Call to Order and Approval of Minutes of 7-14-21.
Present: Jini Reynolds, Christine Boyd, Dolly Riley, Glenn McGourty, Marybeth Kelly, Gizmo, Katrina Frey, Sheila Rogers, Marybeth Reinhard, Cathy Monroe, Steven Rugg, L. Galandil, Brentt Blazer, Adam Gaska, Sattie Clark. Dolly wanted to ensure that Zoe was able to record, Zoe confirmed. Chris wants to call Zoe and make sure she has access to the website. Dolly, said it has a spellcheck feature that Zoe could utilize when editing the minutes. Dolly pointed out under item One the last four lines are duplicated, Dolly will be editing those lines out before she adds them to the Brown Act website. As to July Minutes, Chris said public comments had been edited. Dolly asked if anyone wanted more time- Sattie wants to push it to next month due to the fact that there was a major revision. Dolly agreed this would be best- any objections? None. Approval of minutes pushed until September 8th.
No Action
Public Comments
Meredyth Reinhard spoke about the tobacco shop in downtown Redwood Valley. She did a double-take because there is a smoke shop in Redwood Valley and it seems like it came out of the blue. She heard no discussion about this and is surprised that we would have tobacco products so close to the market. Dolly agreed nobody saw it coming, and nobody knows what they're selling. We didn't hear about it because they didn't need to build anything. Dolly asked that we might look into being notified about business licenses from the county auditor in the future. Sheila Rogers- wants to move quickly so Brentt can get back to work on the active fire. Thank you for accommodating Brentt! Gizmo- the Flocana and Bell Arbres roadway- the repaved road is finished and it’s really nice! He thinks Bell Arbres would be a good blueprint for the future of roads because they used recycled material.
Report from County and Agencies on Current Events A vote was taken to request Sattie Clark write a letter to the BOS asking to include Redwood Valley needs in the disbursement of PG&E settlement funds. Guest Speaker: Brentt Blaser, Emergency Services Coordinator for MCSO, will speak about mass notification in emergencies. Brentt Blaser- there’s a lot going on with the active fire and evacuations and looking for shelters. 1) It’s all done in relation to the size of the county- we are trying to update our plan to use the best practices to make sure we’ve got a plan to help prevent disaster. The alert and warning subcommittee helped develop some policies to work with topography. He helps Emergency management and makes sure those practices are followed and the system is adhered to. You have to keep up with agreements and physical updates. The program as a whole starts with the officers radioing back trying to provide information like reverse 911. Dispatch has a lot more on their plate, so we supplement when needed. We engage with the county to get them to do their own systems. 2) We make fire recommendations, law enforcement issues the orders, we take the guestimate out of it. We’re doing our best to communicate to people through mendoready.org, and we try to get a visual as often as we can on that website. This month alone there is a major increase in traffic on the website. We’re trying to be more systematic. 3) They are different systems, and some people don’t want to share information on certain websites or aren’t able to access the same services that change the availability of Nixle. Nixle does cell phones, he encourages people to access the website, the reverse 911 such as code red or hyper-reach allows residents to set up an account and update it -if an officer sets it up then you need to give an email and a password so people need to take ownership of these things in case information needs to be updated. You can get emails, SMS notifications- it does a lot. Within one account you can register multiple addresses so you get notified about different things throughout the county. He really recommends people get comfortable with this powerful resource. For us to send messages throughout the county it’s more difficult and takes a long time for the system to process rather than just sending specific information to specific areas. We have to update these alerts as we send them out so it’s important to seek information from multiple different sources. Those systems haven’t changed in five years- we built that website to make everything easier- Nixle for instance has been having issues with delay times. Sometimes, as policies change we lose publishing rights because we’re generic accounts so people need to get creative. Registration hasn’t changed, if anything it’s been streamlined. 4) If you want to see everything happening in the county he recommends looking at the Twitter account for updates, there’s a lot of different dynamic aspects but these systems aren’t free and these expenses quickly add up so the priority is location-specific. It needs to be relevant and in a timely manner. 5) In the case of the Broiler fire- there were miscommunications- the public prefers over the notification to under notification. Everyone is on edge from the 2017 fires- they actually started putting pins on the map for residents that refuse to evacuate. We want to see where the public wants to be in terms of notifying. They’ve begun increasing notifying based on feedback from the website. It’s very hard to use evacuation zones by title but every message after the initial one becomes more and more refined. Marybeth- you speak about the different systems, specifically Nixle, to finetune it to get the best notifications. Are there multiple websites? Brent- on Everbridge you can edit information but you have to look for the interface- now we can say go to Mendoready .org and click register. Reverse 911 and Nixle are both owned by the same company- Everbridge and will notify you about emergency events designed for commercial events that can handle heavy website traffic. Gizmo- was wondering if people who don’t have computers can still get notified. How far away are we from getting those sirens up? Can we get a (‘red phone’) direct line to radio alert stations? He advocated for radio use. Marybeth also advocated for radio use in the case of cell towers going down again. Dolly also advocated for radio use. Gizmo- radio stations are already set up that we can tap into. Where can we get the authority to use those systems? Brentt said those systems are still in place- Everbridge sends these alerts everywhere including to radio broadcasters. We work specifically with broadcasters as well. Sometimes the problem is that it’s not location-specific- technical difficulties are also a problem. He also works with the nation’s weather system and we can even send a wave file through the EAS. We use it until we get complaints to stop using it. We are certainly engaging those systems, especially in rural areas. Chris- the new siren was installed and tested today at 2:00. Four more will be finalized later this month. Placement and property consent are the next steps. Dolly thanked Brentt for joining the RVMAC today. Brentt- encourage people to register. Lori Keiser, MCSO Communications Supervisor may be available to answer questions as well. PG&E Settlement funds. August 3 BOS decision. Update Supervisor Glenn McGourty. It appears we are getting ahead of this fire- lots of subdivisions are left without an escape route which is something that needs to be addressed. We used a balanced approach to addressing the safety needs of the county. The Redwood Valley fire department was fully funded for the amount asked. A little over a million dollars for hazardous tree removal and restoration road improvements. Funds for the prevention recovery and resilience including county culture and updates on fire and mitigation plans, helping people of limited resources, safe emergency, and secondary roads, and fire hydrant installation. Almost 300 thousand allocated to improving communications. Potter Valley is also being assisted with its rodeo grounds and fire department. Everything will be finalized on the 17th. Next, the individual departments will start arranging payments. Marybeth wanted to go over a few things- she watched most of the august meeting- she wonders if the Redwood Valley Grange needs can be funded from another source since they were sort of lost in that meeting. The Grange is a central need for the community- how did it not make it to the spending list? Glenn says the funding hasn’t been dispersed yet but Redwood Valley is receiving funds. He advocated but sort of got steamrolled. Marybeth is planning to flood the Supervisors with letters. Glenn said that is a good tactic. Glenn- said there is a lot of funding swapping happening. Marybeth- said she will hold back- Glenn said she should put that front and center. Gizmo- the Grange needs to be recognized with a monetary value to allow us to continue. Dolly pulled up the formal request for funding for the Grange. We also requested funding for water security and she would be happy to resend this letter. Glenn said it’s not too late to fund community needs so send it to the BOS. Jini seconded the formal request and thanked Marybeth. Jini is also very grateful for the EMT funding. Sattie is confused why Glenn is unable to release the documents for the park funding. She feels it is depriving them of the right to take action. Glenn said it will be available with the public information packet. Bree Klotter- there was a spreadsheet in an attempt to rank the needs and the funding needed; she said it was an amazing document. Redwood Valley water issue updates. Tom Schoeneman- noticed that all the money has been thrown around by the politicians, but at least we got half the money requested by the water district. He appreciated Glenn's effort to pull that money to Redwood Valley. Record lows at the lake- not looking very good at all. Redwood Valley water use is up but it could be due to the recent fire (he's trying to convince the board to go after Flocana to help cover these costs) were running a pipe for the infrastructure project from 2017 under the river; fish and game permits have escalated the price otherwise it’s going well. There's a meeting next week to further discuss. Marybeth requested the Zoom link and Tom said he could email it. Sattie thanked Tom and that she is also frustrated that more money isn't allocated to Redwood Valley. Katrina- wondered if we could write a letter on behalf of the MAC addressing their concerns about the lack of money Redwood valley is receiving and push back on things not addressed, and inappropriate allocations (water and grange). Dolly suggested that Sattie repurpose the formal request letter. Sattie agreed to take the original letter and rephrase it. Chris motioned, Marybeth seconded. Dolly forwarded the letter to everyone. Dolly took a roll call vote on Sattie sending the repurposed letter and Dolly sending the original. Dolly, Katrina, Chris, Sattie, and Marybeth, and Adam all voted unanimously. Katrina encouraged everyone to send individual letters. Fire Preparedness updates. Christie said that Kerry Robinson was appointed as new fire chief (unanimously), she encouraged feedback from the siren. Protocol and policies will be put into place shortly. Kari Shelley, Associate Transportation Planner from Caltrans, would like to announce: Caltrans is inviting public comment for a draft transportation plan to be posted on August 16th and will identify walking and biking needs across the State Highway system. Comments can be made at www.catplan.org/district-1 Member Chris Boyd motioned to approve. Alternate Member Marybeth Kelly seconded the motion.

The motion passed with the following vote:
7 In Favor Opposed
Abstained 1 Absent Recused
Cannabis Policy Ad Hoc Subcommittee: Patricia, Sattie Sattie- still verifying signatures. The SOWWW referendum received more than 6,000 signatures for and it is generally thought that they will be successful. We will know by the end of the month. We will know by the end of the month if the supervisors will start over or send it to the voters. This is a reminder that we as the people can be very impactful if the government is not working to our satisfaction. Gizmo- recent enforcement in the Covelo area regarding some pretty large grows, there has been an increase in enforcement so they are hearing us. Dolly agreed there has been an increase in enforcement.
Development Review Ad Hoc Subcommittee: Marybeth, Jini, Patricia Regarding the new Smoke Shop in Redwood Valley, Dolly- is this subcommittee interested in calling the County Auditor Office to be notified about business permits. Marybeth said she would. Adam Gaska said that they might not yet have one. The county might bounce you back and forth between Building and Planning and the Assessor. The county might not even know they are operating unless a complaint is made. Sattie- Secretary of State website can search business by name. We just want to be notified as much as possible of new business coming into our area. It would be good to push for that information because we need to have a little bit more control. Chris- we had asked the prior Planning and Building director for updates and we were brushed off, but when the new director is brought in we might have a chance to start off on a whole new footing.
CAP: Interim Community Action Plan and Design Review: Chris, Sattie
MAC approved the Plan 7-15-20. After our June 9, 2021 meeting, Supervisor McGourty contacted Julia Krog of PBS, who stated that a limit of 4 general plan amendments per year are allocated, and they are booked up for 2021. Our CAP should be first in line for review in 2022. Dolly said that there was an email thread in which Glenn asked for the Redwood Valley Action Plan be first for 2022 and this is something that needs to be followed closely.
Officers and Members Reports and Announcements Update on efforts to finalize RVMAC bylaws and send them to County Counsel for approval and adoption. Dolly asked if had anyone read the bylaws? Any comments? She herself thought they were really good. Chris wondered what the Board wanted to do with them- she wants everyone to take a look at them to make sure we’re going in the right direction. Sattie asked for another copy of those bylaws. Dolly said to take the question marks off because they are solid, they are similar to the other councils. Dolly suggested that we get someone from PG&E to get some to explain what on earth they are clearcutting for. Does anyone have any other ideas? Gizmo said he hasn’t heard much about the 2021 Bridge Project from Caltrans but he was hoping that they might visit us again and speak more about fire safety and speed limits and address our concerns. Cathy Monroe suggested Sarah Reith from KZYX has been following the severe clearance for the PG&E lines closely. We need to hold PG&E accountable and they need to address our concerns. Dolly said she spoke to Cathay Davenport and heard that their intention after cutting is to use herbicide. Cathy- a letter needs to be written, addressing our concerns about environmental impacts and push for some action to buffer the impact. Katrina noticed that there are many permits written for the coastal clearcutting but Redwood Valley received none. Katrina suggested a PG&E speaker. Jini called PBS when the clearcutting started and we found that PG&E is exempt from environmental impact reports- clearcutting will increase erosion and could cause road E to collapse. The company has everyone’s (PGE?) hands tied and its discouraging. Sattie- why are they exempt? Adam- they are a public utility, they can just kinda do what they want. Chris suggested speaking on this next month and finding a volunteer to draft a letter to Public Utilities (PGE?). Dolly said she would look for a speaker. Gizmo says there are two major problems; erosion, and they might be opening up pathways for faster winds and possible tornadoes. We need them to work with us to find that balance. Jini also said this Saturday you can come down to the Redwood Valley Grange from 10 to 2 for Giggles At The Grange.
Adjournment. Next meeting 9-8-21.
The next meeting is on Wednesday, September 8th. Meeting adjourned at 7:05 pm.