Tuesday, June 23, SEIU 1021 members at Mendocino County picketed the Board of Supervisors over their failure to stabilize County services. 

The Board of Supervisors has broken Mendocino County by failing to recruit and retain sufficient staff. 

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 three 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.” 

“When Mendocino County invests in its workers, it invests in the people they serve — from safe roads and public libraries to critical support for the county’s most vulnerable children,” said SEIU 1021 Mendocino County Area Representative Jeff Weston, who works as an eligibility specialist supervisor for Mendocino County. “The County must be able to recruit and retain the staff our community depends on.” 

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. This is further compounded by high turnover and the loss of experienced staff. 

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 the County’s failure to retain experienced staff. 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.  

Mendocino residents deserve a county that works!