Indio Police Investigating Don Gomsi & CVMVCD

There are two important bits to this morning's story in the Desert Sun.

First is that yesterday Indio police launched a criminal inquiry into the allegations made at Tuesday night's meeting of the board of trustees of the Coachella Valley Mosquito and Vector Control District. The district's headquarters are in Indio.

Second, and more worrying, is that a couple of district employees witnessed a computer being removed from the district's headquarters, placed in an automobile, and a new computer being installed in General Manager Gomsi's office. Even more worrying is that President Duran was present at the headquarters when this switcheroo took place. Now, perhaps someone will come along and say that the old computer was being removed from the offices to preserve whatever evidence it may contain, but I think that the proper way to do that is to have the police on hand. Duran refuses to comment on the computer moves, which suggests he was at least aware of it.

That looks SO bad. Prior to this President Duran couldn't be accused of anything worse than being a bit slow or a tool of Gomsi, either of which can be easily forgiven. But this begins to seem to raise the possibility [did I hedge that well enough?] of destruction of evidence or obstruction of justice.

"Indio City Manager Glenn Southard said the City Council will discuss Duran, their representative on the board since 2004, during the council's Wednesday meeting." They will discuss NOT the CVMVCD or possible criminal activity at the district, but DURAN! The Indio city council meets at 6 PM at 150 Civic Center Mall, Wednesday, March 19.

Also (and I suppose this is a third point), the CVMVCD board of trustees WILL meet to discuss the issues:

Duran called a special board meeting at 6 p.m. Monday so district trustees can discuss allegations that emerged this week from an ousted district manager and to allow Gomsi to publicly respond.

"I am certain my fellow board members share my concern with the serious nature of the allegations," Duran said in a statement released Thursday.

I'm sure most of that will be in closed session. More about that special meeting can be found in this article.

An interesting side story is that the Orange County Vector Control District has decided to go public with the reaction of other vector control districts across the state.

On a seperate [sic] front, officials with the Orange County Vector Control District blasted the Coachella Valley board, saying "the on-going embarrassment" there "is negatively impacting our agency and we are facing serious legislation because of their poor decisions and indefensible actions."

Orange County officials were referring to State Sen. Denise Moreno Ducheny's SB 1326, which would prohibit mosquito abatement and vector control districts from levying benefit assessments if the district has an unallocated reserve that's more than 10 percent of its budget.

"Frankly, the continuing controversy over the management of Coachella Valley has greatly hurt all vector control agencies and local government," district manager Gerard Goedhart wrote to his trustees. "I am disgusted that our agency is threatened by SB 1326 and that we continue to get blind-sided by Coachella Valley's poor decisions and continuing controversy."

IOW, the other vector control districts have been happy to quietly receive their occasional golden eggs, and they are really pissed that Don Gomsi seems to be killing the goose.