Last week, District I Supervisor Heidi Hall returned from the National Association of Counties 2023 Western Interstate Region (WIR) Conference hosted in St. George Utah. Supervisor Hall serves as the County’s representative to NACo, a national association that represents counties to Congress, the White House, and federal agencies advocating county priorities. Currently, Supervisor Hall serves as the NACo Vice-Chair of the Public Lands Subcommittee on Payments and member of the NACo Rural Action Caucus where she works to secure Payment-in-Lieu-of-Taxes (PILT) and other federal funding mechanisms for counties with public lands.
In exciting news, the NACo Board of Directors approved a proposal spearheaded by Supervisor Hall and other public lands counties to create a subcommittee for public land recreation needs. The Subcommittee will help develop a policy platform for the association to advocate for badly needed resources for national lands. As Co-Chair of the Yuba River Public Safety Cohort along with District IV Supervisor Sue Hoek, Supervisor Hall has worked since 2017 advocating for resources for the Yuba River watershed, including visitor and parking infrastructure, emergency notification systems, increased public agency coordination, public safety outreach, and increased law enforcement.
As she outlined, “This new subcommittee will be an important new avenue to help advocate for increased resources on our public lands here in Nevada County, including BLM and USFS lands. With hundreds of thousands of tourists coming to enjoy our parks, we must safeguard and protect them. NACo can help us do that.” Supervisor Hall was also able to tour Zion National Park and State Utah Snow Canyon Park to learn about best practices for land management.
In other news, Nevada County was also recently recognized by NACo, U.S. Department of Labor, the California State Association of Counties (CSAC), International City/County Management Association, and Human Resources Director Magazine for its innovative and wildly successful internship program. Read the recently released NACo Article on Nevada County.
