More on John Ball
Jim Crelan and others - including former county union rep. Joe Wildman who is promoting, if as he claims, not hosting, the Why John Ball Got Fired Web site - continue to say that former county CEO John Ball's claims that county Board Chairman David Colfax wanted him to put extra money the county budget for Kendall Smith's travel and lodging expenses is unlikely.
But John Ball has shown me a memo he wrote on June 17 and says he sent to the County Counsel Jeanine Nadel, as well as read over the phone to Supervisor Hal Wagenet, outlines exactly the scenario he has claimed led to the closed session of the supervisors at which Colfax, Smith and Wagenet voted to fire him.
Ball, by the way, asked for an opening meeting as is his right under the Brown Act, but the three supervisors refused to discuss their political and personal dirty laundry in public. Instead, they scheduled a closed meeting about Ball on a day they knew he was scheduled to be out of town having his annual physical as required under his county contract. When he found out the closed session about him had been scheduled he asked for it to be open. No. Then he asked to at least hear what their problems with him were. No again.
In his memo - which he planned to send to all five supervisors but which he says Wagenet appealed to him not to send, so he didn't (and then Wagenet stabbed him in the back anyway) - he outlines Colfax's call to County Operating Officer Alison Glassey, demanding that the CEO add to the county budget $50,000 for travel and $50,000 for "Staff" for Kendall Smith. What Glassey says Colfax told her was that the CEO should add "the amount that Kendall wants" which she confirmed was the $100,000. Colfax told Glassey he was demanding this in his capacity as chairman of the board and Smith's capacity as chairwoman of the board's Government Policy Committee (which does not exist).
Glassey reminded Colfax that the board had taken no action to add this money to the budget nor did any committee of the board report out a line item for this addition to the budget. Colfax then apparently told Glassey he was surprised at her reluctance to do this, and that there would be trouble if she didn't do as he directed. According to Glassey, Colfax then said he wanted it done this way because it would be a political hot potato to do it in the regular course of public budget discussion.
Ball went on in his memo to the supervisors to explain that under the law, none of them has any authority to simply add things to the budget or rearrange spending outside a regular board meeting and without a vote of the board.
Never mind that this is apparently how a lot of the county budgeting has been done over the years which is why Colfax was so surprised to get resistance this time. And Colfax is undoubtedly not the only or the first supervisor over the years who has simply directed county admin staff - up until Ball lap dogs for the supervisors - to wrangle some pet project into the budget.
"All we need is for a majority of you to decide on a number - ANY number, ANYWHERE in the budget - and that's what the final budget will reflect," Ball wrote. "We're not playing games with the exec proposal. We're trying to show you the overall budget picture, include the priorities we've heard you express, provide you with a trial balance, and help you identify and perfect the changes you want to make for the final budget."
Nadel wrote a memo to Smith - apparently in response to a request from Smith on how the budget process works - at the very next supervisors meeting four days later.The memo reminded them that they could not mess with the budget outside a regular meeting of the board, citing the law that states " the board may make additions and changes to the proposed budget as it desires up to the time of adoption of the final budget, provided that any increase or inclusion of additional items shall not be made after the public hearing on the final budget unless proposed in writing and filed with the clerk of the board before the close of the public hearing or unless approved by the board by a four-fifths vote."
In other words, guys, you have to do this stuff in public.
It's certainly no secret that I believe the three supervisors that fired Ball made a huge mistake, one that will send this county backwards for a long time.
I think they are used to getting what they want. I think Kendall spent too much time working for Congressman Mike Thompson and thinks that, now that she's an elected official, she should be able to order staff around like congressmen do.
I want to know why the board of supervisors has no had a public conversation about Kendall Smith's demands. Why should she get any more mileage or travel expenses than any one else. She travels farther, and she gets more mileage payback for that. So what's she belly aching about? And if she hasa legitimate reason why the taxpayers should give her more money to do her job then she should come out publicly and say so, debate it with her colleagues and the public and accept whatever the outcome is. Not try to sneak money into the budget through the back door.
I notice that the supervisors do have Kendall's travel budget on their agenda for Tuesday and they are meeting in Fort Bragg (good excuse to meet there but they also know they'll likely get less audience there too. But our county reporter Katie Mintz will be there.)
As we've reported in the Daily Journal, the county's overall budget picture isn't a rosy one. The supervisors still don't seem to want to talk about it but the county retirement system is going to send the county into bankruptcy. You can't have people retiring at 50 and 55 at almost their full salary and living to be 75 or 85 years old and not cut spending and continuing raising those salaries and not go broke.
This county isn't making enough in taxes or investments (I'm told we're dead last among the 21 counties in California with independent retirement systems in return on investment).
So instead of tackling these hard issues - and I believe the county needs to switch to a 401k retirement system for new hires as soon as possible - they are worried abut their mileage checks.
By the by, remember that Piffero flag poll we had on the site? Well, unbeknownst to us, unless you tell the poll-making software otherwise, it deletes the poll after a certain amount of time without saving any of the results. So there goes that unscientific poll. But, we learned something and will have another poll up soon. Ideas for poll questions?