Jul 18, 2008

County reveals oversight options

Proposals from supervisors, county counsel to be heard Tuesday

By Shaun Bishop / Daily News Staff Writer

Creating a citizens' committee with broad investigative powers is one of several options San Mateo County supervisors will consider Tuesday to establish greater oversight of the county's other elected officials.

The citizens committee proposal from Supervisors Jerry Hill and Adrienne Tissier, along with the county counsel's exhaustive analysis of oversight powers held by other California county supervisors, is a long-awaited response to a 2007 scandal involving Sheriff Greg Munks.

County Counsel Michael Murphy has spent months researching the charters of other counties since the supervisors in April asked him to investigate ways they could acquire more say over other officials.

But according to Murphy's analysis, the only way they can punish elected officials under the state constitution is by suspending or permanently removing them from office.

In San Mateo County that would require a charter amendment, one of the proposals Murphy offers. San Bernardino is the only charter county that gives supervisors that power, but Murphy notes they have never taken such action so it's unknown how a court challenge would fare.

Murphy says the county also could follow a model in San Francisco County and create an ethics commission that advises its supervisors on whether to remove officials from office. That approach would require a charter amendment too. A third option is to amend the charter to mirror those in Alameda and San Diego counties, which allow supervisors to suspend an elected official facing criminal charges.
Hill and Tissier meanwhile have come up with another idea, according to a memo obtained Thursday by the Daily News.

Hill and Tissier's plan would allow the board to establish an ad hoc committee of three to seven people when there are "allegations of serious misconduct by an elected county officer," according to the memo.

Committee members would be randomly selected from a list of people in different categories: Retired judges, former county or city administrators, former grand jury foremen, and former county counsels, city attorneys or district attorneys.

The committee would have subpoena power to call witnesses and obtain documents and could hire outside investigators or experts to assist, though the investigation would be confidential, the memo says. At the end of the probe, the committee would make recommendations to supervisors, such as calling for a vote of no confidence or referring the case to a law enforcement agency or civil grand jury.

In the end, the supervisors would be responsible for taking action.
"My goal is to take politics out of any type of review of another elected official," Hill said.

The discussion, sure to raise eyebrows in the County Center, comes more than 15 months after a police raid on an illegal Las Vegas brothel swept up Sheriff Munks and Undersheriff Carlos Bolanos, who were in town for a law enforcement run.

Munks, who has said he believed he was going to a "legitimate business," was found inside the brothel but never charged with a crime. He has insisted he did not break the law. Bolanos was waiting outside the house, about two miles off the Strip.

When the two returned to the county, Munks refused to answer questions about the incident and only issued a brief apologetic statement.

Then-County Counsel Tom Casey told supervisors they had no authority to investigate the sheriff, an independently elected official who was on his own time when the incident occurred. Under the current county charter, the supervisors could not remove or suspend the sheriff, officials said.

A year after the incident when a Daily News investigation quoted local U.S. Reps. Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo, and Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, saying the supervisors allowed Munks to skirt accountability, the board responded to the criticism by asking the county counsel to come up with ways to establish more oversight of elected officials.

The six elected officials in San Mateo County are the sheriff, assessor/clerk/recorder, controller, coroner, treasurer/tax collector and district attorney.

Hill and Tissier's plan does not call for an amendment to the charter, which would require approval by a public vote. Hill had originally advocated a charter amendment as an option, but the citizens committee would be created through a county ordinance, according to the supervisors' memo.

Of Murphy's opinion that supervisors can only fire elected officials, Hill said, "That may be too extreme in some cases."

Murphy did not recommend any particular option, leaving it up to the board to decide which, if any, it finds acceptable.


E-mail Shaun Bishop at sbishop@dailynewsgroup.com.