By Louise Taylor
4/27/10
Today I attended the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors meeting. Sheriff Adam Christianson made a presentation to the board where he requested they approve his recommendation to cut 52 full-time positions and delete 16 vacant positions.
After his presentation, came the public comment period.
A citizen stood and addressed the board and audience.
He said he supports the frontline men and women of law enforcement and at the same time he understood and supported the board in managing their fiscal responsibility to the taxpayers.
Then he said “Now we have to confront the gorilla in the room, the sheriff.” He expressed his concerns that Sheriff Christianson’s leadership and policies have cost the taxpayers millions of dollars.
He specifically spoke about the following concerns: The cost of defending this department against lawsuits has reached somewhere between 2.5 and 3 millions dollars. The specific amount isn’t yet known, as the county has not received the final bill for the recent five week trail of Bill Pooley.
The legal expense of defending the department translates (so far) into 25 to 30 jobs that could have been saved if not for the failed policies and poor leadership of Sheriff Christianson.
He was concerned that the Sheriff’s Department uses its own sexual harassment prevention training, rather that the program all other county departments use and feels that this has contributed to the number of lawsuits filed.Another area of concern was that “We have county cars being driven to Monterey and Lake Tahoe at the taxpayers expense.
One of those cars was recently involved in a collision in Monterey and the county will be covering that expense.”He further stated that we are not getting much bang for our buck when it comes to the money given to the sheriff to spend.
He said “I know the board has to be frustrated since, while they approve the budgets, they can’t control how and where the sheriff spends the money”.
His last comment was to request that when Sheriff Christianson loses this election, that he resign immediately and allow the new sheriff to take over, as Christianson did when he was elected.
ADAM’S REQUEST TO THE BOARD WAS GRANTED -WILL THE CITIZENS?
