Police Staffing Woes Continue; Rankin Pool to Open as Scheduled, but Heater Replacement Will Have to Wait; MRC Oversight Committee Adds Sixth Community Member

City Hall had a total of 23 staff vacancies as of February, and 45 of 124 city workers have been in their positions for less than two years.

The Martinez City Council received sobering news about the severity of staffing shortages in the police department, as well as City Hall in general, at Wednesday’s meeting.

While the city is struggling with troubling vacancy rates across departments, the most glaring concern is clearly the police department. A staff report accompanying Wednesday’s council presentation on city staffing revealed that seven of the 27 authorized police officer positions are currently vacant (a vacancy rate of 26%).

Councilman Satinder Malhi described the situation as a “public safety crisis.”

“I think we need to be honest with the community about the severity of these challenges,” he said. “It’s going to take a team effort to right this ship.”

Later in the meeting, police Chief Andrew White laid out the real-world consequences from the fact the department is now down to only one detective to investigate crimes (it’s authorized for four), saying that the investigation of misdemeanor cases will need to be handled by patrol staff. “This will have some impact on their ability to do some pro-active calls in the field,” he said.

White added that the department will need to prioritize more severe criminal cases affecting people rather than property; as a result, there may be delays responding to some property crimes and following up on them. Property crimes that do not involve an arrest may not receive further investigation, and the department may need to call in outside help for major incidents.

“We’re trying to pivot as best we can, but we’re down to one (detective) to carry the load,” he said.

Staffing shortages extend beyond the police department, as there were 23 total City Hall vacancies in February out of 145 authorized and funded positions. Reasons cited in the staff report for the high turnover rate among city employees are workload and lack of support; staffing issues; wages; better opportunities elsewhere; frustration with city processes; and retirement.

Lack of experience is another issue of concern at City Hall, as 45 of the 124 city workers have been in their positions for less than two years. Only 37 city employees have been with the city for at least 10 years.

The graphics below show the number of City Hall employees who were hired and left their jobs over the past several fiscal years.

The City Council made recruiting and retention of city workers a top priority in its goal-setting workshop Feb. 25. Toward that end, the staff report states: “City staff is currently carrying out significant planning on workplace culture improvements to make the city a desirable place to work and business mapping to ensure that roles and responsibilities are clearly defined within the organization and processes are clearly laid out. It is anticipated that this work will result in higher retention in the long term.”

In a piece of good news, however, the council was informed by the City Clerk’s Office that a “record-breaking” 35 applicants expressed interest in one or more openings on the following city commissions: Planning, Civil Service, Measure D Oversight, Measure H Oversight and Parks and Recreation. Mayor Brianne Zorn is interviewing candidates, and appointments by the council are anticipated to take place in April.

Good News, Bad News for Rankin Pool

Assistant City Manager Lauren Sugayan updated the council on the situation at Rankin Aquatic Center, which was hobbled by staffing and maintenance issues last year, as the swim season approaches. The city has been working with a contractor on a heater-replacement project for the pool, but delays and logistical issues in acquiring needed parts left the city with two less-than-ideal options: Delaying the opening of the pool for the 2023 swim season to complete the project, or making do with the current heater system for one more year.

The city has chosen the latter option, with Sugayan saying city staff is confident the system can hold up for one more year. Preseason swim club activities are slated to start in April, with the pool complex scheduled to open to the public in June.

Sugayan said the city has overhauled the maintenance program for the pool and will be checking for potential problems seven days a week.

“We’re fairly confident that the maintenance program we have in place is going to help us catch any issues before they get to the point where they would get bad and cause the pool to be shut down,” she said.

Staffing and operational challenges led to temporary closures and reduced operating hours at the pool last summer, generating some frustration in the community and making it an election issue in November.

Martinez Refining Co. Updates

There never seems to be any shortage of news and developments concerning the Martinez Refining Co. The latest rundown:

Although I have yet to see it officially announced by the county, Mayor Brianne Zorn confirmed that county Supervisor Federal Glover has added a sixth community member, a person who leaves near the refinery, to the MRC Oversight Committee investigating the Thanksgiving night “spent catalyst” release that blanketed the surrounding community with metal-laden dust. Some community members complained about the relative lack of representation from neighborhoods directly impacted by the toxic dust accident among the five community members initially appointed to the committee, something I raised in this post.

The next Oversight Committee meeting is Thursday, March 9, at 2:15 p.m. on Zoom, when committee members are expected to discuss the next steps in hiring consultant help to pursue the two-pronged process of determining what caused the accident and failure to immediately notify the community via the Community Warning System, and any long-term impacts health and environmental impacts, including possible soil contamination. The Zoom link to attend can be found here.

Meanwhile, Councilman Mark Ross, who sits on the Bay Area Air Quality Management District Board of Directors, said at Wednesday’s council meeting that the air district is forming an ad hoc subcommittee consisting of himself, Contra Costa County Supervisor John Gioia and Solano County Supervisor Erin Hannigan to explore “air monitoring and scenarios such as what happened in Martinez as to why there was no ability by anybody to determine that an accident was happening and particulate was falling into neighborhoods.” Ross said he expects at least one community meeting to be scheduled as part of the subcommittee’s work.

Martinez Refining Co. said in its root cause analysis of the accident that it was unaware that the toxic dust from the spent catalyst had spread into the surrounding community until it was alerted by residents reporting “visible particles the morning after Thanksgiving.” MRC went on to say: “There was (and currently is) no mechanism to alert MRC personnel to the potential that an opacity event might result in a release of catalyst into the community.”

FWIW: MRC’s parent company, PBF Energy, boasts that MRC is “one of the most complex refineries in the United States.” (Apparently, that complexity doesn’t extend to having the technology to detect when toxic materials are spewed into surrounding neighborhoods.)

Also, KRON Channel 4 did a piece that aired Friday on the spent catalyst accident and resulting warning from county health officials about eating produce planted in nearby gardens.

Lastly, Contra Costa Health Services said planned maintenance work at the refinery is expected to cause visible flaring through this Monday (March 6). Updates will be posted at https://cchealth.org Want to know more about what flaring is? I discussed a recent tutorial in this post.

AND FINALLY …. I didn’t have a chance to get into it in this post, but for those interested in plans for the opening Alhambra Highlands to the public, there was a lengthy discussion about the topic at Wednesday’s council meeting, when the council hired the John Muir Land Trust to help guide the process. The council also heard about and discussed plans for a public art nature mural on Alhambra Way. The video of the meeting, including those discussions, can be viewed here.