One Inyo County senior citizen said he thinks the county is “trying to pay for employee raises by cutting senior programs.” In fact, the $2 million needed to pay for employee wage increases did lead to what officials call Service Redesign because the County does not have the money to pay the $2 million. Service Redesign means, in some cases, cuts.

Details are not provided in the Inyo Supervisors agenda packet for Tuesday, but senior citizens have told Sierra Wave Media that Health and Human Services Director Jean Turner plans to present proposals to scale back senior meal programs. We do not have the official details of such proposals.

Senior citizens in all parts of the county were organizing to go to the Board meeting. Some of them said that they understand the senior meals kitchen in Lone Pine might be cut back to three days per week and that home delivery of meals would be cut to four days per week. Again, we do not have the formal proposal and it was not included in the agenda packet.

The agenda item, a workshop, is scheduled for 1:30 Tuesday afternoon. It says, “Inyo County Growing Older Living with Dignity (IC-GOLD) Service Redesign.”

At the end of January, Ms. Turner and Sheriff Bill Lutze had met with senior citizens and the kitchen staff in Lone Pine and Bishop to talk about Service Redesign. At that time, there was talk about the Jail kitchen possibly taking over production of senior meals. Seniors said Ms. Turner met with senior citizens again last week when she reportedly revealed some potential changes.

In other matters before the Inyo Board Tuesday, Planning officials will conduct a workshop on the planning of power transmission lines and the potential for one or more new lines to come through Inyo County from Nevada. Officials will consider preparing letters to respond these matters. A workshop on this issue is scheduled for 11am.