2018 County Innovation Videos & Blogs

Humboldt County has a strong track record of reaching out to its constituents to hear their viewpoints on budget priorities. There’s a good reason the county is proactive in its public engagement. In a county covering nearly 4,000 square miles – much of it mountainous and rural – you can’t expect many residents to appear at county budget hearings to speak their mind for a couple of minutes. If you really want to hear what your residents are thinking, you need to go to them. And that’s exactly what Humboldt County has been doing through their budget roadshows.

For foster children, the challenges are many, including often having to move from residence to residence – which can mean moving from school to school. This can result in school district officials not being completely aware of the foster youth in their classroom. Communication between a school district and county overseeing the foster youth can be sporadic and delayed. 

Los Angeles County’s Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) staff saw first-hand the obstacles this created and set out to find a solution that would assist both county and school district staff – but more importantly, benefit the foster youth

As in most counties across the country, the vast majority of individuals incarcerated in the Santa Clara County Jail are pretrial. And as in most counties, the majority of these individuals are low-income and many would be considered low-risk.  Bail reform has been a hot topic lately; while there has been a lot of discussion but little action, things are different in Santa Clara County.

Starting with the creation of a work group in 2014, the County has developed a still-evolving program that focuses on letting certain individuals charged with low-level crimes out of jail while awaiting trial so their lives are not turned upside down, which can cause far greater long-term problems for them, their families and the entire community.

In a perfect world, people suffering from a mental or emotional health issue would be able to access treatment before they were in crisis, but it doesn’t always work that way. They often end up in the hospital emergency department. That’s why a partnership between the Sutter Yuba Behavioral Health Department and Adventist Health/Rideout Hospital in Marysville is making such a big difference. They found a way to significantly reduce the time it takes to evaluate and treat these patients.

When we think of firefighting equipment, heavy hoses and axes quickly come to mind. In Tulare County, the Fire Department has added a new tool to its firefighting arsenal: a specialized app that provides valuable and necessary data to crews before they head out to a location, assisting them in saving lives and property.

It’s called the Foxtrot Fire App and it’s providing firefighters with a level of intel they previously did not have. Using the app, firefighters can quickly and accurately plan what equipment is needed to fight a blaze in a rural, mountainous area that may be unknown territory. And in a county that covers nearly 5,000 square miles – most of which is rural and covered by forest – that is crucial.

Mark Dale became an activist in Marin County after one of his sons almost became a statistic in the opioid epidemic. “I actually identified eight individuals who passed away: six students and two adults that were drug-related or drug driven,” said Dale. “And that’s what really woke me up. I opened my mouth because if my son had cancer, we’d be talking about it, but because there was a drug-dynamic around my son, most families just zip their lip. And that’s not good. The silence has been killing us.”

Nestled in the heart of California’s Foothills and awash with Gold Country history, Nevada County might not seem like a hotbed of building and construction. However, with many old, historic homes, and more people wanting to live in the bucolic landscape of the Foothills, Nevada County has more than its share of both new construction and remodeling activity.

In fact, the Nevada County Building Department used to have a backlog of requests for permits and plan reviews, partially because of the sequential process they had in place when several different departments needed to review the same project.