LOYALTON - Established on April 16th, 1852, Sierra County celebrated its 171st birthday this week as the Board of Supervisors meeting kicked off on April 18. Happy Birthday Sierra County!

The big news of the day was the approval of a resolution approving the transfer of the County Office of Emergency Services (OES) Department to the County Sheriff-Coroner, effective Thursday, May 25th, 2023. With Director Beals retiring in May, the county has been working to restructure some of the departments in the county, creating staffing changes to prepare for a smooth transition. In addition to being Director of Public Works and Planning, Beals also leads OES on behalf of the county. LaTina Vannetti will be assuming the role of County Coordinator for OES.

Following up on the discussion at the previous Board meeting, Lea Salas informed the Board she had decided not to pursue the Behavioral Health Bridge Funding opportunity from the State as she felt it was too heavy a lift. As Sierra County only has twelve official homeless people, it did not make sense to take a lump sum of $1M to serve such a small population. The county certainly did not need to provide incentives for homeless people to move here.

She also mentioned that the Facility Manager submitted a letter of retirement. Salas will post for the position soon, hoping to hire someone in the next 2-4 weeks before she retires on June 22nd. Salas also informed the Board that the children in Sierra County would finally be getting much-needed in-person support. The Board approved her request to hire a parttime child psychologist that would work three days per week and service both sides of the county. Children only receive help through 100% telehealth services, so this is a massive benefit to the county's children to provide in-person assistance to our most vulnerable populations. The psychologist would spend one day per week on either side of the county.

Supervisor Dryden relayed that Charles Shrammel contacted her regarding the proposal to establish the Feather River National Monument. They planned to have a public discussion in Sierra County in May, but Dryden said those plans had been delayed while Shrammel and his Board of Director reexamine how to move forward with the project.

Rhonda Grandi reminded the Board they would offer Sierra County residents healthcare assessments this month. The first will be on the west side county in Sierra City on 4/26 from 12-3 pm, and the second will occur on 4/28 from 12-3 pm at the Community Call in Loyalton. Lunches will be provided at both.

Reporting out from the Forest Service, Plumas District Ranger Mike Rae said they are now trying to hire directly for about (20) positions critical for their fire reduction efforts. He was pleased to report that the USFS has successfully obligated contractors about 90% of its fire mitigation and fuel reduction funding. The most significant chunk was contracted to the National Forest Foundation. They are still in the process of securing a concessionaire to run campgrounds in Plumas, hoping the previous concessionaire will sell the permits to another organization. With the summer season fast approaching, this still needs to be solidified.

North Yuba District Ranger Andrew Mischle echoed the need to fill many jobs, particularly around trails and campground staff. Work has started getting Chapman and Ramshorn campgrounds open, welcome news for campers.

Meanwhile, the Board approved over $924K for critical infrastructure updates. About $162K will go toward the Sheriff's Office to upgrade the county's communication systems, with $300K supporting the efforts to remodel the Community Halls in Calpine and Downieville. $200K will be utilized to upgrade the county's aging fleet of vehicles keeping us on track to comply with the California Air Resources Board (CARB) 2025 mandate.

On a lighter note, as April 2023 is officially the "Month of the Young Child" in Sierra County, Katie Filimonov and Jessica Norman from Sierra Nevada Children's Services and Candy Corcoran from First 5 Sierra County brought a dozen of your youngest Sierra County residents to celebrate with the Board. About a dozen preschoolers sang songs and gave some of their handcrafted art to Board members reminding us of the future of Sierra County.

As a model of how well Sierra County and the USFS are partnering to support fire mitigation and fuel reduction quickly, the Board next approved a $3.3M project to begin clearing the road along Mountain House Road through Forest and Alleghany. As a part of the Master Stewardship Agreement 2020- 095 for the North Yuba-Green Acres Roadside Fuels Project, the Board approved $165K in match funding to start clearing the road to ensure this critical ingress and egress route will remain open before the fire season approaches as it is the only road accessible by 2-wheel drive. Moving into action quickly, Director Beals hopes to have the project out to bid within the next month. Beals finished reporting that the County's Building Inspector will be phasing into retirement. He will be dropping to 3-days per week starting in June and was approved to begin the hiring process for a new Building Inspector so the new hire can job shadow over the next two months.

The Board concluded the last meeting of April by thanking Irving Christensen for his twelve years of service as a member of the Planning Commission. Christensen has been praised for his service to the county since 2010. His vacant position will be advertised to be filled in the next couple of months.