Hansen addresses Board regarding Bellomo

Former Mono County Supervisor and current Mono Basin RPAC member, Tim Hansen, addressed the current Board during its regular meeting on Tuesday. The following is a transcript of his comments.

Good morning Board members, Mr. Chairman, and newly elected Supervisor Corless. I’d like to comment on an item from the last meeting. I listened to the transcript and I have an issue with that. I’ve probably been to hundreds of RPACs. I’m not exaggerating. I’ve been a member for 10 years or so, Then when I ran for office I went to three of them for almost three years and now I’m back to once a month. And they’re all different.

I know each of you Board members don’t have an RPAC but what I wanted to say is that they are all a cross section of the communities and the residences in the county. They are linked to the government and democracy and they seem to be working well.

It seems like there is some disagreement at certain times from one of the Supervisors who doesn’t have an RPAC but I think they’ve shown over the years that they are very useful.

I totally agree that the local Board member should normally be given the privilege to decide the new members. In the case with [the Mono Basin RPAC], Supervisor Alpers has interviewed new persons seeking appointment and some of them may be less formal and that’s great.

This matter was discussed [at the last meeting] and it was prearranged but no one really wanted to speak up about it. Finally Supervisor Johnston brought up the person’s name almost reluctantly and then it kind of went off the rails from there on. (Ed. note. Johnston was reluctant and didn’t actually state Katie Maloney Bellomo’s name. Supervisor Alpers did.)

It denigrated to comments like “looking out for the others” and “for the betterment of progress” and “adversarial relationship” and the “for best interest for herself.” I thought that was totally degrading and I was shocked that the Board would mention someone’s name that wasn’t present.

Near the end, the Chairman [Supervisor Tim Fesko], commented to the one RPAC member who was here that they really wanted to hear from him. So this person proceeded to accuse the RPAC member of presenting herself of RPAC authority to certain state officials and agency staff, and used derogatory terms like “having a confrontational role” etc.  It all kind of seemed like gossip to me.

Coincidentally, this same person, who is also a lawyer, did indeed use his connection with the RPAC to singlehandedly raise so much hell with CalTrans and the LTC about opening closed roads so that now if you’d like to access some of these roads that are closed, like everyone has been doing for years – you’re out of luck; the gates are closed, they’re moved, and thousands of acres of recreation public land for winter recreation are inaccessible. So that’s kind of sad.

It’s a New Year, you have a new Board and a new Chairman, whose first act of the year was to address this RPAC issue. I think it went over your heads. You didn’t realize how vicious you really were.

The guidelines for the Conservation Easement took months and months of sub-committee meetings and I know it was cumbersome and it got a little old. It was probably a thorn in your side to have to deal with so many people. But you know, it brought the community together. You as a Board came to that community meeting and these people weren’t brow beaten into speaking up the way they did. That’s the way they felt.

We as an RPAC were put in the position to make important decisions about things like water and it was very hard to do that. I know it seemed like we were nitpicking at the time and it wasn’t easy. But I hope that [the Conservation Easement] will stand the test of time.

The person that was in question here played a major role in this and other issues like the fire road in Mono City and speed limit requests. She used her talents on water issues and other things to help many, many people. I really think this was all in the County’s best interest. And if you talk to someone other than the people that were invited to come here, they would disagree with everything that was said.

Also, I believe that somewhere this item could have been changed to only reflect the acceptable appointees without this person’s name even coming up instead of publicly trashing her.

I don’t think in all my years of attending Board meetings I’ve ever experienced anyone being treated this way. It’s probably technically legal but to talk about how good someone is and then knife her in the back I think is really terrible. You wouldn’t do this to a County employee if they were here.

This puts a really bad light on the RPAC. It opens new questions about their role and it certainly won’t attract people from the public to attend.

What does the public think about this? And the newly sworn in Board member think? Is this the way the Board is going to act? You all took an oath to uphold the Constitution and defend it. It seems to me you’re trampling on it for freedom of speech. Look what’s happening all over the world on the issue of freedom of speech. You were elected for this and it’s not the Girl’s Scouts, its real life. I’ve been in this Boardroom when it was standing room only and people would have liked to rip my head off. And I’ve been in here when the room was almost full of County employees that I was trying to protect if the economy ever went south, that they’d have to take a cut in pay. That’s part of the job, that’s what you signed on here for.

So now, does the RPAC have to fear retaliation? Is this the new gang of five for Mono County?

I have to apologize for being so blunt but I thought this was really terrible.

In closing, I know that some of you are Rotary members and you’ve attended the meetings. They have something they use that could possibly help your Board. It’s called the four-way test and I’d like to read it in closing:

Is it the truth?

Is it fair to all concerned?

Will it build goodwill and better friendship?

Will it be beneficial to all concerned?

Can any of you say yes to these four questions?