A Shadow of Her Former Self

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Stacy Ferda, an office assistant at the Oceanside Family Resource Center, lost 57 pounds in six months.

The visual was startling.

Stacy Ferda walked into her last diet support group pulling a cart with more than 50 pounds of food in it. It was equal to the weight she had lost up to that point.

The purpose was to show new program enrollees that attaining their weight loss goals was possible and to celebrate participants’ goal attainment with a donation to the food bank equal to their dropped pounds.

For Ferda, an office assistant at the Oceanside Public Health Center, it really hit home how far she had come since she began the program weighing 198 pounds.

“I thought ‘I was carrying this on my body?” she said. “It’s pretty eye-opening.”

She’s down to 141 pounds now, having dropped a total of 57 since she began the weight loss program on July 2, 2013.

It was tough to face up to her food addiction. But when her good knee started to give out she realized she had to.

“I could no long fake the fact that my weight wasn’t affecting me, even though I was active,” she said.

She liked to eat alone and would often hide how much she was eating.

“I did the March of Dimes walk in Oceanside and it really bothered me that I had to get a size 2X shirt,” Ferda said.

While she was on OPTIFAST, Ferda had five ready-to-drink shakes and two servings of low-sodium broths each day.

“If you go into it with the right mentality, you’re pretty OK with being on a liquid diet,” she said. “The cravings go away.”

Ferda said part of the reason she was successful was the support offered by her co-workers and husband. Her husband went on the same plan and lost 100 pounds.

“It helps to have the work environment and encouragement to have a healthy lifestyle,” she said. “Our Public Health Nurse Manager Audrey Lopez sets a great example.”

She said Lopez walks a 30-minute route every day - rain or shine.

“We have a pattern we walk every day,” she said. “Audrey does it in 30, but I’m at 35 minutes right now.”

Ferda says she tries to ensure she walks at least five days a week and also goes on bike rides.

Just as she was finishing the OPTIFAST program, the County’s Employee Wellness Program was wrapping up it’s “Maintain Don’t Gain” campaign. It was perfect timing.

“’Maintain Don’t Gain’ was going on right when I’m about to go back on regular food,” she said.

 “There are 16 steps in my house and it used to be that every step I went down I hurt, and every step I went up I hurt. It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

New Discounts on Glasses, Contact Lenses Available

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Thinking of buying a pair of snazzy new glasses or fresh contact lenses?

It’s a good time, according to the County’s vision insurance provider VSP. The company recently announced new, $20 discounts for plan members on eyeglass brands such as Nine West, Lacoste and Nike, during calendar year 2014. Employees can also get deals on contact lenses.

VSP subscribers are eligible for certain benefits, including a vision exam each year and a $130 allowance for an eyeglass frame every other plan year with a $15 co-payment and through an in-network doctor. Subscribers also receive annual $105 allowances for contact lenses. A complete description of the County’s VSP benefits package is available in this flier. 

The following new discounts will be available through VSP-approved doctors during 2014:

·        A $20 discount on certain brands of eyeglass frames, including ck Calvin Klein, bebe, Flexon, Lacoste, Michael Kors, Nike, Nine West and others.

·        Rebates of $25 on ACUVUE brand contact lenses and up to $110 on eligible supplies of Bausch + Lomb contact lenses. Visit the VSP’s Special Offers page to learn more.

For more information, including a list of in-network providers, visit HR Benefits or call (888) 550-2203, or contact VSP.

 

Probation Chief Briefs Congressional Aides on Realignment Progress

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San Diego County Chief Probation Officer Mack Jenkins was among a panel of Public Safety Realignment experts in the state that briefed congressional aides last week on local strategies for implementation and how it is working.Probation Chief Mack Jenkins spoke on Capitol Hill last week about the impact of public safety realignment on San Diego County and the state.

Jenkins participated in a panel to brief Congressional staffers and national groups about California’s effort to reduce the prison population as part of public safety realignment. The panel was organized by Congressmen Adam Schiff and Paul Cook, both from California, during a time when the federal government is also reconsidering its prison system.

Public safety realignment took effect in the California in 2011, shifting responsibility for non-violent, non-serious, and non-sex offenders from the state to counties. That means community offenders who would have previously been in state prison or on state parole now serve their sentences in County jail or under County Probation’s supervision.

Since realignment began, California’s prison population has declined by more than 25,000 people or 17 percent.

“From a San Diego standpoint, I talked about how we already had an exceptional collaboration with law enforcement, the courts and even community providers before the task of implementing it came to us and that has helped us immeasurably in managing this at the local level,” Jenkins said. ” We feel as though we are making good progress in implementing realignment.”

Jenkins also discussed Probation’s Community Transition Center where all state prisoners report before transitioning into the community, as well as realignment’s effect on recidivism, which is when an offender commits a new crime. Last month, the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation released a report that tracked recidivism rates for 58,000 offenders across the state who were supervised by probation instead of the state.

“The CDCR report shows that for the realigned offenders that county probation officers statewide are doing as well and arguably better than what they were doing at the state,” said Jenkins. “As for the reduction in prison populations, some states have made some reductions but nothing on the scale of California.”

Jenkins was joined on the panel by Matt Cate, executive director of the California State Association of Counties, as well as other government and law enforcement representatives from California.

The event was sponsored by the Council of State Governments Justice Center, the National Association of Counties (NACO), and the American Probation and Parole Association.

Probation Officers Get Look at Service Provider Options

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Getting probationers the right kind of help is key to getting their lives on track, and San Diego County probation officers Thursday picked up new knowledge about options available for those they supervise.

North County probation officers and staff met with community service providers for drug and alcohol treatment, vocational training, mentoring and housing as part of the Community Resource Directory Expo in San Marcos. They met with representatives from 45 program providers such as the Alpha Project, the Mano a Mano Foundation, Deaf Community Services, North County Serenity House, North County Lifeline and Volunteers in Probation.

 “Our goal is to link offenders with the right treatment services based on their assessed needs and this provider expo allows probation officers to discuss specific plans and options with the people who will be working with the offenders they are trying to rehabilitate,” said Chief Probation Officer Mack Jenkins.

Adult and juvenile offenders are referred using a web-based Community Resource Directory to these probation-approved providers as a way to help address and manage continuing issues in their lives that may have once led them down the wrong path.

“By building better communication and relationships with the community service providers, we can protect community safety and reduce crime,” said Jenkins.

Get a Taste of Success

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Natasha Garcia prepares her Healthy Holiday Dessert Contest-winning recipe to be served at the COC cafeteria.

Irresistible smells often waft from Natasha Garcia’s kitchen.

Growing up, “there was always activity in the kitchen,” said the Planning & Development Services accounting technician. It was a warm spot where family members converged and cooked. As a college student, she interned one summer in a professional kitchen. In her own home now, she bakes fresh breads, and cooks dishes from scratch such as chicken pot pie and albondigas soup. Her family and friends are often drafted as taste testers.

On Wednesday, Garcia’s latest culinary creation will be available for County employees to sample. She recently won the County’s Healthy Holiday Dessert Recipe Contest with her preparation of a French dessert dish named pear-almond clafouti. The COC cafeteria will serve it starting at 11 a.m. Wednesday.

The contest, in its second year, poses a challenge to employees: create a dessert that is both healthy and delicious.

Garcia was one of 65 employees to give it a try.

She brought her own creative flair to her clafouti dish, a baked dessert with fresh fruit and what Garcia described as a light, soufflé-like consistency. Garcia started with a recipe she found in a co-worker’s healthy cookbook, but tweaked it to make it even healthier and tastier.

Since the contest called for low-calorie desserts, Garcia made a few substitutions to lower the calorie count further. She used more egg whites and less egg, as well as more orange juice and less liqueur. She used pears instead of the apricots called for in the original recipe. And she decided against mangoes or persimmons, after making samples of each and getting feedback from friends, family and co-workers. The tasters liked the texture and flavor of the pear best.

The judges obviously agreed, selecting her creation in a final round last month that included the top five recipes from each County group. Other finalists prepared lemon angel cake, peach betty, gluten- free zucchini chocolate cake and flourless brownies. The five-judge panel, which included chefs from the COC cafeteria as well as a few County employees, selected her dish based on both presentation and taste.

COC Commons Food Service Director Javier Alamanza said Garcia’s dish had “good flavor.” Her presentation was also polished and professional.

What does Garcia think about the cafeteria serving her dish? It’s remarkable, she said.

As the winner, she spent time this week in the kitchen at the COC preparing her dish to serve. She peeled and poached the pears on Tuesday, and planned to return Wednesday morning to finish cooking the 60 servings planned.

William Erese, the County’s wellness coordinator, said he was extremely pleased with how the contest went this year and that there are plans to expand it in the future.

As contest winner, Garcia received a few prizes including an electric juicer, which she brought into work to share with her co-workers. She said winning felt like a “team effort.”

“They’ve shown a lot of support,” she said. “Especially when it came to tasting.”

Pear-Almond Clafouti Recipe (PDF)

All Rise For the Newly Appointed Superior Court Judge

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Longtime Deputy District Attorney Daniel Lamborn got some happy news for the holidays. Governor Jerry Brown appointed him to serve as a judge on the San Diego Superior Court.

Lamborn took a new oath on Dec. 27 and joined the bench while his family looked on, including his 91-year-old mother, who he said was bursting with pride.

“It’s a very humbling honor to be placed in such a position,” said Lamborn Monday as he cleaned out his County office. “After being a prosecutor for so many years, it will be a very fulfilling experience -- where instead of being an advocate, it will be very good to be the judge to make decisions in trying to achieve justice.”

Judge Lamborn, 57, worked for the District Attorney’s Office for 30 years in various positions. Most recently, he served as chief deputy district attorney, a post he had held since 2008.

Lamborn said his colleagues at the District Attorney’s Office have all been “very supportive, not only of this, but throughout my whole career.”

In order to be considered by the governor, attorneys go through a series of local interviews and a final interview that determines if candidates will get an interview with the governor’s senior advisor.  Lamborn said he interviewed with the senior advisor in November. Sometimes it can take months before any appointment but his was very quick and made for “quite a Christmas gift,” he said.

He plans to start his new position next week and looks forward to his assignment.

“Wherever he sends me, I’ll work very hard to take care of the people of San Diego,” said Lamborn.

In his career as a deputy district attorney, he prosecuted several high-profile cases. They included convictions of Cleophus Prince, a serial killer known as the Clairemont Killer, and Kenneth Bogard, dubbed the Pacific Beach Rapist. Lamborn earned various honors including a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition in 2003, a Metro Arson Strike Team Prosecutor’s Award in 2000 and Prosecutor of the Year by the San Diego District Attorney’s Office in 1993.

He also has worked as an instructor at California Western School of Law and for the FBI. Lamborn said he will continue teaching this coming quarter and then see what the future holds.

Tapping Each Other's Talents for 25 Years

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They finish each other’s sentences. They speak by phone every work day morning at 8:20. One of them will answer emails addressed to both of them without needing to check with the other.

Kathy Jackson and June Herzog have been inseparable, working together in the Health and Human Services Agency’s (HHSA) Child Welfare Services for 25 years. They are co-workers and - more importantly - best friends.

“When we’re at meetings and doing introductions, if she’s not there I’ll turn to the empty chair next to me and say, ‘this is Kathy Jackson from North Inland’ and they look at me like she’s not there - but she might as well be,” said Herzog.

They’re used to the slightly crazy looks they sometimes generate. Their enduring friendship and the fact that they are completely in sync can be rare in the workplace and something others long for.

“I didn’t realize it was so unique,” said Herzog. “I guess that 25 years really makes a difference that you never really thought about.”

The duo met within months of joining HHSA in 1989. Kathy started in April and June followed in June. They first worked together in HHSA’s Intensive Family Preservation Program and after stops in several other programs eventually wound up together in North County seven years ago.

Herzog is the CWS manager in Oceanside and Jackson holds the same position in Escondido.

“June and Kathy are that shining example of what teamwork is,” said Chuck Matthews, HHSA’s regional general manager who oversees operations in North County. “They have set the bar high and we really do hold those two up as examples of great teamwork.”

Their workday starts at 8:30 a.m. and always begins with that 8:20 call on the way into the office.

“We may talk once during the day, we may talk five times,” said Herzog. “Then at the end of the day we have a recap.

“Sometimes it’s quick. Sometimes it’s an hour.”

Jackson said the phone calls can be anything from venting to brainstorming how to tap each other’s talents.

There’s also a “bazillion emails,” said Herzog. “It’s kind of funny because there’s really a rhythm.”

“I know which one’s she’s going to respond to and she knows which ones I’m going to respond to,” said Jackson. “We don’t even have to say anything. It’s just done.”

You might be surprised to learn they really aren’t that similar. They are actually more complements to each other than anything else.

“Our staff won’t say - if you ask staff about us – we’re alike at all,” said Herzog. “And we’re not.

“We have very different styles, very different. So the fact that we actually get along…”

Jackson often has to play the bad cop to Herzog’s good cop, although they even switch up those roles occasionally.

“We do look at each other’s strengths,” said Jackson. “We depend on each other’s strengths and that’s a big thing within our offices.

“June is the Communicator, the Woo and the Activator,” she said, listing types from the popular StrengthsFinder assessment. “I’m the Arranger.”

Or as Herzog puts it, “She’s the thinker and doer, and I’m the talker and influencer.”

They also have a healthy competition with each other. Herzog mentions that’s she trained most of Jackson’s supervisors.

“Historically I have trained people and groomed them and then Kathy takes them and promotes them,” she said. “However, we’ve started a new trend lately and she’s been training staff and I’ve been taking them, but she’s owed me!”

They also get a little competitive when things like quarterly reports come out.

“We’re always competing between the offices,” said Jackson. “We always want to beat each other, but that only elevates our numbers.”

They share a love of cooking that serves as their way to unwind from the stress of work. They also love to shoe shop.

“If we have cooking questions, we can call each other,” said Herzog. “We go home and we cook dinner. It’s our Midwest upbringing.”

The 2007 firestorms even caused Jackson to evacuate her Fallbrook home and stay with Herzog’s family.

“My home was evacuated and my family was all over the place,” said Jackson. “I didn’t have a place to go and our emergency operations were over here so I stayed with June and that was nice for my family to know I was OK.”

They were able to accommodate Jackson being displaced, but there was a limit to the assistance, according to Herzog.

“’Do you need a shirt or do you need this?’” Herzog said. “But I told her you have to buy your own underwear – or we can do laundry every night.”

Having your best friend alongside you at work for 25 years has had many benefits for both of them.

“It just makes a huge difference,” said Herzog. “You get to pick who you marry and who you live with. You don’t really get to pick who else you’re related to or who you work with.

“That can be a challenge at times, but to be able to work with someone that you get along so well with and have a great relationship with makes a huge difference.”

The one thing they’ve never done together is take a vacation. That’s because they supervise each other’s offices when they are gone.

“It’s so funny that for all these years we’ve been working together, we just automatically knew who’s going to take off when,” said Herzog. “It’s always worked out except for once when we both had family weddings one summer and we both had to be off.”

Their holiday schedules are the same every year.

“She takes Thanksgiving so I take Christmas,” said Herzog. “That has always been in sync.

“They say when you live together with someone your patterns just become in sync.”

“Well, that’s us,” said Jackson. “We never really planned it, it just happened. We just knew.”

‘They’re a Lifesaver’

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Retired Employees Donate Sleeping Bags, Warm Clothes to Homeless Vets

Staff and volunteers with the Veterans Village of San Diego unload donated sleeping bags from two groups of retired County employees on Monday morning.

Six years ago, retired Sheriff’s Sgt. Rusty Burkett was mulling over what he could do to help others around the holidays.

His wife suggested doing something for the homeless.

Burkett, who is president of the 1,100-member Retired Deputy Sheriffs’ Association, suggested the idea at a member meeting. Burkett happens to be a Vietnam veteran, and many of the association’s members are vets too, he said.

Much of San Diego’s homeless population is also composed of veterans--an estimated 25 to 35 percent.  Members of Burkett’s group agreed to chip in and buy sleeping bags for homeless veterans through the nonprofit Veterans Village of San Diego.

On Monday, Burkett, along with his friend and former Vietnam vet Joe Hulst, and Denise Price, executive director of the Retired Employees of San Diego County, delivered this year’s bounty: 118 sleeping bags, boxes of underwear, socks, sweatshirts and other warm clothes, and toiletries. The items were valued at $1,500.

“Like the old saying, they’re the reason we’ve got the freedoms we have,” Burkett said of service members. “Any little thing we can do, that’s great.”

The 7,000-member Retired Employees of San Diego County, Inc. played an active role in the project this year, too, donating money and time, said Price.

“As public employees, we’re civic minded,” Price said. “We still want to help. We want to find ways to give back.”

The organizations planned to make another delivery in the coming days, after receiving a commitment for a $1,000 donation from Enterprise International, the parent company of Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Price said.

Veterans Village Development Manager Rick Ochocki said the items are much needed by the nonprofit, which serves more than 2,000 military veterans throughout the county each year.

When you’re living on the street, sleeping bags are “your friend,” said a Veterans Village employee who said his name was “Twogood.” He said he used to be homeless and addicted to meth before finding his way to Veterans Village and getting clean and sober almost 10 years ago.

“They’re a lifesaver,” Twogood said of the sleeping bags and other items. “They’re a godsend.”

For more information about the Retired Employees of San Diego County, visit their website. For more information about the Retired Deputy Sheriffs' Association, email county_line@cox.net.