters for technical amendment, but we really don't know at the moment because we've never done a technical amendment and it's never been um um litigated.

So um I do think this query into the electorate around measure D was was was worthwhile, and um I think if we want to go forward with anything, uh I think a number of the speakers hit the nail on the head, it's gonna require uh collaboration, it's gonna require the right sort of thing we want to um amend with measure D.

Maybe it's produced to produce more farm worker housing.

It's people are not gonna support uh a wholesale um the development of housing uh in uh the uh eastern part of the county uh uh based on the results of of this particular poll.

So I do think it's very very informative, but I do think there are ways that we can move forward as Supervisor Albert went out.

This does provide a roadmap, but we should not venture into doing anything with Measure D without the uh collaboration of all stakeholders, otherwise we do that at our at our pearl.

And that's all I'll say at this point.

But I want to thank the staff and the consultants uh for working on this and bringing this useful information to us.

Um, because as I said, it confirms in my mind some things I knew and it helps with some things I didn't know.

And being the dean of the board, the longest serving member of the board.

And I've been around the 19 in 2000 when this vote went on the ballot.

I don't think any of these folks were even voting on it.

Are you voting on it, Lena?

You voted on it, okay.

But Lena voted on it.

Some of us have long memories.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Supervisor Tam.

Thank you.

When it got 57% of the vote, and then as you pointed out, with collaboration with the amendments, uh it did get 69.71% just four years ago.

So the the question in my mind was because we are public agency conducting the polling, um, there's a balance in terms of testing the messages.

So like the opposition statements, uh is that something that your organization developed.

We developed them in coordination with staff, and I would say it's a really common practice for publicly funded polling to test both the pro and the con side.

I think if we tested only the opposition arguments or only the positive arguments, it would be hard for us to sit up here to say and and tell you it was a viable unbiased poll.

Um, and so we we worked on those based on our experience on you know opposite mess messages that we've seen resonate in the past, work with staff to hear about um what they've heard in the community, both pro and con and kind of work together to develop that that language that we wanted up testing.

Okay.

Uh so in collaboration with staff, uh you tested voter control and understanding where the land use authorities are lying.

And so it sounds like a significant um proportion of the people, the 800 people that you surveyed, um do not want to relinquish that decision making power.

Okay.

Um so the second question I had is in terms of the 800 people, do you happen to know what proportion came from like East County or the unincorporated area?

Sure, and I'm happy to get you that information.

It is designed, the the data set mirrors the likely voter universe.

So we know based on the voter file, uh, what voters are likely to vote in November.

That's a uh uh calculation that we can come up with based on vote history.

Um so then we know what their demographics are as well.

So we know geographically how they're distributed across the county, and we know other kind of geographic uh demographic characteristics though that our sample uh mirrors both the geographic and demographic diversity of likely voters.

Um I'm trying to understand what that means because uh you you said you you polled likely voters.

You want to mirror the demographics of the county in terms of proportionality.

Yeah, uh so obviously Oakland's the largest city, and then Fremont is the second largest city, and then the unincorporated area is almost the size of Hayward.

Are you at least the urban unincorporated?

Are you saying that's how you looked at it proportionately based on populations or likely voters?

So we in order to give you a recommendation for November of 2026.

We start with who we expect to cast a ballot this fall.

And we can make a pretty good estimate based on past vote history.

So we look at that, and I'm gonna quote numbers that are just theoretical.

I think Jesse can speak the actual numbers.

But let's say, for example, we expected 20% of ballots countywide to come from district three this fall.

Then in order for our data to be reliable, we would need 20% of respondents to come from district three.

And we do that geographically, but we also do it demographically for Democrats, Republicans, decline the state, men, women by age.

We look at all of those variables to make sure the 800 people we are asking in this poll are representative of if we called every single voter who we expect to cast a ballot this fall.

And I think Jessica might have the specific numbers here.

Sure.

Uh the number that you came up with is very close.

Yeah.

So just uh looking at Board of Supervisors districts.

Uh again, these numbers are representative of likely voters from across the county.

So 21% from district one, 17 from district two, 18 from district three, 20 uh percent from district four, and 24% from district five.

You said 20% from district four and 21% from district one.

Yes.

Okay.

And uh you did you purposely try to uh find likely voters in all those districts, or are you just saying these are the universe of likely voters and they happen to be in these districts?

So it's a scientific poll sample.

So what we do is we take a random sample from among uh starting place of likely voters throughout the county.

So if you sort of take a handful of voters, um that should theoretically have the appropriate uh distribution across the county, um, but then we look at our uh our uh uh data set and make sure it mirrors uh the proportions um so we you can use um you know reminders to voters uh that are in areas that are under responding, uh and we also use weighting uh at on the back end to make sure that our final sample reflects the demographics of the likely electorate.

Okay, that's helpful.

Um my last question is probably to staff.

Um so both Supervisor Hobbard and Supervisor Miley said it took 10 years to uh get to some consensus for the 2022 election amendments.

And I I'm not going to assume, so I guess I'm gonna ask these uh potential amendments that were polled, how many of them were considered back in uh in 2022, four years ago?

Were we answered?

Back in 2022, we were only looking at one thing dealing with the floor area ratio.

That's the only thing we were looking at because we were we were narrowly focused on dealing with the floor area ratio.

We didn't really maybe you know, Albert or Sandy might have additional information, but we were not looking at other issues relative to measure D, because we knew there was a lot of hardship around dealing with anything else beyond seeing how we could get some type of consensus around fluoria uh ratio.

So I think that that was what we're doing.

And the reason it took 10 years is because originally we were not looking to put it on the ballot, we were looking to do a technical amendment, but then when we didn't have the vote to do technical amendments from the board, we decided okay, let's acquiesce and look at a ballot measure, and then what could we get consensus around for a ballot measure?

So but um uh chat time if if you recall anything else.

No, I think that that sounds about right.

I mean, the um the main issue, even though over 10 years we talked about a number of things, I think as it started to come into focus at the last couple of years, it started uh to really coalesce around that idea of the floor area ratio that would help uh folks that lived in ag to be able to uh pursue more agricultural uh ventures, and I think that that also kind of came through in this polling as well that there is support for small farms, and at that time I think that's what we were promoting was that this or that we were that we were studying was that the increase in FAR would help folks that were doing agriculture to be able to continue to do that and make those businesses more viable.

I I guess the question really is did you land on the FAR because you think that was the highly likelihood of passing or because you added a question uses too in the November uh 2022 ballot?

So did that come afterwards or I I don't remember polling.

Maybe Sandy remembers I don't remember doing polling that uh there wasn't polling that was conducted, but uh for the 10 years, as uh Supervisor Miley had noted, there was a lot discussed.

And I think one of the speakers and uh the at the work session, prior work session had stated we talked about many things, but they didn't come to specificity until they came back again to talk about well, um these uh we I think the Chuck Moore if if one would is one person that came back with the particular uh potential for uh uh the specificity needed to be put on a ballot, and that's when everyone coalesced around that uh idea, and that became the ballot measure that everyone focused on.

So uh and the farmers were part of that collaborative effort, right?

Okay, that's all I have.

Thank you.

Supervisor Marquez.

Uh thank you for the uh information.

I think this information is important so we know the sentiment of our community members and what they're willing to support and not support.

So just a couple of clarifying questions.

Um who developed the questions for the survey.

We met in coordination with city staff.

We basically did a listening session to learn about the key issues in layman's terms, candidly.

We then worked internally to work on a questionnaire draft that we thought A got us an answer to the November 2026 question, but then B also got us some more information about potential amendments in the future.

We then worked with city staff with county staff on that um questionnaire, got it approved, and then that is what we put forth to voters.

So it was really it really was a collaborative process.

Obviously, we leaned on our expertise on framing and questionnaire design, but really did want to hear from folks locally about the issues at play and how they're talked about on a daily basis.

Okay, and then there's nothing that prohibits the community to initiate an amendment, correct?

They will they always retain that right?

Because this information is helpful in terms of to educate the public and should someone I I think with this information personally, and obviously this is not ready for a ballot um in November.

I think it's important to have the information, but clearly there's still a lot of issues to sort through.

But um the community will always have the opportunity to bring forward an amendment too, so nothing prohibits them from doing that.

And with respect to sharing the materials, um, I know there was an ask when we voted on this.

Um I don't know if staff has a response to some of the more detailed information the public's been requesting.

We did receive a PRA uh just for the board's uh information with regard to that uh uh for the data that was uh created for for this uh polling.

At the same time, uh our consultants will be creating finalizing a report uh as well, and that'll be available for everyone.

And uh we will also be bringing it to the AG Advisory to begin and other stakeholders so they can uh begin talking about what the next amendment might look like.

Okay, thank you.

Supervisor and thank you for your flexibility.

Sorry that you guys have waited hours on end and to the public as well.

We've got to do a better job with the agenda management, as you could see though, the agendas are heavy every meeting, but appreciate your professionalism and sorry for the delays.

Supervisor Fortune Bass.

Thank you so much uh for sharing this.

I definitely agree that uh the poll information is very um helpful and useful.

Um I had spoken when we last discussed this about stakeholder engagement, so it was great to hear from my colleagues about um using this information to really build collaboration and consensus.

I think that is uh definitely important, especially given um a lot of the original intent.

And I know in my district, you know, the commitment to preserving open space, encouraging infull development, encouraging agriculture uh preservation, all of those things are really important.

Um I just wanted to ask uh if it's possible to have the cross tabs you mentioned, geography and demographics.

I think that would be really helpful to see.

And given that public funds were used for this, I I do think it's really important to give as much information directly to members of the public so that voters, constituencies who may want to do their own engagement, perhaps take something to the ballot are able to do that.

So um just want to have again that that commitment because it's um a public poll given that public funds were used.

Thank you.

I do want to end by um saying one thing we didn't test is the countywide support for or against other things that are allowable under measure D.

Solar fields, battery solar, battery storage facilities, cemeteries, other projects that have come before us, and several more in the pipeline, windmills, solar farms, storage.

Albert, how many do we have in the pipeline?

Uh we have one large solar project that's under construction, as you know, and we have about four battery storage projects in the pipeline as well, and uh about four wind farms that are quite large, uh maybe about 50 turbines total.

Yeah, they have the ability to go through our planning process and they have the ability to circumvent our planning process and go straight to the state of California.

So it's not a choice of anything we want to have, or maybe allow a 20-acre farm or not.

It's a choice between solar farms and windmill farms, which can are allowable under Measure D, approvable by the state of California, and already been successful getting approved through this board.

And so as we go to collaborate with our community.

Again, a roadmap here of what they do want.

We didn't pull whether North County wants more solar fields out in East County or not, but we could pull that, or we could start collaborating on what we do want to see.

And this is a good roadmap for that.

So thank you for giving us that roadmap.

Are are data centers allowed under Measure D?

I would say that they are not.

Um they are structure, it's uh more of an office use that's not allowed in Measure D.

We haven't had an application for what?

That is correct.

We have not completely untested.

Not yet.

Not yet.

Yeah.

So um with that said, I note that we need to close this meeting.

Um so we'll adjourn this meeting.

We will take a five-minute break and reopen the meeting that we had earlier today.

That we have several items to hear yet.

Thank you.

President Howard, can I just ask if the two presentations on the polling will be made available online so members of the public can also access them?

Yes, we'll make them available.

We had intended to make them available.

This meeting is adjourned.

We're gonna take a five-minute break and reopen that other meeting.