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In Defense Of Rob Brown

By Philip Murphy

 

6-19-05

 

As many people are aware of, there is a long-time, slow motion war being waged between Rob Brown and Jurgen Schorfheide. Why Mr. Schorfheide has directed his wrath at Mr. Brown is a bit of a mystery, since the bulk of his gripes revolve around his disputes with the Sheriffs Office, which mainly stem from their decision not to hire his daughter as a correctional officer. While Brown does have many close connections with the local law enforcement community, it is neither fair nor accurate to characterize him as a police patsy, since none of the supervisors show much willingness to question the decisions of our Sheriff. In fact, Lewis, Robey and Smith are even less apt to ask the Sheriff any tough or probing questions when finances or department policy issues are before the board. So in that regard Brown is no worse than his fellow board members, and is probably a bit better than most of them.

 

But Schorfheide is also off the mark because he ignores Brown‚s best and most obvious trait, his dedication to ending the oftentimes wasteful and ineffective policies of county departments. Brown excels at this, and stands head and shoulders above the rest of the supervisors when it comes to being a fiscal watchdog. Brown led the fight against LAFCO and it‚s bloated budget, even though it made relations with some board members (Lewis and Smith, to be exact), very uncomfortable, due to them both being on the LAFCO board. Brown also went after the First Five commission, since it spent far too much money on administration and fudged the rules to let political pals like Peggy McCloud become board members. Brown is consistently the one person on the board who asks the tough questions, and who usually shows that he‚s done his homework. Some board members frequently make it clear that they haven‚t even read the agenda materials, let alone done any additional research, unlike the usually well-prepared Brown. When it came time to examine how the Animal Control department worked, Brown spent a full day riding shotgun with an AC officer, to learn the system‚s strengths and faults from the people in the trenches. Who else does that kind of hands-on research on the BOS?

 

Brown has been good at voting against those annoying little pork projects like the clock in Lakeport, or the bass fishing tournament in Clearlake, two county-funded disasters that should have never happened. With more board members like Brown they wouldn‚t have, since Brown is the only supervisor that has consistently shown that he‚s not in the pocket of either of the two county chambers of commerce. With a couple more Brown-like supervisors on the board it would be easy to envision the county saving a couple million dollars every year, and getting more done as well. Be certain that when a department head comes before the board the person they are most fearful of is Brown, not because he‚s a prick, but because he‚s the one most likely to do a proper job of figuring out how well they‚ve been spending their money and delivering their services. Some of the supervisors try their best to sweep problems under the carpet, but Brown is usually there pulling them back into the light of day, no matter the consequences.

 

Brown does have his fair share of critics though, who usually zero in on one issue that they disagree with him on, while they ignore the vast majority of his record. Brown is oftentimes perceived as the most conservative board member, and a Republican tool, labels that are only correct up to a point. The only time that that Brown seems to have caved to partisan political pressure was when he voted against ignoring the patriot act, which he did after local Republican party boss Steve Davis told him he‚d be shunned for life as a Republican candidate for higher office if he didn‚t side with the Bushies on the issue. Brown might have voted against it anyway, but the threat of killing off any future chances at statewide office challenges probably did have some impact. Brown also has drawn heat for his generally poor record on environmental issues, which is probably the one area where people have some legitimate gripes about his voting record. Some of Brown‚s intransigence here seems to stem from his deep-seated belief in property rights, though it‚s likely that at least some of his distain for tree huggers and their causes is due to an overall difference in political ideologies that cause him to adopt sometimes ill-conceived positions regarding environmental issues. It should be mentioned that while Brown is a Farm Bureau member (the only one on the board), and is the only one who has shown no hesitation to repeatedly vote against Farm Bureau-backed policies.

 

Given the choice between supervisors who continually hold their fingers to the wind and avoid controversy at all costs (like Ed Robey, in particular), and a supervisor like Brown, who‚s faults are minimal in comparison to his strengths, the decision seems clear. Brown is probably the most involved with his community, and he even makes yearly trips to Guatemala to help children in need of medical services as well, so you can‚t say he doesn‚t give back to society. Brown is twice the supervisor that his predecessor Merriman was, and even with his faults has been the best overall supervisor in the county during the last decade. This may be because unlike most of the supervisors, Brown comes from a blue collar background, and sees just how hard people here have to work for the money the county government siphons out of their pockets. Many people think the question is whether the county supervisors should be „liberal‰ or „conservative‰, when the real issue is should they be competent? If that is the standard used to judge Brown, then he deserves more support from his constituents than he currently receives.

 

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