UNPRECEDENTED: A reasonable response from the Supervisors to a public comment!
Ron Edwards of Willits offered a couple of simple suggestions to improve the Pot Permit report at the recent meeting of the Board of Supervisors meeting and darned if they weren't immediately adopted by our new Ag Commissioner, Harinder Grewal, so new he doesn't apparently know that alacrity is not ordinarily a County practice.
“We will make these changes, yes. The next report will show the difference from this report to the next report and also we will have the information why permits are denied, why we are denying those permits. We will update the reports and we will have information we were asked to provide.”
A YOUNG MAN named John Phillips, describing himself as “a local cannabis enthusiast,” complained to the Board: “I think another study could be done on how much has been lost during this pot permit implementation process. Where have the tax dollars gone? I can tell you right now that they have gone to illicit activity. I don't even know where to start. I guess I will start at the end. I spoke to Chief Investigator Kevin Bailey yesterday at the DA’s office who told me that they were not going to press charges in a robbery that happened to me on October 16 of last year. The thieves showed up and stole about half a million dollars worth of my crop. It's all documented. I have the Sheriff’s report here. It says an armed robbery was committed. The reason that Kevin Bailey and the DA don't want to press charges is apparently they said that both parties were acting illegally. I have been in the program since early May of last year. I asked Mr. Bailey what he was talking about. I paid my taxes, I'm in the program. I don't know what you guys expect me to do. And he said, You most certainly have not paid your taxes. I assured him that my taxes are right here, paid, filed. Here's the bill, I paid them. All that money is gone. That's another about $10 grand in taxes that it has disappeared.”
Response from Board Chair Dan Hamburg: “Thank you, John.” The others were silent, and Hamburg might as well have been, although versions of Phillips' complaint are common among growers trying to work within the County's fluid rules.
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THE HIRING PANEL FOR PUBLIC DEFENDER: As we already know from the appalling dearth of competence in every office in the land, from the presidency of the United States on down to the lowliest County official here in Mendoland, the question is never about who can best do the job, but rather who is the best “presenter,” that is, who has the higher skills at landing the job, who is the better schmoozer, the glibbest flatterer, the more assiduous nuzzlebum, the better bootlicker, the best connected to the ladies who run Mendocino County.
The applicants for Mendocino County Public Defender include three local lawyers, Jan Cole-Wilson, Douglas Rhoades, and Christiaine Hipps, along with an as-yet untold number of out-of-area applicants. Of course the process is rigged.
County CEO Carmel Angelo will presided over a panel that will include one County Supervisor (probably the most malleable of the bunch, meaning either Hamburg or Crosky), one “representative” from Human Resources (Hello, Anne Molgaard!), one “person” from out-of-county who, we may eventually learn, is a palsy-walsy of one of the above.
The rest, we don’t know who they will be, although I’ve been assured that County Counsel Elliot will have already have had her say. I asked Judge Ann Moorman who would sit on this hiring panel and she said she didn’t know. “But you and the other judges will surely be the most directly affected by the decision, won’t you?” I asked. She thought about it a second and decided she was going to go find out and get back to me. So: I’ll keep you updated. (Bruce McEwen)
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SHERIFF ALLMAN'S Measure B Advisory Committee held their July meeting last Wednesday at the County Admin offices in Ukiah. The session meandered from topic to topic without resolution. Nobody made any motions or proposed any specific action.
During the discussion of the “Stepping Up Initiative” County Auditor Lloyd Weer told the Board that as far as he can tell the $150k allotted for Stepping Up back in 2015 is still in the budget. Weer also said that there was $100k set aside for Laura’s Law implementation. (Laura’s Law is a sort of semi-coerced mental health treatment through the courts for people who meet very specific criteria. The Board of Supes authorized a limited version of Laura's Law back in 2015 in the wake of the Aaron Bassler murders — even though Bassler himself would not have qualified and would not have voluntarily participated, a key provision of what is essentially feel good legislation passed in the wake of a gun tragedy.)
There was mention of first-responder training on how to deal with mental health patients, which, interestingly, Sheriff Allman said would also be open to the general public. But no particulars were provided. (Free range disturbed persons now being so common in every area of the country, and certainly in Mendocino County, most locals have become quite adept at coping with the deranged, although at least half the time their problem is drugs, not simply a mental health problem.)
Committee member Jed Diamond (Willits area rep) reported on the number of people sent out of Mendocino County after being declared “5150” — a danger to themselves, others or “gravely disabled” — and in need of medication adjustment. Diamond read from an unpublished memo sent to him by Dr. Jenine Miller, Mendo’s Mental Health Director:
In Fiscal Year 2016-2017 there were 36-46 clients per month sent out of County for "treatment." In 2017-2018 there were 31-38 per month sent out of County. Most of them went to facilities in Vallejo, Redding/Red Bluff, or Santa Rosa. Diamond did not say how long they stayed, or what happened to them upon release, nor did he say how many of them were the same person being re-hospitalized.
According to Dr. Miller’s data as passed along by Diamond 53% of those assessed as 5150 were “danger to self;” 44% were “gravely disabled;” and the rest, 2%-3%, were considered “danger to others.” Diamond said that if those statistics are correct, then communities don’t need to worry too much about the safety of any proposed mental health facility in their neighborhood. f The Committee punted on the question of a response to the Willits resolution asking for assurances that City regs would be followed for any psychiatric health facility that might be established at the old Howard Hospital in Willits after Sheriff Allman said that it’s the Board of Supervisors’ responsibility, from one government entity to another — the Measure B committee is not an elected/government body. But even though the Oversight Committee’s actions are what prompted the Willits resolution in the first place, nobody suggested drafting anything for the Board to consider.
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