<html><body><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; color: #000000"><div>Hi Norman,</div><div><br></div><div>I'm going to need your support on this. You've got street cred. Getting MCERA to allocate even 1-2% of its portfolio to a community wealth fund will be an uphill battle.</div><div><br></div><div>Among our county leaders, you get it. We're at end-stage capitalism. The days of "earning" consistent double-digit returns based on extracting non-renewable natural resources, and based on exploiting labor, are gone.</div><div><br></div><div>I think Dan Hamberg and John McCowen both support the idea of a community wealth fund.</div><div><br></div><div>Can the BOS set the idea of a community wealth fund as its own agenda item, with the action being for the BOS to recommend to the Retirement Board that the Retirement Board research the idea with its investment adviser, Callan Associates?</div><div><br></div><div>-- John</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><hr id="zwchr"><div style="color:#000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:12pt;"><b>From: </b>"Norman de Vall" <ndevall@mcn.org><br><b>To: </b>"kzyxtalk" <kzyxtalk@lists.mcn.org><br><b>Sent: </b>Friday, February 19, 2016 7:55:38 AM<br><b>Subject: </b>Re: [Kzyxtalk] County pension fund should diversity investments<br><div><br></div>John,<br>We also need an educated, articulated worker base<br>made up of those who want to work at a job.<br>Most of our growth today is in one or a few people<br>Entrepreneurship's. We don't have many who want<br>to join the "rank and file".<br><div><br></div>>From my following of local businesses the weakest<br>component is the lack of adequate management.<br>(the county being a good example)Component<br><div><br></div>I tried to get the BoS to purchase the Masonite acreage<br>from International Paper and found zero interest.<br><div><br></div>I tried to get the Retirement Board decades ago to<br>purchase potential vineyard acres; again no interest.<br><div><br></div>During my term properties were offered to the County<br>for sheriff deputy housing but again no interest.<br><div><br></div>I've tried to get the Board to initiate "Clean Slate II"<br>in an effort to get non-code, non-permit structures<br>to become legal (as we did in the 1980s) and<br>again no interest. And decades of property tax have<br>been lost in the interim.<br><div><br></div>I represent a company trying to initiate a $4.5m <br>Improvement project. The county paper process<br>to bring the property into compliance with the<br>General Plan designation has taken a 1.5 years<br>and should have been done when the Board approved<br>the new General Plan. The "Re-Zoning" application<br>cost $3,000. In the meantime the County has lost<br>at least $45,000 in lost property taxes.<br><div><br></div>We are being smothered with our semi-retired<br>mentality.<br><div><br></div>Where are the graduates of "Leadership Mendocino"?<br><div><br></div>Norman<br><div><br></div><br><div><br></div><br>_______________________________________________<br>Kzyxtalk mailing list<br>Kzyxtalk@lists.mcn.org<br>http://lists.mcn.org/mailman/listinfo/kzyxtalk<br></div><div><br></div></div></body></html>