I'm giving you the opportunity to fact check my public comment (see below). If I am in error in any way, however small the detail, please tell me now.
My goal is not to embarrass you or the Board at large. I simply want to hold one member of the Board, Maureen Mulheren, accountable to what appears to be fraud. She needs to be investigated. Recently, I learned Mulheren received COVID-19 relief funds while serving on the Board of Supervisors.
Criminal charges against individuals in alleged COVID-19 funding fraud are growing. During September 2023, the Department of Justice announced over 700 new enforcement actions—including criminal charges—against 371 defendants for more than $836 million in alleged fraud. While many COVID-19 relief programs were vulnerable to fraud, Unemployment Insurance (UI) has proven to be particularly susceptible.
In addition to the three PRIME Grants and the one COVID SBA loan, I would be interested in knowing whether Supervisor Mulheren had any members of her family on the payroll of any of her three business entities for the purpose of collecting UI benefits.
The UI system faces long-standing challenges detecting and preventing fraud. These issues worsened during the pandemic when four new emergency UI programs were created to support large amounts of workers impacted by COVID-19. The unprecedented demand for unemployment benefits, paired with the need to respond quickly, heightened the risk of fraud in these programs even further.
The Department of Labor (DOL) has taken steps to estimate fraud across the UI system as a part of its effort to better understand the scale of payment errors. In 2022, DOL reported that about $2.2 billion in payment errors it identified were likely fraudulent. However, this amount did not include payments made through the four emergency UI programs.
In a recent report, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimated that the total amount of fraud across all UI programs (including the new emergency programs) during the COVID-19 pandemic was likely between $100 billion and $135 billion—or 11% to 15% of the total UI benefits paid out during the pandemic.
While Department of Labor (DOL) and federal law enforcement (like the Department of Justice) are taking action to recover these funds, the GAO also found that recovery rates for both fraudulent and nonfraudulent overpayments occurring during the pandemic remain low.
GAO manages the FraudNet hotline that allows the public to submit complaints or concerns about fraud, waste, and abuse completely anonymously in any of the COVID relief programs, be it PRIME grants, COVID SBA loans, or UI benefits.
Complaints or concerns can be submitted electronically at: https://www.gao.gov/about/what-gao-does/fraud
Submit the complaint by clicking on “report fraud.” When applicable, the FraudNet team refers allegations to the relevant external agency for consideration of further action.
Let's clean up Mendocino County government, Glenn, before the new Board is seated.
John Sakowicz
Ukiah
12/5/2023
Public Comment for the December 5 Mendocino County BOS Meeting
Good morning, Chair McGourty and Members of the Board (BOS):
I come to you today asking you to examine whether or not one of your members is fit to serve.
If Congress can expel one of its own for ethics violations, which may or may not rise to a crime, then you should be able to examine one of your own.
I'll explain.
During the BOS meeting on Oct 17, 2023, during Agenda item 4e, at time stamp 3 hours: 51 minutes: 30 seconds, at that exact time, Supervisor Gjerde flagged a conflict of interest, which went unheeded by both the Board and County Counsel.
Supervisor Gjerde said that Supervisor Maureen Mulheren accepted a donation from the applicant for the Simpson Lane/Mitchell Creek Drive Exclusion Zone and did not recuse herself from the vote.
This appears to be a blatant conflict of interest. This vote wasn't a mere vote on a general policy for the county-wide cannabis industry. It was a specific vote that primarily affected one person and no one else.
That person was Brandy Moulton.
California Fair Political Practices records show that, indeed, the applicant for that zone exclusion, Brandy Moulton, who made a campaign contribution in the amount of $520 to Mulheren.
Brandy Moulton does not live in Mulheren's district. She doesn't even live in Mendocino County. She lives in Chico.
After Gjerde pointed out the conflict, no one did anything. You sat in silence, Chair McGourty. Deputy County Counsel Charlotte Scott sat in silence.
I have researched a list of other individual cannabis farmers who presented similar conflicts in very specific exclusion zone matters before this Board. There were never any recusals.
There is more. Much more.
Supervisor Mulheren has been taking federal COVID relief money, SBA loans and PRIME grants for Mulheren Marketing, which, it would seem, has no real employees and no real clients. Mulheren Marketing seem to have no assets and no revenues.
Indeed, Mulheren Marketing may be a a shell company that exists only on paper.
In any regard, Mulheren is a full-time member of this Board who is making $97,000 a year plus a generous benefits package -- all paid by the people of Mendocino County.
More to the point, Mulheren may have made false claims in order to receive the following federal COVID relief monies:
$15,000 in three PRIME grants
$1000 on 5/2/2020
$9000 on 12/7/2022
$5000 on 12/6/2022
and
a COVID SBA loan
$5100 on 7/27/2020
Adding it all up, Mulheren gets $97,000 in salary plus benefits, and got another $20,100 in fraudulent federal relief monies.
To put this in context, according to DataUSA, the median household income in Mendocino County is only $56,000. One third of our county residents are eligible for Food Stamps.
Final point. Mulheren does business as three different entities: Mulheren Marketing JLB Insurance Services and Ukiah Valley Networking Agency. All three appear to exist only on paper. All three businesses have the same corporate address -- a little hole in the wall at 104 N. School Street, Ukiah.
And so, I ask again, Chair McGourty: If Congress is repulsed by George Santos, why aren't we expecting more from our leaders here at home.
With the help of County Counsel, the District Attorney and/or the Sheriff, I call upon you to investigate the conduct of Supervisor Mulheren. If you find violations, suspend her without pay, as you did to Auditor-Treasurer Chamise Cubbison. You have established the precedent. Let due process play out as it may.
At your meeting on September 12 2023 you took the following action, which the Director of Planning & Building Services said she supported: Board Action: Upon motion by Supervisor Williams, seconded by Supervisor Mulheren, IT IS ORDERED that the
Board of Supervisors directs Planning & Building Services to effectively exempt like-for-like re-roofing applications
within Coastal Zone from Coastal Development planning review, coordinates with California Coastal Commission
on best approach, whether waiver, immediate Local Coastal Plan amendment, urgency Ordinance or alternative.
Almost three months later, we are not aware that there has been any progress to implement this direction. Our roof was damaged in last winter's storms and is one of the ones for which a permit for needed re-roofing has been denied on the basis that a CDP is required. We understand that a property owner in such a position can request an emergency permit; the fee for this, as far as we can determine, would be in excess of $2,000.
Anyone who has ever had a roof leak knows how distressing it is under the best of circumstances. These are not the best of circumstances; the rains have started, $2,000 is a lot of money (to us, anyway), and we have convinced ourselves that this recently-implemented policy of requiring a CDP for roofing repairs is incorrect to begin with and indeed is among other things an infringement on our California Constitution's declaration that we have the right to protect our property.
And, we know that there are many calls on the time and other resources of the Board and on Planning and Building Services, but we hope that anything which can be done will be done.
12/4/2023
Chair McGourty,
I'm giving you the opportunity to fact check my public comment (see below). If I am in error in any way, however small the detail, please tell me now.
My goal is not to embarrass you or the Board at large. I simply want to hold one member of the Board, Maureen Mulheren, accountable to what appears to be fraud. She needs to be investigated. Recently, I learned Mulheren received COVID-19 relief funds while serving on the Board of Supervisors.
Criminal charges against individuals in alleged COVID-19 funding fraud are growing. During September 2023, the Department of Justice announced over 700 new enforcement actions—including criminal charges—against 371 defendants for more than $836 million in alleged fraud. While many COVID-19 relief programs were vulnerable to fraud, Unemployment Insurance (UI) has proven to be particularly susceptible.
In addition to the three PRIME Grants and the one COVID SBA loan, I would be interested in knowing whether Supervisor Mulheren had any members of her family on the payroll of any of her three business entities for the purpose of collecting UI benefits.
The UI system faces long-standing challenges detecting and preventing fraud. These issues worsened during the pandemic when four new emergency UI programs were created to support large amounts of workers impacted by COVID-19. The unprecedented demand for unemployment benefits, paired with the need to respond quickly, heightened the risk of fraud in these programs even further.
The Department of Labor (DOL) has taken steps to estimate fraud across the UI system as a part of its effort to better understand the scale of payment errors. In 2022, DOL reported that about $2.2 billion in payment errors it identified were likely fraudulent. However, this amount did not include payments made through the four emergency UI programs.
In a recent report, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimated that the total amount of fraud across all UI programs (including the new emergency programs) during the COVID-19 pandemic was likely between $100 billion and $135 billion—or 11% to 15% of the total UI benefits paid out during the pandemic.
While Department of Labor (DOL) and federal law enforcement (like the Department of Justice) are taking action to recover these funds, the GAO also found that recovery rates for both fraudulent and nonfraudulent overpayments occurring during the pandemic remain low.
GAO manages the FraudNet hotline that allows the public to submit complaints or concerns about fraud, waste, and abuse completely anonymously in any of the COVID relief programs, be it PRIME grants, COVID SBA loans, or UI benefits.
Complaints or concerns can be submitted electronically at: https://www.gao.gov/about/what-gao-does/fraud
Submit the complaint by clicking on “report fraud.” When applicable, the FraudNet team refers allegations to the relevant external agency for consideration of further action.
Let's clean up Mendocino County government, Glenn, before the new Board is seated.
John Sakowicz
Ukiah
12/5/2023
Public Comment for the December 5 Mendocino County BOS Meeting
Good morning, Chair McGourty and Members of the Board (BOS):
I come to you today asking you to examine whether or not one of your members is fit to serve.
If Congress can expel one of its own for ethics violations, which may or may not rise to a crime, then you should be able to examine one of your own.
I'll explain.
During the BOS meeting on Oct 17, 2023, during Agenda item 4e, at time stamp 3 hours: 51 minutes: 30 seconds, at that exact time, Supervisor Gjerde flagged a conflict of interest, which went unheeded by both the Board and County Counsel.
Supervisor Gjerde said that Supervisor Maureen Mulheren accepted a donation from the applicant for the Simpson Lane/Mitchell Creek Drive Exclusion Zone and did not recuse herself from the vote.
This appears to be a blatant conflict of interest. This vote wasn't a mere vote on a general policy for the county-wide cannabis industry. It was a specific vote that primarily affected one person and no one else.
That person was Brandy Moulton.
California Fair Political Practices records show that, indeed, the applicant for that zone exclusion, Brandy Moulton, who made a campaign contribution in the amount of $520 to Mulheren.
Brandy Moulton does not live in Mulheren's district. She doesn't even live in Mendocino County. She lives in Chico.
After Gjerde pointed out the conflict, no one did anything. You sat in silence, Chair McGourty. Deputy County Counsel Charlotte Scott sat in silence.
I have researched a list of other individual cannabis farmers who presented similar conflicts in very specific exclusion zone matters before this Board. There were never any recusals.
There is more. Much more.
Supervisor Mulheren has been taking federal COVID relief money, SBA loans and PRIME grants for Mulheren Marketing, which, it would seem, has no real employees and no real clients. Mulheren Marketing seem to have no assets and no revenues.
Indeed, Mulheren Marketing may be a a shell company that exists only on paper.
In any regard, Mulheren is a full-time member of this Board who is making $97,000 a year plus a generous benefits package -- all paid by the people of Mendocino County.
More to the point, Mulheren may have made false claims in order to receive the following federal COVID relief monies:
$15,000 in three PRIME grants
$1000 on 5/2/2020
$9000 on 12/7/2022
$5000 on 12/6/2022
and
a COVID SBA loan
$5100 on 7/27/2020
Adding it all up, Mulheren gets $97,000 in salary plus benefits, and got another $20,100 in fraudulent federal relief monies.
To put this in context, according to DataUSA, the median household income in Mendocino County is only $56,000. One third of our county residents are eligible for Food Stamps.
Final point. Mulheren does business as three different entities: Mulheren Marketing JLB Insurance Services and Ukiah Valley Networking Agency. All three appear to exist only on paper. All three businesses have the same corporate address -- a little hole in the wall at 104 N. School Street, Ukiah.
And so, I ask again, Chair McGourty: If Congress is repulsed by George Santos, why aren't we expecting more from our leaders here at home.
With the help of County Counsel, the District Attorney and/or the Sheriff, I call upon you to investigate the conduct of Supervisor Mulheren. If you find violations, suspend her without pay, as you did to Auditor-Treasurer Chamise Cubbison. You have established the precedent. Let due process play out as it may.
John Sakowicz
Ukiah
At your meeting on September 12 2023 you took the following action, which the Director of Planning & Building Services said she supported: Board Action: Upon motion by Supervisor Williams, seconded by Supervisor Mulheren, IT IS ORDERED that the
Board of Supervisors directs Planning & Building Services to effectively exempt like-for-like re-roofing applications
within Coastal Zone from Coastal Development planning review, coordinates with California Coastal Commission
on best approach, whether waiver, immediate Local Coastal Plan amendment, urgency Ordinance or alternative.
Almost three months later, we are not aware that there has been any progress to implement this direction. Our roof was damaged in last winter's storms and is one of the ones for which a permit for needed re-roofing has been denied on the basis that a CDP is required. We understand that a property owner in such a position can request an emergency permit; the fee for this, as far as we can determine, would be in excess of $2,000.
Anyone who has ever had a roof leak knows how distressing it is under the best of circumstances. These are not the best of circumstances; the rains have started, $2,000 is a lot of money (to us, anyway), and we have convinced ourselves that this recently-implemented policy of requiring a CDP for roofing repairs is incorrect to begin with and indeed is among other things an infringement on our California Constitution's declaration that we have the right to protect our property.
And, we know that there are many calls on the time and other resources of the Board and on Planning and Building Services, but we hope that anything which can be done will be done.