HERCULES -- The deeply divided
board of a West County fire district is poised to fire back at the Contra Costa
County grand jury over accusations that it approved a sweetheart deal for its
chief and surrendered its oversight authority with practically no review.
Asked by the grand jury to
reopen the contract with Chief Charles Hanley, the five-member Rodeo-Hercules
Fire District board has instead drafted a strongly worded reply criticizing the
panel for only interviewing two members of the five-member board.
The letter, which the board is
expected to approve at its Wednesday meeting, states it was
"insulting" that the board's commitment to the public was
"questioned in such an incomplete, flawed and haphazard manner."
The draft response has angered
both government accountability advocates and two board members who are
considering sending their own response agreeing with the grand jury's findings.
"This is fraud," said
board member Bill Prather, who cast the lone dissenting vote on Hanley's
contract. "It's corruption. If there is anything bad, this is it."
The grand jury set its sights
on Rodeo-Hercules last year after it approved the contract for Hanley, who has
led the cash-strapped district since 2010.
The 15-month deal, which
expires at the end of this year, granted Hanley a $185,952 base salary for only
a 32-hour workweek.
More troubling to the grand
jury, the contract included a provision that Hanley would "not be subject
to undue oversight," and that "open hostility or other forms of
harassment by any board member shall constitute a termination without
cause."
"I see a lot of taxpayer
abuse, but this is to me is the worst in every aspect," said Robert
Fellner, director of transparency research for the California Policy Center.
"Who represents the taxpayers if their elected officials prevent any
'undue oversight?' I've never seen anything like that before in my life."
Hanley presented the contract
to the board the same evening they approved it, the board's attorney, Richard
Pio Roda of the law firm Meyers Nave, said earlier this year. He said he went
over the contract with board members before they voted on it.
In its draft letter, the board
rejected the grand jury's assertion that the quick approval amounted to a
failure of oversight. The grand jury, it wrote, "discounts the time, study
and reflection individual board members did at previous board meetings and on
their own time outside board meetings."
The letter also challenges
other grand jury findings that the board violated the state's open meeting law.
Of the three current board
members who approved Hanley's contract, Raemona Williams and John Mills did not
respond to requests for comment.
Board member Beth Bartke
declined to discuss specifics of Hanley's contract, but said she planned to
vote in favor of the draft letter to the grand jury, in part because they never
interviewed her.
"I
really feel like the report is kind of one-sided," she said. "I have
the second-longest tenure on the board and to not interview me ... I was really
disappointed. I felt it wasn't professional to do that."
August 12, 2015
Contra
Costa Times
By Matthew
Artz
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