The Board of Supervisors issued its response to the Grand Jury reports on Who Runs Mendocino County and Measure B, pushing back against parts of their finding while acknowledging that there are areas they can improve.
The Grand Jury report on “Who Runs Mendocino County” from June criticized the board for its overall leadership, stating the board should “establish and publish strategic county-wide policies with effective long term goals that address county-wide issues of public safety, health, economic, environmental and other needs of our communities, as it is charged to do. Rather, the BOS reacts to crises as they arise.” Other issues included a lack of a written succession plan for county CEO Carmel Angelo, a lack of adequately tracking directives given to the CEO, and other procedural issues.
Supervisor John McCowen and Supervisor John Haschak of the ad hoc committee wrote the responses. The board response disagreed with most of the findings, although they agreed with procedural findings such as the name of the public speaker being listed but not a description of the issue raised, there is no complaint or issue form on the Mendocino County website, and there is no procedural requirement for any supervisor to respond to a constituent complaint or issue. The board also agreed with the finding that there is no published long-term countywide strategic plan for important issues. The supervisors said they have implemented some of the recommendations and will implement others in the future.
Haschak said that the county supervisors could improve strategic big thinking and planning asked of them. He thought that big-picture thinking is being pushed aside at times because they are reacting to what’s right in front of them rather than looking at the big picture.
“I hope that as a board we can look at some of those structural changes too that would make us more effective,” Haschak said.
The Grand Jury report on Measure B looked at where the Measure B Mental Health Treatment Act projects are and what the Board of Supervisors can do next.
The board agreed with most of the findings on the Measure B Grand Jury report. The board said it would implement two recommendations from the Grand Jury. The two are that the “BOS prepare and publicize a plan with goals and timelines for the completion of the CSU, CRT and PHF, e.g. Mendocino County website and local news media,” and the “BOS’ priority should be planning and construction of the three facilities.” The three facilities are the Crisis Stabilization Unit, Crisis Residential Treatment, and a Psychiatric Health Facility.
August 27, 2019
The Ukiah Daily Journal
By Curtis Driscoll
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