LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Board of Supervisors has voted to extend for another six months a program of Friday closures for key county offices in Lakeport.
The board voted 4-0 on Tuesday morning to extend the closure, requested by County Administrative Officer Carol Huchingson. Supervisor Rob Brown was absent for the discussion.
In August, at Huchingson’s request, the board approved an initial six-month pilot program to close offices in and around the Lake County Courthouse in Lakeport on Fridays in order to let county departments work on backlogs, as Lake County News has reported.
“Today I’m requesting an extension for another six months of that pilot,” Huchingson said on Tuesday.
During the coming six months, there will be one exception to those closures: Huchingson said that the Auditor-Controller’s Office said it will need to be open to the public on the last day of the fiscal year, which is Friday, June 28.
Huchingson said she convened a committee of department heads after the initial pilot began to review problems that came up.
“The complications with this have been very minimal. All have been worked out as they have come up,” she said.
“Many of our department heads speak of the benefit of having the Friday closure day,” said Huchingson, which she added has enabled staff in some departments to focus on backlogs of work resulting from position vacancies.
As of this week, the county’s vacancy rate was 22 percent, according to Huchingson, as compared to 20 percent reported when the board first approved the closure pilot program in August.
“We are about at the same spot we were six months ago when your board recognized the need to do this,” said Huchingson.
Huchingson said both the cities of Clearlake and Lakeport are “permanently closed” on Fridays.
“It would appear that our public is sort of adjusting to that,” Huchingson said.
Supervisor Moke Simon moved to approve the request to continue the Friday closures, with Supervisor Bruno Sabatier seconding and the board approving it 4-0.
Sabatier told Lake County News in a followup interview that he felt it necessary to continue the closures because of the high vacancy rate.
Once the county’s vacancies get back up to the range of 85 to 90 percent, Sabatier said the board can reconsider the closures.
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Supervisors vote to extend Friday public office closures for some county offices
- Elizabeth Larson
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