Most of Public Expression at the beginning of last Tuesday’s Supervisors meeting consisted of about a dozen locals asking the Board for a resolution calling for a Ceasefire in Gaza. Supervisor Williams said he was all for peace, but he wanted the people in the room — a couple of whom objected to the idea because it would be “divisive” — to get together and draft a resolution. Supervisor John Haschak said he would be writing a personal letter “for humanitarian aid and hostage return” and invited others to join him. Nobody proposed a resolution, nobody volunteered to draft one.
Whenever the Board discusses County finances they have an unfortunate tendency to descend into the usual jumble of jargon, acronyms, brightly colored but pathetic, data-free org charts and diagrams and vague free association without ever simply addressing basic departmental budget versus actual reports or specific budget numbers. When they occasionally stumble into asking a good question, staff is often ill prepared to reply, sometimes offering a cautious but imprecise guess, promising to answer the question later. But later seldom comes because no record is kept of the questions and the board always has new jumbles to dive into.
Supervisor Ted Williams began last Tuesday’s meeting by complaining about the overuse of retroactive agenda items on the consent calendar. By his analysis he and his colleagues have approved over 600 of them since he was elected. Board Chair/Supervisor Mulheren interrupted saying the agenda items always have the reasons for being retroactive. Williams proceeded. He said that in the same period of time Sonoma County and Lake County had not had a single retroactive agenda item. This began a long, rambling discussion about the reasons for the retroactive items. Grant deadlines were cited as a major reason since staff sometimes has to get going on a grant requirement via a private vendor (mainly the Schraeders) before the County can process the applicable formal contract through its various offices, notably the County Counsel’s office. As usual, everyone agreed to look into the applicable policies and processes. At the end of the discussion interim County Counsel James Ross said he had “spot checked” and it appeared that Sonoma and Lake counties may not be putting the word “retroactive” in their agenda items when they are retroactive.
The Measure B loan repayment plan item was similarly mushy. The County does not plan to start repaying the $7 million they authorized to be borrowed from the Measure B sales tax revenues until after the jail expansion is complete to allow time to add up all the costs and see how much Measure B borrowing is actually necessary. Staff recommended a ten-year payback plan of about $800k/year with a 2.5% interest rate starting after the Jail Expansion is complete. Somebody suggested asking the Measure B Committee for input (Hashack?) but that went nowhere, of course. Nobody much cares what the Measure B Committee thinks, probably including the Measure B Committee. There’s some consideration being given to repaying the loan over a shorter period of time with the funds now being allocated annually to paying back a pension obligation bond which is finally ending in mid-2026. In the end the Board asked staff to bring back a draft repayment resolution with the intent that the repaid money might someday be used for the mental health and drug treatment services required by the text of Measure B. So far very little has been spent on treatment services (mainly the understaffed crisis van) and even under the most optimistic scenario, whatever is repaid won’t even start being spent for those purposes until 2026. And then only if they have any money left after covering the overpriced jail expansion overrun and overpriced Psychiatric Health Facility which will also probably overrun. There are so many plates wobbling on their fragile poles in this frantic juggling act of borrowing and paybacks and cost overruns and possible grant funds and artificial deadlines that there’s not much point trying to pin down a specific payback plan.
Supervisor Dan Gjerde asked for a monthly tally of properties that have been added to the tax rolls via “discovery” — i.e., not just via routine office assessments, but by assessors actually going out and assessing properties not now on the tax rolls. These would be over and above the County’s ordinary permitting and assessment processes, when someone adds or improves a structure without a permit. Response? Staff doesn’t trust the reports they get out of their fancy new computerized assessment system. So no “tally” can be simply generated. Instead, all reports from the new system must be “verified” before they can be provided to the Board and the public. Gjerde guessed that there might be $4-$5 million in additional county revenue if they could bring a lot of the (estimated) thousands of unpermitted buildings some say are out there on to the tax rolls. When Supervisor John Haschak said a few dozen properties had recently received permits under the County’s “amnesty” program (where penalties are waived, but permit fees must still be paid), Gjerde replied that those — if they were indeed added to the tax rolls (nobody knows) — 1.) do not count as “discovery,” and 2.) only represent “a drop in the bucket.” Gjerde did not mention that the majority of the uncollected revenue represents a significant loss to local school and special districts. Staff said they’d look into it.
This year’s budget deficit (for the fiscal year ending in June of 2024) has been reduced to under $1 million according to CEO Darcy Antle who has been scraping up every available unspent nickel. This dubious achievement was accomplished mainly by using “one-time” funds such as unspent PG&E settlement money, left over covid money, and some capital project delays. But next year (July 2024 to June 2025) the deficit will be much bigger, in the range of $5.5 million to maybe $10 million or more. So far, nobody knows how big that gap will really be or how it will be closed since the one-time funds are, well, one-time only.
During public comment, coast resident Peter McNamee said that the Skunk Train had built a large new visitor serving facility near his home apparently without a permit and therefore it has not been assessed or taxed. Supervisor Williams said that if they built such a facility they would have had to have gone through planning and building and environmental health and therefore it must be on the tax rolls. Staff said they’d look into it.
* * *
Mendo’s Sewer Sytem Is Not ‘Historical’
Long time Coast contractor Ishvi Aum always has interesting things to say when he is talking about construction related subjects on the Mendocino Coast. During the supervisors planning and permitting workshop the week before last week’s meeting Aum told the Board:
“I have been building homes in Mendocino County for more than 25 years. It used to be that the hard part of building a home was actually building the home, buying the rebar, framing, roofing etc. It’s to the point now where the hard part is the permit acquisition. The purpose of County Planning and Building is to interpret the various codes to whatever level of stringency they see fit for their local jurisdiction. I have seen the codes being interpreted much much much more stringently as time has gone on. Certain counties like Sonoma County and Mendocino County are more difficult to build in then Modoc for example, or Nevada or other states. I encourage Planning and Building who say constantly how understaffed and overworked they are to try to focus on the big picture and move projects through more quickly. Particularly when they are being presented with projects from professionals who have a long history in the field. I think everybody is trying to work together. It’s just very cumbersome the sheer amount of codes and rules and regulations.
“Here’s an example of something I’m dealing with now. I am speaking on my own behalf and not on behalf of the Mendocino Community Services District, the sewer district, on whose board I sit. Speaking on my own behalf. I went before the Mendocino Historical Review Board (MHRB) to try to get the sewer district exempted from going through historical review in the town of Mendocino for buildings that are not historical and need work. The sewer district is strapped for funds, has no money or staff time, and has a failing sewer plant. What I met with when I went before the MHRB is, Well we don’t think we can exempt you from that! So I reached out to Julia Krog [County Planning Director] and asked her can we be exempted? She has looked into it and she finally came back and said only the Board of Supervisors could exempt the sewer district from MHRB approval. This is simply to try to avoid fees and staff time delays to fix some garage doors in a sewer plant that is not visible anywhere in town on buildings that are not historical in any way. I bring this to your attention because common sense would dictate that this is all one community, Mendocino, and we don’t want to use County staff time and sewer district time and MHRB time to shuffle paperwork among ourselves rather than fixing the infrastructure that needs to be fixed. I would appreciate it if you could take this subject up and see if you could give the community sewer district some ability to repair itself without going through the MHRB process.”
Nobody on the board responded to Mr. Aum or asked the Planning Department to respond, or suggested a future agenda item, or asked that the Planning Department make note to fix this ridiculous problem.
* * *
Sign Colors: ‘Not Similar’
Sarah Bodner of Mendocino had another example:
“I am the owner of the Mendocino Tea Company. I bought the business two years ago. It is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. I wanted to continue the legacy of great organic tea on the coast. About a year in, I decided to start looking for a retail shop. I opened up across from Mendosa’s in Mendocino. It is a tiny little building. It is hard to see if you are not looking for it or even if you are. So I set out to hang a sign. If you live in Mendocino you know that hanging a sign is about as complicated as trying to adopt a child. The process is unbelievably confusing, expensive and risky for a business owner. If you apply for a sign, you get denied and then you are no longer allowed to hang a sign. The Historical Review Board set out to try to improve the process. It would be better for them to conserve the amount of agenda time they spend on hearing sign proposals to save staff time and money and facilitate businesses being able to hang their shingle and make it easier to open. Around the time I was looking at a retail space the new policy was in process. It took several months to apply for my sign under the new policy that was intended to streamline and make it more efficient. Then I went through all the hoops. I made sure it was the right size, the right material, the right paperwork. When I got to the planner’s desk he said, ‘Oh! I’m not going to be able to sign this because it’s not similar colors.’ The sign that hung in the same place before me was black and white and green and blue. My sign was black and white. ‘Not similar.’ I’m telling this story not to complain about my sign but to illuminate that we have a total disconnect between what is happening in the County offices and what the real story is of businesses trying to survive and thrive in this county. I think it highlights the need for leadership and vision.”
As with Mr. Aum, the Supervisors did not react to Ms. Bodner’s observations at all.
When obtaining a building permit it should be one stop. The county knows what will be required. So why make it complicated? One stop one fee ( low as possible) and start building!