The comment below was written on the blog today. I decided to address the comment as a separate entry.
I am sure that you are funnelling these issues to Supv Derry since he has frequented this blog in the past. However, the way you have treated him during these past few months is not condusive to him wanting to return. I would be surprised if he bothers to take the time.
As to the specifics of this issue, why do you believe Supv. Derry is the responsible party when the BOS has placed that duty squarely on the CAO? It would seem prudent to direct these departmental issues to the CAO, and if one or more Supv. still follows this blog and is interested in the case, then they or the new unit in the CAO’s office can follow-up.
Let me respond. I do not expect Neil to return to the blog ever nor do I care. As far as I am concerned, Neil has become one of the problems, just like the other four; not the solution. However, I know anything addressed to anyone on the Fifth Floor will be read by staff up there, so I will continue to address him this way. He doesn’t respond to emails so there is no point in trying that means.
I do not care how much the five board members decide to shirk responsibility, ultimately, they are the ones responsible for what goes on in this county. Devereaux can grab all the power he wants with their permission, it is those five who answer to constituents.
As to contacting the CAO directly, actually I did exactly that and my email was ignored. Addtionally, I have at one time or another spoken directly to almost every one of the individuals that have been transferred to the CAO about the issues at TAD and all each one of them did was blow it off.
And finally, those new units are a joke. When I worked up there, that was my job. I worked for the TWO analysts that handled all special projects for the Board of Supervisors, handled ALL of the county’s legislation, handled ALL of the 258 boards, commissions and committees that included members from more than one district, handled the agendas for SCAQMD, CARB, Omnitrans, MDAQMD, etc. Note: I said TWO ANALYSTS as in two Administrative Analyst IIIs, not the ridiculous classifications and salaries these jokers have.
Also note that back then there were far less cities and much more unincorporated area in the county so the board members had a lot more to do. A lot of what the THREE of us did back then is now handled by cities. I think the Fourth District, for example, has a grand total of eight square miles of unincorporated area.
In case you didn’t notice, you hit a nerve when it comes to this so-called reorganization to “save money.” That is the biggest bunch of bs. And Neil has bought it hook, line and sinker. He’s happy to spend his time getting pothole filled and singing Sinatra while Devereaux runs the county. So why do we need a board of supervisors. I say we do away with them and let Devereaux run the whole show.
Great post Sharon. You are correct those 5 are ultimately repsonsible for good or bad anywhere in this Conty. Glad to see others are beginning to see through Derry’s dog and pony show.
One more thing to the author of the original comment….Supervisor Derry does frequent the blog and has been gracious enough he still avoids answering the tough questions then dissappears only to reappear when a question or comment appears that he WANTS to answer.
If Sharon stuck to the “polite” way, then the county would have her controlled and she would be part of the problem.
Sharon,
Nice bit of triv. However, it does nothing to make any of the electeds want to participate in a civil discussion with you. Even Jeff agrees that Derry is absent from the blog for periods at a time. I don’t blame him. Why attempt to resolve one situation when ten more zingers are waiting to ambush you and derail the conversation.
With the appointment of Devereaux, the five sups have placed their trust and backing behind the CAO instead of micromanaging the county. The five have agreed to focus their efforts on policy and visionary directives and not on the day to day operations of the County. I seem to recall you stating that their micromanagement into daily operations was what caused many of our problems under the prior administration resulting in lawsuits that have yet to be resolved. Well, now they have taken a different approach. They have removed themselves from daily operations and have refocused their efforts into what can be done to improve this County, all 20,000 square miles of it not just what is within the unincorporated areas. And, btw, there are more than 5 electeds in the county.
Don’t get me wrong, I do not believe that electeds should be given unlimited power to affect change. However, they liken themselves to being change agents and only go after the issues that put feathers in their caps. Ramos’ actions will attest to this fact.
Groups like the Grand Jury are the appropriate non-connected watchdogs of the county and should be the group that investigates wrong doing. If you have evidence of corruption that has been reported that proves who knew what and when, then I highly recommend taking it to the GJ next. It should give them something meaty to dig into.
One last thought, of the Sups, it is the Chairman who dictates most of the direction from year to year with some input from the Vice-Chair. Imagine how the five will lead this County once the gavel is handed off to the next Chair.
Sharon,
Here is a business parallel to this government paradox. When you are dealing with an insurance company who is content to minimize benefits while maximizing profits, there is noone in the rank and file, even up to the president and board, who wants to side with the claimant. You know this first hand. However, when you list the facts of the case, including names, dates, events and impact, and then state your standing in the case and expected goals, send a well documented letter to the president of the company as a formal complaint and cc the state insurance commissioner’s office of regulatory affairs, then you generally get action or at least their attention. Your legal team knows this first hand.
This approach has worked for me in the past without legal representation. You see, insurance companies are required to track complaints and are externally rated on resolution to these complaints. If you could find the appropriate empowered watchdog groups that keep state and local government entities in check, then you may have more leverage to affect change from the outside. You could be the conduit for change if you found the correct avenue(s) to file complaints. You could go one step further and post a matrix listing these empowered watchdog agencies and their areas of responsibiity.
Well said Jeff and Steve.
I’ll go further, Mr.Derry knows full well there is plenty of evidence out there to show that most of the allegations of misconduct by those mentioned in this blog exsist. Mr. Derry and others choose to ignore it.
For those avid supporters, just look at the investigation that Mr.Derry HIMSELF started on the Ristow case. But of course Ristow having tatoo’s showing while at work and going somewhere your not suppose to, FAR outways the potential retaliation Ristow suffered.
No retaliation from the DA, just use the case involving Grover Merritt, that is a slam dunk, because the County settled it after Ramos refused to be deposed.
What did we just learn recently, Merritt might have been retaliated against for his work in the Floyd Tidwell gun case. REMEMBER the one Mikey told a social group that he was under pressure to down play.
The County loves to say, “he has done this before” if it works for them in court.
My lord there is evidence Derry’s former Chief of Staff JUST MIGHT have been retaliated against for carrying out HIS BOSSES direction that would impact Ramos in a negative way.
And who does Mr.Derry rely on for the FACTS, the Director of HR Mr.”DOUBLE STANDARDS” Lamberto, followed by “NO TIME” in the court room Ruth Stringer. And we know about both of them.
Mr.Derry has his current Chief of Staff, Mr. “politically correct” George Watson. Good ol George who spent many a day writing about corruption in the County. NOW Mr.Watson has a “different” approach to handling corruption.
No doubt Mr.Watson’s “be nice” approach is wiping out the problems single handedly. It would not surprise me if Observer is none other than Mr.Watson.
MY point is, I think Mr.Derry has simply dug his own grave with his own comments. I do not think Mr.Derry REALLY knows what evidence is all about, since most of his advisors would not know if it slapped them in the face.
WE will wait and see what Mr.Derry is all about come election time and see who puts what money forth to support him for re-election.
Ya know Mr.Derry I came onto to this blog long ago and apologized for thinking YOU were like the rest of the BOS.
Like you did before you voted to oust Uffer, sat back and watched and decided for yourself if he was a good CAO. I too have sat back and watched now. THE facts are clear you are talking to much just like MOST politicians. ALL with your own personal agenda first and formost.
Mr.Derry since Jeff Burum thinks your a good guy according the the Sentinel article, and your talking up about Hoops, between Burum and SEBA, you will have plenty of money to run against the guy from San Manuel. NO WORRIES Neal!!!
Neil; transparency and character only comes through engagement with those who challenge you. Dialogue and conflict are part of politics and should be confronted head on with courage and humility meaning at times you are in over your head and don’t be afraid to admit it. Listen to others and admit you don’t understand whats happening.
What I’m telling you is don’t retract because someone challenges you, but engage them with the best of your ability knowing that this blog builds your political character.
“Why do you believe that Supv. Derry is the responsible party when the BOS has placed that duty squarely on the CAO?”
What?
It is standard operating procedure for any authoritive body to delegate their authority to others. That does not relieve the authoritative body from liability, it makes the authoritive body liable for the actions of those they delicgate to.
Derry is not relieved of liabilty because board authority has been delegate to Devereaux. On the contrary, Derry remains liable for each and every action delegated to Devereaux.
Derry was with SCE, very selective who to engage… Has SCE given Derry money?
Steve,
I am sure you have heard of chain of command, correct? In the County chain of command are: department heads, who ARE liable for their subbordinate’s actions; the CAO who IS liable for their subordinate’s actions, namely the non-elected department heads and the CAO’s direct reports; and the BOS and specifically, the Chairman of the BOS who’s responsibility entails ensuring that actions of their direct reports (the CAO) are doing their job (adhearing to the vision of the BOS). The BOS has limited ability to affect operations of other electeds, and never should have been managing the internal operations of any specific department.
I am sure that you are aware of why the BOS took this move. This action limits their liability to the actions of the organization. In the eyes of their constituents, only the delegates are responsible if a legal issue should occur. The only issues constituents will care about are the improvements completed within their district. Take a look at any supv website and you will see those things that are important to that district.
Getting back to the specifics of this issue, Derry is NOT in the position of affecting change as he thought he would be in when he was running for office. He is just one voice of five and is not yet in the Chair. It is the Chair that has the power veto per say and is the one who sets the vision for that term. Most of the other Sups get behind that vision with the understanding that they will have their turn when in that seat and will need the support of the other Sups to effect their vision.
The CAO has budgetary control over the general fund allocations to these departments. The BOS HAS delegated the RESPONSIBILITY for daily operations to the CAO instead of micromanaging operations. The CAO IS making changes across the entire operation in order to affect change, and is shaking up these departments. There are rumors of a number of new assignments and many department heads are trying to hold on to their positions for a few more months in order to pad their pentions.
That being said, the County is a big ship, and it will take some time to get operations squared away. Don’t expect the County to air its dirty laundry with respect to internal investigations. Most of these personnel actions will never become public unless an injured party chooses to disclose information related to their case. The only true watch dog group that I am aware of is the Grand Jury. Perhaps there are others as I suggested before. The GJ will investigate issues reported to it but may not be in a position to disclose details related to their investigations or recommendations.
Find the RESPONSIBLE party who is in the position of authority in the chain of command or some watchdog group outside of the chain if you are expecting to affect change from the outside. If you are an injured party to some action of the COunty, then state your standing in this case and move it forward.
Observor, the problem is not that you are wrong, but that you are so right. As you state, Derry is not in the posistion of effecting change as he thought he would be when he was running for office.
When I was 18 and a freshman at UC Davis I was covering Sacramento for the student daily. At that time I thought that I would give my carreer to writing as you have on this thread. I would explain the complexities of government in a way that would make it simple to the average person, and show them how they could participate in it.
I gave that effort up, but five years ago I had a revival in the immigration enforcement issue. I found myself in a group of people wanting to take the “Fire Drier” effort of KFI’s John and Ken forward. We were focused on how to organize to make the local sentiment effect the opperation of the Congress of the United States, who had the ability to effect immigration law and policy.
Close to us, but refusing to join us was a young upstart by the name of Joe Turner, now an aide to Supervisor Neil Derry. While we were trying to straegize to maximize our effect on congress, Joe just wanted to get off the couch and do something. He focused on Home Depot and the illegal laborers waiting in their parking lots as being symbolic of the illegal immigration problem and corporate America’s giving into the illegal situation.
I spent weeks trying to educate Joe in the intricacies of bringing a populist reform effort into the establsihed authority to effect real change. I tried to get him to formally join our fold. In the end, Joe convinced me that he knew what he was doing, and I contributed to the part that he wanted to play.
In the process, Joe invented the term “analysis paralysis”, in which a group of people would spend so much time trying to figure out the right way to carry out an action, that the action itself would never be carried out.
Ouch. Truth hurts.
So now Derry is part of the system and has figured out that there is little he can do to change it. And Joe Turner is now part of that system where he can do little, or only a little to effect change. With his writing ability, I am sure that Joe could explain very intelligently how the system works and why and how an individual could search out the proper entity to whom to make an arguement to effect change. Probably much better than I ever imagined that I could when I was 18.
Ironically, here I am furthering the lesson that Joe Turner taught this old dog five years ago. To support people like Sharon Gilbert who are willing to rock the boats even to the extent to allow the least seaworthy of them to sink.
And observor, with all of your astute observations, with no radical change, the best young people of the Inland Empire will still end up in Washington, Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Diego, or Orange County and the Inland Empire will still end up with the leftovers of the professional class.
I read with humor last week about the installation of a new presiding judge in Riverside County who had graduated from UC Riverside and Western State University of law in Fullerton. Growing up in Fullerton, we looked to UC Riverside as a second class UC and Western State as a second class law school.
Observer,
There are a few of things here you do not seem to understand. First, the fact is I no longer care if Neil participate in iePolitics or not. We enjoyed having his presence in the past, but he pissed off a lot of people with his answer about Rod Hoops, myself included. That one answer said more about Neil and his ethics than anything else. I lost most of my respect for him that day as did many of our readers.
Second, what you see on the blog is nowhere close to the whole picture of what goes on. We put out more information than mainstream media on the subjects we discuss here, but often we suppress more than we disseminate. For example, there are some major behind-the-scene stories I’m dying to tell going on right now regarding the corruption probe. I cannot tell those stories as I am not going to do anything to compromise the investigation or give Ramos a heads up on what to expect.
You likely have no idea all that occurred for it to get to the point where I totally lost my patience with patronizing responses, if there was any response at all. There is a point to call a spade, a spade. That’s what I did.
I have ZERO respect for Greg Devereaux. I knew a year before he was appointed that he was going to be our next CAO. I had high hopes. All I have seen so far is less transparency and a heck of a lot of status quo.
Also, it is not Devereaux’s responsibility to fire Ruth Stringer or Doreen Boxer. Both of them answer directly to the BOS. But the board, Neil included, has shirked its responsibility. Those two women alone will have cost this county hundreds of millions of dollars before this is over. All five members of the Board of Supervisors should be voted out of office based on this alone. They have shown they cannot function in the position for which they were elected.
I don’t think I am much different than a majority of the voting public in that I have lost all respect for elected officials at every level of government. The difference between them and me is that I have a bully pulpit that I’m not afraid to use.
Now, the truth of the matter is that I am upset about how things have evolved with Neil because BOS stuff aside I think he’s a good guy. That being said I am also incredibly disappointed in him. And the reason for that is not that he cannot accomplish all that he promised voters he would as that goes almost without saying. It is because he has completely abdicated his authority and turned all power over to Devereaux.
Devereaux is not an elected official. He is not responsible to the voters. Derry is. If a viable candidate runs against Neil, he is going to have some problems. I know some around him tell him otherwise but he needs to leave his ivory tower and talk to the non-political junkies.
San Bernardino County, and California as a whole, has been slow to jump on the “throw the bums out” bandwagon. But I’m more than willing to bet two years from now will be a different story.
I’m not knocking Neil for getting potholes fixed and Cedar Glen cleaned up and the rest of what he has accomplished since taking office. But those things affect a very small percentage of the voters. Those things should be handled by his lowest-level staff member, not him or his chief of staff. They are field rep work.
Most of his constituency are “Neil who?” as is true countywide. “Incumbent” is a dirty word right now and San Bernardino County will catch on. I’m betting it will be before the November 2012 election.
Look at the Second District. Paul was the only county incumbent to have a viable opponent. And there is an excellent chance he will lose in November.
As to the Grand Jury, no one takes them seriously. Ramos uses them on occasion but otherwise they are a useless body. And in case you are not a long-time reader of the blog, I have a great deal of experience dealing with the Grand Jury on both sides. I was Sue Shuey’s back up on and off for several years and I have been directly involved in their audits of several departments–on the receiving end, that is.
Most of the Grand Jury members, and it doesn’t matter which year, are there for the social aspects. Each Grand Jury is lucky to have two to four members who are actually there for the purpose they are intended. Unfortunately, they cannot do it by themselves. And by the time they learn the ropes it is time to write the report and be replaced with a new group.
I understand why Assemblyman Cook did what he did but I also know that impaneling a second Grand Jury is a waste of taxpayer money. We need a cross between the Grand Jury and an Ethics Commission–a group that is appointed for several years at a time, answers to no one, has power to fine, etc., has a guaranteed funding source, and has a professional background. But that will never happen.
Anyway, George called me today because apparently somewhere on the blog he has been accused of being “Observer.” I can vouch for the fact that George is not Observer as the ip address is located in the high desert.
Atta girl, Sharon. Someone understands the Grand Jury.
A second Jury? Please… An independent ethics commission clearly outweighs another do-nothing Grand Jury. Both the Public Integrity Unit and GJ are under the thumb of the DA? Both the GD and PIU, unfortunately, constructive undermining trust and confidence in government.
If both are serving the public — where are the results??? The PIU is more akin to the KBG in that there is little integrity associated with them. What goes in, never comes out. No accountability whatsoever.
The PIU Unit has only tried one case since 2003 and lost it! And what has the Grand Jury accomplished? Certainly, there is no lack of work.
What a ludicrous notion: A second Jury. Throwing money at a program that has zero track record. What business would do that?
Maybe those in power just like it this way.