After meeting flouting COVID-19 rules, 2 supervisors tell Sacramento County CEO to resign
Just days after Sacramento County CEO Nav Gill presided over an indoor meeting where he and some of his senior staff did not wear face masks, and where one attendee later tested positive for the coronavirus, county supervisors Phil Serna and Patrick Kennedy have called for his resignation.
“As you are well aware, we have had as a board and individually, several difficult conversations of late calling into question your patterned behavior and decision making,” wrote Serna and Kennedy in a memo presented to Gill late Tuesday after the supervisors’ regularly scheduled meeting.
“Realizing the weight of this situation, and the effect this continues to have on our constituents, the people of Sacramento County, we no longer have confidence in you as Chief Executive Officer and call for your resignation.”
On Wednesday, Gill declined to comment.
Gill’s decision to hold a face-to-face gathering of his senior staff Oct. 15 in an indoor conference room put as many as 40 to 45 people at risk of contracting the coronavirus. After the meeting, held at County Probation headquarters on Folsom Boulevard, one of Gill’s department heads learned that she had tested positive for COVID-19.
The meeting lasted from about 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. The agenda that was not considered in any way urgent, according to a source who attended the meeting and provided details to The Bee. Only about a dozen of the attendees wore masks, according to the source, who was not authorized to comment on the matter.
Some attendees did not practice social distancing and the county department head who tested positive was not wearing a mask for much of the proceedings, sources said. Gill was not wearing a mask either.
This was not thought to be the first time Gill had presided over meetings that defied a county ordinance on wearing face masks indoors and maintaining social distancing that county officials expect the public to follow.
Ignored the county’s COVID rules
Gill and other county leaders were doing exactly what officials have been warning the public not to do to help stem the spread of COVID-19.
In addition, Dr. Peter Beilenson, the county health chief, attended the meeting. Beilensen has been beseeching the public for months to follow the rules Gill was flouting. He said nothing publicly about the gathering until he was approached by a Bee reporter Sunday afternoon. At that point, he confirmed what had seen.
He also later confirmed to the Bee that 10 attendees who had close contact with the infected colleague were in quarantine while others were being tested.
Gill’s contract
Serna and Kennedy were the only two supervisors to sign the letter to satisfy the Ralph M. Brown Act, which spells out the rules for local government business to be conducted in public. In this case, the Brown Act precludes more than two county supervisors from taking an action outside of a public meeting.
The question now is: Will the three other county board members – Don Nottoli, Susan Peters and Sue Frost – join Kennedy and Serna in calling on Gill to resign? If Gill chooses to defy Kennedy and Serna by refusing to resign, four county board members are required to fire him for cause.
In its current composition, getting four county board members to agree on a decision of this magnitude is unlikely. Even though board members run in races that are technically non-partisan, Frost and Peters – both Republican – have been strong supporters of Gill.
The other three members are all Democrats. Serna has been a longtime critic of Gill and abstained on the day his contract was renewed because the terms of the deal – $311,000 base salary and a four-fifths requirement to remove him.
Nottoli voted “no” on the contract because he was concerned about its terms.
“It raises a level of concern for me,” Nottoli said on April 29, 2019, before voting “no” on Gill’s contract.
Kennedy – who is now calling for Gill’s resignation – was the board chair in 2019 and voted with the two Republican members to renew Gill’s contract. In doing so, the contract Gill was given was open-ended. That nuance was important because if a county contract is not time-certain, Section 18 of the county charter states the following:
“The County Executive may be removed by the Board of Supervisors, four-fifths of the members thereof voting in favor of such removal. “
If the board had given Gill a time-certain contract, it would simply take a board majority of three to let the contract expire.
.At the time, Kennedy said he took this action for the sake of maintaining continuity in leadership and because he felt that Gill had made some good hires.
‘It was a backdoor deal’
But others disagreed with decision then and now.
“I was disgusted,” said Ted Somera, executive director of the United Public Employees, the union representing 3,700 county employees.
“I didn’t find out until the 11th hour that it was a four-fifths contract. You’re giving him a job for life. All he has to do is keep (Frost and Peters) happy. It was a backdoor deal. There was no transparency.”
At the 2019 meeting, Serna spoke in frustration that the terms of Gill’s contract were formulated in a closed-session meeting while Serna was out of town.
“The way the charter governs how the board determines the future of the CEO position means that a very dissatisfied majority has no recourse other than to vocalize their dissatisfaction,” Serna said.
Gill needs to go. As the county executive, he not only has placed his employees in danger amid a global pandemic, he has sent a signal to Sacramento County residents that he does not take COVID-19 seriously.
By refusing to wear a mask, he has undermined the work of his health department. The county has had nearly 25,000 COVID-19 cases and more than 470 deaths.
In recent months, Gill was harshly criticized for taking federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act money meant for COVID-19 relief and using $104 million of it to support the payroll of the Sacramento County Sheriff’s department.
Only after this information became public did the board commit $45 million to the county health department. But that was a full four months after the county had received $181 million in federal funding that was explicitly intended for COVID-19 relief.
“This does look like a shell game to me,” Kennedy said of Gill’s handling of money.
At two county supervisors meetings in August, public criticism directed at Gill was withering.
“Public health clearly needs more money,” said Flojaune G. Cofer, senior director of policy at Public Health Advocates. “Nav Gill is outright lying to public officials.”
Cassandra Jennings, president and CEO of the Greater Sacramento Urban League, said: “How did a pandemic turn into a law enforcement issue?”
“Gill is part of an institution that needs to be changed,” Somera said. “The leadership has failed their employees.”
This story was originally published October 20, 2020 at 9:59 PM.
