This Week in Public Meetings: November 13 – 17

Continuum of Care Shasta Advisory Board Meeting

The Shasta Advisory Board for the NorCal Continuum of Care met this week and received an update from Redding City Manager Barry Tippin on the At Home Ad-Hoc Steering Committee, which consists of elected representatives and staff from Redding, Anderson, and the City of Shasta Lake. They also discussed funding, the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS), and the annual Point-in-Town/Housing inventory count for 2024.

Redding City Council member Tenessa Audette was present at the meeting and fielded questions from the board about a recent city council decision to delay certain awards related to the Housing and Homelessness Incentive Program. Although the available funding had already gone through a process known as rating and ranking where a panel reviews all applications and selects which they believe should be funded, the City Council opted to pause the approval for most awards pending further discussion, causing some confusion around the status of the awards by the organizations whose projects had been put forward for funding by the rating and ranking committee.

The advisory board voted to approve former City of Redding Mayor Kristen Schreder as the advisory board co-chair, and Hollie Zander from the CRDC as the new Secretary. An application for voting membership was approved for Emily Kerr of Shasta County Health and Human Services.

City of Redding Planning Commission

The Redding Planning Commission meeting included a public hearing to review the draft General Plan updates and address remaining issues brought up by the public and the commission. Director of Development Services Jeremy Pagan explained the process with staff presenting research on each issue and looking for an informal consensus agreement from the commission for staff direction including the reasoning for that decision. He was also careful to note that no final decisions were being made, but that staff was seeking clear and informed direction from the commission. 

Issues and policies discussed included the use of aspirational policy language versus more directive language, suggestions for decreasing the planning area boundary, as well as issues the commissioners had with the parks and rec and transportation elements.  

Public comment was held at the end of the over two-hour-long meeting. Rebekah Olstad spoke in support of the Winnemem Wintu tribe, urging the commission to avoid any development that would impact the river and the salmon.   

Cassandra Curl also spoke as a member of and advocate for the Winnemem Wintu. She explained to the commission that the Winnemem always have a goal to make three generations before them proud, as well as the three generations that will come after. She requested the commission think about their legacy and how they will protect the waterways and the salmon, known as Nur to the Wintu people.

City resident MaryAnn McCrary spoke to the commission about the need to retain areas where native trees will be able to grow and survive the impacts of climate change.

NorCal Continuum of Care Executive Board Special Meeting

The NorCal Continuum of Care Executive Board met and discussed the upcoming application process for HHAP5, one source of funding for the CoC and its member counties. After discussing the various options and timeline they voted to approve the City of Redding, the current administrative lead for the CoC, to contract with Housing Tools for a regionally coordinated homeless action plan for HHAP5. 

The board then moved on to discussing updates needed to the tracking of the budgets and funding sources that the Executive Board has been developing since Shasta County stepped down as lead agency. In response to a question about where the calculations are coming from former City of Redding Mayor Kristen Schreder explained that these worksheets are based on information that she has gathered from old documents shared by Shasta County last year as well as some assumptions based on how much money the CoC should get back from Shasta County once the administrative lead transition is complete. 

According to Schreder, the state is still awaiting information from the county about HHAP3 expenditures made by the county and the City of Redding still does not have access to those funds. Schreder clarified that these conversations are about how the Executive Board would like to allocate the money once they do have access to it. Concern was expressed over the fact that the City of Redding and United Way are taking on many of the administrative tasks for the CoC but have not been paid because available funds are still with the county. The board unanimously approved all of the theoretical adjustments to the funding sources except for one request to reallocate some funding from each of the counties to support the HMIS and administrative entity work. The other counties of the CoC will take this idea back to their individual county advisory boards for consideration.