Saturday, August 25, 2018

[Lake County] Editorial: County officials should make responses to Grand Jury report public

We appreciate the efforts of this year’s Grand Jury whose major function is to examine county and city government and special districts to ensure that their duties are being lawfully carried out. The Grand Jury annually reviews and evaluates procedures, methods and systems used by these entities to determine whether more efficient and economical programs can be employed. Among the watchdog responsibilities of the Grand Jury are inquiring into the conditions of jails and detention facilities, inquiring into any charges of willful misconduct in an office by public officials or employees, and inspecting the books and records of any nonprofit organization receiving county or city funds.
This year’s final report was submitted on June 20 and addressed concerns about the safety and conditions from citizens for themselves and their neighbors.
Therefore, we are a bit disappointed by the lack of a timely response by Lake County officials on a myriad of topics brought up by the Grand Jury’s final report in which recommendations were made to improve in areas such as planning and public works, public safety and customer service provided to traumatized victims of the Valley fire in 2015.
According to law, the elected County officers must respond within 60 days following the release of the final report. The Board of Supervisors and other public agency governing boards must respond within 90 days. This year’s report was filed June 20, meaning that a response is required by Sept. 18 from the Board of Supervisors, while certain elected officers of the county are required to have responded by Aug. 20. There is no transparent way to ascertain if that has been done or not since the usual method of making responses public is to post them on the county’s website, something which as of press time has yet to happen.
We understand that the Ranch and River fires caused a number of delays, but the report was finalized and submitted a full week prior to the start of the fires and several weeks have passed since the majority of evacuations throughout Lake County were lifted.
One substantial portion of the 2017-18 report dealt with the chaos after the various fire related emergencies experienced by Lake County residents following extensive interviews with multiple Valley Fire victims, department heads dealing with debris removal, and with multiple County administrative staff responsible for insurance collection, including the Grand Jury’s perusing of relevant spreadsheets and physical files including many FEMA, California Office of Emergency Services, California Department of Insurance and other relevant documents.
Among some of the findings following the interviews and investigation was that of the approximately 1200 property owners who signed up for the state removal of their debris, the county initially had little information as to the amount of insurance available to the owners. The Grand Jury also found that although federal monies were available for the county’s collection of insurance proceeds for debris removal, a minimum of $300,000, the staffing for this collection program “has been inadequate since its inception both in number and in requisite experience and skills.”
A recommendation for county administration to work proactively with property owners to ascertain their specific insurance coverage for debris removal in the immediate aftermath of a disastrous fire and another for the county to consider appointing a staff person to interact with the public and to be the centralized repository of disaster-response information seem especially relevant in the aftermath of the Pawnee Fire and the Mendocino Complex fire, the latter which according to Calfire has burned more that 366,000 acres and destroyed more than 150 residences and 123 other structures to date.
Fifth District Supervisor Rob Brown told the Record Bee at a community meeting in Kelseyville earlier this month that he was not happy with the Grand Jury’s conclusions, going as far as calling it “garbage.” Brown went on to state he thought most of the information presented was not accurate, adding he felt the Grand Jury did not have a clue about what it takes to keep people safe in an emergency. Brown said he resented the light in which the Grand Jury cast the hard working employees in the county. Supervisor Brown added he was never approached or interviewed by members of the Grand Jury.
With all due respect to Brown and other members of the board and county staff, we dot not concur. We believe that the Grand Jury report is a useful independent assessment of important topics such as public services and emergency operations. For example, we find their conclusion that the Office of Emergency Services did not actively involve residents and non-governmental organizations and community groups in the development of the county’s emergency operations plan (EOP) during previous emergencies to be relevant information in light of recent events.
The Clearlake City Council considered approval of their response to the final report at their city council meeting this week. Sheriff Brian Martin said he was working on his office’s response which he anticipated would be filed early next week. For the sake of efficiency and transparency, we urge other county officials to do the same sooner rather than later.
August 23, 2018
Record-Bee
By the Editorial Board of the Lake County Record-Bee


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