Sonoma County administrator gets closed-door job review

<p>Sonoma County supervisors will hold a closed-door session today to assess their top administrator, Bob Deis, a job performance evaluation session that comes as two of the five board members are increasingly at odds with him.</p><p>While no one is willing to predict Deis’ 5-year tenure as county administrator is in jeopardy, the session is likely to mark a key point in the relationship. Tensions during supervisors’ meetings have been rising ever since new board members Shirlee Zane and Efren Carrillo took office last January.</p><p>Critics describe Deis’ management style as autocratic in pursuit of consolidation of administrative power while his defenders say Deis has molded county government services into models of efficiency. </p><p>While board veterans Paul Kelley and Mike Kerns have remained stalwart supporters of Deis, another veteran, Valerie Brown, has increasingly tended to join Shirlee Zane in voting against administration proposals.</p><p>Zane and Brown have voted against adminstration plans to close the Orenda Center’s residential detox unit, to cut social and health services and to spend $100,000 for a consultant to search for executives. They have also complained that the county is spending money on public relations while cutting social services and they have called for a review of management consultants, which amount to $50 million in next fiscal year’s budget.</p><p>During her campaign last year and her term this year, Zane has been a persistent critic of Deis. Carrillo, meanwhile, has remained circumspect throughout although siding with the administration more often than not.</p><p>“Deis is on the hot seat and he knows it,” said Ernie Carpenter, west county supervisor for 16 years who makes no secret of his dislike for Deis. “The way I count, he has two and a half votes and nobody but Efren knows which way that half is going.”</p><p>Carrillo cited state law restrictions on discussing personnel issues in declining to elaborate his opinions on Deis’ leadership.</p><p>“It involves an employee’s performance and I am advised by county counsel not to go there,” Carrillo said. “In any business enterprise, it is good and common practice to take time to evaluate leadership.”</p><p>One of Carrillo’s closest advisors, former west county supervisor Eric Koenigshofer, said “I truly don’t know” where his protege stands on Deis.</p><p>“I know he’s heard plenty from all sides and I know he’ll make up his own mind,” Koenigshofer said. “And I also know that the dynamics of that body changes with elections or events, which can make for a relatively short shelf life for a city or county administrator.”</p><p>Deis was appointed county administrator in June 2004 after four years as an assistant administrator. He has a contract that runs until October 2013 and, under next fiscal year’s budget, would be one of the area’s highest paid officials, making $236,500 annually.</p><p>He was promoted to the top spot by the board that included Kelley, Kerns, Brown and two supervisors who retired last year, Tim Smith and Mike Reilly.</p><p>“Bob is a visionary type administrator who stepped in at a time when we needed to make changes. He recognized local government is going to have to do more and do better with less,” said Smith, who was on the board for 20 years and served with three county administrators. “He is the best I ever worked with.”</p><p>Reilly, who served 12 years, said he credits Deis with forcing supervisors to face up to difficult issues, where previous county adminitrators attempted to shield supervisors from having to make politically unpopular choices.</p><p>"He was the guy that brought hard issues to us and told us what was necessary to keep the ship afloat," Reilly said. "I would be very worried that, without him, there is not going to be the leadership that the county needs</p><p>Late last year, Brown cast the lone “no” vote on a 1-year extension on Deis’ contract. Contacted after that vote, which required her to oppose a resolution on the panel’s consent agenda, Brown said the next board should have the opportunity to decide contract extension and she said her vote was not intended to indicate lack of confidence in Deis.</p><p>None of the supervisors contacted about today’s meeting would comment about the session, citing closed personnel discussions that are allowed under open meetings laws.</p><p>Kelley said the board normally evaluates the county administrator’s job performance after the budget has been finalized, which is occurring in June instead of in August as in past years.</p><p>“It is routine to have the administrator check in the new board. And, it is good timing since the budget is done and the new members have been here for six months,” Kelley said. “My guess is that everyone has something they want to say.”</p><p>Zane declined to detail issues she intends to bring up.</p><p>“It is the beginning of a fiscal year, that’s all that’s significant about the timing,” she said. “It is a personnel evaluation of his job performance and ‘no comment’ is really all that I can say.”</p><p>Deis said he realizes that the process of drafting and enacting a county budget that required cutting $21 million in employees and services from the $1.2 billion budget resulted in many contentious issues coming to the surface.</p><p>“Any time you have a changeover in supervisors, it is good to check in and talk about goals for the next couple years and check in how we work together,” Deis said.</p>