Stanislaus County supervisor was independent, and smart, in three terms on board, colleagues say

Stanislaus County Supervisor Bill O’Brien is finishing a third term and attended his final board meeting last week.

As they paid tribute to the 44-year-old retiring board member, colleagues said county government is losing a policy expert and a creative mind that took on challenges.

In representing the Riverbank and Oakdale area for 12 years, O’Brien attended 465 board meetings and voted on 9,000 resolutions. Hardly one to rubber-stamp government decisions, O’Brien voted against the board meeting calendar every year, which he felt had too many weeks without a regular meeting.

The supervisor did his homework for board meetings and “you are not going to surprise him with a question,” board Chairman Dick Monteith said.

Supervisor Vito Chiesa, who sat next to O’Brien on the dais, said he could count on him to explain the strange math of government finance or confusing details of an ordinance.

“I quickly learned that Bill knows his stuff,” said Terry Withrow, a second-term supervisor who was first elected in 2010.

O’Brien, a former mayor of Riverbank, defeated a long-term incumbent, Pat Paul, in a 2004 election to ascend to county leadership.

He went on to accept 14 committee assignments for the county, including the capital facilities committee, the Stanislaus Regional 911 commission, the general plan update committee, the Stanislaus Council of Governments’ executive committee and the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District board.

County staff members said two efforts in particular were a brainchild of the supervisor – the new county morgue and Valley Recovery Resources. O’Brien proposed moving the antiquated coroner’s office into a remodeled building at County Center III on Oakdale Road, after a renovation plan for a downtown Modesto building was deemed unfeasible.

When the county could no longer afford a local match to fund the Redwood Family Centers, which help addicted mothers reunite with their children, O’Brien made a call to county Chief Operations Officer Patty Hill Thomas, leading to a private-public partnership that saved the program in 2011.

“He said, ‘I need to find a way to take this private money and bring federal and state dollars here,’ ” Hill Thomas recalled. About $160,000 was raised from faith groups and the private sector, enabling the county to draw $3.3 million in public funds for the Redwood centers.

O’Brien said the most difficult board decisions were the county employee layoffs following the 2008 economic crisis.

“It seems like for a year or so we did it at every meeting,” he said.

The supervisor chaired a capital facilities committee that’s overseen the expansion of county incarceration and program facilities on Hackett Road. They are folded into the largest capital project in the county’s history.

Hill Thomas said O’Brien kept staff members on their toes by questioning the logic of spending proposals, such as the purchase of county vehicles and supportive housing.

Chiesa said the youngest member of the board is quite mature and good at policy writing.

“Bill is truly the smartest guy I have met,” Chiesa said, adding. “He knows how to be funny privately. He’s a fun guy to be around.”

O’Brien will soon step aside for former state Assemblywoman Kristin Olsen, who ran unopposed in November and will be sworn in Jan. 10. O’Brien has referred to Olsen as “the one clear choice to replace him.”

He plans a two-year hiatus from county government and intends to run for county treasurer-tax collector in 2018.

O’Brien noted that county supervisors maintained respect for each other despite disagreements.

“We fight like cats and dogs, we vote and we move on,” he said. “We do have a great county, and it’s the people who make it so great.”

This story was originally published December 25, 2016 at 5:37 PM with the headline "Stanislaus County supervisor was independent, and smart, in three terms on board, colleagues say."