The County’s Chief Executive Officer is an appointed position that is supposed to be subordinate to the Board of Supervisors since they are the ones responsible for hiring the person to serve in the post. However, in Carmel Angelo’s 12 years on the job, it appeared to many that she had flipped the script, and she became the tail that is wagging the dog.
One interesting aspect of the Angelo’s tenure is that the general public probably was more aware of the name and activities of a bureaucrat holding an administrative position than they were of the five elected supervisors who were the CEO’s boss and empowered with final decision authority basically in all matters.
Angelo also generated unvarnished high praise from some of the most popular and respected elected officials in this county.
Two that come immediately to mind are former Sheriff Tom Allman and former Supervisor John Pinches, but there are others for sure.
When Allman announced his retirement in 2019, he went out of his way to single out Angelo for praise and her stellar job performance. At that time, the UDJ reported, “Allman’s time as sheriff spans three boards of supervisors and three county CEOs. Allman gives current county CEO Carmel Angelo an A-plus rating. ‘Carmel is a workhorse. If not for her our reserve would not be where it is. She does her job and does it real well,’ Allman said, adding that he either met with or talked to Angelo every single Monday, a communication that helped him keep his department funded and working.” Pinches, who served on the BOS for a dozen years, told me that Angelo’s hiring was the “best thing to ever happen in Mendocino County” because of her unmatched skills as an administrator and budgeteer.
Pinches, who I worked with on many issues over the years, made his reputation mastering the intricacies of budget deep-diving. He told me once that most of his colleagues on the Board over the years “didn’t understand and didn’t seem to care much about the budget process. But with Carmel for the first time I had somebody I could work with and make some headway on improving this county’s finances. And keep in mind how many times the County was close to going over the cliff [bankruptcy] before she arrived.”
Pinches was always quick to defend the Angelo whenever she came under fire from the public or media.
“Let me tell you something, Jim,” he said once during a conversation we were having some years back, “Carmel Angelo has done more than anybody who was ever been in that position before to put this County on solid ground. She knows the ins and outs of the budget process and does a really good job of managing everything she’s responsible for. People who say she doesn’t, don’t know what they’re talking about or just don’t like her for other reasons.”
Upon her retirement, Angelo spared no praises in assessing Pinches dozen years on the BOS, saying he was the “best” supervisor she served under.
When Angelo retired, in early 2022, the Board approved her hand-picked successor, Darcie Antle.
Antle’s three years on the job has been anything but a smooth ride given budgetary shortfalls (not her fault), ill-advised elimination of fiscal oversight and internal financial controls through forced consolidation of formerly independent financial departments, and related outside audits by the state of California over county financial reporting and management.
Of course capping off these mostly self-inflicted problems is the infamous Cubbison affair, a one-of-its-kind, historical governing and political calamities to have occurred in the state of California.
Mike Geniella’s stellar investigative reporting on the Cubbison fiasco revealed the underside of all the rocks buried in the political, legal, and criminal justice landscape of this county. These excerpt’s from Geniella’s reporting sum up this shameful chapter in local history.
“According to a transcript of her interview with lawyers, Angelo stated that Antle told her she learned about the disputed pay issue several months earlier than when the county’s current CEO [Antle] testified under oath … Angelo’s testimony directly contradicts the narrative laid out by Antle and DA Eyster since the politically laced criminal case began to publicly unfold in October 2023. Superior Court Judge Ann Moorman dismissed the case on Feb. 25 and castigated Antle and other county witnesses for their apparent “willful ignorance.” … The documents showed that county payroll reports faithfully detailed how Kennedy’s extra pay had been distributed widely to administrators including CEO Darcie Antle and her staff over a three-year period yet no one questioned why. ‘It was all there if anyone had bothered to take a look,’ said Moorman.”
So there you have it. You might call all of this a tale of two CEOs.
Pinches and Allman’s positive takes on former-CEO Angelo may be a bit more accurate than many thought previously given her decision not to act in “willful ignorance” and she did “bother to take a look” at something that appeared to be not quite right.
Jim Shields is the Mendocino County Observer’s editor and publisher, [email protected], the long-time district manager of the Laytonville County Water District, and is also chairman of the Laytonville Area Municipal Advisory Council. Listen to his radio program “This and That” every Saturday at noon on KPFN 105.1 FM, also streamed live: www.kpfn.org
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