Blog

In nearly five years as the Executive Director of CSAC, I’ve met county supervisors from all walks of life. They are as diverse as the 58 counties they represent, but they share at least one thing in common: They love their communities and want to help make them better. And they were elected because they understand and reflect the needs of their constituents. The California Constitution recognizes that decisions about local issues should be made by a level of government that is accessible to the people affected by those decisions.

Who needs libraries these days? With the internet and smart phones, the world’s wealth of information is available at your fingertips. However, in much of rural California, libraries are still playing a vital role in accessing information and building community.  For 100 years, the Tuolumne County Library has been a community focal point.  Recently, however, it has also become an essential place for many people to access the internet, because phone service and the internet are still not available everywhere.

Shopping in the 21st century is rapidly changing as more and more people discard the malls for the ease of buying online — often from complete strangers. These exchanges, however, can be fraught with danger and lead to harm or even death. As buying online is becoming the new norm, it will take 21st-century thinking to protect consumers from potential risk.

The word “home” can mean different things to different people. One’s home can be a stationary building, such as a house or an apartment. Or, increasingly so, it can be on wheels. The “tiny home” movement promises flexibility to move your home from one place to another. One can choose to live alone in a home or with family or friends. And for some, they don’t have much of a choice at all about where they call “home” and having one is something they dream of and work tirelessly towards.

I’ve been a proud member of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for almost 37 years. I’ve witnessed a lot during those decades: Acts of heroism by deputies willing to risk their lives for perfect strangers, and tragedies often too horrific to describe.

We asked Monterey County Supervisor Luis Alejo to reflect on the differences, similarities, rewards, and challenges of serving in state and local government.

After proudly serving in the California State Assembly for six years, the transition from the State Capitol to county government as a new Monterey County Supervisor has been a smooth one for me. While in Sacramento, I was proud to have authored 76 bills and 16 resolutions, including landmark laws to allow immigrants to obtain drivers licenses, to raise California’s minimum wage and to modernize our complex groundwater adjudication laws and procedures.

Update: Late Thursday night the author of AB1250 pledged amendments so the onerous new contracting requirements will now apply only to Counties. If this policy was bad enough to remove cities from having to comply, it’s bad enough that counties shouldn’t have to either. This bill will raise costs and hurt some of the most vulnerable people that need county services, including; mental health, public health and emergency management services to name a few. Read more here.

Homelessness affects every county in the state. No matter how many people live there or what the economy looks like, there are people in your community who do not have a stable place to live. Homelessness has many causes, but we know that a significant number of homeless people suffer from mental illness, emotional disturbance and/or substance addictions that make finding a place to live even more difficult.

Tree mortality has not gone away with the wet winter we’ve had and neither have the dangers it presents for many California counties. We still have millions of dead trees and some of them still pose direct hazards to homes and infrastructure. The potential for a wildfire in those stands of dead trees is enough to keep me awake at night. California has many issues to deal with, but this one should stay near the top of the list. Please keep reading to find more about what’s happening in my home county of Amador, and also to hear from Mariposa County Supervisor Kevin Cann, Tulare County Supervisor Steve Worthley, and Tuolumne County Supervisor Randy Hanvelt.