Complaint filed against a Sac County supervisor was a wasteful Trump supporter hissy fit
This is how rotten the culture is within the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office: The president of the union for sheriff’s deputies, a self-identified Donald Trump supporter, filed a complaint against County Supervisor Phil Serna because, well, Serna doesn’t like Trump and said so on his Facebook page in January.
No, I’m not kidding.
It was alleged that Serna was guilty of three charges: political affiliation harassment, political affiliation discrimination and retaliation. The allegations against Serna stemmed from Jan. 3 and Jan. 7 posts on his personal Facebook page.
On Jan. 3, he wrote: “If you are a Donald Trump supporter you are dead to me.” He called supporters of the then-president “traitors” who didn’t care about “our democracy.”
On Jan. 7, he told his Facebook friends that complaints had been filed against him for the Jan. 3 posts.
An investigation released Wednesday found that the three allegations against Serna were “not sustained.” Serna’s accusers lost, they were denied.
So far, the cost of investigating Serna for exercising his First Amendment rights is $11, 231.50 in taxpayer dollars charged to the county.
But that number could double because the tab so far only accounts for investigative work done in January and February by the Sacramento law firm of Vandermyden Maddux, the same firm that investigated the 2019 sexual assault allegations against Sacramento Kings coach Luke Walton.
Invoices for investigative work in March and April have not yet been processed by the county, said Kim Nava, a county spokeswoman.
So the price tag for the county could end up at more than $20,000 because some Trumpers threw hissy fit.
Cops are political, too
But wait, this gets dumber. And dumber. And dumber.
For reasons that defy logic, the names of the people filing the complaints against Serna were redacted in the final report exonerating Serna.
But the titles of the people filing the complaints were not redacted. Apparently, neither the lawyers charging the county a ton of money to look into this hissy fit, or county lawyers, have ever heard of Google.
The report identifies his accusers as the president of SDSA, the vice president of SDSA and a senior civil engineer in the County Department of Transportation.
The president of the SDSA is Kevin Mickelson. The vice president is Nathan Seger. They are both sergeants in the sheriff’s department. I could probably track down the name of the senior civil engineer, but who cares?
What is most objectionable here is the behavior of sworn officers of the law. Ask yourself this: Why would they care if Phil Serna doesn’t like Donald Trump? Shouldn’t officers of the law focus on the law irrespective of politics? If an elected official in the county, who by definition is in politics, states a distaste for Trump, why would peace officers take offense to the point of filing a complaint and initiating an investigation that costs the county real money?
Why? Because it turns out the cops are political, too. I’ve written more than once about how Mickelson proudly wore a Donald Trump face mask in public. He has tried to whip up fear about how Sacramento County law enforcement budgets were vulnerable to the “defund police” movement when that is simply not true.
When I first wrote about Mickelson’s Trump love, do you know what he did? He posted a picture on my Facebook page of him and his spouse wearing Trump masks.
Did I file an investigation against him? Did Serna? No. But do I worry that Mickelson’s views are shared by deputy sheriff’s who come in contact with young Black and brown men? Yes, I do.
Sac Sheriffs are fully funded
The investigator charging the county a lot of money for this mess found no evidence that Serna had ever used his political position to harm the people filing complaints against him.
Despite the “defund the police” movement in other areas, the county sheriff’s department this year received its full budget allocation – $277 million, by far the biggest piece of the county’s $4.2 billion budget.
Which brings us back to the beginning. The culture in the sheriff’s department, one that gets the biggest slice of county funds, at the expense of programs for needy people, is run by Trumpers who are so secure in their positions that they file frivolous complaints that cost taxpayers real money, no matter how goofy they are.
What about the deputies who don’t agree with Mickelson? What about the arrogance of law enforcement officers wasting money? What about people who carry guns believing they can behave with impunity?
That’s why, ultimately, this stunt is not funny at all. It’s a symptom of a rotten culture that needs to change.
