LAKE COUNTY – Days after launching a recall effort of four Imperial County supervisors, the California United Homecare Workers announced it was going after four Lake County supervisors as well.

California United Homecare Workers, based in San Bernardino, is the union that represents Lake County's In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) providers who serve disabled and elderly clients.

Union President Tyrone Freeman confirmed the local recall plan in an interview with Lake County News.

As Lake County News reported last month, Freeman sent a letter dated June 8 to the more than 1,300 local IHSS providers, asking them to vote on whether or not to pursue the recall.

Freeman said the recall was triggered by the Board of Supervisors' June 5 meeting, at which they voted to forward a proposal to the state that would give IHSS workers who underwent drug tests a $1 an hour raise.

That proposal wasn't discussed in negotiations, he said, and therefore represents a failure of the county to bargain in good faith with California United Homecare Workers.

At last count, said Freeman, there were 1,379 IHSS workers in Lake County. Of those, he said, 584 voted on the recall issue, with 540 – or 95 percent – voting for it, and 44 voting against it.

That vote, said Freeman, is setting in motion the union's attempt to recall four county supervisors – Ed Robey, Anthony Farrington, Jeff Smith and Rob Brown.

“I'm excited about it,” Freeman said. “I didn't know how it was going to go.”

Supervisor Denise Rushing, elected last November and the newest board member, isn't a target, Freeman said, because she's been “responsive to the issues.”

Freeman said, in his view, incumbency goes hand in hand with a lack of response to issues. “The incumbents are the ones who have some serious problems to worry about in Lake County,” he said.

This type of approach by the union isn't limited to Lake County. The union is going after Imperial's board of supervisors, save one, also claiming they've failed to work to raise IHSS wages, which also are minimum wage, and not addressing other concerns related to water and the environment.

“Imperial County is our first official campaign in recalling a Board of Supervisors with our community coalition,” said Freeman.

Freeman said the union has the resources to carry out the recall. “We believe that we will be more than successful in Lake County.”

To fund the recall Freeman estimates he'll need between $1.5 million and $2 million. “I've got that money right now.”

Union members who approved the recall effort also pledged to pay an extra $30 over the rest of the year, said Freeman. With 540 IHSS providers voting for it, that amounts to $16,200.

That money, said Freeman, is “just an expression of their commitment” and won't be used as a resource for the recall campaign.

The county is being guarded with its response to the recall effort. Speaking on behalf of the supervisors, County Counsel Anita Grant previously told Lake County News that the county believed issues of wages and benefits should not be played out in the public but in closed negotiations.

Her statements on this latest news about the recall effort were consistent with those she gave previously to Lake County News.

As to what the county might do, Grant said, “We should have a better idea of that in the next few weeks.”

Any action would likely be discussed in closed session, but Grant said she couldn't guess exactly when that would be scheduled.

Grant told Lake County News in a previous interview that, in the many years she's represented the county in negotiations with employee associations, she's never confronted a situation where a union has planned to try to unseat the board.

The union is hitting the county on the legal front as well. Freeman provided Lake County News with a copy of an unfair labor practice charge it filed with the state's Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) on June 13.

The charge, which was served on Lake County IHSS Public Authority Coordinator Michelle Dibble on June 13, alleges that the county failed to meet and confer in good faith with the union. It also seeks an order requiring the county to extend the wage increase to all IHSS employees, cease making unilateral changes and meet and confer in good faith on employment terms and conditions.

Freeman said that's the required first step before the action goes further, possibly to court.

“They have filed a charge which at this point only means that PERB will review the allegations they have made,” said Grant.

She added, “The fact that they can file a charge doesn't prove the truth of anything, it just proves they know how to file one.”

Tomorrow, Lake County News will explore the issues the union says led to the recall and the county's response to the union's recall campaign.

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LAKEPORT – In order to move forward with state-mandated improvements to its sewer system, the City of Lakeport and its redevelopment agency are loaning money to the city's sewer district.

At its Tuesday meeting, the Lakeport City Council – also sitting as the boards of the City of Lakeport Municipal Sewer District (CLMSD) and the Redevelopment Agency – decided to loan the CLMSD a maximum of $2.2 million through an inner-fund transfer in order to meet state-mandated deadlines.

The loan will allow the city to go forward with sewer system improvements needed to increase capacity and meet the demands of a cease and desist order issued by the Regional Water Quality Control Board in January, said Gillham. That order resulted from a controlled release of treated wastewater from the CLMSD site in April 2006.

The state issued a hookup ban with its January cease and desist order, but in March the regional board agreed to lift the ban if the city met a long list of requirements, chief among them a requirement to expand the sewer system's capacity.

At its June 19 meeting, the City Council voted unanimously to award a $2.1 million contract to TerraCon Pipeline Inc. of Healdsburg to add 90 acres to the CLMSD irrigation facilities. Irrigation is the chief way the district disposes of its treated wastewater.

The state requires the irrigation expansion project be completed by Nov. 1, according to city documents.

City Manager Jerry Gillham's staff report explained that the money will come from the following funds:

– $600,000 from Fund 212, Redevelopment Tax Increment Fund, which currently contains $1.4 million;

– $500,000 from Fund 501, Water Maintenance and Operation, which now has a total of $1.2 million;

– $1.1 million from a total of $1.2 million in Tax Allocation Bonds.

Gillham said the loan must be repaid on a payment schedule, with interest.

CLMSD is authorized to borrow money from the city for interim projects financing, Gillham explained. The city plans to participate in a governmental loan pool in order to pay back the loans, he added.

Gillham's report said that not acting now to borrow the funds for the project could expose the city to several consequences – including lost development, “political ramifications” and large fines from the state. Gillham did not elaborate on the nature of the “political ramifications.”

The city still has many other requirements to fulfill to satisfy the regional board. Attached to Gillham's report was a letter from the regional board's executive director, Pamela Creedon, which stated the city had not complied with the June 1 deadline to install a magnetic flow meter to measure flows entering the wastewater facility. Her letter said the city guaranteed it will install the meter by Oct. 15.

The city also was due to turn in a spill contingency plan and a quarterly compliance report to the state by July 1, Creedon's letter stated.

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CLEARLAKE – The Clearlake City Council on Thursday amended its management/confidential employees classification plan, addressing points some council members felt were controversial, including vehicle allowances.

City Administrator Dale Neiman brought the amendments to the council based on several of his concerns.

Among them was a five-salary-step system for department heads and the city administrator. Neiman said both he and new Police Chief Allan McClain were hired at set salaries, and he suggested that other department heads be hired with set salaries as well.

Neiman said McClain's contract calls for him to receive his first increase on July 1, 2008. Neiman, who was hired in March, said he thought it appropriate that he shouldn't receive a salary increase until that same date, rather than this July 1.

A second concern of Neiman's was that the city's management/confidential employees classification and benefit plan isn't clear which provisions apply to confidential employees, of which there were two – City Clerk Melissa Swanson and Sherri Vannest, secretary to the chief of police.

Neiman suggested covering Vannest under a new classification and benefit plan for confidential employees, and moving Swanson to the management plan. Because of her responsibilities, Neiman said he considers Swanson's job to be equivalent to a department head. She is also handling the city's risk management functions.

The third concern Neiman raised was with the city's annual salary adjustment procedures. The current plan gives automatic salary adjustments each year on July 1, based on what's higher – a consumer performance index or a cost of living increase provided by the collective bargaining units for the city's employees.

Rather, Neiman suggested salary adjustments should be based on four factors: cost of living adjustment based on a consumer price index; an equity adjustment, based on the labor market for cities similar to Clearlake; the employee's value to the city; and the city's financial condition.

Neiman's fourth concern related to the city administrator's ability to grant between a 0- and 5-percent salary adjustment to employees who have reached the top salary step.

He said it was his opinion that this city provision didn't comply with state law. The City Council, he explained, cannot delegate its authority in approving issues such as employee salary increases. Neiman asked that the provision be deleted from the city plan.

Neiman told the council that they soon need to consider salary adjustments for the two police lieutenants, the city clerk, financial director and police chief secretary.

Mayor Judy Thein brought up her concern about the city's use of a car allowance for some management team members, rather than mileage reimbursement.

Thein said citizens have expressed to her their opposition to the car allowance, which she said she also is against.

The vehicle allowances amount to $9,600 in costs to the city, said Thein, with staffers receiving several hundred dollars a month to cover their car usage.

She said the policy goes back to City Administrator David Lane. “He wanted to give his management employees increases, which he did,” she said.

But Thein said Lane wanted to give more increases to his management staff, and when he couldn't, he instead created the car allowance as an extra perk.

Thein said she believed the allowance should be removed and replaced with mileage reimbursement at the Internal Revenue Service rate. The IRS reports that its 2007 rate is 48.5 cents per mile driven for business purposes.

Council member Joyce Overton said she understood a vehicle allowance was a standard practice in many local governments.

Neiman said that local governments differ in that respect. Where he used to work in Fortuna, only the city manager received a car allowance, while in the police department the chief and sergeants were assigned cars. Other employees were reimbursed at the IRS rate.

The benefit of a car allowance, said Neiman, is that it doesn't count as a salary increase that the city would have to match in additional costs to retirement plans or taxes, which Financial Director Michael Vivrette confirmed.

Vivrette urged the council to consider another issue. “These kinds of benefits help attract people to the management positions,” he explained.

Thein asked Supervisor Jeff Smith, sitting in the audience, how the county deals with mileage versus allowances. Smith said no county employee receives a vehicle allowance. The Public Works director and certain sheriff's staffers are assigned vehicles, and all others receive 32 cents per mile in reimbursement, Smith reported.

“In my view, it's a perk,” said Councilman Chuck Leonard, and Overton agreed.

Thein said although she was against the allowance, she wanted this council to make its own decision on the issue, once and for all. “We need to just put this to rest,” she said.

“I think we all felt at the time that it was an abuse of power,” Councilman Curt Giambruno said of the original establishment of the vehicle allowance.

He added that many people felt the city government, by doing so, was thumbing its nose at its constituents. But, if it's a legitimate perk for staff, Giambruno said he was OK with it.

Leonard moved to accept the revised classification and benefit plan, which lets the vehicle allowance stand. The council approved the plan 5-0.

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LOWER LAKE – Twenty-eight families are waiting to hear whether or not they'll continue to have access to a potable water source to augment the low water table in Morgan Valley.

Residents there say they received a letter from Lower Lake County Water Works General Manager Al Tubbs giving them two weeks' notice that a standpipe that has been available to area residents since the district formed in 1949 would be cut off as of July 1.

The standpipe allows Morgan Valley residents to draw water from the district's water system, which Tubbs says relies on wells.

The Lower Lake County Water Works Board of Directors is scheduled to hold an emergency meeting today at 6 p.m. to decide the issue, after giving Tubbs permission to announce the cutoff earlier this month.

Jo Cunningham, an area resident and member of the Lower Lake Water Advocacy Coalition, a citizen action group that's fighting the decision, said the standpipe supplies extra water to families outside of the district who need sources of potable water to augment their wells.

Those wells, she explained, have low water tables because of recent dry weather and heavy water draws from local vineyards. Some families haul water daily to supply their homes, she said.

The standpipe, located at Bonham and Morgan Valley roads, is accessed through a key system, with users required to log their usage, explained Torrie Quintero, who has lived in Morgan Valley for two and a half years and also is a member of the citizen action group.

Water availability is also a concern with fire season's arrival, said Quintero. “We've had several wildfires out here every year,” she said, adding that the fires could easily get out of control if a backup water source wasn't readily available.

Lower Lake resident Bill Winter said he and his family have been drawing from the standpipe for the last 47 years. “I haul water to run my house on,” he said.

Winter hauls water in a 300-gallon tank in his truck every other day, he said. He said he pays $30 a month for the water.

By going after the standpipe users, Winter said the district is “going after the littlest problem first.”

Cunningham and Quintero met with Tubbs on June 19, at which time he told them that only the board could rescind the shutoff decision.

District suffering low water levels

Tubbs said the district serves about 900 hookups from Cache Creek to Twin Lakes to Spruce Grove Road. The 28 families that use the standpipe are outside the district's boundaries.

“We're running out of water,” said Tubbs. “So the first thing I have to do is protect my district.”

He said he felt the shutoff was necessary because the district operates off of wells, which are lower than normal due to little rain.

The standpipe puts out 800,000 gallons of water a month, about two days' worth of the district's total water production. While it's a small portion of the district's overall use, it's still enough to matter, said Tubbs.

District pumps are running 16 hours a day right now, twice the amount of time they were pumping at this time last year to service the district.

That's because the water table has gone down, he said.

Tubbs said he expects to put a conservation notice in the upcoming billing statement to district water users because of the shortage issue.

“We need rain, because we're on all wells,” said Tubbs. And this year didn't see much rain.

When he joined the district staff in 1989, Tubbs said one of the best wells had water at 17 feet, but now they have to pump down to 89 feet to get water from the same well.

Tubbs said he took the matter to the June 12 board meeting. “We don't need to be serving out-of-district customers when we have a shortage of water.”

The board gave them the go-ahead to turn off the standpipe, he said.

The Lower Lake County Water Works doesn't answer to the county's Special District department, said Special Districts Director Mark Dellinger.

“They are the purest form of special district as defined by California law,” said Dellinger, with their own board and an independent system for water treatment, storage, distribution. The district is subject to the Grand Jury's oversight and can use county counsel for legal services.

Robey said the Board of Supervisors appoints the district's board, which includes Chair Frank Haas, Vice Chair Robert Silvestre, David Johnson, Ellen Pearson and Frances Ransley.

Board will reconsider decision

On June 12, the Lower Lake County Water Works Board of Directors held a regular meeting, at which time they discussed under new business “standpipe usage and accounts,” according to the meeting agenda and minutes.

Cunningham said standpipe users received no notice of a potential water cutoff.

As late as Friday, Winter said the water district's signs were still on the standpipe, announcing that it would be shut off on July 1. However, Cunningham said there were indications that the board might change their minds as the Monday meeting.

Last week Supervisor Ed Robey intervened in the situation. Besides the critical issue of the need for the water, Robey said there's another reason the district needs to reconsider its June 12 decision.

Because the district answers to the Board of Supervisors, Robey explained that the district also is governed by the Brown Act. With the water district board not clearly indicating on its June 12 agenda that it was planning to shut off the standpipe, that amounts to a Brown Act violation, Robey explained.

“You you have to let people know what you're planning on doing,” he said.

However, he said a Brown Act violation can easily be fixed by the board rescinding its action. “That's the solution.”

With the board reconsidering the situation today, Robey said, “The question is how to make the system work.”

He added, “I think it could have been handled better,” such as by sending out a letter to standpipe users telling them of concerns about excessive use and the need to closely monitor usage.

Robey said he's spoken with Tubbs and met with Haas, and will offer a few solutions at this evening's meeting.

For one, he said the Lower Lake district can follow the example of the Callayomi water district, which has a similar standpipe. Callayomi board member Roger Rosenthal invented a system to monitor usage on that standpipe, and Robey suggests placing a similar device on Morgan Valley's standpipe.

A second solution, said Robey, is not allowing the standpipe's potable water to be used by construction trucks.

Those trucks, which could just as easily pump water from a creek, said Robey, use the drinking-quality water for spraying down roads to control dust.

Winter said he was at the standpipe last week when a construction truck came up to take water. He estimated the truck spilled hundreds of gallons of the precious fluid on the ground in doing so.

Cunningham and Quintero point out that it's likely that the construction trucks haul far more than the residential water users, and that the trucks also don't monitor their own usage.

Robey said the priority should be that drinking water is used for people.

A long-term goal, said Robey, is to annex the 28 standpipe users into the district. Quintero agreed that's a goal for residents, with about a mile of pipe needing to be installed to reach them.

“A basic human need is water,” said Quintero, who said she felt the district was creating an emergency situation by proposing the shutoff.

“Having no water is a public health concern, no ifs, ands or buts,” she added.

The meeting will be held at 6 p.m. at the Lower Lake County Water Works office, 16254 Main St., Lower Lake. Area residents who depend on the standpipe are urged to attend.

“I fully expect that the board will rescind their action and find a better solution” on Monday, said Robey.

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California United Homecare Workers represents as many as 1,500 IHSS providers who serve disabled and elderly IHSS clients, according to union officials.

Lake County News obtained a copy of a letter dated June 8 in which union President Tyrone Freeman called on Lake County IHSS union members “to participate in a recall movement focused on specific members of the County Board of Supervisors.”

Freeman added, “It is my recommendation that this recall campaign begin immediately.”

The letter was accompanied by a card on which union members were to mark their support for the union's participation in the recall campaign and establish a campaign fund.

The specific event that Freeman points to as being the launch point for the recall effort was the board's June 5 meeting.

At that time, the Board of Supervisors voted to forward to the state a proposal that would give IHSS providers a $1-per-hour raise if they undergo drug testing. That would raise their pay from minimum wage to $8.50, plus money to cover administrative costs, payroll taxes and worker's compensation.

Requiring IHSS providers to undergo drug testing in effect creates a “two-tier” pay system, Freeman wrote to union members, with those who take the tests getting the extra dollar an hour, and those who don't remaining at minimum wage.

Following the June 5 meeting, local IHSS representative David Smith told Lake County News that the union was upset about the board action on the proposal because they felt it was a matter that should have been discussed in negotiations but wasn't.

However, Smith deferred all comment on the recall campaign to Freeman, who did not return calls placed to his office this week seeking comment for this story. Freeman and other union officials are reportedly in Baltimore for a meeting.

Freeman's letter alleges that “specific members of the Lake County Board of Supervisors continue to blatantly ignore the needs, and place in jeopardy, the County's most precious and vulnerable residents: our seniors and people living with disabilities.”

The union, writes Freeman, “has negotiated in good faith to protect the IHSS program by increasing worker wages and providing needed health benefits.”

Supervisor Rob Brown said he found out about the letter from a constituent who contacted him to ask about what it meant.

Brown called the letter a “scare tactic,” but added that he was limited in what he could say about the matter until the board decides how to approach it.

County Counsel Anita Grant was similarly cautious in what she could say about the issue, noting that it may be a matter of employee negotiations, which the board can't comment upon publicly.

“It's just come out and no particular response is known at this point by the board as a group,” she said.

Grant added that, if the board decided to take action in response to the letter outside of negotiations, they would do so publicly.

Freeman's letter said the union's bargaining team has opposed “any proposal from the County that requires an IHSS provider or consumer to 'pay for a drug test; pay for a criminal background check, and/or pay for mandated training,'” as a condition of receiving the proposed wage increase.

During the June 5 meeting, the board's discussion did not include a discussion of charging either IHSS providers or clients for background checks, drug tests or training.

On June 6, the state Senate approved SB 868, which adds criminal background checks to a list of IHSS provider requirements, and prevents counties from charging IHSS providers for those checks, as Lake County News previously reported.

At that time, Smith said that local IHSS workers and clients are not required to pay for the background checks that are currently done.

However, Freeman's letter implies that the county's June 5 decision included that stipulation.

That was one point about which Brown said he was able to comment. “This board has never, ever indicated that they would require the folks in IHSS to provide for this (payment), whether it be the provider or the recipient.”

He added that Sheriff Rod Mitchell has, in the past, paid for IHSS provider CPR training out of his own budget to prevent the costs being passed on.

Grant, who said she has represented the county in its negotiations with bargaining units for many years, said she has never seen a union attempt a recall effort such as that now being proposed.

The county may be facing other issues with the union as well. On May 31 Freeman sent the board a letter in which he threatened “immediate legal action” if the board voted for the wage raise and drug testing proposal, which it did.

County officials would not comment on whether or not that legal action had been initiated.

Grant said the union recall action is not agendized for a closed session meeting on this Tuesday's board agenda.

Lake County isn't the only place where California United Homecare Workers is turning up the heat.

On June 19, the union organized a rally of IHSS workers at the Imperial County Board of Supervisors meeting. Imperial County's IHSS workers also currently receive minimum wage, or $7.50 an hour, and no health benefits.

Imperial County's supervisors said they don't have the money to raise IHSS wages, to which IHSS providers and clients told the board it was “ineffective in its leadership,” according to a report by Imperial County's Channel 13 News.

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LUCERNE – A purchase agreement between the county and the Lucerne Alpine Senior Center has stalled due to the Internal Revenue Service's attempts to collect tens of thousands of dollars in fines and penalties it says the center owes.

As Lake County News previously reported, the county offered to buy the senior center's thrift shop building for $150,000 in order to help the center resolve several outstanding debts and have enough left over for center improvements, including a new roof.

County Administrative Officer Kelly Cox and his staff have been working to finalize a purchasing agreement with the center, which the Board of Supervisors approved in April.

But Cox said this week that the county and Jim Swatts, the president of the center's board, were signing an agreement to extend the purchase contract for another 60 days because of issues that surfaced as the county worked to finalize the deal.

“We thought we would have this purchase completed by June 30,” Cox said. “We opened escrow right away.”

But when a title search was conducted on the property, the county found liens totaling $153,442.58, which includes the $80,000 the center originally paid for the building in October 2004. That's more than the purchase price, Cox pointed out, and would leave the center with nothing extra for repairs and other bills.

In order to give the center time to resolve the liens, Cox extended the purchase agreement and carried the funds for the purchase into the next budget year. He said the county hopes to close escrow on the building Sept. 4.

IRS goes after senior center funds

The senior center's title report includes liens in the following amounts: $18,160.11 to Sysco Food Services of San Francisco; $12,903.43 to L.A. Commercial Group; $3,000 to the state Department of Industrial Relations, Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, a fine assessed to the center in connection with a case four former center employees brought claiming the center had failed to pay $9,000 in back wages; and two separate liens to the U.S. Government in the amounts of $17,007.82 and $17,423.23 for failure to pay taxes.

Those liens don't include thousands more in penalties that Swatts said the IRS has been trying to collect.

Swatts told Lake County News that the liens and government fines arise from the period before he came on board with the center in 2005.

For the last two years, Swatts said he's been working with the IRS to settle the unpaid taxes.

Originally, the IRS wanted $72,000 in unpaid taxes, penalties and interest, Swatts said. They negotiated to reduce the total amount, which most recently was lowered to $33,679.

Congressman Mike Thompson's office has intervened with the IRS on the center's behalf in order to get the tax bill lowered.

Brad Onorato, Thompson's district representative for Lake County, confirmed that Thompson's office contacted the IRS, with Onorato talking to the agency as recently as Wednesday. IRS told Onorato that they expected to give the center a final payoff amount in the coming days.

A May 15 letter from Thompson to the IRS' Sacramento office states that the center's former executive director failed to pay payroll taxes.

The former executive director, who Thompson did not name, is Rowland Mosser, who Swatts removed from that position in the summer of 2005. In January of 2006 J.J. Jackson came on as executive director.

“Once this financial situation surfaced last year, the Center's Board of Directors took steps to right the wrongs that the former Executive Director caused by contacting the IRS in Santa Rosa to work out a repayment plan,” Thompson's letter states.

Jackson said the center has been paying the IRS $500 per month since March of 2006 as part of that repayment plan.

Thompson's letter said the center's total tax liability is $39,000. Of that, $16,000 is penalties. Emphasizing the center's services to low-income seniors, Thompson asked the IRS to dismiss the penalties, bringing the total IRS bill to just over $22,000.

Onorato explained that the penalties can be removed from the tax bill, while interest, by law, cannot.

The IRS had clamped down on the center in recent months, said Onorato, because they heard of the potential building sale and wanted to try to collect the original $72,000, which included additional penalties.

“Hopefully we'll be able to help them get that reduced substantially,” said Onorato.

Swatts said he's going to continue negotiating with the IRS until they agree to the $22,000 figure. That, he said, would allow the center to pay off all its liens and debts, and put on a new roof.

“I'm not going to close the doors on our seniors” because the IRS is greedy, Swatts said.

Investigation continues into missing center funds

Both Swatts and Jackson say they've been unable to account for between $150,000 and $175,000 in funds from the center prior to Swatts staking over leadership of the center in the summer of 2005, as Lake County News previously reported.

Some of the money that is unaccounted for included payments to the IRS. Swatts said he has records of checks the center wrote to the IRS in 2004 totaling more than $15,104.75. The IRS said they never received those funds.

Swatts said he's informed the IRS of the investigation into the missing funds but they've pressed forward with their collection efforts anyway.

Just what happened to the thousands of dollars the center can't account for is at the heart of an ongoing District Attorney's Office investigation, which Lake County News reported on in February.

The Grand Jury took an interest in the center and opened an investigation, which Sheriff Rod Mitchell credited earlier this year for reviving the case, which had stalled in his office due to personnel shortages and other major crime investigations that jumped to the head of the line.

District Attorney Jon Hopkins also confirmed for Lake County News that his office was actively investigating the case, which included networking with Mitchell's office.

Center on more stable ground

Swatts said he's entering his third year as board president, after he had only intended to serve one year. He continues to work 30 to 40 hours a week to keep the center on course. “I said I'd get 'em out of debt and that's what I'm trying to do,” he said.

Along with Jackson, Swatts has put the center back on its feet, making sure it keeps its doors open. Jackson said the center serves as many as 36,000 meals a year, most of those to Meals on Wheels seniors. The center delivers 80 meals to homebound seniors each day.

“We're No. 2 in service to the county,” said Jackson, with the Highlands Senior Center in Clearlake in first place.

The center also has been able to open a bank account and write checks once again, said Swatts. Over the last few years, creditors would hit their accounts with liens as soon as the accounts were opened, but the center now pays for all services with a check on delivery.

In addition, Swatts said Jackson has reestablished relationships with some service providers which previously had claims against the center.

There are still other challenges, such as people dumping old refrigerators, freezers, sofas and appliances outside of the thrift shop. “They don't want to go to the dump so they drop it here as a gesture to us,” said Jackson.

On Thursday the center was doing a $50 dump run, one of three a month that Swatts estimates they have to do to get rid of the trash. Swatts said the sheriff's office has promised to do extra patrol in the area and the center is putting up security cameras.

Late last year the center also was hit in a rash of graffiti perpetrated by a local teen. Jackson said they recently received a $30 check from the teen, who has been required to pay restitution. The center, Jackson added, put in for a total of $90 in damages.

As for the tax issue and the building purchase, Swatts said, “I'm hoping to wrap this up with the county in the next two weeks.”

Swatts said he's grateful to the county for its assistance and patience. “I think the county has bent over backwards to help us.”

Cox said he'll take the amended purchase agreement to the Board of Supervisors for approval at its June 26 meeting.

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