In a light meeting on this day, the Board of Supervisors received the annual report of the Shasta Public Libraries, delivered by Kimberly Niemer, Director of Community Services for the City of Redding. The Library Report included information from the main Shasta County Library as well branches in Anderson and Burney. Notable in the statistics is the fact that 2.2 million visits were made to the Redding and Anderson libraries in 2013, an increase of nearly 49,000 over the previous year. 118,000 internet sessions were held, including use of the library computers and people’s use of personal devices to access the library wireless access. Volunteers contributed more than 19,000 hours to the operation of the libraries.
The Library system developed a Strategic Plan for the period 2013 – 2016. A central goal in this plan is to work more closely with schools. In this year, the library will make an effort to assure that a library card is in every student’s hand in the Redding, Shasta Union and Enterprise districts. The Library system also operates a one-on-one literacy tutoring program for adults and served 108 individuals in 2013. The report is available as an attachment to the Board of Supervisors agenda for today, at www.co.shasta.ca.us. It should also be available on the Library web site soon, at www.shastalibraries.org.
Ms. Niemer also presented the Board with a schedule of events for Celebrate 10, a two week celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Sundial Bridge. Events begin June 20 and 21 with Summer Solstice celebration and end July 4 with fireworks. The celebration begins with performances by the vertical dance pioneers Bandaloop. Nightly musical concerts will be held, and there will be a brew fest, float activities, and docent-led activities at Turtle Bay. A schedule is available at www.turtlebay.org/celebrate10. Come join in the celebration of this icon of the community!
The balance of the meeting was taken up with the Consent calendar and two non-controversial hearings on Public Works and Resource Management issues. Of some interest in the Consent calendar was acceptance of a $2 million grant to upgrade the Keswick Water System. Funds are from the California Department of Public Health, and the project to upgrade the water treatment plan is ready to go to bid.
The Board also approved the receipt of a grant from the Drug Enforcement Administration of the U.S. Department of Justice renewing marijuana enforcement activities.. The $175,000 grant will be used by the Sheriff’s Office Marijuana Investigation Team to assist in locating and eradicating marijuana plants on federal lands. The funds can be used for overtime and extra help, rental of equipment such as aircraft and fuel, other vehicle and travel expenses, equipment purchases and other costs directly related to marijuana eradication in 2014.
The Board will not meet on April 29; see you in May.
Catherine Camp is currently retired. During her career, she worked as a policy and budget analyst for the California Assembly and California Senate, in health and human services fields. She worked as a policy analyst and advocate for California’s public mental health system. Early in her career, she worked in the Community Action and Head Start programs in Shasta County.
