This Tuesday, March 28, was an interesting Board of Supervisors conclave with Chairman Glenn McGourty reporting that in a morning closed session, Kristen Nevadal, head of the county's pot department, had resigned, and the Board had unanimously accepted her resignation.
This came as no surprise as Nevadal was in way over her head and was out of her league dealing with the county's unworkable weed program. Believe me, the county's Pot Czarina tendering her resignation was the most productive act she performed in her two years on the job. If she hadn't called it quits, I believe a majority of the Board would have terminated her anyway.
Notwithstanding her exit, the Supes spent nearly two hours once again trying to fix the unfixable ordinance.
I wrote four years ago that the county at that juncture, had spent more time and money on its weed program than any other issue in county history. In the three years since then, hundreds of more hours and unknown dollars have been racked up with nothing to show for it except it's a bigger mess than it's ever been before. This whole chaotic clutter has been packaged up and is about to shipped out of here and over to the state's weed apparatus in hopes Sacramento pot bureaucrats can work their magic on Mendo's crashed and burned program.
Don't hold your breath.
Mendocino County:
Home Of Record-Setting Fees For Government Document Copies
I reported to you last week on the county's new ordinance regarding copy fees charged for documents people request under the California Public Records Act (CPRA).
Just how preposterous is this ordinance that was conjured up out of whole cloth by the County Counsel's office and then unanimously approved by the Board of Supervisors? Well, listen to Mendo Voice publisher Kate Maxwell's experience: "Since the ordinance passed, I personally have had responses to my requests with estimated fees for amounts including $66,660, $28,200, and $16,856.22 — the first two for a single records request related to current supervisors discussions on cannabis regulations and CAMP raids. As a small locally owned outlet, we don't have the budget for these kinds of fees."
No kidding.
At Tuesday's Board meeting, I delivered a statement summarizing the legal conflict over the document copy fees now being charged in Mendocino County.
Here's what I said:
For the past seven months subsequent to the Board of Supervisors approving Ordinance No. 4507 ("CPRA Ordinance"), the Board has been faced with challenges regarding the legality of the Ordinance from media organizations, good government groups, county residents, and at least one Supervisor, John Haschak.
The crux of the dispute is whether the Ordinance's provisions relative to record duplication fees comply with the California Public Records Act (CPRA).
The CPRA specifies that, "Copies of records may be obtained for the direct cost of duplication, unless the Legislature has established a statutory fee. The direct cost of duplication includes the pro rata expense of the duplicating equipment utilized in making a copy of a record and, conceivably, the pro rata expense in terms of staff time (salary/benefits) required to produce the copy. A staff person's time in researching, retrieving and mailing the record is not included in the direct cost of duplication."
The courts have ruled that, "The direct cost of duplication is the cost of running the copy machine, and conceivably also the expense of the person operating it. 'Direct cost' does not include the ancillary tasks necessarily associated with the retrieval, inspection and handling of the file from which the copy is extracted."
In direct contravention of the CPRA's unambiguously restrictive fee-setting phrase, the "direct costs of duplication," Ordinance 4507 unlawfully permits the County to include in record duplication fees, costs for, among other things, staff time spent searching, researching, reviewing and redacting records.
Supervisor Haschak, who originally voted with his colleagues to approve the Ordinance, has since had a change of mind regarding his vote. He stated that while in attendance at a recent California State Association of Counties (CSAC) conference, he learned that while counties are legally allowed to recover the direct costs of document reproduction, those costs cannot include the ancillary time of staff spent on non-reproduction tasks.
Supervisor Haschak now advocates for the repeal of the Ordinance.
I believe the foregoing summary fairly captures the core of the dispute surrounding this Ordinance.
I could go on at length amplifying the narrative and legal arguments, but I believe most of us at this time have enough familiarity with the issue that it's unnecessary to do so.
Therefore, I respectfully request that the Board of Supervisors, as soon as possible, place on a meeting agenda an item to rescind/repeal Ordinance No. 4507, the so-called "CPRA Ordinance."
Thank you for your consideration of this most important matter.
At the conclusion of my remarks, Haschak said, "In light of those comments, I would like to bring it as an agenda item if I have someone to co-sponsor it with me."
None of his colleagues stepped forward to get it on an upcoming agenda, but Chair Glenn McGourty stated, "I think this is something for us to ponder and get back to you."
We'll see, what we shall see.
Jim Shields is the Mendocino County Observer's editor and publisher, observer@pacific.net, 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 noon on KPFN 105.1 FM, also streamed live: http://www.kpfn.org
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