Grand Jury investigates complaints against Oroville

OROVILLE — The Butte County 2021/2022 Grand Jury report was released Monday with investigations into the Oroville government, Butte County Behavioral Services, the Butte College Police Academy and more.

In looking into Oroville’s city government, the focus was on multiple complaints surrounding mismanagement and violations, particularly aimed at the Oroville City Council, Mayor Chuck Reynolds and City Administrator Bill Lagrone.

Complaints and accusations were rounded up in the Grand Jury Report as follows:

* Conflicts of interest

* Improper public contract awards * Hiring mismanagement

* Violations of city policies, procedures, the city charter and the city code

* The improper selling of city property * Bullying

* People holding more than one offices The report does not specify who made the allegations.

Reynolds responded to the report and accusations and said he believes much of it comes from former staff and council members.

“What that is is ex-council members who are disgruntled and just trying to cause trouble,” Reynolds said. “We read it the other day in closed session and it wasn’t much. All the stuff was former council members. I think it kind of speaks for itself.”

Reynolds went on to note that the timing coincides with the coming November election.

“Any time you have somebody come in to do work and get things done, it’s always the people who were sitting around doing nothing who get offended,” Reynolds said.

To investigate the allegations, the Grand Jury looked at emails between elected officials and city staff and conducted interviews as well as questionnaires.

The Grand Jury interviewed Lagrone with questions about the complaints and then sent follow-up questions to both Lagrone and city staff.

According to the report, there was a lack of cooperation from the city in the investigation.

“The responses by the mayor, City Council and city administrator were incomplete, necessitating the

(Butte County Grand Jury) to resend multiple requests in order to ‘ferret out’ information requested,” the report reads.

“The mayor and City Council appeared to run everything through the city administrator. It is not clear who is in charge. In response to these requests, the city administrator and city staff provided incomplete answers, did not respond by the due dates, or at all.”

The report said that the jury had to then resort to a questionnaire that was sent to individual council members. The report said Lagrone responded and told the Grand Jury that “the council speaks with one voice.” Councilors ended up sending back identical responses.

It was later discovered that the city of Oroville did not have an updated Policies and Procedures Manual, cited in the report as PPM.

“(The Butte County Grand Jury) members searched for policies and procedures on the city’s website but none were found,” the report said. “The information sent to the (Butte County Grand Jury) was incomplete, consisting of fragmented pages that appeared to be segments of policy and procedures. Because there was no clear and comprehensive PPM, it was difficult to determine if the city was following proper protocols.”

Based on the report, the Grand Jury found that one person did hold multiple key offices at one point including city administrator, police chief, fire chief and city clerk. The city does not have an updated or completed PPM that the general public can look at. Two emergency declarations were used to override policies. Procedures that are on record were not followed in more than one instance. The city doesn’t fill positions in a timely manner.

The Grand Jury provided some examples of the findings. According to the report, there was a property transfer that didn’t involve offering said property to the Parks Department and a contract for cleaning storm drains was approved without going out to bid.

It’s also noted that the city, in waiting too long to fill certain positions, enabled the mayor to appoint individuals to the positions without a vote.

The jury recommended that each administrative position be filled by only one person with the exception of temporary scenarios. It also recommended that the city adopt a comprehensive PPM by the end of the year, definite emergency situations within the PPM and fill positions in line with the PPM within six months.

The Enterprise-record attempted to contact Lagrone but did not get a response by the deadline.