Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

All right. Let's see here. Council and stand in CAO. You guys good? All right. Morning, Chair. All right. I'm here. Ready to rock. All right. We're going to start this and welcome everybody to Humboldt County Board of Supervisors meeting of Tuesday, October 26, 2026. Before we do the roll call, I want to announce that Supervisor Madrone will be attending via Zoom. And I need to ask Supervisor Madrone for a statement. And so this is your time, Supervisor Madrone. And I need to know that you're alone. And if anyone is 18 years or older in the same room, either or. And your camera must be on the

Yeah, I have nobody in the room 18 years old or older. And I am attending remotely due to cause for an illness issue. And I will keep my camera on.

Good. We don't want to miss you. All right. This is where we do the salute to the flag. Mr. Christensen, would you lead us today?

Oh, that's, I was so excited. So here we go, roll call, please.

Great, thank you for the reminder. All right, now we're to modifications to the agenda. We have a few things we're going to pull from consent so that we can have some more robust discussion about them. Can we hear from the CAO about that?

That's D3, which is the Domestic Violence Awareness Month proclamation, and D6, which is the recognition for Eric Turkelson for his service and the honor of flight.

No, but just for the audience awareness, we pulled something so that we can have bigger discussion. It'll come right after consent, so it's still here. It just will come just a tad bit later.

Yeah, that's what I said for more discussion. We're not doing it right now, but we will here in a few minutes. Don't worry, we got this. Everyone's gonna get heard. All right, so with that, we're sticking to the consent calendar. Is there anything else on the consent calendar folks wanna talk about that we have here? We have a couple of proclamations and some other things. I just wanna make sure if there's folks here to receive them and other things, so please let me know. You want D2 as well, which is the retirement? Sure. We could do that. All right. You know, we're going to remove D2 as wel

I just want to make a comment on an item. I don't want to pull it. I just want to appreciate our new library services director for serving on the Access Humboldt board. I thought that was really cool to see Director Scott immediately jumping in.

Okay, anybody else have anything on the consent calendar you guys wanna talk about? Seeing no supervisor, yes.

Yeah, I'll recognize the Kawana Club Fortuna. We're ratifying this week, but we did the certificates last week. And Cindy Dateweiler for Women in Business, Businesswoman of the Year, and Bailey Davey, Woman of Distinction. It was a really nice luncheon, and they were both very surprised. So congratulations.

I love it when it's a surprise. All right, this is where we go to comments from the public for these consent items. Is there anyone online that wants to comment on consent items? And again, this is consent items only. There's not. Is there anyone in the room that wants to comment on consent items?

All right. Is there any more folks who want to talk about things that are on the consent calendar? Seeing none. Chair Wilson? Oh, well, then the clerk of the board should comment.

Thank you for the reminder. And always as a reminder, even when we don't have openings and you see a committee or commission you're interested in, by all means, put in an application so that when the time, when it comes that there's an opening, staff will send you a notice and let you know. Okay, with that, I'm bringing it back to the board. Supervisor?

Thank you. I just want to recognize from Public Works the Measure O work that has been done this last construction season, which would be the summer, usually ends around October. Those guys and gals from all the areas, Metol Road got a huge improvement, have really been working hard to spend those tax-paying dollars that we got from Measure O and put some new pavement down, and the roads are looking a lot better. I just want to thank them.

All right, I'm looking for a motion and a second to move consent.

All right, we have a motion and a second. Not everyone's here, so we'll do a roll call vote, please.

All right, now we are gonna, excuse me, move to things that are removed from consent. We're gonna start with D2, which is the retirement resolution for Tom Swaddle. And Supervisor Bowen is gonna lead the charge on this. Get up here, Tom.

Boy, this is a guy that's dressed for retirement. I'm going to get this thing.

Yeah, you're thinning. Deal with it. Well, I'm fortunate to have known Tom Waddle for a lot more than 2007, and he's been a institute on the grill and cooking and managing and and he knows his stuff and I think we were very lucky when he came to the sheriffs and and kind of lined up so a well-fed a well-fed person is a happy person as long as they're a little bit happy over there so whereas tomah this is a resolution in honor of Thomas Waddle Whereas Thomas Waddell was hired as an extra help legal office assistant on September 7th, 2007 by Sheriff Gary Philp. Whereas on February 25th, 2008, Th

Yeah, like you weren't going to say something.

We'll make this exception. They can all see you in the screens as well.

You can even undo the velvet rope. Is that right, Chair?

Okay, this is a time for others if they have anything to say. This is your moment.

Okay, unless there's anyone else, we're gonna bring this back to the board. All right, bringing it back to the board, Supervisor Bushnell.

Congratulations, love the suit, enjoy your retirement.

It's clear that the people you work with and the people you serve have really appreciated you. And it's great to hear about your meaningful career. And you look dapper as heck. So I hope you have a wonderful retirement. And thank you for dedicating so much of your life to public service.

I always appreciate well-dressed men, just going to say, especially in the workplace. And I want to express that I just really appreciate that your outward appreciation for public service and its meaning in everything that we do here. and every one of you that participates in this thing we call civil society, and holding together isn't easy, and it's not cheap, both in money and our time and our efforts, but it's worth it, and your expression today just really emphasized that, and I just want to thank you for that, all the way down into the depths of every nook and cranny of what it takes to h

Tom, thanks. You always bring a little humor to any situation. You're very good at that, but you work well with others. And I think the testament, as I always say, is how many people we line up the wall. And I always wonder if it's because they're happy you're leaving or because they're upset you're leaving. And by the looks of things, I think people are genuinely gonna miss you, but the fact that you're gonna come back and hang around a little bit is always a bright spot. So again, Mr. Waddell, thank you very much. Joe, thank you for everything too.

All right. I assume there's no comment online.

Okay. And with that, I need a motion and a second to receive and file this important proclamation. Sure. I think that's a motion. We'll take it as such. And could I have a roll call please?

All right. And with that, we have a little bit of a hiccup in our agenda. We did not do the proclamation recognizing the 25th anniversary of Providence St. Joseph's Hospital Paso a Paso program. So we're just going to take a minute to do that right now, even though we've already approved it. So I'll take it away, Supervisor Arroyo.

Chair, so you're effectively pulling that item?

Effectively, we already passed it. So what we're doing is just taking a moment to recognize it. Oh, maybe council has a different interpretation. I'm going to go with that. What is that?

OK, sure. Effectively pulled, we'll allow public comment. Take it away, Supervisor Arroyo.

Well, thank you. This is a new unveiling of process to pull all the items that we're gonna read. So thanks for bearing with me while I just thought we were gonna go in the regular order. All right, so we will have the folks here to receive the Paso a Paso proclamation. Please feel welcome to come forward while I read it and come on up to the podium. It's great to see you all here today. All right. This is in honor of the 25th anniversary of Paso a Paso, whereas Paso a Paso was established in 2001 as a community benefit program at St. Joseph Hospital to address critical gaps in culturally and l

This is the part where you get the photo.

We'll take it that way so that everyone's fine.

Get that microphone right up in there. There you go.

All right, bringing it back to the board. Unless there's anyone else in the audience who wants to comment on this, this is your time to do so. Okay, we have one person, and then I don't think we have anyone online, and then we'll bring it back to the board.

I appreciate the work you're doing. I also appreciate the work that St. Joseph Providence, I'm still a St. Joe's guy for 70 years, I'm sorry. But St. Joe's Providence puts forward realizing the diversity of our community and I see it every weekend at soccer, out at the fields, and I mean everything. And I think for the transitional that haven't mastered the language as of yet, I appreciate you. The medical, The medical field is tough enough to get through without having the language barrier, so I think with what you guys do, both for the youth and everything else is great, so thank you, and th

I echo my colleagues. I think there's probably nothing more frustrating than not being able to communicate, especially when it comes to, if you have medical needs, And I'm thankful that you guys are doing this work and making that an easier process for people on both sides. And thanks to Providence as well for all the work they do around making sure everybody's heard.

Well, I'll just echo that. Thank you so much. It's really exciting what you do and the word I stumbled on, the promotores, is just because there was a little typo. The work of being trusted community health information providers who build up that knowledge is such a powerful tool to be able to reach people in addition to all the the more medical side of things to have that bridge is so powerful. So I don't know if you knew that I was a pregnant Latino when you asked me to read this. But I think about being in the space of life has made me really think about the experiences that my family have

All right. I saw some sticker today that said something like the... compassion or no it said the essence of it was just being good to your neighbors is a new radical concept in this day and age and I just want to say that it shouldn't be radical it should be the normal and I appreciate you guys normalizing that in every way possible because really that's you're just being good neighbors and doing important work on just the very pedestrian level door to door as you mentioned porch to porch on the street in the offices it's very very important so thank you so much with that we're going to vote s

Thank you again. Really appreciate it. 25 more years. All right, with that, we are going to go to D3. This is a proclamation for as October 2026 as Domestic Violence Awareness Month. And take it away, Supervisor Bushnell.

Thank you. So if you are here for this proclamation for domestic violence, please come forward. Okay, so I'm gonna read the proclamation and then we'll get some pictures and then I understand we have a video and then you guys can say what you'd like. Okay, this is a proclamation in honor and recognition of National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, which is October. Whereas October is annually recognized as National Domestic Violence Awareness Month and whereas progress continues to be made towards violence prevention, domestic and intimate partner violence remains a serious issue affecting a

You guys stay here, I'll take a picture of you guys. Stay here guys.

I think we have a video, right? Did you guys have a video?

Well, thank you. And Access Humble, you can access it. So I hope people look at that. Would anybody else like to say anything? Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. Is there anyone online to comment on this?

Oh, okay. There is a presentation. All right. Let's do that. We can keep it brief. You're good. Do your presentation. This is going to be great.

All right stay right where you are. Bring it back to the board bring it back to the board supervisor.

Thank you. Thank you for all you guys for being here to recognize this. Domestic violence is something that it's horrendous if you're in the situation and getting out of it while sometimes when you step away for months or years, you can look back and say, you know, why did I stay there? But it's not that easy when you're having that situation happen at the time. I do want to recognize that most of the time our district attorney comes down and she plays a huge part in prosecution and making sure that families are safe. And the CAS team often talks with children that have been involved with dome

Thank you. I've been hearing a bit from folks in the medical field locally. I would say their holistic view of the data is not there, but people who have seen an uptick in instances of domestic violence requiring medical attention and have pointed it out as more of an observation. Again, I don't know what the data shows about change over time, but are you seeing increases or is it, I know we saw some changes to this during COVID, but are you observing anything kind of more big picture that you could share with us?

Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much for the work you do. I'm extraordinarily grateful for it and I know it's hard and unfortunately, there's still a lot of stigma. There are a lot of people who perceive survivors a certain way and have a lot of judgments around what people can or should be doing. And I know very personally how very complex it can be and how you really just need folks there to support you and believe you with whatever step you're in. So I'm grateful that you are there for folks to do that. And I encourage folks to... really think about any destigmatizing language they can use an

Supervisor? And just like every service, finances are what pushes the button, and I appreciate the funding and the help, the emotional support that Suroptimist gives annually all their clubs, and I think that, and that helps you guys, because you realize people care, and as this moves forward, It's not always, as Supervisor Bush noted, it's not always easy to walk out of your house with your children into an empty street and that's all you have in front of you. So that's where the peer and the support comes from and that's, you know, a little, you know, we've got a great volunteer base. I coul

All right, bringing it back. I just want to say, just like so many challenging things we have in our society, and this is one of the most, knowing that you're not alone is really important and I really appreciate that. The work that you do in doing that and letting people know they're not alone when they're at their probably some of their worst times. So really really appreciate that. With that I'm looking for a motion and a second.

Oh I thought I did but we'll do general public comment if there's anyone has public comment. Anyone online, I think I asked this already?

I'll make a motion to accept the proclamation.

Great, we have a motion and a second. Can we have a roll call, please?

Okay. I think we're at the last item from pulled from consent. I believe that is 12, do I have that right? No, six, sorry about that. Should look at the numbers here. This is brought to us by Supervisor Bone, recognition for Eric Turkelson for his service and selection for an honor flight. Supervisor Bone, please take it away. Yeah, I do, here it is.

He commands everything. Sir, please come up.

Oh, you're welcome. This gives me great honor just because it's an honor flight. I got to go on a couple honor flights and was instrumental and we did a lot of fundraisers. So it's a pretty amazing thing, isn't it?

Well, we found out up here that we were shuttling them to Oakland and then flying out Oakland, and we actually raised enough money to charter an Allegiant plane that flew out of here and back, because it was quite, we had to stop in Atlanta to refuel oxygen tanks and a few other things, because you could only fly with so much, but it was... As I was telling you earlier, it was amazing the stories that changed and finding out. And back then, when it first started, it was just World War II vets. And then they expanded it. And my favorite line ever since the World War II memorial was built last.

Okay, this is public comment time. If you got something to say, this is it.

Okay. With that, is there any other public comment? Is there any online?

Thank you. It's a pleasure to hear about your service and hear from your family in this room today. It's wonderful that they have the chance to be here to acknowledge your service. And from one veteran to another, thank you. And I hope to get to 26 years myself. Thank you. I'm at almost 15 now, but yeah, it's quite an honor to be able to serve for a long time and to grow in your military career and how much it shapes your life. So I appreciate that and all that you, it sounds like you're doing after your service too.

I just want to say thank you, too, and thanks for Rex for bringing this forward. My grandfather was a veteran as well, and I was so proud of him. He's passed on, but I can echo what your grandsons have said and how proud they are of you, and my grandfather raised me as well. He instilled in me the importance of serving your country and loving your country and to honor our veterans and active members. And so I really thank Rex for bringing this forward and for your commitment to your country that you have.

All right, I associate myself with all the comments made here today, especially by the supervisors. Thank you for your service, and thank you, Rex, for bringing this forward, but also thank you to your family members for speaking so highly of you and bringing this forward and supporting you as well. So with that, do we have a motion? I'll wholeheartedly make the motion. All right, do we have a second? All right, we have a motion and a second to support this resolution. With that, please take a roll call.

All right. With that, we're gonna go to public comment on non-agenda items. I think this is what's next. So this is the time when if you have something to talk about that's not on the agenda, this is when we do that. I'm gonna ask Kaylee if there's anyone online that might have that.

All right, and we'll bring it into the room. Is there anyone who wants to speak on items not on the agenda?

Okay, is there anyone else who wants to speak on items not on the agenda? Seeing none, we're gonna move to the next item. And that is public hearings, I believe. So we're gonna open the public hearing for item 26-1026, the amendment to the commercial cannabis land use ordinance of the inland zoning regulations to amend subsection 314-55.4.8.1.1. to allow indoor cultivation in AE, AG, FR, and U zones within non-residential buildings constructed after January 1st, 2016, rather than only in non-residential buildings constructed prior to January 1st, 2016.

All right. I'm going to start with questions from the board before I go to public comment. Is there any questions or clarifications needed from the board here? Seeing none, do we have any online public comment?

All right, is there one in the room that has any public comment on this item? If not, I'm gonna bring it back to the board and I'm gonna ask that we have a motion to approve a staff recommendation.

I'll make a motion for staff recommendations.

Second. And there's a motion and a second. Doesn't seem like there's any more discussion required, so can we have a roll call vote, please?

All right. And with that, we are on to the next item. We absolutely can have a five-minute break. We can, yes. Let's actually get back at 1025.

Oh, and close the public hearing. We'll be back at 1025.

When are we going to share that with people?

We're going to start. Everyone's present. So we're going to open public hearing 26-1002. And I'm going to ask Jake to introduce the item and give us a presentation.

All right. Great. Thank you for the presentation. Bringing it to the board for questions and comments before we take it to public comment. Anyone at the board want to say anything? Seeing no comment from the board, except maybe from Supervisor Bone.

Sorry. So people have to understand this is driven because we'd like to own our own property rather than lease in a lot of locations. Leasing is favorable in other locations. The proximity to the courthouse, it seems like more than a block though. I keep hearing a block, block and a half. I walked it the other day. It's more than a block. But are we considering offices there also now and not parking? Just so I have some sort of scenario because I was told something or I was led to believe that it was going to be something completely, it was going to be parking to satisfy some needs because we'

Okay. And I took it upon myself to talk with the Carter House and ask them if they had any concerns. And their biggest concern was just clean it up. And we do decorative fencing on everything else, unlike the unemployment office, because as long as we don't have any Constantino wire over anything, that would be wonderful. So thanks.

All right. Anybody else? Any public comment online?

Okay, bringing it back to the board. Do we have any more comments from the board members? I'm looking for a motion to approve a staff recommendation.

All right. I'll second the motion. To speak to that and speak to Supervisor Bohn's comments, yes, we are... in the process of seeking flexibility in the future on how we develop and redevelop our facilities. Most of our facilities are extremely old and we just need the ability to move things around. And so sometimes ownership comes with control and what I mean by that is site control so that we can have that flexibility. So with that, can we have a roll call vote, please?

Okay, that's great. Now we're going to move on to, this is a clerk of the board item. This is an appointment of a member, an alternate member to CSAC, the California State Association of County Board of Directors for 2027 calendar year. And so do we have clerk of the board online or how's this going to work today?

You're out there somewhere, I know you are. Oh, there you are, all right.

I'll make a motion to appoint Supervisor Arroyo and alternate Supervisor Wilson.

Okay, is there any more discussion about that?

Supervisor Polo. As long as we make sure we're at the table. I know attendance is tough for everybody, but it's important we're there, and especially in the next few months with CSAT going through so much turmoil. I'm not looking for an appointment.

I'm just asking, can we please show up? Yes. Gotcha. We'll be there. Supervisor Arroyo.

Thanks, I'll happily speak to participation so far. The annual meeting and the legislative conference I have attended and will plan to continue to attend. I'm registered for the early December annual meeting, and I've been serving on the Housing, Land Use, and Transportation Committee as one of the co-chairs, as well as on the coastal counties. working group as one of the co-chairs. That one's been for a couple years, but I'm new this year to the Housing, Land Use, and Transportation Committee. And then I am due to have a baby in early 2027, but that'll be about three or four months before the

Great. I also have been attending many of those meetings as well and receive their communications and communicate with CSAC quite often, not just through this organization, but also I happen to sit on a local government's working group through the Coastal Commission, so there's a lot of interface with CSAC there too. With that, we're going to go to public comment. Any public comment online?

All right, anyone in the room? Seeing none, I think, was that a motion you were in? All right, we have a motion, and I'll second the motion. So is there any more comments? Seeing none, can we have a roll call vote, please?

Awesome. Okay. Moving on to the next item, which is presentation on County of Humboldt's 2026 Federal Legislative Program. Take it away. Third in command.

All right, I'm gonna start with Supervisor Bone.

Hey, kids, appreciate the time yesterday. I got all my questions somewhat answered. It's just kind of interesting to see how we move forward. But I appreciate having you up there and appreciate when I was back in Washington here a while back, you strolling me around. So hopefully we made a difference.

Thank you. It was helpful to meet with you and hear some more detail about all of this yesterday, but I really appreciate your work and tracking a lot of, there's a lot to track, so I'm sure you're stretched pretty thin. It was helpful also to kind of hear some of these expectations and strategies reiterated at Congressman Huffman's town hall that he held here in Humboldt last night, which I attended, and I just appreciated hearing your update and then his take on things in the same day. It was very informative. Thank you.

I also want to echo my colleagues and thanks for yesterday's meeting and today's update.

I, too, am thankful for getting those updates in person as well as here with the board and letting the public know what our lobbyists in Washington are working on. We do have one interface and nexus, I think, with federal policy, and that's through NACA, which is the National organization of counties and I'm hoping that before our next sort of NACO legislative gathering of sorts that maybe if NACO's got a list of policies that they're considering that maybe we just let our board see those and so that maybe if we want to make some recommendations to our NACO representative at that time that wou

And having served on NACO just because of convenience of travel and everything else, all of this is on the website, both for NACO, RCRC. RCRC comes out with a report every week of what they're doing in California, and then NACO comes out with a lot of reports throughout their, I get daily stuff from NACO it seems like, and those are all on their website, which is taking the time to go look at it, and then you can peruse, I mean yesterday I got a big report on secure oral schools, and what we heard today and stuff like that. It adds up to 1.7, it's big money for us, and both RCRC and NACO have

OK. Great. Thank you for that Supervisor Bone. This is just a report so we don't have to. There's nothing to vote on. And before we go to public comment and I'll bring it back to the board.

I just want to add in a comment to what Supervisor Bone said. You also can sign up for those emails and get them daily. Probably all do as well. Just gives an echo update and they're they're very frequent.

Great. OK. I'm going to bring it to public comment. Do we have any comment online.

Anyone in this vast room of multitudes of people? Nope. All right. And bringing it back to the board, is there any, do we need a motion to receive and file? Can we get a motion to receive and file the report?

I'll make a motion to receive and file the report or update.

Great. I'll second. Great. And with that, can we have a roll call, please?

Excellent. We are, I think, bound for closed session now, right? Great. Council, can you get us into that? And then also will give us an estimation of time when you're done.

Okay, any estimate of time on how long that'll take for us to do that?

Whoa, okay. Did you hear that, Mr. Black? Yes. Okay. All right then, we're gonna go into closed session. We are hoping to be back by 11.45. That's not a guarantee, that's just an estimation, so stay tuned if you wanna hear the report out. With that, we're gonna go into closed session. I'm gonna ask the board to be in closed session by 11.20, please.