$22 million from PG&E settlement discussed

UKIAH » The Mendocino County Board of Supervisors found they had discrepancies between how they intended to use $22 million in PG&E settlement funds, as they held their first discussions Tuesday.

The board also received their regular COVID-19 update, as well as a mid-year budget report, which showed seven county departments are projected to go over budget this year.

Prior to the COVID-19 update, the board approved the majority of the consent calendar, aside from two items that were discussed or tabled later in the meeting.

Public Health Officer Dr. Andrew Coren informed the supervisors that Mendocino County average case rate is only one-third of what it was two weeks ago. The county’s seven-day positivity rate is also half of what it was two weeks ago.

The county received its first shipment of the Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine on Monday, and is considering focusing them on transient and homebound populations, Coren said.

“We also opened up the tier to 16 to 64-year-olds with chronic conditions, comorbidities or disabilities that would either make people more vulnerable for COVID-19, or make it more difficult to treat them if they should contract the disease,” Coren told the board.

The county also allows lodging, agriculture, food production and services workers to receive COVID-19 vaccines, which Coren said should help protect the at-risk communities from the virus.

According to Coren, the Latinx community still makes up just over half of the coronavirus cases within the county at 50.3 percent, although that percentage is decreasing. The Native American community makes up 8 percent of the county’s cases, which is twice the proportion of their population.

“We have been addressing the equity goals of the state in several other ways. We have been using our data and the within Mendocino County to target the more disadvantaged communities,” Coren said.

Despite this, issues still remain with Myturn, California’s vaccine distribution assistance program.

“We have found and reported that Myturn is working better, but it is really not set up for Spanishspeaking people who need to acquire vaccines by telephone,” Coren said.

Coren reported that there are no current coronavirus outbreaks in the county.

Mendocino County still remains in the Purple Tier, but with lower infection rates, Coren said the state projects the county to be a week away from dropping down to a lower level, as long as the numbers stay low.

“We’ll need one more week of those metrics in the Red or the Orange Tier to be put formally into the Red Tier status,” he said.

The board then moved on to receive a 2020-2021 mid-year budget report from staff on “the status of county departmental spending and revenues.”

The report included updates from county Human Resources, Measure B and IT Master Plans, among other county departments.

The report also covered Federal Emergency Management Agency and Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act funding the county received due to the pandemic and last year’s fire emergencies. The cumulative CARES act expenditures total at just under $9 million for the county, according to Deputy Chief Executive Officer Darcie Antle.

According to the report, there are seven General Fund departments that are projected to be over budget by $150,000 this year. They include the Sheriff, Coroner, the District Attorney and the Public Defender, as well as facilities and probation.

Staff reported that many of these departments were expected to go over budget because of overtime due to the unprecedented circumstances of the pandemic.

Supervisor Ted Williams requested a 10-year report of which departments have regularly gone over budget, so the county could better understand where the longterm issues lie.

“I think having that information would allow the board to do a better job of padding for what’s likely to be otherwise an overrun,” he said.

The board unanimously approved the report.

The supervisors also tackled a large financial item involving the use of $22 million PG&E settlement funds. The payout is part of a $415 million settlement between PG&E and eight other cities and counties for the North Bay Fires in 2017.

CEO Carmel Angelo clarified that this was the first discussion about the use of the funds and that no decisions have been made yet. Though many of the projects proposed for the funds focus on emergency prevention and recovery.

Supervisor Maureen Mulheren said she’d like to see the funds go to the recovery of communities directly affected by the 2017 fires, before the money goes to large projects.

“The communities of

River Valley and Potter Valley have needs that are still apparent from the fires that happened in 2017,” she said. “I don’t want to lose sight of that. This funding was because of that fire and it is important that we meet the needs of those communities first before moving forward with the larger pictures.”

Supervisor Dan Gjerde said he was surprised by this idea and that he was under the impression the money would be reinvested into the county’s economy, as well as projects that would protect and benefit the county as a whole.

“It was never my thought that when we received these funds from PG&E that 90% of the money was going to be reinvested on the land where the fires took place,” Gjerde said. “My thought was let’s invest this money in things that have longterm payback for the entire county that help the county prepare for future disaster of any kind.”

Williams and Supervisor John Haschak said they also believed the original intent was to use the funds on the county as a whole.

Mulheren suggested holding a series of town hall meetings in order to start looking into how the community would like to see the funds spent and the board resolved to bring the discussion back at a later meeting.

The Mendocino Board of Supervisors will meet again on March 22 at 9 a.m. For more information, visit mendocinocounty.org.