As expected, on Tuesday at the Board of Supervisors first meeting of the year, nothing substantive was addressed.
After the two new Supervisors were sworn in, Supervisor John Haschak told his colleagues that abstentions would no longer be allowed. “We have to make decisions,” insisted Haschak. Supervisor Ted Williams said that sometimes there wasn’t enough information to vote for or against something, and therefore abstentions should be allowed. Haschak said that in that case “we” (the Board) can table an item, completely misunderstanding the point.
Again, they demonstrated that they don’t even understand basic meeting protocols. First, abstentions are equivalent to No votes since a motion needs a majority yes vote of the full board (no matter who’s present that day) to pass, so an abstention counts as a no vote anyway. Second, such simple things as approving the minutes for a previous meeting when a board member wasn’t present are an obvious use of abstention. And, “tabling” an issue or item, i.e., continuing to a future date, is a board action, not an individual supervisor vote, so there’s no guarantee that a issue will be tabled if an individual supervisor doesn’t want to vote for or against it. It’s probably preferable to avoid abstentions on major issues, but that’s not a reason to eliminate abstention as an option. In the past, abstentions were allowed but they had to be accompanied by a reason. No longer.
Nevertheless, all the onerous new rules which we described in our last report were approved 4-1 without further comment, Supervisor Mulheren particularly liked the new requirements. County Counsel Charlotte Scott unconvincingly told the Board that the new “disruptive behavior” rules were added because of some recent state law changes. Supervisor Williams voted no. He should have abstained.
When the subject of approval of the board’s “Master Meeting Schedule” came up, Supervisor Mulheren was in such a hurry to get it approved that she blurted, “I move approval after public expression,” not even allowing the possibility that public expression might be considered. Williams immediately seconded, also before public expression. Haschak then asked for public expression, not realizing the irony of his colleagues’ blurt. Of course, there was no public expression, not that it would have mattered. But, minor as it was, Mulheren and Williams had made it clear that they don’t even care about public expression before they make a motion and the five bumblers robotically approved the (light) meeting schedule for the year without comment.
Other than a few automatic yes votes for the housekeeping items on the agenda, the two new supervisors, Bernie Norvell and Madeline Cline, said nothing until the end of the meeting after the routine rubberstamping of this year’s Williamson Act tax breaks for ag parcels. Mr. Norvell and Ms. Cline briefly thanked staff for the staff’s assistance in welcoming them “on board.”
Haschak then hyped his upcoming two-day “workshop” with a (presumably paid) “facilitator” (always a bad sign) at the Redwood Valley Training Center on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week on various specialty subjects where “we can share our vision” and “find out where we move forward as a Board and a county.”
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