District 1 Supervisor Kevin Crye.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is no way to run a county. Your trusty correspondent is still recovering from Tuesday’s 13-hour meeting of the Shasta County Board of Supervisors and he does not hesitate to lay blame for this lengthy affair at the feet of District 1 Supervisor Kevin Crye, who as board chair was responsible for this nightmare train wreck of an agenda.
The agenda itself was a healthy 15 pages, with 16 items on the regular calendar and 26 consent calendar items, released at the last possible minute last Friday. Any sane board chair would have spread it out over three meetings.
The accompanying agenda packet was 1147 pages and the transcript for the 13 hour meeting (there was an hour-and-a-half lunch break) runs an astounding 251 pages, half a Russian novel.
It’s far too much for the average normal dude to consume in one sitting. Fortunately I am a trained professional, and the painful images of Tuesday’s marathon meeting have been permanently burned onto my retinas.
Let’s start with Crye himself, who among our local politicos seems to be the one most hell-bent on gaining recognition from and perhaps even a position with the Trump 2.0 administration.
To that end Crye offered up R5, a letter to be sent to Trump and Gov. Gavin Newsom requesting a change in voting regulations. Imagine Crye trembling with anticipation like a dizzy fanboy as he penned this paragraph:
“Dear President Trump:
On behalf of the Shasta County Board of Supervisors, I am writing to share the attached letter our Board of Supervisors is sending to California Governor Gavin Newsom. The letter expresses the County’s request to make voter identification a requirement for California citizens to vote, as well as to support legislation that eliminates same-day voter registration in California and discontinues the use of 100% mail-in ballots by returning to absentee ballots only.”
The board disappointingly voted 4-1 to send the letters to Trump and Newsom. Supervisor Allen Long cast the lone dissenting vote.
Crye is following the lead of Huntington Beach City Attorney Michael Gates, who was recently appointed to Trump’s Justice Department as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division.
Huntington Beach City, once known as “Surf City,” has become Orange County’s soft chewy racist core during the MAGA era. Last year, voters of this beachside charter city passed a voter ID ordinance that, similar to the Shasta County board’s efforts to install hand-counting paper ballots two years ago, was turned back by both the State Attorney General and the Legislature.
In fact, the California Court of Appeals revived the challenge to HBC’s voter ID law on Monday. But Crye is incapable of reading the writing on the wall. He’s too busy feathering his own nest.
“We also have seen, since I started working on this letter, that our governor actually is doing a 180 about voter ID, and I believe it’s winning,” he said, gaslighting the chamber with a bald faced lie. “I believe it’s solely because President Trump is talking about federal funds and relief as it relates to fires, so I think we’re going to see a lot of overhaul in our elections.”
Did you catch that? Crye thinks it’s fine for the Gangster in Chief to shake California down with federal wildfire funds. This ninja nincompoop will throw anyone under the bus. During his weekly report at the beginning of the meeting Crye attacked the City of Redding’s federally funded Peaks Subdivision Project, which will provide up to 120 fire resilient homes to replace housing lost in the Carr Fire.
“I’m not going to say it’s a DOGE kind of thing,” Crye said, referencing billionaire federal welfare queen Elon Musk’s attempt to plunder the U.S. Treasury. “But when you start to say, wait a minute, we got $22 million to make people safer during fires, how does jamming 140 homes into a place that already doesn’t have great access … [insert sound of Crye’s synapses misfiring] … explain to me, City of Redding, how this money, which was FEMA, was supposed to help mitigate fire.”
It’s a fire resilient project you … you … one is tempted to say moron but alas I am woke and unable to do so. Keep in mind, this is the same guy who came up with the bright idea to spur home development in Shasta County by eliminating impact fees. It didn’t work and now we’re out the revenue.
Now he’s going all MAGA on the City of Redding in an authoritarian muscle flex designed to maximize his own grift and cut down on the local housing supply.
It’s worth noting Crye’s first letter to Trump was an invitation to come rake our forests. The sycophants who support MAGA board members Crye and District 5 Supervisor Chris Kelstrom and District 3 Supervisor Corkey Harmon have all taken to using “DOGE” as a verb, as in “We’re going to DOGE the crap out of you!”
Meaning, we have come to take your jobs, your healthcare, your national parks, your wildfire funding, etc.
These DOGE bags don’t see the backlash coming, but I do. It’s in Tesla’s stock price, which I continually monitored during the meeting as it dropped nearly 10 percent by the end of the trading day. It dropped another 2 percent Wednesday as investors and customers flee the toxic menace Musk and his “swastikars” have become.
It turns out firing your relatives, friends, neighbors and maybe even you isn’t that popular with the American people. Or any people. Neither is the MAGA movement’s treatment of women, which we turn to next.
In the dictionary under firebrand you might find Dawn Duckett.
Professional Women Need Not Apply
As A News Café has extensively documented for nearly two decades, unbridled misogyny is rampant in Shasta County. It’s a feature, not a bug, now more than ever with these MAGA types, even the women.
Consider the case of 6’9’’ District 5 Supervisor Chris Kelstrom. I can testify for certain that this slumbering giant literally slept through several portions of Tuesday’s 13-hour board meeting. Kelstrom infamously passed off his chance to be board chair to Crye because he’s just not ready to be the boss.
But bossing women around? He’s up for the occasion! Here he is questioning Dawn Duckett, an efficiency expert, former county employee and a mom who helped save her son from opiates, about her desire to serve on the Shasta County Health, Alcohol and Drug Advisory Board.
Click here for the exchange between Kelstrom and Duckett.
District 5 Supervisor Chris “Sleepy” Kelstrom.
“Yeah, I have a question,” Kelstrom bellowed. “The last committee you were on, the Elections Commission, you actively undermined it. You actively did not help. And then you end up quitting it. And I believe you made some statements that it was of waste of time and everything else. So now you’re wanting to get on another board.”
Actually, Duckett tried to inject a sense of reality into the SCEC, but was rejected by the MAGA board’s biased band of kooky election deniers, just like every other sane person who has been appointed to the commission during the past two years.
“When I was appointed to that committee, I went in with an open heart, with the heart of a collaborator,” Duckett said. “Working for the government, I knew that there’s always room for improvement with every government process. And I’m an efficiency expert. And so that’s what I brought to the table there.”
“But Supervisor Kelstrom, it became very clear to me early on that the majority of that committee was not very focused on wanting to fix the in-house things,” Duckett continued. “And the mission, as I saw it, was to create trust in the community. And I saw them deviating from that mission.”
That’s exactly why the elections commission is out of commission. Nevertheless, Kelstrom, Crye and Harmon voted not to appoint Duckett to the Shasta County Health, Alcohol and Drug Advisory Board.
District 1 Supervisor Kevin Crye.
As the meeting wore on, it got worse for Shasta County’s professional women after Crye purposely pulled C8 from the consent calendar in order to publicly humiliate former Shasta County Public Health Director Robin Schurig.
Schurig resigned from the county last year and is the current executive director of the Health Alliance of Northern California. She was recently selected from among 11 applicants to serve on the Shasta Children and Families Commission, AKA First Five Shasta, pending approval by the Board of Supervisors, which was the purpose of C8.
Once again Crye transformed what should have been a perfunctory appointment of a thoroughly vetted candidate into political theater of the absurd, claiming without evidence that Schurig had mismanaged funds as Public Health Director and “has a history of not standing up for kids when kids needed it most.”
Crye was referring to Schurig’s job performance as Public Health Director during the COVID pandemic, but refused to provide any details.
“Without having a huge discussion about what was done or wasn’t done during COVID … it comes down to this like we can’t go back,” Crye said. “I take appointments very seriously. I often say kids can’t choose their parents and kids 0-5 that’s where we really have to mind the gap and really have to be those advocates.”
Standing at the podium, Schurig informed Crye that she had advocated for children during the pandemic.
“During COVID children in particular were one of the main areas where we did push back on the state,” she said. “It’s not ages 0-5, it’s school aged children and our schools in Shasta County were open before many schools in the state of California.”
Schurig said when the state finally came out with their requirements that schools would need to do in order to open, Shasta County was already successfully operating with less stringent requirements.
“We pushed back and said look we’re not having outbreaks that are coming out of classrooms,” she said. The state acquiesced.
Crye badgered the witness with a gotcha question.
“How many students died?” he said, apparently referring to COVID deaths in children ages 0-17.
“I don’t know,” Schurig said.
“Take a stab at it!” Crye chided.
District 4 Supervisor Matt Plummer
“That’s not even relevant,” District 4 Supervisor Matt Plummer interjected.
“I’ll tell you why it’s relevant, because if you’re running an organization like public health and you have a disease that hasn’t killed a single child possibly in the world and we rush to vaccinate them, I have problems with that,” Crye sputtered.
Fact check: According to Statista, COVID killed 1642 children ages 0-17 in the United States. The global total is 17,400 deaths of children under 20.
“Well, her point was that she was pushing back on the state to not make more stringent requirements on the schools,” Plummer said.
“Like I said I’m one vote,” Crye said. “But if there’s one person who’s going to scream to a kid to get out of the street and the car’s coming, some people are just going to keep screaming at that kid. Other people are going to run out grab that kid and maybe get hit themselves.”
So Crye’s the guy who might get hit by the car?
What the heck?
District 2 Supervisor Allen Long.
District 2 Supervisor Allen Long and Plummer did their best to support Schurig. Long pointed out that he’d followed Schurig’s advice while serving on the Grant Elementary School District board of trustees during COVID.
“I was on a school board and we watched very carefully what you presented us and we could push back on the state for our children because it was so important to keep our school open,” Long said. “We were able to keep our schools open and we didn’t have a significant problem.”
Plummer is serving on the First Five Shasta board and was excited to welcome Schurig, who has a Masters in Public Health, to the board, which currently lacks anyone with a medical background.
“If that’s the person who’s going to be giving medical advice to the board that scares me even more,” Crye sneered.
Kelstrom and Harmon contributed nothing to the conversation and voted with Crye to deny Schurig a First Five Shasta board seat, bringing a long ugly day to a depressing end.
Should the old courthouse be demolished?
Our Shasta County Heritage, Rural or Otherwise
Three items on the regular calendar concerned Shasta County’s relationship with its rural heritage and its need to move on from the past. R7 featured three options for the old courthouse complex, including leveling it and turning it into a parking lot and solar farm. R9 concerned a modest development with multi-family homes in downtown Palo Cedro. R11 involved Hawes Farms request to rezone 145 acres from Limited Agriculture (A-1) to Commercial Recreation (C-R).
Public Works Director Troy Bartolomei presented the three options for the old courthouse complex which included the 77,000 square foot courthouse built in 1956, the courthouse annex constructed in 1966 and the old jail, built in 1939.
“On July 15, 2024, the courthouse campus reverted back to county ownership,” Bartolomei explained. “An environmental survey has been completed on the facility, and this is going to aid in helping us determine the future use for the old courthouse.”
Like many buildings from the 1950s, the old courthouse uses a boiler to provide steam heat through pipes insulated with asbestos lagging. Its walls are covered with lead paint and susceptible to mold. All of these issues will have to be addressed to comply with modern regulations. That makes option A highly attractive.
“It would include a demolition of the entire courthouse facility and construction of a parking lot,” Bartolomei said. “Now this option would not provide any additional office space. It would, however, provide a much needed 102 additional parking spaces here in our downtown area.”
Planning Commission Director Troy Bartolemei.
Adding the solar farm brings the total cost of Option A to $7 million.
Option B would demolish the annex and the old jail but refurbish 48,000 square feet in the old courthouse for use as county office space. The cost would be $17.5 million. Option C would refurbish the entire facility at a cost of $78 million.
For what’s a fairly nondescript building, a surprising number of public speakers expressed affection for the old courthouse’s architecture and their desire to refurbish it. Kelstrom and Harmon both favored preserving the structure for historical reasons; Plummer advocated for more time to explore other options.
Bartolomei pointed out that a study last year determined the old courthouse was not suitable for converting into an alternative jail as proposed by former District 4 Supervisor Patrick Jones. Neither is it suitable for the Registrar of Voters.
Kelstrom made a motion to move forward with Option B; Harmon seconded it. But a discussion ensued before the vote could be taken. After that discussion Crye made a substitute motion to proceed with Option A and demolish the whole complex which was seconded by Long.
Kelstrom, Harmon and Plummer voted 3-2 against Crye and Long’s motion for Option A. Long, Crye and Plummer voted 3-2 against Kelstrom and Harmon’s motion for Option B.
Stalemate.
The board voted unanimously to bring the issue back in late March.
District 3 Supervisor Corkey Harmon.
R9 was one of three scheduled hearings on this busy day. It concerned a relatively small 2.10-acre development of single- and two-family residential homes proposed for downtown Palo Cedro by developer Eddie Axner and project engineer Kevin Butler.
While Palo Cedro is getting a brand new Starbucks, its residents habitually oppose any kind of development that might infringe on their rural lifestyle. That includes this project, which would provide up to eight single-family homes and duplexes. Palo Cedro residents have been sending their neighbor and supervisor, Corkey Harmon, emails complaining about the project and turned out in force for Tuesday’s meeting.
Harmon, who is also a developer and chummy with both Axner and Butler, was caught in the crossfire in what turned out to be the hardest decision he’s made so far as a supervisor: whether or not to permit Axner and Butler to rezone the parcel from commercial to two family residential, R-2.
“All right, I want to bring up Kevin Butler,” Harmon said. “Like I said, I’m still on the fence. I’m looking at my neighbors here in the face. And I don’t necessarily think this is a bad project for our community. It sounds bad when you first hear it. I’ve went every direction around this to try to, I don’t know, change Eddie’s idea. Because I thought, man, are you sure you want to do this? This is where we live. He lives closer. Him and Kevin both live closer to this project than I do.”
Project engineer Kevin Butler.
Butler was eventually allowed to address the board after numerous public speakers expressed their opposition to the project. He stressed that the proposal was not an affordable housing project.
“The project is proposed for a general plan and zone amendment for future development of a small residential development,” Butler said. “The residential lots will be single-family and two-family residences and will be sold at market value. The development consists of a maximum of eight residential lots. This is not a low-income or multifamily project. It is not an apartment housing project. These are all mischaracterizations by several opposition and online letters.”
Butler’s straight-forward approach didn’t make things easier for Harmon in the slightest.
“So I just want the people, I wanted all my neighbors to really consider, like I’ve had to do, that this is not going to turn us into R-2, open the doors up for that,” Harmon said as his complexion reddened. “And I wanted the people to know this is not an easy decision. I’m your neighbor. I’m not just your supervisor.”
It seemed like Harmon was prepared to vote for the project, but then he addressed Butler directly.
“I mean, this is a, you know, I would like to, I could easily vote for R-1, but I have to tell you, I have to tell you, and I feel really bad because Eddie is a personal friend of mine,” Harmon said, reddening further. “I cannot vote for this project. I don’t know what the rest of the board’s going to do. And I’m not here to influence the rest of the board. I wanted the rest of the board to hear this and make your own decisions. But I personally cannot support this project.”
The board voted 5-0 against the project, preserving Palo Cedro’s rural lifestyle for now.
Greg Hawes from Hawes Farm.
Drive 6 miles due south on Deschutes Road from Palo Cedro and you’ll run into Hawes Farm at Dersch Road. In a sign that Shasta County’s rural heritage is slipping, owner Greg and Nikola Hawes have been seeking to change the zoning on their 145-acre property from Limited Agricultural A-1 to Commercial Recreation C-R for the past two years. R11, the third hearing on Tuesday’s marathon agenda, was their third attempt to gain this zoning variance.
Farming no longer pays the bills, so the Hawes want to turn their property into an agriculture-themed amusement park, complete with their annual corn maze, barnyard animals, old carnival rides scavenged from across the country, live music concerts and more.
Nearly 50 citizens signed up for public comment on the issue, many of them friends, employees and family members of the Hawes. A substantial contingent of neighbors opposed to the zoning change also turned up.
Testimonies alternately praising the Hawes for providing wholesome family entertainment to Shasta County’s youth and condemning the Hawes for disturbing the peace of their neighborhood continued for two hours.
By the number of supporters, it appeared the Hawes had the overwhelming edge. But in a sense, they’d created a false narrative: Approve this zoning change or else the Hawes go out of business. District 4 Supervisor Matt Plummer cleverly picked up on the flaw in their argument.
“So I think what we’ve heard tonight is, and some of the conversation has been a bit of a false choice in the sense that I think we’ve heard a lot of, we either approve this as it currently is written or Hawes closes and is, you know, out of business and we lose all the amazing benefits that Hawes has contributed for many years,” Plummer said. “And I think that there’s probably an in-between that can, you know, satisfy to some extent both parties.”
So Plummer made a motion to amend the ordinance by addressing the concerns of the residents and for the next 15 minutes the board hammered out a deal.
“So, we’ll make a motion to adjust the commercial recreation ordinance,” Plummer said. “So, there’s no ride over 45 feet. So, changing that from 75 feet. There’s no RV or overnight camping. There will be a purchase of the sound measuring equipment for use on the property [to address concert noise complaints]. And then we will also make adjustments to the parcel lines.”
Plummer was referring to the 40-acre piece of the property on the south end that abuts the Sacramento River that will remain zoned for A-1. Amendments banning the use of stadium lights and lowering the entrance reader board below 12 feet were also added.
The board voted 5-0 to send the ordinance back to the Planning Commission to make the required changes and bring it back for approval as soon as possible.
Miraculously, most people seemed happy with the decision, even Greg Hawes.
This as they say is how the sausage is made. It offered a glimmer of hope that Shasta County might someday return to some semblance of sane governance.
SCOREBOARD
R1 Receive an update from the County Executive Officer on County issues and consider action on specific legislation related to Shasta County’s legislative platform and receive Supervisors’ reports on countywide issues.
Score: No Vote.
R2 Adopt a proclamation which designates March 2025 as “Grand Jury Awareness” in Shasta County (Sponsored by Supervisor Kelstrom).
Score: The board voted 5-0 in favor of declaring March Grand Jury Awareness Month.
R3 Receive a presentation from North State Together regarding efforts to improve the economic and educational outcomes for students in far northern California and adopt a proclamation which designates February 2025 as “Career and Technical Education Month” in Shasta County (Sponsored by Supervisor Plummer).
Score: The board voted 5-0 in favor of declaring February Career and Technical Education Month.
R4 Receive a presentation from the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office and conduct a community forum concerning Immigration and Customs Enforcement access for calendar year 2024.
Score: No Vote.
R5 Approve letters of support to President Trump and Governor Newsom regarding voter identification requirements for residents to receive and cast any ballot, advocating to eliminate same-day voter registration in California elections, and discontinuing the use of 100% mail-in ballots by returning to absentee ballots only (Sponsored by Supervisor Crye).
Score: The board voted 4-1 in favor of sending letters to President Trump and Gov. Newsom. Supervisor Long cast the lone dissenting vote.
R6 Introduce and waive the reading of “An Ordinance of the Board of Supervisors of the County of Shasta Amending Chapter 2.07, Elections Commission, of the Shasta County Code.”
Score: R6 was pulled and will be brought back at a later date.
R7 Take the following actions regarding the Old Shasta County Courthouse (Building): (1) Receive a presentation from the Department of Public Works; (2) select one of the following options for the future of the Building: (a) demolish the Building and construct a parking lot; (b) demolish the Annex and Old Jail portions of the Building and repurpose the remainder for County use and the vacant land for a parking lot; (c) repurpose the entirety of the Building for County use and construct a parking structure; or (d) provide other direction to staff; (3) approve budget amendments which increase appropriations and revenue by $250,000 in the Land Building and Improvements Budget (BU 166) and the Miscellaneous General Budget (BU 173); (4) approve a budget amendment which increases appropriations by $250,000 in the Accumulated Capital Outlay Budget (BU 161) offset by use of the Public Safety Infrastructure Committed Fund Balance; and (5) authorize the Auditor-Controller to make any technical adjustments needed to properly account for the project selected by the Board. Requires 4/5 vote.
Score: Long, Crye and Plummer voted 3-2 against Kelstrom and Harmon to not choose Option A. In a second motion, Kelstrom, Crye and Harmon voted 3-2 against Long and Plummer to choose Option B. The board voted 5-0 to bring the issue back in March.
R8 Take the following actions regarding the Shasta County Mental Health, Alcohol and Drug Advisory Board (MHADAB): (1) Appoint: (a) Dawn Duckett; and (b) Chris Webber to serve the remainder of three-year terms to December 31, 2026; (2) reappoint: (a) Heather Jones; and (b) David Kehoe to serve three-year terms to December 31, 2027; (3) appoint: (a) Jim Berry; and (b) Troy Payne to serve the remainder of three-year terms to December 31, 2027; (4) appoint Stacy Watson to serve a three-year term to December 31, 2027; and (5) approve an amendment to the MHADAB Bylaws.
Score: Kelstrom, Crye and Harmon voted 3-2 against Long and Plummer to not appoint Dawn Duckett. The board voted 5-0 to appoint Chris Webber, Heather Jones, David Kehoe, Jim Berry and Troy Payne. Stacy Watson was a no-show.
SCHEDULED HEARINGS
R9 Take the following actions: (1) Conduct a public hearing; (2) adopt a resolution which: (a) finds that General Plan Amendment 24-0001 is exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) pursuant to CEQA Guidelines Section 15061(b)(3); (b) finds the proposed General Plan Amendment is consistent with the objectives and policies in the Community Development Group, Chapter 7.0 et seq., noted in the resolution, and with all other elements and the objectives and policies of the Shasta County General Plan; and (c) approves General Plan Amendment 24-0001 to change the Commercial (C) General Plan designation to the Suburban Residential (SR) designation; (3) adopt the recommended findings listed in Planning Commission Resolution 2024-024 for Zone Amendment 24-0001; (4) find that Zone Amendment 24-0001 is exempt from CEQA pursuant to CEQA Guidelines Section 15061(b)(3); and (5) introduce, waive the reading of, and enact “An Ordinance of the Board of Supervisors of the County of Shasta Amending Ordinance Number 378, the Zoning Ordinance of the County of Shasta, a Portion of the Zoning Plan (Zone Amendment 24-0001 –Red Dirt Rentals, LLC) ,” to amend the Zoning Plan of the County of Shasta identified as Zone Amendment 24-0001 from the Community Commercial combined with Design Review (C-2-DR) and the Community Commercial (C-2) zone districts to the Two-Family Residential (R-2) zone district for a 2.10-acre parcel located at 9553 Deschutes Road, being a portion of Section 5, T.31.N., R.3.W., (Assessor’s Parcel Number (APN) 059-390-003, as that APN is assigned for purposes of the 2025 Regular Assessment Roll), and for an adjacent 1.03-acre parcel located on the west side of Hollywood Drive, approximately 0.08 miles north of the intersection of Hollywood Drive and Old Forty-Four Drive, being a portion of Section 5, T.31.N, R.3.W., and further described as Parcel B of Tract Map 1772 (O.R. Document Number 20 RM 76), (Assessor’s Parcel Number (APN) 059-390-044, as that APN is assigned for purposes of the 2025 Regular Assessment Roll).
Score: The board voted 5-0 against approving the Palo Cedro rezoning request.
R10 Take the following actions: (1) Conduct a public hearing; (2) adopt the recommended findings listed in Planning Commission Resolution 2025-003; (3) introduce, waive the reading of, and enact “An Ordinance of the Board of Supervisors of the County of Shasta Amending Ordinance Number 378, the Zoning Ordinance of the County of Shasta, a Portion of the Zoning Plan (Zone Amendment 23-0004 – Kenneth H. Tellstrom),” to amend the Zoning Plan of the County of Shasta identified as Zone Amendment 23-0004 to change the zoning of an approximately 132.90-acre property located approximately 0.48 miles east of the intersection of Lakeview Drive and Shasta Caverns Road, Lakehead, CA 96051 (Assessor’s Parcel Number (APN) 084-190-008 as that APN is assigned for purposes of the 2025 Regular Assessment Roll) from the National Recreation Area (NRA-S) zone district to the National Recreation Area, Shasta Unit combined with the Building Site Minimum (NRA-S-BSM) zone district; and (4) adopt a resolution which: (a) adopts the California Environmental Quality Act determination of a Mitigated Negative Declaration; (b) approves Shasta County Fire Safety Standards Exception Request #PM22-0005; (c) approve an exception from the Shasta County Road Standards; and (d) approve Parcel Map 22-0005 for a subdivision of the subject property described above into four parcels of 74.89 acres, 20.41 acres, 20.00 acres and 20.20 acres in size, in accordance with Title 15, Subdivisions, of the Shasta County Code. Requires 4/5 vote.
Score: The board voted 5-0 to grant a mitigated negative declaration to APN 084-190-008.
R11 Take the following actions: (1) Conduct a public hearing; (2) adopt the California Environmental Quality Act determination of a Negative Declaration; (3) adopt the recommended findings listed in Planning Commission Resolution 2023-017; (4) introduce, waive the reading of, and enact an ordinance entitled “An Ordinance of the Board of Supervisors of the County of Shasta Amending Ordinance Number 378, the Zoning Ordinance of the County of Shasta, a Portion of the Zoning Plan (Zone Amendment 21-0002 – Planned Development – Greg and Nikola Hawes),” to amend the Zoning Plan of the County of Shasta identified as Zone Amendment 21-0002 to change the zoning for an approximately 8.25-acre parcel from an existing Planned Development (PD) zone district to a revised PD zone district; and (5) introduce, waive the reading of, and enact an ordinance entitled “An Ordinance of the Board of Supervisors of the County of Shasta Amending Ordinance Number 378, the Zoning Ordinance of the County of Shasta, a Portion of the Zoning Plan (Zone Amendment 21-0002 –Recreation – Greg and Nikola Hawes),” to amend the Zoning Plan of the County of Shasta identified as Zone Amendment 21-0002 to change the zoning of four parcels totaling approximately 137.09 acres from the existing PD and Limited Agriculture (A-1) zone districts to the Commercial Recreation (C-R) zone district. The approximately 145.34-acre project site is located at 6171 Deschutes Road, 6465 Deschutes Road, and 21945 Dersch Road, Anderson, CA 96007 (Assessor’s Parcel Numbers (APNs) 057-190-031, 057-190-036, 057-190-037, 057-190-041, and 057-190-040 as those APNs are assigned for purposes of the 2025 Regular Assessment Roll). No changes are proposed to the Designated Flood (F-1) and Restrictive Flood (F-2) combining zone districts within the southern portion of the project site, the Building Site (B) combining districts applicable to APNs 057-190-037 and 057-190-041, and the Interim Mineral Resource (IMR) combining district applicable to APN 057-190-041.
Score: The board voted 5-0 to amend the resolution on Hawes Farm and bring it back in late March.
CONSENT CALENDAR
Score: Board vote 5-0 to approve consent calendar items C2-C7, C9-C10, and C11-C26.
PULLED CONSENT CALENDAR ITEMS
C1 Take the following actions: (1) Approve a Real Property Purchase Agreement with the John G. Elliott and Cameryn T. Elliott, Trustees of the John and Cameryn Elliott Family Trust for real property located at 1257 West Street, Redding (Property) Assessor’s Parcel Number 101-150-055 in the amount of $320,000; (2) accept the Grant Deed from John G. Elliott and Cameryn T. Elliott, Trustees of the John and Cameryn Elliott Family Trust for the Property; (3) designate authority to the County Executive Officer, or their designee, to approve purchase payment of $320,000 and miscellaneous fees associated with the purchase not to exceed $1,500; and (4) approve budget amendments which increase appropriations in the Miscellaneous Budget (BU 173) by $320,000 offset by a decrease in the Reserves for Contingency Budget (BU 900). Requires 4/5 vote.
Score: The board voted 4-1 to approve the agreement with the Elliott Family Trust, with Supervisor Plummer dissenting.
C8 Appoint Robin Schurig to the Shasta Children and Families Commission (a.k.a. First 5 Shasta) to serve the remainder of a three-year term to January 2028.
Score: Supervisors Crye, Kelstrom and Harmon voted against appointing Schurig to First 5 Shasta. Plummer and Long voted for Schurig.
C11 Adopt a resolution which repeals Resolution No. 2019-090 and updates the Shasta County General Assistance Manual.
Score: The board voted 5-0 to approve updates to the Shasta County General Assistance Manual.
C12 Approve an amendment to the agreement with the Law Office of Aaron Williams, Inc., for adult felony defense services which modifies the terms and approve a budget amendment transferring appropriations in the amount of $276,000 within the Public Defender Budget (BU 207). Requires 4/5 Vote.
Score: Board voted 5-0 to bring issue back in late March.
CLOSED SESSION
R14 CONFERENCE WITH LEGAL COUNSEL – EXISTING LITIGATION (Government Code section 54956.9(d)(1)):
Name of Case: S.R. v. County of Tehama et al. (Tehama County Court Case #22CI-000200).
Score: The board voted to hire outside counsel and defend the case.
