Confusion Surrounds Release of the Plumas County Grand Jury’s Report

QUINCY — Discussion at an October meeting of the Plumas County Board of Supervisors and a November 29 article on the Plumas Sun web page indicated that members of the Board and the public are confused about which of two documents is the “official” report of the county’s 2024-2025 civil grand jury.

An electronic document posted on the county’s grand jury web page with a July 2 timestamp consists of two reports of the jury’s investigations into county hiring practices and the recycling of California Redemption Value (CRV) containers and a transmittal letter from the jury’s foreperson asking the Board of Supervisors and other county officials to respond to the findings and recommendations in those reports, as required by state law.

A longer, printed document from the grand jury was distributed to the public early in August from the office of the Clerk of the Board of Supervisors, Alan Hiskey. The second document includes a report of an investigation into the operation of the Sierra Meadows apartment complex in Chester, which is owned by the Plumas County Community Development Commission (PCCDC), summary reports on the county jail and Elections Department, and a summary of responses to the previous year’s grand jury report, in addition to the two reports previously posted online. The printed report also includes a request for responses from the PCCDC to the jury’s report on Sierra Meadows Apartments, as well as requests for the county’s response to the other two reports.

The Plumas Sun reported having received “another version of the report” from a member of the grand jury, which it published online in July. That document appears to be identical to the printed one distributed by the Clerk of the Board.

Questions arose when draft responses to the grand jury’s report were discussed at the October 21 meeting of the Board of Supervisors. Vice Chair Mimi Hall (District 4) explained that the Board had responded only to the reports on jobs and recycling because only those were in the official version of the report, which, she said, is the one on the Plumas County website. She said the report given to the Plumas Sun is not the jury’s official report and alleged that the report published by the Sun contains “confidential information...against the laws governing grand juries.” She went on to explain that PCCDC’s governing Board, whose members are the same as the Board of Supervisors, did not respond to recommendations about Sierra Meadows Apartments “because that’s all supposed to be confidential,” as it isn’t in the report on the county website.

The Plumas Sun’s Editor, Jane Braxton Little, said the Sun had received the document from a responsible member of the jury and questioned how they were to know it was not the official report. It appears that neither the members of the Board nor the Sun were aware of the printed report distributed earlier by the Clerk of the Board. Mr. Hiskey, who was present during the discussion, did not offer a clarification.

Reporting in the Plumas Sun also appeared to imply that an earlier request to the Board by District Attorney David Hollister to reduce the size of current and future grand juries from 19 to 11 members was the result of concerns about a “flawed process” for releasing the previous grand jury’s report. The 2024-2025 and 2025-2026 grand juries are completely separate, however, with no overlap in membership. District Attorney Hollister confirmed by email that his request had no connection to the report’s release.

Hollister also said he had obtained an official copy of the original report the jury submitted to the court, and that it includes the same three investigations that are in the printed report distributed in August. He added that rumors circulating on social media may have stoked suspicion that the third investigation in the document obtained by the Plumas Sun was deliberately omitted from the grand jury’s official report.