Patrick Jones tries to pass off a graph by election-denier Doug Frank as from the Secretary of State. Photo by Doni Chamberlain
(3:23) The regularly scheduled Tuesday morning meeting of the Shasta County Board of Supervisors was called to order at 9:01 a.m. March 26. The complete video and agenda are available here. Timestamps are in parentheses.
CALL TO ORDER
The invocation was delivered by Aaron Resnick. The Pledge of Allegiance was led by Supervisor Patrick Jones.
REGULAR CALENDAR
Members of the public may comment on any item on the Regular Calendar before or during the Board’s consideration of the item. Members of the public may also address matters scheduled for public hearings at the time such public hearings are opened for comment. Each speaker is allocated three minutes to speak.
Board Matters
R1 Adopt a proclamation which designates April 2024 as “Child Abuse Prevention Month” in Shasta County.
No Additional General Fund Impact
Simple Majority Vote
(11:38) Miguel Rodrigues gave some history on child protection laws and recognized law enforcement partners and dependency court judge with a plaque celebrating the commitment to preventing child abuse and maltreatment in the community. He called up Judge Molly Bigelow, Shieff Michael Johnson, Anderson Interim Police Chief Nathan Ramirez, Redding Police Chief Brian Barner, and Chief of Probation Tracy Neal to receive plaques. He also recognized “all of the child welfare staff who investigate and manage open child welfare cases on a daily basis without any recognition. Their work is vital to the protection of all children in our community.”
Adam Sepulveda and Michael Bren, who are County Counsels for CPS, received the proclamation.
There were no public comments on R1. It was approved by unanimous vote.
R2 Take the following actions: (1) Receive an update from the County Executive Officer on County issues and consider action on specific legislation related to Shasta County’s legislative platform; (2) approve a letter of opposition to Assembly Bill 2200 which proposes to provide comprehensive universal singlepayer health care coverage and a health care cost control system; (3) approve a letter of opposition to Assembly Bill 2561 which would require public agencies to implement a plan to fill all vacant positions within the subsequent 180 days, if vacancy rates exceed 10%; and (4) receive Supervisors’ reports on countywide issues.
No Additional General Fund Impact
Simple Majority Vote
(19:48) CEO Dave Rickert: “I don’t have a legislative update, but what I do have is two short stories. I want to talk about county staff and good things they’re doing for the county. We’re gonna start with Stewart Buettell in the CEO’s office. He worked very diligently on a radio donation with Eric Marler that we’ve been working on for quite a while. It even exceeds my time here. So this is for the South Fork Mountain and he worked very, very diligently and this was a very lengthy process. The estimated value of the donated equipment to the counties, $169,000. I’d like to applaud Stuart for that effort.Next, I have a system improvement project for Community Service Area 2 which is Sugarloaf Water. It got a mention from the State of California Department of Water Resources. Sugarloaf is a small water system in Lakehead area that serves approximately 65 customers. They’ve had serious water leaks with insufficient resources to repair the piping. Public Works obtained a $2.7 million drought relief grant to provide for the distribution system and repairs and install a new storage tank. This was in addition to a $500,000 planning grant that provided for the preliminary engineering report to obtain the construction grant. The entire project is 100% funded as the entire service area is considered a disadvantaged community. This represents a great achievement by Troy Bartolomei and his staff. Thank you, Troy.
Next, I’d like to move on to my jail update. The only update I have is that I met with former CEO Matt Pontes to discuss the jail and potential options for the old courthouse. We had a very detailed discussion. I had options moving forward with both of these projects. I appreciate the knowledge base and insight Matt provided to this discussion.
There was one commenter on R1, Jenny O’Connell.
Jenny O’Connell with husband Benjamin Nowain.
(22:40) Jenny O’Connell: “Thank you. I suppose good morning, beautiful supervisors though, perhaps some of you aren’t quite as fond of that phrase as others. The written letters of opposition are sort of confusing to me as a person that suffers from great health problems that have been difficult to be treated or looked at because the insurance plans usually only cover so much and then sort of stop and without better health care offered to the employees here, it it feels like the best option would be universal health care. Currently, a lot of why I’ve been off work is because they were looking for various cancer cells, but insurance stopped paying for the test. So I’ve just been in limbo and because insurance is no longer treating me, I can’t even get disability. So we’re just broke. And my doctor this week told me I need to start eating because when you choose between medical bills and housing and food, sometimes things go out the window and they said I don’t eat pretty well. As it comes to filling positions, it feels like you’d want to fill those positions because the staff is so overworked these days. It just seems like you’d want to relieve the stress for your county employees.”
Incumbent Mary Rickert
(25:00) Supervisor Mary Rickert, District 3: “I participated as a member in a panel of women in leadership in Shasta County. And the primary focus of the topic that we talked about that night was intimidation, hostility and bullying in the workplace.
I had several phone calls with Chief Sean O’Hara and dealt with many questions I received from people living in District 5 about the burn that was taking place at the Hawes property. There were several inquiries and so I tried to sort out what was going on there and figured that particular issue out. I asked to join a meeting with Fortera concrete plant project in the Mountain Gate area. And District 4 is trying to get that concrete plant project over the finish line with Resource Management. I want to thank Paul Hellman, Adam Fiesler and Sean Ewing for doing what they could and working with Fortera. They’re under a lot of pressure to meet a deadline. And so I think we’ll probably be successful on that big project. And that’s, that’s a really exciting project for Shasta County.
I had a long telecom conference call with Matt Plummer about getting him up to speed on many county issues. There’s just so much. County business is so complicated and complex. So I was just trying to explain some things to him.
I met with Maggie Blankinship from River Partners. She has a project down by Battle Creek down close to the Gover Ranch. For those of you that lived in Shasta County a long time, you’ll know where that is. I was able to give them a lot of advice and assistance with their project and I’m real excited to hear about what they’re trying to do there.
I attended a teams meeting yesterday with Dave Rickert, Paul Hellman and outside counsel on the Fountain Wind Project, more strategy on how to fight that again. That is my number one priority right now is to fight the Fountain Wind project. It’s a classic example of government overreach where Sacramento is trying to tell us what to do in Shasta County and we are going to fight it with everything we have.
I just had a question for County Counsel. I was asked by a constituent who’s got a subdivision on Silverbridge Road and he wants to amend a county ordinance for his subdivision.I just wanted to see given the relationship I have with him currently in the political realm, how is there a potential conflict of interest doing that? And if so, perhaps I can have CEO Dave Rickert assume that conversation.”
(27:31) CEO Rickert: “I think any of those types of conversations that would actually go to Public Works through, you know, can go to Dave’s office and then up to County Counsel. That’s the normal way we would do things. And so that would alleviate any conflict concern, so they would just be directed to go through public works and admin.”
Supervisor Rickert: “Thank you. So that concludes my report.”
(28:19) CEO Rickert: “Yes, I’d like to comment on that last issue by Supervisor Rickert. We do have a request from a constituent to examine some of the rules we have related to housing subdivisions. There is an apparent conflict for Supervisor Rickert. So I’ve reviewed the request. We are outlining all the necessary information in order to consider this request. Once we have all that information gathered, we will present this information back to the board for your
consideration.”
Dist. 5 Supervisor Chris Kelstrom.
(28:48) Supervisor Chris Kelstrom, District 5: ” Thursday, March 21 we had a special board meeting here. So I missed the Shingletown fire hall meeting that I’d planned on attending. I apologize to my Shingletown peeps for that.
Then I had a weekly meeting in Manton. I hadn’t been up there in a while. They hold a meeting every week up there and it’s kind of a potluck and community gathering. So I was able to attend that.
And then Saturday, we had a tremendous hailstorm come through Cottonwood Anderson area. I know it was Palo Cedro too, but it was unbelievable. So shout out to PGE. Lost power in a business down there. So I was running a generator down to them, personal friends of mine. And then also shout out to Public Works. I was passing plow trucks. It was crazy. It looked like we had two or three inches of snow on the road and it was actually hail. So shout out to both of them. They got the power restored and they got the roads cleared. Then tomorrow I have an Enterprise Anderson Groundwater Sustainability meeting in Anderson. And that concludes my report.”
District 4 Supervisor Patrick Jones.
(29:48) Supervisor Patrick Jones, District 4: ” I had a special meeting here at the Board of Supervisors Room last Thursday. I had a talk with our Shasta County Sheriff Johnson and Nolda short about a possibility of being able to have a sheriff deputy on some of the marinas, and the possibility of funding that. And so it’s just some initial talks right now. In some of the outlying areas here in Shasta County, there is a need for extra sheriff deputies. Always the problem is how are you going to pay for that? And each area has its unique concerns, but there has been a need to have more law enforcement in and aroundthe marinas such as Lakehead, Jones Valley, Centimudi, others. So, just some initial talks with that.
I had a meeting with Shasta County Chamber of Commerce. I’ve had a few meetings with them and that was good. At a meeting along with Chair Crye At Home. This is a situation where we have about 20 elected officials from the various cities and here from the county. We meet fairly regularly to discuss issues with homelessness and we’re moving on. In some action areas, we’re moving on a resource center and the possibility of post release supervision here for the county. So all good discussions there.
And almost every week I have an election integrity meeting and those are going on up and down the state of California. And then yesterday here at Shasta County along with Chair Crye we had Shasta County Election Commission meeting.
Lastly chair, um I’ve been doing some initial studying for the last couple of months with the Shasta County Unified Building code. Then over the next few months, based on some of my conclusions with the building code, I’m gonna make uh most likely a motion to move forward with some changes. And so I’m looking forward to that over the next couple of months and with that, that ends my reports.”
District 2 Supervisor Tim Garman.
(31:49) Supervisor Tim Garman, District 2: “Like the rest of you guys, we attended a special board meeting last Thursday. But other than that, I just wanted to give a huge shout out to Miguel Rodriguez and Dwayne Green. After last Tuesday’s meeting, we had a conversation about a constituent that’s had some troubles. Your departments have helped out. There’s still a long ways to go with this person, but thank you for all of your help. Sincerely, thank you.
We attended the CCP meeting. Unfortunately, it was canceled due to no quorum, which is unfortunate but it did leave some open time and I had a conversation with Bill Bates, which is really nice. After that meeting, as well as I spoke with Steve Kohn. Steve, you’re always involved in politics and we really appreciate it when you show up at all these different things.
I had a phone call with the sheriff. It’s been a while since we had a conversation and I also had a phone call with CEO Rickert. We talked about the Ardent Security and what that looks like. And I believe, CEO Rickett, you’re gonna give some sort of an update on that today. Is that correct?”
CEO Rickert: “I can get an update and also I believe Chair Crye has some information on that issue.”
Supervisor Garman: “I just want to make sure we got that out to the public. I’ll let you guys handle that. That concludes my report.”
(33:07) CEO Rickert: “I just want to state that we’ve had a recent change with our security for the county board room. This was an effort brought forward to us by Sheriff Johnson. We’ve discussed the issue. The goal was to provide adequate armed security for our meetings, but also to relieve the sheriff of the duty of that service and to be able to utilize his staff in a more efficient manner. So what we did is we sat down, we looked at it, we came to the conclusion that the sheriff, Chairman Crye and I, that the best solution would be to hire Ardent Security to perform services for the county will not only save us money, but it will also enable us to put two more sheriff deputies out on the street where they can do law enforcement activity as opposed to providing physical security for this complex. So it’s one of the few cases in government where it’s a win-win scenario where it’sa perfect situation and I think not only are we getting good security by Ardent Security, but we’re also saving money and providing additional law enforcement for the community.”
Shasta County District 1 Supervisor Kevin Crye.
(34:11) Supervisor Kevin Crye, District 1: ” No comment. I just smile because people are always gonna find something wrong with stuff. So sheriff gets two officers back. We save money. I’m sure it’s a bad idea in somebody’s mind anyway.
All right. At Home meeting last Thursday. It was a really interesting one. Now, those are subject to the Brown Act now. And if you’re not aware what we did was we actually a motion was put forth to remove all nonelected off. And the Mayor of Redding, Tenessa Audette, was the only one that voted against after the meeting. We had a really, really lengthy discussion. Her concern was if we moved all of the nonelected off that they have the possibility then to work behind the scenes and basically handle the elected officials because we all know that happens at times. And my response to her was well, one, let’s bring it back to our next At Home meeting and talk about that because all the elected officials that sit on that board have to be overly engaged. It can’t be an absolute rubber stamp thing because again, we are the only county in the State of California that has pulled off this At Home initiative the way we have. And I’m very thankful that supervisor Garman brought it back from CSAC. I was one of the most outspoken people against it saying it’s never probably going to work like it has it in 57 counties. But I will say this committee has really banded together and worked hard. So we are going to bring that back to talk about that in open session. So I think all the elected officials at least there’s two or three of us that have been discussing that are gonna really lean on our city and county staffs whether it’s, you know, Laura Burch who was on that committee, now off, CEO Rickert, as well as the city managers from the three cities. The only non elected on that committee is the representative from the Redding Rancheria, however, still a government official. So that was the At Home.
The next day, there was a listening session held. What that was was that was led by the Good News Rescue Mission. And it was really an opportunity for people to express what they want, this day center or this resource center or, you know, some would call it a navigation center. We still haven’t even come up with the exact term of what it is, but the building obviously, I believe is closed escrow. So now it’s getting community feedback of what they want to see. And the very, and I won’t go into a lot of it, but one of the exercises was everyone got a Post-it note and the very first thing was atmosphere. So on a huge Post-it note, they wrote atmosphere. Everybody wrote one thing down what was really interesting. And Susan’s here and actually, Susan wrote it her Post-it note. And again, Susan, would you say there’s 20 or 30 people there maybe? Yeah, 20 or 30 people. She had wrote and people wrote, Hope. People wrote clean. People wrote, you know, just different, 11 item terms, you know, I wrote Salvation. Susan wrote non-religious and it was interesting because of all the different ones they asked, does anybody like to speak about theirs? And I didn’t want to speak about. Mine, Susan raised her hand and ironically, hers was the non-religious and mine was salvation. So we had a really great discussion with this whole group. Now, salvation didn’t mean to me per se. I mean, to me, it might mean a faith in Jesus Christ, but to others, it may mean a renewed sense of hope, a chance to belong, new beginnings, et cetera. But the dialogue that happened in that meeting, I think is imperative. If you want to have a say in what this resource center is, you need to go to those next three, those next three meetings and really voice your support because we have to as a community get behind this because homelessness and drug addiction, mental health, that’s not gonna become less. And if a lot of people don’t voice their opinions now, this is our one shot I believe with this At Home program to actually make a difference.
You know, I feel very strongly that obviously statistics show faith based organizations, whether it’s, you know, whatever that faith may be or 86% more successful, the non faith based programs. So I feel strongly so I would just encourage you to get out and look at those fees. I’ve talked about bringing back audits for various fees. Obviously, we did the notary one. We’re refunding close to $20,000 of, I don’t want to say stolen money, but let’s say money. That wasn’t the government’s. So we’re giving that back, notaries are receiving those checks in the mail. The next fees we will be looking at will be a request to change your address. The hosted home stay affidavit fees, the repair or alteration of drainage or vent piping. Those were random. This last one is random as well. Autopsy, neuropathology and that’s an outside county case and that was random as well. When I say random, these were selected by the auditor controller’s office. I don’t know if they put everything in a bin and just twirled it around and pick five or what. But those are the four that were random. There is a manual one that was selected, which is the return check fee and how we, how we bill for return checks and what we charge for that. So those are the next five that our county will be auditing of money. We charge constituents.
I have an upcoming meeting with the sheriff, this week with CEO Rickert. And the timing was very ironic because if you didn’t see the paper. Not that I believe very much that’s in the paper. But, there was, an accident with 17 illegal aliens. I believe in Siskiyou County. And the question I had for Sheriff Johnson is I want to get a more in depth report about what he saw at the border and what we can start to prepare as a community when they start arriving in droves, whether that’s being flown in bus and et cetera, I mean, it’s already happening to some degree, but this was the timing, I think, I don’t want to say it was impeccable and it’s very tragic that that happened because one person did lose their life. But I just want to let everybody know that we’re gonna be very proactive with what we’re doing as people are coming into our community.
And then the last thing and if Joanna, I’m not sure if I see it yet we spoke. So I’m going to jump into this topic. Ok. There, I see you. I do my radio show every other weekend and I have coffee with constituents. One thing I’ve been doing throughout this election process has been presenting numbers and I’ve been pretty much dead on with a lot of the numbers and facts, but I’ve been asked, why haven’t you provided an update? And I said, well, one of the things is I haven’t had a clear understanding of what’s left. So prior to last week’s drop on Friday, there was approximately 1200 ballots, there was 900 dropped on Friday.
So that meant there was 300 left. Well, I hadn’t had a chance to speak with Joanna for quite a few days. At that point we did talk yesterday. Well, there was 800 left. I had heard, I got that confirmation. So I asked Joanna, I said, how does it go from 200 approximately to 300 back up to 800? I said, that’s troubling. Not for me necessarily just as a candidate, but just as a voter. I just, I just want to know because that’s what a lot of us I think here in the community is like, how many are left? How hard is it to understand how many are left? But we all get that. And there’s the process in that. Well, Joanna had told me there was a batch of roughly 253 of ballots that were voided in a bin that were forgotten about. So those have been added back in. So now it’s at 550 some. And then I said, how do we get to the 800? Like where did those ballots come from? And so we’re talking through that. So I’ve asked her because what I don’t want to do is I don’t want to put out bad information. At the same time, I get a lot of questions about that and I won’t answer that, especially in any capacity, whether just as a individual constituent or a voter in Shasta County, especially as Chair of the Board or as a candidate. So I told you if she wanted to clear anything up, like, I think she’s great and I want to just make sure I give her the opportunity to say that before we get into the voter rolls. And that because in fairness, I want to give her that platform here today. So I’m going to take the last couple of minutes of my supervisor report and give her a chance to just explain briefly the process about how things are added and and her hard working staff. So, thank you, Joanna.”
Joanna Francescut, Assistant County Clerk Register of Voters.
(42:30) Joanna Francescut: “Good morning. I’m Joanna Francescut, Assistant County Clerk Register of Voters. Chair Crye and Board of Supervisors, thank you for letting me to talk today about this concern. So, when we conduct the canvas, our job is to ensure that we follow state laws to make sure that every single eligible ballot is counted so that the Shasta County voters can have the utmost confidence in the results. We provide an estimated unprocessed ballot report after each results update. Ok. It is just that it’s an estimate. In fact, even on the press release, it says below is a report of the estimated count of unprocessed ballots that we have in our office. It is just that, an estimate.
We are still processing these ballots including verifying the signature and eligibility of the voter. There may be ballots added to this count or removed as necessary. So the voided ballots that came into question on Friday afternoon, these were not forgotten about. This is the last step in our process is these voided ballots. So what happens is any time a voter is issued a second ballot, the first ballot identification is voided. If the voter returns the first ballot envelope, then it gets put into a bin. It’s not marked in our system. And we review that after we ensure we’ve balanced each one of the precincts and make sure we captured as much voter history as possible before reviewing those ballots because that’s a flag for us that says, hey, this voter could have voted the other ballot. Let’s check and see what’s going on first so it’s not forgotten about. This is just one of the last steps in our process that we do. This is also what we call a presidential primary election.
And so the number for second ballot issued is higher. It’s always higher because people get need to have the party need to be registered to vote with that party. And so many times voters will change the party and then we’re required to issue them a ballot, whatever party they are. So that’s the process that we went into Friday. We had been at 253 estimated ballots that were added into the account at that time. And that’s why that number was added in.”
(44:52) A motion was made, seconded, and voted on unanimously to approve the letter opposing single payer health care.
(45:31) Supervisor Garman asked CEO Rickert what the plan was in regard to AB 2561. “What happens with these positions? Are they going to be deleted?”
(45:51) CEO Rickert: “The issue is that we have to prepare a plan for whenever we hit that 10% mark what it creates is an additional expense and administrative burden for the county. That’s money that isn’t available for those employees as far as benefits. And it’s money not available for taxpayers for other programs. So it’s just an additional unnecessary administrative burden put on us by the Sstate of California.
Supervisor Garman: “And I saw that there. I just didn’t know if you knew if these positions were, if they’re looking to delete these positions as well.”
CEO Rickert: “The bill states that or it doesn’t delete the positions, but we have to explain why we have those positions vacant and come up with a plan on filling those positions, which is kind of redundant because obviously, if we have open positions, we’re constantly trying to fill those positions.”
The motion passed unanimously.
Presentations
(47:00) R3 Receive a presentation from Shasta County Elections regarding voter roll maintenance and voter registration (Sponsored by Supervisor Jones).
No Additional General Fund Impact
No Vote
Supervsior Jones: ” I thought this would be a great time since we’re finishing up on the March 5 primary election to be able to talk about voter rolls and how we maintain our voter rolls. How we do that, the process. We’ve all heard about LA county being sued and losing that suit and having to remove 1.2 million voters off their rolls and so I had some slides and after ROV Francescut gives her presentation, then I’m gonna have some slides and then maybe we can have some discussion back and forth. So I just thought it was timely to be talking about voter rolls and the maintenance of voter rolls.”
(47:58) Joanna Francescut: “Joanna Francescut, Assistant County Clerk and Registrar of Voters for Shasta County. I appreciate your time today and your request, Supervisor Jones to come and go over the voter roles and how we maintain them and the work that my staff does every single day to update the voter file. “
Francescut went on to give a very detailed description of what the elections department does, how it receives new voter registration, how and when voters can be deleted from active rolls, the agencies and situations in which a person may receive a voter registration card, security measures, the Motor Voter Act, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and how California law prescripts every thing their department does. “There’s very few opinions that we do. Just because I think it’s the right thing to do everything I do in the office is because there’s administration, law or procedures that we have to follow.”
Supervisor Jones had a display of graphs put up for the audience to view and began talking about the information in each graph.
(101:32) Supervisor Jones: So this graph here, I wanted to show this is off the California Secretary of State’s web page. This is the voter roll information. You can see that it goes up and down and each one of these colors is, is a various county. The one on the very top is Modoc County, which obviously has different patterns, but we have 57 counties starting almost back in the year 2000 where the voter rolls are going up, down, up, down, up, down in the exact same percentage for the last 20 cycles, with the exception of it looks like Modoc and possibly one other county, but the vast majority of counties are going up and down to the same percentage as Shasta County. How can we explain that? And again, this is off the California Secretary of State’s website with regards to voter rolls going up and down, not who voted, but who’s on the voter rolls? Have you seen this graph before?
(1:05:26) Joanna Francescut: Not until just a minute ago.
Jones continued to focus on one specific graph and how he felt it indicated the possibility of manipulation.
Joanna Francescut: So the way I’m reading the graph is relative voter turnout for every California county. For example, we see a lower turnout for a gubernatorial election than we do for a presidential election. So when we’re roughly looking at a gubernatorial turnout, we’re looking at a 60% 9 and then for a presidential election, I’m expecting at least a 90% turnout. So, based on this graph right here and what it’s saying with voter turnout, I would expect it to do that because it’s voter turnout, it goes up and down depending on the election cycle. A lot of people want to come in and only vote for president. That’s all they care about.
Supervisor Garman: A couple of questions I have for you real quick, Joanna, how many registered voters are in Shasta County right now?
Joanna Francescut: We have just around 112,000 registered voters.
Supervisor Garman: And how much is our turnout in this recent election right now?
Joanna Francescut: We’re looking at 47% turnout. I’m expecting to go up a little bit more, but just about 54,000 voters have voted just over.
Supervisor Garman: Ok. So we had 58,000. He didn’t show up to vote and you’re supposed to track those 58,000. You get some, you mentioned the EDD will report some stuff back with an address change and DMV will, but now the DMV licenses are good for five years. I may have just renewed it. I may have moved and guess what? I didn’t change my voter registration because I never vote. I’m one of the majority who don’t vote. So I like that. The law is gonna change where if they miss two general election cyclists, you can, you can do that, but your hands are kind of tied. There have been with that. What you could do to clean up those voter rolls because you just don’t know where these people are.
Joanna Francescut: And to clarify that I can only cancel them after I send them a notice of a 225 C or 225 B card. I can’t cancel them unless I receive some sort of notification that they moved out of the county from a third party. If the voter signs that says I no longer live in Shasta County and sends us a sign notification, I can then cancel them immediately, but I can’t just go and cancel active voters. That’s against the law.
Suoervisor Garman: It’s hard to manage and I can see why it takes a 2.5 staff and, and it’s especially if so many people don’t even care to vote. It makes it hard to track and try to figure out who’s moved and who hasn’t. So I applaud your efforts. I think you’re doing an excellent job in there and your whole team is with what you’re doing. So, thank you for the work
Supervisor Rickert: Yes, I’m a little confused. I thought this was supposed to cut who is DG Frank? 7120 2 July 1st 2022. What if this is a State of California graph? Why does it say DG Frank? Is that Mr Frank Doug?
Joanna Francescut: This isn’t my information. This is what supervisor Jones –
Sopervisor Rickert: I’d like to know who’s, who’s Frank.
Supervisor Jones: So this was from, so this is Dr. Frank. He put this together from the voter from the information from Secretary of State. It was presented in December last December at my town hall.
Supervisor Rickert: So this did not come directly from the State of California.
Supervisor Jones: It’s their data.
Supervisor Rickert: Well, it didn’t, did it come directly from the State of California because usually when I see a document like this or graph or anything, it’ll say something about State of California. So this came from Doctor Frank and I think we need to make-
Supervisor Jones: from the California Secretary of State.
Supervisor Rickert: If comes from the Secretary of State, why would he have his name on it?
Supervisor Jones: Well, because it was presented, I called for a town hall in December and it came from that you didn’t attend.
Supervisor Rickert: Well, some of us maybe don’t trust Dr Frank.
Supervisor Jones: Well, that’s your, that’s your prerogative, right? But you should trust these numbers because they’re off of the California Secretary of State’s website so that you should trust that.
Supervisor Rickert: No, I don’t.
Supervisor Jones: It’s ok. You don’t have to.
Supervisor Garman: Is there a way to get these from the Secretary of State website to back that up? So where are they, you’re looking at, it will say Secretary of State website, if they’re readily available. Can we produce those?
Supervisor Jones: Supervisor Garman, if you would like to go on the Secretary of State web site, You can take a look at this and much more.
Supervisor Garman: What I’m asking is you presented this from Dr. Frank, if this is so easily available, why do you propose that one at the same time?
Supervisor Jones: This is what I had for my town hall. I thought it was relative. I checked it with the California Secretary of State’s website and it matches.
Supervisor Garman: Why didn’t you provide that today?
Supervisor Jones: Because this was the –
Supervisor Garman: this leaves too much question.
Supervisor Jones: Well, you can go check it out if you like or maybe ask our assistant ROV to do it. Maybe, maybe that would be good.
Supervisor Rickert: I think we need full transparency when we have these kind of things and this troubles me that this was misrepresented. That’s all.
(1:10:12) Public comment began for R3. There were seventeen speakers. Twelve believed the voter roles were dirty. Five felt the ROV and staff were doing a good job; two of those five said the county needed to stop wasting time on this subject and move on to other business.
(1:49:48) PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD – OPEN TIME
During the Public Comment Open Time period, the public may address the Board on any matter not listed on the agenda that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the Board of Supervisors. Each speaker is allocated three minutes to speak.
There were fifteeen public commenters. Most of them continued to comment on whether or not the voter rolls were clean.
(2:21:59) Dolores Lucero spoke, bringing an unnamed girl with her.
(2:22:58) Supervisor Crye: I’m, I’m gonna, I’m gonna step out because you’re gonna finish your public comment. I cannot sit with a child right there, right?
2:23:06) Lucero: And you do that. Well, that’s good. You know why they need to know what you do and you expect people to listen to you and you have no respect for others. So children need to see how you behave. Good. I’m glad all [Heckling from the floor] Be quiet. You guys don’t even understand Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yes, you’re right. I’m bad because I expose the truth. [Kelstrom: Let’s not yell out from on the floor. Please.] I expose the truth. And this child, every person has children. You think that this little girl here is not the only child paying attention to what you’re doing. The purpose is that you need to see your position is supposed to be a role model for everybody. You don’t even respect yourself to even to do the right thing. How do you expect children to do the right thing when you supposed to hold the highest position? see that’s going on back there and how you’re representing us.”
She continued on for her three minutes.
2:30:47 The Board went into closed session.
2:38:32 The Board returned from closed session.
CONSENT CALENDAR
The following Consent Calendar items are expected to be routine and non-controversial. They may be acted upon by the Board at one time without discussion. Any Board member or staff member may request that an item be removed from the Consent Calendar for discussion and consideration. Members of the public may comment on any item on the Consent Calendar before the Board’s consideration of the Consent Calendar. Each speaker is allocated three minutes to speak.
2:39:18 Stephanie Blankenship announced that items C2, C9, and C10 had been pulled from the agenda.
There were three public commenters. Leslie Sawyer said, “I have so much information that I’m gonna be emailing. you this week. But there is some huge stuff coming down the pike when it comes to our County Health that directly relates to education. So I’m gonna be sending you guys emails, including the two of you who I know will do nothing. because there is a huge community school project that’s coming forward. And so when I just see these blanket decreases, increases approving, I just wanna make sure you guys have the information that you need to be able to approve or not approve things because a lot of this stuff has strings and free money is never free.”
One speaker wanted to know why if the Board said they would be recessed for 90 minutes but came back 15 minutes early, should they not delay the restart of the meeting to allow public commenters time to return? One complimented Miguel Rodriguez and Kingsview.
Clerk of the Board
C1 Appoint Jill Schroeder to the Pine Grove Mosquito Abatement District to serve the remainder of a two-year term to January 6, 2025.
No Additional General Fund Impact
Simple Majority Vote
Health and Human Services Agency-Administration
(2:43:44) C2 Approve budget amendments which: (1) Decreases appropriations by $6,076,386 and increases revenue by $3,303,160 in the Mental Health Services Act Budget (BU 404); (2) decreases appropriations by $2,853,935 and increases revenue by $189,764 in the Mental Health Budget (BU 410); (3) decreases appropriations by $5,047,160 and decreases revenue by $2,914,584 in the Public Health Budget (BU 411); (4) decreases appropriations by $697,493 and decreases revenue by $130,907 in the Shasta County Health Care Budget (BU 412); (5) decreases appropriations by $2,519,740 and decreases revenue by $58,000 in the Alcohol and Drug Program Budget (BU 422); and (6) increases appropriations and revenue by $4,136 in the HHSA Administration Budget (BU 502).
No General Fund Impact
4/5 Vote
Christy Coleman from HHSA gave an update on the budget and emphasized that services would not be cut.
C2 passed on a unanimous vote.
Health and Human Services Agency-Behavioral Health and Social Services
(2:51:10) C3 Approve an amendment to the agreement with Austin Kiser dba Kiser CPR & First Aid Training for cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and first aid training for In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) providers which increases maximum
compensation.
No General Fund Impact
Simple Majority Vote
C4 Approve a retroactive renewal agreement with Kings View for mental health wellness and recovery services and designate signing authority for amendments and termination.
No General Fund Impact
Simple Majority Vote
C5 Approve a retroactive renewal agreement with Kings View for specialty mental health services through an assisted outpatient treatment program and designate signing authority for amendments, termination, and approving rate changes.
No General Fund Impact
Simple Majority Vote
C6 Approve a retroactive renewal agreement with BHC Heritage Oaks Hospital, Inc., dba Heritage Oaks Hospital, for inpatient psychiatric hospitalization services and designate signing authority to approve rate changes.
No General Fund Impact
Simple Majority Vote
C7 Approve a retroactive agreement with Redwood Quality Management Company, Inc., for youth psychiatry services and medication support.
No General Fund Impact
Simple Majority Vote
Public Works
C8 Approve an agreement with Whitchurch Engineering, Inc., for architectural and engineering services for the remodel and reconfiguration of the West Central Landfill operations building.
No General Fund Impact
Simple Majority Vote
Resource Management
(2:51:02) C9 Consider oral testimony and written comments from members of the public and accept the Shasta County 2023 Housing Element Annual Progress Report.
No Additional General Fund Impact
Simple Majority Vote
Supervisor Kelstrom asked Paul Hellman who requires this report, if it’s the state or federal government. Hellman referred back to senior planner, David Schlegel, who said it is required by the state.
There wree four public commenters.
Support Services
(3:12:07) C10 Approve a budget amendment to increase appropriations and revenues by $12,000,000 in the Risk Management Budget (BU 950).
General Fund Impact
4/5 Vote
Monica Fugitt made the C10 presentation.
There was one public commenter. C10 passed on a unanimous vote.
REGULAR CALENDAR, CONTINUED
Support Services
(3:18:39) R4 Adopt a resolution to add Chapter 40, Code of Conduct and Commitment to Public Service, to the Shasta County Personnel Rules.
No Additional General Fund Impact
Simple Majority Vote
Monica Fugitt made the presentation.
There were three public commenters.
R4 passed on a unanimous vote.
Board of Supervisors
(3:30) R5 Adopt a Policy Resolution which adds Administrative Policy 1-104, Board of Supervisors Code of Conduct as proposed by either: (1) Supervisor Crye; or (2) Supervisors Garman and Rickert.
No Additional General Fund Impact
Simple Majority Vote
There was considerable disagreement about wording, whether to have specific wording or general codes of conduct.
There were eleven public commenters.
The version written by Supervisor Crye passed on a 3-2 vote, with Kelstrom and Rickert voting no.
Public Works
(4:16:58) R6 Adopt a resolution which approves an application to the State of California for $8,430,000 in Community Development Block Grant Mitigation Resilient Infrastructure Program (Program) funds and designates authority to amend project details and execute applications, agreements, amendments, and all other documentation, including retroactive, necessary for execution of the Program.
No General Fund Impact
Simple Majority Vote
John Heath from Public Works made the presentation.
There were three public commenters.
(4:33:42) BOS went to Public Comment.
There were fifteen public commenters.
(4:43:00) Dolores Lucero: “I’m gonna address something. I don’t like the way Jenny [O’Connell] was treated outside. You got some aggressive little bullies out there who think that they could just bully Jenny … But you know what the chaos starts because of you guys continue to bully people. And you talk about bullying people in front of others and you’ve done that when Doni Chamberlain was actually assaulted by – you, Kevin Crye, you went right by Doni when she was assaulted, you went right by her, [Mark] Kent had her, he pulled the strap on from her neck and had her pinned on the freaking against the wall and I saw it and I actually, you know what I decided to do, I submitted a complaint with the DA so for him to be going on the radio saying it didn’t happen bullshit shit because I was there. I witnessed everything. So I turned them in and I’m willing to do it in a heartbeat because it pissed me off that a man, two of you guys were there and witnessed that for you to allow that bullshit to go on. You guys are just hypocrites, totally hypocrites.” She continued for her full three minutes.
(4:48:55) Jenny O’Connell: (sobbing) “Mhm. [Dolores Lucero stood by her side.] Ok. I just, I got, I got one by like everybody, like not to care that much. Like not to like today. I found it really important to like adult conversations with other people. Oh, but I was told by everybody not to go to Kevin Crye’s meetings. I was told by everybody not to, not to talk to people across the aisle. I was, let’s talk about everybody. It was one thing, everybody not to care so much. I mean, it was stupid. Patrick Jones was right. I was stupid. I knew better. But I did it anyway because I thought it would make a difference. I thought if people saw that, that someone could get along that didn’t agree with them, the other people would do it too. But it’s just too far. They won’t.
And you just, I’m just so tired. I’ve been doing politics since I was three because, because I was always interested in, in how we can make a difference and move things and make things better. But it’s not true.”
Leslie Sawyer began speaking and held up a phone to the microphone so that Jon Knight could speak via telephone. County Counsel Alan Cox said this meeting was not intended for teleconferencing and there are particular Brown Act rules for that.
(5:18:50) ADJOURN
