When Doing Nothing Is A Good Thing

The last time we left the Board of Supervisors at their July 29 meeting, they were putting the finishing touches on a pair of proposals to cut their salaries and eliminate other expenses in their budget. It was disappointing but not unexpected that the Supervisors, with the exception of District 3 Supervisor John Haschak, refused to cut their budget by 6 percent even though they are requiring all other county departments to do so. The BOS budget would only have been reduced by $20,500, which is an insignificant amount. At minimum, the county wastes 20 grand on a daily basis.

Likewise, Haschak proposed that the annual salary of the Board of Supervisors be reduced from $110,715.00 to $103,008. Again, another trifling amount, as it amounts to $7,707 reduction per Supe or $38,535 for all five.

I want to remind everyone that Supes Haschak and Ted Williams did the right thing by voting in favor of cutting Supervisors salaries, but were out-voted by their colleagues (Mo Mulheren, Bernie Norvell, and Madeline Cline) who evidently have a different set of priorities when it comes to balancing a deficit budget, even though CEO Darcy Antle estimates next year's budget has a $16 million "structural deficit", some $10 million more than this year's deficit of $6 million.

In total the BOS Budget would have been reduced by $59,035, representing an overall budget reduction of 6 percent.

Haschak’s argument was given the dire straits of a deficit budget, balanced only by $6 million of one-time funds, coupled with the unknown fiscal effects of a so-called “strategic hiring freeze,” the Supes needed to get onboard and do their part sharing the pain of these tough economic times. But a majority of his colleagues refused to make even a minor sacrifice.

In his August monthly report to constituents, Haschak stated, “With the budget based on future cuts to staff and resources ($6 million this year and a projected $16 million next year), the Board directed all departments to cut their budgets by 6%. I proposed that the Board take the lead and make cuts of 6% to its budget, by both cutting expenses and rolling back the raise that took place in July. The Board did not approve the proposed cuts to out-of-country travel, communications, special department expenses and so forth. The Board also voted down my proposal to roll back raises for the Supervisors.”

The Board is now on a 6-week summer hiatus with their next public meeting not occurring until September 9th.

A lot of folks are upset that the County is calling timeout for this “recess.”

Addressing the late-summer recess, Mark Scaramella, of the Anderson Valley Advertiser, said, “In 2024 the Board took a six-week summer vacation as well, there being so little to do. No multi-million dollar budget gaps to attend to, no issues like homeless camps, glamping regs, airbnb rules, no staffing problems at the nearly finished Psychiatric Health Facility or the new wing of the jail, no road work to finance, no lawsuits to settle, no union negotiations to conduct, no tax sharing agreements or annexation proposals to examine or review, no vacancy reports to review… You know, nothing much. So let’s take six weeks off! Anyone who thinks the Supervisors are working hard for their generous salaries and benefit packages while not going to Board meetings for six weeks can look back at the agenda for last year’s post-vacation board meeting and see that no supervisors used the time off to develop any priority agenda items that required preparation or extraordinary proposals. We will be watching to see if this latest month and a half off produces any results.”

While I agree there’s little, if any, justification for this 6-week adjournment of government business, I’m going to tell you something.

As I’ve said many times before, it never concerns me when our elected representatives take time off, no matter what the reason is. A congressman is gone on a two-week paid junket to the South of France, good for him, hope he has fantastic culinary experiences and plenty of five-martini lunches.

Here’s the deal.

Politics and the governing process are now so dysfunctional, unproductive, and toxic, we are actually so much better off when politicians, including our Board of Supervisors, are absent from their august chambers because they are unable to make much mischief when they aren’t on the clock.

Too many elected officials and “public servants” go out of their way to create problems when their main goal and purpose is to solve problems. Remember, problems just don’t happen, people make them happen, and too many of those people are our elected representatives. Most people don't have lofty expectations of their elected representatives. Most people would settle for politicians adopting the Physician's Oath of “First, do no harm.”

So you might say the more vacations, recesses, and tax-paid junkets politicians reward themselves with, the better off we are.

(Jim Shields is the Mendocino County Observer’s editor and publisher, [email protected], the long-time district manager of the Laytonville County Water District, and is also chairman of the Laytonville Area Municipal Advisory Council. Listen to his radio program “This and That” every Saturday at 12 noon on KPFN 105.1 FM, also streamed live: http://www.kpfn.org)