When it comes to a county jail expansion, the Sheriff, the County's acting CEO and several supervisors all agree that no one knows yet how many jail beds might be needed to meet Shasta County’s jail capacity needs. Some say that doesn't matter.
James Rickert is running against long-time Anderson Cottonwood Irrigation District board president Brenda Haynes in response to what he says is mismanagement by the district's current elected leadership. After the federal government drastically cut water allocations to the district, the board made the controversial decision to sell all of the district's remaining water. Rickert says the board's recent offer of a consulting position was intended to dissuade him from running against Haynes, who has held her seat on the board since 2001. The board's closed session vote to offer the consultancy to Rickert appears to violate California transparency law.
A representative of Paradigm Research Clinic said the local for-profit clinical research company conducted COVID vaccine trials for Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson beginning in August 2020. Paradigm is one of hundreds of clinical research organizations across the country that provided medical research in cooperation with the FDA, the Institutional Review Board (IRB) and vaccine manufacturers as part of the “warp speed” rollout of COVID vaccines.
Despite transmission rates that have almost quadrupled over the last month, Shasta County is still considered low-risk according to relatively new metrics, because new cases haven’t yet significantly affected hospitalizations or hospital capacity. High transmission rates are most dangerous to the vulnerable. Here’s what you should know about how you can help reduce risk in Shasta County right now.
Shasta County's Public Health Officer is facing possible dismissal by county supervisors. Shasta Scout interviewed her after she released a public statement Friday saying she has received no specific information that her job performance has been unsatisfactory. Ramstrom has been the focus of public complaints about county COVID restrictions over the last two years.
Those who oppose the use of COVID-19 vaccines frequently cite data from VAERS, a federal vaccine harm reporting system. But while VAERS data can provide an important early warning of potential vaccine harm, raw data from the system can't show us whether a vaccine is actually unsafe.
News broke recently that Redding’s Sherri Papini, who went missing for 22 days in 2016, is accused of faking her kidnapping, repeatedly lying about it to investigators, and taking over $30,000 in victim compensation for a crime that never occurred. Those allegations, if true, make Papini an outlier in a sea of research that documents women’s high risk of assault, their hesitancy to report it, and how often they tell the truth.
The Redding Chamber of Commerce distributed $4 million of the county's $18 million in CARES Act COVID-19 relief funds to local businesses in 2020. Little is publicly available about how that distribution occurred and some have criticized the process. With new federal funds becoming available, Shasta Scout reached out to the Chamber and the county for more information on how previous funds benefited businesses.
Over the early months of 2022, Shasta County’s COVID-19 positivity rate soared as the Omicron variant spread. For county epidemiologists it was yet another leg of what has been a multi-year sprint to keep up with an unpredictable and deadly virus. Shasta Scout went inside Public Health to learn more about the disease detectives whose quiet diligence is slowing COVID’s spread.
The North State Equity Fund seeks to combat stark disparities in philanthropy. Organizations in nine North State counties are invited to apply for a new round of funding.
