Supervisor Jeffries thanks frontline healthcare workers

Kevin Jeffries

By Kevin Jeffries
Riverside County District 1 Supervisor

Riverside County experienced brutal hospital overloads in past years when real nasty strains of the flu hit all our emergency rooms, mostly occurring in winter. I remember getting reports of paramedic ambulances not being able to “hand over” patients to the hospitals for extended hours because the hospitals were so overwhelmed.

We are well past those milestones now. Adding the serious COVID-19 patients to the routine emergency room emergencies (heart attacks, strokes, accidents, etc.) and now adding serious flu cases to the mix, the frontline healthcare employees are really taking a beating. The vast majority of them are going above and beyond the call of duty.

Staffing shortages, extended shifts, limited days off and patient overloads as ICU needs now exceed capacities all add up – what could go wrong? A very big thank you to all those doctors, nurses and support staff working the frontlines.

Recycling Hits the Dumps

Many of us do our part to recycle various items at our home or business. In fact, the state mandates that we recycle, that curbside trash pick-up providers haul off recycled containers and that landfill operators carry out recycling efforts at the landfills.

The county can actually face penalties from the state if it doesn’t divert enough of our waste into recycling. The problem (that you and I are not seeing) is that the recycling program is collapsing, and not just here.

A few years ago, China (and then other Asian nations) stopped accepting most imports of recycled waste. No market has emerged to replace them. Recycling has gone from a money maker for many agencies to a net loss, as the resale value of recycled material has plummeted.

Residents, particularly in California, have been pushed harder and harder to increase their recycling, which has resulted in more and more “wish recycling,” where people toss items into their recycle bin that can’t be recycled, causing expensive manual separating of the materials later.

Many people don’t realize that even a little bit of spoilage in or on “recyclable materials” (e.g. peanut butter in a jar or a grease stain on a pizza box) make them valueless and requires them to be thrown away. Some cities and counties have gone so far as to start running “when in doubt, throw it out” educational campaigns to get people to recycle less (or really, to recycle more successfully).

Unfortunately, despite the lack of market for these items that cause “recyclable” goods you have separated to go back into the same landfill as your regular garbage, state mandates continue to get more strict. Your trash hauling rates will continue to go up, as the hauler is mandated by the state to pay for recycle bins and pay to separate the recyclables. Those expenses, coupled with little revenue from the recycled goods market, result in the trash hauler needing to charge customers to compensate for the loss.

To add to this, the Riverside County Board of Supervisors is preparing to implement yet another state mandate that “organic waste” trash containers be distributed to residential customers. The mandate hasn’t gone into effect yet, but you can be sure that when it does, it will jack up your rates even further.

Inside Baseball #2

Last month, I reported on some internal employee leadership changes, including our County CEO retiring. Well, the applications are in, and the herd of applicants has been thinned, sorted and prepped for board Interviews. The board will be interviewing for the new CEO this month.

It takes a special kind of person to manage a $5 billion+ annual budget, 20,000+ employees, 44 departments, a $40 million operating deficit, and now, a virus that is impacting every aspect of life and our economy. Oh, and the joy of having to work for the five of us bosses who sit on the county board.

In the First District office, we’ve recently added a new member to the team, Samantha Stilwell. “Sam,” a longtime Riverside County resident, has worked as a staff member in the California State Legislature, as well as a manager with a public relations firm and has somehow fit in time to attend Cal Baptist University. She is also already familiar with all the MACs and CACs in our unincorporated communities, so we expect her to hit the ground running in the New Year. Welcome aboard, Sam!

On a Personal Note

January officially kicks off my third term as your First District Supervisor. Over the past eight years, I have never missed a single board meeting, never taken a pay raise and have done my very best to help moms and pops and other residents in need of services get through the cumbersome endless bureaucracies.

On a personal-personal note, I truly miss the days when Riverside County was a very rural county of 600,000 (versus its 2.4 million today) and when we enjoyed endless open spaces between the few cities we had.

My young adult life was largely shaped by my 29 years of community service serving Riverside County as a Volunteer Firefighter and Volunteer Captain, where I responded to over 4,000 emergencies. I then was hired by Fire Chief Tom Tisdale to write grants and help manage the then 1,100 Volunteer Firefighters.

My wife and kids put up with a lot (and my wife still does). With roughly 450,000 residents in the First District, the job can be both extremely demanding and very rewarding (when I can make a difference). I’m lucky that I have a great staff and I’m fortunate that my wife runs our family businesses so that I can focus on the county and the First District.

I don’t go on junkets, I don’t travel on the public dime and I don’t spend much, if any, time attending conferences, leagues, associations or seminars. I focus here at home on our county. I consider myself very fortunate to work for the people of the First District, even the ones who write really nasty emails (they come with the job). And yes, I actually do read all the emails and letters that are sent to me.

Thank you all for your patience, support and commitment to making Riverside County a better place (all 2.4 million of us).