Letters
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- Written by: Rachel Abelson
Susan Krones is not only my boss but she is also an Army veteran, coworker and friend since I began working in the Lake County District Attorney’s Office.
I’ve had the ability to repay our veterans by participating in the Lake County Veterans Court treatment team for many years as the representative for the Lake County District Attorney’s Office. While resources are thin, District Attorney Susan Krones and Chief Deputy District Attorney Rich Hinchcliff have continued to allocate resources to make sure that we have a member of our office involved.
After I passed the State Bar on my first try I started looking for my first legal job. I grew up in the Bay Area. I started my legal career in Lake County under Gary Luck as a deputy district attorney. No one thought I would stay. I’ve never looked back. I have been here for over 20 years. I own a home here and I’ve been raising my family here.
Rich Hinchcliff has been my supervisor since he became the chief deputy. When he takes his rare vacations I often fill in on some of his duties such as putting out schedules and letting the court know what is going on with jury trials and long cause matters with the court. I’ve trained, supported and supervised less experienced lawyers in my office.
I love this county and I love my job which includes protecting the community and the victims of crimes. I’ve been nicknamed the “Hammer.” I’ve been known to do the most trials in the office.
Since 2017 I’ve not taken more than a couple of days off for vacation. With COVID and the changes in the law which has made protecting the community more difficult I have continued to work as hard as possible.
For the first time in my career I’m considering leaving my position and possibly the county.
Life and work was difficult under Don Anderson. I and others had Rich Hinchcliff to protect the office from Anderson’s immoral and incompetent actions. If Anthony Farrington is elected the employees of the District Attorney’s Office will not have the protection from a chief deputy who is as knowledgeable and moral as Rich Hinchcliff will not work for him. He won’t have the support and knowledge of Susan Krones or other senior deputy district attorneys. He is likely to have very few staff left to run the office.
Anthony Farrington does not have a good reputation in the local legal community for competence. He has been known to not be knowledgeable in the law and in legal procedures. In fact one of the few members who is endorsing him is Don Anderson, who has a similar reputation in the legal community.
Anthony Farrington has no idea how to handle a felony case. He has no idea how the criminal justice system works as evidenced by his speeches, website, and misleading political and paid-for fliers.
Anthony Farrington’s most recent letter to Lake County News has particularly aggravated the attorneys in the Lake County District Attorney’s Office. He suggests law enforcement doesn’t support Susan Krones. The real issue is that many in law enforcement are afraid to support anyone out of fear of retaliation.
I’ve known Susan Krones for many years and she is not that type of person. I think the rest of us fear Anthony Farrington because he is not a true believer in the cause but a true believer in himself as a politician.
So as president of the Lake County District Attorney’s Office I’m proud to announce that I personally endorse Susan Krones as do senior deputy district attorneys Art Grothe, Ed Borg, Rich Watson, Nicholas Rotow and Neil Sachs.
This support is a majority of the Lake County District Attorney’s Office so I can officially announce the Lake County Deputy District Attorneys Association supports Susan Krones.
She also has the support of deputy district attorneys who formerly worked with her, Trang Jensen and Sharon Lehrman. She also has the support of Cal Fire Captain Chris Vallerga Jr. and California Highway Patrol Officer Jeremy Jensen.
I personally handled the criminal case in which Antony Farrington was a victim and his stepfather was a defendant. We have a very awesome Victim Witness Division that works hard to help victims, assist them and keep them informed.
I didn’t use their assistance and instead spent my own time trying to explain to Mr. Farrington how the criminal justice system works and how fair a disposition his skilled attorney was offering. This case involved fraud with probate issues and was civilly resolved prior to resolution of the criminal case. This is a case that most district attorney’s offices would not have filed. This was a case that was handled appropriately.
What Mr. Farrington suggests in his most recent letter could only be made possible if we didn’t file 75% of the cases that we do. That is the only way that our statistics could look better. If he had any skill or knowledge like Susan Krones he would know that. Mr. Farrington’s case against his stepfather would never have been filed under his suggested guidelines.
He also has a client who wrote a letter in his support. Our office and Victim Witness went above and beyond to prosecute her offender. I also personally took on the misdemeanor case. In the end we had to dismiss charges as she was unwilling to testify (which I placed on the record in open court).
That case involved a family law restraining order and Mr. Farrington could have taken the offender to court to seek civil remedies yet he did not. Private attorneys usually require payment for services unlike attorney’s in the District Attorney’s Office.
Mr. Farrington is an excellent speaker. The problem is that he is either lying or is completely ignorant of how the judicial and criminal justice system works. The information that comes out of his mouth is laughable to those who do know how the system works.
Susan Krones is not a politician. Her heart is in it. Those of us who have worked with her have seen her fight the losing battle of getting better results after the passage of many laws that have made it difficult to protect our community.
She deserves your vote. Please vote for Susan Krones for district attorney.
Rachel Abelson is a senior deputy district attorney and president of the Lake County Deputy District Attorneys Association. She lives in Kelseyville, California.
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- Written by: Rob Brown
In the beginning of this campaign, I made several predictions as to his behavior and tactics. He did not let me down.
He has pulled out the stop and utilized every slick politician trick in the book, including posturing, taking credit for the work of others, whining, playing the victim when the truth was told about him and projecting his own serious inadequacies by minimizing the worth of others.
He minimizes endorsements received by Susan Krones and fails to own up to seeking those very endorsements himself (such as Mike Thompson, our senator Mike McGuire, retired judges, past and present supervisors, to name just a few).
Oh, and let’s not forget being in a parade with a grown man dressed as Batman to help him hand out candy along with his false campaign promises. Maybe Batman can come help Boy Wonder with his first jury trial.
Farrington has gone so far as to capitalize on the military service of his family members in his own weak attempt to try and give the perception that he is on the same level as Susan Krones, a true Army veteran of many years. He comes very close to crossing the unforgivable line of stolen valor.
In his latest display of the political melodrama that he has become infamous for, he misleads the public regarding the DA’s number of trials during the pandemic. He whines that only 17 jury trials took place during the pandemic. In reality, while Farrington was hiding on the sidelines, Susan Krones and her staff were bravely holding things together under the worst of circumstances.
During the height of the pandemic, there was a state-funded program (run by Lake County’s Health Department) to find temporary housing for the homeless in local motels in order to keep a very vulnerable population safe. Now Farrington has constructed a bizarre political platform seeking prosecution of these same motel owners.
Farrington has even gone so far as to loan his own campaign $25,000 in order to create a glossy political fear flyer trying to convince the voters that prosecuting business owners will somehow “take back our neighborhoods.”
Targeting those who provide shelter to the homeless will not do anything to prevent violent crime in our county. It would arguably have the opposite effect, as it would put more homeless out on the streets.
Farrington pretends to be outraged by a sentence handed down to a woman recently convicted of vehicular manslaughter. He seems to have conveniently forgotten his satisfaction with the even lesser sentence handed down to one of his fiancees for hitting and ultimately killing a local man (a father of multiple school-age children) who was walking home from work. His then-fiancée was charged with felony manslaughter, drunken driving and felony hit and run. An elected district attorney long before Susan Krones allowed this to take place and then-Supervisor Farrington never expressed any outrage over the soft on crime sentence his then-fiancée received.
His claim of wanting to inspire others in the DA’s office is laughable. I have worked with Farrington for more years than any other person in this county and I cannot find one person that worked in our office who is willing to say that they were ever inspired by him. The reality is, there were several running jokes about how little he did and how much credit he took.
Farrington recently made a sarcastic dismissal of an award earned by one of the most vigorous prosecutors this county has ever known. Rich Hinchcliff, working with Susan Krones, has once again won the State’s Wildlife Prosecutor of the Year Award. He is also the individual who has successfully prosecuted arson (among other very serious felony cases) in this county for decades.
Farrington has a ridiculous campaign platform promising to establish new awards for local prosecutors. At least that is something that might be within his limited skill set.
In fact, maybe someday Farrington will finally manage to complete his very first criminal jury trial and we can all pitch in to get him a participation trophy.
Rob Brown lives in Kelseyville, Calif.
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- Written by: Olga Martin Steele
From the moment I met 34-year-old Hannah Faith Lee, I knew she was something special.
Speaking from personal experience, running for office is not for the faint of heart. And when you decide to run against an eight-year incumbent, you’d better be sure you know what you’re getting into.
In short, it takes extraordinary commitment, intelligence and hard work to change years of problems. Hannah’s got all that and more. She’s smart with a heart, cares about people and she’s a star performer.
Hannah is running for assessor-recorder because she’s convinced there’s something wrong with what’s going on in that office and it’s having a negative effect on older people on fixed and low incomes and on businesses.
In a recent forum, Hannah explained some of the issues she’s uncovered.
One involved an unexpected increased tax bill to about 1,000 Lake County residents, many of whom are on fixed and low incomes. The bill was due two weeks from receipt. There was no prior notice, no time to prepare, seek assistance — just a tax bill the current assessor-recorder said property owners should have known about. Apparently, they signed something several years ago and should have remembered.
“Do any of us remember what we signed 12 years ago?” Hannah asked.
She also described a business owner who decided not to install a small inventory shed in his business because the shed that cost a few hundred dollars would result in a several thousand-dollar property assessment that would dramatically increase his taxes. Instead of growing his business he’s decided not to pursue expansion in Lake County.
Hannah pointed out that Lake County should not be running businesses out — but finding ways to work with businesses to help our struggling economy.
She went on to cite a long list of problems she’d uncovered before deciding whether to run. From long waits to file and access legal documents delaying homeowners from moving into their newly purchased homes, to questionable property assessments that are driving businesses out of the county and stifling growth, to backlogs that are resulting in lost revenue to the county’s general fund.
Hannah makes a very convincing case: The office, after eight years under the leadership of Richard Ford, is in trouble. The problems he says he inherited persist even after two terms (eight years) as assessor-recorder.
Mr. Ford essentially said he was not responsible for the mess he inherited but that he’d made progress and just needed another term (making it 12 years) to finish a 10-year fix he laid out.
He used percentages to explain the status of backlogs — not real numbers — an old political trick designed to make something look better than it really is. Hannah’s too smart to fall for that – saying — “75% of what?”
Her estimate of backlogs, based on conversations with county officials and others familiar with the problem, was more like years of backlogs in property assessments.
Ford said, repeatedly, that the jobs in the Assessor-Recorder’s Office were too technical to explain and the tests he had to take to be certificated for the jobs he had to learn were too hard for the average person to pass (words to this effect).
Hannah’s reply was to point out that he didn’t have the certificates when he was elected in 2014 and that school came ”really easy” for her.
But the kicker was when Hannah said that the people served by the office were, “for lack of a better term — his boss.” She pointed out that if you can’t explain to your boss the job at hand, you’re not a good communicator. At one of the forums a woman turned to Hannah and said, “Thank you for your presentation, your answers were so clear.”
Hannah summed up her presentations at the two forums I attended emphasizing the many people she had talked with to better understand their issues — local elected officials, current and former employees, business owners, homeowners and groups like the town halls and business associations and everyday people struggling to understand why they are having to make decisions between paying utility bills and paying their taxes.
Isn’t that refreshing? A candidate who gets who the boss is — us, the taxpayers, everyday people who deserve excellent customer service, and a clear explanation of how the laws work when it comes to things like property assessments, tax bills, and basic things, like why they can’t get a simple copy of a death certificate or marriage license in a day.
Since the forums Hannah uncovered another issue. Years after the Valley, Clayton and Dam fires, survivors are still paying full property taxes on their destroyed properties. That’s just unacceptable.
Hannah is a problem solver — she owns her own business and works for the county as a deputy public guardian managing the affairs of 80-plus conservatees, including budgets ranging from $1,000 to a little over than $1 million each. She’s also making life and death decisions for them and accountable to the courts.
She’s well educated, with degrees in business management and psychology; business administration and tax preparation; and certificates in tax preparation, basic and advanced accounting.
From her first job with the county, Hannah also has experience analyzing problems for managers and coming up with solutions to improve efficiencies.
Hannah Faith Lee offers a fresh approach. She’s a star performer with the intellectual capacity, experience and knowledge to bring the office of assessor-recorder into the 21st century. She’s got the makings of what is called in some circles, a servant leader, someone who pays particular attention to the well-being of the people and the communities they live in.
Smart with a heart — and she says she’s tired of Lake County being last. “We need to modernize the office, implement basic electronic systems that save time and provide information on the same day requested, we must be accountable and we must communicate to our boss,” Hannah said.
I agree with Hannah when she says we shouldn’t be lagging most other counties who are years ahead of Lake County in addressing the same type of problems acknowledged by the current assessor-recorder. Surely eight years of trying is long enough.
We have a choice to make by June 7, the last day to vote. I’m voting for Hannah with every confidence she’ll get the job done in a respectful, unassuming, effective and caring manner.
Olga Martin Steele lives in Clearlake Oaks, California.
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- Written by: Eric Olson
I retired and sold my business in my late 40s but after about a year, I had a strong desire to return to the workforce.
I searched carefully for employment where I could use my many years of experience and skills. The Assessor-Recorder’s Office was the perfect fit.
Rich Ford is the elected assessor-recorder, he has proven to be an outstanding leader who has created a great work environment centered on honesty, training, growth and development.
Rich has what this county needs for continued growth, development and improvement.
Rich Ford is the right choice for Lake County assessor-recorder.
Eric Olson lives in Lincoln, California.
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