Part of the goal is to determine whether the county needs to try to recover some of those funds, board members said.
The board voted to submit letters to the Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Aviation Administration and the California Attorney General's Office regarding Sgt. Dave Garzoli's flight training under a DEA grant.
Following a hard landing on Cow Mountain on June 25, 2009, Garzoli's flight training became public. In the months since then, research by Lake County News has revealed that he was working on creating a Sheriff's Aviation Program and that he had submitted an operational plan to the DEA to approve the flight training, which the agency did. The Board of Supervisors had never seen that plan before last summer.
Sheriff Rod Mitchell was present for the matter, but did not speak during the discussion, which lasted more than an hour.
Chief Deputy Administrative Officer Matt Perry presented to the board the results of his limited investigation into Garzoli's flight activities. The total cost of helicopter time during which Garzoli received training amounted to $98,898.
Perry, who showed the board the boxes and binders of documents he reviewed, focused on Garzoli's activities between 1995 and 2008 because the DEA had approved the flight training in 2009.
He told the board that the DEA said that it had overlooked the flighting and likely wouldn't haven't approved it. Although the DEA said the 2009 training approval was an oversight, they nonetheless told Perry they consider the case closed.
Up to 2009, Garzoli had 219 hours of flight time, with 98 hours of that time logged in 2008, before the DEA had approved the training. More than 80 more hours were logged in 2009, Perry said.
In looking at the invoices, Perry said there is a question about whether all of Garzoli's training was received during the course of marijuana eradication work. The invoices don't clearly state pilot training, but instead reference marijuana reconnaissance.
Board Chair Anthony Farrington asked if there were any differences between Garzoli's handwritten pilot logbooks and typed ones that were presented to the county administration for review.
“The main difference is the original handwritten logbook for most to the entries does not include notations referring to marijuana reconnaissance or law enforcement.” said Perry.
The handwritten entries start noting law enforcement-related work in March 2009, while those notations begin earlier in the typed version of the logbook.
Farrington asked who prepared the typed logbook. Garzoli, said Perry.
“So there's a discrepancy between the original logbooks and the typed presentation?” Farrington pressed, and Perry responded in the affirmative.
Perry told the board that he believed about 100 hours of the flight training Garzoli received was during the normal course of marijuana reconnaissance, while another 98 hours appeared to have been spent purely on training activities. He said it was beyond the scope and ability of the County Administrative Office to track those additional hours.
Farrington asked Perry about the statements made by the former owner of Cutting Edge Helicopters and a company pilot about their belief that the pilot training was approved. Perry said that one of them stated that Garzoli “didn't have anything to hide” in being involved in the training. There was no contractual language supporting the understanding that the training was approved.
Supervisor Jeff Smith questioned when Garzoli was flying solo, and wanted to know how he could be training for his commercial license while doing reconnaissance work. Smith suggested that, by FAA standards, there might have been illegal flying activity.
Supervisor Denise Rushing commended Perry for his thorough work. “It's just an incredible amount of work you've done in a short amount of time, to go through all of that,” she said.
However, there were questions that the report didn't answer. Rushing said the board still needed to discover what, if any, public funds needed to be recovered. Another key question – did Garzoli believe his flying was authorized?
In order to decide how much to repay, “we need to know the answer to that question,” Rushing said.
If they found that the public monies were knowingly used for unapproved training, the case might have to be referred to the District Attorney's Office, she said.
“We've got a public trust issue here,” Rushing said. “I'm mindful of that and I'm not really sure of how to get there from here.”
County Administrative Officer Kelly Cox said the report's intent was to review the documents but not to do interviews, as his staff didn't include trained investigators. He suggested that if the board wanted to take it to the next level of investigation, they needed someone with training, and legal counsel likely would be involved.
Rushing questioned their options. Supervisor Rob Brown asked if they had an agreement with another county to do such investigations. Cox said they didn't.
Farrington suggested that, even if Garzoli thought it was OK, the end result is the same – “there is a misappropriation of public monies.” He said he wanted to look at sending it to the District Attorney's Office or the California Attorney General, the goal being to make taxpayers “whole.”
Rushing said that, at the least, they needed to know what costs were incurred when no marijuana reconnaissance was being done. “The real issue is, what's that number?” she asked.
She said she's personally seen no “smoking gun evidence” that showed that Garzoli didn't think he had permission. Brown disagreed, saying there was correspondence from Garzoli saying he did it on his own.
Farrington said the board has certain powers, but they don't include terminating employees in this situation. That would be up to the department head – in this case, the sheriff.
Rushing said the board's authority did include making sure it didn't happen again through a grant review process with checks and balances; they also have the ability to ask for an investigation. Brown added that another option is to seek a legal remedy for reimbursement.
Finley resident Phil Murphy suggested that the easiest way to get out of the mess is for Garzoli to reimburse the county for 21 hours of flight training that Perry had identified as not relating to law enforcement activity, which would cost about $8,500. If Garzoli pays it, it's settled. If not, the case could be forwarded to the District Attorney's Office for misappropriation of public funds.
Murphy said $8,500 is more of a “doable” number than $50,000, which could lead them into a courtroom. “That's not in anyone's best interest,” he said.
Beyond the money issue, Murphy referred to a Lake County News report from Monday that mentioned the sheriff's operational plan and a statement in it that the sheriff's office would oppose any legislation to legalize marijuana or reduce drug-related criminal penalties.
Murphy said an explanation is owed to the board and the public in general about how such an important policy decision could have been made behind closed doors.
“That's a very important policy matter. That's something that should have been discussed and if that decision was made it should have been made publicly, not hidden away in a report that not even this board was aware of,” Murphy said.
Farrington said the point was well noted, and he agreed that at a future time the board needed to discuss the operational plan.
Smith wanted to have the FAA involved in order to make a determination about legal use regarding Garzoli's commercial pilot license.
Rushing said it was tempting to ask Garzoli to just pay for the 21 hours. “The open question is, have we done what we needed to do for the public trust?”
She said she believed the public wants to know what was going on.
Farrington said he wanted to make sure someone was held accountable. “We need much more work to be done before we make those decisions,” he said.
Cox said that, once District Attorney Jon Hopkins is aware that there may have been inappropriate action, he can initiate his own investigation.
Supervisor Jim Comstock suggested the board's next step should be to forward the information to the state Attorney General's Office, which will make it clear to the community that the board is not trying to withhold anything, and will demonstrate full transparency and full disclosure.
The process, he added, “may be very, very lengthy. We have no idea.”
Brown said it was irrelevant to him if the DEA was OK with the money being spent for pilot training. He said he wanted the money used for eradicating illegal marijuana gardens, not training pilots.
For anyone to think that was OK to do without coming to the board first, “that is just absolutely wrong,” he said, adding that whether it's 219 hours or 12, the funds need to be reimbursed.
Who should make the reimbursement? Rushing asked. The one who benefited from the flight training, said Brown.
“The issue is, no one can say they thought it was OK,” Brown said.
Farrington asked if fellow board members supported drafting letters to the DEA, FAA and state Attorney General's Office. Rushing offered the motion, which Smith seconded. The board approved the motion 5-0.
Farrington said he would work with the County Administrative Office and the County Counsel's Office to draft the letters, which will be brought back to the board for public review before they're sent.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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