The Attorney General.
Although a large portion of my working life overseas was spent in the legal field, I am relatively unfamiliar with the American way of doing things. It seemed wise therefore, first of all, to find out the best way forward from someone who should know – the Attorney General of California, Edmund G. Brown Jr.
This turned out to be a good move, for the advice we received from his office was very helpful indeed. We were encouraged to try to solve the problem as close to home as possible, which made good sense. We had no wish to do our city's laundry in the full view of public scrutiny.
The checklist which was provided to us suggested a list of people we should contact, starting with the head of the city agency, then the city attorney, the mayor's office, and then representatives on the city council. Well, the Senior Coordinator claimed to have consulted the head of the Recreation Department quite early on in this fiasco, and our concerns related to possible misconduct by the City Attorney, so it didn't sound like that would be the right place to start. One of the councillors to whom my letter had been addressed was the deputy mayor, Jac Siegel, and the complaint had also (we hoped) been delivered to all of the other councillors, but without leading to any resolution to the problem. So we moved on down the list, looking for the right place to start.
The next level on the checklist was the police, sheriff's department and District Attorney's office, if there was evidence of criminal misconduct by a city official or employee. Well, this was a bit of a puzzler, because we didn't know if the deception by the Senior Coordinator was actually a crime in this part of the world. It certainly seemed wrong that someone should tell lies to cover up a threat to the safety of seniors, but things that are morally wrong aren't always against the law. We also suspected that the letters to the councillors may not have been delivered as we intended, but again, we didn't know whether that was a crime or not.
So rather than waste anyone's time unnecessarily, I decided to write up what had happened, and then put it before the agencies on the list, in turn. The sheriff's office is in another city, but the police station is fairly close to where we live, so we decided to start there. My wife and I went along to see them on Tuesday March 31.
Two officers at the front desk had a look at the report we had drawn up, and after some discussion they suggested that, since the police were under the direct control of the city administration against which any charges would be laid, the matter was probably more appropriately taken up with the sheriff's office, where any investigation would be impartial, and free of any taint of undue influence from the party being investigated. Again, this made sense, and they gave us a printout containing the address information for the county Sheriff's office to which the report should be sent.
It was already quite late in the day when we finished at the police station, and I decided that I would mail the report to the sheriff the following day. Then, before I had a chance to do so, this whole affair took on a completely new and sinister character . . .