County Notes: Carmel Angelo’s Biggest Time Bomb

Mendocino County bought the abandoned nursing home on Whitmore Lane south of Ukiah in 2020 using federal covid money in the early stages of the pandemic to use as a quarantine building for people who had no other place to be quarantined. It was good enough for that purpose and saw limited use for a few people accompanied by a rent-a-cop to report if people left without permission.

In June of 2021, desperate to do something — anything at all really — to get moving on the voter-approved Measure B Psychiatric Health Facility (PHF), the unthinking Supervisors rubberstamped Mendocino’s Mental Health Director Dr. Jenine Miller proposal that the entire Whitmore Lane structure be destroyed to build a gold-plated 16-bed PHF. At that time, Miller estimated the cost to be between $20 and $25 million. 

The grossly overpriced project was turned over to former CEO Carmel Angelo’s friends at the white-shoe Sacramento architect/consulting outfit Nacht & Lewis who proceeded to lard up the project with every conceivable costly requirement, knowing that they had a blank draw on Mendo’s Measure B taxpayer money at hundreds of dollars an hour. Measure B’s text required that at least a quarter of the sales tax revenues go to mental health services, but none will (not that anybody seems to care) because nearly all the Measure B money is being gobbled up by the gold-plated Crisis Residential Facility on Orchard Avenue and the now seriously underway gold-plated PHF.

In a typical ho-hum/whenever Mendo-timeframe, it has taken Nacht & Lewis two highly profitable years to “design” the demolition of the old nursing home, complete with detailed architectural plans and drawings and extensive instructions. Locals who have toured the existing facility recently have told us that although the roof certainly needs to be replaced, but major parts of the facility including the kitchen and administrative areas are in good condition and should be re-purposed for the PHF. 

But no, Dr. Miller, General Services head Janelle Rau, and Nacht & Lewis have unilaterally decided that such frugality is quaint and won’t cost enough. Better to tear it all down to bare ground and start over at maximum cost.

Last month the County published the detailed Nacht & Lewis bid package titled, “Demolition Of Existing Structure For Future Psychiatric Health Facility (PHF)” which calls for the “Complete Demolition And Removal Of Buildings, Site Paving/Concrete, and Utilities To Connection Points,” at the Whitmore Lane site.

In their highly engineered, detailed plans that took two years to complete, Nacht & Lewis even requires that the “existing sewer lateral shall be abandoned and shall be plugged with concrete. This shall apply to both existing sewer laterals where they are being cut off near the sewer main and at the property line.”

There’s a footnote that says, “The owner reserves the option to retain or salvage existing fixtures and materials. Contractor to coordinate prior to commencement of work.”

Although there’s lots of details about what is to be demolished, there’s nothing in the plans listing any of the usable items to be possibly retained or salvaged, much less any indication that that was even considered.

The prospective demolition contractor will be required to:

“Remove and dispose of all plumbing fixtures.

Remove and dispose of all electrical fixtures, wiring and conduit.

Remove and dispose of all wall framing, finish materials and structural materials.

Remove and dispose of all roof framing, finish materials and structural materials.

Remove and dispose of all floor framing, finish materials and structural materials including foundation and footings.

And even “remove and dispose of concrete slab, underlayment & drainage piping.”

Despite the millions of dollars Nacht & Lewis is getting to “design” the “complete demolition,” of the Whitmore Lane building and the subsequent PHF: “the general contractor shall be responsible for assuring that all necessary permits and approvals with the city, county and/or other authorities with jurisdiction on the project, are obtained and paid for prior to beginning work or ordering materials.”

In other words, Nacht & Lewis didn’t even run their demolition plans by the Planning and Building department before going out to bid! That’s on you, Mr. Local Contractor.

Given the County’s experience with the grotesque over-run on the new Jail Annex facility project (also designed by Nacht & Lewis), the Crisis Residential facility (also designed by Nacht & Lewis) that cost over $5 million for a $1 million house, and the Nacht & Lewis spare-no-expense PHF project Mendo has signed on to, the PHF project is shaping up to be a giant money pit that will force Mendo to dip into its general fund for whatever Nacht & Lewis tells them they’ll need as the project slowly plods its way forward. And no one will be able to object, not that anyone would. 

When Mendo first contracted the well-respected mental health consultant Lee Kemper for a needs assessment back in 2017, Kemper recommended an eight-bed facility at a cost of about $7 million (at the time) because that would be more than enough to handle Mendo’s 5150s in the years Kemper looked at. Since then, Mendo has instituted the long-overdue crisis van which has reduced that number, and Fort Bragg has their own community care van program which has further reduced that number. 

No matter, according to Ms. Miller Mendo needs a 16-bed facility because that’s just how the numbers work out best for staffing. The empty PHF beds can be filled by importing mental cases from elsewhere and Mendo can be reimbursed for them. 

However, that’s entirely theoretical and far off in the future, and doesn’t account for the open-ended, gold-plated construction project that the Whitmore Lane facility is about to become well before any hoped for bed reimbursements might accrue. 

Don’t forget that the PHF, similar to the jail project that is currently at least $10 million over budget that Mendo had to borrow to cover (doubling the cost), has to be built to demanding state-imposed hospital-style “OSHPD” standards, standards which Nacht & Lewis will throw into the face of any Supervisor who might dare to question the mounting costs. Standards which County Counsel Christian Curtis will tell the Supervisors must be adhered to in every respect down to the materials that the commodes are made out of.

Dare we even mention how much state and federal money is also being wasted on this project? Mendo spent almost $3 million in state money for the abandoned property, and now they’re going to spend another mil or two just to get rid of the building they bought only to raze it to bare ground so they can begin the process anew some six years after Measure B was passed.

Where’s the Measure B “oversight” committee in all this? Who knows? Nobody, including the committee members, seems to care. They’ve reduced themselves into a running joke, a random collection of bumbling, irrelevant bystanders. 

What started out as a well-intentioned mental health measure promoted by then-Sheriff Tom Allman has been turned into a bureaucratic cash cow for Nacht & Lewis engineered by former CEO Carmel Angelo and her grandiose attitude toward public projects. Once it gets going, future boards of Supervisors will be powerless to derail it or rein it in. Of the many expensive time-bombs planted by former CEO Angelo before she retired last year, the PHF is set to become the biggest of them all.

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WITH THE ANNOUNCEMENT that 70-year old Supervisor Glenn McGourty will not seek a second term, it’s probably too early to start speculating on what the January 2025 Supervisors might be shaping up like. But let’s do it anyway.

Except for water issues, McGourty never showed much interest in being a Supervisor, not even bothering to write periodic Supervisors reports or make social media postings or brag about how many water meetings he attended. So we’re not surprised that he has given up.

There are three seats open for the March 2024 primary, almost a year away now. If a candidate gets more than 50% in the primary, then they become Supervisor without a run-off in June. If nobody gets 50%, the two top vote-getters will run against each other in June of 2024. but won’t take their seats until January of 2025.

Dan Gjerde announced he won’t seek a fourth term for the north coast seat a few months ago. Fort Bragg Mayor Bernie Norvell has announced for that seat. Fort Bragg City Councilman Lindy Peters ran against Gjerde in 2020, but lost by a large margin, 61% to 39%. We haven’t heard any indication that Peters is considering another run.

Maureen Mulheren’s 2nd District (Ukiah) seat is up. We haven’t heard if anyone plans to run against her in March. In 2020 Joel Soinilla and Mari Rodin ran against Mulheren, and Mulheren beat Rodin in the run-off by a similar percentage as Gjerde beat Peters. So far only Mulheren has announced her candidacy for a second term.

In the 2020 contest for the First District which includes Potter Valley, Redwood Valley and the Hopland area, the candidates were Jon Kennedy, James Green and John Sakowicz. So far this year, Redwood Valley farmer Adam Gaska, and photographer/trucking company owner Carrie Shattuck have said they’re running for the seat McGourty is vacating. Other possibilities include Kennedy, Forester/Land Manager Estelle Clifton who narrowly lost to John McCowen in 2010 and who has since moved into the First District. In 2020 candidate John Green once declared his love for apples as the main reason he was running for Supervisor. There’s always a chance that John Sakowicz who got a few percentage points in the Kennedy/McGourty/James primary contest in 2020 could run again, even if just to bring up his favorite subjects. 

None of the declared or possible candidates to replace McGourty are known to be members of the Cheap Water Mafia. So there’s a chance that an inland water board director might enter that race if they can find someone who seems popular enough and who could help maintain the Cheap Water Mafia’s control over Russian River water allocations and diversions.

Of all the known and possible candidates, only Ms. Shattuck seems to be following the Supervisors meetings and issues. Fort Bragg mayor Bernie Norvell has staked out several positions in Fort Bragg that contrast with the County’s position, particularly law enforcement and homeless policies. But he has not weighed in directly on any county issues so far.

Whatever the outcome, Mendo is set to have one of the least experienced boards in County history.