Shasta County Documents Reveal Chriss Street’s Proposed Plan for Healthcare Consultant Role

In response to a Public Records Act request, Shasta Scout has received documents outlining the proposed plan of the County’s selected healthcare consultant, political commentator and activist, Chriss Street.

The Board voted to offer Street the contract, which pays $150/hour up to $40,000, at a meeting several weeks ago.

This is the first time the public has seen the proposal, which was not shared with the Board prior to the supervisors’ vote. The document is dated December 2, one full week before the Board first voted, at Supervisor Kevin Crye’s request, to explore healthcare consulting options and a full six weeks before CEO David Rickert invited Street to submit a proposal for the consulting role.

The document appears to have been hand-delivered to someone at the County. The document request response shows no accompanying email message, and the document is not date-stamped as it would have been had it been submitted via the County’s administrative staff. Shasta Scout has reached out to a County spokesperson as well as Crye, Rickert and Street to find out when the document was submitted, and to whom but has not yet received a response.

The proposal shows that Street plans to address the County’s long-standing physician shortage by developing a rural medical school and an associated substance use facility using federal funds. In the document, Street refers to himself as a subject matter expert and says he’ll need to travel to visit with both state and federal officials as part of his role. The proposal broadly matches ideas shared as part of a recent presentation with Dr. Paul Dhanuka to the Redding City Council in January, but provides additional details.

The document reads as if Street had already been asked to submit a proposal and the role Street describes fits within the parameters that Crye shared with the Board on December 10, right before supervisors’ initial vote to move towards hiring a consultant, at his request. Street also suggests the same compensation amount – $40,000 – which the Board subsequently voted to offer for the role.

Street’s resume, which was also received through document request, makes clear that his only medically-related professional experience includes five years running a healthcare management company more than a quarter-century ago.

His complex history with Shasta County includes being selected for the County’s top executive position in 2023, an offer that was rescinded by Supervisors after a review of his background check results. In the aftermath, Street publicly leveled unfounded accusations of illegal financial activity against the County, which were later rebutted during a Board meeting by County Auditor Nolda Short. To add to the complexity of his role in the community, Street’s the Chief Financial Officer of a political movement known as New California State, which hopes to secede from California to become the 51st state and has been active in demonstrations against the Shasta County Elections Office.

Qualifications and Scope of Work

Under Shasta County contract policy, staff are required to use a competitive procurement process for contracts that are “controversial or unique” or of “particular interest to the Board of Supervisors or the public.” In this case, the contract was all three, as indicated by the Board’s request for the consultant to be hired and the public’s robust public discourse on the matter. 

A competitive procurement process, the contract manual indicates, can vary from informal phone calls to full requests for proposals. CEO Rickert’s informal bid process included reaching out to individuals he felt were qualified for the position, sharing a written statement outlining the qualifications and scope of work, and asking them to submit proposals. 

In emails sent to prospective applicants on January 17, CEO Rickert shared the specifications for the contract, which required the applicant to be a “medical professional.” During the Board’s discussion of whether to hire Street, Supervisor Allen Long questioned what medical professional experience Street had. In response, CEO Rickert said he believed Street’s proposal was proof enough that he was qualified.

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According to the scope of work submitted to potential applicants, the County intends the contracted healthcare consultant to identify and address how to improve the lack of healthcare options in Shasta County and produce a “shovel-ready solution” which identifies state and federal grant sources. What the term “shovel-ready” means in this situation has not been discussed by the Board and is not defined in the scope of work.

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Other Prospective Applicants

CEO Rickert also invited a number of other participants to apply for the healthcare role, most of whom declined. Those individuals included Dean Germano, the retired CEO of Shasta Community Health Center. Germano told CEO Rickert he was too busy to consider the consulting role. 

Also invited to apply was Doreen Bradshaw, the retired Executive Director of Healthcare Alliance of Northern California (HANC) who has been working with others long-term to solve the chronic and critical shortage of healthcare providers in Shasta County. In a page-long email sent to CEO Rickert in response, Bradshaw declined to submit a proposal, citing numerous concerns about the County’s approach, including the short timeline and broad scope of work. 

Jo Campbell, the Chief Executive Officer of Hill Country Community Health Clinic, was also approached by CEO Rickert to submit an application for the role. She also declined, saying she has a full-time role at Hill Country and also that she believed taking the role would be a conflict of interest for her, or could at least appear that way to the public. In response to a follow-up question from Shasta Scout, Campbell clarified her concern as relating to the four service-provider contracts Hill Country holds with the County.

Other invited applicants included Tim Sharp, a Regional Director with Partnership Health Plan; Jill Phillips, the founder of the Shasta Substance Use Coalition; and Rafael Gomez, a Senior Healthcare Consultant with El Cambio Consulting. Two organizations, Healthcare Management Associates and Facktor Healthcare Consulting, rounded out the list. 

Plummer Hopes to Avoid Predetermined Outcome

While the Board has approved offering the healthcare consultant contract to Street, the County has not yet announced whether that contract has been formalized or signed.

In comments to Shasta Scout yesterday, February 18, County Supervisor Matt Plummer said it’s important to remember that Street’s proposed plan does not constitute a formal contract with the County. What will define the work Street’s assigned to do, Plummer emphasized, will be the formal contract – should he sign one – and the related direction Street receives from staff and Supervisors. He said he’s not seen a formal contract for Street and doesn’t know if one has been signed. 

The newly-seated Supervisor, who negotiated a role in overseeing Street’s progress before voting to offer him the role as healthcare consultant, said he was shown Street’s proposal only once, shortly before the County Board meeting where supervisors selected him for the role. The document was shared with him in brief pre-Board meeting with CEO Rickert and Supervisor Kevin Crye, Plummer explained. What he saw in that proposal, Plummer continued, is what led him to make clear statements to the public about not allowing the consulting process to head to a “predetermined outcome.”

“My hope would be that we (use the consulting process to) identify three to five recommendations for addressing the primary challenge (of the physician shortage),” Plummer said, “and that those are evaluated as part of this process.”

A number of medical professionals are already working on the healthcare provider shortage, including those involved with the Shasta Regional Healthcare Assessment Redesign Collaborative (SHARC) and the Health Alliance of Northern California (HANC). Both Dignity Health and Shasta County have conducted assessments of community health needs and some solutions are already being implemented, including a family practice residency that has had some success in drawing physicians to the area. But progress on a comprehensive solution to the complex problem of rural healthcare is slow, statewide. 

2.19.25 12:37 We have updated the story to correct a professional title.

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