April 22, 2025 – Shasta County Board of Supervisors Agenda Preview

In this week’s agenda preview, we break down the key items coming before the Shasta County Board of Supervisors on April 22, 2025.

The Board will consider formal opposition to state legislation, including proposed changes to public meeting laws and climate liability. They will also enter closed session for labor negotiations and will consider direction on appointing a new Director of Health and Human Services, a position responsible for managing nearly half of Shasta County’s total budget.

Transcript:

Welcome to the North State Breakdown with Benjamin Nowain.

The Shasta County Board of Supervisors will meet on Tuesday, April 22, 2025, at 9 a.m. at the Shasta Lake City Council Chambers, located at 4488 Red Bluff Street in Shasta Lake City.

The agenda includes a range of issues—state legislation, fleet infrastructure planning, major departmental leadership changes, and zoning decisions—many of which could shape the direction of county policy and spending in the months ahead.

R1 – State Legislation: Senate Bill 707 and Senate Bill 222

R1 will be the Supervisors' Board Reports, but will also contain a couple of items of importance. The Board will officially consider their opposition to two important pieces of state legislation, providing letters outlining their concerns.

First is the letter opposing Senate Bill 707. This would expand existing teleconferencing requirements under the Brown Act, mandating multilingual support and more robust technical infrastructure, making remote public participation a standard element alongside in-person attendance.

The Board's primary concern involves the financial burden and administrative complexity these requirements could impose, particularly on rural counties with constrained budgets.

However, the argument against Senate Bill 707, based on cost and logistical complexity, raises significant concerns regarding community access and engagement. Remote participation has proven essential, as clearly demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the county successfully implemented call-in participation for public meetings.

These measures made it possible for many residents who might otherwise have been excluded—due to health challenges, transportation issues, or other barriers—to actively participate in local governance.

Thus, opposing Senate Bill 707 could unintentionally silence these community members, limiting civic engagement and diminishing public accountability.

Balancing financial concerns against ensuring robust public involvement is critical. Opposition based purely on cost or convenience appears inadequate when weighed against the fundamental democratic principle of accessibility.

Senate Bill 222 introduces a significant shift by enabling private citizens to initiate civil actions against entities considered responsible for climate-related disasters, provided damages exceed $10,000.

The Board's opposition is rooted in fears of increased litigation risks potentially threatening economic stability for local governments and businesses, particularly in rural and economically vulnerable regions.

While the Board's concern about overly broad legal exposure is understandable, it's crucial to recognize the underlying intent of the bill, to hold entities accountable for actions significantly contributing to climate disasters.

Increased accountability could motivate businesses and local governments to adopt practices that mitigate environmental impact, reducing future risks and potential harm to communities.

However, the current language of Senate Bill 222 may indeed be too expansive, lacking clear limits that would protect entities from frivolous litigation.

The Board's opposition, while understandable, should encourage dialogue aimed at refining the legislation to precisely target accountability without placing undue burdens on local economies.

R2 – Zero Emission Vehicle Fleet Infrastructure Plan

The Board will hear a presentation from Public Works and Frontier Energy on Shasta County’s Zero Emission Vehicle Fleet Infrastructure Plan, which outlines how the county can comply with California's clean vehicle regulations, including mandates that most new fleet vehicles be zero-emission by 2035.

While the plan is not up for a vote, it's a key step in positioning the county for future funding opportunities and exemptions. The presentation will cover projected infrastructure needs, such as charging stations and fleet upgrades, and the Board may provide direction on next steps.

R3 – Sheriff's Office Volunteer Recognition

The Board will receive a presentation from the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office acknowledging the contributions of its volunteer teams. These include the Citizen Volunteer Patrols, Search and Rescue Units, the Law Enforcement Chaplaincy, Explorers, and the Reserve Deputy Program.

While this is not an action item, it highlights the ongoing support these volunteers provide in patrols, events, and emergency response, an important reminder of the role community members play in public safety throughout the county.

Consent Calendar Highlights

Several items on the Consent Calendar stand out due to their financial impact or relevance to public policy boards:

• Item C4: Appointment of Carol Arnett as the District 4 Representative to the Commission on Aging to serve a two-year term ending in January 2027.

  
  

• Item C8: Appointment of Laura DiPaulo and reappointment of Kristin Lyons to the Public Health Advisory Board, with terms running through March 2028. These are related to the county's direction on senior services and public health policy.

  
  

• Item C14: Seeks approval of an agreement with Nichols, Melburg & Rossetto for architectural services tied to the construction of a metal building and conference room at 1265 Redwood Boulevard in Redding. While the agenda summary does not list a dollar amount, the nature of the project suggests a notable investment.

  
  

• Item C16: Requests Board approval to purchase a Toyota Tacoma for the Sheriff's Department at a cost of $65,000. The request includes a waiver of competitive bidding requirements, citing fiscal efficiency.

  
  

• Item C17: Seeks approval for a $70,000 sole-source agreement with Guardian RFID for inmate management and tracking software, to be funded through the Inmate Welfare Fund.

R5 – Employee Appreciation Proclamation

Item R5 proposes a proclamation declaring April 27 through May 3, 2025, as Employee Appreciation Week, with May 3 designated as Employee Appreciation Day. Sponsored by Chair Kevin Crye, the county plans to mark the occasion with a picnic at Anderson River Park, complete with food trucks, games, vendors, and a $25 meal voucher for attending county employees.

While this may appear as a goodwill gesture, the context surrounding it paints a more conflicted picture. Multiple county employee groups, including UPEC Local 792 and SEIU, remain locked in difficult contract negotiations. SEIU workers, many of whom provide critical in-home care to elderly and disabled residents, have repeatedly asked for living wages and basic cost of living adjustments, requests that have so far gone unanswered.

Despite their vital roles, they are among the lowest paid in the county and have been showing up at meetings for months advocating for basic dignity and respect in the form of fair compensation.

Given this backdrop, the proclamation feels more like a photo op than genuine recognition. Providing picnic vouchers while denying frontline workers the wages they need to survive undermines the very sentiment this proclamation claims to support.

If the county truly wants to appreciate its workers, it must move beyond symbolic gestures and start addressing the material conditions and contract disparities that so many of its employees are raising their voices about.

R6 – Treasurer-Tax Collector Fee Schedule Correction

Item R6 is a public hearing to adopt a corrected fee schedule for services provided by the Treasurer-Tax Collector.

Earlier in 2025, an internal audit discovered a spreadsheet error that resulted in miscalculated fees being adopted in January. Those fees were immediately capped at actual costs, and any overcharges are now being refunded retroactively to January 10, 2025. The new ordinance seeks to formally correct the record and adopt the updated fees going forward.

While this correction appears to be a straightforward administrative fix, it reopens an ongoing policy debate in Shasta County. In recent years, Supervisor Crye has positioned himself as a staunch opponent of certain development-related fees, framing them as barriers to growth and economic opportunity. In the past, the Board eliminated impact fees altogether under the claim that doing so would encourage development. However, the anticipated economic boom never materialized.

These fees, while sometimes burdensome, are designed to help offset the real public service costs that come with new development, including emergency response, fire services, and infrastructure maintenance. Eliminating or undervaluing them doesn't make these costs disappear, it simply shifts the burden elsewhere or leaves services underfunded.

The broader context here is important. While the county is legally required to keep its fees aligned with the costs of services, political pressure continues to be applied in ways that treat fees as inherently harmful rather than as tools for balancing community needs with development.

Today's correction is administrative, but it is important to recognize the need for thoughtful long-term planning, not just reactionary politics.

R7 – Hawes Farm Zoning Amendment

Item R7 is a follow-up to a previously discussed zoning amendment for Hawes Farm in the Anderson area. After community concern and a robust public hearing process earlier this year, the applicants made concessions that satisfied most of the objections. This included scaling back certain uses and addressing concerns about traffic and compatibility with surrounding land.

As a result, the update is expected to be largely procedural, finalizing changes that the community already agreed upon during the initial hearing. This item is unlikely to generate much public controversy.

R8 – Knighton Road and Churn Creek Rezoning Proposal

Item R8 is a public hearing to consider zoning changes for a 30-acre parcel at the northwest corner of Knighton Road and Churn Creek Road, currently owned by Maverik, Inc.

The proposal would shift the zoning from Planned Development to a mix of Limited Agriculture and Highway Commercial, allowing for a potential new commercial project along a major intersection. The plan also includes a subdivision of the property into two parcels and a remainder lot.

While the staff report recommends approval and finds the environmental impact to be minimal, with a mitigated negative declaration, this kind of rezoning could still raise questions about traffic impact, compatibility with nearby uses, and long-term land use goals.

That said, there has been no major public opposition noted in prior discussions, so this item may move forward without much debate.

R9 – Air Quality Management District Deficit

Item R9 is a scheduled presentation on the financial condition of the Shasta County Air Quality Management District. But what may sound routine is actually tied to a revelation of a long-standing budgetary failure.

Chair Kevin Crye, who also serves as the Chair of the Air Pollution Control Board (APCB), a joint agency made up of county supervisors and city representatives, recently discovered that the district is facing a $2 million deficit that began as early as 2013.

Speaking on his April 20th radio show, Crye read directly from the June 28, 2016 APCB meeting minutes, quoting from Resource Management staff member Ronnie Harmon:

The shortfall, which appeared to have been understood internally, remained uncorrected and grew silently over the years until it was recently brought forward.

R10 – Closed Session: Labor Negotiations and HHSA Appointment

Following the public portion of the meeting, the Board of Supervisors will enter closed session, where they will discuss several items without public oversight or input, as permitted under California law. These sessions allow the Board to handle sensitive matters such as litigation, personnel, and labor negotiations privately.

Item R10 will focus on labor negotiations with several bargaining units, including the Deputy Sheriff's Association, the Mid-Management Bargaining Unit, and United Public Employees of California (UPEC).

However, SEIU Local 2015, which represents In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) caregivers, is not listed among the groups being negotiated with — despite the union's ongoing public efforts to secure a living wage and stronger contract terms.

For the next item during closed session, the Board of Supervisors will consider appointing a permanent Director for the Health and Human Services Agency (HHSA), which oversees approximately $300 million annually — nearly half of Shasta County's total budget.

The position has been vacant since Laura Burch, who was appointed HHSA Director in November 2022, went on medical leave in September 2024. The county formally announced her retirement on April 17, which will be effective on August 1.

While her announcement was framed as a standard transition, the broader context of her tenure tells a more complicated story — one that includes financial instability, whistleblower allegations, and unaddressed leadership concerns.

In February 2025, one of HHSA's Google Business listings was renamed to:

A second listing accusing Burch of embezzlement was briefly visible online before being removed. These edits were reported in local media and sparked speculation about internal whistleblowing, though no investigation has been publicly confirmed. However, it does appear that an internal investigation into who made the changes was initiated.

It's also important to remind the community — Rahsaan Dean, who served as HHSA's first Chief Fiscal Officer, was hired in May 2024 and terminated after just over two months.

In a public interview with Shasta Scout, Dean alleged that he was fired after raising concerns about serious financial mismanagement. He cited restricted access to budgetary data, lack of fiscal oversight, and administrative resistance to transparency as key reasons for his dismissal.

Dean also described being shut out of meetings after raising red flags and suggested the department was operating without even the most basic financial controls.

Very close to Dean's termination, HHSA leadership requested retroactive approval of nearly $6 million in unapproved prior-year spending — confirming some of the issues Dean had raised. The request, brought to the Board in May 2024, has yet to receive meaningful follow-up or public clarification.

Burch's previous professional history adds further concern. In 2010, under her former name Laurie Sumner, she was named as a defendant in Webb v. County of Trinity, a federal whistleblower lawsuit.

The plaintiff alleged retaliation after raising alarms about the misuse of federal funds and violations of the Family and Medical Leave Act. Although some claims were dismissed, the First Amendment retaliation claim was allowed to proceed. The case was ultimately settled, and despite an order from the California State Personnel Board to reinstate the plaintiff, Trinity County refused to do so.

Since Burch’s leave in September, Christy Coleman has served as Acting HHSA Director. Coleman was already in a leadership position during the period when the $6 million in unapproved expenditures occurred.

Despite the scale of the discrepancy, leadership, including Administrative Branch Director Erin Watts, have not provided a satisfactory public explanation.

As acting head of a department responsible for managing $300 million in taxpayer funds, Coleman's continued role, absent full accountability, raises serious concerns about whether the agency’s culture of opacity has changed.

The appointment of a permanent director is one of the most consequential decisions the Board will make this year. It represents not just a staffing choice, but a test of the county’s willingness to confront past failures, improve internal controls, and restore public confidence in one of its most critical agencies.

Registrar of Voters – Pending Appointment

Although not listed as a formal item on this week's agenda, the appointment of a new Registrar of Voters remains a pending and critical decision for the Board.

As of now, there has been no official announcement regarding when the appointment will be made. It’s possible the timing could be mentioned during the Board Reports at the beginning of the meeting, or that a special meeting will be scheduled with only the required 72 hours of public notice.

Given the significance of that role, and the current scrutiny surrounding election administration in Shasta County, residents should stay alert. Updates will be available through the North State Breakdown and other reliable local news outlets as soon as the meeting is scheduled.

Final Thoughts

These issues matter because they affect your life, your taxes, your services, your vote.

It’s not always easy to keep up with the details, but paying attention is one of the most powerful things you can do. If you have questions or concerns, email your supervisors. Attend a meeting if you’re able. Speak up when something doesn’t sound right.

Your voice matters. These are incredibly important issues. And you have the power to make a difference.

And that’s the Agenda Preview.