At the beginning of her brief statement to the Supervisors on Tuesday morning, First District Supervisor candidate Carrie Shattuck, asked the Board: “Please bear with me, I may need an additional 15 seconds.”
Here’s a serious candidate for Supervisor trying to make a serious statement to a Board that goes to great lengths to avoid criticism and they refused to even give her 15 extra seconds.
Receiving no response, Candidate Shattuck began:
“I want to speak for many County residents when I say we are extremely frustrated with the direction of the current County Administration and its lack of leadership.
The reputation ratings of our Officials are extremely low, even negative. Trust has disappeared. Effectiveness has disappeared. The severity of our many County issues does not appear to be a wake-up call for this Board as evidenced by your agendas, meeting after meeting. You simply don't tackle big problems. You avoid. You deflect. You defer.
At the Board meeting January 4, 2022 I said, quote
‘This county cannot afford its budget. The county is the second largest employer in this county. How does that make sense? The cannabis industry here has collapsed. What do you think next year’s budget is going to look like when we are not a business friendly county, already having lost 21% of businesses between January and July of 2021. When the lack of cannabis funds, that have been the backbone of this county, finally catches up, it’s going to be catastrophic.’
Close quote.
And here we are, almost two years later and there’s talk of a $10-$17 million dollar budget deficit upon us. We don't even know exactly how big the deficit is. Aren’t you embarrassed that you still don't know how bad our budget deficit is?
The cannabis department: that’s another embarrassment. So far this budget year, in five months, has a total department revenue of $33,865.41. I’m told that the larger portion of this income will be received in April. And yet, with a budget revenue projection of $990,000, I severely doubt the cannabis department will even come close to reaching this amount of revenue.
Cannabis was supposed to be our budget savior, yet we made the regulations and cost so burdensome and lengthy that most have abandoned the industry altogether.
How many of these abandoned properties have uncollected taxes on the tax rolls? Thousands, I’m sure. Not to mention the amount of environmental impact they have caused, leaving behind thousands of hoops, plastic, vehicles and trash and even the cannabis still hanging. Our mountain sides are now littered beyond belief. What’s the plan to clean those up?
This Board continues to play the role of innocent scapegoat. But you are not.
All the lack of budget reporting was blamed on Ms. Cubbison. She’s been removed from office for 48 days now. Have you received the reports you were so eager to get? Has the 2022-23 budget been closed? What’s the update on the state audit? If this Board truly wanted to support its elected officials, why wasn’t Ms. Pierce sent over to the Auditor's office sooner? Why, through all of this chaos has the CEO not been held to task?
This County runs on taxes and when we are behind in collecting and assessing, our budget looks the way it does now, in the red by millions.
I have a simple question by way of example that this Board knows nothing: When is the next default property tax auction? We haven’t done an auction since 2019.
To sum up, the trend of consolidating more power under the CEO’s office only goes to show the Board’s lack of vision…”
Board Chair Glenn McGourty: “Your time is up.”
(Shattuck’s mic was shut off but she continued to comment for a few more seconds.)
McGourty: “No. No. Three minutes is the limit here.”
(More silent seconds from Shattuck.)
McGourty: “Ok.”
(A few more seconds of silent reading…)
McGourty: “Carrie? Carrie?! Please stop.”
Shattuck finished and stepped away.
But Ms. Shattuck sent us her statement which concluded:
… transparency and accountability.
A mess is being left for our future generations.
I want to help restore the reputation of this County’s administration. That is why I have attended, in person, all of these meetings for over a year and half now, sincerely trying to figure out exactly what you all are doing or not doing, as may be the case.
Who’s leading this train wreck?
Why doesn’t anyone seem to know anything?
Thank you.”
* * *
The public hadn’t heard the conclusion, but the Board did.
Supervisor John Haschak responded that the Cannabis budget wasn’t as bad as Shattuck had portrayed it.
According to Shattuck, after the morning break, Supervisor Haschak approached Shattuck and commented that her remarks were “pretty rough.”
Obviously, this Board has no idea how they appear to many of their constituents and employees. Haschak seemed shocked that anyone would disapprove of their honors. But Shattuck summarized the view of many Mendolanders who see this board as ineffective and oblivious to the very problems they themselves bemoan at every meeting.
Shattuck also pointed out that Haschak’s attempt to minimize the pot budget deficit was based on the County applying some of last year’s revenue to this year because last year was “higher than expected.”
But, added Shattuck, that still leaves the Cannabis department with a $900k deficit and in the present depressed cannabis market the likelihood that that much will come in by June of 2024 is “far reaching.”
* * *
Before the meeting, Haschak had given Mendocino Observer Editor Jim Shields an impression that a large deficit reduction proposal would be considered during Acting Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector Sara Pierce’s “information only” agenda item.
But, of course, no such proposal arose. Instead, Pierce simply said they were working on various bookkeeping tasks that were still months from being completed. Nor did Pierce mention any new efforts to collect current and past due taxes.
Sara Pierce: “I would just like to remind everyone that the data in the ACFR [Annual Comprehensive Financial Report] is now a year and a half old, so please take this into consideration when reviewing. Please remember that the economic factors in 21-22 are vastly different than what we are seeing today. So just be cautious when relying on the data.
“Um, in regards to the 22-23 ACFR, we're still a few months out. The auditor staff, along with RGS, is diligently working on trying to get the 21-22 adjusting entries into Munis so that we can begin utilizing Munis as a financial system instead of just a budgetary system. Um, we're going to have to end up basically drawing a line in the sand, saying anything from 21-22 prior in Munis is not, cannot be fully reported out on, as we know that there's information in different files. But going forward, the intent is that we would be able to use Munis to report, run reports, financial statements. This is, like I said, a few months out, because it's going to take a little bit to get the adjusting entries in the system. Um, and so we are still trying to work through; so once those entries for 21-22 are entered, we can then fully begin closing out 22-23 and reviewing the data and seeing if there's a likelihood of a carry forward. Right now, we're not able to confirm that or review it. And then, so, and then I just also like to remind everyone that the data that is in Munis for 22-23 right now is likely to change because we are still entering activity.”
County Assessor-Clerk-Recorder Katrina Bartolemie gave an informal update of her office’s efforts to update assessments. But, besides repeating her report from last month that about $14 million in new assessments had been processed and sent to the Tax Collector (which represents about $50k of potential new annual revenue for the County, if it’s collected, some day — 1% of $14 mil is $140k, the majority of which goes to schools and special districts), she had no new specific information to offer. This is a drop in the bucket of uncollected, overdue and underassessed property taxes.
Close readers may recall that back in June of 2023 the Board “directed” that they be given a monthly report on the status of new assessments and supplemental assessments (new home purchases, upgrades, corrections, etc.)
From the minutes of the June 20, 2023 Board meeting:
“Board Directive: General Consensus of the Board to direct staff to publish a progress indicator on how many parcels have been assessed, total dollar amount assessed, and staffing levels of appraisers in each Edition of the CEO Report with a goal of closing the gap and reaching 85 percent (currently at or around 70 percent) over the next 24 months.”
Of course, nobody knew then what the “current” unassessed parcel percentage was or what would be a decent goal, but that’s what they asked for. Nevertheless, after six months, neither Bartolomie nor the CEO have yet to “publish” a single report. Instead, Bartolemie appears during public expression and casually talks about the situation and the problems and the delays and the software problems and the time involved, etc. And nobody much cares that there’s no report.
Board Chair McGourty asked Bartolemie if she wanted to be on a regular agenda item. Bartolemie shrugged and said no, she prefers to make a few casual remarks during public expression with no format or obligation. The Board accepted this answer and didn’t remind her of their June “directive” that they get monthly reports via the CEO report.
Which brings us back to Ms. Shattuck’s concluding questions that were rudely cut off by McGourty: “Who’s leading this train wreck? Why doesn't anyone seem to know anything?”
Part of the answer is that Haschak (and his colleagues) can’t tolerate even the slightest criticism or negativity, dismissing it off-handedly as “pretty rough.”
Later in the meeting McGourty described the Board’s current multi-million dollar budget gap as a “trough,” part of the normal ups and downs that appear out of nowhere now and then, which will magically disappear in three or four years. As if all they have to do is sit back and wait it out — until at least two of them, including McGourty, are off the Board.
(PS. What are the chances that any other local media will even mention Ms. Shattuck’s on-point remarks or the fact that she was rudely cut off?)
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