Editorial From the Calaveras Enterprise
April 15, 2008 10:37
From the Editor’s Desk
Buzz Eggleston
So let me see if I understand this. We are being presented with a choice
between public agencies that are “pro-growth” or “no-growth.” Not just
any public agencies, either, but the very heart of the thing-Calaveras
County’s planning and building departments.
If that is what Ray Waller is selling, I don’t buy it.
Last week, pressed by the Enterprise and the Stockton Record, Calaveras
County officials finally made public their case against Waller, the
former chief building official who they fired in February 2007. The deep
stack of county documents, as condensed by our reporter Colin Rigley,
said that Waller was fired because he had ignored county policies,
destroyed planning documents, signed off on substandard building
inspections and cursed at employees.
Waller and his attorney, Chris Williams, responded with another deep
stack of point-by-point rebuttals. “So far, this has quite simply been a
case of the political assassination of an experienced and capable career
employee...,” Williams summarized in one of the documents.
The entire package, pro and con, reveals a side of our government rarely
exposed to daylight.
The notice of termination that informed Waller he was being fired told
of an incident when Waller threw a number of building permits and
correction notices, some only a few weeks old, into a recycling bin
outside his office. According to Rigley’s story, “When (Waller’s boss,
Stephanie) Moreno discovered the discarded reports and confronted Waller
he responded, ‘It was better that these records were not in the files
where they could be used as proof....’”
Rigley wrote, “When asked about the incident, Waller said that the
discarded materials were old correction notices, which had been
corrected and deemed unnecessary. He said they were thrown out because
they could be later used in court as evidence that there were problems
with a building, when in fact the problems had already been corrected.
‘It gives some attorneys an ability to confuse a jury,’ Waller said.”
That’s troubling. Officials are not empowered to decide which public
documents to discard and which to keep, except in accordance with the
laws we all abide by. Why does Waller care what some pesky lawyers might do?
Waller’s own words, coupled with evidence that he sometimes ignored
people who complained about development in their neighborhoods, ought to
make us all feel uneasy.
The appearance, if not the reality, was that for some or all of 21 years
Waller ran a department that catered to special interests. Over the
course of Waller’s reign, the county’s grand jury would sometimes
question what was happening, but, in general, successive boards of
county supervisors looked the other way, tacitly endorsing his job
performance. A “pro-growth” development philosophy was not only
institutionalized, it was, and by many still is, viewed as a good thing.
Waller makes the argument that he was fired in an orchestrated takeover
by a political bloc with a “no-growth” attitude. That argument is simply
unconvincing. Waller’s principal targets, Supervisor Steve Wilensky and
Community Development Agency Director Stephanie Moreno, have made clear
they stand for growth that is based on community values, not on those of
special interests. More importantly, they believe that decisions
affecting growth should be made in public with broad public participation.
That is a tidal change in the nature of government in Calaveras County.
At this writing at least, it is still unfinished. It could easily be
reversed if public activism gives way to public apathy.
Ray Waller is a personable man, and indeed he may be the experienced and
capable career employee his attorney describes. Unfortunately for him,
the tide changed before his career had run its full course. The
institution he served changed around him; he didn’t. Waller’s inability
to understand that, more than any inappropriate action by others, led
him down the path to his own misfortune.
The people of Calaveras County expect a government that is completely
open and transparent. They don’t want their institutions run as
political franchises, serving “pro-growth” interests this week and
“no-growth” interests the next. They want fair, dispassionate, open and
equal treatment under the law. They want to be able to pursue their
economic interests without undue hindrance from government, but they
also want government to protect them from roughshod developers and
thoughtless people who pursue their own self-interests at the expense of
all the rest of us.
Helping to meet those expectations should be in the job description of
every county employee.
Contact Buzz Eggleston at editor@calaverasenterprise.com.
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