County Agenda Notes

A Measure B Repayment Plan?

Item 4b on next Tuesday’s Board agenda is “Discussion and Possible Action Including Direction to Staff Regarding the Proposed Loan Repayment Plan for Funds Borrowed Against Measure B Fund as Matching Funds to Construct the Behavioral Health Wing of the SB844 Jail Building. (Sponsors: Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector and Executive Office)”

This is long overdue. It was requested by the Board in October when the they first “borrowed” about $7 million from Measure B. The attached proposal is to repay Measure B over ten years at 2.5% interest (which is less than inflation), running about $800k per year for ten years. 

We will be following this discussion closely to see if they ask the Measure B committee for input (there’s no evidence that they have; the Measure B committee was ignored when the money was borrowed to cover what was hoped to be the last overrun jail expansion project overrun; in fact the committee has been ignored on just about everything associated with Measure B, not that anyone seems to care); where they’re going to find the $800k per year (in addition to the similarly sized previous commercial loan repayment they already have to pay back to cover the previous jail expansion overrun); what they (or the Measure B committee) will do with the repayments; whether the state’s (possible) $9 million grant will be factored in; how the PHF planning is going; whether they will really repay all of it or some fraction and what guarantees there will be (if any) that it will be really be repaid; and if they consider not repaying it at all on the tenuous grounds that the new jail wing is some kind of mental health service facility, as they previously pretended.

Prediction: no matter how the discussion goes, we expect it to be very long, very contorted, occasionally digressively nutty, and without any resolution — i.e., back to staff for more delay, er, analysis.

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Tiny Minds To Talk Tiny Homes

Item 4d on next Tuesday’s agenda is: “Discussion and Possible Action Including Acceptance of Presentation Regarding Regulations for Tiny Homes; and Possible Direction to Staff Regarding Regulations for Movable Tiny Homes. (Sponsor: Planning and Building Services)”

What are the odds that “possible direction to staff” will include the preparation of any “regulations,” much less any possible specific regulations other than obstructionist rules that will make “tiny homes” impossible to build, buy, or install? Zero? 1 in 100? Snowball’s Chance in Hades? Between Slim and None? The odds of winning the MegaMillions lottery? Oh, the range of choices! 

From our discussions with private parties on this subject, the most contestable tiny homes issue could be the property tax question. Tiny homes typically fall in the gray area between obviously taxable and obviously not-taxable. If they are “movable” as the item suggests (with wheels/axles), then they would have a DMV license like a trailer/mobile home and therefore would not taxable as a property improvement; if they are not movable and/or have some kind of foundation (or pier blocks?), they might be taxable. The County probably prefers to make them taxable, but requiring them to have a foundation will be not only raise the cost, but involve considerably more delay. Where will the line between taxable and non-taxable be drawn? What “regulations” will they impose, if any? What will they define “movable” to be? With wheels? On skids? On a large pad with multiple tiny homes? There are also the usual questions of zoning, density, water, sewer, neighbors, permits, setbacks, noise, traffic, parking, etc. Is this Board capable of taking any reasonable action on this subject? Or will they just blather for a while and “accept” the presentation and go back to sleep? (See the range of odds and its inverse above…)

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Another Ag Commissioner?

Item 6b for the closed session on Tuesday is “Public Employee Appointment - Agricultural Commissioner/Sealer of Weights and Measures.” 

Is the Board going to finally appoint a permanent, fully licensed and qualified Ag Commissioner? Odds on this one are a little higher than on the above, but still low. If they have an appointee in mind, will they fully disclose the troubled history of the position and the previous appointments and their relatively short tenure to the potential applicant? 

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Still Stalling Measure P Distributions After All These Years

Item 3d on next Tuesday’s consent calendar is: “Acceptance of the Essential Services Sales Tax (Measure P) Allocation Method for Fiscal Year 2023-24, as Proposed by the Mendocino County Fire Districts Association of Elected Officials. Second Quarter; Acceptance of the Mendocino County Camping Transient Occupancy Tax (Measure D) Allocation Method for Fiscal Year 2023-24, as Proposed by the Mendocino County Fire Chiefs Association; Second Quarter; Acceptance of the Mendocino County Proposition 172 Allocation Method for Fiscal Year 2023-24, as Proposed by the Mendocino County Fire Chiefs Association. Second Quarter; and Authorization for the Chief Executive Officer or Designee to Negotiate and Enter Into Agreements with Fire Agencies and the Mendocino County Fire Safe Council, Not to Exceed the Amounts Appropriated.”

The Measure P revenues for emergency and fire services in the County, as is obvious from the item, are still held up. And, “Second quarter”? What happened to the first quarter? Why quarter by quarter? How contorted can they make this process, considering that they already passed a resolution two years ago that the voters approved which specified exactly how the revenue would be “allocated”? Note that it’s been almost a year and a half now since Measure P passed (52% to 48%) and they are only now getting around to “accepting” an “allocation method.” This is for what most Mendolanders would consider to be high priority funding for essential fire and ambulance services in the County. So, of course, as far as the Low Gap Brain Trust is concerned: no rush.

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More Privatization Of Government Services? 

Item 3j on the consent calendar is “Approval of the Interim Fleet Maintenance Service Agreement with Ukiah Car Center, LLC in an Amount Not to Exceed $50,000 for County Fleet Repair and Maintenance Services.” 

According to the attached details the $50k “will be funded by existing budgets and savings in salaries.” (I.e., layoffs at the County Garage.) But there’s no budget or staffing analysis included. Before any in-house staffing is farmed out to private business, the County should do a careful, balanced analysis of the pros and cons. But they never have. There was never even the slightest analysis when they privatized the much bigger contract for mental health years ago — then-CEO Carmel Angelo simply decreed that it be privatized and that was that. No discussion at all. Two-thirds of the Mental Health Department were laid off. (Some of them went to work for Ortner and the Schraeders, but they didn’t last long, either quitting or retiring.) Will this board at least ask for some data or cost/benefit analysis before they farm out these fleet maintenance services? (See odds above.)

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More Outside Investigative Services

Item 3o on the consent calendar is: “Approval of Agreement with Oppenheimer Investigations Group, LLP in the Amount of $50,000 for Professional Investigation Services, for an Agreement Term Effective upon Execution of Agreement, through December 31, 2024.” … “Human Resources (HR) conducts and oversees employment related investigations. Depending on the nature and complexity of the incident being investigated, HR may conduct the investigation internally with assistance from County Counsel, or for the most complex investigations, utilize Oppenheimer Investigations Group, LLP to assist in managing the investigation. Oppenheimer Investigations Group, LLP specializes in employment law and has extensive knowledge and understanding of public agencies.” 

The $50k is estimated to be an annual expense. Where will the $50k come from? The item is not in the current fiscal year budget, so the agenda item says the money will come from: “Unanticipated investigation costs.” Yes, that’s what the budget note actually says — the equivalent of either “Who cares?” or “We have no clue.” They get away with irresponsible gibberish like this by burying it in the consent calendar all the time. 

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The Regular “Retroactive” Handout To The Schraeders. 

Item 3v on the consent calendar is: “Approval of Retroactive Agreement with Redwood Community Services, Inc., in the Amount of $450,000, to Provide Congregate Emergency Shelter Services for Individuals Experiencing Homelessness in Mendocino County, Using California Homeless Coordinating and Financing Council Grant Funds for the Homeless Housing, Assistance, and Prevention Program, Effective January 1, 2024 Through June 30, 2025.”

THAT’S RIGHT. A “retroactive” handout to the Schraeders of almost half a mil for coordinating and financing homeless grant funds on the consent calendar. A handout that has already happened and the Board has no choice but to approve. We have never seen any money allocated for actual housing; just these huge “retroactive” no-bid handouts to the Schraeders (and others) for homeless grant paperwork — on the consent calendar! No discussion needed since it’s already been done, no consideration of doing it in-house or competitive bidding… It’s the Schraeders. No need to bother with niceties like county contracting procedures. No need to analyze the hell out of the handout like they do with the Measure P money. When it comes to the Schraeders they just hand out the big bucks on the spot without even bothering the Supervisors or General Services/contracting office or County Counsel; then they put it on the consent calendar for retroactive rubberstamping without fear of the slightest question or objection from the Supervisors. But deliver taxpayer-approved sales tax revenues to the local fire districts? Oh no — can’t do that. They need to spend months on agreements, and County Counsel reviews and analyses, and formulae, and board discussions and contracting options (despite the fact the allocation has already been proposed by them and voted on and approved before Measure P was put on the ballot and the agencies involved are not private companies but sister government agencies); and breaking it up into teensy little quarterly segments which need to be reviewed and re-reviewed and parsimoniously parceled out piecemeal each quarter, and wait for the underfunded fire districts to beg for it the next quarter.

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FOR SOME REASON, this bizarre passage from Raymond Chandler’s novel “Farewell My Lovely” (featuring detective Philip Marlowe) reminded me of Mendo’s Board of Supervisors on several levels:

“A shiny black bug with a pink head and pink spots on it crawled slowly along the polished top of Lt. Randall's desk and waved a couple of feelers around, as if testing the breeze for a takeoff. It wobbled a little as it crawled, like an old woman carrying too many parcels. A nameless dick sat at another desk and kept talking into an old-fashioned hushaphone telephone mouthpiece, so that his voice sounded like someone whispering in a tunnel. He talked with his eyes half closed, a big scarred hand on the desk in front of him holding a burning cigarette between the knuckles of the first and second fingers. The bug reached the end of Randall's desk and marched straight off into the air. It fell on its back on the floor, waved a few thin worn legs in the air feebly and then played dead. Nobody cared, so it began waving the legs again and finally struggled over on its face. It trundled slowly off into a corner towards nothing, going nowhere. … The pink bug reached a corner of the room and put feelers out for a good spot to take off from. It seemed a little discouraged. It went along the baseboard towards another corner. I lit a cigarette and the dick at the hushaphone abruptly got up and went out of the office. … ‘Look,’ I said. ‘This room is eighteen floors above ground. And this little bug climbs all the way up here just to make a friend. Me. My good luck piece.’ I folded the bug carefully into the soft part of my handkerchief and tucked the handkerchief into my pocket. Randall was pie-eyed. His mouth moved, but nothing came out of it.”