It has come to our attention that Supervisor Achadjian serves as a director for a local Bank, Santa Lucia Bank, along with one owner of the Santa Margarita Ranch, LLC. Achadjian also owns a significant amount of stock in another bank, Mission Community Bank, on the board of which are found the two other owners of SMR, LLC.
SMART has no way of knowing whether or not Supervisor Achadjian, the Santa Margarita Ranch LLC, or any of the three individual partners in the LLC have obtained loans from either of these banks. It seems plausible, however, that if you sit on the Board of Directors of a local bank or are invested in a bank, you would turn to those institutions for your financial services.
Given that Supervisor Achadjian holds a significant amount of stock in both banks, it is reasonable to conclude that a conflict of interest with respect to his vote on the Santa Margarita Ranch Ag Cluster is possible. Unless both banks can issue a definitive statement that neither the Santa Margarita Ranch LLC, Rob Rossi, Doug Filiponi nor Karl Wittstrom have any outstanding loans from either bank, we urge Supervisor Achadjian to exercise his discretion and step aside to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest. Even without a proven conflict of interest, his ability to act impartially toward those he shares business interests with comes under question.
~John Beccia, President, SMART