Millville and Anderson residents have reason to celebrate.
One of the drawbacks of being a physical being mired in the space/time continuum is you can’t be two places at once. So while your trusted correspondent was covering Tuesday’s meeting of the Shasta County Board of Supervisors, the real news was being made across the street at the Shasta County Superior Court by the Honorable Judge Benjamin L. Hanna.
Judge Hanna ruled in favor of the Anderson/Millville residents suing to force former District 4 Supervisor Patrick Jones to conduct a full environmental impact review on his proposed 152 acre gun range complex on the Millville Plains.
“In making this ruling, this Court is not reaching a decision on the ultimate environmental merits of the project,” Hanna concluded. “Nor is the Court making a final determination as to whether the project should or should not be approved. By granting this petition the court is simply ruling, based on the law, that the County should have ordered a full EIR before approving the project.”
A News Café has covered Jones’ gun range proposal since the beginning, when local residents complained that Jones was conducting canned wild pig hunts on his Millville Plains property in May 2023. A News Café questioned if Patrick’s project was too big for Shasta County. Heck, A News Café even won some awards for covering Jones’ gun range plan.
A News Café is not anti-gun. A full EIR on the proposed gun range could result in a scaled down project that might be amenable to all parties concerned.
Bottom line: It turns out you can fight city hall, or the board of supervisors, and win.
Having just moved from Whitmore to the city of Redding, I can assure you that moving still sucks. Even if it’s temporary, like the Board of Supervisors move to Shasta Lake City while the board chambers is refurbished in April and May.
During this time, all board meetings will be held in the Shasta Lake City Council Chambers located at 4488 Red Bluff Street in Shasta Lake City. Write that down: 4488 Red Bluff Street in Shasta Lake City.
That may be the most important information relayed at Tuesday’s board meeting, which was mercifully abbreviated compared to the last maniacal marathon session.
Strike that. The most important information relayed to the public Tuesday was R1, Shasta County Assistant CEO Brook Lowther’s selection as Employee of the Month. Read the following bio in the dulcet baritone of District 5 Supervisor Chris Kelstrom:
“Brooke is a role model for other public employees due to her positivity, cheerful attitude, and willingness to dependably roll with the changes. Brooke maintains a smiling, solution-oriented approach to problems and is a beacon of optimistic morale throughout the County Administrative Office, clerk of the board team, and the county as a whole. One of Brooke’s co-workers stated that whenever she is absent, we are lesser without her and are grateful she continues to return to work every day.”
Translation: Brook needs a raise. A big one, along with everyone else hanging tough during this era of animosity toward government employees local, state and federal.
Supervisor Kelstrom presents Brook Lowther with Employee of the Month award.
Usually the recount of CEO David Rickert and the five supervisors’ travels around the county, R2 in this case, is a perfunctory affair. But District 1 Supervisor Kevin Crye let everyone know he was going to Washington D.C. last week and constituents were expecting results.
Apparently Crye didn’t get to meet Trump but he did talk to unnamed public officials about “a regional project in the rural healthcare space,” presumably Redding City Councilman Dr. Paul Dhanuka’s proposed medical school. The officials Crye met were so new they didn’t have business cards yet.
“People don’t have cards yet, but the individual we met with, what we were able to really convey to them was where Trump’s administration left off at the end of his first term and what they were looking to do in rural healthcare,” Crye said. “So when we came in and presented what we had and what we’re looking to do, it was great because now we are at the front of the line.”
To which the reader rightfully asks, the front of what line? Trump isn’t going to build up rural healthcare, he’s actively tearing it down. Last week the Republican House majority in Congress passed a continuing budget resolution that could cut Medicaid by $880 billion. That’s $2 billion per congressional district and it will have a devastating effect on rural healthcare if signed into law. That includes Shasta County where 25 percent of the population receives Medicaid.
Shasta County Public Information Officer David Maung.
R3 on the calendar featured a presentation by Shasta County Public Information Officer David Maung on the county’s PR campaign to stop the Fountain Wind Project. Although the Board of Supervisors unanimously opposed the proposed wind farm sited 6 miles west of Burney in 2021, the next year the state passed AB 205 which empowers the California Energy Commission to permit new clean energy projects without local approval.
“Featured here are screenshots of our three most popular ads kind of hitting our top three reasons for why we are against it, protecting tribal lands, reducing wildfire risk, and keeping local decisions local,” Maung said. “So, so far, cumulatively, these ads have received just under 2 million views with a total reach of 1.4 million users on Facebook and Instagram.”
The campaign includes the Stop Fountain Wind Project website and a mass mailing program that has so far reached 53,000 Shasta County Residents. Maung said he’s spent $58,000 of the $100,000 allotted for the campaign. He plans to focus on the wildfire risk posed by the project with the remaining funds. Meanwhile, the project remains “under review” at the California Energy Commission.
District 3 Supervisor Corkey Harmon.
Dolores Lucero.
As one of the few people locally who supports the Fountain Wind Project, I’ve often felt isolated, alone. But as frequent public speaker Dolores Lucero pointed out during public comment on R3, I was once in good company with nonother than District 3 Supervisor Corkey Harmon, who supported the project when it was first proposed in 2021.
“Back on October 26th in 2021, Mr. Corkey came to the podium here and spoke in favor of it,” Lucero addressed Harmon directly. “He basically said it will be great to have these windmills here because they will create good jobs. My concern is what he thinks about it because I know it will create a lot of jobs and you’re interested in the contracts. So that’s my concern about you, how you think when it benefits any public officials, they’re in favor of it. You’re in favor of it.”
Lucero referred to the video of the Oct. 26, 2021 special board meeting in which Harmon heartily endorsed the Fountain Wind Project.
“We’re hoping that you approve this project based on the fact that there’s nothing negative about it in my mind,” Harmon told the board four years ago. “For the county it’s all positive. Income, job-producing. Like I said the risk to the county is pretty much zero in my mind. I think the people that live in Round Mountain who experienced the Fountain Fire, this is going to put a firebreak all the way across the back of Round Mountain. … If I lived in Round Mountain I’d like to see this project. … I hope that you consider this a positive project and that you pass this unanimously.”
Lucero doesn’t believe Harmon has changed his mind about the project.
“So I think it’s pretty sad that you’re out in it for yourself, that’s why you have that seat,” she said. “You’re not in it for the citizens. You’re in it for yourself and you always will be until somebody removes you from your position.”
Harmon assured Lucero that he opposes the Fountain Wind Project now.
“Thanks for your comments, appreciate that,” Harmon said. “I have been very non-supportive of the wind farm for the last couple of years. I’ve spoken one time about reclamation bonding. That was it. That was four years ago, but I’m very much opposed, have been the whole time against the wind farm.”
Election denialist Dan Ladd is suing Shasta County.
It wouldn’t be a Shasta County Board of Supervisors meeting if election denialism wasn’t on the menu. R4 served up amendments to the Shasta County Elections Commission ordinance that included changes to the number of meetings to be held in election and non-election years and annual reporting requirements.
Most of the supporters on hand were more concerned that the commission has been suspended since prominent election deniers Dan Ladd and Laura Hobbs sued Shasta County and Registrar of Voters Tom Toller last month.
“Our republic doesn’t work if the elections aren’t fair and transparent,” Ladd told the supervisors, encouraging the board to make public its reason for suspending the commission. “You guys can vote to have a private session brought public and tell us how you came to the conclusion that closing a commission of the people was a good idea based on two of those people being witnesses to a crime and testifying what they saw.”
Ladd claimed suspending the board was witness intimidation apparently designed to discourage Hobbs and himself from pursuing the lawsuit.
Progressive Shasta County resident Christian Gardinier bringing the goods.
Frequent speaker Christian Gardinier has had it up to here with election denialism.
“This commission is a joke, it needs to be shut down immediately,” Gardinier said. “$140,000 spent so far, and that’s not counting the staff cost. And the hundreds of hours spent on this joke, which is outside the jurisdiction of the County of Shasta, period.”
“This whole election commission is basically a QAnon circus, a bunch of clowns who are presenting themselves as constitutional experts,” Gardinier ranted. “Are you frigging kidding me? It is simply a propaganda device, period.”
R4 might have easily passed 5-0 without any further board discussion if not for one election denier who requested changing language in the ordinance from “alignment with the law to alignment with the federal and state constitutions.”
Such gambits are designed to provide wiggle room to pick and choose which laws you’re going to obey, especially laws coming out of our Democratic supermajority state Legislature. But adding new language would require the ordinance be sent back to staff and brought back to the board yet again.
“I’ll make a motion to approve the ordinance as it is currently written,” said District 4 Supervisor Matt Plummer, hoping to quickly end any debate. District 2 Supervisor Allen Long seconded him.
So naturally, Crye made a substitute motion to add the constitutional language. Harmon seconded it. Once it became clear the ordinance would have to be rewritten, enthusiasm for the amendment waned. Plummer, Kelstrom and Long voted against Crye’s substitute motion.
The board then voted unanimously on Plummer’s motion to accept the Elections Commissions ordinance as written.
Max Walter recommends that the board send another letter to Washington.
One of Crye’s first moves as board chair last year was to shift the open public speaking period toward the end of meetings. Since meetings can run longer than eight hours, that makes it difficult for would-be speakers to plan their appearances or attend at all. Apparently enough people complained about this because Chair Crye moved open public comment back to the front of the meeting, after the regular calendar and before the consent calendar, starting with Tuesday’s meeting. The agenda states:
“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.”
Frequent speaker Max Walter was the first of 20 people who signed up for open public comment. Noting the current board chair’s predilection for sending letters to high public officials, Walter advised the board to write the president to remind him in America, we don’t have kings.
“Dear sirs, we, the supervisors of the County Shastra, California, in representation of all its citizens, oppose vigorously the intentional and flagrant violations of the U.S. Constitution by the current Trump administration,” Walter said, reciting from his proposed letter. “The Constitution is the rule of law, period. Violating it is lawlessness.”
“Running roughshod over the Constitution must be called out by leaders everywhere,” Walter concluded. “Presidents have no right to violate the law as if the country had elected a king. There is no we the people with kings. There is only tyranny.”
David Halligan.
Speaker David Halligan urged the supervisors to stay focused on the opioid crisis. Despite some forward movement, he noted that there has been “200 deaths in Shasta County the last five years to fentanyl and opioids, that’s about three a month … we’re averaging like three deaths a month to opioid and fentanyl. So please take a look at that.”
These are indeed trying times, and no one summed it up better during open public comment than Gardinier, who seconded Water’s request to send a letter to Washington.
“I concur with Mr. Walter’s recommendation that this board write a letter immediately because Shasta County is going to be hit with a tsunami,” Gardinier said. “Thousands of people in Shasta County are on Social Security. Thousands of people are receiving health benefits that are on the chopping block.”
“We’re talking about Meals on Wheels to senior citizens,” he continued. “We’re talking about opioid treatment centers. We’re talking about a tsunami that’s going to leave you guys holding the bag for millions and millions and millions of dollars or the elimination of services to people like you, Corkey, people like me, people like Mr. Kelstrom.”
“This is unacceptable,” Gardinier concluded. “The health and welfare of Shasta County is your primary objective. Write a letter saying that we demand you rethink your chopping block because you don’t want to hurt the citizens of Shasta County on purpose.”
Who knows? Perhaps someone will listen. We are allegedly at the front of the line.
SCOREBOARD
REGULAR CALENDAR
R1 Adopt a resolution which recognizes Brook Lowther, County Executive Officer Assistant – Confidential, of the County Administrative Office as Shasta County’s Employee of the Month for March 2025.
Score: The board voted 5-0 to select Brook Lowther employee of the month.
R2 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. No additional general fund impact.
Score: No Vote.
R3 Receive an update from the County Administrative Office on the activities and results from the ongoing “Stop Fountain Wind” community action media campaign. No additional general fund impact.
Score: No Vote.
R4 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.” No additional general fund impact.
Score: The board voted 3-2 to not make new changes to the ordinance. The board voted 5-0 to approve the SCEC ordinance as written.
CONSENT CALENDAR
The board voted unanimously to approve the following 17 items on the consent calendar.
C1 Appoint Ted Noel to the Pine Grove Mosquito Abatement District to serve the remainder of a two-year term to January 4, 2027. No additional general fund Impact. Simple majority vote.
C2 Reappoint Maggie McNamara to the Planning and Service Area 2 Area Agency on Aging Advisory Council to serve a four-year term to March 11, 2029. No additional general fund impact. Simple majority vote
C3 Approve the minutes of the meeting held on February 11, 2025, as submitted. No additional general fund impact. Simple majority vote.
C4 Approve an agreement with Sophia R. Meyer Law, P.C. for juvenile dependency appeals. No additional general fund impact. 4/5 vote.
C5 Approve a retroactive renewal agreement with Shasta County Child Abuse Prevention Coordinating Council for Targeted Case Management services. No general fund impact.
Simple majority vote.
C6 Approve an amendment to the agreement with California Mental Health Services Authority (CalMHSA) for the Peer Support Specialist Certification Program which extends the term.
No general fund impact. Simple Majority Vote.
C7 Approve a retroactive Letter of Agreement with Partnership HealthPlan of California for eating disorder treatment reimbursement. No general fund impact. Simple majority vote.
C8 Approve a retroactive renewal agreement with the City of Redding for elder and dependent adult crimes and abuse investigative services. No general fund impact. Simple majority vote.
C9 Approve a retroactive amendment to the agreement with County MedicalServices Program (CMSP) Participating Physician, Physician Group and Community Health Center for Health and Human Services Agency medical providers to receive reimbursement for outpatient mental health and substance abuse services which replaces Exhibit A, Provider Information. No general fund impact.
Simple majority vote.
C10 Approve a retroactive renewal agreement with Prime Healthcare Services Shasta, LLC, dba Shasta Regional Medical Center, for inpatient psychiatric hospitalization services. No general fund impact. Simple majority vote.
C11 Approve an agreement with E.M.T. Associates for monitoring and evaluation services of the Misdemeanor Community Engagement Program for the Proposition 47 grant. No additional general fund impact. Simple majority vote.
C12 Designate authority to the Chief Probation Officer to purchase eleven Motorola handheld portable radios, five vehicle radios and equipment from Day Management Corporation, dba Day Wireless Communications. No additional general fund impact. Simple Majority Vote.
C13 In accordance with Welfare & Institutions Code Section 749.22 and Resolution No. 2020-137 take the following actions in regard to the Juvenile Justice Coordinating Council (JJCC): (1) Appoint members: (a) Ashley Jones, Shasta County Public Defender’s Office; (b) Bailey Cogger, Shasta County Mental Health; (c) Oliver Collins, Anderson Police Department; (d) Mike Freeman, Shasta County Office of Education; and (e) George Sanford, Victor Community Support Services (non-profit CBO providing services to youth); and (2) appoint alternate members: (a) Eric Jones, Shasta County Probation Department; (b) Cedar Vaughan, Shasta County Public Defender’s Office; (c) Gene Randall,
Shasta County Sheriff’s Office; (d) Cindy Lane Shasta County Mental Health; (e) Regan Ortega, Redding Police Department; (f) Tyler Finch, Anderson Police Department; and (g) Cody Jones, Juvenile Court. No additional general fund impact. Simple majority vote.
C14 Approve a retroactive 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 which transfers appropriations in the amount of $276,000 within the Public Defender Budget (BU 207). No additional general fund impact. 4/5 Vote.
Public Works
C15 Approve budget amendments to close out the Knighton Road Beetle Mitigation fund which: (1) Increase appropriations by $132,951 in account 034309 and $90,000 in account 095301 in the Knighton Road Beetle Mitigation Budget (BU 285), offset by use of fund balance; and (2) increase revenue by $90,000 in account 800285 in the Roads Budget (BU 301). No general fund impact. 4/5 vote.
C16 Approve a budget amendment which increases appropriations by $110,000 and revenue by $125,120 in the Environmental Health Budget (BU 402) offset by a reduction in the use of restricted fund balance. No additional general fund impact. 4/5 vote.
C17 Take the following action: (1) Waive competitive procurement requirements in Administrative Policy 6-10, Section 2.7, Shasta County Contracts Manual, and Shasta County Code Section 3.04.020 on the basis of sole-source procurement; (2) approve a crime scene investigations software license agreement with Lecia Geosystems, Inc.; (3) designate authority to the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office to purchase hardware and software for crime scene investigations from Precision Survey Supply, LLC in an amount not to exceed $116,771.97; (4) approve a budget amendment which increases appropriations and revenue by $116,772 in the Sheriff Budget (BU 235) offset by the use of Statham-Robbins Criminal Construction Administration funds; and (5) approve a budget amendment which increases appropriations by $116,772 in the Statham-Robbins Criminal Construction Administration Budget (BU 00810) offset by use of restricted fund balance. No additional general fund impact. 4/5 vote.
CLOSED SESSION
The board considered the following 5 items in closed session. No action was taken.
R5 CONFERENCE WITH LEGAL COUNSEL – ANTICIPATED LITIGATION
(Government Code Section 54956.9(d)(4)): Initiation of Litigation: Two potential cases
R6 CONFERENCE WITH LEGAL COUNSEL – EXISTING LITIGATION
(Government Code Section 54956.9(d)(1)):
Name of case:|
Jill Ward v. County of Shasta (WC Case #20-0359)
R7 CONFERENCE WITH LABOR NEGOTIATORS
(Government Code Section 54957.6):
Agency Negotiators:
County Executive Officer David Rickert
Personnel Director Monica Fugitt
Chief Labor Negotiator Gage Dungy, Liebert Cassidy Whitmore
Employee Organizations:
United Public Employees of California, Local 792 – General Unit
United Public Employees of California, Local 792 – Professional Unit
Deputy Sheriffs Association – Correctional Officer – Deputy Sheriffs
R8 PUBLIC EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE EVALUATION
(Government Code Section 54957):
Title: Health and Human Services Agency (HHSA) Director or Acting HHSA Director.
R9 CONFERENCE WITH REAL PROPERTY NEGOTIATORS
(Government Code Section 54956.8):
Property Description:
7251 Eastside Road, Redding, CA; APN 050-050-010
County Negotiators:
County Executive Officer David J. Rickert
Senior Administrative Analyst Bryce Ritchie
Senior Administrative Analyst Jenn Rossi
Negotiating Parties:
City of Redding
Under Negotiations: Price and terms of payment.
