Do something
Three things you can do alone.
Each one works the same whether one person does it or forty. None of them needs a group, and there is nothing to join yet.
- 01
Write the Board, or speak to it.
Two minutes from your own email. Four letters sit ready, addressed to the Clerk of the Board with every supervisor copied — start from one and change every word of it, or clear it and write your own. Written comment has to reach the Clerk by four in the afternoon the day before a meeting.
If you would rather say it out loud, public comment is taken at the Board’s meetings and the chair can hold each speaker to three minutes. Same words, same office, either way.
[PUBLISHED] Nevada County public comment guide; How to address the Board.
- 02
Ask why your case was opened.
Ask the County in writing for the records that show why your own case was opened. Code Compliance is part of the County’s Community Development Agency, which takes records requests through the County’s online records portal, by email or by mail. The County has answered a request like this by saying it holds no record of why a case was opened, and that answer is worth having on paper. It has 10 days to tell you whether it has the records, and can extend that by up to 14 days, only for reasons the law lists.
[PUBLISHED] Community Development Agency public records requests. [CODIFIED] Gov. Code § 7922.535(a)–(c). [OBSERVED] The County’s answer: a records response in the campaign’s files, described by its shape only.
- 03
Tell one neighbor how this works.
Most people here don’t know a signed complaint is enough. The ones who find out are the ones who came home to a letter.
So tell someone before it is their turn: the form is signed, not sworn, and nothing on it asks what is between the two of you. A letter that says a violation has occurred starts a five-day clock, whatever it is headed.
[PUBLISHED] Nevada County complaint form. [CODIFIED] Nevada County Code § 12.05.220(B)(8), (N)(1).
One person is enough.
Call about the letter on your table, or the rule behind it. The line doesn’t stop at the county line — there’s a Midway out past it, and it’s open.
We’re not the County. Not an emergency line. Nobody here’s a real person.
Leave a message
Call the line and ask to leave a message. There are two, and you pick: one for the campaign, one that goes to the Board as public comment. Either way you get three minutes. If you would rather write than call, the same words can go to the Board as an email from your own address: write the Board.
- To the campaign. The humans behind the line listen. Nobody else. Don’t count on it reaching the Board or the County.
- To the Board. Recorded, then sent to the Clerk of the Board as public comment. What the County does with it — play it in the room, write it into the record, pass it to the supervisors — is up to the County. Once it is with the Clerk it is a public record. Say what you’d say standing at the microphone.
- It’s recorded. You hear a notice first. The recording is of you, not the voice.
- You decide. When you finish, you say keep it or throw it away.
- How long. Ninety days, and then ours is gone. Anything already sent to the Clerk is the County’s record, and not ours to take back.
- Your name. Leave a name or a number only if you want an answer. Nobody will ask for one.
- Adults only. Nothing is kept from anyone under eighteen.
Getting involved
There is nothing to join yet. No meeting is scheduled, and there is no list or membership to put your name on.
When there is, it goes on this site first and on the line after. Until then, leave a message on the line, or read what’s here and use it.