Four Del Norte County supervisors on Tuesday green lit a proposal to house juvenile offenders in Mendocino County. But they urged Chief Probation Officer Lonnie Reyman to use that option as a last resort, with District 1 Supervisor Darrin Short stating that “there’s probably more gang activity prevalent” in Mendocino than in Shasta County.
Del Norte County maintains agreements with Humboldt and Shasta counties to house wards in their juvenile detention facilities. Humboldt is the first option and Shasta is currently the second, though there are times when probation officials there have declined to hold Del Norte youth as well, according to Reyman.
Two Del Norte County youth are being detained, Reyman told Redwood Voice Community News on Tuesday. One is at the Humboldt County Juvenile Hall in Eureka and the other is at the Shasta County Juvenile Rehabilitation Facility in Redding, he said.
The chief probation officer told supervisors Tuesday that his initial inclination would be to house Del Norte wards in Mendocino County if Humboldt wasn’t available. However, he acknowledged Short’s concerns about potential gang activity since Ukiah is closer to the Bay Area.
District 5 Supervisor Dean Wilson was absent.
According to Reyman, because of the way the Shasta County juvenile detention facility is funded, housing youth in Humboldt County and, potentially, Mendocino would be more straightforward.
This is due to language in Del Norte’s agreement with Humboldt and the MOU with Mendocino that was before supervisors for both counties to jointly manage their juvenile detention facilities, Reyman said.
“Currently, if a youth is detained and taken to Shasta County, we are going to the judge in each of those cases and getting an order for detention there. That’s because of the structure of that contract,” he told supervisors. “We wouldn’t need to do that in this case.”
The probation chief also pointed out that Ukiah is slightly closer to Del Norte County than Redding and said he’d still consider that a second option for that reason as well.
In response to a question from District 2 Supervisor Valerie Starkey, who had worked in youth probation in Sonoma County, Reyman said Humboldt County has had to reject Del Norte youth a number of times. Their juvenile detention facility is short staffed, he said, and they’re having to use deputy probation officers to fill in shifts. The Eureka facility also had a spike in juvenile offenders about three or four months ago, Reyman said.
Del Norte County has been housing youth in Humboldt and Shasta counties under official agreements for about two years. In September 2023, the Del Norte County Board of Supervisors eliminated the juvenile hall division about a year after Reyman recommended shuttering the detention center due to an inability to meet state staffing requirements.
Del Norte’s agreement with Shasta County comes up for renewal at the end of 2025, he said.
