This week's Supes meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 26, was Zoom-bombed by three or four idiots who called in with racist and anti-Semitic rants that were immediately cut-off by Board Chair Glenn McGourty. I believe they all used phony names, including one clod who identified himself as "George Lincoln Rockwell," who in reality was a mid-20th Century, notorious American fascist, racist, anti-Semite, homophobe and founder of the American Nazi Party. The Mendo Rockwell and his embryonic Nazis need to be dropped head-first down a bottomless mine shaft. If you know of one let me know. Me and my old union boys will handle the rest.
Back to adult business.
You are all aware of the fiscal mess that is wrecking Mendocino County and casting deep shadows across its entire landscape.
There is a state audit of the County's books and financial reporting currently underway, in addition to the ongoing but incomplete annual federal audit.
For months, I've called for the County to stop talking about this fiscal crisis and start doing something, take some action. I've always believed that the worst characteristic in any elected representative is indecision.
The main reason that governing here is so dysfunctional is the people who make the decisions have always confused activity with productivity. They believe and practice, that holding tons of endless, tedious meetings dominated by their hard-working staff of selfless public servants is governing par excellence.
Here's the most recent recommendation I made in response to Supe Ted Williams asking me what I think should be done about this crisis.
Among other things, here's what I said several weeks ago:
"Ted, as I've suggested, as well as Supe Haschak and I believe Supe Gjerde also, the Board should call in former officials responsible for fiscal matters (Treasurer-Tax Collector, Auditor-Controller, Assessor, CEO) and interview/question and, hopefully, learn from them how they did their jobs. This is critical information the BOS admits it is lacking. This process would include but is not limited to such things as assessments of their responsibilities and how they performed their duties, how they exercised fiscal oversight and the identification of internal financial controls, systems that were utilized (manual vs. electronic/software, etc.), staffing levels (classifications and job descriptions) narrative descriptions of interdepartmental and third-party (ex.: outside, independent audit) working relationships detailing scope of work and information disclosed and received. Since no one has explanations or answers to what caused the ongoing, untenable fiscal mess the county is in, you need to conduct an inquiry and start finding answers to all of the current unknowns prior to launching a substantially, momentous alteration to your organizational structure with this idea of a Department of Finance. By the way, if the Board does decide to hold an inquiry, it won't be necessary for former officials to attend in-person. That's the beauty of Zoom meetings."
Williams never responded to my suggestion.
Why talk to these former officials?
There's probably a lot to learn if you do.
History — institutional and otherwise — is all about knowing how you got from "there" to "here." Otherwise, as the old saw goes, you're condemning yourself to repetitious failure.
For example, in February of 2022, about-to-retire CEO Carmel Angelo was farewell-addressing on various media platforms. In an interview with Mike Geniella, he reported, "As she prepares to step down, Angelo said she is especially satisfied that the county, facing near bankruptcy in 2010, is today on firm financial footing with $20 million in reserves in the face of an annual budget of $340 million. 'I leave knowing the situation today is much healthier than when I was appointed CEO in 2010,' said Angelo."
Several months later, the Board discovers it is facing a "structural" deficit of $6.1 million, and at this week's meeting, Supe Dan Gjerde said the structural shortfall is now somewhere around $10 million with another "three, four, or five million dollars on top of that $10 million structural deficit" if an agreement is reached in negotiations to bring employees "up to market." He also said the CEO and the so-called "Golden Gate Initiative team" has "found $5.5 million in cuts and cost-savings that are ongoing savings, but that's by my count only about a third of where we need to be … this may be small potatoes but we still have to balance the budget with small and big cuts."
Near the end of this week's meeting, a somewhat agitated Williams said the following to his four colleagues:
"I know you're probably not happy with me for bringing this up, but I'm really worried about we started the year off in a really bad place. We gave some direction (to staff) but we've been talking about everything else, acting like we don't have a financial crisis. I don't know how you figure the numbers, but I write them down and look at them, and go through the position allocation table to see what we can trim. I just don't see an easy way to get there without a major re-structuring. And the time to do that is not in March or April. The time to do it is before the end of the year because it will take time for staff to execute and implement whatever we come up with. And we're going to come up with ideas that require research. We gave a commitment that we were going to work on it as soon as we passed the budget. And more than [one fiscal] quarter is gone by and we've really done nothing in this direction. The CEO has done some work, and the Golden Gate Initiative has really been working hard, they've been putting a team together. But the rate it's moving we're not going to get there unless they accelerate. I don't see it accelerating. I see it resource-constrained and they've picked up the easy gains already. I don't want to be throwing cold water on anybody's meeting, but I'm looking at it thinking we need to get realistic. My job is to start planning how we're going to balance the budget next year."
Assuaging Williams, Chairman McGourty said, "I think we all agree with you. That's why we have an agenda coming …"
Williams cut in saying, "Well, you know what happens to the messenger."
McGourty answered, "Yeah, sometimes it's tough."
Paraphrasing both myself and Williams, it's high time to stop talking about the mess they're in and start working to get out of it.
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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