Commentary and Opinion by Samuel Strait – January 12, 2024 Aside from the normal opening, there is a new chair in town. The Board of Supervisor's held their annual "musical chairs " rotation, not that it changed much. Supervisor Wilson is now the "chair" and Supervisor Borges is his wing man. While the transition was without much controversy, it did give a bit of illumination from Sir Wilson's monologue about what is to come. Not much. More new employees for the County that already has a few too many. More titles to accompany those that were introduced. Quite the unending parade. With a substantial vacancy rate, one wonders if the missing employees are all that important to the County's population? Yes, mandates of course. Seems like an interesting question to the Board would be, "How much does each program cost"? and "How many of the local population does each one serve". Moving on with the usual cant by Supervisor Starkey, mountain bike trails, Climate Change after all, health care to jail inmates, the Sister City festival, and the Tri Agency circus. What a lovely collection of insignificant issues that provide little or no benefit to most of the community. Supervisor Howard was next with an equally vapid account of his adventures in shoring up his desperate need to be seen as important. Finally, well you get the picture, Fortunately we will be able to wrap up this meeting's homage to the County's Bureaucracy with a nod to the twenty item Consent Agenda filled with questionable items that appear so uninteresting to the Board that no items were pulled for discussion, and little interest by the Board but to pass the laundry list 5-0. What started out as a relatively 'plain jane meeting" spun wildly out of control when Logan Halliwell (he and his wife owned Sally's By The Sea) appeared before the Board claiming malfeasance by Supervisors Starkey, Short and Wilson over the developments surrounding the December 12th's BOS where supervisors voted 4-1 to award Mission Possible $10.8 million for the Emergency Homeless shelter, the pallet house village for the homeless somewhere on Williams Drive, and related services and staff. Seems that there is a bit of an odor surrounding the events leading up to the vote, then a demand for an investigation into said event. Other than a report by a representative from CSAC that was about grant funding, a letter of appreciation and a dip into Planning, the Board concluded this event with a $420,000 budget transfer to Emergency services. Woops! not quite. An emergency item in the form of another letter in support of yet more funding to construct "fire breaks" in the County. All action items passed 5-0. Literally, nothing that the Board accomplished had any meaningful effect on the welfare of the majority of the Community and everything to do with the comfort of those employees that work for the County. So much for "strategic planning".