The Board of Supervisors held a brief meeting this week, with a modest agenda. At every meeting of the Board, time is set aside for Supervisors to report on activities they have engaged in during the previous week as part of their work. Often this is simply a list of meetings and community events attended. Supervisor Pam Giacomini reported that she attended a meeting of the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board. The Shasta Board of Supervisors months ago had written to the Water Quality Board objecting to that Board’s statement that they would not monitor water quality related to marijuana growing, due to fears for inspector safety. This complaint was made by other counties as well. At the meeting last week the Water Quality Board announced that they were collaborating with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and Cal Fire and would be monitoring water quality related to marijuana growing as they do with other land uses.
The Board approved a draft letter to the U.S. Environment Protection Agency (EPA) commenting on proposed rulemaking. The proposed rule implementing the Clean Water Act would, in the judgment of the Board, expand the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act to include “other waters and uplands”, apparently designed to expand jurisdiction to ditches. Other new terms are added to the proposed rules (such as riparian areas, adjacent waters, and others). The Board is concerned that a contentious legal process that has characterized implementation of the Clean Water Act will be expanded by these new terms and their legal ambiguity. The Board asks for an extension of the rulemaking period and more work to find rules that will provide clarity and consistency to implementation of the Clean Water Act.
The Board approved an agreement for architectural services for construction of the new 64-bed Adult Rehabilitation Center. This is the medium security correctional facility that the county has received funding to build. The agreement was with the only firm that responded to the county’s Request for Proposals, Nichols, Melburg & Rossetto Architects. This firm provided the design for the recently completed Shasta County Juvenile Rehabilitation Facility, which was similar in nature to the Adult Facility requirements. The county believed construction of the juvenile facility was successful. The adult facility is expected to be complete no later than June 30, 2019.
The day’s discussion included the following items that are announcements rather than action items:
- Are you interested in aircraft? The Board adopted a resolution acknowledging the 67th Annual Airport Day. It will be held Sunday, June 1, 7 a.m. – 2 p.m., at the airport in Fall River Mills. The cost is $7 for adults and $4 for children 12 and under and includes a hot breakfast. Planes, contemporary and vintage, will be on view and some aerial demonstrations will occur.
- The County is required to certify to the California Department of Transportation each year the maintained mileage in the county’s road system. The resolution certified mileage of 1,189 miles and certified that the county neither increased or decreased any county roads since the 2013 certification.
There will be no Board Meeting on May 27. Have a good Memorial Day!
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.
