“VOLUNTEERS NEEDED to appear in the independent film, Goodbye World,” the ad reads in this week's paper, and we wonder who will respond to the specific requests for “tough bikers” and “hippie farmers.” Used to be kinda dangerous to bill yourself as a tough guy because here come all the tough guys wanting to try you out. But hippie farmers? We got them coming in the windows.
SUPERVISOR KENDALL SMITH, mercifully in her last days in office, sits as the Board of Supes rep to the County Retirement Board, which probably explains why the retirement fund is a couple of hundred million or so in arrears. As previously reported, Richard White, a retired Orange County cop who morphed into a retirement specialist, has been selected as the new Retirement Administrator for the Retirement Board. He replaces triple dipper Jim Andersen who previously retired as Mendocino County CAO and Sonoma County Assistant CAO. White was the only applicant left standing when the others who were invited to interview for the position sent their regrets. Supervisor Smith, who hates all things cop related, as does much of Mendolib still stuck in their Yellow Submarines in Blue Meanie mode, absolutely did not want a cop, an Orange County cop at that, to be in charge of her retirement. Smith tried to derail the appointment on the theory that the Board could not, or at least, should not choose from among a pool of only one applicant. The other qualified applicants apparently got better offers to stay where they were. In typical Smith fashion, when her behind the scenes cabal failed to gain traction, it was she who made the motion to appoint White, who will be paid $120,000 per year, the same as Andersen. The fully loaded cost with the usual Mendo-style executive bennies tops out at just under $190,000.
JIM ANDERSEN RETIRED EFFECTIVE March 31, but in the cozy, spendthrift way that these things are handled, will stay on the payroll at least through August 30. The Retirement Board initially authorized an extra $10,000 for April through June, later adding $15,000 through an amendment. And although his successor has been on the job for nearly a month, the Retirement Board has an item on this week’s agenda to pay Andersen another $25,000 for July and August. Wall Street’s giant bonus babies have nothing on Mendo, comparatively speaking.
THE JUNE RETIREMENT BOARD AGENDA also has an interesting item to extend an MOU between the Retirement Board and the Assessor (who is also the Clerk-Recorder) to allow Auditor-Assessor Randy Goodman, who works under Auditor Controller Meredith Ford, to continue to provide financial services to the Retirement Board until September 30th. Goodman also happens to be a member of the Retirement Board, elected by the active employees. The plan is to replace Goodman with a full time “fiscal position” that will prepare financial statements, monitor investment strategy and recommend cash and investment strategy (don’t we already have an expensive investment advisor for that?), co-ordinate cooking the books with the Retirement Board actuary, and with Gallina (the so-called independent auditor hired by both the County and the Retirement Board), prepare the annual report to the State Controller’s Office, and prepare a Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR). The CAFR was probably called for by newly appointed Retirement Board member Jon Sakowicz who has called on Mendocino County to prepare one, claiming the County stands alone among California counties by its refusal to do so.
THE MOU WITH THE AUDITOR has apparently been in place for the last year, and allows Goodman to work half-time for both the Retirement Board and the Auditor. The web of conflicting inter-relationships might seem odd, except this is Mendocino County where such things are standard operating procedure — especially with the Retirement Board. For the better part of three decades, until Andersen was hired a few years ago, the Retirement Board was run by long time County Treasurer Tim Knudsen, who still sits on the Board, and his sidekick in obfuscation, Dennis Huey, the equally long-time County Auditor-Controller, who finally stepped down from the Retirement Board last year. Knudsen and Huey were the engineers of the fraudulent “excess earnings” scam that plundered the retirement fund to the tune of $50 million or more to pay retiree health insurance. As long as the national Ponzi scheme called Wall Street was riding an inflationary wave, everything looked rosy. Once the wave broke, the mis-managed retirement fund headed for the rocks. Huey and Knudsen have mainly functioned to prevent anyone from digging too deeply into the wreckage.
SUPERVISOR SMITH also introduced a new policy to the Retirement Board, to require pre-approval by the Retirement Administrator and the Board Chair before items can be added to the agenda by Board members. Smith’s policy is transparently directed at insurgent Retirement Board members Ted Stephens and John Sakowicz, who were appointed on 3-2 votes to watchdog the Retirement Board. Stephens and Sakowicz, each long time critics of the Retirement Board prior to their appointments, have lots of questions. Smith, who accepted without question the diversion of the non-existent excess earnings from the retirement fund, would like to stop Stephens and Sako from asking impertinent questions. The rest of the Retirement Board agreed.
BUCK CONSULTANTS, the previous actuary for the Retirement Board, was fired following a series of expensive mathematical “mistakes,” one of which cost the County about $750,000 by basing employee contributions on faulty retirement assumptions. Hundreds of County employees were also dinged with improperly high contributions because of the “mistake” and are now due refunds. The Retirement Board reached a settlement with Buck that required Buck to pay for their mistakes, which they have. The County was told to pay an extra $750,000, which they have also done. The only thing that remains to be done, nearly a year after the fact now, is to refund the overcharges due to the employees. The Retirement Board says they have sent all the necessary information to the Auditor Controller. The Auditor Controller, predictably, says they don’t have the staff to do the job. Probably true as far as it goes, since they have loaned out Mr. Goodman to help the Retirement Board prepare the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (for them) that the County can not, or will not, do for themselves. Following a long run of questionable decisions and actions, now that they are beginning to face greater public scrutiny, the wheels may be about to fall off at the Auditor Controller’s Office.
THE BOONVILLE SCHOOLS justify eliminating the district's music program under Bob Ayres the usual way: No money. Of course there's $8,000 for that preposterous sensitivity training thing, “Challenge Day,” that has high school boys walking around in high heels “so they'll be more understanding of....” Of what? Nightclub babes in spikes? Was it last year that Challenge Day concluded with a mass weep-in in the high school gym, with faculty and students blubbering at the sadness of it all? Gawd! Neurotic adults are never content to keep their misery in-house, but it seems terminally unfair to subject captive young people —happy, handsome and as optimistic as they'll ever be — to this kind of thing, and simply a rip-off of taxpayers who fund it.
THE RASTAFARIANS have begun to drift into town for the annual World Music Festival at the Boonville Fairgrounds this weekend, with one local reporting “the biggest hippie I've ever seen standing outside Pic 'N Pay. He musta been 6'10” and looked like he could bench 600 pounds!” What do you call a hippie that big? Your majesty.
FRIDAY AFTERNOON about 5pm, a large posse of deputies hurtled up 101 at the report of an armed robbery at 30401 North Highway 101 where “two Hispanic males in their twenties had robbed Gary Parsons, 66, of six ounces of marijuana.” When Parsons “struggled with the suspects, one shot was fired from a handgun,” but not at Parsons, uninjured in the struggle with the two gavachos. The first 911 caller told Sheriff's Dispatch that the suspects fled in a gold Chevrolet Camaro. Parsons told the first deputy on scene that the suspect vehicle was a silver Ford Mustang, not the gold Camaro that had been reported earlier. The suspects were described as “Hispanic males in their 20's, heavily tattooed. One was approximately 5'10 tall with very short hair. He wore black pants and a white tee shirt. The second suspect was approximately 5'7 tall with very short hair, wearing black shorts and a white tee shirt. One 9mm cartridge casing was located at the scene.” Basically, then, we had two armed Mexican idiots swerving off 101 in an easily identified vehicle to pull off a daylight home invasion but, unable to subdue a senior citizen, only got six ounces of dope. Anyone with information helpful to this investigation can contact Deputy Joey DeMarco at (707)459-7833.
ANOTHER EVENT with comic implications but a definite downside, involved an estranged young couple. Take it away, Law Enforcement! “On 06-17-2012 at approximately 0025 hours, deputies were dispatched to 31199 Highway 20 in Fort Bragg for a reported armed robbery in progress. After arriving at the location, deputies learned that the victim, an adult male, was suddenly awakened by the suspect, Jessica Robblee, who broke out an exterior window at his residence. Upon opening the exterior door, Ms. Robblee made an attempt to spray the victim with pepper spray but was unsuccessful. The victim called 9-1-1, while Ms. Robblee remained outside the location. After deputies arrived, Ms. Robblee was placed under citizen’s arrest for vandalism. A search of her vehicle was conducted in an attempt to recover the pepper spray, and during the search deputies located two bindles [total gross field weight of 3.0 grams] of what later field tested presumptive positive for methamphetamine. Ms. Robblee and the victim had engaged in a dating relationship that ended approximately 8 months ago, but during which the couple had conceived one child together. It appeared the motive for the vandalism was the result of a child custody disagreement between Ms. Robblee and the victim, who was in possession of the child at the time of the incident.”
PILING ON, PRESS DEMOCRAT STYLE. A story by Glenda Anderson in the PD of Tuesday, the 19th of June, wouldn't have been a story if Glenda hadn't made this inflammatory intro her lead: “The man convicted of murder as a teenager in Willits was among eight suspects cited during a sting operation aimed at unlicensed contractors in Mendocino County, authorities said. Jameson Jackson was convicted of murder in 2001 when he was 15 years old. He provided the gun and stood by while Chris Coleman shot Willits storeowner Joan LeFeat multiple times, firing the final bullet as she lay on the floor begging for her life, according to testimony at his trial…”
THE KID was 15. Jackson was present when the other kid did the unimaginable, the indefensible, and the system rightly packed Jackson off to the Youth Authority from where he miraculously emerged in 2008 a non-criminal, but with this awful murder on his record. But not being a career crook like 98% of the young guys who go through YA, he gets work where he can find it as a handyman, and here comes Glenda making it seem like a maniac is putting your new roof on. The criminal in this one is the writer and the newspaper.
ODD DEBATE MONDAY at the Supervisor's meeting. Sheriff Tom Allman wants a television company to do ride-alongs during pot raids, a reality show mini-series kinda deal. The TV people would pay $10,000 into the Sheriff's budget for letting them catch the action as it happens. But various Supes, Smith natch, had quibbles, none of them valid since these kinds of adventures are now common on television. So what the hey?
The above is first-rate reporting about the recent developments at the Retirement Board. Why don’t we have similar coverage by Mendocino County’s so-called “newspaper of record”, the Ukiah Daily Journal?
The Press Democrat, meanwhile, is all over the Sonoma County Employee Retirement System. Editors Paul Gullixson and Jim Sweeney do an excellent job.
The Ukiah Daily Journal should take heed. Retirement issues are a lot less political than one might think. It’s really all about money…actuarial science, accounting practices, audits, and investment policy.
It’s time to get serious about reporting about what really drives the county deficit…pensions, healthcare costs, and debt.