Municipal Advisory Council Developing in Southern Humboldt

County Planning Director John Ford listening at the MAC organizing meeting [Photo by Kelley Lincoln]

At the meeting, County Planner, Connor McGuigan gave an informal overview of MAC’s. He explained that as the outlying areas between towns become more populated across California, more communities have adopted them as a place to work out a unified message to the Board of Supervisors.

A group of Southern Humboldt business owners and residents have been exploring the opportunity for about a year now.  Christina Huff explains back in 2018 when the economic downturn really slammed Southern Humboldt’s “Main Street” a group came together, called itself a ‘community collaborative’ and generated ideas and began to take action.

“We did a mini-assessment by interviewing 25 different people who we felt reflected diversity and different areas, analyzed those results, brought those folks together,” she explained. “[We] found that the top two issues were beautification of Garberville for economic development purposes and the need for some way to promote community cohesion and civil communication and to have a stronger voice with the county.”

The Business and Visitors Bureau was working with Supervisor Estelle Fennell on the Gateway project and the mural and other beautification projects were getting started.

The community collaborative thought the MAC could be a useful tool to address community cohesion by providing a venue for civil discourse.  MAC meetings are run with the expectations of public government.  The public is formally noticed of meeting agendas. The discussions have rules of order.  And the council members are obligated to follow the Brown Act.

The ‘community collaborative’ focused on what a MAC could look like and created a proposal to take to Supervisor Fennell back in June.  Once the Board had it, County staff was directed to begin the public process of hearing from the public about what format it should take.

What Other Local MACs Look Like:

The language authorizing MACs is generally vague leaving room for communities to make each one serve their specific needs. As outlying areas between incorporated cities becomes increasingly populated, MACs have become a popular tool. It is important to note that their role is limited to an advisory position. They don’t decide, implement, or authorize any policy.

There are six MACs in Mendocino County.  Redwood Valley’s, established in 2016, is being used as a vehicle to organize after the fires and to monitor unpermitted building during the recovery.

The McKinleyville MAC, established in 2014, is a seven member body.  Its members must reside, own property or conduct a business in the greater McKinleyville area.

The MMAC has organized itself to “advise the Planning Commission and board on local community issues.”

McKinleyville is currently using its MAC to develop a ‘town center ordinance.’  The town also recently got a presentation from the Planning Department on its interpretation of the State’s new law allowing residents to build small units in their suburban neighborhoods. They also had a workshop on a ‘town center ordinance.’

Possibilities for SoHum’s MAC:

Humboldt County staff came to the meeting Tuesday in Garberville with the mindset that they would use the template from McKinleyville in Southern Humboldt as well, but a significant minority expressed a desire to further explore the options in a larger community dialogue.

The boundaries of the MAC will likely be approximately the same as the school district.  It needs to be decided whether to designate seats according to service sector (fire, health, business, etc) or to assign them to community areas (town, island mountain, the cove, etc).

Whether to elect Council seats or to have the Board of Supervisors appoint the seats was a point of discussion. One man felt that appointing seats might give power to the Supervisors to limit minority opinions when the community has not reached a natural consensus.

The types of needs and issues that can be addressed also needs to be developed.  Terri Klemetson from Redwoods Rural was keen to see how it can help organizations leverage support and garner easier access to funding streams. Christina Huff wants to see if communication with county departments like safety and public works can be facilitated.

There was a general support for including representation from the most outlying communities.  A man from Palo Verde suggested organizing the geography of the council around the nine local fire departments. And another suggested also asking the communities through the fire departments for the issues that they most urgently would want to use a MAC to address.

Speaking with Planner Connor McGuigan after the meeting, he couldn’t set a date yet, but says he will return after he has incorporated much of the input he received. He highlighted his intention to welcome input from the regional fire districts.