Editor’s note: Plumas County Supervisor Mimi Hall has completed the first two months of her four-year term representing district 4, the downtown Quincy area. The Plumas Sun asked Hall to tell us about herself and her goals as the county’s newest supervisor. This is part of a series profiling the Plumas County Board of Supervisors that began with Board Chairman Kevin Goss.
The Plumas Sun: You have lived in Quincy for some time but left in 2017 and returned in 2023. What was your work during the years before you were elected as a supervisor?
Hall: I moved to Plumas County in 1999 with my husband, who grew up in Quincy. I worked in the Plumas County Health Department and was appointed director in 2008, a position I held for nine years.
We left so I could take a job with the Santa Cruz County health department. We returned after our youngest child completed high school. By then I had retired as Santa Cruz County Health Services Agency director. I also served on the executive committee of the County Health Executives Association of California for a decade, and as president from 2018-2020. During my time as president, we developed our first strategic plan. As a part of that plan, we successfully passed Future of Public Health funding, which brings $200 million annually to local health jurisdictions. I think this time helped me be a better public servant and administrator. When I left Santa Cruz I never thought I’d work for the government again.
The Plumas Sun: Why did you come back?
Hall: This is home. My husband’s family, my in-laws, our nieces – they all live here. Everyone’s here. This is where we were coming for holidays and everything. I have lived deeply in this community. It just felt right.
The Plumas Sun: Why did you decide to run for the district 4 supervisorial seat?
Hall: I have worked for counties for so long, and I know that part of keeping a community safe, strong, healthy – all of those things – means that local government has some core functions and services that they’ve got to be able to provide. I was sad looking at the vacancy rate for Plumas County, which was between 20% and 25%. I listened to all of those board meetings where employees were begging – begging! – for higher wages. They were saying, “We love working here. We love living here. But we can’t make it work.” I couldn’t bear the thought of living a block-and-a-half down from the courthouse and watching all of this continue.
The vacancy rate in and of itself isn’t the thing we should be looking at. We should be looking at why. And I could see that we hadn’t done cost-of-living raises in ages; we hadn’t done a salary survey to see where our wages are in the market. I could see a pathway, from an operational management and a strategic planning standpoint, to get the county to that place of strength.
The Plumas Sun: Now that you’ve been elected, what are your goals as a county supervisor?
Hall: My first goal is just to strengthen county government. I believe to my core that local government should be one of the most stable employers around. I want the county to be a premier employer. When I saw that we had 20-25% vacancy rates in the county workforce, I immediately made the connection between how well we’re staffed and how well people are paid.
I know the ability to have a long, stable career path for county workers is tied to economic development. When I looked around I saw empty storefronts and all of the struggles we had in private businesses, I imagined what if all the county jobs were filled. You know – over 100 positions, and also paid better. So that was one thing: How do we get the county fully functioning and fully providing its core services?
The Plumas Sun: Another goal?
Hall: I want us to have a strategic plan. A county operating without a strategic plan is like a household without a plan for your family. You could say to your kids: you figure life out. You’re on your own. When you’re 18, you’re out of here, you’re done. And I don’t know what kind of life they might have. Or you could set priorities for children to grow up to live a full, productive life.
We don’t have a plan for Plumas County. I feel like right now we’re doing the minimum. We’re doing what we have to do every single day, and we’re letting that distract us from the importance of planning for the future. It’s a crisis strategic plan. We have to have some priorities and some strategies to reach those priorities before we set next year’s budget. And part of the reason we have to have that is when you don’t know what you’re trying to achieve, how do you know what you’re going to spend money on?
What we’re doing now is balancing a giant checkbook. We get money in, we’re putting money out. When something breaks or we want something, we have to ask ourselves if we have enough money,
The Plumas Sun: You inherited a dysfunctional county financial system with departments that don’t always communicate. What are your plans to fix that?
Hall: I already talk and work regularly with the treasurer, tax collector’s and the auditor’s office. I met this morning for an hour-and-a-half with the auditor and the auditor’s consultant, talking about the mid-year budget and planning it for our priorities. What I hear over, and over, and over again is this wasn’t happening before. We all know there was some active divisiveness, and there was so much animosity. These departments and the county administrative office are key partners. They have to be in order to function.
The Plumas Sun: At the Jan. 22 meeting, the board of supervisors placed CAO Debra Lucero on paid administrative leave. You and Supervisor Kevin Goss, the board chairman, have been sharing those duties. How is that going?
“That’s the first step: just communicating with each other.”
Mimi Hall, Plumas County supervisor
Hall: So there are certain CAO authorities that have to be done. We divvied them up. I typically get money, health and human services, and Supervisor Goss gets all the other stuff. We talk every day, sometimes five, six, seven times a day. What we’ve done is reach out to all of the department heads and let them know that we’re here to support them. And that has just created a willingness to have two-way conversations. That’s the first step: just communicating with each other. I think that there’s a level of trust there. I feel like they believe me when I say we are here to do this together.
The Plumas Sun: You came into a county leadership position when there have been hostile workplace actions filed. How are you handling that divisiveness?
Hall: I actually think when you’re transparent and you follow the rules, and when employees read rules like the personnel rules and labor code, they can trust that the county, as an entity, is going to follow through on those and honor those rules. I think that has reduced the amount of workplace issues just in the time that I’ve been here. We’ve cleared many workplace complaints and cases because we’re just working through them, one at a time.
People are starting to feel valuable. They’re starting to see that they’re not working alone. They’re having these productive conversations back and forth with other departments, with the county council’s office, working on resolutions together. I think it’s good for people and I can see a morale shift.
“I have a lot of hope for the county.”
Mimi Hall, Plumas County supervisor
The Plumas Sun: Are there issues you would like to mention that we have not discussed?
Hall: I have a lot of hope for the county. Part of the reason I’m hopeful is I’ve already seen a pathway to some of these visionary things I’ve talked about. When people ask “where’s a good place to work in Plumas County?” I want people to say “the county.” I think we all want the same thing: a strong, well managed government that really serves its citizens, and that’s transparent, that’s ethical. I feel a sense of hope that we’re going to get there.