All right. Good morning. Welcome to the regular meeting of the shasta county board of Supervisors. Today is tuesday, july 28th and the time is 9 a.m.
all board members are present, along with ceo dave rickert and county council joe larmer.
until our new public comment kiosks are operational, Our full clerk of the board team will be assisting with meeting operations and helping
members of the public register to speak. Joining me at the dais are miranda ingram is Kristin gulling-smith,
and in the foyer, stewart buettell is assisting members of the public with online Registrations.
with that, I'll turn the meeting over to miss angel. Thank you. Through the chair, I would like to remind everyone in attendance of the board Room rules of order as outlined in administrative policy 1-11
available on the clerk of the board website. These rules address signage, Seating and conduct to ensure board business is conducted in an orderly manner and that
everyone has an equal opportunity to observe and participate unless addressing the board.
attendees shall remain seated in the chairs provided. Standing along the back wall is permitted as long as entrances and exits remain Unobstructed.
members of the media are requested to set up recording or other equipment in the Designated area along the south windows.
we appreciate everyone's cooperation in maintaining a professional and accessible Environment.
members of the public wishing to address the board must submit a request to speak through The online public comment portal at comment.shastacounty.gov.
registration opens at 8 a.m. On the day of the meeting and closes when public comment on Each item begins.
each speaker is given 2 minutes to speak. It's set for scheduled hearings. All regular calendar items and items pulled from consent for discussion will receive 20 Minutes of public comment per item.
public comment period open time will receive 30 minutes. The first half of each comment period is reserved for in-person speakers, And the second half reserved for telephonic participants with any unused time from either
category being made available to the other. For those participating by phone, The number you call from must match the phone number provided during registration.
calls from blocked, unknown or mismatched numbers cannot be identified.
those callers may listen to the meeting but will not be called upon to speak.
individuals wishing to comment on a consent calendar item are encouraged to register for Both public comment period,
open time and the specific consent calendar item. If an item is not pulled, only those registered for public comment period open time will Be called upon.
if an item is pulled for discussion, only those registered for that item will be called Upon to speak.
we ask for your patience as staff continue to navigate the new public comment system During our second live meeting.
thank you for understanding as we work through the process together. I do have one Announcement to make regarding item r.6.
there was a minor misspelling in the first case name listed.
the correct last name should be matemnotja. With that chair I'll turn things back over to You.
thank you, miss angel. And to the pastor listed on the agenda for the invocation is not Able to make it today.
so join us in his place as pastor james stark from palo cedro community church. But I'd ask that before we get to the invocation, If we could all stand and have a moment of silence for the city manager that has passed.
mr. Tarbox. He leaves behind his dedicated community service and his family, And it's a great loss for this area.
thank you. And pastor stark. You can all sit
and bow your heads with me, and we're going to say a prayer. So I get 1 or 2 minutes. Is that what it is? I'm used to like 45 minutes, So I'm not sure if I can,
but I'll do my best. Alright. Let's pray. Heavenly father, Almighty god, ruler of heaven and earth,
whose eyes look and see all to and fro about the earth. We lift up the shasta county board of supervisors to your throne of grace.
today we recognize, according to your infallible word, That there is no authority except from you.
and those that exist have been instituted by your divine decree.
you have established civil government as your minister of good, A shield against chaos, and an instrument of your common grace to restrain evil in our
communities. Let these leaders, before you now know they've been called to this board Specifically and with divine intention and expectations.
our prayer today is that realization that these leaders deeply understand this holy wait.
grant them the diligence to see their offices not as positions of personal privilege, But as a sacred stewardship for which they will one day render an
account to you. Fill their hearts with genuine, Christ like compassion for every constituent.
remind them that true leadership is rooted in sacrificial service, Giving, loving, caring,
mirroring our lord and savior who came not to be served but to serve.
may they view the citizens they represent through your eyes of grace. Listening with humility, acting with fairness, Working tirelessly for peace and resolution,
and flourishing the well-being of the entire communities.
father, we pray for your sovereign direction over every decision they face. Deliver them from worldly compromise. Political preferences, Division and selfish ambition.
wake them today and each day after with a profound awareness of spiritual.
the spiritual hour that we presently live in.
grant us board the wisdom beyond themselves to cast off the works of darkness and put on The armor of light.
let them not make provision for the flesh or human pride, But instead clothe themselves daily with the character,
truth, and righteousness of our lord jesus christ.
may your holy spirit guide their deliberations so that they may lead quiet and peaceable Lives in all godliness and honesty.
let your law of love be the ultimate standard that fulfills all their civic duties.
we ask that this board would be a beacon of justice and order, Led by supervisors who honor you by loving with all their hearts and
their neighbors in just due. And in the mighty name, The matchless name above all names.
jesus we pray. Amen. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for Which it stands.
one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
all right. Thank you, pastor stark. And there's 2 pastor starks in the room today.
all right, moving along. We'll go to r.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 and receive supervisor reports on county wide issues.
ceo rickert. Good morning, chairman kelstrom and members of the board of supervisors.
dave rickert, county executive officer, reporting with an update on local issues.
there was a water main break that broke last night at the breslauer mental health Building.
the city of redding is planning to repair this today. Health will have limited services. Please call for additional information.
mental health will be closed, but economic economic mobility will be open for service.
branch directors are communicating with their program managers, So they are prepared to answer questions from staff and from the public.
we will provide additional information as it becomes available. Moving on to other matters, we have the, in cooperation with the county, The city of redding is officially ready to welcome over 7000
visitors and 1600 athletes for the inaugural ironman competition on sunday, August 16th.
this should generate between 10 to $12 million in local economic activity, And we look forward to the event and please be ready for
some traffic delays related to this event as this program moves forward with news from Sacramento.
a regulatory loophole has caused a cost of employing gold herding teams that provide fire Safety prevention efforts to increase,
the cost will go from approximately $4,800 a month to pay individual goat herders to $240,000 annually.
this with additional legally mandated expenses like housing, Food visas, international airfare included,
for a total of round package to exceed a quarter million dollars a year. We're hoping that sacramento could look at this issue, Close that loophole, and provide the fire safety we need for shasta county.
this concludes my report. Thank you, ceo rickert supervisor plummer.
good morning everyone. Thank you chair. Kelstrom. So a few items. 3 main items that I wanted to share with you all as an update and look for Board support and bringing back for additional
conversation and discussion. The first is that we've talked, You know, a bit about the need for grant making support to
help write grants as we look to get additional resources on board, Particularly in places where we might not have the ongoing recurring revenue to be
able to fund those. And so a couple months ago now, A group reached out called california consulting,
and they work with cities and counties all across the state, And they provide grant writing support in two ways.
the first way is that they actually look for grants that might be a good fit for things That you're already trying to do.
and the second way is that then they would actually, If the county wanted to, to help the county write those.
and so we've had some initial conversations, Myself, ceo rickert, and the way it works is you can enter into a contract with them,
pay nothing. They will look for grants for us. If we say we want a grant that can help with a general plan update, For example, they'll look for those grants and if they they'll identify grants and all
that will cost us $0. It's only if we ask them to actually write the grant, Does it cost us something.
and so this seems like a great way to help us identify additional grants that could be a Good fit for us.
and then where necessary, when we you know, when our county staff don't have the capacity To write a grant that we think would be good to pursue,
we can always contract with them. As one example, They've worked with the city of vallejo on a number of projects,
and they've brought in close to $20 million to that city at a cost to the city of 85,000.
and so huge return on investment there. 1 of the grants that actually we've been talking About whether we could apply for us called the model cities initiative.
it's a $300 million from the federal government for preventing crime and innovative Approaches to that.
unfortunately, it looks like we're going to be too close because the deadline is september 1st to apply.
in order to bring this back, get them on board. But that's the type of thing that if we had had them on board, You know, a couple of months ago, we could have, you know,
applied for that. And that could have been a big piece of funding our new corrections and Rehabilitation campus if we got it.
so with that, I will make a motion that we bring back this contract, Which again, $0 committed contract on august
11th for board consideration with california consulting.
does anybody want to second that? I'll second for the purpose of discussion.
okay, so we're going to bring this back on the 11th for discussion then.
yes. And for for a vote on the contract, whether to approve the contract or not.
okay. All right. All those in favor. Aye. Any opposed passes 5 0.
thank you. Supervisor plummer. Supervisor
yes. I'll go quickly through it. The the second thing is, You know, we have worked extensively over the last few years on
substance use prevention. Supervisor crye has, You know, advanced a big initiative around you know,
working with youth to prevent that. We've done a number of other things. One of the things that I was seeing that actually maybe surprisingly san francisco is Doing is that they've implemented a recovery first policy
that basically says that all programs that work with those with substance use disorder Need to be have the primary goal of remission and recovery.
and so I think that that would be something good for us to consider.
and just specifically, I'll read the the line here, Which is long term remission of substance use disorders for individuals with the help of
fully supported and staffed evidence based recovery and behavioral health services shall Be the primary goal of the county substance use disorder treatment.
and so I would like to bring back for discussion a a recovery first policy that
it basically declares that's our goal. And any program that is not consistent with that Would have to be approved by the board.
so I'll make a motion to bring back a recovery first policy that states that the goal of Our substance use treatment programs have the goal of remission and recovery,
and any program that does not have that goal would come before the board.
that san francisco is more of harm reduction. So, you know, kind of enabling safety in use of, Of drugs versus trying to get them off of drugs.
I'm not sure if I would like to follow san francisco's lead on anything, But that's just my personal opinion.
this is so they've seen a 27% reduction in the first half of this year in overdoses.
as a result, we're moving into discussion on this item. We just need to vote whether you want to bring it back. Okay.
so we're going to just to bring it back for discussion. Okay. Not entering a contract or no, no, this would just be a policy that the county would Consider approving or not.
and would you be presenting on that so that we would have an informed opinion?
yes. That would whether it's me or yes staff, I'd work with staff to bring back a draft of that that we could review and discuss.
okay. I'll second. All right. We have a motion supervisor plummer.
seconded by supervisor long. I guess I'm open for discussion. So, all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Passes 5-0.
thank you. Yes. You have 1 more? I do, but I'll go ahead and take it.
I'll be, I'll be, I'll be quick. Okay. Well, The last one is so I've been able to participate in pg&e.
roundtable discussion. And part of that was visiting diablo canyon, Which is the only nuclear active nuclear facility in,
in california. It provides 9% of the state's total power.
and right now they are awaiting. So they just got renewal 20 or 25 years from the federal Government to continue operating.
but they need the state legislature to approve them, To continue to operate in order to.
and so they have a coalition of sorts of diablo canyon 2045, Which would basically just advocate to keep it open until
2045. The reason I think this is important for shasta county is if we, If they take that off.
if the state decides to take that offline, the state loses 9% of its total power, Which means that we'll likely see rates go up or there will be shortages
in kind of the pg&e. Full network, because they'll be scrambling to try to backfill what Is almost 10%.
so I would make a motion that we bring back to direct staff to join the diablo canyon 2045 And advocate for keeping that nuclear
facility open. I'll second, if that's a consent item, We don't need to discuss that.
right. That's fine with me. All right. We got a motion made by supervisor plummer, Seconded by supervisor crye.
all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Passes 5-0. Thank you. Supervisor crye. All right. I met with shawna stratton, Who I believe is with the substance use coalition,
about some other items to consider in terms of opioid dollars and prevention.
that goes along with what supervisor plummer just talked about. This board and the prior Board really looked at prevention as one really effective use
of those funds. I've had quite a few conversations around flock cameras.
I've made my position pretty much known on those already. I think there's a lot of positives that come from those.
I've had long discussions with the sheriffs about it. I still feel like that's not the best direction to go.
sometimes, because you can do something doesn't mean you necessarily should. So I'll leave It at that.
I had a couple meetings with mr. Tarbox, and I know that he was pushing hard, And I debated if I was going to talk about this now or after this
friday, but august 18th is a big a big date or it was a big date.
and that was when the circle 6 wouldn't call it an investigation.
I would call it just the consulting firm that came in.
and the information contained in that. I really do hope the city of redding and the Interim city manager,
michael webb, brings that to the public and makes that public on august 18th, Because I was privy to know quite a bit about some of the findings from circle
06, and I hope that becomes very public. If it doesn't, I will be one of the loudest people about that because if we don't bring that to light,
which is the majority of district 1 pretty much the entirety of district 1 and of course Parts of some of the other districts other than 5.
but that information needs to be public in a very public way.
and I met with quite a few families as it relates to this adoption item today.
this is something I've worked on for quite a while, And I look forward to the item coming up.
I know miss lane is going to have a great presentation, And we'll probably have some speakers.
and with that chair, I'll give the rest of my time to thank you. Supervisor crye. Supervisor harmon. Good morning.
thank you. I'm going to let you talk about lafco.
I'll give that one to you. Okay. Thanks. And then and then I'm going to let you talk about The the graduation,
your evaluation or edc. Aop no, the at the park humane society.
and one of them that I would like to do a little shout out for rebecca bauer.
the economic development had a little luncheon, And I wanted to give her a shout out because she's a great.
she did a great job of speaking. Something, I don't know, Something I don't like to do.
so I always appreciate somebody that does a good job at it. She does. She's doing a good job at her job and she does a good job presenting.
and thank you, rebecca, for what you're doing with the economic development department.
and then I'm going to talk about wolves and I see mary and jim in the room, And I understand that you've you've been having some problems too.
and there's, there's just a list. There's a list of names, Ranchers that are having problems.
and I, I haven't confirmed this, but a wolf sighting on dry creek yesterday.
I'm trying to get that confirmed right now, but I haven't got that confirmed, So I want to say too much about it,
but it doesn't doesn't surprise me. And people I've heard people say, You know, all he wants to do is talk about wolves.
well, that might be true because it's one of the biggest, Most impactive things we got going in shasta county right now is,
is what's happening to our ranchers. We're, you know, We're all home.
doing our normal things, sleeping at night. And some of these ranchers are having to Patrol their herds.
and they're trying to keep up with the radio collared wolf reports, Which are sometimes they're at least 24 hours behind,
and sometimes they're 2 or 3 days behind. Sometimes they're working, Sometimes they're not.
but they're, they're supposed to be letting the ranchers know that they've got you know, A pack of wolves
on their properties in the, you know, northeast quadrant or whatever so that they can do Some kind of a hazing,
which is a big subject because they're not allowed to really do much as far as hazing Goes.
the fish and game has a little more latitude. They can use rubber bullets. We're not allowed to use rubber bullets.
I think that would be a little more effective than letting fish and game have them, Because they're there.
by the time they show up, the wolves are gone or already done the damage. But anyway, we'll we'll we'll keep on top of the, Of the wolves thing.
I'm going to I'm going to say it again. I'm going to keep saying it. The wolves are being used by the government. And it's being used in a way that the spotted Owl was used to wreck the lumber
timber logging industry. What they what they what they don't want is.
they don't want these ranchers grazing on the on the public lands where they have grazing Rights and.
and a good way for them to, to run them off is do what they're doing with the wolves and We'll keep talking about it,
but thank you. Thank you. Supervisor harmon. Supervisor long thank you chair.
welcome, everyone. I attended a board meeting for the old shasta, Which is an independent district fire district.
and questions came up from that meeting. And so I wanted to update you on some of the Things that,
that I've since researched. So in the car fire footprint, Fema promised money to
shasta county for car fire footprint victims.
and it would have to do with fuels mitigations and some of the reductions in those kinds Of things.
that money is promised to shasta county from fema and the way this works.
and they've fema has promised about 1.4 billion to california, But that obviously would not all go to shasta county.
it's for la fires and a lot of different things that have been occurred.
and so $40 million would be a shasta county impact.
and of that, 40 cal fire has already raised 25 million or 25%, Which is 10 million.
so it's 30 million from fema and 10 million. So, So my, my questions were what's the status of that?
because that largely affects or entirely affects district 2, Which is the calfire footprint.
well, I guess a little bit of district one, but so I tried to figure that out and that has Been kind of stalled at this
point. We can't spend the 10 million that cal fire has raised, Because then that would put us in violation if fema ever does award this.
and so I had been trying to figure out how we could be declined if that was the ultimate Case
be declined by fema, and then we would go to cal oes, Because I heard there were some matching funds there.
so haven't gotten to the bottom of it yet because we have not gotten a declination letter,
but it's just been stalled out. And this has been something that I've been interested in.
before I even took office meeting with vestra who used to be the administrator and now It's mcconnell.
so stand by with that. We'll, we'll get some updates. I'm hoping to have an actual declination, declination from fema, If that's where their position is
going to be so that we can pursue other funds to. And we would be free to spend some of the matching funds.
so looked into all that. That's that's a quick update there.
I attended a quirky supervisor harmon and I attended a economic development corporation Luncheon.
I have interest in, in jobs in this community and high paying jobs and some of those kinds Of things.
and it was, it was a great great meeting. And one of the things that really caught my Attention were something called opportunity zones.
and basically the way this works is it's fed, Designated, and they get a fed tax break on a capital gains in property.
if they invest the proceeds in directly into these opportunity zones.
and these are mostly rural zones and economically disadvantaged zones.
and so there's tremendous opportunity. And for whatever reason, Things like stillwater business park have gotten included in some of these zones.
that application was completed. It was kind of right, Right under the wire.
and so the county has completed that. Stewart buettell finally got that in and or got that In.
and so that's that's great news. And I look forward to working going forward with Potential investors into our opportunity zones
to. And we went through a bunch of different businesses that were covered on these Opportunity zones and where they fall.
and it kind of covered most of the districts in our county. There was bernie district 3, there's district f5.
district 4. Not much in the way of district 1 and 2, Which is my district, but it was, it was interesting.
so supervisor harmon and I attended camp lava pet and got to go through the ceremonies There with all the graduating
teams and basically 2 campers team up with a dog.
and it's it's great because a lot of the dogs have already been adopted and they've worked With them for weeks trying to get them
trained on basic skills. And hopefully people consider adopting some of these animals.
and I think that's a great, great service to our community.
let's see. I think that's it. That's, that's it for mine.
thank you. Supervisor long. And I believe supervisor harmon, You may have forgotten something. Yeah,
I've got a list over here. But then I didn't put this on that list. I had a piece of paper sitting here, but in the same subject, The opportunity zones.
stewart buettell, are you still in the room? Stewart. He's he's been working on this and he's already submitted like we were talking.
oh, there he is in the back of the room. Sorry. I didn't mean to call you out when you weren't here, But you're listening. Stewart's done a great job of getting this program entered in the
the 2.0 opportunity zone for bernie. It's retroactive to the local authority
recommended forms and submitted at a meeting in august.
so I'm making a motion to put this on the august agenda.
second. Got a motion made by supervisor harmon. Seconded by supervisor crye. All those in favor?
aye. Supervisor. Plummer. Supervisor. Plummer. I thought I heard it from kevin. Okay. Supervisor plummer made the second. All those in Favor? Aye.
aye. Passes 5-0. Thank you, thank you. Supervisor. Harmon. All right. I'll make mine short and sweet on the 15th.
I had hot dogs with anderson cops and the anderson anderson city council was there.
the anderson manager. It was at the fairly new storefront down in anderson called Blackburn's.
and if you haven't been there, it's a really cool place. It's the old bank of america Building is totally refurbished.
it. He's got some golf simulators in there, several kinds of beer on tap, And he sells his clothing there.
so it's a pretty, pretty good business there in anderson. And while I was there that day, I also went to had an enterprise anderson groundwater sustainability agency meeting and
followed shortly thereafter at the city council chambers with the lafco executive meeting.
so on the 16th, I did attend the zoom meeting with supervisor plummer and the usda.
thank you. Supervisor. Plummer. And on the 17th I attended a addicted offenders program Graduation with judge flynn.
and if you guys anybody ever gets a chance to go to one, I highly recommend it.
they take some individuals that instead of sending them to jail or prison, They go through this program.
it's a very difficult program to, to get through. But we had, I think 4 graduates. So and they tell their story and they started out by Showing their booking photo,
which is usually pretty interesting. Then on the 18th, The amcd the shingletown volunteer fire department open house up in shingletown.
it was a good time. We did a whole bunch of great things up there. They had stuff for the kids and did cpr on on the dummies and everything else.
it was pretty neat. And so then the 22nd, I met with trish clark and anderson fire chief Lowe about some issues that they're having in anderson or concerns that they had.
and then I met with ceo rickert and a county council on the 23rd, And then again with ceo rickert and the interim resource manager on the 24th.
and that concludes my report. All right. Moving on r.2.
we are going to receive a presentation from sandra hamilton, Dean of student services, and jerry beckman,
director of career services at shasta harmon trinity joint community college district, Regarding the shasta education program unified partnership,
which is the step up program, my favorite program. So welcome. Thank you very much. Thank you. Chair kelstrom and supervisors.
we're glad to bring our first report to you. We do have a powerpoint if you're good.
thank you. Able to bring that up. Also, thank you, Supervisor plummer for meeting with us and giving us some guidance on the information
you'd like. If I jump to the last page, it says, Tell us more of what you want to see.
we will come at the end of every semester to provide information to you.
and so as we go forward, we may have new data points that you want to see.
and we are always open to hearing from you. This is your money on behalf of the citizens, And we'd like to be able to meet those needs.
the first slide shows some of the outcomes academically for our students who are in the Step up program.
we were able to have 15 students supported. As you remember, We got to the contract pretty late this semester,
and so many of the financial needs for these students had already been met. But we spent $12,000 on direct aid for books or laptops or materials that they needed for Classes.
an average of $825 per student and what you've allotted in the grant was $2,000 per Student for up to 25 students a semester.
3 of those students completed their certificates or degrees, So we were able to help them get through the finish line,
as we say. And interestingly, 2, of them were in their very first semester at shasta College.
so we're looking forward to helping them get a strong foundational start and continue in Their programs.
in terms of why we're looking for financial support, You can see that nearly 100% of these students are considered low income by financial aid
standards. The expectation the cost of attendance is $34,000 at shasta college.
and so students can receive aid up to that amount, And most do not receive all of that.
you can see the 60% of these students still had unmet need exceeding $10,000.
and so there's still plenty more room for us to raise money to support those students. We also wanted to provide some of the academic outcomes, So we compared it to shasta college students overall to step up students.
and then the light green bar are the opioid students. You can see they attempted a 53% attempted 12 or more units, And 47% were able to earn 12 units.
as you can see, that's far exceeding the general population, Where 31% attempted and only 21% earned 12 or more units.
any questions about any of that data before we turn it over to jenny? And then we'll talk a little bit about the students who were enrolled in internships Through our addiction study program. Okay.
I don't see anybody in queue, so. Hi. Thank you.
change the slide. So we did get these funds rather late. So a lot of the students did complete the semester by the time they received the payments.
but the benefits of the payments were clear. And the data that we got, 73% of the students said that it helped the students stay enrolled in the program,
anticipating that payment. A total of 373 students have enrolled in our addiction studies Program.
it's a relatively new program, so this first cohort of students completing their practicum Hours,
it was the first group. The remaining unmet need after the stipend received was over $4,000.
so these students still have a little bit of need. 100% of the students reported a better Understanding.
I mean, that's pretty obvious after completing this practicum that they were working at These sites 38,000 of those funds were spent to these students with
an average of a little over 3000 per student. And I just wanted to really point out that the roi is more than just funding these Students in the internships,
that this is higher retention, this is workforce readiness, Reduced financial hardship, and a stronger regional workforce capacity.
this is a little bit of the qualitative data of the students, How that financial impacted them and their own words.
I won't go over all of these, but if you just take a look, A lot of them were able to work in the internship without having to work in additional
employment, which is really important because these students are going to school full Time.
so working a full time job on top of completing this practicum is a big hardship for them.
so getting the paid stipend is truly beneficial.
another student actually, because the funds came so late, She's continuing the hours, but she actually became homeless in the time it just,
we didn't get the funds to them in time. And she had to quit her other job to complete These hours.
these are the, the sites that we have students placed in.
multiple, multiple sites have more than one student, A total of 2358 hours were spent at these
sites and $18,000 went out to these sites. We have been providing a $1,500 stipend to each Student,
because there are a lot of administrative costs that go to hosting these interns, And we've also added hill country medical center to this list
as of this summer. More qualitative data on the skills and knowledge that they gained in The internship.
they also complete a career readiness plan through our career center, And it helps the students gain skills in 8 career competencies.
so the students are getting help in multiple areas, Not just from their faculty, but through career services department,
creating their resume, creating a portfolio at the end, Doing mock interviews and things like that.
I did this the 45% of the students were offered
employment at the site and 36% were working full time.
91% said that this helped them connect them to other career opportunities. And obviously, 100% workforce prepared the barriers that were reduced by the stipend.
overwhelmingly, it was transportation and fuel costs and housing and a lot of them.
it reduced the need for the second job. Over 80% of the students reported increased Confidence in pursuing careers in the behavioral health field after completing this
internship, and we had 81% completion rate. Thank you.
thank you very much. Miss angel, do we have any public comment on this presentation?
yes, chair, we have 4 speakers. Give me just a moment.
supervisor. Plummer. Would you mind if we got to the speakers first. Thank you very much, Ladies.
you may have some questions for you in a few minutes. Okay. Up first is don duckett, followed by shasta county watchdog, Then mo.
if I called your name, please get in the queue. Good morning.
board chair. Kelstrom. The step up program is also my favorite program, And I know that I've told you all before about the positive outcome that my son
had with the step up program. So essentially, He was a severely addicted addict who was in and out of our local
criminal justice system, in and out of the jail, Sucking up resources there, ended up in state prison.
and in 2020, during covid, he was released early. And in that phone call to me, he said, mom, I'm not ready to get out.
and by the grace of god he ended up through the day reporting center at the step up Program,
which was a game changer for him. He graduated there machine operator, Heavy equipment operator program,
and immediately was dispatched to fight the dixie fire, Which gave him a sense of pride, accomplishment,
and self-worth that he had not had ever in his life.
and with addicts, a great form of treatment is giving them something new to be addicted To.
and so he became addicted to success. He's now earning a 6 figure income.
he's a taxpayer. He volunteers. He just took his wife and children around europe on a Dream vacation.
and it's really hard to quantify those successful outcomes.
it's very easy to look at the failures and say, Well, this is how much it costs.
but when you look at the successes and the taxes they pay and what they're putting back Into the community,
those are things that are very hard to quantify.
so I'd like you to keep that in mind when you look at this data. Thank you. [appplause] up next is shasta county watchdog, Followed by mo, then mary rickert.
if I called your name, please get in the queue. I have some questions regarding this item,
and I'm not asking you to answer because I know you can't. But for the audience or for everybody to kind of my, My deal here is it's a great program to have for preventing,
preventing children or anybody regarding drugs.
but my question is, it's always going to be looking at what are you following the Guidelines to be able to give this kind of money because it sounds more like
a school. A school, like a nonprofit organization are they're treating these people Regarding opioid
money, or are we teaching them some kind of education?
because if you're not treating them for the being addicted to this drug, Then you're not you're misusing the funds to,
to, to provide this to the, the college here organization, Whatever it's called here.
but I do believe that there's some guidelines that I actually been looking at all the Opioid money that you've been
giving out to these organizations so far since I seen the documents and the evidence since I've been putting together most of them.
you're not following the guidelines, you're tweaking it a little bit, But you're not following following the guidelines.
so if I was you, I'd be careful because I'm actually going to be providing some Information to the
the state to investigate. Because you're misusing the funds, Totally.
because I know that kevin price is also involved with this organization.
and when it comes to kids, we all know that kevin crye always looking for someone where he Could benefit from the funds.
so that's my goal to go after. Up next is mo, Followed by mary rickert.
good morning board. Hello fellow constituents. My name is monique william, mrs duckett. They quantified it here for you.
this is to let you know what is successful about this program.
I was moved more by the qualitative because that's somebody's personal story with how this Affects them.
and I want to say thank you for doing what you're doing. What excited me was the fact that this whole whoever did this, A very educated individual.
but it's a little confusing. You know, normally we read left to right. It's too much. But this is amazing. And there's your quantification.
so that being said my god, how do I even go from here?
I've got family members that are addicted and going through programs and trying to help Themselves.
and I, every time I come up here, I try to facilitate for people to when they leave here, You're not going to remember me,
but something I said. And one one thing I want to talk about is when we cope with stress.
oh boy. When a person experiences stress, he tries to alleviate it.
being up here in front of everybody is extremely stressful. But I love what you're doing for the community.
so please don't stop one foot in front of the other.
to protect himself from serious discomfort. He or she may both.
so I'm trying to be educated. My point being though, This is a beautiful program.
what makes me happy is it says opioid settlement. So that means somebody's hard work 9 years ago got us here today.
so thank you for the work that you ladies do. From the bottom of my heart. This is what community is about.
up next is mary rickert. Ensure that's our last speaker.
good morning gentlemen. First of all, I want to kind of piggyback on what dolores said About following the state guidelines,
and we're all familiar with them. And I really do think we need to focus on that more.
the step up program is an excellent program, And I applaud shasta college for their work.
I've never missed a graduation in the eight years I was a supervisor, And I know people that have gone through the program just like dawn's son,
and truly benefited from it. But I'm here today to shed light once again on the fact that This board was handed by former county council jim ross.
10s of millions of dollars of opioid settlement dollars to directly treat those suffering From addiction.
I have seen serious attempts to. I have not seen serious attempts to provide by this board Immediate treatment services instead of boxing
programs and similar kind of youth programs. Please consider focusing on the addicted Parents so their children can have a
healthy childhood. Cannot repeat that lifestyle and grow up to be productive citizens.
those are the ones that are most impacted by this addiction problem.
so I just ask that you reevaluate your priorities.
we worked really hard to get those millions and millions of dollars, And I really am troubled and not seeing after a year and a half how that money has been
spent. It hasn't gone to direct services for treatment.
and as the pastor said this morning, you will be rendering an account to our lord.
thank you very much. Supervisor plummer. Yes.
thank you for the presentation and for the time before talking through the data, And it's encouraging to see these early results.
I did have a few just clarification questions on it. The first one was, I think on that second slide, If you're able, it says 47% are in addiction studies.
is that of the step up? Yes. Yeah. So many of our step up students, Given their background,
stayed on and continued to go into the addiction studies program. So some of them, that's their primary goal. For some of them, They maybe are in the human services sector,
but then they also wanted to get the certification. So there's a little bit of crossover there for those that population.
okay. And what does coming out of that degree program or certificate program, What does that enable them to do?
like I guess, what level of qualification is that? So they do get, they do take the certification test.
the internship is required in order for them to get certified, And then they can go into becoming alcohol and drug counselors and some of our local
agencies. We do look forward to tracking some of that in future semesters and letting you Know how many,
how many of them are getting jobs in our community and what that employment rate is.
awesome. And then I saw that on the one side, It said 373.
our total enrolled in the alcohol and drug studies program. That's a that's a sizable number. I'm curious if you all have a sense.
and I wouldn't necessarily expect you to, but just if. Of, you know, the number of drugs in the county or northern california in that field, And whether that kind of
the how the supply meets the demand. There in terms of drug counselors.
yeah. Yeah. And so before we open that program, Since it is only 2 years old now, there was a study done in order to present to the
faculty to say, yes, this is a need we have. And so we did have the data on the potential Jobs that were needed in our community to fill by this certification.
and so I can provide that to you from that study we initially provided.
okay, great. And then I had one last question.
on the one slide, I think jenny shared, this was it said 100% workforce prepared.
I just wasn't clear on what workforce prepared means in that context.
prepared to enter the workforce. And like I said, They undergo a career readiness plan through our career services department.
and that career readiness plan walks them through 8 essential career skills that nace, The national association of colleges and employers,
has identified as workplace ready. And these are what we would consider soft skills, Communication,
things like that. Okay, great. Well, thank you for this, I appreciate it.
thank you chair. So you just answered some of the questions I had to supervisor plummer About the addiction studies program and some of
the counseling, drug and alcohol counseling possibilities.
so I guess the only other question I would have is it sounded like there was a 2 step Process initially,
which would be students that were affected by opioid abuse, And then also this kind of drug
alcohol certification program through the addiction studies program.
correct. So so that kind of kind of2 paths. I'm just curious about how many, How many of the dollars have gone and how many people are being served in the
first half and then the second component. So on the first screen, We spent $12,300 on the step up students.
those are students who are in opioid impacted and are receiving support services through Step up.
and again, we have a maximum of $50,000 a semester.
but since we got started late, we didn't recruit as many students. We'll be looking to Spend all of that next semester.
and then in terms of the internship, it was 38,000.
okay. And that's direct money going to the students and then the stipends going to the Agency.
so all of the money is passed through to students and agencies. Okay, okay. And it's going to take a while for them to get through the addiction studies Program to get their counseling certifications correct.
so we, we won't know how that, how effective that is until they start graduating that 2 Years from now.
right. So the first group graduated in the spring. And so this is the first group we're able to show you.
about half of those students graduated. A few have 1 or 2 more classes that they'll do This fall and prepare to graduate.
so yeah, we will start to see a cumulative effect of those students because the internship Is typically the last thing they complete before they graduate.
okay. And you might have covered this, but are they gaining employment? So we did have some of the employment data already.
and then we will continue to track that in terms of that's why we're using our career Services is to continue to track those employment statistics.
excellent. Okay. Thank you. It was nearly half of the students were offered opportunities At the sites after their internship.
half of the students have had job offers. Yes.
okay. Thank you. Supervisor crye. Before. Before I get to a couple questions, I want to just clarify a couple things.
ceo rickert. So I want to just address some of the inaccuracies in public comment, But doesn't aaron bertain or miss bertain,
deputy ceo check with the state whenever there's a question on how we use or how we Propose to use the opioid funds.
and also doesn't the I think it's dhcs. The department of health care services that has to Check on that to make sure that we're using that money correctly.
that is correct. We vet all programs proposed by the board and the public before we bring Them forward for final approval for the board.
so those are all vetted by the state and approved specifically for the settlement of terms And agreement.
perfect. I just want to make sure I made that clarification. The next one is I want to Make sure we give credit to the people that really led the opioid dollar money and why we
have this. And that's mike sarkozy. He started that. And then baron and budd handled the litigation on a national level.
and then john fiske out of san diego did the litigation. So when you talk about when somebody mentions how this money got here, I mean, let's be really clear how this money actually got here.
who led that effort, why it's here, but also why I think you don't just take it and you Just run out and spend it.
I think we have to invest it. We have to invest it intentionally. The reason this county is in the financial shape it's in opposed to some of the other Rural counties,
especially the, you know, 10, 12, 13 northern counties.
and how we've invested the money, I believe, Is like you guys actually have up to 50,000.
is that correct? Is, is that you up to 50,000 that you can spend in that.
for the students themselves and then additional money for the internships? Correct. You Spent 12.
we spent 12 and then. 38. So yeah, we spent about 50,000. Okay. So my my question is, is there is there a possible effort to recruit more people who Might not be looking to go to shasta college,
but they would solely go for the step up? And I know you guys are doing some things now.
I know this is more of supervisor kelstrom. I won't say project or baby so to speak, But he has more direct correspondence
with you guys. But do you guys see opportunities missed where you could grow this more, Where the investment made?
we could actually the compound effect of, you know, Maybe increasing that greatly by increasing some dollars.
yeah, that's, that's definitely our plan is to maximize the dollars and to get as many Students recruited as we can.
when we met with supervisor plummer, the head of probation, Tracy neil, was there as well and gave us some connections to network to some of the
county social workers to let them know that this opportunity is there. So for students who are wanting to come to college wanting to explore career options, Who have been impacted,
they can connect up with the staff and step up to make sure we help them get that strong Start and then the supports they need.
okay. Yeah. So if anybody knows a student, yeah, Feel free to refer them. But we will continue active recruiting. No, I mean, I know that there's recruiting efforts.
I just was curious, you know, because I haven't looked deeply into that personally.
I know supervisor plummer had a lot of questions. It seems like he's had most of them answered because his questions were very limited Compared to what I thought we were going to be in for.
you can't yell out no age limit. So yes. So what I will mention is, You know, we didn't finalize the contract until may.
and so I didn't really want to obligate the college too much on expending the funds.
if we weren't able to meet that contract, then we wouldn't have been able to provide that Support. So it was more of a soft opening this semester,
and we would be far more aggressive in plenty of students that we can support out there. I appreciate it, thank you. No other questions. I can just update everyone that coming in.
we're getting ready for the fall. Now. We're bringing in the new crop of students. And we Right now are at 25 under this cohort.
so 12 are new students that are coming in and 13 are going to be returning.
some of those students were students that were not in step up previously.
maybe they have 1 or 2 classes to finish. We're going back through all of our former Students and looking to see what they need and trying to bring those back.
I sit on prop 47 committee with james goodwin.
so that would be another source. So we're constantly out in the community talking to Students where it stopped and those sorts of events,
trying to let everybody know. Awesome. Awesome.
supervisor. Harmon. So I just want to say thank you for what you're doing, But I also one quick question.
the 25 students, are they, are they generally or mostly local?
yes. These are only shasta college shasta county students. Nice. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right. I don't think we have any more questions.
thank you very much. And keep up the good work. [applause] all right.
moving on. R.3 receive a presentation from cindy lane, The health and human services agency,
behavioral health and social services branch director, Regarding child adoption fees.
miss lane. Thank you. Good morning, chair kelstrom and fellow members of the board.
I'm cindy lane, branch director of behavioral health and social services. I'm here to present on ultimately adoption fees.
but in order to start the presentation off, I felt it was important to highlight our Purview,
hhs purview. And that's through the child welfare or the dependency court.
and so how families get involved in our system.
it starts off with a referral or a call to the hotline, And then we have an investigation if it gets that far.
and once it's determined if a child needs to come into care, We do have staffing to make that decision.
and then ultimately it goes before the court and a judge determines if that child will Remain in care.
during that time. What gets decided is there could be family reunification services or Family maintenance where the child remains in care.
and then from there, case plans are developed and there are 6 month review hearings.
that's quite a long process that I just said in a very short amount of time, But once it gets to a point where the judge determines what the permanent plan
is for that child and that reunification services are no longer going to be part of the Plan,
that is when a permanent plan is determined. And that could be adoption, Legal guardianship,
or another planned permanent living arrangement. And that could just be that other one. It could be a child in a short, Strp, short term residential treatment program.
it could be a child that's in a home and they don't want to be adopted, Or they don't want to have a legal guardian.
it could be that they're in a transitional living program.
there's various other parts of that. So the child welfare social worker, The adoption social
worker, these are the specific items that they'll be providing with the families that They're working with.
so they're going to do adoption specific assessments. They'll provide ongoing support. They'll do the document gathering, Navigating court and kind of walking alongside the family.
so the fees in our specific court. So that's with dependency court cases.
typically most of our fees can be waived. And so you'll see for example, The live scan fees any of
our families, they go oftentimes to the sheriff's office. There's other places they can go, we can reimburse them for those fees.
the petition for adoption court filing, that's $20 per person.
we also can reimburse those fees. And then there's also home safety requirements.
so it could be a pool. And this often happens earlier in the process that it requires a Fence around it.
or there's other home improvements that need to be had that are state requirements that we Also can potentially reimburse.
and so kind of to highlight for our county, specifically, In the past 5 years, we've had 344 total adoptions.
and I can break it down per year. So 21 was 60 22, 74, 23, 67, 24 was
70. And in 2025 we had 73 adoptions. And then if you break that down, So potentially the $20 per person,
it is an actual court fee. It is not our internal fee that works out to $6,880.
and so I unfortunately supervisor crye was not able to run right before this, How much we've actually reimbursed,
but we've started to pull that data. So we can make sure, But, but in general, it is a practice that we are reimbursing those fees.
and then so to clarify, because I've been talking about our child welfare adoption avenue,
these are the others. So there's private adoptions, Which could be with through a nonprofit agency,
a for profit agency, or just an independent adoption through both parties.
or there's probate court adoptions. And that could mean family member or non-family Members get guardianship of a child.
and after 2 years, they then can apply for adoption that is separate and outside of our Court.
and then there's also step parent adoptions through step parent adoptions.
we have there is legislation that we do pay for those investigations for the step parent Adoptions.
and, and we embrace some things through there.
and I, the other thing I want to add with these adoption avenues, Because there's so many variables,
it's really hard to say the fees or if someone has hired a private attorney and all of Those other things,
what they'll equal out, you know, a for profit private adoption versus a nonprofit, Those are probably going to be drastically different.
and so I'm open to questions. All right. Do we have any public comment on this item?
miss angel? Yes, chair. Give me just a moment.
we have 3 speakers up. First shasta county watchdog, Followed by mo.
then brenda. If I called your name, please get in the queue.
I believe brenda and mo left. Mo is here. Almost there.
I see her now. My concern is regarding this
item here. Why does the the government or the county or the courts have to make profit off Of children.
and for. And it takes 2 years for to kind of determine if that person qualified.
do you try to figure how to return those children back to their home?
I understand sometimes their homes is probably the worst to send them back to.
but why is government always have to kind of control our children and charge money for These kids,
and then have to go to the court and have 1 judge determine where that child goes?
I mean, my goodness, how long are we going to stop having the courts in, In people charging for children and trafficking them
to one parent to another? Yeah. It's nice when you get good parents for them to be Adopted.
adoption, you know. But the thing is, why are we profiting off of children?
it never ends. If it's not just to park your damn car in the street.
now, we're using children to profit, to make money. It's everywhere. My goodness. When is this this going to stop?
that we're going to tax every little single thing on citizens and profit off of these kids Or families,
or even just like I said, to park your damn car outside. You can't park anywhere without have to pay. Not unless you're handicapped.
I just find it very disturbing that, you know, We have to have to constantly make money off of children.
up next is mo, followed by brenda. I apologize, Brenda had an appointment that she had to go to.
so she's not here today. But brenda wanted me to let you know, Kevin, that it means the world to her.
that you are helping her get through some of these issues. So my understanding is, brenda she adopted 3 of her daughter's children, And she's raising them right now.
and I believe it was a probate court adoption due to the situation of the parent dying.
and the father, ryan, or brenda's husband, ryan, Is a stepparent.
so that kind of convolutes the adoption process, Which is unfortunate.
brenda advised me that they had to do multiple background checks.
this is one grandma adopting her 3 grandchildren, And she's got to do 3 different background checks.
she stated that the county it's $22 an hour. It's not a single fee.
it's $22 an hour to investigate, she said, per adoption, Because she's got 3 of them per adoption,
it's almost $400. So that is income that brenda needs to hold on to, To be able to buy shoes,
to buy the pencil to write with, to buy the book that that the kid needs to read from.
I mean, we really need to. I agree with dolores. We need to stop using children to make these funds.
we need to understand this is a woman who's a grandma whose daughter died on the streets Because she had mental health issues,
and she's adopting her 3 grandchildren to give them the best opportunity of life.
so what she did was ultimately save you money because they didn't go into the foster care System.
so please, let's help somebody like that who's doing it because her motives are pure.
let's help her get the get it done without costing so much because she had to pay these Fees.
how is she going to buy shoes next month for all three children that are not hers? Does that make sense? Thank you. Thank you. Mo.
supervisor. Crye. Thank you chair. Thank you for that.
mo cindy. Thank you for the presentation. I know this is something we've talked about. Well,
not necessarily yourself, but christy coleman and even going back to the prior director Before christy I realized that it's very nominal of what we
have. Part of the thing that's disturbing for me is that kids have to enter at times.
if I understand this correctly, the child child welfare system, Before they get that help.
so it's basically like we say, we're not going to help you until your car's already broken Down.
instead of saying, hey, let's maybe help you have your car not break down, You got to have a breakdown first,
be stranded and then they'll help. So maybe that's a bad analogy, But there's, there's 2 things that I've,
I've really realized in this process going through this and conversations I had yesterday With county council as well as miss coleman.
this is going to take far into next year. So I've reached out to miss chadwick's office.
this is going to be a legislative possible item.
it's going to be uphill. Not saying it's not not that it's not doable, But there's so many agencies that crisscross.
so putting that together. But at the end of the day, I think there's nothing more important than having because oftentimes who steps up are the
grandparents. And the grandparents oftentimes are not in their money making years.
I'm not saying this is brenda's case, but in some of the people that I have had reach out To me or that have reached out on social media about this item,
you know, they're at an advanced age. And the last thing you think about when you're in Your 60s or, god forbid,
70s taking on a 6year old. And what's tough is if, You know, you try and take them from their own kids,
you know, that creates its own issues. But because it's not illegal to be homeless, There's nothing illegal about that.
but from a child welfare standpoint, when an individual is popping babies out and they're In mercy canyon or they're somewhere else,
and they've got a six year old running around with no diaper in the dirt when it's 110 Degrees.
and you could tell there anyway, it's going to be a mess, But I'm going to just take that on and this will take me far past my term.
but I'm going to just see this through. I will make a motion that we look, We bring an item back to eliminate the $20 fee.
the county saves untold amounts of money if they if these kids don't enter the criminal Justice system.
and I think the best shot they have oftentimes are being raised by blood relatives.
I do know that there has to be. Obviously, some look into that. So that's why there are funds expended. But the little we can do at the county.
it's nominal. But I would again make a motion that we bring an item back to get rid of the $20 fee.
can I clarify one thing? That's the court's fee. It's not the county's fee, but what was the what was the we had there was something in There for $20.
I thought that we that that it's paid to the county. So what, what fee is that? I think maybe what mo was referencing is not in relation to us.
and that was through probate court. But the $20
and that goes to the superior court of california. It does not come to us. Perfect. So then the county has no fee.
all right. Then there will be no motion. Thank you, Supervisor long.
thank you chair. Thank you, cindy, for that presentation. First of all, I think. Adoption is always preferable for the child's sake and for the long Term sake of the
county to foster care and some of those different options. So I'm, I'm for everything that we can do to help facilitate that.
and I recognize that we've got differences in court fees and county fees, But it sounds like we're not charging any fees.
and that reimbursable fees like live scan and some of those things were going to we're Going to come back with statistics.
that would be great. I'd be of great interest hearing those updates as to how much have we Given back to these people going through the adoption process,
because I think that's really important to try to to make this happen for, For the child's sake,
if nothing else. And I my, my question was, it sounds like we have the welfare dependency Arena,
then we've got probate and then we've got the private adoptions.
so those 2, the private adoptions and the probate are outside of our jurisdiction.
and that's that's my question is why. Why do we have no say in some of those 2 of the 3 Arenas?
so the private adoptions I'm, I don't know, I'm trying to think I know people that Personally,
they decided not to go through the foster care system, And there are private adoptions that work with mothers on their own.
and and they do it all. They don't want to be involved, Let's say with the government or,
or for various reasons, people go through and choose private adoptions.
it's kind of a, it's a personal choice. And that's a separate court process that they just Go through between them and the court,
separate all those things. Okay. And then probate court, That is when people get guardianship for various reasons.
and it could be because they don't want their grandchildren or relatives in the foster Care system,
or they don't want their kids or grandkids in, In the dependency court system.
and so they choose or want to get guardianship and handle it on their own.
sometimes people don't want child welfare because when we do have a case, We are involved.
they have to be bringing the kids for visitation weekly, Typically.
we are very much involved in all of their lives, And it can be intrusive to some people.
and sometimes parents and relatives are in agreement that guardianship is the best.
or other times they might not be in agreement.
however, the family decides to go the guardianship route and that is handled through Probate court.
and it's just a separate court that handles that. Okay. So so the choice resides with the adoption person as to which they can pursue Private,
they can pursue probate or they can go into the, The welfare dependency arena.
yes. And what I'll say is, unfortunately, because child welfare, Most people don't want to be involved in the child welfare system.
and unfortunately, and I know there are people here that they are grandparents or are Relatives and their family.
I've had family that has ended up in the child welfare system, So it might mean they didn't necessarily choose it,
but they're going alongside the family and they decide to become part of the case and take The children,
because we also do have resource family approval, And we have relative caregivers that are also in our child welfare system.
and so it might not be that they necessarily chose it, But it just led to that to to them being their family,
being involved in the child welfare. Well, those would probably be things like 300 w&I.
correct? Yes. Those, those types of situations where law enforcement might take a child For all kinds of different reasons and then place them with the,
the foster parents, if you will, and then that whole process starts. And that's the, the welfare dependency route, Correct?
yes. So so they may not even have a choice over that. Yeah. And that's why I'm saying they wouldn't necessarily choose to get adoption through Child welfare,
but they probably wouldn't want the whole situation to happen, If that makes sense.
okay. Okay. And the last thing I'd say would be I'd be very interested in in the Reimbursement rates that we are for live scan and for some of these fees and trying to
keep those at a bare minimum or, or fully reimbursed so that we can facilitate this Process because it's always better than,
than a foster care situation. Yes, definitely. Okay. Thank you. All right. Before I get to you, Supervisor.
plummer. So I don't normally talk about this, But I've been through the system a family member probably 18 years ago we got involved
the, the, with my ex family member and her parents had taken the first child and didn't, You know,
couldn't, wasn't able to take the second child. So we got involved and I, And I got to say, I was kind of surprised. Supervisor. Plummer. Crye. When you brought up
that there's these huge, exorbitant fees, because I've been through the system, Through the county,
and I don't remember the fees. The only thing I remember and it was totally off subject.
but at the time I was getting a job at a school, I was also getting my ccw and I was going through the adoption process.
I remember having to give my fingerprints three times at the sheriff's department thinking They haven't changed. You know, you could use the other ones. But anyhow, that was side
note there. But you know, we had our first social worker was fantastic.
there was 2 ladies involved deborah and debbie. And I believe deborah was the one at the office 18 years ago.
she's probably since retired. No, really. I think I know who you're talking about.
okay. Well, she was fantastic. We took had to take him for visits, Every one, you know, for a year and a half every week with your biological mom and
dad. And then we went through the adoption process, And that one was named debbie, I believe,
over in the shasta college building. And we went through the adoption process and he Adopted him.
and like I say, I don't normally talk about it. He's got my last name. He's my son, You know, so but I have been through it. And, you know, You guys were great.
deborah was great. Debbie was great. There's one in the middle that wasn't so great. It Wasn't impressed with her at all. But anyways,
it was again, I didn't remember exorbitant fees. I didn't remember having to pay a whole bunch of money out of pocket. And it was a family Adoption.
so yeah, through this, through this process, What I've learned is there's about how many organizations are that there's like 4, right?
there's quite a bit. 4 to 6 depends depends on if they're like if there's a stepparent Involved,
it depends. If they were taken away by cps, there's all these variables. And I, and I've personally met with a few different grandparents who have spent over $30,000.
and part of that's attorneys and part of that are some court costs. But again it's a, it's a wildly broken system.
the reason why I made the motion to bring it back is I wanted to make sure before the end Of this year,
this was prioritized and we could get the information everybody needs because I think Everybody here agrees.
I appreciate your input. Supervisor chair kelstrom. But I really appreciate supervisor long your follow up questions because anything we can Do and push on other jurisdictions.
not that we can change their minds, but at least bring light to it because it's a very Broken system.
and kids, I mean, foster care can be great, just like having blood relatives can be great.
and there are negatives, but we should make it as cheap and as streamlined as possible.
if blood relatives, just like supervisor chair kelstrom stepped up and took somebody in His family.
so thank you chair supervisor plummer. Yes, thank you cindy.
2 questions. One was around adoption subsidy payments.
my understanding is that once somebody is adopted, The adoptive parents receive subsidy payments.
adoption assistance program, aap. And how much is that?
typically, I'm going to call tammy my program manager up.
$1,350 roughly. Per month. Per month. Per child.
per child, $1,350 per month per child. Okay. And that does that apply just to the child, The dependency court adoptions and not the
probate court and. Yes. Okay. And then the other question was, When it comes to those fees and the reimbursement,
there's a live scan. They're paying the sheriff's office or some other law enforcement Agency.
and then the other the court filing they're paying the court.
and so when the county's reimbursing them, where is the county getting the funds to Reimburse them?
we have different allocations for adoptions. For all of the things we do with adoptions, We have different allocations,
which I can get you those specific buckets of what they are.
I don't have them off. That's okay. It's are you it sounds like you're saying like federal Funding or state funding to cover the cost of that.
yes. Okay. All right. Thank you. Supervisor. Harmon.
thank you. Cindy. If I was hopefully this is not inappropriate, But if I was to ask you to do a little promo because people out there that
might be interested. You know what? This is a good opportunity to let people know.
like, for instance, I don't know how many kids are on standby waiting to be adopted.
we, I think we have, I so all of them are in various stages.
I think we have roughly 300 ish kids in care right now.
and so, and I do appreciate you asking for the promo because we are always looking for a Resource family,
parents, that's what we used to call foster parents. And we are in desperate need for people to take care of the kids in our community.
and so anybody that's interested, please call (530) 225-5650.
we also, if you search shasta county adoptions, We do have a website specific for that.
but we, those kids that are in care, some of them are already with relatives, Some are with what would be traditionally known as foster homes.
but that doesn't necessarily necessarily mean that foster home wants to adopt some just Foster.
and so anybody that's interested, we always have a need and there's a need across the State,
but I appreciate that. And also I wanted to say thank you. Supervisor kelstrom for also adopting through us.
so, so age range, like, is it? Well here, as you all probably know so most people
don't want to come and adopt our teens and those on the higher scale.
most people, when they come, want to adopt the babies and the younger kids.
and so we are always we are in need for all, But we are especially in need for older youth.
so I remember it's been a couple years. I was at the airport waiting to pick somebody up Or getting ready to board or whatever.
but but you had a poster. Yes. Is that still out there?
is that I don't know. We we we do campaigns. I'm not sure. I'll have to go to the airport and check it out.
I'm not sure right now if it's there, but we do campaigns to get the word out.
yeah. That that was very impactful to me to sit next to that and look at that child that Was wanting to be adopted.
and it was like, yeah, almost had to move. So yeah. And in november is also adoption awareness month as well.
just thank you for what you do. Thank you, thank you. Supervisor. Plummer. Yes. Just one clarification of that.
roughly 300. You mentioned the different kind of statuses. Do you know roughly what portion have a case plan for adoption or kind of already in that Bucket of having parental rights terminated?
I don't know, off the top of my head, but I can get that of which basically because we Have kids that are in active family reunification,
and then we have kids that are in permanent plan that we can pull that and then drill down Further for you.
okay. Thank you. All right. I see no one else in queue. Thank you very much. And thank you for what you do. Appreciate it. Thank you. [applause] All right.
moving on. Public comment. Do we have any speakers today? Yes, chair. We have 11. 11 speakers. All right.
all are in person. So the entire 30 minutes will be given to in-person speakers.
okay. First up is don duckett, followed by shasta county watchdog, Christine bagley, john dunlap,
then mo. If I called your name, please get in the queue. You. Okay, don duckett passes. First up is shasta county watchdog, Followed by christine bagley,
john dunlap, then mo again. If I called your name, Please get in the queue.
discrimination based on race color failed to prevent discrimination and harassment and Retaliation in violation.
discrimination based on disability. Violation of americans with disability act.
the board has violated these laws and more and other laws.
and the board has a responsibility to the citizens and we continue to allow this the Citizens.
I have actually filed a civil rights complaint regarding the board against kevin crye, Including others,
public officials, because this has been going on for a long time, And we should not tolerate people treating others like that because they do not
have the they do not have the power. We have the power.
we just need to know how to fight these people who continue to violate our rights.
kevin crye thinks he can do this to us, but you as board supervisors have a duty to also To step up to the plate and defend the
people. He violates those rights. You do. When you don't, You actually engage and allow this silence.
it means it's not okay to be silenced when you allow this.
kevin crye earlier said, I guess mo said something to kevin, Say, hey, oliver is out there with no t shirt disgusting.
and then kevin crye says, dolores. So that means he made that comment against me, And that's why I approach him.
a board of supervisor cannot do that and harass citizens. And if you're going to continue that and also groom that little kid to say things about me And for him to go on the radio,
that that's he's going to get treated the way
then mo, then christopher stevens. And interrupt the meetings, Everybody. Miss begley so up next is christine begley, followed by john dunlap, Mo then christopher stevens.
I've been here a few times. I know a lot of you. Again, I'm here on behalf of river ranch concerning the jail and the a few people out There don't know that the board of supervisors here want
to put a bunch of felons rehabilitation felons in our county.
we have enough homeless, we have enough felons, And we don't need any more.
and it's located on the sacramento river, next to an old subdivision of like 97 homes.
we don't want that. I want to remind you that you took an oath when you first became a Supervisor to protect your constituents.
I'm one of those. And matt and I have had several conversations, And I want him to fight for me.
I want you all to fight for me because this is not something that we want in our county.
and if you put it on a ballot, I'm sure you will find out at least 80% of the people don't Want this.
if it's about the money, I understand that we have to make money, But we don't want you to make it on the back of your constituents.
and I think it was supervisor long. Just recently, I saw a thing on facebook where you were talking about this project,
and you said very gleefully that you had spoke to one person, And he's all for it.
well, there's 97 of their other homes down there that don't want it.
so I'm I'm pleading with you. I'm begging with you to reconsider putting this somewhere Else.
if there's a need, I'm all for it. But as you know, Not in my neighborhood.
and none of you would want it in your neighborhood either. Thank you for your time. And Thank you, mike mangus,
for always being available to the community. Up next is john dunlap, Followed by mo, christopher stevens,
then jacqueline treadway. If I called your name, Please get in the queue. Good afternoon or morning?
I'm john dunlap. I'm here to urge you not to move too quickly on the expansion of the Landfill.
it has something to do with the courthouse, I'm sure. And I am actively trying to work with staff to talk about reexamining some of the things Regarding the demolition of the courthouse for
the public. I sent letters to you, and it's identifying that. But I am a structural engineer. I have done the structural engineering on 2 separate jails In placer and tuolumne county.
excuse me, siskiyou county administration center in tuolumne county and a lot of other Jobs locally.
I was the structural engineer of the city hall, Foothill high school, and a bunch of other things.
but most importantly for this conversation, I was the structural engineer on a remodel of The courthouse in the annex in 1992.
that doesn't get mentioned in the eir, but at that time, The 2nd and 3rd floors were totally removed of asbestos and paint.
pete, I can't tell you about the the lower floor. In addition, we did some work on the standard courthouse in creating a jury assembly room.
we encountered no asbestos, no. Who might have been a bit of paint.
the study at that time came back and said that the asbestos on the courthouse was Primarily in the exterior wall wall
outside. I'm going to give a couple examples very quickly. County says it's paying $15,000 a month for utilities.
that's $180,000 a year. 1.8 million in 10 years.
we've got 3.57 in there just to tear it down. We're trading $300. A square foot times three floors is $900 a square foot for a $10 a Square foot parking lot.
I've talked to gene nichols
up next is mo, followed by christopher stephens. Jacqueline. Treadway, then nick. Good morning board.
hello fellow constituents. Again, my name is monique wallin and I've been coming in since September 19th,
2017. I don't know why, but I feel compelled to tell you the date. That being said, 3 years into speaking at the boards, I had a medical issue and I went to shasta community health center for some help.
the way they do their program, it's always a bunch of brand new physicians you're seeing, And they do internships.
so it constantly changes and probably about what is it?
4 or 5 years ago, I was told I had a swollen lymph node. And then that course of action went that route.
and then I was told I had pseudogout. And then the course of action went that route.
the whole time I'm telling them that this is a chronic, Painful issue.
I need help with my hip. One of the ladies, I guess, Is, you know, the people that take your blood pressure.
she had the nerve to tell me to my face that I was drug seeking.
I asked her what the next step for pain management is after tylenol and ibuprofen.
is it lyrica? Is it gabapentin? Talk with me. Let's work this out because I can barely walk now.
well, here we are 5 years later. It's not a swollen lymph node.
it is not pseudogout. It's a tumor. So years ago when I was looking for medical help, I was told a bunch of different things by
a bunch of brand new doctors. I have been steered in the wrong direction because I didn't Advocate for myself.
because the way I work, I'm advocating for others. There is a serious problem at shasta community health center.
my point being is you've got to be your own advocate and ask those questions and have Those conversations that are difficult.
what is the pain like? How often does it hurt? You know, all the points that I want to make, But we need to do something about our health care system,
our adoption system, because they're all broken.
up next is christopher stevens, followed by jacqueline treadway, Then nick, then patti plum.
good afternoon board. I'm here today to ask you to fix a gap in the child welfare system Right now.
if family's in dependency court and later proves the allegations were false, There's no county oversight or policy to review it,
correct it, or make it right. Once jurisdiction and disposition happens, That door closes even with new evidence.
even if the truth comes out 3 or 6 months later, Families lose time with their kids.
they lose money, they lose jobs, they lose trust, And the record never gets fixed.
I'm asking the board to direct health and human services agency to create 4 new policies.
the first policy is a post jurisdiction review policy. If the case is dismissed or new evidence is provided that the allegations are false, Hhs must do an audit and file within 30 days to correct cws
records. The 2nd a family restoration policy.
if the review finds no basis, we need rapid reunification reimbursement for court ordered Costs and a formal letter of factual innocence to families that
can they can use to clear their name. 3rd, an accountability policy.
if an audit finds that a social worker knowingly made false statements to the court, It must be referred to for review and the social worker needs to be held accountable.
this protects good social workers and hold bad actors accountable.
4th, an open evidence policy. Families must be allowed to submit new evidence for review At any point in an open case,
not just at the first hearing. If new proof comes out that shows the false or misleading Information.
hhs should review within 14 days and file it with the court and recommend the case be Immediately dismissed and the children returned home.
this isn't about attacking child welfare. This is about accuracy and integrity and the Kids.
good policy protects children and protects innocent families. Thank you. Can you do me a favor? Could you email that to me?
yeah. Okay. Up next is jacqueline treadway, followed by nick, Patty plum, then mary rickert.
if I called your name, please get in the queue. You are used to listening to groups when They show up in mass to get your attention.
the public can operate mass responses to injustice after a good night's sleep, Breakfast and an income to sustain their meaningful lives.
you haven't a clue of the sacrifices my homeless teams have to make to just show up to Advocate for their worthiness of the
simple dignity of a safe and dignified, dignified sanctuary that validates their humanity,
let alone their value. These are the homeless of the half light.
they are stuck in a dangerous spot between 2 worlds the world of sleep deprivation, Constant displacement and dangerous nights,
and the world of promoting hope for a life worth living.
I've implemented many ways to provide some relief from these burdens, But I'm powerless to in keeping them safe from the
rat pack and others that get irritated and activated when hope interferes with their Mission to terrorize and drive out these
souls like cockroaches to extinction. Previously, When I initiated my skip that you have.
you have asked for data to verify the genetic neurodivergent temperament of the majority Of the camping and street homeless in order to justify a
sanctuary of appropriate to their needs. 1 team member has been hospitalized twice for a Week to recover from their injuries.
just because they are collecting data, that data that you require, And they had to disappear when they could.
no longer when he could no longer keep his wife safe from the threats of that group.
I'm asking many in this target group have to suffer before. How many? Up next is nick, followed by patty plum, Mary rickert, then ronald plum.
if I called your name, please get in the queue. Hey, I'm liking this 2 minutes slows down some of these people.
I appreciate that I'm here about I expect in the next meeting or 2, We're going to come up with a subject about censoring clint curtis,
and I would like the board to encourage or insist that monica fugitt present both sides of What she was told in her
investigation. As far as I'm concerned, when she was up here the last time, She just presented the side from the old guard that were against
clint curtis from the start. And I know that she had documentation and people contact her That were new to the office,
that were witness to the fact that a lot of the allegations weren't true.
and I would like you to insist that she present both sides, Because when she only presents one side,
she's just giving her opinion. If it's going to be an investigation, We should certainly have the right to see both sides of what was presented.
so if somebody would take the initiative to insist on that. I'd appreciate it. Thank you. Up next is patty plum.
I'm not seeing patty. She's not present. We'll do mary rickert, Followed by ronald plum.
good morning again. I'm deeply disappointed in this board's decision to put the eminent Domain issue back on the ballot.
this is an incredible waste of money for the taxpayers of this county.
my husband has been an accredited rural appraiser for 52 years and has been recognized Nationally for his proficiency in this profession.
he has never seen this occur in his career. I've also spoken with public works directors, My time as a supervisor,
and they also told me they could never find an instance of this happening in the county's History.
you are wasting our time. You should be spending this money on projects such as circle of Friends in bernie.
people are going to suffer as a result of your inaction.
and last but not least, I just want to mention, Mr. Crye, you are rewriting history on the opioid settlement fund money efforts.
you were not here. I was, and I worked on this effort to secure these dollars.
the documentation is there that jim ross brought this money to shasta county.
please use it for its intended use. Thank you.
county council, is it mike? You want to engage? Okay. I just hate revisionist history. And up next is ronald plummer and chair.
that's our last speaker. Good morning. Board.
foster care and all of that. I'm just going to mention just real quickly, Probably worked in 8 different different agencies.
started my own agency, actually started 2 doesn't we are in a crisis.
there's no doubt about it. Foster care is has more problems.
our kids, our society has so many problems. You know, I worked I my main office was in fresno,
california, and I had over 350 children in care.
we do have a big problem, and we really need to do everything we can to support families That are falling apart.
there's no doubt about it, because if you can go uphill from the problem, You're better off.
so you guys are in a real pickle. Actually, I believe because you're inheriting nothing But 100 years of problems and you're trying to do
everything you can to keep the boat floating. But it's got a big hole in the hull, and you know that.
and you may have people down there trying to patch that hole and doing everything you can To keep them busy so that they don't realize they're going to sink.
but we're in. We're in bad shape. Our county is in bad shape.
our state is in bad shape and you guys are caught between president trump wanting the save America act and measure b,
which actually measure b is exactly what trump wants.
and you guys are in the middle of that, which puts you kind of in the meat grinder.
so the bottom line is, is that if we hadn't had people like john adams, His cousin sam
john hancock, those people were willing to put their lives on the line.
so the bottom line is you're going to sink and you have to decide, Am I going to live through this,
or am I going to give my life for it? And that's exactly where you're at.
you're in that. Hey, ron, it's been a long time since I've seen you.
you look great, man. Thank you. Way to fight. Appreciate it. Praying for you. Appreciate you.
okay. And that reminds me of a couple of motions that I wanted to make earlier. So I would like to bring back to the board a letter of support for the save america act to Safeguard american voting eligibility.
so that's one motion. Motion made by myself. Seconded by supervisor crye.
all those in favor? Any discussion? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Passes 5 0. And I'd also like to bring back for board consideration of Doubling the fines for illegal dumping from 500 to 1000.
you know, 50 years ago when they came out with the hooty the owl and don't give a hoot, Don't pollute.
and it was a $1,000 fine for illegal dumping. And I as a, you know, young kid, I thought that was a pretty good sum of money back 50 Some years ago.
but you want to bring an item. It's still. Yeah, At least double it in this county. Yes. All right. Motion made by myself. Seconded by supervisor crye.
all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Passes 5 0. All right, moving on. Miss miranda, I mrs angel.
was there any items pulled from consent? No, Chair. Okay. I will entertain a motion to approve. I did have can I ask one quick question?
absolutely. Just really quick. It's on c six. It's for supervisor. Plummer the cab board your guys's funding has been.
has it been cut back or rolled back in the last year or two?
the the funding for the community action agency is significantly lower, If I'm remembering correctly.
I think it used to be somewhere around 8 million and now it's in the 100,000.
so I just want to double check that and make sure because I know it's. Yeah. All right. I make a motion to approve consent.
second. Motion made by supervisor. Seconded by supervisor. Plummer. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed?
passes 5 0. All right. So moving on to r four.
so I believe we have to conduct a public hearing. Correct. All right mr. Heath. Good morning chair.
kelstrom members of the board. John heath, interim public works director. Today we're talking about parcel charges for r4.
in particular, we're talking about prd partial charges.
you'll remember from recent presentation these are a way to provide for road maintenance On public roads that are outside of the
county's maintained mileage. We raise funds for that maintenance through a parcel Assessment on parcels along those subject
roads. When it comes to parcel charges shasta county code requires that annually we Prepare a
report of parcel charges that lists the charge and every parcel which is receiving that Parcel charge for the case
of prds. While the county has a single county wide prd there are 86 zones discrete areas Within that
that county wide pretty, each one of those 86 zones has its own discrete assessment.
regarding the report. So I'll draw your attention to the report which is included in your Staff report packet.
following your review, the report, we would conduct a public hearing.
and then following the public hearing, we could discuss the report. If there were no changes or revisions, you'd enact a resolution which would affirm that Report,
at which point we would transmit that to the the auditor and the tax collector, And that would get put on the tax rolls.
what I will note will note is that there are no changes in any of the assessments this Year.
so all of the assessments are exactly the same as they've been in previous years.
with that I'm happy to take any questions. Supervisor long.
thank you chair. Thank you john. It's a simple question.
what determines the criteria for something getting entered into a prd?
why? Why are we not taking care of all subdivisions. Yeah. So this is a, this is a process that goes back to maybe the mid 90s at which point Road funding,
gas tax funding that we get for county maintained roads was dwindling.
and there just wasn't enough funding to pay for maintenance of all roads.
so at that point the board decided that that all new subdivisions would be, Would take care of road maintenance through the
prd. Unless the subdivision was creating an arterial or a collector, Which is a larger volume road.
but for the neighborhood roads, they would be. Maintenance would be taken care of via the prd.
and what was that threshold year? You said two. I'm sorry, I do not have that exact information.
it was in the it was in the mid 90s, I believe. So so in the mid 90s, every new subdivision road, Unless it's an arterial road was a prd.
that is correct. That is correct. I didn't know that. Okay. Yeah. And then we've since last year the board made a modification to that Requirement to allow hoa roads
as well as prd roads. Hom sorry, homeowners association.
so maintenance is taken care of by a legally created homeowners association.
thank you. Supervisor. Plummer. Thanks, john.
as you know, we've been going back and forth on the last amount of mountain pines.
prd. Yeah. And the question there, and I know we've talked about this, But to clarify, the current policy of the county
is that the prd is not created until actual work is started or completed on the roads Itself.
well, I know where you're going. Let me clarify your question a little bit.
so the prd has to be created at the formation of the subdivision now.
and, and I will tell you even even before the roads are built the prd begins collecting Fees,
right. The county is ensuring the prd and there's an administration, There's administration just with collecting the assessments,
me doing this, this work here. So there are even before roads are created, There are some charges.
now. Previously we didn't differentiate between whether a road was built or not.
subdivision is approved usually with that within that same item at the board.
when the subdivision is approved, the prd is created and approved.
at that point, assessments would begin the next tax year, Whether the roads were built or not.
and it had been that process since since we started the prd process, Likely in the 90s.
and in the case of the lassen mountain pines subdivision sorry, This is a little convoluted because I'll let you
know there's another, there's another criteria as well. So if the roads are not created at the time the subdivision is approved, The developer has to enter into an improvement agreement.
so an agreement with the county that says these roads will be built within a certain Period of time.
they are required to bond for those improvements at that time.
so in the case of lassen mountain pines, when that subdivision was approved, I believe in 21,
the roads were not created. The roads were not built at that point in time.
the developer signed all of the documents to create the prd.
the prd was formed and approved by the board of supervisors at that point.
the maintenance assessments began whether in full, Whether the road had been built or not.
so after it had been after a couple of years after that had been, Had been approved and formed,
the developer came to the county, came to public works and said, Hey, you know what, I don't this doesn't make sense to me that I'm paying this maintenance
assessment on a road that isn't built well. There's a certain amount of logic that that Agrees with that.
but there's also you're saving money for a rainy day, Whether you know, and that rainy day is going to come no matter what.
so whether you're paying the assessment before the road is built or after the road is Built really is kind of semantics regardless.
the department listened to what the developer had to say. And we saw, we saw some some valid points within it.
at that point, we, we began a discussion with county council the tax collector and the Auditor.
that process kind of went to fruition with the tax, I'm sorry, with the auditor and county council and wherein we created a process,
we agreed with the developer. Ultimately, we agreed with the developer and said, Yes, you should not have to pay the maintenance assessment until the county accepts the
roads, which is part of the improvement agreement.
so in the case of lawson mountain pines, they had already enacted documents and started The process to begin the full maintenance assessment.
seeing that we were, you know, it was now going to be allowable to, To defer that until the roads were completed.
we then entered into that discussion with the auditor and the tax collector to create a Process for that developer to essentially back out of the commitments they had
already made and, and take advantage of the new process we'd identified, Wherein they would not pay their assessments until their roads had been accepted
by the county and that, you know that was a process that's been in place for some time Now.
well over a year. That process has been in place. And the developer is aware of it. For whatever reason, The developer has chosen not to take advantage of that process.
and so that's kind of leads us where we're at now. Lassen mountain pines, even though the roads are not constructed is paying the full Maintenance assessment.
or is being assessed that full maintenance assessment. Are there any other zones that are in a similar situation where the roads are not Currently built,
but they are paying the full maintenance assessment? There are no other ones. There was one in shingletown that was he, He, the developer had he was got tax bills on those a couple of years ago.
and I think he got in again. Yeah. That is the that's the last of mountain pines. That is the the development we're speaking of.
gotcha. And in terms of the parcel charge here, That is so
that's determined by the maintenance agreement that is is signed by the developer.
that is correct. The department depending, you know, There are variabilities that go into it,
the how much road, how many culverts, you know, All that type of stuff. The department develops the maintenance cost estimate during the during the processing of The subdivision map,
we present that to the developer. They sort of they they accept that.
they certify that when they as part of the acceptance of their map.
that's helpful. And I'm not suggesting necessarily that this is the right idea, But I'm just kind of trying to understand the process here of if,
for example, in this case, the parcel charge is $691 per parcel.
and you mentioned that the paper prd costs where the roads aren't built.
it's just ensuring an administration is like $13.16. Correct. If the board were to say, okay, well, The roads aren't built in this case, let's just change it to the paper prd rate.
then if the roads were built, would that trigger going back to the 691 or how would that Work?
yeah. So in the process that we developed with this particular developer, Once the roads once the county accepted the roads as complete
then yes, the following tax year, the full maintenance assessment would begin.
okay. And then the last clarification is I know that the agreement, Essentially that that was offered to the developer would have changed that
kind of retroactively going back to the beginning. Yeah. If we were to say, for example, change the parcel charge today for going forward, That would only affect this year.
so all the past years would still be under the previous parcel charge.
that that is my understanding. Again, there's some legalities here.
that, that I may not, you know, have the answers to all of them. And it would, it would require some careful consideration.
I believe by the auditor and county council. Okay.
thank you. Supervisor. Harmon. Hi, john. I'm constantly running into this.
I think you already know where I'm going to go. But. Surprise! Well, one of them might be for noel to the monies that's assessed
per year per parcel for these prds. That money's put into one bulk fund.
they're all. They're all accounted for separately. They are all accounted for separately. The money is tracked separately, And it can only be used within the prd from which it was collected.
okay. I'm only asking these questions for clarification for constituents.
but and I, I get this pretty regularly is so, So a lot of this clarification is for me.
but also for the people, but the, what's the process when you're on a prd road and you got A
pothole and you'd like to get it fixed? Yeah. You just call public works, right? So and we prioritize it with all the rest of our Maintenance.
so general small maintenance projects like potholes, Stuff like that. We do that work with our crews with our road crews that we've got you know, Out and operating every day of the week.
larger projects that would require more time and effort. We do put those out to public works contract, So put them out to bid, but for a pothole or maintenance on a sign or something like that,
you would just call us if it's, if it's a little bigger project, Say there's, you know, the asphalt is coming apart and it needs to get
overlaid. How's that handled? The same way through a public works project typically.
right? I'm going to, I'm going to guess that this is a bigger scope of work.
and if you recall during the presentation, to kind of laid that process out.
and what we tend to do is we tend to kind of we accumulate these projects a little bit Over time so that we realize some
efficiencies based on the scale of work doesn't always make sense to go out to a public Works contract for one single prd for one small scope of work.
so there's a couple of things that happen. The prd are, Are, are accumulating monies over time.
sometimes they may not have the funds available to do the scope of work that they need.
so again, you need time to accumulate those funds.
and then again, we tend to, you know, every couple of years, We put out a kind of an aggregate project that addresses multiple prd
which creates a higher efficiency. And we believe a cost savings for the, For the prd.
so how far behind are we keeping up with requests?
you know, I would tell you on the day to day maintenance, I think we are mr..
so we're only here on fees if you want to bring it back to find out more about projects, We can,
we can do that. Okay. Supervisor. Crye. Thank you.
supervisor. Are you done? Apparently. Go ahead. You got to stick to the agenda. Yeah. I'm done.
all right. I just had a quick question. The when it's collected for pr, Does it go into a prd fund or is it just for that specific project.
it's for that specific project, right. It's for that specific prd. They're not necessarily allocated to a single project within the prd, But they are allocated to a single prd.
so we couldn't collect money and a prd in bernie and then spend it on a prd in cottonwood.
I just wanted to make sure I yeah, you know, It's kind of like in some variants, it's like the impact fee stuff like we've still not
spent that down. And you made a comment. I was walking in the back because I have to walk Because of my neuropathy,
but paying attention. And you had mentioned that you know, I, I don't exactly remember how you termed it,
but you said it's you know, save it for a rainy day. Not a big deal. But what I've seen with the impact fee component is you've had people that Have,
you know, moved here, paid a fee, have moved away, You know, eight, ten, 12 years later.
and the money that they spent. Yeah, never was used. And I have a problem with that. But anyway, that's throwing it in there before county Council shuts it down because that's not about the prd fees,
about impact fees. Sure. Yeah, I just I just have a hard time the collecting money for the Rainy day,
which I get, we have to do that because, you know, We have to think about the future and impact.
however, maintenance is a little bit different than growth. I mean, we're not going to see the growth that still that whatever you call it, I forget what the name of the document was,
but, you know, we're never going to be 250,000 people in shasta county. All right. Thank you, john. Appreciate you. Thank you.
john. I will open the public hearing now. Miss angel, Do we have any public comment?
there is one public commenter. But I do have to state that any and all correspondence Received is on file and available to the public through the clerk,
the board. Thank you. Our speaker is shasta county watchdog.
goodness. Nice
to know, kevin, how you treat me. When I get up here. I see you giving signs to what's his name over there.
but anyways, do we have any cars for sale here?
because to me it sounds like he's trying to sell us what he put together.
not trying to be disrespectful, but I'm being honest.
so it sounds like to me there's going to be more taxes. And especially when you talk about bonds, bonds are meaning that you got to you got to tax The taxpayers to be able to pay
to be able to have these bonds. I mean, more property taxes are going to be taxed on the Citizens.
and what are we going to do? Save for save it, Collect it and save it for a rainy day.
I mean, what happened to the old days? We didn't we didn't need to come up with bonds or Anything.
we didn't have cars or all these fancy stuff before. We had dirt and roads and horses. So I mean, It's ridiculous.
the government, again, here we are trying to come up with how to make money off the Citizens property taxes,
rezoning. And, you know, let's make some more money rezoning this certain area so we could Taxpayers,
you know, charge taxes. When is this going to stop?
I mean, you guys have the duty to protect the citizens when you should, When you don't, you don't.
and you make bad decisions that you actually affect the citizens.
so, I mean, are you just going to go along with everything that staff says?
how many times have I heard you guys in the past complain how what staff does and brings Forward?
you hate it. You're not going to rubber stamp it. That's. All right. With that, I'll close the public hearing.
bring it back. I will supervisor plummer. Yes, Well, I did want to just make one comment.
and john, you mentioned this too, but your presentation back in was that july or late?
late june, correct? Yeah. Did have for each of the prds, What maintenance, what year's maintenance projects have been done,
and you know how many funds have accrued and all that, Which I think was super helpful. And so I would encourage people to refer back to that as a reference point there.
and the just to kind of wrap the conversation on lassen pines meadows there, It looks like because I was thinking,
you know, while the agreement has been proposed to kind of retroactively address that, If we were to change it today,
since the roads haven't been built, then that would make logical sense to me. It looks like, and I was just messaging with county counsel about this, That we would have to change that maintenance agreement first before being able to kind of
change that to a paper prd. And so that's still dependent on the developer.
so I'm not going to, you know, go that direction given kind of the legal counsel on it.
so I would make a motion that we approve the parcel charges, As is documented here.
all right. Do I have a second? Second motion made by supervisor plummer. Second by supervisor long supervisor crye. Did you want to vote or did you want to make Some comments?
well, I just wanted to so so cast. Okay, I'm.
you probably don't have any prds I have none. That's why I'm looking at like costilla, jones valley.
yeah, you might be looking at r5. I could be wrong, But.
yeah, I am. That's a csa, not a yeah, I know. Okay, so with that, I mean, are what we are, What we're doing here is this pretty normal with the other counties?
because again, both these items, like district one is, Is different. Yeah. So sure. I mean, is it are we like right in the middle?
are we on one end or the other of an extreme? No, this is pretty common. So the permanent road division requirements and criteria.
they're laid out in state code, right? So this is a program that the state has provided For the maintenance of these,
you know, non county maintained roads. So in my experience, Most california counties take advantage of the press now.
now whether or not they require all of their new subdivisions to be appeared, You mean by take advantage of,
allow for and have press. Okay. Okay. Yeah I'm good.
thank you. Thank you chair. All right. Supervisor. Harmon. Watching you are for yeah I know, I know, So I'll note real quick that we
do have a prd maintenance contract coming out this summer where we'll be addressing some Of the bigger maintenance projects on on premise.
no, no, I'm watching for you. So my so my question, Though, is what if we can't if we're not keeping up because we got,
you know, 1 or 2 crews and I get it there, but we have the money sitting there.
yeah. Can we farm it out? We do farm it out and it not in all cases.
we don't just always have the money sitting there. Right. Some pretty. So the way the assessments work, I mean, road maintenance is expensive,
right? So the way the assessments work, they generally are based on like a 15 or 20 year Plan,
right? Where and it's really to rehabilitate the road. And so the assessment over the course of time collects the money to do work at that 15 Year mark.
sometimes it's warranted, sometimes it's not. You know, there we, we could, we could spend the better part of the, Of the morning talking about prices,
because the fees typically become fixed in time when we, When we set the assessments costs do not.
so typically over time costs are increasing. The assessments remain the same.
that requires more time on our part to collect the required fees.
and you know, we're not necessarily, and I may I apologize if I gave the wrong impression By the idea of the rainy,
the rainy day. We're not necessarily just sitting back waiting on these, We, we take the maintenance of these seriously and,
and we do what we can with the resources we have available all the time.
okay. Thank you. Our phones are going to ring.
well, yeah, I mean, what supervisor. Harmon. So like, I know you deal with this directly,
but like when you talk about the money sitting there because I know because again, The impact fee money has been sitting there.
miss short, do you have any do you have any thoughts? Well when he says it's sitting There. So kevin, if you have a brand new subdivision and you assess the prds on it, But the roads are perfectly fine for 4 or 5,
6 or 7 years. I mean, if they might have a pothole here. But what about the ten and 12 years in the 14? And that's when they repave those Subdivisions. That's when they go in and put the overlay or whatever they need done.
yeah. Miss short. Good morning chair. Chair kelstrom members of the board and all the Short. Auditor. Controller. I think the only thing that I would say is that, You know, these are these are dependent special districts.
so they need to function in and of themselves each party. And the problem becomes when there's road maintenance needed and there's not money there.
and so what they're doing is they're really building up a reserve that's going to allow Them to maintain the road.
it won't be spent for anything else. Can't be used for anything else. So it really is Earmarked for that district for its need when and if that time comes.
and for those that are, you know, not part of, You know, a prd and they have a private road somewhere.
when the time comes, you spend $10,000 this year. And so it's really kind of a payment plan for those people in the district.
and I would say that it's also approved by the voters. So, you know, although in this case, there's, You know, for lassen mountain, there's 38 properties or 39 properties.
there were 39 votes that said yes to that fee at the time that that was developed. And so you know, and then now it's, it's prop 218 after this as far as like, If we're going to increase it,
it needs to go back to the voters. It needs to go through his protest process and needs to Do all of that.
and so it's not something that the county is imposing on, On the districts necessarily.
we do we do calculate what we think the fee will be in order to replace the road in the 10 Or 15 year time period.
so that fee calculation is done by public works, But then it's approved by the voters of that of that district.
I mean, because if you're in a subdivision that has ten homes and then for the first eight Years and then has 70 homes in the back ten years,
it's a huge difference of road wear and tear. And who's paying for that? But yeah, it does become very difficult in the case of lassen Lassen mountain because it is a voter approved.
I also can't take it off the voter roll, which is the difficulty we're having with the Consent and waiver.
there needs to be a new consent waiver that's backdated to invalidate the first one.
otherwise, there's some really strict legal requirements for removing stuff from the tax Roll.
and so I can't just go in and do that because it seems like it makes sense. So we're trying to come up with a path to give him a way out of this that, You know, would basically make an amended consent waiver that would give us the authority
to remove it and then have a new path forward. So you are the swiss army knife of all electeds, Because you can come up here and any department and speak to us.
thank you. That was great. Did you still want to ask you? Oh, no. That was super helpful. All right. With that, We have a motion by supervisor plummer, seconded by supervisor long.
all those in favor? Aye, aye. Any opposed? Passes 5 0.
all right, mr. Heath r 5 now is your kevin. Yep.
yep. So continuing on with the concept of parcel charges this time we're going to talk About parcel charges for county
service areas or csas. Csas provide for a variety of services throughout again,
much like a prd through discrete zones located throughout the county.
today we'll be talking about water, wastewater, Stormwater and street lighting.
so public works has csas that account for all of those services.
again, referring back to county code. Annually, We're required to develop a list of assessments that apply to those parcel assessments
that apply to each of those csas providing those services. We bring them here to the board. We hold a public hearing and hopefully the board adopts Them.
regarding the parcels in this, this action there are, I'm sorry, the, the fees or the intent of these parcel charges.
there is a variety of different kind of service areas or bins that we're looking at.
there are delinquent water and wastewater fees, Uncollectible water and wastewater fees.
and then what I would call miscellaneous csa fees. Those include capital improvement fees standby fees, Stormwater maintenance fees and street lighting.
so the first thing I'm going to, we kind of lumped them all here in a single item, But they're actually kind of the three discrete areas.
so I'm going to talk first about delinquent water and wastewater accounts and those fees.
so the county has a number of csas that offer water and wastewater services.
we bill for those services bi monthly every two months.
if you don't pay your bill those those charges go become delinquent after one billing Cycle or 60 days.
annually, we bring an item to the board to place those delinquent accounts that are unpaid At this time to place those delinquent accounts on
as a partial assessment so that those delinquent fees are collected essentially as part of The property taxes.
for the current period, the delinquent fees partial report shows that there are just under $177,000 in
delinquent csa fees. So in addition to just the normal billing notices
that every customer gets prior to bringing this item today each account holder that has Delinquent fees was notified in a letter.
they were given time to to come to the department and bring their accounts up to date.
the the parcels that are on the parcel report failed to do that.
and so these delinquent fees are still outstanding. And so that is the delinquent fees parcel report.
I'm going to move on to the uncollected fees, Water and wastewater fees parcel report the second of three.
so once the delinquent fees or once the delinquent fees are determined to be added to the Parcel report,
sometimes they are still not able to be collected. That often happens when the property changes ownership.
the property might change ownership or it may go into foreclosure.
at that point the county because the owner has changed, We no longer have the ability to collect those fees.
california government code provides that the board of supervisors can discharge those Uncollectible fees.
and so that is the intent of the uncollectible debts parcel report.
you'll see that that report references that there are $1,271 and change in uncollected Debts for parcels that are
no longer in the original owner's ownership anymore. So for parcels within that parcel report, we'd be asking the board to discharge those Debts.
the final parcel report is the one I referred to as miscellaneous csa charges.
there are just under $5,000 in parcel assessments within county service area number two, Which is the sugar loaf water district.
those parcel assessments are earmarked for capital improvements or operations costs within That district.
again, these were approved by the parcels by the residents within that district.
moving on. There are within the elk elk trail subdivision of the jones valley county Service area,
number six, again a water district. There are $11,640 in parcel assessments that are Earmarked as standby charges
for parcels within that subdivision that are not hooked up to the water system.
again the, the parcel, the owners within that district have approved these fees originally Moving
on to stormwater we have three stormwater service areas, All located in the burn area.
again created when, when subdivisions were, were built, The subdivisions required you know,
something out of the ordinary and the maintenance of their stormwater and conveyance of Their stormwater, they might have stormwater pipes. Sometimes they have infiltration
basins various items like that that require our maintenance.
and so when the subdivision was created we created a stormwater csa.
and again, there's an assigned parcel charge that was approved by the subdivision owners At the time of creation.
finally street lighting. So there are, there's a single county wide street lighting csa Within that,
there are about 31 different lighting zones. Street lighting is not required generally by The county public works
does some street lighting on our own particularly along arterials and collectors and Particularly at intersections.
but other than that in the rural county, you'll find most often there are no street Lighting that that applies even within subdivisions.
if a subdivider. If a subdivision developer decides they want to have street lighting There,
they're given the opportunity to join the street lighting csa when they create their their Subdivision or even retroactively.
and again these assessments have all been approved by the residents or the parcel owners Within this district.
and that money goes towards the maintenance and operation of street lighting throughout The county.
just a real quick circle back around just to let you know, None of these parcel assessments are changing.
they've all been approved initially by the parcel owners at the time and no changes Proposed.
with that concludes my report. Happy to take any questions.
supervisor. Harmon. Just a quick question. That elk trail.
yeah. Some of the parcels opted out. They're not taking the service.
yeah. Does that mean they drilled the well? Yeah. So elk trail subdivision existed prior to the prior to jones valley supplying water up There.
and at which point all of this all of the parcels were served by their own.
well. Over time, what happened was that some of those wells provided or proved to be Unreliable.
and there was a request that came into the county to extend water service to, To that subdivision.
at that time we did that. Some parcel owners opted to not connect, But they consented to paying a standby charge.
because essentially the water line is at their property line available for them to Connect.
thank you. Supervisor. Plummer. Yes. Thanks, John, for the presentation.
the. The first question I had was related to. Of the delinquent fees. Am I right to look at.
I was wondering like, what percent of the delinquent fees do we end up collecting? And it looks like if I compare the uncollectible debt to the delinquent fees, Like because the delinquent fees are like 175,000 uncollectible debt is
$1,000. So does that mean that we're collecting almost all of those delinquent fees over Time?
yeah, that would be my impression. And I'll tell you, And again, this might be a question for nola,
but once they go on the tax rolls, they become eligible for payment via the teeter plan.
so even if they go unpaid by the property owner, I believe eventually the teeter plan makes makes those fees whole.
noel is nodding. Yes. Okay. All right. And then sorry, Two other questions.
one is when I when I go to the csa cabinet meetings and there is, I think in all three of the ones that I attend
regularly, the there's the operations budget and you have that one sheet with the Finances.
and then there's the capital improvement budget. So for those that don't have a capital Improvement fee like
sugarloaf, so castello and jones valley don't have that fee on here aside from the elk Trail piece.
is that completely funded? Then the capital improvement budget, Is that completely funded by grants or are there other funding sources going into that?
well the water agency often contributes to the operations and improvement of the csas.
but yes other than that, the only funding available would be grants or loans.
there are a number of csas that have usda loans for infrastructure.
so but that is correct. And then so does that mean that when we're doing the right Studies,
which I know there's a few ongoing or coming up that essentially the cost of capital Improvements is being
built or needs to be built into that if there isn't a corresponding partial charge to Cover capital improvements.
that is correct. You know, the, the, the rates are subject to a prop.
218 so I, my, my understanding is that historically there we've had some rates where we've Tried to implement rates,
maybe even in some of the csas that you're referring to that were rejected.
which then by the, by the property owners, which then, You know, may you know, bring about a kind of a negotiation on what an
equitable rate is. And often I think what I've seen is that one of the first things that Goes is the capital improvements.
yeah, that makes sense. I think castella rejected their rates through a 218 process a few Years ago,
and that's correct. Now they've gotten water agency dollars, I think, to the tune of like $50,000 per year the last 2 to 3 years.
and is the water. Could you just remind us, I think this came up during the budget Hearings, but what is the intended purpose of which I know is,
is dictated by that assessment in terms of like, What are the allowable uses for water agency revenue?
my understanding, and this is a very broad statement. The beneficial uses of water within shasta county.
okay. Okay. Thank you. All right. With that, I will open up the public hearing.
miss angel, do we have all correspondence on file? Yes, chair. Any and all correspondence received is on file and available to the public Through the clerk of the board.
and do we have any public speakers? No. Chair, No public speakers. All right. With that, I'll close the the hearing and I will entertain a motion for Approval of the.
adopt the resolution. I'll make a motion to adopt the resolution, Which confirms the reports of delinquent fees and liens being placed on the csa tax
bills, as well as the reports of uncollectible debts and the annual parcel charges.
okay. Do I have a second? Second. Second by supervisor harmon.
motion made by supervisor plummer. I think the second by supervisor. That was okay. Okay. Supervisor lawn made the second.
all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Passes 5 0. Thank you, john. Appreciate it. All right. With that we will be going to closed session.
do we have any public comment on closed session?
yes, chair. Give me one moment. Why don't we crye.
mr.. Why don't we just give noel, like, an honorary seat up here somewhere, Right?
and then she. She can be. He even brought her in. Okay, let's get miss angel. Do we have any guests?
two speakers up. First shasta county watchdog, Followed by christine bagley.
regarding closed session. And I pulled up the document for the federal courts for the United states district court,
eastern district of california. The complaint I want to I want to go just read some of The.
what the complaints about. Discrimination based on race color fail to prevent Discrimination,
harassment and retaliation in violation and feha international international infliction of Emotional distress.
retaliation in violation of california labor code 02.5
discrimination based on disability and violation of americans with disability act.
so there's quite a few things and these are for closed session.
I find this very interesting because this is actually exactly what you guys do
to us. And this is a federal lawsuit. So I downloaded the whole thing because I was going Through this and I'm
thinking I'm not the only person. We're not the only person who gets harassed and gets Discrimination discriminated by public
officials. And this lawsuit is against you, the county and other names here.
I see. So this is ongoing of discrimination in this county, Including by you officials.
so there's potential here for other lawsuits to be brought into the county.
and this will be federal, not just local, where we have one judge to making decisions.
so there will be more lawsuits coming and there will be filed in federal.
and that will be what I'll be looking into. All right.
and with that we will go to closed session. Estimated time is 30 minutes. We will not be back. Chair, can I just confirm that christine begley is not present? Oh, I'm sorry, christine begley is not present. Okay. Thank you.
I'm sorry. So estimated time, 30 minutes. So we will not be back before a quarter to noon.
no. Okay. Coming back from closed session. Counsel larmer.
do we have anything to report? Mr. Chairman, Item r six was heard in closed session.
there is no reportable action. All right, with that, This meeting is adjourned.
thank you all. Nice.