February 23, 2023
All supervisors were present on Tuesday in Loyalton for the fourth continuation of Board of Supervisors meeting in 2023. Wendy Bergstrom and Dori Gaynor from the Loyalton City Council provided an update from the Ad Hoc Committee on the ongoing problems and mitigation efforts underway to address the water situation in Loyalton. As they fix pipes and breaks in the system, they continue encountering new issues and struggle to find funding. They hope to receive public funding from the USDA, but are hampered by the requirement to conduct a report that costs upwards of $100K. As the city currently lacks the revenue to afford this report, they hope to receive other grants to fund this. The Ad Hoc committee meets on the 2nd Thursday of each month from 5:30-6:30 p.m. for those interested. Sheriff Fisher next gave an update about joint radar training for his deputies in concert with Truckee PD and local Tribal Police, as well as less lethal firearms training just for Sierra County. In terms of search and rescue, he has also updated and revised the training manual from the early 1980s for winter search and rescue. On the HR front, he is close to hiring a couple more dispatchers to bring the office to a staff of five. Deputy positions and a custodian position remain open for interested candidates. Lea Salas began her report of happenings in Behavioral Health by announcing that she is retiring as Administrative Director in May. She will be sending out a letter to the Board and is formulating a transition plan which she will also present soon. The Board thanked her for her service to Sierra County and wished her well. Salas also relayed that CalPERS denied the candidate she hoped to hire to fill the position in Veteran’s Services, so they will have to reopen that search. Sierra County's Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Jeremy Miller notified everyone that the county experienced a brief cyber attack from a phishing email over the weekend. Fortunately, they were able to squash the attack in under 45 minutes. He credited the Board for recently providing the tools to fight such attacks and keep our information technology (IT) infrastructure safe. Public Health will soon be conducting a Community Health Assessment for the county. The process will begin in late February with planning and will begin writing the assessment by May to be presented by the end of the fiscal year. Beckwourth District Ranger, Mike Rahe, then provided an update from the Forest Service. They are still looking to fill several positions within the district, with a critical Support Services Specialist position in Blairsden that remains unfilled. Updating the Board on current projects, he mentioned that pile burning has been limited due to conditions, however, the Plumas Roadside Project has been progressing well with 33 miles of road and 1,500 acres completed. Plumas has been designated a private landscape for community protection and will be receiving $270 million soon. With a short implementation timeline, he relayed that it will be a challenge to expend all of the funding, but they are aggressively moving forward. Rahe also notified the Board that the concession company that runs their recreation sites has stepped away from their contract so they are seeking other vendors as replacements. More great news for fire protection in Sierra County. A request for a letter of support for a grant application to FEMA for the Fire Fighter 2023 Grant Program by the Fire Safe Sierra County was also unanimously approved. The application due next week would provide $559K to replace Fire Radio Communications throughout the county. The proposal would provide $35K in funding for communications equipment for the five base stations in Sierra FPD#1, Pliocene Ridge, Sierra City, Downieville, and Loyalton. The bulk of the funding would provide 46 new mobile radios and 136 portable radios. Federal funding from this grant would fund 95% of the cost of the deployment of the communications equipment, with the local match requirement being just under $28K. Following a brief break, Charles Schramel, the Executive Director of the Friends of Plumas Wilderness, made a presentation regarding the proposal to create the Feather Canyons National Monument. The bold proposal would create a monument between 200,000 and 400,000 acres across Plumas, Sierra, and Lassen counties. After highlighting their plans and the process for such a designation, there were many concerns raised by both the Board and through public comment about the possible complications. Timber removal, ranching, fire mitigation, access, and law enforcement were primary concerns raised as the project would require the coordination and approval of many overlapping public agencies. If successful, this process would take about 10 years to become a reality. As this is a complex and potentially contentious issue, Schramel highlighted that they are just in the initial stages of seeking this status and will continue to update the community and seek input as they move forward. Just before breaking for the closed session, we learned that Sierra County will soon be bringing back a Green Waste Program. County Forester, Danielle Bradford, and Rod Rummel updated the Board on the partnership between the County and the Sierra County Fire Safe Council for the disposal of green waste. Working in coordination with the Deputy Director of Planning and Works, Bryan Davey, gate attendants at the transfer stations will be monitoring this process and taking phone inquiries. The County will soon be deploying trailers and looking for an entity to help process the waste.