The regularly scheduled Tuesday morning meeting of the Shasta County Board of Supervisors was called to order at 9:01 a.m. April 2. The complete video and agenda are available here. Timestamps are in parentheses.
of District 1 Supervisor
(5:10) Supervisor Kevin Crye: Know that after your three minutes are up, your mic will be muted beginning the April 9 board meeting. Those wishing to participate in public comment, open time must submit a speaker request card prior to the time of the meetings. Prior to the time the meeting begins, any and all speaker request cards for open time submitted after the meeting begins will be heard after all agenda items have been considered by the board. And at the end of the meeting, those wishing to participate in public comment on a specific agenda item must submit a speaker request form to the clerk of the board before the time that public comment begins on that item. All speaker request cards submitted after public comment on a specific agenda item begins will not be heard by the board. For example, if an individual wants to speak to item R15, a speaker’s request form must be submitted to the clerk of the board prior to the time that public comment for R15 begins.
(16:15) Economic Mobility Branch Director Dwayne Green made the presentation. “Kathryn consistently demonstrates her natural ability to not only ensure that her program adheres to the merit of rules and regulations, but she also strives to ensure that the welfare of her staff is paramount as well. If you have the opportunity to do so, I would encourage you to visit the customer service center and observe a highly productive team of professionals delivering services to those in need each day. The customer service division fields calls from Shasta County residents in order to determine their eligibility for CalFresh food assistance. CalWORKS, cash aid, and with Medi-cal. Kathryn and her team work diligently to manage the programs that support our most vulnerable population and frequently when they are in crisis, even with staffing challenges and an increased need for services.
From March 2023 through February 2024 the customer service division responded to more than 103,725 calls for service, completed 39,980 courtesy calls backs, cleared 196,883 tasks and maintained an average customer service rating at 90% satisfaction. Knowing Kathryn, I can assure you that her and her team are doing everything possible to push that customer satisfaction rate to 1000. Throughout the past four years. I have known Kathryn to be a calm leader that instills a can-do attitude. The latter is easier said than done because we all know how challenging it can be to operate as a serving leader while bridging the gap between staff and management. Kathryn, we sincerely thank you for all you do and for embracing the core HHSA values of collaboration, adaptability, respect and excellence. Kathryn, you’re a rock star.”
(21:24) Public comment began before the updates. Christian Gardinier was the only commenter and he asked the board to explain why Eric Magrini was still on the county payroll.
David Rickert, Shasta County CEO.
(24:20) CEO Dave Rickert: I have two pieces of legislation for your consideration. First, a request to oppose Senate Bill 1057. This bill would modify 30.061 of the government code for juvenile justice coordinating councils. A couple of bullet points I have here. This bill would require programs and strategies funded under these provisions to, among other things be modeled on a quote healing centered restorative trauma, informed and positive youth development approaches, and would also require the juvenile justice coordinating council be made up at least a 50% community representatives and it further defines community representative as a justice involved individual. The reason to oppose this bill would be that it sub-optimizes taxpayer resources.
The second bill to consider is a request to oppose assembly bill 2882. This bill would modify sections 1230 12, 30.1 and 6027 of the penal code, California Community corrections performance incentives. This bill requires each county submit a county community corrections outcomes and accountability transparency report. Big report name with a lot of requirements and this would reported annually to the State Board of Community Corrections. There are numerous burdensome and unnecessary data requirements for said report. This bill also requires the county to create a community corrections outcome and accountability transparency dashboard that displays the county goals and spending outcomes data reported to the county community corrections outcome and accountability transparency report. The other reason that we oppose this bill would sub optimize taxpayer resources. This concludes my report.
District 2 Supervisor Tim Garman.
(26:25) Supervisor Tim Garman, District 2: I just got a few things on my list. First thing I want to do is say is Jenny, it’s nice to see you this morning and I want to sincerely apologize for the treatment that your family has gone through. And I hope this on behalf of the whole board, but it’s definitely on behalf of myself. I’m so glad to see you here because there are others in our community who are afraid to come to our meetings. That should never be the case, no matter what you think, what you believe, any of that. Everybody should be welcome to come here without the fear of anything. So glad to see you here.
Moving on, I had a meeting last week with Adam Fieseler. We had a host of issues we discussed including what it looks like to create the hearing committee for abatement. It’s gonna be a long process as you, they sent a couple of guys over to the City of Redding abatement but here they watched that process. They kind of took some notes. They’re gonna reach out to a couple of other counties to see how they do it. So be patient for everybody waiting on that but that will come back to us at some point as they research how to properly come to our board and give us a decent presentation of what that would look like. We talked about some other issues out in the Keswick/Shasta areas with squatters and a bunch of vehicles dumped on properties, et cetera.
Then the last thing I want to say is just a little public service announcement that it’s getting warm outside. The mosquitoes are out. If you have the water left over, dump it out. Anywhere you got city water, please dump it out. And also if you’re out mowing your grass or weed, you need to watch out for rattlesnakes. They’re there. And that concludes my report.
District 4 Supervisor Patrick Jones.
(27:51) Supervisor Patrick Jones, District 4: I had a light week this week. I did have a meeting with our CEO and Support Services. So thank you again, Dave Rickert and Monica Fugitt for being available. Another meeting almost every week, I’m having election integrity meetings. These meetings are happening up and down the state of California and here in Shasta County as well. And last week, we did have a special meeting here at 1450 Court Street and that concludes my reports this week.
District 5 Supervisor Chris Kelstrom.
(28:23) Supervisor Chris Kelstrom, District 5: On Wednesday, I guess it was, I had an Enterprise Anderson Groundwater Sustainability Agency board meeting. Good news. Our aquifers are in great shape and it looks like everybody’s gonna get 100% of the allocation this year. The Thursday, I had a zoom meeting with the developers on the Cottonwood project. It’s again, it’s a huge project that’s coming down to the Cottonwood area. We’ll make it more public in the future. I have a meeting with them and representatives from Senator Dahle’s office and Doug LaMalfa’s office on Thursday. So I’ll report back next week on that. Then we had a special board meeting that day and after the board meeting, I met with a couple of constituents in my district that are facing a blight crime type of problem. So shout out to Adam Fieseler from code enforcement. He said they would get to that this week. And then that same night I had a Happy Valley Firewise meeting out at the community center in Happy Valley. It’s good to see those folks out there. I haven’t seen my Happy Valley people in a while.
Friday morning I met with Supervisor-elect Matt Plummer, got to know him a little bit, sat down, had coffee with him and we just discussed a few things and then my favorite part was on Saturday. I did the ECV Easter egg hunt up in Shingletown. So there was four fields and a bunch of kids and they had them divided up by age brackets and it was a great time although the ravens found the eggs before the kids could start at 10. So they were cracking open eggs and stealing candy while we were trying to shoo them away. So that concludes my report.
District 3 Supervisor Mary Rickert
(29:54) Supervisor Mary Rickert, District 3: I want to thank code enforcement. Finally, there’s a parcel in McArthur that we’ve been working on to get cleaned up and there’s some actual cleanup that has taken place. So I appreciate that. I checked in with our head of our citizens patrol in Fall River and she informed me that they’ve actually had a kind of a reduction in crime and things are relatively quiet for Fall River Valley. So that was really good news. And I appreciate all the good work that the Citizens Patrol, does in our inner mountain area. We have one in Burney too. That’s awesome.
I attended the Golden Empire Council Push Forward dinner, and that was our local boy scouts. it was a big fundraiser. I think they raised $15,000 that night. And the honoree was our own sheriff Mike Johnson. So that was a very fun evening attended a special meeting of the board. My husband and I hosted a Shasta Land Trust event for 2- to 3-year olds and it’s really important to me to get young cldren out in nature and have them experience vernal pools and getting to take their rubber boots and splash puddles, that kind of thing. So you want to connect kids with nature and get them away from technology. That’s the greatest therapy any anybody can have is to be out in nature.
Supported the Oak Run eighth grade class for their class trip. I want to thank Dave Rickard for his letter to the CEC for stating his opposition to the Fountain Wind. I can continue to work on his opposition. I talked to a very large landowner the other night about this particular topic. And I’m working to help organize a meeting between our Shasta County Fire Safe Council and our Public Works director Mr. Bartolomei that we are going to focus on a lot of the egress and ingress in our rural areas and so have a lot of vegetation abatement done so that people will be safer and if there is a fire, that they can get out or the fire wouldn’t consume them with all the vegetation. So with that and the exciting news it sounds like Shasta Dam is projected to be full in April. So that is something to celebrate over.
Shasta County District 1 Supervisor/chair Kevin Crye.
(32:00) Supervisor Kevin Crye, District 1: We had the Youth Options Board meeting. Last week, the mud run is coming up. So I would encourage those again if you haven’t been a part of that, consider getting involved in that. One of the main things with Youth Options again is their youth peer court, which I think that is extremely important. Had a meeting with the sheriff and CEO last week about a project that we’ve been working on and we will introduce that on April 23.
We did have a special closed session last week as well, met with HHSA staff and some leadership from No Boundaries. Looking at different ways how we can come alongside their organization and navigate some of the pitfalls, I guess you would say because the insurance needed for certain programs is super high. Those costs can’t always be met unless they get contracts, they can’t get the contracts to pay that insurance. So it’s kind of like this chicken or egg. So I really want to commend Christy Coleman and the work that she’s doing with any organization that’s looking to help individuals that definitely need a hand up. Not so much a handout. And that’s an organization. Again, if you’re not familiar with No Boundaries, I would encourage you to take a look at their two sites, especially downtown.
I met with some business owners, mostly in District 1. And one of the individuals did say I could use his name, not that the others didn’t, but just the, the plight of running businesses in California, Shasta County, et cetera. So Jason Miller from Lucky Miller said I could share some of these numbers just to give people an idea of of some of the, the costs and the increases just in the last 12 to 18 months, rent will throw that out because rent can always go up. That’s our own property owner’s ability to raise that. But insurance for what he did went from $700 to $1400 a month so doubled in a very short amount of time. you also his energy costs. And one thing again, we have zero jurisdiction over this but, you know, City of Redding here in District 1, we should have like some of the cheapest energy costs in the country and we don’t. And that’s really problematic.
So that’s one thing I would like to be able to work with the city because they say, well, you’re cheaper than PG&E, well, that doesn’t matter. I mean, PG&E is a whole different thing. So I think any chance we can make our community more affordable, we really need to aggressively as a group get behind that because we’re losing great businesses and great families because of the cost just getting driven up. So not only did insurance go up, but his rates of electricity went from between $700 and $800 up to $1200 in a very short amount of time. And then you tack on the little things like the $30 green food waste, which they have to pay that because it’s a State of California thing, but there’s like zero food waste. So he’s just paying for an empty bin. So again, I met with a few other business owners in District 1 just about what are things that we could do as a county and that would happen more outside of my district. But again, we represent everybody. So I would encourage if you’re a business owner and you have some questions or things or programs that we could bring forth or you have some ideas, please bring those to your supervisor or bring them directly to me.
Simple Majority Vote
(37:30) Registrar of Voters Joanna Francescut presented the statement of votes cast for the BOS to declare the results.
(38:51) There were 16 public commenters. Six of them were supportive of the ROV and the election results as presented. The remaining 10 felt there were irregularities, claimed to have witnessed errors in the counting and/or voting procedures or otherwise were unhappy with the Shasta County Elections Department.
(1:13:10) The BOS began discussion of the election results.
(1:13:24) Supervisor Jones: You [referring to one of the public commenters] said there’s never been any problems up until recently. And, and it’s only because only up until recently we’ve been aware of certain things. However, the California Secretary of States have been, have been fully aware. August 6 2007. California Secretary of State Deborah Bowen has imposed broad restrictions on electronic voting machines and decertified machines used in 39 counties. Bowen said the measures are needed because the machines have been hacked.
[Interruption as audience member approaches the dais] Supervisor Crye: This is not a question for you, Mr. James, go ahead and take a seat. This, we’re, we’re back to board discussion at this time. So go ahead and take a seat. I’m not addressing you. This is board discussion, public comments over. Good. Yeah, you’re not going to be able to – have a seat, please. Thank you. You’ve – hold on, hold on, please take, please take a seat. If you want to sit in the front row, you can sit in the front row.
(1:14:38) Supervisor Jones: So that was 2007. And you know, for me personally, I ran in 2002. I lost. I came in dead last on a city council race. I ran again in 2004, came in dead last. I ran in 2006 and one. I ran into 2010 and one. I ran for Board of Supervisors in 2012 and lost. I ran for City Council again in 2014 and lost. I ran for Assembly in 2019 and lost. And I ran for County Board of Supervisors in 2020 won. So I, I’m very familiar with the process. Over many years, I have ran and lost. I’ve lost more than I’ve won. It’s part of the process, winning and losing, somebody is always going to lose. And I’ve always assumed that whoever works the hardest deserves to win. I believe that. And I still believe that today the problem with proprietary software with what we’re seeing in California being forced to use either ES&S, Dominion, or Hart is an insanity. We’re purchasing machinery that we cannot verify. And even the Secretary of States have noted that they have been hacked and they decertified and decertified and decertified voting machines. 2011 used as by as many as a quarter of Americans in the United States can be hacked within with $10.50 of parts. The experts say the newly and this is from the security experts that that happened in 2011. I- [Interruptions from the floor.]
Supervsior Crye: If you can’t. Yeah, hold on if you can’t, please just keep the comments. Like just don’t like. This is the process. We’ve gone through an election. He has a right to speak. We’re going to do that. Hey, this isn’t a discussion. This isn’t a discussion. So Supervisor Jones continue. Please.
(1:16:38) Supervisor Jones continued speaking about why he believes the results of this election are suspect due to his personal observations of the vote counting. ” I saw it with my own eyes… Those errors were either accidentally done or it could have been nefarious… where they were taking four nos and putting it over into the yeses because I’m at a distance. I can’t confirm that. So I couldn’t tell whether it was just correcting an honest mistake or nefarious actions… I have lots of experience watching these things and running many races over many times and, and helping many others. So while I want to certify the results, ultimately, it will be in a matter of court, it will be in court whether this is really going to be ultimately certified or not… And I want to see the data. And so before I can certify something, I’m going to need to see all the data. And I’m hopeful that that happens.”
(1:23:22) Joanna Francescut clarified that in 2007 California began using paper ballots, replacing the touch screen voting machines, and that “at this point when we’re using a paper ballot, we’re using that machine to tabulate the votes in our central count right now. And then we’re going to compare the results to the paper ballots where the voter actually fill it out and mark it themselves.”(1:25:55) Supervisor Garman asked what the difference was between the hand count and the machine county. Francescut read a report that showed there were three variances, all human-caused, and that the variances were corrected.
Simple Majority Vote
(2:06:15) There were eleven public commenters. Five were in favor of receiving funds to bolster the elections department. Six were generally distrustful of the elections, felt any money should be devoted toward hand counting, or didn’t want the elections department to accept money they believed to be from far-left sources.
(2:26:54) Supervisor Kelstrom and CEO Rickert established that the money is approved and available but that the county needs to have a spending plan in place in order to receive it. Nolda Short verified that no money has been received yet.
(2:29:30) Supervisor Jones: So we approved this on February 28… I still want to move forward if we’re going to take this money at all, which has been banned in twenty-three states because they’re trying to influence policy at elections. That’s why it’s been banned in half the states in the United States. But if we’re going to use it, please don’t respond from the floor. If we’re going to use it I would approve using it on a building, but we haven’t got that chance. And that’s why I made a motion to bring it back for that discussion. Let’s look at a building. So we’re not paying lease on the downtown site that we have. I’m pretty certain with $1.5 million we could buy a building. I guarantee you I could do it.
(2:30:50) CEO Rickert: Option A includes $862,000 of general funds that have already been expended. Option B includes $1.1 million of funds that have already been expended. Option C includes $998,000 of money that’s already been expended by the general funds. So the majority of this grant if approved with any of these three spending plans the majority of it is going to reimburse the general funds for things we’ve already spent that could be used for the jail or anything else we want to alleviate with the general fund.
(2:31:43) Joanna Francescut: “You can’t take money from us and say yes, it’s being used for this and then put it in the jail. But if I don’t spend money in my budget and I return it back to the general fund, ok, then that’s where it gets reallocated.”
(2:32:32) , Administrative Analyst for Shasta County Bryce Ritchie: “Part of my responsibilities in the administrative office is leased buildings and building acquisitions. I can tell you I’ve been looking for a space that would be suitable to house elections and the county clerk operations in its entirety, storage, all of it. Since I started in the position, I have not found one that would be suitable that we could purchase for $1.5 million or anywhere close to that. We’re looking at a several million dollar operation. Additionally, the timeline to expend that amount of the funding, we would not be able to do it within the grant period. That’s the biggest caveat is that we have to have the funds expended by the end of December…. I contacted a multitude of agents. I look at a multitude of sites, everything online I can find. I spent several hours driving around town as well looking for vacant buildings. There’s a limited number of spaces that have the necessary square footage… Now, I’m talking about this grant. I was looking for spaces far before the grant came about because leasing buildings long term, I’m not a huge fan of, I like improving assets of the county owns. I don’t want to keep funding money out. So I was looking at it before then and it was obvious since they had to lease space.
(2:51:12) There were two public commenters. One said he had been at the elections office and “I wasn’t satisfied with the people that were counting. They looked too old to count to me… go look at them look like they were 85.” One commented on a a letter from BLM about fire mitigation that would involve toxic chemicals.
(2:56:06) Comment on Closed Session was opened. There was one public commenter.
At the conclusion of the Closed Session, reportable action, if any, will be reported in Open Session.
(2:59:31) Supervisor Crye announced the BOS would recess to Closed Session. “It’s approximately going to take one hour. It is two minutes to the hour of noon. So expect to be back sometime between quarter to one and one o’clock.”
(3:03:49) BOS returned from Closed Session.
REPORT OF CLOSED SESSION ACTIONS
C4 was passed by unanimous consent.
4/5 Vote
(3:05:44) County Counsel Cox: Briefly, the item basically says what we’re doing. And so, there has been an SB 2 working group that’s been looking at implementation for the concealed carry by county employees. And so this is a proposal that was brought to the board to basically to hire a consultant to provide a global plan for implementation. And this integrates with all the various and sundry departments, all their various roles and things like that. So as it says here it’s focused on an integrated plan for safety, legal sufficiency compliance with county policy. whether or not policies need to be changed to accommodate and things of that nature.
Board Matters Continued
Simple Majority Vote
Nancy Hill: “Right now in our nation, our GDP for the arts and culture, both nonprofit and for profit, equal to 4.31% of the national GDP. That equals to 5.2 million jobs in the nation, which is awesome. The amount of money that is generated is $1.1 trillion for arts and culture. So we’ve come out of the pandemic rather well. These are 2022 figures. In the State of California, our GDP is 4.4% with close to almost 5 million jobs here in California. And we don’t have figures for us here in the county. But we think we average anywhere from 3 to 4% on the GDP for arts and culture, both nonprofit and for profit. So the arts and culture are not just flowery, beautiful things, completely opposite of guns and other such things, but it creates an economic opportunity for us both here in our county, in the state and in, in the nation. So we proclamate that California is celebrating arts and culture in our communities in April. And we hope that you all will embrace the arts and make arts, not war.”
Simple Majority Vote
(4:16:33) The Shasta County Board of Supervisors will recess and reconvene as the Shasta County In-Home Supportive Services Public Authority Governing Board.
SHASTA COUNTY IN-HOME SUPPORTIVE SERVICES PUBLIC AUTHORITY GOVERNING BOARD
The Shasta County In-Home Supportive Services Public Authority Governing Board will adjourn and reconvene as the Shasta County Board of Supervisors.
