County supervisors discuss mental health, emergency communications
The Mendocino County Board of Supervisors met remotely Sept. 1 to discuss COVID-19 updates for the county, including correlated mental health issues and issues surrounding emergency communication services.
Chair John Haschak opened the meeting with a moment of silence for a firefighter who was killed battling wildfires in the Mendocino National Forest Monday.
The board moved on to address the consent calendar and did not pull any items, effectively approving funding of a grant agreement from the Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery Program, as well as a resolution declaring the continuation of an emergency related to the October wind events and corresponding PG&E shutoffs last year.
The board also consented to adopt private road name petitions, Mendocino County’s 202021 tax rates, and the purchase of a new vehicle.
Before addressing the first agenda item, the board swore in the new Public Health Officer, Dr. Andrew Coren.
“Today is a special day because we are honoring and acknowledging the great work that has done for our county for the last year and a half,” Haschak said. “Dr. Doohan will be with us as a consultant to the county with her wealth of knowledge and expertise.”
With that, the board dove into a COVID-19 update. Coren informed the board that the total number of coronavirus cases in Mendocino County is at 704, with two-thirds of the cases being members of the Latinx community.
Out of the 704 cases, only three are in the hospital and none are in the ICU.
Dr. Jenine Miller, Behavioral Health Director, warned the board of a mental health epidemic, informing them that, according to current studies across the nation, around 50 percent of people have reported a mental health or substance abuse condition due to the pandemic.
“One of the common things we’re hearing people say is that while they may be surviving, they’re no longer living,” she said.
In addition to an increase in depression, anxiety and substance use, Miller said health officials have seen an increase in suicidal ideation to almost double the typical levels throughout different communities.
Within the Mendocino community, Miller says the suicide rate averages around 20 a year. This year, however, Mendicino has already reached 23 suicides by the end of July — the total for the entire 2019 calendar year — with an additional three in August.
“We know that the suicides are correlated to the pandemic and we know we have to do something different,” Miller said, notifying the board of her department’s effort to destigmatize and educate about mental health issues.
Following Miller’s and other reports, Supervisor Ted Williams brought up concerns with restrictions to businesses due to the pandemic and state guidelines, but without full research and support from public health staff, the board concluded to table the discussion until their next meeting.
Following the extensive COVID-19 update, the board also discussed accepting their response to the 201920 Grand Jury report: “The Emergency Communications System in Mendocino County.”
The report analyzed the ability of the county’s emergency communications system and found “county leadership has not published a strategic plan for the maintenance, upgrade, and replacement of the system. This has allowed the ECS microwave equipment to continue at end of life with an increasing number of outages,” — a statement which the board only partially agreed with.
The board agreed with most, but not all, of the report’s findings.
By approving the response, the board concluded that there are areas of building degradation which can not support the necessary ECS equipment, subsequently putting citizens’ lives and wellbeing at risk.
The report also found that there is a lack of crosstraining within Information
Services and little documentation of maintenance procedures for ECS equipment, leaving it at risk with few qualified technicians to maintain it.
Aside from a few language discrepancies, the board unanimously approved the item.
The board then quickly and unanimously approved an item to increase allocations for contracted work from Liebert Cassidy Whitmore from $75,000 to $200,000.
They also approved minor rezoning permits and boundary line adjustment technicalities. They also unanimously voted to approve a general amendment plan to the Housing Element, despite the city of Ukiah’s request to postpone the board’s decision.
The board then received an update from the Mental Health Treatment Act Citizen’s Oversight Committee and discussed how to offer direction to the Measure B committee. Supervisors decided to form an ad hoc committee consisting of Haschak and Williams with the goal of forming a potential business plan and an eventual psychiatric health facility.
The following items requested funding for four different mental health projects.
The Mental Health Treatment Act Citizen’s Oversight Committee requested $340,000 of Measure B funds every year for four years in order to fund three Mental Health Rehabilitation Specialist positions for a pilot mobile crisis program.
The board approved this individual item unanimously.
The Mental Health Treatment Act Citizen’s Oversight Committee also requested $350,000 of Measure B funds for four years to provide community education and awareness surrounding mental health issues.
The committee also requested $1.3 million to “purchase and renovate or build permanent supportive housing for individuals on the coast that are homeless, chronically homeless, or at risk of chronic homelessness who have a mental health condition,” according to the item.
Finally, the committee requested $260,000 a year for four years to provide followup services to individuals not eligible for medi-Cal services being discharged from a psychiatric hospital stay or receiving a crisis (5150) assessment.
“These people would not just be released, they would have additional services to make sure they’re linked to their primary care,” Miller said, pointing out that the program would also benefit law enforcement and the hospitals. “It’s going to reduce an impact on both those areas and be a positive for both the clients, law enforcement and the emergency rooms.”
Miller also pushed the board to approve funding for more mental health services.
“If we can not fund a psychiatric health facility for $2 million dollars a year, which it should not cost us that, we can not afford to fund one,” she said. “So I don’t think not funding these services now is going to impact a now or later … I think we also need to think about the fact that we are in a pandemic. We have a community that is in crisis. We have mental health needs, we have suicide rates that are of the charts and we have the ability today to bring services to our community.”
The board moved to table these three items, pending a business plan from the ad hoc committee.
Item 5n was an emergency ordinance intended to suspend commercial and residential evictions, but a statewide bill passed Monday night protects tenants from COVID-19 related evictions.
But according to Michael Makdisi, an attorney for Deputy County Counsel, these and other protections do not apply to those who have homes that do not have federally backed mortgages.
The statewide bill also restricts local government from protecting tenants from COVID-related evictions until February 2021. “So anything we do today to protect tenants is not going to have any effect,” Makdisi said.
The board moved to table the item and wait for word from the state government.
The Board of Supervisors will meet again on Sept. 22 at 9 a.m., via teleconference.