My best will be put forth, and to that end I will not speculate as to why — but only on the what. That is not to imply with the passage of five years, I am at a loss as to why the total collapse of the redress of grievance process has occurred.
So much time has passed from the first day I walked into the court house to express my unhappiness with inspection of our home. My surprise was that, from the onset, the hearing of excuses for the lack of proper oversight that should have insured all building codes would be met.
To my total amazement there was no procedure where one could report what I deemed malfeasance of county personnel. There is no process, no form to fill out. I was just sent through a labyrinth from person to person, from department to department. As of the date of this letter, I have not been informed of any changes whereby a citizen can receive a form to fill out so that those that would be exposed for malfeasance are held accountable. There is no process by which government personnel are held accountable for their incompetence in the performance of their duties. The public, who are the employers of these government employees, have no power by which to get satisfaction when they have a grievance with their own “employees”. As was my case, I found myself with senior management and politicians, all who sent my grievance back to the same people with whom I have the disagreement. Their response to me was that “[We] are only one of five and did I know how hard it is to hire good help or fire someone?” — implying they had no control over the problem. The best response was “Did I think I was someone special?”.
I have charged government employees of lying and covering up those lies. I have charged others with the misuse of government powers to aid those that abused government employment. I charged a person with violating the Brown Act. I also charged that a contractor should have been turned over to the District Attorney for fraud
I request that you, the Grand Jury, investigate my charges and implement a process by which the public can hold government employees accountable when they have not performed their responsibilities adequately.
James Henderson
Lakeport
