[Tuolumne County] City, county must still pay $618K in pension obligations for ex-TCEDA employees

Blog note: this article references a 2018 grand jury report and media coverage, the latest of which we just posted on our news blog. This story is not over. 

Nearly $618,000 in unfunded future pension obligations for former employees of the Tuolumne County Economic Development Authority will have to be addressed before the agency can be fully shut down.

The amount, referred to as an “unfunded liability,” was revealed in an audit of the TCEDA’s finances that was released Monday morning and presented to the agency’s governing board at a public meeting on Tuesday afternoon.
California law requires the county and City of Sonora to agree on how much each will pay to fund the obligations before the TCEDA can be dissolved, because it was formed as a joint powers authority through an agreement between both governments.

There are three former employees who worked for the TCEDA and are due to receive retirement benefits through the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, or CalPERS — former Chief Executive Officer Larry Cope and former administrative assistants Beth Hartline and Malorie Sperry.

The TCEDA participated in CalPERS, the largest public pension fund in the United States at $362 billion, by including its employees in the county’s contract with the system.

County Auditor-Controller Debi Bautista said that having an unfunded liability for retirement benefits through CalPERS is not uncommon for public agencies in the state, as “almost every single jurisdiction in the state of California that’s a PERS member has an unfunded liability.”

Bautista said the entire system has about 70 percent of what it would need to pay all future obligations, while Tuolumne County as a whole has about 68 percent funded. The county’s total unfunded liability for retirement benefits is about $104 million.

Higher salaries, employees retiring later in life, and living longer after retirement are among the factors Bautista cited that have contributed to the unfunded liabilities in jurisdictions across the state.

In 2012, state lawmakers passed the California Public Employees’ Pension Reform Act that required new employees in the system to pay for a larger share toward their retirement plans and reduced benefits as a way to rein in costs and pay down the liability.

The law also required any new joint powers authorities that were formed after it went into effect to have their own contract with CalPERS, but those that were formed before that — such as the TCEDA — were exempt

Bautista said numerous counties throughout the state included employees of a joint powers authority in their contracts with the system prior to the law.

David Goldemberg, of Sonora, asked how much of the nearly $618,000 was specifically for Cope’s future retirement benefits, but Bautista said it’s calculated as a whole pool as opposed to individuals.

Goldemberg remarked, and Bautista agreed, that the “lion’s share” of the amount will go to Cope because his salary was much higher than his two assistants. CalPERS benefits are based on a formula that involves an employee’s salary, retirement age, and how many years they worked.

Cope’s annual base salary at the end of his tenure in March was about $163,000, which is roughly four times greater than what his most recent assistant was earning before she quit in March of last year.

County Counsel Sarah Carrillo noted that Cope’s original contract when he was hired by the TCEDA board in 2009 stated that he would receive the same benefits as county employees in the management labor group at the time.

“Essentially that meant that he and the other staff members that were there would be placed into the county’s CalPERS contract and that is something that, to my understanding, both the city and county understood when they created the entity,” she said.

Carrillo stated in an email yesterday that she was not involved with the formation of the TCEDA at the time.

The board decided to delay formally accepting the audits until its next meeting on June 14 after several of the roughly 10 people who attended on Tuesday took issue with the timing of the release of the audits, including TCEDA board members Jim Garaventa and Matt Hawkins, both of whom are elected members of the Sonora City Council.

Hawkins said he couldn’t accept the reports until the public gets more time to review them in the best interest of transparency, something that drew applause from those in attendance.

“I don’t think it’s fair,” he said. “We’ve had the grand jury looking into everything, and I don’t necessarily think it’s transparent.”

A lack of transparency was one of the concerns cited by the Tuolumne County Civil Grand Jury in its report on the TCEDA that was released last June and led to the board ordering the audits, which cost about $41,000.

Hawkins and Garaventa both joined the board after the report was released in hopes of being able to help correct the issues.

Garaventa said he received the audits about 30 hours before the meeting, about the same time they were released to local media outlets, and the background information for the meeting less than 26 hours before it began.

“I’ve worked one shift and a good portion of another and slept,” he said. “I haven’t read the audits, and there is no way I’m going to accept something I have not read.”

County Supervisor Karl Rodefer, who serves on the TCEDA board, noted how there was nothing that could be changed about the audit reports even if they delayed the acceptance of them until June.

Bautista gave an overview about the findings from the audits, which she described as a unsurprising because they confirmed much of what had already been publicly reported by the grand jury.

The audit on the agency’s management practices stated that the TCEDA’s travel and business expense policy approved by the board originally in 2009 put the agency at risk for fraud and mismanagement, because it essentially allowed the CEO to overrule every limitation in it.

Bautista, who provided input on the policy when it was being created, said that she personally has learned from the experience with the TCEDA and previously believed it was OK for it to have separate policies from the county’s because they were separate legal entities.

“In hindsight, we should have still made sure that the board understood that the policies and procedures that were adopted way back when were basically not policies and procedures because the director can overrule anything,” she said. “And we will never, ever do that again.”

At the end of the meeting, Carrillo also updated the board on the progress of dissolving the TCEDA and provided a report that stated her office was notified last month when Cope left that he was overpaid by $4,381.26 due to a clerical error made by the Human Resources Department.

The report stated that an inadvertent mistake in the payroll system gave him a 3 percent salary increase last June as a cost-of-living adjustment for the current fiscal year, but his contract was amended in 2017 to exclude such pay increases.

Minutes from a TCEDA board meeting on March 10, 2017, stated that Cope told the board he didn't feel comfortable accepting the cost-of-living adjustments because his contract also included annual raises of 5 percent over the next three years.

According to Carrillo's report, the issue was considered fully resolved. He refunded the overpayment when her office contacted him about it.

April 23, 2019

The Union Democrat

By Alex MacLean

[Tuolumne County] TCEDA Financial And Management Audits Released

Blog note: notice the very different reporting from an article in the Union Democrat just posted on the subject.

Sonora, CA — Audits related to the Tuolumne County Economic Development Authority, in response to a critical Grand Jury Report, have now been finalized.

It is somewhat a moot point, as we reported on February 19 that the Tuolumne County Supervisors and City of Sonora both voted to dissolve the TCEDA joint powers agreement. Shortly thereafter the TCEDA Board ended the contract of longtime director Larry Cope.

That said, the city and county can potentially use the information as they chart their own paths related to economic development.

The outside audits were conducted by the Sacramento based firm, Macias, Gini and O’Connell, LLP. They were hired by the TCEDA Board of Directors in September of last year. One audit looked at finances and the other was management.

The audits were critical of things like travel and expense policies for the Executive Director, policies related to time card approval and the director’s use of comp and vacation time.

April 22, 2019

myMotherLode.com

By BJ Hansen

[Tuolumne County] Audit findings: TCEDA lacked proper policies

Blog note: this article references a 2018 grand jury report, which has received the greatest number of media articles on all grand jury 2017-18 reports in the state (as posted in this news blog). Most of these articles (including this one) are by Alex MacLean of The Union Democrat.

The now-defunct Tuolumne County Economic Development Authority operated in a realm of its own without the proper policies in place to provide effective oversight of its chief executive officer, Larry Cope, financial and management audits that were released on Monday confirmed.

Much of what is contained in the long-awaited audits confirm what The Union Democrat reported in February about the TCEDA’s spending for travel and business expenses, as well as some of the findings from a report by the Tuolumne County Civil Grand Jury released in June.

Macias, Gini and O’Connell LLP, or MGO, a California-based public accounting firm that has audited many of the largest cities in the state, was paid $41,250 by the TCEDA Governing Board to conduct the audits at the recommendation of the jury.

The TCEDA was formed in late 2008 as a joint powers authority through an agreement between the county and City of Sonora to help foster economic growth and assist businesses.

However, the county Board of Supervisors and Sonora City Council unanimously decided to withdraw from the agreement on Feb. 19 due to a loss of public trust that made it difficult for the TCEDA to continue.

All of the recommendations made in the audits were addressed to the county because it’s in the process of recruiting an interim economic development director who would pick up where the TCEDA left off.

Weaknesses in the TCEDA’s travel and business expense policy left the door open for possible fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement, according to the firm’s final report on the management audit.

The policy allowed Cope to approve his own travel and business-related expenses, provided him with certain exemptions to the rules and listed him as the person who approves such exemptions.

“This allowed the Director to approve his own expenses that exceed the policy limitations,” the audit report stated.

The Union Democrat published a report on Feb. 19 after an extensive review of the TCEDA’s travel and business expense records for 2017 and 2018 that found Cope had spent more than $100,000 on the agency’s credit card in those two years combined.

Cope’s expenses in the years reviewed by the newspaper included multi-day trips to trade shows in places such as Las Vegas and Boston, where some of the hotels Cope stayed at cost more than $400 a night.

The next director should be required to submit travel plans for approval ahead of time, someone else should review and approve his or her expenses, and the county’s auditor-controller should regularly monitor the expenses, according to the recommendations from the audits.

The auditors also recommended requiring the next director to disclose more information for meal expenses, including a description of the purpose, identifying the participants by name, business, or — if confidential — business types, and include itemized receipts.

Only a few of the receipts submitted by Cope in 2017 and 2018 were itemized. His calendar identified county officials whom he met with over a meal in 2017, but not 2018. He also only listed businesses as either “existing clients” or “prospects,” but did not identify them by name or type of business.

According to the auditors, the TCEDA’s policy also did not comply with Internal Revenue Service rules requiring employees to provide a business-related reason for expenses and pay the agency back “in a timely manner” for any expenses or reimbursements that were not covered by its policy.

The auditors also suggested that the board “may consider budgeting and accounting for local meal expenses separately from travel expenses and monitor the reasonableness” of the director’s local meal expenses on a monthly basis.

The TCEDA board approved the original version of the policy on July 10, 2009, after Cope presented them with a draft. Minutes from the meeting stated he met with County Auditor-Controller Debi Bautista for direction on the policy.

Some minor updates to the policy were approved by the board in 2015.

Bautista said on Monday she probably should have sat down with the TCEDA board and explained how they passed a policy that allows the director to overrule it at anytime, but she didn’t because she was told they were completely separate entities and needed separate policies.

“I will never do that again,” she said. “I don’t care if they pass their own policies, I would scrutinize them at the same level as any other county department. We’ve learned a lot from this.”

County Counsel Sarah Carillo said she was not involved with the formation of the TCEDA, nor was anyone currently in her office, but they can only provide legal advice to their clients and can’t make the decision on what to do for them.

The management audit stated that requests for information concerning the TCEDA went through the County Counsel’s Office and were decided on a case-by-case basis.

Outside attorneys were hired to defend the TCEDA against a lawsuit filed by county resident Ken Perkins last year for information concerning the businesses that had benefited from the agency’s assistance, which ultimately resulted in the release of redacted information and $7,000 awarded to Perkins for his attorney fees.

Auditors acknowledged there might be legal reasons to withhold information concerning some clients of the TCEDA, but stated “the tracking and reporting of business contacts are important for both performance metric reporting and transparency.”

According to the audit, the TCEDA’s tracking of performance metrics fell short of those reported by similar economic development agencies in Madera and Siskiyou counties.

The other agencies collected metrics such as the number of site requests made by business, industrial vacancy rate, amount of funds invested into the economy, and return on investment, while the TCEDA did not.

Additionally, the audit found that Cope should not have claimed “comp time” while in England for a month in 2017 because he was a salaried employee who does not receive comp time. The audit noted that he agreed to return the hours to the county from his accrued vacation time when his contract was terminated last month.

Cope received a lump-sum payment of more than $120,000 as part of his separation agreement with the TCEDA.

County Supervisor John Gray, who serves as TCEDA chairman, said he could not weigh an opinion on the audits Monday because he was out of town most of the day and had yet to read through them.

Sonora Mayor Jim Garaventa, who serves on the TCEDA board, also said he hadn’t gotten a chance to read the audits Monday afternoon because he received them that morning while he was at work.

Bautista is scheduled to give a presentation about the audits to the TCEDA board at a special meeting Tuesday afternoon.

The board is also scheduled to consider a number of items related to the process of dissolving the TCEDA and its nonprofit arm, the Economic Prosperity Council of Tuolumne County, including the recent resignation of longtime TCEDA board member Barry Hillman.

Hillman, who joined the board in 2012, took aim at critics in his resignation letter dated March 19.

“I deeply regret the demise of the TCEDA as I continue to believe it has provided an excellent pathway for true economic development in Tuolumne County now lost due to shortsighted influence and misrepresentations of a minority of individuals who have never taken time to understand the importance and value of this organization,” he wrote.

Hillman said he had not read the audits when contacted via telephone Monday afternoon and declined to answer any other questions before abruptly ending the call.

April 22, 2019

The Union Democrat

By Alex MacLean

[San Benito County] Community Opinion: Grand Jury

Kenneth Kovanda shares his thoughts about serving on the San Benito County Civil Grand Jury.

I served on the Grand Jury for two years and back then our budget was $19,000, but we had to pay rent to use a room at the sheriff's office that came out of our budget. We had five or so items that we had to investigate each year. It took two or more people for each investigation. We received a letter from a county employee concerning a situation that he felt needed to be looked at. We interviewed eight people and spent weeks just on this one situation. We used to receive $15 a meeting and received mileage money to the meeting. 

I disagree with Margie Barrios that every agency is expected to live within their budget. The county allows a Public Defender a budget for the year, but depending on his workload they almost always have to increase the budget to compensate him for his work, so what she said is not true. The Grand Jury is very similar in that they don't have any advanced notice how much work will be required for the year, so they should get an increase to compensate them for their extra work just like the Public Defender.

We had to investigate the Board of Supervisors on a situation and after that investigation, the budget was reduced the following year by taking away the mileage for our meetings. I would think that the budget would increase with the cost of living just like the salaries of county employees increase. I don't think any county employee is making the same today as they did in 2006. 

The people on the Grand Jury take their job very seriously and deserve the respect of the community and the Board of Supervisors.

April 22, 2019

BenitoLink

By Kenneth Kovanda

[San Mateo County] Alarming data prompts East Palo Alto to consider smoking ban in apartments, condos

City leaders seek to safeguard against excessive penalties, displacement if new law takes effect

A San Mateo County civil grand jury report that recommends cities take a more proactive stance in banning secondhand smoke in apartments, condominiums and other multiunit housing such as townhomes and fourplexes, is being taken seriously by East Palo Alto.

The City Council on April 2 voted 4-0, with Councilman Ruben Abrica absent, to direct staff to explore creating a smoking ban in multiunit dwellings. In a discussion before the vote, council members cautioned staff against drafting an ordinance that would further cause evictions or unfairly punish smokers.

The city's exploration of the subject is in response to the 2017-2018 San Mateo County Civil Grand Jury report "Smoke-Free Multiunit Housing: No Ifs, Ands, or Butts," which specifically recommended that East Palo Alto and other cities hold public hearings to evaluate restricting smoking in multiunit housing.

East Palo Alto already has an ordinance to prevent smoking in all buildings and other facilities owned, leased or occupied by the city, but it doesn't have any restrictions on smoking in multiunit dwellings except where common areas are open to the public, according to a city staff report. The city has 3,395 multiunit residences, according to the civil grand jury report.

Secondhand smoke from tobacco products contains more than 7,000 chemicals, including more than 50 carcinogens. It has killed an estimated 2.5 million nonsmokers in the U.S. since 1967, according to the U.S. Public Health Service's surgeon general. E-cigarettes, while not producing smoke, do make vapor that also contains many of these chemicals, and smoke from cannabis is also considered toxic and can impair blood-vessel function, according to the California Department of Public Health.

Passive smoke, another name for secondhand exposure, infiltrates apartments through vents, electrical outlets, floor boards and other gaps, making its control particularly important for children and pregnant women. It also remains deposited on furniture, rugs, clothing and drapery where hazardous chemicals remain long after a smoker has left an apartment.

Exposure to secondhand smoke is linked to cancers, asthma and other respiratory diseases.

Staff noted that East Palo Alto residents have been particularly impacted by asthma, a condition that can be caused or aggravated by smoke. City environmental management analyst Michelle Daher told the Rents Stabilization Board in March that her daughter was hospitalized due to her asthma after being exposed to secondhand smoke in an apartment. Others also spoke of their own illnesses and their suspicions that secondhand smoke may have contributed to the deaths of their loved ones.

Daher compiled county data for the years 2013-2015 that showed East Palo Alto residents made as many as 47.4 visits to hospital emergency rooms due to asthma compared to 32.7 visits for the county as a whole, per 10,000 adults ages 18 years and older. That number is 144.95% greater than the county rates. The percentage of East Palo Alto adults who were hospitalized due to asthma-related illness was 256% greater than that for the county overall. Among adults who had pediatric asthma, East Palo Alto adults had a hospitalization rate 364.29% greater than the county value per 10,000 adults.

Francesca Lomotan, San Mateo County Health Department's tobacco prevention program director, told the city council that the American Lung Association scorecard for cities has given East Palo Alto an "F" grade for smoke-free housing; a "C" for smoke-free outdoor air and a "B" for reducing the sale of tobacco products.

Her office is conducting a survey of East Palo Alto residents at Woodland Park Apartments to gauge their experiences with secondhand smoke and how they feel about a potential nonsmoking ordinance. Initial responses from 73 people found that 89% said the smell of smoke bothers them and 80% said they sometimes or often experience secondhand smoke. Asked whether they would support a smoking ban in multiunit apartments, 77% said "yes," 8% said "no" and 15% said they "don't know."

If East Palo Alto enacts an ordinance, it would join 10 jurisdictions within San Mateo County with smoking bans in multiunit housing, including Brisbane, Burlingame, Daly City, Foster City, Redwood City, San Bruno, San Mateo, South San Francisco and unincorporated San Mateo County. Belmont passed the nation's first ordinance in 2007, and other cities, including San Carlos, are currently examining similar laws, staff noted.

The ordinances prohibit tobacco and recreational marijuana smoke, with most prohibiting medical marijuana smoke. All prohibit e-cigarettes or "vaping," and all include condominiums except for Daly City. Most require a nonsmoking notice in leases.

The council had no objections to exploring a potential law with a caveat: Any ordinance should contain language that won't increase displacement of residents.

Councilman Carlos Romero said he is "quite concerned" that an ordinance would be used by landlords as an excuse to evict renters in rent-controlled units, which would then allow the rent to increase to market value.

City Attorney Rafael Alvarado also said that part of the criticism of these types of ordinances is they create additional opportunities for displacement of tenants.

But rent stabilization program administrator Victor Ramirez said staff would work on ways that keep landlords from unjustly evicting tenants and that it would not have to modify the 2010 rent stabilization ordinance, which doesn't include smoking as grounds for a just cause eviction.

The city could look to other ordinances for guidance on preventing eviction and intimidation and perhaps strengthen those provisions. According to the grand jury report, more than half of the existing nonsmoking ordinances in other cities within the county prohibit retaliation. In unincorporated San Mateo County, for example, residents seeking to comply with the ordinance "shall not be intimidated or harassed for doing so, and no person shall intentionally or recklessly expose another person to smoke in response to that person's effort to achieve compliance." It is also unlawful for a landlord or another person to take any retaliatory action against a resident for reporting a multiunit housing violation. By inference, that could include smoking violations. Staff would also look at multiunit nonsmoking ordinances in cities with rent-stabilization laws, such as Santa Monica.

Council members also instructed staff to look into ways to enforce the ordinance. Most of the cities with housing smoking ordinances give first-time violators an initial warning and repeat violators fines ranging from $100 to $1,000, according to the grand jury report.

In neighboring Palo Alto, the city enacted a no-smoking ordinance in multiunit dwellings in January 2018 that restricts smoking cigarettes, cigars, cigarillos, hookahs, pipes, electronic smoking devices "and any plant product intended for human inhalation including medical or recreational marijuana" inside the residences and in many common areas inside and outside of buildings. Landords must post signage and include notices of the ordinance in lease and rental agreements.

The city can enforce the ordinance by applying a nuisance law or imposing a fine that ranges from $250 for a first violation, $300 for a subsequent violation and up to $500 for each additional violation within a year.

Landlords in Palo Alto can also consider smoking a violation of the lease and "may be enforced accordingly," a city fact sheet noted.

But Romero was against overly punitive measures.

"I'm opposed to any fines. We are trying to move away from penalizing people of color or working-class folks," he said.

The city could work with landlords or the county's tobacco prevention program to bring tenants into compliance through education. Private citizens could also bring legal actions against neighbors who refuse to comply with the law, although Romero thought that might be too difficult for most tenants to deal with. One resident suggested the city could give out vouchers for nicotine patches or referrals to programs to help smokers kick their habits.

The council did not specify any date for staff to return with a framework for the ordinance.

April 18, 2019

Palo Alto Weekly

By Sue Dremann 

[Kern County] County exploring grand jury's suggestion of impounding unlicensed mobile food vendors' equipment

The Kern County Department of Public Health could soon be strengthening its regulations on mobile food trucks if it follows the recommendations of a Kern County grand jury.

In a recent report, the grand jury suggested that the county department impound equipment of unpermitted food vendors, a practice that would require the establishment of a new county ordinance.

As it stands currently, the county issues cease-and-desist warnings to food vendors that present a low risk of disease transmission, and unpermitted high-risk vendors could have their food confiscated or discarded, according to the grand jury report.

County officials are taking the grand jury’s suggestion seriously, opening up the possibility that new penalties could be levied against the unlicensed vendors.

“Any effort we could make to improve food safety in the community, clearly we’re interested in and want to pursue,” said KCPH Director Matt Constantine. “We’re just trying to explore what we can do.”

A total of 494 mobile food vendors currently have obtained licenses through the Health Department’s Environmental Health Division.

Some licensed food vendors have estimated that there are many unlicensed units throughout the city.

From January 2018 to March 20, 2019, the county issued roughly 127 cease and desist notices to unpermitted food vendors, according to the county. In 69 of those cases, food was voluntarily condemned and destroyed.

“There are a number of individuals that are still unaware of food safety and of obtaining a required permit, so we have some work ahead of us,” Constantine said.

For Mohammed Saphieh, owner of the Pita Paradise food truck, the grand jury’s suggestion would be a welcome change.

“It’s a little drastic maybe, but I think it’s a necessary step to get people to go out and get permitted,” he said. “I think it’s a pretty big problem.”

He said at a recent concert at Fox Theater, he noticed around 20 other food trucks that he did not think were permitted.

“I definitely see that a lot,” he said, referring to unpermitted vendors.

The public can distinguish between permitted and unpermitted vendors by a sticker issued by the county.

Those vendors with licenses receive a sticker that is supposed to be placed in a place viewable by the public.

“As a consumer, you should look at that sticker to make sure that (the vendors) are in compliance, and have been permitted by Environmental Health to serve safe food,” said Michelle Corson, public information officer for the Health Department. “That’s why we put that in place, so that people can check for themselves.”

The county did not have official estimates on how many unlicensed vendors were on city streets.

The grand jury recommended the county “fast-track” the new ordinance that would be required to impound the equipment of unlicensed food vendors, indicating that the jurors believed the issue required quick action.

April 16, 2019

Bakersfield.com

By Sam Morgen

[San Francisco City and County] San Francisco promises to stop reversing T Third Street trains

Loathed “switchbacks” will cease, says Muni agency

Blog note: this article references a 2012 grand jury report on the subject.

Last week, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) promised to end the frustrating practice of “switchbacks” on the T Third Street Muni line—but only on the T line.

A switchback is when an outbound Muni train stops short of its terminus and reverses direction, a maneuver that results in passengers having to deboard the train and wait for a new one.

According to an SFMTA statement, the pledge is part of Muni’s “Service Equity Strategy,” a city initiative to improve transit in eight underserved areas in SF—Chinatown, the Tenderloin, the Western Addition, the Mission, Bayview, Visitacion Valley, Outer Mission/Excelsior, and Oceanview/Ingleside.

Switchbacks happen on every line but were particularly unpopular on the T, which has the longest route in the city, beginning as the K Ingleside at Balboa Park station and becoming the T from West Portal Station to the Sunnydale public housing site (assuming it gets that far).

Supervisor Shamann Walton, who represents much of the area serviced by the T and vowed to end switchbacks after being sworn into office earlier this year, praised the announcement, framing it as an equity issue.

“[Switchbacks] cause the train not to finish the route and leave entire communities of color stuck without a way home,” said Walton.

Mayor London Breed approved as well, saying, “We not only need to end switchbacks, we need to do more to invest in our transportation infrastructure so that our trains and buses are consistently on-time and reliable.”

In February, the combined K/T line had an on-time rating of just 41 percent, according to SFMTA data.

In the 12 months prior, the line’s on-time figure dropped as low as 27 percent and was never higher than 46 percent. For comparison, the combined on-time rating for all SF light rail in February was 45 percent.

Switchbacks are supposed to fix gaps in service and get tardy trains back on schedule. Muni says one of the reasons they happen on the T line so frequently is that the existing schedule provides unrealistic estimates of how quickly vehicles could complete the route, which will now be adjusted.

In 2017, the San Francisco Chroniclereported that switchbacks had increased 57 percent on Muni since 2013. The T line saw a smaller spike—43 percent—than many other routes in that same period. Switchbacks were most common on the N Judah line that year.

A civil grand jury investigating Muni service in 2012 scourged the transit agency for employing switchbacks, calling the practice antithetical to the City Charter:

Management claimed that use of switchbacks improves overall system performance and that it is a standard practice among metropolitan transit systems in the United States and Europe. Neither of these claims is supported by facts or evidence.

On the contrary, Muni could provide no statistical support for performance improvement as a result of switchbacks, and San Francisco is in the distinct minority in using this practice to reduce delays.

[...] Our survey found only one other [public transit] system using switchbacks in the normal course of business. The others felt this practice was unnecessary and disrespectful to their riders.

At the time, Muni defended itself by claiming, “While we implement switchbacks less than one percent of the time, we utilize this tool to improve service for the vast majority of our daily passengers.”

SFMTA refused to cede to the grand jury recommendation that the city cut out switchbacks entirely, but has now acquiesced on one of its seven light rail lines.

April 16, 2019

Curbed San Francisco

By Adam Brinklow

[Orange County] Five years later, some fear Orange County jail snitch scandal will go unpunished

Blog note: this article references a grand jury report.

Nearly five years have passed since a lawyer representing the man who slaughtered eight people inside a Seal Beach salon first raised questions about the way investigators used informants inside Orange County’s jails.

The accusation — that sheriff’s deputies planted a prolific snitch in the cell of confessed killer Scott Dekraai in the hopes of eliciting information without his lawyer present, and then covered up their unconstitutional actions — seemed outlandish at the time. But jailhouse records soon proved otherwise, and the Orange County district attorney’s office and Sheriff’s Department found themselves embroiled in a national scandal.

The state attorney general’s office opened an investigation into both agencies in 2015; the U.S. Department of Justice followed suit the next year. Orange County prosecutors were kicked off Dekraai’s case, and a judge cited the informant scheme in sparing him a place on California’s death row. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit accusing authorities of having deployed “professional” informants for decades.

But to date, no one has been disciplined, fired or prosecuted for misconduct. And on Friday, a deputy attorney general said that the state investigation into the case — the only avenue for criminal charges — has been closed.

Meanwhile, some individuals who oversaw the jails or Dekraai’s case at the time of the alleged misconduct have received promotions. In March, two deputies under investigation for their role in the scandal quietly retired.

For those closest to the case, there is a fear that the public will never truly know what went on inside Orange County’s jails.

“These guys inflicted five years of pain on me and my family,” said Paul Wilson, 54, whose wife, Christy Lynn Wilson, was among those gunned down in the 2011 Seal Beach salon massacre. “It’s not politics to me. They need to be held accountable.”

Local watchdogs and civil liberties advocates have long contended there are more cases tainted by informant misuse — affecting more than 140 additional defendants, according to some court filings. Information that spilled out of the Dekraai hearings already has led to retrials in more than a dozen criminal cases, including several murders.

Last fall, Todd Spitzer ousted longtime Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas in an election framed largely around the informant scandal — and many hoped that he would sweep into office and impose dramatic reforms. Rackauckas maintained that the issue had been exaggerated and that no one in his office intentionally concealed evidence. A county grand jury report largely backed up his view, finding that only a few “rogue deputies” had done anything wrong.

Spitzer, in a recent interview, said he has no intention of letting the agency’s past failings go unanswered.

Since becoming district attorney, he said, he has turned over thousands of pages of training documents and nearly 100 case files to the U.S. Justice Department. Spitzer would not describe the nature of the cases or say if they involved informant misuse. The oldest was filed in 1998, according to Kimberly Edds, public information officer for the district attorney’s office.

Spitzer also said he has taken steps to curb potential abuses.

The use of jailhouse informants at trial now will require his written approval, and since taking office he has established an ethics officer position and a conviction integrity review unit. Spitzer said he is “champing at the bit” to learn the results of the federal investigation. But he said he also must balance the demands of running the office in the present with trying to reconcile its past.

“I’m trying to get closure. There is no doubt. But the amount of resources and time that this agency is investing in complying is really intense,” he said.

A U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment. Spitzer has said he wants to settle the federal investigation and admit to any wrongdoing committed under his predecessor, citing voluminous discovery requests from the federal government. Those comments concern those who hoped a prolonged investigation might uncover additional trials in which prosecutors failed to provide defense attorneys with information about the use of jailhouse informants, or cases in which informants obtained confessions in an unconstitutional manner.

Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders, who represented Dekraai and exposed the informant scandal, said in recent court filings that Spitzer appears to have backed off the fiery reformer rhetoric of the election cycle and has failed to disclose relevant evidence. Specifically, Sanders criticized Spitzer for calling the federal investigation a “fishing expedition” and said he demonstrated a “vanishing appetite” for working with the Justice Department.

Other attempts to uncover misconduct have stalled, civil liberty advocates say.

ACLU staff attorney Somil Trivedi said the group’s lawsuit, filed last year, would have forced Orange County to make public a trove of information about the informant program, but the case was thrown out by a judge who said the plaintiffs did not have standing to sue. The ACLU — which argued in its suit that it had found court transcripts proving informants were planted next to a murder defendant in a case from 1980 — is appealing the decision.

“We have found cases going back 30 years, and these are all pretty serious cases, and every one of them is at risk for being reopened,” Trivedi said.

Frustrations also have turned toward the state attorney general’s office.

In 2015, then-California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris launched an investigation into the use of informants. For years, according to Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes, state prosecutors ignored repeated requests for an update on the probe.

News that the state had ended its inquiry with no prosecution came during a hearing Friday, at which Sanders was arguing for the release of records related to a criminal case. Deputy Atty. Gen. Darren Shaffer gave no reason why or when the investigation had shut down. The office of current California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra declined to comment. Carrie Braun, a Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman, said her office had not been notified of the results of the attorney general’s investigation.

In a statement Saturday, the ACLU of Southern California said the attorney general’s action sends a “disturbing message that prosecutorial and law enforcement misconduct is acceptable in California.”

Sanders, who described the state review as “a sham from beginning to end,” said a judge will decide whether records related to the probe can be made public May 10.

A spokeswoman for Harris rejected any criticism, saying the former attorney general was instrumental in launching the criminal investigation and pushing for the civil grand jury review. Lily Adams said Harris believes the informant scandal “flowed from a culture that encourages an ends-justify-the-means approach, complemented by a program of plausible deniability.”

The slow pace of the state investigation led Barnes to take an unusual step this year when he restarted an administrative review into potential deputy misconduct before the criminal probe was completed.

“I can’t wait forever on them, and we have to do our job — which is to hold our personnel accountable, if necessary,” he said during a recent interview.

Whether records from that internal investigation would bring the public new information, however, is another question. While the passage of Senate Bill 1421 last year opened up some police disciplinary records, they only become public if an officer or deputy is found to have committed wrongdoing for specific offenses.

Two of the deputies at the center of the investigation — Seth Tunstall and Bill Grover — resigned in March, Braun said. A third deputy, whom she did not identify, remains under internal investigation.

Braun said deputies can decide to retire while under internal review if “no recommendations for action” had been made at the time of their departure.

Sanders has called on authorities to dig deeper to determine how many additional cases might be tainted by the misuse of informants. In court filings last year, he said he had identified 146 cases in which deputies testified without their past connections to the Sheriff’s Department Special Handling Unit being disclosed.

Barnes, a 30-year veteran of the department, said he believes the agency has been forthright in handling the mistakes alleged during the Dekraai trial, while dismissing some criticisms from the ACLU and Sanders as “brazen.”

As undersheriff, Barnes said, he helped modify department policy and training governing the use of informants in the county jails, which now requires his written approval. While not defending the department’s past actions, he said he also believes the agency has been unfairly accused of being resistant to change.

“The unit that existed then, I stopped it,” he said. “We replaced it with highly qualified people that look at information within the jails differently than it was handled before.”

Barnes also defended the promotions of Jon Briggs and William Baker, both of whom had oversight roles in the jails at the time, to the position of assistant sheriff. Briggs had testified during the Dekraai trial that poor supervision contributed to problematic behavior in the jails, though Barnes said that was taken “out of context.” The sheriff described Baker as “part of the solutions team” put in place to fix issues in the jails.

Spitzer said he understands the frustrations felt by those who have spent years waiting for the conclusion of investigations, but added, “I’ve got to let this process play out.”

For Wilson, however, patience has long run out. He doesn’t want to see others endure the same denial of justice he feels he suffered.

“I know how hard it was for myself and my kids and Christy’s family to deal with all of this,” he said, referring to the years after the murder of his wife. “I went through a really rough experience with those other families. I don’t want it to happen to anyone else.”

April 21, 2019

Los Angeles Times

By James Queally

[Riverside County] Highgrove residents sue Riverside County over fee for long-gone sheriff’s deputy

They voted to pay for an extra deputy, but haven't had one since the end of 2009.

Blog note: this article references Riverside County’s response to a 2017-18 grand jury report.

A group of Highgrove residents led by community newspaper publisher Richard “Barney” Barnett is suing Riverside County, demanding to know how money from their county services fee is being spent.

When they voted to approve the fee in 1992, residents agreed to pay $120 a year to fund an additional Riverside County sheriff’s deputy to patrol their unincorporated community between northeast Riverside and Grand Terrace.

In a second vote in 1997, residents reaffirmed paying for the deputy and also agreed some of the money could be used for maintenance at Highgrove’s only park, maintaining street lights and landscaping on road medians.

The county took the extra deputy away at the end of 2009, but residents are still paying the fee. The suit filed by Barnett, John Shivery, Haroldine Swing, and Janet Aboytes demands a full accounting of the money and restoration of the extra deputy.

If that doesn’t happen, the county must “reduce the tax and refund any misappropriations,” the suit demands.

Riverside County insists the fee money is being spent properly and that residents can get information about the fee through several avenues, including from County Service Area staff members who attend public meetings.

“The goal of the lawsuit is just to get our money back,” said Barnett, publisher of Highgrove Happenings.  “To be treated fairly to get our money back for a service were were paying for that we did not have.”

“If we lost our deputy nine years ago, why do we still have to pay for it?” he asked.

Barnett also said he doesn’t believe that maintaining the 5-acre park could take all the money, noting that the park has no lights, no ballgames at night and is very low maintenance.

Riverside County spokeswoman Brooke Federico said the county already addressed residents’ concerns in its response to a 2017-18 grand jury investigation.

In its report, the grand jury said that the county did not effectively communicate details about County Service Area 126 to affected residents. The dedicated deputy was assigned to the community until Dec. 31, 2009, “when for economic reasons the dedicated service was discontinued,” the grand jury report said.

The county failed to adequately inform residents “of new agreements between CSA 126 management and the Jurupa Valley Sheriff Station for focused law enforcement,” the grand jury said.

“Citizens don’t understand how CSA agreements were designed to work and how the funds were managed,” the report said. “For complete record access, a citizen would need to inquire at the Jurupa Valley Sheriff Station, the EDA (Economic Development Agency), The landscaping contractor, a County Supervisor, Tax Collector, Assessor, and occasionally state records.”

The county disagreed, saying residents who pay the fee receive contact information on their property tax bills, there are CSA staff members attending community and town hall meetings, there is a parks hotline and more information is available on the county’s CSA website.

The grand jury recommended that the county issue a notice clarifying how the funds are being spent and post a summary report and hold a community meeting at least once every two years.

Federico said in an e-mail that the county has complied.

“The County has completely satisfied all reporting requirements on the budget and audit for County Service Area 126, including holding multiple community meetings,” her email said. “The County uses the funds collected to pay for services in the Highgrove community, which includes park maintenance, street lighting, street sweeping and law enforcement services.”

Barnett also questioned why residents living in the new Spring Mountain Ranch development in Highgrove are paying up to $2,900 a year for CSA 126, while longtime residents pay just $120.

“There was no vote to charge different amounts and the fee appears on their tax bills as for CSA 126,” he said.

Federico said, “Each homebuyer within the community was informed of and accepted the assessment as a condition for the home purchase.”

The higher assessment “covers costs associated with regular maintenance for more than seven million square feet of landscaping, street lighting, enhanced sheriff services, Spring Mountain Ranch community park, community trails and water quality basins,” she said in her e-mail.

The next scheduled court date for the case is Monday, April 22, at Riverside County Superior Court.

April 20, 2019

The Press-Enterprise

By Johnny Bender

[Marin County] Letter to the editor: Perhaps grand jury ought to investigate MMWD

Regarding the Marin Municipal Water District’s recently issued “Proposed Water Service Rates, Fees and Charges,” it’s time for ratepayers to rise up and say “enough is enough.”

Last year a new watershed management fee was added to our bills. This year new increased water rates based on meter size (why not water use?) and fixed charges are both increasing by 4 percent a year, compounded!

Additionally, a new capital maintenance fee running hundreds to thousands of dollars a year is being proposed. Where does this end?

We seniors, living on fixed incomes, cannot continue to absorb these increases without being driven out of our homes. Why not an exemption for seniors?

Given MMWD’s outrageously high salaries, benefits and pensions, I would suggest that a Marin County Civil Grand Jury investigation of the management and operations of MMWD is not out of order.

April 19, 2019

Marin Independent Journal

From Chris Steven Levine, Mill Valley