Martinez’s Mayor Rob Schroder is rebuked for co-penning coercive LAFCO letter
By
Greta Mart
Staff Reporter
June 14, 2011
From overcompensated elected officials – Martinez’s in particular – to inept management of vehicle fleets owned by Contra Costa County and cities, the crosshairs of this year’s Contra Costa County Grand Jury have been focused on civic affairs and malfeasance.
After all, the Grand Jury is “annually impaneled to investigate city and county governments, special districts and certain nonprofit corporations to ensure functions are performed in a lawful, economical and efficient manner,” according to Superior Court of Contra Costa.
In another report released recently, the 2010-2011 Grand Jury calls attention to Ethics and Transparency Issues in Contra Costa County, the report’s title.
“Ethical behavior and transparency (openness) by public officials are essential to good government. Despite the fact that County officials receive ethics training, the Grand Jury has found instances of ethical breaches.
In some cases, there have been public accusations of ethical misbehavior and/or misrepresentation, charges of nepotism and cronyism, and allegations of long-term County mismanagement of a mitigation fund,” state the authors in Jury Report 1105.
Along with Foreperson Linda Chew, 18 other volunteer Contra Costa residents said they believed that “greater effort must be made to improve openness and accountability, to display more sensitivity to ethical considerations, and to be aware of any appearances of impropriety to the public.”
One of the findings refers directly to Martinez Mayor Rob Schroder, and the report calls him out over an imbroglio that flared up prior to the 2010 June primary election.
As the Gazette reported in early July, Schroder’s membership on the Contra Costa Local Area Formation Commission (LAFCO) was in jeopardy after he was chastised by the Contra Costa County Mayor’s Conference for what Pinole Mayor Debbie Long described as violations of the Brown Act.
Long contended Schroder and former Concord City Council member Helen Allen, another LAFCO appointee, used their position in an attempt to influence the outcome of a local election in Brentwood.
“The whole incident was unfortunate,” Schroder told the Gazette at the time. Allen opted in August of 2010 to not seek reelection and left the Concord City Council after the November general election and no longer sits on LAFCO.
Schroder remains one of three members elected by the Mayor’s Conference to serve as city representatives to LAFCO, the county agency with a mission of ‘discouraging urban sprawl and encouraging the orderly formation and development of local agencies based on local circumstances and conditions,’ as LAFCO describes itself.
In the weeks leading up to the June primary election, Schroder and Allen signed their names to a letter to the editor of the Brentwood Press, a missive that Schroder later said Allen wrote.
The letter, published in the May 6 Brentwood Press edition, claimed Schroder and Allen were representing the County’s 19 cities in issuing an implicit ultimatum to Brentwood voters to approve an initiative, backed by developers, of a proposed massive housing project on land that straddles Antioch and Brentwood.
In its recent report, the Grand Jury took issue that Schroder and Allen “committed ethical breaches by indicating that they spoke on behalf of LAFCO and the Mayors’ Conference on matters not before LAFCO.”
In its summary of the situation, the Grand Jury explained, “two LAFCO commissioners addressed a developer-sponsored local ballot measure to extend the Urban Limit Line of the City of Brentwood. Prior to the election, these commissioners signed a public letter indicating that they were speaking not only as LAFCO spokespeople, but also as representatives of the Contra Costa County Mayors’ Conference, their appointing agency. They stated that should Brentwood voters defeat Measure F, LAFCO could annex the land in question to Antioch.”
If the initiative, Measure F, failed, said Allen and Schroder and Allen in their letter to the editor, “LAFCO could reconsider its intention to direct this land to Brentwood by amending the city’s sphere of influence.”
Instead, they warned, LAFCO could “remove land from city spheres once it is clear that such areas are either no longer appropriate for annexation … or that the voters have rejected it,” and make the land part of Antioch.
The apparent threat was that Brentwood would lose out on an increased property tax base. Campaign literature distributed to Brentwood residents prior to the election claimed if Measure F passed, “neither the County nor Antioch will control the area … annual surplus to Brentwood budget of $800,000 … $27 million to fix Balfour Road and extend American Avenue,” and other supposed benefits to Brentwood residents.
The 2010-2011 Grand Jury, in reviewing the matter, recommended that Schroder and his fellow LAFCO members receive regular training in local officials ethics training, and that LAFCO itself should “promptly consider appropriate action when a violation of its policies occurs.”
http://www.martinezgazette.com/news/story/i2747/2011/06/14/contra-costa-grand-jury-report-calls-ethics-transparency
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