Mendocino County Grand Jury
• 2012-2013
• Agency Response
Grand Jury Report Response Form Grand Jury Report Title: Board of Supervisors Standing Committees*
⚠️ Translation Notice: This content has been automatically translated. The original English text is the official version. Translation may contain errors.
⚠️ Este contenido ha sido traducido automáticamente. El texto original en inglés es la versión oficial. La traducción puede contener errores.
Findings and Recommendations 4 findings
F2
The Mendocino County Board of Supervisors (BOS), as stated in their rules of Procedure adopted on January 8, 2013, do not require ad hoc committees to maintain a "short term" duration only. Rule 31 of the Rules of Procedure do "encourage" ad hoc committees to "conclude their business" at the end of each calendar year. The committees "may be extended at the recommendation of the committee" with the approval of the BOS. Such extensions may be necessary as a practical matter where the subject matter requires additional time for reasons not foreseen at the time of the creation of the ad hoc committee. The ad hoc committees created by the BOS qualify as both investigative and issue-specific by nature and intended purpose. The BOS respectfully disagrees with this finding of the Grand Jury. The
Related Recommendations (1)
R2
regarding ad hoc committee status reports. The Chief Executive Officer has incorporated revised language into the BOS meeting agendas, commencing with June 11, 2013, to more clearly indicate when status updates are given by BOS members (see Item 6(a).)
F3
Brown Act specifically allows for the use of ad hoc committees in a manner different than "meetings" which are subject to the Act's provisions for a reason. (See Government Code Section 54952 (b).) Nor are ad hoc committees defined as "legislative bodies". The Brown Act must be read as a whole. Ad hoc committees cannot and do not exercise decision-making authority, which the Act clearly intends be done in a public meeting setting. There is no continuing subject matter jurisdiction nor a regularly fixed meeting schedule. The BOS does not concur with the conclusion that the use of ad hoc
Related Recommendations (1)
R3
This recommendation has already been implemented. The BOS, by adoption of its Rules of Procedure, only forms ad hoc committees for the investigation of single issues. The BOS has the discretionary authority to appoint ad hoc committees anticipated for resolution within the calendar but which may necessitate an extension of time beyond the initial calendar year as an issue by issue basis. (See Rule 31.)
F4
committees denies the public sufficient opportunity for meaningful participation in County government or sufficient notice. As previously stated, all decisions are discussed and taken in publicly agendized BOS meetings. Further, BOS members will publicly update their colleagues and the public in general on ad hoc committee activities through the Supervisors' Reports portion of the public meeting agenda. The BOS notes that it disbanded two ad hoc committees at its June 11, 2013 meeting. It is not clear to the BOS how the use of ad hoc committees "limit long-
No recommendations for this finding
F5
term planning and continuity." Ad hoc committees do not, by their very nature, address such matters.
No recommendations for this finding
* This report's PDF did not contain easily extractable text and required Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for analysis. There may be minor errors in the extracted findings and recommendations due to OCR limitations with scanned documents.