A Precursor To The Cubbison Case

The failed “misappropriation” case filed by DA David Eyster against Auditor-Controller/Treasurer Tax Collector Chamise Cubbison reminded us in some ways of the failed embezzlement case filed against a coast librarian back in 2006 who the DA (Meredith Lintott at the time) said had somehow skimmed tens of thousands of dollars from the Fort Bragg library’s rather small cash receipts over a period of years that were supposed to be returned to County coffers. We doubted the case from the outset because on its face it was pretty obvious that amassing tens of thousands of dollars from the Fort Bragg library’s tiny cash receipts from overdue book fees and the occasional donation was highly unlikely.

Like the Cubbison case, the dubious charges against the librarian limped along through various County offices starting with the Library bureaucracy, into the then-Auditor’s office and on to the DA, like molasses poured into Mendo’s already clogged wheels of justice.

Around that time I happened to have been visiting then-Deputy DA Victoria Shanahan’s office — this was before she took a job as Deputy DA in Sonoma County and then ran, unsuccessfully, for DA down there, before coming back to her home county of Mendocino in 2019 when she was appointed Superior Court judge.

When I walked into Shanahan’s office there were 17 banker’s boxes stacked against one wall. I asked her what the boxes were for. Shanahan replied that the boxes contained the “evidence” in the embezzlement case that had been dumped in her office by default after everyone else in the office refused the case. Like the Cubbison case, it had been languishing in County staff offices and the legal bureaucracies for months. Shanahan was supposed to use the box-dump to file embezzlement charges against the librarian. “I don’t know what they expect me to do with this,” Shanahan said, waving dismissively at the disorganized piles of boxed up paper and computer printouts. I made a joke about the 17 boxes being “insufficient evidence,” but Shanahan wasn’t laughing.

The case eventually went to trial but, just as Shanahan sort of suspected, the Librarian was acquitted because the County’s records were a jumbled mess and hardly amounted to proof of a crime, if there even was one.

The librarian then filed a wrongful termination and malicious prosecution case against the County and ended up settling for a six figure sum covering back wages and loss of employment.

A few years later, in 2011, the librarian’s long-delayed bogus case came before the Supervisors in a strange way when the Board was discussing the Library budget and library’s contribution to the County’s liability insurance costs.

At the time the County’s “risk management” budget was around $1.7 million a year. (It has since gone up substantially.) The cost of the risk management office is merged into a general overhead cost called the A-87 costs and then allocated to the various operating departments. This risk management budget covers a small office staff plus settlement and claim payments that are below the County’s (then) $150k deductible or outside formal insurance payouts. In any given year claims and settlements can add up to a sizable amount of money.

Among the payouts was the big but delayed payout the Library had to make for the costly settlement going back to that failed 2007 case against the librarian.

Some board members and some library supporters objected to the amount being assigned to the library since it wasn’t clear who was to blame for the failed embezzlement case. Then-Supervisor Pinches said he thought the County’s entire internal insurance (“risk management”) program was a joke.

“We’re paying $148k for just one year of premiums for the library?” asked Pinches. “Just to pay back the premiums? Why call that insurance? That’s just self-insured. You pay yourself! There’s no benefit for the Library to be in the insurance pool. The Library was paying into the pool for years, then this $287k claim came along and they have to pay more than the total claim? Why pay the premium in first place? What’s the point of that?”

Then-Deputy CEO Kristin McMenomey tried to explain that the insurance allocation system is imposed on the County by the state auditor and that was the way the County had to do it. But that answer didn’t satisfy the Board. Neither did McMenomey’s statement that self-insurance would cost even more.

Pinches thought the County should look beyond the California State Association of Counties insurance pool for a better deal that would involve lower insurance premiums and lower deductibles.

Supervisor John McCowen said he had heard that the embezzlement acquittal stemmed from bad decisions by unnamed individuals “higher up on the food chain,” and that the Library was being unfairly and disproportionately charged for the entire settlement bill.

Supervisor Dan Hamburg said that over the entire five-year period the library budget had been hit with the increased insurance costs and the total added up to over $500k even though the total amount the County had to pay for the settlement was about $175k. “This payment does not add up,” said Hamburg, looking very puzzled.

Obviously, the County’s sloppy accounting practices went far beyond the Fort Bragg library’s modest cash receipts and whatever even smaller portion of that may have been missing.

County Counsel Jeanine Nadel: “An employee was prosecuted for embezzlement. After prosecution she was acquitted. The settlement was for back wages.”

McCowen: “The allegations were not proven at trial. But someone went down the road assuming she was responsible. The Library is not necessarily responsible.”

Auditor Meredith Ford: “We had to borrow funds for the library payout. It was more than the library could pay so we borrowed.” (Perhaps meaning that the library was being dinged to pay back the loan of the settlement money with interest over a period of years.)

Hamburg: “The library didn’t initiate the action against the employee.”

Ford: “The Library made the report. The Auditor did an investigation. The DA decided to prosecute.”

McMenomey: “The amount allegedly embezzled was received by the Library.” (Whatever that means.)

Then-County Chief Librarian Melanie Lightbody (who was not in charge at the time of the allegations): “Library practices were the reason for the claim. Cash handling could have been better.”

In other words, management and accounting was incompetently done, the Auditor’s analysis was screwed up, the DA didn’t really question how the charges were arrived at, and the County was looking for a scapegoat for some numbers that didn’t add up. So they dragged an innocent woman through what passes for a justice system and somehow the insurance company was the primary beneficiary because Mendo borrowed money to pay for the settlement out of pocket, instead of getting some of it from the insurance outfit that they had paid premiums to.

Only in Mendo.

Whether it was the Librarian then or Ms. Cubbison now, someone “higher up the food chain” — the DA, the CEO and the Supervisors — should be ashamed and/or removed from office. But in Mendocino County those someones are historically exempt from any and all accountability.

And now, here we are in 2025 after decades of fiscal irresponsibility leading to the bogus charge against Ms. Cubbison, another scapegoat for the County’s incompetence, the DA’s vengeance, and the Board’s own bad decisions, blithe fiscal assumptions, ill-conceived office consolidations, Board ignorance, and feckless top management.

Assuming Ms. Cubbison’s civil case is successful — the dismissal of the criminal case certainly makes it look like it will be, one way or the other — we suggest whatever money is paid to her come directly out of the DA’s budget, if not out of his own pocket. In a final touch of irony, when the time comes Cubbison could find herself signing her own settlement check to herself.