On Tuesday, the five overpaid bumblers purporting to be the Mendocino County Board of “Supervisors” laughingly blathersquashed another of lame-duck Supervisor John Haschak’s well-intended but weak proposals.
After having been promised by his Board colleagues and Elected officials at their last meeting that they would discuss an “action plan” to address the various shortcomings identified in last December’s $800k state audit at this Board meeting, Haschak noticed that nothing about the “action plan” was on the agenda. So during his “supervisor’s report” he asked again that an “action plan” agenda item to discuss the County’s response to the State Audit be submitted to the Board for review and approval at their next meeting.
CEO Darcie Antle told the Board that the elected officials had already submitted their action plans to the state without bothering with Board review, but that no one knows the timeline for the state review or what their review will involve. Antle successfully avoided mentioning any action plans prepared or submitted by herself or her staff. Antle told the Board that she did not think the state would “judge” the plans, just comment on their accuracy, whatever that means. Nevertheless, Antle thought the Board should wait until the state gets around to responding to the individual departmental “action plans” despite the fact that the Board will be expected to oversee and fund whatever those action plans may involve.
County Counsel Kit Elliott said there was nothing preventing the “action plans” from being presented to the Board now.
Supervisor Madeline Cline was confused by Haschak’s simple request, asking, “Are you asking the Department heads to submit their plans to the Board?”
Haschak, confused by Cline’s confusion replied, “Yes,” adding, obviously, that the Board had agreed at their last meeting (when Cline was away on some hoity-toity national convention junket; she seems to love going to them) that the action plans would be presented to the Board at the next board agenda, i.e. now. “But now I hear it’s going to the state,” sighed Haschak.
CEO Antle confirmed Haschak’s recollection: “You asked for them at the last meeting and they [the Department heads and elected officials] confirmed they’d bring them forward.”
Haschak bleated again that the board “needs to have a plan to make sure the County is in compliance with the audit.”
Supervisor and Board Chair Bernie Norvell didn’t see any rush, casually declaring, “I’m comfortable waiting until the state responds” without even wondering when that might be.
Supervisor Ted Williams chimed in with what he probably thinks is humor, or at least a pseudo-clever bit of irony: “It sounds like we need an audit of the County’s ability to respond to an audit.”
Williams’ barb made no impression on Haschak: “It sounds like we don’t have a Board that wants to bring back an agenda item for this.”
County Counsel Elliott interrupted to instruct the Board that they were getting off topic, explaining — using the AVA’s favorite Mendo-word — that “this is not an appropriate time to have this conversation,” failing to specify when the conversation might magically morph into appropriateness. The wimpy Board abruptly acceded to Elliott’s inappropriate direction to shut-the-hell-up and the “conversation” about the County’s response to a very critical $800k months-long state audit having been roundly spiked as horribly inappropriate, was over before they could even formally decide whether it should be on the next Board agenda.
Not only was no action taken on the action plan, but no action was taken on Haschak’s previously approved plan to put the action plan on the next agenda, nor was any action taken on Supervisor Williams’ suggestion that the Board conduct an audit of their inability to respond to an audit.
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