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The local county government is investigating alleged discrimination. Also civil rights violations in contracts and employment. Moreover, the investigation may be linking to the controversial Board of Supervisors decision a year ago. A local county internal memo was sent to all county department heads. In fact, notifying them there is an active investigation by the DOJ going on. The 5-page memo comes from county counsel Margot Raison but no specific reason or incident is citing for the investigation.

Local County Memo

The memo asks to “preserve all documents and materials” that indicate the refusal to hire or work with any contractors. This would be based on political or social positions.  

Raison has made the following statement: “The California Attorney General has informed Kern county that an investigation is occurring into the contracting. Plus employment practices of the county. Now, the county is and willy fully cooperating with the investigation. Therefore, we are confident the practices of the county are really in keeping with all Federal and State laws. As well as regulations and that anticipate the investigation will so conclude.”

Building Healthy Communities Coalition

The document does specify in particular that state investigators want any documents and communications with dozens of organizations that are part of the Building Healthy Communities Coalition.

The coalition features Dolores Huerta Foundation, Jakarta Movement, Vision y Compromiso, and Adelante Strategies, to name a few.

Unfortunately, the board of supervisors did deny these organizations over 1-million dollars in state funding for COVID-19 related projects by the Kern County Board of Supervisors back in October 2020.

Supervisor Zack Scrivner has said this move happened and notified the board that Building Healthy Communities had, in fact, posted views that were unsupportive of Bakersfield police on its Facebook page.

The funds were using for ads in ethnic media and direct outreach to non-English speaking communities.