Transparency is a term elected officials like to bandy in order to brag about action or information that is inherently the right of the public to know in the first place.
In a July 2024 statement in response to a Grand Jury probe, Mendocino Coast Health Care District (MCHCD) Board Chair Paul Garza stated, “Our intent [is] to provide full disclosure to our residents on our progress toward improving the functioning of our District.”
Over the past year, in print or verbally one can find further examples of Garza touting the healthcare district's new found sense of transparency. Garza has cited the hiring of Regional Government Services (RGS) as a major step forward in providing transparency between the district board and the public it represents. Contracting with RGS certainly did provide needed support staff. However, readers might want to look back at the January 5, 2024 edition of the AVA to illuminate the less than transparent methods Garza used to bring about the contract with RGS rather than hiring an executive director employed by and answerable to MCHCD.
Rather than their own employee, MCHCD now has an agency administrator employed by Regional Government Services. That agency administrator is a Mendocino Coast resident, which makes the sixteen month employment by RGS rather than the local healthcare district all the more perplexing. That mystery will have to wait.
Nearly seven weeks before the agreement between MCHCD and RGS was reached, in late October 2023, the healthcare district contracted with Props and Measures (P&M). This consulting firm specializes in developing strategies leading to revenue raising bond measures. Throughout much of 2023 and the first few months of 2024 the leadership on the MCHCD Board of Directors was fixated on a bond measure for the November 2024 ballot.
See the August 29, 2024 edition of the AVA for details regarding Garza's rushed appointment of Jan McGourty to the MCHCD board in May 2024 and the disappearance of the bond issue as a priority a month later.
This leads us back to Props and Measures. Some observers of the MCHCD Board of Directors waited through the summer of 2024 for MCHCD to terminate the contract with P&M, a contract which cost the healthcare district $4,500 per month, a contract that could have been terminated thirty days after it became apparent in late spring that the district was not going to pursue a bond measure at the November 2024 polls. However, that termination did not occur. Monthly financial statements proffered by MCHCD's interim CFO showed Props and Measures collecting $4,500 each month.
Until... A November check register revealed that Props and Measures had been paid the reduced amount of $2,500 for October and November 2024. No mention of why this change had occurred was offered by Chair Garza at the November 2024 MCHCD Board meeting, nor in December, or January of this year. This writer asked an outgoing board member what was up. The former board member was equally bewildered by this lack of explanation.
Emails from September 2024 show the agency administrator assisting MCHCD Chair Garza in negotiating a renewed/amended contract with Props and Measures. On September 11th of last year the agency administrator for MCHCD sent an email to a contact person at P&M stating, “Attached is an executed copy of the contract change of terms. I had Paul sign it too.”
The latter sentence presumably refers to MCHCD Board Chair Paul Garza. Whether or not Garza directed the agency administrator to draw up the new contract with Props and Measures is unclear, no available documents show that to be the case. It would seem unlikely the agency administrator would have undertaken this alone.
More than seven months have transpired since. Neither Garza nor the agency administrator has brought the new contract to the attention of the public or the rest of MCHCD's Board of Directors (both Garza and the agency administrator give either a written or oral report at each monthly board meeting).
On top of that we have another September 2024 email exchange between the P&M contact and the RGS employee acting as agency administrator for MCHCD. The P&M official writes, “Attached is the amended contract that changes the monthly Props and Measures consulting fee to $2,500 until the MCHCD begins to plan for a 2026 bond measure. As we discussed on our call a couple of weeks ago, when the District decides to actively pursue a bond measure in 2026, the P&M contract will be amended again to our regular consulting fee of $6,500 per month.”
The agency administrator replied, “Thank you!! I will get this executed and back to you asap.”
These emails appear to make it clear that, as of early September 2024, the agency administrator and Props and Measures considered it a foregone conclusion that the Mendocino Coast Health Care District would pursue a bond in 2026. No “ifs” about it nor any “ifs” about the full MCHCD Board approving the larger consulting fee.
Again, at the monthly board meetings that have taken place since (more than seven months) neither the MCHCD Board Chair, Garza, nor the RGS employed agency administrator has mentioned any of the foregoing information to the full board or the public. No explanation has been given as to what Props and Measures employee(s) have been doing to earn $2,500 of public funds since October 2024. One could add a question wondering why P&M was being paid $4,500 for at least three summer months in 2024 when P&M was apparently doing no bond measure work for the healthcare district.
As something of a contrast, readers may want to know that at the March 2025 MCHCD board meeting Chair Garza included in the public session agenda a renewed (or amended) contract between Regional Government Services (RGS) and MCHCD for discussion by the board and members of the community as well as a vote by the full board.
Welcome to Mendocino county. It starts at the BOS.