theSheetNews.com

County Finance Director bolts for Shasta 

According to a report Wednesday in the Redding Record Searchlight, after two days of interviews, Shasta County Supervisors announced the selection of Mono County Finance Director Brian Muir for its auditor-controller position. He was reportedly unanimously chosen over six other finalists.

Muir, 68, was described as having “a frank style,” during his interview, garnering laughs from supervisors and some audience members when he said not all his current Mono County colleagues are “in love with” him, but they at least respect him.

Muir said he would likely start the job sometime in January.

A graduate of Harvard University and the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., Muir said he won’t collect retirement benefits in Shasta County, and will actually take a pay cut from his current $156,000 salary in Shasta, whose auditor-controller position paid $118,000 in 2011, with total compensation at around $166,000. The new job, however, would come as a relief to his wife, who lives in Weaverville to run a hotel the couple own. Working in Mono County has forced the two to make eight-hour commutes every weekend.

“I’m at that point in my life where it’s not all about the money,” he said.

Muir was unavailable for comment at press time, but County Administrative Officer Jim Arkens said the Mono County Board of Supervisors appears to be in favor of recruiting for Muir’s replacement, but added that Assistant Finance Director Roberta Reed would be welcome to apply for the post as part of the process.

“The County’s in shock,” Arkens commented. “I know I am. He wasn’t just a great employee, he’s also a great friend. I’ll definitely miss him.”

(Photo: David Huebner)

The Dead Winter Carpenters played an inspired show for a packed house at the Mono Inn on Wednesday night. The fine dining was moved upstairs and the downstairs floor turned into a speakeasy. Local Eastern Sierra residents of all stripes were in attendance. They debuted a new song featuring Jenni Charles, their fiddler on Djimbe.

Story and Photo By David Huebner

By now you’ve probably at least seen their name advertised around town, and perhaps you caught their set at Mammoth Rocks, but in case you haven’t, the Dead Winter Carpenters are a very accomplished up-and-coming band that has been touring heavily for a couple of years now, playing festivals and venues around the country and even opening up for some big names like Sam Bush. On Wednesday, Oct. 10 we’ll be graced with another appearance by DWC in the Eastern Sierra at the Historic Mono Inn just north of Lee Vining, right along the shore of Mono Lake, a venue that is both intimate and spacious, with picture perfect views of the lake.

You might be scratching your head thinking, “Now is that the same place as the Ansel Adams gallery? I thought that closed down or something.” And you are right, it was closed for three years, but has now been open again for the past two years, and is being operated by new folks Jim O’Meally and Mario Aguilar, who not only have a penchant for creating delicious food and offering great wine and beer, but for hosting live music events with bands that are passing through the Eastern Sierra.

The Dead Winter Carpenters know how to jam. I’ve seen them perform a few times, and every time has built upon the energy from the time before. While they channel the influence of bluegrass music, that hardly defines their sound which is much more rock’n roll / jam band than bluegrass. They are all very skilled musicians, and good songwriters, and just good people. You can find their music online at http://deadwintercarpenters.com and listen for yourself. The combination of this quality of music with good food and shoreline views of Mono Lake is not to be missed. There is ample parking and camping is available. Local Mammoth jam band Old Coyote Moon (http://oldcoyotemoon.com) which, in the effort of full disclosure, I am a part of, opens the show with a full band including didgeridoo and cello.

On Tuesday, the Mono County Board of Supervisors approved a resolution to enter into a contract with Karin Humiston as the new Chief Probation Officer.

Former Chief Probation Officer Beverlee Bryant retired in September 2011 and the Assistant Probation Officer, Tracie Neal, has been serving as Interim Chief Probation Officer since that time.

Humiston’s contract is effective Sept. 24 and will last two years. Right before the vote, Supervisor Tim Hansen said, “I wish we had been able to hire from within Mono County.”

Both Supervisor Byng Hunt and Mono County CAO Jim Arkens (who also serves as the HR Director in addition to holding several other positions at the County) stated that after going through an extensive interview process, Humiston was found to be the best candidate at this time.

“We wanted to open the position up to find the best person possible,” Hunt said. “Internally we have some really great potential candidates that could move into the position in the future, but she [Humiston] was the best choice right now. The Board of Supervisors does like to promote from within but in this case this candidate was better.”

“I have a longstanding interest of seeing people promoted within their department,” was Hansen’s response when asked to elaborate on his comment on Wednesday.

Hunt said that the reason for a two-year contract was to make sure things work out with Humiston.

“She is going through some life changes and is moving from Arizona.” Hunt said.

Arkens stated that he had been given authorization from the Board a few months back to go through a full recruitment process and choose the best candidate, which he believed he did.

Arkens and Finance Director Brian Muir conducted the interviews and made the recommendation to the Board.

Bryant said she had no comment on the new hire, seeing as how she has been away from the County for some time now and was not involved in the interview process.

“I have some personal feelings but those aren’t for print,” Bryant said.

In her previous employment, Humiston worked for the Cochise County Juvenile Court in Bisbee, Ariz. from 1997 to August 2012 and at the Arizona Department of Corrections from 1981 to 1997.

The cost of this position for the remainder of FY 12-13 is approximately $181,369, of which $83,367 is salary; $64,602 is the employer portion of PERS, and $30,400 is the cost of the benefits; also included is up to $3,000 in moving expenses.

Knight argues the merits of SB 1148 to Mono Supes

CalTrout was clearly swimming against the current at Tuesday’s Mono County Board of Supervisors meeting when it made its case for Senate Bill 1148, currently sitting on Governor Jerry Brown’s desk awaiting his signature or veto.

Until Tuesday, the Board had only heard from those opposing the bill such as Retired State Senator and current Stanislaus County Assessor Dave Cogdill and local District 3 Supervisor-Elect Tim Alpers.

CalTrout Conservation Director Curtis Knight claimed that rather than trying to squash the language in Assembly Bill 7, which gives funding prioritization to fish hatcheries, SB 1148 had been written with the intent of reinvigorating the bill.

“We wanted to create a piece of legislation to remind legislators that trout are important,” Knight said. “SB 1148 keeps the issue on the front-burner. We are not trying to tip the balance any one way.

“It’s the way to get things to work in the messy world of Sacramento,” he added.

One of the major goals of SB 1148, according to Knight’s presentation, was to earmark funding for seven staffing positions for the wild trout program.

“SB 1148 added at least $2 million for the wild trout program, which would be used largely for staffing permanent positions,” Knight said.

This money would be taken out of the Hatcheries and Inland Fisheries Fund (HIFF), which was created as part of AB 7, first and then the remainder would be used for hatcheries.

While Knight pointed out that $2 million was 10% of the HIFF, so hatcheries would still be receiving 90% of the fund, Cogdill, who was also present at Tuesday’s meeting, felt that wasn’t the point. AB 7 put hatcheries first on the list to receive HIFF funding, so SB 1148 would be reversing the approved order.

“The language in SB 1148 says heritage and wild trout programs are the priorities, not hatcheries,” Cogdill said. So, if license fee sales drop, so would the amount of funding hatcheries receive because they would not be able to dip into the HIFF barrel until $2 million was pulled out for the heritage and wild trout programs.

“How are hatcheries not going to come up short,” Cogdill asked. “We’re going to end up having to raise fishing license fees, which ultimately makes families suffer. If license fees increase, fewer people will buy them and again it will hurt the hatcheries.

“This bill does not get us all where we want to be,” Cogdill added. He felt the process of creating SB 1148 had been truncated. He didn’t hear about the bill until June when it had already made its way through several steps in the process of becoming law.

“1148 was a wetlands mitigation bill at first,” Cogdill claimed. “CalTrout tried to sneak it in.”

Even after some eventual conversation with CalTrout over the past month, both Cogdill and Knight said they didn’t see eye to eye at the end of the day.

Both agreed that AB 7 had never been implemented properly, but while Knight said SB 1148 was the solution for that problem, Cogdill believed the new language fell short.

“AB 7 needs to be revisited and strengthened but SB 1148 does not do that,” Cogdill argued. “CalTrout was a major opponent to AB 7 at first and tried to block it because they saw it as a threat to their funding.”

The Department of Fish and Game is another agency that hasn’t been fond of the production goals of AB 7.

“There have been a lot of politics back and forth,” Cogdill said. “From the beginning there was language in AB 7 that said the production goals would be difficult to achieve. This was in the language signed by the governor and it gave DFG an out to not comply with AB 7 from the start. We need legislation with more teeth.”

Knight pointed out that SB 1148 would give hatcheries $1 million right off the bat to help them build up their facilities and meet production goals.

Cogdill, however, pointed out that the $1 million was a one-time allocation.

Supervisor-Elect and hatchery expert Tim Alpers got to the heart of the matter by pointing out that the bottom line was getting fish in the water.

“If the hatchery system is impaired any further, fishing [which is a large portion of Mono County’s economy] will go downhill,” Alpers said. “Without the hatchery system we can’t perpetuate fishing and get younger fisherpeople on board. You need funding continuity to properly grow nicer, bigger fish on a regular basis.”

These bigger fish are what will attract more fisherpeople to the waters.

Despite CalTrout’s presentation, the Board came to consensus to send two letters to the governor: one asking him to veto SB 1148 and another asking him to support SB 505, which, according to Cogdill, just restates the obvious points of AB 7.

“The DFG is just doing what it wants and is not following the law,” said Supervisor Larry Johnston. “The tail is wagging the dog and DFG will probably just ignore this bill, too.”

“It’s good we came to the table, but it’s the wrong table here at this Board level,” added Supervisor Vikki Bauer, in reference to the alleged truncated 1148 process.

“There are possible consequences, intended or unintended, from SB 1148,” Cogdill said. Since it has made it to the governor’s desk, Cogdill felt it would likely be signed.

“It’s never a done deal, especially with this governor, but the Department [DFG] is behind it so he is going to have a lot of pressure to sign it,” Cogdill said.

Consultants hired for EMS assessment deliver an incomplete draft report

This week, Mono County residents felt a bit like a kid on Christmas morning who has been anticipating a Red Ryder BB Gun, but winds up with a pink bunny suit instead.

For months the County has been eagerly awaiting the results of the Fitch & Associates [the consultant] Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Assessment Report, but when the goods were delivered in draft form, they left much to be desired.

“Everyone has been waiting for the Fitch report to do something,” said Supervisor Vikki Bauer at Tuesday’s Board meeting. “But with the gaps in information, I’m not comfortable moving forward with it.”

Fitch and Associates representative Rick Keller pointed out that Tuesday’s discussion was part of the process.

“That’s the purpose of a draft,” Keller said, to discuss any gaps and fill them. But with an $85,000 price tag, many County residents were expecting more bang for their buck.

The need for the report comes from the ever-growing EMS budget line item. Currently, the cost to the General Fund for the EMS program is $2.9 million.

“The cost is dramatically increasing and we need to put a brake on this,” said Supervisor Byng Hunt.

“We have been here at least five times in the last 25 years because it’s a big expense and it’s not mandated,” added Supervisor Bauer.

County EMS staff is currently made up of 24 medical personnel, the majority of which are paramedics, with just one or two EMTs.

While the Board doesn’t want to change the department from the “Cadillac, primo department that it is,” according to Hunt, it is looking for ideas that would make it more efficient and stop the fiscal drain without impairing service.

One idea the report suggested, at least for a long-term direction for Mono County, would be to consider Community Paramedicine.

According to a March 2012 report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “Community Paramedicine is an emerging field in health care where EMTs and Paramedics operate in expanded roles in an effort to connect underutilized resources to underserved populations,” which sounds a bit like what the Mono County EMS program currently does.

“Mono County is an ideal place for Community Paramedicine because it is not a cookie cutter program.” Keller said.

Another solution suggested in the Fitch report, which has been a bit more controversial, is to change the system so that an EMS rig would be manned with one EMT and one Paramedic, rather than the current setup of two medics. This switch would be done over time through attrition. Since EMT salaries are approximately 20% less than paramedics, according to an estimate from Mono County District 2 Supervisor-Elect Fred Stump, this would in theory help shrink the strain on the General Fund.

Rick Mitchell, a Paramedic in the County for 28 years and a resident for 38, said the EMT/Paramedic set up had been tried before.

“That’s the program that I was hired under [as an EMT],” Mitchell explained. “I was told, jokingly, at the time that I would have to wait for someone to die to get a job as a medic.”

Mitchell waited, and indeed, it was not until a former Paramedic passed away that he was bumped to a Paramedic position.

“If you go with that scenario, you won’t have another medic hired until 12 people leave,” Mitchell said, referring to half of the current 24-member EMS department.

Another Mono County Paramedic, Julien Lecorps, pointed out that this could lead to a negative situation for the County.

“I left Mammoth Mountain Ski Area five years ago to pursue a career as a Paramedic and I was able to stay in Mono County and do so,” Lecorps explained. “If you have a Paramedic/EMT setup, people will have to either leave the area or not pursue a medic position. You will lose young people who want to stay in the area and pursue this career.”

Another issue is whether or not to continue to train Paramedics with some firefighting skills.

“We want to make the program as valuable as possible,” Mitchell explained, which he why he believed the firefighter training should remain.

Supervisors Larry Johnston and Tim Hansen agreed.

“I think it’s OK to have it [EMS] be a General Fund Department, but public employees should be able to do more than one thing, especially in rural areas,” Johnston said.

“We need to utilize the paramedics however we can, otherwise they’ll be watching TV all day,” Hansen added.

It appears that a lack of connection with all parties involved made the Fitch report less valuable than expected. The lack of outreach became alarmingly clear when Mono County Sheriff Rick Scholl approached the podium.

“The report quotes the Sheriff, but I have never seen nor commented on the report,” Scholl said. He added that Sergeant Mike Booher of the Mono County Sheriff’s Department had met with someone from Fitch, but that he told Scholl the report did not accurately reflect the procedures of the Sheriff’s department.

Mitchell pointed out that the medics had not been approached either in order to give input.

In addition, Fitch touted that it would be going out to the community to gather input from the public on what it wanted in its EMS Program. However, as Stump pointed out to the Board on Tuesday, there was little to no publication of the times and places of the public meetings, which were held this week in case you hadn’t heard. (See the sidebar below for the meeting that The Sheet found out about at the last minute and was able to attend.)

“Perhaps we need to have another round of public outreach with better announcements,” Stump suggested to the Board.

The report also lacked any discussion of the County going to a private EMS system, and it completely failed to discuss Mono County’s coverage of Hwy 6.

“This document needs to carry us into the future,” Bauer said. “So we need to go back to the table and do it right. We need to get our notes in order and move forward.”

In the meantime, the County is also in the midst of contract negotiations with EMS personnel.

EMS public hearing missing “public”
By Geisel

A public meeting Monday evening with Fitch & Associates, the consulting group, which rolled out its Draft Emergency Medical Services Assessment Report, included several industry professionals and Dr. Rick Johnson, Inyo and Mono Public Health Director, but no members of the public.

Fitch representative Rick Keller, who facilitated the discussion of the report’s recommendations, said that the Mono County Board of Supervisors is interested in collecting “perspectives,” and that the draft is being circulated for input before finalization, but most in the room agreed that the public was not adequately advised of the meeting, and suggested another round of meetings be held.

Other “Town Hall” meetings were held in Crowley, Chalfant and Bridgeport.

At the Mammoth meeting, Keller advocated the trend toward “Community Paramedicine,” which would help the County focus on healthcare needs relative to its community, and essentially disregard the vast majority of one-size-fits-all state approaches.

“Winter accidents, for example, are certainly different in Mono,” he said rhetorically. “You have 14,000 people living in the county and average 1,600 [EMT] runs a year. That’s too small a sample size to extract much in the way of trends and percentages, but Mono’s weakness is also its advantage. You have good critical access to hospitals, but limited clinics and home-based healthcare.” It’s easy to sell the state, he said, on a Community Paramedicine pilot program, since Mono is “an excellent candidate,” especially in light of a recent tribal clinic closure, leaving basically none in operation on county tribal lands.

Keller said the industry is pursuing the program idea as one way of trying to figure out how healthcare will evolve under Obamacare

“Yolo and Contra Costa counties want a pilot program, but Mono might be more of a no-brainer or no-risk option,” Keller added. Lack of definition on how the program will be funded, as well as a lack of any formal regulations or codes drew some hesitation from paramedics and hospital staff.

“Reimbursement is a factor to be worked out,” Johnson noted. “Some of that could be realized from hospital savings, or increased revenue on the pre-hospital side [i.e. certain on-site treatment and transport fee increases] could be the other part.”

Some models being considered as funding options: reimbursements based on quality of care, using metered customer satisfaction responses. “Those types of things are coming,” Keller advised.

While the report incorporated a fair amount of data, according to Keller, one major need that seemed to be reoccurring was for more data and dispatch information, and a central way to correlate individual agencies’ response logs, including on scene communications and run times. How that would impact the Mono Sheriff’s Department, which handles the bulk of the County’s central 911 dispatch duties, remains to be seen.

The Mono County Road Department has received delivery of two MT Trackless snow blowers. These pieces of equipment were acquired through the Clean Air Projects Program (CAPP), a joint project of the Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District and Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

The MT Trackless snow blowers will provide improved snow removal services in Mono County’s Road Areas 1 and 3, which include the communities of Paradise, Swall Meadows, Crowley Lake, Hilton Creek, McGee Creek, Lee Vining, June Lake and Mono City. While these pieces of equipment are significantly smaller than the vehicles they are replacing, they are capable of performing similar snow removal. Over the years, snow storage in these areas has been reduced in size requiring equipment capable of placing snow quickly and accurately in the smaller spaces.

This equipment will replace two 1958 snow blowers and improve air quality in the Great Basin Air District as well as provide drastically superior engine efficiency and reliability. Although some minor work remains to ready the vehicles, both are expected to be placed into service by winter. -Press Release

Photo courtesy Mono Inn

It’s been nearly 70 years since the Mono Inn celebrated the author of Huck Finn during an event known as Mark Twain Days. Current owners of the Mono Inn, Jim O’Meally and Mario Aguilar felt that the lapse had lasted long enough and have planned a revival this Sept. 14-15.

The event and the Inn have a legacy to uphold, and Jim and Mario aren’t naive to the history they are inheriting.

“It’s n ot about us,” Mario said. “The Mono Inn was once an entertainment center and we want a renaussance of that.”

Wallis and Venita McPherson established the Mono Inn in 1922, but it was Venita that became the face associated with the resort. She is credited with creating the first annual Mark Twain Days in 1928.

Back when Venita ruled the roost, a sign in front of the Inn read, “Mono Lake, the place that made Mark Twain famous,” because Twain wrote about the lake in his first book, “Roughing It.”

According to the Historical Society, “Mark Twain Days grew to be a two-day event that included swimming races (to help correct the misleading impression about Mono Lake’s water given by Mark Twain), packing contests, foot races, sack races, three-legged races, a beauty contest, baseball games, row boat and fishing boat races, and, in years, later hydroplane speedboat races.”

Longtime Eastern Sierra local, Don Banta’s most vivid memory of the original Mark Twain Days was a horse race in the lake.

“The goal was to swim the horse out and around a buoy in the lake,” Banta explained.

“People brought in these high-spirited, fine animals and all these fancy horses lined up at the starting line,” he continued.

However, none of them made it around the buoy except a pair of local kids with a burro.

“That was the first and last time they held a horse race in the lake,” Banta said.

This year’s event will mark the first time the festivities have been held on the grounds of the Mono Inn since 1944 when the festival began to die off because of World War II.

Music and vendors will fill the Mono Inn property and Mark Twain and John Muir impersonators were expected to be on hand.

Festivities will begin around noon each day.

Mono County Supes send landfill lease back to DWP

On Tuesday, the Mono County Board of Supervisors reviewed a one-year lease agreement with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power for the Benton Crossing Landfill … approximately six months after giving the go-ahead to sign a five-year lease agreement with the agency.

“The lease process neared completion in March 2012 when the Board approved a five-year lease and associated environmental document, but DWP subsequently identified issues and refused to sign the lease,” stated Solid Waste Supervisor Tony Dublino’s staff report.

The main issue identified by DWP back in the spring was that of a minor amount of groundwater contamination at the landfill.

“We submit groundwatering monitoring reports to the Lahontan Water Control Board on a quarterly basis,” Dublino told The Sheet. “DWP has always had the ability to review these reports, however, they just realized this condition that has been in the report for years and have now questioned it.”

Dublino stated that it should be the Lahontan Water Control Board that should dictate water quality, not DWP.

“Lahontan hasn’t taken us to task for this since the early 2000s,” Dublino said. He emphasized that the contamination was minor and was something to be expected in groundwater that has been sitting under a landfill for 30 years.

The County has been working under an expired lease for the landfill for several years. Without a new lease with DWP the County cannot acquire the Solid Waste Facility Permit it needs to be in compliance with CalRecycle.

In addition to dealing with lease and permit issues, the County eventually needs to address the deficit created every year by solid waste.

The County was $50,000 over budget in the 2011/12 fiscal year. Luckily the agency had enough in its coffers to cover the gap, but with approximately the same deficit expected in 2012/13, some long-term solutions are needed.

“We need to study the numbers,” stated Supervisor Larry Johnston at Tuesday’s Board meeting.

“But today is about short-term decisions,” Board Chair Vikki Bauer pointed out. The item on Tuesday’s agenda was to simply deal with the DWP lease and the Solid Waste Facility Permit.

“But I want long-term discussions,” Johnston said. “I am worried that every time we get a new lease from DWP we are responsible for more and more.”

Johnston would ultimately like to see the County acquire the landfill site from DWP.

“With less going to the landfill [because of recycling laws], the life of the landfill could be extended,” said Johnston. “We should acquire the site since it’s going to be ours indefinitely anyway.” He was referring to the monitoring fees the County will have to pay the state for 30 years after the landfill’s closure to ensure there are no issues.

His fellow supervisors pointed out that DWP would have to be willing to sell the property in order for Johnston’s plan to work.

“Or we could condemn it,” Johnston said, reiterating his idea from March.

The rest of the Board, however, wanted to finish up the housekeeping items and sign the lease with DWP before diving into further conversations.

“I’m concerned that DWP may not want to sell the land,” said Supervisor Hap Hazard. “We need to determine that before we have a discussion.”

The Board unanimously authorized County Administrative Officer Jim Arkens to sign the one-year lease with DWP.

As of press time the lease was being reviewed by DWP.

Bill and repeal fall flat

Last week the Board sent a letter to the California Legislature asking it to oppose Senate Bill 1148, which many close to the fishing industry, including District 3 Supervisor Elect Tim Alpers have stated will negate the positive impacts of AB 7 on hatcheries.

The bill, however, has made it to the Governor’s desk where it awaits his review and potential signature into law.

According to District 2 Supervisor Elect Fred Stump, who spoke to the Board on behalf of an ill Alpers on Tuesday, the bill would cost $30-60 million to implement.

“It is being requested that the Board now send a letter to the Governor to veto the bill based on the cost,” Stump said. “The Board should also write a letter in support of SB 505, which supports AB 7.”

Staff will draft these letters and bring them to the Board’s Sept. 11 meeting. CalTrout and Retire Senator Dave Cogdill will also attend the Sept. 11 meeting to argue both sides of the bill. CalTrout supports SB 1148, while Cogdill, who worked heavily on AB 7, is opposed.

Also last week, the State Responsibility Area fire fee repeal fell apart, according to Hazard.

“We were thrown under the bus by our representatives who eliminated the SRA fire fee repeal,” Hazard said. The repeal was proposed on Aug. 24 in the form of SB 1040, which was attached to AB 1500.

If SB 1040 had passed, it would have left an expected $85 million on the table in uncollected fees that were earmarked for CalFire. This gap would have been filled by AB 1500, which was expected to generate $1 billion in tax revenues from out-of-state corporations to fund middle class scholarships. By linking SB 1040 and AB 1500, about $90 million of those tax revenues collected from AB 1500 would reportedly have replaced the losses from the fire fee repeal.

However, according to Hazard “the Howard Jarvis people [the group leading the charge to litigate the SRA fees] went to the senators and claimed they had a 100% chance of support in the courts. By challenging it in court they claimed the issue would be resolved once and for all.

“We’ve been left out,” Hazard concluded.

The Board discussed its positions on Propositions 30 and 31, which Hazard was expected to discuss in upcoming talks with the California State Association of Counties (CSAC). The Board decided to remain neutral on both propositions, but gave Hazard the flexibility to oppose Prop 31 if necessary.

Personnel Appeals Board hearing lasts one day

In Mono County, it seems, actions do not speak louder than words.

In the latest outcome of a Personnel Appeals Board hearing regarding a physical altercation in the workplace on Oct. 3, 2011, the PAB determined that Brett McCurry, one of the men involved in the altercation, should be reinstated as a County employee.

McCurry’s hearing was held in private on Aug. 24. His Board was comprised of Mono County Finance Director Brian Muir, Solid Waste Supervisor Tom Music, and Road District 2 Supervisor Harry Bryan.

Music and Bryan worked with McCurry in the Public Works Department and there has been some criticism regarding their placement on the PAB. Some people felt they were too good of friends with McCurry to fairly determine his fate.

The proceedings took several hours to about a day, depending on whom you talk to. McCurry went back to work on Aug. 27. He will receive back pay for the time he was away, minus a 30-day suspension period.

The other man involved in the altercation last year was Dick Luman, the former employee who chose to have his PAB hearing held publicly. His hearing went on for several months and it was ultimately decided that his termination should be upheld. His PAB panel, comprised of Mono County Undersheriff Ralph Obenberger, Mono County Supervisor Tim Hansen and Ken Goode, was also criticized for friendships and connections.

It is left up to the employee to determine whether or not his PAB hearing is held publicly or privately.

Since Luman’s hearing was public, the final report of how the Board came to its decision was also made public. The report stated that the Board had hinged its 2-1 decision to uphold Luman’s termination on something Luman said prior to the physical altercation.

Luman made a statement that if McCurry ever called him a motherf**ker to his face, he’d find himself falling down his stairs again. While he repeatedly professed during his hearing that the statement had been meant as a joke, two members of the PAB felt that the statement was a threat.

“Mr. Luman’s explanation of this statement’s meaning, or his intent in making it, is not found to be credible,” the final report stated. “The statement was made in the midst of an extremely heated and volatile discussion in a very small physical space, where voices were raised, and tempers were extremely hot. In light of the intense and heated nature of the scene in which the statement was made, as indicated by all testimony, it is not logical to believe that such a comment was intended (or could be interpreted) as a wisecrack as claimed by Mr. Luman. Mr. Luman’s statement provoked and further inflamed Mr. McCurry, who was already outraged at the time. It added fuel to the fire and contributed to the chain of events resulting in the physical altercation between Mr. McCurry and Mr. Luman.”

The Board, however, did not feel it had been proven that Luman had engaged in mutual combat. Its decision, however, that what Luman said was a threat, was enough to uphold Luman’s termination in light of the zero workplace violence policy, which includes direct and indirect threats of violence.

Mono County CAO Jim Arkens has stated previously that in his determination to fire both men, he concluded that it was this “threat” that sparked the whole thing.

Since McCurry’s hearing was held in private, a public report of how the Board came to its decision to reinstate him in his former position as County Road Operations Supervisor will not be available, according to Assistant County Counsel Stacey Simon, who served as counsel to both the PAB for Luman and the PAB for McCurry.

“There will be no way [for the public] to determine how the Board came to its decision,” Simon explained. “The employee has a right to confidentiality.”

Luman’s lawyer, Katie Bellomo, called McCurry’s hearing a sham.

“Brett was fired for the same reasons as Dick [workplace violence/mutual combat], so they would have to have found Brett was either the victim, or, if he was the aggressor, he only deserved to be punished with a 30 day suspension,” Bellomo said. “Dick wasn’t found to have engaged in mutual combat, so Brett had to be the aggressor. Something did happen; Dick didn’t hurt himself.”

Both Luman and McCurry were reportedly injured in during the altercation.

Bellomo believes that the county did not want McCurry to be fired.

“He was doing what they wanted … kicking a** and taking names,” she said, referring to McCurry’s sometimes harsh efforts to get employees in the roads department on task.

“They didn’t bring in any eyewitnesses except Jerry Vande Brake [to McCurry’s hearing], who changed his testimony,” she added. “If they didn’t think they needed the witnesses because they could listen to the recordings from Luman’s hearing it would have taken them days to get through the recordings. If they listened to anything it would have been selected excerpts.

“The only other explanation [other than the County not wanting McCurry fired] is complete incompetence of the county attorney,” Bellomo said. “If you wanted to win, you would bring in witnesses.”

Bellomo, however, does not think it was incompetence on counsel’s part, but direction from Arkens to not bring in any witnesses.

“The inequity is obvious,” she added.

Arkens, however, pointed out that he had made the original decision to fire both Luman and McCurry.

“The Personnel Appeals Board overturned my decision,” he said of the choice to reinstate McCurry. He claimed there was nothing he could do about it. The only course of action the County could take would be to appeal the PAB’s decision. Arkens said the County was looking into this.

Bellomo believed that if it wanted to, the Board of Supervisors could choose to rehire Luman for purposes of equity.

“They wouldn’t be saying that the PAB [for Luman] was wrong, just that it had been decided that the appropriate penalty for what happened is a 30 day suspension,” she said.

On Tuesday, Dick Luman told The Sheet he was “irate” at the decision to reinstate McCurry.

“I told you this was going to happen,” he said, referring to his statements in a previous report from The Sheet.

“Luman expected that Brett McCurry’s hearing (which is currently being scheduled) would only last a few days and that McCurry would be put back to work.” –The Sheet, Luman Loses, June 30, 2012.

“The deck was stacked against me,” he added on Tuesday.

A call to McCurry had not been returned at press time.

Amid all of this back and forth lie the remaining employees in the County Roads Department.

Throughout the Luman PAB hearing, several employees testified that McCurry was a bully in the workplace whose foul language was offensive. There was talk throughout the hearing of meetings that had been held with Jerry Vande Brake to discuss McCurry’s behavior. Employees were allegedly told to follow the chain of command and report issues to Vande Brake who was then supposed to take the complaints up the line.

On Monday, however, Arkens said there were never any formal complaints made against McCurry. No one said much except Luman and Kerby during the trial, Arkens said.

Bellomo begged to differ, “What does that mean? That they didn’t fill out a form?”

Even Luman’s PAB said the County should have acted sooner to address McCurry’s inappropriate conduct in the workplace which may have stopped the altercation from happening.

The Sheet was unable to find any employees to go on the record because many fear reprisal for speaking out. Sources, however, told us that there were some employees that did not show up on Monday when McCurry returned to work. Others told their superiors that they would no longer be comfortable remaining at their desks if they were left alone with McCurry.

Individual and group anger management sessions, just for the Road Department, were allegedly held on Wednesday and the feeling among employees was that the County was spending a bunch of money on the sessions for the benefit of one person: McCurry.

Employees, however, are opposed to speaking out for fear of retribution. One employee said they didn’t want to complain and end up like Jim Kerby, who was also present during the physical altercation in 2011 and was accused of lying in his testimony and put on suspension. Kerby is expected to have a PAB hearing as well, but the dates have not yet been scheduled.

Fit to work? 

Is McCurry fit to come back to work in his role as Road Operations Supervisor? Some say no because of his recent arrest on suspicion of DUI in Elko, Nev. McCurry was working in Nevada while away from his County employment.

Captain William Lehmann of the Elko Police Department confirmed that McCurry had been arrested on suspicion of DUI on March 29. While Lehmann wasn’t sure if the case had been adjudicated, he did say that McCurry had requested a blood test at the time of the incident.

“Requesting a blood test stops the immediate revocation of the suspicious party’s license,” Lehmann said. Since McCurry was not a Nevada state driver, this also put a stop to an immediate revocation of his license.

However, Lehmann said that the blood test results had come back on April 20.

“I can tell you, he was more than twice over the legal limit,” he said.

If the case had been adjudicated by the City Attorney and McCurry was found guilty of a DUI, his driving privileges would be revoked in Nevada. For a first offense, licenses are revoked for 90 days, according to Lehmann.

“Notification is sent to the DMV in Nevada and they send a notice of revocation to the person,” Lehmann explained. “The Nevada DMV would also send notice to the California DMV, which should also revoke the person’s license. However, I’ve been told that the California DMV is about a year behind on things.”

Revocation of a license can also apply to a Commercial Drivers License required to drive equipment such as snowplows. According to the County’s job description for Road Operations Supervisor, “Possession of, or ability to obtain, an appropriate valid California Driver’s license, including the appropriate class required to perform the majority of regular job assignments,” is a special requirement for the position.

According to Assistant Public Works Director Jeff Walters, McCurry holds a CDL. However, as a supervisor, not having that license would not greatly affect his job responsibilities.

“As a supervisors, he’s not really driving much,” Walters explained. “He’s just overseeing and managing. The supervisors have them for ‘all hands on deck’ situations. They might just need to do it in significant storms.”

Walters did acknowledge that the job description for Road Operations Supervisor did require the employee to have the ability to get a CDL.

“If a CDL is revoked for DUI, you may never see one again,” Captain Lehmann said. “Getting a commercial license is like receiving a brick of gold.”