(.05) The regular Tuesday morning meeting of the Shasta County Board of Supervisors was called to order at 9:00 a.m. April 23, 2024. District 3 Supervisor Mary Rickert was absent due to medical leave.
(3:19) The Invocation was conducted by Pastor Alison Maki, Community United Methodist Church. The Pledge of Allegiance was led by Supervisor Chris Kelstrom.
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. Those wishing to participate in public comment for Regular Calendar items must submit a speaker request card to the Clerk of the Board before public comment on the item begins. Each speaker is allocated three minutes to speak. All speaker request cards submitted after public comment for each Regular Calendar item begins will not be heard by the Board.
Simple Majority Vote
Redding City Council member Mark Mezzano.
“It’s my honor to recognize the selfless work of Jerry Harrell and Danny Abbott A K A Skippy. Skippy to his friends and all that cross his path. It’s my honor again for the the dedicated their time, their resources and their hearts to feeding the unsheltered without any governmental assistance in a world where many walk by. Without a second glance, Jerry and Skippy have stood out as beacons of hope. They saw a need within our community and they responded with action, not just words, their initiative, which I like to call Meals of Compassion started as a small act of kindness, but quickly grew into a movement that has touched the lives of countless individuals who struggle to find their next meal.
Together, Jerry and Skippy have shown us that when it comes to helping others, there are no barriers too large to overcome. They’ve not waited for change. They’ve become the change without any exception of recognition or reward. They have poured their energy into helping the unsheltered. Proving that true generosity knows no bounds. The work is a testament to the power of community and the impact of individual initiative. ”
Danny Abbott in green t-shirt, Jerry Harrell center front. Photo by David Muang.
There were 3 individual public commenters plus a group of six on R1.
The motion to accept the certificates of recognition passed by unanimous vote.
There was one public commenter on R2, who did not approve of SB 1328.
Shasta County CEO David Rickert.
(39:21) CEO Dave Rickert: I will give you an update on the jail. On April 11 I attended the dedication ceremony at the new courthouse. Guest speaker, among others included Chief Justice of California, the honorable Patricia Guerrero. We are still waiting for a notice of completion but we are exploring other avenues to expedite the utilization of the old courthouse. Moving on to the community satisfaction survey, we’ve had so far 98 completed surveys since April 9, the top two departments commented on were the board of supervisors and elections and we will shortly have detailed results available to the board of supervisors. You’ve already mentioned all the letters of opposition and the letter on salmon and this concludes my report.
District 2 Supervisor Tim Garman.
(40:22) Supervisor Tim Garman, District 2: This last few weeks, I attended the PSA Area Agency on Aging. That was a zoom meeting, which is, I don’t like the zoom meetings personally, but it is what it was. I also attended an upper Clear Creek Resource Management Group meeting held out in the French Gulch last week. That was a really, really good meeting. One of the most informative meetings I’ve been to that the private citizens put together. They had BLM was there. Whiskeytown National Recreation had a representative, two representatives there. Actually, Fire Wise was present and just a lot of great information went back and forth. One of the things that came out of that is there’s dead trees hanging over some of the roads out there. And if you guys know Whiskeytown is not a national park, it’s a National Recreation area where the county controls the roads. So there’s a little bit of confusion over how do we get these trees trimmed up? So I’ve talked with Troy Bartolomei. There’s gonna be a meeting with Troy and Josh at Whiskeytown and myself and we’re gonna come up with a plan to get out there and get some of these trees that are becoming dangerous at overhanging the roads that burned up in the car fire to get those taken care of. So that was just an amazing meeting. Thank you Judy for putting that together.
I attended the First Five meeting, a commission meeting as well last Tuesday as very near the end of our meeting. I got a text from a constituent out in Keswick that somebody was coming back onto the property where the buses were and I sent a text during the meeting to Adam Fieslier at resource management and he said I can’t get anybody out there today. Johnny Allen, we’re just so shorthanded. Make a long story short, Adam went out there himself. I ended up riding along with him after the meeting ended and the person was there. The same people that had the beagle dogs that had the puppy mill. They, she was parked back in there. We went up there and, and kindly asked her to leave and it is, she can’t be there and et cetera, et cetera. The next day I rode back out there with Johnny from code enforcement and they were gone. They did not get set back up. So I just want to say thank you to resource management for just helping toe the line with that because if these people get established in these areas, it’s hard to get them off. It takes dedication, it takes dedication from us and them and, and, and the whole thing works as a team.
The NorCal Children’s Diabetes Club got rained out. We had that at Kids Kingdom where we were attempted to I did attend the airports for autism this last Saturday. That’s a great event. And then if you guys know anybody that deals with autism, come out for the Airports for Autism, they do it every year. They do a 5K run with it and it’s just, they give you an understanding of just, even just sitting back where we were just kind of observing, it’s observed of the autistic community and, and, and what they deal with on a daily basis and to watch some of the parents with the little kids, the challenging lifestyles that they face it is, it has to be really hard for a parent. And the more we can educate the public about autism and give these services to these kids when they the earlier ages, it’s gonna help them tremendously. So I I urge you all to attend airports for autism next year. And I also attended a little bit of the Alliance Club Annual District 4-C1 convention which was held this weekend at the Red Lion Hotel.
Dist. 4 Supervisor Patrick Jones.
Supervisor Patrick Jones, District 4: First back on April 13, a constituent called me and alerted me to a bus that had arrived here in the Cty of Redding over off of Churn Creek by Save Mart. Approximately 70 to 100 people exited that bus. I did go out there, Chair Crye also met me out there. We did interview one of the individuals that that did not leave the area immediately. They had stated they were from Mexico. The bus was chartered from Mexico as well. We’ll get into that discussion a little bit later.
Also attended last week Shasta County Sheriff’s Awards ceremony. They do this every year. The Sheriff’s Department is doing a great job and they like to honor those that stand out. And this year, one that really stood out for me was 10 members of the Shasta County Sheriff’s Department that stepped forward to help us to fill the jail to get that back up to operations. They went above and beyond their normal duties and they, they stopped their normal assignments to come to the jail in a time that we really needed them. And so they were honored there as well. I was able to go to a celebration of life out at the Igo Cemetery for Fred Salanti. And Fred was a giant of a man in the veterans community. He founded and co-founded the Missing in America project. He was able to go to Congress and with congressional support, he was able to pick up soldiers’ remains left behind at mortuaries and properly and turn them anywhere in the United States. And he was directly responsible for that. He was also one of the founders of the Patriot Guard writers which were still active that honor our veterans. Every week here in Shasta County had a Redding Area Bus Authority meeting, those go on routinely. I represent Shasta County for the next four months. So, if I’m not mistaken, everyone will be able to ride Redding Area Bus Authority buses for free. So they do this every year to try to encourage membership and hopefully that goes on into the future.
I also had a CSA 6 in Jones Valley. This is one of the water districts that I sit on and they’ve had, if you were familiar with Jones Valley, they had a slide a few years ago that washed out all three of their pumps, which was the only way they received water. The county stepped in, found a grant immediately, replaced two of those pumps and then proceeded to start replacing all the meters with new modern meters. The CSA 6 had a large water leak that was very costly to the residents. They have some of the highest water costs in the county by replacing the two pumps and also replacing most of the meters. They’re now down to a very livable water loss within CSA 6. And so the residents, there have been very pleased with what’s happening lately and their water system. So that’s, that’s good.
Also with 6 Supervisor Garman PSA too, that’s the Area Agency on Aging. I’m just an alternate on that. it is a Zoom meeting and Supervisor Garman, I know I don’t like Zoom meetings very much as well, but this is a multi county meeting. And so people from Siskiyou County and other counties, Lassen County would have to drive all the way to one central location or we would have to go there. And so in this particular case a Zoom meeting actually is probably preferable. It just simply saves a lot of money. The PSA area agency on aging is working hard on food programs throughout I think seven counties and making some progress, they were highly affected during COVID. A lot of services disrupted and they’re back on track now. Of course, this is a Kool April Nights. I went to a show and shine in Palo Cedro last night, just encouraging everyone to get out to all the show and shines. There’ll be dozens of them today and throughout the remainder of the week. Support all those organizations. Last night was by the Palo Cedro Chamber of Commerce, but there are many. Shasta Lake City will have some tomorrow. And then that’ll end this weekend.
And then lastly yesterday I attended a Shasta County Election Commission meeting and I know you were there as well, so I appreciate you being there. And there was some pretty eye-opening information that was presented at that commission meeting. That’s why I appreciate having a Shasta County Election Commission. Dr. Laura Hobbs and her team were present through much of the process of counting the ballots at the elections office here in downtown reading. And so they took probably as many as 20 days marking down as the batches came in as the precincts came in and the number of ballots that were processed at every precinct marking those down and then checking those with the audit log from Shasta County. And what we found was pretty startling. We found, or actually Dr. Hobbs found that at least one third of the time the audit logs did not correspond with what occurred only on election day, did the audit logs to A T match only election day prior and after serious and very much concerning lack of consistency with what actually occurred and the actual audit log, the audit in itself failed. This is of great concern. This is one of the reasons, this is the main reason why I did not certify the election, the election results. We have a failed audit and it is startling that no one from the election’s office was watching those ballots come in in real time and then checking them with the audit log only. Dr. Laura Hobbs and her team were able to do that at great time and to no cost to them. And they saw great discrepancies, these are the same discrepancies that we saw in 2022. That election day results mirrored one thing, but everything before and after were very different and that’s exactly what we saw in this primary in 2024. We will have a closed session on this topic today and I hope we have some reportable action thereafter. Chair, that ends my reports.
Supervisor Chris Kelstrom, District 5: On April 10, the day after our last meeting, I was at a Cottonwood Chamber of Commerce meeting. We’re planning the Cottonwood rodeo. So that’s coming up very quickly, Friday, May May 10. We’ll have the kiddy parade in Front Street. And I think there’s also a dinner dance that night. On May 11 Saturday morning, we’ll have the regular parade in Cottonwood and that’ll follow immediately by the rodeo, which is both Saturday and Sunday of Mother’s Day weekend. Then on April 11, I went to Anderson Library the Week of the Child event. It was a great event. My goodness, there’s a couple of hundred people, a couple of hundred kids there. And with their parents and everything else and it was, we had a county ag department was there handing out samples of honey and, and nuts that we, you know, grow here in the county. Great event. The kids all had bags full of toys and books and games and I mean, they were running around. It was, it was a wonderful day. They do it every year. That was the first time I had made it. So I will have that on my calendar every year from there forward.
April 12 in Cottonwood on Friday morning, we were working on at the community center putting in a swing. It was kind of a cool thing and one of the gals that was volunteering has a daughter that’s in a wheelchair. So this is if, you know, I’ve never seen one before, but it’s almost like a giant child seat where you could put somebody in and strap them in and then actually use it as a swing set. So it’s kind of cool. And we worked on some other stuff there, some cornhole games or board games and stuff. And then Saturday, I had the Shingletown Volunteer Fire Department breakfast. Normally I have two breakfasts the second Saturday of every month, but they canceled the one in Anderson because they had a fundraiser that night. So I only had to have one breakfast, but I got to see all my Shingletown folks up there. So that was a great time.
And then April 16, I went to the Asphalt Cowboys luncheon, the Media Appreciation luncheon, Supervisor Crye was there also, great event as always. And then April 16 I also had the Anderson City Council meeting that night where they wrote an opposition letter for the Fountain Wind Project. It passed unanimously with the Anderson City Council. Anderson City Council meetings are very pleasurable.They go very smoothly. This coming Thursday, we have the volunteer awards up there and we also have the appreciation for the public works. They’re on the same day at the same time, like they were last year. So last year I made the public works. I didn’t make the volunteers. Both of them are extremely important to me. I’ll probably have to flip a coin. I talked to Supervisor Jones. I know he’s going to go to the Volunteers Awards. So I may have to go to the public works, but please don’t take any offense. The only reason I’m not there is I can’t be in two places at one time.
So that concludes my report usually a 50 vote on just about everything. And then I’m gonna save, I’ll save the Sheriff’s Department Awards because I have to address something there. Sheriff, I see you in the room. So , Friday or Thursday, I went to the CASA rural counties caucus meeting down in Sacramento. So we were caucusing with the rural counties and we fit in very well, much, much better with the rural counties I believe, than the suburban counties. And then the day before that I did go to the Sheriff’s Department Awards in City of Shasta Lake, great event. Once again we, this coming Thursday, we have the volunteer awards up there and we also have the appreciation for the public works. They’re on the same day at the same time, like they were last year. So last year I made the public works. I didn’t make the volunteers. Both of them are extremely important to me. I’ll probably have to flip a coin. I talked to Supervisor Jones. I know he’s going to go to the volunteers Awards. So I may have to go to the public works, but please don’t take any offense. The only reason I’m not there is I can’t be in two places at one time. So that concludes my report.
Dist. 1 Supervisor/Chair Kevin Crye.
(53:59) Supervisor Kevin Crye, District 1: I’m gonna start with I had a great meeting with Senator Brian Dahle’s district rep, Mr. Bruce Ross, we discussed his responsibilities as a rep and just at, at a senate level what he’s able to accomplish. So, one of the things I’ve been working with support services and the CEO is looking at like Butte County and there’s other counties that are our size or even smaller that do have staff for each individual supervisor. One of the things I will say since this last election, the, amount of inbound people coming to me asking for help in different types of situations is not overwhelming but it’s humbling but it’s hard to sometimes say who gets help and how fast and when. So in this conversation, Monica Fugitt and her department is going to bring something back. I’ve made it pretty open ended sometime. Probably in May. We’ll have a discussion of what that could look like. Would be a constituent services individual to help just more people because that’s what’s really, really important to me.
The second is we had, I had a CSA rural caucus meeting that was done virtually. I chose not to leave the county to actually go down to CSA that following week. And I asked Supervisor Kelstrom to fill in for me, which he did. My granddaughter was due and she’s still due. She’s nine days overdue now. So, yeah. And so I appreciate Supervisor Kelstrom going down there and I agree it was, it was really refreshing to be on that zoom with many counties that are geographically close to us and getting us rowing in the same direction I think is going to be very positive for tourism because we have to get this, we have to get this jail built. And I’ve spent a lot of time with the sheriff and I have spent some time together again. I’ve said this before. I would love to have a great facility outside the city limits. But I’d also like to have the Yankees play maybe in Palo Cedro. And we can’t afford either. So, I don’t even know that we can afford a whole lot next door. But we have to start getting as much revenue into the county as we can. And one way to do that where I think we’re really missing the boat is through tourism dollars.
So the rural caucus had some great ideas and we’re working hard on that. Had this a few discussions with Laura Burch and her department about audits. I’m looking forward to seeing what she’s working on and bringing that forward like Supervisor Kelstrom mentioned, attended the asphalt cowboys luncheon preparing for the Redding rodeo. CEO Rickert was there as well. We are actually working on a letter that we’re going to send to the City of Redding on the county stance on the rodeo grounds. And I believe that is hallowed ground here in Shasta County. And I want the county stance very public about that and what the rodeo means to the people of this county and not just the event but the actual grounds that it sits on.
I attended the Shasta County Volunteer Awards ceremony for volunteer fire firefighters. I attended that with CEO Rickert. And I gotta tell you, Sean o’Hara, who’s our CalFire chief here at the county. He does a phenomenal job and there’s a lot of people that make all those different companies up and some people, one person was recognized for 40 years of service, which I thought that was pretty amazing. I met with a constituent on looking into something and this is something that CEO Rickert is gonna work with me as well as Miguel from child support services about. If you’re a next of kin or a grandparent and your child passes away or dies and you now have custody of their kids. I’m looking at a different, what we could do because for there’s one family that has adopted kids prior to their daughter’s passing, that was very expensive. Their daughter passed and now they’re adopting the rest of them and the adoption fees there, there’s, there doesn’t appear to be any help. Now, I’m just saying that I’m sure there are programs out there, but I’m just saying it in this format. So people know what I’m working on. So, please reach out to me, but I will be asking CEO Rickert and Miguel with child support services to see what we could do as a county to help individuals in that situation.
I am continuing my coffee on Athens at eight o’clock every Friday at the Kaleidoscope on Athens. I would ask that if you could start maybe coming at 7:37, 45, get your coffee, whatever you’re gonna do and start bringing lawn chairs because we’re taking up all the seats and we’re moving it outdoors now. So maybe bring a lawn chair. And what we do from that is roughly from 7:45 to 9:00. Sometimes it’s gone to, even to 11. It’s just an open forum to have discussions, not arguments. there is no three minute clock, And I’ll do this as long as people show up and people are cordial to one another. And again I will say this Friday there is a flag raising at nine at the courthouse for Children’s awareness Month. So I will be out of there by roughly 8:45, 8:50. So I’ll be there a little early this week.
The last thing I want to bring up is, I had a radio show this week and I had a couple of individuals on it was a grandmother again, constituents in my district and, and all these items I’m talking about are people in my district. But I had a grandmother and a mother on whose daughter and granddaughter was violated, molested at work. And the individual was arrested in August bonded out in three days. That’s the law. That’s the way that goes. What was really troubling to me. And then they reached out to me about a month ago. So I’ve been working on this a while and we went back and forth, what I could do to help them tell their story. And and they were, they were dissuaded by, from what I’m told the district attorney’s office from doing any kind of picketing or anything else because the individual runs a business within 100 or 200, 300 yards of five schools. Now, their daughter was 15 when this happened. My daughter, my middle daughter is 15. So this hits very, very close to home for me. And, my wife taught at Shasta. There’s a lot of kids that walk Eureka Way. You have Shasta High school, U Prep, Freedom, Pioneer, I believe North State Music. So there’s five schools. So I’m gonna ask CEO Rickert to contact the District Attorney’s office. I would like a presentation on the two things. One, I would like a presentation of what the public can do to bring light to situations where you have an individual that has been arrested, admitted to all of the misdeeds, the sexual battery of a child and operates a business within, you know, a few hundred yards of multiple schools. What we could do as the public because here’s what happens is we all see RPD on Facebook, puts people’s pictures up, but there’s so much noise that Facebook or pictures or articles, you know, it just, everything gets drowned. But I had another constituent yesterday drive by and took videos inside the business and it’s littered with kits, littered with kits. And that is something I’m not going to be silent about. And I want to know what the hierarchy tree of prosecution, prosecutorial crimes if you will. I’d like the district attorney to tell us how she’s ranking what she’s filing. And the second is I want to know what people in the public can do because what I don’t want is vigilante justice. I don’t want dads or grandfathers or uncles or moms going places and seeking vengeance on their own. But having a person who’s been out for eight months, with what they’ve done and I’ve read the police reports. I’ve been through this and it’s not OK. And now that I’ve gone down this road, there’s many more people that are reaching out and if we can’t defend kids, I don’t know what we’re doing.
Shasta County Sheriff Michael Johnson
(1:11:26) Sheriff Michael Johnson made a 20-minute presentation of his observances from a three-day trip to the San Diego/San Ysidro/Tijuana area including his conversations with border agents, the policies and procedures for processing people entering this country, the amount of illegal drugs confiscated at the border as well as smuggling done by U.S. citizens, and conversations with FBI agents.
