HERE WE GO!
MENDO’S CLERK OF THE BOARD sent out a notice of an amended Board agenda late last Friday afternoon. There was nothing in the notice about what the “amendment” was. But comparing the new agenda with the old one and, voila!, a newly added closed session item reveals, “Conference with legal counsel, Existing Litigation: One Case: Mendocino County Sheriff Matthew Kendall v. Mendocino County Board of Supervisors. Case # 21-cv00561.”
We looked up the filing on the Court’s fancy new electronic system and there it was, or at least the top of the first page of a 52-page filing entitled, “Declaration of Matthew Kendall in support of motion for an ex-parte order pursuant to government code section 31000.6 declaring that the County Counsel has a conflict of interest in representing both the Board of Supervisors and the Sheriff and appointing the law office of Duncan M. James as the attorney for the Sheriff.”
The rest of the 52-page filing is available at 50¢ a page. We have ordered the Sheriff's “declaration.” The filing itself was made by Duncan James without so much as a by-your-leave from the County and County Counsel Christian Curtis’s list of less expensive attorneys. The filing is time/date stamped 2:00pm, July 30, 2021, Friday afternoon. The case was filed in Presiding Judge Ann Moorman’s court.
AND SO BEGINS a totally unnecessary legal battle, first over who should be the Sheriff’s attorney, followed by another prolonged legal battle over how much control the Supervisors have over the Sheriff and his computer and his operations and budget.
WE HOPE to see Judge Moorman cut to the chase by ordering the two parties into a settlement conference under threat of her deciding it in a way nobody likes. But Mendo’s lawyers and judges — one big club — have a history of dragging things out and running up the bills of all involved.
EARLIER, COUNTY COUNSEL CHRISTIAN CURTIS had dug up four “discount” lawyers to propose to the Supervisors as the Sheriff’s “conflict lawyer.” Readers will recall that Sheriff Matt Kendall has demanded that a judge tell the Supervisors what the law is regarding public safety staffing and computer independence. Two weeks ago, Sheriff Kendall told the Board that he wanted Ukiah Attorney Duncan James to be his attorney at a top hourly rate of $425 per hour (less for less experienced attorneys on James’s staff including former Interim County Counsel Doug “The Midnight Rambler” Losak).
Item 5b) on next Tuesday’s agenda: “Discussion and Possible Action Including Selection of Outside Counsel to Provide Legal Advice and Representation to the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office Regarding Areas in Which County Counsel Has a Conflict of Interest. (Sponsor: County Counsel). Recommended Action: Select outside counsel to provide legal advice and representation to the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office regarding areas in which County Counsel has a conflict of interest.”
COUNTY COUNSEL CURTIS has solicted proposals form four outside lawyers:
Cole Huber, LLP of Roseville (Placer County), Top Rate: $250 per hour.
Manning & Kass, Ellrod, Ramirez, Trester, LLP, Los Angeles. Top Rate: $300 per hour.
Porter Scott, LLP, Sacramento. Top Rate: $260 per hour.
Aaronson, Dickerson, Cohn & Lanzone, LLP, San Jose. Top Rate: $300 per hour.
(Mr. Curtis seems awfully familiar with outside attorneys.)
FORMER FIRST DISTRICT SUPERVISOR CANDIDATE, and former Plumas County Supervisor, Jon Kennedy wrote on a facebook discussion of the Board/Sheriff dispute: “…the Supervisors, if they knew enough about all the Sheriff's budget units, (they don't) they could spend the required time to ‘audit’ the budget(s) themselves. As they should with every department's budget. Doing this not only makes them more knowledgeable about each budget, but it forces open conversations with the department heads, that doesn't necessarily have to turn into a public spectacle. As a former County Supervisor who did JUST that in regard to making it a priority to learn each department's budget better than most department heads knew thier own, I can attest to the importance of spending those extra hours understanding each budget. The assumption that internal audits are performed each year for all departments is not an accurate description of what really happens at the Auditor's office. Even the external audits that are done by professional third party auditors (legal mandate) aren't the same as face to face discussions of priorities of each department. Not even close. These audits are completed with only one thing in mind, and that's to make sure funds are managed in a legally compliant manner, with a goal of having zero to minimal audit exceptions. These audits don't include real talk about serving the public.”
LET’S HOPE this court option can be avoided. Much as we basically agree with Sheriff Kendall in his dispute, if the County and the Sheriff end up in court with lawyers — whatever their hourly rates — attached like leeches, they’ll go down a rabbit hole that will cost more than anyone currently expects — and Curtis himself estimated it might take two years and $250k, if that. If it takes years to resolve, what’s the point? CEO Angelo will be long gone by then.
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Other Matters
Item 5c) “Discussion and possible action regarding approval of modification to the Current Resident Deputy Pay Incentive Plans for the Round Valley and South Coast Positions. (Sponsor: Sheriff-Coroner). Recommended Action: Approve modification to the current Resident Deputy Pay Incentive Plans for the Round Valley and South Coast positions.”
This item involves increasing the existing incentives, adding more completion bonuses and substantial housing allowances.
* * *
Item 5d) “Discussion and Possible Action Including Acceptance of the Presentation of the Board of Supervisors’ Prioritized Worksheets Regarding Projects for Strategically Investing One-Time Pacific Gas & Electric Disaster Settlement Funds (Sponsor: Executive Office). Recommended Action: Accept presentation of the Board of Supervisors' prioritized worksheets regarding projects for strategically investing one-time Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) disaster settlement funds.”
Staff has compiled an itemized, priced list of projects to spend the PG&E settlement money on, but as with most Supervisors reviews, the list is too abbreviated and jargonized to allow for meaningful understanding or decision making.
* * *
There’s a strange item on the Consent Calendar which seems to us like it might be one of those non-sequiturs that the CEO threw on to the agenda to see if anybody was paying attention.
Item 4m): “Approval of Agreement with Izmael David Arkin dba Mendocino County Aikido in the Amount of $93,375 to Provide Aikido, Mindfulness Meditation, and Trauma Resiliency and Emotional Regulation Skill Development Programming Services to In-Custody and Out-of-Custody Youth for the Period of Date of Full Execution of Agreement through June 30, 2024.”
Huh? “Mindfulness meditation” … for “out of custody youth”? Come on.
* * *
And as usual, there’s the monthly retroactive gift(s), this time of yet another $277k to Camille Schraeder:
Item 4o) “Approval of Retroactive Agreement with Redwood Community Services, Inc., in the Amount of $277,000to Provide Housing and Services to Assist Emancipated Former Foster/Probation Youth for Health and Human Services Agency, Family and Children’s Services, Effective July 1, 2021 through June 30, 2022.”
No evidence that this was even put out to bid, of course. Yet, again, here’s the Board being told to approve what the CEO has already done. (Two weeks ago, Supervisor Williams got all huffy when he saw the proposed agreement between Sheriff Kendall and Duncan James which — horrors! — the Board hadn’t approved yet. Turned out that no final agreement had been signed yet, of course, and Williams calmed down. But never a word from Williams or any other Supervisors about the monthly openly retroactive gifts to the Schraeders, et al.
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Water Emergency, Mendo Style
YEARS AGO, I ran the Engineering Services Division of an electronics company on Long Island. One of my departments was “Design and Drafting” which consisted of the draftsmen who turned the engineers’ concepts into technical drawings. Some of those people were outstanding artists in their off hours, but had to make their way as draftspeople.
The inadequate and occasionally failing air conditioning in the draftsmen's open bay area was the source of ongoing complaints. One day, one of the suffering artists drew a vivid cartoon showing the work area with drafting boards cluttered with skeletons, cacti in the aisles, cobwebs hanging from the ceiling, animal carcasses and skulls littering the floor, sand blowing around… In the rear corner of the room was a loudspeaker with a word balloon that said, “We are pleased to announce that the water cooler has been repaired.” The impromptu cartoonist posted copies his artwork in the hallways.
Our CEO ordered his secretary to pull them down. But no sooner had she pulled them down than another one would pop up, adding to the amusement, but not the comfort of the draftspeople.
I REMEMBERED THAT CARTOON as I read the following press release from Mendocino County on Friday:
“Mendocino County Department of Transportation Request for Proposals from a Professional Consultant with Water Experience to Develop a Work Plan and Identify Funding Mechanisms to Re-Establish a Stand-Alone Mendocino County Water Agency
Department Transportation
Category Request for Proposals
RFP Number 210054(1)
Start Date 07/30/2021 8:00 AM
Close Date 08/30/2021 4:30 PM
RFP Post Status Open
Mendocino County Department of Transportation Request for Proposals from a Professional Consultant with Water Experience to Develop a Work Plan and Identify Funding Mechanisms to Re-Establish a Stand-Alone Mendocino County Water Agency
Please see full Request for Proposal for more details.
Project Summary
This Request for Proposal (RFP) announces the County of Mendocino’s intent to procure a consultant to evaluate the County’s water resource needs and develop a work plan and identify funding mechanisms to re-establish the Mendocino County Water Agency (MCWA) as a stand-alone agency. Mendocino County requires the services of a Professional firm to provide assistance in the formulation of a Work Plan and updated Action Plan to address current and projected County water concerns.
Submission Information
Consultants must submit 3 copies of their proposal with original Consultant signature. The proposal must be formatted in accordance with the instructions of this RFP. Promotional materials may be attached, but are not necessary and will not be considered as meeting any of the requirements of this RFP. Proposals must be enclosed in a sealed envelope or package, clearly marked “Re-establish a Stand-Alone Mendocino County Water Agency”, and delivered to:
Attn: Howard Dashiell
Director of Transportation, Engineering
Mendocino County Department of Transportation
340 Lake Mendocino Drive
Ukiah, CA 95482-9432
Late or facsimile proposals will not be accepted. It is the proposer’s responsibility to assure that his proposal is delivered and received at the location specified herein, on or before the date and hour set. Proposals received after the date and time specified will not be considered.
Submission Deadline:
August 30, 2021, at 4:30 p.m.”
WE WERE PARTICULARLY IMPRESSED WITH the line: “Late or facsimile proposals will not be accepted.”
WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? Even by Mendo’s slothful standards, it’s way too late and nowhere near enough. Further, the assumption that a Water Agency will actually produce any additional water or water storage is preposterous. At best, they’ll be kinda like MCOG (the Mendocino Council of Governments), the County’s moribund “Transportation Authority” which sucks up millions of dollars that should go to road maintenance but instead is spent on themselves and consultants who do transportation plans and analyses, and apply for grants, and finance walking trails and bike lanes and such. But somehow never get around to actually improving any County roads. (The only actual road we know of that MCOG spent money on was the Willits Bypass, which absorbed every nickel of Caltrans’ local road money for more than ten years and sent it back to Caltrans as the local matching funds for the huge road project around Willits.)
SUPERVISOR GLENN McGOURTY’S “Ukiah Valley Groundwater Sustainability Agency” is a perfect example of what a Water Agency — overseen by those well known water experts also known as the Board of Supervisors — would look like. The UVGSA was formed by an act of the State Legislature five years ago in the wake of an earlier drought and still hasn’t produced a single recommendation or report, much less a grant application or project proposal. They spend most of their time figuring out which member of the wine industry will sit on their Agency’s Board and then flab-gabbing with their UC Davis water consultant about how difficult it is to develop a “model” of the water situation in the Ukiah Valley. Apparently, that endlessly incomplete “model” is all they expect of themselves.
SO THAT OLD CARTOON of a desert created by managerial inaction while bragging about inconsequential after-the-fact actions originally meant as a metaphor for one simple office problem is now an apt portrait of where we’re going.
PS. FUNNY how this Board of Supervisors can find large piles of money to hire consultants for things like “strategic plans,” outside attorneys, water admin consultants, “mindfulness” for delinquents, no-bid retroactive mental health and social services contracts, and dozens of other things while nitpicking the Sheriff about not having enough “data” to justify his obvious budget.
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Cowboy John Pinches on Water, Roads & Supervisors
(Part Two of our recent interview with former Third District Supervisor John Pinches.)
AVA: Did you hear about the Law Enforcement Advisory Board the Supervisors recently voted in?
Pinches: “Defunding a police seems to have become a popular thing in some circles in Mendocino County. They don't need a police oversight board. We have an elected Sheriff. The people of Mendocino are the oversight.”
AVA: This Board doesn’t seem to get much done.
Pinches: “Nothing is getting done. Whether it’s roads, or water — nothing is getting done! More studies and more consultants after decades of studies and consultants — what have they done? The Eastside Potter Valley Road…? We voted to do that project in 1995. 1995! Think about that. And it ain't done yet. It's sickening.”
(AVA: That Eastside Potter Valley Road “Reconstruction and Widening” contract is on the Tuesday, August 3, 2021 Supervisors agenda again. After some quick research I found lots of on-line references to earlier progress reports about studies being done and EIRs being processed and conducted going as far back as 2003. But those referred to the project as ongoing from an earlier date.)
Pinches: “These rural roads in the Third District, whether it's Spy Rock or Bell Springs, they are basically the same roads they were 50 years ago. Or longer. I know. They are the same roads. No improvements. But now there are thousands more people living out in those remote areas. Look at the assessed value of those properties and the taxes they have taken in. When I was a kid there were two families on Spy Rock Road. My uncle's family with his three kids and another family that had a blind son. And that was all the traffic there was on Spy Rock Road. Last I counted there are now over 800 parcels serviced off of Spy Rock Road. And it's the same road. Do you realize what the assessed value of those parcels is? In the budget book they talk about how the County's assessed valuation has been going up. They keep being sold and resold to new people and the assessed values go up each time. All those taxes collected and the same road.”
AVA: I read that Willits just voted to not sell any of their water to Fort Bragg and move into the first stage of conservation.
“I heard that too. But that could be solved pretty easily by going up to a couple of those ranches above Brooktrails and drilling a couple of deep wells and run that water down the hill and into the existing Brooktrails reservoirs. Sherwood Valley is way up above Brooktrails. Just gravity flow the water down to Brooktrails and then some of that could be piped to Willits.
“Making matters worse is all the people pumping the rivers and creeks dry. Fish & Game doesn't enforce anything. Their only interest is in citing you for killing an old doe. Lots of water flows through North County gulches in the wintertime. Those winter creeks don't affect any fish; they are winter-only creeks. They could be tapped.
“Up here at my ranch we got 28 inches of rain this year. That's a block of water 28 inches deep. A lot of water. And we haven't been able to store enough of it to take care of the needs of 90,000 people?
“Lake Mendocino has a storage capacity of 120,000 acre-feet. That storage alone is more than one acre foot of water per person. It's a combination of a lack of planning and a lack of doing anything. They can't use the ‘no money’ argument anymore. There's plenty of money available. By the way, the Department of Transportation can’t use the ‘no money’ argument either. There are millions in the road fund going unspent.”
AVA: You mentioned the Board getting nothing done. It seems like they’re content to hire consultants and lawyers and hold more meetings and talk about the problems, but not much else.
Pinches: “You’d think that at least one of the five supervisors would have a little energy to do something. They don't realize that if you don't pay attention to your infrastructure, pretty soon you become a third world country. It's very frustrating. There's not much we can do about the world, but we can still try to affect the future of Mendocino County. If Supervisor Haschak invited me I would be happy to give the Supervisors the benefit of my experience and knowledge. I told Haschak that I have no intention of running for Supervisor again. I'll be 70 years old this month. I just want to make things better for this county. But I think Haschak still has in the back of his mind that he doesn't want to give Pinches an opportunity to reenter the race. That's how people think. When you're a politician, most of what you think about is politics.
“There have been a lot of Supervisors that have come and gone in our lifetime and what have most of them done? Basically nothing. Not only that, but then they disappeared. Very few have stayed involved in County activities. I have no idea why they even ran.”
* * *
Mendo Strategic Planning, A Brief History
In the run-up to Mendocino County officially “adopting” its new “General Plan” in the summer of 2009, the then Board of Supervisors and CEO — almost all now long gone — decided to hold a Strategic Planning session at their last meeting of 2008.
After all the “General Plan” which took years for a consultant to prepare and cost millions of dollars didn’t actually have any “plans,” it was nothing but hundreds of pages of boilerplate of nice things like “collaborate,” “develop,” “enhance,” “strive,” “align,” “consider,” “seek funding for,” “continue to,” “encourage,” etc. There’s not one specific “plan” to do anything.
In fact, that’s what “strategic plans” are: non-specific, big picture. And that’s why paying a Sonoma County consultant well north of $75k like the current Board of Supervisors has done is a giant waste of money. Even if Dr. SoCo WhatsHerName produces something labeled a “strategic plan,” it will be like the General Plan, devoid of any specific plans and deadlines.
Time traveling back to December of 2008.
It was the last Board meeting of the year. The CEO was Tom ‘I’ll Get Back To You’ Mitchell and the Supervisors were Mike Delbar, Jim Wattenberger, John Pinches, Kendall Smith and David Colfax. It was Delbar’s and Wattenberger’s last Board meeting, the rest would be gone soon after.
They spent half a day on the subject of a “strategic plan,” but never even got anywhere near any kind of plan, strategic or otherwise. Instead they used the occasion to pat congratulate themselves.
They began by recapping their “accomplishments,” at the end of which the Board decided that they were doing so well and had “accomplished” so much that they didn’t really need a strategic plan.
What accomplishments?
Oh, they were grand!
Then-DA Meredith Lintott claimed credit for “prosecuting murder cases.”
Health and Human Services Director Carmel Angelo — in a foreshadowing of things to come — claimed credit for, among other minor things, “on-line dog licenses.”
General Services Administrator Kristin McMenomey claimed credit for conducting an evacuation drill.
Chief Probation officer Wes Forman claimed credit for “improved on-time reports” and increased security at his reception desk.
Undersheriff Gary Hudson joked about all the money the Sheriff got from pot “criminals” who had had their assets seized.
County Clerk Recorder Susan Ranochak complimented her elections staff for holding elections.
Human Resources Director Linda Clouser claimed credit for having “successfully negotiated bargaining unit contracts” for some county employees, the so-called “Confidential Unit,” the Management Association, and the Department Head Association.
Supervisor David Colfax, as usual focused on himself, gallantly acknowledged that he'd been “on the short side of many 3-2 votes,” then complimented local firefighters for taking his Boonville home off the fire evacuation list during the 2008 lightning fires. “You have done a fantastic job of providing services to this Supervisor,” Colfax declared.
The closest thing to a negative word came when Supervisor Pinches objected to Assistant CEO Alison Glassey’s proposal to hold “educational workshops” for the Supervisors in 2009 saying, “It’s the responsibility of individual board members to be informed.”
Which is an important point to make in a County that devotes endless public hours to absolutely pointless blah-blah sessions which no public employee or any other more or less sane person would even think of attending unless he or she was paid to be there, and paid well to be there.
At the end of the meeting during public comment, then-Supervisor-Elect John McCowen asked the group, “Do you have any insights on what didn't work so well and what additional improvements could possibly be made? Any room for improvement?”
The only response was from Supervisor Pinches.
“We have to straighten the budget out first,” said Pinches.
Nobody else could think of a single thing needing improvement.
In 2010 the Board promoted Carmel Angelo to the position of CEO and she in fact “straightened out the budget,” after a fashion anyway.
* * *
Which reminds us of that famous Chris Rock quote from a few years ago:
A homeboy friend of Rock’s had complained that Rock wasn’t giving enough credit to fellow homeboys for raising their kids and staying out of jail. “You’re supposed to do that, you dumb (so-and-so)! You don’t get credit for doing what you’re supposed to do!”
In Mendo’s case, the question of what various managers are “supposed to do” is never explored, so even that low bar is left up to the staff to pick and choose what they do from among things like on line dog licenses.
Fast forward to 2021. They still don’t know what they’re supposed to do, so they simply muddle their way through multiple ongoing disasters and problems as they arise. They can’t even plan what they’re going to do after CEO Angelo retires.
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Mendo’s ‘Acting’ Civil Service Commission
Local County Employee Rep Patrick Hickey complained to the County’s moribund Civil Service Commission last Wednesday about the abuse of “acting” assignments, saying that “acting” should only be used for short terms like when someone’s out sick or in school. Hickey said that calling someone the “acting” this or that denies job candidates a fair opportunity for openings when the “acting” person is kept in the job for a year or more. “It undermines the spirit of the civil service rules,” said Hickey, continuing that the hiring and promotion process should be “open, free of discrimination, free of any sort of nepotism or favoritism…” Hickey asked the Commission to ask the Board of Supervisors to address this issue so that all citizens and employees have a fair shot at getting county jobs “and not doled out to individuals without any kind of process or review or fair hearing.”
The Commission, aping the Supervisors, simply thanked Hickey for his remarks and went on to their usual mindless rubberstampings of various job classifications.
Later in the meeting Ms. Donna Schuler, a senior public health department employee, attempted virtually to appeal a decision made by the Health and Human Services Agency.
The County’s Human Resources honcho, Mr. William Schurtz, going full Zen, had denied Ms. Schuler’s appeal on the grounds that that there were no grounds for her appeal.
Ms. Schuler said she has been employed since August 2018 as a Senior Public Health Department Analyst to do some kind of quality improvement project and covid accreditation work for which she has received praise from her Supervisors. Ms. Schuler noted that Public Health has had six Directors since the “loss” of the Public Health Director back in 2019. (A reference to CEO Angelo’s unceremonious firing of Barbara Howe who has a wrongful termination case pending against the County.) Schuler said she was asked to accept an Acting Administrator assignment in late 2019. She has also been Acting Contact Tracing Chief since then as well. Ms. Schuler said she’s had several supervisors “many of whom are not familiar with public health work, so it’s been a bit chaotic.” She said the “acting director” classification has been bad for her department and that they just lost two more key people this week “at a time when we are getting money for public health and should be doing more of it.”
“It is unfortunate that you have skilled staff departing because they have been repeatedly put in acting assignments because we can’t fill the assignments because people leave for whatever reason and then they don’t get an opportunity for the permanent position,” said Schuler, conceding that Public Health for the moment Public Health has an “interim director” and a “transitional director” which has “added some stability.”
“The overuse and some would say abuse of the acting title is harming the public health department,” said Schuler.
Schuler’s specific complaint had to do with being denied the Accreditation Administrator position because of the extended use of acting assignments for such positions. She suggested that “provisional” be used more so that otherwise qualified people’s qualifications can be straightened out until they get the permanent position title.
HR Director Schurtz admitted there was “overuse” of the Acting assignments. He said he’s working on the policy to make it more temporary. “There have been a number of employees in acting positions for quite some time,” conceded Schurtz. He said they’re doing “more monitoring” [i.e., they weren’t doing any] of “acting” and “out of class” assignments. He agreed the policy needs to be more specific and that it leaves things “open to subjectivity” and that he’s “looking to do more regulating” of the practice.
One Commissioner requested a “timeline” for a report of HR’s conclusions and proposed changes, but wistfully concluded, “There’s not much we can do but monitor the situation.”
Basically, in Ms. Schuler’s case the person doing the “acting” job for months was denied the position she was doing just fine in because a nebulous HHSA hiring process picked someone else after some interviews and reviews of qualifications.
Mr. Schurtz said his department didn’t dictate hiring processes to departments.
Commissioner Sherrie Ebyam (Willits) said it didn’t seem like the HHSA selection committee was composed of people familiar with public health but only with the “qualifications.”
But Commissioner Ginny Feth Michel said that questioning the department’s decision is way, way out of scope of the Civil Service Commission.
In the end Commission Chair Terry Poplawski thanked Ms. Schuler for “educating” the Commission and moved on to the next subject. Nobody made any motions or set any dates for any follow-up. Nobody suggested raising the issue with the Supervisors.
* * *
Some staff “chaos” might be attributable to covid. But the union rep and the Human Resources Director and the Commission itself all agree that Mendo is “overusing” (i.e., abusing) the “acting” position trick, moving their loyal pals here and there as they see fit, disrupting ordinary departmental activities, causing people to quit after being denied promotions or raises, and implying that in Mendo jobs and promotions are based more on nepotism and favoritism than on ability. It’s yet another sign of mismanagement at the top.
The Civil Service Commission is useless, a complete betrayal of the purpose my uncle, the late great Supervisor Joe Scaramella, outlined when he created it as part of his reform agenda when he was elected back in the 1950s to correct the palsy-walsyism that pervaded Official Mendo even back then (when there were fewer employees). We’ve watched this Commission’s activities off and on for years and have never seen them question a single thing management does.
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