SAN JOSE — Santa Clara County Supervisor Sylvia Arenas had had enough.
She listened quietly during Tuesday’s board meeting as leaders of the county’s child welfare agency breezed through a slide show about the progress they’ve made trying to reform the agency since last year’s fentanyl overdose death of baby Phoenix Castro, a 3-month-old they’d refused to remove from her drug abusing father.
She waited for Damion Wright, the head of the Department of Family and Children’s Services, to mention a damning new report from the California Department of Social Services — a follow up to a similarly scathing report a year ago — that spelled out how the state was still “deeply concerned about the risks to child safety.”
Wright never mentioned it. So Arenas, who’d spent her career working in child dependency court before joining the board in 2023, delivered a blistering 20-minute takedown, demanding accountability from Wright, his boss Dan Little — who now leads the county’s Department of Social Services — and his boss, County Executive James Williams. Their leadership and policies left children in dangerous homes, Arenas said, and she demanded to know what they’re doing to change that.
“I do want an answer. Damion? Dan? What are you doing? James, what are you doing?” she asked from the dais, looking down on Wright and Little who slouched in their seats. “How are we mitigating the impacts of this extreme ‘family preservation’ framework that put our children at risk? That created a death in our community? That continues to impact Brown and Black children? What is it that you’re doing?”
When Little started to respond that he would answer the same way he did during a board meeting nine months ago, Arenas interrupted.
“I would really appreciate for you to say something slightly different than you did in December,” she said. “It was really disappointing.”
The tense interchange between an elected supervisor and hired staff during a public meeting was extraordinary, with Arenas’ voice nearly trembling with anger at times, and her three targets shrinking in awkward silences. Board of Supervisors meetings are usually staid affairs that often seem interminable to members of the public who might show up to listen. If there is disagreement, it is usually wrapped in polite platitudes that ends in thank yous.
But Arenas upended those norms Tuesday.
The meeting came nearly a year after the Mercury News revealed how the county’s family preservation policies — championed by Dan Little in 2021 — appeared to trump child safety in Baby Phoenix’s death, despite red flags raised by social workers. This news organization also uncovered the original state report from February 2023 that found the County Counsel’s office often overrode decisions by social workers to remove children from unsafe homes. Little had kept that state report secret from the board of supervisors until the night before this paper was set to publish it.
After neither Little nor Wright mentioned the second state report from July in their presentation, Arenas made it clear Tuesday she had little confidence in the agency’s leadership, transparency or commitment to child safety above all else.
That July state report criticized the county agency for failing to follow up on whether families who were able to keep their children after reports of abuse or neglect were actually completing the voluntary county programs intended to improve their parenting. From July 2022 through March 2024, state investigators found that safety plans were not developed or monitored in 55 percent of cases where there were safety concerns in the home. No formal protocols were in place for social workers to follow when families didn’t follow through on their parenting programs, and there were no formal processes to assess whether a temporary caregiver was appropriate.
After Little told Arenas that “we want to make sure that every decision we make for every child is the right decision for that child,” she interrupted again.
“But it wasn’t, Dan. So I’m asking you, what are you doing in order to correct your leadership, to make sure that the systems don’t fall back where they were, that created, that compromised, the well being of our children?”
When Little tried to answer, saying they’re following “policies and practices,” she cut him off.
“I’m asking you to be accountable,” she said.
“You were in charge, Dan. How about acknowledging that to our community? How about acknowledging that we made a mistake in our system? Are you going to apologize to each and every child that you put at risk that didn’t have a safety plan?”
The board meeting was livestreamed and recorded. Alex Lesniak, a county social worker and union steward, watched it twice Wednesday.
“I literally cried, in a positive way, because it’s like somebody finally gets it and sees what we have all been trying to flag, before Phoenix’s death,” Lesniak said. “Someone is actually asking those people who made those choices and implemented those policies to account for what they are going to do differently so this never happens again.”
The board of supervisors has the power to remove Williams. There seems to be little interest among the rest of the 5-member board, however, to do so. Only Williams has the authority to fire Little or Wright — another possibility that appears to have little traction.
Nonetheless, Arenas — with the support of the board — demanded in a motion that Wright and Little write a “personal reflection” on their leadership, how it failed vulnerable children, and what they are doing to improve it.
“I really want this to be your own personal reflection about your own role in this fiasco that we’re in right now,” she said.
She became especially animated when she brought up the state report from July, asking why neither Little nor Wright mentioned it. No answer came for a deadly 10 seconds. Williams finally piped up, agreeing that “it would make sense” to add the state’s findings and recommendations to the agency’s work plan going forward.
Arenas fired back.
“The system works as well as the people who run it,” Arenas said. “And sometimes we have to ask a question whether we have the right people on the bus to actually carry out the work.”