Your Watershed - Russian River Watershed Association - July 2019

On June 20th, the Lower Russian River MAC (Municipal Advisory Council) met at the Guerneville Veteran’s Hall to listen to reports on Crime by Sheriff Mark Essick, and to get an update on the State’s mandate to clean up our cesspools, septic systems and all ways in which human waste gets into the Russian River. Scary stuff!

The county Board of Supervisors had just finished their budget review with major budget cuts, but because money came in through the Graton Casino tax, our local Sheriff sub-station was able to stay fully-staffed with a total of 15 personnel, 2 sergeants and 12 deputies, 3 of whom take care of our coast.

Supervisor Lynda Hopkins managed to sequester $300,000 for security in Downtown Guerneville that will be doled out over time, not all spent within one year. The Russian River Chamber of Commerce will work with local sheriffs to determine how this money can best serve the community to make both citizens and tourists feels safe.

Homelessness and errant behavior kept coming up as one of the most obvious reasons for the need for heightened security. Not all homeless people are problem people, but enough of them have substance abuse issues that the Sheriff’s Department ran a comparison of the number of calls they receive to handle behavior issues of homeless people.

In the Lower River/West County communities last year they received 25,000 calls...37% of those were homeless-related issues. 13% of deputy’s time spent was spent on homeless people issues.

In a statistical comparison with a Sonoma Valley community with similar numbers, this one was dramatically divergent. Once they got into other crime comparisons like felonies, etc. the figures were almost identical. That gave us a good idea of how immensely our communities are impacted by the negative behavior of homeless people under the influence.

Attendees brought questions and concerns and Sheriff Essick answered each one with what they have learned from their record-keeping, etc. He stressed several times that the most important thing citizens can do for the community, and for law enforcement, is to CALL 707-565-2121 EVERY TIME something is amiss. Getting these calls puts incidents on record and gives the department information they need to keep personnel on staff. Each time they have to interact with a specific individual that incident goes on record. Without these records, law enforcement is hampered in their ability to take care of issues the community depends upon them to solve.

Discussion covered everything from ICE Raids to the cost of drug and alcohol use in our communities. 90% of vehicle accidents are the result of driving while under the influence. Addictive drugs increase violent behavior, etc. etc.

Neighborhoods are encouraged to form Neighborhood Watch programs and the Sheriff department will meet with neighbors to help make that happen.

The rest of the meeting focussed on the State’s mandate to clean up our waterways and get human waste out of the water. The front page article in this issue of the Gazette covers that topic so I won’t take up space here. Once a month for years, the Community Advisory Group (CAG) meets to discuss how to solve this on-going problem, especially for homes right on the river. Progress is being made and the most important part is that funding is finally in the works for ways to help financially-challenged people upgrade their system to comply with state laws.

NEXT - in AUGUST - there will be a JOINT meeting of the Coastal MAC and the Lower River MAC with State Senator Mike McGuire. He will bring people up to date on issues at the state level that impact Sonoma County.

The NEXT MAC meeting will be the COAST Mac meeting July 17th in case you want to attend: sonomacounty.ca.gov/sccmac for INFO.