Balancing the County’s Budget Deficits
on the Backs of Children
By Ray A. March
Part 15
Nov.7, 2001
Commission: “No Irregularities”
At this special meeting, Nov. 7, 2001, Tracey D. Cochran, a paralegal in the county counsel’s office headed by Vickie Cochran, Rosemary Nelson, representing the private sector; and Rusty DuVall, a private business owner, join the commission’s governing board.
They were to be formally sworn in as commission members on Nov. 28.
Minutes show that Carol Callaghan is now Carol Harbaugh’s alternate and present at this meeting.
In less than three months on the commission, at a special meeting on Jan. 30, 2002 -- the same afternoon Michelson was abruptly fired -- Cochran was elevated to the chair on the motion of Nelson.
Nov. 28, 2001
This meeting at which the commission was scheduled to “review ledgers, audit and reports” prepared by CPA Kristin Domenichelli was cancelled without explanation.
Dec. 5, 2001
A letter was apparently sent this date to Lynn Talbott, CPA, in effect declaring that there were no irregularities in any financial information provided by the commission.
In other words, Donna Michelson refused to sign the letter.
Dec. 18, 2001
Less than two weeks later Donna Michelson wrote Lynn Talbott a three-page single-spaced letter explaining why she would not sign the “trust me” letter of Dec. 5.
She explained that signing the letter would put her in a position of committing perjury, that she had no control over the Prop. 10 Trust Fund and audit issues concerning the fund should be addressed to Auditor Judi Stevens.
“My suggestion is that you send this letter (Dec. 5, 2001) for sign off to our interim fiscal agent, Modoc County Auditor Judi Stevens, who has since the inception of the commission operated as its fiscal agent without any authorization from the executive director or the acting chair of the commission Dr. Edward P. Richert, who has the authority to bind the commission in fiscal matters, or to whomever on the commission you have obtained your information,” Michelson sternly advised Talbott.
Next: Part 16
Unknown to Michelson time was running out as a new year was about to begin, but Kristin Domenichelli unloads six consecutive bombshells on the Children and Families Commission.
2 comments:
With all of this detailed accounting of how Judy Stevens and the other county agents colluded to illegally misspend taxpayer dollars, and the subsequent firing at a public meeting of Donna Michelson, an Executive Director of Modoc First 5, a state funded agency here in Modoc, one would naturally think that there would have been local coverage of these events as they unfolded in the weekly newspaper.
However, this does not seem to be the case. Having searched the online archives of the Modoc Record (located here for the period just after Michelson was fired at the public meeting: http://www.modocrecord.com/02_Archives.html#January) no results can be found mentioning any of this happening at all. Nor were their any results found during the preceding years Modoc Record archives.
It's like the Modoc Record didn't want anybody to know that this was going on in the first place.
The question is: Why?
Good for Michelson! At least she had the integrity to stand up to these bullies. Harbaugh, Cantrall, and their cronies created and destroyed people’s jobs and reputations on almost a daily basis, right under the noses of the taxpayers and the Record newspaper, who both decided to look the other way all this time.
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