‘Meet everyone halfway’: Santa Rosa marks uneven progress on calls for change after summer protests

Magali Telles admits that if you asked her to name the mayor of Santa Rosa five years ago, she probably couldn't have told you.

"That's how disengaged I was from this whole political process," Telles said in a interview this fall. Santa Rosa’s city government can have a “very specific structure,” and trying to participate in a meeting can seem “so intimidating,” she said.

But Telles, 38, went on to become the executive director at Los Cien, the prominent Sonoma County Latino leadership organization she joined after about 13 years of student outreach work at Sonoma State University .

Those jobs, especially with Los Cien, she said, helped her build crucial networks that informed her understanding of the community and the local political establishment. And at SSU, she founded the Latino Family Summit, an effort based on first-generation Latino college students that opened her eyes to gaps in opportunity based on socioeconomic factors, race and ethnicity.

That demonstrated focus on social disparities helped distinguish Telles last summer, when Santa Rosa brought her on as its newest community engagement director — a chief liaison between Santa Rosa government and a restive public pushing for reforms and more attention from City Hall since the protests of last summer.

Until July, the city had not had a permanent hire in the role since January 2019. That changed after the after police in Minneapolis killed George Floyd on Memorial Day last May, sparking days of local demonstrations and renewed pressure on Santa Rosa leaders to address a host of civil rights issues.

The movement took shape shape in rallying cries echoed by hundreds of people, many of them teenagers and young adults, who flooded the city streets amid a nationwide call for police reform, restorative justice and other systemic changes to end racism and remedy socioeconomic inequities.

And while the demand to defund law enforcement never got traction at City Hall, activists have had some success on another front of late: urging the city to change how authorities handle calls for service involving homeless residents and mental health crises.

Activists have also requested that the city find ways to invest in communities of color and to make people of color, especially youth, feel safer in Santa Rosa. They’ve asked for improved diversity in hiring at the police department and training that gives officers greater fluency in navigating issues of race.

Behind their disparate demands, activists say, is a simple request: Listen to us like you have not before and acknowledge our experience.

New face at City Hall

That is now one of Telles’ main roles — to gather input where perhaps it has not been sought by the city and to communicate with residents who have felt left on the margins.

She brings a wealth of personal and professional experience to the role. She immigrated from Mexico with her parents as a young child and grew up in Fresno, where she was the only person of color in some of her advanced high school courses and wasn’t as well off as many of her classmates. But her focus on achieving academic success kept her grounded, if not shielded, how she might have been regarded by others for the color of her skin or her country of origin.

“I didn’t really internalize feelings of racism or feeling ’other’,” she said, “even though I was.”

She started at SSU in 2000, earning first a bachelor’s degree in sociology and then a master’s in education. Even before she graduated, she had started what would end up being more than a decade of outreach and engagement work at SSU, which led to her taking the top job at Los Cien in 2018.

In her new role with Santa Rosa, she says she’s aiming to bring her “immigrant energy and magic,” into City Hall. But early talks with community members have shown that the work is weighed down by the burdens of history and clashing realities, starting with her own: a woman of color originally from Los Reyes in the Mexican state of Michoacán, now empowered to foster change in the city she’s called home for two decades.

"We’re talking hundreds of years of structural racism — it’s not going to happen overnight,“ Telles said.

New attention after nationwide protests

In the months since the protests, she can tout several new programs and efforts related to recognizing and amplifying the voices of communities of color, as well as numerous listening sessions with local advocacy groups.

The early efforts have played out in public meetings as well as invitation-only sessions with community groups, including the NAACP, the Sonoma County Lowrider Council, 100 Black Men of Sonoma County and the Roseland Community Building Initiative.

Santa Rosa ramped up its engagement efforts at a time when American law enforcement agencies, including the city’s own, were under unprecedented scrutiny.

Police violence more than 1,500 miles away, in Minneapolis, had fueled a widespread and potent movement calling for law enforcement officers be held accountable when they unlawfully kill people, violate civil rights or reinforce systemic racism

The outcry in Sonoma County was rooted in a national grievance and, at least initially, was not directly fueled by the types of local incidents that have touched off past demonstrations here — including sobriety checkpoints that detained undocumented immigrants and the shooting death of 13-year-old Andy Lopez.

The county’s Sheriff’s Office, the largest local law enforcement agency, has long been the main focal point of attention in advocates’ calls for reforms. It has faced a greater number of wrongful death and civil rights lawsuits in the past decade and is now the only local department overseen by a independent civilian watchdog agency, formed by the county after the 2013 shooting of Lopez by a sheriff’s deputy.

The Santa Rosa Police Department has had its share of high-profile incidents over the past decade in which officers used force that injured or killed suspects. But few of those cases, if any, sparked the kind of broad and sustained objections as the department’s response to last summer’s street protests.

While largely peaceful, some of those downtown demonstrations overlapped into nighttime stand-offs between demonstrators and officers. Some businesses sustained minor damage to their exteriors, such as graffiti and broken windows.

Police resorted to firing tear gas and other projectiles in an attempt to disperse crowds of people who were violating the city’s curfew. Dozens were arrested, mostly on minor offenses, and police injured at least seven people who have sued or filed claims against the city. One injured protester settled with the city for $200,000 after police shot him in the groin with a projectile, rupturing a testicle that had to be surgically removed.

Santa Rosa police have not reported a significant use of force resulting in serious injury since the protests, and police officials in the months since then have repeatedly voiced pride in the department’s work.

Stephen Bussell, president of the Santa Rosa Police Officers Association, the union that represents rank-and-file officers, noted that the department has has not been the subject of the kind of high-profile cases like the Lopez shooting that continue to cloud the Sheriff’s Office. The latest came in late 2019 with the in-custody death of motorist David Ward. Charles Blount, the former deputy arrested in Ward’s death, has been indicted on felony charges of involuntary manslaughter and assault by a public officer.

“We try not to get involved in those,” said Bussell, a patrol officer who has served in the department for 21 years. “Our goal is to go home at the end of every shift and try to do better the next day and serve our community.”

Santa Rosa’s response to calls for change has been a mixed bag, said Evan Phillips, a Santa Rosa community organizer and artist.

Its willingness to explore an alternative model of policing for some calls is an excellent sign that the city is listening, he said. But it also seemed to him that city officials are taking an inordinate amount of time to have more uncomfortable conversations law enforcement oversight and use of force, and he urged them to take other concrete steps, such as create a police oversight board comprising civilians.

“There’s a lot of things that we can do better, but they require bold and decisive action now,” Phillips said. “I think a lot of people get frustrated with the speed at which government moves and we have a unique opportunity presented now in which there seems to be an alignment between elected officials, unelected officials, key institutions and local activists to want to see more substantial and tangible progress and change."

Blowback over police post

The focus on Santa Rosa police sharpened again last month, when the police department posted on social media a photograph of a gift to officers: a “thin blue line” flag meant as a gesture of support days after the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, where a pro-Trump mob swarmed the halls of Congress, killing an on-duty Capitol Police officer and leading to the deaths of four rioters.

The department’s post touched off a divided and fiery response on social media, ultimately leading to police Chief Ray Navarro deciding to take down both the post and the flag, which had been displayed inside the department’s Sonoma Avenue headquarters. The decision to remove the social media post, in turn, led to yet more backlash.

For those who voiced support for police, that symbol — a black and white American flag bisected by a stripe of blue — represents gratitude for officers and the crucial role they play to maintain public safety and social order. But critics see the same flag as a reminder of institutional power and racism — a symbol underscored during the Capitol riot, when the flag was flown by some white supremacist groups or displayed on the garb of armed extremists.

Turmoil over the flag display and its removal have since spilled over into debate at city meetings. Late last month, several City Council members voiced frustration about the bind they perceived city leadership to be in: trapped between a desire to support local law enforcement on one hand and the demand they be more responsive to the needs of racial minorities and advocates for police reform on the other.

"It’s so apparent to me when I look at the national stage all the way down to even the local stage that we so often engage in these us versus them conversations, and I’m getting so tired of it,“ said Councilman Jack Tibbetts. ”It seems as if these worlds where you can back the blue but also support communities of color in some of the insecurities they might feel around government institutions, particularly police departments — that somehow those are mutually exclusive and you have to pick a side. That’s not the world we can afford to live in.“

Today’s City Council looks significantly different than it did during the protests. The two political newcomers on the council — Vice Mayor Natalie Rogers, the city’s first Black councilwoman, and Councilman Eddie Alvarez, the city’s first elected official from the predominantly Latino area of Roseland — have made the historically white and male seven-member council more diverse than it’s been. The city also has a new mayor in Chris Rogers, 33, who in December became the youngest to the take over the gavel in the city’s history.

Councilwoman Natalie Rogers, a licensed marriage and family therapist who made police reform one of her top issues in her successful 2020 campaign expressed support for the city’s “heroes,” referring to rank-and-file police officers, at a recent City Council meeting. But she also said she’d had mixed experiences with police in the past.

“I wholeheartedly support everyone on our force,” Rogers said. But while she said she’d continue being supportive, she emphasized that “there are some changes that need to be made on our force.”

Making government more accessible

After the protests and even before hiring Telles, the city announced it was developing a “community empowerment plan,” an evolving set of strategies for Santa Rosa to better communicate with its residents.

The city deserves some acknowledgment for the work it’s done so far, said Kimberly MacNeil, vice president of the local NAACP. But that acknowledgment should be accompanied with recognition that “surface-level” programs aren’t enough, she said.

“They had to do something after these protests,” MacNeil said. “They did do something. It just isn’t enough.”

Telles’ main immediate goal is making city government more accessible, especially for Spanish speakers and members of other underserved communities. She acknowledged that it would be tough to quantify the city’s progress, though she said she was heartened to hear an uptick in public comment spoken in Spanish at a recent meeting.

"I am very invested in going and looking for people who don’t know how to call in and make public comment, or who their district rep is or who their mayor is, and who don’t participate because they feel disenfranchised or don’t see a space for them,“ Telles said.

MacNeil said she remained hopeful about the prospects of working with the city and the police department to achieve lasting change, though she believes reforms will needed over many generations to make inroads against systemic inequities and racism.

“People are going to die, and that old mentality is going to die with them,” MacNeil said. “Not in my lifetime, unfortunately. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Still to come from City Hall

Santa Rosa’s efforts have been limited not just by time, but by the pandemic, plus the recent run of catastrophic wildfires, which have hampered the typically slow progress of change inside government. And some of the earliest initiatives rolled out by City Hall remain unfulfilled, illustrating the time it takes for local government to enact even its more basic efforts.

In addition to hiring Telles, the city is accepting applications for a new position of equity officer. That person would review city operations for “disparate impacts,” make recommendations to eliminate inherent organizational bias and ensure the city complies with equal employment opportunity laws.

It’s similar to a role Sonoma County created and filled last year. The city’s position, slated to pay up to $121,659, was announced during last summer’s budget hearings but hasn’t been filled.

Santa Rosa also has signed a roughly $400,000 contract with an Inglewood-based consulting firm, Seed Collaborative, to help develop an “Equity Plan” in tandem with City Hall, as well as the police and fire departments.

And the city has enlisted two other consulting firms for work related to the protest: an $80,000 overview of the city’s response and a more focused inquiry, with a cost of up to $50,000, into specific incidents where officers used force against protesters.

Telles, whose starting city salary is about $117,000, also has been working on her own initial community engagement report.

That report is tentatively set to go before the City Council in March, alongside a write-up from the Sonoma County Human Rights Commission compiling civilian allegations of police and city misconduct, according to a city spokeswoman.

Seeking to build trust

Navarro, a son of Mexican-American parents who grew up in Southern California and who now leads a force of more than 150 sworn officers, said he’s seen his responsibility after the protests primarily as having to “sit back and listen” to community concerns.

One of the most prevalent, he said, was the lack of meaningful community engagement with officers outside of an enforcement setting, where power dynamics are clearly defined and uneven. He’s also heard, in broad strokes, calls for greater accountability.

“We definitely heard that there was a breakdown in some of the trust and legitimacy that we’ve worked very hard over the last several years to put in place,” Navarro said.

The department is coordinating with local nonprofits to develop a cultural awareness curriculum for all of its staff and is continuing to work toward an alternative service model for low-priority calls, including those involving homelessness and mental health, Navarro said.

A new police liaison panel, the Chief’s Community Ambassador Team, is expected to be in place by April, he said.

As for accountability, Navarro pointed to the role of an independent police auditor, a position the city created after Andy Lopez was killed. But Santa Rosa’s auditor post has been vacant for more than two years after a council feud with the previous auditor, Bob Aaronson, who criticized the city’s strategy to address homelessness.

Aaronson was out as of January 2019, and though city officials recently reiterated support for replacing him, there’s no telling when the city will formally reinstate a police watchdog.

“The timeline associated with filling this position will depend greatly on the quality of responses and acceptance of a candidate by the review committee,” said Jason Nutt, an assistant city manager. He added that Santa Rosa was “committed to filling this position as quickly as possible.”

Previously, Santa Rosa’s auditor, even when working on a part-time basis, had access to officers’ bodyworn camera footage and other police records. Navarro acknowledged that an auditor like the one city previously had would be capable of carrying out the current use-of-force inquiry.

“I don’t think we would have had to go outside and search for an outside entity to do this,” he said.

A more inclusive city

Santa Rosa also is taking a page from other police forces by creating a tangible sign that the city and its officers are interested in engaging with diverse populations. More specifically, it’s adding a tricked-out patrol car.

The city working with the Sonoma County Lowrider Council, a collective of local car clubs, to develop a police lowrider vehicle. It wouldn’t be rolled out to conduct traffic stops, but city officials hope to that bringing the vehicle to community events could make police seem more approachable.

The Lowrider Council has managed to obtain an old Crown Victoria and will raise money and donate time to soup it up with new graphics and fresh rims, spokes and hydraulics, said Jose “Mico“ Quiroz, a Roseland resident who is sergeant at arms for the council and a member of the Latin Rollers Car Club. He noted that cities like Stockton, Oakland and San Diego have added similar vehicles to their fleet.

Quiroz said lowriding is a tradition for his family that brings joy and healing — he remembers cruising in a car seat in the back of a lowrider — and he said the club wanted to share the experience with the community. Another goal, he said, is to help address a persistent problem: predominantly Mexican-American communities are too often policed by officers who are not from those communities.

“We wanted young people to see that the police department is celebrating our culture to make it more inclusive for young Chicanos and Latinos in the area,” Quiroz said.

The effort to make the city’s police force somewhat more representative of the community it serves comes amid a time of transition in political leadership.

Santa Rosa’s mayor during last summer’s protests was Tom Schwedhelm, a career local police officer who rose to the rank of chief in Santa Rosa before retiring and running for office. Schwedhelm intentionally stayed away from the summer protests, he said, to avoid inflaming the situation.

But since then, Telles has sat in with Schwedhelm at several of the city’s listening sessions with community groups and has described the former mayor and chief as an advocate for change. Schwedhelm, for his part, says the smaller city meetings are more productive and informative for him.

At the listening sessions, he said multiple people shared with him their experience as a person of color and being pulled over to hear an officer immediately ask whether they were on parole or probation — something that Schwedhelm, who is white, said would be “shocking“ to him if he were in their shoes.

“The feedback was that because of the color of their skin, they weren’t being treated as equal members of the city of Santa Rosa,” Schwedhelm said.

He mentioned other comments that served to add momentum to city’s development of an alternative, civilian-based model for responding to mental health crisis calls. In those listening sessions, more than one of the participants told him they had relayed instructions to loved ones not to call police, fearing a response by armed officers could unnecessarily escalate the situation.

The proposal, modeled on the pioneering CAHOOTS program in Eugene, Oregon, could have an impact on the force similar to the adoption of the local law enforcement chaplaincy program, which provides emotional support for tasks such as death notifications. That could infuse the department with a needed level of sensitivity, which for police officers is “not in our wheelhouse,” Schwedhelm said,

He said it was incumbent on the city to adopt other necessary changes to make Santa Rosa a place where people of color feel safe and welcome, but like many other city officials, he cautioned that it was important to take time to do so. Rushing to reform, he said, would lead to “failure and mistrust.”

Bussell, the Santa Rosa police union leader, said he was in full support of the city’s response to the community concerns raised during and since the protests. He also said he would continue to work toward increased representation at the decision-making table for police reform and community engagement efforts. He also said he would like to see the police auditor position reinstated and emphasized that he wasn’t against increased oversight of officers.

“We’re not opposed to any change or reform,” Bussell said. “We just want to make sure it’s the right change for our community.”

Bussell acknowledged the possibility that members of the department harbored inherent biases like any other institution and society at large. But such flaws, including racism, are not the norm among his colleagues, he said.

“It’s not a prevalent issue in our department,” he said. “If it is, it’s confronted.”

Navarro agreed, citing numerous training sessions on implicit bias and crisis intervention.

“I truly believe in equity,” Navarro said, adding that he thought biased views were a rare exception within his ranks.

“I don’t believe it’s prevalent. I don’t ever want it to be prevalent.“

Forging new shared identity

Santa Rosa’s efforts to create a more diverse future also involve looking into its past. That includes calling out civil rights leaders from past generations and chronicling struggles against racism and discrimination in the city.

One effort taking shape is Multicultural Roots Project, through which Santa Rosa shares stories each month about people of color in the past and present, including their achievements and their tribulations.

The program’s earliest stories include a review of Santa Rosa’s Chinatown of the 1880s and the subsequent anti-Chinese discrimination and displacement efforts by white locals. There’s a mini-profile of Joy Ayodele, the teenage activist who helped catalyze many of the downtown protests last year.

More recently, to celebrate Black History Month, the city remembered Nance Legins-Costley, the first formerly enslaved person freed by Abraham Lincoln. Locally, the city also highlighted the life of Willie Garrett, a Santa Rosa civil rights leader and teacher who in the 1960s became the first Black person appointed to a city board or commission.

“Really we're just trying to normalize seeing people of color in leadership roles,” Telles said.

Not all of the new programs have rolled out smoothly.

A city effort last fall, dubbed “Ethnic Studies with A Cop,” paired out-of-uniform police officers with a dozen young people in a setting where they were meant to learn about different cultures.

The first installment of the program, which came out of the summer’s listening sessions, focused on acclaimed civil rights figures such as Rosa Parks, Elsie Allen and Dolores Huerta.

There’s no plans for a sequel anytime soon, Telles said. While program participants gave positive feedback, she said, others in the community raised concerns about whether it was appropriate or useful and accused the city of “endangering children by putting them in the same space as police officers.“

The NAACP’s MacNeil was one of those who voiced concerns. She questioned the effectiveness and timeliness of the program, advocating instead of for better training and therapy for officers — basically, spending on programs to make sure the “force” aspect of law enforcement is used less often, she said.

MacNeil shared that, like many Black mothers and fathers, she’s repeatedly talked her adult son through hypothetical encounters with police. Growing up in Santa Rosa’s South Park neighborhood, she remembers how officers would pull her male friends off the street and release them a few hours later looking roughed up, and she’s advised her son to avoid wearing a hoodie while driving.

“It’s not about how people of color are looking at police, it’s about how police are looking at people of color,” MacNeil said.

Telles said she was struck after the listening sessions with the wide feeling among people of color of disengagement from Santa Rosa’s political power structure. In response, she and her team, most of whom are people of color, will be crafting “Civics 101” videos to help residents better understand how local government works and how they can get involved.

Some in the community may find the city’s efforts so far as inadequate, Telles acknowledged, but she asked for patience and promised that her upcoming report would show a “robust view” of the community. And she encouraged those who have yet to weigh in, including any who might doubt the need for change, to read the transcripts of the city’s listening sessions to see what others have experienced.

“I would want people to understand that we're going to try to meet everybody halfway,” Telles said.

You can reach Staff Writer Will Schmitt at 707-521-5207 or will.schmitt@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @wsreports.