Kudos! is a series of Plumas Sun stories shining light on Plumas County employees and their extraordinary accomplishments.
When Tracey Ferguson was growing up in suburban Sacramento County, she didn’t know the occupation of professional planner existed. She was an outdoor kid with a deep curiosity about the natural environment and why certain land uses — schools, houses, commercial strips — popped up where they did.
Her journey to director of the Plumas County Planning Department took her through childhood summers wandering the then-empty lots of the Lake Almanor Peninsula, the halls of academia as a conscientious student and the high-heeled corporate world as a professional planner. Today Ferguson wears mostly boots and jeans. She does everything from guiding public understanding of planning ordinances, coordinating fire recovery activities and managing $7.34 million grants for the county. And that’s just a sampling.
“She does so much I don’t know where to start,” said Plumas County Supervisor Jeff Engel. Along with 20 years of professional experience, Ferguson brings prodigious energy to her wide-ranging responsibilities as planning director. “She has a ‘get things done attitude.’ I appreciate that a lot,” Engel said.
The path to planner
Ferguson was a student at American River College when she discovered geography, a moment that still fires her excitement. “Geography is everything. Everything: cultural, social, physical. You know, it’s the world,” Ferguson said. She was one of very few females in a major dominated by men and tainted by gender bias. “At the time, if you were a woman, you’re going to be a teacher of geography, right? That’s what women with geography majors did at the time,” she said.
It was in a senior-year seminar class at Sacramento State University that Ferguson first encountered planning as a career. “In walks the planning director for the city of Sacramento and he talked about what a planner does and the planning profession.” That was Ferguson’s aha moment. She went on to a master’s program at California State University, Chico. While she was finishing coursework, Ferguson interviewed for a job as junior planner with Parsons Corp., an international architecture and engineering firm. “They hired me on the spot,” she said. That launched a 20-year career in planning and home-building consulting. She took the job as Plumas County planning director in 2019.
Trial by fire
Ferguson had been on the job for a year when the 2020 North Complex Fire hit Pumas County, quickly followed by the 2021 Dixie Fire. Dixie’s rampage through Plumas County reshaped her role, propelling her into undefined responsibilities as the county’s de facto disaster recovery coordinator. “I stepped forward in leadership. I had the skill set as a planner,” she said.
She helped set up a local assistance center with the Red Cross, county, state and federal agencies offering immediate aid to fire victims. Her leadership continued in 2022, when Ferguson helped coordinate the many steps to assisting property owners who were rebuilding their homes. The planning department offered several preapproved housing plans free of charge to homeowners.
Over time, Ferguson’s role has morphed from long-term disaster recovery to economic development. She is coordinating projects in Quincy and Chester designed to empower business owners and the community around recreation, housing, lodging and other growing sectors of the economy. Ferguson brings a wealth of experience to these efforts as well as the resources and networks she has developed during her career as a planner, said Zachary Gately, who works with her as Plumas County’s grant manager.
And she brings commitment. “Tracey has held each of these projects very close to her heart, often working well past five o’clock on weekends. Sometimes she beats me to the office before 6 a.m.,” Gately said.
As planning director, Ferguson’s goal is to find solutions for property owners. In this small community, when people come to the planning department with a proposal, it involves their real property. “You know, it’s their livelihood. Their investment,” Ferguson said. She tries to make their dream for that property a reality. Sometimes it’s in conflict with county or state codes, so she and the planning department shepherd them through a process to get them compliant if it’s possible.
Ferguson is precise about code compliance, said Gately, but her approach is to make the process as easy as possible for everyone involved. With property owners who insist on their rights, she is as accommodating as she can be. Often working with one applicant leads the way to other property owners adjusting their projects to conform with codes. But Ferguson is a by-the-books stickler. She recommended a zone change in a recent land use controversy but not before researching and checking off all local and state codes to ensure compliance.
“I do not have an opinion,” she said. “I enforce the government codes.”
Public servant
Ferguson’s office in the planning department is a testament to her workload. Most days it is a cheerful display of what she calls “the clutter of progress.” Stacks of documents, notebooks and file folders spill from her desk to the floor: a regional transportation plan, the 2025 Subdivision Map Act, the Plumas County Housing Element of the General Plan. An angel wing begonia shares space with a small refrigerator and a case of bottled water, hints that Ferguson spends time here at working lunches and beyond. Her office walls are lined with certificates, maps, a chirping bird clock and Sally Yost’s painting of a logging truck in front of the Plumas County Courthouse.
As to her penchant for overworking, Ferguson is as self-aware as she is conscientious. She allows herself a moment of mockery: “Hi! My name is Tracey. I’m a workaholic.”
If that’s a fault, Plumas County is the beneficiary. Ferguson’s list of responsibilities fills a single-spaced page in 11-point type. She serves on six in-county committees and five outside county government. She is staff for the planning commission, the airport land use commission and more. She oversees water resource projects and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission licenses for the county. The $7.34 million grants she manages involve housing and community development, California Department of Water Resources, Housing and Urban Development, homeless coordination and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Ferguson jumped in and has become a part of the community in such positive ways, said Gately. “She has done so much to protect our community and make sure people are following the rules — providing that aspect of public safety from a planning perspective,” he said.
For all her responsibilities and interests, Ferguson defines herself in the simplest of terms: “I am a public servant.” That is what she respects and values most about being a public sector planner. That is what she takes most seriously, she said. And she makes sure her staff understands who they are working for. Not Ferguson. The public.
Disaster recovery takes time. Rebuilding takes time. Planning takes time. Ferguson is an integral part of those processes and the county’s progress. Ever the optimist, she said, “We’ll get there.”
Kudos to Tracey Ferguson and her commitment to Plumas County and the planning department!
