SAN ANDREAS - Several years of bitter feuding within Calaveras County government over the management of the county's Building and Planning departments appeared to come to a quiet end Tuesday as the Board of Supervisors unanimously approved their response to a grand jury report that had blasted the supervisors and the leader they appointed to head the two departments.
Supervisor Tom Tryon, who filed a complaint to the grand jury in 2007 that likely triggered the investigation and the resulting report, did not say a word on the topic before the unanimous vote.
The long battle centered on Stephanie Moreno, a former Amador County supervisor who was hired in 2006 to head the newly formed Community Development Agency, which was given oversight of both departments.
Moreno resigned in July after a stormy tenure of a little more than two years. The Board of Supervisors voted to pay Moreno $89,300 to leave after her attorney sent the board a letter saying he could prove county officials were guilty of sex discrimination against her.
Officials in 2006 portrayed Moreno's hiring as an attempt to modernize the operation of the two departments and to reduce problems caused when developers and landowners got conflicting signals from building and planning.
Moreno soon hired consultants who reported finding a variety of past problems in the departments, including missing records and evidence that officials sometimes signed off on substandard construction. By early 2007, Moreno had fired several employees.
Also by 2007, some department employees were in revolt against Moreno, and landowners, builders and developers were coming to county meetings to complain that Moreno's policies were making things worse rather than better.
Adding to their ire: Moreno's political and career background included none of the formal training in planning or building codes that is usual among career employees in the departments.
That lack of formal training in building and planning was among the long list of findings in the grand jury report. (The official response says she did meet the minimum standards for the job.) Other findings included that the Board of Supervisors hired Moreno without doing a background check and that they had her report directly to the board, bypassing the normal chain of command through the county's chief administrative officer.
A slender board majority - Steve Wilensky, Russ Thomas and Bill Claudino - generally backed Moreno. Tryon, often joined by Supervisor Merita Callaway, took the lead in criticizing Moreno.
In general, the response the board approved Tuesday rejects most of the grand jury findings. Opponents of Moreno, however, will find some evidence to bolster their suspicions. For example, County Administrative Officer Robert Lawton's final draft of the response notes only that the county's Human Resources Department did complete a background check.
What Lawton didn't say is contained in the departmental response from Human Resources Director Francine Osborn. Osborn wrote that she conducted a basic background check and found Moreno had worked where she claimed to have worked. But Osborn also said the Board of Supervisors directed her not to do the more-detailed check she thought was appropriate.
The supervisors who did speak before approving the response were unusually subdued.
"There is nothing more to stir up," Callaway said. "As far as I'm concerned, it's over, and it is time to go on."
The new days to come, however, will likely force the board to decide again what its vision is for the Building and Planning departments. Not only are county planners revising the county General Plan, which guides growth, but before the end of the year, interim Community Development Director John Taylor is to make recommendations to the board on how to manage the two departments, including whether they should remain united in a single agency.
Contact reporter Dana M. Nichols at (209) 754-9534 or dnichols@recordnet.com.
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081029/A_NEWS/810290325/-1/A_NEWS03
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