SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2023 County looks to reduce supervisors meetings

Proposed changes include meetings in Bishop

Inyo County Administrator Nate Greenberg is asking county staff to comment on his plan to cut the number of Board of Supervisors meetings roughly in half by holding only two regular board meetings a month in 2024.

The meetings would be generally scheduled every two weeks. For decades, the supervisors met every week in the county seat of Independence with few exceptions.

In addition, special meetings for specific topics would be scheduled, but would not increase the total number of meetings. It appears routine votes and approving other aspects of county business would not occur during the special meetings.

In addition to regular meetings in Independence, the proposal would have the supervisors meeting in

Bishop three times in 2024 and once in Death Valley with the Inyo County Office of Education, with the intention of holding at least one joint city-county meeting at some point in the year.

The proposed schedule would include five weeks when there would be no BOS meetings to give supervisors and staff the ability to attend various conferences for associations representing the nation’s counties and various groupings of

California and rural California counties.

If implemented, the

BOS would meet in regular and special meetings 29 times 2024. That translates into 23 weeks during the year when the board would not meet.

Getting feedback

On Nov. 6, Greenberg sent staff members a memo and proposed meeting schedule, which were both recently obtained by The Inyo Register. In the memo, he apologized for almost putting the new, proposed 2024 meeting schedule on the BOS agenda without

obtaining input from staff including department heads, elected officials and other members of the county “leadership team.” He called that “an error.”

Greenberg’s memo asked for staff to “offer thoughts/comments/feedback before it (the new meeting schedule for 2024) goes to the board officially on 11/28 for their approval.”

The memo noted the proposed reduction in total BOS meetings and other changes were

“based on input from the Board.”

The proposed meeting schedule would offer the public a variety of meetings each month.

Looking ahead

In January 2024, there would be two regular meetings, one meeting in Bishop and a special strategic planning meeting. February would have a Strategic Planning meeting and three regular meetings. March would see the Death Valley meeting and two regular meetings.

There would be two regular meetings in April and May, with two meetings in June, with one in Bishop. July would have two regular meetings, as would August, with a budget workshop added. September and October would have two regular meetings, with only one regular meeting in November. One of the two December meetings would be held in Bishop.

The conferences prompting the cancellation of a BOS meeting include the National Association of Counties Legislative Conference in February, in Washington, D.C.; the California State Association of Counties Legislative Conference in April, in Sacramento; the National Association of Counties Annual Conference in July, in Tampa, Florida; the Rural County Representatives of California, Annual Conference, in September, in Sonoma County; and the California State Association of Counties Annual Conference, in November, in Los Angeles.