By A Phillips – December  29, 2015 –

It appears Supervisor Martha McClure has been a bad girl in her appointment to the Del Norte County Solid Waste Authority (DNSWMA).  On December 28, 2015, the Crescent City/Del Norte County Taxpayers Association served a Formal Complaint on the Del Norte County Board of Supervisors against Supervisor Martha McClure in her position as DNSWMA Commissioner.  After 20 years as Supervisor, McClure may need a ‘time out’.

First, in September 2015, DNSWMA Commissioners Martha McClure and Rick Holley with DNSWMA Director Ted Ward, drafted a “Code of Ethics” which contains provisions that permit a majority of the DNSWMA to go beyond the regular voting mechanism and to permanently censor, or even remove, a DNSWMA Commissioner without input from the Board of Supervisors.  According to the Formal Complaint, this “Code of Ethics” is an unlawful attempt to take away the power of the Supervisors to appoint whom them choose to appoint.  By doing so, the code may unlawfully deprive the County of Del Norte residents of representation, a move that may render the DNSWMA unable to function legally.

According to the Formal Complaint, this threat of censorship has resulted not only in pressuring one supervisor into retiring his DNSWMA appointment, but is hostile enough that the three remaining supervisors have refused to serve with Martha McClure.  To say McClure does not play well with others is an understatement.

Met with backlash, it appears McClure shot herself in the foot.  But, according to the Formal Complaint, McClure didn’t stop there.  In or about September 2015 the DNSWMA appointed Martha McClure and Angela Glore to an ad hoc committee to draft a “Code of Ethics” to be adopted by the Task Force and submitted to the Grand Jury, despite the Grand Jury itself had not ordered a response from the Task Force, despite the DNSWMA is not authorized to respond to the Grand Jury on behalf of the Task Force, and despite that Martha McClure acknowledged in a public meeting that the Task Force is an independent body from the DNSWMA.

The draft, submitted by McClure to the DNSWMA in October 2015, includes a provision unlawfully empowering Director Tedd Ward to bypass any complaint process within the Task Force and seek revocation of a Task Force member’s appointment by making complaints directly to the DNSWMA, irrespective of the opinion of Task Force members.  As it turns out, Martha McClure and Tedd Ward drafted the proposed “Code of Ethics” and the provision empowering Tedd Ward, and this provision was not agreed to or approved by Ad Hoc volunteer Angela Glore.

According to the Formal Complaint, “The acts described above come in the wake of having pressured Roger Gitlin off the DNSWMA with allegations that pale in comparison to the unlawful and unscrupulous manipulations of Martha McClure, and whose acts constitute a takeover of power over the DNSWMA and Task Force with a threat of censorship that would obstruct any DNSWMA or Task Force member from exercising their statutory duties and free speech rights.”

Some members of the public have publicly noted that Martha McClure seeks to accept applicants for the position of DNSWMA pubic board member who are very nice, trusting, and easier to influence for the apparent purpose of controlling that public member position, and do exactly as she did in this circumstance by taking advantage of the trust of Angela Glore in her position as an Ad Hoc committee member.

As Supervisors are paid by taxpayer dollars, the Crescent City/Del Norte County Taxpayers Association made its Formal Complaint requesting the Supervisors make an inquiry with Angela Glore and legal counsel Martha Rice, agendize the matter, and revoke Martha McClure’s appointment to the DNSWMA for her unethical manipulations, for failing to act in the best interests of the public and acting instead for her personal political agendas, and for so quickly violating the same code of ethics Martha McClure herself so recently used to make allegations against Roger Gitlin for acts far less severe than those of Martha McClure.