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Trustee John Redding

In the span of a few days in January, a member of the Mendocino Coast Health Care District (MCHCD) Board of Directors appears to have violated the Brown Act, released confidential personnel material, and schemed to overthrow the election of the new board chair. That MCHCD Board member is John Redding.

As is usually the case, some back story may be necessary. At a December 13, 2021 MCHCD Board meeting it proved clear that John Redding was not pleased with how the election of board officers part of the agenda went. The candidate he nominated for chair was narrowly defeated by a 3-2 vote. Immediately following this vote, nominations for vice chair were heard. The lone nominee happened to be one of the three who voted for an alternative chair candidate. The rest of the board voted in favor of the solitary candidate for vice chair, including the board member who had just loss the position of chair (a seat held for two years running). While the outgoing chair voted with a supportive, if not enthusiastic, voice for the vice chair candidate, (one could say the person who cast the deciding vote against only moments before), John Redding cast a dismissive “No” vote against the new vice chair. Redding's sulk continued when he refused the nomination to be Treasurer of the Board, a position he has held for all but three-four months over the last three years. The three to four month gap occurred in December 2020 when Redding appeared to petulantly refuse the Treasurer position after losing his bid to be board chair that year. Some observers of the healthcare district board may recall similar behavior after Redding failed to gain the board presidency in January 2019 (the MCHCD Board changed the leadership title from President to Chair in late 2020). If you care to see Redding in action at the election of board officers meetings, go to the mchcdorg.com website. Scroll down to Zoom meetings and archived recordings. Click there then on the December 13, 2021 button and the December 11, 2020 button (the 2020 meeting actually took place on December 10th).

Next in our back story we arrive at a December 16th resignation of a MCHCD employee apparently hired sometime shortly after the MCHCD Board meeting of November 11, 2021. This board has had poor luck in retaining support staff since the affiliation with Adventist Health became fully official on July 1, 2020.

This most recent employee, who seemingly performed duties akin to an office manager, authored a letter of resignation (as stated above on December 16th). In the letter the employee states that two MCHCD Board members subjected the employee to verbal abuse and that the letter was being submitted in a state of duress. Near the end of the correspondence the employee states, “In addition to resigning, I will be considering all my options in the days ahead.”

There may be two sides to the accusations. At this juncture, that is not the story. What is pertinent? This is a letter apparently sent only to the MCHCD Board members. As is evident this is a personnel matter with further ramifications, potentially involving litigation. As such this is a correspondence that should not be going out to the general public or the press. So, how did it come into my hands? John Redding sent it to me as an attachment to an email. His sending it was unprompted. I did not ask for it, had no idea it existed or that the employee had resigned until he included it as part of a January 11th email. Redding's motivations for sending what seems to be a matter for a MCHCD Board closed session to someone who writes regularly in a newspaper can best be guessed by each individual reader.

My previous email to him had been focused on Measure C (parcel tax) funds. Near the end of that email I did make reference to something he had brought up out of the blue the day before in another email exchange. On January 10th Redding stated that he had filed a complaint with the Mendocino Grand Jury against two fellow MCHCD Board members. The issue at hand apparently was/is reimbursement for a health insurance account available to individual board members. At the end of the grand jury complaint Redding adds the current board chair to his complaint, stating that the chair “appears to have colluded with” a board member “by using her position as Board Chair to approve submitting the request” for health reimbursement funds. Redding's next sentence states that the board member making the request for the funds “tellingly nominated and voted for” the board member who is the newly elected chair at that December 2021 election of board officers meeting.

Redding did not stop there. He went on to tell me in an email that he “properly informed” a MCHCD Board member and then another MCHCD Board member about the situation. The MCHCD Board is made up of five individuals. Under the Brown Act, designed to protect the public and other members of a board from secret meetings, a majority of a board cannot discuss an issue that is or could be brought before the board. By “properly informing” two members about this matter Redding has created such a majority. It should be noted that there is seemingly no indication that the two board members Redding contacted responded to him. Thus, the potential of a Brown Act violation rests only on him.

On or about January 8, Redding reportedly contacted another board member concerning that December 13th election of board officers. Apparently Redding had concocted a scheme to overturn those elections, in particular the election of a new board chair. According to the account told to me, at the next MCHCD Board meeting Redding would claim that the December 13 meeting was not properly adjourned. Under that pretext, Redding purportedly suggested that this other board member he had called would make a motion to reconsider that board member's vote for board chair. Thus, tilting the 3-2 margin in favor of the candidate Redding favored.

The MCHCD Board member Redding contacted said no to the scheme.

9 Comments

  1. Well Aware January 27, 2022

    He’s a moron who has driven the hospital into the ground and parade’s his intelligence in unrelated subjects to stroke his own ego. He doesn’t deserve to be on a sandwich board let alone one of such importance. Send this fool packing.

  2. Zeke Krahlin January 27, 2022

    I and some others warned about Mr. Redding’s run for a seat on the MCDH Board of Directors. He suddenly dropped out of the MCN (Mendocino Community Network) discussion list in order to pursue that position. But since he was quite active before then, it was easy for me to learn from his numerous posts, that he’s a right-wing, conservative Catholic, with all the baggage of bigotry that goes with that. Now who on earth would want a scumbag like that shaping your community hospital’s policies? At any rate, here is my original post to the discussion and announcement lists, advising folks to NOT cast a vote in his direction, entitled “John Redding, a bad choice for the MCDH:”

    https://drive.google.com/file/d/1itVQ-grD8K8-fLbrP0_eqPL7K6icFcUW/view?usp=sharing

  3. John Redding January 28, 2022

    Before you conclude I am a moron based on Mr. MacDonald’s piece, please do two things. First, read over my work on the future of the hospital https://mchcdorg.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Health-Care-Forum.pdf
    Secondly, review the email below from Mr. MacDonald to me before concluding he is a real journalist. Here is the pull quote: “I am not out for any gotcha journalism. Am much more into what (name redacted) used to delineate as my connector of people told than my reporter role.”

    Am glad we have started emailing back and forth again.
    As you can see I have begun to pay closer attention to things regarding the healthcare district.
    Not that I am planning to run for the board!!!
    Perhaps, Dr. Miller’s advice is best, meaning run away from it!
    Nevertheless, the financial issues raised in our recent emails are important. I think the matter of Measure C funds commingling with the other tax money in one account is important to get to the bottom of. In addition, the point raised by Jessica Re preserving Measure C funds for purposes other than just another pot o’ money for AH is another important (potentially legal) topic to delve into.
    I could go on here, but perhaps we could talk on the phone.
    I very much liked our chats at the hotel over coffee, but that may not be possible in the pandemic.
    Though we could get our coffee or espresso drink from somewhere like the Goodlife and take ourselves somewhere the porch benches at the Kelley House.
    In other words, it would be nice to sit and talk again.
    You can be a bit petulant ?? if you want, I am not out for any gotcha journalism. Am much more into what (name redacted) used to delineate as my connector of people told than my reporter role.
    If you want a teaser, I can tell you a little of the behind the scenes concerning that crisis respite topic that was more or less sprung on you and the rest of the board. Maybe some other behind the scenes tantalizers…,

    Not that it is exactly my business, but I’m pretty much hoping that the Sara-Amy-John thing over the $4,200 can be resolved more in-house.
    Not mind to get in the middle of, but if you want to expound more on it I will at least listen.

    Anyway, I’m sure you get the point. Would love to chat – off the record, on the record, between the groove

  4. Malcolm Macdonald Post author | January 28, 2022

    At the time of the email Redding references, I was not out to write about the health insurance reimbursement issue or anything else beyond getting a better understanding of financial issues surrounding the Measure C (parcel tax) funds. What John Redding wrote in his reply emails, including the unprompted inclusion of a letter of resignation from an employee which should not have been released to the public or the press, prompted the article that came out yesterday, January. 27th.
    Notice that nowhere in Redding’s remarks here does he make any effort to refute the details in my article which point toward his involvement in violating the Brown Act, inappropriately releasing closed session, personnel material, and scheming to overturn the election of the new board chair of the Mendocino Coast Health Care District.

  5. John R Redding January 28, 2022

    I refuted all of your contentions at the Board meeting last night. Would be nice if you acknowledged that. It’s a sign of your poor journalistic ethics that you accuse me of “overturning” an election when it was one of my Board colleagues who first brought up the idea of Reconsideration of the Vote. Also, Board did not have a closed session on personnel issues. As I mentioned last night, my job as Treasurer is to be a watchdog of the public’s money. I brought that to the attention of my colleagues via email only after I could not get a special meeting to discuss the matter. Did I violate the Brown Act? Unknown, but there are other laws on the books on proper governance not just the Brown Act? And we all know that you and Ted Williams are close buddies but you don’t disclose the fact.

    • John R Redding January 28, 2022

      And the colleague who reached out to me for the Reconsideration of the Vote was not Jessica Grinberg.

  6. Malcolm Macdonald Post author | January 28, 2022

    John Redding,

    I am not going to go back and forth with you endlessly.
    You did not refute any of the article at last night’s meeting. Nothing was mentioned at that meeting about your scheming to overturn the board officer’s election and no mention of your unprompted release of a personnel letter best confined to closed session, confidential status came up at that meeting. I quoted from a prior email of yours, but nothing of substance arose regarding you including too many fellow board members in your conversations about healthcare district issues with Brown Act implications came up during the meeting.
    John, you are simply flailing about trying to undermine the questioner of your actions.
    This is part of what needs to stop. When questioned, you do not step back and consider how you might have handled this better. Instead, you lash out at your fellow board members or people who report on your deeds.
    You, like almost anyone, are capable of actions that move things forward.
    A better way to handle this might be to simply state at this next meeting, ‘Hey, I made some mistakes. I was upset over the result of the last election of board officers. I will endeavor to do better in the future.
    People can be forgiving, John, even of you.
    One of your fellow board members did something like that at last night’s meeting on a different issue, essentially admitting to not getting something done in a timely fashion. There was something of an excuse made, but the board member pledged to rectify the matter through future actions.
    You don’t have to do it exactly the same way, but take the higher ground. Cease the partial truth reactions. That doesn’t aid your cause or any cause.
    You are potentially capable of better than this. You are an elected representative of more than 14,000 voters. Please act accordingly, not like a pouting child who cannot take any responsibility whatsoever. Such actions are not going to win you any votes in an election for the healthcare district board or a supervisor’s seat.

  7. Malcolm Macdonald Post author | January 28, 2022

    No one has stated nor implied that board member Grinberg was involved in any attempt to have the board officers election reconsidered. I have at no time ever thought that Ms. Grinberg had anything to do with such a thing.
    John, please read my comment above and take a more positive, forward thinking approach.
    Based on the friendly chats and talks we have had in the past, I believe you are capable of a modicum of contrition and an ability to move on, to move forward.
    Please don’t prove that degree of faith I have in you wrong.

  8. Victor January 29, 2022

    It’s pretty amazing that there are still hospitals at all, in Willits and Fort Bragg…

    Crooked managers, lying administrators, retarded Board Members, HR policies out of the far past, incompetent managers and a consistent pattern of abuse, harassment, discrimination and lack of diversity in hiring, an awful/old physical plant and a local attitude screaming “you are not FROM HERE so LEAVE!”

    The worst employment experience in history, and another entry into the list of “Poor Quality Healthcare Employment Choices”…

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