The newly seated Ramona Cemetery District board has voted to censure one of its — Pete Smith — alleging he violated the state open-meeting law.
The censure was approved by the board in a closed session meeting on May 13. District officials allege that Smith made at least one communication to other trustees outside the confines of a district meeting, including a potential accusation against a district employee.
The communication was a violation of the Brown Act, the open meeting law, according to a censure document.
The accusation should have been raised to the district’s attorney first, then in a closed session to “limit the employee from public scrutiny/embarrassment,” the document said.
The three-member board includes Joe Stupar, who was appointed in January 2025 by San Diego County Supervisor Joel Anderson at the same time as Smith, and Casey Lynch, who began his term in December, after submitting an application and being selected by the Board of Supervisors. The district operates Nuevo Memory Gardens in Ramona.
Stupar, Smith and Lynch took over the seats after it was disclosed that the district had provided two of its longtime trustees, Daniel Vengler Sr. and William Biggs, with health care benefits valued at $402,000 over 12 years. Smith, who was a member of the San Diego County Audit Committee at the time, questioned the payments at a district meeting in August 2023.
Stupar declined to comment on the censure, referring any questions to Lynch, who is president of the board. Lynch did not return several calls for comment. John Vargas, the cemetery district manager, and the district’s attorney, Brian Hughes, both said they could not comment at this time.
Smith said he didn’t accuse anyone of anything in his email to his fellow trustees.
Smith said the censure resulted from an April 8 board meeting in which trustees received copies of an audit for fiscal year July 1, 2023 through June 30, 2024. That meeting was the first time the board had seen the 40-page audit, Smith said.
“In the few minutes I had to review it, I noticed a discrepancy — that the health care and personnel expense was over budget,” Smith said.
Since an auditor who attended the meeting to answer questions was unable to entirely explain the discrepancy, Smith said, the board appointed him as an ad hoc committee to review the statements and report back to them at the next meeting in May.
In the May 13 report Smith prepared for the board, which he also read in the open session of the meeting, he stated that the payments for former trustee Vengler’s health care are still being made by the district.
“Mr. Vengler’s employment was terminated on January 7, 2025, by the County Board of Supervisors. I could not find any justification for the Board continuing to pay health care benefits for any employee for five months after their employment was terminated,” Smith said in the report.
Vengler said in an interview this week that he is paying for all his health benefits through CalPERS and not the cemetery district.
Smith said he sent an email on April 15 about his discovery to Lynch and Stupar, “as they were both signers on the , not me.”
‘I thought they should know as soon as possible,” he said, adding he didn’t offer any recommendations or actions.
Smith said he was unaware that he was prohibited by the Brown Act from communicating directly with the other directors, and that he should have gone through the district’s attorney for any communication.
He said he was notified by attorney Hughes shortly before the May 13 meeting that the board was considering a sanction against him for allegedly violating the Brown Act. Smith said he then asked for the details of the sanction, but was not given any.
Stupar and Lynch also refused his request for 30 days to prepare a response to the censure resolution, he said.
According to Smith’s review of the records and confirmation from the auditor, on April 9, 2025, $19,582 in payments to CalPERS was drawn out of the district’s general in the fiscal year 2023/2024 to pay for Vengler’s health care.
“In addition, another $17,963 was disbursed from January through June of 2024 for Mr. Vengler’s health care,” Smith wrote. “The District appears to be continuing the payments in the 2024/2025 fiscal year and currently totals just under $30,000.”
Smith also noted in the report that beginning in January 2024, it appears Vengler began paying the district $2,993.90 a month. The amount, listed on the monthly financial report as income from “Sales,” could not be verified as being tied to his health care due to HIPPA privacy laws, he said.
Smith said the justification for the ongoing payment “appears to be based on the fact that Vengler made a $303,659 ‘donation’ to the district and that money could be used to offset the expenditure.”
After the August 2023 disclosure about the health care payments from the district, Vengler paid the district $303,658 as a refund for the benefits. He said he realized he was in arrears for his family’s health care benefits after it was brought to his attention on July 12, 2023.
Despite the censure, Smith said he plans to continue to review the financial audit.
Vengler said this week that in November 2024, he and Vargas began ing CalPERS about continuing his health care through COBRA, a program that allows qualified workers and their families to retain group health insurance for a limited time after a change in eligibility.
Although Vengler was no longer considered an employee of the district as of Jan.1, he said he had not received any information from CalPERS, so he continued taking a check to Vargas each month, which Vargas then sent to CalPERS.
“I finally received information on May 1. It took almost five months to get COBRA to pay directly instead of going through the cemetery,” Vengler said.
Vengler said he hopes the matter can now be settled.
“All health care benefits from the cemetery have been paid by me,” he said. “As a former employee, I qualify for COBRA, which I pay, plus 2% of the , through CalPERS, not the cemetery.”
