Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting has only two non-routine items: a presentation from the Probation Department about the new Pretrial Release program, and a discussion of a possible code change entitled “Guidelines for Development of Wireless Communications Facilities.” No decisions are expected to be made.
Besides these earth-shattering items, everything else is boilerplate or consent calendar requiring zero prep or controversy on the part of the $100k-plus supervisorial manikins. Nothing about county management, policies, budgets, operations, departments, planning, homelessness, audits, or any other issues or projects from supervisors or staff.
Among the items on the consent calendar is approval of about $2500 each for Supervisors-Elect Cline and Norvell to attend an indoctrination training/junket at the California State Association of Counties annual meeting in Pasadena. There’s also an item to rubberstamp (retroactively) the wasting of $140k to help the Visit Mendocino marketing business set up a “Business Improvement District” to collect another $2 mil from tourists to frontload the Visit Mendocino budget to compensate for their unaccountable overspending and lack of county subsidy, a subsidy that was ended because the County said it was broke.
OUR FAVORITE CONSENT CALENDAR ITEM is Item 3s: “Approval of First Amendment to BOS Agreement No. 24-009 with Liebert Cassidy Whitmore in the Amount of $100,000 for a New Agreement Total of $200,000 to Provide Legal Services, Effective January 23, 2024, through June 30, 2025.”
Nowhere in the item does it say what LCW is doing for this particular new $100k gift bringing the total to $200k. (LCW gets millions of dollars a year in piecemeal County legal service contracts.) But when you take the trouble to look back to last January’s agenda you find that Agreement 24-009 is the County’s contract with LCW for legal assistance in the Chamise Cubbison case. We assume this has to do with the wrongful termination civil case that Cubbison has filed, not the Criminal case that is pending dismissal due to the County’s joke of an email archive system on which much of their bogus criminal charge against Cubbison is based.
THE COUNTY COUNSEL’S OFFICE is farming out case evaluation and management services to the tune of $200k “to provide advice and representation regarding municipal liability and litigation.” Apparently the well-staffed and well-compensated County Counsel’s office is incapable of evaluating or managing the many lawsuits that have been filed against the County.
“From time to time [‘time to time,” i.e., often],” the County’s Counsel whimsically begins, “the County has retained various outside law firms to represent the County in a variety of legal matters to provide specialized legal services and to defend and represent the County in complex litigation. [“A variety of legal matters” is a large understatement.] The County is currently in need of litigation defense services with respect to one or more [“one or more”?] recently filed actions and Porter Scott, A Professional Corporation (Firm) will be assigned cases or claims based upon their proven legal ability and specific expertise with public entity representation.”
And of course those experts at the Porter Scott outfit in Sacramento will make their secret “attorney-client” evaluations in the County’s best interest and not their own self-interest based on their proud motto: “handling civil litigation in California since 1976.” (Handling, meaning once they’ve got their hooks into a County, they make sure the handling is sustainable.)
Here’s the Porter Scott facebook page photo:
And here’s one of their $400/hour attorneys gaining legal inspiration from one of the firm’s many pieces of fine art.
Here’s Porter Scott sparing no expense in true Mendo style food obsession to recruit new legal beagles.
Writing with self-serving prose provided by their proposed legal contractor, the County Counsel’s office claims that “The Firm is experienced in a wide variety of municipal legal services and has the ability to draw upon a variety of specialists. They have extensive background and can provide specialized services and expertise, advice, and representation in several areas of law for the County as needed. The Firm comes highly recommended by several public agencies in the State of California as well as individuals experienced in risk assessments and defense of public entities.
“The Agreement proposed is a fee for service contract with no minimum amount of work guaranteed to the firm. [So we can be sure the County Counsel’s office will be very prudent in which cases they hand over to the Sacto firm which of course will produce the lowest cost, but confidential, recommendation.] The law firm will only be assigned work pursuant to the contract if County Counsel determines the demands of the particular case exceed the capacity of in-house counsel and if the affected department or agency has the budget for (or will seek a budget amendment in the future [on the consent calendar]) for the services. The Agreement also contains a termination clause that allows the County to terminate the agreement at any time. County Counsel and Risk will monitor and approve the law firm’s legal representation in all aspects. All legal services invoices will be reviewed by Risk for payment.”
Where is the money coming for this latest dubious legal expense?
Answer: “GL-863320” Which, of course, under the County’s wonderful transparency policy is completely unexplained. So we checked the current budget book where there’s no reference to “GL-863320,” or anything remotely like it. However, after going the extra mile, under one of the County’s many revised budget schedule category add-ons called “General Liability Insurance/Risk Management” there is an “Other charges/Judgement/Damages” budget line item number 863320 with a budget of $320k. So look for this outfit to get at least another $120k in no questions asked additional assignments before the end of the fiscal year.
The answer is in the BOS hands. Serve the people that depends on Amazon tax dollars to survive. Lead the County Legal Dept.
So the Board gives itself a raise and pays for attorneys outside our fully funded and staffed legal beagles. Ignores all the other problems that affect the community. Problem? I think so. But we voted them in so we deserve the government we get.