HOLLISTER
A county consultant reported that the San Benito County Planning Department appeared to routinely favor friends of former Supervisor Richard Scagliotti over other applicants, according to documents recently provided by attorney Mike Pekin.
The e-mails were authored in 2005 by then-county consultant Sally Reed, a former county administrative officer in Monterey County and elsewhere.
Reed interviewed many community members and, according to the e-mails, received numerous complaints that the planning department favored Scagliotti’s friends.
“Here is the theme I see: there was a pattern and practice in place in the last several years to reward friends and punish enemies of Supervisor Scagliotti and perhaps of others,” Reed wrote. “The planning department routinely treated people differently depending on whether they were favored by Scagliotti. This practice was openly acknowledged by those involved.”
Reed confirmed Thursday that she wrote the e-mails while working as a consultant to then-Interim County Administrative Officer Susan Lyons. Reed said she started speaking to people about the planning department after receiving calls from locals complaining about county planning practices.
“In the end, there were lots of complaints and there were not procedures or processes in place that gave any assurance of fairness,” she said.
But Reed also said the e-mails were likely written before her investigation concluded, so it would be “a mistake” to take their contents as proven fact.
“Rather, they were clear indications that many people felt they were unfairly treated and that politics was driving department decisions,” she said.
Pekin is currently suing Scagliotti and the board of supervisors, alleging that while in office the former supervisor abused his power to benefit his business interests as a developer. Pekin said Reed’s findings are “overwhelming.”
“There is an indisputable, gross violation of trust and intimidation of people,” he said.
Scagliotti and San Jose attorney Michael Serverian, who is representing the former supervisor and the board, did not return Free Lance phone calls by deadline Thursday. County Administrative Officer Susan Thompson and other county leaders said they can’t comment on Reed’s work.
“I really can’t confirm or deny anything,” Thompson said. “I can’t even talk about these things because we’re in litigation. … This will all come out in the trial.”
Pekin said he obtained the documents from Deputy County Counsel Terra Chaffee. The Free Lance faxed the report to the county counsel’s office on Monday afternoon, but Chaffee said she would not have time that day to confirm the document’s validity. She did not return phone calls Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.
The Free Lance has filed a public records request for the county’s copies of Reed’s e-mails and all related documents.
One e-mail states, “Rob, Mandy, Armand (sic) and probably Fred” were involved in the favoratism.
Pekin said the e-mail is likely referring to former Planning Director Rob Mendiola, Integrated Waste Management Director Mandy Rose, Deputy Public Works Director Arman Nazemi and former Deputy Planning Director Fred Goodrich. The board of supervisors fired Mendiola in May 2005, less than a month after the date on Reed’s e-mails, and Goodrich resigned shortly afterward.
“That was related only in the sense that the supervisors were probably hearing the same things from the public that I was hearing,” Reed said Thursday.
Mendiola, Rose and Nazemi did not return Free Lance phone calls by press time Thursday. The Free Lance was unable to contact Goodrich. He reportedly left San Benito County for the Los Banos Planning Department, but a department staffer there said Goodrich has left Los Banos as well.
Pekin, representing his son Patrick Pekin, is set to bring one of his lawsuits to trial in March. He filed another lawsuit earlier this month.
The litigation is part of a larger, controversial legal struggle stretching back to 2003. In the course of that struggle, then-District Attorney John Sarsfield also filed suit against Pekin and the anonymous group Los Valientes. The California Attorney General’s Office dropped that suit earlier this year.
Pekin said he obtained the e-mails in late 2005, but was unable to do anything until Sarsfield’s suit was resolved. The documents are not yet in the official court file, but Pekin plans to use them as evidence in the March trial. He also included the e-mails in a request that San Benito County Sheriff Curtis Hill bring any related documents to the trial. Pekin served Hill with the request on Monday.
“I’ll be honest, I don’t have any idea what he’s talking about,” Hill said.
Other county officials were also served Monday, Pekin said.
“I’m not saying Hill knew about the report,” he said. “I’m just saying, ‘Look, look how tarnished the government is. All these people were threatened and they didn’t go to the sheriff.'”
