Your [Humboldt County]Civil Grand Jury In Action: How to ‘read’ a civil grand jury report (part 1)

Have you ever read a complete Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury report, or have you only read media summaries? If the latter, maybe you should read an entire report. Perhaps it is of special interest to your family, job, or county/city government. You may react with agreement (Right on!) or disagreement (How can they say that?). You may take exception to the report findings (Is that really true?) and/or recommendations (We can’t do that!). Most likely, if you finished reading the report, you will have developed your own opinions on the subject investigated. 

Today’s article — let’s call it part 1 — will address what the public needs to know in order to understand a Civil Grand Jury report and the responses received from required respondents. In addition, we will discuss options available for the public (that’s you!) to provide their own responses. 

In next month’s article — let’s call it part 2 — we will discuss how required respondents should read a Civil Grand Jury report prior to submitting their responses to the Superior Court regarding the findings and recommendations. 

The Civil Grand Jury spends approximately nine months investigating a specific county/city process before writing a final report. This is after having completed training on how to perform a grand jury investigation. Before the grand jury can present a finding in one of their reports, they must be able to substantiate facts. In order to be considered a fact, the grand jury must triangulate a minimum of three sources providing the same information. In more simple terms, this means before the grand jury can say, “the sky is blue,” it must find a minimum of three verifiable sources identifying the sky to be blue. These sources can be interviews, published material, source data, and even first-hand observations. In many cases, the grand jury does not limit itself to three sources. 


Whether you are the public, part of the investigated process, or the individual responsible for writing a response, you need to understand over the course of the year the Civil Grand Jury likely interviewed over 100 people, read upwards of 300 published procedures/articles, and even walked the processes. To disbelieve a Civil Grand Jury Finding is to imply that interviewed individuals did not tell the truth, publications were in error, or 19 citizens were wrong in what they observed. 

So let’s say you read last year’s Civil Grand Jury report “Like, Home? There’s No Place …” and you are intrigued by Finding F9. That finding states “Safe parking programs would address an immediate need for the hundreds of people living in their vehicles in Humboldt County.” This finding implies the Civil Grand Jury found/read/talked with a minimum of three sources indicating this to be true. You can be sure that many county and city officials were interviewed, existing literature reviewed, and safe parking programs researched. As a matter of fact, the bibliography for this report contains 168 entries. 

You may find yourself agreeing with this finding and wondering what you can do to support it. California Penal Code 933(c) requires all elected county officials and agency heads to submit written responses to the presiding judge of the Superior Court regarding specified findings and recommendations within 60 days of the date of final reports. Governing bodies (Board of Supervisors, City Councils, and Special District Boards) have 90 days. 

You now have less than 90 days to voice agreement or disagreement with the Civil Grand Jury Finding. You have options here. For example you can write letters to the editors of our local news outlets. You can attend and speak at a Eureka City Council meeting and/or a Board of Supervisors (BOS) meeting. You also can also write or email your elected supervisor. The catch here is you have less than 90 days to provide your opinion. Once the BOS and other governing bodies write their responses, they are very unlikely to reconsider them. Consequently, if you want your opinion heard about the Civil Grand Jury Findings and Recommendations, you need to take the time to engage with our elected leadership. 

Finally, what did the Eureka City Council and the BOS say about Finding F9? You can find it here, https://humboldtgov.org/Archive.aspx?ADID=1368. 

Eureka Times Standard
Wayne Ventuleth authored this monthly column on behalf of the Humboldt County Grand Jurors’ Association. For information on the Association, email hcccgja@gmail.com.
April 12, 2020