Commentary and Opinion by Samuel Strait – March 18, 2024 What? Someone else is on vacation, and it is not Supervisor Howard. Perhaps he used all of his "vacation time" down in Fresno, or maybe the County's "travel budget" has been exhausted by Sir Howard. I don't suppose we will ever know until the next time Supervisor Howard takes a trip on the County's dime. He and Mayor Inscore of the City's fame ought to get the group rate discount, judging by the amount of time they both spend out of town. In any event, the March 12th social hour, often disguised as a Board of Supervisor's meeting, turned into some what of an education for our Board, not that they can ever be considered "educated". With Board Chair Wilson, off to the emerald isles for a couple weeks of R and R, it was left to the stoic and normally silent, Vice Chair Borges to guide the hapless Board through the uncharted waters of the County's bureaucratic dysfunction, and my what a bureaucratic jungle it was. The meeting commenced with its usual solemn opening ceremonies and was quickly led through a forest of "New" hires clearly in an effort to fill the ranks of the sadly depleted Health and Human Services, 40% vacancy we are informed later in the "show". The Board reports Ms. Starkey verbose as usual, her "short version", Mr. Howard, puffed up with his version of "being important", Mr. Short, lost as usual and finally Vice Chair Borges, the silent one. On to the vaunted Consent Agenda, sixteen items, a mere two thirds of the County's business by way of the County's staff. 4-0, Chair Wilson being absent, with little to recommended as being particularly transparent despite an effort by the Consent Agenda's perennial assailant, Mr. Branden Bieber, to the need for a number of the items passed with no explanation as to their critical value for the County's residents. What is new? More power into the hands of the Director of Health and Human Services (DHHS) without question and yet another hire by DHHS slipped into the mix. Scheduled items to include "Public Comments" after a brief dip ahead into Budget transfers, Vice Chair moving right along. A Board of Equalization couple of items quickly dealt with then on to a report by one of the many, "essential" Deputy Directors of DHHS. Must not expect the $200,000 plus yearly compensation package to cover "all" the duties expected out of the actual director of DHHS while she seems to run most of what passes for governance in Del Norte County. Such as we have the report being given and then the fireworks began. A quick comment by yours truly suggesting that as DHHS has grown to the behemoth it has now become, 60% of the County's $220 million budget and nearly half the County's work force, were there many left of the County's residents that had escaped the Department's benign attentions? The suggestion being, for the Board's attention which has clearly escaped them, that as DHHS has grown, the County's dysfunctional residents have grown in numbers faster than that particular department can solve their respective issues. The implication being, can there ever be some indication that this department's ministrations of the public is meeting any measure of "substantial success"? We then were exposed to a podium pounding firery rant by the County's Union President, Norma Williams, who quickly redefined "dysfunctional" to "vulnerable" without ever addressing the question being asked. Great spin as usual by the near constantly angry Union propagandist that we have come to expect. Following this redefining of DHHS's clientele, Ms. Williams launched into a challenge of the Board to speak with those workers, clearly not Directors, Assistant Directors, Program Managers, and other supervisory staff, to determine "what their actual issues were". Then Ms. Williams slipped up by suggesting that "salaries" were not the problem. After being told over and over again for years that MONEY was the root of the County's retention and recruitment issue, Ms' William's claim clearly ran afoul of that message. While Ms Williams, no doubt, had other things in mind, she failed to elaborate just what were those issues. Following that exchange, the Board moved on with haste to a presentation of the Smith River Alliance/Collaborative and a representative of the US Forest Service. Consisting primarily of funding spent to protect the County from future catastrophic forest fires, it is nice to understand that much of the recent major fires as a result of poor forest management throughout the State of California was to finally be addressed in some sort of fashion I remain uncertain as to what exactly the Smith River Alliance/Collaborative had to do with the presentation other than some sort of "feel good" presence, but the Forest Service attention to Fire protection is long over due and most certainly welcome. General Government items consisted of a largely "word salad" presentation by the County's ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER, Randy Hooper regarding the future planning direction of County Government and how to make it whole. While the "Strategic Plan" was wildly praised by the Board, beyond County Government, it had nothing to offer the citizens of the County in the way of positive direction. Clearly another example of the sad waste of resources and taxpayer funds that fail in so many ways to address critical issues in the County. Following that clearly waste of effort, the Board moved to the homeless shelter "crisis" by waiving a competitive bidding requirement to address the construction of a more formalized Homeless encampment to speed up the process. We were assured that the Homeless encampment was not to be labeled "encampment", but "temporary homeless development" as if this would change what it will become. Finally the meeting came to a merciful end with the quick passage of a Memorandum of understanding with the Sheriff's Employee Association. While the meeting ended with little fanfare, it should be understood that the County's struggles with retention and recruitment of employees can not be laid to rest by addressing salaries that are competitive with other jurisdictions. The problems are much more deeply rooted in the County's work force that need to be exposed and recognized before that is even a gleam in the eye of the Board. The first step may be extremely difficult, but to continue to deceive themselves by thinking that everything is "Peachy" and a well oiled machine the Board should acknowledge that "increasing salaries" merely "papers over" serious deficiencies within it staff leadership that effects its work force. Until those issues are resolved, if even possible, retention and recruitment will remain unsolvable, likely to get worse as time goes by.