Santiago seeks back pay from El Dorado County
By Kathryn Reed
Former El Dorado County Supervisor Norma Santiago believes the county owes her back wages.
She is the second supervisor to demand more money since leaving office. The other was Ron Briggs.
Norma Santiago
“I’m not commenting on that,” Santiago told Lake Tahoe News before she abruptly hung up the phone.
Santiago was on the board for nine years, coming off in January after being termed out. She never made a formal request in all that time to have her $76,875 salary increased.
In the email she wrote to then acting CAO Pamela Knorr and County Counsel Robyn Drivon, Santiago said, “Before leaving office, I requested that my wages be evaluated against certain resolutions adopted by the BOS to make a determination if I was owed back wages. I never formally put this in writing and given all the craziness that was happening, I didn’t do much follow up except an occasional inquiry.”
Santiago is of the belief she is owed cost of living adjustments and money for not taking time off as a manager.
The county has rejected Santiago and Brigg’s claims.
Paula Frantz, senior deputy county counsel, responded to Santiago by writing, “ … none of the claims has merit.”
The state Constitution stipulates that the only way boards of supervisors may increase their pay is through an ordinance. This gives the electorate almost two months to potentially overturn that decision. It is irrelevant how many resolutions the local body passes regarding salaries, the Constitution trumps them all.
Santiago did not put a dollar amount in the request stating what she believes she is owed. Briggs believes he is owed more than $90,000.
The next step, if either chooses to do so, is to file a lawsuit against the county.
The Supervisor we all wish we had never voted for. Get a grip!
And people thought Briggs was as low as a snake’s belly, she is beneath that. Her rude behavior about even answering questions says a lot about character. These unemployed politicians never seem to know what it is over and when the time to exit from the public graft racket has arrived. Both should be laughed out of the county back to wherever they came from.
Hmmm…I wonder which developer she’s now working for.
How we all urn for the time when public service was an honor and privilege, not a “job.”
When a person was send to serve because he or she was one of us, Santiago did nothing for South Lake Tahoe, while she tripled her life style, know she wants more?
Next Nutting will apply for unemployment benefits and back pay after being removed by the judge after his convictions. This gang of grafters that seems to include the two former CAO’s and their cronies with their sticky fingers in the tax payers pockets and their gross financial mismanagement needs to be addressed and all of them should be dismissed from county employment for a start if any of them are left. Then the DA needs to investigate their every action.
Looks like she tripled her size as well. Lay off the Mickey-D and just go away.
Norma: We all live in a VERY small town and we are tired of being squeezed by politicians or ex politicians. Please leave quietly.
Another overpaid bureaucrat virtually impossible to wean from engorging unabated at the public trough.
Her pay more than doubled when she first got elected. Guess now that Santiago is out of office and has to get a private sector job again, she’s trying to scrape up whatever dollars she can?!
Norma did her job as well as she could in a dysfunctional environment-whether you agree with her politics or not ‘fat shaming’ is really an ignorant loudmouth punk tactic
Kitty litter likes to point fingers at everyone else for all matters of inperfections.I wonder what his are, I mean the ones we dont know. We already know his hatefull heart, narrow minded bigotted racism, he is probably as ugly on the outside as well…
How dare you ask for back wages, when you and staff members took my property and gave it to local developers, “Smedberg Pines” Go away as All of you have tried to make me go away. I will not, til you do what is right by law. The general plan we the people voted on. Also what happened to the park we were to have here in Pollock Pines, Why are we trying to sell a property that was donated to the public by Loomer. And isn’t it funny how you go into certain departments and ask for those deeds, every thing has disappeared. What happened to the 45 acre park, now 25 acre, what happenend to the money that was set aside for the “Park” have any of you BOS ever notice there is no public park here in PP.There is nowhere for the kids to run in the grass,aslide,amerry go round,swings, play disc golf,perhaps a bbq with the family for an afternoon. Stop asking for money from we the people, when you counldn’t even do a job we the people asked you to do, and that was to look out for our community.
It will be interesting to see if my comment gets posted.
1. This article is very slanted. Even the photo is horrible. Norma is a beautiful, bright person misrepresented in a dark, out-of-focus photo. How she hung up the phone has nothing to do with this article. Also, the Quotes need to be complete, especially from Paula Franz. Please don’t treat us like children and give us only the last few words.
2. Based on the comments above, you people need to do your homework before you start accusing a person of not doing their job or tripling their lifestyle. Clearly, none of you know her.
3. Norma has done more for her District in El Dorado County than most of you will ever know. Ask ANYONE in the Angora Fire! Norma is responsible for hiring the Contractor from the State to clean up EVERY lot of the 254 homes that burned to the ground, including mine. She went out of her way and did above and beyond any service she could offer and fixed any issues we had. She’s put that kind of compassion towards all of her Projects at the County.
4. Do the math. Norma is requesting pay for each of the 9 years of service of a raise she did not get and time off she never took. Only the ignorant would see that as a payment of luxury. Norma does NOT have a life of luxury. Far from it.
5. If any of you make any comment about anyone’s weight, you are a discriminate, moronic idiot.
She was just a good liberal and the few liberals in the county want to claim her and make excuses for her and say she did a good job of pretending to be a Supervisor and selling out Meyers while fleecing this county and trying another fleece which speaks for their own kind and they can have her as the rest of us can’t stand public tax dollar thieves like these two former politicians.
I meant to add justanass to my above comment and would like to do so now…
just another finger pointer and name caller. Ugly is as ugly does…
Hollywood: Lot’s of people went above and beyond as a result of the fire. Give her a certificate of merit….not almost $77,000.00. She has some nerve.
Yes, nature….by all means point your finger at those you forgot to point at. You are a pathetic hypocrite.
People should always remember this is THE former unemployed supervisor who appears to have a lot to do with selling out Meyers to developers and would have nothing to do with people who found out. She also went to the Sac Bee editorial office with soon to be fired CAO Daly and soon an article appeared about how terrible and miserable the county “culture” and Department Heads and employees are and that the CAO’s 200k study and employee survey would confirm this, it didn’t and showed the opposite to be true and their scheme failed miserably. She also was one of the votes at the very end of her term restoring millions of pay cuts that will cost millions in the future. This kind of grafter needs to be reshown the door until she gets the hint that people weren’t as blind as she and her cronies thought.
Old Norma did what she was told to do, I don’t think she should be paid extra for it.
some of you folks wonder why we did not get the World Record
1 of the things that disqualified us was that Old Norma never filled out the paper work to certify the attempt.
Really Norma – hit the road jack. (Norma)… you did nothing for your constituents. You should be ashamed by the remarks folks say about your tenure. Get a grip!
Even in the afterlife she is a PIG !
Go away Norma ……… you’ve porked us enough !
Oops, I also forgot to add GA to my love letter. From his post above he is obviously feeling left out so im gonna do it cuz I know he loves it:
Gaspen Aspen = finger pointer with an extremely ugly heart!!
does that make you feel included dirt bag?
That takes some audacity after what she did to Meyers.
Toxic Warrior, these posts allow us to voice our opinions about the article above. If you can’t contribute without slandering, then please stay off this site, or any other site. NO ONE benefits from your ignorant remarks. Remember, the definition of ignorant is INTENDED STUPIDITY.
Gaspen Aspen, same goes for you.
Cheif Slowroller, she’s not getting paid extra, it’s pay she was suppose to get over 9 years…
Back to the issues at hand…
Nature bats and Hollywood,
My opinion is from the heart after multiple experiences attempting to negotiate the Meyers Plan with both Norma and the other deceptive liar Brendan Ferry. They both are outright deceptive liars and have their own benefits in mind when they lie through their teeth.
If you don’t like my comments find another column that you have personal experience with before you comment yourselves.
I have had dealings with both from the beginning and they don’t actually lie. Rather they are very selective in what they tell the public and very selective on who they take comments from. The South Tahoe Chamber and several others have requested information from them or asked to be contacted to have an item put on the agenda for the BOS and they have yet to respond. If you read the agenda for the upcoming BOS meeting it appears that there were only two responses in favor of raising the height limit. Seems they forgot about all the meetings where the community changed it. They choose not to return calls, e-mails or requests for another meeting. Even Mr. Veerkamp chose not to talk with anyone as a group at the last meeting in Tahoe, we must now e-mail him or go to Placerville. If they would just be upfront with everything there would not be as much animosity. The MAP has been a one sided affair since the beginning and it does not appear to be changing anytime soon. I have e-mails from Mr. Ferry stating that the 76 gas station canopy was put up without the proper permits and that there is an investigation started and he would get back with me yet that was almost a year and a half ago. The canopy does not fit anything with regards to the scenic corridor rules that the rest of us must follow.
Kenny, they are politicians. They wouldn’t know how to be up front and honest if you smacked them in the face with it. Politicians are never to be trusted.
Nature….looks like you have been looking in the mirror and saw…..now blaming it on others. You grow more and more insignificant by the day. You can speak to my house plant but it has a bigger vocabulary than you so don’t waste it’s time. Beware though, it’s a large Venus Flytrap. You may get what you deserve. LOL, LOL, LOL
You pathetic “finger pointer”
kitty litter. Time to take your blood pressure meds. Funny how you get so defensive when someone “points” out your ignorance and hateful manner but yet when you do the same to others and they defend themselves your hatred seethes through the tablet keys. I think you take yourself way too seriously. You are really not that interesting…
From 2007 to 2013 no county employee got a cost of living raise. What makes Norma think she deserves one.