COUNTY EMPLOYEE UNION REP Patrick Hickey asked the Board to address worrisomely high vacancy rates in some departments, which are overtaxing staff and causing loss of experience, continuity and stability in those offices with upwards of 50% vacancy rates, sometimes even higher, including the Human Resources department itself which is at 50% vacancy. The board didn’t deal with the reasons for the high vacancies other than to ask for a recruitment review at a subsequent meeting. They might want to ask if HR is doing exit interviews too — if the HR department has staff and time to do it.
ELECTIONS CLERK Katrina Bartolomei told the board that they have not yet finished reviewing the petition signatures for the referendum that would void the current pot permit ordinance. But so far at the rate they’re going, it looks like they will have plenty of valid signatures, and County residents will be voting to toss the Board’s entire existing pot permit ordinance at the same time they vote on recalling Governor Newsom. We have not seen any turnout estimates for this off-year election and we do not have a guess as to how the vote might go. Our personal opinion is that given the general dissatisfaction with all things government, along with the Board’s steadfast refusal to put a hard 2 acre cap on pot permits, might just see the ordinance and the governor being tossed in favor of… well, who knows?
TWO WEEKS AGO, with very little discussion, the Supes agreed on a preliminary allocation of $19 million of the over $22 million in PG&E disaster funds and directed it come back on the consent calendar. The allocations were complied by Executive Office staff from rating sheets submitted by the individual Supes.
THE ALLOCATIONS include questionable gifts to the County General Fund with over $400,000 for County Planning & Building for “reimbursement” of staff time and fees allegedly expended on behalf of the public in 2017. Except any expenditure was covered at the time by the General Fund. Which means there was no loss to Planning & Building.
SUPERVISOR MCGOURTY pulled the item from consent, making a strong pitch to include funding for the delapidated Redwood Valley Grange which functioned as a community shelter and resource center in 2017.
HASCHAK SAID the Little Lake Fire District didn’t really understand the process or deadlines to request funding. Haschak wanted additional funding for Little Lake and also for Brooktrails Fire.
HASCHAK MADE A MOTION for extra funding for the RV Grange and the named fire agencies.
SUPERVISOR WILLIAMS, always alert for opportunities to funnel money to fire agencies, suggested dividing the remaining $3 million or so in disaster funds among all county fire agencies.
THE DISCUSSION, like that around the possible pot standing committee, underlines the make-it-up-as-you-go-along quality of the Supes decision making. There is no apparent institutional memory or allegiance including to decisions of two weeks previously.
WE GOT A COUPLE OF CALLS from Redwood Valley residents complaining that CEO Angelo seemed to be putting her thumb on the Supes’ scale by telling the Board to hold off putting a quarter mil of PG&E settlement money into rehabbing the Redwood Valley Grange, which sorely needs it and which the Board seemed to support — until Angelo told the Board they “may not have all the information” they need, and worried that upcoming potential emergencies — drought, disease, fire, etc — might need some of that spare cash for contingencies. There was support to allocate the remaining PG&E settlement money to fire and emergency services across the County as well, but the CEO convinced the Board to hold off until after a future presentation and a recommendation from the County’s Fire Districts Association on what the “needs” are. (Hint: the needs are: more money.)
SEVERAL Ukiah gun range neighbors in the Vichy Springs area complained that the County should exercise some additional restrictions and oversight on the range. The renewal of the gun range lease was on the consent calendar, but the neighbors said that the shooting activity had started a couple of small fires in recent months and that the gun boys and girls were shooting after dark in violation of their loose closing time hours. Neighbors wanted the Board to consider limiting the days and hours and numbers of shooters. The Board decided to hold off on the lease renewal until they get a presentation on the subject at a later meeting.
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Mendo’s Task-Free Task Force
There was so much rambling, aimless talk at last Monday’s Drought Task Force meeting that it was hard to get any real sense of what they’re doing. There was no agenda, no attached documents or lists of possible projects, just a lot of informal chat about “funding opportunities” and cliché-ridden status reports from various water people around the County with no real new info. “Resiliency” seemed to be a popular word, invoked time and again by Supervisor Glenn McGourty. “Neighbors” was also uttered a lot. They seem to be working on some kind of list of possible water projects to be funded, but only in general terms; no specifics were mentioned and nothing is in the works for this year or next. They against solicited the public for project proposals. Typical of the inconclusive conversation was the below exchange between Water Agency coordinator Josh Metz and Grape Industry Supervisor Glenn McGourty.
(Our Fort Bragg reporter Chris Calder had previously reported that some kind of water trucking arrangement between the City of Ukiah and the City of Fort Bragg under some kind of oversight and partial funding by the County was underway. Apparently, some bureaucratic obstacles have arisen, although they may only apply to private truckers.)
Metz: “There has been this continual question from local businesses, water hauling businesses, about desiring to haul water from Ukiah to the Coast without it being straight up paid by the customer. Apparently they are running into, you know, basically, regulatory constraints on their ability to do that so I think maybe just to address the question, Why is it not feasible for folks, for that to happen at this point? So my understanding about that is basically it has to do with the point of, the source of origin, the ability to transfer water between watersheds is highly regulated and limited. It's not really a viable option. The best option that we see is through this mutual aid agreement framework that is being put together.”
McGourty: “It may be interesting to explore whether that [that what?] could be dropped in the case of an emergency because there are going to be places where it's not going to be convenient to send a water truck with water to Fort Bragg if the need is in the town of Elk. So these are some of the things that we have to explore. Of course we may also need to get water to Point Arena. But we want to try to create as much resiliency as we can for water deliveries because — and Anderson Valley may also be water insecure in some cases where water trucking could be useful. So that is something that is on our to do list.”
(We have not seen their “to do list.”)
We gather that the mutual aid agreement between Ukiah and Fort Bragg is still on the table and that maybe the “regulatory constraints” may only apply to private haulers. But where this will go is anybody’s guess. The “drought task force” remains aimless and without even a list of “tasks.” Task Force co-chair Supervisor John Haschak concluded the session incongruously, “We are working toward solutions,” even though they have no idea what those “solutions” might be or when they might be discussed.
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From Tuesday’s proposed water hauling resolution:
“Authorizes and directs the Director of Transportation to negotiate and enter into agreements for water storage and/or treatment that may be necessary to implement the Mendocino County Community Water Replacement Project, pursuant to acceptable contract documents by County Counsel and Risk Management, and report results to the Board through the applicable Director’s Report. … Authorize and directs Auditor Controller to appropriate funds in the amount of $960,000 from PG&E Settlement Funds …”
WE’RE NOT the only ones wondering who will actually bid this contract and at what cost. Most local licensed water haulers are already pretty busy. As Grape Supervisor Glenn McGourty has noted, however, the wine industry has (stainless steel, if potable) wine trucks licensed for food-grade content that could be used. None of the plans so far say whether they’re going to haul potable water or not. If not, more haulers should be interested. It will also be interesting to see where the water comes from, how much they’ll ship, what routes they’ll take, what the road conditions will be, what time of day they’ll drive, how the water will be offloaded on the receiving end, etc. We expect the bids to be in the $500-$1000 per trip range depending on truck type&capacity, total time for pickup/loading, travel, drop off, and (empty) return.
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ALSO ON TUESDAY’S Special Meeting agenda is the continuing pointless legal exchange between the Supervisors, the CEO, County Counsel vs. The Sheriff. Case No. 21-cv00561.
FROM THE EVER-EXPANDING (partially available) Superior court file we have found that the Sheriff’s attorney now referred to the County’s proposal to consolidate the Sheriff’s computers with the County as the “attempted Takeover of the Sheriff’s IT Department.”
But the minutes from Judge Moorman’s August 4 hearing note that, “Court indicates that Board of Supervisors have rescinded the apparent takeover.”
We have not seen a formal vote on that.
As to the budget dispute:
“Extent of authority for county funds. Court does not believe there is a conflict. It [The Board of Supervisors) has to make a statement not indicate a policy. Court continues and indicates that the language came off as a threat.”
Then later:
“Budget: Court seeks clarification. Counsel Curtis responds that the final budget has been approved but it is being amended.”
“Approved but being amended…” Classic Mendo. In other words: not approved.
Continuing, “… As of 8/3/21 budget was resolved with possible amendments. Court asks [Sheriff’s attorney] Counsel Losak to respond to the cited budgetary dispute.”
Then, a few days later, “Board took action to begin adding $1,386,110 to Sheriff’s budget from PG&E settlement money of approximately $22 million.”
If the Board “took action” it should have been in open session. We have not seen any such motion, resolution or vote on this, even though the amount is quite precise.
Last Tuesday, all the Board did on this subject was emerge from closed session with the standard, “Direction was given to staff.”
If the available court tea leaves are correct, though, the issue appears to be moving toward some kind of pro-Sheriff resolution with the “attempted takeover”of the Sheriff’s computer system rescinded, a large amount of (one-time) money added to the Sheriff’s budget, and the “threat” of holding the Sheriff or any other department head being withdrawn.
But the court case “continues” and the muddleheads have yet to make any clarifying or formal announcement.
The dispute is again on next Tuesday’s (August 24) special board meeting closed session agenda.
Item 5a: Pursuant to Government Code Section 54956.9(d)(1) - Conference with Legal Counsel - Existing Litigation: One Case - Mendocino County Sheriff Matthew Kendall v. Mendocino County Board of Supervisors - Case No. 21-cv00561
But if the above is true, nothing in the above discussion qualifies for closed session. And they should have a public discussion and vote on the three main issues in dispute.
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