Recently the Sonoma County Civil Grand Jury looked at telephone call and commissary charges at the county’s main jail, finding “a pattern of charges for inmate phone use that exceeds the market rate by more than tenfold.”

At the Nov. 16 county supervisor meeting, several people, including a candidate who’s running for Sonoma County sheriff next June, asked the board to examine more closely how the sheriff’s office is spending all the money from those expensive phone calls and jail store sales. 

“I'm actually urging you to conduct a more thorough and searching inquiry into this fund...I urge you to take this item off of the consent calendar and give it a very strong review...[I’m asking for an] audit of this report and taking it off the consent calendar so that we, as the community, can hear all the details of this report and have a discussion about it...I'm requesting that you pull…[this item]..from your consent calendar today and hold a full hearing on the report at a later date.”

That was Nancy Pemberton, Jim Duffy, a caller identified as Allegra, and Carl Tennenbaum, speaking during initial public comment. Tennenbaum, a retired police officer, is hoping to be elected as the county’s next sheriff. But the board did not comply with those requests. Instead, the supervisors approved the sheriff’s report, while each said they’d be interested in holding a public hearing sometime in the future. 

The income that goes into the Inmate Welfare Trust Fund is supposed to pay for the benefit, education and welfare of people in custody at the county jail. But that fund has nearly $1.7 million dollars in it, and people are questioning why that money isn’t being spent. In the words of the civil grand jury, due to COVID, “most of the inmate programs have been canceled, reducing expenses, yet the mark-ups and commissions continue.” 

Nancy Pemberton asked why, in the sheriff’s 2020/2021 Inmate Welfare Trust Fund report, under $200,000 was spent on direct benefits to inmates. 

“I think it's worth asking why that money is sitting there with no benefit to the inmates for whom this trust fund was set up,” Pemberton said. 

“The board of supervisors has merely rubber-stamped reports and requests associated with the fund, including the use of the fund to purchase tasers for some correctional deputies a few years back,” said Rohnert Park resident Jim Duffy. 

“At a time where we're trying to build very strong and positive relationships within the Sonoma county community and with the sheriff's office, I find it somewhat unconscionable that we have a system in place where we're charging usurious rates for phone calls and creating impediments for people to stay in contact with their families when they're taken into custody,” said Tennenbaum. 

After its investigation, the civil grand jury presented eight findings, such as "a renegotiated agreement with Global Tel Link, without the excessive mark-up added for commissions, would lower the cost of telephone calls for the incarcerated population," and "the sheriff’s office detention staff holds disproportionate control over the Inmate Welfare Trust Commission with nine seats of the 10-member committee."

In response, Sonoma County Sheriff Essick only agreed with one finding: "the sheriff’s office will be required to find new funding for its Inmate Welfare Trust - supported programs if the California Public Utilities Commission issues its order in the coming year."

Besides big ticket items like cannabis or unwanted development, many items that go before the Sonoma County board of supervisors don’t attract a lot of public attention, so it was a surprise to some that the topic of redistricting garnered hundreds of emails and dozens of people using zoom to voice their opinions to the board. 

The data from the 2020 U.S. Census was late in getting out, so county officials say they didn’t have the usual amount of time to use that data to redraw the boundaries of the five supervisorial districts, as required by law. 

"We have to make sure that we have continued compliance with the United States Constitution, which prohibits racial gerrymandering and that drawing of those boundaries," said Deputy County Counsel Linda Schiltgen. 

For the first time, those district lines weren’t just hashed out in a back room by a few politicians. Instead, a committee was formed by 19 citizens who volunteered to spend a huge amount of time learning the laws and rules that govern drawing of district lines. And then spend many more hours trying to come up with a map that satisfied all the criteria. A new state law called the FAIR MAPS Act requires counties to engage communities in the redistricting process. 

After many meetings, the advisory redistricting commission, or ARC, unanimously agreed on a map and submitted it to the board of supervisors. But once released, that map upset a lot of people. 

Schiltgen said despite a significant amount of public outreach by county staff and ARC, “there are many members of the community that were not a part of that process. If they weren't seeing the updated websites and informed of what was going on. And so many people have chimed in since then. And that is the point of the new California FAIR MAPS Act. It's to make sure that everybody is invited to the table who wants to participate to give their thoughts.”

During this week’s fourth public hearing about what the new map should look like, more locals spoke out.

“Roseland, as we all know, has a history of being disadvantaged in its position vis-a-vis Santa Rosa, that needs to be resolved. Several of these maps put the northern boundary of what's called Santa Rosa at Highway 12…[that] is inflammatory because what it would do is then again, disenfranchise areas south.”

“I usually hate to say I want to support the status quo, it’s not in my DNA, but I believe right now with the short time frame, that's the best choice of the supervisors.”

“Give little guys a win here. Rohnert Park’s the loudest voice, but loud doesn't necessarily mean right. And electives have to discriminate between going with the equity zeitgeist or caving into the loudest voices.”

“Other folks of color have the same challenge...they don't have the privilege to sit and wait and comment and beg for you to see the equity-centered map. Yes, it's a little different. Yes, it’s a change.”

That was a caller who gave his name as Thomas, Gina Cuclis, Fred Allabach and Kirstyne Lange.

Lange is an ARC member and some callers said they agree with her perspective.

“It just doesn't affect just the next two to three years,” Lange said. “This is 10 years. That's five election cycles. If we don't build infrastructures and systems that allow for more and more folks to see themselves represented, how do we expect for them to stay here and to feel like this is a place that they want to grow and thrive?”

On Tuesday, a majority of supervisors said they intend to support the ARC map, with a few changes here and there. There’s a fifth and final public hearing on Sonoma County’s new district map on December 7.