District 1 Supervisor Heidi Hall recently attended the National Association of Counties (NACo) Annual Conference. NACo serves to strengthen America’s counties by advocating for their priorities in federal policymaking. The organization’s membership includes the majority of all counties throughout the nation.
Supervisor Hall has represented Nevada County within NACo since 2017 and has served on the Public Lands Steering Committee since 2021. She is also a representative of the Western Interstate Region (WIR), a subset of NACo that focuses on the specific needs of western rural counties, including public land issues, rural economic development, and agriculture, amongst other topics.
During the conference, Supervisor Hall introduced and successfully gained support for the adoption of policies on public lands staffing and commercial and residential wildfire insurance. Specifically, Supervisor Hall’s resolution on public lands staffing urges the administration to review, evaluate, and take the necessary actions to improve public administrative hiring practices to guarantee reasonable hiring timelines, minimize bureaucratic processes, and promote the authority and accountability of local federal administrative control over hiring processes on federal public lands.
Moreover, Supervisor Hall gained widespread support from counties across the nation to call on Congress and the administration to study and identify potential solutions to address the availability and affordability of wildfire insurance. Such an effort should also address the ability and role of various levels of government in providing incentives for wildfire risk mitigation efforts and/or expansion of federal insurance programs.
Nevada County was also recognized as a national leader among counties and received three awards. First, Nevada County received Best in Category for our Firewise Communities Microgrant Program and an award in the Personnel Management, Employment and Training category for Nevada County’s Reducing Time to Hire in the Public Sector program. Finally, the County received the Digital County Survey Award for our Information Technology Department for rural counties.
In more exciting news, Supervisor Hall was appointed by NACo President and Minnesota County Commissioner Mary Jo McGuire to serve as the Chair for the newly formed Public Lands Steering Committee Outdoor Recreation Subcommittee.
