To accomplish that goal, a majority of the Board of Supervisors signed off on an internal audit of the county’s response to the October wildfires. The board also agreed to move forward with a restructuring of the emergency services division that begins with funding new jobs for people who will focus specifically on the development of a new community warning program.
Supervisor Susan Gorin cast the lone dissenting vote. She was frustrated the audit didn’t address what she described as inadequate communication from the county’s civilian emergency command center regarding the fires that ravaged the Sonoma Valley and other parts of her southeastern county district.
But some of Gorin’s colleagues on the board were eager to show their constituents they are making changes based on lessons learned during the disaster.
“Right now, we need to rebuild public trust,” said Supervisor Shirlee Zane. “That is really essential.”
Christopher Godley, the county’s interim emergency manager, told supervisors their current emergency alerting program is “essentially on par” with what other California counties have in place, but the public’s expectations have grown significantly along with technological advancements in recent years. Residents want to know “within minutes, if not seconds” about threats that could affect them, and they anticipate the government will provide extensive details about how and where the threat is evolving, Godley said. Sonoma County can serve a leadership role by developing a warning program that more closely matches public expectations for what information the government will provide in times of crisis, Godley said.
“There are 58 counties in the state of California, and 57 of them are watching us right now,” he said. “Because they need to understand: Has the game changed?”
Supervisors didn’t actually fund the staff positions for developing the new community warning program. That action is planned to occur when the county adopts its budget for the upcoming fiscal year, expected later this week.
But the board was broadly supportive of the review’s call for a new “first-class” warning program that will incorporate “clear policy, innovative technology, real-time situational awareness, and robust community engagement.” Supervisors plan to consider more overarching changes later down the road, including potentially moving responsibility for managing the warning program and overhauling the reporting structure for the entire emergency services division, shifting it from within the County Administrator’s Office to the Sheriff’s Office instead.
Santa Rosa resident Joe Perez, who lost his Fountaingrove home in the fires, urged supervisors to make more substantial “executive-level personnel action” because of the warning controversy. Perez, a retired county employee who was formerly a radio communications manger, didn’t elaborate at the meeting.
In a follow-up interview, however, Perez said he wants the board to “dismiss or take professional action against” County Administrator Sheryl Bratton, who was in charge of the county government’s emergency response.
Perez told supervisors he has been deeply concerned about the government’s official warnings — or lack thereof — since the firestorm began.
©2018 The Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, Calif.), Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.