Thumbnail image: District 3 Supervisor Chris Howard urged his colleagues on Tuesday to advocate for the tunnel project around Last Chance Grade in the Board's 2026 Legislative Platform. | Image Courtesy of Caltrans District 1. Days after he returned from a visit to Japan, District 3 Supervisor Chris Howard touted that country’s tunnel-building prowess when he urged his colleagues to step up advocacy for Last Chance Grade. During a discussion of the county’s 2026 Legislative Platform on Tuesday, Howard said he wanted to explore how Japan’s innovative techniques could apply to the Last Chance Grade tunnel project. He also told his colleagues that Caltrans still needs a Coastal Development Permit from the California Coastal Commission for the project despite completing nearly a decade of environmental studies. Howard asked Assistant County Administrative Officer Randy Hooper to include advocacy for an exemption from that hurdle in the platform. “We have seen, over the last three or four years, how our senators and assemblymen have placed bills in a position to exempt themselves from the Coastal Act on development that is far less significant, with far less environmental analysis than what we have in play,” Howard said. Hooper gave county supervisors a first look at the 2026 Legislative platform, saying he was hoping the Board of Supervisors would adopt it in December so it would be ready when lawmakers reconvene in January. This year’s platform comes after California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1014 into law in October. Sponsored by Del Norte County and authored by District 2 Assemblyman Chris Rogers, the bill gives Caltrans the ability to reduce speed limits by up to 10 mph on stretches of the state highway system that are considered risky. Rogers’ bill mentioned Hiouchi, Gasquet, Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park and U.S. 199 specifically. Hooper also mentioned legislation District 5 Supervisor Dean Wilson hopes to see this year that would grant counties with large swaths of public lands exemptions from mitigation requirements for large infrastructure projects. Wilson, who had brought the item up at the Board’s Nov. 12 meeting, had the Last Chance Grade tunnel project in mind as well as potential efforts to protect U.S. 101 from sea level rise near South Beach. On Tuesday, Hooper said the county put the 2026 Legislative platform together with input from various department representatives as well as Del Norte’s state advocates Shaw Yoder Antwih Schmelzer and Lange. Del Norte officials also engaged with Greg Burns of Thorn Run Partners, the county’s advocate in Washington D.C. “We received really good input from the (Department of Health and Human Services) in particular on a number of issues that are moving in the DHHS and Healthcare Delivery space,” Hooper said. a5aa65b3-96f8-4d4b-be86-912c9b3fcf0aDownload Those include reforms to the Mental Health Services Act, now known as the Behavioral Health Services Act, which the county platform says will decrease funding for its new programs such as its crisis care mobile unit as well as its ability to staff CARE Court. The legislative platform has also been revised to update programs Del Norte hopes to advocate for potential federal appropriations. Those items include continued support for Del Norte County’s jail rehabilitation project as well as the renovation of the Veterans Memorial Hall, according to the platform. Del Norte also hopes to pursue appropriations for outdoor recreational opportunities on the “county’s designated lands within the Smith River National Recreation Area” as well as improvement to state lands near South Beach. Also new on the legislative platform is a reaffirmation to Del Norte County’s support of the operation of Pelican Bay State Prison. Hooper said with Newsom serving his last year as governor, he and other officials decided to put “a little more emphasis” on the prison because “you never know what’s going to happen with the state budget being what it is.” District 2 Supervisor Valerie Starkey said the inclusion of a statement supporting the prison was to get her and her colleagues prepared to oppose any potential effort to close Pelican Bay. “We will oppose any type of closure on Pelican Bay because of the effect it will have on our community and our economy,” she said. “We haven’t written a letter, but we are basically gearing up so we’re going to be ready to oppose the closure of this facility.” When speaking about Last Chance Grade, Howard, who visited Japan with his colleague Darrin Short and Caltrans representatives Matt Brady and Jaime Matteoli, mentioned Japan’s use of pilot tunnels in their infrastructure projects. On Monday, Matteoli, Last Chance Grade corridor manager, told Redwood Voice Community News that Caltrans had been proposing the use of a pilot tunnel in its environmental documents on its Last Chance Grade project, which consists of a 1-mile long tunnel. It would be used to perform geotechnical investigations during the project, but it could also be a permanent feature allowing for emergency response access as well as for bicyclists and pedestrians, Matteoli said. He compared such a feature to a pilot tunnel on the Sanriko Coastal Road. “We’ll explore that with the full team, including the design phase designer we are now procuring,” Matteoli said. “These lessons will be brought forward and some things we’ve seen could end up making their way into the design.” On Tuesday, Howard indicated that he would like the legislative platform to mention the pilot tunnel technique and others Japan uses in its tunnel-building efforts. “This pilot tunnel we could be doing now (would save) some time at a reduced cost to inform ourselves as a community and as a transportation network on how to do things appropriately,” he said. “We need to find a mechanism to do that.”