San Benito County Supervisor Reb Monaco yesterday appointed
Supervisors Anthony Botelho and Don Marcus to an informal committee
to
”
continue good relationships with our district attorney.
”
Hollister – San Benito County Supervisor Reb Monaco yesterday appointed Supervisors Anthony Botelho and Don Marcus to an informal committee to “continue good relationships with our district attorney.”
Botelho and Marcus have worked with District Attorney John Sarsfield in the past and have developed a good working rapport with him, Monaco said before he appointed the two supervisors to what was originally supposed to be a formal subcommittee to communicate with Sarsfield.
But after Sarsfield told the board he was “all for open communication,” he suggested the board designate Botelho and Marcus as “informal liaisons” to avoid some implications of the Brown Act open meeting law.
“If it was a formal committee, a standing committee, there would be restrictions to publicize when they were going to be meeting and things like that,” explained Monaco. “We wanted to keep it very informal.”
Botelho said Tuesday he was hoping he and Marcus could work with Sarsfield to improve communication between the district attorney’s office and the Board of Supervisors.
“At times there has been some misunderstandings between the board and Mr. Sarsfield, but I’m hoping we’re able to kind of communicate and smooth over those rough edges. A lot of this stuff is just kind of impromptu type of concerns. If Mr. Sarsfield has an agenda item, we’ll probably have an idea what he’s trying to pursue so we can help the rest of the board understand,” Botelho said. “I think we’ll get a lot further in terms of serving the public need than what’s been taking place, and he (Sarsfield) seemed pretty receptive to that idea.”
Marcus said Tuesday he and Botelho had been meeting with the district attorney recently about the sexual harassment lawsuit brought against the county by Victim Witness employees Katie Fancher and Julie Roybal. Since then, Botelho, Marcus and Sarsfield have developed a good working relationship that they hope will facilitate communication between the district attorney and the board.
“I enjoy working with both of them (Botelho and Marcus),” Sarsfield said Tuesday. “We just need to make sure there’s a good flow of information between the two branches of the county government so that they know what I’m doing here and what I need to get my job done.”
The naming of the pair as informal liaisons to Sarsfield’s office came just two weeks after Sarsfield announced he planned to sue the county after the summary of an investigation into his office was leaked to the Free Lance. But Monaco said Tuesday evening the decision to form a liaison committee had nothing to do with Sarsfield’s threat of a lawsuit.
“It doesn’t have any specific purpose. It’s just to create an open communication between the district attorney and the Board of Supervisors, and hopefully if the board has access to him and he has access to the board, it can be a two-way thing,” Monaco said.
