Questions over D.A. investigator’s credentials prompt supes to
draft new volunteer policy
San Benito County supervisors can’t control what the D.A. or the
sheriff do, but they can enact a new policy on county volunteers,
board members declared at a special session last week.
Questions over the apparent insufficient credentials of
volunteer investigator Andy Simpson, who works free for District
Attorney John Sarsfield’s office, gave way to a full-blown board
discussion on the matter of a county volunteer policy. During the
Feb. 3 special meeting, board members expressed their aggravation
over their inability, by law, to control what the District Attorney
does.
Questions over D.A. investigator’s credentials prompt supes to draft new volunteer policy
San Benito County supervisors can’t control what the D.A. or the sheriff do, but they can enact a new policy on county volunteers, board members declared at a special session last week.
Questions over the apparent insufficient credentials of volunteer investigator Andy Simpson, who works free for District Attorney John Sarsfield’s office, gave way to a full-blown board discussion on the matter of a county volunteer policy. During the Feb. 3 special meeting, board members expressed their aggravation over their inability, by law, to control what the District Attorney does.
“There are a few here in these chambers who have accused this board of being wimps and folding on the issue,” Supervisor Anthony Botelho of District 2 said. “There is only a certain amount of control this board has over a district attorney. Too much time has been spent on threats to this board. Your focus, Mr. Sarsfield, should be on criminals.”
The meeting also pitted Sheriff Curtis Hill against Sarsfield, which in turn, morphed into a slam session against the D.A. – as the meeting was attended by a platoon of Sarsfield’s critics, including 28th Assembly candidate Ignacio Velazquez, Republican activist Marvin Jones and Los Valientes attorney Michael Pekin. In fact, many of those who have acknowledged being supporters of the Los Valientes litigation against the county (a 3-year-long lawsuit in which an anonymous group claims widespread county corruption) attended the slug-fest.
“Now that the county has discussed the D.A.’s secret police, I withdraw my input,” said Ignacio Velazquez, to the delight and applause of former Interim County Counsel Claude Biddle, who was seated next to attorney Pekin in the audience.
Gadfly Jones joined in the vitriolic critiques against the D.A., citing from the U.S. Constitution and claiming the D.A. was exerting “vindictive domestic violence” against innocent citizens of the county. It was assumed he was referring to the D.A.’s civil prosecution against Salinas attorney Pekin and his former clients, Los Valientes, on whose behalf Pekin is still intervening at court hearings. Jones suggested that the supervisors ask Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to intervene in the matter levied against the D.A., but the board members did not indicate they would take him up on the idea.
However, four of the five supervisors joined the critics by making clear their disdain for Sarsfield, statements which at times were so incendiary that Supervisor Chair Pat Loe had to gavel down the rhetoric against the D.A. coming from her fellow board members.
“At the moment, I and the people feel betrayed by your continued use of certain volunteers,” Botelho said to Sarsfield.
Supervisor Don Marcus said he and Botelho brought the complaints against Simpson to Sarsfield’s attention more than seven months ago, and were assured the investigator would no longer be used.
“Why did it continue to happen?” Marcus asked rhetorically.
“I had knowledge that someone in this county was abused by the system,” Supervisor Reb Monaco added, inferring that the D.A. was picking on someone unjustly.
With a ready-made audience, Supervisor Jaime De La Cruz did not hold back, protocol be damned.
“We need to take our community back,” De La Cruz said to the crowd. “And Botelho, you got cojones [Spanish slang for testicles]!”
The audience hooted approval.
Some of the supervisors tried to grill Sheriff Hill about his policy on using volunteers. Hill has said in the past that he does not believe investigator Simpson has gone through sufficient state certified police training to be classified or even working as a peace officer. But when Monaco and De La Cruz repeatedly prodded Hill to give his legal opinion about state Penal Code 830.1, the statute that outlines the requirements for badge-carrying peace officers, Loe had to stop the proceedings because it ventured off topic. The agenda item was to discuss the county’s volunteer policy – not whether volunteer investigator Andy Simpson is qualified to act as a peace officer for the D.A.’s office. Interim County Counsel Irma Valencia did her best to assist Loe, and reminded De La Cruz that “the Sheriff is not an attorney.”
Sarsfield agreed.
“The Sheriff is just mistaken,” Sarsfield said after the meeting. “I’m sure he believes what the code section means, but it doesn’t. That whole meeting was one massive Brown Act violation.”
Penal Code 830.1 is 32 pages long and goes into lengthy legalese about the definition of a peace officer. One of the many subtexts states that a peace officer is defined as “a regularly employed and paid inspector[s] and investigator[s] of a district attorney’s office … who conduct criminal investigations.”
Sarsfield says that since Simpson works only on civil and environmental cases, and since he is an unpaid volunteer, the law doesn’t apply to him. He also said that the code was badly written, vague and open to too much interpretation.
At one point in the meeting, attorney Pekin strolled up to the podium but the public comment period had long passed. Loe gaveled strenuously and had to firmly insist three times that he sit down. Pekin finally did.
When Sarsfield took the podium, as a department head, his barbs were just as venomous as those of his critics.
“We are attempting to return money to the taxpayers who have been victimized by a certain anonymous group … of which one of you is probably a member,” Sarsfield told the board, in reference to Los Valientes.
“John!” Loe gaveled. The crowd booed.
Oddly, Sarsfield agreed with his nemesis De La Cruz in wondering how the agenda item went from what was supposed to be a special session discussion on the legalities of a recent county-led raid on MK Ballistics, in which Simpson participated, to a discussion on new policy for volunteers. Counsel Valencia stopped him, and the D.A. went on to defend Simpson’s credentials.
“I’ve forwarded the matter to the Attorney General’s office,” Sarsfield said. “If we’re wrong, we’re wrong.”
Hill sent his own letters to the Attorney General’s office, a few days ahead of Sarsfield, also hoping to eke an opinion from the higher state authority.
In the end, the supervisors directed staff to review all volunteerism occurring in county departments and to bring back a policy. The policy most likely will be divided into categories, as there are different types of volunteers helping the county, from the Library’s volunteers to the Sheriff’s Mounted Search and Rescue Team.
De La Cruz wanted to dump the issue into a two-supervisor board committee, in which case it would not come before public scrutiny again until the board was ready to vote on it.
“Let’s send it back to the County Administrative Officer [Susan Thompson] and then see if it should go to a subcommittee,” Loe offered.
On Monday the state Department of Toxic Substances Control, one of several local, state and federal agencies involved in the raid of the MK Ballistics non-lethal munitions plant in the east hills of Hollister, filed what’s called an “administrative order” on the company. The order is neither a civil or criminal charge, but it does force MK Ballistics to comply with a hazardous cleanup order.
Sarsfield produced a yearlong county use-permit issued to MK Ballistics, signed by Sheriff Hill on July 8, 2005. Sarsfield said the Sheriff is supposed to monitor such operations that deal with incendiaries.
