D.A. to take ten-percent pay cut

The County Board of Supervisors’ Public Protection Committee called an emergency session Tuesday afternoon to discuss Contra Costa County District Attorney Robert Kochly’s offer to return 10 percent of his salary if it will stave off a new non-prosecution policy in the county effective next Monday.

The D.A. also told Supervisors about the resignation of three full time deputy district attorneys, with full benefits, within in the past two weeks.

“[The present amount of staff] is just not enough,” Kochly told reporters after the meeting. “I’m just trying to keep the operation going.”

Kochly chose not to discuss the total amount of his annual salary, but he did say 10 percent amounted to roughly $25,000.

That would be enough, said Kochly, to retain six temporary deputy district attorneys—originally slated for layoff on May 1— for the rest of the calendar year, and those staff members would prosecute misdemeanor crimes such as burglary, assault, battery, forgery, embezzlement and vandalism.

At the emergency meeting, Supervisor Glover admonished Kochly’s earlier announcement, after the Board cut $1.9 million from his budget, that his office would soon only prosecute the most serious and violent of felony crimes.

 “Right now, there’s an open invitation to say Contra Costa is criminal-friendly,” Glover said. “And I think we need to go back and evaluate and make sure we’re not inviting the wrong element into our community.”

At the end of the nearly two hour meeting, the Supervisors voted to accept Kochly’s offer, and use the additional time to come up with other solutions, other than more funding from the County.

“I haven’t seen any delivery trucks come up to the front of this building with piles of more money,” Supervisor Gayle Uilkema said.

Prior to the emergency Board session, the Contra Costa County Deputy Sheriffs and Deputy District Attorneys (DDAs) held a press conference to urge Supervisors to restore public safety funds.

The Sheriffs and DDAs quoted Article XIII of the California Constitution, which reads “The people of the State of California find and declare all of the following: (1) Public safety services are critically important to the security and well being of the State’s citizens and to the growth and vitality of the State’s economic base. (2) The protection of the public safety is the first responsibility of local government and local officials have an obligation to give priority to the provision of adequate public safety services.”

“Our State Constitution clearly states that public safety is local government’s first obligation,” Deputy District Attorney Barry Grove said. “Instead, Contra Costa County has given criminals their own bill of rights.”

In a prepared statement, Deputy Sheriff Jim Bickert, president of the Contra Costa Deputy Sheriff’s Association referred to a new Sheriff’s Office policy, “instituted on April 27th that leaves only three two-person patrol cars on week[day] graveyard shifts; only four two-person patrol cars on weekend graveyard for the entire county—all resulting from recent cuts by the Board of Supervisors…this is on top of the Sheriff’s Office having to lay off 25 deputies and eliminate a total of 93 authorized positions.”

Bickert also told the Gazette yesterday that the Sheriff’s Office is also following a new policy of responding only to ‘priority one calls,’ or emergency calls.

“If it’s not something that requires immediate response, the person calling 9-1-1 will be told there are no deputies available,” said Bickert. “If there is a murder in Richmond on a weekend night, and all four of our patrol units are called to the scene, you won’t want to be a Discovery Bay or Alamo resident calling 9-1-1, it will be a long wait.”

 According to the two men, Contra Costa County funds $25 million to the Public Defender’s Office, and only $11 million for the DA’s office. However, Kochly said his budget after cuts is $28,700,000.

Kochly distributed a graph entitled “Criminal Prosecution: Unfortunately a Low Priority in Contra Costa County,” with a subhead of “Staffing and funding in the DA’s Office has been lower than other counties for many years.” The numbers, reportedly “derived from 2008 California District Attorney’s Association Survey of 28 different counties,” show that Contra Costa County’s DA’s Office has ‘ranked last in per capita levels of staffing and funding for several years.’ With a population of 1 million, the DA’s budget is $28,700,000 translates into $28.70 dollars spent per capita. Compared with Alameda County, with 1.5 million people and a DA budget of $57,480,969 and 151 DDAs, Contra Costa County now has 73 DDAs.

Martinez Police Chief Tom Simonetti attended the meeting on behalf of the Contra Costa County Police Chiefs Association and said his group was very concerned about the non-prosecution policy.

Asked about Monday night’s Martinez City Council Public Safety Committee meeting, during which members suggested the City hire an attorney to prosecute all crimes in Martinez, Kochly smiled and shook his head.

“If I authorize the City of Martinez to do that, which is required by law, they are certainly welcome to take over if they want to,” Kochly told the Gazette Tuesday evening as he walked to his car. “I don’t believe it is the most cost effective way of doing business but the City is free to explore the option with me.”

See the Sunday edition of the Gazette for details of the City of Martinez’s plans to prosecute misdemeanor offenders.