Mendocino County CEO Darcie Antle Announces Retirement
Acknowledges the county "has a long way to go" on increasing financial transparency
Edits: Comments from Supervisors John Haschak and Ted Williams were added (January 15,2025, 12 p.m.)
Darcie Antle, who has served as Mendocino County’s chief executive officer and assistant CEO through years marked by drought, floods, wildfires, the COVID-19 pandemic and persistent financial strain, announced Tuesday that she will retire at the end of June 2026.
Antle made the announcement Jan. 14 at the conclusion of a two-day Mendocino County Board of Supervisors workshop focused on setting county priorities for 2026, calling her four-year tenure “a wild ride” and one that included challenges few county executives encounter in an entire career.
“I came to the county after 22 years in health care thinking I was going to slow down,” Antle told supervisors. “That didn’t happen.”
Her remarks capped a workshop that spotlighted the need for better fiscal oversight, improved public confidence and the need for clearer, more accessible financial reporting — issues that have persisted throughout Antle’s tenure and remain unresolved as the county plans for the coming years.
“Ms. Antle worked very hard and was able to move the County in many positive directions,” Supervisor John Haschak said in an email to Mendo Local. “She stepped up and confidently guided the County through several difficult challenges. Her leadership will be missed.”
Supervisor Ted Williams said the announcement was not unexpected given that Antle’s contract will expire this summer.
Antle cited a range of accomplishments, including securing funding for a behavioral health wing at the county jail, relocating evidence storage to a county-owned facility, purchasing properties during the pandemic for mental health and housing uses, modernizing the county’s long-outdated financial and payroll systems, and creating a centralized grants division to improve oversight of external funding.
She also pointed to efforts to normalize cannabis permitting within planning and building services, renegotiate long-stalled memorandums of understanding with partner agencies, outsource fleet maintenance to private vendors, and expand emergency preparedness through updated mitigation and operations plans.
Several of those initiatives were framed as steps toward improving accountability, including audits by the state auditor and state controller, rescinding outdated policies and expanding internal financial training. Antle acknowledged, however, that the county still faces work ahead on transparency.
“Yes, Supervisor Williams, we’ve got a long way to go on that,” she said.
Concerns about public trust were underscored by a survey released in December by FM3 Research, which found that 52% of respondents held an unfavorable view of Mendocino County government. During the workshop, supervisors also expressed a lack of confidence in the county’s current cost allocation plan — a long-standing methodology for allocating indirect costs tied to central services such as accounting, human resources, information technology and legal support to the departments that use them.
Antle has also come under fire for her handling of a disputed pay transaction involving Mendocino County’s former payroll auditor and Antle’s testimony in a subsequent criminal case. Auditor-Controller/Treasuer-Tax Collector Chamise Cubbison was charged and exonerated of felony misappropriation of funds. Cubbison is currently suing the county for backpay after being relieved of her duties for 17 months.
Antle said she plans to spend the next six months supporting department leadership and ensuring continuity as the county prepares for a transition.
“There’s never enough. There’s always more to do,” she said. “But it’s been a joy.”
Chairman of the Board of Supervisors Bernie Norvell thanked Antle for her service following the announcement.
Thank god. If the County can't find a far more ethical and fiscally conservative person to serve in this capacity, the BoS should set her salary and benes $$ aside for that rainy day when they finally pay Cubbison her back pay and compensation for what Eyster, Antle, et al put her through.
The county desperately needs a competent CEO. I suggest someone who is an attorney, and has fiscal and public administration experience running a California county. We need someone who understands that high staff turnover is mostly due to bad managers and will either re-train them or let them go. Staff turnover creates costs for the county in both training the new employee and legal fees due to unlawful firings. The county pays out so much money for these wrongful terminations. Like millions! The loss of institutional knowledge is damaging to the organization. And the turnover creates poor morale among employees, who have to pick up the work. Most county employees are dedicated public servants and they deserve better.