December 19, 2000 BOS Meeting
notes by the Board Watcher

***Item 49: JOB OPPORTUNITY

The last meeting of 2000 began at 8:30 AM with Chairman Mike Reilly presiding. Supervisors Kerns, Reilly, Smith and Kelley were present. Supervisor Cale was away on vacation. The supervisors will NOT meet December 26th or January 2nd. The first meeting of 2001 will be on January 9th.

Chair: On behalf of the board, I want to wish everyone happy holidays. For all the county staff we'll try to make you happier by not meeting until January 9th.

Chair: The first item before the board is Special Districts Consent, Items 1 through 6. Any questions?

S. Kelley: It's just another example of the efforts of the Water Agency on fisheries, especially the opportunity to open up 45 miles of spawning and rearing habitat for fish. It's an example of what our folks do on the ground.

Record 4 [yes] 0 [no] 1 [absent]

[BW Note: They voted YES to

1. Approved $121,000 to Burbank Housing associated with the Firehouse Village Apartments in Sonoma 2. RRCSD: Approved sludge hauling agreement with Industrial Carting ($16,000)

3. SCWA dissolution of Sears Point Sanitation Zone 4. Kawana Booster Pump Station Project Change Order 1 ($11,919 increase) Argonaut Constructors 5. Prince Memorial Greenway Project soil remediation for soil contamination ($400,000), SR Creek, Santa Rosa 6. Mumford Dam (Ukiah) fish passage and riparian restoration ($60,000 Phase I) Total $420,905, 01-02 Phase 2]

Chair: Special Districts, Sonoma Valley Sanitation District Record 2-0-1 Mayor Barnett absent

[BW Note: They voted YES for these:

7. Extension of local emergency main sewer trunk line north and south of Leveroni Road on Broadway

8. Extension of local emergency for Reservoirs R1 and R2]

Chair: That brings us to Board of Supervisors Consent Calendar.

S. Kelley: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to thank the Economic Development Board for 20, the contract with the Redwood Empire Association ($25,000) and record a NO vote on Item Number 10. And appreciate the review of Item 28 by the staff to make sure we didn't spend an extra $300,000 or $400,000 on the guard rail project.

[BW Note: 20. What is the $25,000 contract for with the Redwood Empire Association?

10. Resolution renewing local emergency for HIV and Hepatitis C through use of contaminated needles. Necessary to get legal Clean Needle Exchange Program. 23. Public Works rejected all bids for construction of guard rails on a section of River Road due to high bids. Public Works estimated $547,865.75. The LOWEST bid was $849,000.]

Chair: With a No on Item 10. Consent is adopted on a 4-0-1 vote.

______________________________

[BW Note: WHAT wasn't discussed or even mentioned?

9. $275,000 Human Services: Grant for children age 0 to 5

11. $250,000 Human Services: document imaging system

12. $50,000 Human Services: On-the-Job Training

13. $28,445 Human Services: contract with YWCA domestic violence intervention services

14. Resolution approving 01-02 funding process design and priorities for Child Abuse and Community Services

15. Audit Report accepted for Children and Families Commission for June 2000.

17. Restore SR City High District's Canceled Bond Authorization to 1991 requirements

18. $__?__ Agreement for Financial Consultant Services between Fieldman, Rolapp & Associates and County

19. $35,000 for Economic Development Board: Agreement with David Heller and Katherine Spiering to provide web development services to official web site for tourism program

21. Monte Rio Wastewater System: PRMD: Accept grants of $596,559. $350,000 from State Coastal Conservancy and State Water Resources Control Board grant of $246,558

22. Williamson Act Contract Phase-Out by Michael and Rosemarie Paulin, Vine Hill Road, Sebastopol

23. Accepted grant deed for protective easement, a condition of minor subdivision

24. Ag Easement and Covenant: George Googins; farm family unit at 2137 & 2136 Chileno Valley Road, Petaluma

25. Ag Preserve established on two parcels 29 and 22 acres at 1910 & 2010 Spring Hill Road, Petaluma

26. Crinella Subdivision: accepting Laguna Vista Road into county highway system, declaring Laguna Vista Road at Hall Road a stop intersection

27. $75,000 Roblar Site Closure Improvements: WQCB required county to grade closed landfill site to prevent ponding of water preventing leachate seeps into groundwater and surface water + fence the site.

29. S. Cale is establishing the Mayacamas Fire Advisory Board to advise on the use of special tax funds in the Mayacamas zone of benefit and appointing William Bird, Tracy Walling, Marilyn Ponting.

30. Disaster Academy 2000 was composed of 622 county, city, and special district employees.

31. $37,681.66 Hall of Justice ADA & Ergonomics Upgrades: No change of contract time for carpet in "well" of courtrooms.

32. Expansion of office space at 625 Fifth Street, SR, 4,500 sq. ft.

33. Chair to execute contracts with Manpower, Kelly, and Spherion-Pacific for one year temporary services contract

34. Reclassification - Assessor's Office for new cadastral drafting series, assessment process specialist, supervising assessment clerk, effective Dec 12, 00 for the following: SC Water Agency, Community Development Commission, Northern Sonoma County Air Pollution Control District, Board of Supervisors

35. Department of Health Services: approve four classification studies by consultant

36. Approve records retention schedule and authorizing the destruction of records, Probation, Juvenile Hall.

37. $56,250 with Ann Swanson for analysis and programming, Professional Services Contract

39. Authorize execution of employment contract with Janie Walsh

40. Appropriation transfer, final budget, $751 to Regional Parks

41. $50,000 from appropriations for contingencies to Clover Drive well contamination

42. Status Report on transfer from Appropriations for Contingencies General Fund

43. $238,000 paid to Robert and Donna Cochran who sued the county in an eminent domain case; property required for Phase II Sebastopol Road Improvement Project, acceptance of easement deeds and proration and transfer of taxes and refund, if applicable.

44. Minutes approved for meeting of November 28, 2000 for Sonoma County Water Agency and Board of Supervisors and minutes for the Sonoma Valley County Sanitation District Minutes are available from the receptionist upon request. All were approved 4-0-1]

4 YES 0 NO 1 absent

_______________________________________________

Chair: Supervisor Smith, I think you have the next Item, 38, Resolution honoring Michael Panas for 22 years of service with the Board of Retirement.

S. Smith: When Mike began there was $35 million available. Now there is $900 million. I don't know if we can afford to let him go.

Photo with S. Smith and Michael Panas

44A. Celebration of Sarah Bei, runner.

S. Smith: She's obviously skilled in athletics, how she handles the media, how she respects her competitors, is an excellent student, and won the National Footlocker Cross Country Championship and doing it in record style is just amazing. Come up and tell us what's next.

Sarah Bei: You wanted to know what's next? Indoor track meets in New York. I'm looking at different colleges.

Supervisor Kerns: My sister-in-law is a teacher at Montgomery High. She has the highest praise for Sarah. Photo with S. Smith and Sarah Bei

REGULAR CALENDAR

SONOMA COUNTY WATER AGENCY

45. Sotoyome Resource Conservation District Russian River Watershed Program ($150,000)

Staff: Renee Weber, Manager of Environmental Resources, Water Agency: The program will expire at the end of this year. We're asking to continue the program for two years.The program began in 1998 to improve the habitat and health of threatened fish species. We facilitate cooperation with landowners. They put on 30 workshops and training sessions, creek monitoring for temperature, creek conditions, stream flow, and rainfall in 6 separate watersheds.

Tim Anderson, Governmental Affairs: Proposed programs for 2001-02: Create subwatershed maps, annual reports and administration, formation of new watershed groups, assisting new watershed groups, restoration projects and workshops. We have Cary Williams, district manager and Ron Aeleri, chairman of the RCD board. That concludes our presentation.

Chairman Reilly: The board has been very supportive of the Sotoyome RCD because of the high quality of work and its unique position in working with private landowners. This gives us access to many areas of the watershed that we might not have.

Supervisor Smith: About 90% of the watershed is privately held. Without this group we'd be in a difficult position to access this property.

Chair: Record 4-0-1. Thank you for the good work. If anyone is here for Item 54, we're going to hold that item until January 9th.

[BW Note: 54 is recruiting and retention committee report.]

HEALTH SERVICES

46. Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment and State Grant Allocation $211,602, and adding 2 full-time positions Some of these funds will go to the youth treatment program, the probation Camp Sierra and Valley of the Moon Homes, increased the grant to Our House, increase hours at Sonoma, Windsor, Petaluma, Santa Rosa and Guerneville. We hope to have a Clean and Sober School in Petaluma.On the adult side we're adding a clinical director who will coordinate with the county and our contractors. We're working on how to implement Prop 36 [drug treatment, not jail] The effective date was November 8, 2000, but that's not firm. VOTE: 4-0-1

47. $10,000 contribution to First Night Celebration from Human Services budget. It's an alcohol-free event and looked at as an opportunity to do alcohol and drug prevention work, to inform the community about our services. We put this on the agenda at Supervisor Kerns' request.

Supervisors Kelley, Smith and Kerns spoke in support of the program, "a logistics wonder."

Chair: I agree this is certainly a worthwhile event. We consolidated First Night into an annual $50,000 allocation. It's been the goal to become self-supporting. Given the level of support we've already given, I think I'll defer on this.

Public Comment: Bill Pisenti, Redwood Empire TRIM: Where's this going to be held? The taxpayers pay ahead? Is it free? Isn't it time we get something back instead of contributing to everything that comes along? I think the taxpayers shouldn't have to pay this contribution. Thank you.

Chair: I think we have a 3-1-1 on this item. Chair voted No.

Item 48. Mental Health Adult Homeless Services allocating $1,209,209 from the State Department of Mental Health and adding 7.35 FTE positions

Staff: Money came from a competitive funding process whereby the county competed with other counties to get the grant money. 21 counties were funded and we are one of the lucky ones. Most important was the 24-hour seven-day a week outreach effort. It is mobile and can pick up the homeless and take them to an emergency shelter. It also requires an assertive community treatment approach, transitional and permanent housing, money management, and employment services. These HAVE to be new services AND New clients. There are 22 agencies involved including law enforcement. There are 72 clients.

The number one goal is to reduce homelessness among these 75 people and to reduce their hospitalizations. $15,000 per person per year is allocated.

Supervisor Kelley was concerned about adding 7.35 full-time positions. The answer was that 24-7 required more staff, and we are understaffed in Mental Health. We're taking this opportunity to increase staff.

Vote 4-0-1.

[***Note: JOB OPPORTUNITY]

49. Human Services position allocations: add one FTE Program Development Manager position and one FTE Employment and Training Coordinator position for the H-1B Technical Skills Training project

Staff Report: SRJC, Petaluma Campus will train individuals for jobs so employers do not have to recruit non-citizens from other countries to take those jobs [H-1B = US visa]. You move people up in the organization. That creates vacancies that are backfilled by other individuals. Ultimately, unemployed individuals fill the entry-level jobs. This grant will serve 250 individuals. 40 will be youth to be set up in high tech career track. The grant is for a 2-year period with possible extensions. The two requested positions are tied to the grant. Funds will be available in January. Vote: 4-0-1.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT BOARD

50. Resolution establishing a "Friendship Region" between the Shire of Yarra Ranges, Australia and Sonoma County. It's about one hour from Melbourne. Similar to SC: ag, vineyards, tourism, high tech discovery. Agreement is for 2 years. Vote: 4-0-1

GENERAL SERVICES

51. Juvenile Hall Replacement: Approve Change Order #5, $79,900 to agreement for additional studies with The Design Partnership for full architectural services for the new juvenile hall for a total design cost of $177,455. Project to be finished in 2004.

Chair: We were not successful competing for grant funds in the last go-round. We need to do everything we can to make sure we come in with a successful grant application. Supervisors Kelley and Kerns agreed.

Vote: 4-0-1

INFORMATION SYSTEMS

52. Professional services contract amendments $140,000 to provide highly skilled tech resources that exceed the capacity of inhouse resources. We have not been able to fill our vacancies because of salary differentials in the Bay Area. Vote: 4-0-1

53. Transfer $153,932 to add building outlines and centroids of unincorporated Sonoma County for Digital Orthophotography

Staff Report: These photos will be of roof outlines not the footprint. We'll assign a centroid or center of mass for that building. Then that center of mass will represent the building outline. We'll get a true picture of what has been built in the county, whether it's been permitted or not, whether we know about it or not. There is a tremendous cost savings doing it now rather than later. Are you interested in hearing a 5 to 8 minute presentation?

The board agreed to hear a 5 minute presentation.

Paul Buzanski: Adding parcel numbers to the maps is nearly complete. Only the Carneros Region is left. That's being done by the Sonoma Ecology Center for the Water Agency. It's done primarily by extra help and Sonoma State interns. We're transmitting parcel data to the assessor now. We're sending data for streets, roads, right of ways, bikeways, bridges to Public Works. We're working with all the departments to make sure the flow of data is timely and accurate. We're recommending that PRMD lead the effort to reform addressing in the county. [lots of chuckles from board members: someone muttered, "Water Heaters!" We'll require 500 gigabytes of distant space.

The next part of the project will be parcel alignment. We will be working on getting parcels in relation to bodies of water and roads. So we'll get parcels where they actually belong. That will help us get district lines correct.

Chair: That'll also help people to build their additions on their own property instead of the neighbors'.

Paul Buzanski: It will not be a legal representation of the parcels. The quality of our aerial photography is excellent. Building footprints are needed for emergency dispatching, for finding buildings for permits and inspections, for comparison in future years to find buildings that we don't know about.

S. Smith: Could you tell us more about addressing, how you're going to work with PRMD to come up with something beside water heaters?

Chris Arnold has said that she would like to correct the addressing issues with odd and even numbers, inconsistent ranges where numbers are duplicated, a lot of problems. It's a big project.

Chair: We've made a commitment to get up to speed with GIS. Supervisor SMITH will be LEADING THE BOARD NEXT YEAR, but I personally would be interested in having a workshop for the board and the public and outline some of the major uses and challenges of what we're facing.

Paul Buzanski: We did have a very successful GIS Day on November 15th. Approximately 300 people came through. We had 3 school classes coming through. We could put something together. In answer to a question about Santa Rosa, they are improving the resolution within their city limits. Law enforcement and Public Works are discussing it. They can't seem to find the money right now. It's a big gap in the map. Vote: 4-0-1

54. Recruiting and retention committee report Held to January 9, 2001

55. Fee waiver if $1,778.24 for building permit fees for the remodel/renovation of the Russian River Senior Center Vote: 4-0-1

___________end

Note: I did not attend the afternoon session. There were no hearings.