The regularly scheduled weekly Tuesday morning meeting of the Shasta County Board of Supervisors was called to order at 9:00 a.m. on August 20, 2024. The complete video and agenda are available here. Timestamps are in parentheses.The Invocation was conducted by Pastor Bob Parrish, Whitmore Seventh-Day Adventist Church. The Pledge of Allegiance was led by Supervisor Rickert.
REGULAR CALENDAR
Board Matters
No Additional General Fund Impact
No Vote
CEO David Rickert
(2:59) CEO Dave Rickert: Today I’m sad to announce that Paul Hellman, our Director of Resource Management, has accepted a position as the Director of Community Development and Resource Agency for Placer County. His last day of work will be September 1. Paul was instrumental in the development and implementation of several critical ordinances and projects that have lasting positive impact in our community. Additionally, his leadership was key in opposing the Fountain Wind Project. On behalf of Shasta County, we extend a heartfelt thanks for Paul’s future endeavors and and thank him for his next chapter in his career. Also, I’d like to announce that Chairman Crye has asked that I agendize a special recognition of Paul at our next meeting. Other key positions open at this time and we are actively in the recruitment process are the CFO for HHSA, the Veteran Service Officer and the Director of Mental Health Services.
District 3 Supervisor Mary Rickert.
(4:00) Supervisor Mary Rickert, District 3: I’ve been in discussions with Erin Ryan, representative from Doug LaMalfa’s office, on insurance issues. It still continues to be a very difficult topic and I will continue working on that with Erin. I participated in a Board of Realtors Forum and I attended the Superior California Economic Development Meeting. They hold them at the City Hall. It’s Modoc County, Siskiyou County, Trinity County and Shasta County. We had representatives, supervisors from each one of those counties in attendance and we continue to work on our strategic plan.I attended an event for sponsors at the Intermountain fairgrounds in McArthur last Friday night and that’s for people that support our fair. And I just want to remind everyone that August 29 through September 2 is our very special and we are the actual Shasta County fair, not the – Anderson Fair is the Shasta District fair, but we’re the actual county fair.I attended the ACID Canal documentary. It’s the second time I’ve seen him but the Cascade Theater had was basically to full to capacity. I saw Supervisor Garman and his wife there. And it was very well done. As many of you know, Tyler Faires has won many, many awards for that documentary and I think it will continue to put Shasta County on the map, even on an international level.
Attended the Palo Cedro community breakfast at the IOOF Hall on Sunday morning. Yesterday I had the PSA2 meeting, Area of Aging meeting, and Supervisor Garman was on that meeting Yesterday afternoon with Mr. Halligan, I met with Mayor Audette at the City Hall to discuss the Big League Dreams and what the future holds for that in terms of how the city is going to approach working moving forward on that. Last night, I attended the Mental Health Alcohol Drug Advisory Board meeting. We met at Wright Education Services. This is a program that has been in Shasta County for probably well over 30 years and it deals with providing anger management classes, batterer treatment, child abuse treatment, DUI programs, counseling, moral reconation therapy, MRT and positive parenting program. And so it’s been a program that the county has contracted with extensively over the years and been familiar with the good work that they do.
So with that, I just want to say how saddened I am at the fact that Paul Hellman will be leaving Shasta County. I was a member of the panel that hired him. He was working at the time for the City of Redding and he’s done a great job. Placer County is fortunate to have him become a part of their team. I know people in Placer County and I think they’re going to really be appreciative of the great work he will do. And most importantly, Mr. Hellman has been extremely instrumental in helping us with our fight against Sacramento on the Fountain Wind Project. And so he will be sorely missed and I’m very sorry to see him leave but I wish him all the best.
District 5 Supervisor Chris Kelstrom
(7:27) Supervisor Chris Kelstrom, District 5: Wednesday I attended the last Mosquito Serenade for the season in Anderson River Park. Friday, I went to the VFW in Anderson for a spaghetti dinner, huge portions by the way. I asked them to cut mine in half because I had another event to go to, which was the Good News Rescue Mission graduation with Chairman Crye. It has a great, great ceremony there. Good to see some people that are getting back on track. So it was awesome.
Then Saturday, I had a breakfast with an Anderson City Council member candidate and then I did the Shasta County Republican Assembly fundraiser, auctioneered that. Monday, yesterday, I met with the sheriff and staff, I’ll get to that another bit. And then I also had a meeting with Lauren at the Redding Airport, the assistant manager at the Redding Airport. And then I talked to a couple of Trego Dugan employees. We’ll get to that again also. And then I ended up talking with Lisa, which is Doug LaMalfa’s aide who does the FFA interface. So I’m not letting go of this Trego Dugan Avelo Airlines thing at all. In fact, talking yesterday it’s like Trego Dugan did the baggage handling for the little Arcata Airport. Arcata Airport has five flights a week. Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, mid-September, they’re adding another flight, adding a flight. We’re losing ours. Arcata is adding a flight in mid-September to go to six days a week and during the holidays, they plan on adding another flight to be seven days a week. So they had Trego Dugan as their baggage handlers. They lost their baggage handlers also. It’s a county run airport. Somewhere along the line someone was able to make it work so that Avelo stayed there. So Avelo is increasing their flights out of Arcata and we’re losing ours here. So again, I’m not letting this go.
August 26 will be the last Avelo flight out of the Redding airport for now in case unless we can talk them to come back but it’ll be the last flight. So Mark Mezzano, who is the Redding City Councilman and the liaison for the Redding airport, Mark Mezzano and I will both be down there on August 26 to work the last Avelo flight. We’re still going to continue to do everything we can to get them back. It’s really frustrating for me that, you know, in my opinion, there wasn’t enough done to keep them here. I think had I any say in it I would have wanted to subsidize the baggage handling, whatever we needed to do to keep them here until we could find a permanent solution.
So, I have talked to Tenessa Audette and she assures me and I believe her 100% that she immediately answered emails when they came in and went to work on it. Lauren at the Redding Airport does an amazing job. She’s a wonderful employee, a wonderful human being. And I fully believe her that they were on it as soon as they got the emails. Somewhere along the line though, I’ve been told by three people that emails were sent and they were not answered so somewhere along the line, I believe there was a miscommunication. I think there’s a weak link somewhere in the chain and again, we’re going to do everything we can to get Avelo here.
The other thing I’d like to talk to is Chairman Crye and I met with the sheriff yesterday and you know, our guys and girls in green are doing a fantastic job. The staff of the jail is doing a fantastic job between getting arrested and being booked in jail and going to a courtroom, there is a major break in that line of communication also. So I reported back in January, a friend of mine that had bought Rooster’s Landing and turned it into Rooster’s Bar and Tavern, had a Molotov cocktail thrown at his establishment. I ended up going out there. The deputies beat me to it. Like I said, our guys in green are doing a fantastic job. They had the guy hooked up, they arrested him, they put him in jail. He has a extensive rap sheet. He is a third level offender, which means there’s three people that have to move this guy. He’s, you know, violent, possibly violent, whatever. He’s been in jail for the last seven and a half months, seven months and he is going to be turned loose next week because the guys that arrested him did their job. The guys in the jail are holding him to do their job. Someone along the line is not doing their job because now after seven months, they have to either bring him to court or let him go and they claim there’s no judge and there’s no courtroom. So this is something that we definitely need to work on. I don’t know where the ball is being dropped, but the ball is being dropped somewhere and again, he’s a level three inmate. He’s on $1 million bail right now and he’s going to be turned loose because, yeah, we don’t have a courtroom for him.
District 4 Supervisor Patrick Jones
(12:26) Supervisor Patrick Jones, District 2: Had a pretty good discussion with Dr. Dhanuka. I’ve known the good doctor for quite some time. He’s running for Redding City Council. So I wish him well in that. We had a Redding Area Bus Authority, a little bit of a different type of meeting. We had a ribbon cutting ceremony in conjunction with San Juan Joint Powers Authority. And basically, we have added a throughway route three service connecting Redding, Red Bluff, and Chico. We bought three new coaches. And that will be a service that we haven’t offered before. And it’s the first service outside of the county that Redding Area Bus Authority has been involved in. So we’ll be interested to see how well that works. I think they’ll have a good outcome. And then we had a regular rest of our meeting, which was a fairly short updates on various things within the transit operation. And then, along with Supervisor Kelstrom the Shasta County Republican Assembly fundraiser. I helped organize that along with my wife and many other volunteers to finally get a good organization that can be well funded. So I expect good things in the future from them.
District 2 Supervisor Tim Garman.
(13:48) Supervisor Tim Garman, District 2: I met with Jake Mangas this week. We talked about the groundbreaking ceremony will be September 24 for the new regional cancer center, which will be located at Hartnell and Cypress Avenue. That is really exciting stuff for Shasta County and Redding to have a big regional cancer center that’s local for people. That is slated to open in 2026.
I had a phone call with Commissioner John Ingram talking about the Williamson Act, which I’ll follow up a little bit more with that in a moment. I met with Troy Bartolomei, John Heath, Vinton and William and a couple of constituents. We talked about some roads in the Trinity Alps Preserve Subdivision. Thank you, Troy and your staff if you’re in here for meeting with us and, and helping that along, I much appreciate it. I just want to say this is, this is true for all of our staff. When we asked to meet with them, they are very available and it’s very nice and we can get them in front of constituents that have issues and then we can hear all these sides of these problems and, and start to work on solutions. So thank you to all of our staff.
I met with Adam Fieseler and we had a great conversation on Friday after we found out about director Paul Hellman is going to be leaving us to go to Placer County. Paul, you will be dearly missed and I want to thank you for your service to Shasta County. You really were instrumental in turning around Resource Management and making that a positive experience for a lot of people. Whereas before nobody wanted to give and go in that office and get a permit now, it’s just a completely different attitude. When you walk in that office, Paul, you are one of the main players that made that happen. So thank you. And I wish you well in your future endeavors.
Had a PSA2 area Agency on Aging with Supervisor Rickert. I was not able to meet in person with Wesley Tucker, but he is leaving as our VSO director and Wesley, I want to wish you well in the future as well. And we will miss you just as much as we miss Paul.
And then backing up to the Commissioner John Ingram. We met with supervisor-elect Allen Long, John Ingram, Adam Fieseler, Bryce Ritchie and some other staff members and we talked about the Williamson Act and it is so confusing and all that and I wanted to give supervisor-elect Long kind of a, just a let him know what it’s about and it was a good information sharing with a couple of folks from the Cattleman’s Association were in that meeting, just to hear all the different parts and aspects of that was really, it was a good meeting. And I thank you for, I think we met for an hour and a half. So thank you for all the staff that were able to take the time to meet with that.
And lastly I attended the ACID Canal movie with Supervisor Rickert and I saw you as there as well as your family. It was a great movie and it was a packed house and really hit home. When you don’t have water, you don’t have water. And one of the ladies in the movie, she showed this bag where they were showering outside with water they would dump into it. It’s like you don’t think about it because we have municipal water. But if you’re on a well and your well goes dry, I mean, that would, that, that was a really, really good documentary and I’m not one to like or watch documentaries typically, but that one, I can’t wait to watch it again. It was really, really good. And a little side note I got out of that movie was we need to be buying local, local, produce, local meats. We have a lot of great food supply here in Shasta County. We need to be taking care of our own and it’s going to be a better product and we get it from them. So that’s just a little side note that I got out of that.
District 1 Supervisor/Chair Kevin Crye
(17:33) Supervisor Kevin Crye, District 1: I attended the Good News Rescue Mission’s graduation. Again, Supervisor Kelstrom was at that. It was very, it’s very moving to see people who have been in the circumstance that most of those individuals have been in and to see them well on their way was amazing. I would encourage you to try and make that event when they do it again.
I attended the SCRA event. I was there briefly. the ribbon cutting yesterday for the RABA operations of Amtrak and the thruway between Redding, Red Bluff and Chico. If anybody does, I’m sure there will be a lot of people that will use it. I’d be very curious to get feedback. So if you can email me the feedback, if you use that, where your ultimate destination is. If you’re going to Bakersfield, etcetera, I would just love a lot of feedback. I attended that as a rep for SRTA which is the Shasta Regional Transportation Agency. So the more public feedback I would welcome that I’d appreciate it.
Worked with the Deputy CEO Buettell and County Counsel on the ballot statements for measures P and Q. We do have an agenda item about that. So I’ll be discussing that later. Each supervisor has been bringing me different items, things that they’d like to see on the agenda, things that they’d like to see us pass before the end of the year. Supervisor Rickert, and I do commend you, you brought up the issue of fentanyl. So I’d love to see you bring something forward that this board could vote on as it relates to fentanyl.
The meeting with the sheriff yesterday about positions being added. In 2019, 102 beds were added to the jail. It went from 381 to 483. And there was no, the board at that time in 2019 asked the sheriff’s office to do a lot more with a lot less. There were no positions added and that is now coming to a point where it’s become an issue. So we’re working on that. When Supervisor Kelstrom brought up the PSOs, that was the first individuals that were added to the jail staff. So we’re going to be looking back. And I’m doing as much research as I can with Undersheriff Randall about why the board chose not to give extra help in the jail because I think it’s important that our floor of our jail never get shut down again. And I’m seeing things that probably led to that, starting back in 18 or 19. So, working hard with the sheriff on that.
I met with County Counsel about the item I had brought forth about working with an outside individual, whether it’s a retired judge or possibly a retired district attorney to come in and do an assessment of the court system, the DA, the, what’s it? Public Defender, RPD, Sheriff’s Office and everybody seems to be extremely on board. Actually, the courts are extremely on board with that.
And with that, I would like to recognize Melissa Fowler Bradley who received an award. She is the Chief Executive Officer over there across the street at the courthouse. She’s been honored with the highest possible recognition for her work in the administration of justice in California. She has been recognized by the state judicial counsel with a distinguished service award, one of only three people to receive that commendation. So that’s at the highest. That’s, that’s the highest, that’s the highest level anywhere in the state. And we have her sitting across the street. So she welcomes any critique and feedback on what her courthouse, her system over there could do better. So I’ll be looking forward to County Counsel bringing that forward and getting that person here and doing the work, figuring out if there are breakdowns, where are they in the chain of custody From an arrest to prosecution to somebody being held accountable for their crimes in Shasta County. So much like Supervisor Kelstrom’s issue at the airport, he’s not letting that go and I’m not letting this go about keeping people accountable in Shasta County with that.
County Fire
Simple Majority VoteFire chief Sean O’Hara made the presentation.
Sean O’Hara
(22:07) Sean O’Hara: So, as you can imagine the big thing that we’ve been all working on is trying to recruit volunteers. Over the last couple of years we’ve had a steady increase. It’s been very minute, but it is going up. Currently we have 125 volunteers on file. With that, there was a little bit of a dip not too long ago because we were holding people accountable of what I brought to you guys earlier, about the 5% of the calls. That actually made more people accountable. And we had more people responding and we’ll go through that. 4449 volunteer basically calls for services in the area. 3500 of those were medical aid. So that goes in line with the question that you guys ask usually, is how many of those calls are usually medical aid and we usually say between 85 and 90%. So you can see that’s right on par. 3000 of those were total responses out of Shasta County Fire Department. So that is with the volunteers. That is strictly volunteer incidents that are that they are responding to. In total for your co-operative fireside that is 14,000 calls that we ran in the Shasta and Trinity counties, mainly Shasta County itself.
The ECC everybody asks, hey, did you see the fire? Did you see the traffic accident? All these things generate a phone call. For that, yes. last year was actually a slow year, which is weird, right? But that generated 55,000 phone calls into the command center. That command center is populated by paid professionals that work for CalFire. One thing that the Shasta County does not have is the infrastructure to do any type of dispatching. That is all based out of CalFire’s infrastructure. So with that, that is a benefit of the contract, that you guys do not have to provide all the infrastructure throughout Shasta and Trinity County for dispatching.
Why I bring that up is we dispatch for all fire protection agencies within Shasta County. So with that, except for City of Redding, they have their own. But every everybody else we do. The ECC processed 1139 out of unit requests. Why I bring that up is that is significantly lower. Last year was a slow year, which is good. But that is significantly different already this year compared to last year. I bet you they probably did that just last month. The training bureau did 4000 hours of instruction for the entire year. That brings everybody up to date. That’s EMS, that’s extrication, that is how to fight fire, that’s bringing all the volunteers on and such because if you don’t have a trained individual, they are just a regular individual that’s showing up on a emergency that everybody is looking to for help. So, making sure all of our folks are trained to a specific level is a monumental task.
This is something that we usually highlight every year. because of the amount of people that, like you were saying, that are either let go or we do have arson problem here in Shasta County. Our Fire Prevention Bureau is one of the top ones in the state. They are actually one of the only ones in the state right now that are fully staffed. with that, that is two battalion chiefs and four fire captain specialists. That is a significant amount over the last couple of years because we basically doubled it this year. And on the CalFire side and on the county side. So remember we came to you for a battalion chief for the Zogg settlement in order to update the county ordinances. Matt Alexander, he’s a battalion chief for us strictly doing the LE side. So I met with Mr. Kelstrom over the ordinance and we are starting to move forward. As you guys can imagine there’s a couple of hiccups with the ordinance but we’re gonna work through that. These are the individuals last year that were in our prevention department. That is what makes everything go from PRA s to locking up arsonists to doing investigations. Those are the individuals that hold people accountable. Those guys and gals that are in that shop are one of the best, if not, in my opinion, the best in the state.
One thing that we have to bring up to you every year is the amount of inspections per the Senate bill 1205. Highlighted at the very bottom that we did 136 inspections. That is, the fire marshal and the fire inspector doing those, those two folks are county employees. Those two folks again are the only, well, I take that back. We have one more. He’s a store parts keeper. Those are out of three people, two of them work underneath the fire marshal and fire inspector spot side. So with that, those folks are very busy. They’re the only two people on the county side that do the fire inspections. The fire investigation side is what I talked about earlier. So those folks there are very busy. Sure, a lot of people tend to not like what those folks say for the most part, because they are very expensive. When it says, hey, you need to put sprinklers in this building. Hey, you need to have setbacks. All those things are the reason why we do that is because of the fact that the fires have changed over the years. Bringing in fire sprinklers, having more of a setback allows for a better defensible space in order for, if that building catches on fire, for people to get out and for it to not spread hopefully onto somebody else’s property.
(29:03) The BOS had some questions and discussion with Chief O’Hara.
There was one public commenter.
(43:29) Christian Gardinier: I want to personally commend the chief. I was on the Lower Fire and, I’m not too sure if everybody, we like to talk about the Park Fire because it’s a national scale that we’re unfortunately going to see more and more of that’s the new norm. Lower Fire was incredible. Once again, I was evacuated. All personnel that I came in contact with were incredible. They were very polite, professional, courtesy and very, very helpful. It was scary. But once again, all first responders knocked this thing down quickly. Nevertheless, it was in a very populated area and it could have been so much worse. I just want to respond to a couple of things. When I was a kid. I remember a fire captain, rolling up to where I lived. He didn’t ask me if I wanted to volunteer. He simply said get in my vehicle. You are currently working for me and that’s back then. And that was a long time ago. Things are different. When this board acknowledges the volunteers to go into a fire. you also have to train them. As far as I’m concerned, the board of supervisors is really responsible for one thing and that’s the safety of your constituents. Safety first and property second. This board has spent millions of dollars wasted it, flushed it down the toilet, which needs to be going to our first responders. We need to pay for that training. When somebody goes in and has to say I’m so sorry, I can’t touch you, sir, because I’m not trained, that breaks the heart of the volunteer. Yeah, this board needs to step up, stop flushing money down the toilet. get it to our first responders, get it to our jails as soon as possible.
R2 passed on a 5-0 vote.
County Administrative Office
No Additional General Fund Impact
Deputy County Executive Officer Stewart Buettell made the presentation.
(45:47) Stewart Buettell: Before you today for your consideration is item number R3. And I’m looking to the board for actions or for the following actions regarding measure P, temporarily suspend the operation of rule 7E1 and administrative policy 1-101, operation and conduct of business by the board of supervisors. Number two, approve Supervisor Crye to work with staff and prepare a rebuttal statement. And number three, approve and submit the verification statement that will be paired with that rebuttal.
(46:31) Supervisor Rickert: I’m going to vote no on this because as I read in the last board meeting that we haven’t used eminent domain in this county, I think three times since 2001. And it’s just been around bridge bridges for the most part in a bike lane. And I want to know how much is this going to cost to put on the ballot.
Stewart Buettell: So as elections is continuing to research that on our behalf, I will say it is expensive to put anything on the ballot. And that range can vary widely depending on, if it’s a Countywide measure such as this, the more people that will have it on their ballot, the more expensive it is.
Supervisor Rickert: And that’s the point I want to make. Is this our tax dollars being used in a common sense kind of way. I think it’s a waste of our money. It should be going to public safety, it should be going to fire department, but it should not be wasted on something that the county isn’t using. And when it did use, it was a minimal situation that impacted literally two or three landowners and a few, probably not even an acre of land probably in each situation. So I just want to point out that this is wasting taxpayer money.
(47:49) Supervisor Garman: I also will be voting no on this. Pretty much for the same reasons Supervisor Rickert just laid out. We’re creating a problem where there is none. There’s no point in spending money on something that’s not broken. There are times in life when eminent domain is necessary and there’s a reason why it’s there and I just feel like we’re going to end up probably being sued in the long run with this as well.
(50:16) Public comment on R3 began.
(50:43) Laura Hobbs: I applaud the board for using the charter to bring forward this issue to the voters eminent domain. Even if it’s not used is a bargaining tool that can be wielded against the citizens to sell their property for less than its market value. I appreciate you standing up for property owners’ rights against the city in the county, in particular the county in this case. So I do applaud you. This has been used successfully in other issues. The charter motions, it has been used successfully in other issues where supervisors are reluctant to act such as in term limits. There are times when citizens can and should act. When there are topics that for self preservation, the county officials are hesitant to act. One such issue is hand counting at the precinct and I want to see this on the ballot for the people to vote on because I feel that this board doesn’t have the political courage to address the most important topic of our times.
(52:06) Delores Lucero: It never fails. Same old thing, always trying to do what you think is right for other people without giving the people an opportunity for them to have their own voice in their own opinion. This should be a public hearing when I’m talking. Don’t look at Patrick. Patrick ain’t gonna save your butt. So, you know you always make faces when Mary’s talking and you’re always just interrupting her, but this should go to the public regardless if it’s private rights. Of course, we all want what’s right? But that’s the people’s choice. That’s what they should be on them. Not you, not just you five because you don’t represent the, the whole county in you all are individual districts. So not everybody thinks the same as you, when you expect every, everybody to think like you, then it becomes a one world order just like you talk about every, you know, in, in the state. So this, I think this needs to go to the public hearing.
(53:35) Jenny O’Connell: I’m a little confused by this because as Mary Rickert has pointed out, it’s not a particularly common problem and when it does come up, it’s usually for the cases of safety like public safety, like making it safer for a bicyclist on Churn Creek or making it safer for pedestrians or widening roads. So there’s less accidents. The thing I found the most concerning about this one is in particular, it stated that property can’t be taken from one private entity and given to another private entity which I didn’t even know it was a problem. I guess my question is who does it benefit? And what is it actually for? There aren’t a lot of private land owning people around here except for like ranchers and stuff. But, I mean, like a majority of Shasta County is pretty poor, like, you know, a majority of people I know, don’t even own anything. Most of us rent. So this really just affects like a certain amount of people. I mean, maybe particular people. I’m just curious who.
(55:00) Nick Gardner: Well, judging from the other speakers, I must have been mistaken, I understood this R3 was about whether to let Kevin Crye write the rebuttal argument for it. And all of a sudden we’re talking about property rights and eminent domain, obviously, Mary is against private property owners, having their property taken away and given to another private property owner. Anyway, I’d like to, I’m, I’m all in, I’m all in favor of Kevin writing the rebuttal, but I would like to caution him to write it very simple because I went to A News Cafe and read Benjamin Nowain’s little article about it and I went to the comments for a little comedy and here’s one right here. “The eminent domain circumstances turns out to be an acquisition strategy of Jones to facilitate the taking of those neighbors gun range properties to destroy the litigious obstacles. Exactly the type of abuse of government authority which these patriots claim to oppose.” How ridiculous is that? Jonesy, you’ve orchestrated this whole thing so you can get the property next to your gun range. Well, according to Truck Thump, he did. This is Semi here. You know, these guys are so ashamed of their ignorance that they won’t even put their name on there. “A quick search of eminent domain says the government can take property for the public good.” How exactly does this provide Patrick Jones the ability to take neighboring properties from around his proposed gun range? Another ridiculous statement, does Patrick Jones, private enterprise in any way constitute public good? Where are the funds going to come from to take these properties away? So, of course, you need to write it simply so you can appeal to these people also.
R3 passed on a 3-2 vote with Supervisors Jones, Kelstrom, and Crye voting yes; Garman and Rickert voting no.
Simple Majority Vote
Simple Majority Vote
Stewart Buettell made the presentation.
(1:01:24) Stewart Buettell: So today I’m looking to the board to take the following actions regarding measure Q, number one, temporarily suspend the operation of rule 7E1 in administrative policy 1-101 operation and conduct of business by the board of supervisors. Number two, approve Supervisor Crye to work with staff and prepare a rebuttal argument. Number three, approve and submit the verification statement which will be paired and submitted with that and with that, I’m available for any questions.
(1:02:24) Delores Lucero: Kevin, you’re not capable of preparing an anything, to rebuttal on this item or the previous one. You cost the county so much money and you cause so much chaos. You’re not capable of making an argument or even looking out for the county. The legal counsel should be the one, you have no experience at all. All you do is cause chaos in this county and you got us in a big hole in litigation after litigation. You’re not capable. The legal council should be doing it.
(1:04:26) Jenny O’Connell: I guess my biggest problem with the whole, every time you say this is, you know, going to the voters and why would you be against it? The only problem I have with that is that a lot of the times these things that are going to, the voters are backed by Reverge Anselmo and his great amounts of money. And so in reality, there’s an uneven amount of free speech going on here where more money can be pumped into what you want than to say what, you know, like us who are against it.
R4 passed on a 3-2 vote with Supervisors Garman and Rickert voting no.
Presentations
No Vote
Rebecca Baer
(1:09:16) Rebecca Baer: The real mission of the Shasta EDC is to bring primary industry to our region for sustainable economic growth. We do that through partnership with public partners, Shasta County, City of Redding, City of Shasta Lake. We do work with the City of Anderson although we don’t have a contract with them at this time. And we also have private investors, funders, business, folks in the area who are interested in economic development in Shasta County support the work that we do through annual investment.
The four pillars of our work are business attraction, business retention, and expansion, business innovation, and air service development. In the area of business attraction, what we’re doing there is we’re advertising Shasta County available properties outside of our market and also responding to leads. We get leads from potential business, own business, businesses and owners who would like to locate their business in Shasta County, we get lots of leads from the Governor’s office, the Go Biz which is their Office of Economic Development, and developers both locally and folks who are outside of the area who are representing companies coming to the area. Like I said, we proactively market outside of Shasta County to attract business to the area. Another thing we do with business attraction is help folks identify any incentives that that would be available to them um and help them understand and navigate those processes. All these efforts are dependent on many different decision factors in the minds of the business owners.
(1:19:10) R6 Receive a presentation from the Shasta Chemical People regarding their mission, activities, and accomplishments (Sponsored by Supervisor Rickert).
No General Fund Impact
No Vote
Betty Cunningham made the presentation.
(1:20:20) Betty Cunningham: I do want to thank you for this opportunity, taking some of your time this morning to talk a little bit about our programs. We have been around since 1983 and for those of you who don’t know chemical people as a substance abuse prevention organization. And we primarily focus our efforts on youth in Shasta County.
I’d like to cover just a few things of what we did on in the year 20 of the school year 23-24. We we sponsored the Sober Grad program in 1992. We joined with Highway Patrol to do a Countywide Sober Grad program. And last year we had nine high schools involved with a total of more than 2000 graduates. Since that program began in 1992 we have not had a dui crash on any graduation night. And we’re very proud of that figure because if you’ve been around that long in this county, you know that we have some huge tragedies prior to that. We also facilitate the drug drop off boxes. Since 2015, we have collected over 48,000 pounds of unwanted and unused medications. We sponsor and coordinate the Drug Take Back Days. There are two of them, one in April and one coming up October 26 in conjunction with the DEA and the Redding Police Department.
We were lucky enough this last year to do an every 15 minute program at Fall River High School on April 9 and 10. It is a two day simulated driving under the influence program where a young person is killed and every 15 minutes, the Grim Reaper takes a child out of the classroom and leaves an obituary and a black rose. And each one of those represents a DUI fatality. That was a two day and the next day is the funeral. Huge resources from the community are used to do that over $250,000 worth of volunteer time equipment from CalFire fire departments, volunteers, Mayers Memorial, EMTs it goes on and on. We also do the Red Ribbon campaign which is coming up October 23 through the 31. We’re hoping for a huge year coming back out of COVID. We’re finally building up to our regular community and school programs. We do a lot of programs in the classroom. We don’t do a lot of assembly type programs. We go into the classrooms and do individual classroom presentations on vaping on fentanyl prevention as well as alcohol, tobacco and other drugs. And we do the victim impact panel. Every DUI offender in Shasta County is required by the courts to do a victim impact panel where they listen to victims who have suffered greatly from DUI crashes.
There were two public comments.
(1:31:44) Cindy Daisy: I’m Cindy Daisy and I am a retired educator from the Fall River Joint Unified School District and now currently the mentoring coordinator at the Shasta County Chemical people. I was always in awe of the programs that were brought to us in the eastern part of the county by Shasta County Chemical People. You know, other than the van that came up with books and AV equipment and films, we didn’t have a whole lot of connection to this part of Shasta County. So it was nice to have an organization that came up and included us in programs. One of the things that got me the most was the fact that, there became a position available after I retired from education and it was to work with you through the mentoring program you saw with Betty, you saw the results of some of our data. I just wanted to highlight that those data points come from what are called our standards of practice. All of the programs are have a level of performance. We are to provide a safe environment. That’s one of our standards of practice. So those are reflected in the data that you saw. We are committed to providing opportunities for community engagement. Again, talking about how we’re looking at individuals volunteering, getting that, getting that heart for volunteerism, that’s part of our mission. We give students the opportunity to be leaders and to advocate for those things that are important to them. We work on building positive and caring and meaningful relationships among themselves and with adult allies. And also we provide opportunities to engage our youth in interesting and relevant topics that are of primary interest to them.
(1:34:20) Christy: The drug take back program, it’s actually going to be moved to pharmacies. There was a legislation change recently that moved that to the pharmacy. So, yes, we are discontinuing our MOU but the pharmacies will pick up that drug take back program within those cities. So right now staff are working on communication to all the city managers and to all the community partners within the cities to make sure they know when this will happen, but it will continue just not with our staff doing it.
(1:36:12) R7 Receive a presentation from the Health and Human Services Agency regarding Proposition 1, passed by California voters on March 5, 2024 (Sponsored by Supervisor Rickert).
No General Fund Impact
No Vote
HHSA Behavioral Services Branch Program Manager Bailey Cogger made the presentation via a slide show, demonstrating the history of Preposition 1 and upcoming changes to funding.
(1:37:03) Bailey Cogger: I will be presenting on Prop 1 today and going over some of the upcoming changes. So Prop 1 is two parts. It’s an assembly bill and a senate bill that is working towards creating a behavioral health transformation throughout the state. So to start, we’ll go over Senate bill 326. This is the Behavioral Health Transformation Mental Health Services Act to Behavioral Health Services Act. So giving a little background on what the Mental Health Services Act is, is that it was originally Prop 63 and it was passed in 2004. It’s a 1% tax on income over a million dollars, otherwise known as the Millionaire’s tax. The purpose of this funding is to expand and reform the current structure of mental health services and really provide additional supports to the community. So changes that are coming. So Prop 1 becomes effective January of 2025. At that time, we will have about a year and a half to develop a new three year plan that aligns with the new funding structure and kind of changes that are coming. So this will add funding towards housing increasing capacity. It will also add funding allocations for individuals with only a substance use disorder and not co-occurring with mental health.
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 or on any agenda item listed on the Consent Calendar. Each speaker is allocated three minutes to speak. Those wishing to participate in Public Comment–Open Time must submit a speaker request card to the Clerk of the Board before the meeting begins. All speaker request cards submitted after the meeting begins, and any public comment not heard by the 12:00 p.m. recess, will be heard once all Regular Calendar items on the agenda have been considered by the Board, and before the Board’s consideration of the Consent Calendar.
(1:52:58) David Halligan: Thank you. I’ll go quick. Meeting, protocol and board jurisdiction, meeting protocols, set of rules that govern how we properly conduct a meeting. Here’s the protocol statement on the front page of every board of supervisor meeting outlined in regards to public comment, public comment, period, open time where you may address the board on any matter, not listed on the agenda that is within, within the subject matter jurisdiction of the board, which brings me to what’s been happening lately in some of our meetings, the November 5 election, 76 days away. Conspiracies, big lies, election deniers, transparency voter rolls. In addition, community speakers, speaking on other states’ elections, federal elections, Venezuelan elections. I’m really tired of it. Mr. Crye. You’re pretty darn good about attempting to keep speakers on subject matter on regular items. Not on R4. Please speak to R6. You’re pretty darn good there. Where the opportunity for you, Kevin, it’s really on open time. You never never say not on the board’s jurisdiction. This isn’t about first amendment. It’s about protocol in the board’s jurisdiction. Mr. Crye. You let speakers get up on their soapbox for their cause and their beliefs and many times not the board’s jurisdiction. Why Kevin, your call on the balls and strikes? It’s your responsibility to keep speakers on subject matter that the board can influence items within the board’s jurisdiction to the board’s supervisors. You hired Mr. Toller to run the election in Shasta County. You created the election commission. Mr. Crye, pushed these speakers to go to the election commission meetings and suggest they contact Mr. Toller. Let Mr. Toller and the election commissions update the board of supervisors and community on their findings and board. Finally let Mr. Toller, let Ms. Francescut and the election commissions handle the subjects and concerns and allow them to do their jobs, period.
(1:55:08) Tim Saunders: Since the spring of 2020 Patriots have been coming here petitioning this board for the redress of grievances, particularly specifically the fraudulent election elections that we have recently endured. You have the power to, this board has the power to make changes in the direction of liberty. You have the power. I’d like to see you exercise it. California election code 335.5 and 25201 give you the authority to canvass all election results. That means count the results. We have a way out of the disenfranchisement of the people in that. We can go back to hand counted paper ballots with honest clean poll books and you have that authority. Hand counting is the only way. Election code 19207 gives you the power to do it. We want hand counted paper ballots at the precinct where that is the official count, the official tally. You can call it a audit. You can call it a canvas. You have the authority. Please get it done. Tallies by machines, disenfranchise the people. There’s no way to know what goes on inside that black box. Let’s have voter IDs at least at the local level and clean up the rolls.
(1:57:19) Laura Hobbs: Ok, supervisors in district 2, there were 167 more votes than there were voters in the official ballot return data. This is in the March election. The results of the contested district 2 separate supervisor race contain many abnormalities. One of which was the fact that this ballot tracking data did not match up. There were 167 missing voters. Ok. This could be a result of double scanning of ballots or improper counting of voters. The reconciliation reconciliation pro discrepancy was brought up in the Hobbs versus Long’s case. However, the judge didn’t allow the county’s ballot tracking data into evidence. He instead insisted that the counsel, both parties come to an agreement independently of the judge. And this was not admitted as evidence because your County Counsels which you paid for representing Alan Long in the County of Shasta refused this information to be entered into evidence. Despite the fact that the source of this information was the county itself. So why did the county block this information from being entered into evidence? Are you aware of the counsel that you hired act in, acted in such a shameful way? The denial of evidence which could be used to prove a case in court is a reoccurring theme and this should not be allowed. Here in Shasta County, the precinct balancing occurs behind closed doors. There’s no public observation of this and supervisors, there are things you can do about this right now to block this type of cheating so that it and it won’t involve breaking laws. You’re currently sitting on recommendations from the board and Thomas Toller, there are things you can do right now as well, but you refuse to change anything until you’ve seen how an election is conducted with all the cheating in place. This is expensive on the job training and it’s not fair to the voters.
(1:59:23) Linda Glass: I’m a visual person and it took me a while to understand the law of the California election code. So I printed out some information and I have a copy where you can look at it. I’ll just start here. California election code 3355 states that a machine tally or canvass in private does not fit the definition of canvass. California election code 15, 270 states that hand counting is authorized and contains established procedures which were always used by all 58 counties before electronic voting systems were introduced. Recently, California election code 19 207, grants authority to the county board of supervisors to adopt any kind of voting system or combination of voting system. California election code 19205 states that electronic voting systems are not to be connected to the internet. However, voting machines as defined by California election code 362 have been connected to the internet. So the machines are in violation of the law. In conclusion, California election code 19 001. also states that if the real will of the electors or voters in Shasta County is determined to be hand counting, then enforcing A B 969 would be in direct violation of the law. The proposition concerning hand counting did pass.
(2:01:38)Rick: Lord and thank you Jesus for giving us this beautiful day. This projector has been out for, I don’t even know how long it’s been almost a year now and it’s impeding our free speech. We need it fixed. It’s, there’s too many times I’ve been wanting to put something on that to show you guys, you know, we can’t do it. And so that needs fixed. I want to echo what Tim, Linda and Laura said, 100% what they said just to in the issue at time here because we only have two minutes. Now. This board has jurisdiction. You have jurisdiction. You guys can make some changes that, that matter before the November election gets here 75 days out and you guys have the ability to make a couple of changes. Some of those changes are hand counting at the precinct. If we have numbers up front that we can match with the numbers later on, I think that matters as far as being able to comfort some of us that have questions. Having a tally that we can compare is essential because if we don’t have that number, they can put what anybody can put whatever number they want in. We have to have numbers upfront to compare it to. Like I said, you guys have all the approval, we would like this board to approve for us using the existing plan that’s already in place for the manual tally plan to, for us to go out and hand count these ballots at the precinct level. There’s no reason why we can’t do that chain of custody chain of custody matters. It needs to be followed 100% from beginning to end, including at the precinct. Voter rolls, they need to be cleaned up. There’s no if and or about and Mary three people matter. It matters whether it’s a vote, it matters whether or not it’s their property. Three people matter.
(2:03:46) Antonia: For 200 years citizens operated our elections locally at the precinct level where the integrity of every ballot could be maintained. We completed our elections on a single day almost entirely in person and photo ID, hand counting and audible reporting. Today. Our elections are centrally controlled or by each state and are no longer transparent, audible, audible, nor reconcilable. Our citizens no longer trust our election process. California AB 969 did not make counting ballots by hand illegal. Manually vote counts are used to confirm the accuracy of machine counts and canvassing of ballots. California EC section 15290 and 25201. Regulations allow all the ballots to be counted by hand, which means counting ballots by hand is not illegal. The Secretary of State code of regulation section 202 198 A1 states, an election official may conduct a manual tally of the ballots voted in the election by utilizing one or more of the following methods. A full manual tally, Thomas Toller has the authority to for as the ROV to use a current manual tally. So supervisors, it is the most utmost that you move forward to create an ordinance or add this to the November ballot for the citizens to decide if we want.
(2:07:35) Bruce Russell: Brad Garbutt was appointed an elections commissioner at the last supervisor meeting. A day or so after his appointment, he made the following comment in the News Cafe. He said my apologies to all the female dogs in the world for including Lindsi Haynes in their group. I now realize how insulting my mouthing that is to those dogs. Of course, they conveniently left out what she did to evoke that response from me. That being said, I have no patience for anyone who is allegedly a member of the antigovernmental extremist hate group Moms for Liberty, whose mission is to violate education codes wherever they can get away with it. Mr. Garbutt obviously admits he called the honorable gateway school board member, Lindsi Haynes the B word. I find it appalling and despicable. The three women on the elections commission. I’m sure are also disgusted and will find working with him very difficult. He says he called her a B because Lindsi Haynes apparently belongs to Moms for Liberty, which he considers an antigovernmental extremist hate group. I firmly disagree. Moms for Liberty is a patriotic organization who loves America and is fighting for our God given parental rights, they believe in the right of parents to raise their children and not the government. I wish the Democratic Party leadership and the and that the left adores had the same values as Moms for Liberty. Mr. Garbutt needs to publicly make a heart heartfelt apology to Lindsi Haynes, if not, he needs to resign from the commission. But in reality, supervisor Rickert should revoke her appointment of Mr. Garbutt. Mr. Garbutt’s disrespectful and lamely justified foul language toward a woman should not be tolerated. It reflects poorly on Shasta County and Supervisor Rickert’s judgment.
(2:09:48) Steve Kohn: Actually, what I wanted to talk about was exactly what happened here today at the meeting and that is reducing the amount of time the public has the ability to speak. And one of the things I’ve stated in this, that’s now gonna be chopped up to where it wouldn’t make sense if I said it in order because I wouldn’t be able to summarize was that a lot of people prepare their three minutes, you know, in a way that makes sense as it’s presented. But by you suddenly and for a reason, I don’t understand chopping down the amount of time you had to present, you can’t give a presentation. People that prepare in advance can’t give a presentation as they originally wanted to do. Now, this thing that I wanted to speak to you today was mainly your assault on the freedom of speech. You know, you have moved the public comment time later and later in the meeting, you have combined the consent calendar with the public comment time period. So that really that reduces a lot of us from being able to speak for an additional now two minutes, I guess. I mean, if it’s gonna be a policy, you need to stick to the policy that way we can prepare and present accordingly, but we are not getting an equal right to speech speak because of your changes.
(2:11:49) Leslie Sawyer: So on the subject of board jurisdiction, I’m pretty sure the failed recall, friends and their personal attacks on you are on the same level as election interference or whatever. So, since one’s OK, I’m sure the other is too. Where have I heard the lie that there was no judge or courtroom available before? Oh, yeah. Just a couple of months ago where that same judge said no, there is a judge in a courtroom. In fact, I’m gonna give you a second date to find more evidence. So, even though that’s the narrative that keeps being put out there, that’s not, in fact, everything that’s going on. And if we, this is only the second time that we’ve caught that lie, how many times have unsafe individuals been released back into society under the purview of there’s not enough judges or not enough court time when this individual that Chris brought up, may be released before having not one but two court dates already assigned to him. A judge already assigned to him and being told as a business owner that the person who did this to you may be released before both of those court dates because neither of us are available yet. It is open public knowledge available at the courthouse that both dates and judges have been assigned. So I think the public needs to start looking into this and I think the district attorney needs to start doing her job and not making excuses for not doing her job.
(2:13:38) Dawn Duckett: I actually want to agree with Rick that the projector would be great to have. I’m gonna read off a list and it’s quite a stunning list and seen in black and white. It’s pretty amazing. I wanna wish Paul Hellman and Wes Tucker luck. But their departure highlights something that the public should be aware of. We’ve had almost 100% turnover in our department. So I’m gonna read off a list. HHSA public health has lost the health officer, their director, their deputy director, their lab director, their lab is almost empty. We’ve got the mental health department also lost a director, veteran services, child support. Public works has lost two directors, resource management. The building official, the personnel department, the CEO’s office, County counsel times three or four. I don’t know, I’ve lost count, elections, housing and ag commissioner. So all that’s left really that hasn’t had turnover at the top. Are your other four elected officials? You can spin this any way you want but you either have a pay problem or a leadership problem or both. And I would encourage the board to take seriously some staff retention because it’s going to take us decades to train up new department heads. And we’re already seeing that in the community. Thank you very much.
(2:18:05) Benjamin Nowain: I’m here today as a private citizen and I actually rewrote this speech um on the fly because once again, we’re seeing a two minute limit being imposed on public comments. Frankly, it’s unacceptable. Kevin. You must realize that people prepare for these meetings. They do their research, they craft thoughtful comments and they come here ready to engage with the issues that matter to them in their community. Yet, by limiting everyone to just two minutes, you’re effectively silencing many of the voices that need to be heard in the past. When a particularly contentious item was on the agenda, time limits were adjusted prior to the meeting and notified to the public for a fuller discussion. This wasn’t a frequent occurrence, but when it happened and it was necessary recognize the importance of giving the public their due time to speak. However, what we’re seeing now is a regular strong arm tactic. A move that appears to be designed to squelch public speech rather than foster open dialogue. It’s unconscionable and Kevin, it’s clear what is happening here. You are trying to manufacture outrage amongst the public and you’re doing it at the cost of the safety and well being of the staff here at the cost of creating a toxic work environment and ultimately the cost of our community’s trust. I’ll be honest with you. We all know your tactic. You’re deliberately creating discord, particularly among Supervisor Mary Rickert’s constituents to serve your own political agenda. The chaos you’re fostering can be manipulated to your benefit and to your situation, but make no mistake. The public sees right through it. Games are being played here and I can tell you that the public isn’t going to stand for them anymore. We deserve better and we demand better.
(2:21:50) Nick Gardner: It’s clear to me that Mary Rickert doesn’t respect the will of the people. Term limits were overwhelmingly passed yet Mary’s running for a third term. When it comes to the charter, to me, the charter lets the people tell the board how they want to be re represented. Tim and Mary obviously want to tell the people how they will be governed. They don’t want to follow state or they want to follow state mandates that are actually don’t help us in Shasta County a bit yet. They want to follow them. We feel like we should, should follow them. I would like to propose that you have a special election this a year from this November and that it just covers charters to be added to the county and let the people have some input on what charters they’d like to see.
(2:22:52) Thomas Hildebrandt: Yeah, I disagree with this two minute deal. Also we have a chance to have fair elections. It’s in writing, it’s in writing and so it’s up, it’s up to one guy, I guess. I was,[Voice off-camera] Well, he’s speaking up, I’d kick his ass out, you know. [Supervisor Crye: OK, let’s just please. Well, I get it. Please go ahead. Ok?] But anyway, you have a chance to do all this on this board. You personally. So it’s come down to you, the other guys, you have to vote, we can have fair elections. Also getting back to a little situation. Some lady tried to commit suicide right into me. It’s been come up on two years and the DA is having trouble charging her with a misdemeanor. That’s in the River City here and it’s sad. So there’s a lot of things that are going wrong. Mary, I don’t think you, I don’t know if you know what you’re doing or not, but you’re not helping guys like me on this election. We want fair elections and you set this little committee back a long ways. But anyway, I really appreciate the chance to be here and you guys have a lot of responsibility but you have a great opportunity to change things. Kevin, you, you have an opportunity, man. I I’m really proud of you.
Supervisor Crye: Christian.
[Voices and yelling off-camera]
(2:24:51) Supervisor Crye: Hey, hold on one second. Did, did, did, did he punch him? We’re gonna take a five minute recess. So I’d ask everyone to please leave the boardroom, Please recess.
(2:25:20) Supervisor Crye: All right, returning from our brief recess. Christian. Come on up.
(2:25:27) Christian Gardinier: I want to let Thomas know that I’m not going to let this go any further. Thomas and I have actually had some really good conversations and I’m really concerned about his health and I think he got confused. I was laughing at something that the officer over here had said. Thomas got a little confused. He’s a good guy. I hope that he understands that giving people, you know, hit in the stomach is kind of not cool. This is a second request of information. The first one I filed pertaining to the investigation of basically this board in particular, Mr. Jones and I believe CEO Rickert, you guys about a month and a half ago, indicated there would be an investigation. County Counsel indicated a few weeks ago that he thought the thing was just about wrapped up. So I’m gonna keep asking for this because I do believe there’s a potential of law and county code and California code violated. And it’s serious. I also want to state that once again, the board has probably wasted, I’m gonna add it up pretty close to $2000 on listening to stuff that is outside your jurisdiction. That is, it’s all based on lies and misinformation. Why do you guys continue to do this? Why are you wasting the valuable time and resources of Shasta County citizens to spread propaganda?
(2:27:57) Susan: Yes, this is directed at Kevin. Do you have something more important to do than to be at this meeting? Because what I see is inattention, lack of caring what the citizens have to say, no matter what they’re saying to you, you’re not even facing people when they talk, you’re looking to your right. At least every other board member, if they’re not listening, they’re at least facing the people. They’re speaking. I’ve watched you the entire meeting and the last meeting and really the impression I’m getting is I want this to be over so I can get my interests met and I don’t want to hear anything else. That’s my opinion. That’s totally my opinion. But that’s what it looks like to me and for you to cut down to two minutes, it’s awful for us not to have this fixed. It’s awful. Everything you’re doing is trying to get the citizen not to be involved. And the one thing you all could do to cut out this chaos is give the election committee an end plan, an end game. Can you really do anything about the elections? So if you can do it, if you can’t tell your supporters that you can’t do anything about it? Because right now, what’s the chaos coming from? Why do we have all these, these speakers? Why is it causing so long? What’s causing all this because they keep coming to you and saying we’ll, you know, what are you gonna do for us? And nothing happens? So you guys have to tell them, you know what? We can’t do anything about this. So let’s cut this out or there’s what are you going to do? And I want the election committee to start saying to you what are you going to do on? We can’t go on for this for another um two years. We can’t. This is chaos. It’s waste of time, it’s waste of money, it’s waste of energy.
(2:30:13) Jim Burnett: Thank you letting me speak. These meetings make me increasingly sad. Like I know in the last meeting, Kevin said you have to go to Costco with these people, you have to go sit at the movies with these people. Like these are our neighbors and our friends and we can’t even sit for a few minutes of peace without somebody causing a ruckus with someone else. There’s so much infighting and so much difficulty in this place and it makes me really sad. I may not always agree with decisions that are made with this board, but it doesn’t mean that they deserve disrespect. I may not agree with some of the speakers in here, but it doesn’t mean that they deserve disrespect or violence, political violence should never be acceptable. Like a disagreement should not lead to violence, it just shouldn’t. And if that’s happening, we really need to take a look at what’s going on here and the way we’re treating each other and why we find this acceptable.
(2:34:16) Nathan Pinckney: Just a couple of things. I feel like it’s pretty interesting that we shut the meeting down for a long time and call the cops when Jenny takes a seat, but not when there’s political violence in the board chambers. That’s crazy. My goodness. Two minutes for speaking. Wow. So I remember the Moty recall and that little Red White and Blueprint episode you guys made about him being a dictator and now you’re cutting down people’s three minute time to two minutes. Moty never did that. But that’s ok somehow.
Heated discussion followed on the board concerning the new two-minute time limit for public speakers.
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 will be provided with a single opportunity to comment on one or more items on the Consent Calendar, during Public Comment – Open Time, before the Board’s consideration of the Consent Calendar.
County Administrative Office
Simple Majority Vote
Simple Majority Vote
Simple Majority Vote
Clerk of the Board
Simple Majority Vote
County Fire
Simple Majority Vote
Health and Human Services Agency-Behavioral Health and Social Services
Simple Majority Vote
Probation
Simple Majority Vote
Simple Majority Vote
Resource Management
Simple Majority Vote
Support Services
No Additional General Fund Impact
Simple Majority VoteItems C2 and C10 were pulled from the calendar.The Consent Calendar was approved by unanimous vote.(2:43:01) Stewart Buettell made the presentation on C2.Stewart Buettell: Before you today for consideration is a response to the grand jury fiscal year 2023-24 report entitled cost of outside legal counsel for Shasta County. The Shasta County Grand Jury received a complaint alleging the Shasta County Board of Supervisors spent an excessive amount of money for contracted outside legal counsel. The complaint was based on a comment that over $16 million had been spent on outside legal counsel over the course of 31 months, the amount reported was from a response to a public records act request in which costs were gathered from multiple departments, most of which reported on data from the county’s financial system. In addition, information from a separate system of tracking was submitted causing a duplication of costs by just under $4 million. The data reported covered 42 months in total. The grand jury findings specify the overstatement of costs for legal services and indicate this caused strong reactions from the public and further undermined public confidence. They recommended the board enroll in an annual training program to improve communication and transparency during board meetings. Penal code sections 933 and 933.05 require responses from the board of Supervisors to be completed and returned to the presiding judge within 90 days of the report attached to the staff report are recommended responses to both the finding and the recommendation related to this report. And staff recommends that the training not be implemented as it is not warranted. The Board of Supervisors is already required to take trainings that cover the transparency required by the board including biannual ethics training. And with that, that concludes my presentation.
Public comment on C2 began. Speakers were given three minutes.
(2:45:27) Dawn Duckett: I’d like to thank the grand jury for looking into this and bringing us the accurate information and the grand jury’s examination on this topic was fairly limited as to what was the amount over that period of time. And so they didn’t make any findings as to whether the actual amount was appropriate. So now that we have the actual amount which is 4.3 million, I think that it would be great if the board would actually schedule this for a future meeting to look into whether or not these are appropriate levels of expenditures. Your staff provided in the staff report comparisons to the – and by the way, 4.3 million is about $11,700 a day. I know that only about half of that is under the board’s discretion because half of it goes to the public defender. But even that is 6300 a day, it’s a lot of money. And when we’re looking at the neighboring counties, we’re spending five times what Butte County spent and they have a higher population than we do. Six times what Imperial County spent. We are double that of Yolo and they have 40,000 more citizens than we do. So I think it would be great for the board to take a deep dive into what are these other counties doing that we’re not. The other question that I’d like answered is in the grand jury report, they sort of, they did a good job of itemizing what the lawsuits were for that fiscal year and the lion’s share of it fell into a category called risk management. And I think the public has a lot of questions as to what kinds of cases fall into risk management. I mean, they can’t all be slips, trips and falls. And if they are, maybe we need to bolster our safety programs or, or maybe we need to look at some policies that might be opening us up to lawsuits. The public has a right to know if these expenditures are appropriate. Why are we spending so much more than counties our size? I, I think that one of your primary objectives as board members as keeper of the FISC for Shasta County is to ensure its financial health. And you know, if we can cut this down to what neighboring counties do, we could throw another million dollars at our jail.
(2:48:30) Delores Lucero: the cost of an outside legal counsel for Shasta County. Do we have some kind of bank somewhere? We could just go in there and grab money and spent money because when you spend money for outside legal co counsel, it costs us more money because they actually comes for the citizen. The money might be sitting there in some kind of budget, but it still comes from the citizen. But you guys think it’s ok to spend money left and right for legal counsel outside. You know, it never ends with you guys spend, spend, spend. I can’t wait when chaos happens in this county. I can’t wait because we are gonna basically, it’s gonna be a wake up call for everybody for just because nobody’s paying attention.
(2:50:33) Laura Hobbs: Yes, regarding C2 I approve. And I feel like the letter written in response to the grand jury report to improve communication and transparency was unnecessary. However, I don’t approve of time being reduced from three minutes to two minutes. And I also don’t approve of the decision to limit when speaker cards can be submitted. I understand the board chair can limit the time according to administration policy. 1-101 [Supervisor Crye reminds her this is about C2] , right? And I’m also upset that this thing is out of order and I can’t present any data to you guys that would support what I have to say. And I understand however, the government code in chapter nine section 54 954.3 states that it’s up to the governing body. which to me means the entire board to make decisions about the speaker cards. So as far as I know, and I looked through the transcripts, right? [Supervisor Crye: You have to stick to C2] This is, this has to do with C2. This has to do with my ability to comment on C2 because I don’t have all of the things that are granted to me by law. You know, we the citizens, we are your guys’ employer. So as far as I know, there was no vote that occurred here on this board to limit when the speaker cards are submitted. I looked at all the transcripts. I couldn’t find anything.
A board discussion took place about the escalating court costs in county government.
C2 was passed on a 5-0 vote.
C10 passed on a 5-0 vote.
REGULAR CALENDAR, CONTINUED
CLOSED SESSION ANNOUNCEMENT
The Board of Supervisors will recess to a Closed Session to discuss the following item (estimated 30 minutes):
(2:57:12) R8 CONFERENCE WITH LEGAL COUNSEL-ANTICIPATED LITIGATION
At the conclusion of the Closed Session, reportable action, if any, will be reported in Open Session.
REPORT OF CLOSED SESSION ACTIONS
(2:57:24) Counsel Larmour: In closed session, the board was presented with a confidential investigation report dated August 14, 2024, the subject of which was the letter received by
Supervisor Jones. The board had the opportunity to review that report. The board voted 5-0 to waive the attorney-client privilege, make the report public. No further action.
Supervisor Crye: Then, Supervisor Jones, would you like to read the summary? So since this investigation by Supervisor Rickert was aimed at you, go ahead read the summary.
Supervisor Jones: So yeah, the entire report will be made available to the public. This is section two summary of issues and findings. This report presented one issue for review. Did Mr. Jones improperly fail to disclose the January 29, 2024 letter? The more detailed finding and analysis are prepared below. No, Mr. Jones did not improperly fail to disclose the January 29, 2024 letter from the attorney general’s office. Mr. Jones acknowledged that he disposed of the letter but stated that he did not do so improperly and the evidence supports his account. For example, his findings was supported by evidence that shortly after receiving the letter, Mr. Jones told Kevin Crye, Board of Supervisors chair about it. Moreover, Mr. Jones thought that the letter was not a big deal because he expected it. Additionally, witness accounts indicate that Mr. Jones has a practice of throwing away most mail that he receives as supervisor and kept a clean office without clutter as well. Before May 2024 the county had no policy requiring Mr. Jones to keep or share mail addressed directly to him.
Supervisor Crye: And then in May of 24 as this was unfolding, I asked CEO Rickert to change or make policies going forward that this would not happen again. And I can assure you that we have fixed and remedied this problem going forward.
