Supes talk warming, cooling shelters
The Lake County Board of Supervisors, on Tuesday, discussed a policy and plan for the use of heating and cooling shelters throughout the county.
According to Supervisor Bruno Sabatier, “Right now we do not have a plan when we experience extreme weather.” He continued explaining the importance of having a plan that would be easily understandable and readily available to everyone in all of the county departments as well as to the public prior to this coming winter.
Terre Logsdon from the Risk Reduction Authority was present for the discussion and added, “I have pulled together all of the senior centers, three of the community centers (Spring Valley, the Little Red Schoolhouse in Cobb, and the Silveira Center in Lakeport), the Lake County Fairgrounds as well as North Coast Opportunities and the Red Cross to discuss a community resilience planning grant.”
Pastor Shannon Kimbell-Auth also joined the conversation expanding on the grant and upcoming tour on Friday August 11 of the Tuolumne County Community Resilience Center. Shannon shared “The grant is the California Strategic Growth Council and the funding they are providing allows for both new construction of centers as well as upgrades of the neighborhood level resilience centers.” Shannon continued “What they did in Tuolumne, which was the pilot project before they announced this funding, was (that) they developed two large-scale resilience hubs after a series of community meetings looking at what the community needed in regards to heating, cooling, and clean air days.”
The supervisors agreed that the was a need for an immediate plan while discussions continue as to a larger more comprehensive plan. District 1 Supervisor Moke Simon stated, “Having a plan so we’re not all scrambling when these things
happen is a real important thing.” District 3 Superior Eddie Crandell noted the needs of the currently operating temporary warming and cooling centers and necessity to include them in this plan. Kimber-Auth responded, “It is the one central hub that can provide support to these little, smaller, hyper local community centers in getting them what they need.” The board agreed to move forward with the planning and outreach.
In other business, the Lake County Board of Supervisors proclaimed the month of August 2023 as Breastfeeding Awareness Month.
This proclamation was made by District 5 Supervisor Chair Jessica Pyska who shared, “The Lake County Board of Supervisors does hereby designate August 2023 as Breastfeeding Awareness Month and urges all citizens to work together to protect, promote and support breastfeeding and human milk feeding now and for the future.” Joined by members of the First 5 Commission and the Maternal, Child, and Adolescent Health Advisory Committee were present and a few spoke expressing their gratitude for this recognition as their plans to restart the Breastfeeding Coalition this month.
Pyska said, “It seems like it’s the most natural thing in the world but it’s really difficult particularly if you don’t have a support network, if you don’t have your family, if you have to go to work and there’s some legislation that’s helping with that now.” District 2 Supervisor Bruno Sabatier noted seeing breastfeeding tents at local events and how positive of an impact they make in our community.
For more information including minutes, agendas and video please visit the Lake County website lakecountyca.gov.