The Supervisors are coming back from their six-week hiatus (briefly interrupted by a brief meeting to rubberstamp some fund juggling). The Big Agenda Reveal was made Thursday. Everyone was giddy with anticipation for what the Supervisors and their staff had accomplished during their long vacation. Would sparks fly? Would fireworks go off? Would Lady Gaga go gaga?
Good gawd, no.
Here are the big highlights:
A Noyo Harbor report.
A Block Grant update.
A Very Long and Detailed Refutation of the Grand Jury’s Planning and Building Report about Class K. To each and every Grand Jury Finding the Board replies: “Wholly Disagree.”
A Proposal from Supervisor Haschak that code violation complaints include contact information.
A Cell Tower in Willits.
An early outline of a hipcamp (neighbors renting their backyard vineyard to city slickers for rural camping for a fee) ordinance prepared by Planning & Building.
Nothing about County finances or the budget, no vacancy reports. (There have been no monthly vacancy reports as promised by the CEO in June.) Nothing about labor negotiations, nothing about revenue generation/tax collection, nothing about the ambulance service review that the CEO promised would be completed in August…
So what aGenda is it? Somewhere between neuter and castrati. As usual. Maybe the late, great Jim Shields was right when he wrote in one of his last columns: ‘When Doing Nothing Is A Good Thing.’
I seems it may be time for the pendulum to swing back towards the CAO form of leadership, where the Administrative Officer just carries out the direction of the supervisors, as opposed to an Executive Officer, who basically runs everything. I’m not saying the BOS will make better decisions than the CEO, but they would be forced to be more involved and informed about the operations they oversee, and hopefully would be forced include more substantive information in their agendas. I remember a time when Supervisors would visit individual department heads or employees in order to better understand a given process or issue. I recommend each supervisor do the same, to enhance their knowledge of county operations.