California Air Resources Board

Yuba City (Greater Sacramento Valley):Yuba Senior Center (777 Ainsley Ave, Yuba City, CA 95991)

Background: There were five people from the public in attendance, so staff did not do breakout groups; it was one group discussion. In attendance was the Sutter County agricultural commissioner, Lisa Hebert, a retired agricultural commissioner, a representative from the Feather River Air Quality Management District, and two other individuals from the public. A brief description of what our intent with the meeting was described instead of going through the power point presentation with a brief introduction from those in attendance and California Air Resources Board (CARB) staff (7) present.

Summary: On November 29, 2023, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) hosted the first in-person meeting in Yuba City as part of the series of community public dialogue sessions. The focus of this meeting was to hear their personal perspectives on how CARB moving forward, can develop a better engagement and outreach model. The CARB workgroup leading this effort, the Community Engagement Capacity Building (CECB) Workgroup, provided a short overview of the Community Engagement Model before the public dialogue started with the community members. The community members were aware their recommendations were important for CARB developing future policies, and regulations with their community members at the table. This round table style of engagement was very valuable hearing firsthand on how CARB can improve outreach, relationships, and trust of community members outside of the Sacramento Area.

Detailed Notes

Outreach - For this meeting

• Heard about meeting [from]: Online listserv, forwarding emails, local paper
• If CARB is asking/paying representatives for their expertise in an area, they should be able to better support local outreach efforts
• Community Experts need to make a more robust recommendations when making outreach recommendations for community meetings

Outreach - Generally

• Be intentional about outreach. If it affects them, get them involved
• Reach out to local agencies like air district as starting point
• Consider reaching out to agencies outside air quality sphere
  • Ex. Farm Bureau, Ag Departments, City Hall, Chamber of Commerce
  • The farm bureau may participate if you go to them, schedule time to meet rather than asking them to come to you
• Use local community event calendar (city)
• Local Air District should be bigger partners to have a better reach
  • Local, smaller air districts have different amounts of resources so their capacity can be limited, may employ different tactics to reach people or get message across
  • Local air district also trying to improve outreach locally
• Radio stations, local paper (limited reach, subscription based)
• Limited reach on social media, no dedicated person
• See activity when there is a local need, like a wildfire
• If there is not a paid model- social media reach is limited, analytics are helpful
• Go to local community events, local OES organizations
  • There is a yearly event in Yuba that CARB should consider attending on January 17th- “Spray Safe”
  • Also parades, fairs, holiday events, etc.
  • Knowledge of area events calendar schedule for planning events
• Local radio stations
• Use local print media
• For some groups, going to them may be the way to engage
  • Different groups need different methods to reach them
• Trusted people from the community you're going to are key to getting people interested/involved
  • Need to have a trusted partner. For example, if we wanted stronger engagement with the Sikh community, we would need someone who already has a trusted relationship with that community.

General Feedback

• Funding transparency is important
• Impact to small local businesses, fire department, truck owners and operators, consider this more
• Folks in the area often think of CARB negatively because they are impacted by regulation
  • One community member shared that folks had to use out of state fuel to operate emergency equipment, ice plows and graders because CARB regulations on fuel corrupt equipment
• What are you regulating of theirs that will affect them and their livelihood?
• There seems to be a focus on the same communities that get resources all the time. If we care about communities, we should care about all communities. Unfair and inequitable treatment.
• Political pressures impact the local entities, it can be hard to sift through what is politically motivated and what is in truth happening
• Various authorities make it hard to find the right agency or group to go to for local issues
• How do you define and describe the area/region/community? Often varies depending on who you talk to
• What is the Sacramento Valley?
• Meet people where they are at, the same thing can mean very different things depending on who you are talking to
• Often people don’t know about the available programs and funding until it is too late to benefit from them
• Many folks might not know who CARB is – make that clear before hosting a meeting/event in the community

Meetings

• Meetings in person – time of year is important for accessibility, farming community you should avoid harvest time
• It can be hard to get folks out in the evenings
• Locations matter! Asks those contacts from the community where to host the meetings/events

Model

• This is a model other agencies will look at and use
• Different agencies have different political pressures
• Not everyone has the same definition of community engagement
• Current model is long

Model and Outreach Materials

• Simplify what we are trying to accomplish. 2 pager to really communicate what we are doing. Term “ground truthing" not a clear term.
• Need to try a different approach to get people “Why should they care?” Make more accessible
• “come find out who we are”
• “come meet us if you are interested in air quality"

Photos of White Boards