Cubbison Case Speculation
Item 3b: on the Supervisors Special Closed Session agenda for Thursday (Feb. 20) was: “Pursuant to Government Code section 54956.9(d)(1) - Conference with Legal Counsel - Existing Litigation: One Case - Cubbison v. County of Mendocino, et al., Mendocino County Superior Court, Case No. 23CV01231.”
Here’s the original Board resolution that suspended elected Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector Chamise Cubbison without pay.
It is dated October 17, 2023, more than16 months ago.
On Monday, February 24, 2025 the long-delayed preliminary hearing in the criminal case against Cubbison and former Payroll Manager P.J. Kennedy is set to resume, sometime after which Judge Ann Moorman is expected to make a decision on whether the charges should be dropped or if the case should continue almost indefinitely.
What are the odds that Judge Moorman will do the right thing and rule that the charges are bogus and that no crime has occurred, much less been demonstrated?
There’s obviously no evidence of criminal intent. There are missing emails. There’s confusion about the use of the obscure paycode involved and who approved it. There’s no personal gain on the part of Cubbison. The citation the Supervisors used to “suspend” Cubbison without pay was incorrect. Cubbison was suspended without being given an opportunity to respond to the “charges.”
Nevertheless, this is Mendocino County, so we’d set the odds at less than 1 in 4 that Moorman will end this costly fiasco.
If Moorman were to do the unexpected and stop the bleeding, what would happen next? Apparently, Ms. Cubbison wants her job back, with back pay. Would she come back with all the drama that would involve? Are there circumstances or settlement conditions under which Cubbison would drop her civil suit? Two of the key Supervisors who wanted Cubbison out are gone, replaced with Sueprvisors who were not in on the original suspension. One of the remaining Supervisors voted against suspending Cubbison with pay. Is there any chance the current board would try to settle the case? How would DA David Eyster react?
If Moorman does as expected in the sordid tradition of Mendo Justice and lets the case muddle forward, how long can the unelected/appointed “acting” Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector Sara Pierce continue “acting”? What if Cubbison were to run for re-election when the time comes (with the case is still, possibly, ongoing), presumably against Pierce? How would a jury of ordinary Mendolanders see this case if it were to go to trial? (We don’t think the County/Supervisors would look very good, given what we’ve seen so far.) Is the public interest served by letting this ridiculous — and fundamentally very petty — situation drag on and on?
The speculation is, of course, endless, either way. We have barely scratched the surface of the implications, none of which are good, but ending it would be less bad than letting it fester.
In a sane County, the Supervisors and Cubbison would come to some kind of fair settlement and she would return to her independently elected job, albeit awkwardly. Burying the hatchet would put the entire fiasco behind us, albeit with some residual bad feelings.
Don’t the Supervisors have more important things to deal with these days? Is there no adult leadership in Mendocino County?
Does Official Mendo Care About Its Worsening Budget Status?
To understand how little attention Mendo pays to budget status info, one only needs to read this sentence from the County’s “CEO Ordinance” (Section 2.28.050, Section B-5-c):
“The CEO shall report to the Board of Supervisors, not less than semiannually, the status of the budget expenditures and revenues, as available within the main enterprise system, and recommend adjustments as necessary.”
Not only is that pathetically infrequent, but it doesn’t even define what “status” means or what the report should contain or cover.
Remember, the Board’s biggest complaint about former Auditor-Controller Chamise Cubbison was that she wasn’t providing pre-digested, up-to-date budget information to the Board. (Never mind that that was never the Auditor’s job; it was, as stated here and elsewhere, the CEO’s job. When Cubbison asked the complaining board members for examples of what they wanted to see, she was not only ignored but blamed for not providing the budget info and then “suspended without pay.” In addition, the reports that were briefly provided last year by the CEO’s staff could have been provided back then if they had wanted to.)
According to this month’s Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector Report by Acting Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector Sara Pierce, her department: “…mailed over 4,100 supplemental and/or escape bills in January 2025 with a total charge amount of $8.99 million. Please note the total charge does not equate to revenue. These bills will bring in roughly $89,000 in payments, of which roughly $27,000 will be revenue to the County.”
At first the numbers sound impressive: 4,100 bills against $9 million in “charges”! But then we’re told that it translates to only $27k of revenue to the County for the month of January. (About $325k per year.)
Let’s do some quick math and make a few basic assumptions. If there were 4,100 bills sent out against $9 million in “charges,” that’s about $2,200 in “charges” per bill. But the revenue from those 4,100 bills was just $27,000, or just under $7 per bill, which isn’t even worth billing for. We may be missing something here, or we may misunderstand what Ms. Pierce means by “charges,” but either way, something’s not adding up. And the word “charges” needs to be explained if she’s going to use it in this context for the public as some kind of financial status indicator.
Pierce then adds: “When the assessed value of a parcel is reduced as part of the supplemental/escape processing, this creates a negative bill or in other words a refund. The offices mailed out roughly $280,000 in refunds during January 2025.”
Apparently, Mendo’s Tax “Collector” collected approximately a net “negative bill” totaling $250k (about $280k minus $27k) for the month of January. This unfortunate development is largely due to downward property re-assessments, mainly from abandoned pot grows and distressed grape production and prices. This trend is only going to get worse. (Just last week we ran a press release about the ongoing decline of grape acreage, production and value from none-other than the Mendocino Wine Growers Association.)
Will the Board show any interest in these declining numbers during their February mid-year budget review on Tuesday? Or will they ignore it as usual and simply “accept” the reports as presented?
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