It is time for the (Humboldt County) department head and his complicit legal adviser to go

Bob Morris/For The Times-Standard
Posted: 07/21/2011 02:40:20 AM PDT

The recently released Grand Jury report is another in a long list that highlights and documents the irregularities and non-professional actions that emanate quite regularly from the Community Development Services Department. This report (available on the Grand Jury website) is a stinging rebuke of the leadership of the department. It lists at least 20 different legal codes that were pushed to a point that blurred the line as to whether they were legally broken or merely “proactively interpreted.”

In addition to the items in the Grand Jury Report, many other questionable departmental actions have come to light. Since many of these occurred over a lengthy time period, I will summarize a few of the more egregious actions that have been promoted by this department and overtly facilitated by county counsel:

* Recommending to this board, not once, but three times to submit to the state a faulty and non-complying County Housing Element. Three times the Board of Supervisors have followed the department's recommendation and three times this document was rejected by the state. With each rejection, this board's public credibility has been diminished.

* Turning an update of the County's General Plan into a monstrous rewrite of the General Plan in a 12-year odyssey that has, to date, outlived every elected supervisor and planning commission member originally associated with its genesis. This rewrite is far from finished, it has polarized the community, it has cost untold millions and is careening the county down a road certain to lead to nothing but litigation and the expenditure of more increasingly scarce public resources.

* Has taken an attitude of “if you don't like it, then sue me” over its creative interpretation of many existing laws, ordinances, rules and regulations. Such actions range from new interpretations of the Subdivision Map Act language and patent parcel law, to translations of the Williamson Act unique only to Humboldt County, to the ill-fated “no houses allowed on TPZ land” debacle that the Board of Supervisors was embarrassingly drawn into. These “creative interpretations” have cost the county millions, and the average citizen has no idea of why these monies were spent and what public benefits were to be derived from their expenditure.

* Manipulated the public comment process to a degree that at least 11 public and quasi-public entities consisting of city councils, chambers of commerce groups and community services districts have officially stated that their input was either not solicited or not meaningfully considered. This demonstrative discontent with the Community Development Services Department's handling of the public comment process is not what the public process was intended to accomplish. In fact, it is just the opposite.

The question that is now percolating throughout the county is -- since the Grand Jury has documented and legitimized the concerns that many grassroots groups have been voicing, how can the top elected officials of our county continue to turn a blind eye to actions such as these? Is it fair to the tax payer to pay in excess of $150,000/year for this type of departmental leadership? It is time for the department head and his complicit legal adviser to go. The citizens of the county deserve better!

Bob Morris resides in Blocksburg.

http://www.times-standard.com/guest_opinion/ci_18520643