The first Coachella Valley Public Cemetery District meeting with its new five-member board kicked off with grave tension Friday morning.
The district board voted in June to expand from three to five members following a grand jury report that revealed conflicts and potential Brown Act violations at the district, which serves 400 families per year and covers 3,444 square miles in Riverside County.
Riverside County Supervisor Manny Perez administered the oath of office to the board members, and his speech was not without a reminder that board members should play nice and adhere to the law.
“People rely on you to make tough decisions during tough times,” Perez said. “I think we have come a long way even with some struggles in the past ... but everyone here is very, very capable and that is why you were chosen. I ask everyone to respect one another, work with each other with dignity and value each other’s’ opinions. ... I ask you to be accessible to the people, hear them out and follow the law.”
Perez said if the district board has an issue in the future, he hopes they try to deal with it themselves before coming to him, as that’s their responsibility.
Perez appointed Ernesto Rosales and Bruce Underwood to fill the two newly created seats and John Rios to fill a vacancy. Joe Ceja and Marcos Coronel will remain on the board. The board voted Underwood as its chairman and Ceja as the vice chair.
The monumental move to expand, spurred by the grand jury’s suggestion, was a step toward best practices to avoid further violations.
The Riverside County Civil Grand Jury report revealed that district General Manager Bret Kestell and two board members “purposely excluded” the board’s third member, Coronel, from meetings since March 2017. The trio also hired a private investigator to investigate Coronel, and alleged that he, too, violated the Brown Act. That did not appear in the grand jury report. That private investigations cost $2,000 from the district’s general fund.
With a three-member board, any time two people would meet, that was considered a majority of the board and “rife with risks for violating the Brown Act,” according to Joseph Ortiz, an attorney advising the district.
The Grand Jury also recommended that the district improve its transparency and ethics by conducting staff training, building a website to post agendas, attend a mediation session to resolve issues between board members and the general manager, communication better with the Riverside County Board of Supervisors and revisit the district’s housing policy. The investigation found that Kestell, the general manager, and the head mechanic had lived in residences on the property. The jury recommended instituting a rental or use agreement.
Lee Kestell, Bret’s Kestell's nephew, is acting as the general manager.
The board began addressing many of the jury’s concerns on Friday, but still wanted to keep things discreet from the public ear.
A handful of items on Friday’s agenda were asked to be moved to closed session by various board members. Coronel wanted a further review of things that happened on the board between March 2017 through June 2018 to see if board decisions were legal and appropriate. The attorney said that would be best discussed during closed session.
A question about the staff secretary came up and that, too, was recommended for closed session and trustees only vaguely referred to the issue, attempting to keep it mum.
A performance evaluation of Bret Kestell was slated for closed session as well, though Coronel suggested some of that conversation could be public and the board should be transparent.
“The litigation is out in the open and some documents regarding the general manager were leaked to The Desert Sun,” Coronel said.
Rosales said it seemed like “a lot of things get leaked to The Desert Sun.”
Another point of contention during the meeting was an invoice for legal service to investigate if newly appointed Rosales had any conflict of interests with the board due to part-time work that could relate to cemeteries. Coronel individually requested the investigation, without full board approval, but now the board must pay that bill. The board is planning to review its policy dictating who can order attorney services.
But the trustees were trying to move past their tensions on Friday, with a nearly hour-long mediation and communication training to teach the members how to get along. Underwood, board chair, said there is much for the new board to learn about each other and many new best practices to put into place, but Friday’s meeting was a start. Underwood said he would like to eliminate wasteful spending and wants to be more diligent and transparent with the district's funds.
Public Cemetery Districts are funded by property tax assessments that are distributed by their respective counties. According to the grand jury report, the district's annual property tax income since 2015 was between $721,000 and $785,000 with an additional $680,000 coming from burials.
September 21, 2018
Palm Springs Desert Sun
By Nicole Hayden
No comments:
Post a Comment