Supervisor reports on issues of government

By Kevin Jeffries
Riverside County District 1 Supervisor

Kevin Jeffries

It was just a year or so ago that the Board of Supervisors reached agreement that new leadership and direction was needed in the County Executive Office.  Even though the county has over 23,000 employees, the Board of Supervisors only hires (and fires) a very small handful of leadership positions, the rest report to their respective department heads and ultimately to the County Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Your/our County CEO sets the pace, the vision, the direction, and must lead by example in the day to day management of the 10th largest county in the nation (by population).

In February, the Board agreed to hire Jeff Van Wagenen as the new County CEO. Jeff had worked in several departments within the county system, and knew where many of the county’s strengths and weaknesses were located. Since assuming the CEO position, Jeff has been thoroughly engaged, maintains an open door, and unfortunately has had to make some difficult (sometimes ugly) decisions on some employee leadership changes in order to take the county (or a specific department) on a new path.

I won’t get into the sticky details, but suffice it to say, when you are running a ship as big as this county (2.4 million population, $6 billion in total funds, 40 or so county departments, 23,000 employees, and five elected bosses), nearly all of the county services are done well, many times above and beyond expectations. However, sometimes all the various moving parts can literally fail, caused by any combination of one-size-fits-all state regulations, absent, lazy, or poor supervision, and sometimes simply caused by a lack of funding and staff to get the job done (to name just a few).

I write this article because I believe you the voters and the taxpayers of this county need to know that tough decisions have been made, and I believe a few more need to be made to correct the course of this giant ship. Occasionally, it won’t be pretty to get there.

Redistricting

The State and Federal requirements of drawing new boundaries for the five County Supervisor seats (State and Federal partisan seats are being done by a statewide commission, not the Board of Supervisors) resulted in the first 4four draft maps being tossed out so that additional calculations (Voting Age Populations and ethnicity) could be more fully addressed.

The most-recent Public Hearing also resulted in several citizen drawn maps being submitted for consideration. My takeaway? Few, if anyone, will get exactly what they were hoping for, and I suspect numerous (two to four) cities and communities are going to be split. Additional public hearings will be held, as we approach our December deadline for completion.

Temporary Events Permits

At the Oct. 19 Board meeting, we approved modifications to our Temporary Events ordinance that are designed to make it easier for legitimate events to occur (Christmas Tree lots, Pumpkin Patches, etc), while also cracking down on illegal commercial event operators, like the unpermitted wedding venues/party houses we get so many complaints about.

We are also working to change the staffing models for Code Enforcement, so that more personnel will be available on evenings and weekends, when the illegal events are taking place.

Local Drought

With the historic rains that Northern California recently received, it may be hard to believe that all of California remains in historic drought conditions, but our lakes are very empty, and much of the water in the state still flows straight to the ocean.

It is critical that the massive reservoirs/lakes in Northern California and along the Colorado River be recharged this winter so that we (Southern California) can avoid hard-hitting water conservation efforts. Keep an eye on those reservoirs/lakes this winter!