Expired PPE, staff shortages, English-only outreach: Orange County’s troubled COVID response

 Blog note: This article refers to an Orange County grand jury report

In early 2020, as COVID-19 cases began popping up across Southern California, Rep. Michelle Steel’s message to her constituents brimmed with the optimism that Orange County might be able to avoid an outbreak.

“We will do whatever we can do [to] keep Orange County coronavirus-free,” Steel — then the chair of the county’s Board of Supervisors — said in late February. Less than a month later, the county identified its first COVID-19 infection from community spread. Over the course of 15 months, the virus would infect more than 254,000 people and kill over 5,000 in Orange County alone.

An investigation by the Orange County Grand Jury shows Steel wasn’t alone in thinking it was possible to stem the rising tide of a pandemic. A report released last week showed that county officials for years had largely underestimated the threat of a global pandemic — classifying it as likely as a disaster at the San Onofre nuclear plant or an act of terrorism. That mindset resulted in a response that stymied outreach efforts to hard-hit communities and hindered access to testing and vaccines, according to the report.

It’s an issue that bedeviled other jurisdictions across California and the U.S. as COVID-19 infections picked up steam and areas struggled with calibrating how hard they should respond. But Orange County stands out because of the distinct role some of its politicians and residents played in fighting back against tough restrictions meant to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

When Los Angeles County closed its beaches in an effort to enforce social-distancing guidelines, most Orange County beaches stayed open. When Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered the county’s shorelines closed in April after photos circulated showing throngs of beachgoers, it unleashed a torrent of criticism from conservative elected officials.

When Orange County imposed a mask order in June, mobs of protesters screamed at politicians during county meetings. Anti-vaccination crusader Leigh Dundas publicized the personal history and home address of the county health officer, Nichole Quick, during a Board of Supervisors meeting and then showed up at the doctor’s home with a banner depicting Quick as Adolf Hitler. She resigned within days.

Months later, when the state issued a mandatory 10 p.m. curfew to try to stave off more coronavirus infections, protesters calling themselves the “curfew breakers” converged near the Huntington Beach Pier in what they said was an attempt to take back their liberty from the liberals in Sacramento.

The county has 90 days to respond to the grand jury’s report. Board of Supervisors Chair Andrew Do called the report overly broad and said it didn’t take into account the conditions officials faced when the virus hit.

“To the degree that it comes across as a criticism, I take a little issue with that. Looking back a year later is more than just Monday-morning quarterbacking,” Do said. “It’s not enough to put into proper context what everybody knew happened, which was the world lost its mind at that moment because we had a thousand concerns.”

Andrew Noymer, an epidemiologist and associate professor of public health at UC Irvine, said it’s not surprising the severity of COVID-19 took people by surprise. Pandemics that have occurred in the past 100 years, including the most recent H1N1 “swine flu” in 2009, paled in comparison with the Spanish flu in 1918 and COVID-19, which has killed more than 589,000 people in the United States and infected more than 33 million. In California, more than 3.7 million residents have been infected, and over 62,000 have died from the illness.

“The fact that the most recent pandemic was such a damp squib really left people unprepared [for COVID-19],” Noymer said. “It took a lot of air out of the balloon.”

After Newsom declared a state of emergency, Orange County remained hesitant to fully commit to restrictions handed down by the state. Despite pushback against such constraints, fewer people became infected and died in Orange County compared with Los Angeles County, which was an early adopter of COVID-19 regulations.

Compared with Orange County, L.A. is far more urbanized and has a larger population of essential workers, whose jobs made it impossible to work from home. More than 1.2 million people have been infected by COVID-19 in L.A. County, and more than 24,000 have died.

Still, the Orange County Grand Jury warned that if problems aren’t addressed locally now, future pandemics will pose significant challenges. Scientists have warned that other pandemics could be on the horizon.

Noymer agrees that the aftermath of COVID-19 is a prime opportunity for governments to do an accounting of what was successful as they rolled out their emergency plans and where they hit speed bumps. Orange County is the first in the region to take that step publicly.

When faced with mounting a response to the coronavirus in early 2020, Orange County officials were caught somewhat flat-footed, the report showed. They underestimated the requirements necessary to communicate with the public and lacked established relationships with community groups in hard-to-reach areas, an issue that challenged efforts to educate residents in hard-hit cities and hindered access to testing and, later, vaccines.

Additionally, the 19-member grand jury noted that some of the county’s stockpile of personal protective equipment was expired when the pandemic hit, and its durable medical equipment had not been maintained and needed substantial repair.

Furthermore, the Orange County Health Care Agency was understaffed. When faced with shortages, rather than hire more people, the county opted to borrow employees from other divisions and train them to help with COVID-19 — a situation the grand jury says led to execution problems and errors.

But Orange County wasn’t the only place in Southern California to struggle with adapting to the reality of the swift-spreading virus. A shortage of trained staff was a major hurdle for counties across the region, officials said.

In San Bernardino County, officials quickly learned the demands of the pandemic required more effort than their public health department could handle. They tapped other county departments, including the library and public defender’s office, to assist.

“Ordinarily when it comes to enforcing health orders, there’s a few people within the county that do that. When suddenly you have these sweeping state orders to close down businesses and launch a huge testing program, there’s no way the existing staff could do that,” county spokesman David Wert said.

Los Angeles County health staffers also have felt the strain of maintaining a large-scale response for more than a year. For months, staff didn’t take vacations, and some didn’t have days off. That’s continuing in some departments because the county has a limited number of people who have the level of expertise needed to manage such a massive response, L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said.

“If there’s one positive that may come out of this, I think it’s recognizing that public health departments need to be better staffed in the first place so that they are actually able to appropriately respond when these emergencies happen,” Ferrer said.

The federal medical station setup with 202-beds was recently created on two vacant floors at Palomar Medical Center. The current 202-beds can be expanded to a total of 250-beds and will be for patients who are not quite well enough to go home.

The grand jury also admonished Orange County for its failure to quickly translate information about the deadly coronavirus, including testing resources, into languages other than English. While nearly half of the county’s 3.2 million residents speak a language other than English, information about testing sites wasn’t translated for most of 2020, according to the grand jury’s report.

“This limited Orange County Health Care Agency’s capability to effectively communicate with all residents, especially in the hot spots of Orange County, contributing to the spread of COVID-19,” the report said.

Supervisor Katrina Foley, who was mayor of Costa Mesa when the pandemic began, experienced firsthand a response from the county she said was just not helpful. It was challenging to get city-specific information, and it was clear the Health Care Agency didn’t have the funding and resources it needed, she said.

“I think there’s been a lot of progress made in the last two or three months, but it’s clear that our healthcare agency was not sufficiently staffed and ready to handle this type of crisis.” she said. “We have to do a better job preparing for the future.

“The federal response to the pandemic was certainly not appropriate, and at the beginning, the county’s response mirrored the federal response,” Foley added. “That delayed our ability to keep people from spreading the virus, and we’ve been playing catch-up ever since.”

Los Angeles Times
By Hannah Fry
May 22, 2021

Responding to activists, Salinas asks the [Monterey County] Grand Jury to look at the police.

Blog note: This is an unusual opinion piece that describes a government entity requesting a grand jury to conduct an investigation. The writer accurately describes the grand jury’s options.

There’s an interesting chess match taking place in Salinas, one that involves neither an actual board nor pieces, but features a whole lot of strategy.

Now if only I could figure out who the pawns are.

The opening move happened when a consortium of activist groups – Community Before Cops, Reinvest 831, Agents of Change among them – launched a petition demanding the Salinas City Council order an independent audit of the Salinas Police Department as part of the 2021-2022 budget approval process, which gets underway in just a few weeks, owing to what the petition calls a failure of leadership and a lack of accountability.

The petition came just about a week after the council in March voted to increase the salaries of Salinas PD’s rank-and-file officers by 2.25 percent. It was a complicated scenario: The union members and the city had been previously unable to reach an agreement on a contract, the city foisted a contract on the union in 2019 and then negotiated that increase. Had the council voted against it, it would have constituted bad faith bargaining.

The vote on the increase was notable for a few reasons, but to the activists, it was tantamount to treason because two members they thought they could rely on – Anthony Rocha and Carla Gonzalez – voted in favor of it.

When it came time to carry the activists’ water, they relied on Rocha and Gonzalez to do it, and they made the formal request to the council for the independent audit.

From the petition: “The Salinas Police Department has historically violated the trust of the community by taking the lives of our community members as well, has deliberately exploited our residents on live national television, and policed youth in our local schools,” the petition states. “The City’s Police Community Advisory Committee has not convened regularly nor has it served as a vehicle for holding the department accountable to community concerns regarding excessive use of force and the mounting distrust of our local department that continues to only grow.”

Some of the asks: crime statistics for the past five years and a list of contributions that have supported the decrease in crime; an evaluation of the mental health care crisis training used by the SPD; an examination of the citizen complaint process and how complaints are resolved; a report on how state and federal grants are being used; and an update on the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing 2016 report on the SPD, and how the DoJ’s 110 recommendations to improve SPD have been implemented.

When Rocha and Gonzalez asked the council for the independent audit, it seemed the council only had two choices – yes we’ll spend the money and do it, or no we won’t. But at a press conference on May 12, after this issue of the Weekly went to print, City Manager Steve Carrigan and Mayor Kimbley Craig were to present their choice – that they sent a letter to the Monterey County Civil Grand Jury to ask that body take up the investigation.

There’s no guarantee the Grand Jury will say yes, and there’s no guarantee the city will have to abide by whatever the Grand Jury recommends if they do take up the request. Rocha says he would prefer the city to hire an independent auditor.

“We can’t ask the community to trust the police department until we’re being entirely transparent with the finances of the police department and the progress on the (DOJ) reform goals,” Rocha says.

Carrigan says he could provide answers to the questions posed in the petition – the police chief, after all, reports to him – but there’s no guarantee anyone would trust in his answers because the police chief, after all, reports to him. “We decided to go with an independent, respected third-party group,” he says.

The same day the news dropped about the city’s request to the Grand Jury, the Grand Jury issued its annual compliance and continuity report, in which it somewhat plaintively stated, “It is hoped that in publishing this data, future respondents to the Monterey County Civil Grand Jury will be encouraged to comply with the California Penal Code.” The Grand Jury, in essence, knows it doesn’t have the power to force anyone to comply – here’s hoping if they recommend changes, the city takes them seriously.

Monterey County Weekly
By Mary Duan
May 13, 2021

Generous pension, poor investments left Kern Co. taxpayers with ballooning burden,[Kern County] grand jury says.

Sagging pension liabilities and a lengthy timetable to turn them around led are leading to calls for reforming Kern County’s largest pension plan becoming amid a full-scale review by the county’s grand jury.

An early report, released Wednesday by the Kern County Grand Jury, paints a grim picture of the current financial status of the pension plan for Kern County employees, along with employees of the Kern County Superior Court, Kern County Water Agency, and other local and special districts in the Golden Empire.

The elephant in the room: a $1.8 billion net pension liability, which accounts for nearly 66 percent of Kern County’s liabilities.

For jurors, despite the State of California being flush with cash on the heels of the coronavirus pandemic, little relief appears to be on the horizon via government intervention.

“It should be noted that the State of California is under no obligation to provide assistance to the county, therefore, none should be anticipated,” the report read.

The root cause of Kern County’s pension liability issues, jurors find, was a 2002 decision by the Board of Supervisors to retroactively increase the pension multiplier for public safety employees (such as sheriff’s deputies, firefighters, local correctional officers, and others) from 2 percent to 3 percent.

The problem? Supervisors didn’t develop “a viable plan to pay for the increased cost.”

Grand Jurors compared Kern County’s pension to two other county pension systems: Ventura and Fresno counties.

Ventura, which is the most financial stable, was 89.57 percent funded. Fresno was 82.69 percent funded.

Kern sits at 64.36 percent.

Making up the growing pension gap, however, is proving costlier by the year.

Six years ago, a California Policy Center report found that Kern County’s pension liability was 1.75 times the county’s annual revenue.

Reaching fully-funded status by within 20 years – as of the time of the report – would require payments equal to 17 percent of annual revenue each year.

Kern County’s pension chief, Dominic Brown, told The Bakersfield Californian that the pension was on-track to reach fully-funded status near that 2034 window.

“As long as the plan sponsors continue to make their plan contributions, this will all sort itself out in time,” he told the pub. “We were over 100 percent funded in 2001. We will get back there again, it’s just going to take time.”

Poor return-on-investment

Though pension contributions are one of three routes to fully-funded status, the Grand Jury found that pension managers and investment advisors failed to reach critical investment goals with its $5.1 billion in assets.

In 2016, the pension’s board set an annual investment return target of 7.25 percent.

Brown told the paper that, over a 10-year span, the fund exceeded the goal, bringing in 7.7 percent return.

Yet, despite an exceedingly hot market for publicly-traded assets, among others, the pension’s full-time investment officer and consulting advisors mustered only 5.5 percent return over the past five years.

Kern County’s lackluster investment returns are magnified during the pandemic year. While Ventura and Fresno County pension plans returned 7.1 and 5.38 percent on investment in 2020, Kern County’s investors brought in only 3.2 percent on investment.

Key recommendations

Grand jurors pressed Kern County to launch a committee to explore reforming the pension plan by fiscal year 2024 in the hopes of expediting the unfunded liability issue faster than 2035.

It also recommended Kern County vastly pare back its retirement multiplier for employees to 1.62 percent and cut back on cost-of-living adjustments (which have often exceeded national averages) to the national average to ensure long-term cost savings for taxpayers.

Kern County officials declined to comment on the report, citing the formal nature of response to Grand Jury reports.

Kern County officials declined to comment on the report, citing the formal nature of response to Grand Jury reports.

San Joaquin Valley Sun
By Alex Tavlian
May 27, 2021

Orange County Grand Jury Slams Top Sheriff Officials for ‘Failure of Leadership’ on Handling Evidence That Undid 67 Criminal Charges

Despite a sweeping evidence scandal that unraveled 67 criminal convictions and charges, OC sheriff officials still are not doing basic audits to make sure such problems aren’t still happening, according to a new investigation report by the county grand jury.

The grand jury found the widespread evidence mishandling stemmed largely from a “failure of leadership,” including “no policy in place to provide management oversight.”

“Therefore supervisors were not held accountable,” the grand jury found.

It’s the first in-depth independent investigation of the wide-ranging evidence scandal, which involved evidence being booked weeks late or not at all, and in several cases false statements by deputies about whether they actually booked evidence in criminal cases.

The scandal led to the dropping of charges including assault, battery, fraud, and weapon smuggling into a jail, DA prosecutors announced earlier this year.

This week, the Orange County Grand Jury released its investigation report into the scandal, finding the sheriff has not done audit checks to make sure the problems are not still happening.

“An audit of OCSD department reports submitted from March 2018 forward has not been conducted to confirm that current OCSD policies and procedures regarding evidence booking and reporting are being followed,” the grand jury wrote, using the department’s acronym.

“There is no documentation confirming that OCSD lieutenants perform evidence booking spot audits consistently across all divisions, resulting in limited management accountability and weak internal controls,” they added.

And DA prosecutors continue to “question whether current OCSD policies and procedures related to evidence booking and reporting are being followed,” the grand jury found.

Sheriff Barnes’ spokeswoman declined to respond to these grand jury findings, saying the department will respond formally to the grand jury.

State law gives the department 60 days to officially respond to the grand jury, which in this case would fall in the second half of July.

Barnes’ spokeswoman also declined to answer how many cases involved deputies or investigators making false statements about evidence, and why the department did not review their full set of about 71,000 police reports for evidence problems after a random sample of 450 reports found that 13% of them had evidence problems.

So far, three sheriff’s deputies have been charged with crimes in connection with the evidence booking problems.

Deputies Bryce Simpson and Joseph Atkinson pleaded guilty to crimes for failing to perform their duties. A third deputy, Edwin Mora, was indicted with a felony last summer for allegedly filing a false police report about evidence. He’s pleaded not guilty.

Barnes led the Sheriff’s Department’s day-to-day operations as undersheriff when many of the known false reports and evidence problems took place.

The sheriff declined to be interviewed by Voice of OC about the report’s findings.

 

The lax approach to evidence booking and false statements was a shift in culture from the past, according to the jurors.

“Lieutenants and commanders who have been with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department for several decades were shocked that this could happen,” the grand jury wrote.

“The practice during their tenure as deputies was that you booked evidence right away; this type of behavior would never have been acceptable.”

The only part of the report Barnes’ office commented on was its praise of the department for what jurors considered a prompt examining of the evidence issues starting in early 2018.

The grand jurors did not note in their findings that Sheriff Barnes kept the evidence mishandling scandal secret for nearly two years until the Orange County Register was about to reveal it publicly in November 2019.

“The Grand Jury commended OCSD for taking immediate action once evidence booking issues surfaced, initiating policy changes, and holding employees accountable through both discipline and referral to the DA for prosecution,” sheriff spokeswoman Carrie Braun said in a statement.

“The Orange County Sheriff’s Department is reviewing the Grand Jury’s recommendations and will implement any that we believe will strengthen our current procedures.”

She noted that an audit of evidence booked after March 2018 is upcoming from Sergio Perez, executive director of the county’s Office of Independent Review (OIR), who reports to the Board of Supervisors.

“We welcome OIR’s review of our evidence systems and believe it will confirm the effectiveness of the controls we have put in place,” Braun said.

“The test of an organization’s strength is how it responds when problems or shortfalls come to light. The Grand Jury Report confirms that the Department took swift action to correct the evidence issue.”

Sheriff’s officials testified to the grand jury last summer that supervisors knowingly allowed deputies to book evidence late in violation of policy – and only deputies were punished, not managers.

A sheriff executive testified a “large number” of deputies booked evidence late in violation of policy and the problem was “department-wide.”

Deputies testified that the emphasis at their stations was on making arrests, not ensuring evidence was booked properly to make sure it stands up in court.

Grand jurors repeatedly questioned whether anyone in management was disciplined, and the answer was no.

Delays in booking evidence can affect criminal cases by prompting questions about whether the material was contaminated and if prosecutors can verify to courts the evidence is the same as what was collected from a crime scene.

Grand jurors underscored the crucial importance of proper evidence handling in their report this week.

“Our system of justice relies upon the proper collection and preservation of physical evidence, as well as the honesty and integrity of those who are sworn to ‘tell the truth,’ ” they wrote.

“Therefore, it is imperative that those responsible for collecting and booking evidence do so in a way that does not compromise the justice system.”

Voice of OC
By Nick Gerda
May 27, 2021

[Orange County] Grand jury calls for independent investigation of evidence mishandling in O.C. Sheriff’s Department

The Orange County Grand Jury is pushing for an independent audit of the Sheriff’s Department to ensure that evidence is not continuing to be mishandled by deputies.

The grand jury’s report, released this week, delves into the much-publicized evidence mishandling scandal, where Orange County sheriff’s deputies were found to have booked evidence late or failed to book evidence at all and subsequently lied about it in reports.

“Ultimately, the only way to know if the evidence booking issue has been resolved is through an impartial third-party verification,” the report says. “An independent audit of department reports submitted after March 2018 would confirm that the new policies and procedures are being followed.”

The evidence mishandling scandal was brought to light in 2019.

The Sheriff’s Department had already conducted two audits of its deputies by that time. The department found that between 2016 and 2018, 414 deputies had booked evidence 31 days or more after it was seized and 1,135 deputies had booked evidence six to 10 days after it was seized, according to a court motion. Department policy requires evidence to be booked at the end of a shift.

Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer’s office then conducted a third audit of the evidence mishandling, which resulted in reduced or dropped charges in 67 cases involving battery, assault and drug possession, among other charges.

Three deputies have been charged with evidence-mishandling crimes.

The grand jury also recommends that the Sheriff’s Department issue a directive within 90 days requiring lieutenants to regularly perform “spot checks” to ensure that evidence is being booked on time.

The grand jury noted that the Sheriff’s Department’s second audit report included a recommendation to conduct monthly spot checks. However, the department never formally adopted the protocol.

“There does not appear to be a policy holding management above the sergeant level accountable for evidence booking and reporting,” the report says.

The grand jury said that much of the evidence mishandling is owed to a lack of leadership and the misplaced priorities of deputies. The report also says that supervisors were not held accountable because the department lacked proper oversight.

“Deputies were busy making arrests and placed a higher value on arrests than booking evidence,” the report says.

The grand jury also recommends that new Sheriff’s Department trainees be given a tour of the department’s Property Evidence Central Booking Facility, which used to be a part of the training of new recruits but isn’t anymore.

“The Grand Jury toured this facility and is of the opinion that the knowledge gained from such a tour would be beneficial to new trainees in emphasizing the importance of proper collection and processing of physical evidence,” the report says.

When reached for comment, Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Carrie Braun provided an emailed statement but also said the department will formally respond to the grand jury, which the department has 90 days to do.

“The Grand Jury commended OCSD for taking immediate action once evidence booking issues surfaced, initiating policy changes, and holding employees accountable through both discipline and referral to the D.A. for prosecution,” Braun said in the statement. “The Orange County Sheriff’s Department is reviewing the Grand Jury’s recommendations and will implement any that we believe will strengthen our current procedures.”

In her response, Braun noted the work of the Office of Independent Review, which oversees the Sheriff’s Department, district attorney’s office, public defenders office, probation department and Social Services Agency.

“With regard to the recommendation for a third party audit on evidence booked post-March 2018, it is important to note that the review of evidence is part of the work plan for the Office of Independent Review. We welcome OIR’s review of our evidence systems and believe it will confirm the effectiveness of the controls we have put in place.

“The test of an organization’s strength is how it responds when problems or shortfalls come to light. The Grand Jury Report confirms that the department took swift action to correct the evidence issue.”

The grand jury report says that district attorney staffers are still concerned about whether the Sheriff’s Department is conducting random audits to ensure that there isn’t any further mishandling of evidence.

Albert Lamonte of Huntington Beach looks on as his son, Marcel, 2, places a paper pinwheel among a makeshift memorial for 6-year-old Aiden Leos, of Costa Mesa, who was fatally shot during a road rage incident on the 55 Freeway in Orange last week. A $150,000 award is being offered for information leading to the arrest of those responsible for the boys' death.

In response to a request for comment, D.A. spokeswoman Kimberly Edds said the district attorney’s office has already asked the Office of Independent Review to review the evidence booking issues.

O.C. Public Defender Martin Schwarz declined to comment for the story.

The grand jury failed to highlight some important aspects of the scandal. The report commends the sheriff’s department’s response to the discovery of the evidence mishandling but does not mention that the department covered up the scandal until O.C. Register reporter Tony Saavedra broke the story in November 2019.

Orange County Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders, who has revealed details about the evidence mishandling scandal in court filings, said in a past interview that the situation is “far from a success story of a rapid response addressing systematic misconduct.”

“We weren’t going to learn any of this, and there certainly was no intent to inform us about the massive scope of false reporting and failures to book evidence,” Sanders said in January. “We obtained the audit through a source and it then became public, more than a year after the massive scope of the problem was understood by the [Sheriff’s Department]. That’s why action was taken. And the real work is just beginning.”

The grand jury report also noted the first 17 deputies referred for criminal prosecution for evidence mishandling and filing false reports. However, it did not mention that the district attorney’s office initially chose to not prosecute any of the 17 deputies. Spitzer later reopened the cases.

At least 16 deputies have been added to the county’s Brady notification list, which is a record that district attorney’s offices are supposed to update with the names of law enforcement personnel who have records of dishonesty, criminality and other issues that could affect their credibility as a witness. Sanders said in a past interview that he believes hundreds more deputies should be added to the Brady list.

Los Angeles Times
By BEN BRAZIL
May 27, 2021

Grand jury calls out underfunded Kern County pension system

A grand jury in Kern County is asking the county’s retirement pension fund to change.

A grand jury said in a report released Wednesday that the $ 1.8 billion unfunded debt at the Kern County Employee Retirement Association would be borne by taxpayers, and legal scholars said the county would completely change the system. Recommended to consider.

“Funding civil servant pensions is not the only challenge for Kern County, but the current (unfunded pension debt) is not going away anytime soon and is expected to gradually worsen over the next decade,” the report said. Says. “It should be noted that California has no obligation to provide assistance to the county, so nothing should be expected.”

However, KCERA Secretary-General Domonic Brown said the fund’s overall health is good. KCERA has an investment of $ 5.1 billion and is projected to be 100% funded by 2035.

“As long as the plan sponsor continues to contribute to the plan, all this will be resolved in time,” he said in a telephone interview. “In 2001, we were over 100% funded. We’ll be back again. It just takes time.”

According to the organization’s website, KCERA has a total of 20,143 members. The program is attended by several institutions, including Kern County, Kern Medical, and Kern County Superior Court. It is funded through return on investment and the contributions of employers and employees.

Pension benefits are earned by employees when they reach a certain age, depending on how many years they have worked for the agency. The number of years an employee has worked multiplied by the final salary is now 1.6% to 2%.

Many of KCERA’s struggles may be related to the 2002 supervisory committee’s decision to increase the multiple of public security officials from the legal maximum of 2% to 3%, according to a grand jury. there is.

“This retroactive increase may have been the single biggest single factor in why pension contributions have become an affordable burden for county taxpayers,” the report said. ..

Since 2002, the fully funded pension plan has become 65% funded. Combined with lower than expected return on investment, the costs that employers have to pay each year to maintain the solvent in their systems are increasing.

Unfunded debt caused a spillover effect throughout Kern County, as money that could have gone elsewhere was sent to the pension fund. According to the report, the county expects an increase in pension costs of about 4.4 percent next year.

Kern County Chief Administrative Officer Ryan Allsop declined to comment on the story, saying he did not want to anticipate the county’s process of providing an official response to the report.

However, despite the negative paintings by the grand jury, KCERA believes the financial situation is not so dire. Investment has returned about 7.7% over the last decade, exceeding the target of 7.25% set by fund leaders.

While the five-year average is around 5.6%, Brown noted the 20% rate of return experienced by KCERA’s portfolio in 2020. The county has historically lags behind its peers, but recent efforts to step up investment should bring good results, he said.

“When we deal with pension funds, we are often described as battleships rather than swift ships. Everything is based on 30-year forecasts,” he said. “It’s up 20% this year, so by the time we get into the 2021 results, the 10-year average will rise, the 5-year average will rise, and the 1-year average will clearly rise. Being astronomical.”

As part of the report, the grand jury set up an extraordinary committee in the county to consider alternative pension plans and recommended reducing the multiplier of all employees to about 1.6% by 2024.

The county must issue a response to the report within 90 days.

California News Times
Sam Morgen
May 26, 2021

[Kern County] Grand jury recommends president be replaced on ‘dysfunctional’ school board | News – Bakersfield, California

 A Kern County grand jury report released Thursday states that the Fairfax school district is governed by a “endangered school board.”

The report depicts a committee with a majority “permitted, split and dysfunctional.”[s] Minority bullying. Last year’s legal services costs “may overwhelm the school district’s budget and raise funds that are not used for direct student education,” he said.

The report makes a series of recommendations to the board to correct the ship, including dismissing current President Palmer Morland and retraining another member by June 30.

“This eliminates the main cause of board dysfunction,” the report said.

The grand jury report puts Fairfax’s board under significant scrutiny by staff, parents, and the entire community for what it considers to be abusive leadership and misuse of district funds. This is the latest version of the saga I saw.

According to the report, Morland committed non-professional acts that lacked “courtesy, dignity and respect.” However, due to time constraints, the report was suspended before the accusation process began, and the grand jury authorized the officials to be removed to remove.

“If the actions of board members continue, future grand juries may consider this process,” the report said.

The grand jury report only calls Morland a “board member.”

Mr Morand talked about the grand jury’s report Thursday and even the idea of ​​leaving the presidency. He said everyone on the board felt it needed to turn to that position.

“I think it’s a very good instruction on what the board should do and what it can do,” he said. “I think this is a good roadmap with recommendations. I don’t think you can go wrong.”

The Fairfax School District is a school district with 2,700 students in southeastern Bakersfield. The report states that the community is pursuing a recall campaign against Mooland and two other board members, Alma Rios and Jose Luis Tapia, who usually vote with him. Also note that board members are facing complaints from the Commission on Fair Political Practice.

The report begins the history of the board with a complaint in May 2020 claiming that Morand created a hostile working environment for employees in the district. The board hired an independent company to produce a 110-page report with a 440-page exhibit. The total cost was $ 40,000, according to the report.

The report-based condemnation resolution failed with a two-to-two vote at a board meeting on December 15. Tapia banished long-time board chairman Javier Moreno in the November elections and voted with Rios to break the bill. Then they voted with Morland and made him president.

Since then, board member Victoria Coronel has repeatedly asked during the public session to include the askedcen blame resolution on the agenda for discussions at the board, but with no success.

The grand jury report stood on her side by recommending that the board return to condemnation by September 1 and “complete the process and close complaints against board members.”

Morland disputed these claims and said he was open to some forum where he could defend himself.

“I never had the opportunity to mention anything in the blame,” he said.

Another email sent to the entire board for additional comments was not returned.

Kristina Budy, Vice President of the Kern Fairfax Teachers Association, was also pleased that the grand jury called on the board to blame again.

“We have endured this ongoing harassment for too long,” she wrote in a statement. “Dysfunction that is disrupting the educational process of the students we serve. We look forward to the swift elimination of individuals. “

The report criticized the way the board conducts its business, which orders members to stop bullying other members immediately, and members must be educated under the requirements of the Ralph M. Brown Act. There is. “

According to the report, the board may have violated state law that requires authorities to perform public affairs in public.

“When board members vote on the agenda without discussion and stop others from asking and / or discussing the purpose of the action, a closed door or external plan / discussion takes place prior to the meeting. I generally leave the suspicion that it was, “the report said.

The grand jury was particularly interested in hiring an outside lawyer, Fagen, Friedman & Fulfrost, in January. This was done by overcoming the opposition of the board minority and the community. Moland did not allow any discussion on this item.

“Board members contacted external law firms and negotiated contracts without the approval or knowledge of the entire board,” the report said.

The grand jury received a total of $ 11,206 invoices from Fagen, Friedman & Fulfrost in January and February for 42.4 hours of legal service. According to the report, the invoice is intended to protect Morland from criticism and to re-edit the invoice to publish an investigation report already edited by the district’s legal adviser, the School Legal Affairs Department. I left an impression.

The grand jury outlines 12 recommendations. One is to ensure that board members are current residents within the district boundaries before the next board meeting. Another asked a member of the board to disclose contact information. It also recommended that the board be trained intensively and withdraw to resolve disputes.

Emnetra
May 28, 2021

[Solano County] Grand Jury report urges city to stay on top of unfunded liabilities

In 2019, the Solano County Grand Jury issued a report cautioning that the city of Vacaville’s retirement benefits package was “not sustainable” and could result in a loss of employees and services if not addressed.

A followup report, issued Tuesday, opined that even with steps taken to mitigate unfunded liabilities, the city needs to do more to keep its services and fully fund employee benefit obligations in the future.

The 2019 report focused on the city’s retirement package, also known as Other Post-Employment Benefit (OPEB), with recommendations including lowering OPEB costs through updated policies and labor relations strategies, forming a citizen oversight committee to study OPEB and make recommendations to the City Council, simplifying the language to address long-term financial impacts and not placing OPEB-related matters on the council’s consent calendar.

For its followup report, the Grand Jury interviewed a resident, City Council member and a member of the OPEB Advisory Committee that was later formed. It also viewed the Oct. 13 council meeting where the committee’s recommendations were presented, a City Council special OPEB study session on March 2 and a webinar on OPEB liabilities in Contra Costa County, hosted by Marc Joffee of the think tank Reason Foundation, in addition to reviewing several documents.

Regarding the recommendation of an OPEB oversight committee, then-Councilman Mitch Mashburn balked at the idea of it being termed an “oversight” committee at a 2019 meeting but said he was supportive of establishing an advisory committee. This idea was supported by the rest of the council, and the committee first met in Jan. 2020 for a 120-day term to study and provide a report of recommendations to the council. The committee was dissolved at the end of its term.

According to the Grand Jury report, the committee presented its report to the council, which “accepted the report, took no action to address the recommendations, and thanked the committee for its serve.”

One of the confirmations of the OPEB Advisory Committee was that the city was facing “significant fiscal challenges” from its OPEB benefit level. The committee cited a 2020 report by state Sen. John Moorlach, R-Costa Mesa, which ranked all of California’s cities based on financial soundness and placed Vacaville in the bottom 10 percent.

Moreover, a 2020 report by the California State Auditor found Vacaville to be in “high-risk of pension obligations, funding, future pension costs and OPEB funding, per the Grand Jury report.

Currently, the city has two California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) pension plans: one for its public safety employees and another for its other employees. Combined, the two plans had an unfunded liability of $209 million as of June 2019.

“If the City of Vacaville increased its current CalPERS Safety Plan payment by $2 million annually it would save $26 million in interest and retire the unfunded liability within 15 years,” the report’s authors wrote. “If annual payments were increased by $5 million the city would save $2 million in interest and retire the unfunded liability in 10 years.”

Additionally, the report indicated that Family Premium health care rates increased an average of 8.5 percent per year from 1975 to 2020. Vacaville has three compensation tiers for both its active and retired employees, which are dependent on the date an employee was hired and how long they served.

In recent years, the city has adopted a defined contribution model for Tier 3 employees. However, the report’s authors wrote that most current employees and retirees continue to receive defined benefits under the first two tiers.

“The private sector has moved towards defined contribution plans because the costs of defined benefit plans are inherently unpredictable,” the report’s authors wrote.

With seven of the nine current memoranda of understanding between the city and seven of the nine labor groups set to expire Oct. 31, and the remaining two slated to end in 2022, the Grand Jury is recommending that the city convert to a defined contributions benefit model in future negotiations with Tier 1 and 2 employees.

Other recommendations included establishing an annual contribution schedule to retire unfunded liabilities over a 10-to-15-year period, applying for American Rescue Act funds for additional contributions toward decreasing liabilities, negotiating all labor contracts with an independent facilitator, addressing unfunded liabilities in all negotiations, re-establishing the advisory committee and following up on its recommendations and continuing to regularly and publicly review issues affecting pensions and liabilities to ensure the city’s finances remain stable and services are not impacted.

Mayor Ron Rowlett and the City Council are required to issue a formal response to the report. Courtesy copies have also been provided to City Manager Aaron Busch and the Solano County Board of Supervisors.

Kris Concepcion, the city’s interim public information officer, said the city has not thoroughly reviewed the report yet but is taking the matter seriously and will have a formal response ready before the due date. Primarily, he said the city is looking at areas that differed from the 2019 report and will formulate appropriate actions after reviewing the recommendations.

“We will be reviewing it thoroughly, taking into consideration all the Grand Jury’s findings and recommendations and studying each one of them and considering them and making sure that each of them get addressed,” he said.

The full report can be read at Solano.courts.ca.gov/divisions/grand-jury/reports/.

Vacaville Reporter
By NICK SESTANOVICH | nsestanovich@thereporter.com |
May 27, 2021

[Orange County] Grand jury suggests added audits in wake of O.C. sheriff’s department evidence-booking problem

 The Orange County Grand Jury is calling for additional audits to make sure sheriff’s deputies are following new department procedures meant to avoid issues with the late booking of evidence that in recent years has led to the dismissal or reduction of charges in dozens of criminal cases.

The county watchdog panel, in a report released Monday, said that the only way to tell if evidence booking deficiencies have been addressed would be by an independently conducted, impartial third-party audit of Orange County Sheriff’s Department reports submitted to prosecutors after March 2018.

The grand jury also suggested that the department set up a formal process for lieutenants to “spot check” evidence booking by deputies in order to increase accountability by department management, as well as integrate three separate electronic systems used in the evidence booking process.

The grand jury report indicated that such moves would help address concerns raised in the panel’s interviews with some prosecutors and defense attorneys regarding whether deputies are following new policies instituted by the sheriff’s department in order to safeguard against the mishandling of evidence.

“Our system of justice relies upon the proper collection and preservation of physical evidence, as well as the honesty and integrity of those who are sworn to ‘tell the truth,’” the grand jury report reads. “Therefore, it is imperative that those responsible for collecting and booking evidence do so in a way that does not compromise the justice system.”

The report acknowledged that “positive steps” have been taken by the department and cited “its willingness to address the problem,” while outlining what the panel believes are “areas that need improvement.”

“The Grand Jury commended OCSD for taking immediate action once evidence booking issues surfaced, initiating policy changes, and holding employees accountable through both discipline and referral to the DA for prosecution,” sheriff’s department spokeswoman Carrie Braun said. “The Orange County Sheriff’s Department is reviewing the Grand Jury’s recommendations and will implement any that we believe will strengthen our current procedures.”

Addressing the recommendation for a third-party audit, Braun noted that the county Office of Independent Review, which monitors the Sheriff’s Department along with other public agencies, has the power to look over the department’s evidence booking systems.

“We welcome OIR’s review of our evidence systems and believe it will confirm the effectiveness of the controls we have put in place,” Braun said. “The test of an organization’s strength is how it responds when problems or shortfalls come to light.  The Grand Jury Report confirms that the Department took swift action to correct the evidence issue.”

A review conducted by Orange County District Attorney’s office with the sheriff’s department, completed earlier this year of cases in which deputies were suspected of mishandling evidence, resulted in the dismissal or reduction of charges in 67 criminal cases.

The district attorney’s office declined to comment Monday on the specifics of the grand jury report, though the office has weighed in on the issue previously.

Officials with the Orange County Public Defender’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

At least four deputies have been fired as a result of the evidence booking scandal. Two deputies have pleaded guilty to misdemeanors, a third is awaiting trial on a felony charge and more than 17 have been added to a Brady list, which means their names are provided to defense attorney’s as having credibility problems.

The joint review followed two internal audits by the sheriff’s department. The first concluded that deputies in nearly on-third of the examined cases were not following the department of booking evidence by the end of their shifts. The second showed deputies were sometimes not booking evidence at all, but were writing in their reports that they had.

Among the evidence at issue was methamphetamine, meth pipes, a switchblade, a stun gun and condoms.

Sheriff Don Barnes previously has said that his department took several steps to implement safeguard in the evidence booking process, including randomized spot checks of booked evidence.

The grand jury report acknowledges many of those new policies, including the move from a lengthy paper-based evidence submission process to electronic templates and increased review by supervising sergeants. The report also acknowledges that some lieutenants have been conducting spot checks of evidence submissions, though they have apparently not been formally documenting those efforts.

Orange County Register
By SEAN EMERY  semery@scng.com
May 24, 2021

[Nevada County] Grand jury urges fleet maintenance

County official says many recommendations already implemented

The Nevada County Grand Jury has a few recommendations for how local governments maintain their vehicle fleets.

Grass Valley and Nevada City could use competition to minimize their fleet costs. The two cities have no vehicle replacement plans, which could help with budgeting.

“One area of concern, we questioned if there are opportunities to reduce fleet (vehicle) maintenance through integration of fleet maintenance,” said David Anderson, grand jury foreperson.

A grand jury report, released this week, focuses on how the governments could improve fleet vehicle maintenance by combining operations. It lists the number of vehicles each government has. Nevada County has 414 vehicles, Grass Valley has 65, and Nevada City has 22.

Report findings note all local governments use fuel cards for cost control. This is more efficient to track fuel costs and different departments, such as the police. Yet the report pointed out, none of the entities had a long term plan for older vehicles.

“It’s a question of planning, if you budget ahead you ensure your budget is adequate for future needs,” said Anderson.

Other findings state that Grass Valley and Nevada City are not exploiting competitive possibilities to minimize costs. Grass Valley and Nevada City maintenance invoice records are identified with the specific department where expenditures are used. But neither Grass Valley or Nevada City track maintenance through online spreadsheets.

“That could better plan and execute maintenance needs. An oil change, for example,” said Anderson.

The grand jury made a number of recommendations. Grass Valley and Nevada City should consider negotiating volume contracts with local repair shops. They also should consider centralizing vehicle expenses. Additionally, both cities should consider implementing automated maintenance software, while Grass Valley should evaluate adding more staff to the fleet services department.

RECOMMENDATIONS

A county official said many of these recommendations already are in place.

Trisha Tillotson, Nevada County Public Works director, said her department will work with the Board of Supervisors on preparing a response to the grand jury.

However, the county is already doing what the grand jury recommends, she added.

“The Sheriff’s Office already mandated an alternative fuel vehicle program, and by 2022 it will begin,” she said. “And by 2025 all transit vehicles will be alternative fuel, as mandated by the state.”

She also pointed out the county, Grass Valley, Nevada City and Truckee will share maintenance operations, though no specific plans currently exist.

“The recommendations are what we want the public to be aware of,” said Anderson. “But we have no power to demand the recommendations be taken. It’s up to the cities and county to accept or reject our recommendations.”

The goal of the report is to ensure effective and efficient government, Anderson said. A grand jury also responds to citizen complaints and inquires to prison operations in each county.

“A grand jury has pretty broad powers requesting information,” said Anderson. “We operate in secrecy, so we can publicize what we do through our reports and we got more coming.”

The Union
By William Roller
May 21, 2021

 

[San Bernardino County] Grand jury probes ‘inappropriate contact’ between Redlands Unified staff, students

Parents are encouraged to email the San Bernardino County panel about what they know

The San Bernardino County Grand Jury is soliciting information from parents of Redlands Unified School District students about concerns involving “suspected inappropriate contact” between students and staff.

In an announcement Tuesday, the grand jury requested that parents email their replies to RUSD@gi.sbcounty.gov by June 7.

Administrators in the grand jury office would not comment Tuesday on the nature of the probe and whether it was prompted by a yearlong investigation by the Southern California News Group into a sex abuse scandal at the district spanning more than a decade.

The SCNG investigation revealed, among other things, that the school district failed to notify police in some cases where students alleged sexual abuse or grooming behaviors by teachers. The district also thwarted criminal investigations of teachers suspected of sexual abuse, destroyed evidence and ordered teachers and other staff not to cooperate with police in criminal investigations.

Redlands Unified paid out more than $30.2 million to settle sex abuse lawsuits with former students during the SCNG investigation, which prompted sweeping reforms at the school district. Those reforms included implementation of the Act Now initiative to enhance student safety and a six-page policy requiring school resource officers at every high school, handbooks for all employees on mandated reporting, and additional school counselors to focus on the “socioemotional” health of students.

For further information or comments, visit the grand jury website at wp.sbcounty.gov/grandjury Or, call the grand jury assistant at 909-387-9120.

San Bernardino Sun
By JOE NELSON | jnelson@scng.com
May 18, 2021 at

Sanchez, Krey and Oberhelman: [Santa Clara County] Crisis intervention training for law enforcement

Blog note: This Op Ed article is by members of the Santa Clara County Grand Jurors Association and refers to a Santa Clara County grand jury report .

SJPD's Mobile Crisis Response Team responds to calls for those experiencing a mental crisis. Photo by Lorraine Gabbert.

Recently, several law enforcement agencies in Santa Clara County have unveiled specialized units designed to de-escalate interactions with citizens who may be in mental health crisis. San Jose PD launched a one-year pilot program in October 2020 that links specially trained officers with clinicians from the County’s Behavioral Health Services (BHS).  BHS has been active with its Mobile Crisis Response Teams (MCRT) since January 2018.

Our government officials are to be applauded for these efforts to improve outcomes between police and citizens in mental health crisis.

But more should be done at a time when this issue has the public’s attention like seldom before, in large part because of the Black Lives Matter and defund-the-police movements.

The 2018 Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury (CGJ) focused on this issue in its report, “Police and the Mentally Ill – Improving Outcomes.” The report states 31 individuals were killed in interactions with police agencies in our county from 2013-2017, nine of which were citizens undergoing a mental health crisis.

Crisis Intervention Training (CIT) exposes officers to the varied mental conditions that could be encountered and how to deescalate such encounters. The grand jury discovered that law enforcement agencies were providing CIT beyond the training received in the police academy. The CGJ report recommends that each law enforcement agency continue in their efforts to provide the additional CIT training to every officer. The CGJ report also recommends agencies activate MCRT teams and expand the use of these teams. Nearly every agency responded to the report by stating it intended to give additional CIT training to every officer.

Now, two years after that grand jury report, law enforcement has taken some positive steps, but concerns remain.

Positive developments include the BHS MCRT deployment. Currently there are six available MCRT teams to respond both to calls from a community help line and at the request of law enforcement. Calls for assistance can result in service referrals or field visits.

MCRT delivered 310 field visits in 2019, but the number of responses soared to 675 in the first nine months of 2020, based on a November 2020 status report to a Board of Supervisors subcommittee. Law enforcement made 386 referrals to MCRT in 2019 and 487 between January to September 2020. Nearly every police agency in the county utilized MCRT.

Not so positive is the number of deaths in police encounters. From June 2018 to October 2020, 11 citizens died at the hands of law enforcement in Santa Clara County, five of which involved factors of mental illness based on the website FatalEncounters.

Clearly, this must improve. Our association’s recent survey of selected law enforcement agencies showed incremental progress (Milpitas) and great progress (Gilroy, San Jose, Mountain View and the Sheriff) in exposing every officer to additional CIT training.

But troubling is the county’s decision more than a year ago to reduce Sheriff’s Office CIT training to a 24-hour course from 40 hours. The other major local CIT provider, San Jose PD, continues with a 40-hour course. It is our understanding that the class discussing the various kinds of mental conditions, previously presented by the professional organization NAMI, has been eliminated.

We, the Santa Clara County Grand Jury Association, fear this is the wrong direction for the times.

The Black Lives Matter movement catalyzed a re-examination of the role police should play when confronting persons in mental health crisis. An April study from a Stanford Law School policy practicum, Safety Beyond Policing: Promoting Care Over Criminalization, supports the use of mental health counselors rather than officers in many situations involving the homeless and mentally ill.

Police interactions with people in mental crisis will always be fraught with danger. But the numbers of persons in mental health crisis who die in incidents with law enforcement are still too high. The six MCRT teams are a great achievement, but having CIT trained officers can only increase good outcomes.

County law enforcement agencies must ensure all of their officers receive additional CIT training, while the county boosts funding and deployment for its MRCT teams.

San José Spotlight
Luis Sanchez, Michael Krey and Harry Oberhelman are members of the Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jurors Association.
MAY 17, 2021

Q&A with Assemblyman Marc Berman Over Legislation to Change [Santa Clara County] VTA

 Blog note: This blog interview refers to Santa Clara County grand  jury reports

Note: GJEL Accident Attorneys regularly sponsors coverage on Streetsblog San Francisco and Streetsblog California. Unless noted in the story, GJEL Accident Attorneys is not consulted for the content or editorial direction of the sponsored content.

Following the recommendations of a 2019 Santa Clara County Grand Jury Report, Assemblymember Marc Berman introduced legislation earlier this year that would dramatically remake the Board of Directors for the Valley Transit Authority (VTA).

Streetsblogs California and San Francisco have been covering the legislation, but to provide a complete picture we offered the Assemblymember a chance to respond to a Q&A on VTA and the legislation. For more on the bill and the response to it, you can follow the rest of our coverage:

• State Legislation Would Reshape VTA Board, Streetsblog SF, March 2
• Legislative Update, Streetsblog CAL, March 5
• VTA Leaders Express Doubt About Legislation That Would Reshape Board, Streetsblog SF, March 11

Streetsblog: First, could you briefly describe AB 1091, what its goals are and how this legislation will help us get to those goals?

Marc Berman: AB 1091 makes a number of changes to the structure of the VTA Board of Directors. First, it reduces the overall size of the Board from 18 members (12 of whom are voting members) to nine voting members with no alternates. Second, the bill changes who serves on the board. Right now the VTA Board is a rotating group of elected officials: 10 city councilmembers and two members of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors. AB 1091 would replace the elected officials on the board with qualified members of the public who have relevant expertise. These members would be appointed by the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors and city councilmembers. Lastly, AB 1091 would lengthen board members’ terms from two to four years.

Three Civil Grand Jury Reports over the last 17 years have concluded that VTA’s governance structure is a root cause of the agency’s poor performance and is in need of structural reform. The goal of AB 1091 is to create a board with an improved level of expertise and continuity, but additionally to reorient the board towards a regional focus—with board members thinking about the regional transportation network rather than the political interests of the cities or districts they represent. Taxpayers, transit riders, and VTA staff deserve a Board of Directors that has the time and expertise necessary to provide appropriate oversight and meet our region’s complex transportation needs.

SB: Why is now the best time to be considering this legislation?

MB: This legislation is long overdue. A Civil Grand Jury first recommended restructuring the VTA Board in 2004. The 2019 Civil Grand Jury concluded that many of the problems identified in 2004 remain and have only grown deeper. We cannot continue to ignore the structural problems with the VTA Board that have been identified by three Civil Grand Juries over 17 years. I understand that this is a difficult conversation to have, but it’s not serving transit riders, taxpayers, or VTA to keep putting the conversation off.

SB: Is there a plan to overcome the formal opposition from the VTA Board and cities such as San Jose and Cupertino?

MB: Ironically, San Jose opposes the bill because they fear it takes away their power, and some of the non-San Jose cities or local elected officials oppose the bill because they fear it gives San Jose too much power.

Although AB 1091 creates a VTA board that is smaller overall, it does not change the existing balance between how many members are appointed by San Jose and how many are appointed by the non-San Jose cities in the county. Currently, San Jose appoints five voting members to the Board and all other cities appoint five voting members. Under AB 1091, the City of San Jose would appoint two members and the other cities would appoint two members. The other five seats would be appointed by each member of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, all of whom represent at least a portion of San Jose. Each Supervisor could appoint a member who lives in San Jose, leading to a VTA Board that could have seven members from San Jose and two members from the non-San Jose cities. I don’t think that will happen, but it’s possible under AB 1091. Regardless of where the Supervisorial appointments live, my hope is that the Supervisors who appoint them will vet them to make sure they see things through a less parochial and more regional approach.

I am open to amending the bill as I continue to hear feedback from stakeholders about how best to improve VTA governance, and I hope that those who oppose it will propose suggested amendments to the bill. That is, unless they believe the current governance structure is working well and they want to defend the performance of VTA, which has consistently ranked at or near the bottom of rankings against peer agencies in a host of performance metrics.

I understand that changing the governance structure will not solve all of the complex issues that VTA faces. But as I’ve said before, we all share the common goal of improving public transportation in Santa Clara County. I would hope that this is something that everyone—even current VTA board members who might have to give up a little personal political power in exchange for better governance—could agree with.

SB: The 2018-2019 Grand Jury report that helped lead to this legislation suggested a number of different options for reforming the membership, one of which was board elections similar to the BART Board model. Why did you choose a different possible reshaping (which was also an option in the report) to a direct election?

MB: I looked at a number of options for reforming VTA based on the recommendations of the most recent Grand Jury report, and I considered a directly elected model like BART. The directly elected model is very rare for transit boards in the United States, and I worry that a directly-elected board would perpetuate the type of parochial and political thinking that has been detrimental to VTA’s regional mission. With an appointed board, we can ensure that transportation-related expertise is represented on the board, and that folks who may be great board members but lack the means to run a political campaign are not excluded from serving.

Streetsblog
By Damien Newton
April 26, 2021