[Santa Cruz County] Civil Grand Jury Grills County, Cal Fire on Wildfires

Investigations also lead to calls for increased jail oversight, improved pesticide notifications

Blog note: This article refers to several Santa Cruz County grand jury reports

The Santa Cruz Coun Civil Grand Jury has released the results of its eight latest investigations, which typically delve into the inner workings of county and city governmental operations.

While the subjects of the investigations are required to submit responses, they do not have to make any changes recommended in the reports. Most are required to respond publicly within 30 to 60 days.

The Grand Jury, made up of 19 county residents, this year reviewed three of its investigations from 2017-18 and found that many of their recommendations have been implemented. The reports are often telling portraits-in-time of public perception of how taxpayer dollars are being used, and how various aspects of government are being run.

This year’s reports cover the county’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and how the city of Santa Cruz addresses wildfire danger. The Grand Jury also looked at how Pajaro Valley Unified School District (PVUSD)—the county’s largest district—dealt with the pandemic.

The Grand Jury also looked at the Santa Cruz County Jail system, including several inmate deaths and violence, in addition to criminal conduct—including sexual assaults—by correction officers.

Additionally, the reports look at how the county is providing broadband internet service to residents, and how the county government responded to the CZU Lightning Complex fires from August 2020.

Chasing Covid

The report titled “Chasing the Pandemic,” looks at the effectiveness of the county’s Covid-19 testing and contact tracing efforts, and describes the Santa Cruz County Public Health Division as “well-trained, skilled and knowledgeable professionals,” who protected residents during the pandemic.

But the county’s website does not sufficiently help residents find Covid-19 testing sites. Furthermore, the Save Lives Santa Cruz County website does not adequately inform the public of the work being done to manage the crisis, and fails to convey the scope of the pandemic, the report shows.

The Public Health Division should therefore update its website and shore up its public outreach, including providing weekly updates and video reports, the jury recommends.

CZU Response Ripped

In the scathing report titled “The CZU Lightning Complex Fire – Learn…or Burn?,” the Grand Jury focused on how the County Board of Supervisors and the county administration supported residents of Bonny Doon, Davenport, Last Chance and Boulder Creek in the aftermath of the county’s worst blaze.

“The residents whose lives have been devastated were, and are, justifiably indignant over the lack of leadership from their elected leaders,” the report states. “Our county’s residents rightly continue to express doubt and dismay about their devastating experiences and the ability to withstand future fires.”

The report says that the supervisors have not recognized that they are responsible to adequately address residents’ concerns over wildfire preparedness.

In addition, the Grand Jury excoriated Cal Fire for the disparate “lessons learned” presentations that occurred in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties. The one in Santa Cruz lasted for just nine minutes, while San Mateo’s went on for 40 minutes. The supervisors did not hold Cal Fire accountable for this lack of analysis, the report says. In addition, there are no provisions in the contract between the county and Cal Fire to provide such analyses.

“This discrepancy is disappointing and not acceptable,” the report says.

The county was also drilled for its response to a 2020 Grand Jury investigation that looked at the county’s preparedness to wildfire risk. The responses, the report states, “show a lack of engagement with the material and a lack of understanding of their role as advocates for the county” and should be revisited.

In its recommendations, the Grand Jury says that the supervisors should question Cal Fire about its readiness for future fires. The board should also develop a policy for receiving and logging residents’ questions and concerns.

In addition, county policy should require “timely after-action reports” for major fire events, and should advocate for additional resources from the state for fire prevention and protection.

Bringing Broadband

The challenges of providing broadband internet service throughout the county—a goal 10 years in the making—are manyfold. This includes cutting through mountains of red tape and assessing safety and infrastructure issues that come from fire danger.

While the county has a plan to do so, it has committed the technological sin of allowing that plan to become obsolete.

The county should immediately update its 2015 Broadband Master Plan to reflect regulatory changes on the state and federal levels, the Grand Jury says in the report titled “Turn On, Tune In, and Drop Out.” These changes, the report says, should reflect the difficulty of bringing the service to the rural parts of Santa Cruz County, and the challenges brought by the CZU Complex.

The jurors recommended that the county apply for funding to help pay for increased broadband service, and look into the possibility of the county owning and maintaining its own broadband system.

In addition, the county should work with the Santa Cruz County Office of Education to continue providing internet service for the 2022-23 school year.

A Look at Main Jail

In its required annual look at the county’s jail system, the Grand Jury focused on allegations of sexual assault and illegal sexual conduct by corrections officers that occurred in 2017 and 2020, both of which resulted in convictions.

The report titled “Justice in the Jail” also looked at several separate incidents involving inmates, including one self-mutilation and an assault—both in 2018.

Jurors also looked at a suicide and a homicide, both of which happened within a two-day period in October 2019, and the death of a mentally ill inmate in May 2020.

The Grand Jury also investigated a power outage that lasted for more than 24 hours in September 2019, including the backup power system.

“In the end it comes down to issues of management, having enough resources, and a need for more effective oversight and public transparency,” the report says.

The Grand Jury recommends either appointing an Inspector General or Sheriff oversight board or placing the issue before voters.

In addition, the report states that the county should increase staff at the jail, since short staffing and mandatory overtime are “detrimental to performance, staff morale, and contribute to human error which can threaten the health and safety of staff and inmates.”

The jail should also revisit its policies of providing razors to inmates, the report says, and should hold monthly status meetings regarding the state of the facilities.

Illegal Camping Threat

The city saw 75 outdoor fires as of May 20, many of which are caused by illegal camping and warming fires from homeless encampments.

Despite this, the city has cleared these encampments only in “extreme emergency situations,” instead of proactively, the report titled “Wildfire Threat to the City of Santa Cruz” says.

The Grand Jury recommends that City Council should craft an ordinance to help mitigate these issues.

Furthermore, the grand Jury calls the coordination between the city and the county “insufficient,” and says it is not transparent to the public.

To help ameliorate this problem, the county needs accurate data, including the numbers of homeless people living in the city.

The report also calls for an outreach campaign for communities with eucalyptus trees—known to be more flammable than others—to help with vegetation management.

The city should also establish a “firewise community” in every neighborhood that abuts natural areas, known as Wildland Urban Interfaces.

City leaders should also revisit budget priorities surrounding fire safety, and should re-evaluate how state and federal dollars are used, and should look at how the city works with state offices such as CalTrans in dealing with homeless encampments.

PVUSD Leads the Way

PVUSD earned the Grand Jury’s only laudatory report with its swift response to the pandemic, which included quickly closing schools as the pandemic began to take hold, and then creating a distance learning program.

When an employee at Rio Del Mar Elementary School tested positive for Covid-19 in March 2020, Pajaro Valley Unified School district closed the school for a deep cleaning.

Just three days later, as case rates began to climb, the district’s Board of Trustees, in an emergency meeting, voted to close all schools in the district.

On April 1, the trustees voted to close the schools for the remainder of the 2019-20 school year.

Soon after that, the district updated its webpage, issued Chromebook computers to the majority of its students and created a distance learning program. PVUSD also created a “safe space” program for students unable to participate in distance learning, or who are struggling under that system.

The district’s response, the Grand Jury said in the report titled “Distance Learning During the Pandemic in the Pajaro Valley Unified School District,” should be documented and built upon, since distance learning is likely here to stay.

Pesticide Notifications

The county requires that growers must inform the public when they will be applying pesticide to their crops. But the process of doing so is cumbersome, and the locations provided often cannot be located on a map. This is largely because many farms don’t have an address, and others are made up of several fields, or are oddly shaped.

That’s according to the Grand Jury’s investigation on the Santa Cruz County Agricultural Commission, and how that agency interacts with the Board of Supervisors and the public. The report is titled “Santa Cruz County Agricultural Commissioner’s Office Can Get By with a Little Help from Its Friends.”

The Grand Jury says that changes at the state level—with the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR)—must be informed by the County Board of Supervisors, since they wield more influence than the local Agricultural Commissioner.

On Oct. 27, 2020, the Watsonville City Council issued a resolution urging the Agricultural Commissioner to post online in advance of the pesticide use. But at that same meeting, Agricultural Commissioner Juan Hidalgo told the council that doing so would burden his staff that was already stretched thin.

The report suggests that, within six months, the Agricultural Commissioner should create a pilot program to teach farmers how to use the CalAgPermits software that helps inform the public about pesticide application. This should come with suggestions about improving the software’s efficiency.

In addition, the supervisors should mandate a notification system for pesticide application, including text and email. The board should also urge the DPR and other state officials to include specific location information on pesticide application forms.

Santa Cruz Good Times
BY TODD GUILD
July 6, 2021

 

[Santa Cruz County] Grand Jury reports call for jail oversight, praise PVUSD’s covid response

 SANTA CRUZ COUNTY—The Santa Cruz County Civil Grand Jury has released the results of its eight latest investigations, which typically delve into the inner workings of county and city governmental operations.

While the subjects of the investigations are required to submit responses, they do not have to make any changes recommended in the reports. Most are required to respond publicly within 30 to 60 days.

The Grand Jury, made up of 19 county residents, this year reviewed three of its investigations from 2017-18 and found that many of their recommendations have been implemented. The reports are often telling portraits-in-time of public perception of how taxpayer dollars are being used, and how various aspects of government are being run.

This year’s reports cover the county’s response to the pandemic, and how Pajaro Valley Unified School District (PVUSD)—the county’s largest district—dealt with the Covid-19-related closures.

The Grand Jury also looked at the Santa Cruz County Jail system, including several inmate deaths and violence, in addition to criminal conduct—including sexual assaults—by correction officers.

Chasing Covid

The report titled “Chasing the Pandemic” looks at the effectiveness of the county’s Covid-19 testing and contact tracing efforts, and describes the Santa Cruz County Public Health Division as “well trained, skilled and knowledgeable professionals,” who protected residents during the pandemic.

But the county’s website does not sufficiently help residents find Covid-19 testing sites. Furthermore, the Save Lives Santa Cruz County website does not adequately inform the public of the work being done to manage the crisis, and fails to convey the scope of the pandemic, the report shows.

The Public Health Division should therefore update its website and shore up its public outreach, including providing weekly updates and video reports, the jury recommends.

Leaders cooked for CZU response

In the scathing report titled “The CZU Lightning Complex Fire — Learn…or Burn?,” the Grand Jury focused on how the County Board of Supervisors and the county administration supported residents of Bonny Doon, Davenport, Last Chance and Boulder Creek in the aftermath of the county’s worst blaze.

“The residents whose lives have been devastated were, and are, justifiably indignant over the lack of leadership from their elected leaders,” the report states. “Our county’s residents rightly continue to express doubt and dismay about their devastating experiences and the ability to withstand future fires.”

The report says that the supervisors have not recognized that they are responsible to adequately address residents’ concerns over wildfire preparedness.

In addition, the Grand Jury excoriated Cal Fire for the disparate “lessons learned” presentations that occurred in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties. The one in Santa Cruz lasted for just nine minutes, while San Mateo’s went on for 40 minutes. The supervisors did not hold Cal Fire accountable for this lack of analysis, the report says. In addition, there are no provisions in the contract between the county and Cal Fire to provide such analyses.

“This discrepancy is disappointing and not acceptable,” the report says.

The county was also drilled for its response to a 2020 Grand Jury investigation that looked at the county’s preparedness to wildfire risk. The responses, the report states, “show a lack of engagement with the material and a lack of understanding of their role as advocates for the county” and should be revisited.

In its recommendations, the Grand Jury says that the supervisors should question Cal Fire about its readiness for future fires. The board should also develop a policy for receiving and logging residents’ questions and concerns.

In addition, county policy should require “timely after-action reports” for major fire events, and should advocate for additional resources from the state for fire prevention and protection.

Bringing broadband

The challenges of providing broadband internet service throughout the county—a goal 10 years in the making-are manyfold. This includes cutting through mountains of red tape and assessing safety and infrastructure issues that come from fire danger.

While the county has a plan to do so, it has committed the technological sin of allowing that plan to become obsolete.

The county should immediately update its 2015 Broadband Master Plan to reflect regulatory changes on the state and federal levels, the Grand Jury says in the report titled “Turn On, Tune In, and Drop Out.” These changes, the report says, should reflect the difficulty of bringing the service to the rural parts of Santa Cruz County, and the challenges brought by the CZU Complex.

The jurors recommended that the county apply for funding to help pay for increased broadband service, and look into the possibility of the county owning and maintaining its own broadband system.

In addition, the county should work with the Santa Cruz County Office of Education to continue providing internet service for the 2022-23 school year.

A look at Main Jail

In its required annual look at the county’s jail system, the Grand Jury focused on allegations of sexual assault and illegal sexual conduct by corrections officers that occurred in 2017 and 2020, both of which resulted in convictions.

The report, titled “Justice in the Jail,” also looked at several separate incidents involving inmates, including one self-mutilation and an assault—both in 2018.

Jurors also looked at a suicide and a homicide, both of which happened within a two-day period in October 2019, and the death of a mentally ill inmate in May 2020.

The Grand Jury also investigated a power outage that lasted for more than 24 hours in September 2019, including the backup power system.

“In the end it comes down to issues of management, having enough resources, and a need for more effective oversight and public transparency,” the report says.

The Grand Jury recommends either appointing an Inspector General or Sheriff oversight board or placing the issue before voters.

In addition, the report states that the county should increase staff at the jail, since short staffing and mandatory overtime are “detrimental to performance, staff morale, and contribute to human error which can threaten the health and safety of staff and inmates.”

The jail should also revisit its policies of providing razors to inmates, the report says, and should hold monthly status meetings regarding the state of the facilities.

PVUSD leads the way

PVUSD earned the Grand Jury’s only laudatory report with its swift response to the pandemic, which included quickly closing schools as the pandemic began to take hold, and then creating a distance learning program.

When an employee at Rio Del Mar Elementary School tested positive for Covid-19 in March 2020, Pajaro Valley Unified School district closed the school for a deep cleaning.

Just three days later, as case rates began to climb, the district’s Board of Trustees in an emergency meeting voted to close all schools in the district.

On April 1, the trustees voted to close the schools for the remainder of the 2019-20 school year.

Soon after that, the district updated its webpage, issued Chromebook computers to the majority of its students and created a distance learning program. PVUSD also created a “safe space” program for students unable to participate in distance learning, or who are struggling under that system.

The district’s response, the Grand Jury said in the report titled, “Distance Learning During the Pandemic in the Pajaro Valley Unified School District,” should be documented and built upon, since distance learning is likely here to stay.

A look at pesticide notification

The county requires that growers must inform the public when they will be applying pesticide to their crops. But the process of doing so is cumbersome, and the locations provided often cannot be located on a map.

This is largely because many farms don’t have an address, and others are made up of several fields, or are oddly shaped. And so notices are often not helpful to the public.

That’s according to the Grand Jury’s investigation on the Santa Cruz County Agricultural Commission, and how that agency interacts with the Board of Supervisors and the public. The report is titled “Santa Cruz County Agricultural Commissioner’s Office Can Get By with a Little Help from Its Friends.”

The Grand Jury says that changes at the state level—with the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR)—must be informed by the County Board of Supervisors, since they wield more influence than the local Agricultural Commissioner.

On Oct. 27, 2020, the Watsonville City Council issued a resolution urging the Agricultural Commissioner to post online in advance of the pesticide use. But at that same meeting, Agricultural Commissioner Juan Hidalgo told the council that doing so would burden his staff that was already stretched thin.

The report suggests that, within six months, the Agricultural Commissioner should create a pilot program to teach farmers how to use the CalAgPermits software that helps inform the public about pesticide application. This should come with suggestions about improving the software’s efficiency.

In addition, the supervisors should mandate a notification system for pesticide application, including text and email. The board should also urge the DPR and other state officials to include specific location information on pesticide application forms.

The Pajoranian (Santa Cruz County)
By TODD GUILD
July 12, 2021

[Placer County] Grand Jury produces ‘excellent’ final report

 Editor,

The 2020-2021 Grand Jury Final Report has been published and it is a worthy read!

The report covers the subjects Special Districts, Housing the Homeless, Lincoln Regional Airport, Public Libraries, Placer County Voting, the reviews for the detention, jails and holding facilities, and analysis of responses to the prior Grand Jury Reports for 2019 to 2020.

Included in this final report is the early release of the “Preparedness of Placer County for the November 2020 General Election,” and the responses to that report by Ryan Ronco, Placer County Clerk-Recorder-Registrar of Voters. The insight into Placer County voting by Ronco is timely and educational.

We commend the Grand Jurors for their dedication and efforts for an excellent final report.

The Placer County Library has a copy to read, and the link to the report is: www.placer.courts.ca.gov/generalgrandjury- reports-2020-2021.shtml.

Thank you, 

Al Witten (Grand Juror, 2009-2010) and Carol Witten (Grand Juror, 2019-2020).

Lincoln

Gold Coast Media
July 11, 2021

Spending on County ‘no bid contracts’ raised concerns for [Lake County] Grand Jury

Annual report examined County pattern of awarding contracts and expenditure data over the past five years

LAKE COUNTY—  The Grand Jury wasn’t the first entity or individual to notice an uptick in no-bid purchase contracts by the County of Lake over the past few years, but their recently released 2020-21 report identified the pattern, chronicling expenditures over the past half decade and comparing them to more recent data.

“Our current county administration side-steps competitive bidding in the awarding of government funds and public contracts by using a loophole in Lake County code Section 2-38 (38.2). I want to encourage more competitive bidding with certified small businesses and veteran or minority owned businesses, and potential cost savings,” candidate Chris Almind told the Record-Bee in January 2020 during an unsuccessful run to challenge incumbent Tina Scott for her supervisorial seat in the Board of Supervisor’s 4th District during that year’s primary election cycle.

“The county is just using this (loophole) as a way to spend hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, and not doing competitive bidding. It takes extra steps. I know that. It’s a lot more work to get competitive bidding. You’ve got to do contracts. But we have an obligation for taxpayer money. We’ve got to do it frugally and responsibly,” said Almind at the time.

Among their findings, the Grand Jury in their report emphasized the fact that “no regular schedule for review of on-going large scale contracts has been formalized across all county departments.” Additionally, “the language/classification designated for no-bid contracts utilized in Board of Supervisors agendas and minutes does not allow for specification or detail into why any given contract has the competitive bidding process waived.”

The report thoroughly expands upon instances where there may be only one source available for a needed unique purchase, item or services but the Grand Jury also noted that “for most items, a system of bidding for fulfillment of the need is a proven method for obtaining the best value or best desired results for the product or service.”

Furthermore, the report states that having most of the expenditures of local government qualified by a bidding system is a common practice by governments at all levels. They noted that Lake County during this current fiscal year has seen “a significant increase in no-bid purchase contracts proposed and approved under the description of ‘Waive the formal bidding process, pursuant to Lake County Code Section 38.2, as it is not in the public interest due to the unique nature of goods or services.”

Noting that each individual department in Lake County governance generates its own purchase orders based on continuing needs and in keeping with established budgets, the report outlines the results of the organization’s examination of the county’s actual purchase expenditures for the past five fiscal years, looking at the time from of July 1 to the following end of March (this was done to match the portion of the current fiscal year highlighted by the report). The Grand Jury found that from July 1, 2020 to March 23, 2021, a total of $9.4 was submitted and approved by waiving the formal bidding process, pursuant to County Code Section 3.82, which they noted to appear as “an exceptionally high number for a county with our budget.”

While the report acknowledges that some part of this may be directly related to how any business, including government business, has been impacted by COVID-19 safety protocols and necessities, the report notes that “the amount of the no bid contracts, when compared against recent previous years actual spending has raised concerns.”

An attached list of two dozen contractors employed by the county was included in the report which outline such services as LOCE for safe schools ($250,000), Social Solutions Global software ($115,800) and Elijah House ($376,834) as examples of no-bid contracts approved by waiving any formal bidding process due to “the unique nature of goods or services.”

The Report recommends “a system of regular and scheduled reviews of on-going contracts and supplier usage be instituted to ensure optimal efficiency in expenditure of county funds.” The Grand Jury also recommends that these types of contracts and purchase orders for BOS review and approvals “have specific references on the formal meeting agendas indicating accurately as to an actual unique good or service or as to when the last competitive analysis was performed on this category of good or service.”

Pursuant to state law, responses from the Board of Supervisors are required within 90 days of the submission of the Grand Jury Report. The entire 2020-2021 report is available for the public to read at http://www.lakecountyca.gov/Assets/County+Site/Grand+Jury/Final+Reports/2020-2021+Final+Report.pdf?method=1

Lake County Record-Bee
By ARIEL CARMONA | arielcarmona@record-bee.com |
July 9, 2021 

[Solano County] Grand jury: Solano cops, deputies need more frequent diversity, bias training

The No. 1 recommendation is for county law enforcement agencies to adopt a more frequent schedule of diversity and bias training ‘over and above the current five-year requirement,” according to the report’s wording

The 2020-21 Solano County civil grand jury found that local law enforcement agencies comply with legal requirements when providing diversity and bias training, but jurors also noted that such training is only required every five years  – and that needs to change, jurors said.

In a nine-page document issued June 30, titled “Does Bias Infiltrate Solano County Law Enforcement?” the grand jury pointed out that local police and Sheriff’s Office leaders agreed there is “too much time between training sessions” and its primary recommendation is for county law enforcement agencies adopt a more frequent schedule of diversity and bias training “over and above the current five-year requirement.”

In their one-paragraph summary, jurors found that police officers and deputies followed the guidelines defined by law, established through the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, or POST.

But after jury members interviewed officers and police chiefs in six major cities and Sheriff’s personnel  – and reviewed each agency’s policies  – they found that operating “in accord with the POST guidelines is not enough,” according to the report.

Local policing agencies “must go further to ensure elimination of bias as well as safety and equity for the citizens of Solano County,” they concluded.

In a second finding, jurors cited a lack of “adequate funding” hinders the various agencies’ ability to provide additional and more frequent training, recommending that law enforcement leaders seek more dollars for diversity and bias training. At the same time, the grand jury also recommended that the county’s police departments and the Sheriff’s Office collaborate in providing such training.

A third finding indicated that the grand jury believes more “underrepresented people,” that is, ethnic minorities, need to be in decision-making roles, recommending that law enforcement agencies “promote more underrepresented people to decision making positions.”

In a lengthy fourth finding, the grand jury cited state Penal Code section 13651, which, in short, states that police and sheriff’s offices that review job descriptions used to recruit peace officers “shall make changes that emphasize community-based policing, familiarization between law enforcement and community residents, and collaborative problem solving, while de-emphasizing the paramilitary aspects of the job.”  Jury members also discovered that “all administrators mentioned the general population’s lack of trust of law enforcement officers.”

Grand jurors, thus, recommended that training de-emphasize a paramilitary approach to policing and collaborate with community organizations to problem-solve.

“Employee turnover” is a problem “for some” law enforcement agencies, they found in a fifth finding, recommending specifically that Suisun City increase the length of its employment contract to five years and find ways to achieve pay equity in the county to limit turnover in smaller communities.

In the sixth and final finding, the grand jury noted reports from the FBI that extremist groups are “infiltrating” law enforcement agencies.

“While local law enforcement agencies investigate applicants as part of the vetting process, they rely on employee and citizen complaints to identify current staff social media postings for extremist ideology,” according to the report’s wording.

Jurors made three recommendations: 1) that county law enforcement agencies monitor social media postings by current staff for extremist content; 2) that law enforcement leaders “keep up with the technology that their employees are using”; and 3) that law enforcement leaders “research and implement technology” which assists in monitoring social media without violating First Amendment rights under the Constitution.

The grand jury’s report, one of several recently issued, comes as the Black Lives Matter movement has gained prominence in the wake of the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who was convicted last month for Floyd’s May 25, 2020, murder.

Floyd was detained after trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill at a convenience store. During the arrest, Chauvin knelt on his neck for some nine minutes as Floyd, face down on street pavement, cried out that he could not breathe.

It was an example, whether or not bias was involved, of how routine encounters can escalate or turn deadly, as they did with the police killings of Eric Garner on Staten Island and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., both in 2014, among many others.

Police training and programs that focus on implicit bias have emerged as a key component of police reform efforts nationwide in an effort to engender trust in policing.

Besides interviewing officers, deputies law enforcement agency leaders, grand jury members relied on numerous reports, including “Can Cops Unlearn Their Unconscious Biases?” a 2017 Atlantic article; a report by the Brookings Institution about how the U.S. is diversifying even faster than predicted; and a report from openvallejo.org, an online newsroom, reporting that Solano County Sheriff’s deputies and a Vacaville City Council member potentially promoted anti-government militia, including the posting of Three Percenter imagery on their public social media pages.

Additionally, they noted an April 18, 2021, segment of “60 Minutes” investigated the Oath Keepers, an identified extremist group, and their role in the Jan. 6 insurrection. “A leader of the Oath Keepers in Arizona proudly proclaimed they have many members in police forces around their state,” jurors wrote in the report.

Research organizations such as the Blue Ribbon Panel on Transparency, Accountability and Fairness in Law Enforcement and the Plain View Project have uncovered hundreds of federal, state, and local law enforcement officials participating in racist, nativist, and sexist social media activity. “Departments often know about these officers’ activities, but those activities have only resulted in disciplinary action or termination if they trigger public concern,” according to the report.

In its “statement of facts” section of the report, jurors wrote: “The biggest problem in addressing possible biases is that unconscious biases are part of growing up in an atmosphere in which stereotypes are part of everyday life (the thinking we are exposed to as children influences how we interpret events and people around us).”

“Researchers have found that people can consciously embrace fairness and equality, but on tests measuring subconscious tendencies, they still lean on stereotypes in profiling people they don’t know,” jurors added.

“The results can be surprising for those that do not feel they have any biases,” the grand jury report indicated.

Vacaville Reporter
By RICHARD BAMMER | rbammer@thereporter.com |
July 9, 2021

Mendocino County Grand Jury alleges self-dealing over OHV park’s $2.6M fence contract

7/6/21 — Unidentified officials with the state parks department reportedly suggested last year that members of the Board of Directors of the Mendocino Coast Recreation and Parks District should resign over their involvement with a pair of grant applications worth more than $2.9 million “based on inconsistencies identified in the audit,” according to a report released by the Mendocino County Civil Grand Jury last week.

The civil grand jury is a self-described watchdog agency comprised of 19 volunteers selected to monitor and investigate government agencies at the city and county level, and make recommendations “to improve local government.” Their recent work includes investigations into mail-in ballot voting in the 2020 election, school safety and the county’s emergency communications system.

The grand jury report in question (and one excerpt included in this article) repeatedly refers to an agency called the “State of California Off Highway Vehicle Parks Department” or CAOHVPD — but no such agency exists. The grants in question appear to have been awarded by the California Department of Parks and Recreation’s Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation Division.

The park district, which is most well known for operating the C.V. Starr Center in partnership with the City of Fort Bragg, owns a 586-acre property roughly two miles east of city limits, and that $2.9 million in grant funding would have gone toward turning it into an off-highway vehicle (OHV) park.

Specifically, a $255,421 planning grant awarded in 2017 would have funded an environmental impact report, economic feasibility study and a series of public meetings. A $2,739,828 restoration grant awarded the following year would have covered site survey, fence installation, invasive species removal and trail work.

Mostly that money was earmarked for fencing, however, and that’s where this thing appears to have gone off the rails. The state reportedly took issue with the bidding process surrounding a $2,591,234 contract to install a perimeter fence, and the source of matching funds procured by the district to help pay for it.

“As a result of the concerns raised during the oversight and audit of the grants, (the California Department of Parks and Recreation’s Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation Division) pulled the grant’s funding and suggested that any BOD that were directly involved with the grant application and administration resign,” the grand jury writes.

When asked to confirm these allegations, however, spokesperson Adeline Yee said only that “California State Parks does not comment on grand jury reports.”

According to the grand jury’s version of events, State Parks personnel met with two board members and the park district’s bankruptcy attorney in June 2020. During that meeting they were notified the grants had been suspended due to “inappropriate conduct” involving the MCRPD and a nonprofit whose name has been redacted from the report.

“…because of this alleged misconduct, the Parks Department will not proceed with the grants as long as any BOD member that approved the arrangement with the {name redacted} of non-profit remains on the BOD,” jurors write. “In view of the history of alleged self-dealing, the Parks Department could not authorize any additional funds under the grants.” 

News reports from last year indicate Director John Huff resigned his position in August 2020. According to reporting in the AVA a few days later, he called the resignation a “rash decision” and announced his bid for re-election to the seat he’d just given up.

The Mendocino Voice has not thoroughly reviewed the documents cited by AVA columnist Malcolm MacDonald, nor have we independently verified his statements regarding individuals and organizations whose names appear to have been redacted from the grand jury report.

Despite Huff’s unusual campaign launch he won 24 percent of the vote in November, placing first in a field of five candidates. His victory was decisive, especially given that Huff was the only candidate not present for a candidates forum hosted by the League of Women Voters of Mendocino County. Robin Epley, editor of the Fort Bragg Advocate, reported Huff was unable to attend due to a 48-hour paramedic shift he was working at that time.

Huff’s name does not appear in any of the documents released thus far by the grand jury. None of the board members are mentioned by name. Nevertheless, the Mendocino Coast Recreation and Park District’s Board of Directors is required by state law to respond to the allegations in writing within 60 days of the report’s publication on June 28.

The Mendocino Voice has reached out to Director Huff by email, as well as to board Chair Barbara Burkey (who also serves as vice-mayor to the City of Point Arena) and the rest of the district’s Board of Directors to request a comment on this matter — but it may be weeks or months before their official response is released to the public. Readers can expect a more detailed treatment on the grand jury’s findings and recommendations as additional facts get confirmed.

Mendocino Voice
By Dave Brooksher
July 6, 2021

[Solano County] Grand jury finds no bias, but tells Sheriff’s Office to monitor social media

FAIRFIELD — The 2020-21 Solano County civil grand jury concluded that new law enforcement recruits are closely scrutinized “to ensure extremist ideology is not infiltrating their departments,” but area agencies do not monitor existing employees.

“The civil grand jury met with the administration of each law enforcement agency in Solano County (except Vallejo), including the Sheriff’s Department, and inquired as to what, if anything, they are doing to ensure extremist ideology is not infiltrating their departments,” the grand jury report released Wednesday stated.

“They all advised the civil grand jury that they very carefully vet applicants to their departments, but none actively monitor current employees. Each stated that the only way they would know of the need to investigate is if a citizen or co-worker makes them aware of the behavior that indicates extremist views,” the report states.

Three of the 11 recommendations attached to six findings state that law enforcement agencies need to be more proactive about supervising their current forces.

“Solano County law enforcement agencies monitor social media postings by current staff for extremist content,” one of the three recommendations to the sixth finding states.

The grand jury also recommends, “Law enforcement agency administrations keep up with the technology that their employees are using,” and that, “Law enforcement agency administrations research and implement technology which assists in monitoring social media without violating First Amendment rights.”

The report also states that the grand jury “found that law enforcement in the county followed the guidelines defined by California statutory law, established through the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training.”

The issue of extremism arises because at least three Sheriff’s Office officers posted on their private social media platforms images of the “3 Percenters.”

“The (3) Percenters are a loose-knit collection of far-right extremists characterized by anti-government, pro-gun views, and a willingness to defy the federal government violently,” the grand jury report states.

It notes that members of the group participated in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, one of whom has been charged with federal crimes related to that deadly riot.

“Solano County Sheriff’s Office administrators . . . concluded that the individuals identified in the (Vallejo news) report were ‘pro-Second Amendment’ but did not espouse far-right extremist ideology. They claimed that the FBI advised them no Sheriff’s Office employees are on their ‘watch list’ for involvement in any extremist organizations.”

However, the civil grand jury report also noted that the FBI has denied those claims.

The Sheriff’s Office had not yet filed its response to the grand jury report, and Sheriff Tom Ferrara, through the department spokesman, has declined to be interviewed by the Daily Republic. He agreed to an interview when announcing his 2022 re-election bid.

Efforts by the public, and specifically members of Black Lives Matter in Benicia, to have the Board of Supervisors look into the Sheriff’s Office have been met by silence, with the exception of Supervisor Monica Brown, who made a motion to convene a commission to look into the matter and got no support from board Chairman John Vasquez, nor Supervisors Erin Hannigan, Jim Spering or Mitch Mashburn.

Mashburn, a 32-year veteran of the Sheriff’s Office, said he had never experienced any behavior within the department that would raise red flags in terms of extremists.

“That agency is doing a great job. It is one of the best sheriff’s agencies . . . in the state,” Mashburn said.

The police departments in Benicia, Dixon, Fairfield, Rio Vista, Suisun City and Vacaville had not filed responses, either, although they are not mentioned specifically in the report.

Part of the gravity of this matter comes from a published FBI warning that white supremacists seek to infiltrate law enforcement.

The findings and recommendations from the grand jury report are:

FINDING 1: The Solano County civil grand jury found that local law enforcement agencies comply with the statutory requirements when providing training. However, bias training is only required and conducted every five years. Local law enforcement administrations agreed there is too much time between training sessions.
RECOMMENDATION 1: County law enforcement agencies adopt a more frequent schedule of diversity and bias training over and above the current five-year requirement.

FINDING 2: Most law enforcement administrations identified lack of adequate funding as an impairment to providing additional and/or more frequent training.
RECOMMENDATION 2a: Law enforcement administrations seek increased funding for diversity and bias training.
RECOMMENDATION 2b: Collaborate with other local law enforcement agencies in providing diversity and bias training.

FINDING 3: More under-represented people need to be represented in decision-making roles.
RECOMMENDATION 1: Law enforcement agencies promote more under-represented people to decision-making positions.

FINDING 4: California Penal Code Section 13651(a) states: “Every police department, sheriff’s office, or other entity that employs peace officers shall review the job description that is used in the recruitment and hiring of those peace officers and shall make changes that emphasize community-based policing, familiarization between law enforcement and community residents, and collaborative problem-solving, while de-emphasizing the paramilitary aspects of the job.” All administrators mentioned the general population’s lack of trust of law enforcement officers.
RECOMMENDATION 4a: Ensure that training de-emphasizes a paramilitary approach to policing.
RECOMMENDATION 4b: Use a collaborative approach with community organizations to problem-solve.

FINDING 5: For some law enforcement agencies employee turnover is an issue.
RECOMMENDATION 5a: Suisun City increase the length of its employment contract to five years.
RECOMMENDATION 5b: Law enforcement agencies find ways to achieve pay equity in the county to limit turnover in smaller communities.

FINDING 6: There are reports from the Federal Bureau of Investigation that extremist groups are infiltrating law enforcement agencies. While local law enforcement agencies investigate applicants as part of the vetting process, they rely on employee and citizen complaints to identify current staff social media postings for extremist ideology.
RECOMMENDATION 6a: Solano County law enforcement agencies monitor social media postings by current staff for extremist content. RECOMMENDATION 6b: Law enforcement agency administrations keep up with the technology that their employees are using. RECOMMENDATION 6c: Law enforcement agency administrations research and implement technology which assists in monitoring social media without violating First Amendment rights.

Fairfield Daily Republic
By Todd R. Hansen
July 2, 2021

Santa Cruz County grand jury assesses county leadership in aftermath of CZU Lightning Complex fire

Supervisors urged to take more active role in wildfire prevention

SANTA CRUZ — Some 10 months after the CZU Lightning Complex fire ignited, residents are still piecing lives back together, and anxious as peak fire season approaches.

The blaze, which burned more than 63,700 acres in Santa Cruz County alone, also destroyed 911 homes in the region.

A Santa Cruz County grand jury report issued June 24, examines — in the face of dangerous, dry fire conditions — if government leaders have reaped lessons from the CZU Complex and acted on residents’ concerns in the aftermath.

By and large, according to the report, the answer is no.

The report focuses on how the County Board of Supervisors could take action to prepare the county for future wildfires, streamline emergency response and urge Cal Fire to further analyze and act on their performance in the historic fire.

Transparency and immediacy were two issues brought up in the report.

Community members surveyed wanted meetings with Cal Fire to be held sooner, according to the report. The local CZU Unit did host two such meetings in March, during which lessons learned on the fire were shared.

Concerns on staffing levels and preparation for a potential-next-mega fire were also brought up throughout the report.

As the Sentinel reported in June, heading into the peak dry season firefighting  staffing levels are at less than usual numbers, according to Cal Fire CZU Unit Chief Ian Larkin.

The grand jury report urges the county and Cal Fire to further prioritize vegetation and fire fuel management, in effort to safeguard communities from exacerbated fire risk.

Large-scale defensible space inspections and fuel reduction projects need to be more of a focus, according to the report. Further effort, the jurors argue, must go toward attaining funding for that work. In a 2020, grand jury ‘Ready? Aim? Fire!’ report, published prior to the CZU Complex, those same recommendations were also laid out.

Concerns were also raised about infrastructure vulnerability — in the case of the CZU Complex, power poles and cell towers were downed as evacuation orders were being implemented. Some residents were without electricity, reception and Wi-Fi — essentially a tether to the outer world.

Santa Cruz County Communications Manager Jason Hoppin focused on the overall success the evacuation effort was.

“We did evacuate close to 70,000 people, which geographically is one third of the county and we only had the one death in Last Chance,” Hoppin said. “That’s a wall of fire situation and for the most part we got everybody out safe.”

Hoppin also pointed to the effort of Santa Cruz County Sherriff deputies who made door-to-door evacuation notifications, which will continue to be the standard.

With the fire and debris flow scares this last winter, Hoppin said he thinks residents are more ready than ever to evacuate.

“I think there was a notion in the community that these large types of fires didn’t happen here and now we know that’s not the case,” Hoppin said. “There’s been a profound mindset change in our residents who now know and understand that wildfires pose a clear and present danger to the community.”

In making its recommendations, the jury interviewed county officials, residents, attended meetings, and researched various accounts of the fire. The Santa Cruz County grand jury is made up of 19 residents, and is an independent body that investigates regional issues, local government agencies and examines community member complaints.

The jury urged the Board of Supervisors to launch an investigation into Cal Fire on its preparedness for future fires, response to the CZU Complex, as well as push the agency to answer resident’s questions raised in the report. In addition, the report authors recommended that the board require Cal Fire to conduct an after action review.

The Sentinel inquired to Cal Fire’s CZU Unit about such a report, and was pointed to the March community meetings, as well as the statewide report titled ‘2020 Fire Siege’, in which some findings on the CZU Complex are covered.

The county, though, will publish an after action review on the CZU Complex by the end of the year, Hoppin said.

‘The CZU…Fire – Learn…or Burn?’ report also points back to the 2020 report on fire preparedness. The Board of Supervisors are urged to revisit those recommendations and draft new, up-to-date responses, according to the document.

Finally, the report requests that the board to advocate for funding from the state over the next six months for fire preparation work, and prevention activities, such as fuel reductions.

A bright spot in the document is the reported effectiveness and helpfulness of the County Office of Response, Recovery, & Resilience.

The County Board of Supervisors are required to formulate responses to the juror’s report within 90 days of its publication. Supervisors Bruce McPherson and Ryan Coonerty, whose districts suffered extensive damage in the blaze, are required to respond within 60 days.

Santa Cruz Sentinel
By HANNAH HAGEMANN
July 2, 2021

Group eyes southern Marin [County] school district consolidation

Blog note: This article refers to several Marin County grand jury reports and demonstrates that sometimes it takes many years for a grand jury recommendation to have an effect.

A new Marin citizens group is taking on the task of potentially dislodging the weighty, entrenched — and some say redundant — public school system in the county.

The group, called Better Together for Public Education, is focusing on the 10 K-8 districts in southern and West Marin that feed into the Tamalpais Union High School District.

“As of July 1, we will have 17 school districts to serve 33,000 students — which seems excessive to anyone looking at that,” said group leader Sheri Mowbray, a former Larkspur-Corte Madera School District trustee.

In addition to Mowbray, members include nine other current and former school board and city council officials and a school administrator.

“The focus is to provide the best academic education for our children,” said committee member Sloan Bailey, a former Corte Madera town councilman. “The larger concept is to try to save money and avoid unnecessary administration and bureaucracy.”

Bailey said the group is not fixated on a specific outcome. He and other members just have a desire to explore possibilities and gather data. At least two Marin County Civil Grand Jury reports in 2012 and 2004 have recommended the issue be addressed — but after decades, it’s still just a talking point, Bailey said.

“The worst enemy of this topic is inertia,” he said.

The 10 so-called “feeder” K-8 districts in southern Marin that channel elementary and middle school students into the Tamalpais Union High School District’s five high schools include: Larkspur-Corte Madera, Kentfield, Mill Valley, Reed Union, Sausalito Marin City, Lagunitas, Ross, Nicasio, Bolinas-Stinson and Ross Valley.

“Those 10 districts include 15,000 of Marin’s 33,000 public education students,” Mowbray said. “It’s almost half of Marin’s public education system.”

She said she has been thinking about this issue for at least 15 years. Cutting costs is one of several obvious benefits, she said.

“There is incredible duplication,” Mowbray said. “In this Tam District feeder group, there are 10 budgets, 10 LCAPs (academic allocation plans), 10 school boards, 10 curricula that need to get done. The same thing is being done over and over by people serving the same needs.”

In addition to streamlining finances and procedures, Mowbray said she thinks joining districts together could provide opportunities for specialized academic programs that might be too expensive for smaller districts. Those could include, for example, a Spanish-English dual immersion elementary school or a technology speciality program.

“Perhaps students are missing out because the districts are so small,” she said. “I wonder about that.”

Mowbray, who also served on the Tamalpais Union High School District board of trustees, said the move could also provide a smoother transition for area middle schoolers into high school.

“Because we have 10 K-8 districts feeding into the one Tam high school district, it creates a lot of disconnect for students who were coming in from 10 different curricular programs,” she said.

Despite their energy and good intentions, the Better Together group, which Mowbray said has been meeting weekly since March, hit a bureaucratic wall on its first inquiry last month when it approached the Marin County Committee on School District Organization.

Their request for committee support was a non-starter because any such proposals need to go through a public vetting process first before they reach the county, said Terena Mares, the Marin’s deputy superintendent of schools and staff assistant to the county committee.

“We don’t have an opinion on this,” Mares said. “These are locally driven decisions.”

According to state law, the “path to reorganization of school district boundaries has to be done by petition,” Mares said. “And the code is very prescriptive as to what that looks like.”

Once the prescribed number of voter signatures is gathered, the issue is presented to the Marin County superintendent of schools. The county superintendent then verifies through the county registrar of voters whether the signatures are valid, Mares said.

Once verified, the petition then could go to the Marin County Committee on School District Organization, which would schedule public hearings on the issue.

“They have to follow the nine conditions laid out by the state as to what qualifies as an approvable district organization,” Mares said. “Even if all nine conditions are met, the county committee can say yes, but they can also say no.”

For the nine conditions to be met, the Southern Marin group would first need to do a series of studies. Those include a California Environmental Quality Act report, a study on student transportation, staff salary schedules, facilities bonds and parcel taxes.

“It is oftentimes a very expensive venture to perform all those reports and analyses,” Mares said. After the public hearings, the matter would go to a state board and then to voters on a ballot measure.

“It’s a two- to three-year process, at minimum,” Mares said. “I’ve seen school districts take 10 years to get this done.”

Mowbray said the committee members realize “this is a very steep hill,” and that there are fierce loyalties and strongly held interests in local control among the various Marin school communities.

“This is a political hot potato and very controversial — and we understand that,” she said.

However, the group is undeterred. Now, given their marching orders from the county, Better Together will be strategizing over the summer and then launching outreach with the local school boards in the fall, she said.

The group may also form a 501(c)(3) nonprofit to raise money for the studies that will be needed.

“The way it’s structured, it may take many years — but if you don’t start now, when are you going to start?” Mowbray said.  “My answer to ‘why now?’ is ‘why not now’?”

Marin Independent Journal
By KERI BRENNER | kbrenner@marinij.com
July 2, 2021

[Humboldt County] Eureka innovates to address homelessness, but pairing police alongside advocates draws criticism | State of Homelessness

 Blog note: This article refers to a 2019 Humboldt County grand jury report

EUREKA — Over a year since COVID-19 deeply impacted Eureka’s service providers, homelessness remains the city’s number one issue, placing city staff and police alongside advocates and nonprofits.

It’s been years since the city revamped its approach to handling the crisis, as a need to avoid any lawsuit involving the 2019 Martin v. Boise ruling forcing cities to follow constitutional standards for shelter. Eureka recently received scathing reports from the Grand Jury in 2019 for its approach addressing homelessness — accused of criminalizing people and not effectively coordinating with Humboldt County or providing enough services for people.

Eureka began with assigning Eureka Police Department officers to a team working in tandem with behavioral health specialists, with a city department dedicated to outreach and redirection. The model places police in the center, directing unhoused people to services and providers.

Police say it’s been effective, but homeless advocates are skeptical of centering law enforcement in their efforts. There is no sanctioned campground, and other than a small donated tiny home village, the focus is on local shelters.

Chico police say they found ghost gun, narcotics after 2 hour search, arrest

Bryan Hall, executive director of the Eureka Rescue Mission, said in December he hasn’t seen an increase in the Eureka homeless population since the beginning of the pandemic. He said he sees “a terrible influx of people that could end up homeless and living in their cars, that were at one time a business owner, simply because they have been mandated to either shut down or limited so much that they can’t survive.”

Betty Chinn, noted homeless advocate, said in December more than 1,470 unsheltered people were counted in Humboldt County during the last count.

Chinn, 74 and known for her work connecting Humboldt County homeless residents with shelter and resources, then said in early June homelessness has likely increased.

“The town’s like a ghost town,” she said. “You cannot run, you cannot hide and you cannot protect anything.

So “They get scared and they get violent.”

Chinn works seven days a week, and said she can get local officials to respond if she alerts them to excess garbage or a need for masks. She opened a campsite in October for 97 people.

“Not even one single day I skip (volunteering),” she said. “I cannot do that because the people out there are so scared already.”

She said she has been harassed and threatened with lawsuits as some residents do not appreciate her efforts, and she’s scared for others’ safety.

“I believe in what I’m doing. The homeless are not going anywhere.”

Advocate Nezzie Wade of Affordable Homeless Housing Alternatives said June 1 the city has been dealing with about 200 people on city streets on any day since 2016. That year, people were moved out of an encampment with “incremental enforcement tactics.”

That’s when city staff created the system which “centered the police in their actions for getting people into housing.”

“You kind of have to work with the police to get in the queue for housing,” Wade said, which results in some issues if people have trust issues with police and struggle to work with them.

Wade said recently, another anti-camping ordinance in the city passed, with different rules on having personal property or dogs, using public restrooms and many other issues of public visibility.

Wade and other advocates offer a weekly mobile shower service with hygiene, food, clothing, showers and haircuts. They typically give up to 22 showers before running out of water, and work alongside the local needle exchange program.

There have been some major camp sweeps recently, but there are technically always shelter beds available by contract with the city, Wade said. For months shelters were locked down to access due to COVID-19, but now people can enter at a limited capacity.

Police response

Eureka Police Chief Steve Watson said homelessness remains the number one issue in Eureka as the epicenter for resources like health and mental care, transportation and tourism. He called the new strategy “much less emphasis on enforcement … more on collaboration with stakeholders and outreach based on data.”

The city’s co-responder program, headed by Sgt. Leonard LaFrance, partnering officers with county mental health specialists, is only half the equation, Watson said. The separate Uplift Eureka program uses a city coordinator and two outreach workers to facilitate a pilot diversion program to avoid placing homeless people into the criminal justice system.

A person’s case will be held to avoid “burying the person in debts they can’t pay” and instead they are directed to job or skills training, or a community project.

”When they successfully participate, their citation from the municipal violation goes away,” Watson said.

He said the goal is to not send police officers to every incident, with the key philosophy that “Accountability has to be coupled with compassion.”

“There is a need to maintain order, public safety and good health … But go about it in a way that understand homelessness. Enforcement cant be the first and only tool on our belt that we reach for.”

And while local business owners express frustration with “quality of life issues and crime that they associate with homelessness,” he said, his team also has to follow standards set by the Ninth Circuit Martin v. Boise ruling.

Still “The advocates really feel very strongly there should be no camping enforcement at all,” Watson said. And he thinks ”Self governance hasn’t worked.

“It’s got to be a well managed situation … not so high barrier you preclude so much of the population, but you gotta have some rules and order.”

LaFrance said the trauma informed model has to be part of engaging people, as more than 30% in Humboldt County have had at least four adverse childhood experiences.

“For some people, housing first absolutely works,” he said. “But for the folks we’re seeing on the streets, that’s not going to work unless you have transitional housing and case managers.

”I always tell people if you have only accountability, you grind people into the ground and they can’t get off. If you only have compassion, you have chaos.”

Increased mental health crises has grown worse in severity over the last five months, he said. This contributed to a drop in proactive response  by 15% because mental crisis calls are time consuming. LaFrance said he knows people don’t like police addressing mental health crises, but they are always involved even when social workers go to a crisis first.

LaFrance said he may officially add mental health professionals to the department’s outreach team.

”Being connected to people and knowing them helps to prevent people in crisis escalating. It’s really about relationships and how you build compliance.”

Watson added the department has a report on its transparency portal as rebuttal of the Grand Jury’s “scathing report” on the state of homelessness in the city, which he said used old data.

Wade is still skeptical of the city’s approach.

“When we start opening things up again I think it’s going to be really interesting,” she said.

“All the people are adding up, and going to be back on the street because they haven’t been able to get into housing.”

Wade said advocates continue to ask city and county staff and the public health department to allow people to stay in place.

“We don’t want to focus the police in the middle,” she said. “We want to have a good relationship with police if needed, but not that the police control everything.”

She said advocates hope funding will finally come through for alternative forms of housing, like tiny homes or safe car parking, given the severe lack of residences. But, “The city is not in favor of any kind of a camp.”

”People are already pushed to the margins. They’re out as far as they can get.”

Perhaps because of the strain COVID-19 placed on the existing homelessness crisis, “We learned a lesson around the world,” Chinn said. “Rich and poor, it affects everybody.

“This is the first time I see the unity here,” she added.” (We) get each other good ideas to make it better … right now.”

Isabella Vanderheiden contributed to this report.

Chico Enterprise Record
By Natalie Hanson
June 28, 2021