MADERA — The Madera County Board of Supervisors will hold their regularly scheduled board meeting tomorrow (April 7) — but Tuesday’s session is certain to be anything but “regular” as the board chambers at the County Government Center will be closed to the public due to COVID-19 — and the board will achieve a quorum via three supervisors videoconferencing into the meeting.
The coronavirus forced supervisors’ last regularly scheduled meeting on March 24 to be cancelled.
On Monday, District 5 Supervisor Tom Wheeler said the County has had to make some adjustments due to the pandemic. “There’s only room on the [board] dais for two of us to sit and get the appropriate social distancing,” he reported.
Wheeler said Board Chair David Rogers and Supervisor Max Rodriguez are the only supervisors planning to attend tomorrow’s meeting in person.
The board recently did a dress rehearsal with the meeting’s unique format and “it went pretty well,” added Wheeler, who expects to link in from his ranch in Ahwahnee.
Supervisors Brett Frazier and Rob Poythress are also planning to teleconference into tomorrow’s meeting from their homes.
A special note atop this week’s board agenda stated: “Given the current Shelter-in-Place Order covering the State of California and the Social Distance Guidelines issued by Federal, State, and Local Authorities, the Board of Supervisors is implementing the following changes for attendance and public comment at all Board of Supervisors meetings until notified otherwise…
“The Board chambers will not be open to the public,” the note stated.
Without a microphone and podium to step up to, the formal public comment portion of the meeting will be write-in only, with Board Chief Clerk Rhonda Cargill reading the comments into the public record.
“If you wish to address any item listed on the Agenda or Closed Session by written comment, please submit comments in writing to the Clerk of the Board by MAIL, EMAIL, FAX OR ECOMMENT,” the agenda note from the County instructed.
As usual, the board meeting will be accessible via live-streaming online to all members of the public at:
http://maderacountyca.iqm2.com/Citizens/Default.aspx
A link to the live meeting is also available here.
Among the items on Tuesday’s agenda:
- An update from County administrators on the 2019-20 budget and the County’s “short and long-term financial outlook.”
- An update on “current funding available for COVID-19 response activities and plans for allocating county budget resources for the Emergency Operations Center.”
- “Discussion and consideration of approval of the Madera County Economic Development Commission Fiscal Year 2020-2021 Basic Service Level Budget.”
Supervisors go into closed session at 9 a.m. and begin the public meeting at 10 a.m. — or, if later than 10 a.m., when closed session ends — or, in the midst of COVID-19, when the videoconferencing links are all working.
