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District attorney, Humboldt County officials disagree on office staffing - Will Houston
First District Supervisor and board Chairman Rex Bohn said the district attorney's office's General Fund allocation has increased by 67 percent since the 2004-2005 budget year.
"He's got about 20 percent more funding in the last 10 years than the public defender's office," Bohn said. "When you're talking discretionary funding, Paul gets between 5 to 6 percent of our discretionary money that is available. To say we don't care about public safety, it's disingenuous at the best and pretty false in the long run."
The Board of Supervisors recently voted to place a sales tax measure on the November ballot that would primarily be used to fund public safety services, such as the sheriff's office and district attorney's office.
With the 2014-2015 county budget already set, Bohn said Gallegos claims come too late.
"After the barn door has been shut, he's complaining about the horses getting loose," Bohn said. "The best thing that comes out of this is, with a new DA coming in, maybe they will be more financially sophisticated to work with the monies that are provided as we work out of these tough times that we've had."
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NOTE - "humboldtturtle" commented on the Times-Standard's article, a typical knee-jerk-defend-Gallegos-at-all-cost approach:
Do I get this right? Rex is saying his sophisticated answer to the county's financial problems is to raise taxes. Gallegos says allocate your funds more wisely instead, and is called a liar for it? I wish t'was bohn were gohn...
The response: Oh, c'mon, humboldtturtle, you know FULL WELL that Gallegos has mismanaged that office. A Grand Jury pointed out YEARS ago that ""Weak leadership and poor managerial practices" have undermined the office... Implicit in all evidence gathered by the Grand Jury - including interviews with the D.A. - is the unfortunate truth that the D.A. exhibits a limited understanding of how things are done in the department" Gallegos "lacks the global perspective needed to keep the department operating efficiently," and quotes an unnamed staff member as saying, "The D.A. does not fully understand the functionality of many of the things we do here" - Years later, in his own words: "I’m not an administrator, they didn’t elect me to be an administrator, they elected me to make sure this office runs..."
It wasn't even in dispute during the last election, EVERY SINGLE CANDIDATE POINTED TO THE UTTER DETERIORATION. Gallegos lost, fired, or drove away all of the County's top prosecutors and has been utterly unable to replace them.
Gallegos has lost the grants that are critical to funding the office. You know this, and so should the author of this article.
Yet now, Gallegos accuses everyone else of not having their priorities in order.
That's just sick.
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And, btw, Will Houston STILL, apparently, has not done his homework.
WHY did Gallegos not fill the positions as they became open, Will? The money did not evaporate.
