By Donna Westfall – October 26, 2020 – Part 1
How do you like having our Del Norte County County Administrative Officer (CAO), Jay Sarina, with the power to spend up to $40,000 tax dollars to a Political Strategist firm in Oakland working on seeing that the sales tax is increased? And he can do this all by himself without having to answer to the elected Board of Supervisors.
Don’t believe it? All it takes is 5 minutes to look over the contract signed on July 27, 2020 and due to terminate November 30, 2020 by CAO Jay Sarina and Clifford Moss, “Contractor.” Let’s look at these 2 pages first in Part 1.
Then in Part 2, we’ll cover Attachment B, “Payment”, and then go over “Robo Call”.
In my opinion Jay Sarina concealed his spending $40,000.00 from the Public. Jay Sarina can dress up a pig anyway he wants to but it is still a pig.
The County’s contention is this was a contractor hired to send out informational’s for a sales tax increase. The County failed to file appropriate campaign paperwork such as the statement of organization. After all it’s just informational cards sent in the mail. It was just informational spoken on the Robocalls and it was just informational’s on the radio. That’s the pig part. In reality it was a campaign for sales tax increase.
FPPC Government Codes 89001-89003 speak to mailing out mailers. Anytime you send out more than 50 mailers in a month or spend over $200.00 a month it is in violation of these campaign laws. The County sent out over 15,000 mailers and paid $17,000.00 all in the name of their pig “informational.”
Kymmie Scott used her position as manager of OES for Robocalls. Why? Was that the lipstick for their pig?
Money laundering is serious as well as misappropriation of funds. In order to correct this mess we have to step outside of Crescent City into Sacramento. Sacramento is listening and are appalled.
Four Board of Supervisors should be arrested. Jay Sarina as well. It is acts such as these that cause public distrust and discourse.
Until the county gets sued over these matters we will be constantly subjected to these behaviors of our elected.
Now in Comparison the Measure S campaign by the city did everything right. They filed an organization statement by a group of citizens. They listed their contributors to the tune of $26,000.00. The County just stole the money from the taxpayers.
Where exactly does Jay Sarina’s authority come from to spend the $40,000 for what is clearly political pandering for Measure R. Seems like an invitation for corruption. Does the money spent include the mailer that was sent as purportedly an “informational” mailer, but clearly a pro Measure R effort? It, the mailer, does not seem to include an explanation as to why the County’s budget does not seem to prioritize emergency services and road repair, but has money for extravagant parties, travel to foreign locations, entertainment for foreign dignataries, vanity performance banquets, etc. The County’s Administrative Officer seems to have a peculiar set of priorities for someone being paid nearly $200,000 per year to make sure that the local citizens are being protected from unreasonable taxation for questionable expenditures. I also do not know why we need an oversight committee if the money raised by the additional sales tax is to be spent on “necessary” services. Perhaps a public revealing of exactly how the General Fund is being spent might be more informative, and the oversight committee be applied to see where that tax money is being wasted, I mean spent. Seems like this same kind of inquiry should apply to the City’s efforts on Measure S, particularly in light of the fact that both measures can be passed by a 50% plus one vote, and there is No sunset on the tax going forward without a repeal vote. I am completely baffled as to how we got to this state where passing a TAX measure can have nearly as much opposition as approval. This in its own right is a travesty!