Public Meetings: Elections Commission and County Board
*Meeting titles are linked to meeting agendas. Click for access.
1.9.2024 – Board of Supervisors
1.10.24 2:44 pm: We have updated this meeting recap to include mention of the Board’s decision to fund a new position for HHSA.
Supervisor Kevin Crye took on his new role as chair of the Shasta County Board of Supervisors during Tuesday’s meeting. He made an immediate change, moving the reports of the County’s CEO as well as supervisors, to the beginning of the meeting. He also instituted a new practice of having staff switch off speaker’s microphones at the three minute mark, to enforce the time allowed to speak. He offered rebukes to a number of public speakers on all sides of the political spectrum when their comments seemed to veer from the topic at hand.
Supervisors took up the issue of whether to stop charging impact fees for new development in the county. The county’s current impact fee structure was put in place in 2008 in response to a study that included projected county population growth of 280,000, according to Supervisor Crye.
County Auditor Nolda Short gave a presentation stating that since its inception in 2008, the Impact Fee program has generated approximately $8.7 million dollars for the county. An estimated $3.2 million of these funds have been used to fund the building of a new juvenile rehab facility and to pay for the south county fire station, the Sheriff’s Department south county patrol station, and a county emergency operations center. In total $3.2 million dollars of Impact Fee program revenues have been expended for these projects. Moving forward, the county’s jail expansion, public health facilities and a mobile clinic, Animal Control emergency evacuation equipment, and the Knighton Road bike/pedestrian project are intended to be funded by impact fees. Short said current impact fee balances are insufficient to cover the costs of these projects.
In response to robust public comment on the matter, Supervisor Tim Garman made a motion to have the issue brought back with more of a sliding scale approach to modifying impact fees. His motion was seconded by Supervisor Mary Rickert. Patrick Jones made a substitute motion to suspend impact fees, which was seconded by Chris Kelstrom. Crye said that reducing impact fees would help Shasta County’s “little guys,” who he identified as first time home builders, and supported Jones motion saying the loss of impact fees would be made up in sales and property taxes. Rickert suggested that economic experts were needed to determine whether suspending impact fees would actually have that affect, saying that current interest rates may be having more of an effect on the county’s growth. The board voted three to two, with Garman and Rickert opposing, to suspend the county’s impact fees. According to the staff report on the issue, it’s unclear what effect that decision will have on future county budgets.
The board approved funding a new position for the county’s Health and Human Services Agency, a chief financial officer, at a cost of approximately $175,000 annually. The position was approved without discussion as part of the consent calendar.
Supervisors also approved a new head of the Shasta County Public Works Department, Troy Bartolomei, who has worked for the county for thirty years. He’ll be paid just over $200,000 annually. Troy Ankin, who has worked for the county for twenty years, was appointed as county surveyor.
1.8.2024 – Citizens Election Advisory Commission
The five members of the Citizens Election Advisory Commission (CEAC) met at noon on Monday, January 8 and heard a presentation on the maintenance of voter rolls from the Assistant County Clerk and Registrar of Voters, Joanna Francescut.
Francescut explained that the local elections department updates and maintains the voter rolls using a number of systems including information shared by the Post Office, California’s Department of Motor Vehicles, California’s Employee Development Department, and the California Department of Public Health, among others. Francescut faced a largely hostile response to her presentation from several public commenters and one commissioner, Bev Gray. Commenters concerns largely came down to issues with state and federal voting law, including the right of individuals to vote even if they don’t live at at a residence and the right of individuals to register to vote without showing an ID. Questions asked by commissioners during Francescut’s presentation highlighted the steep learning curve they still have to climb regarding state and federal law and local policy. Commissioners Gray and Lund have already been appointed to an ad hoc committee to look into voter rolls and will continue that work.
Commissioners also discussed future presentations they’d like to hear from Francescut or her supervisor, Cathy Darling Allen. Commissioner Dawn Duckett suggested review of chain of custody law. Susanne Baremore asked for a review of election observer policy. Lisa Michaud suggested that the Elections Office share more about how community members can engage in the poll worker process. Bev Gray asked for a presentation from the Elections Office information technology staff.
The members of the CEAC also approved sending a recommendation to the Board of Supervisors that asks for the board to hire special legal counsel to determine whether commissioners be allowed to review election-related materials, including signatures for the recall of Supervisor Kevin Crye. It’s a strange request because the committee already has access to such legal counsel. An attorney, contracted by the county for the purpose of providing that election-related counsel was present at the meeting but said she would need more time to review the commission’s legal standing before offering an opinion. Instead, members Lund, Gray and Michaud voted to approve sending the recommendation forward to supervisors.
Have questions, concerns, or comments you’d like to share with us directly? Reach out: editor@shastascout.org. If you choose to leave a comment please keep in mind our community guidelines. All comments will be moderated to ensure a healthy civic dialogue.
Author
Comments (17)
Comments are closed.
Related Articles
Years of Uncertainty Come to an End as Council Grants Long-Term Lease to Redding Rodeo Association
On Tuesday, the Redding Rodeo Association finally gained it’s long-term lease of riverfront land. Meanwhile, the city continues efforts to update a comprehensive land planning document that will set the boundaries for how land near the downtown Redding riverfront can be utilized.
It is interesting that the impact fees are lifted as the Patrick Jones Gun Range and fun park is moving along in the development process. And that the cost of infrastructure improvements that will be necessary are being shifted to property tax payers. Must be nice to be one of the Board majority who decides those things.
I’ve lived in Shasta County for a few years now. I’m from Sonoma County, where I lived and worked and raised a family for over 40 years. The key issue I faced as a retiree and a now a renter was the rising rents. 30% in some cases. When we formed the Sonoma County Tenants Union, our main issue was rent control. Developers told us at City Council meetings that they would lose their out-of-state investors if we had rent control. We were up against multi-billion dollar corporations in our battle. The State took some action to slow it down.
So, what’s to prevent the same thing happening in Shasta County? Land is cheap now and restrictions, impact fees, have been lifted. High-cost housing and gentrification is on its way. The wolves will be on your doorstep, Shasta County.
Annelise- Trying to understand the motivation to eliminate these fees rather than readdress with a more current analysis. Could you find and publish the developer and impact fees collected for each year historically from 2008-2023? Also what would be the estimated fees on Jones proposed gun range? Thank you for your reporting.
Hi Ann,
Yes for sure I could locate the developer and impact fees over time. Estimating the fees for the gun range might be more complicated. I think it’s important to remember that this decision may stem more from a difference in perspectives than serving a special interest. Or not. I can’t be sure.
Ann, I read in a Record Searchlight article today that the estimated impact fees for Jones’ gun range total about $20,000.
Great! Thanks for sharing that.
I applaud the suspension of impact fees, the cost of building is ridiculous in our area and any effort to reduce those cost should be examined.
I heard comments that the interest rates is why we have low growth in our area, that is just not true as we have just came off historic low interest rates that spanned the greater part of a decade and we have still not grown in population by much at all.
The option of a sliding scale seems like a good idea on the surface and could work to help single family builders for occupancy. On the other hand it would keep the cost higher for developers and that is where most of our housing growth comes from. If you care about homelessness then you should also care about the cost of housing and that can be helped by reducing building costs.
The volume of mail in ballots will likely be upwards of 90% based on previous experiences in Oregon and Washington states”
It’s the chain of custody, voter ID and nonresidents voting that is more concerning to me and do you really want to be like Oregon and Washington? Shouldn’t EVERYONE trust our elections? We can do that.
Originally, they were justified as methods to support new necessary infrastructure such as public utilities, service buildings, and fire prevention. They were not designed as a free for all pot of money to be spent at whim.”
But that’s what they morphed into and your good with that?
I have no problem with evaluating impact fees, but like he always does, Kevin does not do all the research and present the necessary information before the public. Why not evaluate reductions in fees, compare effects of increasing interest rates, etc. before making the decision to just remove impact fees. As a constituent, I don’t feel like we have enough information, and we are held hostage by 3 supervisors that make knee jerk, extreme decisions.
I agree!
Crye and company are just ignorant about impact fees and their usage by either the county or cities. Originally, they were justified as methods to support new necessary infrastructure such as public utilities, service buildings, and fire prevention. They were not designed as a free for all pot of money to be spent at whim. To suddenly cancel the fees without an intelligible report on impacts and effects is simply irresponsible!
The dalliance over voting registrations and poll systems is simply chasing phantom suspicions round and round! Analysis of previous elections find little to be concerned about. Most ballots are being mailed in or drop boxed making the scattered polling sites pretty unused. Machines which count scanned ballots have been proven extremely accurate. The volume of mail in ballots will likely be upwards of 90% based on previous experiences in Oregon and Washington states.
I agree; no facts or research supporting the move to eliminate impact fees!?!
👍🏻. No research and no facts from BOS to make an informed decision!
Another wild addition is Crye’s HHSA besties in executive leadership. They created a brand new position of CFO with a hefty salary cost. 10 to 1 odds that position will be filled by cherry picking, as have many positions under this leadership. The executive leadership has a long history of piggyback promotions. Just follow the top two’s position history. Riding coat tails and hand placing favorites in promotions. If I am not mistaken this happened before with the same leadership in Trinity county. Instead of mesa pattern of fraud, we have hhsa pattern of cronyism.
Thanks for your comment on this! I missed a short bit of the meeting yesterday, including this item. So I’m catching up by video today and will update the article. Also hoping to write a separate piece related to this as time allows.
My comment is not about the impact fees however I do feel Jones may have violated ground law and not recusing himself from the vote. My comment is on the elections committee which I believe either directly or indirectly violated via R 4 to break California Law, Government Code Title 1 General Division 10 Part 5 Chapter 2 Article 2, and Ca. Code 17200, Section D.
I find such activity to be prof that this commission was created by Jones as a way to harass, intermediate, divide and install fear of voting or fear of taking part in the political process with in the citizens of Shasta County l. The commission’s majority do not care about law, and are fine with being used as a tool of obstruction and intimidation for the far-right conspiracy theory proponents that make up the extremist majority of the Board of Supervisors.
There is now serious consideration of taking the commission to court and an in depth complaint has been filled with the California Secretary of State.
Seems the MAGA political Powers currently in control of the county really aren’t fiscal conservatives in the least, and are happy to use taxpayers hard-earned money to fight their frivolous clauses. So far, their war on taxpayers or anybody that is not MAGA adjacent, has cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars and they look to more.
It very well could be that the only way The MAGA J.C.K. Cartel will get the point is through losing in court. It is interesting that our current contract County Council openly admitted they are not experts in election law, as evidenced by this week’s election commission meeting.
Additionally, voting extremism out of government, without fear in a free and fair election is still available here in California. It will be up to the citizens to use the vote. If you don’t vote, you don’t get to sit at the table or complain.
Thank you Shasta scout for your in-depth coverage deeply needed here in Shasta County, where the truth is called lies and the media is called fake.