The task force studying a wide range of community grievances and issues exposed last year in the shooting death of 13-year Andy Lopez by a Sonoma County sheriff's deputy is grappling with how to complete its hefty work load under what some members say is unclear direction from county leaders.
Formed by the Board of Supervisors in December, the 21-person Community and Local Law Enforcement Task Force is about a third of the way through the year it has to make recommendations on four complex topics: a model for independent citizen review of officer-involved shootings; whether to separate the Sheriff's Office from the Coroner's Office; suggestions for community policing; and ways to repair trust in law enforcement among residents, especially those in the Latino and minority communities.
The panel must also weigh in on 11 directives the supervisors asked staff to research, including buy-back programs for firearms and toy guns; creating a community park in Lopez's neighborhood on the outskirts of southwest Santa Rosa; and providing officers with body-mounted cameras.
But at Monday's task force meeting, after county staff recommended not to move forward with a toy gun buy-back program, some members expressed confusion about how they were supposed to respond.
While they said they valued the chance to weigh in, some members said it sometimes felt like the presentations were detracting from the time they have to work on the core issues before them.
"I'm kind of frustrated," said task force member Judy Rice, who also leads the county Commission on Human Rights. "I feel like I'm not sure what our role is" and what staff's role is.
Task force member Joe Palla, a Cloverdale city councilman, echoed her sentiments.
"Clarification certainly needs to come forward," he said. "We're getting a lot of information and I'm not sure what we're supposed to do with it."
Both Rice and Palla said they were not criticizing staff, who have done an "excellent job" researching the directives, they said. The overall process, though, has lacked clear direction from top officials, particularly the Board of Supervisors, they said.
The concerns surfaced as many on the task force say they hear the clock ticking in regards to the large amount of work before them.
"Where we are right now is that it's time and has been time to really hit the ground" and focus on getting recommendations together, said panel member Amber Twitchell, a Guerneville resident.
The task force has already postponed some tentative deadlines laid out by the Board of Supervisors. Initially, a recommendation on citizen oversight of law enforcement was due in February while a conclusion on community policing was due April 30.
But task force staff member Brian Vaughn said that county officials and panel members decided early on those goals were unrealistic.
The first deadline, Rice pointed out, was just weeks after the task force first convened.
Even if they'd been able to turn in a report that quickly, she said, it would not have been worthy of the work the group is trying to do.
David Rabbitt, chairman of the Board of Supervisors, said he felt there was a balance for the task force to strike: "What we're looking at here is important, and we want to make sure it's thorough," he said. "But it can't take forever."
Many task force members said their most productive work was happening not at the bi-monthly task force meetings, where presentations on various initiatives consume much of their time, but at the meetings of the panel's three subcommittees.
Those meetings are where the task force has really been able to focus on its four main duties, said Vaughn, a division director in the county's Department of Health Services. The subcommittees are focused on community engagement and healing, community policing and law enforcement accountability.
Twitchell suggested holding fewer meetings of the larger panel and more subcommittee meetings.
"If we're doing the work in the subcommittees, then why don't we do more of it?" she asked.
Most members signalled support for the idea, and they will likely begin holding more frequent subcommittee meetings in May.
A study session to update the Board of Supervisors on what the task force has accomplished so far is tentatively scheduled for May 13.
Twitchell, who runs a Santa Rosa nonprofit for former foster children, gave credit to the county board for providing the task force leeway in how it does its work, despite the challenges stemming from that freedom.
"The Board of Supervisors really wanted this to be a grass-roots initiative," she said. "Had there been more structure, we might be farther along. But would it be genuine?"
Sylvia Lemus, an analyst in the county's Human Resources department who chairs the community policing subcommittee, said that much of the task force's first several months was spent with the necessary work of educating itself as well as the public.
Member Francisco Vazquez, director of Sonoma State University's Hutchins Institute for Public Policy Studies and Community Action, said he thought the job facing the task force was big enough that it could take well over a year to complete.
"I really feel thankful for the huge commitment the Board of Supervisors had made in the number of tasks they've assigned the staff and task force to try to address the issues that have emerged since the shooting of Andy Lopez," Vazquez said. "But the expectation may be too high for the very short amount of time we have."
(You can reach staff writer Jamie Hansen at 521-5205 or jamie.hansen@pressdemocrat.com.)
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