County supes discuss priorities

Updating general plan, access to education, cleanups among items discussed

The Lake County Board of Supervisors discussed long-term priorities at a special workshop Friday, including ways to improve the quality of life for residents.

Each supervisors began by presenting his/her top two priorities to other board members and county staff. That was followed by discussion and then grouping those ideas into four main categories — economic development. workforce investment,community cleanup, and disaster prevention, preparedness and recovery.

Chairman Bruno Sabatier zeroed in on increasing access to education, proposing a budget of $600,000 to provide free preschool for up to 100 children and $300,000 to provide a free second year of community college to students. He also suggested providing $1.5 million

in seed money for a firsttime homebuyer lease-toown program.

Supervisor Jessica Pyska, who has a background in strategic planning, proposed that the county’s general plan and area plans be updated for the first time in more than a decade.

“Lake County has been in a constant state of reaction over the past decade due to extraordinary events: recession, fires, floods, droughts, pandemic now, climate change events,” Pyska said. “This will not change. It’s time for us to adapt to a new way of living and develop strategies that will enable agility and resilience.”

Supervisor E.J. Crandell proposed a streamlined property tax sale initiative, including a monthly tax default auction. Meanwhile, Supervisor Tina Scott focused on the need for community cleanups and flood prevention.

Supervisor Moke Simon repeatedly said his first concern was investing in county employees. In response, Sabatier and Pyska said this was already being prioritized while the purpose of the workshop was to bring forward new ideas.

“If that’s what we leave with today, I’m going to be honest with you, I’m not going to feel very great that we went outside of the box…” Sabatier said. “I want to continue to move that forward — I’m not saying stop — but in my opinion, (that) is not my high priority versus everyday situations of how can we change that experience in Lake County.”

Sabatier said he wanted to use “one-time” cannabis tax revenue to invest in something that would make a real impact on neighborhoods, which is the reason, he said, the supervisors were elected.

“Not so businesses can thrive only, not so that our workforce can be paid well only, but so that the lifestyle and the culture of what it’s like when you walk down the street and you want to take your kids out to play … you can walk outside and say, ‘There is nothing wrong with this picture.’ But we walk outside and there’s a lot of things we need to change.”