Mono County supervisors hear airport public‑safety plan, dispatch overhaul options and wildfire readiness; approve nutrition, BHSA and budget items

Mono County supervisors met in Bridgeport and spent the morning on a sequence of public‑safety and county stewardship matters including a new airport-driven public‑safety complex concept, a detailed dispatch modernization discussion prompted by a coming medical‑dispatch mandate, wildfire readiness briefings and several staffing and program votes.

Airport manager Sabayan Spring introduced a phased proposal to expand Mammoth Yosemite Airport’s role as a regional public‑safety hub, saying the plan would first “temporarily, 3 to 5 years, accommodate the needs of our anchor tenants who are CAL FIRE, Sierra Life Flight and CHP,” then pursue a hardened, joint‑use facility to support training, base helicopter and fixed‑wing medevac operations and provide staging for large incidents. Spring said that demonstrating regional collaboration will strengthen future state and federal funding bids.

The board followed the airport presentation with a CAL FIRE briefing. Battalion Chief Steve Ellenberg said CAL FIRE has finalized local contracts placing engines and a Type 1 helicopter in the valley and expects staffing to begin in the coming weeks. “We’re here for SRA land,” Ellenberg said, describing the deployments as focused on vegetation and landscape protection while remaining available to assist local departments.

Forest Service and interagency officers from the Humboldt–Toiyabe and Inyo National Forests gave the board the county’s seasonal fire outlook. District fire managers said high elevation timber and patchy grass crops, combined with uncertain Super El Niño rainfall patterns, make the season unpredictable; Walden and Traub noted improved staffing, earlier agreements to share closest‑resource aviation assets and that Stage 1 fire restrictions will take effect east of U.S. 395 on the 22nd. The presentations emphasized interagency AOPs and local task forces to speed resource movement across administrative boundaries.

The largest policy exchange involved 911 dispatch. Sheriff Braun urged a structural change: he argued dispatch should not be permanently housed in the county jail and proposed a collectively funded, hardened dispatch center — possibly in the public‑safety complex at the airport — while contracting medical‑dispatch services as the near‑term remedy for the state’s January 1 medical‑dispatch mandate. “Dispatch doesn’t belong in the jail,” Braun said, adding that medical calls now make up about 75% of incoming calls and that separating the functions would improve staffing, recruitment and resilience. Board members and county staff discussed two parallel tracks: an immediate contract to meet the medical‑dispatch requirement and a longer‑term working group or consultant to develop facility, governance and funding options and to preserve redundancy for outages.

On program and budget business, the board took several formal votes: - It approved a one‑year agreement, not to exceed $302,502, with Community Service Solutions to expand countywide Nutrition Security Program services including mobile pop‑ups, satellite refrigeration sites and edible‑food recovery. Amanda Phillips, the provider, said the program will complement existing food‑bank efforts and build a consistent countywide distribution network. - The board adopted Mono County’s first BHSA (Behavioral Health Services Act) integrated plan for FY 2026–29, which aligns Full Service Partnerships, Behavioral Health Services & Supports and small housing interventions under the new state rules. Behavioral Health manager Amanda Greenberg said the new BHSA rules required folding prior prevention and workforce items into the BHSS component and that one prior contribution (a $50,000 Walker Senior Center grant) was trimmed to fit the new regulatory categories; the plan passed with unanimous roll call. - Finance presented updates to the county fee schedule (adding public health fees and re‑calibrating environmental health charges); supervisors asked staff to pull a newly proposed special‑event permit fee for further review and approved the remaining fee updates. - The board adopted a vacancy‑unfunding policy designed to move the county budget toward structural balance by marking long‑term unfilled allocated positions as unfunded while keeping CAO‑level authority to restore funding quickly. Finance Director Stephanie Trujillo explained the change was driven by persistent vacancy savings and the need for clearer, more conservative long‑range budgeting.

Housing staff briefed the board on a continuing work program that ranges from down‑payment assistance and mobile‑home‑park preservation to stewardship of county‑owned units such as Bridgeport Apartments. Staff noted capital repairs (water‑main, deck, electrical) are underway or permitted and said operating break‑even will depend on vacancy control, rent policy and whether management remains in‑house.

Several speakers and board members reiterated two consistent themes: the need to coordinate regionally for both emergency response and funding leverage, and the county’s limited resources that make prioritization essential. The board instructed staff to return with more detailed cost estimates and options for dispatch modernization, the airport public‑safety concept, the pulled special‑event fee, and more refined Bridgeport Apartments operating projections.

What comes next: staff will bring the special‑event fee back for more analysis; the CAO and sheriff’s office will propose near‑term contracts to meet the medical‑dispatch mandate while also scoping a multi‑stakeholder working group on dispatch facility options; the housing and grants teams will advance down‑payment assistance design and finalize Bridgeport Apartment repair budgets. The board also scheduled an evening session in Bridgeport.

Quotes used in this report are taken directly from the board transcript and attributed to the named speakers.