Written by: Noah Abrams

Published: 16 March 2022

Communities across the Bay Area have seen a spate of anti-Semitic incidents in recent months, including some allegedly perpetrated by a Sonoma County-based hate group. As one of the world’s foremost anti-hate organizations, the Anti-Defamation League or ADL is,

"Often the first call when acts of anti-Semitism occur." Those are the words of Teresa Drenick.

 

Drenick is Deputy Regional Director with the ADL’s Central Pacific Office.

 

"The ultimate goal of the Anti Defamation League," Drenick said, "is a world in which no group or individual suffers from bias, discrimination, or hate."

 

Earlier this year a Holocaust memorial fountain in Santa Rosa was found toppled, in an apparently intentional act of vandalism. Meanwhile, communities in Napa, Marin and the East Bay were peppered with anti-semitic flyers distributed by a Petaluma-based hate group.

 

Drenick said the ADL,

 

"Is aware of the ugly and antisemitic propaganda flyers that have been targeting neighborhoods throughout the Bay Area. The stunt is the cowardly work of a group, espousing white supremacist themes and Holocaust denial. They're known to focus their hatred and vitriol towards the Jewish community, but also towards the LGBTQ plus community and others." Drenick pointed out that, "While the group is small and fringe, its aim is to intimidate and to sow fear."

 

She said for those affected, reporting the incidents is the place to start.

 

"We encourage anyone who's targeted by the group to report to us as well as to your local law enforcement agency." Stressed Drenick.

 

As for publicly identifying the group behind the flyering, Drenick said,

 

"When there are groups whose stunts are done with the explicit or implicit reason of garnering publicity, we don't want to feed into that." Said Drenick. "So we call out the antisemitism, we call out the shameful conduct, but we are not going to feed into the desire of a certain group to publicize itself."

 

An estimated 83 incidents in Northern California alone were reported to the ADL in 2021.

Read more: Rise in anti-Semitic incidents causes concern

Written by: Marc Albert

Published: 16 March 2022

Facing a financial conundrum, Sonoma County supervisors Tuesday punted a decision on the future of the sheriff's department's helicopter.  

 

In the end, one-time money will keep the whirlybird in the air another year, but a day of reckoning lies ahead for a county helicopter mainly used for law enforcement.

  

The chopper wound up on the block due to a financial shortfall two years ago, but officials found enough cash, and gave themselves what was thought to be enough time to find a creative solution. That didn't happen, said Supervisor Lynda Hopkins. "Between pandemic, drought, vaccination efforts, I think that unfortunately that conversation, that robust conversation, did not occur."

  

Sonoma County Sheriff Mark Essick noted the county isn't mandated to operate a chopper, but supervisors were reluctant to surrender any search and rescue ability. A search for alternatives resulted in a report founding drawbacks with partnering with other jurisdictions, including CHP, the Coast Guard or other counties, although the idea was floated as a lower-cost option.

  

Supervisor Chris Coursey said Tuesday he was ready to postpone a wider decision, again. "We're talking about one time money over the next year. I'm going to support that and support looking at providing these services in other ways."

  

Susan Gorin told colleagues that while the topline issue is money, there are broader concerns. "This issue has arisen for financial reasons, certainly. Can we afford to keep a helicopter running and employ the great pilots that operate it, and also, oops, we have a couple of media challenges, with you sheriff, about landing at a Super Bowl game, however you want to categorize it, we need to really be serious about exactly why we have a helicopter, what it's use is, legitimately."

 

While no decision was made, it was clear the board was ready to reauthorize for another year.  "Every time it has come up I have voted for it, and I will vote for it again, every time, until we find an option that is better than what we have on the ground," said Supervisor David Rabbitt.

 

Read more: Sheriff's chopper wins another reprieve

Written by: Marc Albert

Published: 14 March 2022

A preliminary hearing in a trial assessing utility giant Pacific Gas and Electric's culpability in the 2019 Kincade Fire was rescheduled to next month. Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Mark Urioste told attorneys for both the county and PG&E that this would be the final extension.

The case, which is seeking restitution based on findings that PG&E's equipment sparked the massive blaze has been rescheduled twice before as lawyers for Sonoma County District Attorney Jill Ravitch and the utility engage in negotiations to possibly settle the case out of court.

Urioste set a new preliminary hearing date of April 11th.

Read more: Kincade Fire trial postponed again

Written by: Marc Albert

Published: 14 March 2022

The first of fifty families living out of their cars and RVs rolled into a Santa Rosa parking lot this month. That's as an experimental 'safe parking' program, long pushed by advocates, finally launched in Santa Rosa.  

  

Meanwhile, public pressure forced city leaders to torpedo a similar program in the Central Coast city of Morro Bay. Viewed by some as a partial, temporary salve for some aspects of homelessness---a way to get people off the street and provide some level of safety---the designated spots also make delivering services, from food to counseling, more efficient.

  

In Sebastopol, a similar 'safe lot,' envisioned as place to relocate dozens of people living out of vehicles next to the trendy shops and eateries of The Barlow Market, recently received some new tenants. There are still reservations and a bit worry about how it will all shake out.

 

There was something of an uneasy peace along Morris Street. Many of those living out of vehicles said they were trying their best to be discreet and respectful. Mike Wood, a former steel fabricator and fisherman sidelined by injury, said to ordinary passers-by, that might not have been evident.  "If I was a kind of a normal, a 'normie,' whatever you want to call it, I might be a little intimidated by this area, regardless of what the nature of the people really are. I mean if it's not something you've seen, it looks like a bunch of Gypsies or something, you know? It might bug me too if I was a long term homeowner or something here. I don't know how I'd feel about it. I've been on the streets before, so I get it." 

 

The Sebastopol lot comes with a number of rules and backers say they can safely manage it without impacting neighbors---something not universally believed. Meanwhile, the city also moved to prohibit daytime parking of RVs. Among neighbors of the lot, support is far from universal. Brett Palm, who has lived adjacent to the site for 14 years, filed a lawsuit to block the parking lot. He said officials raced through approvals without conducting outreach. "This was just shoved down my throat. Here we are, take it or leave it, and I don't appreciate that." 

 

Nevertheless, he said, his mind is open. "Maybe this is a good solution, I don't know. I would just have liked to have been able to be in on the discussion, how do these things work? Show me some studies. Where's the traffic report? Is this a good thing? Is this a waste of money? Is this one year, two years? I haven't been included in the conversation or educated about it. I might come around and say, 'this is a fabulous idea' I just don't know."

  

John Henry Hull, who lived on Morris Street for six months before relocating to the lot, says it will be interesting to watch what happens. "Everybody is kind of skeptical about it because there are some rules, but I think anything that would be a service like 'SAVS' has been, any shelter or anything like that is going to have some set of rules and it's been interesting to see what they've come up with and it will be interesting to see how it works with the people because a lot of people that are out here are kind of against authority and shy away from rules and all this stuff." 

 

Hull and others contend random dumping by outsiders is unfairly blamed on the vehicular homeless. Others say transient tent dwellers along the nearby Laguna de Santa Rosa add to problems.

  

Local homeowner Scott Ames says visible disorder hardens hearts and generates opposition. "When they took this over, and no one said anything, the sidewalk couldn't be used anymore, the bike path couldn't be used anymore, you look at the trash, we give a Dumpster over there for people to use, there's trash everywhere, that's why people don't want this, in their neighborhood."

  

Ames however, acknowledged that multiple issues are at play, and there's no easy solution. "I'm appalled. Again, I understand that they need a place but whenever they, excuse me, I don't want to say 'they,' I don't want to group them all together. They are individual people with different needs and wants, I understand that, but we all have a responsibility in society to keep it clean for others, for ourselves, take a picture down that sidewalk, I've seen human feces down here, try to talk with some people, have a conversation, it doesn't go over well at all. It's a conundrum that I think we all know exists throughout our country, especially with the prices here in California, and I don't have a quick fix, but individuals have to be responsible for their own place in a society."

  

Mike Wood, the former steel fabricator has yet to apply for a spot in the new community, he faces a conundrum of his own: whether he'd be taking a slot that should go to someone perhaps more deserving. "I'm not sure if I am going to go up there, because, if I'm capable of getting my stuff somewhere else, then I don't want to take a spot up there that could go to somebody who has kids or needs it more than I do, but it wouldn't suck to have a minute to gather and then take that step."

 

  

Additional reporting by Adam Grossberg and Chelsea Wood.

 

A more in depth look at the Morris Street vehicular homeless and the new safe parking site will be included in the April episode of Bay Area Bountiful on KRCB-TV.

 

 

 

 

Read more: "Safe parking" sites for homeless roll out amid hope and trepidation