SALINAS, Calif.- The Center For Investigative Action went to work and found out Monterey County supervisors are under investigation by the State of California. There are several, for multiple reasons and one of them involves a trip to Europe. So we went digging to find out what each investigation is about and what it means for you, the taxpayer.
The California Fair Political Practices Commission said it has open investigations involving your Monterey County supervisors, but for a few different reasons. A few supervisors said its just flat out political mud slinging.
The first investigation involves a long list of each county supervisor, two county attorneys, current and former water agency managers. It looks at whether anyone aided and abetted the former Monterey County Water Resource Agency board member Steve Collins in his criminal conflict of interest case. Collins used to work with RMC Water and Environment. RMC was hired at one point by the county to manage a water desalination project on the Monterey Peninsula. Now CalAm has to have a new plan before 2017 to reduce the amount of water it pumps from the Carmel River.
The Monterey County DA's office said it can't criminally prosecute the group on that aiding and abetting claim. We reached out to all of the people being investigated on Wednesday. The ones who who got back to me said they didn't know much about the investigation, except for supervisor Dave Potter.
"When you've been named, they're obligated to investigate. I'm simply caught in the cross fire of all these other individuals who've been named," said Supervisor Dave Potter.
But that's not the only investigation the FPPC has against Potter. It's also looking into whether or not he received a gift over the allowed gift limit in connection with a trip to Ireland last year. Potter said he paid for his trip with his own money.
"There is no such gift, it doesn't exist. This is simply an accusation made for political reasons during the height of a campaign," Potter said.
The last investigation by the FPPC is about a mailer sent by Supervisor Lou Calcagno during his re-election campaign in 2010. In that case, the question is why Calcagno sent out this campaign mailer to some people with an official county seal on it when it wasn't about official county businesses at all. Calcagno said he couldn't comment on the case.
The FPPC said they're still working on all the cases and the public has a right to know what's going on.
"It serves the public by not only providing sunshine and disclosure into what public officials are doing. But also insures that they're acting in the public's interest and not their own," said FPPC chief of enforcement Gary Winuk.
Steve Collins is also being investigated by the FPPC. The commission said it gets thousands of claims every year and not all of them are investigated. A conclusion to these cases is expected soon. The commission said best case scenario the investigation would be dropped and the most that can happen is a fine.
