Thread: Supervisor Derry staff changes

San Bernardino County Third District Supervisor Neil Derry has not appointed a replacement for his chief of staff, Jim Erwin, who was arrested by the county district attorney's office investigators on 10 felony counts March 19. Derry officially accepted Erwin's resignation March 23 after placing him on administrative leave.

In the interim, Steve Hauer, who serves as Derry's constituent services staff person, is assisting Derry with the chief of staff responsibilities.

Derry is making some changes though. Jamie Garland has been appointed as Derry's Big Bear field rep, replacing Jerry Lemke, who submitted his resignation March 23 saying he was overwhelmed with the job. Garland, a Big Bear Valley resident, is the wife of Big Bear Sheriff's Station Captain Greg Garland. The board of supervisors approved the contract for the appointment at its March 24 meeting.

Also approved was the appointment of Joseph Turner to replace Garland as Derry's special projects coordinator and communications representative. Turner was hired as a staff analyst for the county's Department of Public Health in January. He graduated with a finance degree from USC in 2000.

Turner is an anti-illegal immigration activist who is the executive director of the nonprofit organization Save Our State. He started the organization in 2003 naming it after Proposition 187, the defeated anti-illegal immigration legislation.


According to published reports, Turner made news in 2006 by proposing a ballot measure to ban city-funded day laborer centers, impound vehicles of homeowners who hire undocumented workers and penalize landlords who rent to illegal immigrants in the city of San Bernardino. The ballot also would have required all city business to be conducted in English. The ballot measure failed. Derry, then a San Bernardino City Councilman representing the fourth ward, supported it.

Turner also created controversy when he got into an altercation with a man outside the San Bernardino County Courthouse after a hearing challenging his ballot initiative. Turner reportedly told the man, “Do you know what? Your mother can go !@#$ herself!â€

02:58 PM PDT on Saturday, March 28, 2009

By IMRAN GHORI
The Press-Enterprise

Special Section: San Bernardino Co. Assessors Probe

San Bernardino County Supervisor Neil Derry's decision to hire a controversial anti-illegal immigration activist this week spotlights a growing trend of supervisors expanding their staff to deal with the media.

Joseph Turner, who founded the group Save Our State, will begin his job as a special projects coordinator for Derry on Monday, the supervisor said.

In the post, which pays $54,995.20 a year, Turner will write press releases and opinion pieces for area newspapers for Derry.

Derry said Turner will not speak for him to the media, but will ghostwrite opinion pieces for smaller newspapers in the district.

In recent years, all of the supervisors have hired staff to handle similar duties, county spokesman David Wert said.

Wert handles public communication for the county as a whole, not for individual supervisors.

Both Wert and Derry said smaller newspapers in the county often request opinion pieces or columns from elected officials.

The county's budget for the Board of Supervisors, which includes salaries and benefits for supervisors and their staff, has grown from $3.6 million in the 2004-05 budget to $7 million in the current fiscal year's budget.

Each supervisor has nine to 12 employees, according to the county budget.

The county has no set budget for each office, but allows supervisors to request their staffing level as part of the budget process, Wert said.

He said the size of the supervisors' staffs began growing after the corruption scandals in the 1990s, when elected officials felt they needed more resources to monitor county operations.

Charles Roberts, editor of the Highland Community News, said his weekly paper has not requested columns from Derry, but it's not unusual for him to run such pieces from elected officials.

"We do use handouts from time to time," Roberts said.

Reach Imran Ghori at 951-368-9558 or ighori@PE.com
http://www.pe.com/localnews/politics/st ... 40c83.html