Yuba County grand jury finds four areas working efficiently

Report focuses on medical marijuana, veterans services, evacuations and jail

Mem­bers of the Yuba County grand jury con­ducted four in­ves­ti­ga­tions over the past year and found that each area was work­ing ef­fi­ciently, only mak­ing one rec­om­men­da­tion for the county to im­ple­ment.

The jury’s in­ves­ti­ga­tions cov­ered: al­le­ga­tions that the city of Marysville’s med­i­cal mar­i­juana per­mit­ting process was bi­ased; oper­a­tional ef­fi­cien­cies in the Yuba-Sutter Coun­ties Vet­eran Ser­vice Of­fice; how well Yuba County re­sponded to two dif­fer­ent evac­u­a­tions in 2017; and the con­di­tion and man­age­ment of the county jail.

All of the grand jury’s find­ings were pos­i­tive. Jury mem­bers re­quested re­sponses from the Marysville city man­ager, county Health and Hu­man Ser­vices, the county Board of Su­per­vi­sors and the sher­iff. Re­sponses are re­quired within 90 days from any pub­lic agency and 60 days from any elected county of­fi­cer or agency head. Med­i­cal mar­i­juana per­mit­ting process The grand jury in­ves­ti­gated Marysville’s per­mit­ting process for its med­i­cal mar­i­juana dis­pen­saries af­ter a ci­ti­zen filed a com­plaint stat­ing the city was “bi­ased” and that the process “re­sulted in un­fair ad­van­tage to spe­cific ap­pli­cant(s).”

All of the grand jury’s find­ings were pos­i­tive. Jury mem­bers re­quested re­sponses from the Marysville city man­ager, county Health and Hu­man Ser­vices, the county Board of Su­per­vi­sors and the sher­iff. Re­sponses are re­quired within 90 days from any pub­lic agency and 60 days from any elected county of­fi­cer or agency head. Med­i­cal mar­i­juana per­mit­ting process The grand jury in­ves­ti­gated Marysville’s per­mit­ting process for its med­i­cal mar­i­juana dis­pen­saries af­ter a ci­ti­zen filed a com­plaint stat­ing the city was “bi­ased” and that the process “re­sulted in un­fair ad­van­tage to spe­cific ap­pli­cant(s).”

The per­mit­ting process – be­fore it was re­cently mod­i­fied – was car­ried out in mul­ti­ple phases, start­ing with an ap­pli­ca­tion and fee and fol­lowed by a vet­ting process of both the ap­pli­cant and the pro­posed lo­ca­tion. Then, ap­pli­cants were as­signed points by a se­lec­tion com­mit­tee and in­de­pen­dent con­sult­ing firm based on a num­ber of cri­te­ria – the two ap­pli­cants with the most points were awarded dis­pen­sary per­mits.

Jury mem­bers con­ducted in­ter­views with city em­ploy­ees, of­fi­cials and ap­pli­cants, and re­viewed doc­u­ments sub­mit­ted dur­ing the process.

“Based on the in­ter­views con­ducted and doc­u­ments re­viewed, the Grand Jury did not dis­cern any bias of any city em­ployee dur­ing the per­mit­ting process, or any un­fair ad­van­tage de­rived by any ap­pli­cant,” the re­port stated.

Be­cause the grand jury found the city ad­hered to its or­di­nance pro­ce­dures and no ev­i­dence was found sup­port­ing claims of prej­u­dice or pref­er­en­tial treat­ment, no rec­om­men­da­tions were pro­vided to the city.

Yuba-Sutter Coun­ties Vet­eran Ser­vice Of­fice

Be­cause Yuba-Sutter has such a large pop­u­la­tion of veter­ans – 13,322 veter­ans as of Septem­ber 2015 – the grand jury de­cided to look into the Yuba County Veter­ans Ser­vice Of­fice to see how it per­forms.

The of­fice em­ploy­ees help lo­cal veter­ans iden­tify ben­e­fits they might be el­i­gi­ble for through the U.S. Depart­ment of Veter­ans Af­fairs and other state and lo­cal gov­ern­ment agen­cies. Em­ploy­ees also help veter­ans com­plete nec­es­sary forms and file claims for ben­e­fits.

The of­fice em­ploy­ees help lo­cal veter­ans iden­tify ben­e­fits they might be el­i­gi­ble for through the U.S. Depart­ment of Veter­ans Af­fairs and other state and lo­cal gov­ern­ment agen­cies. Em­ploy­ees also help veter­ans com­plete nec­es­sary forms and file claims for ben­e­fits.

Jury mem­bers learned more about who the Yuba-sutter Veter­ans Ser­vice Of­fice serves, how ser­vices are re­quested and out­reach is con­ducted, how many peo­ple are served by the lo­cal of­fice, what its fund­ing sources are and its ex­penses, how its staffing lev­els stack up and the spe­cific chal­lenges they face in help­ing their clients.

The grand jury found that the lo­cal of­fice pro­vides a “vi­tal ser­vice” and that with­out its as­sis­tance, many veter­ans and their fam­i­lies would be over­whelmed by the process be­cause the Veter­ans Af­fairs sys­tem is dif­fi­cult to nav­i­gate.

“Ac­cord­ing to sta­tis­tics pro­vided by the CVSO, the ser­vices ren­dered by the CVSO re­sulted in $3.6 mil­lion of lump sum and retroac­tive ben­e­fits paid to lo­cal area veter­ans and in­creased monthly ben­e­fits an­nu­al­ized to $6.4 mil­lion in (fis­cal year) ended June 30, 2018,” the re­port stated.

“Ac­cord­ing to sta­tis­tics pro­vided by the CVSO, the ser­vices ren­dered by the CVSO re­sulted in $3.6 mil­lion of lump sum and retroac­tive ben­e­fits paid to lo­cal area veter­ans and in­creased monthly ben­e­fits an­nu­al­ized to $6.4 mil­lion in (fis­cal year) ended June 30, 2018,” the re­port stated.

No rec­om­men­da­tion was pro­vided. The grand jury did com­mend man­age­ment and staff of the Yuba-Sutter Coun­ties Veter­ans Ser­vice Of­fice for the work they do.

Yuba County evac­u­a­tions of 2017 County res­i­dents dealt with two dif­fer­ent evac­u­a­tions in 2017 – one in Fe­bru­ary caused by a de­te­ri­o­rat­ing emer­gency spill­way at Lake Oroville and in Oc­to­ber due to the Cas­cade Fire. One of the des­ig­nated com­mit­tees within the grand jury wanted to learn more about the Yuba County Of­fice of Emer­gency Ser­vices and its process of ini­ti­at­ing an evac­u­a­tion.

The jury learned about some of the strug­gles emer­gency re­spon­ders and res­i­dents dealt with dur­ing both evac­u­a­tions, how the county’s emer­gency no­ti­fi­ca­tion sys­tem worked, how im­por­tant in­for­ma­tion was dis­sem­i­nated, and how dif­fer­ent de­part­ments and en­ti­ties func­tioned to­gether.

The jury learned about some of the strug­gles emer­gency re­spon­ders and res­i­dents dealt with dur­ing both evac­u­a­tions, how the county’s emer­gency no­ti­fi­ca­tion sys­tem worked, how im­por­tant in­for­ma­tion was dis­sem­i­nated, and how dif­fer­ent de­part­ments and en­ti­ties func­tioned to­gether.

Some com­mon themes from both evac­u­a­tions in­cluded a need for a bet­ter flow of in­for­ma­tion from of­fi­cials, as well as clar­i­fi­ca­tions on evac­u­a­tion routes and what an­i­mals are al­lowed at par­tic­u­lar shel­ter sites.

“While there were some prob­lems noted dur­ing both the flood evac­u­a­tions and the fires evac­u­a­tion, OES plans worked,” the re­port stated.

Yuba County Jail

The Cal­i­for­nia Pe­nal Code re­quires the grand jury “in­quire into the con­di­tion and man­age­ment of the pub­lic pris­ons within the county.” Ad­di­tion­ally, the U.S. Dis­trict Court for the East­ern Dis­trict of Cal­i­for­nia made it a re­quire­ment of the jury to an­a­lyze whether the jail was in com­pli­ance in cer­tain ar­eas like hous­ing and treat­ment of in­mates in the Yuba County Jail.

Grand jury mem­bers in­ter­viewed Yuba County Sher­iff’s Of­fice per­son­nel about the jail and took two sep­a­rate tours of the fa­cil­ity – in­clud­ing the laun­dry room, kitchen, med­i­cal area and in­take/book­ing ar­eas.

Grand jury mem­bers in­ter­viewed Yuba County Sher­iff’s Of­fice per­son­nel about the jail and took two sep­a­rate tours of the fa­cil­ity – in­clud­ing the laun­dry room, kitchen, med­i­cal area and in­take/book­ing ar­eas.

The jury found that the safety cells – which are used to house de­tainees or in­mates at risk of harm­ing them­selves – were phys­i­cally mon­i­tored at least ev­ery 15 min­utes by staff. They also ob­served the cells to be clean and in good re­pair.

Both por­tions of the jail – the newer por­tion built in 1995 and older por­tion built in 1962 – were also toured. The newer por­tion houses both ICE de­tainees and gen­eral in­mate pop­u­la­tion, while the older por­tion houses male and fe­male in­mates. The jury found that gang af­fil­i­a­tion is not a “no­tice­able prob­lem with less than 10 per­cent of all in­mates be­ing as­so­ci­ated with gangs.” The one is­sue they did find was that there was only one cam­era mon­i­tor­ing cell ac­tiv­ity in each tower in the newer por­tion of the jail.

The kitchen area was ob­served to be clean and well or­ga­nized and has a rep­u­ta­tion for serv­ing the best food in all of the state’s cor­rec­tional sys­tem. The med­i­cal area has also im­proved, the jury found, due to a con­tract struck in 2017 with the Cal­i­for­nia Foren­sic Med­i­cal Group for med­i­cal and men­tal health ser­vices – some­thing that has been brought up in past grand jury re­ports as an is­sue.

The kitchen area was ob­served to be clean and well or­ga­nized and has a rep­u­ta­tion for serv­ing the best food in all of the state’s cor­rec­tional sys­tem. The med­i­cal area has also im­proved, the jury found, due to a con­tract struck in 2017 with the Cal­i­for­nia Foren­sic Med­i­cal Group for med­i­cal and men­tal health ser­vices – some­thing that has been brought up in past grand jury re­ports as an is­sue.

Aside from find­ing cur­rent med­i­cal staffing and avail­able treat­ment had vastly im­proved since past re­ports and that jail staff was do­ing an “out­stand­ing job” of main­tain­ing the jail and meet­ing the in­mate pop­u­la­tion’s needs, the grand jury rec­om­mended the sher­iff and county in­stall ad­di­tional cam­eras in the tower area.

June 29, 2018

Marysville Appeal-Democrat

By Jake Abbott