FATAL SHOOTING » Rohnert Park authorities seek
suspect in killing of man in bank parking lot. A3
z
Sheriff won’t enforce order
Essick says effort to limit
virus goes too far as DA,
supervisors criticize him
By JULIE JOHNSON
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Sonoma County Sheriff Mark
Essick announced Thursday his
department will no longer en-
force the county’s stay-at-home
public health order restricting
some business activity and civ-
ic life, taking a dramatic stand
in opposition to local measures
aimed to curb the coronavirus
pandemic — measures that Es-
PG&E SHUT-OFFS » As a hot summer begins and fire season looms,
county residents fret over impact on life during coronavirus isolation
Worrying combination
PG&E personnel work May 22 on installing a switch and new digital equipment, which are called “vipers,” along Franklin Avenue in Santa Rosa.
By CHANTELLE LEE
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
W
hen Santa Rosa Junior
College administrators
started discussing
moving the fall semester online
because of the coronavirus
pandemic, they
IN BUSINESS had to plan for
State regulators the possibility
approve PG&E’s that a PG&E
plan to get out of power shut-off
bankruptcy / B10 could disrupt
learning even
further.
“It would be very difficult to
remain open,” if the power is
turned off, said college spokes-
woman Erin Bricker.
“Even if it was limited to
Dread mounts over pandemic aid’s end
Expiration looms for
extra jobless benefits,
eviction bans, US loans
By BEN CASSELMAN
NEW YORK TIMES
For millions of Americans left
out of work by the coronavirus
pandemic, government assis-
tance has been a lifeline pre-
venting a plunge into poverty,
hunger and financial ruin.
This summer, that lifeline
could snap.
The $1,200 checks sent to most
households are long gone, at
least for those who needed them
most, with little imminent pros-
pect for a second round. The
lending program that helped
FRIDAY, MAY 29, 2020 • SANTA ROSA, CALIFORNIA • PRESSDEMOCRAT.COM
sick said were out of step with
state rules.
Health Officer Dr. Sundari
Mase, he said, has not provided
the data needed to defend her
decision to keep restrictions on
people’s civil liberties in place —
ones that ask law enforcement
officers to penalize what would
otherwise be lawful behavior.
Essick’s decision triggered
a staunch rebuke from county
leaders — from county super-
visors to the district attorney
— even as it appeared to tap into
widespread frustration over
restrictions that have halted
commerce, deepening what Gov.
a small area of the district,
we’d have a really hard time
(because) not everybody would
be operating under the same
conditions,” she said.
Last year, PG&E cut power
across Sonoma County five
times, when a combination of
high temperatures, extreme
dryness and gusty winds in-
creased the risk of the utility’s
equipment sparking a fire. The
planned outages stirred frustra-
tion among residents, business
owners, school officials and stu-
dents, who are now bracing for
the possibility that the outages
— and potential wildfires —
will overlap with the COVID-19
TURN TO SHUT-OFFS » PAGE A2
millions of small businesses
keep workers on the payroll will
wind down if Congress does not
extend it. Eviction moratoriums
that are keeping people in their
homes are expiring in many cit-
ies.
And the $600 per week in ex-
tra unemployment benefits that
have allowed tens of millions of
laid-off workers to pay rent and
buy groceries will expire at the
end of July.
The latest sign of the econom-
ic strain and the government’s
role in easing it came Thursday
when the Labor Department re-
ported that millions more Amer-
icans applied for unemployment
benefits last week. More than 40
million have filed for benefits
since the crisis began, and some
ONLINE CAMPS FOR KIDS » Groups teaming up
to provide summer programs in creative arts. D1
Gavin Newsom called a
“pandemic-induced re-
cession.” Nearly 4 mil-
lion Californians filed
jobless claims in March
and April.
Effective Monday,
deputies will be ordered
to weigh reports of vi-
Mark
olations against state
Essick
guidelines and “use
Sonoma County
public interactions as an
sheriff
opportunity to educate
people on how to mitigate the posted to social media Thursday
risk and spread of the COVID-19 afternoon. “Yet we continue to
infection,” he wrote. Jail staff see successive public health or-
will no longer book people ar- ders that contain inconsistent
rested by any agency when the restrictions on business and
PHOTOS BY CHRISTOPHER CHUNG / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
PG&E distribution line technician Dan Novella works on May 14 to
bring newly installed digital equipment online on a new pole along
Bennett Valley Road in Santa Rosa.
30 million are receiving them.
The multitrillion-dollar
patchwork of federal and state
programs hasn’t kept bills from
piling up or prevented long lines
at food banks. But it has miti-
gated the damage. Now the ex-
piration of those programs rep-
resents a cliff they are hurtling
toward, for individuals and for
the economy.
“The CARES Act was mas-
sive, but it was a very short-
term offset to what is likely to be
a long-term problem,” said Ane-
ta Markowska, chief financial
economist for investment bank
Jefferies, referring to the legis-
lative centerpiece of the federal
rescue. “This economy is clearly
going to need more support.”
Even the possibility that the
WINNER OF THE 2018 PULITZER PRIZE
sole charge is a violation
of the county’s public
health order.
“The curve has been
flattened; hospitals were
not overrun with pa-
tients; we have dramat-
ically increased testing
which verified the in-
fection rate in Sonoma
County is under control
and decreasing,” Es-
sick said in a statement
programs will be allowed to ex-
pire could have economic con-
sequences, Markowska said, as
consumers and businesses gird
for the loss of federal assistance.
President Donald Trump and
other Republicans have played
down the need for more spend-
ing, saying the solution is for
states to reopen businesses and
allow companies to bring people
back to work. So despite pleas
from economists across the po-
litical spectrum — including
Jerome H. Powell, the Federal
Reserve chairman — any feder-
al action is likely to be limited.
The House voted overwhelm-
ingly Thursday to give business-
es more time to use money bor-
TURN TO DREAD » PAGE A2
personal activities without ex-
planation.”
Board of Supervisors Chair-
woman Susan Gorin assailed
Essick’s public announcement
as “tone deaf” and criticized
him for failing to address his
concerns with the health de-
partment. Gorin noted the dis-
proportionate impact of the
coronavirus among Latino res-
idents — who represent 27% of
the county population and 70%
of COVID-19 cases — should be
a call for concern and caution.
“The sheriff’s department is
TURN TO SHERIFF » PAGE A6
CORONAVIRUS
Spread
seen at
places
of work
Sonoma County official
says farm, water plant,
winery workers infected
By MARTIN ESPINOZA
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Under pressure to release
more details about recent out-
breaks of the coronavirus in
the local business community,
Sonoma County’s top public
health official on Thursday re-
vealed three industries in which
workers recently contracted the
virus.
Dr. Sundari Mase, the coun-
ty’s health officer, said recent in-
fections have been found among
workers at a local winery, a wa-
ter filtration plant and among
a group of farmworkers. She
declined to identify the winery,
the water plant and what crops
the farmworkers handled and
for which commercial agricul-
tural enterprises. The only spe-
cifics she disclosed were these
are three examples of recent
viral transmission in workplac-
es, and each business has seen
more than two cases among em-
ployees, which constitutes an
outbreak.
“We’re seeing a shift from
households to workplaces be-
cause people are going to what-
ever their” jobs are not knowing
they have been infected with
the highly contagious disease,
Mase said during her daily press
briefing. “And then the virus is
introduced into the workplace
and we have a outbreak in the
workplace.”
Mase revealed the three
business sector examples in
response to a question from a
Press Democrat reporter. After
her briefing, she and other coun-
ty health officials did not reply
to requests for more details
about recent virus outbreaks af-
fecting local businesses. Earlier
this week, Mase cited a number
of clustered infections involving
INSIDE
TURN TO SPREAD » PAGE A7
OUTRAGE GROWS: Protests
rock Minneapolis, precinct
set on fire as clamor grows
for officers to be punished
for man’s death / B1
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©2020 The Press Democrat
A6
Cities must pay for video costs
Governments can’t
charge to edit police
video, court rules
By DON THOMPSON
ASSOCIATED PRESS
SACRAMENTO — Gov-
ernments must bear the
costs of redacting police
body camera video before
making it public, the Cal-
ifornia Supreme Court
ruled Thursday in a de-
cision that was hailed by
media organizations and
will be costly for cities and
counties.
The court unanimously
rejected the city of Hay-
ward’s attempt to charge
the National Lawyer
Guild’s San Francisco Bay
Area chapter more than
$3,200 for excerpts of vid-
eo taken by police officers
who helped respond to
demonstrations in Berke-
We are
here for
you.
We publish hundreds of local
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ley in 2014.
The demonstrators were
protesting grand jury de-
cisions not to indict police
officers in the deaths of
two unarmed black men,
Eric Garner in New York
City and Michael Brown
in Ferguson, Missouri.
Allowing governments
to charge for editing the
footage would have threat-
ened public access to all
electronic records, the
Reporters Committee for
Freedom of the Press and
33 media organizations
said in a friend-of-court
brief.
The groups argued that
those fees would have de-
terred access to materials
needed for public over-
sight of law enforcement.
Jim Ewert, general
counsel for the California
News Publishers Asso-
ciation, called it “one of
the most important Pub-
STATE
lic Records Act cases that
has been handed down by
the Supreme Court in a
while.” A ruling otherwise
risked creating “insur-
mountable obstacles to the
public’s right to know,” he
said.
The decision came as
police in California and
elsewhere responded to
protests over the death
of another black man in
police custody — George
Floyd in Minneapolis.
The California justices
reversed an appeals court
decision that held the city
could charge for its editing
costs.
“If that had become the
law of the land it would
have been very problem-
atic,” said David Snyder,
executive director of the
First Amendment Coali-
tion. He called the high
court’s ruling “a great
decision for government
transparency
countability.”
and ac-
Hayward city officials
declined comment, said
spokesman Chuck Finnie.
The California State As-
sociation of Counties said
it is disappointed in the
ruling.
It pointed to its own
court brief that included
examples of the costs local
governments already bear
to comply with records re-
quests. That brief warned
that government efficien-
cy and other public ser-
vices could suffer.
Hayward had sought to
recover its costs for the
roughly 40 hours it took
employees to gather and
edit six hours of video to
remove information it con-
tended was exempt from
public disclosure, such as
personal medical informa-
tion and law enforcement
tactical security measures.
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • FRIDAY, MAY 29, 2020
SHERIFF
CONTINUED FROM A1
apparently not concerned
about the public health of
our community,” Gorin
said.
Supervisor Lynda Hop-
kins said Essick’s decision
“constitutes a dereliction
of duty.” She said that
while the public health
rules may not seem to
move rapidly enough for
some, the way to address
those concerns is to “en-
gage in robust conversa-
tion about the rules.
“Instead, he is promot-
ing lawlessness through-
out the unincorporated
communities I represent,”
Hopkins said.
Gorin said she would call
on Essick, a fellow elected
official, to appear before
the Board of Supervisors
on Tuesday to explain his
position and so she and her
counterparts on the board
can question him.
Essick’s announcement
came one day after county
supervisors roundly gave
public support for Mase’s
decision this week to pause
the county’s reopening
for up to 14 days after re-
porting several alarming
trends: a recent rise in local
COVID-19 cases, increased
person-to-person trans-
mission of the contagion
and a spike in hospitaliza-
tions, which she character-
ized as “red flags.”
Newsom has issued a
series of new guidelines
in recent weeks allowing
for more activities, from
barber shops to church
services, to resume in
counties that meet certain
criteria. But he has left it
up to county health offi-
cers to set local rules and
keep restrictions in place
depending on regional
factors like transmission
rates and public health
preparedness.
Overall, the case rate in
Sonoma County is low with
only 2.3% of the 23,362 tests
returning positive results
for COVID-19 since testing
began in March. But new
cases have doubled over
the last two weeks, and
there have been recent out-
breaks of illness at a man-
ufacturing plant, among
groups of farmworkers
and at a local elderly res-
idential care facility, ac-
cording to Mase.
No other law enforce-
ment agency in Sonoma
County has so far followed
Essick’s lead.
Santa Rosa Police Chief
Ray Navarro said the city
will continue to support
Mase, “who is the subject
matter expert, leading
a safe, strategic, and da-
ta-driven process for re-
opening.”
“While the governor has
set statewide guidance and
a phased approach to re-
opening, he also has made
it abundantly clear that
the local health officer is
empowered to establish
their own thresholds and
requirements,” Navarro
said.
Both Healdsburg and
Petaluma police depart-
ments responded to the
sheriff’s announcement
by reaffirming on social
media their cities’ commit-
ment to enforcing the pub-
lic health order.
In an interview, Essick
said his decision was root-
ed in the realities his dep-
uties are facing in the com-
munity. So far, the Sheriff’s
Office has responded to 29
reports of public health
order violations, resulting
in 13 citations and 19 warn-
ings.
He criticized the arbi-
trary nature of some of the
public health rules. He de-
scribed a situation where a
couple from San Francisco
had rented a house at the
coast to shelter with their
preschool-aged child. A
neighbor complained and a
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• Visit us at 427 Mendocino Ave.
in Santa Rosa
We regret that we cannot accept handwritten
notices or take submissions by phone.
deputy had to tell them to
leave because of the public
health order. Essick said
he felt the rules unfairly
penalized people for doing
nothing more than make
personal decisions for
their families.
“It’s OK to eat lunch on
a patio, but it’s not OK to
hold a church service out-
side?” Essick said.
He criticized Mase and
the health department for
withholding key informa-
tion that might help the
public understand the
current status of the virus
here, such as how many of
the active cases represent
seriously sick people, the
number of current hos-
pitalizations and patients
requiring ventilators. The
health department has re-
peatedly declined to reveal
that data, citing patient pri-
vacy rules.
“I respect the hell out
of (Mase), I think she’s in-
credibly smart, I think she
has the right education and
is the right person for the
job — but she’s made some
critical mistakes and I have
to call those out,” Essick
said.
District Attorney Jill
Ravitch said she supports
Mase, “who is evaluating
the data in our county, not
simply looking at statewide
trends.”
“I want to be clear that
I stand with science and I
stand with keeping people
safe,” Ravitch said.
The restrictions pose “a
challenge to all of us, but to
tell those who are giving up
so much to follow the rules
that they won’t be enforced
against their neighbors
who disregard them is not
the message we need right
now,” Ravitch said in an
email.
Some health care profes-
sionals were horrified by
the sheriff’s decision be-
cause they say the county
is not ready to reopen for
a variety of reasons, and
the testing data is only one
benchmark out of many
that must be considered.
Jenny Fish, a fami-
ly medicine doctor who
helped found the local
health care advocacy group
called H-PEACE, or Health
Professionals for Equality
and Community Empow-
erment, and four other
members of the group’s
leadership discussed the
sheriff’s decision on a late
night Zoom call Thursday.
“Our community is not
yet safe, so for the sheriff
to make a public statement
to undermine our pub-
lic health officer, who is a
professional with a solid
background and has made
really amazing decisions to
protect our community is
irresponsible,” Fish said.
“It’s because of her that we
haven’t had a huge spike in
cases.”
Supervisors David Rab-
bitt and James Gore could
not be reached for com-
ment Thursday evening.
Supervisor Shirlee Zane
called Essick’s announce-
ment “very unfortunate.”
While she hasn’t agreed
with everything Mase
has done, Zane said she’s
been “deeply impressed”
with Mase’s work and has
found her to be very trans-
parent with the communi-
ty.
Some of the county or-
ders may be ambiguous,
but that’s because these
are difficult calls to make,
Zane said.
“This is a really im-
portant time for us to be
standing together in unity
as elected officials,” Zane
said. “There’s no clear
pathway on this. We’re do-
ing the best we can.”
Staff writers Chantelle Lee
and Will Schmitt contrib-
uted to this report. You can
reach Staff Writer Julie
Johnson at 707-521-5220 or
julie.johnson@pressdem-
ocrat.com. On Twitter @
jjpressdem.
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • FRIDAY, MAY 29, 2020
Lassen SPREAD
County
CONTINUED FROM A1
cases slow
people getting COVID-19
through contacts at work,
reopening
as a key reason she decided
there would be no more ad-
vances in reopening local
business and industry for
ASSOCIATED PRESS two weeks.
SACRAMENTO — A
During the 14-day period,
the health officer said she
remote Northern Cali- would evaluate whether re-
fornia county that had
been one of the state’s
opening last weekend out-
door dining at restaurants,
two counties without wineries and breweries
any reported corona- and earlier resumption of
virus cases now has at retail curbside sales and
least five, prompting park reopenings prompts
it to temporarily re- new case spikes.
scind orders that had
reopened restaurants,
The timing of Mase hit-
ting the brakes has irked
shopping and other ser- and confused leaders in
vices. business, law enforcement,
Lassen County, home the Latino community and
to about 30,000 people, local churches. Gov. Gavin
had reported no coro-
navirus cases until May
Newsom on Monday and
Tuesday gave the green
22, when a resident who light to further reopen-
had traveled outside the ings, including in-person
county and became ill church services, in-store
with coronavirus symp- shopping plus barbershops
toms tested positive, and hair salons.
said Barbara Longo, the
county health and social
On Thursday, Mase
again defended her slow-
services director. down, citing concerns
A small team of 11 about the doubling of new
nurses and other health cases in the past two weeks
department employees and a few patients need-
then went to work over ing intensive care at local
the holiday weekend to hospitals — in addition to
try to track down ev- the pathogen creeping into
eryone who had been in workplaces.
contact with the infect- Just hours after her dai-
ed person and get them ly briefing, Sonoma Coun-
tested, leading to all the ty Sheriff Mark Essick
additional cases. announced on Facebook
“We got on it right beginning June 1 he would
away,” Longo said. “I’m no longer be enforcing
telling you, we got the local public health emer-
call Friday night and got gency orders without more
all that testing done Sat- information supporting
urday, Sunday and Mon- these measures.
day.” Essick said over the past
Several more people several weeks he’s asked
who had come into con- for “more information
tact with the initial per- and transparency” from
son infected were also Mase and county public
under order to stay home heath officials regarding
for two weeks even if the decision to maintain
they tested negative. stay-at-home restrictions
On Tuesday evening, when the local virus infec-
the county notified busi- tion rate is decreasing. As
nesses that had been of Thursday night, there
allowed to reopen two were 531 local cases since
weeks earlier that they the first local resident was
would have to return to diagnosed on March  2.
offering takeout food or More than 24,100 of the
curbside pickup. county’s nearly 500,000
A7
BREAKING DOWN SPREAD OF CORONAVIRUS
tain the virus.
Latino leaders Thursday
founder of Los Cien, a local
Latino leadership group,
renewed their frustration said it’s crucial for public
Sonoma County public health officials continue to urge
residents to call their doctor if they are ill, think they have about the disproportion- health officials to share
ate effect the virus is hav- more information about
flu-like symptoms and want to learn whether they should be
ing on their community, how the virus is infecting
tested for coronavirus.
and they say a lack of the local Latino commu-
531 4 531
transparency from public nity, including what work-
health officials. Two weeks places are involved. He
Total cases
as of Thursday
Deaths
as of Thursday (2%) ago, 59% of the county’s
overall cases were Latino
said local Latino leaders
want to be part of the com-
Positive results
305 222 residents. Since then, that munity effort to combat
Active cases Recovered 24,141 percentage has jumped to
70%. According to county
the coronavirus.
“There’s a network in
as of Thursday as of Thursday
(98%) data, 60% of Latinos who the community that wants
24,672 Negative results
have tested positive for the
virus are between 18 and
to be able to be supportive,
in dealing with this life-
Tests finished 49; 24% are 17 and under. and-death virus,” he said.
as of Thursday However, only 4% of Lati- Peter Rumble, the chief
nos with a confirmed case executive officer of the
INFECTIONS IN COUNTY BY REGION of COVID-19 are 65 and Santa Rosa Metro Cham-
older, compared to 26% of ber, said more information
42 22 336 non-Latinos for that age
group.
about which industries are
affected by new COVID-19
North East Central The Latino leaders say cases would be helpful to
(Windsor north (Kenwood, Glen (Santa Rosa, they want to know which local employers, who are
to Cloverdale) Ellen, Sonoma) Rohnert Park, companies and industries eager to do whatever they
Cotati)
101 26 are experiencing out- can to protect their work-
South West 4 breaks so they can better
address the advances of
ers and customers.
“Business owners are
(Penngrove, (Sebastopol, Under the virus. our friends and neighbors
Petaluma) Guerneville) investigation “If we don’t know which they want to know and
industries are being im- help as much as anyone
pacted the most we can- else,” Rumble said.
VIRUS CASES IN COUNTY BY AGE not address the disparities Particularly since more
87 293 95 56 0 happening in the Latino
community, we can’t pro-
people are returning to
work, Ventura said more
0-17 18-49 50-64 65+ Unknown vide solutions that are tar- information is needed
geted for specific employ- about exactly where the
VIRUS CASES IN COUNTY BY MALE, FEMALE ers,” said Mara Ventura, virus is spreading among
executive director of North commercial sectors.
270 261 Bay Jobs with Justice. “I think that the fact that
Male Female She said efforts to curb we don’t have this data
the spread of the virus can makes it a lot harder to re-
HOSPITALIZATION vary from one industry to open (businesses) because
Currently hospitalized: 9 confirmed cases, 22 suspected another. we can’t be solution-orient-
cases, 3 confirmed cases in ICU, 2 suspected cases in ICU; as of “What a winery needs is ed,” she said.
Wednesday different that what a fac-
tory needs and is different You can reach Staff Writer
Total hospitalized during pandemic: 42 than what a restaurant Martin Espinoza at 707-
Sources: Sonoma County health department; state of California;
needs,” Ventura said. 521-5213 or martin.espino-
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Press Democrat reporting Herman Hernandez, the za@pressdemocrat.com.
ONLINE: See more coronavirus-related data and charts at
pressdemocrat.com/coronavirus-numbers
residents have been tested, bly disappointing at a time
Going on
and slightly more than 2% when all levels of govern-
of those have tested posi- ment should be working
tive for COVID-19. together.”
“Unfortunately, the Pub- Neither Mase nor Ro-
vacation?
lic Health Department and hish Lal, a spokesman for
the Public Health Officer the county Department of
have ignored my requests Health Services, responded
and the requests of the me- to requests for comment on
dia to provide desperately Essick’s decision. Mean- Pause your delivery.
needed information,” Es- while, Santa Rosa’s Police
sick wrote in his Facebook Chief Ray Navarro said his It’s easier than ever.
announcement. “This lack police force will continue
of transparency and lack to enforce Mase’s public Manage your subscription at:
of engagement is incredi- health orders to try to con- myaccount.pressdemocrat.com
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