BY IMRAN GHORI
STAFF WRITER
ighori@pe.com
Published: 04 October 2011 08:48 PM
San Bernardino County Chief Executive Officer Greg Devereaux is facing fallout over remarks two supervisors say mischaracterize their opposition to his budget plan.
Supervisors Neil Derry and Brad Mitzelfelt also called it inappropriate for Devereaux to veer into politics in a speech before the Fontana Rotary Club on Monday where he mentioned upcoming supervisorial elections.
“It is inappropriate for any administrative officer to make public comments about the public elections of board members,” Derry said Tuesday.
In his speech about the fiscal challenges the county is facing in the coming years, Devereaux praised Board Chairwoman Josie Gonzales and Supervisors Janice Rutherford and Gary Ovitt for their votes approving his budget plan in June. Mitzelfelt voted against the plan and Derry abstained.
Devereaux described the board as favoring those fiscal policies on a “narrow margin” and said next year’s elections, when Derry, Gonzales and Mitzelfelt’s terms expire, “will decide whether we really change direction or slide back to the way it used to be done.”
In his budget plan, Devereaux has asked employees to accept cuts to health and retirement benefits and give up salary increases. With county expenses expected to outpace revenues due to rising pension costs and employee salaries and benefits, Devereaux said the county’s only other option is to cut public safety.
Although some employee groups have agreed to the concessions, the two largest have not, leaving the issue unresolved with more budget cuts possible in November if no agreement is reached.
Derry said his top two priorities have been fair and open negotiations with employee groups and protecting public safety.
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His actions are grounds for dismissal. When I was a county employee, if I spoke in a negative light about either the department or the elected officials I would have been shown the door by Human Resources.
The only reason he was given the extra powers by the board members was to do the dirty work, that the board members were afraid to do themselves.
Now that power they gave him has come back to bite them in the ass! Dismissal is the only choice that I see.
If you wait for the people to do it, we will vote for dismissal of the current board members at election time, and the new supervisors will dismiss this man…. Tic, Tock, Tic, Tock…..
As I say again, business 201
If Mr. Devereaux expects county employees to take a reduction in pay and benefits, he should probably lead by example. The “do as I say, not as I do” style of leadership doesn’t garner much support from employees or their unions.
The one UNION that really appreciates this kind of political wrangling is the BIA, the Building Industry Association, aka THE DEVELOPER’S UNION.
With The Community Foundation (TCF) now being paid by the BIA and from the Devil of a CEO’s discretionary funds to come-up with the COMMUNITY INDICATOR’S REPORT (CIR), the COUNTY IS BRINGING CORRUPTION FULL-CIRCLE using the TCF non-profit to tie the knot. Daniel Foster should know better than to hire Redlands Mayor Pete Aguilar to help with the CIR, isn’t that a little bit of a CONFLICT-OF-INTEREST when he simultaneously sits on the SANBAG BOARD. WHO’S VISION IS THIS ANYWAY? The more I see about the County’s VISION PROJECT and the CIR, our future is just going to be more of the same of the status quo: GREED and CONFLICTED BUSINESS INTERESTS had by just about every politician and bureaucrat (Jon “Mayor of ESRIville” and wife Gloria “TCF-Cofounder” Harrison are the biggest abusers).
Deveraux should be FIRED as the obnoxious, vile, worthless piece of crap that he is. He is a disgrace to public servants and he only desires to line his own pockets. Thanks to that Hypocrit,Sanctimonious, Phony, Crook Ovitt, Deveraux has a salary and benefits package like Ratzo Rizzo of Bell. Its obscene.
Deveraux, Ovitt and Lamberto all belong in prison. The sooner those gutless bastards fire all three of these slimeballs the better things will be.