Yolo County Crunch Time > Rexroad.com

Yolo County seems to be facing a number of challenges right now. We have the school district issues, the Grand Jury report is about to come out, the Abrahams death, the killing of Deputy Diaz, needle exchange issues, and the court room drama. This seems to be a long list for our area.

I spent some time this weekend thinking about all of these things.

In my life I have led and been part of some large organizations. Some really good. Some really bad. I have also made some major leadership mistakes. Some of those mattered a great deal. Some did not matter at all.

What I know for sure is that in large organizations people make some bad decisions. Actually, in every organization people make bad decisions. How you deal with those mistakes can be a way to classify the good organizations from the bad.

Not all of the issues we are currently struggling with are the same. Not by a long shot. Here are some factors to consider.

Time
In the case of the court room issues this is the most compelling reason that I'm not that concerned. It appears to me that a couple bad decisions were made independently. They were made with the opportunity to reflect on the situation and needed to be made under some difficulty. You have to give some people some slack here.

The Woodland Police Officers in the Abrahams case also did not have the luxury of time.

In the case of the school district building purchase plenty of time was involved. Certainly this decision should face greater scrutiny since those that made it had the opportunity to completely analyze the decision.

Was it wrong?
The courthouse issue does not even need to have an analysis done. It was wrong. Everyone admits it.

With Abrahams -- we don't know yet and may not.

With the school district -- people can disagree.

Available remedy - can you fix it?
In the court room case what can you do to fix the wrong? Not much except make sure it does not happen again. Clearly it was wrong but what can we really do to fix it?

Nothing will bring back Abrahams. His family is seeking monetary compensation but nothing will bring back their son. If something was done wrong by the officers then further training may be necessary.

For the school district I guess a fourth vote could put things in motion to attempt to get out of the purchase agreement. So in that case I guess it can be fixed.

Who pays the price?
I went through a difficult time in my business a few years ago with the actions of a young employee. It was an amazing learning experience for my, my company, and a young man with a promising career.

It is easy to throw people under the bus. It is impossible to get them back out from under it.

In a time when people seem to be hungry for blood I think true leaders resist the cries to drop a dime on someone that made a mistake. In the case of the courthouse drama I think Sheriff Prieto needed to stand up for his deputies. My experience in the Marine Corps tells me that if he would have dropped the dime on one of his deputies in that forum the morale problems within the department would have been huge.

Many commentators have been looking at this case in isolation. Sheriff Prieto is going to need to run his department long after the media attention has moved on to others things. A true leader looks beyond the short term ease. I think he did that here -- even if it was a bit awkward.

If elected officials are going to pay the price of the scrutiny then I am all for it. That is what we are paid to do. That is what we asked the community to trust us to do.

What I think is unfair is to force a deputy or young Woodland Police Officer to be tried in the newspaper without them having the skills or the ability to defend themselves. You want to pick on me, Judge Rosenberg, Sheriff Prieto, Mike McGowan, School Board President Carol Souza Cole -- go for it. We are fair game. Even Chief Sullivan should be expected to be able to represent his department.

I have a problem when we ask people that have never sought public attention to behave normally when they suddenly get it. A different standard is appropriate for some people. Think about. Sports writers do it all the time. Kevin Garnett is not given the same sort of slack that is given to OJ Mayo.

Who is there to fix it?
The other reason that I am not that worried about the courtroom issue is the people that are there. I disagree with Judge Rosenberg on a ton of issues. I probably disagree with Prieto on issues too.

What I know for sure is that Rosenberg is a very hard working, very bright, very shy of bad press. He will not let that happen again. As far as Prieto goes, I like the guy. I also really like Under Sheriff Tom Lopez. In my 18 months on the board I have enjoyed working with both of them. They know what they are doing. They compliment each other well and will fix this. They know a problem exists now we just need to let them do their thing.

In terms of the Woodland Police Department -- I love this department. Chief Sullivan and everyone there has a special place in my heart. They always will. They are professional and just need a fair shake. If a problem is found -- they will fix it.

At the school district I think this is where some questions remain. Who will be there? The Superintendent is gone and now I am not sure what will happen in the future. I do like Carol Souza Cole but I am not sure what the Board as a whole is doing.

Finally, some of these things don't need to be done in public. [Please start breathing again Jim Smith and DPD. Hear me out.] Some of these things, not all of them, are basically personnel decisions. Public hangings are floggings may get headlines and make people feel better but it will not make the organization better. With organizations of dozens or hundreds of people the most important thing is to make sure the incident does not happen again. That is a given. Real leaders make sure them same kind of related thing does not happen again because the lesson is learned throughout the organization that can be applied to the same and somewhat similar situations in the future.

The Daily Democrat's last editorial on the issue mentioned some actions to be taken in the personnel files of county employees. That clearly is something that does not need to happen on the front page of the newspaper.

These are opportunities to grow. Let's do that.

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