Madera County awash in scandals

Published online on Saturday, Nov. 07, 2009

A series of recent scandals have cast an unflattering light on local officials in Madera County: Both the county's auditor-controller and public guardian resigned after prosecutors began investigating them. Two other key county employees have come under scrutiny, and one faces possible criminal charges.

But leaders of this rural county of 150,000 aren't alarmed. They say coincidence, not a culture of corruption, is to blame.

"There are bad apples in every barrel," Madera County Supervisor Frank Bigelow said. "You pluck them out before it spoils the entire barrel."

Stell Manfredi, who recently retired as the county's top administrator, described the spate of investigations and resignations in the last year as an "anomaly."

"In any organization -- I don't care if it's L.A. County or Madera County -- you're going to have people who do things that aren't appropriate," he said.

And Chuck Doud, editor and publisher of the local newspaper, The Madera Tribune, said he doesn't see anything especially troubling about the county's recent events.

"There is no underlying tolerance of corruption or anything like that in the county at all," Doud said. "This is a pretty clean place."

Madera County District Attorney Michael Keitz, who was appointed to the job last year, has been busy overseeing many of the investigations along with the help of the Madera County Grand Jury. But he said the recent investigations aren't due to a more aggressive District Attorney's Office or a more diligent grand jury.

"From time to time, things just happen in government," he said. "Government is run by people, and people make mistakes."

Others see a more troubling pattern.

Dale Drozen, a retired firefighter and self-described county government watchdog, has been keeping track of county officials for the last three years. He watches most Board of Supervisors meetings and regularly e-mails a newsletter to a few hundred people that is often critical of the county's leaders.

At times, Drozen said, he has been tempted to seek a recall vote on all five county supervisors because of what he says is their inability to follow the law and their lack of leadership.

"If you want a dirty story, you can pretty much look anywhere and find it," he said.

But Drozen said he is especially frustrated by what he perceives as apathy among county residents. His readers often tell him that they will attend the next Board of Supervisors meeting to protest policies they dislike -- but then fail to show up.

"At the very top of the pile of blame is the people themselves," he said.

Drozen isn't the only one concerned about county government.

The Madera Oversight Coalition, a relatively new group of more than 70 people in the county's foothills, has become increasingly engaged in the county decision-making process -- especially on issues involving new development.

"We try to direct the county to follow the law," William Whitehead, one of the coalition's board members, said of the county supervisors. "It's small-town politics, but you try to at least get them to think about the future."

And Sharon Diaz, president of the Madera County Professional Employees union, which represents about 250 white-collar employees, blamed the county's leaders for its recent troubles.

"What I believe is that the Board of Supervisors is supposed to supervise department heads, but they didn't and the department heads did wrong," she said. "All that cost the county."

'Good-old-boy' attitude

Whitehead said his group has had to battle what he described as a "good-old-boy" attitude in the county that makes its elected leaders reluctant to challenge each other.