BOS 9/10/24: Qualified Job Applicants Snubbed, Conspiracy Theorists Hold Court During Public Comment Time

The regularly scheduled weekly Tuesday morning meeting of the Shasta County Board of Supervisors was called to order at 9:00 a.m. on September 10, 2024. The complete video and agenda are available here. Timestamps are in parentheses.

(2:11) CALL TO ORDER

The Invocation was conducted by Pastor Bob Swartz, St. James Lutheran Church of Redding. The Pledge of Allegiance was led by Supervisor Kelstrom.

REGULAR CALENDAR

Members of the public may comment on any item on the Regular Calendar before or during the Board’s consideration of the item. Members of the public may also address matters scheduled for public hearings at the time such public hearings are opened for comment. 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 unless the chairman determines that all speakers will be allowed a shorter or longer period of time. All speaker request cards submitted after public comment for each Regular Calendar item begins will not be heard by the Board.

Board Matters

(3:54) R1 Adopt a resolution which recognizes Craig Isberg, Maintenance Supervisor, of the Department of Public Works as Shasta County’s Employee of the Month for September 2024.
No Additional General Fund Impact
Simple Majority Vote

Troy Bartolomei made the presentation.

(4:37) Troy Bartolomei:  Craig’s been with the department for 25 years. He was hired back on March 21, 1999. He started off on our swing shift, which is our night shift. He worked his way up as a maintenance mechanic all the way through the ranks, all the way up to which is now the shop supervisor. Actually, it’s the official title is maintenance supervisor, shop assignment. He’s responsible for all of the fleet all the way from. We have two shops, one in Fall River, one in Redding. He takes care of anything in the county that is not a county vehicle in another  department. So this is anything from heavy equipment, graders, motor graders, cars, vehicles,  probably even a riding lawnmower if it’s needed. So he has a wide range of experience. He takes care of the personnel and all the records for both here and Fall River.  So he’s quite accomplished. He worked his way up through the ranks, starting on the swing shift as an equipment mechanic all the way up through to what he is now. And it was kind of a bittersweet the day that he took over as the shop supervisor. A good friend of his, good person, Greg Baxter, he meant a lot to all of us in public works and he passed on from cancer and he was a really good friend of Craig’s. So Craig stepped in and took over and that wasn’t an easy task.

I mentioned that just to talk to Craig’s character, Craig probably wishes I wouldn’t share with you guys. But he is the one individual that when you go ask him, hey, my car won’t start, I got a problem here, he will come, he’ll help you. He’ll be there with you and he’ll ensure that you get it fixed and running and he will never accept compensation for it. Back when I was broke and first getting started, I learned that a couple of times. So it’s probably something I shouldn’t share with you guys. But anybody, if your car is broke down and you’re on the side of the road, if you see Craig drop drive by, he’s gonna help you and he’s going to know how to fix it.  We’re very lucky to have him as far as his work goes.

He’s always conscientious, always here on time to go along with his will and spirit to help. We have these smoke tests that have to be done in all our diesel vehicles and to keep them in service, so you don’t have to take them out of service while working on them. He’ll spend some weekends up here or down here up in Fall River doing the smoke testing. It’s like a fancy smog test for a diesel heavy equipment or vehicle and he is always willing to volunteer to do his time on the weekend and take care of those things.  I can’t say enough about his willingness to help. And where asset is he, he is the county. He works diligently to get all our vehicle procurements as well as giving advertisements on the bid net to when we auction vehicles off.  He’s involved pretty much in every aspect of that. I hope I haven’t left anything out. So it’s with great pleasure that I recommend Craig Isberg as the employee of the month.

(8:02) Supervisor Rickert: Thank you, Troy, and I just want to say this is always an honor for me whenever I get to be part of this presentation. So our employee of the month presentation, September 2024 Craig Isberg, maintenance supervisor of the public works department.

Whereas the board of Supervisors of the County of Shasta has adopted the Shasta County Employee  Recognition Program to identify exceptional employees who deserve to be recognized and honored for their contribution to county service. And whereas such recognition is given to employees meeting the criteria of the program, namely exceptional customer service, professionalism, high ethical standards, initiative, innovation, teamwork, productivity, and service as a role model for other public employees. And whereas the Shasta County Employee Recognition Committee has considered all current nominations for the Shasta County employee of the month.

Whereas Craig Isberg has served in the public works department since starting employment with the county in 1991 as an equipment mechanic and promoted to maintenance supervisor in 2012. Craig works behind the scenes in a supportive role as his customers are other county employees, primarily roads, facilities management and the county service areas. Even though facilities and roads are both divisions of the public works department, the primary responsibilities, the two are vastly different. This does not stop Craig from treating everyone as part of the same team. Craig is always ready to lend a hand when anyone from facilities needs assistance and goes out of his way to accommodate the team, making them know their vehicles and equipment are important.

Craig’s work ethic is not something you often see he poised, ready and enthusiastic as he goes above and beyond to get service taken care of in a fast isn’t fast enough fashion while still making sure the work is completed correctly. Craig possesses creative thinking that benefits the whole public works department. Facilities recently assumed the confidential shred duties for the county. And when Craig observed the efforts associated with that task, he made a recommendation for facilities to use roads’ forklift to dispose of the shredded materials.  This suggestion reduces the risk of employee injury, saves time and saves money as it decreases Shasta County’s dependence on city provided waste services.

As a supervisor, Craig is good at identifying the strengths of his crew, delegating and motivating in a suitable manner. Craig is consistently busy, efficient and mindful of cost saving initiatives, seeking lower cost services without ever sacrificing quality. Craig always has a smile and a sincere attitude in his desire to help others and  is courteous and helpful to his customers and the outside vendors he works with. Craig does all of this in a role that most don’t appreciate enough. He has the task of keeping dozens of various types of heavy trucks, pickups, trailers and heavy  construction equipment operating safely in all types of weather all year long. Through his dedication, aptitude for customer service, and innovative thinking. Craig has demonstrated that he is a role model for those he supervises as well as all the staff and vendors that he works with. Craig is a solid leader in the public works department and is continually relied upon for his years of experience and knowledge of maintaining a fleet. As one coworker stated, if you could model other employees after Craig, we could reduce the overall number of employees needed. He’s that good, demonstrating that Craig is an invaluable as invaluable asset to his department and the county as a whole. For the reasons stated above, the employee recognition committee recommends Craig Isberg, Maintenance Supervisor of Public Works Roads Department, be selected as the employee of the month for September 2024.

R1 was approved by unanimous vote.

(13:26) Craig Isberg:  I’d like to say thank you  for this acknowledgement and all the kind words. it’s always a great feeling to feel appreciated.  I know I’m at my best when I have people around me that I go to for answers and support that are at their best. I got a great management team in place to help me along. And I’ve been here, I think 25 years now going on 26. And I’ve always said it and I’ll always say it. I’m proud to be an employee of Shasta County. Thank you.

(15:36) R2 Take the following actions: (1) Receive an update from the County Executive Officer on County issues and consider action on specific legislation related to Shasta County’s legislative platform; (2) approve a letter of support for state income tax deductions for fire insurance premiums; and (3) receive Supervisors’ reports on  countywide issues.
No Additional General Fund Impact
Simple Majority Vote

(15:41) CEO Dave Rickert: I am pleased to bring forward for consideration a letter supporting a state income tax deduction for fire insurance. This letter is directed to Senator Dahle and Assemblywoman Dahle. Supervisor Kelstrom may have additional comments in his supervisor’s reports.

Moving on to county business. Lately, there has been an increase in public comment directed at the performance of employees and management and HHSA. While constructive feedback is always welcome, innuendos, half truths, hateful dialogue and targeting specific people is not productive for our staff or management. We place a high priority on a healthy and positive work environment. Employees are encouraged to communicate issues with management when possible. And there’s also a variety of support channels available to employees to include the auditors, whistleblower hotline and support services complaint process. In addition, employees in represented positions can contact their labor representatives. Shasta has robust policies in place to provide protection for employees. It should be noted that these rules were recently updated and approved by the board of supervisors. The CEO’s office and Auditor’s office are working with Director Burch and her staff to align with state and federal regulations as well as county policy. In addition to taking these proactive steps, we will be reporting to and seeking direction from the Board of Supervisors. I appreciate the community interest and concern for HHSA. They provide a wealth of necessary services and programs to those most in need. We are committed to serving those needs and the staff that make that possible.

And finally, last but certainly not least, I would like to take a moment to recognize an employee within our clerk of the board team, Ms. Valerie Ibera, whose swift response helped save the life of one of her coworkers last week. When minutes mattered, she jumped into action during a life threatening emergency and it was her actions that ultimately saved the life of a fellow team member. Although an an item will be brought forward at a later date to commemorate this deed. I want to take this opportunity to personally thank you. Thank you very much, Val.

(18:10) Supervisor Tim Garman, District 2:  I took a tour of Misselbeck Dam in Rainbow Lake with the supervisor-elect Alan Long, Kristen Schrader, Braden, from Senator Dahle’s office and John from the Igo-Ono Water District. We had about a 2.5 hour tour out there. Troy Bartolomei was also present with that, don’t want to forget Troy. We took a look at that dam and the spillway and the whole works because we had the grand jury report about that dam and how it needs repairs. What I can tell you guys is Igo-Ono Services District has applied for numerous grants all over the place to try to get that thing fixed up and repaired. But I feel comfortable with where it’s at. The state Water Master only allows it to be filled up to 50 feet full at this point in time and it’s a 100 foot dam so you can so it’s half full. Each spring  John will ask for a variance. They can get a little bit more water in order to get through the year. And so far they’ve allowed them to go to 75 feet once the rainy season is over. So again, this is stuff that’s going to come back later on that. That dam does need repairs. Probably the most specific repairs needed are the spillway, but the spillway does fit. The spillway is 16 feet below the dam top and it’s kind of off to the side, but it does need repair.

Another thing I attended Feyla’s playground out at Igo-Ono School, the grand opening of the playground for the young girl who was lost tragically in the fire. So the Feyla’s playground is open, the kids had a blast out there and  I see somebody in the crowd, I know you were out there with that. That was a beautiful thing for that community to see that grand opening.

I had a tourism meeting with staff and we’ll be following up with that as we go through the tourism item that’s going to come back before us at some point.  I met with Erin Resner. I met with Paul Hellman. Well, I didn’t really meet with Paul Hellman. I went to Paul Hellman’s going away party and Paul, you’re going to be missed. But good luck in the future. Supervisor Rickert and myself, we met with Laura Burch and Christy Coleman last week.  It was a great meeting. Thank you Supervisor Rickert for attending that with me.

My wife and I attended the Turtle Bay Day this last Saturday where they had the reading for the kids and all the other kids activities and we got to read to the kids. That’s always a fun event. It’s one of my favorite things to do. I met with Bill Bateman. I attended a funeral service. Normally I don’t talk about these last couple of things, but I attended a funeral service for a gentleman by the name of  Norm Hosking. He was one of the hero veterans in our community.  Well, well liked. He would go out and attend funerals for other veterans. He did this for over 20 years. He would go out there and make sure every time a service member died, he’d be out there at that memorial service, whether he knew them or not, just to support the other veterans and their families. So Norm is going to be missed big time in this community.

And then the last thing I want to say is I attended a fundraiser for Ashley Robinson at Becca’s Cafe and I think it was Saturday night. She’s the lady where the large tree branch fell from a tree in Anderson River Park and it crushed her. How she’s still alive is a miracle, but she’s actually walking at this point. Still in the hospital, but it’s amazing, but I want to talk a little bit about not so much the fundraiser because that’s really not something we should be talking about. But when I was talking to her, I went up and visit her at the hospital yesterday and I found out recently she had her bike helmet on. Ok. And if you think about it, how many adults wear their bike helmets in their riding? If you’re just riding for your kids through the neighborhood? Do you put your bike helmet on? I never did.  Her and her husband attended an event in May, a bike round up and they talked about the importance of wearing a helmet. So they decided to get helmets and that helmet, I saw a picture of it yesterday. Split. I mean, it’s completely broken. The tree branch hit her head and then just kind of from there, pushed her on down and broke vertebrae and ribs and everything else. But that bike helmet saved her life. So take this as a public service announcement, if you’re an adult and you’re riding with your kids, put your helmet on. It’s not just being hit by a car, it’s not just being thrown off your bike. If you hit a bump, you never know. Who knew? Who would think a tree branch would fall and hit you?  But those things can happen. So anyway, bike helmets save lives and I’ll end my report with that.

Oh, hold on. I had one last thing I wanted to say. I did want to say, I don’t know if Laura is here today, Laura Burch  or Christy Coleman. But I just want to bring up a little fact because I yesterday met with the CEO and chairman and we talked a little bit about this and I want to just bring up the fact that Laura Burch has been a longtime employee with this county. She’s been here for many, many years. She’s walked through many different departments. Laura has done an amazing job in every step of the way and everywhere she’s been. I have full confidence in Laura’s team and  her employees and I stand behind her and these things kind of got sideways last week. I want to just throw my support behind the team at HHSA. We have very good employees all the way up and down the line and I don’t want to see any of our employees suffer. I want them to know that they have the support and if an investigation happens, then an investigation happens and it’s gonna be ok.

And actually one last thing I want to mention too now that I got my other notes, I had notes on two pages. I apologize. When I met with Bill Bateman  I asked Bill, what’s it gonna take to get this office back where it needs to be? I asked him for five things and he gave me the five things. I’m gonna let you know what he said, is moving forward, we’re going to have changes there. Number one, you’re the right person that knows how to follow the laws and practice law a certain way. Number two, the little things matter, and it was surprising, this is number two, he mentioned, like there’s no parking. They’ve had to have meter parking for years. Recently there’s some changes with the parking over there. No parking was given to them, but it was given to HHSA. Obviously that steams to those employees. Staff pay.  He mentioned this in a couple of different ways. One is the workload is so much that an attorney over there can go work somewhere else for the same pay, have 75% less of a workload. That’s a problem. And then also, obviously, he said the nature of the work, not everyone can handle that type of work and then salaries from the secretaries on up to the attorneys. I just wanted to let you know why I talked with Bill because I want to know how can we improve going forward? What’s it gonna take to make these offices be more successful in the future? That will conclude my report.

(25:03) Supervisor Patrick Jones, District 3:  I had a meeting with our CEO Dave Rickard and County Counsel Larmour and our new ROV Toller. It was a very good meeting. Thomas Toller has only been in the seat now for less than two months. He had some concerns.  I have the utmost confidence in our new ROV that we will have a very transparent election coming up. So I appreciate the time from our CEO, counsel and our ROV.

Along with Chair Crye, I went to an At Home meeting and we meet about every month or every other month.  And we are moving forward on a resource center. And so that’s coming along very well. And so when we pick up anyone in the future that is homeless, they will be going to a resource center where county services will be provided and then they can move out from there.  We’re the only county in California that took the state’s recommendations to do an At Home committee and Chair Crye and myself sit on that and we have some positive results there.

Met up with several city council candidates and had some good talks there. With public works, we had a meeting  about the KIA monument. If you’re not familiar with the waterfall in front of the admin building here, that waterfall hasn’t been on for many years due to people taking advantage of the waterfall and bathing in the waterfall.  We’re going to turn that into a killed in action for all Shasta County members of the military that have been killed in action.  We have some conceptual designs now of what that might look like.  The price has escalated from 60 to 80,000 to probably now 200,000.  So we’re working on that and we’re trying to raise money privately for that. So that will be an ongoing deal.

As always, I had an election integrity meeting. Lots of people in Shasta County have been working  on election issues. And again, these types of meetings happen up and down the state.

Attended  a city council meeting, City of Redding City Council meeting.  I have an interest in preserving the rodeo grounds and extending the lease.  Unfortunately, the majority of the Redding City Council on a 4 to 1 vote, Mark Mezzano being the one no vote.  They decided to, in my opinion, kick the can down the road and create an ad hoc committee. So they don’t have to deal with this topic until after the election, which is unfortunate.  And I’ve seen what happens to other things in our town that were well liked that did not receive an extended lease and it went away.  And the public outcry if that occurred with the rodeo grounds would be  extremely large. And so we’re going to fight for that. And I think this upcoming city council elections are going to be a reflection of that. And so it’s going to be an important races to watch.

Drove through the Asphalt Cowboys luncheon this last Sunday. They serve over 10,000 people and it’s one of their best fundraisers. Tons of people helping out, the food was great as always. And we’ve been going to that every year. A few years, I was a slicer and I can tell you I hate slicing for anybody that’s ever been a slicer, but those guys do a great job.

I toured Jones Valley at Silverthorne. I wanted to see from the lake side, I wanted to see the intakes that our public works replaced. So for CSA 6 in Jones Valley, a couple of years ago they had to wash out, a slide occurred, and the three pumps that to deliver water to CSA 6 were eliminated and so on an emergency grant, our public works guys got on it quickly. We have the pumps installed. I wanted to see that from the water side. This was the first chance that I was able to do that. There’ll be more work on that in the future and the people in CSA 6 are very thankful of the work that’s done in that area.

Then yesterday, an election commission meeting. We had obviously a new commissioner present and had some interesting items that are going to be coming forward to the board for  consideration. So I appreciate that.

And then lastly, I attended a celebration of life for a former Shasta County Supervisor District 4 Bill Chappelle. He will be missed. I never knew that he was a drag racer in his early years and right out of high school, he had dozens and dozens of wins. So he’ll be missed.

(29:41) Supervisor Chris Kelstrom, District 5: All right. Last Wednesday, August 28, I attended the airport open house and saw what their plan was for their general plan. And then I immediately left there and went to the Envision 273 workshop in Anderson at the VFW.

On August 30, I did attend the Igo playground ribbon cutting with Supervisor Garman. And then I met with Mary O’Keefe who in Cottonwood who used to run our community center. She wanted to sign something for a school bond.

On September 3, I came by and said goodbye to Paul Hellman and thanked him for his work and thanked him for you know what, all he did trying to turn the ship around and I appreciated everything he’s done. September 4 I met with the Waste Management spokesperson in Cottonwood. We discussed the contract that we still need to get through there.  The prices are going up so they’re hoping that they don’t have to change the contract.

And then I met with Adam Fieseler on September 5 and we finally got my chicken ordinance after a year and a half, my chicken ordinance is finally written and should be before this board so that we can pass that. I don’t know why it took a year and a half, but that’s government for you.

And then on September 6 went down to Pacheco School. They have a problem with  portables. And my dad and my uncle went to Pacheco School. It’s been there, I don’t know, 80 years and there’s never been fire water on the premises and they want to put a couple of portables because they’re overcrowded and it’s being held up because there’s the lack of fire water and they don’t have the funds to spend a million dollars to put in fire hydrants. So we’re still working on that problem.

Then that night I attended the Cottonwood Cruise and, boy, there was a lot of drama in Cottonwood.  So early in the day, there was  Anderson Police Department all over Cottonwood.  It looked like the whole force was in Cottonwood. Wasn’t sure why they were in Cottonwood, but they were there because the Chamber of Commerce had sent a letter to Redding Police Department, Anderson Police Department, CHP as well as the Shasta County Sheriff saying they wanted them to enforce the vehicle code during the cruise. So,  Anderson came down in full force, started enforcing the vehicle code. It’s something that’s gone on for 20 years and, you know, shout out to our sheriff’s deputies. They’ve always kind of let the people have a little bit of fun as long as they don’t get out of hand. So anyways we dealt with that problem. They went away and then later on in the evening, the sheriff’s department and the CHP decided that it was out of hand and so they came and shut it down, which, you know, kudos to them. I fully support law enforcement, every one of them and, you know, if they decided that it was out of hand and it was out of hand and, you know, everybody had their fun for the night like they usually do.  There will be a meeting tonight for the community center and tomorrow there will be a Chamber of Commerce meeting which should be should be lively.

So, and then the next day I attended the Cottonwood Car Show which is put on by the Chamber of Commerce. So the Chamber of Commerce wanted to limit their exposure to the Cottonwood Cruise. They want to make sure that they don’t condone it. They don’t participate, they don’t back it because, you know, if an accident happens down the road, they don’t want to be associated with it, which is understandable. And so the next day they had their car show and then their American Legion had a breakfast. So I went to the American Legion breakfast. Then I went up to Shingletown to the Founder’s Day parade and then I came back to the car show where I was supposed to be in a dunk tank. But by that time I was not necessary. I’ve been a dunk tank last year. I was in a dunk tank for another event. So, and then on the eighth, I attended the Whitmore monthly breakfast up in Whitmore. And then I came through the cowboys, Asphalt Cowboys barbecue.

And then yesterday I toured firebox with Rebecca Baer from the Economic Development Committee.   So this is a local company in Anderson, manufacturing jobs in Anderson. It’s a constituent that runs it as is one of my constituents up in Shingletown.  Firebox is very interesting. If you’re doing work in the summertime, you have to have fire water on site. So you either have to have a water truck or you have to have a fire trailer. Fireboxes designed an attachment to a loader that if you’re masticating or bulldozing or doing whatever, if a fire breaks out, it’s a 300 gallon tank. They also have a 500 gallon tank that sits on the job site, within five minutes  you can drop your blade or drop your masticator, grab the firebox and you’re fighting fire and you’re shooting water 100 feet out from a 300 gallon tank. So actually Firebox ended up saving part of Cohasset during the Park Fire. They evacuated the entire town. One of the guys that had a Firebox called his buddy that had another Firebox and the two Fireboxes ended up basically saving Cohasset, so great company right here locally in Anderson. And then I also attended on September 5 I attended the Republican Assembly where Heather Hadwick and Tenessa Audette  were both interviewed as well as Corky Harmon and I saw Supervisor Rickert there.  I left before Corky and Mary spoke, but  I attended that.

So then I will talk about the tax credit for the fire insurance. So right now, fire insurance is a huge problem. Back in 92 when they had the spotted owl decision, and ironically, I was at a meeting about a year and a half ago where the individual that wrote the spotted owl decision said that he made a mistake and he was sorry, which I’m thinking you shut down the entire west coast and how many businesses and everything else. So, since that time in 30 years, our forests are not managed properly and now we are paying for that. We are having huge fires, insurance companies are losing money. So the insurance rates are going through the roof and that’s if you’re lucky enough to have insurance, most of them are being canceled. There’s a lot of people being canceled, especially in my district up in Shingletown area that fire insurance is being canceled all the way across the board. So this is hopefully a way to get California to at least step up to the plate and help out the people that whose fire insurance has gone through the roof. So that concludes my report.

(35:48) Supervisor Mary Rickert, District 2: So I attended the Shasta County Cattlemen’s Ice Cream Social. We had a speaker from Shasta County, Charlene Beard from Public Works department and she spoke on Sigma,  the  Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. Luckily, in Fall River Valley when I first got into office, we addressed that issue and we worked with the Department of Water Resources and we’re able to lower our priority standard in Fall River Valley. So we have not had to form a GSA up there. But we’re very fortunate in Shasta County that those that are in the Anderson Enterprise area that they do not have to have  to pay fees like they do in the San Joaquin Valley and in upper Sacramento Valley. So Shasta County is very fortunate in that whole program.

We also talked about animal ID tags which are, it’s coming. I think it’s November is when they’re going to have to be implemented. So each animal is gonna have to have an ID  number in their ears. And so that’s gonna be a big change for cattlemen. We’ve been using animal ID for like 30 years  but a lot of people have not been able to implement that kind of a program.

We had another very successful Intermountain fair. I appreciate CEO Rickert came up with his family, attended several of the events there, the parade, the anniversary, golden anniversary dinner,  Junior livestock sale. I’ve got my  animals that we purchased to support our local 4-H and FFA youth up there. And it was a stronger sale. I always keep the previous year’s program with me because I keep track of each animal, who buys it and how much it’s sold for. So, prices were up compared to last year. So I was encouraged about that.

I was interviewed by some journalists from Europe who came all the way over here to do a story on Shasta County. We continue to get a lot of  interest in Shasta County and our local politics.

Attended Paul Hellman’s going away party.  It’s going to be very difficult to see him gone and he’s going to Placer County. So I want to wish him well and Placer County is very fortunate to have him join their their team.

I was asked to be a speaker at the NAMI meeting, the National Alliance for Mental Illness.  A lot of parents were there of family members who have a mental health issue and they had concerns about the mentally ill family member being incarcerated and whether or not the medications were being administered while in the jail. So  I also followed up with Director Burch about ensuring that case managers review the inmate intakes on a daily basis and check in with Wellpath for any of their clients to be sure that the jail has information on their medications and their diagnosis, et cetera. And this is really important.  The more we can  ensure that people that are incarcerated are being treated, then it’s going to be easier for the correctional officers to basically function and do their job too. I also want to thank Lieutenant Dennis.  I contacted him about a particular um young man that was incarcerated. He has mental health issues.  The families reached out to me very concerned about his safety and whether or not he was continuing on his medication. So I want to say that he was very receptive and, and got right back to me. So these are important things that we need to be doing is watching out for our constituents that are in these situations.

Attended a Republican County Assembly forum at the Shasta County Bible College.  The NACWA meeting, we  had an update on the Sites Reservoir. I was asked to meet with two members of the Sacramento San Joaquin Delta Conservancy. They wanted my advice about, they’re talking about expanding their borders in terms of having the basically all the, they have a map and the whole white area is not under any kind of Conservancy in the state. And  they would like to pursue the idea of expanding those, their boundaries to include all of those areas which Shasta County part portions of Shasta County is part of that. Since I served on the Sierra Nevada Conservancy Board, they knew I had a understanding of what they did and the kinds of opportunities that they provide or local communities. So anyway, we had a very healthy conversation and I told them to keep in touch with me. And so this would be something I think that would be beneficial, especially as I shared with them, that one of the things that concerns me is how so much farmland that’s being lost in this state.  We need to continue to be a very productive agricultural state and it’s been very difficult for a lot of farmers with commodity prices and water issues and to be able to continue farming, ranching and in the dairy business or whatever. So we had a very  robust conversation and I hope to be able to help them with that.

As CEO Rickert said earlier, I’m very concerned about the issues surrounding Health and Human Services. I’ve been watching that for quite some time. It saddens me that there’s turmoil and there’s some controversy and as CEO Rickert said, if ever anyone feels like they need to come forward, there is a whistleblower option. So please follow up with that. I do hope that we can get this resolved. It needs to be taken care of as rapidly as we possibly can and the process is in place. And so let’s move forward with that.

Let’s see, on a personal note.  I don’t usually talk about anything personal, but I want to thank everyone who prayed for my youngest granddaughter. She is going back to pre-K today after she was at UC Davis for over two months and we almost lost her to E. coli with a very, very serious complication where a lot of her organs shut down. So with that, I just want to thank all of those of you in Shasta County who prayed for her. And  I thank God every day for a miracle. So we need to focus on the miracles in our life. So with that, thank you.

(42:16) Supervisor Kevin Crye, District 1:  I’ll try and make this as brief as possible. I attended Simpson’s first inaugural or not inaugural, first home football game in their university’s history. So that was, that was great. We’ll see how that works out in terms of if the college or the university can keep doing that.

But worked a lot on the opioid settlement dollar,  didn’t work on the presentation, but I’ve spoken to quite a few people about how that money could be spent in various ways. So  I’ll leave that for the item.

San Bernardino County had their town hall with Insurance Commissioner Lara. So I’m still working on hopefully getting one for Shasta County. And if you want to go back there, I believe that’s supposed to be posted. And not that ours would be exactly like that, but it would be somewhat similar. Some of the information actually is will pertain to people in Shasta County as well.

Attended the At Home meeting as Supervisor Jones stated. One of the things, one of the reasons that whole committee was started was about instead of spreading the money out to a bunch of different organizations, let’s as a collective group say, who’s doing the best work and then try and encourage and get the money to those individuals. So I’ve been slowly pushing more for that because we did, we were. Supervisor Jones said the only county out of 58 that was able to do this with the different jurisdictions, City of Anderson, City of Shasta Lake, City of Redding and the county. But and we did move the ball and we do have the new facility going in conjunction with the Good News Rescue Mission. But let’s not just stop there. Let’s keep pushing the accountability and let’s make it, let’s make sure that we’re not gonna just get caught up in what has always been, which is just spreading the money out to whoever asks for it or whatever. Let’s hold some accountability.  So with that, that goes to, one of the favorite boards I sit on which is the Youth Options Shasta Board. And a few months ago, I had some questions as to the budget, and other things like that. So there has been a case of severe impropriety that is coming out and it’s vindicating. I gotta tell you because at first when these questions are brought up, people think, well, you’re just looking for stuff. No, I’m just looking for accountability. We need accountability with these dollars. And  when someone embezzles money or takes money illegally,  that is not right. And they will be held accountable,  they will be held accountable and I will be speaking with DA Bridgett about that.

I was  the, the rodeo issue obviously is something that’s on the agenda so I won’t speak a lot about that. Now the radio show I was back on and one of the things I’ve been discussing quite a bit is we do and Supervisor Garman and I had a meeting yesterday with County Counsel and CEO Rickert. What’s really tough and I spoke about this at length this weekend, is employee rights and HR rights. If  you have a company, you’re self-employed in California, our HR rules are wonky.  They do not support the entity, they support the individual which is fine. There has to be a balance, but it is so out of balance, people can say and do whatever they want. And the media a lot of times knows that we as a county can’t respond and defend our employees and defend what has been said at the same time.  I absolutely want to make sure any allegations that are of impropriety are looked into and if there has been anything, those people need to be held accountable and it’s not about friendships. It’s about like, righteousness and doing what’s right and we’ll get to the bottom of it. We’ll get to the truth. We’ll make the adjustments and we’ll move on because it’s not personal. It’s county money, it’s business and it’s your money.

And the last thing is I attended CSAC and I think for the first time, possibly in the history of Shasta County or the state, and this is what we were joking about the gentleman from Sacramento, or the supervisor from Sacramento, the supervisor from San Francisco and then myself, supervisor from Shasta County, all were very outspoken and agreed about pushing back on an item which was,  or supporting an item which was prop 36, which was crazy is when we had a vote because at CAC we vote to do, we want to support propositions as an organization or not. So, the vote was 34 yesses to support prop 36 which is, that’s the homelessness, drug addiction and theft. It’s basically repealing some of the really bad legislation we had that led to people just stealing major amounts of stuff and getting a citation. But there was actually nine counties that pushed back on that and hearing their reasoning for pushing back on that. I just, I gotta tell you, like I had to take, like I had to go back to the hotel and take a shower. I just felt like I can’t believe people’s reasoning that people are doing these smash and grabs and we think, well, people, and just the justifications, but that’s, you know, that’s what was great about it for me was just Shasta County is special. We have to fight to keep Shasta County the way it is. We’re a rural cowboy community and I love that and people that have that crazy notion  can go somewhere else. So prop 36, CSAC voted to support that 34 to 9, then Prop 35 which was provides a permanent funding for me that actually did not  27-14. So we did not support that as a group, prop four. Personally, for me, it’s a safe drinking water that passed 35-7, but I voted no on that because the bond completely  lacks accountability or measured metrics for success on that. So it sounds great about safe drinking water. But, and actually I think out of those seven counties, I want to say, I wanna say Modoc and Lassen were two of the ones that voted no as well. And there was, it was good because I think some of the rural communities saw it for what it is. It was just a cash grab. And so, but CSAC did vote 35 to 7 to send a letter of support for that.

(48:37) A motion to to approve the letter of support for state income tax deductions for fire insurance premiums was passed by unanimous vote.

Board of Supervisors

(49:00) R3 Approve a letter to the City of Redding regarding the Redding Rodeo Grounds, located at 715 Auditorium Drive, Redding (Sponsored by Supervisor Crye).
No Additional General Fund Impact
Simple Majority Vote

(49:10) Supervisor Crye: I brought this forward, I had a really lengthy conversation with Mayor Audette back in. I prepared a letter in May and I spoke to Tenessa and just said, hey, I’m gonna bring this forward and she didn’t really like that, which is fine, but so I sat on it and I said, ok, I’m gonna give it time to be worked on and I talked to others as well. And obviously, you know, it was being worked on. That’s great. Well, then I saw it on the agenda. So I said, ok, I don’t know how this is gonna go, but I asked staff, our fantastic staff to help rewrite the letter, updated it some. And then when the vote came on Tuesday, wasn’t shocked. It’s, I believe personally it’s a political football. But I’ll tell you where I was really moved with Sheriff Johnson went up and spoke in public comments. So from that point I decided to ask all the elected in Shasta County. So every single one, I went to Nolda Short first, I went to Laurie Scott second and that’s the auditor controller, then the tax collector, then I went to Sheriff Johnson. Then I went to DA Bridgett, then I went to Tom Toller all 5, no, I’m sorry. And then there was also an email in there because she was at a conference, Leslie Morgan. And everybody jumped on. The only one that did not was the superintendent of schools who’s recently been appointed, Mike Freeman. And he just said he wanted to stick to education. Totally his prerogative. So every single elected in Shasta County signed this to support the rodeo. They can via the Surplus Land Act. That’s not an issue anymore like it was, so they can give a 25 year lease. And I think very, very, very strongly, the public has spoken multiple times and this needs to get done and it can’t be pushed any longer. It could have been done a long time ago. And sometimes the only way to get things done is for us to use the leverage of getting the public really involved. So I brought this letter forward. We do have public

Public comment on R3 began.

(51:33) Bruce Russell:  I support your letter to the Reading City Council 100%. This should be a 5-0 vote. It’s a no brainer to support the Redding rodeo. The Redding rodeo is an integral part of Redding. and Shasta County. They have done great things for Redding and Shasta County that the people want this tradition preserved. In 1948 the City of Redding granted the sheriff’s posse a 99 year lease for the rodeo grounds. If it were me, I would grant the Redding Rodeo grounds a 99 year lease today. But sadly, government bureaucracy has created rules and regulations that may restrict the length of a lease for a municipally owned property. Hopefully, this letter will help the Redding City Council majority finally see the light and support a long term lease for the rodeo at its existing location. The Redding rodeo should have been granted, should have been a required condition in the riverfront plan and not an option that could be removed or relocated. So, thank you for the letter.

(52:49) Steve Kohn:  A rare day, indeed, I actually agree with the majority of the board. I support the Shasta County writing a letter to the City of Redding in support of the Rodeo Association  being given a long term lease. I’m not sure how much good it’ll do. At the last meeting, Mark Mezzano proposed giving the rodeo a long term lease and Joshua Johnson, in my opinion playing political games, instead suggested putting in an ad hoc committee which the Bethel majority supported and that just kicks the can down the road after the election. I believe that the Bethel majority, the Bethel sympathetic majority, since Joshua doesn’t claim to be Bethel, wants to control that property. I don’t think they’re ever gonna let the Rodeo Association have control of that property because they want to control it and whatever they do with it, they’ll twist  around whatever public, you know, meetings are made and what the public feedback is and keep getting feedback until they can present it in a way that is the way they want to develop it. But that also will entail having low cost housing down there in order to get the financing that they would need to do anything significant. But Joshua Johnson was talking about long term situations 20 years down the road or whatever and supposedly worried about that and it’s irrelevant. I mean, the Surplus Act may or may not even exist then and there may be a lot of other things. But anyway, the support of the latter is very important. We need to keep the rodeo there. And if they have their will, you know, they will eliminate the power of the rodeo, they might offer building some kind of structure, but they won’t end up giving them control of it. So anyway, I hope everybody’s aware of that and I hope that they can see through some of these political people that were appointed, not elected like Joshua Johnson, playing political games in order to be re-elected, acting like he’s on the side of the people when really he was undermining the vote for the least.

(55:01) Baron Browning:  The Redding Rodeo Association has a 76 year history and we’re proud of it. So it’s the only pro sport in Shasta County. It’s a top 40 rodeo in the nation with over 600 rodeos. We’re also nationally televised because we’re in the top 40. We’re one of only a couple of sports, NASCAR included, that does a prayer and the national anthem before every rodeo. We spent over half a million dollars in the last five years upgrading that facility. The city has spent $0 dollars on the rodeo grounds. So thanks to the Shasta County elected officials that signed the letter. If you want to support us, come next Tuesday, September 17  to the Redding City Council meeting. And thanks again, politics aside though, really politics aside, we have seen an enormous amount of people and support for the rodeo. It doesn’t matter what side you’re on, on the aisle. Everybody’s coming forward saying keep the rodeo where it is. So thanks for what you did today. We appreciate it. Thanks to all the elected officials.

(56:22) Delores Lucero:   The letter is great that you’re gonna be recommending. But for you guys to actually think this is gonna hold teeth and to overpower the city council because this is coming from you, Kevin. And I do believe that you have a bad name already in this town. So I don’t think it’s gonna hold teeth. I do believe the rodeo should have an opportunity they should have, they should have got that property a long time ago. There’s a better way to do it instead of using your name and trying to use your position to try to get the rodeo. It’s actually gonna ruin the rodeo by you doing this. So, um, be quiet people. And, so for the rodeo, I think I, I recommend that you put this on the ballot better than having one person to make a decision or the city council to do that for you. It’d be better for the voters to vote on this and you will have a better outcome than trying to, you know, use Kevin here and because they won’t, it’s not gonna go well, just even having this letter because we all know that when Kevin Crye sends letters, even to the attorney general don’t have teeth, it comes back rejected because they, they, they see the letter. So you’re better off with it going to the ballot, going to the voters. So it’s pretty shameful that you try to use  any opportunity for you to kind of get your name out there because I know your plan. That’s why I know your plan because you’re in contact with the Orange County, San Bernardino. I got family up there. So just so, you know, I know you’re trying to stick your. So he’s using this opportunity to use your position to for his personal gain.

(58:20) Jenny O’Connell: No crutch. I’m working on it. Good for you. Yeah, I’m working on stretching. You know I actually want to thank you for the letter. I really like these, like, non-controversial items. I mean, maybe they’re controversial for the city council members who probably won’t like this very much. But, I mean, like, I, I know Julie Winters and  I don’t think that, like, she has bad intentions but I also think it’s really important to listen to the people and I really love that you’ve reached out to like everyone like Stephanie Bridgett and you aren’t exactly good buddies, but you still got her to sign it. And that’s pretty impressive. I’m really, I’m really excited by those shows of unity in our county and by like these good things that are happening.   I’m just happy to see something like this up here. So, thank you.

(1:00:14) Teresa Roberts:   Hey, I just wanted to thank you guys for the letter. I think it’s great. But I think that one of the most important things is that everybody remembers to vote, to make sure that Bethel doesn’t take this thing over. That’s the main thing. It’s a conflict of interest, you know, with Bethel, the majority of the board on there, you gotta vote. Get him out.

(1:00:25) Supervisor Jones:   So when I went to the city council meeting and I’ve gone to, I don’t know how many, you know, hundreds and hundreds of council meetings from 2002 to 2015. I made every single meeting. I never missed a meeting. Of course, I was elected there for eight years as well. Every speaker that came up supported the rodeo grounds. I think if we took a poll, you would see that it has a 90 plus percent supporting rate. What’s at play here if you really start looking at it, this area has really no interest to the Bethel folks at control of the Redding City Council. This is not an area that, that they need nor do they want. But there is another group that absolutely wants control of this area that works very closely with the City of Redding. And these two groups are working together and their power will build together. And that’s ultimately what is happening here. It’s no secret when you know the history and I was there of what group wants to control that area. It is not Bethel, but there’s no reason for Bethel not to support this and that is what they’re doing. That is ultimately what’s happening. I support this letter, but this isn’t going to change their minds. They have a very much a system of power in place that will continue.  The only thing that’s going to change this is the election coming up and I think it will, I’ll support the letter chair.

(1:02:07) Supervisor Garman:   I agree that 90% of the people in this county would support the rodeo. It brings in so much revenue to this county. It’s very important to keep the rodeo grounds uh active and, and operational.  So many activities happen with that. And again, this is a nonpartisan issue that I think the majority of us are going to agree with. So I absolutely support this letter.

R3 passed by unanimous vote.

County Administrative Office

(1:03:33) R4 Receive a presentation from the County Administrative Office  regarding Opioid Litigation Settlement Funding and provide direction to staff (Sponsored by Supervisor Crye).
No Additional General Fund Impact
Simple Majority Vote

Deputy County Executive Officer Erin Bertain made the presentation with a slide show.

(1:04:05) Erin Bertain:  I’m here today to provide information regarding opioid settlement funding and receive input and direction from the board. As we all know, the opioid epidemic has been severe and resulted in serious consequences for those addicted, their families, and the safety of the community. This addiction was severe in part because of the ease of obtaining these drugs. Manufacturers, distributors and retailers contributed significantly to this epidemic in a variety of ways that made access to the abuse of these drugs easier.

In response to these acts, many entities filed lawsuits against these companies. Shasta County joined this effort by filing a lawsuit in 2018. Our lawsuit was eventually consolidated with over 3400 plaintiffs in a litigation that was described as the most complex litigation ever undertaken in our country. 2020 Attorney General Becerra proposed a bill to make prosecution of this litigation difficult but that legislation died in committee. Following this legislation attempt, local entities joined forces and formed a working group to negotiate with the Attorney General’s office. Jim Ross, who worked for our county counsel, was one of the leading leading contributors in this effort and was selected of one of a small number of attorneys who negotiated with the AG’s office. This group worked hard to minimize the money to maximize the money coming into California, maximize local control and broaden the definition of permissible uses.

In 2021, two large settlements were completed, one with a group of distributors and another with Janssen Pharmaceuticals. In 2022 a separate bankruptcy settlement was reached with Mallinckrodt and recently five settlements were finalized, leaving only one settlement pending with Kroger. Details regarding this final settlement should be available in the near future.

Shasta County currently has just under $10.5 million from the payments for the settlements and accrued interest. Of this $6.5 million was received just within the last two months. Included in this chart is actual amounts received for current years and projections for settlement period for each subsequent year through fiscal year, 38/39, when the final payment will be received from the distributors settlement. Overall, we anticipate receiving just under $39 million during that time period. This spike in fiscal year 24/25 is a result of payments received in August for the five most recent settlements. Several of the settlement payments were for two years and the Walmart and settlement included the majority of their settlement being paid in the first installment.

There is a timeline for spending the funds. Funds must be spent within five years of receipt, except for those used for capital projects which must be spent within seven years. Shasta County received its first funds in fiscal year 22/23. The settlement agreements include specific areas in which funds can be spent. The allowable uses are included in exhibit E to the agreement which was attached to the staff report for the reference by the board and the public. A minimum of 50% of these funds has to be spent on what is called a high abatement activities, which include approved projects within the Behavioral Health Continuum Infrastructure program. New or expanded substance use disorder treatment infrastructure can be used to address the needs of communities of color and vulnerable populations, including sheltered and unsheltered homeless populations that are disproportionately affected by substance use disorder. It can be used to divert people from the justice system into treatment including providing training and resources to first aid and early responders and implementing best practices for outreach, diversion, deflection, employability, restorative justice and harm reductions. It can also be used for interventions to prevent drug addiction and vulnerable use.

In addition to the high abatement activities, the remaining funds can be spent on treatment for people with opioid use disorder and any co-occurring substance use disorder and mental health conditions. It can be used to support people in treatment and recovery including wraparound services and can be used to address the needs of criminal justice involved persons to begin to determine the needs that could be addressed. Using this funding, a work group was convened with the representatives from the departments listed on this slide over the course of several meetings. The group has made a list of  recommendations. There were many ideas and we tried to narrow the scope to a reasonable number  of recommendations to ensure we aren’t over committing the county beyond the funds that will be received. It should be noted that these discussions were had prior to the receipt of the five most recent settlements which provides clarification of the cash flow that can be expected. The recommended list included  the recommendations you see on the screen, but these recommendations are in no particular order.

Narcan supplies in areas that are easily accessible to the population that needs them, which could include vending machines strategically placed throughout the community. The group felt prevention work in middle schools and high schools is very important and it could include education and materials for youth and their parents. A contract was executed and approved by this board on June 11 providing $100,000 per year for three years for the substance use coalition.

The needs of veterans was a high priority. This population is a harder one to reach and the group felt like this funding would be well used to provide a dedicated drug and alcohol counselor that would work at the Veteran Service Office and provide groups and individual treatment services in that office. As you all know, we’ve been working on a project to remodel the building across the street from the current VSO to increase their space and include space where groups could be hacked. This money could be used to pay for the portion of the project that is for the treatment room and for the office for the alcohol and drug counselor. The project to remodel departments. one and two includes treatment space. So this funding could be used to cover a portion of the cost of the treatment space as well as treatment costs, post construction to provide treatment. As long as it is specific to substance use disorder or co-occurring disorders that include a substance use component.

As I mentioned, the group narrowed the focus to a few recommended projects but there were many more that were discussed included. Here are some of the additional ideas. The group thought could be useful. Expansion of medically assisted treatment in the jail. So much of these services are currently funded by other funding streams but sublocade is administered on a limited basis space. So this funding could be used to cover a portion of the cost of the treatment pace as well as treatment costs, post construction to provide treatment. As long as it is specific to substance use disorder or co occurring disorders that include a substance use component.

This program could be expanded and could include a program in the community that could provide this medication outside of the jail, training could be provided for the veteran service representatives to help them in their conversations with veterans with drug addiction issues, training for law enforcement as allowed by exhibit e, discharge packets for inmates at risk to include Narcan and information about resources could be provided upon their release. Housing options outside of the Good News Rescue Mission could be expanded. The availability for medically monitored detox could be expanded to include a place to do induction where people could be monitored. An overdose response team could be formed. This team would provide services  post-overdose to follow up to make sure the individual is receiving services as needed and physical issues are being met. The public defender currently has social workers who work with their clients released from jail and as part of their plea negotiations to guide them into treatment, often on a residential basis. Typically, they seek resources that are free to the client. This program could be expanded to pay for other treatment services as well as expanded on who would be eligible. This could result in freeing up jail beds as those who need treatment more than they need jail could be in treatment instead. TruNarc is a handheld device that detects narcotics.  They’re about $20,000 but they would allow staff to safely determine the source of substances found in the jail, would also reduce access to drugs in the jail which could increase effectiveness of treatment. This item is loosely connected and would require pre approval from the state. I’d like to end by thanking the participants of each of the departments who participated in the work group and he’ll be working to implement the projects at this time. I’d be happy to answer any questions by the board and there are also representatives from each of the departments in the working group who are available for questions.  I’d request any input or direction the board would like to give on next steps or additional ideas for how to spend these time.

There were two public commenters on R4.

(1:12:37) Dawn Duckett: As someone that has been personally affected by the opioid crisis,  very close family member, I want to thank the committee that made the recommendations on the spending with the additional funding that’s coming in. Some of those additional ideas  were particularly interesting to me such as the packets for inmates being released from jail. As a parent, one of our biggest fears when the person is in and out of the justice system, is that when they’re released and have been sober for 10 days, that they run a high risk of overdosing upon release. And I know there’s some logic that says that that perpetuates the addiction. However, sometimes it takes several times of incarceration before someone decides to become clean. Also expanding the  sober living situations, my relative  really flourished in the sober living environment and also the  DRC or the Day Reporting Center. So most of the opioid addicted individuals at one point or another get involved in the criminal justice system. So I think that we really leverage a lot of dollars by concentrating on post-release activity and support of opioid addicted individuals.

(1:14:24) Jenny O’Connell:  Thank you for bringing this forward again. This is a subject that hits a lot of people in this area. Not everybody is brave enough to come up here and talk about their personal experiences with it. But I bet you there’s a lot of people in this room who are sitting quietly who have lost children, who have lost spouses, who have lost family. I personally, the father of my first child, died of an overdose.  I have cousins who are dead now. I have friends who lost their eldest children. Like it’s a real problem, and I’m really happy to see some advancement in this. And I really like the idea of the Narcan dispensers of that can save lives. Like I know my niece, her first husband died of an overdose and it took a really long response to get to him. So that’s why he died and having the Narcan available just anywhere can save lives. I also, as much as people might think that this is enabling, we learned about these test strips that can test drugs for fentanyl since that’s the number one thing that kills people lately. And that might be good to look into because as much as people might be like, well, doesn’t that enable?  I would prefer someone know that something’s going to kill them than wonder. Like I also really like the after jail follow up care. I think that if the father of my first child had that available to him, if he had been checked on, if he had been looked into, because part of what makes the overdose is being clean for a while and getting back on your body is still used to the drugs where you were. But at the same time, it’s easier to overdose. That’s when most overdoses happen is when someone’s been clean for a while and they get back on and I think that that is probably the best expenditure that you could have.

(1:16:30) Board discussion followed the presentation.

(1:36:56) The Board voted 5-0 to bring this back at the next meeting.

Board Matters, Continued

(1:37:53) R5 Adopt a proclamation which designates September 2024 as “Recovery Month” in Shasta County (Sponsored by Supervisor Crye).
No General Fund Impact
Simple Majority Vote

Supervisor Crye read the proclamation.

(1:38:23) Supervisor Crye:  Shasta County Board of Supervisors Recovery Month, September 2024. Whereas the focus of recovery month each September is to celebrate all people that make the journey of recovery possible by embracing the tagline, Recovery is for everyone, every person, every family, every community. And whereas recovery from substance use disorders is a courageous journey that deserves recognition and celebration. And whereas the stigma surrounding addiction must be challenged and eliminated so that individuals can seek help without fear or shame. And whereas treatment and support services are available to help individuals achieve and sustain recovery. demonstrating that recovery is possible. And whereas the Shasta County community is committed to promoting awareness, support and access to service services for those in need of recovery. And whereas National Recovery Month observed every September provides an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of individuals in recovery, recognize the contributions of treatment providers, and promote the message that recovery is possible for all. Now therefore be it resolved, the Shasta County Board of Supervisors hereby proclaims September 2024 as Recovery Month in Shasta County.

HHSA Deputy Branch Director Bailey Cogger made the initial presentation.

(1:39:31) Bailey Cogger: I want to thank you for allowing us to bring this here. It has been reported to me that this is a first for Shasta County and it’s a true honor to be able to stand up here and acknowledge the hard work of our staff, clients and community involved in recovery services.  I don’t want to take up a lot of time because it is truly um the importance of today is to honor the people who are here bravely speaking to their personal stories of recovery. So with that, I will pass it on.

(1:40:11) Kim McKinney:  Hi. My name is Kim McKinney-Ty. It’s hard to choose what parts of my story I want to read in front of the Shasta County Board of Supervisors. The only reason I share my experience is to try to bring hope to a community riddled with addiction, behind closed doors and homes and on full display on our streets.

I was born and raised in San Jose in an upper middle class family never wanted for anything. I used drugs for the first time when I was 13 years old, just trying to fit in with friends,  drinking, smoking, rebelling. I experimented with numerous drugs until I found my favorite, methamphetamine, at age 18, I used methamphetamine for eight years. In this time, my addiction stole my freedom, wrecked my self-esteem, demolished all respect from family and loved ones, and turned me into a young woman who literally was just living to get high. I did unspeakable things to stay loaded. My incomprehensible demoralization was when I found myself sitting in a family intervention with my parents who had taken my daughter from me because I was an unfit parent. They saved me on that day, I did not get clean and sober for another three years, but my daughter was safe and I was free to go get done. During that three year period. I was blessed with many arrests, violent relationships, and other horrific events that would contribute to my unhappiness. I consider these blessings because they helped me become willing to change my life.

Finally, when I was 26 years old, I was charged with numerous felonies and faced a judge that told me I could choose prison or treatment. I  chose treatment. Treatment did its work. It catapulted me into recovery. I have been working hard at change and growth since 1996, the year of my sobriety. I am free from active addiction, free to be the woman that God created me to be. That little girl who was rescued from my addiction when she was two years old is an adult today and is my best friend who shares with me regularly that she is proud that I’m her mom. My family respects and trusts me. I am a productive member of society. I pursued a higher education and am a licensed therapist and addiction specialist. I use my experience to help others face and escape their own demons. I live and breathe to share the news that addiction does not have to win and recovery is possible. If you’re listening to this and need help for yourself or someone else, please come talk to me.

(1:43:15) Samantha Girdwood: Good morning. I’m really nervous.  My name is Samantha Girdwood. I’m a native of  Shasta County. I have a passion for sharing my recovery and my personal and professional life so that others can experience freedom from addiction. My story includes sadness and trauma but also courage and victory. I was born in a family riddled with addiction which contributed to my involvement in the foster care system, living in seven foster homes before I was at the age five. From 5 to 14, I was raised by family but also abused by them. This abuse set me up for a lifetime of addiction. When I was 14, I moved in with my mom who was the first person to give me drugs. I was a troubled teen and young adult that became increasingly involved with heavy drugs and the juvenile criminal justice system. Both of my parents passed away by the time I was 18 by their addiction. At the time I was 27 I had attempted suicide, found methamphetamine and had two children that were being raised by family members. Prior to recovery  I found myself homeless, broken, suicidal and hopeless. I found myself running from the law, putting myself in dangerous situations to stay loaded. Jail was a revolving door for me and charges kept stacking up until I was looking at prison time. I was in the Shasta County jail facing the most significant charges related to my addiction and it was at this time a personal surrender that I was able to accept help from the addicted offenders program. AOP provided me accountability and structure so that I can embrace recovery. Recovery has brought me freedom from active addiction, healing from trauma, and reunification with my children. I am responsible, employable, and a present mother and a productive member of this society. I am actively involved in AOP alumni association, a recovery coach with Shasta County drug and alcohol, and a student at Shasta College in pursuit of my social work degree. I’m heavily involved with Shasta County’s recovery community, providing me with connection and a sense of purpose and a life beyond my wildest dreams. Recovery can happen for anyone who is willing to do the work. Thank you.

(1:45:42) Elena Short:  Mine’s a little bit shorter than those. So good morning board. Good morning community members. My name is Elena Short and  my clean day is December 25, 2008. That’s 15 years, eight months and 16 days that I have not put in mind or mood altering substance in my body and for somebody whose age of first use was 12 years old, that’s an accomplishment that I’m really proud of. I was born and raised right here in Shasta County. My addiction is rooted here, but more importantly, so is my recovery and that’s what I want to talk about. Shasta County has a thriving community of beautiful recovering individuals and I am blessed to be a part of that community. Because of some of the wonderful people that were put in my path in my recovery process, I have been able to work to overcome my high ACE scores and create a life where numbing myself with a substance does not sound like the best option. I have accomplished so much in the last 15 years. I have a beautiful home, an amazing husband, and a career that I love. But most importantly, I have a 12- year-old son who’s never seen his parents loaded. I am just one of them recovering individuals in Shasta County, proving that recovery is possible.  Recognizing September as Recovery month acknowledges not only those affected by addiction but also those who work tirelessly to provide care, support and hope in our community. It will be another step towards breaking the stigma surrounding addiction, making treatment services less intimidating for those battling substance use, and their families. It will serve as a symbol to create a community where recovery is possible, treatment is available, and hope is ever present. Thank you.

(1:48:46) Public comment on R5 began.

(1:48:51) Christian Gardinier:  Of course, I want first, I want to thank you. Thank you. First. I want to thank and honor the  the people in recovery who presented today. It’s a blessing to hear and it should be heard daily in regards to recovery and specifically into what this resolution is all about. Shouldn’t be monthly, should be daily. And I need to to emphasize as a clinician who has been licensed and certified to provide an awful lot of the treatment modalities presented today, all of them excellent, all of them, most of them empirically based, they’re not hocus pocus.  It’s important to understand where we got to in our society with the opioid and opiate problem. And Dreamland is an excellent book to start because this is in part manufactured by the drug industry. And finally, brave people sued the drug industry and this is where we’re getting the money that we’re working with today. Recovery is not an individual, it’s not a family, it is a community. And   if any of those are broken, then recovery gets really difficult. This community needs to recover. This community is sick in so many ways, but I do believe it can recover. And one of the things about recovery, Chair Crye, is don’t play games, don’t use it as a political tool to isolate people that have institutional knowledge, years upon years of knowledge to insulate them from being effective people. Because whether or not Mary Rickert gets elected and I think she will, she’ll continue to work in the recovery movement long after Mr. Jones is gone. And probably Mr. Crye as well, because Mary has had a, I don’t know how many years working in recovery. So don’t politicize recovery, Chair. This is absolutely disgusting. Recovery of a community and a family and an individual is hard enough without politicians playing their games. It’s ridiculous. So once again, all the modalities presented today  I that I saw are empirical based and this community has and this board has an exceptional opportunity to continue the fight of recovery. It’s not gonna be accomplished tomorrow, not 10 years, not 15, not 20 years, but for some people, 15 days, maybe three months, maybe five years in recovery is something that needs to be celebrated. So I would change your proclamation to a monthly to daily.

(1:53:33) R5 was approved on a 5-0 vote.

Presentations

(1:53:41) R6 Receive a presentation from the Shasta Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) regarding their mission, activities, and accomplishments (Sponsored by Supervisor Rickert).
No General Fund Impact
No Vote

LAFCO Director Krystle Heaney made the presentation with a slideshow.

(1:54:06) Krystle Heaney: I’ll be talking a little bit about our Shasta Local Agency Formation Commission, otherwise known as LAFCO. LAFCO started in 1963 in response to the housing boom that occurred after world war two. And our main missions are to encourage orderly formation of government agencies preserve agricultural lands and discourage urban sprawl. Now, this is definitely a little known agency, LAFCO, but there is one in every county in California and we deal with over 400 cities and 3000 special districts supplying all types of different services. Our commission here in Shasta County is a pretty common makeup of county members, city members, independent, special districts and the public. Our commission did recently vote to  attempt to push through special legislation to change that to a nine member commission. If that goes through, we’ll have three city members, three special district members, two county, one public, all with an alternate. So more news to come on that.

In the county, we have a total of 48 different member agencies including our three cities. Lots of different county service areas that are run by Shasta County. We have community service districts, cemetery districts, mosquito abatement districts and our awesome fire districts that are out there working hard to protect our communities. Our regulatory functions are granted by the Cortese  Knox Hertzberg Local Government Reorganization Act of 2000. That is a mouthful. So we shorten it and just call it the CKH Act. We’re responsible for reviewing boundary changes. So any time that there is a proposed annexation or detachment or some sort of reorganization, if an agency wants to provide new services, they would come to us, they would come to LAFCO to get that approved. We also do out of agency service agreements. So if someone just outside of a district boundary needs service, then that would also be approved through us.

We do not have land use authority, so we cannot regulate the use of land, property development or subdivision requirements. However, we do take these into consideration when we are looking at annexations, detachments and any other sort of  reorganization for our agencies. The different types of boundaries that we work with include a jurisdictional boundary. So this is the official boundary of the agency and it’s where they have some type of legal authority to implement its adopted rules and regulations. We also work with the sphere of influence that is set by us.  This is the probable boundary of an agency where they intend to provide services, different types of spheres of influences or SOIS are coterminous, so they’ll follow the same jurisdictional boundary, there’s also expanded SOIS this indicates that the agency intends to provide service to a new area at some point in the future and potentially file for annexation. There’s also reduced or contracted spheres of influence. Kind of rare, but it does happen. This usually indicates an area where an agency plans to detach. They do not intend to provide services. They don’t think it will be feasible anytime in the future or potentially, they’ll be turning it over to another agency to handle. We also have a 00 sphere of influence and that is indicative of a future dissolution.  So for whatever reason, the agency will no longer be active and will need to be dissolved.

Our application process, we try and make pretty painless. You are welcome to come talk to us anytime you like we don’t bite, I promise. We’ll provide you all the forms and, and walk you through what needs to be done, you can file by petition. So if  community members would like to see some sort of change, they can gather signatures and submit that to us. That is how we got our new Shasta Fire Protection District, which I will be filing today. So they are officially formed. Woohoo. And then there’s also a resolution of application which is our preferred method because in the agency that is going to be affected has a little bit more control over the process and how things go. We also do activation of powers. So if an agency would like to do something new, like if they want to provide park and recreation services or they want to look at police services or fire or anything else,  then we would review that and approve it as well.

Out of agency services. I  spoke about a little bit previously. So again,  we approve these typically in anticipation of a later change in the organization. So an annexation, we prefer annexations over these out of agency service agreements, but there is a time and a place for everything. So this is something that we can do. LAFCO as a planner.  We have section code that allows us to do some planning documents, specifically municipal service reviews and special studies. Our municipal service reviews are the bread and butter of LAFCO. It’s a snapshot of the agency at a point in time. It looks at their services, the level of those services, how things are going overall, their governance structure, uh their financial ability to provide services. We try to make these educational documents, we don’t want them to be super boring and you’re doing this wrong. Now, we want to inform the public  and your members of your agency and provide education on how you can potentially improve if that is needed. So right now, we’re finishing up the MSR for the City of Anderson. It looks really great.  The city has approved it. They said that it also looks good and we’ll be bringing that forward at our October meeting.

Special studies. This can be done to assess services in an area  recently in Shasta County.  We did the Beckwourth Peak Fire Services special study.  There hasn’t been one in Shasta that I’m aware of  but it is a tool that we can use. So that was a lot of information in a very short amount of time about a little known agency. But I am available for questions.

Clerk of the Board

(2:03:03) R7 Appoint Mike Michalak as the District 2 representative to the Shasta County Elections Commission to serve the remainder of a term to January 6, 2025.
No Additional General Fund Impact
Simple Majority Vote

(2:03:38) Supervisor Garman: For those who don’t know Mike Michalak, he owns The Fly Shop. He’s a well-respected gentleman in this town and Mike, thank you to be willing to step up for this role first of all. And hopefully this will go smooth today and we’ll get you on the elections commission.

(2:04:56) Mike Michalak:  I simply wanted to introduce myself to those members of  the board  that haven’t met me before. I’ve been a businessman in Redding for nearly half a century. I built one of the largest businesses of its kind in the world. My company has 19 employees, has 15 guides on the Sacramento River nearly every day of the year. We bring in between six and 8000 bed nights into Redding every year.  As I wind down my participation in the company, I hope to make a more of a contribution to the local community now that I’ve got more time for it. And I, you know, I confess to not being an election denier. I confess to having a great deal of admiration for the job that Cathy Darling and the clerk’s office has done in the past. And I hope to be able to help restore confidence in the community to that office and to help Mr. Toller with, you know, with the job that the very difficult job that’s ahead of him. And I’m certainly available to any questions that anyone on the board might have, you know, and hope that you will support
Supervisor Garman’s recommendation.

Public comment on R7 began.

(2:06:48) Steve Kohn:  I actually kind of expected this to be a little more controversial. So I’m glad to see that the  board seems to be accepting of who seems to be a capable individual. Certainly he’s accomplished a lot  in the private sector.  Anyway, it’s nice to not see this end up in a politically game playing situation. And basically, I was also gonna speak to limited time situations, but since you’re not doing that, I’ll skip that whole subject and I support the nomination and it’s good to see people agreeing on something. We need diversity, we need different views if you have it. You know, everybody, only ones being selected for the commission are people that have one particular view, you’re not gonna accomplish a whole lot. You’re gonna get a cookie cutter, you know, freaking list of things so to have the diversity is very important and it sounds to me like this individual will provide it.

(2:08:01) Christian Gardinier:  Thank you, Supervisor Garman. The election commission acts as a quasi-official agency with limited power on the behalf of the sponsoring agency, which is this board of supervisors. However, changing election law is far outside the legal jurisdiction of the election commission and this body, far outside the Constitution of California, as well as laws. Yet as an independent agency, the commission is legally responsible for its behavior and actions. The election commission consisting of liars and deniers is legally responsible for the persistent false election fraud narrative, based on unsubstantiated allegations proven to be misinformation and lies in federal courts, Supreme Court and Shasta County Courts. Thus, the elections  committee’s chair and majority are legally responsible for any of its resolutions passed for advocating that Shasta County violates California law. Thus, the election commission and their chair in the majority are legally responsible for attempting to superimpose fraud and election law violations onto the backs of Shasta County’s government, its citizens and our elections. By definition, election fraud as perpetrated by the commission so far is illegal. By definition, election law violations as perpetrated by the election commission so far –

Supervisor Crye: Christian, this is about the appointment.

Christian Gardiner: And this is why it’s really important to have this appointment because this is what this committee has been doing. It’s very important to have this appointment because we have to stop this. We have to stop this. Hopefully, Tim’s appointment, like Mary’s appointment, and actually, surprisingly, like the county counsel’s suggestion yesterday, hopefully bring some some logic and some law to the election commission which is based on Jerry Jones’ BS of election denial and election lies that perpetrate the fraud upon this county. Fraud is serious.

(2:10:50) Delores Lucero:  I don’t know the gentleman, but  I think I like what he said yesterday when he came up here to, you know, say a comment regarding what you the election commissioner had on the agenda. It was R3, approve a recommendation to the board of supervisor regarding a return to limit absentee ballots and a return to a one day election which I like what he came up to say in regarding that issue. He actually recommend for the commissioners to listen to the legal counsel to table this. They actually didn’t do that. So they actually violated the law and it actually is unconstitutional. So I hope that him being on this committee will bring a little bit  better opinion and better ideas because we can’t keep on having people being appointed to this position and breaking the laws. You guys are all gonna be freaking felons by the time you’re out of the office because that is unconstitutional for here for them to approve this, for you guys to be approving this on the probably on the next meeting. So, and I basically said, go ahead and vote because you’re gonna vote on it anyways. So it just makes it easier for me to put a complaint and send it to the attorney general and Gavin Newsom and I’m gonna ask them to actually start removing people from this position. So, yeah, there you go.

(2:12:34) Dawn Duckett:  It was my resignation that created this vacancy. I am generally in support of the  appointment of Mr. Michalak. And I would encourage him and the other election commissioners to really get back on track. And I hope that the two new members can get them back on task with increasing trust in elections instead of further dividing the community. I read on their one of their items yesterday said it’s recommended that the board move on these recommendations as quickly as possible by whatever means is necessary in order to prevent civil unrest. That type of language is incendiary and very irresponsible and does not promote trust in elections. What it does is those of us that trust the elections now have lower confidence in our ROV’s office ability to move forward because of the meddling and the incendiary statements being made by this commission. So I wish Mr. Michalak luck but they really need to get back on task, which is to promote trust in elections and work with the elections office and change the things that they can do that are legally permissible under the elections laws. The other thing that the elections commission to me, the other intention was so that all the folks that have concerns about elections have a venue in that elections commission to speak their concerns. But what we have found is that the same people that speak at the elections commission meetings give the very same speeches at board of supervisors meetings. So it doesn’t save any time. It doesn’t save the board from having to work on other issues while the commission dissects election related issues. It’s really, in my mind is a waste of time and resources.

(2:15:02) Ron: My name is Ron. And did I hear you say you were restoring back to three minutes instead of two? [Conversation with Supervisor Crye]  I feel like our, our constitutional rights have been violated. [Supervisor Crye: This is this just, you know, this isn’t public comment. This is, this is what I’m, this is R7.This is the appointment of Mike Michalak] I’m gonna guess I’m out of line then. So can I come back and speak about? Because I thought this was public comment.

(2:15:43) Kim Moore:  I don’t know Mr. Michalak, but when I saw his name on the agenda this morning, I decided to look him up and I want to refer to an article from a news rag by Doni Chamberlain. ” preliminary Shasta County election results too soon to call.” So Mr. Michalak on that, made a comment on that article that I’m gonna read. “Actually, the charter concept has backfired against the Jones Kelstrom Crye cabal that proposed it expecting that they would maintain majority supervisor control and be able to appoint a like thinking puppet. That’s not going to be the case now that the dynamics of the board has evolved to a more same perspective.” So I’m not gonna comment on which which direction you guys decide to go today on this issue. But Tim Garman, you’re right up there with Liz and Dick Cheney. In my book, you’re no better than Speaker Johnson out of everybody in Shasta County. You couldn’t, I don’t care if it’s a Democrat or Republican, but you couldn’t find one educated decent person. That man was appointed ambassador to Vietnam by the Bush administration and maintained by the Obama administration and that’s who you picked.

(2:17:26) Laurie Bridgeford: So regarding R7, the nomination for Mike, it sounds like everyone’s gonna be either reappointed in January. I don’t know how that works because we’ve never had this happen. So I’m concerned that people being appointed right now, they have to go through some kind of process and oath. I don’t know if it’s totally worth it, but I have concerns about an individual that I’ve never heard of at these meetings, I’ve never seen at these meetings. I was at the election commission meeting yesterday and there are plenty of opportunities for this individual to speak at R1 regarding the budget, nothing. R2 obtained copies of the act of voter roll said nothing. R3 absentee and one day voting.  I think he approached  on an off topic and then I have him down for the election judges at 4:30.  So I’m not sure. I mean, it’s ok if you’re retiring and you’ve got time, I get it and you want to give back to the community, I get it. But if this is gonna be another person that just warms the seat and has the agenda that might not represent the bulk of  your district. So, what do you do with people in district 2 that don’t feel they’re being heard or represented fairly enough, adequately enough and they’re just being blanketly called an election denier. There’s a lot of us that have questions about the corruption, the fraud, the tactics, the tools. I’ve been to plenty of these meetings, please folks. It’s so hard for them to hear anything rational and logical. My friend Robert Exter said,  he said, you know what, when things smell fishy, be careful and don’t swallow anything hook line and sinker. So he’s trying to be funny. He can’t come up here. I have in my last minute here, I have concerns. I warned about the, the appointee that had his debut yesterday. Brad Garbett already going into the, the COVID Fauci masks and anti vaxxers, already going into the polarization about if, if Election Day has some kind of a virus or a lockdown or a shutdown, it’s like if your mask works, wear it, don’t, don’t create this agenda that has nothing to do with it. So I just have concerns kind of like a warning. And again, I’ve never heard of this person. I don’t see him at these things. So I don’t know, Tim Garman Supervisor Garman, if you are just, I don’t know where you’re finding some of these individuals. Same thing to Mary Rickert. I don’t know where you’re pulling these people out because if they’re complete unknown to what’s going on in our community, business, county business and they’re out there working and making a profit. Fine. I have 30 seconds. So, what I want to say in case that I’m not here because of work for public comment. [Supervisor Crye redirecting her to R7]

(2:20:25) Benjamin Nowain:  All right, today, I’d like to address the appointment of Michael Michalak to the elections Commission. Now, I do believe that he should be indeed appointed. He has every right to represent our community, especially as Tim Garman’s nominee. Now, I trust Tim’s judgment as I supported his previous choices and I believe Michalak will adhere to the legal standards that govern our election process. However, I must express some concerns regarding the election commission as a whole. Our county counsel, Joseph Larmour, has recently made a statement that raises questions about the guidance being provided to the commission and the board for that matter. He suggested the commission cannot govern an election commissioner’s action outside the official meetings, even when those actions might be related to election activities. There may be some truth in that. But when those activities are tied to elections, the commission absolutely has oversight as all election activities. Even citizen committees are within the jurisdiction for oversight. It’s vital that we ensure the legal framework is followed both in and out of official capacities. This incident points to a larger issue. Are we receiving proper counsel? Not just for the elections commission, but for the board as a whole. So I will stick to R7. Regarding the elections commission. I urge the board to carefully consider and examine our County counsel’s understanding of the role of the elections commission. It’s crucial that he fully grasps the legal boundaries of what’s permissible and what is not, elections aren’t too important to allow for guesswork or assumptions. Our commission needs individuals who are clear on the rules ensuring the work being done reflects the best interests of our community.

R7 was passed by unanimous vote.

(2:23:54) PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD – OPEN TIME

During the Public Comment Open Time period, the public may address the Board on any matter not listed on the agenda that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the Board of Supervisors or on any agenda item listed on the Consent Calendar. Each speaker is allocated three minutes to speak unless the chairman determines that all speakers will be allowed a shorter or longer period of time. 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.

 

(2:24:36) Catherine DeYoung:  I am here representing the Major Pierson B. Reading chapter of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution or DAR. The DAR was founded in 1890 as a nonprofit, non-political volunteer women’s service organization dedicated to preserving American history, securing America’s future through better education for children, and honoring and supporting those who serve our nation. Members of the board, you have before you for your consent a proclamation to designate September 12 to 17 as Constitution Week, to commemorate a document that in just 4400 words changed the course of history and laid the foundation for our great nation. This document was the result of much debate and years of struggle. Our forefathers lived as American colonists for nearly 150 years before the Declaration was signed. Within three short weeks following its signing, my sixth great-grandfather joined the ranks of those who died in battle while championing its cause. After winning their independence, our forefathers were impelled to form a new government and a revolutionary thought took hold: self-government. Imagine the daunting task of creating and implementing a form of government that had no precedent, yet on September 17, 1787, after months of deliberation and debate, the delegates of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia put pen to paper and signed the document that would become the bedrock of our democracy. It was a remarkable achievement, a product of compromise and consensus among men of different backgrounds and beliefs. The constitution has stood the test of time guiding our nation through times of war and peace, prosperity and adversity. It has been amended 27 times but the core principles enshrined in the original document remain unchanged. The constitution is more than a legal document. It is a symbol of our shared values and aspirations as a people. It is a symbol and testament of our belief in the power of self-government and the importance of individual liberty. I strongly encourage you to join in commemorating the signing of the constitution by formally adopting a proclamation. Let us recommit ourselves to the principle that it embodies. Let us strive to build a more perfect union where all Americans can enjoy the blessings of liberty and opportunity. Thank you.

(2:27:46) Steve Kohn:  I just want to relay how disgusted I am with how intimidating and unfriendly this board majority, which would be Crye,  Jones and Kelstrom, are to our county employees. Today again, we’re hearing of another loss of a key employee. Honestly, I don’t blame them. If they want to be able to provide for their family, the logical thing to do is to leave before this board creates a situation or fires them. So at the same time, the employees are overworked, underfunded, underpaid and they asked for cuts in these departments, the department for the individual that’s leaving.  I think he was even working directly with some of the cases because of the lack of having the employees that he needs. To hear Jones and Crye brag about the quality of employees we’re getting is it’s clear that the quality simply means that an employee will bow to their will, legal or not, along the way lowering standards for different positions to accommodate the people that they find will do whatever they wish. To preserve good employees we have left in this county, this has to stop. We also have situations where this board majority has voted in favor of reducing fees approving HMOs that ultimately likely will cost the county down the road. All of this done in order to benefit benefit developers and contractors. In my mind, in my opinion, this is directly been an advance payoff to Corky Harmon by the board majority in order to ensure his compliance with their desires if he is elected. If he is elected, this board majority goes on as it has and continues to disassemble the good employees of this county. It’s a travesty. I hope people are paying attention. The corruption has to stop. Vote Rickert.

(2:30:11) Joseph F.  Good morning. Whether you’re an election fraud person so-called or election fraud denier so-called. We know that the integrity of the elections are a huge issue here in Shasta County. I would propose doing something that would be common sense and would also  I think put some of  integrity or the view of integrity back in the elections before I go on real, I just wanna mention in Mexico where they, by the way, they actually require voter id. There was very little participation in elections until because of, because of the perception that it didn’t make any difference if you were voting or not when they put in strict voter id and voter rules, the amount of participation in elections skyrocketed. I know several people who have told me they’re not gonna bother to vote anymore is what’s the, what’s the difference? So my suggestion it would be this, use the machines were required to by state law. But then in any closely contested election, in fact, I would actually like to see us do all of it, all of them do a audit a 100% double check audit, which is allowed in, in the, in the state law. And if it isn’t, I’d like you to ask the County counsel if doing an audit of all the elections wouldn’t be legal that way. There’s gonna be more trust and faith and yet you’ve still used your machines and it’s still legal.  I’m just gonna stop at that point. Thank you.

(2:32:11) Rick Hutchinson:  And so this was pulled out of order and hopefully that doesn’t happen too much more because it kind of might mess up some of the plan. Anyway, the most assured aspect of our constitution is the guarantee that all three elements of article four, section four will be adhered to by all compact members of the United of the Union of States, like a three legged stool to remove one leg, the stool itself becomes destabilized and ultimately useless. Likewise, if one state fails to provide anyone of these three guarantees, then the Union of States becomes less stable. Nothing is more glaring to the American citizen than Gavin Newsom, that Gavin Newsom has complete contempt for the rule of constitutional law than to witness the open violations of article four section four and the three guarantees a Republican form of government keeping all Americans free from invasion and that of domestic violence. It is clear Newsom is committing treason, an unconstitutional administrative state now exists in California in direct violation of the September 9, 1850 compact with the United States of America, the state of California no longer functions as a Republican form of government, no longer provides freedom from invasion  and domestic violence. Whereas California’s republican form of government vanishes when corrupt election systems destroy our God given rights to self government. Likewise, it is with invasion when with invasion, when the citizens have no authority to control who enters the country, invaders take over our land, then domestic violence follows and becomes the new law of the land. And whereas it is evident over the last three years since the most corrupt presidential election in American history of November 3, 2020 that there has been a coordinated design for the destruction of the United States. And whereas Governor Gavin Newsom is spearheading the effort to trample on and destroy the God given rights of the people protected by the United States Constitution. And whereas in California, the Newsom democracy government has developed, devolved into a dictatorship operating as a tyranny to the people and thus broken the compact of statehood and succeeded from the United States of America. Whereas the true purpose of all government is to promote the welfare and provide for the protection and security of the governed. And when any form of organization of government proves inadequate for or subversive of this purpose, it is the right, it is the duty of the people to alter or abolish it and establish for itself. And you are. Thank you

(2:35:36) Teresa Roberts: This is partly in concerning Consent 9 on here. It seems that um the school systems are actually getting further and further away from the education of students and they’re beginning to bring in social services into the schools. That’s not where the social services belong. They belong –

Supervisor Crye: really quick,  Stephanie, C9 has been pulled. Can she, can we, can we still take C9 right now?

Stefany Blankenship: She can speak to C9 right now or speak to C9 separately if she would like, but we just don’t have her speak twice.

Teresa Roberts: That’s, that’s fine. So I would, I just thought that I would bring that up.  And the other thing too is SCOE administration, SCOE pulls in, I think they’re funded at $120 million annually. Administration, credentialed administration is at 140 people,  over 20 million $400 for wages and benefits for those 140 who oversee approximately 150 students. I see that there is a lot of waste. There should be going to the kids, kids, kids are all different. Every single kid is in each individual and they’re all put in the same box and those boxes need to be changed, they need to be tossed out as to the, the opioid issues and the drug addiction issues. When you look at the generations from where these drugs come from and the traumas that these kids have been through and these kids that are out there on the streets, they all come from trauma that hasn’t been addressed and it goes on to the next generation and it goes on to the next generation. So the kids that I’m seeing and schools like Excel, they have traumas that are not being addressed. Ok. We don’t have trades in the schools like we used to these kids learn with their hands, they learn with their imagination and if they’re not allowed to do that, they’re not going to succeed. So when I talk, when I’m looking at this SCOE and more money going into prevention of adverse childhood, what are they gonna do? Are they going to bring in more social services or are they gonna actually educate these kids? Maybe teach them a trade. This is what needs to be figured out. I mean, you gotta, gotta get this social social service stuff out of the schools and start teaching these kids the right way.

(2:38:35) Linda Glass: I’m Linda Glass. Good morning board and members.  I’d like to read this.  The 2018 midterm elections, the 2021 recall election and the 2022 midterm elections were all lost in 101 balloting. But with the help of fraudulent electronic election system and algorithm and the actions of the globalist cartels and the CCP. So a dictator was installed to oversee the province of California. Now with the help of federal courts in the state of Georgia and their unwitting corrupted Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, the evidence is clear for the world to see how the selected treasonous governor of the province of California and thousands of down ballot corrupt selected officials turned the once great state of California into a Nazi communist totalitarian province. The election case pits an election integrity nonprofit and a handful of Georgia voters against the secretary of State’s office. They claim that the state’s computerized voting machines face an unacceptable risk of being hacked which infringes on the constitutional rights of voters. The case has already made history after Judge Totenberg ordered the state in 2019 to replace its previous voting machines from Dybold election systems. The ruling came after the plaintiffs highlighted the touch screen machines vulnerability to being hacked. In response, Georgia bought the Dominion machines and began using them in the June 2020 presidential primary. I have some data sheets that show Chinese IP addresses from their computers hacking into the elections. So if there’s any doubt, you can see that clearly or ask me about it. That is why I’m speaking.

(2:41:37) Elizabeth:  With the Dominion machines voters use a touchscreen also called a ballot marking device to make their choices. Then they print out their ballots which have a QR code that a scanner reads to record and tally the votes. During the six year case. Computer scientists serving as experts for the plaintiffs have uncovered multiple specific ways that both the, the current Dominion and the previous Diebold voting machines are vulnerable to hacking the solution. The plaintiffs argue is to have voters mark paper ballots by hand as nearly 70% of voters do in the rest of the country, the ballots themselves, not just a QR code would then be scanned and a procedure known as a risk limiting audit would be used to verify the results. Georgia is one of a handful of states that uses the same election system for all of its registered voters statewide. That means any problem whether due to hacking or human error could affect nearly 8 million votes. Many other states use a patchwork of systems. Thank you.

(2:43:17) Diana Branch: In June 2023 the Federal District Court for the northern district of Georgia unsealed the so-called 96 page Halderman report, the security analysis of Georgia’s image cast X ballot marking devices. University of Michigan, Professor of computer science and engineering, J. Alex Halderman and security researcher and assistant professor at Auburn University  Drew Springall collaborated on a report and demonstrated in court how Dominion machines were hacked and their tabulations were easily altered to select any individual for any office in Georgia in the Georgia courtroom. On January 19, 2024 Halderman demonstrated an  explicit detail to the court and to the world how easy it is to hack into the voting systems and alter votes following an audit of elections of 2018, 21 and 22 utilizing data provided by each California County and Secretary of State’s office. It is obvious an algorithm was used to create weighed vote values in tabulation devices by those who facilitated the selection of the governor. The evidence in Georgia Federal Court presented by J. Alex Halderman overwhelmingly supports the use of an algorithm to facilitate the corrupt election of the governor. So in my opinion, we, we shouldn’t trust the machines at all and go back to hand county or at least hand count after you use the machine.

(2:45:09) Steve: The fraudulent election system does not function without the help and support of state and county employees who either knowingly or unwittingly have worked together to perpetrate a corrupt election system. It is now known that the Secretary of State of the State of Georgia, Brad Rasenberg, has vest has visited Nevada and contacted numerous county employees of California clerk state officials and supported their actions to continue a false narrative to the citizens of California that the election  systems are all fine. We now know that Rasenberg, California County and state officials narrative is a deliberate lie. The fraudulent elections, fraudulent California election system goes back 30 years. Yet the most egregious era between 2018 and 2022 must be addressed. This will not be addressed by the current totalitarian communist government of California unless we the people act and demand the decertification of the 2020 the 2018 to 2022 elections. Now there are legal ways to demand decertification and at the same time, force counties to utilize paper ballots same day elections which has successfully been done for many, many years. Dirty voter rolls are the foundation of a dirty election. Every law that comes out of Sacramento pertaining to our elections makes it easier to cheat. If you’re a critical thinker, you would see this.

There was one public commenter on Closed Session item R8.

(2:48:15) Steve Kohn: R8. it’s discussing two different employees situations. The public defender now is gonna be leaving us and the director of resource management and this just goes back to the same thing. It’s just an indication of what this board majority is doing that is destroying Shasta County there.  I guarantee you that the director of resource management and  that the candidates will not, if they will not bow to this board’s will, if they are not the type of person that will bow to this board’s will and carry out their desires, legal or not. And that’s Crye, Jones and Kelstrom,  they will not be chosen. These are areas of control that could be subject to a great deal of corruption. I believe this board majority will appoint corrupt people if possible and I just hope that people are paying attention. Thank you.

(2:49:42) The Board of Supervisors will recess to a Closed Session to discuss the following item (estimated 1 hour, 15 minutes):

R8 PUBLIC EMPLOYEE APPOINTMENT

(Government Code section 54957(b)(1)):
Title(s):
Public Defender
Director of Resource Management

R9 CONFERENCE WITH LEGAL COUNSEL – EXISTING LITIGATION

(Government Code section 54956.9(d)(1)):
Case Name(s):
Jewett, Everett v. County of Shasta, CFMG (Case No. 2:13-cv-0882 MCE)
At the conclusion of the Closed Session, reportable action, if any, will be reported in Open
Session.

(2:49:49) The Board returned from Closed Session. There was reportable action.

(2:50:00) Counsel Larmour:  On R8,  the reportable action is that the board voted 3 to 2 no votes from Garman and Rickert to appoint interim Wyatt Paxton to the Director of Resource management. No further reportable action.

(2:50:21) Public comment recommenced.

(2:50:52) Christian Gardinier:  Supervisor Jones. You were not exonerated for the Attorney General letter incident by no means period. You also lied when you said that there was procedures in place. There were no procedures in place for retention of documents. This is a copy of the complaint that I sent to the grand jury, documents, not only the California code, but this Shasta County code pertaining to this problem. It also unfortunately involves the CEO office. They didn’t follow procedure either. Chair Jones. You’re probably aware of this but I need for the record to let the public know, your gun resolution just got thrown right out of the court. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on the sixth, validated that there is such a thing called sensitive places in California and brought forth from the US Supreme Court, the sections that pertain to that. So, sir, if you’re packing, you need to take your gun and go put it away from these chambers because it’s illegal. If you or anybody in these chambers is packing, they’re doing still illegal whether or not the sheriff chooses to, to follow up on that. If there’s an incident, now that is, it’s illegal, it’s coming back on you. The other thing that I feel is, is pretty important is the, the fact that Chair Crye. I, I think you called me a sucker. I’m a sucker. I suck off the system. Is that I, I, you know, Mr. Garman, the supervisor heard me and you discussing this, that I’m a leach or something off the system? Sir, you asked, you told me, you never provide any kind of solutions. OK? Here’s a solution. Rehire Karen Ranstrom. Don’t fire people like that. Don’t put people like in an election lying COVID lying person on the board because he belongs to your political orientation. Stop the division that you create all. Stop the solu, the solution is to stop the division that you have created while  sitting on this dias, stop attacking your fellow supervisors, stop using misogyny and racism. Stop that kind of stuff right now. If you want to be a true uniter, be a nonpartisan person representing the citizens of Shasta County, all of them, not just your jck crime syndicate fan club.

Supervisor Jones:  So the Ninth Circuit did rule that it has no effect on our resolution. The  subsection of that penal code, penal code still stands and when Karen Ranstrom was failed,  fired, these two weren’t on the board.  That vote was Supervisor Jones or Supervisor Garman. So you just missed that again.

(2:54:16) Dawn Duckett: So appointing Wyatt Paxton as the interim resource management director. Very interesting. I worked with Mr. Paxton and the public needs to know, get ready. I hope the press is watching. Mr. Paxton left resource management and went to work for Reverge Anselmo and the optics of this gentleman is not great. It is not great. Also Mr. Paxton was a major cast member in the Red White and Blueprint and there was much talked about how they wanted to take down the resource management department.  Mr. Jones, you spoke about not wanting people on commissions that had an interest in dismantling them. Well, you just appointed someone that wants to dismantle our resource management department. I also wanted to say that you have an assistant director that’s worked there for 18 years. Mr. Paxton lacks the experience in air quality. He lacks the experience in environmental health and in the planning division, he’s only worked in building. He is woefully underqualified and if anybody’s gonna mentor anybody, it’s gonna be Adam Fieseler mentoring Mr. Paxton.

 

(2:55:58) Delores Lucero: It’s actually a conflict of interest and both of you should have been accused because he actually donated money to you guys. So you need to revoke that vote. Yes, don’t shake your head and don’t answer anything when I’m, when I’m speaking. God, you’re stupid, Patrick.  Shasta County Board of Supervisor is the most highest position in the county. You three actually ran for, for personal gain, Chris, you ran to protect Patrick and Patrick asked you to run so you could give him the vote he needs. Kevin Crye used God’s name in vain to deceive the people for his personal gain. Last year, the Cottonwood meeting, there was over 200 people. Doni Chamberlain, a woman who was actually assaulted in front of Kevin Crye and Chris, all they did is walk by when it was, when Mark Kent was actually assaulting Doni Chamberlain. He grabbed her by the lash and grabbed her like this and pinned her on the wall. He had her pinned. So this is the kind of public officials are actually setting a bad record for the county. These are not just public officials, these are corrupt officials who think they’re above the law. Now they have Richard Guerrero, their little buddy who’s all going out there in,  Leslie moms from liberty threatening another woman because she is running for school board. And that’s  Jessica who actually is running for school board and how dare you them intimidate, try to scare her to, to for her not to run. What is that your Republican people do? Oh yeah, that’s what you guys do. Richard actually threaten her by contacting her company and telling her that the company that they better reprimand her for whatever she did. And  he wants a letter to be sent to him because if he doesn’t get one, he’s gonna go go after their nonprofit organization. Chris actually, is he a public officials? Also, he said, Susan, her big ass giant ass word last night was there. Ben? He talked about Ben Ben, a a douche bag. I love to, I like nothing more than to beat his, his ass and take his lunch money. These are your public officials, your Republican people. How dare you? How dare you treat people like that? Do you guys think you’re above everybody intimidating? You suck. Patrick Jones, you suck and I can’t wait for you to be out of here because you are a terrible person. You are horrible. You’re the worst person. You’re a liar dictator and same thing with Kevin. Same thing with Chris. You are more disgusting because you follow him and you can –[cut off]

(2:59:13) Jeff Gorder:  Good afternoon, everyone.  I’m here to  support Patrick’s  Constitution Week proclamation. I’m glad you included the entire constitution this time rather than piecemeal it. I support it. It’s the supreme law of the land and it’s something that we should all have common ground with. I also believe that rather than just honoring it for a week, it should definitely have one more day and that day should be to honor it on January 6. Every, every year. They go together like baseball and bats and Patrick, let me ask you something. Doug LaMalfa was woken up 1709 days since January 6, 2020. And on each one of those, he chose not to carry out his duty expected of him at his oath. When he put his hand on the Bible and he raised the other one up in the air. He chose, he chose loyalty over fidelity. And I was wondering, and all of that time was there. Did you ever contact him and say Mr. LaMalfa, come on. This is the constitution and you have, you swore an oath, did you ever argue for the constitution about him doing his job? So, and people who won’t concede, they’ve lost. What’s up with that Trump? You, you didn’t vote to certify the last election in March. It’s like you take the ball when you’re lost and you go home and you say the game wasn’t fair and that I lost. There’s no constitution in that picture. You can’t be a constitutionalist just when you win. That’s absurd. So add January 6 Patrick, please. All of the board for all of us in Shasta County. Every single one to be reminded of that day of American shame. It was the constitution that all brought them to DC, to the Capitol on that day and reject Doug LaMalfa re-election. No matter what party you are in. He’s forfeited his privilege to serve. Vote for Rose Yee. She’ll honor her oath. Oh, yeah. One more thing yesterday, the election commission voted against the recommendation of county council to break the law and they, they to break the law and enact broad voter suppression in Shasta County. When Patrick, when are you going to tell everybody relentlessly that the board of supervisors, the ROV have no authority to change any voting law in California. None. You’re powerless and yet you allow this.

(3:02:48) Jenny O’Connell:  Good afternoon, beautiful supervisors and Patrick Jones. I am not representing myself today. I actually was asked by a friend who is very concerned about our homeless population to help speak and behalf of some of them, sorry to speak on behalf of some of the people that she helps.  I guess that she has an outreach where people clean up the area that they are living in and return for just like not being harassed. But I guess some people have been like beat up and hurt and she was just asking maybe for some help with that. It sounds like you already have a lot of stuff going with the At Home program. And I was hoping maybe at most she could, she could like you partner with you or join with because she knows a lot of people in the area that could use some help. So she gave me things to give you guys. Is that where I put it there? Ok. I’m sorry. I wish I knew more about it, but she’s kind of tough to follow, like, like I was trying to listen to what she wanted me to say. But I’m like, I’ll try really hard to represent you. But I don’t know, but I know that she works really hard with in homeless advocation and as you’re already doing the at home program, I was hoping that you might be willing to, to work with her.  I know that she’s willing to do partnerships and work with people who are already helping. It just would be kind, I guess to join together and humanitarian effort. She’ll be out of town for a couple weeks. But if you want like her number or anything, I can give it to you.

 (3:04:46) Ron Plumb:  What we have done is the citizens, concerned citizens have delivered declarations to Cathy Darling Allen, 125 declarations. She has not responded. And so there’s a letter that’s gonna go to the sheriff in regards to that.  There’s also both Mary Rickert and Tim Garman. You have already received over 100 declarations and we are also, we have  delivered over 100 to Joanna Francescut. So these are copies of those for the board, our government at all levels were always intended to be and remain governments of limited powers. All government powers are inherent in the individual and individuals as a group delegate some of these inherent powers to state and to local government, some of those powers are then delegated to the federal government. What is significant about the individual delegation of powers to federal state and local government is that the individual still maintains a share of the power that they’ve delegated to that government. Thus, the American Constitutional Republic is still guided by we the people. And going on the website, we see that there are the flow chart shows that the electorate has the authority over the board. You are given certain authorities to oversee budgets and, and employees and different things like that. But you know, it was even pointed out by Mary not long ago at the other at the SCRA meeting, I believe that said we don’t have direct authority over some of these people. We don’t have direct authority over the ROV. And so the key to we, the people remaining their shares and the delegated powers that those in government exercise those powers must understand they exercise any power on behalf of we the people and be above reproach in administering their delegated powers fairly and even handedly. Thus, this explicitly, this is especially true.

(3:08:04) Burke: Before I start, can I ask the board? Are we still on two minutes or are we on three, 2, 3,3? Ok.  The significance of America being a constitutional republic is that the constitution is the supreme law of this land. Any purported law, statute code regulation rule or policy made consistently with the enumerated powers of the constitution are presumed valid. In contrast, any purported law statute code regulation rule mandate or policy which opposes and or violates the constitution in any way whatsoever is unlawful, null and void. No bureaucrat politician or person acting in an official governmental capacity has any legal authority to restrict the constitutional rights of any law abiding citizen nor to alter the count of citizens’ votes. Also foundational to our constitutional republic is that the process of voting must be free, fair and accurate. The 2020 presidential election and all elections since then were touted as govern by government at all levels as free, fair and  lost my place here,  free fair and the most secure elections in history. Since then, the evidence has come out that these elections were not free nor fair nor secure. For example, every county registrar in every county in the country represented that the voting machines were not connected to the internet. Since then, it has been universally admitted that the voting machines were connected to the internet either by cable or by Wi Fi. While counties maintain a log of those who physically access the individual machines in person. There is no record of unauthorized access of the machines using Wi Fi during nonbusiness hours nor while actually counting votes. Ladies and gentle[cut off]

(3:10:37) Jim Burnett: Thank you for the reasons set forth herein and based on published news from many sources. Oh, excuse me, I read started with the wrong page. Take two since before the November 2020 elections. Registrars of voters in each county nationwide represented that voting machines could not be and were not hacked. Does, did you or the registrar of voters ever make such a representation to anyone at any time? Are you aware that in the federal district court in Georgia There is a case named Curling versus Raffensperger. Brad Raffensperger is the Secretary of State for Georgia. Are you aware that during the trial in the above named case, University of Michigan. Professor Doctor Halderman was able to, to hack an electronic voting machine with only a ballpoint pin and card and alter the vote totals in open court as the judge watched. Are you aware that the software hacked by Dr Halderman is the same type of voting software used in this county? Georgia Secretary of State Raffensperger has jointly met with California Secretary of State Shirley Webber and registrars of voters from all California counties. Are there any memos and emails that refer to this meeting that was mentioned above? What was discussed? What if anything was decided? And were any tasks assigned? Are you willing to disclose any such memos and emails by this demand for information without a court order? Are you aware that that in federal and state laws, there is something called racketeering influence, corrupt organizations better known as Rico. Are you aware that the voters in this county general and me specifically have been damaged by the collusion between Mr. Raffensperger, California Secretary of State Webber, and one or more registrars of voters concerning what we now know as a false narrative of the alleged integrity of elections from November 2020 to present day for the reasons set forth herein. And based on published news from many sources, I believe I have clearly demonstrated how my rights have been violated by your office and possibly you yourself. Such action has violated the federal and state constitutions and oath of office. You and every member of your office has taken. Your actions have set forth herein, have acted against the public good by violating the public trust and warring against the constitution to continue violating the constitutionally guaranteed rights of each member of the public without their knowledge and informed consent is truly outside the boundaries of our national and state constitutional law. The same can be said of not counting or changing the citizens votes and, or changing the aggregate votes that the citizens voted for the damages claimed here and are an unlimited civil case. If a lawsuit were instituted, RICO Laws says individuals who conspire to abridge on others rights can be personally liable to pay that [cut off]

(3:13:50) Patty Plumb:  I’m speaking with Patty Plumb as a citizen of Shasta County today and a constituent of Mary Rickert of course, for 56 more days, maybe four months. But I as a disclaimer, I want to say I’m not representing the election commission today, so I am representing a person that can’t be here today and this is a letter that she wrote to our Sheriff Johnson. A request for criminal investigation of Cathy Darling Allen. Dear Sheriff Johnson. My name is Bev Gray. I am a citizen elector who resides at in Redding in district four and close. Please find 125 declarations served on Cathy Darling Allen Shasta County ROV because of her constitutional actions which may also constitute a crime writing on behalf of all those who have submitted the attached declarations incorporated by reference as though fully set herein we are asking you to initiate a criminal investigation and to the above named person the following crimes. And the sheriff did issue a case number. It’s S CSO 246-034515. The complaint, one is perjury of oath of office. Every official must take an oath prior to starting their duties. Article four, the oath of office of 1360. The consequences for perjury of violating that oath of 1368. Every person who while taking and subscribing to the oath or affirmation required by this chapter states as true, any material matter which she knows to be false is guilty of perjury and is punishable by imprisonment pursuant to subdivision H section 1170 of the penal code 23 for 23 or four years complaint two, Cathy Darling Allen was given 10 days to respond to these charges and fail to do so. Ignoring her constitutions is morally wrong added to that in us versus 12 5 52 D 297. Silence can only be equated with fraud where there is a legal or moral duty to speak or where in inquiry left unanswered would be intentionally misleading. And as a tacit agreement complaint, three C 125 citizens signed declarations asking seven specific questions. These questions were simple requiring a yes or no  answer. For example, every county registrar in every county in the country represented that the voting machines were not connected to the internet since then. It’s been universally admitted that the voting machines were connected and to the internet either by cable or by wi fi. While counties maintain logs, we’d asked for you to review this declaration which prior Jim mentioned, those declarations were given to Tim Mary and Joanna. We believe these actions constitute not only crimes to violate their oath of office uphold to the federal and state constitutions. I just want to say thank you so much. We are making such progress with what we’re discovering. And I believe as a team, you folks are doing a great job along with the counsel that we received and how to guide us through this path.

(3:17:24) Tim Saunders: Ok, good afternoon, Tim Saunders District one. I am going to  finish off  what Rick Hutchinson was reading earlier for starters. And so  you may recall earlier, he was talking about  some problems in the State of California. So I’m just gonna continue that.  So here we go.  Whereas the constitution’s  first three words, we the people affirm that the government of the United States exists by the consent of the people to serve its citizens, the government of California, the current socialist governor and mono party system, along with the local officials are following a coordinated design with the intent to actively engage in acts of insurrection against the United States Constitution. And the compact for statehood entered into September 9, 1850. Whereas an unconstitutional administrative state now exists in California in direct violation of the September 9, 1850 compact with these United States of America, the State of California, no longer functions as a Republican form of government. No longer provides freedom from invasion nor freedom from domestic violence. Be it resolved the state of California is not the property, not the administrative state, not the province of any theocratic ruler, nor any monarch nor foreign entity or government but is a state in the United States of America. Be it further resolved the reorganized State of California shall honor the statehood compact of 1850. The Constitution of the United States of America as the supreme law of the land and shall honor articles 4,5 and 6 that embody the concepts of federalism, describe the rights and responsibilities of state governments and the states in relationship to the federal government. Therefore, be resolved or reorganized restorative government of California. Consistent with the compact of 1850 with the Congress of the United States has been established, which is a Republican form of government with an executive branch, judicial branch and bicameral legislative branch that happened on July 27 of 2024. Just like you’d like to know for my last 15 seconds as a reminder to the board and to the people. Uh, if you spill water on me, I will not be calling the D A. Have a nice day.

(3:20:12) Laura Hobbs: There’s some very important changes we can make right now. There’s a lot of recommendations that have come forth through the elections commission that are just sitting on the shelf, gathering dust. We need to start doing something about that now, before the election, not after when it’s too late. One of the things we can do right now is to get to end the knowing contract, which is the, the electronic pad contract. You have to give them 30 days notice but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if we just stop using it immediately. That’s something within your power and jurisdiction to do. Um, the reason why we don’t want those electronic pull pads is because they can communicate in real time,  with NGOs and other interested parties who are able to purchase the information, who has voted and who has not voted. This is one of the ways in which they perfect the cheat at the last minute, they can make last minute alterations. The public does not trust these machines, they don’t want to see them there. They know the capability to connect with the internet and they do not trust that.  If you want to restore trust and transparency, you need to get rid of those machines before the election before  it’s too late. I’d also like to mention that there are state laws, election laws 14 298 that requires each precinct to maintain one printed copy of the voter list during the whole time of voting.  Election law 14 202 requires one printed copy of the voter list at each voting location with easy access to the public.  Election law 14 297 requires a poll worker to update the voter list once a voter has turned in a ballot. This is, this is election law. And what I’m being told is that there will be no paper poll books at the precincts. This would be a violation of California election law. I do not want to see this election go forth with planned violations to California election law. That’s not right. What I’ve been told is that the new ROV does not plan on providing paper poll books. That would be a mistake.  And also, I’d just like to mention that you also have the authority to appoint election judges. I’d like to speak in support of that.  This would go a long ways to increase confidence in our elections. And then lastly, I’d like to make a comment, which is that somebody who witnessed elect election fraud in March was actually denied the ability to be a poll worker. And I think that’s a really big problem. Someone who is willing to speak up and put their name down shouldn’t be basically threatened with the, the inability to participate in our civic process of elections for speaking up against election fraud.

(3:23:21) Susan:  I’ve come to you before to ask you to make a decision about this election committee.  What can you do? What are you willing to do? These people need to hear what you’re willing to do about this? I mean, they bring you all this research, they’ve done all this work. They come and talk to you every week and it just goes on and on and on. Now. They said yesterday they have recommendations to bring to you. Where are they? And are you going to accept them? I mean, they’re gonna get frustrated because they’ve been trying to speak to you if you have any power at all in this, please let them know. Now, the next thing I wanna talk about is Dr. Mu and his contract. He is making right now $18,000 18,522 dollars a month. His contract started in October. He said he’d be ready to come on board in April. Then he said at a meeting a couple of months ago, he’d be ready to come on board in September. I called two months ago, I came and talked to you about this twice. Now, his office, he was still managing his office. He wasn’t seeing patients but he w he was still seeing his patients. And to me and I tried to call yesterday to get a hold of him and I, I took a lot of getting through a lot of people. What do you want to talk to him about? What do you wanna say? Well, what are you curious about? I said I wanna talk to him. Well, he doesn’t have regular hours. I said he are there any hours where I can reach him? No. So I know Kevin, you’re really concerned about accountability and money and how it’s spent. You talk about that all the time. So for someone who’s making this kind of salary and keeping two jobs unless I’m wrong, correct me, this is something that needs serious attention because that’s a lot of money per year with, with added benefits. It says on your website, that’s just not all. So I hope you will look into this, all of you because you do care about where our money is spent. And this is, I think the contract is, needs to be reinvestigated. I also want to point out to the public that I’m reading a book called Chaos Comes Calling. It’s a, it’s a book about our county government and in school in Washington, Callum County in Washington and how they suffered from  culture wars, serious culture wars over  the Black Lives Matters Movement, the fear that came out of that and then COVID and the fear that came the same things we’ve gone through. They compare the two counties and I haven’t gotten to the end of it. I don’t know how they came out of it, but I’d suggest that anybody that lives in Shasta County get this book. It’s on Amazon. Chaos Comes Calling.

(3:26:156) Kim Moore: I’m here to talk to you today. I’d given you each copies and the page that the ones that I’m gonna be reading from the section DMHSA  document used to obtain federal funding to build the woodlands. We’re gonna be looking at the one that was just two pages pages um 17 and 18. And before I start speaking on this, I want to make it clear, Laura Burch had nothing to do with this. There isn’t a single person in this room outside of Miss Rickert, Mary Rickert, who had anything to do with what I’m about to talk to you about. So in the section number nine, the fourth sentence from the bottom, the personal service coordinator is the main person of contact for the property manager in resolving personal or landlord tenant issues or concerns. And it goes on to say, should any conflicting needs or desires of both the landlord and MHSA tenant arise that the personal services coordinator cannot resolve MHSA housing program staff with the assistance from the program coordinator, supervisor will attempt to resolve the issue. One of the things when I was printing up these copy for each of you, I was printing seven copies of a 21 P or 20 page document so that each of you could have a copy. And in the process, when I went to M to Tab Mark, where I was gonna be referring to, I figured out that the contract had been changed and there’s the problem, Mary, MHSA went to the Feds about two years into the Woodlands because of the bitching and complaining that I was doing and they wanted to change the contract. This was a document used to obtain millions of dollars to build the Woodlands. The federal government told Shasta County, no, you cannot change the wording of the contract. It was today, Stephanie want to fix that the microphone. They changed the wording, they changed the wording in the contract. And the reason that I know it is because when I printed out my copy of the section D which was in 2017, in this folder tabbed and indexed, it’s different than what it is now, Mr. Lamour, here’s year two, I have seven of these folders, they are tabbed, they are indexed and if there’s an attorney out there anywhere that wants to take a look at this, I’ll be happy to draw up a timeline, but I’m done. Jeff Duna of NVCSS went into another MHS, a tenant’s apartment last week and psychologically terrorized that guy against what stated he’s allowed to do on page 17 of the original section D guidelines, the instructions, this can’t happen. I can handle the broken gates, the gates not being open, I can handle exposed electrical wires [cut off, still yelling].

(3:29:24) Supervisor Crye: Kim. Ok. Ok. Ok. Ok. Ok. Ok. Do me a favor. Do me a favor. Take a seat with all the stuff that’s tabbed and I’ll talk to you after you, Nick Gardner followed by Larry S followed by Benjamin,

(3:29:52) Nick Gardner:  Well, kind of a hard act to follow, but I’ll try you, you, you’ve got to laugh at Mary about three months ago. She was up here pissing and moaning because she had too many committee assignments. Remember, I think she had asked for about 18 and it wasn’t fair because Jonesy and Kev, Chris Kelstrom and, Kevin only had 10 or 12 and it just wasn’t fair. And now she’s insisting on getting on another committee that’s just gonna be too much work for poor old Mary. Mary. Maybe you ought to run for a 3rd and 4th term at the same time. So you can get on more committees. [Supervisor Crye: Hey, not from the crowd.] So, and Max, he, he’s so concerned about constitutional rights in January 6. Uh, where’s the right to those people to have a speedy trial? It’s been 3.5 years and it hasn’t come up. So, anyway, enough of that I was serious,  I think it’s about a month ago that I suggested we have a special election to put charter County amendments on and I hope you guys will give that some serious consideration. We, we, we can afford to have a special election in a year and we can get together some really good  amendments to our charter that I think would benefit the county. And I was talking to a supervisor within the last week and come to find out, Kevin Crye could serve as chair again. So I’d like to nominate him to  be chair.  this next coming  session, this next year, Kevin saved us a ton of money and just for an example, he saved us $266,000 a year. The basic and it’s not just Kevin, it’s, it’s the board here. It takes 3 $266,000 a year by being the swing vote on the Dominion machine. And then we didn’t have to pay for the Hart machines because Kevin put on that trailer that that money that we got from Zuckerberg couldn’t be used anything but  a building come to find out  that was stuck around behind everybody’s back and, and was worded differently than it was meant to be, but at the same time that paid for the Hart machines. So, in essence, our, our elections as corrupt as they are, are free now. So maybe we could get Christian there to do some counting. Can you count Christian? What, what’s 200? [Supervisor Crye: Please? Please direct your comments straight to the board.] Ok. I’m sorry, I just got carried away. I don’t know what’s the matter anyway, earlier when you  were talking about the rehabbing people, I think it was R3 or R4. Somebody mentioned it takes 11 rehabs to get sober boy, that’s costing us a lot of money.

(3:32:54) Larry S.: So much to talk about so much to see that goes on here at this board of supervisors meeting. I try and take notes to keep me on track about what I talk about and then I end up throwing those out because somebody else has something more interesting when I hear the word or the man’s name. Er, Anselmo, it reminds me of a hotshot billionaire who thought he could gain the permit system in Shasta County and be above the law in terms of doing construction on his property without the proper permitting process. Then I think about all the money that reverse ensemble has given Patrick Jones that has helped him try and go around the permitting process and avoid a full environmental impact report for his gun range. Yeah, that’s true. You got a partial impact report. You haven’t done a full environmental impact report, which is why you’re in court right now and you do it. Ok. I’ve always believed that America was a pretty grand experiment and it worked pretty well. I’ve also believed that our elections work pretty well. They’re free and they’re fair. The elections in Shasta County are free and fair. I see no court ruling so far that proves different. I hear documents certificates this and that all this started because Donald Trump wanted to stop the steal and now we have a stop to steal in Shasta County. Well, it should stop now because Donald Trump just admitted the other day that he lost the election. I don’t know how I lost it but I lost it to Joe Biden. Nick Fuente is our favorite little American Nazi.

(3:35:04) Benjamin Nowain: Today, I’d like to address the state of our county government.  We’re seeing a troubling divide between those who strive for ethical transparent governance and those who are concerned with their personal agendas more than the real service to their community. It’s incredibly unethical to appoint Wyatt Paxton into the resource management department. Given his past employment for Reverge Anselmo, a man with a well known long standing grudge against the department. Let’s not forget, Reverge has funded most of the people sitting on this board. Most notably Patrick Jones. His influence is clear, it’s not even, it’s even documented in the Red, White and Blueprint.  Reverge himself said, get rid of the resource management which has no resources. Kevin I warned you during your campaign that Reverge was buying Shasta County if you don’t see it. Now, I don’t know what else to say. Let’s pull back the curtain for a moment and I’ll show you the game. Kevin Crye’s working with Corky Harmon to help get him elected. But Kevin’s quite unpopular with the people in Fall River in the Burney area. So Corky has now decided to distance himself. So now Kevin’s on a publicity tour to try and improve his image and how is he doing it by doing things like taking issues that Mary Rickert’s been championing for years, an issue she’s been at the forefront of. So I’d encourage anyone here to watch the prior meetings and see for themselves. Mary has been leading the charge on the drawback epidemic from the beginning. If Kevin Crye truly cared about our community, he would have voted for Mary Rickert to be on that community that committee handing the handling the opioid addiction fund. Mary’s experience and knowledge would be invaluable and for someone like Mary who may not be re-elected? Wouldn’t it make sense to put her on a committee and absorb as much wisdom as possible to serve your community better? But instead, Kevin, you consistently missed the opportunity to unify us. Every time you’re given the chance to do something meaningful. You choose pettiness, abuse and cronyism, your mentor did you no favors in teaching you how to govern. I fear you learned all the wrong lessons. You seem to be driven by a need to be seen as the hero. But in the quest for your image, you turn important community issues into political theater while claiming you’re doing the opposite as we approach the election season. I urge the community to reflect on the motivations behind these decisions. It’s not just about what our leaders do but why they do it. I used to believe that county government had our backs, but now I’m not so sure. It’s time we demand better. And that starts with holding our leaders accountable.

(3:37:30) Supervisor Crye: Yeah, it’s, I will clarify something. I was asked to speak in Fall River and Burney in the next two weeks. So be looking for that public announcement.  I wasn’t… and, and just to get all the other communities out there,  Shingletown has invited me to come up because I made a reached out to all the communities and said, hey, as, as chair,  if there’s anything I can ever do in your communities. So some are starting to take me up on it. And so Shingletown, Burney and Fall River are all on the list.

Supervisor Rickert:  I was told by the fair management that, that you, you tried to have a state of the county and they were not interested. So it’s not, there’s a select few, I’m sure that will listen to you, but it’s not the entire valley.

Supervisor Crye: Oh, no. Yeah. What, what we did on that is we offered if they wanted to do something at the Inter-Mountain Fair and they said they wanted to not have politics up at that point. So, but that’s great in supervisor record. I’ll invite you absolutely to come out because Supervisor Kelstrom is going with me in Shingletown. So when we do these, these, these aren’t about anything. I just, there’s just some people that come up with their false narratives and their  theatrical inflection of voice that just grind at me. So M Burch, thank you for, for waiting. I appreciate it.

 

(3:38:50) Laura Burch: Laura Burch, Agency Director for Health and Human Services and employee of Shasta County for over eight years with a combined service to local government of 19 years as a county employee, I’ve always been guided by the principles of integrity, honesty, efficiency, resolution, and health and human Services and employee of Shasta County for over eight years with a combined service to local government of 19 years as a county employee, I’ve always been guided by the principles of integrity, honesty, efficiency, resolution,  and transparency. My commitment has been to serve my community and ensure that our services meet the highest standards. Over the past 2.5 years in HHSA, I’ve worked diligently with some great leaders and supportive staff to identify areas for improvement and have collaborated closely with county leadership at all levels. My focus has always been on fiscal responsibility and maintaining the integrity of our work without political affiliation or bias. I am dedicated solely to the individuals who rely on our services to our employees and to the public who expect accountability. It is important to note that my responsibilities include many confidential matters which I am unable to discuss publicly. This limitation can make it challenging to address misinformation presented in the public domain. Despite the challenges we encounter as an agency, both my team and I are dedicated to serving the community and supporting our many employees in this climate of heightened division and animosity. I choose not to be distracted or engage in any form of partisanship or personal conflict. We have very important work to do. My focus will remain on fulfilling my duties, supporting our staff and maintaining the integrity of the work we do. Thank you for your continued support and a special thanks to the many current and former employees who have reached out in support. Thank you, CAO for addressing the unhelpful dialogue, Supervisor Garman for your support and Supervisors Jones and Crye for your phone calls. Thank you.

(3:41:06) Randy: I want to speak about election integrity. You know, the last time I was here some months back I asked how many  cases of voter fraud have been identified, confirmed in Shasta County? And, I didn’t get an answer.  You know I called the Secretary of State, I called  our elections board, same result. They couldn’t give me an answer. I went to the election commission yesterday and asked them the same question, you know, how many fraudulent votes of voter fraud have been confirmed in our county and same thing? No, no, you know, not, no answer. I can only surmise that there have been none, you know, I mean, if you had that evidence of voter fraud, why would we all not see it?  Even if it’s one but, but nothing. And and instead there’s person after person that comes up here with stories of  conspiracies and and documents proven this and that. I mean, the conspiracies go from Redding, clear to China and back to Redding. And  apparently, you know, those, those voices gain traction in here but still how many  cases of voter fraud have been found in this county. Can anybody tell me that? Uh, you know, and so, and so all these stories that are coming up here,  with,  you know, documents printed off the internet or whatever it is, you know, you’re taking that information the way I’m looking at it and you’re taking it serious and you’re designing county policy based on unverified conspiracy,  talk and you’re avoiding the most crucial bit of information. How many fraudulent votes have we found in Shasta County? Any you know, it’s, something that everybody in the county should know. I think that the local news should have their camera on right now because I think the people in Shasta County deserve to know how many fraudulent votes have been found in Shasta County with all the money and attention that has been spent on election fraud. Do we not have that answer? You know,  like half a neighborhood could be convinced that one of the guys is running a criminal enterprise. They can go to the police and say, hey, arrest that guy. The cops are gonna go. Where’s your evidence? We’ll break down the door. The evidence is in the house. That’s not the way it works in America. You know, it’s not the way it’s supposed to.

(3:44:40) Christian:  I wanted to speak about the resolution passed in January that authorized the concealed carry of weapons on county property. When that resolution was passed I must have been under the misconception that carriers would not be able to carry until certain conditions were met. For example, CEO Rickert supposedly emailed the Record Searchlight on January 31 indicating that staff needed to be trained and security personnel needed to be trained before that policy was implemented. And then there was a February 1 press release that was issued by the county that said permitted  firearms would only be allowed within designated common areas on county property end quote and that quote, the designated areas will be clearly identified by public notice signage end quote, and that the county needed to engage in staff and security personnel training before the policy would be implemented. In April, the board approved an RFP for a consultant to create an implementation plan for the resolution including but not limited to safety, legal sufficiency and compliance with the policy. In the board report, the County Counsel interim at that time said that all of this was necessary to limit the liability of the county in case obviously in case a shooting occurred because the cost of hiring a consultant will far outweigh the potential liability that will result if the program is not implemented. Well, end quote. Now that RFP has never been posted. So, I mean, we know there’s no safety plan in place. We know that there are no signs presented in any location on the county where it states that concealed weapons will be carried. And then last, the last meeting,  Jonesy seemed to say that all those were quote misconceptions and that everybody with a CCW permit could now carry in county buildings. Correct me if I’m wrong. But that, that’s what you were saying. Is that not true? Yes. Um, so apparently that’s the policy of the board and I’d like the public and the county employees to know that, you know, all that stuff about concern about your safety and, and ensuring that this was implemented properly. That was all just a bunch of baloney. They don’t care about your safety. Jones doesn’t, Crye apparently doesn’t. Kelstrom doesn’t,  the only people that do are, are Tim and Mary. So, you know, you guys, this is the worst policy that’s ever been conceived and implemented. I mean, Jonesy is saying, yeah, that’s it now, despite the fact that all this effort you are going to put in to make sure it was safe and everybody was notified has never been done, and bear in mind, te attorney general said, no guns on county elections buildings. So Jonesy, you’ve got to create an exception, at least for that.

(3:47:44) Supervisor Jones:  So once again, mister he is, does not understand. So you have two issues there. County employees are different than members of the public. County employees,  the policies that we stated were for county employees and training will eventually come and when that training comes, if a employee wishes to carry on county property, they will get, they’ll have to get permission from the CEO and their department head. And so that’s separate than members of the public. Right now, members of the public that is any California resident with a California concealed weapon permit can carry on Shasta County property in the open areas that are available to the public. That is the policy, that is the resolution that we passed and that is penal code section 171 B subsection four. You should look it up. Thank you.

[Loud voices from audience] 

Supervisor Crye: So, so, hey, hey, hey, hey, it’s not, hey, put a, put a, put a card, put in a card, put in a card and speak on it next time. Appreciate you screaming out from the back as you often do. All right. Moving on to, uh, the consent calendar C nine

(3:49:38) 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.

C9 was pulled by Supervisor Crye. The remainder of the Consent Calendar was approved by unanimous vote.

Auditor-Controller

C1 Adopt a resolution which approves the Fiscal Year 2024-25 Countywide Tax Rate, Unitary Debt Service Rate, and the tax rates for bond sinking funds, voter-approved debt, and tax overrides.
General Fund Impact
Simple Majority Vote

Clerk of the Board

C2 Adopt a proclamation which designates September 17-23, 2024, as “Constitution Week” in Shasta County (Sponsored by Supervisor Jones).
No Additional General Fund Impact
Simple Majority Vote

Health and Human Services Agency-Administration

C3 Approve a Relief of Accountability for the unreconciled balance of $2,030.61 in the Social Services prepaid postage account.
No General Fund Impact
4/5 Vote

C4 Take the following actions: (1) Approve a retroactive agreement, for the service period January 1, 2023, through December 31, 2023 (CY 2023), with the California Department of Health Care Services (Agreement) for the transfer of Intergovernmental Transfer (IGT) revenue in an amount not to exceed $9,869,096; and (2) designate authority to the Health and Human Services Agency Director, or their designee, to execute documents related to the Agreement through 2027.
No General Fund Impact
Simple Majority Vote

C5 Approve an agreement with California Department of Health Care Services (Agreement) for ensuring the privacy and security of Medi-Cal Personally Identifiable Information when determining Medi-Cal eligibility and designate authority to the Health and Human Services Agency Director, or their designee, to execute documents related to the Agreement.
No General Fund Impact
Simple Majority Vote

C6 Approve a budget amendment which increases appropriations and revenue by $3,636,270 in the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Admin/Rehab Budget (BU 596).
No General Fund Impact
4/5 Vote

Health and Human Services Agency-Behavioral Health and Social Services

C7 Approve a retroactive amendment to the agreement with Hill Country Community Clinic for outpatient mental health treatment services which modifies the terms.
No General Fund Impact
Simple Majority Vote

C8 Approve an agreement with A&A Health Services, LLC, for adult residential care facility services.
No General Fund Impact
Simple Majority Vote

C9 Approve a retroactive renewal agreement with Shasta County Office of Education (SCOE) in the amount of $253,861.50 for the Community Connect Program to aid in the reduction and prevention of Adverse Childhood Experiences and designate signing authority to the CEO, or their designee, for budgetary amendments.
No General Fund Impact
Simple Majority Vote

Health and Human Services Agency-Public Health

C10 Approve a retroactive renewal agreement with Hologic Sales and Service, LLC (Agreement), for equipment lease and reagent purchases and designate authority to the Health and Human Services Agency Director, or their designee, to execute documents related to the Agreement.
No General Fund Impact
Simple Majority Vote

Public Works

C11 Find the “Shasta County Anderson Veterans Memorial Hall HVAC Replacement Project,” Contract No. 610984, categorically exempt in conformance with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Section 15301, Class I – Existing Facilities and Section 15302, Class II – Replacement or Reconstruction, approve plans and specifications and direct the Public Works Director to advertise for bids, and authorize the opening of bids on or after October 17, 2024, at 11:00 a.m.
No Additional General Fund Impact
Simple Majority Vote

C12 Waive competitive procurement requirements due to limitations on the source of supply and authorize the purchase of one Ford transit conversion van from Crown Motors.
No Additional General Fund Impact
Simple Majority Vote

C13 Approve a retroactive amendment to the agreement with Stantec Consulting Services for environmental services for the “2017 Storm Damage Projects,” Contract No. 706775, which modifies terms and designates authority to the Public Works Director to approve future amendments.
No General Fund Impact
Simple Majority Vote

Resource Management

C14 Adopt a resolution which: (1) Ratifies Shasta County’s application to the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery for Household Hazardous Waste Grant Program (HD43) (Program) funds; (2) finds that the Program is not subject to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) pursuant to State CEQA Guidelines section 15060(c)(2); (3) designates authority to the Director of Resource Management, or their designee, to accept Program funds and execute all grant-related documents; and (4) authorizes expenditures for the operation and completion of the Program through February 29, 2028.
No Additional General Fund Impact
Simple Majority Vote

Support Services

C15 Take the following actions: (1) Adopt a salary resolution, effective September 22, 2024, which amends the Shasta County Classification Specifications, Salary Schedule, and Position Allocation List which adds 1.0 FTE Agency Staff Services Analyst I/II and 1.0 FTE Clinical Program Coordinator to the Shasta County Jail Budget (BU 260); (2) approve classification specification revisions to the Clinical Program Coordinator position; and (3) adopt a resolution which amends the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the General Teamsters Local #137 – Supervisory Unit Article 9 – Wages to add a stipend to the Clinical Program Coordinator position.
Future General Fund Impact
Simple Majority Vote

(3:49:51) Supervisor Crye: We’ll go back to C9, I pulled this, this is something we talked about  last week. Um Some of the information when I pulled it, some of the information I believe has been worked on. If you look at  in the contract where it says  in the staff report where it, where it says the designate signing authority to the CEO or their designee for budgetary amendments, which are one in excess of 10% of the total budget category and two across existing budget categories and do not make a substantial or functional change, the original intent of the agreement or cause an increase to the maximum amount payable under this agreement and otherwise comply with administrative policy 6-101. And that’s our contracts manual. But if you and that’s in one page 141 if you skip down um the language uh further down says this agreement would be, would authorize the HS A director. So that, that’s conflicting. Uh MS Blankenship isn’t here. She said that was gonna be stated at the beginning. I don’t remember her saying that CEO Rickert do you or Kristen or Valerie have any update on that? So I just want to make sure that that’s very, we’re very clear in that, in that language that, that, that who’s getting that? And I did I have in the contract, I just want to make sure that are we given that signing authority to the CEO or the HHSA director?

CEO Rickert: It’s a contract. It, it should be CEO.

Supervisor Crye: CEO and, and that, and that’s, and that’s reflected in the contract. That would be Bailey. You nodding? Yes. Yes. OK. My, my other question in this  I have had pretty at length conversations with April and I believe it’s Wendy at SCOE.  I would like to know form -and maybe this is  and who is  Laura, who is the lead person  for this item  in your office or within HHSA?

Tara Shanahan: It’s, yeah, it’s, it’s me Tara Shanahan after  well, Laura is out of the office.

Supervisor Crye: OK. Can, can you, can you come on up for a second? And actually  with my meeting with them, it’s actually and SCOE, he’s been  SCOE, he’s been great at some of the conversations about partnership and, and programming. Is there something  And I, I guess this is a question for uh CEO  Rickert or Laura Birch because I can’t, Stefany Blankenship just messaged me through teams and said that, yeah, that, that correction was made. So,  I would like, I would like county staff to accompany me to SCOE to have the next meeting. So how would I, how would I do that to make sure there’s so much money going through and, and, and I’ll tell you, Austin Preller who’s the associate superintendent, the second in command over there has been phenomenal to work with and he’s thanked me for bringing some of this stuff up as the jurisdictions work as close together as possible for great outcomes. So how, how, how would I do that? So I would like to ask you guys to come with me to that, but I can’t direct it. So Laura help me out on that because, because I’m very adamant about this, I mean, it’s a, it’s a retroactive contract. We’re already a couple of months in. I want to move this along, but I need some assurances with some of the stuff that we’re doing with it.

Laura Burch: So, am I correct that you’re asking for us to go to SCOE with you?

Supervisor Crye: They can come to make them.

It was agreed that C9 would be approved and that Supervisor Crye would have a meeting next week with SCOE staff.

There were two public comments on C9.

(3:54:51) Benjamin Nowain: Well, at the last meeting I am, I was disheartened when I heard Supervisor Kevin Crye essentially made a unilateral decision to cut funding for this program mid year. While I understand this is a retroactive contract. It’s critical to remember that the program is ongoing and services it provides are invaluable to the families who rely on them. The community connect program serves a vital role in supporting Children and families facing adverse childhood experiences. ACEs, these services are crucial to promoting long term well being and continuity is key for children utilizing these resources. Disrupting this program midyear doesn’t just affect funding. It disrupts the lives of the children and families who rely on them abruptly cutting or limiting funding forces families to seek alternative services before the program has had a chance to complete its work. It creates instability in a time when these families need continuity the most. If we are serious about addressing ACEs, we should provide consistent support and allow the program to run its course while carefully considering long term changes for the future. Furthermore, I have deep concerns about external political influences on these programs. Like those from Mothers for Liberty, a group identified by the Sovereign Poverty Law Center as a hate group, their core message while claiming to advocate for parents’ rights effectively diminishes protections for children, especially those who are most vulnerable. The influence of such ideologies on decisions that impacts their children’s well being is troubling. Our children should not be caught up in political crossfires and it is our duty to protect the right to safe supportive environments, defunding programs that serve children for the sake of political ideology rather than truly focusing on helping families is not only harmful but irresponsible. If we want to make changes to programs like the community connect I urge this board to create a community driven committee that includes diverse perspectives, which it sounds like that’s the direction we’re heading. So,  let’s ensure that any of our changes we make are reflective of what our community as a whole wants and not just the ideas of a select few. Thank

Supervisor Crye: That was, that was riddled with falsity.

(3:57:09) Jenny O’Connell:  I was not here for the last vote, so I didn’t really get to hear everything that the funding will be going to. I was curious how this will be working. It sounds like you’re gonna be pretty transparent about how it’s going, which is helpful. I just would like to know like, is, are you just adding to an already existing program for ACEs or is it being completely revamped? I was just sort of curious how this is going because I once again was sort of doing something else at the time. So I didn’t really get to hear the arguments very well. I because it’s, it’s a really important our ACEs scores are extremely high and as somebody who’s worked with a very underprivileged population and children, I know that as a teacher is very well trained in how to deal with children and abuse and neglect and how to reunite children who have been foster children and are reuniting with their biological parents. And there’s a lot of training that goes on and a lot of this is through the programs that appears to be what you’re cutting from. But it doesn’t sound like you’re just cutting it, it sounds like you’re replacing things or adding things in. And so I, I just was just asking how this will work because it’s like, like I said, I, I mean, I was like getting pumped full of medication last week when you were doing this. So I don’t really know. I’m like trying to catch up, but I’m not fully understanding, I’d like to, if you wanna like have a conversation with me, I’m totally cool with that. I just would like to know how this is going because it’s a vital, vital importance to make sure that our underprivileged population is treated with the most respect and care possible.

A board discussion followed about legal language in contracts.

(4:09:42) ADJOURN

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