Perception and reality: sometimes it is difficult to give up our perception about something, someone or someplace, and face reality. Many things appear to be one thing, glowing and positive on the surface, with each of us projecting our idealistic perception on it. These are times when sadly I have come to grips with reality about the two most important places in my life, the USA and Sonoma County.
We want to believe our country is a democracy, operating under the rule of law, insuring all of us equal rights. But as each day passes, we see that is no longer true, the giant apparatus of our federal government and its checks and balances is now in ruins. It did not happen overnight – it built up, bit by bit. In the past year and a half, a wrecking ball has destroyed our illusion of equal rights and protection under the law. It is not just one man, our would-be-king Trump, who has shattered our illusions. It is all who voted for him, follow him and believe they will be the chosen ones, while the rest of us are kept in our place, under their control and their irrational, ever-changing insanity.
I had always believed that Sonoma County was an overwhelmingly liberal and open-minded place. Living here for the past two decades have proven to me this is also just a perception, an illusion. The passage of Measure P, a 2020 ballot initiative that expanded the Independent Office of Law Enforcement Review and Outreach’s (IOLERO) funding and investigative mission, gave me great hope that what I believed was reality, and not just an illusion. We worked on convincing the Board of Supervisors to put it on the ballot, as we had to stop gathering signatures during Covid. When it passed with almost 64 percent of the vote, I celebrated.
When John Alden was selected as IOLERO director, I celebrated again. Over the past years I have spoken with Director Alden many times, but recently, as he left for his new position as the first Inspector General in Marin County, he made the following statement to me and, and to the public:
“The Sonoma County oversight experience started in conflict and remains in conflict. Even before the (2013) death of Andy Lopez there was a tense relationship between many in the community and the Sheriff’s Office, around use of force, and the way it patrolled the community and treated people in the jail. The death of Andy Lopez brought that forward in a very public way. When IOLERO started, it came from a place of the community really demanding an oversight system – demanding it of the County, demanding it of the Board (of Supervisors), demanding it of the Sheriff – with the Sheriff’s Office being deeply opposed, and that conflict has never truly resolved on a cultural level. The Marin system was built out of collaboration, and remains in collaboration.”
Sonoma County, has lost an effective, experienced IOLERO director. The looming reality is that the present Board of Supervisors will now try to “fix” Measure P, by changing language they incorrectly perceive as being ambiguous and in need of being cleaned up, and by removing the 1 percent of the Sheriff Office’s budget funding, required under Measure P, for IOLERO.
The fate of IOLERO and Measure P is one of many events and decisions by various groups in Sonoma County that make me question who we really are and what our future is.
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