Sonoma County 1st District Supervisor Mike Cale, 1994

Sonoma County, a diverse county of over one million acres is famed for its agriculture industry and recreation boasting a booming economy and a unique lifestyle for its citizens described by the fame Luther Burbank as the chosen spot of all the earth. Sonoma County is the place

to live, work and play as we move into the 21st century. Led by the forward looking philosophy of its governing bodies. Sonoma County's 340,000 residents are a harmonious, successful blend of ethnic and economic backgrounds. We invite you to take a closer look at Sonoma County in

the nineties with your host Rich McGlinchey, How you doing everybody? Welcome to another edition of Sonoma County in the nineties, we're gonna be talking to Michael Kale. He is the supervisor for the first district for Sonoma County. He's also chairman of the board for 1994. We'll

be talking to mike in just a moment. But first, before we get into the questions and answers with Chairman Kale, want to call your attention to the artwork on the set today. There's two pictures there by Ted Castle who is a world famous photographer and he

now lives in Sonoma County. Now this first picture is the first tee at the famed ST andrews golf course in Scotland. The second picture is uh, the view of the mouth of the Russian river taken from the balcony of the rivers in restaurant and these two

beautiful photographs by Ted are, are just part of a collection that he's going to be showing us sometime soon. He's going to be a guest on the program. Again, we'll see more of them. Michael. Hi, how are you? We visited a year or two ago when

you first got involved. Incidentally, ladies and gentlemen, if you've been on mars and out of the country and weren't aware of all these things, Mike was appointed to fill his predecessor's term in 1991 90 90 october 90 right, 1990 he served for about 15 months filling

that term in 1991. He was elected to his 1st 90 to 90 to 1992. He's elected his first four year term of office. That may be one of many. Who knows? Well, let's hope so. Mike. Well, first of all, before we get into question answer, how

do you like it so far? I enjoyed very much Rich. I'm really having a good time and it's a pleasure to be able to serve the people of Sonoma County in this capacity. You're my supervisor. Yes, I am as chairman of the board. Mike, Michael, Michael

Kale. Uh, well, we were talking a moment ago. Everybody tends to shorten their names and we all have nice names. We should use his name is Michael Kale. We're not going to say Michael, we can help. Uh, as chairman of the board of supervisors. Michael, what

goals do you wish to accomplish in 1994? Well, there are several things in front of us rich and perhaps the largest thing is through the organization at this point in time and really reaching a point of culmination in the process that we began some year and

a half ago. A lot of the work is coming together at this point in time and my hope would be that we'd be in a position to implement many of the changes that we've been discussing during 1994. So that certainly is a high priority other issues

that are adjunct to that certainly deal with transportation issues because I do also sit on the Transportation Authority, but they involve the entire county certainly. Uh, and I spent a great deal of time still working on the hospital related issues and working diligently in the health

care, which is another changing field. It's gonna have a dramatic impact on the people in Sonoma County. So all of these are very high priority issues at this point. You're chairman of the Transportation Committee, you're the chairman of Black. You don't really have much to do

here, do you? Yeah, it's gonna be real easy. A lot of free time, Michael. All right, go home with what you were just saying there and in this respect. What major issues or other issues do you see in norman County facing in 1994 The ones you

just talked about. What are some of the other things. Uh well, these are certainly probably the some of the most dominant ones. They're still gonna be a great deal of pressure that's going to be placed on local government regarding the potential of regional government that is

still being discussed in sacramento. There are at least three pieces of legislation that are under consideration. That would have a very dramatic impact on the ability of local people to make local land use decisions. And this is something that we're watching very closely and, and really

trying to be diligent in working with our elected representatives in Sacramento to protect the interests of local people and their ability to decide where Sonoma County should go through the 19 nineties. Um, Michael is in a side, um, for many years that I was with the

county and worked with you and everyone else over there. We have the problem of the state passing laws mandating programs but not funding them adequately. Is that still, yes, it is there. They learned that very well and they have not backed off of that in some

instances. Uh some of the programs they want to send back to us that they're talking about in the current budget to local control is fine, particularly in the area of health care, health and human services, welfare, etcetera. I'm a firm believer that it should be controlled

locally because I think we're better suited to meet the needs of our community, but they don't want to send the money to go with the program. So, I mean, we're still sort of in that mode or they suggest that there will be certain revenue streams that

will come back to local government, but those revenue streams are very suspect. So we're still caught in that situation of having mandates thrust upon us, but without a funding mechanism to implement them. What changes have you seen in county government since taking office a few years

ago? Well, the changes have been very positive and perhaps more subtle to some degree viewing the board perhaps I think we have a very strong board currently in Sonoma County and not suggesting it wasn't before, but missing one supervisor. It was, I'm sure difficult. Certainly in

the case of the district that we live in with lacking representation. But I have a sense that the five people sitting there now really have a very strong desire to work for the good of the county. Uh, we all worked very closely together. So I think

there's a real sense of purpose, there's a sense of purpose with reorganization, all of the things that are ongoing, that we seem to be focused in the right direction and focused as a working unit and not having individual agendas. And I think that's extremely important if

we're going to be successful. We were talking before the program and saying that in both of our opinions, we really have a very harmonious part of supervisors naturally there are individuals. So there's going to be differences of opinion but by the same token, you folks seem

to really get along well and and really try to govern together who are the, your other members of the board right now, just in case the audience not familiar with everybody. Well, Jim Harbison represents South County, Tim smith represents basically santa rosa, Nikos pastilles is North

County and Ernie Carpenters, West County. Okay, So those are your four compatriots. All right. Um Michael, what are your thoughts in regard to the reorganization process that's currently taking place? Well, I think it's a very positive situation we put ourselves in where one of the few

governmental agencies that are no longer talking about it, but really doing something about it. We initiated this process a couple of years ago when I first came into office while the federal government was still considering and they're still talking about, they're not really doing anything. And

sensing we really needed to move in a different direction to enhance the level of service to the general public and and reduce cost and reduce bureaucracy. It's simply operate government like it's a business and I think that's essential that people have to view governmental services as

if you are operating a business. We have a customer and the customer is you as a member of the general population and we need to approach it, you know, in that as a customer service oriented institution, which historically government doesn't do people. The last place they

want to go is to a governmental agency to get anything because it seems to be very confusing, time consuming, costly. Everything that shouldn't be. It is and we're really trying to turn that around to make it a user friendly situation and get back to the basics

of providing service. That's why we're there. The only reason we exist is to provide service to people. It's good that you think in terms of the public as as customers because although we don't lose customers as a result of bad government, we lose confidence in our

in our people. So I mean, in order to keep the confidence of the board of supervisors at a high level, it's imperative that you treat people as you said as customers. Absolutely. And then people will try to find ways to circumvent the system. If it's so

convoluted and difficult. So there is another aspect that we're trying to correct if we can make it easy for people to get in and out, they'd be more inclined to come and do business with us. And it would solve a lot of other problems that we

constantly confront with finding people in violation of zoning ordinances and or other permit constraints that they simply don't understand or are afraid to get involved in. And if we can reduce that again, I think we're having a very positive influence on the county for the future

Michael, what do you think is the most important component of the reorganization process? Well, they're all extremely important. But I think one of the key components that I would see is the permit center where we're talking about really getting into one stop shopping and bringing uh,

where you have planning building environmental health but under one roof. The way in the current system is now someone comes in to get a permit. So they go to planning, they pull the application, then they have to go down the hall to go to building, then

they have to go across town to go to environmental health and they have to come back to get another signature and they find out that they don't have the rights and they have to go back across town again, this is simply not a productive system. So

I think this is gonna be extremely beneficial and reducing the paperwork in that same arena and finding ways to get people in and out quickly. I've seen some of the initial cuts that that group is preparing to bring forward and getting in a situation where we

have certain types of permits that can be done literally over the counter in one day you walk in, you file for it, you walk out with the permit. This is going to be extremely important and beautiful because also I think public works water agency and some

of these other agencies are often involved in in the permit process and getting them all together and just in one building for instance, it will be a real, I think a real asset to the people. And, and it's something that's very doable. It's not Pollyanna or

pie in the sky. It's, it's something that can happen and we're going to make it happen. I think you're bringing it off right now. I can see that change going on in the meetings and the recommendations that are coming back. Michael, do you feel that these

changes will actually save the county any money? Absolutely. And in what way? And how we're moving again. And I talked about the difference between being the public sector and private sector, but certainly becoming more accountable in terms of public employees. Now, if someone comes in, they

file a permit application, there certainly isn't any motivation necessarily on the part of a public employee to move that through very quickly. And if it begins to fall through the cracks and an individual comes to his supervisor perhaps, and you start backtracking as to what's happening,

but it's real difficult to establish accountability. But if we start approaching like you would in the private sector in terms of time management, how people build our time out. You really have an opportunity to hold people accountable for what they're doing and ensure that people's time

is used productive, productive fashion and quite often in government that doesn't happen right now, time management is something that is another concept that is typically lacking in governmental organizations. So I think there's a real opportunity to reduce our overhead and reduce the time constraints we put

on people and have a real financial savings at the other end and that will be very, very popular with people today. Should be popular with them any day, especially now, Michael, what do you consider to be the most important transportation issue affecting Sonoma County at this

particular time? And there's a second part of that question. What can be done about it first? What do you feel is most important? Well, the transportation authority has just recently completed our congestion management plan for this year and we have developed a whole menu of options

that we view as opportunities to enhance the movement of people through Sonoma County. We're talking about of course the need to widen 101 between Rohnert Park and Windsor And and this is not in response to a future problems. In response to a current problem, we have

several major intersections with one on one that operates level of service F which you're aware maybe not general public but that's that's the worst condition you have with traffic flow and the level of service F. And without some of these improvements will continue to deteriorate regardless

of people coming in. So that sort of responds to a a current problem were also involved in trying to acquire the railroad right away which our board approved at last Tuesday's meeting and exploring options for inner city commute service, which is another opportunity to get people

out of the car mode and perhaps look at an alternative means of transportation and certainly trying to enhance transit service coupled with that, I've initiated dialogue with Chairman Giacomini from Marin County and for the first time in history, the two counties were going to sit down

together and start discussing transportation and land use issues as transportation authorities. He happens to share their congestion management agency. Also, that first meeting is going to be february 10th and I've also applied for a grant through Caltrans for some $400,000 hopefully to do a joint study

on land use and transportation planning between the two counties. So hopefully what will come out of that will be a very comprehensive plan that allows us to make very good decisions for both counties in the future and really meeting the goals and objectives that the citizens

of both area and get out of this mode that we've been in of antagonism that we've seen historically. You're not opponents and you shouldn't be in that remote. No. And a lot of it is, we have a lot of artificial barriers. We call a county line

for instance. Well, the problems don't cease and desist at these artificial barriers. I think we need to bring those down and really look at what the issues are and start working towards joint solutions that are going to work for the good of everyone. Alright, Michael, we're

gonna pause right here and have the station bringing the audience a public service announcement will come back and we'll talk more about your year as chairman and time on the board and we'll also talk a little bit about Lafco, which I know you're chairman of. Ladies

and gentlemen, Michael Kale and I will return right after this message. Hi, I'm ken venturi, I'd like to talk to you about a place that's very special and dear to me, Hanna Boys Center in Sonoma California. My mom and dad contributed to Hannah to house and

educate the many displaced and troubled boys. There were sons of deceased or missing fathers from World War Two. In 1953 I played in the golf tourney with Monsignor Bill O'Connor, the founder of Hanna Boys Center and Byron nelson to help raise money for the hand expansion

to accommodate the huge wait list of boys back then. That's when Hannah took on a significant meaning for me. I came from a good home but these boys come from abusive, neglectful or broken homes. They need love understanding and encouragement which Hannah gives them today. Hannah

has given over 2500 boys a second chance to become productive, responsible human beings. I'm very sincere about asking you to help Hanna Boys Center. There are 400 boys waiting right now to get into Hannah, please give generously to Hanna Boys Center. Give today's boys a second

chance. Welcome back to this edition of Sonoma County in the nineties. My guest is Michael Kale, the chairman of the Sonoma County board of supervisors. Mike represents the first district but he also is chairman of the board. He's chairman of the Transportation Committee. He's also chairman

of Lafco, which is a very, very important committee. As far as the county is concerned, Lafco, among many other tasks, sits in judgment of whether or not certain areas of the county will they will allow them to or advocate there being next to some of our

cities. Michael, you currently sitting as chairman of Lafco? What do you see Lafco accompanied in 19 accomplishing in 1994. Well, there are several major projects that are on the drawing boards primarily for the city of santa rosa. They're looking at two significant areas of potential annexation

that being Southwest santa rosa and southeast santa rosa, which would dramatically change both of those areas should be. And you're looking at literally small cities that build out Southwest santa rosa would have a potential population of somewhere around 30,000 is what they're estimating sheet in annex.

And these decisions are going to be very critical to Sonoma County to the city. To the unincorporated area and laughter will be looking very hard at these annexation proposals. The need for infrastructure. How will infrastructure marry up with the development. We know what happened in the

highway 12 corridor when development got out in front of infrastructure improvements and I simply don't want to see that happen, nor will I allow it to happen again that we have to ensure that the mechanism to provide necessary infrastructure will match up with development as it

occurs. My recent Legislature, I think legislation I should say change the role that Lafco plays now. How will that affect Sonoma County? Lafco? Not too dramatically. I don't envision it will change the workload a whole lot and it primarily deals with things such as outside service

agreements, assume for instance, that someone went to a city and was requesting a sewer water hookup for their business and they, they were outside the sphere of influence and typically they could go to the city and work some sort of a permit to have that service

extended to them now that has to come to laugh, go for review before it can ever be approved. So there's some additional responsibilities that have been given to laugh go to to view these now whether or not it's going to dramatically change again the workload or

direction of laughter. I really don't think so. And the cities are probably more concerned about it than than Lafco is at this point for them trying to understand when do we go when don't we go and these sorts of things. So it's mike, what effect do

you think? And we know it will be some affect the state budget the crunch, you might say they're in, what will that effect will that have on Sonoma County. Well, I think it's gonna have a very dramatic effect. I I have looked at the numbers, I've

reviewed the budget proposal as it stands and if you look at it, a lot of the balancing act, it's within that budget is dependent upon a great deal of federal funding is coming to the state of California. It also requires that two major lawsuits that are

still pending in court would be won by the state and not by the opposition. Uh, I would suggest that if I tried to balance a budget that way in the county of snow might be out of my ear very quickly. But be that as it may,

this, this is what the state is doing at this point in time. And last year they had a request to the feds that they asked for something like, and I'm guessing somewhere like $30 billion for various programs and they received something like $1.3 million and this

year they're asking for like $50 billion or some other. I mean it's an extreme amount of money, highly unlikely that those dollars are going to end up in California. And if that's a key component of providing a balanced budget and having revenues go back to local

government, I would suggest that a that will never happen and be the state will probably be coming back and looking at our property taxes again as a mechanism to balance their shortfall, Michael, another area. I know you're very, very interested in this agriculture because you're a

vineyard person, vineyard owner, minor owner. I said, I want to get that correct, but you do have close ties to agriculture now. Do you see the county and the agricultural community working more closely in the future? Almost definitely. And and there's a very close relationship now

is it certainly is critical to all the supervisors and one of our mandates certainly is protecting preserving agricultural lands. That's what the county is supposed to do. We're looking for city center growth, not urban expansion into agricultural areas. And I think that relationship will continue to

strengthen as we see increased pressure coming from outside areas to try to develop in Sonoma County that will have to make choices and our choices to protect agriculture. It's the lifeblood of this county logging of small part small, I can't even speak today. Small parcels has

recently come into the spotlight. Tell us a little bit about this. Or do you support local rules for logging? We have a situation and this is controlled by the state Department of Forestry. If someone wants to log property, they prepare a timber harvest plan and if

they're in compliance with all the state regulations, they will get a permit to go forward. Well, the state also has an exemption and that's when parcels three acres or smaller, they can submit again to the state Department of Forestry, I have a three acre parcel, I

wanna log it. States says, fine, here's your exemption. And then we started getting phone calls because somebody's clear cutting a three acre parcel. We have no control at all. It's simply beyond our jurisdiction. Supervisor Carpenter and myself have, have looked at this because we are two

of the areas that are currently being inundated with some of these smaller logging opportunities and are probably going to explore mechanisms of getting some sort of local control that we would have some form of permit authority to regulate this activity. The county, one of the important

factors you want to be sure to get in the county recently implemented a new health care program. Do you support the concept of managed care? Michael, Michael, Michael do find, yes, they do. I think it's again, it's something that's going to happen. I think people need

to recognize that, that there is obviously the move coming from the federal government that there is going to be changes in the face of health care. What we did was create an opportunity for managed competition within a managed care system and we've seen the effects of

that most recently, having another player come into Snowmen County. And if you were reading the papers a few weeks ago, he knows that HPR, who was a primary carrier here negotiated with the schools, a 22% reduction in their premium rates. Uh, that only happened because the

County of Sonoma created a managed competition environment by bringing in another player and sitting down and negotiating with those people to provide very good health care package to County of Sonoma, but at reduced rates. So what we've done is create an opportunity for any businessman now

to sit there and and look at what sort of health care package he has, but sit down with whoever is providing that care and coverage and and negotiate prices where before it was the other way around you simply, yeah, you're gonna have a 5% increase now

you've got options and I think that's very important and you can still get enhanced care. So it goes beyond just managed care, which will happen. But I think the aspect of managed competition is also very important keywords right there. One other question here, Michael, the county's

working on refining the tree protection ordinance. Now, do you support stricter regulations for the purpose of saving trees? Well, I do it, recognizing that again, the agricultural community needs some flexibility and latitude in in how they deal with trees on their land and ensuring that they

have an opportunity to expand their agricultural productivity. But we do have some people in the community that have just been chopping down trees for the sake of chopping down trees and we need to somehow find a middle ground where we can protect trees from just wanting

loss or reduction, still enhance agriculture. Michael. Thanks for taking the time to come visit with us. It's been a pleasure to see you again. And I wish you all the success in the world to remain in your term in 1994 and knowing you I know darn

well. You do a good job. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, my guest has been Michael Kale, first district supervisor who is chairman of the Sonoma County Board of supervisors this year. My name is Rich Mcclintock. The program Sonoma County in the nineties. Be back

with you next week. But another member of the county government, family or related agency till then tonight. Good luck and good health to each and every one of them. Yeah.