BY IMRAN GHORI
STAFF WRITER
ighori@pe.com
Published: 15 November 2011 06:40 PM
San Bernardino County supervisors clashed Tuesday over how to split funds that help supplement their staffing costs.
The proposal centered over a relatively small amount of money $214,257 a year but led to a drawn-out debate between Board Chairwoman Josie Gonzales and Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt over whether his district deserved more resources due to its size.
The board ultimately voted 3-2, with Mitzelfelt and Supervisor Neil Derry opposed, to split the money using a formula that gives more weight to the population of unincorporated residents in each district instead of the size of the district.
“That’s the worst possible scenario,” Mitzelfelt said.
The funds historically had gone to the Mitzelfelt’s 1st District due to its size but he agreed earlier this year to consider splitting some of the funds due to a redistricting plan that moved part of the High Desert into the 3rd District, represented by Derry.
He said the proposal brought back before the board by County Chief Executive Officer Greg Devereaux which outlined two different options was not what had been discussed previously.
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Wait, why would anyone not feel that the money should be distributed giving more weight to the populations of unincorporated areas. Unincorporated areas only have the county as their government entities. Incorporated areas have fewer concerns that are handled by the county. They have city counsels and mayors to represent their interests and the county needs far less interaction in those incorporated areas. In fact, I feel that some Supervisors in the past have had way too much engagement in the incorporated areas and far to little in the unincorporated ones.
Because the Supervisors are the only government in unincorporated areas, their need for staff to service those areas is obviously greater. That is the only formula that makes sense.
The funding was always allocated to the 1st District due to the great distances AND unincorporated populations covered. Serving Muscoy from San Bernardino is a hell of a lot easier than serving Hinckley, or Johnson Valley with sparse populations many miles from the county seat. You can drive across Gonzalez’s district in five minutes. Try that in the 1st or 3rd.
So what exactly is the distribution of funds going to be? Aren’t there few acres of unincorporated area in the Jose Dist. anyway (if you can drive across it in 5 minutes — ) and certainly in the 1st district there are many, many thousands of acres of federal, unpopulated lands yet unincorporated lands.
Yes, there are great distances. Perhaps a different formula should be used, such as how many staff are really necessary? How are we measuring the effectiveness of such staff?