At the regular Alameda County Board of Supervisors Meeting on September 23rd, the Board unanimously voted (at District 4 Supervisor Nate Miley’s urging) to reappoint Marc Crawford to the Castro Valley Municipal Advisory Council.

Castro Valley resident Steve Dimick, who is not a member of Castro Valley Matters, expressed discomfort with the reappointment of Marc Crawford by writing a letter to each Supervisor and requesting it be read aloud during the meeting and entered into the minutes of the meeting.  Responding to community concerns and Mr. Dimick’s letter, Supervisor Miley pulled the item from the consent calendar and spent nearly ten minutes explaining his decision to reappoint. County Counsel was consulted during this agenda item discussion and Dimick’s letter was added to the minutes of the Board meeting.  With two members absent, the reappointment was put to a vote and approved 3-0.

Crawford has been criticized lately for a potential conflict of interest connected with projects coming before the MAC, most recently at the MAC Land Use meeting on September 8th.

Here is the full text of Mr. Dimick’s letter to the Board of Supervisors, as included in the Board minutes.

As a Castro Valley resident of more than 30 years and a staunch proponent of democratic, accountable governance, I strongly protest one of the items on which you are being asked to vote on September 23. This item is the reappointment of Marc Crawford to a seat on the Castro Valley Municipal Advisory Council (MAC), after it has been discovered that he has hidden a serious conflict of interest from that body and from the public for more than a year.

During that time the MAC, led by its chairman, Marc Crawford, has studied, debated and voted on various aspects of a proposed new building project in Castro Valley called the Proctor Court subdivision. Mr. Crawford has participated in these discussions and votes, and even served on a subcommittee of the MAC specific to this project.

Never once throughout this process did Mr. Crawford disclose – either to the public or to his fellow council members – that he owns property immediately adjacent to the proposed project which will be impacted by any new development in that area. Never once did he recuse himself from discussing, voting or participation in setting requirements and restrictions on the developer.

It was not until the MAC meeting of September 8, 2014, when a homeowner near the project publicly confronted Crawford and Supervisor Miley’s staff with a map of the project area showing the owners of the parcels that Crawford suddenly recused himself.

Crawford’s actions are a flagrant violation of the conflict of interest rules authorized by the California Government Code and set forth in the California Code of Regulations, Sections 18700 and following, pertinent sections of which follow.

“No public official at any level of state or local government may make, participate in making or in any way use or attempt to use his/her official position to influence a governmental decision in which he/she knows or has reason to know he/she has a disqualifying conflict of interest. A public official has a conflict of interest if the decision will have a reasonably foreseeable material financial effect on one or more of his/her economic interests… ” §18700 (a).

“A public official ‘makes a governmental decision,’ … when the official, acting within the authority of his or her office or position … (1) Votes on a matter…” §18702.1 (a).

“(a) Real property in which a public official has an economic interest is directly involved in a governmental decision if any of the following apply:

“(1) The real property in which the official has an interest, or any part of that real property, is located within 500 feet of the boundaries (or the proposed boundaries) of the property which is the subject of the governmental decision. §18704.2(a).”

(Subsection (a) was repealed earlier this year, but was in place during much of the time when Mr. Crawford participated in discussions and voting on the subject project. Further, this subsection gave rise to a presumption of conflict (if within 500 feet) or a presumption of no conflict (if outside of 500 feet) and was, thus, not a hard-and-fast rule, but rather a guideline. The basic rule of §18700 (a) has not been amended or repealed. C.f. §18705.2 (a).)

“A public official or his or her immediate family are deemed to be directly involved in a governmental decision which has any financial effect on his or her personal finances or those of his or her immediate family.” §18704.5.

See also §§ 18703.2, 18703.5, 18704.5, 18705 and 18705.2.

For statutes and regulations showing that members of the Municipal Advisory Council are covered by these conflict rules, see Government Code §§ 87100 and 87103, and CRC § 18701, regarding a committee, board or commission possessing decisionmaking authority, as defined therein.

Mr. Crawford is well aware of the ins and outs of conflicts of interest. For reasons purely personal to him, he wrote a letter to a former board member of the Castro Valley Sanitary District threatening legal action unless that member resigned. He followed this up with a request to the Attorney General’s office for leave to file suit against the board member. The grounds? Conflict of interest.

It cannot be said that Mr. Crawford was in the dark about his own conflict of interest in the Proctor Court matter, having delved into the subject so deeply only a few short years ago.

It can be safely assumed, however, that he believed his personal interests would never come to light until he could turn a tidy profit from the eventual development of this project.

These conflict of interest rules are not to be taken lightly. They actually serve to protect the County of Alameda. At this point, the County is open to litigation from the developer because Crawford may have acted with self-interest to impose requirements or restrictions above and beyond those that a reasonable person would require without such self-interest.

Even more seriously, by not recusing himself from this matter, Crawford has raised suspicions in the community of bribery, under-the-table deals, coercion, and corruption. This stain on the democratic process is spread to the entire MAC, to Supervisor Miley, and to the County of Alameda and blemished them all. As long as Crawford serves on the MAC, there will be suspicion as to his motives in all future matters and, more than likely suspicion on any action of the MAC on any controversial or disputed matter.

Nobody I know is quite sure why Mr. Crawford is Supervisor Miley’s fair-haired boy. Equally, nobody I know who has ever crossed swords with Mr. Crawford or incurred his personal wrath has anything whatsoever positive to say about his moral character.

In addition to pursuing a personal vendetta against a Sanitary District board member, he led a personal attack against an EBMUD director because of a business dispute. He led a similar personal attack against the Castro Valley Superintendent of Schools for similar reasons. He actually threatened the board of directors of the Castro Valley/Eden Area Chamber of Commerce because of a disagreement over one of his personal pet projects, a classic car show. He told that board in writing that if it did not vote its president out of office and fire its Executive Director, he would lobby local businesses to drop their memberships. His retaliatory threats amount to nothing less than blackmail. And there are other stories.

Supervisors, this is a person who could never be elected to serve the citizens of Castro Valley – if the citizens of Castro Valley were able to vote on such matters. His actions over the years, topped off by his nose-thumbing at the conflict of interest rules, show him to be a man without scruples, without shame and without principles. Why then, our community wonders, is he appointed and then re-appointed to a council that makes decisions for us?

I urge Supervisor Miley to withdraw this nomination so that there will be no vote on Tuesday. If he declines to do so, I respectfully request that you refuse to approve this nomination. I also ask that this letter be read into the minutes of your September 23, 2014, meeting.

Thank you for your consideration of this very serious matter.

Supervisor Miley remarked on many points contained in this letter during the meeting.  You can listen to the full recording of his comments here.  Miley first stated that he still wanted Crawford to be reappointed:

…despite the fact that there are residents in Castro Valley that object to his reappointment.  I’m not saying that their objections are without merit because the points that have been raised, particularly in the letter from Steve Dimick are meritorious, but I don’t think at this point I am in favor of pulling his reappointment to the MAC.  I feel Marc has done -when you weigh it all, I think it either balances itself out, or it comes out to a degree that Marc has done a better than average job, because he has a lot of knowledge and he has helped to provide a lot of good information to guide the MAC in decision making -particularly around issues of land use. It’s not to say that there aren’t other people qualified in Castro Valley who could be appointed to the MAC that would have that same subject matter expertise, but at this point I have made the decision that I am reappointing Marc. That’s my reccomendation, and I am going to stay by that.

Miley went on to say:

I know Marc is a lightning rod for controversy in the unincorporated area, particularly Castro Valley.  There are people that support him, and there are people that don’t.  I think he has been on the edge of many issues and many matters, and I don’t always agree with Marc’s position on items. It’s not to my comfort level to have to agree with somebody all the time, I just have to respect that they are trying to serve the best interests of the community. I know he is attempting to do that.

I think this issue around conflict of interest, I wish that he would have recused himself earlier on that matter. He didn’t, but he has since recused himself on the matter and the fact that he has subsequently recused himself -it does produce somewhat of a taint and it could raise some concerns in the minds of people moving forward.

I’ll be watching his performance on the MAC very carefully from my office, should he get reappointed, to see if I notice anything that raises to the level where I feel he needs to be removed from the MAC before his term is ended.  So with that being said I would really ask the board to indulge me in reappointing Marc to the Municipal Advisory Council for Castro Valley, and just be mindful that I will be paying close attention to his performance.  I have sat down with Marc in my office with my staff, and I have talked with him in the past both before he was appointed and since he was appointed about him being a lightening rod for various activities but we will pay even closer attention should this reappointment go forward.

On Supervisor Miley’s request County Counsel stated that there was no “potential legal jeopardy to the County” from the conflict of interest issues.  Miley then went on to respond directly to Mr. Dimick’s letter:

I know Steve really well.  He is expressing his point of view, which I respect.  The one thing that would cause me some reaction was the fact that Mr. Dimick notes that “nobody I know is quite sure why Mr. Crawford is Supervisor Miley’s “fair haired boy.” I thought that was a little bit offensive to be categorizing Marc in that manner because he is definitely not my “fair haired boy,” but he is someone that I respect for his expertise on these issues and matters as well as his involvement in the community. Everyone doesn’t have to agree with him, and everyone doesn’t.  Reasonable people are going to disagree, but I try to work with anyone and everyone who is in the community -whatever their position is, as long as that position doesn’t go against my set of values.