Opinion: EDC’s problems are with its CAO
By Kathryn Reed
Something is terribly wrong in El Dorado County. A survey of county employees and the latest grand jury report point to dysfunction that is startling.
While it isn’t always a boss’ fault, it is her responsibility to fix the problems. And when the boss is the problem, it’s time for her to go.
Terri Daly
The grand jury report said part of the county’s problem is that it has too many elected department heads. The report stated this creates an atmosphere where those people, and others, circumvent the normal chain of command by bypassing the chief administrative officer and going directly to the Board of Supervisors.
But the glaring hole in that assessment is the grand jury didn’t look into the effectiveness of the CAO and why people go directly to the supes. Perhaps Terri Daly, the CAO, is the problem. A problem the current supervisors aren’t dealing with.
As Colin Powell said, “Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.”
Clearly, there is a failure of leadership in El Dorado County.
By the end of the year Daly won’t have her buddies in office. There will be three new supervisors. Ray Nutting is gone; his seat will be filled in September via a special election. Norma Santiago and Ron Briggs are termed out; their replacements will be elected in November.
Daly became CAO in December 2010. She was assistant chief administrative officer for El Dorado County from July-December 2010, prior to that she was CAO in Amador County.
She has a penchant for hiring friends, awarding contracts that never have to go before the supervisors that in some cases buy her favoritism, and pointing fingers at those who don’t walk lockstep with her.
Daly has the authority to sign contracts up to $50,000 without going to the Board of Supervisors. She is the one who signed the contract with One Globe for what became known as the Catalyst Project in Meyers. She did this because Santiago wanted it. One Globe was also supposed to work on economic development in the basin. Because the work was not completed the county auditor-controller did not pay One Globe the full contractual amount.
In the employee survey, the Auditor-Controller’s Office had a 92 percent approval rating. But for some reason part of the county’s corrective action is doing a management audit of this office. (The Human Resources Office, which is led by a friend of Daly’s, is also being audited. But that office didn’t do well in the survey.) Is Daly singling out Joe Harn, who has been the county auditor-controller for 20 years and was just re-elected June 3, because he isn’t afraid to say no to her?
Harn can be abrasive. Some don’t like his style. He can say “no” and back up it up with reasons why he came to that conclusion. “No” is not a popular word when you want a “yes”. Harn is anything but a yes man. Is he a bully? I don’t know. His staff doesn’t think so. The real question should be: Is he doing his job effectively? Yes, because he can say no – and for a whole lot of other reasons.
Daly allowed an employee in her office, Mike Applegarth, to work for Mike Owen, who was Harn’s opponent in the recent election. Applegarth on May 12 had a letter published on www.inedc.com asking people to attend a future supervisors’ meeting to complain about Harn.
Days after Harn won the election, Applegarth went out on an indefinite leave.
One of Applegarth’s duties was to be a liaison between the county and media, or a public information officer of sorts.
However, Daly is now using an outside firm for those duties. Without going to the board, she hired Stephanie McCorkle on May 13 to do public relations work. The one-year contract is not to exceed $25,000.
McCorkle has operated McCorkle & Driscoll Communications since March. Prior to that she worked in communications for 17 years for California Independent System Operator.
When McCorkle was contacted about a story on the Meyers Area Plan she told this reporter she didn’t have the answers and that I could ask the questions at next week’s meeting. I’m sure that was billable time.
Daly needs to stop pointing fingers and getting people sidetracked about where the real problem in the county lies. It’s staring her in the mirror.
If the Board of Supervisors keeps the leadership status quo, the public can only hope the next grand jury will do some digging into the CAO’s handling of county affairs. The public deserves more than it has been getting out of El Dorado County and its so-called leaders.
Glad to see the lights are being turned on to EDC! Hope the Grand Jury keeps tuned in. Bad personnel & bad habits are hard to get rid of – like cockroaches.. At least part of the problem is going away (Nutting and Santiago – don’t know much about Briggs).
It is not uncommon for certain groups and personalities in a bureaucracy to develope a cancerous core, where there is all too much mutual back scratching. Worse today in EDC politics politics than I can remember, and I have been around a long time.
The Sups should clip the CAO’s wings quickly. Of course the outgoing group didn’t want that, too many were getting exactly what they wanted in approvals and other favors, and didn’t want to screw up a good thing. Where is the DA when you need him, or is he part of the problem too?
If half of what Kae Reed outlines is based on truth (and I am not suggesting it isn’t, just calibrating my thought) then an immediate investigation/audit of the CAO is overdue.
A typical situation described by one of the codes more of us should live by, and which is applicable to so many things.
“Just because you can doesn’t mean that you should.”
They should investigate into the relationship between the new HR director and the CAO. The HR director was a fellow CAO in another county. The investigators should talk to some people in that county. Get the whole scoop on whats going on and whos working for our county. She is another one in the clique forsure. It would be interesting to know. Maybe our new elected officials will make some good changes and get the ship back on course to be positive.
Fireman, the “They” to whom you’re referring are the Placerville area residents, and the voters in the surrounding area, who have basically supported, actively or by neglect, a corrupt government since at least 1971 when I first became a resident of El Dorado County.
I’ve now lived a short drive away in Nevada for a little less than 20 years; we’re not without our political problems, but at least in the City where I live, the politics are competitive, but far less than corrupt.
During my 25 years living in South Lake Tahoe I had many official dealings with El Dorado County/Placerville folks. They could be easily divided into two groups; the larger consisting of weird political theorists who seemed to believe that the world should conform to their skewed views – a sort of hick Taliban. The remainder were good folks, usually dismayed by the culture into which they’d fallen in their search for paradise, and looking for a way out. Except, of course, the minority who were hoping to change things.
I have no reason to care what goes on in Placerville; their problems are their problems. But I lived and worked in South Lake Tahoe for 27 years and, from just down the hill, worry that the Placerville corruption will spread to the Lake where voters increasingly seem inclined to elect incompetent newbies and old timers (I’ll avoid naming names) who entered politics years ago for business reasons and remain there through the stasis of old age which many of us are experiencing, but most recognize and are smart enough to avoid passing on to the next generations.
Following the process through the Lake Tahoe News, I’m inclined to believe that a new progressive generation is taking over. But that optimism requires a strong suspension of belief that the screwballs posting hereon might actually have some influence.