Sonoma County sheriff wants his ‘office’ back

Before sheriffs were dusty gunslingers in the Wild West, they were known as “shire reeves,” royal officials in medieval England charged with keeping the peace.

When the United States was born, sheriffs were already among the young nation’s first elected officials — America’s version of nobility.

You can hardly blame Sonoma County Sheriff Bill Cogbill for trying to correct history and reclaim the “office” of sheriff. Actually, Cogbill is not alone.

Across the country, sheriff’s agencies and their associations are waging a campaign to replace the word “department” with “office” in their letterhead, business cards, badges, patrol cars, jails and administrative buildings.

So the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department is now, once again, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office, a move Cogbill calls a formality aimed at correcting history.

California’s Constitution mandates that all 58 counties elect their sheriffs, just as they do their district attorneys. It’s one thing to be head of a county department, and quite another to be an elected official.

“The difference is, you’re voted in — it’s a public office as opposed to a division of government,” said Jim Denney, a retired Sutter County sheriff who is now executive director of the California State Sheriff’s Association.

“We’re getting back to our grass roots,” he said.

Denney said the current president of the association, Tehama County Sheriff Clay D. Parker, is spearheading the statewide campaign, encouraging all California sheriff’s offices to make the switch.

In the July issue of the association’s publication, California Sheriff, the organization’s longtime general counsel Martin J. Mayer argues that a California sheriff is a constitutional officer, not just a county employee, and that the source of a sheriff’s authority is derived from case law and the state constitution, not from the county itself.

Mayer writes, “The term ‘department’ refers to a subordinate unit of government, rather than to a body with inherent powers and sovereignty, such as the office of sheriff.”

Cogbill agreed with Mayer’s position, though he said the name change is not part of an agency effort to flex greater political muscle and exert independence or autonomy. He said he just wants to straighten things out.

As long as he can remember, in everyday speech the institution has always been the “SO,” for Sheriff’s Office, Cogbill said. But somewhere along the line, it became a department on paper.

“We’re trying to correct something somebody did years and years ago,” Cogbill said.

In doing so, Cogbill has become somewhat of a history sleuth, reviewing old sheriff’s office photos, documents and insignia on uniform patches.

A reward poster for Henry Yamaguchi — wanted for the Kendall family triple murder in Cazadero in 1910 — reads “Office of J.K. Smith, Sheriff Sonoma County.” In one document dated 1930, the letterhead reads “Douglas Bills, Sheriff’s Office.”

And in a 1960s photo depicting Sheriff John Ellis and his staff, the building behind them bears the wording, “Sheriff’s Office.”

In 1958, it was Ellis, then Sebastopol police chief and a former sheriff’s deputy, who campaigned for office on the promise to put deputies in uniform and marked patrol cars.

The sheriff deputy’s first uniform shoulder patch had silver lettering on a blue field and depicted General Vallejo’s Petaluma Adobe in the center. It read, “Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department.”

In 1964, the patch was given gold trim but still kept “Sheriff’s Department.” Then in 1987, under Sheriff Dick Michaelsen, the word department was dropped from the patch and read only: Sonoma County Sheriff.

Cogbill said that aside from letterhead and business cards, there are few things to change.

“Our uniforms and patches don’t say department,” he said. “On the side of the (patrol car) door it says ‘Sheriff.’ ”

When Cogbill asked his staff to look into what such a change would entail, cost was a big consideration, he said.

“That was the mandate. The change can’t cost us anything,” he said, adding that business cards, stationery and patrol car decals will eventually reflect the change after current office supplies run out.

“We’re not making any formality about this thing,” said Cogbill.

Throughout the 1950s, The Press Democrat referred to the agency in stories as both a “department” and “office.” In most cases the paper used “Sheriff’s Office” or “sheriff’s office.”

In Press Democrat news files between 1951 to 1973, the first appearance of “Sheriff’s Department” came in 1960. The usage became more frequent in the early 1970s.

Cogbill said his research has produced a similar timeline.

“It appears that we were a department, or somebody called us a department back in the early 1960s,” he said.

The transition is already under way, though change often comes slowly.

The homepage of the sheriff’s Web site has an unofficial, mock badge next to the agency name, “Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office.” The gold badge says, “Sheriff’s Dept.”

News Researcher Teresa Meikle contributed to this report.