LAKEPORT— The Lake County Office of Education held a special board meeting Wednesday to address and to clarify the agency’s part in the application process and subsequent award of a $5.2 million Tribal Homeless Housing Assistance and Prevention grant from the California Interagency Council of Homelessness to the Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians.
“The mission of the Lake County Office of Education is to foster student success through service to students, schools and the community,” said Superintendent of Schools Brock Falkenberg adding that he shares his goals with his leadership team for the agency every year which includes fostering partnerships that strengthen educational opportunities for all Lake County students. “I do want to recognize that as I look at this situation and I look at some of the concerns that our community has expressed, I believe that one of the things that they are feeling is that there hasn’t been respect given to them for their input, their thoughts, their concerns and their ideas for success if this project were to go forward.”
According to the application for the grant, SVBPI identified and secured a Purchase Agreement on the “Castle” property located in the town of Lucerne at 3700 Country Club Lane, currently on the market for sale. The document goes on to specify that the building’s structure and layout are ideal for supporting a comprehensive homeless youth program composed of both housing and supportive services.
At issue was wording in the application which identified the LCOE as a primary partner for the project. Other agencies were also mentioned as secondary partners including Lake County Tribal Health, North Coast Opportunities, the Lucerne Senior Center and Hospice Services of Lake County, among a plethora of others.
The application states SVBPI will be responsible for managing capital and operating funds, through its Tribal Administrator’s Office and Fiscal Department. It also mentions the tribe’s Housing Director Shannon Ford will assist Jordan in management of “The Castle’s” day to day operations.
Ana Santana, Lake County Office of Education Healthy Start Program Director spoke at length about the programs she has been involved with including Foster Youth services, dental screenings and identification of emergency needs and parenting programs both in Lakeport and Lucerne. She was joined by Thomas Jordan tribal administrator for the Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians.
Santana said the overarching intent of the grant, which the tribe applied for on June 30 of this year, was to provide housing for unaccompanied youth, native and non-native that are needing a place to lay their heads down and call home. According to documentation sent to the SVBPI from Cal ICH, the award was announced on Nov. 23 of this year.
Russ Heimerich, spokesperson for the California Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency, told the Record-Bee that the applicants should be receiving the funding “any day now.”
“When you do look at the grant there was a hope that LCOE could also operate a housing center or a home for our unaccompanied youth in this capacity,” said Falkenberg, “While the work around this is all aligned to our vision, our mission, or goals, the scope of the County Office of Education operating a facility of this nature is outside of the scope of our agency.”
The Superintended added that the timeline of the grant identifies Santana as hiring residential staff, recruiting and hiring case managers, work he said is outside of the scope of LCOE, outside of the agency’s insurance carrier and work that they are not prepared to do.
Board members expressed concerns over experience by the applicants working with the specified age groups to be serviced, a perceived lack of transparency over the grant application and the long-term sustainability of funding for the project beyond its proposed first year of operation. Jordan responded that the SVBPI was already looking for operating funds for subsequent years. “I’m not sure where this grant kind of escaped notice,” said Vice President Melissa Kinsel. “It was never mentioned, so to me it just seems like, where’s the transparency that we are always talking about? Where’s that element..seems like it was a surprise.”
Lucerne Area Town Hall chair concerned over cancellation of December 15 meeting
The properly noticed regularly scheduled meeting of the Lucerne Town Hall scheduled for December 15 was officially cancelled by the county after the property owner wrote to Chair Kurt McKelvey and District 3 Supervisor Eddie Crandell objecting to the meeting happening on his property.
“This is very concerning to me, and should likely be very concerning to the community,” McKelvey wrote in an email addressed to community members including the members of his own board. “It seems some people do not want us to even be having this discussion as a community. Beath has no ability to cancel the meeting, but he can certainly say that the meeting venue is no longer available.”
McKelvey was referring to a letter sent by Andrew Beath, President of Malibu based EarthWays Foundation, the current property owner of the Lucerne Castle.
The December 14 letter addressed to the Town Hall organizers and participants partly reads: “I’m sorry to say that EarthWays is unable to host the town hall meeting on Thursday for several reasons:
There was never a request to use the space, just an announcement that a meeting was occurring. Naturally any building host must make plans for management of events, insurance issues, security issues, etc. so please get permission in the future before announcing a meeting.”
“You would normally be very welcome to use the space with proper advanced requests. For this particular meeting, the announcement is perceived by many, including myself, as biased against the Pomo Tribe who has made an offer to purchase the castle. If correct, this bias would be a rude welcome to the tribe’s representative. As an alternative, I suggest that we have a near future meeting with the Pomo’s representative, hosted by EW, in which a detailed presentation about the Pomo ‘intended uses’ would be presented, and questions entertained.
This would be a presentation, not a debate or a complaint session. Those processes could be organized elsewhere and communicated to the Tribe, the County Council , or any other party. EW and the Pomo Tribe are committed to finding positive social justice uses for the Castle that will benefit The Tribe and Lucerne.”
The Record-Bee reached out to Beath to ask if he could elaborate on his objection to the meeting, but did not hear back from him. Crandell said he attempted to find an alternate location for the meeting, but since the California Brown Act which governs open meetings dictates the place of the meeting needed to be noticed 72 hours in advance, it became evident this was not going to happen. “I also did not want to put the county in a liability situation for trespassing or any other charges that could be filled by a private owner. I did not want to put citizens in jeopardy for the same reason.”
The LATH sent out a notice for a special meeting Wednesday allowing for public input and invited Jordan to elaborate on the project and how he was able to procure grant funding, “without consulting the District Supervisor, or the Town Hall, and without any planning approval.” At the LATH meeting, it was suggested that a list of state and county representatives be compiled and made available for people to write to regarding the plans to purchase the Lucerne Hotel building. Jordan said he is planning to attend the council’s next official meeting in January.
