This Week In Public Meetings: October 16-20, 2023

Here are the highlights from the meetings we have attended this week. Each meeting title links to the agenda or video of the meeting if you would like to dig deeper into any of the content. If you have any questions or suggestions for meetings we have not been attending please email us at editor@shastascout.org.

Shasta County Board of Supervisors

At the October 17 Board of Supervisors meeting an item related to the newly formed Citizens Elections Advisory Committee was pulled from the agenda just before the meeting began. The Board briefly discussed how to respond to the new state elections law on hand counting, AB969 but did not take any action. Supervisors approved Dr. James Mu by a 3/2 vote to become the county’s next public health officer. They also approved spending funds on a public education initiative to invite community members to respond to California’s new reconsideration of the Fountain Wind project.

Anderson Union High School District Board

At their October 17 meeting, AUHSD Board members held a public hearing about potential changes to how board members will be elected in the District. The topic comes up in response to a legal demand from the California Voters Foundation saying that the current election process in the District disenfranchises Latino voters. The Board also discussed minor changes to a recently passed parental notification similar to one being challenged by California’s Attorney General in the Chino Valley District. The Board voted to approve the minor update to the policy 4/1 with President Joe Gibson voting against it. Local California Teachers’ representative Shaye Kennan again questioned the Board on how teachers should implement the policy and what will happen if they don’t but did not receive a response. The Board also approved a contract for a third school resource officer for the district.

Community Action Board

The Community Action Board met on October 18, 2023. The one action item on the agenda, which was a discussion and to take some form of action on the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG), was removed from the agenda because Shasta County Supervisor Kevin Crye was not present and was the one who requested the item, according to HHSA Assistant Director Christy Coleman. The CSBG accounts for about $300,000 of the funding for the Community Action Agency. The item may be brought back on future agendas and we will keep an eye out for it. The board also discussed edits to the bylaws, a report on the CAA programs, and an update on the customer satisfaction survey.

Gateway Unified School District Board

Board members at Gateway again discussed a parental policy similar to the one just passed in the Anderson Union District. The policy was brought back to the Board by Board President Lindsi Haynes after a discussion last month that ended in a 2/2 vote of the current four-person board. Lindsi Haynes emphasized that she had revised the policy since last month to address concerns cited by the public and other board members but that did not sway the opinions of public speakers who opposed the policy or of the other board members. The policy vote ended in a 2/2 vote once again but Haynes said she would be sure to bring it back next month saying “it’s not going to go away.” The Board also voted to spend some of the Districts approximately $2 million in California Extended Learning Opportunity or ELOP funds on two vendors: a renewal of the existing contract with the California Adventure Academy (owned by Supervisor Kevin Crye) and the Rice Brothers jiu jitsu training program. The Board’s vote on this topic was unanimous. The funds will provide extracurricular learning opportunities that include both academics and enrichment to help make up for COVID-related learning losses.

NorCal Continuum of Care Executive Board

On Thursday, October 19, the NorCal Continuum of Care Executive Board met and approved updates to their governance charter to reflect recent leadership changes with Shasta County stepping away as the lead agency for the seven-county collaboration. There was discussion around allocating funding for the mobile application that is used each year for the Point-In-Time Count, a count of sheltered and unsheltered homeless residents in each county. Even though the unsheltered count is not taking place this year, it was brought to the board’s attention that it is still useful for the sheltered count that will take place as a requirement for certain types of funding. There was also discussion around future funding allocation and how those allocations and contracts will be handled by the City of Redding as the new administrative entity for the collaboration.