Views

indicated it is “in the process of reviewing” the documents “to determine whether these records can be disclosed in whole or in part, as allowed by state law.”

The censure vote is the latest chapter in an escalating conflict between Paz Dominguez, the board and seemingly most of county government. She has repeatedly cast herself as a watchdog of public funds and charged that the county has loose fiscal controls that create widespread opportunities for fraud, while other department heads have alleged she is a poor communicator prone to making hyperbolic, unsubstantiated allegations while missing filing deadlines for state mandated financial reports — putting funding streams in jeopardy — and failing to perform other core functions of her office.

During the April 4 meeting, District Attorney Maggie Fleming said she’s been waiting since July on the Auditor-Controller’s Office to set up an asset forfeiture account to disperse $164,000 to nonprofits helping local kids. Planning Director John Ford said his department can’t apply for more than $18 million in state funding because Paz Dominguez’ office has not filed mandated financial reports, while Public Works Director Tom Mattson similarly said the county’s failure to file an outstanding single audit with the state has resulted in the loss of $674,000 in state funding, while another $200,000 in road maintenance funds are on hold. Perhaps more troubling, he said, is that Caltrans has informed the county it will withhold all new funding until the mandated financial reports are filed, just as the Congress’ $715 billion infrastructure package is rolling out.

In her statement, Paz Dominguez said the board’s vote “encouraged the continued conflict and division.”

Later in the meeting, the board began its budget process by hearing department head reports looking forward to fiscal year 2022-2023. Chief Financial Officer Tabitha Miller began her presentation by noting the county has not closed its books since the 2018-2019 fiscal year. When the Auditor-Controller’s Office filed a long-outstanding end of year report from 20192020 with the State Controller’s Office last month, Miller said she was excited to get a clearer picture of the county’s finances. But she said she quickly realized the beginning fund balances in the report were different than the ending fund balances from the county’s 2018-2019 reports, with a difference of $55.6 million.

“We are in a place where we really, truly do not know where our fund balance is,” Miller said.

In other matters, the board voted unanimously to revamp its code of conduct and ethics rules. Under the changes, employee grievances will now be reviewed by a three-person committee consisting of the county administrative officer, county counsel and the human resources director, who will decide whether a formal investigation should be launched. If an investigation then substantiates the underlying allegations, that would be reported to the board in open session.

The prior policy required that such grievances be brought to the board of supervisors first in public session, which the board and staff said raised confidentiality concerns.

The issue came before the board after the Lost Coast Outpost filed a public records act request seeking documents related to a grievance a county planner filed against Bushnell late last year, alleging the supervisor interfered with the issuance of a cannabis permit on behalf of a constituent and then acted unprofessionally — berating staff — in a meeting with the applicant, the planner and Ford.

Bushnell has denied allegations that she did anything inappropriate and Hayes indicated the complaint had been dealt with through a conflict resolution process that included all parties and saw Bushnell complete a seven-hour, one-on-one training on “effective communication and board roles and responsibilities.”

On April 4, the balance of the board voted unanimously to have the newly minted grievance committee consider Bushnell’s case and whether it warrants an outside investigation.

Finally, the board met in closed session to discuss a letter from the Environmental Protection Information Center, the Coalition for Responsible Transportation Priorities, Humboldt Baykeeper, the Northcoast Environmental Center, 350 Humboldt and Earthjustice charging that the county’s environmental impact report for the North McKay Ranch subdivision, which seeks to build 320 residential units in Cutten, violates the California Environmental Quality Act. Specifically, the environmental groups charge the EIR understates the “severity of the project’s greenhouse gas impacts” and fails to mitigate the project’s impacts.

The groups urge the county to require the project be an “all-electric development” and provide bus passes to residents to mitigate impacts on climate change. The board reported no action on the letter when it came out of closed session April 4. l Thadeus Greenson (he/him) is the Journal’s news editor. Reach him at 442-1400, extension 321, or thad@ northcoastjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @thadeusgreenson.

VIEWS It’s Time for Government Investment in Urban Indian Communities

By Abby Abinanti

newsroom@northcoastjournal.com

Strong urban Indian communities today are the legacy of survivors who refused to let the colonizers win.

Tribal people from across our lands were sent to boarding schools and forced to relocate to cities, all in the hopes of disconnecting them from family, home and culture. Generations of U.S. politicians worked to slowly “kill the Indian, and save the man.” Instead, they fueled a resistance.

Today more than 70 percent of Native people live in America’s cities far from our homelands. Here in California, it’s more than 90 percent, many forcibly removed. This is the result of laws created by white people to rob us of our homelands, our language and our spiritual connections. The result of these violent policies is trauma and divided communities. But it’s our way as Native people to connect.

Friendship House in San Francisco was born out of one Navajo boarding school survivor’s vision of helping her people heal. My friend, Helen Waukazoo, saw how the trauma of separation can create a cycle of addiction, poverty and family disconnection. She began Friendship House in a Mission Hill church basement to help the city’s Native people who struggled with addiction recover and reconnect with their cultural ways.

In 2025, Friendship House’s The Village SF will be a place where our urban Native community can grow even further. The development will anchor California’s first American Indian Cultural District and will provide interim supportive housing, community space, health care, nutrition services, recovery and treatment programs (including a dedicated women’s program), a food sovereignty project and garden, and cultural resources like sweat lodge and ceremony space.

Today’s urban Indians are the survivors of colonization. Whether we are born in the city, or relocated by force or by choice, we are all impacted by the centuries of policies aimed at separating us from our culture. But we have always found a way. Instead of forgetting our traditional ways, we shared them across tribes and with each other, an act of defiance to preserve our values in the heart of a city that was supposed to make us white.

The Village SF is the result of Indigenous people creating solutions and opportunities for Indigenous people. But we can’t do it alone. The majority of Native people live in cities, but the same level of limited resources that exist for our relatives on reservations don’t exist for us. Urban Indian services have been underfunded for too long. It’s time for governments to invest in our communities.

Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla has asked the Biden administration to create an interagency advisory group of urban Indian organizations. Urban Indians need a seat at the table to discuss the issues that matter to our communities, and we need a forum to directly engage with the White House.

Through his amendment to the infrastructure bill, Padilla has also made it possible for organizations like Friendship House to seek federal dollars for capital projects like The Village SF. The California Legislature is considering funding for urban Indian services during this session, and as a matter of social justice, should invest more in serving our urban Native communities.

We’re still here, connecting to our culture, each other and to those who need to learn from us how to care for this place we now must share. Piece by piece, we’re reclaiming what was taken from us, what was taken from our ancestors. For decades, we have made our way and preserved our traditions in spite of, not because of, U.S. policy. Now, governments must step up and do more to repair the harm they caused.

This column first appeared at www.calmatters.com, a nonpartisan, nonprofit newsroom committed to explaining California policy and politics. l Abby Abinanti

Submitted

Abby Abinanti is a member of the Yurok Tribe and the first Native woman to be admitted to the California Bar. She is chief judge of the Yurok Tribe and board member emeritus of Friendship House.