Rarely does an interviewee ask for more time as the session winds down, but Steven Danziger, high-energy president of the Moraga-Orinda Fire District board of directors, did just that, as he outlined his plans to change the negative perception of the district board. "We as a new board can turn that around," he said.
Danziger has his work cut out for him.
The MOFD board made national news in 2009 for enabling the pension spiking of its retiring fire chief, providing him an annual retirement benefit higher than his salary; five years later, in a rare public spat between government agencies, a Contra Costa County supervisor rebuked the district board, calling MOFD "a perfect example of a special district with a poor governance structure"; in 2018, despite a public plea from town officials to support the Moraga storm drain measure, the MOFD directors could not decide among themselves which way to vote and declined to submit a ballot; and a recently retired district director called the board he served on "dysfunctional."