Investigation 1 -The Twisted Twosome
A Monterey County Examiner Investigation
A Monterey County Examiner Investigation
Monterey County is located in the "Central Coast" of california. It's about 90 miles sought of San Francisco and 45 minutes south of San Jose and the southern part of Silicon Valley. The namesake of the County is the City of Monterey. it's a small waterfront town that is similar in concept to Annapolis MD but not nearly as historic. There is a lot of Miliary Educatio there , like annapolis, but it's not an Academy town at all.
Monterey County as about 440,000 Citizens. The bulk of the citizens live in incorporated areas around Monterey including areas names Seaside, Marina, Pacific Grove, Pebble Beach, Carmel by the Sea and Salinas. The rest live in the "unincorporated" part fo the county.
Monterey County has an operating budget of 1.x Billion Dollars.
Monterey County as a "Board of Supervisors". It's comprised of 5 people elected from 5 areas of the non-incorporated part of monterey county. As one current Supervisor said it, they currently have Executive, Legisliative and some Judicial Duties for the entire county, inclisive with some overlap fo the incorporated areas, as well leadershp for the non-incprorated areas. That's a lot of money and a lot of power.
Is there any requirment for each of them to be literate in bookkeeping, accounting or finnance to be responsible at a top leverl for all that money?
Is ther any requirment for each of them to be literate in managmenet of others to be responsible the employees of the County?
Is ther any requirment for each of them to be legally literate be responsible for the creation of laws and ordinances for the County?
Luis Alejo
Supervisor
District 1
district1@co.monterey.ca.us
(831) 755-5011; fax: (831) 755-5876
Glenn Church
Superviser
District 2
district2@co.monterey.ca.us
(831) 755-5022
Chris Lopez
Supervisor
District 3
district3@co.monterey.ca.us
(831) 755-5033
Wendy Root-Askew
Supervisor
District 4
district4@co.monterey.ca.us
(831) 883-7570, (831) 755-5044
Kate Daniels
Supervisor
District 5
District5@countyofmonterey.gov
One of many problems with this system is that these 5 supervisors can NOT speak to each other outside of formally scheduled meetings where all are present due to the Brown Act. While some may view that as a positive, how do we know their aids aren't doing a lot of talknig and communicating and all kinds of stuff with all or some of them in the loop and others not? Furthermore, can they in fact do everrything the need to do and share everything they need to share in the open meetings?
Example - I told my supervisor about a concern withe the Real Estate Contracts in use across Monterey County that had buyers making offers and ratiifying conracts before they were given the sellers disclosure documents. The contracts destroyed the reliance portion of the contract formation process and in fact , no contract could have been legally and properly formed with the system yet apparently it had been in play since the 1980s AND been a Real Estate Broker and Seller's dream but buyers nightmare.
I viewed the supervisor as someone who should have or wold have cared about my concerns. When presented, i imagined he'd ask me to come into his office and explain my concerns and then share those with his 4 counter parts to get a conesnesu and how they might want to manage teh situation and/or create a countywide disclosure document requiring prroper contract formation practices.
To my shock no sincere concern was expressed and it seemed clear that something like that is not something he could initiate as part of a motion or hearing. It was as if it was up ot me to find the proper authorities to air my concerns and seemingly, if I wanted to make it a board matter, i was going to ahve to go down during work hours, sit in on a meeting, air my concerns and see what happened next.