Information provided by Roxy Montana, San Benito County Civil Grand Jury Foreman
The San Benito County Civil Grand Jury is open for business and ready to receive correspondence from the people of San Benito County.
A copy of the complaint form may be obtained from the link: https://www.cosb.us/home/showpublisheddocument/952/637199690932870000
The form must be signed and copies of supporting materials may be attached. Please mail to: San Benito County Grand Jury, P.O. Box 1624, Hollister CA 95024
The Civil Grand Jury’s oversight jurisdiction is almost exclusively limited to local governments such as counties, cities, special districts, and school districts.
It does not extend to state or federal activities or to purely private organizations and people not acting in a governmental capacity. The courts are state operations, not county; they cannot be investigated.
Penal Code §919(c) requires the Civil Grand Jury to inquire into the willful or corrupt misconduct in office of public officers of every description within the county.
Topics for investigation usually come to the Grand Jury by three basic avenues – a citizen’s complaint or request for investigation form, topics suggested through the committee process, or occasionally a reference from the immediate preceding jury.
Grand Juries operate under a code of confidentiality, and are forbidden from divulging interviewees’ identities and source material. No information is ever revealed to an interviewee, and names are never published in reports. The confidentiality of interviewees and complainants is critical and required by law.
Verified facts must support a Grand Jury’s findings, upon which its recommendations will rest. All findings must be directly supported by factual material, and all recommendations must flow from one or more findings.
Any final report is, of course, a matter of public record, as are all agency responses
The principle element of continuity is for a Grand Jury to review the responses to the prior Grand Jury’s reports in order to: let the community know that someone is watching; publicize the responses, giving credit where credit is due or admonishing an agency that has been nonresponsive; and keep the public informed about the continuous nature of Grand Jury work.
