Board actions – Aug. 20 – Welcome to San Bernardino County

Fair-Share analysis complete

The board formally received and filed the Fair Share Analysis and Feasibility and Fiscal Impacts of Secession reports as requested by county voters when they passed Measure EE in November 2022.

Measure EE was a ballot advisory measure asking if the citizens of the county wanted the board to study all options to obtain the county’s fair share of state resources, up to and including secession from the State of California. After the measure passed with just more than 50 percent of the vote the county hired Blue Sky Consulting Group to provide a comprehensive study on all options to obtain the county’s fair share of state and federal resources.

The study includes an analysis detailing the revenue the county receives from intergovernmental transfers. Blue Sky also prepared a report on secession, which examines the necessary criteria for regions considering secession from a state and assesses the potential financial impacts.

Board honors late entrepreneur, mentor Dr. Reggie Webb

The Board of Supervisors passed and presented to the family of Dr. Reggie Webb a resolution honoring the entrepreneur, mentor and County Equity Element Group member, who passed away on July 20 at the age of 76.

Dr. Reginald “Reggie” Webb was a successful businessman, visionary leader, and compassionate philanthropist who dedicated his life to reducing poverty and improving the quality of life for Black Americans and other marginalized communities. Thanks to his hard work and dedication as a member of the San Bernardino County Equity Element Group, gaps in services and opportunities for Black residents and people of color who live and work in our county have been significantly reduced.

He founded Webb Family Enterprises, which successfully operated 16 McDonald’s franchise restaurants, including restaurants in the cities of Colton, Montclair, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga and San Bernardino, employing over 1,100 people.

Webb Family Enterprises currently manages investments, provides consulting services and leads the Cooperative Economic Empowerment Movement, an Ontario-based non-profit organization dedicated to empowering Black entrepreneurs who aspire to create and pass down generational wealth.

He faithfully served on many boards including the University of La Verne, the Los Angeles Urban League, Pomona Valley Hospital and the Los Angeles County Fair Association. Additionally, he chaired the National Black McDonald’s Operator Association, the National Leadership Council representing all McDonald’s franchises in the United States, and the Global Operator Leadership Council, representing McDonald’s franchisees worldwide.

He was also deeply committed to charitable causes such as raising funds for student scholarships and supporting research and awareness of multiple sclerosis.

Dr. Webb touched countless lives throughout his lifetime. He will be missed, but his legacy will live on in the hearts and minds of those who knew him and were inspired by him.

Supervisors expand mental health services

Supervisors unanimously supported expanding mental health crisis services as an alternative to unnecessary emergency department treatment, psychiatric hospitalization and incarceration.

County crisis walk-in centers provide urgent mental health services 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to individuals of all ages who are experiencing a mental health crisis. The program targets unserved, underserved and inappropriately served populations.

The crisis walk-in centers provide crisis stabilization, which is a bundled mental health service that includes crisis intervention, risk assessment, case management and medication support, when necessary.

The Crisis Mobile Response Team provides field-based crisis responses in the High Desert, West Valley and East Valley regions of the county. Calls are answered in the County Behavioral Health Crisis Contact Center, and, when needed, field responders are dispatched to a client’s location to provide support during the crisis.

The board on Tuesday revised the scope of work to serve approximately 142 clients, including transportation to an appropriate level of care or treatment center and hospital sit parameters, which is where the provider is expected to stay with an individual placed on an involuntary hold until admitted to a psychiatric unit. Mobile Crisis Response service hours will also be extended from 6 p.m. to 8 a.m., providing an additional two hours of overnight coverage in order to meet the need for services.

County Behavioral Health staff will implement mechanisms to regularly review client service data and progress and conduct site visits and annual monitoring to ensure adherence to performance and compliance standards.

Board bolsters efforts to work with justice-involved and at-risk youth

Supervisors provided the County Probation Department with the resources to accurately assess the risk and needs of the justice-involved and at-risk youth they serve and determine the extent of interventions necessary to effect positive change.

Probation has made a concerted effort to reduce recidivism and promote public safety by investing in evidence-based correctional sanctions and programs, including day reporting centers, drug courts, residential multiservice centers, mental health treatment programs, electronic and GPS monitoring programs, victim restitution programs, counseling programs, community service programs, educational programs and work training programs.

Probation’s Youth Day Reporting Centers serve clients and deliver evidence-based programming that includes cognitive behavioral restructuring with an emphasis on addressing criminogenic and other wrap-around needs in coordination with local community partners. This approach allows the day reporting centers to target service delivery to clients most in need of services using local community resource partners that the client can continue to utilize following program completion.

Youth also have access to a clothing/hygiene closet and gift cards/bus passes to assist with immediate needs, summer camps, tattoo removal services, community service events, career days, forklift and food handler’s certification classes and pro-social activities. Classes currently include anger management skills, drug and alcohol management, weapons diversion, building healthy relationships, gang involvement prevention, eliminating truancy, cognitive life skills, how to be more present as a father, parenting skills, and putting a stop to shoplifting.

Despite the existing collaboration with numerous community-based organizations to provide services to clients, there remains a gap in services available to clients who need them the most.

Action taken by the board will allow Probation to provide oversight of the development, management, and administration of a non-residential day program designed to provide enhanced treatment and rehabilitative services, cognitive behavioral modification, education and vocational programs under the purview of a Probation Program Manager.

The Probation Program Manager will work with a contractor to manage the program to develop outcome measurement, quality assurance, and audit guidelines for internal and external service providers to ensure the efficacy of current and future programming.

Additional County Update News – August 22, 2024