California Identification Remote Access Network - Regular Meeting

Roto County Fish and Wildlife Commission meeting for August 26, 2026. We'd like to take a roll call before.

Commissioner Byrne?

Here.

Commissioner Davies? Commissioner Robinson?

Here.

Commissioner Swarsback?

Here.

Commissioner Allen? Here. Commissioner Gardner? Commissioner what? Commissioner Robinson said he will be here. He might be late because he had an appointment.

Commissioner Davies here. I'm here.

Oh, no, I'm sorry. I was thinking Davies and looking at Robinson.

All right. We'll move on to the adoption of the agenda and approval of the consent calendar. Adoption of the agenda and Yeah, this is just where we adopt the agenda.

OK, adoption of the agenda and approval of the consent calendar.

Any discussion? Any changes? Any alterations? Public comments?

Now taking public comment on the consent calendar and adoption of the agenda. Each speaker will have three minutes to address the commission. We will begin with comments from individuals present in the meeting room, followed by those participating on Zoom. If you were joining via Zoom, please ensure you unmute yourself when called upon. If you're joining by phone, press star nine to raise your hand. If you're on Zoom, use the raise hand feature to indicate your interest in speaking. We ask that you voluntarily state your name for the record before beginning your comment.

And I'd like to record the fact that Commissioner Davies walked in at 3.01.

Welcome.

Thank you.

I was here. I had the joy to take that. Thank you. All right. No comment from the public or from the commission.

I'd like to hear a motion.

Motion to approve. I'll second it.

It's been approved and our motion has been first and seconded.

All approved, saying by aye. Aye. Anybody saying nay? Okay, good. Unanimous, sorry about that.

Open forum. Okay, now taking public comment on open forum. Each speaker will have three minutes to address the commission. We will begin with comments from individuals present in the meeting room, followed by those participating on Zoom. If you're on Zoom, use the raise hand feature to indicate your interest in speaking. If you're joining by phone, press star nine to raise your hand. And we ask that you voluntarily state your name for the record before beginning your comment.

Okay, all right. El Dorado County Agricultural Commissioner report. I'd like to say that Commissioner Whittle and I just had a meeting with her and it was very brief, but just an introductory needless to say, she's getting her feet on the ground. So she was hoping to come over here. So maybe we can pull her off until, she arrives and then she can give her report. That's okay with everybody? Commissioner reports? Mr. Schwarzbach.

Last week I went to the 100th year anniversary of the Forest Genetics Lab and the Pacific Northwest Research Station at in Camino. Wow. And it was a really wonderful celebration of science. There were a lot of people there who I'd worked with in my career, actually, that I didn't expect to see. But what it did is it reminded me of the collaborative science efforts I've been a part of in the past. And It made, and we also had a phone call last week with, or two weeks ago with the Mountain Lion Foundation and UC Davis veterinarian, Fernando Mejia of their carnivore project. And talking about collaborative science and how to put something together for this county. And going to the genetics lab celebration, it made me realize that, One, people support what they helped to build. And two, the agencies whose mission it is, the ones with SCAN, again, County Act Department and CDFW, have to be part of any working group to craft a solution. And so I'm doing this, you know, I call it a working group. It's a discussion group, really. But without those players, we're just talking to each other.

Yeah.

And we don't have, we have expertise, you know, good expertise in that group and political, some political clout. I was hopeful that, you know, the Mountain Lion Foundation could provide more financial support than they actually can. They really don't have the budget to support this. And of course, talking to Fernando, you realize, oh, it's actually way more expensive than you think it is. There's things I hadn't thought of that I needed. But I really believe that it'll come together when all those parties are together. The legislative report that we got sent and had forwarded to us from Bill Gaines, SB 1337, which was the mountain lion bill, that was a good bill. And it was supposed to have funding. It passed the Senate with no nay votes. Passed the Assembly with no nay votes. And it's dead because it didn't go to the appropriations committee. But it never got funding. So it's easy for people to vote for it in a bipartisan way. So we should start there. That's a model of what people support. Now we just have to out of time. And in my thinking, collaborative project is a better sell than a sole funded project. And so I think that's kind of the direction that we need to go in. Those are my thoughts.

Commissioner Byrne?

The only thing I have is I need to give the Department find out make sure I have a lot of money because I hope to get some cooperation from the other 2 sponsors to stop. The pond that we have been stopping for years. In late fall with the fishing pressures that shows. The other item I have is part of the agenda talking about that was that over the hills later. What I basically did is I put a budget item in, but the CSD and Toronto Homeless Association put in more money, so that left me with an extra $1,000.

You just need it.

I want to make sure that I have the funds for the pitch.

We didn't do that. We didn't approve that.

What we did is we approved But you can stop that on for the kids dirty. Okay. And I was approved for $2,000 and I only spent a thousand. So I want to spend the other thousand without a problem. Stop the pond in October, November. Yeah. When all the fishing pressure is off and that in the fishery, an opportunity to grow. Yeah. Good idea.

Thank you, sir. Commissioner Davies.

I wanted to comment on Steve's thing. I think that when they do that, they vote on it and it all passes. And then they decide it's not going to be refunded. It's just so they could please everybody. I don't trust any of those guys. So you're going to have to do something different as they are looking for you. My only other thing is I got this from The FW, which is there a great will update report to talk some good information in it actually is very similar to what we got from the people. Well, well, it is on board. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's easy to vote for something. Yeah. And everybody's happy. Well, geez, he voted for it. But you might Yeah, appropriate. Oh, yeah, just It's called politics. Yeah, absolutely.

Commissioner Gardner? So four of us were at the DA's office, three commissioners and Bob. We're at the DA office this morning. We had a great conversation, lots of things for Bob and the DA to work on. But they are requesting our help potentially to this Bob as well, which I'm sure Bob's going to be going into a little bit more. I would be adding an agenda item for next month about taking potential legal wording to put into the government legislation.

I think the story with the county ordinance. There you go.

County ordinance to stop people from messing with the Fish and Wildlife Bear Trap.

Oh. There's a, Nevada has a law to that effect already. And Bob's going to give us a copy.

It's with Kaylee, but I didn't realize that she was out. So it will be coming to you folks when Kaylee comes back on Monday, I guess.

And then Heather's going to put an agenda item to discuss amongst the commissioners. how to proceed with that language. Would this be a Board of Supervisors action? It would be ultimately.

It would be trying. We're going to advise. Recommendation.

We're going to make a recommendation to them. All right. Get strong folks. There'll be more to come. Were you going to talk some more about that? I could talk a little bit more.

Thank you. Commissioner Robinson.

Yeah. This last month, you know, we got that letter from the Cameron Park Lake. So I took myself down there on Monday and I lost the entire shoreline. Took me almost three hours. I looked for fishing line and lures. I found one hook, one little short piece of line. That's all I found. It looked very clean down there. I'd seen a lot of geese and stuff around and But where was this?

Well, didn't they say in their letter that they were continually cleaning it up?

Yeah. And it is very, very clean. Uh, they have signs up there. They have the, you know, the white PVC pipes with the notations up there for everybody to put their line on there or in those boxes, fishing line. They have several signs around the lake on fences and stuff. Uh, about, you know, who to call if you see something going on. You know, they got a phone number there.

What day of the week did you build?

I went on Monday. Yeah, on Monday. And there was people fishing there. There was a few that said the fishing was a little slow that day, but the day before they had caught some fish there. But it looked really clean. I didn't see anybody else there to talk to, you know, other than fishing. But, like I say, I walked around the whole lake and took my time and walked kind of the park of it, too, and just kind of circled around a couple of times in some of the areas. Like I said, I didn't see nothing down there, you know, too bad.

Not that what they're saying is not concerning, you know, about geese or animals getting fish line in it.

So it really would have to be on shoreline for the geese probably to get it because there's no boating there or anything. So you've got to fish You know, if somebody loses it, of course, or snags, there's nothing they can do about that. But what's on the shore looks real clean, so.

I'm wondering if we should check that every once in a while. I mean, I'm not talking about walking the whole 3-hour lake, but, you know, just saying. We have the same problem at Sawmill Pond up in the Tahoe Basin, but it's a nightmare. They have active feeding of bears and we have lures and everything all over the place. And we have to have a community contingency of people to clean it up. I took pictures of their signage and all this. Oh, nice.

They got a lot of signage and a lot of stuff going on. I mean, there's nothing we can do for them at work, you know, other than asking, you know, somebody else to check the place out. But I wouldn't do that when I see it that clean. Right.

Why don't you send us those pictures, Larry?

Well, I haven't all my own. If you tell me who to share to, I can't share. I'd like you to copy the letter. Yeah. The letter came to us. It was in our last month's meeting.

So can we send that letter out to everybody? Is that possible? It was sent to me. I was CC'd from Kaylee. And it was a letter from the CSD director to Commissioner Robinson specifically about Cameron Park Lake. But I can forward it to you if you'd like.

That'd be great. Just for the record, Commissioner Nagel, what is your thoughts going to stop the members of the high school?

It's a beautiful place. I'm telling you, they take very good care of that bank.

It's really nice. I was impressed. I hadn't been there in years myself.

I used to go there all the time.

It's a lot of use.

Yeah.

Thank you, Commissioner Weber.

I thought it was time to review the website, so I went on and reviewed the website. I encourage all of you to do that, too. And if you have any comments or questions about it, get a hold of it. I think Helmut is still doing our website for us, or working on that. But it seems to be following the way the county is trying to standardize all these different websites. Were you on the, how many years have you been on? Almost 15. Well, see, it needs to be updated. It says 12.

Well, we need to change those because that's on the biography thing, right?

Yeah.

I thought it said 14. So we need to update those.

There might be some other updates that y'all may find. It needs to be done, so I encourage you to do that. I've been a senior. There were, yeah, I got the legislative report out because there were a number of bills there that I thought something might be interested in talking about.

Can we talk about that for a second?

We can do it at the legislative report time too. Yeah, let's do that.

I just wanted to get copies. I tried to get, he'd be happy with me. I tried to get my computer to show me the four bills and I could not. How old is your computer?

It's not the computer's age. And he didn't know how to use it when he got it.

Then we, as Heather mentioned, we had a very productive meeting with the district attorney's office today. Um, and also, uh,

very brief but uh enjoyable meeting with our new agricultural commissioner which will let her in the floor in just a minute that's me that's it for me okay uh i don't have much um i'm gonna let a pair of take over for the bear situation in prague and explain everything that's going on but um i want to personally thank commissioner byrne for completing his ethics training. I know it was a struggle and I know we all hate it. But as your current chair, I am compelled to remind you that it is a requirement of being on the commission. And I'm here to protect Kaylee and make sure she doesn't have to do too much work in babysitting all of us, myself included, because that's a job in itself.

So who currently is not?

I'm not going to say it. But the people who... We know who we are. The people who have it in them, right?

So... Can we do it together?

Absolutely.

Can we do it together?

Except you only get one certificate.

No. No, I was going to say we'd get a bottle of wine.

That might make it easier. Just keep in mind, however, that any of our decisions, and I was reminded of this this morning, there's the potential that any of our decisions could be rescinded if not all of the commissioners are in compliance with all of the regulations. So if we can just get that done. If you have no intention of doing it, then please let Kaylee know so that- So she can fire me. Yeah, basically. All right, so let's move on. Oh, wait, sorry. Would you like to introduce yourself?

Yeah, let's do- Yes, so this is Jessie Fowler.

She's our new Agriculture Commissioner. Yeah.

I see I'm two and a half weeks in. So I met with a few of you a little bit earlier, having to meet the rest of you, obviously not in a quorum, but just kind of just talk about whatever you'd like to talk about. Just be patient with me because I have a lot of things coming across my desk. A lot of people want meetings and I'm trying to catch up with all of that. I actually did start my career here in 2004 I was biologist at the ag department I left here in 2018 I went down to San Joaquin County where I was a deputy so it was a promotion I was there for a little over two years then I became the agriculture commissioner in Calaveras County I worked with their ag commission or excuse me their fishing game commission there the whole time I was liaison just like I am here so I'm sure this will be similar but not the same just because every county is a little bit different. It's nice to see the engagement and you have a lot of similar thoughts and ideas and that's great.

Just a comment. You have a very good staff you're going to be working with. They've really helped us a lot. They've gone out of their way to support us. It's appreciated.

I doubt that.

Don't be telling people.

You've got to prove yourself before you get on his Christmas.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Christmas cards are a big thing around here.

And all you have to do is look at him across ways.

People are never really on the list. I know. Oh, good point.

Do we have any moving on? Thank you. You're welcome.

Oh, I'm sorry. Any questions or anything?

Any questions? I just assumed everybody would jump in.

What are some of your priorities coming in?

Yeah, and it is priorities, plural. So that's kind of – and they're changing, too. It's the top priority each and every day. Right now I'm trying to – I'm really trying to wrap my head around. So obviously the ordinance here are different than Calaveras. So I'm just trying to really get into some of the ordinances here to see how they're different, how they're applied differently. Especially since yesterday, the ranch marketing ordinance went up to the board. That's something that my department and I'm going to have to be heavily involved in with the Ag Commission and just stakeholders in general. So that's something that I'm trying to gear up towards. Then there's also the Glastonbury Sharpshooter infestation that's down in El Dorado Hills. That's been an ongoing thing for all of Northern California as all the agricultural commissioners had to deal with the fallout from the shipment that went to, virtual shipment that went to Costco's. And a lot of people bought these vines. We don't know where they all are. We only recovered a fraction of them. So that is also something that could impact our wine grape industry significantly. And again, just trying to find us research on that. And then we want to kind of go out and we'll talk with UC Extension today about partnering together to get information about that out into our community, both on a residential and industry level. And then otherwise, oh my gosh, I have so many sticky post-it notes all over my desk. Don't forget to. I have to do ethics training, which is always really fun. yeah i'm like 70 the way through i've been so i'm trying because i only have 30 days so yeah i it's 119 slides so pure joy um so i had to do it too yeah that's that's kind of it and again just like just like a meeting with community and um just kind of finding out what's going on, you know, what's important to you, what's pressing to you, how I can kind of help facilitate something. That's kind of where I'm at right now, the learning phase.

Awesome. Well, again, welcome. Thank you. Can we help you or anything?

Yes.

I need all the help I can get. We'll get you in trouble.

Then there's that.

Then there's that. Do we have any ad hoc committee reports? All right. I'm going to go to Shelly because she's online and I'm kind of under the weather. So I want to get her so that she can get through this and go to bed.

Hey guys. Can you hear me? Hey, you guys can hear me.

Okay.

Okay. Sorry. Yeah. I have a nasty cold and I just didn't want to share my germs with all of you guys. So I'll be listening in. So some updates from me. At the end of July, I was able to meet with Byron Weckworth from the Mountain Lion Foundation just to discuss El Dorado County and kind of our goals for the Mountain Lion stuff. And it was a good meeting because I missed him at the commission meeting. I was in Spain. So that was a good thing. Deer collaring continues in a lot of different areas. We're just trying to finish off our collaring. And it's been really hard because we can't find deer, unfortunately. So we're doing a lot of that. And we also received some buck collars that we're hoping to put on bucks in the X zones, which is in the more of the eastern Sierras. So we're looking forward to doing that after the hunt season is over. Archery season started. And the rifle season will start the end of September. So that's going to keep us busy. I'm going to be doing some chronic wasting disease sampling the opening weekend at the meat processor in town here. And so also the deer management plan. We are currently, it's out for comment internally with regions and it should be out for public comment the end of this year. They're hoping to have a finalized deer management plan by January of next year. So I will keep you guys posted on that because I want to share that with you in case you have any comments on that deer management plan. Now is the time to do so, just like the bear plan. So with that, I think that's it. Do you guys have any questions for me?

Shelly, I had seven does and don'ts cross in front of me on Pioneer Trail a couple of weeks ago. So if you're interested in knowing where they are, just let me know.

Yes. So we spent two or three consecutive days driving around Tahoe to try to call our deer. We saw three bucks. on Barker pass and one doe on the backside of sugar pine point campground. And, um, and so our efforts were not great and we were starting early in the morning and going till really late in the evening. Um, so yes, we, we want, we want to call her some deer there. So I will definitely get in touch with you.

It's like a clock in the afternoon. So, uh, all right, I'll, I'll keep an eye out. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Parrot.

Yeah, actually, this is kind of up Shelly's avenue, too. I don't know if you heard this information, Shelly. I got it from my wife, who is obviously a biologist with Shelly. It was interesting to me that the statewide bear harvest so far this year is occurring at a 66% faster rate than in years past. Have you heard that, Shelly, from Arjun?

Yeah, Arjun did tell us that, yes.

Yeah, I just thought it was a really interesting statistic that's, you know, I don't know what that really means overall, but I thought it was just really interesting that 66% faster than years past. And years past, we haven't reached the harvest quota in, I couldn't tell you how many years, so we'll see what that reflects this year, especially with the multiple tags. It's not just the archery season. And it's just archery season so far, yes.

What's the quota?

The quota is 1,700. 1,700, yeah. So you're 66% there. Well, no. Where we're at currently, we're 66% ahead. It's happening. Let me rephrase that. Where we're at currently, the same number we've achieved at a 66% faster rate to get to that kicker.

So there's two weekends in the archery season, and they're 60%.

And this is statewide, too. This is A zone, B zone, where some of the bear seasons have been open for a little bit. So it was an interesting statistic. And before I move on to more bear stuff, I know earlier, Heather, you had mentioned that some fine money had been coming in of interest, Mr. Neusmeier. That's only about a quarter of what his total fine is. He's taken a payment plan based on my notes. So there should be about three times more of that coming to you folks at some point within his diversion period.

Such a small fine for humans.

Yeah, his total fine was $1,655. Yes.

So what are the consequences if he reneges on that?

Well, it would be a failure to complete his diversion, which means that he'd go back to a hearing, which would be a criminal liability to get it that way. So he has good incentives. He's got good incentives. I've dealt with the gentleman. He's a All intents and purposes, he seems like an upright citizen, so I don't suspect that he will fulfill his obligations there. And then moving on with the bear situation, my staff has been extremely busy. I know I wasn't at the last meeting, and I apologize. Just some conflict. Been extremely busy with bear conflicts, especially in the Lake Tahoe Basin. I want to thank Leona for helping me with a bear one night, or two bears, I guess, technically. So thank you with that. um there were several what we call type red variances so bear attacks or well i shouldn't say bear attacks bear contacts with humans we had five of them in six weeks in the tahoe basin so part of that is the department's effort to attempt to you know trap and remove those animals from the environment up there of the five events we were successful on two of them two of them And so the other three offending animals are still on the landscape somewhere, just not for lack of effort, just they don't come back around when we're there trying to do our jobs.

It was five different bears.

Five separate incidents, yes. And so part of what Heather mentioned earlier about a potential recommendation to the board for an ordinance stemmed from our conversation earlier with the district attorney's office. which in turn stem from a conversation the district attorney's office had with my leadership at our headquarters level regarding violations for individuals kind of hindering our efforts. It's very common for people statewide to, once they learn that we're attempting to remove bears to come and sabotage our traps, whether it's by pouring toxic chemicals to keep the bears away, closing the traps, doing whatever. We, in California, we don't have a very good law prohibiting anyone from interfering with our activities. And so my leadership took it up with a local district attorney and their staff to try to come up with a solution. There still isn't a really good answer. So that, earlier today at our meeting with the DA, that conversation came up again with those that were there. Nevada has a very good statute on their regulations that I will be coming to you folks. As soon as I said it to Kaylee, I couldn't send it to you too. We could get it out faster. I said to Kaylee, realize I got a kickback that she was out. So we can get it out to you folks just for your knowledge of what that is. So at least two of our efforts up there were interfered with, with people coming around the traps and, kind of interfere with our stuff. So I've just kind of, like I said, kicked off this broader conversation. So amongst that, it has been archery season, but my staff, like I said, we've been out, but we've been kind of tied up with other things as well. I am down three people in the area currently. I have one coming back to fill, not coming back, a new person coming in to backfill one of those positions starting next week. Another person has continued on leave, medical leave, and then I have still one vacancy that we're hoping to fill soon, I hope, which would give us an extra body, but we'll see how that kind of shakes out.

Is your agency hiring new people?

Friday, we are graduating a class of 30-something. They already have their assignments, though. They're going to other... Those positions generally get filled with I hate to say it, the positions that nobody wants. They'll offer the positions for transfer, give a seniority-based transfer. If nobody takes them, then the new people at the academy get, this is where you're going type of thing. How does that graduation fit with previous years? As far as numbers? Yeah. You know, every year it is different. We've had bigger classes. We've had smaller. It's kind of, I think it's, I would say it's pretty average.

On balance, are you getting more wardens in place, or is it staying static?

We're kind of just keeping up with our attrition through resignations and retirements. We're kind of just keeping up. We have, I think, the number is 500 and some law enforcement personnel from the very top chief all the way to the bottom field person. I think we have about 500 in the state, and that's including The hundreds or so people that are assigned to cannabis and other special things statewide.

You put cameras on your caps?

We do. You have pictures of who's... Well, a masked, hooded individual. Okay.

Your guess is as good as mine, unfortunately, when it comes to that, because they're very...

They know we're watching. Okay.

It's posted online on their Facebook.

Yes, the Bear League, when they find out that we have a trap out there, usually the first to get it to the public of where it's at, what we're doing.

I don't know what the DA was saying, but they don't really have a good charging of all the loopholes of our ordinances. You could get a permit for a trap. But since Bob's not getting a permit, since he is the authority,

Our law, the fishing game law that keeps someone from messing to sabotaging or altering or messing with a trap is intended for sport commercial trapping. And the wordage, the verbiage in the law says, you know, if you're interfering with the licensees equipment. So we're not a licensee. We are the agency. So it doesn't fit under there. It doesn't really fit under vandalism because there's not a lot of, we're not taking an effort to, we don't need to do an effort to clean up something like a spray paint or something like that. There's just, we don't have a really good law to keep it.

Did you request the agenda item?

I haven't yet. I'm going to get the wording.

Okay.

It's a statewide issue.

It's South Lake Tahoe and a little bit to the L.A. Basin. what's the town down there?

I'm sorry, it's Big Bear?

No, maybe Big Bear, too, but the town I'm thinking of is Sierra Madre, I believe, on the north side up against the Angeles Forest. They have a very big bear problem down there.

Is that where they're still down here?

Oh, we haven't had a fatality from a bear in What was the last one?

Downey. The woman in Downey.

Was it in Downey? Yeah, in Downey.

There was one in Downey, and I thought there was somebody in L.A. County, too. It was not that long ago.

I think it was an attack, but not a fatality. Yeah, I can't think of the last fatality we had in the state. It's been some time. Generally, most of the attacks they deal with down there are coyotes. I can't think. Probably the most recent for them, anyway, is Bear Attack. They do one or two a year down there, but I can't think of any fatality recently. or two a year and we just had five recently in five and six weeks but that well but in the past now three months yeah it's been yeah yeah six weeks more people than now that it has trees yeah it's just amazing anymore and i i'm sure my department at an executive level is probably tossing that around that's side of my pay grade, unfortunately.

But a county ordinance would work, wouldn't it, Bob?

I think ultimately a state law would be more beneficial. A problem with the county ordinance, too, would it cover the incorporated city of South Lake Tahoe, the incorporated city of Placerville, if there were issues there.

We definitely need one in South Lake Tahoe.

We're going to try to do it.

And we can take this to the city's City Council, that's not a problem. Once the county has an ordinance, it can be. The problem is that the Bear League is trying to make the city of South Lake Tahoe a bear sanctuary. So, I don't know if that could be a little... A bear sanctuary?

I think that's for the grizzly bears.

Yeah, that's where we... Well, Leona, we made California...

But, you know, really, they do have a bear sanctuary up there. They're everywhere. Mr. Poppins.

So in a not too distant past, everywhere I went, everywhere I worked, we'd run into marijuana growers. I've seen a lot less of that because I'm in different places.

They're illegal now.

That's what I wondered. Is there as much pressure on your department because there's still that many illegal grows?

As far as our cannabis? Yeah. So in the statewide scheme of cannabis control, um, it's a, what's the, what's the wordage they use? Like it's a, it's a committee, if you will. And the department of cannabis control and the department of fish and wildlife co-chair this team of state agencies to combat illicit marijuana. So since we are kind of the lead agency, um, A lot of the funding that we get comes from excise taxes on the legal sale of marijuana. And because it's taxes for marijuana, it needs to be spent on marijuana enforcement. So that's it. It goes right back into those programs. Just like we have officers that do nothing but oil spills because we get that taxes from the oil companies. I shouldn't say that. It's not all they do, but their primary focus is oil spills. So it just depends on where the money comes from. So without that marijuana money, those 100 positions would probably go bye-bye because there's not enough general fund money to...

Borrow them if they're not busy? They're pretty busy.

They still stay involved. You may not be seeing it on the landscape in the wild lands because when it became legal, it moved into kind of an agricultural setting. And it was pretty prevalent here in the county even up until Deputy Ishmael got killed several years ago. The sheriff's office took a lot more proactive stance on it. That's why I used to see it driving just around in the county. You don't even see it hardly anymore. But it's still pretty prevalent.

And I just saw the sheriff's vehicles and their jump trailers loaded with that. And that kind of put the end of that to that. And that's why I thought, well, maybe it was less of a problem than it had.

Locally, I would say it probably is. But statewide, it's still pretty prevalent.

Is that it?

That's all I have for you. Good.

Thank you. Okay, moving on to agenda item three. Commissioners Allen and Weddle recommending the commission review the fund draft and the Board of Supervisors report, approve the report as revised, and then determine which commissioners will present the final report on September 15th. So did you guys all have a chance to look through the...

I'm confused about the mission statement.

Oh, did I mess up on something?

No, is that our road mission statement? Or is that? So El Grotto County Fish and Wildlife Commission is committed to having abundant, healthy and diverse fish and wildlife.

Yes, that's that's one that's official. Yeah, OK. But I mean, it's something if you think that that should be changed, certainly.

No, no, I just want to be clear that that's what it is.

Anything is changeable. I have no problems with alterations. That's pretty good. I'm good.

And you all have a date of when that presentation is going to be? September 15th at 9.30. Anybody that can show up for that? Because sometimes the board has questions that some of you may be able to answer better than those people presenting here.

We had a really good turnout.

Yeah. Most of the commissionership. And I think the board appreciates that too.

And then I'm going to switch these here just really quick. I would assume that it was you and me presenting, but if somebody else wants to present on the 15th, please speak now or whoever.

Typically it's the chair and the vice chair. I think our vice chair is

But yeah, that's what I remember.

So she appointed to either. Perfect.

OK. Unless anybody else wants to jump in, I'm happy to step in. All right. And so now public comment.

We're now taking public comment on item three. Each speaker will have three minutes to address the commission. We will begin with comments from individuals present in the meeting room, followed by those participating on Zoom. If you're joining via Zoom, please ensure you unmute yourself when called upon, press star nine to raise your hand and use the raise hand feature to indicate your interest in speaking. We ask that you voluntarily state your name for the record.

No. Okay, no public comments. So there being nothing, I will entertain a motion. Motion to approve.

Second the motion.

It's been moved and seconded. All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Item four, Commissioner Allen recommending the Commission discuss plans for the September 30th, 2026 meeting in South Lake Tahoe. So I have organized us to do the exact same thing that we were supposed to do in May when it snowed. Basically, we'll meet at Lake Valley Fire Protection District, open the meeting, have any agenda items that we need to handle, walk over to the Aquatic Invasive Species Station, which is right behind the Lake Valley Station, have a presentation by the California Tahoe, or excuse me, by the Tahoe Resource Conservation District, then drive over to the Upper Truckee Marsh, walk to the little marsh area. We'll provide chairs and coverings for each of these areas. Have a presentation by the California Tahoe Commission Conservancy. I can't say my words today. California Tahoe Conservancy on the restoration of the Upper Truffle Marsh. And then adjourn. Any changes to that? Anything anybody else? And I don't think that logistically we could fit anything more into the agenda. So if we decide on something else that we want to do, then we're probably going to have to omit one of those agenda items.

When you say we can't fit anything more, you mean other business?

Other field trip activities. Sorry. I apologize. Yes.

I didn't find an idea.

OK. Works. OK. All right. Cool. OK. So we need to do public comment, but we don't need to vote on this since everybody's just in discussion, correct? So yeah, public comments.

We're now taking public comment on item four. Each speaker will have three minutes to address the commission. We will begin with comments from individuals present in the meeting room, followed by those participating by Zoom. We ask that you voluntarily state your name for the record before beginning your comment. There is no public comment.

What time are we supposed to meet?

Oh, it's 2 o'clock usually for the Tahoe meeting. OK. But that was a bathroom issue when we were meeting in that county facility. So.

Where will we be meeting?

We will be meeting initially at Lake Valley Fire Protection District. And I'll send you guys everything you need to know to get everywhere. Addresses, parking locations, et cetera. And it'll be identical to what you had in May, but you've probably deleted all of that. We'll get all this stuff out. So yeah, we're meeting at Lake Valley Fire Protection District. Protection District, but you'll be parking behind the fire station on Cebo Circle, which is where the Aquatic Invasive Species Station is. They'll have a bathroom. They have a... Well, we have a bathroom at Lake Valley. Yeah. For those of you who are in need, there will probably not be a restroom facility at the CTC property at the marsh, so let's all go potty before... But yes, I will ensure that we have a restroom available to us. Yeah, I hear you. Okay. Commissioner Whittle, item five. Commissioner Whittle recommending we should discuss the potential establishment of an at-large commissioner position.

Okay. Yeah. I had an interesting email come across my desk last month from Jim Klincher, the assistant district attorney that we've been working with. And his son, Jackson, is a senior at Oak Ridge High School. Jackson's an avid fisherman, and he's interested in some involvement with our commission. It had never occurred to me that some youth involvement would be something we would do, but it does now. And what Jackson was thinking about was helping with the derbies, for example, And of course, we can always use help for the derbies. But what I was thinking about as well is, are there other things that we could involve younger people in with the kind of work that we're doing? People that have projects like what Steve is working on. issues relating to some of the problems that you're having up there bears anything that commissioners might want to put some extra time in would there be some opportunity for volunteer youth people to get involved in um what i what i would propose is that we have young jackson clinchard come in introduce himself at a future meeting and give us an idea of what he was thinking about. But at the same time, I think we should consider mechanisms for including younger people into some of the work that we do. And I mean, we could go through a whole bureaucratic thing with the county or we could, the chair has the option of forming ad hoc committees that don't necessarily have to be made up solely of commissioners. So those are two opportunities. Be interested in any discussion ideas. Some of you, the rest of you might have on that subject. I think it's a good idea. This kid has a 4.5 GPA. He's a competitive soccer player. member of the Entrepreneur Club and the Investment Club, and a member of the student leadership for the last several years. So he's a kid that probably has some good things to offer.

And I'm sorry, you said he was a senior this year?

He was a senior this year.

Okay.

So he's a minor? Yes.

I don't know if that's called county council, but I'm not. I'm going to run and buy them just because again, I feel the liability of the county. I'm just, I'm just taking it to that level. That's what they pay me for. But yeah, I, again, I'm sure fish and derbies, that's great. But I mean, again, he's like out there, like. So. Yeah, but none of these guys.

Oh, I can take that back.

That brings up a good point. You know, last year we had three of the derbies on the same day. So I think we need to at least communicate with the organizers this year, next year on dates.

Do you think that's a different topic though?

That actually is, yeah, that is a different topic, but we should probably agendize that for next meeting and discuss that because that's a very good point.

Thank you, Dennis, for bringing that up. But they wouldn't be voting members. Would they have to take the Brown Act?

Well, they wouldn't be commissioners, so no. They wouldn't be commissioners.

There wouldn't be a decision-making.

They're always welcome to come sit at the meetings.

Right.

When we go out and if we were to go work with the font, what's the font? Font. We are not doing that as commissioners. We're doing that as individuals. So they're always welcome to come and sit and do public comment. No, they're not going to vote. He could do a ride along with Bob.

I'm sorry. I'm happy to take you on my... Jim has my number.

But I mean, we'll... No, it's a good point. Love all of his input, but like it would be, I mean, we would have to add a whole nother position if it was a youth commissioner.

Well, and I was advised that there is another commission that does have a youth member, but not as a commissioner. It's a, and what was the name that was used? Like a youth representative, but not serving on the commission. So yeah, no voting power, no none of that.

So the other commission that I'm on, the youth family, we do have commissioners but it's not it's different they're giving insight into what it is so they don't have an official position or on that they could on that one but i don't know what the age limit is well i don't i wouldn't would it would an ad hoc committee

person, would that be an official accounting position?

Well, the ad hoc would be representatives, several representatives from here, plus whomever else wants to participate in the, you know, like Bob and Shelly, they're not commissioners, but they participate in our conversations and advise us, counsel us.

I would like some clarification then on just exactly what our Yeah. And then what, unless there's any objection, I can ask Jackson to come in and speak with our commission today. And his thoughts are?

Maybe during the open forum, he can give a little presentation on himself and why he's interested.

Yeah. Or we could even agendize.

Or agendize it, either way.

Okay. I'll do that.

Do you want it agendized? Would you feel better about that?

I would feel better about that, but I don't think we should expect him to come up to Tahoe, so it would be the October meeting.

Yes, thank you for reminding me. Although he might want to come to Tahoe, but we wouldn't have time for something like that. I think we need to keep that one pretty short.

I will ask him if he'd be available in October.

Okay. Perfect. And then, yeah, if you can make a note. something like that if you need verbiage or if Kaylee needs verbiage. Okay, so this is a discussion item only, so if we go to public comment. Oh wait, I'm sorry, did anybody else have anything to say? All right, public comment.

We're now taking public comment on item five. Each speaker will have three minutes to address the commission. We will begin with comments from individuals present in the meeting room, followed by those participating on Zoom. If you're joining by Zoom, use the raise hand feature to indicate your interest in speaking. We ask that you voluntarily state your name for the record before beginning your comments.

A nice talk. I just wanted to mention that El Dorado High School has that natural resources program and they're part of that program when they're juniors and seniors, they have to do volunteer work, have a certain amount of volunteer hours and natural resources and in their community. But I'd love this idea of having a youth person involved in this commission somehow. I think it's really valuable for them to see how this operates and how you represent the county concerns about natural resources. And I think it'd be a really neat thing to share with that program that's close to us too. So maybe... even mentioning it to the Eldorado High School Natural Resources lead person, Krista Potter. That's my comment.

Thank you, Shelly.

You could also, I'll bet, use help at some of your hunter safety classes.

Yeah, I mean, all that stuff. I think as a youth person, they just need to be exposed to all this different stuff. They don't really understand what's even available for them. And I think it's great to build their resumes if they want to pursue stuff in natural resources, too. It looks good for them to be involved in some of this stuff.

Cool. It does Chris potter's daughter run up work for us this summer she's back at school now that she was she was incredibly good at all. Really really connected.

All right. And then if you can give us a little update next meeting if you have the ability regarding what can counsel Absolutely. Thank you. All right. Moving on. Item number six. Commissioners Gardner and Byrne recommending the commission review quotes for the purchase of hats and shirts for official events. Determine which commissioners would like to receive them and consider taking action to approve a not-to-exceed budget amount for the purchase of such items.

You have the best quote.

Okay.

My quotes were 500s for shirts if we continue to move.

I'm Dennis was saying that for you got a quote, the numbers going to be a little off.

Down for 14 hats and shirts got up for like 400 something. After them.

So 4 to 500 is what we're looking at for.

For 14, yes. Oh, wow. And that was just an overall.

And that's the same logo that we have on the shirts currently, right?

Remember, over here is back. We had shirts and we had hats. And this particular vendor has all the information as far as our logo goes and has a good understanding of what we're looking for as far as quantity.

And that was the RCD. Which one did you get with them?

What kind of shirts were they? Polo shirts. Polo shirts.

They were green.

Yeah. So you're the same kind of deal.

Depending on what the commission wanted, but that's what we had last night. I think we had white hats and we had

I think it was a budget item. Yeah, that was Eric who did that.

Okay. Sue, you need a motion?

Who all needs one slash blocks one of each? I have one ready, but I can use a hat.

What do we do with it? What do we do with the size and what they want?

Is it a quantity order?

It is a quantity order. It has to be 14 of them to get that quantity. No, I think it was 12.

And I'm wondering if we should, if we don't have enough to meet the 12, maybe we should just order a small, a medium, and a large just to have them on stock so that somebody dies and they're replaced. let me do this give me a call tell me what you want i'll verify the cost and i'll bring the

We can finalize that at our next meeting. Does that sound fair?

OK. Yeah.

All right. That works. So give me a call.

Let me know what you need and what size. OK. And so we need to agenda this for the next meeting. And this will be short and sweet.

I was going to make a suggestion. And Miranda can say if I'm wrong. But I know that the other commission, sometimes they would say if you're going to make a purchase, they would say that they were going to make a purchase of hats and whatever else you were going to get, shirts. not to exceed like $500 if you vote on that.

Oh, that works. Yeah. And then we can just do it. Thank you. I'll make amends. Maybe I'm wrong.

Oh, okay. Go on. Myrna's got her hand up. Myrna? Yes, ma'am.

Myrna. Myrna. That's a great idea. Just say that up to... you know, 500, and then he'll have to come back if it goes higher.

I make a motion to appropriate $500, not to exceed $500 appropriation for the tax insurance.

And before we do this, we need to take public comment.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Now taking public comment on item six. Each speaker will have three minutes to address the commission. We will begin with comments from individuals present in the meeting room, followed by those participating in Zoom. If you're joining from Zoom, use the raise hand feature to indicate you're interested in speaking. Please voluntarily state your name for the record before beginning your comments. There's no public comment.

OK, now I will entertain a motion.

Motion.

I'll second it. It's been moved and seconded. All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? That was unanimous. OK, item seven. Commissioner Byrne recommending the commission discuss and consider taking action on whether the existing 15-minute time limit for outside presentations should be adjusted.

Like I said, in the past, we have basically talked to presenters. I'd like to know what is the process, number one, for presenters to address us and who approves it. That's one question. The other question I have, is that I would recommend a subcommittee to preview the presentation and emphasize, you know, you have 15 minutes to communicate your issue. Because we've had presentations that have over 15 minutes. And we have no, in 14 years, I don't remember any presentation that was only 15 minutes long.

And I take responsibility for the last presentation that went over. I did say you're at 15 minutes, but a couple of people said, no, let them continue. So we did, and then it went on to almost 30 minutes.

You did a good job. This was a good presentation. Absolutely. And they couldn't have done it any shorter.

I disagree. I think it could have been a little more efficient. Absolutely. I think they talked too much about stuff that really didn't relate that was still on the slides, and we had access to that. But we had a conversation about it, and I just think it's disrespectful to the commission.

You hope I understand what's not being critical. I'm just saying is that I think it's a good idea if some person or individual wants to present information to us, that a couple of us sit down and say, show me what you're going to present, please. And you need to know it's 15 minutes. And that's what we're expecting, not an extended period of time. Right.

So another option for that is for the chair or vice chair to communicate with these people in advance, not just Kaylee or whomever, but the chair and say, you know, we need to be, you know, we're going to cut you off just so you know, you're going to be stopped. So practice it, make sure it's 15 minutes. Because I have no problems doing that. You know, it's 15 minutes. But here's hear me out. If they say, well, I really can't get this in 15. Can you give me 20? You know, then the chair maybe has that option to extend a little bit.

I think the chair should. What's the process?

The process is like if you have somebody that approaches you and said, I'd really like to talk to your commission about blah, blah, blah. Then you send it to Kaylee. Kaylee sends it to me. And I say, yeah, put it on the agenda. And then Kaylee gets in touch or you get in touch with the presenter saying, it's 15 minutes. Make sure you have your PowerPoint to Kaylee before the event so we can post it, et cetera. So it's a pretty cavalier process. But you know.

Sorry, go ahead.

Well, I mean, studies have shown that after about 10 minutes, people check out on a subject anyway. But I think that the chair should have the option, given the progress or lack thereof of the meeting agenda, to allow extra time if, and especially for question and answers.

We have never had questions and answers more than about five or ten minutes.

With the Mountain Lion Foundation, we got in the weeds and it was more of a discussion, which we were trying to handle that. But what I would say is maybe not have more than one presenter each time. So when the Mountain Lion Foundation came, we had two presentations. And that was very stressful for all of us because that was just way back. I don't think there's really... Besides that one time, I don't think we've ever pushed it by a block dot. And I've only been here for a year, but we haven't ever pushed it besides the times. So I think we have some flexibility with the 15 minutes and we don't have to be super strict, as long as it's staying on topic. We could say only one presentation a day.

Yeah. And I just don't want to constrain the chairs. from allowing more time should the agenda allow.

I think the chair should have discretion.

Yeah, I do too. But the guidelines are 15 hours.

Well, you're the chair.

No, but that's up to whoever invites the presentation. They're just guys. Communicate. Communicate, yeah.

Well, and they... Like when we go to Tahoe, those presentations, I'm going to cut them off because we have travel time, and we have to meet these deadlines per the agenda. That's your prerogative. If they're not done too late, you can send us the rest of the information.

The chair manages the meeting, yes. That's the job of the chair.

Yeah. But here is my – and I like the idea of previewing the presentation, my only –

problem with that is what if it's something that is a timely topic it's going to take an ad hoc committee some time to do that so we may miss that next meeting yeah they're unnecessary the longer process you're trying to i don't think it just respectfully it's free you're off the christmas card careful they're on tonight i really i recognize that i probably wouldn't sign up to preview because that's

I don't have the time to sign up.

We have seven commissions.

Oh. Do you ever, because again, when I'm at conferences, if you generally ask how long is your presentation?

We tell them 15 minutes max. And then five to 10 minutes for questions afterward.

Yeah.

I think it's generally worked. Yeah.

I think so too. Definitely. Well, let's see how Tahoe goes.

Yeah, I mean, I don't have a choice.

They're going to be cut off, and they know that. The other thing, though, is that I have a relationship with these guys, and I think they're going to be pretty respectful of that. We'll see.

Wait till we get to the end.

Okay. Right. But one more thing.

Well, I mean, we always have the chair always has the discretion as well to move other agenda items to the next board in the event that we do get bogged down somewhere.

And we got lucky that last meeting is that we were able to squish everything in.

Yeah. But the operative principle is we start at three o'clock And we're done at five.

So as long as... And you have always had a great management style in getting that happen.

Well, you've been able to do it better. So the last meeting was a work of art.

I just walked fast. It worked.

Okay. I just think if there's things that we need to know sometimes, the longer we need to say, yeah, we're going to let you go. Okay.

Because when I'm chair, I'm always going to ask you guys, is it okay if we continue on?

Yeah, and I think you did that. Yeah.

So, okay. All right. If it doesn't work, then we'll bring it back and we'll discuss it some more. But I'm glad we talked about it. I feel better.

I think if there's more than one presentation, we should really look at it. How many agenda items would you come to to improve it? Right.

I really don't like tabling. I mean, unless there's another reason, but I don't want tabling an agenda item for time. I don't think that's fair to whoever brought it forward. Awesome. Since we're not making a decision per se, public comment, please.

OK. We're now taking public comment on item seven. Each speaker will have three minutes to address the commission. We will begin with comments from individuals present in the meeting room, followed by those participating on Zoom. If you're joining via Zoom, Press star nine to raise your hand. We ask that you voluntarily state your name for the record before beginning your comment. I think there is no public comment.

Cool. Moving on legislative reports.

Go for it. Oh, no, I was.

Oh, oh, oh, anybody have any legislative report?

I think.

OK. Our next meeting.

Oh, did you guys know that the 13.

Oh, five. Okay.

Yeah, that was, I think that was sent out to the commission.

So that it's held suspension. So it's commissioned this year. They could kind of revive it next year.

Did we, we got something on it. Didn't we?

Yeah. We got something from Bill games. Yeah. Yeah. when that was, but you all read it.

Yeah. Yeah.

But thank you.

I thought that Dennis would have an interest in that SB 1250 continuity connectivity, tele-trans connectivity.

Oh, it's speaking of which, the Pathways for Wildlife, it looks like they got their funding for some of the connectivity projects off of Bayside.

That's something I can't understand. I rarely go past was a flat road because I break into hives. But I had to do that today. And I saw two deer killed alongside the road. One on either side of that wildlife tunnel. And I'm going, there's got to be a better way. That isn't working. It's working. It's just, I'm getting around it. It didn't work for them.

No, it didn't work for them. Did you hear that, Shelly?

Yeah. So I'm curious, Jim, what was it? The Missouri flat, the El Dorado road crossing.

Yeah.

Yeah, I know that there's been some holes. I don't know. Maybe it was homeless people that have created holes in the fencing and we've brought it to the attention of Caltrans. But just to let you know that there's so much use that you don't see under there. So there's a lot of deer being saved by it. But every once in a while, they do get along that fence and get on the freeways.

So that makes sense. You're only going to see the ones that were killed, not the ones that made it.

This is true.

But it could be a fence issue, and I will definitely check that out.

This is not a time of year that you expect to see them. You know, spring and fall, yes, because they're moving, they're in new territory. But do you think this time of year that they would be accustomed to using the frostings? Are they young in the year?

Can you tell when they're young? No, they were adults. The issue is that

This is we're still going to have at least poison there. This time of the year, there normally isn't that much activity. They're not moving.

That's what I said. That's why I was surprised to see them. The one thing we do have those with the explosion in Folsom, we have 10 times the traffic.

And if we're going to discuss this any further, we should probably agendize it. It's all right.

Well, let's do it for next week. No. No. Maybe you'll see deer in Tahoe.

All right. So that being said, I adjourn this meeting at 4 p.m.