LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The
2014-15 Lake County Grand Jury has wrapped up its investigations and reporting
efforts, with its report released this week to the public.
The document was made available
to local agencies and officials in its initial form last week, ahead of the
public release on Monday.
“Our chief observation is
that Lake County employees at all levels are highly dedicated and honorable
people,” James Baur, the grand jury foreman, wrote in his letter to the
county's citizens at the beginning of the report. “Often, they are dealing with
low staffing levels, legal restrictions and other obstacles which they work
hard to overcome.”
Baur also noted, “County
staff was cooperative in the investigation process and forthcoming with
information. A review of our final report will show a number of areas where
improvements can be made.”
After reviewing the grand
jury's report, Presiding Lake County Superior Court Judge Stephen Hedstrom
wrote a letter to the jurors – dated June 7 – thanking them for their work and
reporting that he found the report to be in compliance with the California
Penal Code.
“While you have no power to
enforce your recommendations, the law requires governing bodies, elected
officials, and agency heads to provide meaningful responses to your findings
and recommendations,” Hedstrom wrote. “Respect for your hard work and the
importance of your final report should also motivate meaningful responses.”
Hedstrom added, “Your findings
and recommendations, together with official responses and publicity should lead
to honest debate and ultimately improve the fairness, quality, and efficiency
of local government.”
The 59-page document
includes reports on the county's detention holding facilities, food safety
funding, In-Home Supportive Services, Lake Transit Authority and Lampson Field.
In reviewing the county's
detention facilities – which the grand jury is mandated to review – it found
them to be in compliance, although it noted a difficulty with a door at the
South Lake Court.
In the case of Lake County
Environmental Health, the grand jury investigated the division not only to
follow up on recommendations and findings made by the 2013-14 grand jury, but
to look at ways to increase revenue for the primarily self-funded agency.
The agency has to permit
and inspect all of the county's food service providers – more than 370 of them
– while dealing with staffing challenges, according to the report.
The 2013-14 Grand Jury
Report had found that the agency was behind on inspections, an issue that since
has been rectified, according to the latest grand jury report. However, it has
an open inspector position – one of three – with staff not having received cost
of living increases in eight years.
Recommendations include
aggressively recruiting for a third inspector, making facilities pay fines for
not complying with Health and Safety Code, increasing permit fees annually,
charging other county departments or agencies for services, offering training
for a fee, creating a safety rating system to inform the public, considering
opening a testing laboratory and recruiting student interns.
The grand jury also took a
close look at In-Home Supportive Services, the county's largest employer
through the IHSS Public Authority, which assists nearly 2,000 local elderly and
disabled recipients, who are eligible for Medi-Cal, to remain in their homes as
opposed to having to live in convalescent facilities.
The grand jury followed up
on IHSS this year based on last year's report, to see if issues raised last
year concerning fraudulent activities by providers and recipients had been
resolved.
“We were pleased to find
that, to a large extent, this was the case,” the report said regarding
resolutions about fraud concerns, adding that the grand jury found other areas
needing improvement during the course of its investigation.
Based on its findings, the
grand jurors recommended more extensive background checks for providers
extending outside of California; random drug testing of providers; providing
additional vehicles for IHSS social workers; increasing wages to attract and
retain more qualified providers and provide a livable wage, as local providers
receive $9.30 an hour; increasing training for providers; establishing a
certificate program for advanced training for providers as part of a pay
incentive program; and purchasing devices like tablets to allow social workers
to report on conditions during home inspections.
Amongst its other reports,
for the first time since 2009, the grand jury investigated the Lake Transit
Authority, which provides public transportation through Lake County, with
connecting bus service to parts of Mendocino and Napa counties.
Recommendations include
creating a succession plan for the executive director, offering informational
panels inside the buses regarding board of directors' meetings, and allowing
for public services notices also to be posted there; creation of a link on the
home page for board minutes and agendas listed on the Lake County/City Area
Planning Council Web site; making bus schedules available on each bus in a
visible and convenient location; creating a link on the LTA Web site to promote
bus advertising; making it easier for riders to comment on issues by including
the Web address, phone numbers and complaint/satisfaction forms on all buses;
and adding a “find your bus now” page on the LTA Web site.
In response to a written
citizen complaint regarding safety, the grand jury also looked at Lampson Field
Airport, which was activated in 1941 and acquired by the county in 1955,
according to the report.
“The Grand Jury conducted
several onsite visits and concluded that Lampson Field was not visitor
friendly,” the report said, citing only one portable bathroom, little or no
visitor information, difficulty location information on tie-downs and hangars
in need of repainting and repair.
The grand jury offered more
than a dozen recommendations, including establishing an airport advisory
committee to advise the Board of Supervisors on the airport's operation and
collecting on past due accounts on lessees. The report noted that one lessee is
currently more than $41,000 past due in lease payments.
Other grand jury
recommendations for the airport include installing an information kiosk and
improved signage, resolving sewage problems at the property, establishing a
remote office at the site for the airport manager and maintenance personnel,
installation of a security fence, performance by Lake County Public Works of
periodic site inspections of airport facilities, and developing a five- to
10-year maintenance plan.
In addition to looking at
various agencies, the report explains how the grand jury created its first
“continuity committee,” based on a suggestion grand jurors heard at a training
offered last summer by the California Grand Jury Association.
The committee is meant to
provide “continuity and a smooth transition between the out-going and income
grand juries,” the report explained.
That committee also
“developed several tools and established new procedures to facilitate both the
examination of previous reports and the writing of this year's final report.”
Those tools included a
response chart for the 2013-14 final report, so it could track followup and
response from the previous year; and a grand jury reports index that covered
investigations done from 2009-10 forward, which is included near the end of the
report.
The full document will be
made available at public libraries and, in the near future, will be posted
online at the Grand Jury's Web page,
http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Boards/Grand_Jury/FinalReports.htm. That
page features final reports going back to 2001-02.
July 10, 2015
Lake
County News
By Elizabeth
Larson
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