After seven weeks off, what did the Supervisors have to say about their activities last Tuesday having just given themselves big raises in July then going their seven-week long “August Recess”?
Glenn McGourty: Nothing,
Ted Williams: Nothing.
Dan Gjerde: Nothing.
John Haschak (after noting that “we haven’t had a meeting in over a month”) said he went to a bunch of non-County meetings and congratulated various people for doing nice community stuff having nothing to do with the County or the Board of Supervisors, followed by a brief summary some mostly irrelevant state legislature activity. Haschak also noted that “There were no major fires.”
Maureen Mulheren talked about some Russian River clean up. She noted that there were homeless camps at the north end of Ukiah and said that “homeless trash is a challenge,” not bothering to mention that homeless people are an even bigger challenge. Mulheren added brilliantly that “It’s simple to say they shouldn’t be camping but they are.”
Supervisor Ted Williams pulled the consent calendar item ratifying the Board’s big pay raise from two months ago saying, “I will not support raises now. I have to stand with the people of District 5.” But Williams did not say he would refuse the raise if approved.
Having previously voted in favor of the raise, Supervisor John Haschak reversed himself saying that “other people got raises,” claiming the Board had “made a lot of steps towards balancing the budget and cutting costs, such as the Golden Gate Bridge initiative.” Haschak claimed that cuts were made “to other areas” and “We are trying to increase our revenues.”
Actually, all they’ve done is talk about raising revenues. No substantial attempts such as tracking lien sales, tax delinquencies or letters to property owners about overdue taxes, have been made. If this counts as “trying to increase our revenues” then there’s no chance any new revenues will be received. In fact, as reported by Assessor-Clerk-Record Katrina Bartolomie, the value of the small number of mostly outbuildings that have been newly added to the tax rolls amounts to only a small fraction of the cost of the half-dozen new appraisers added to her staff in recent months.
“I understand people’s concern like the other raises,” said Haschak, adding, redundantly. “That’s a concern. So I think we should hold off [on any raises] until we have a balanced budget without using one-time funds. That should be taken up first before any other raises. That’s only fair.”
When it came to the vote McGourty, Mulheren and Gjerde voted to ratify their big raises; Williams and Haschak voted no.
Supervisor Mulheren has a natural tendency to secrecy and insiderism which runs contradictory to her hypocritical claims about the importance of “transparency” in the County. She was positively thrilled to have conjured up a very one-sided (against the County’s interests) “tax sharing” and annexation agreement in secret a couple of months ago. And on Tuesday Mulheren praised the raise resolution she voted for because it ties Supervisors’ future raises to department head raises — which the Supervisors always approve, thus tying their raises to the raises they give their subordinates and themselves — because “we would like not to have a back and forth on the dais.”
Of course, as Supervisor Mulheren must know, California law requires that raises for all senior officials in California be voted on individually with an official non-consent agenda item. So the poor thing will just have to suffer through a public discussion of future proposed raises after which she will continue to ignore any “concerns” of her colleagues, her staff, and the public and rubberstamp them robotically.
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