MENDOCINO CO., 10/8/26 — Mendocino County supervisors voted 5-0 Tuesday to accept $364,959 for the sheriff’s office from the Northern California Coalition to Safeguard Communities.
The private nonprofit is governed by five sheriffs and a district attorney and receives its funding from the Howard G. Buffett Foundation of Decatur, Illinois. Mendocino County Sheriff Matt Kendall is the coalition’s treasurer.
The grant year began Aug. 1, more than two months before supervisors formally accepted the award. The item was on the consent calendar, where items are normally approved together without separate discussion. Supervisor John Haschak pulled it for questions.
“There’s been public concern about this because it comes from some billionaire, Warren Buffett’s son, I guess, in Indiana or someplace,” Haschak said. He asked Kendall to “educate the public on what’s being done with this grant.”
Haschak said in a Sept. 4 email that he had never heard of the coalition. Supervisor Ted Williams said in an email the same day that money used for county law enforcement “should be transparent and subject to appropriate county oversight, regardless of its source,” and that he would seek more information.
What the sheriff said
Kendall came to the podium with Jason Caudillo, his administrative captain. The coalition formed about five years ago and has funded the office every year since, Kendall said. He compared the award to nonprofit grants supporting libraries and behavioral health.
“I’m not certain what the big concern on this one is,” he said.
The money covers “almost $170,000 of a lieutenant salary,” he said, plus $150,000 toward a new report-writing system to replace one he called “extremely archaic” that cannot share information with other counties. About $12,000 would pay for protective gear for deputies working around banned chemicals at grow sites.
Human trafficking “is a portion of it,” he said. The rest is “blight,” waste and hazardous chemicals.
The coalition’s award letter, dated Aug. 1 and attached to the agenda, lists $169,775 for a lieutenant, $150,000 for the records system, $12,000 for uniforms and chemical protection, a $3,500 camera, $100 for USB flash drives, and $29,584 for Cellebrite and GrayKey, commercial cellphone forensic tools, and training to use them.
The letter says invoices and reimbursement “will be made through NCCSC Treasurer, Matt Kendall,” who “will arrange for the distribution of funds.” Kendall then serves two roles: sheriff of the county receiving the award and treasurer of the nonprofit distributing it.
Caudillo told the board Kendall had made it a priority to work with interim Chief Executive Officer Sara Pierce to spare the general fund, and that Pierce “has actually offered up some other solutions.” The work would be done either way, he said.
“This money is going to be spent, and our hope is to utilize it from another source and not just the general fund.”
Questions from the dais
Board Chair Bernie Norvell asked whether, if the item failed, the office would still do the work and buy the software with county money.
“Absolutely,” Kendall said.
He said he had spent 18 to 24 months “chasing grants.” Counting this award and the $4.5 million state cannabis-enforcement grant the board accepted Sept. 1, he put the annual offset to county spending at “roughly $1.2 million a year.”
Without the outside funding, he said, “We’re still going to have to do the work, but it’s going to be 100% on the county’s back.”
Williams said the board had told the sheriff, in effect, “We’re broke, try to find some outside money.” The only public concern he had heard, he said, was whether a donor could influence operations.
“What I’m hearing is that’s not the case,” he said. “Operations are under the sheriff like always, so these are just additional dollars.”
“Absolutely,” Kendall said.
He and “the other four sheriffs” meet regularly, he said, and send deputies across county lines. The other parties in the coalition are sheriffs from Lake, Humboldt, Trinity and Siskiyou counties. After a worker died at a Lake County cannabis farm in August, Kendall said, Mendocino deputies went to help.
“We’re getting money out of that pot, and we have to support each other.”
Steven Amato, president of the Mendocino Cannabis Alliance, was the only public speaker. He thanked the sheriff and asked the board to require regular reports so the public “can understand that there’s actual results being produced from this.” The alliance submitted a letter in support.
The award letter requires reports to the coalition, rather than to county supervisors. The sheriff’s office must submit an interim report by March 1, 2027, and a final report by Oct. 1, 2027.
The coalition’s budget for the grant year that ended July 31, 2025, released by Mendocino County under the Public Records Act, listed $170,631 for the county, most of it reimbursement for two half-time jobs. Tuesday’s award is more than double that amount and includes $169,775 toward a lieutenant’s compensation.
Haschak made the motion to accept the grant. Williams seconded it.