Investigators or ‘stalkers’? When Sonoma County citizen-activists push the boundaries on public access

Much of the information gathered for this story came through PRA requests by The Press Democrat.

There are exemptions to PRA obligations, such as records pertaining to an ongoing police investigation. But government bodies must process every request, do a search for responsive records and analyze whether records must be disclosed by law. In general, anyone can file a request.

“My sense is that this is a tool that used to be used primarily by specialists, like journalists or members of advocacy groups, like the American Civil Liberties Union,” Crump said.

Now, with the rise of the internet and a shift to digital records, Crump believes there's a broader array of people using the PRA.

“I think there is an increase in the extent to which requests that are burdensome or even abusive are being filed,” she said. “I have gained a sense of how particularly broad requests can be really time consuming to respond to, and can detract from the ability of public officials to carry out the public's business.”

Requests, intensity increasing

Eric Lawyer, a legislative advocate for the California State Association of Counties, agrees with Crump’s assessment.

“It seems to be the case that the number of requests are increasing, and the intensity is increasing,” Lawyer said. “It could be a response to things that are happening in the news.”

Critical race theory, election misinformation, anti-vaccination rhetoric — all of them have flared across the internet and at local board meetings over the past few years. They seem symbolic of a cultural moment when mistrust and hostility toward government are peaking.

Lawyer, who called the Public Records Act “really vital to holding government accountable at all levels,” offered some examples of people taking that power to extremes.

One small California county is currently reviewing and redacting 621,000 separate documents, Lawyer said, part of a massive PRA request. Fresno County received a request involving 24 employees whose experience went back 50 years; the haul included about 350,000 microfilm images, and even some movie-style reels. In a separate request, Fresno was asked for transcripts from all 911 calls in a five-year time frame.

“It turned up over 400,000 records,” Lawyer said of that last one. “They were eventually able to narrow it down to, I think, 168,000. You can contemplate how many staff resources that took.”

County workers fulfill those requests, he added, even when they know the requester might be hostile to them, and even in cases when staff has a strong suspicion the person is experiencing a mental health crisis.

In Sonoma County, several recent public events have been disrupted by antisemitic, racist and anti-queer comments from Zoom attendees, and a few incendiary remarks delivered in person at Board of Supervisors meetings. Several of those commenters cited the protections of the Ralph M. Brown Act, which is meant to guarantee the public’s business is done in public, and their right participate in those legislative meetings.

PRA requests don’t convey that same intensity. But they, too, can be used as either a precise tool or a blunt weapon.

Eric Fraser, the Santa Rosa resident who has filed so many of them, questioned the motivations behind this story. He said his efforts would be unnecessary if the city were more transparent, and if media outlets like The Press Democrat did a better job of exposing irregularities.

“The mere thought that as a member of the public, getting access to source documents is something that carries potential cost — how can you see it as anything but a value to the public?” Fraser said.

But California counties, cities and districts are having to locate these source documents with less financial support. Proposition 42, passed in 2014, ended the state’s obligation to reimburse local governments for costs incurred in adhering to those duties.

A current California ballot initiative, filed with the Attorney General’s Office by the nonprofit group Consumer Watchdog in August, would set a 30-day limit for filling the large majority of PRA requests, and a 90-day limit under extraordinary circumstances.

As vital as this system is, it clearly puts a strain on public-sector staff.

“The sheer volume of work, and how that can really consume resources, is real,” Lawyer said. “Government workers join the public sector wanting to do good and make things happen in their community. To increase the time spent addressing PRA requests can be a lot to handle.”

Big Pharma, media and the Rockefellers

Through her social-media presence and many public-meeting appearances, Adina Flores has become a well-known name in Sonoma County.

Her investigative efforts were initially focused largely on COVID-19 vaccines. She has since widened her scope in an attempt to untangle what she has described as a vast web of corruption connecting political officials at every level of government, private companies, nonprofit organizations, pharmaceutical interests, the media and — in the spirit of any good conspiracy theory — financially powerful families such as the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds.

A May 17, 2022, email to the Healdsburg City Council exemplifies Flores’ expansive theories:

“I have now proven that not only was the pandemic orchestrated, it appears that the wildfires were most likely orchestrated as well, in order to push the United Nations’ agenda pertaining to the necessity for climate protection. I have followed the money trail pertaining to the fires and I found it interesting that each of the fire rebuilding contracts were allocated to immediate or distant family members of the elected officials governing our County. This was also the case in the Paradise, Oregon and Southern California fires as well.”

Her public information requests are, at times, savvy and creative. She exposed a minor Brown Act violation by Sonoma County Supervisor James Gore on Aug. 1, in part by phoning a public library in Legion City, Texas, to confirm he hadn’t posted proper public notice where he was attending a meeting over Zoom.

The Board of Supervisors wound up having to negate its votes on four items, and pass those items again at a September meeting.

To Flores and her supporters, it was a victory for the people. To Gore, it was a meaningless gotcha.

“It’s fair to say thousands and thousands of hours have been spent responding to, by and large, baseless accusations, followed up by the weaponizing of PRA and Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) law,” Gore told The Press Democrat. “It’s not done for research. It’s done to fit a conspiracy theory.”

He’s right about the hours devoted to Flores’ requests. As of Aug. 7, the County Counsel’s Office estimated staff across all departments had spent 2,487 hours of staff time retrieving information for her and her partner, Shelby Pryor (he also has gone by Shelby Dodson), at a cost to taxpayers of $322,920 in wages.

Flores and Pryor have also filed 14 PRA requests with the city of Healdsburg, which estimated a public cost of $5,300.

Flores responded to an interview request by asking for a list of questions in advance. She posted those questions on social media, then declined the request. She did supply a written statement that included a Malcolm X quote and a verse from Corinthians.

“The lovely people copied on this thread are the true heroes of the Sonoma County community,” she wrote. “These are folks from all races and walks of life. As a biracial woman, I am blessed to be a bridge to all. I am not an activist but an investigative journalist; a sounding board who strives to elevate the voices of my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ who have come to me in need.”

Flores cc’d, among other people, Fraser, Cordova, Alderman and Barich, illustrating an interesting piece of this picture. Though the gadflies profiled here began their work independently, in varying cities and on differing issues, they have tended to find one another over time.

Alderman said her views vary strongly from Flores, but their passion for government accountability has brought them together and they’ve helped each other with research

“We do make mistakes,” Alderman said. “I’m more mild mannered — I’m a Democrat. I’m not anti-vax, but I think they have the right to think whatever they want. What we all want is the truth to come out. That's the only way we’re ever going to go forward, is if people know the truth.”

War against the schools

Flores is both the hub of the wheel and the most prolific digger.

Another of her targets is the local school system. She has sent nine PRA requests to Santa Rosa City Schools, and 13 to the Sonoma County Office of Education.

Flores has sent at least six emails with her intent to sue Santa Rosa City Schools and The Press Democrat since May, though no lawsuits have been filed in the Sonoma County Superior Court system.

An email Flores sent to the Santa Rosa City Schools, County of Sonoma and SCOE had a link to a Google document that said, “This letter serves as a notice of my intent to file a lawsuit against you if I do not receive payment for $100,000.” But once Press Democrat reporters gained access to the document, it was quickly replaced by another letter addressed to her landlord in Vallejo.

According to the California Department of Industrial Relations, Flores filed an unlawful termination complaint against Santa Rosa City Schools on May 18. They could not release more details due to the ongoing investigation, but Flores has claimed in emails that she was fired in retaliation as a protected whistleblower.

As of late, Flores’ war against Santa Rosa City Schools has mostly focused on trustees Alegria De La Cruz, Ed Sheffield and Stephanie Manieri.

“I feel like we've been dealing with this for a long time,” said Manieri, the board’s president. “I would just say that her early comments to us were very much around COVID policies. And since then, it's evolved to include conspiracies about board members, conflicts of interest and inappropriate relationships, which are all false.”

Flores’ PRA requests suggest she’s looking into connections between the school districts, government and equity-focused nonprofits including Los Cien, Raizes Collective and the NAACP of Sonoma County.

For example, in April she addressed a PRA request to the Santa Rosa and Petaluma City Schools districts, the Sonoma County Office of Education, the county, the cities of Rohnert Park and Santa Rosa. It asked for all text messages, emails, payments and contracts between the agencies and several nonprofits including the Sonoma NAACP and its president Kirstyne Lange; Hello Alice, the group co-founded by Elizabeth Gore, Supervisor James Gore’s wife; Nuestra Comunidad and Los Cien from 2018 to present.

“I don’t think it’s coincidental that the people she attacks for the most part are women and people of color,” Manieri said.

Flores also is a woman of color. Her mother was Asian.

Manieri added that she sees Flores’ actions as part of a larger culture shift of people feeling empowered to personally go after officials in local government.

According to Cloverdale Unified School District trustee Preston Addison, Flores has also targeted their board after connecting with Angela Cordova, filing PRA requests and FPPC complaints against them.

“(Flores) doesn't even live in this county,” Addison said. “She's not a concerned citizen — she's a disrupter.”

Straying into harassment, intimidation

Unlike the other people profiled in this story, Flores and Pryor have occasionally veered into verbal harassment, and some say even physical intimidation.

A half-dozen people told The Press Democrat of tense in-person interactions with the couple, especially Pryor, who is a large man. They have demeaned many other people on social media, occasionally pushing the boundaries of appropriate speech.

In the comments following one of Flores’ Facebook posts, a follower asked of a female county employee, “Oh, is this pic a man?!”

“They’re all gay (Masonic agenda),” Flores replied.

In May, Pryor directed a racial epithet at Ed Sheffield, a Santa Rosa City Schools trustee, at a public meeting. Both men are Black.

Most of the people on the receiving end of these conflicts were unwilling to speak on the record, fearing additional targeting. Supervisor Gore, who has wound up in their investigative crosshairs more often than any other public official, is an exception.

Flores has filed at least 15 FPPC complaints about Gore individually, and another 23 that included him with other people; 33 of the 38 were rejected. Three remain open, and two others were added to an existing case.

The FPPC, through a representative, declined to provide a cost estimate for those reviews.

In a single PRA request to the county, dated March 29, 2022, Flores asked for all text messages and email correspondence between Gore and 162 different people, 14 business or nonprofit entities (including The Press Democrat) and “any Sonoma County wineries.”

Flores and Pryor attempted to contact many of Elizabeth Gore’s employees and volunteers at Hello Alice, according to the supervisor’s wife. And they have ruthlessly criticized the Gores on Facebook and Instagram.

“Our family and friends — this is home for us, and I can’t make light of the impact on social media,” Elizabeth Gore said. “When you have people who love you and are loyal to you, and they see these horrible comments, it gets other people upset.”

The animosity hit a new level in April 2022, when Pryor allegedly threatened James Gore and his family during a Board of Supervisors meeting, using an amplified speaker from the parking lot outside the chambers. Among the things Pryor called out to Gore that day, the supervisor said, was, “Bring a gun if you want to. Oh, yeah. I know how to use guns better than you.”

Pryor also allegedly used a misogynist slur to refer to Elizabeth Gore, and challenged the couple’s son to join the fight. The Gores’ son was 7 at the time; Pryor later said he believed the son was an adult.

The county secured a long-term restraining order against Pryor in June 2022, prohibiting him from coming within 100 yards from anyone in the Gore family, their home, vehicles and schools for three years. Sonoma County spent $20,500 on that legal pursuit, according to the County Counsel’s Office.

But the confrontation did not end there, the Gores say.

James Gore was in the middle of running for reelection at the time. As part of his campaign, he agreed to debate his opponent, pastor Andy Springer, at a local elementary school. The event was sponsored by the League of Women Voters.

The day of the debate, according to Elizabeth Gore, they got a call from a local law enforcement agency, saying they believed Flores and Pryor would attend the event, recommending the Gores not bring their kids and suggesting the couple enter through a secured back door. Elizabeth Gore attended, and wound up shaken by the experience.

“I look up and Shelby is exactly 300 feet away, and he looks at me and winks and blows me a kiss and waves,” Elizabeth said. “I felt the blood rush in my neck. I’ve never felt that before.”

Flores showed up, too, and according to Elizabeth Gore, stood at a doorway shouting into a loudspeaker. Police soon showed up. The Gores contend that older women in attendance were traumatized, unsure of what was happening.

“These folks are trying to legitimize themselves. They say they’re investigative journalists,” James Gore said. “They’re not. They’re stalkers. They’re trying to make this about government dollars, but they’re wasting government dollars. They’re trying to say it’s about accountability. It’s really about terrorizing people.”

‘I feel discouraged’

Flores’ social media posts have long garnered a lot of likes. But her prominence spiked in April, when she began contributing to a news website called the California Globe. She now routinely describes herself as a journalist.

Flores has written more than two dozen stories for the Globe, repeating and expanding upon many of her local causes in stories with titles like “Was the Sonoma Equity Office Driving the COVID-19 Narrative?” and “Transgender Takeover: A Breeding Ground for Sexual Assault.”

The California Globe is published by Sea of Reeds Media, whose founder is Ken Kurson.

Kurson is a former editor of the New York Observer — at one time it was owned by Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of former President Donald Trump — and a former speechwriter for Rudolph Giuliani. In February 2022, he pleaded guilty to eavesdropping and computer trespass; prosecutors said he used a software program called WebWatcher to hack into his former wife’s computer and monitor her online activities.

Flores’ local notoriety has garnered detractors, too. Recently, a website appeared that is devoted to revealing “The Facts About Adina Flores.” It includes links to newspaper and radio stories, and to a letter someone wrote to the FPPC.

But her articles have also gotten the attention of local stakeholders who come across her work without context.

Madonna Feather, a Santa Rosa-based Indigenous advocate and board president of the nonprofit Raizes Collective, said when she came across one of Flores’ articles accusing the nonprofit’s director and trustee Alegria De La Cruz of having “weaved a web of deception for financial gain,” she considered resigning from the board.

“When I first saw it, I was scared,” Feather said. “It looks really messy — it looks like nepotism. There’s a lot of money that came to Raizes (their total income increased $340k in one year, according to Flores) that I’m seeing in this paper.”

Feather said the impact of the article, which included screenshots of public records, still has her questioning the legitimacy of the nonprofit whose board she sits on.

In a recent Instagram post, Flores said she is “taking much-needed time for myself” and is not currently writing for the Globe.

She has also posted that she’s now a social media contributor for American Values 2024, an organization that supports Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s run for president. Kennedy, an environmental lawyer and writer, has been a leader in promoting anti-vaccine misinformation and public health-related conspiracy theories.

If Flores’ example is an extreme, it’s clear that public agencies are having trouble keeping up with the hunger for information.

And some are wondering if there are ways to ensure public access demands are reasonable.

“I have to say, I feel discouraged at this moment,” said Crump, the Berkeley professor. “It can work. But oftentimes, government agencies are also now overwhelmed by the number of requests they've gotten. That can mean that even legitimate requests, however you want to define that — it takes a long time to get any answers.”

Crump added, “I do think we are at a period where we could use some creative responses for how to make this manageable for everyone.”

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to reflect Adina Flores’ employment history. Flores elected to resign from her position at Santa Rosa City Schools in January 2023. It also was edited to add recent developments from an Oct. 18 meeting of the Cloverdale Unified School District board.

You can reach Phil Barber at 707-521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @Skinny_Post.

You can reach Staff Writer Alana Minkler at 707-526-8531 or alana.minkler@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @alana_minkler.