Interesting thread

over at Eric's place - ◼ NCJ’s top ten Humboldt County stories of 2008

Looks like he showed up

ER District attorney frustrated about lack of authority over code enforcement officers
TS Gallegos bemoans lack of authority over code enforcement

Gallegos said he'd be willing to accept oversight of the program, and thereby take it away from the County Counsel's Office, if the Board of Supervisors requested it and if he were given the resources to meet the demand.

”I cannot afford to subsidize code enforcement by pulling people off of other law enforcement responsibilities,” he said.

Gallegos has temporarily suspended the deputization of code enforcement investigators while the task force looks into alleged excesses, including the unnecessary drawing of weapons.

Asked under what circumstances Gallegos would be comfortable deputizing those investigators again, Gallegos said that they would need to be his employees.

Should this man be permitted any more authority over any group given what he has done to the other entities (CAST, Victim Witness) under his control? He had to be forced to attend THIS meeting, for God's sake. Is there any evidence that he will exercise any oversight if given what he asks for?

Whether code enforcement officers even need the police powers given to them by the District Attorney’s Office was brought up during the meeting, as well. Those powers don’t exist for code enforcement officers in other rural counties in the state....

...According to a survey conducted by the California Association of Code Enforcement Officers, 46.5 percent of officers have police powers, 6 percent carry a weapon and 11 percent wear a bullet-proof vest...

...When the Del Norte County unit was first formed, the county decided that the officers shouldn’t be deputized, Mason said. That could change at some point, as there are still people who want officers to be armed, he said.

Madera County, a rural county of similar size to Humboldt County, doesn’t deputize its code enforcement officers either.

“It’s basically that the county decided at this point not to do it,” said Madera County Code Enforcement Officer Eric Yancy.

Also facing problems with junk and abandoned vehicles, the Madera County unit, which has a 90 percent compliance rate, has never issued a no-notice inspection warrant.

Code enforcement officers in Humboldt County, who use inspection warrants for only 8 percent of their cases, give no notice 65 percent of the time in those cases.

When backup is needed, the Madera County unit coordinates with the sheriff’s office. Yancy said the operation can be shut down at anytime...

Paul Gallegos to speak to code task force

Humboldt County District Attorney Paul Gallegos will attend the Code Enforcement Task Force meeting today in order to answer questions posed by task force members.

Humboldt County Community Development Director Kirk Girald will also attend today’s meeting....

According to past testimony from both Interim County Counsel Wendy Chaitin and Deputy County Counsel Richard Hendry, the District Attorney’s Office is supposed to have authority over code enforcement officers in the field, as they were deputized by his office.

Gallegos said in a previous interview with The Eureka Reporter that he didn’t want the “life and death” responsibility if someone was shot by a code enforcement officer when he has no oversight or authority over them.

He rescinded code enforcement officer’s police powers back in April, but Chaitin, who wasn’t sure if Gallegos could rescind that authority, voluntarily disarmed the officers.

The question of who has authority over code enforcement officers at any given time has been a topic of interest by the task force.

Both Girald and Gallegos are members of an oversight committee, not open to the public, which reviews procedures within the unit, as well as ongoing investigations.
ER D.A. to speak to code task force
TS DA may answer task force questions

Missing in action, AGAIN

From the day he took office, Gallegos has missed important meetings, and doesn't attend meetings he is supposed to be an key player in. The kinds of things that would get any ordinary person fired. When the Code Enforcement Task Force was set up, Gallegos was supposed to be an integral part of it. How many meetings has he attended, if any? Has he sent a representative?

It is the District Attorney's job to attend these kinds of meetings. One reason why most DAs try very few cases, if any.

He was available to go to the meeting in Garberville in the beginning and make some noise about his "concerns" that officers were armed.

Now the DA is an integral part of this since his office cross- deputizes the inspectors and is supposed to be overseeing all of this. People are missing what his role is in this, and its importance.

But he wasn't at Friday's meeting, nor the previous Friday's meeting. Now the Task Force has had to vote to extend its time limit in hopes of getting the DA to attend - this article tells the story:

The Humboldt County Code Enforcement Task Force has taken the first steps toward compiling a report to the board of supervisors, but it may not be done until late September.

The members voted unanimously Friday to ask the board to extend of the task force and the moratorium on inspection warrants until Sept. 26.

The extension will allow more time to arrange a session with Humboldt County District Attorney Paul Gallegos. Gallegos, as part of the Code Enforcement Unit Oversight Committee, had been invited to appear before the task force at Friday's meeting, but was not present.

Second District Supervisor Johanna Rodoni suggested -- and the balance of the task force agreed -- that a second, strong invitation be issued to the district attorney.

”I think we need to emphasize they're a critical piece of this,” she said.

Part of that urgency deals with which county department will house the code enforcement unit and the district attorney's concerns over granting police powers to Code Enforcement Unit officers.

The task force scheduled its next meeting for the afternoon of July 9 from 1:30 to 4 p.m. to better accommodate Gallegos' schedule....

◼ Some interesting points there - In Friday's meeting, County Counsel Wendy Chaitin noted that Gallegos had come to her in January expressing his "concerns. (laughable as it might be in light of his recent attempts to acquire semi-automatic AR-15 rifles, and set up his own armed asset forfeiture team, but, not to digress...).

Josh Hedlund also spoke at Friday's meeting about the January 3rd raid on his Vilica Properties.

January - coincidences? Schectman, Paul, Vilica, Hedlund, code raids, concerns. Maybe. Dots?

DA a NO SHOW at the Code Enforcement Meeting

Developing.

Structure, practices of Code Enforcement Unit discussed

Structure, practices of Code Enforcement Unit discussed

Just curious

How's the DA going to handle code enforcement?

Looks like one of his DDAs lives off the grid. Wonder if she has all her permits in a row? And if not...

Recently, she ...moved from a comfortable home in East Sacramento to a cabin without electricity or running water near Ferndale in Humboldt County. Their three-room cabin, on 80 acres that they purchased in 2003, perches on a 1,300-foot-high ridge. Through their large windows, they can gaze at the Pacific Ocean, the mouth of the Eel River and Humboldt Bay.

But life often gets in the way of idyllic ocean gazing. Just getting to their cabin is a chore: Driving three miles from Ferndale on a steep, twisting stretch of road known locally as “The Wildcat,” they must turn onto a dirt road and travel a quarter-mile, then hike the last 150 yards to their house by foot along an often-muddy trail. Once they’re home, the work doesn’t stop: They have to generate their own heat and power and supply their own water. How do they do it? They warm the cabin and cook their meals with wood, finding an abundant supply on their land. “Gathering wood is really a lot of work,” says (her husband), 50. “But hey, I’m in better shape now than when I was going to Alhambra Athletic Club.”

Water comes from a spring that (he) dug himself. Around Thanksgiving, an old septic tank on the property failed; they now use what (he) delicately describes as “alternative waste-handling approaches” that include composting. “This simple system works great for us,” he says, “and it feels good not to waste the water used to flush.”

They get hot water from a small gas water heater powered by propane gas. To refill the propane tank, (he) drives to Fortuna, about 20 minutes away. The family also generates its own electricity, using a system of spinning wind turbines and rooftop panels that absorb sunlight and convert it to electricity that then is stored in batteries.

The McKimmy family lives “off the grid,” going without connections to public utilities such as electricity, water and sewage. Source 4/06

Oh my GOD! Sprawl!

Assault Teams and Code Enforcement?

The DA who plans to use his ASSET FORFEITURE FUNDS to buy semiautomatic weapons (AR-15s) and outfit his investigators with assault team gear to go with the weapons now wants the CODE ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS to be under his control?

Isn't that the only conclusion you can reach after reading today's article? At first it looks like he is trying to disassociate from the Code Enforcement guys following the contentious upheaval of the past couple of weeks, but read all the way through...

Remember that? - The controversy stemmed from a number of residents who say that county code enforcers are collaborating with law enforcement and using building code inspections to obtain access to private property and go after marijuana growers.

If Gallegos wants to arm his regular investigators with semi-automatic weapons to go on ASSET FORFEITURE RAIDS, won't the Code Enforcement Team be invaluable? And will they then be armed with AR-15s?

DA rescinds code enforcement officers’ police powers

Humboldt County District Attorney Paul Gallegos said he has rescinded the Code Enforcement Unit officers’ police powers granted under his authority, but county staff said the move doesn’t stick.

The county’s Code Enforcement Unit controversy has been broiling publicly since April 4 when the Civil Liberties Monitoring Project held a town hall meeting in Garberville to hear rural residents’ allegations of excessive police force to remedy building code violations.

While it is not directly in response to that meeting, Gallegos said Wednesday that he doesn’t want the “life-and-death” responsibility to deputize those officers who could shoot someone or may be shot if he has no authority over them.

“To ask me to deputize someone with those responsibilities and to have no oversight over them is wrong,” Gallegos said. “I refuse to participate in that.”

...Interim County Counsel Wendy Chaitin, whose office oversees the Code Enforcement Unit’s two armed officers, said Wednesday that Gallegos’ action isn’t so simple.

She and other county administrators don’t believe the officers’ police powers have been stripped because of Gallegos’ action to rescind his authority.

However, because the DA doesn’t want to participate in the current structure where he deputizes her employees, Chaitin said she voluntarily agreed last week to disarm Code Enforcement officers Jeff Conner and John Desadier while everything is being sorted out.

“We are all in discussions and are working on ways to best structure the unit,” Chaitin said.

Also in agreement that the DA’s action doesn’t rescind the officer’s deputized status is County Administrative Officer Loretta Nickolaus, who said she learned of Gallegos’ announcement in an e-mail circulated Wednesday.

Nickolaus said the DA can’t direct personnel actions for employees not under his control.

That’s not how Gallegos sees it and he said the intent of his action was to remove the Code Enforcement Unit officers’ weapons and badges under his authority, which he said he believes he’s effectively done.

Despite the apparent inter-department conflict, Gallegos said he supports Chaitin, the Code Enforcement Unit and the work they are trying to do, although he might not necessarily support everything they have done.

...Just how the issue will be resolved is uncertain, but Gallegos offered his preference for where the code enforcement officers should end up.

Because the officers are armed and due to the nature of their work, Gallegos said he believes code enforcement might better fall under his direction.

“It’s a natural fit in this office,” Gallegos said.

If they were assigned to work under him as investigators, Gallegos said he would deputize them.

“But as it stands right now, the arrangement isn’t good for anyone,” Gallegos said.....

Just take a look at what he has done to the other programs under his control and you';ll have a pretty good idea what he can do to this one.