Judge, Grand Juror Discuss Heated Meeting : Courts: The foreman is summoned after the county personnel director complained of intimidation.

The Ventura County Superior Court’s presiding judge summoned the foreman of the grand jury to a meeting Friday to discuss the panel’s stormy encounter with a county department head the day before.

Judge Steven Z. Perren said he asked for the meeting after reading that county Personnel Director Ronald W. Komers had walked out of the grand jury chambers Thursday, complaining of intimidating treatment by some members of the panel.

Grand jury foreman Woodrow Shumate was especially abusive to Komers as the panel continued an investigation into recently approved pay raises for county employees, according to one county source.

Perren said he met with Shumate on Friday to get an explanation but declined to disclose what was said. Shumate could not be reached for comment.

“I felt it was my duty to meet and confer with the foreman. . . . I just wanted to know what had happened,” Perren said. “A judge can’t be ostrich-like and put his head in the sand.”

He added, however, that the meeting “should not be construed as criticism or praise” of the grand jury’s actions. Nor is Shumate’s job as foreman in jeopardy, Perren said. “I’m just doing what the law requires.”

As presiding judge of the Superior Court, Perren said he is responsible for making sure that the grand jury operates within the law. “Once I make that determination,” he said, “I have no authority to determine their course of direction.”

Under the law, Perren said, the grand jury has three roles: to indict criminal suspects, to accuse public officials of wrongdoing, and to act as a watchdog and advisory group on local government. He said the grand jurors “have a right under the law to speak out as they have.”

This week, the 19-member grand jury criticized a Board of Supervisors’ plan to grant pay raises to 1,820 county workers at a time when the county is eliminating jobs because of budget constraints. But the board ignored the grand jury’s request to delay the raises.

A source said Friday that the panel is still investigating the pay raises and is trying to gather information to present to the supervisors next week. The data includes pay scales for other counties and for private enterprise, the source said.

Shumate also met Friday with Deputy Dist. Atty. Donald D. Coleman, who advises the grand jury on some matters. Coleman declined to reveal what was discussed.

The hubbub over the pay raises suggests that the 1992-93 grand jury, which took office July 1, intends to play a more visible role in county affairs than its recent predecessors.

The previous grand jury made hardly a peep during its one-year term, except to urge the county to speed approval of the proposed Weldon Canyon landfill. More than one-fourth of the recommendations in that grand jury’s annual report related to improving the county library system.