County Notes: Legal News

Item 3m on Tuesday’s Supervisors Consent Calendar Agenda is:

“Approval of Agreement with Liebert Cassidy Whitmore in the Amount of $100,000 to Provide Legal Services, Effective Upon Full Execution through June 30, 2025.” 

Summary of Request: “County Counsel is requesting the Board approve the agreement with Liebert Cassidy Whitmore in the amount of $100,000. This agreement will provide legal services for the litigation matter of Chamise Cubbison v. Mendocino County, et al., Case No. 23CV01231.”

In the attached “description of services” we find:

“Contractor shall provide timely status reporting to County, in the manner deemed required by the Risk Manager, the Senior Risk Analyst and/or their designee(s), for Chamise Cubbison v. Mendocino County, et al. by the fifteenth (15) of every month. Status reports need not contain any details or analysis which would require a breach of attorney-client confidentiality.”

“Fiscal Details: source of funding: 0713-863320; current f/y cost: $50,000l; budget clarification: n/a; annual recurring cost: $50,000.”

Note the anticipated duration of this contract: “through June 30, 2025.”

We cannot find any on-line reference to or explanation of the very UNtransparent source of funding called “0713-863320.”

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Mendo’s New (Interim) County Counsel:

Agenda Item 5a):

“Discussion and Possible Action Including Approval of Retroactive Agreement with Renne Public Law Group LLP in the Amount of $210,000 to Provide Interim County Counsel Services, Effective January 8, 2024, through June 30, 2024; Pursuant to Section 27641.1 of the Government Code, Waive the Residency Requirement Contained in Section 24001 of the Government Code; Appointment of James R. Ross as Interim County Counsel in Accordance with the Terms of the Agreement.”

“Retroactive Agreement”? Were the Supervisors even kept out of the loop in hiring their own County Counsel?

Mendo’s Interim County Counsel will cost $210k for six months, or $420k for a year. 

According to Renne’s website:

“Jim Ross has been providing high-quality legal advice to public entities for over 30 years. Jim is a practical and effective lawyer with extensive experience in public agency law. He has served in county counsel offices for over 26 years. In 2023, Jim was recognized for his outstanding service by the County Counsel Association of California. During his career, Jim served as County Counsel, Assistant County Counsel, and Deputy County Counsel. Prior to years of working with counties, Jim served as a City Attorney and a Deputy City Attorney as well as providing legal advice to special districts. During his career, Jim has advised governing bodies and departments on the full range of legal issues faced by local government agencies. …

 “Prior to joining Renne Public Law Group, Jim served in multiple roles in the Shasta County Counsel’s Office including serving as the County Counsel [for just four months; see below]. …”

According to a Renne Press Release late last year, Mr. Ross has been employed by Renne since October of 2023.

According to www.redding.com, Mr. Ross retired from (or “left”) his position as Shasta County County Counsel in July of 2023 just four months after being promoted to the position in April of 2023 from Assistant County Counsel where he was paid about $170k per year plus benefits.

There’s a colorful account of recent political developments and its impact on the County Counsel’s office in a Shasta County on-line news site (anewscafe.com). 

“Rumors Swirl as Hard-right Board Majority Foments Secrets, Lies, and a Legacy of Banished County Counsels”…

According to that story, Mr. Ross is one of several attorneys who have been “banished” by a recently elected “hard right” Shasta County Board of Supervisors majority.

Escaping the political turmoil in Shasta County, Mr. Ross seems to have landed on his feet in Mendocino County, at least for the time being, benefitting both himself in his highly-paid new position, as well as the Renne Public Law Group which will rake off a nice share of Mendo’s County Counsel payments for Mr. Ross.

One problem likely to arise during Mr. Ross’s “interim” tenure will be what to do about his employer, the Renne Public Law Group, which the County has been using for a variety of legal services in recent years, including the $240k worth of wasted “arbitration services” in the aftermath of the grossly overpriced and unnecessary dispute the Board initiated with the Sheriff over control of his computer system and ordinary budget overruns, as well as the tens of thousands of dollars having Renne respond to our Brown Act complaint after former County Counsel Christian Curtis’s mishandled his own pay raise. Will Mr. Ross continue to steer county legal contracts to Renne? Or will Renne be excluded based on possible conflict of interest grounds?

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This Month’s CEO Report Is Out.

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.”

Last month’s CEO Report belatedly acknowledged last June’s directive that “each edition” of the CEO Report include some Assessment statistics, some six months after the “directive,” even going so far as to quote it.

For six months the CEO and the Assessor totally ignored this directive. A brief report from the CEO in December didn’t provide any information, saying only that “No information or data was provided from the department.” The CEO added: “The Executive Office has contacted the Assessor-Clerk-Recorder-Registrar of Voters to request an update. The Assessor-Clerk-Recorder-Registrar of Voters will provide a verbal update during the Board of Supervisors meeting.” The Assessor’s “verbal update” in December wasn’t much of an update, but simply a restatement of what she had said the prior month. No “progress indicators” have ever been provided, no account of parcels assessed, and only a casual mention of the value of the supplemental assessments (with the note that they had not yet been “pro-rated” and were therefore overstated) that were issued instead of the “total dollar amount assessed.” The “verbal update” did mention the staffing status in the Assessor’s office which seems to be all anyone knows about the overall assessment status.

This month’s CEO Report (for January) reverts back to last month and does not even mention the seemingly important directive. 

Why do we keep harping about this? 

Because every month the County leaves millions of dollars of taxes due uncollected while claiming to be in a budget crisis. If they can’t even get their CEO and Assessor to provide the partial status info which they “directed” to be included in “each edition” of the CEO report back in June, what does that say about the County’s ability to collect all the taxes due: back/delinquent taxes, under-assessed property improvements, new ownerships, delinquencies, etc.?

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The CEO Report did provide some random out-of-context “Behavioral Health Accomplishments [sic] for 2023”:

“• Completed the implementation of CalAIM documentation and billing and payment reform.

• Handed out 2,325 (two dose) boxes of Narcan to the community.

• Became authorized by DHCS [a state office] to request larger batches of Narcan from the DHCS Narcan Distribution Project.

• Participated in 38 community events for program awareness and distribution of program materials and prevention materials. 

• Visible attitude change around Narcan distribution from the public (shift from “I don’t need that” to “That is so great that you provide this.”).

• Implemented Health Information Exchange connection.

• Post-COVID resumption of jail groups for both sentenced and un-sentenced.

• Increased BHRS staff bilingual capacity.

• Active Mentored Internship Program.

• Applied for and were awarded grants.

• Continued to expand Mobile Crisis to meet the new mandated mobile crisis response that became effective 1/1/2024. [This is the first we have heard of a “mandated mobile crisis response.”]

• Reduction in the percent of individuals being detained in Mobile Crisis (approximately 41% detained in June 2022 to approximately 11% in November 2023.

• Implemented Jail data collection within the BHRS E.H.R. [?] that allows tracking of individuals that are arrested but also are in the Behavioral Health system.

• Implemented Microsoft Projects.

• Streamlined many of the fiscal processes.”

They left out “successfully closed the door and turned out the lights at night.” The Narcan handouts sound like an “accomplishment,” albeit minor, but the rest of these alleged “accomplishments” for the entire year of 2023 are just ordinary office activities being hyped as something much greater and in some cases an acknowledgement of things long-overdue finally being done. 

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Mulheren Interviewed

What was interesting about Supervisor Maureen Mulheren’s nearly hour-long appearance on KZYX last Wednesday was that not one person, from KZYX reporter Sarah Reith to all of the reasonable callers, had anything good to say about Mulheren or the Supervisors. Reith asked good questions about various problems the Board finds itself facing, all of which are familiar to anyone following County affairs these days. (This was before the latest Vets Office relocation fiasco which hadn’t arisen at the time of the show.) Even the usually upbeat, rose-colored KZYX callers added some well-informed complaints of their own. Mulheren’s responses were generic and defensive. She basically said that she expects things to get better, without explaining why, other than having faith in various senior county staffers. When asked about the controversial decision to consolidate the Auditor’s office with the Treasurer’s office and the desirability of an appointed Director of Finance, Mulheren said only that a few other Counties had done it, as if that was the primary justification. But she didn’t offer any alleged or actual benefits. As far as a Director of Finance in the future, Mulheren said she was on the fence, and hadn’t yet decided what she thought. 

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LAZARUS (Willits):

I heard Supervisor Mulheren on the radio Wednesday morning, KZYX. The host asked her why, when Ms. Cubbison was removed from her position, the Board of Supervisors also removed her salary and benefits. Supervisor Mulheren’s response was, I did not prepare an answer for that question. I nearly ran off the road, WTF!? Clearly, Supervisor Mulheren is not capable of walking and chewing gum… It was like listening to Kamala Harris discuss “The Passing of Time.”