Supervisors Make Offer to Sheriff, D.A.

Ventura County supervisors Thursday offered to put a contentious public safety finance measure before voters -- but only if law enforcement leaders agree to drop the costliest portion of a related lawsuit.

The Board of Supervisors made the offer after meeting in closed session for nearly four hours, said Kathy Long, the board’s vice chairwoman. It comes a day after the state Supreme Court declined to hear the board’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling that the public safety ordinance is legal.

Passed by county supervisors on a 3-2 vote in 1995, the ordinance guarantees a stream of funding to four public safety agencies in Ventura County. In addition, the agencies receive automatic cost-of-living increases.

Sheriff Bob Brooks and Dist. Atty. Greg Totten sued the Board of Supervisors last year, alleging that changes made to the ordinance’s cost-of-living formula were illegal. They also alleged that supervisors had illegally diverted up to $50 million that should have gone to the agencies’ budgets.

On Thursday, supervisors said Brooks and Totten must drop their claim regarding the diverted money before any measure goes before voters. The county board contends the diversion allegation has no merit and is being used by Brooks and Totten to force a settlement on the more crucial issue of cost-of-living adjustments.

If the diversion claim is dropped, an upcoming trial over the funding measure would be less costly for taxpayers, Long said. Supervisors have no objection to litigating the differing views on what constitutes inflation, she said.

If Totten and Brooks accept those terms, supervisors would let voters weigh in on the debate over what the appropriate adjustment for inflation should be, Long said. The measure would only be advisory, she said.

Brooks said the call for an advisory measure was disappointing.

“They could just ignore it,” he said. “They are not giving voters a chance to make a decision, just to express an opinion. If they want to put it before voters, it should be an affirmative measure.”

The sheriff also said he won’t drop the diversion claim.

“They are basically asking us to set aside $50 million that should have been put in a trust fund according to the law. We can’t do that,” he said.

Brooks said he and Totten would release a statement today outlining their official response to the board’s offer.

He repeated his belief that the lawsuit could be settled promptly if the board began to negotiate in earnest.

“We can find a middle ground that will protect the county in extreme budget times and protect the viability of law enforcement’s budgets.”