Supervisors Pat Loe, Anthony Botelho and Don Marcus should be
ashamed of their decision Tuesday when voting against hiring
lawyers to represent fellow supervisors Reb Monaco and Jaime De La
Cruz and former Supervisor Richard Place.
Supervisors Pat Loe, Anthony Botelho and Don Marcus should be ashamed of their decision Tuesday when voting against hiring lawyers to represent fellow supervisors Reb Monaco and Jaime De La Cruz and former Supervisor Richard Place.
The two seated supervisors and Place have been subpoenaed by District Attorney John Sarsfield in his relentless, but pointless pursuit of Los Valientes and will likely testify in front of the Grand Jury late this month or early May.
Both Monaco and De La Cruz recused themselves from discussing and voting on the issue. Loe should have followed suit and recused herself too, especially since she’s a named victim in Sarsfield’s civil suit against Los Valientes – regardless of if she has refused to accept monetary damages if Sarsfield is successful. “These people are not even being sued, they are just being questioned,” she said.
Funny, we remember Sarsfield labeling De La Cruz as a Los Valiente, Monaco as a probable supporter and Place as the likely ring leader of the anonymous group that has sued former Supervisor Richard Scagliotti for corruption by using his position of power to profit. And both Monaco and De La Cruz, along with the three supervisors who sold them out, have been accused by Sarsfield of denying funding to the DA’s office to stop the LV “investigation.”
It seems ridiculous that Sarsfield can be a de facto attorney for Loe and Scagliotti in the civil action he’s taken against Los Valientes and the county can pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawyer fees to defend Scagliotti from the accusations made by Los Valientes. Yet when it comes to giving two seated supervisors and a former supervisor the representation they deserve in what is obviously a politically motivated assault on their character by Sarsfield during an election year, the rest of the board leaves them hanging in the wind. Both Monaco and Place are running for office again.
Granted the county has serious financial problems, but it also has serious liability issues from the juggernaut District Attorney casting stones from his fragile perch. It’s true taxpayers will be stuck with bill for hiring lawyers for these three men, but it’s not their fault and it’s certainly no reason not to do the right thing. The blame for this and most of the other wanton spending in Los Valientes falls almost squarely on Sarsfield’s shoulders. When Sarsfield is out of office, and we strongly believe he will be soon, county taxpayers may find themselves paying for his reckless behavior and the supes short-sighted decision for a long, long time.
