Ukiah Daily Journal Staff
Updated: 09/06/2010 05:45:30 AM PDT
While the California Attorney General's office says it cannot help the Mendocino County Grand Jury directly with a legal opinion about whether or not DA Meredith Lintott has the option of taking no action on their demand to get Supervisor Kendall Smith to repay travel funds, there are other ways to get an opinion out of them.
That's according to Susan Duncan Lee of the AG's office in San Francisco who says all the grand jury needs to do is ask the Mendocino County Counsel's office to ask the same question, then the AG's office would provide an opinion.
The subject came up when the 2009-2010 grand jury asked the attorney general for a legal opinion when they used their legal authority to demand that the county District Attorney get some $3,000 back from Smith, money the county says she owes in ineligible travel claims she was overpaid.
At the time, DA Meredith Lintott said she had the discretion under the law not to do that. The grand jury wanted to know if she actually had that discretion.
In the meantime, last month Lintott suddenly issued an order to the county Auditor Meredith Ford to start withdrawing payments from Smith's supervisors paychecks until the amount is paid. Ford asked County Counsel Jeanine Nadel for a legal opinion on Lintott's order and Nadel recused herself from giving an opinion and asked the Sonoma County Counsel to weigh in. That opinion is expected sometime this week.
http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/ci_16003562
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