Tuesday, June 2, dozens of SEIU 1021 members at Mendocino County confronted their Board of Supervisors at their bi-weekly meeting over the County’s short-staffing crisis.

The Board of Supervisors has broken Mendocino County.

According to a grand jury report last year, Mendocino County has one of the highest rates of childhood trauma, with a substantiated child abuse rate nearly 3 times the statewide average. That’s not just a statistic. It leads to real children waiting 120+ days to be processed through the court system. Why? The grand jury report found: “Proper staffing is the single most critical item needed to create better outcomes.”

This is a county-wide problem: a 47% vacancy rate in the Department of Public Health, a 38% vacancy rate in Mental Health, and a 32% vacancy rate in the Substance Use Disorder Department, even as the Board of Supervisors has eliminated nearly 300 full-time positions in the last two years.

That same short-staffing crisis is also undermining Mendocino’s roads. According to another grand jury report, thousands of homes in Mendocino County are inaccessible to emergency vehicles, putting both residents and emergency personnel at risk.

It is delaying basic county services, too. Permits are taking longer and longer to approve because departments do not have the staff they need to do the work.

The Board’s failure to Mendocino’s community is NOT inevitable. While the Board claims poverty, the facts tell another story: Tax revenue continues to rise. The County is just not collecting it. The County is sitting on nearly $30 million in uncollected tax revenue, and has just voted to not collect over $1 million in outstanding cannabis tax revenue.

Even the County’s ability to collect revenue has been damaged by short staffing. In the assessor’s office alone, 24 staff have left in the last four and a half years.

SEIU 1021 members are Mendocino’s public health nurses, social workers, employment and family assistance specialists, mental health clinicians, road crews, and more. 

“Investing in county staff is investing in the community,” said SEIU 1021 Mendocino County Area Representative Jeff Weston, who works as an eligibility specialist supervisor for Mendocino County. “That’s roads, libraries, and support for Mendocino’s most at-risk kids. Mendocino County must be able to fill its vacant positions and recruit and retain the staff that serve the community.”

Mendocino residents deserve a county that works!