By Mike Gervais
Register Staff
4-9-3009

A jam-packed schedule resulted in an eight-plus-hour meeting for the Inyo County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, but they got a lot done.

The board approved a grant request for Health and Human Services, a budget amendment for the demolition of the Big Pine Care Center and considered two requests from the Water Department: the board’s consideration of the upcoming Standing Committee meeting agenda, and approval of the next steps the county must take to create a Regional Water Management Plan.

With the board’s approval, Health and Human Services is working on obtaining a grant from the Prevention Early Intervention component of the Mental Health Services Act that was passed in early 2008.
If awarded, HHS will have up to $150,000 to spend on programs for local youth and the elderly.
The planning process for the grant included a review of the mental health needs of under-served residents identified through the Community Services and Support planning process. That process included the collection of surveys and input from stakeholders, said HHS Director Jean Dickinson Turner.

“Moving from the broader collection of input to more specific target populations, two populations were identified,” Dickinson Turner said.

Health and Human Services will be looking at isolated older adults and preschoolers and young children when considering uses for the MHSA funds.

Following the discussion with Turner Dickinson, the board moved on to discussions with Inyo County Water Department Director Bob Harrington.

Harrington brought the board a rough draft of the agenda for the April 23 Standing Committee meeting, which will be held in Los Angeles.

The agenda currently includes a discussion about habitat flows for the Lower Owens River, which Harrington said is dependent on the spring runoff as of April 1; the Blackrock water fowl monitoring plan and amendments to the protocol that was adopted in 2008; and the Independence East Side Regreening project.

Harrington said he would be back at the next board meeting with more in-depth details about the agenda items, and will be able to answer the board’s questions at that time.

The board also approved a Memorandum of Understanding between itself, Mono County, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, CalTrout and others for the formation pre-planning group for the creation of an Integrated Regional Water Management Plan.

Using a pre-planning grant from the Sierra Nevada Conservancy, the groups under the MOU hope to apply for a Department of Water Resources Planning grant that will fund the initial steps that must be taken to formaRegionalWater Management Plan that will, in turn, make the member agencies eligible for more grant money.

The board also appointed Harrington as the county’s spokesperson in the pre-planning stages.

The board also received a presentation from Sierra Nevada Conservancy Area Representative Julie Bear on the agency’s operations over the past year.

TheSierraNevada Conservancy, the newest and largest conservancy in the state, focuses on supplying grant funding for projects that focus on protection of natural and economic resources and encourage public use.

Bear reported that the conservancy issued more than $1.7 million in grants in its East Region, which includes Inyo County, over the past year, funding 25 projects.

“We got our fair share,” Bear said, “but we are one of the lesser funded sub-regions” in the East Region. “We’re going to try to rectify that in the future.”

Bear asked the board to keep the Conservancy in mind when meeting with constituents. She said that many agencies or entities with a project that is “shovel ready” or needs help identifying funding for environmental reviews may be eligible for Conservancy money.