With court seal lifted, Sonoma County Supervisor Hopkins addresses contentious call with sheriff

Sonoma County Sheriff Mark Essick’s conduct during an Aug. 20, 2020, phone call with Supervisor Lynda Hopkins was driven by personal animus he was unable to set aside even amid crisis, Hopkins alleged Friday in the first interview where she directly addressed the context of the phone call.

“It was personal, it was targeted and it was threatening,” Hopkins said of the call, which began with a request from her to discuss whether west county residents evacuated because of the Walbridge Fire could return to look after pets but quickly spiraled out of control.

After an 18-month legal campaign to keep an investigation into the call private, Essick dropped his legal case and released the documents Monday to The Press Democrat, five days before a court deadline. At that time, Hopkins and county counsel Robert Pittman both told the newspaper they were unable to talk about the report before Friday’s court deadline.

The county released its own copy of the report Friday, which matched the documents Essick provided but did not include some communications he chose to provide the newspaper.

“The word choice Mark used and the animosity in his voice to me transcended anything political,” Hopkins said Friday. “I’ve never had an interaction like that before or since. Especially from someone who carries a weapon to work and is the top law enforcement official in the county.”

Essick previously called Hopkins’ description of the call as a “mischaracterization of what happened.”

Earlier this week in an interview, Essick said he regretted his language and attitude during the phone call but described it as a two-sided argument. The breakdown in communication was borne of exhaustion during a severe wildfire and fueled by long-running disputes with Hopkins over big political issues facing the county like its pandemic response, homelessness and law enforcement oversight, he said.

Reached Friday, Essick declined to comment further regarding the phone call.

Sonoma County hired a workplace issues attorney, Amy Oppenheimer, of Berkeley, to investigate the phone call after Hopkins filed a complaint with the county’s human resources department.

Oppenheimer concluded Essick had used his position to intimidate Hopkins when he told the supervisor he would expose her as “a fraud” and that she did not “have a friend” in the county’s top law enforcement official. However, Oppenheimer decided the threat was political in nature and not actually a threat to Hopkins’ physical safety.

Hopkins worried Essick’s suggestion that he would expose her was that he may use his office to investigate her for crimes she had not committed, she said.

“Words like that really stand out,” she said. “There are lines you don’t cross and things you don’t say when you hold that level of authority.”

Essick’s ire toward her appeared derived from her vocal support of a county law enforcement oversight ordinance the supervisors had chosen to bring to voters just weeks before, she said. Hopkins was a proponent of the ordinance — labeled Measure P on the ballot — that strengthened the powers and budget of the Sonoma County Independent Office of Law Enforcement Review and Outreach.

Voters overwhelmingly approved the measure but it’s implementation was slowed by legal challenges from labor unions representing deputies and corrections officers. The labor groups and the county reached a deal to implement the ordinance last month.

Her backing of increased oversight for Essick’s office was at “the root of his animosity,” Hopkins said, even as she wanted to discuss an immediate practical concern — an evacuation order during a major wildfire. It felt like “if you take a policy position in opposition to the sheriff the result is that you’re threatened,” Hopkins said. “That’s the antithesis of democracy.”

Both parties have claimed the evacuation orders were top of mind. “I had a duty to ensure the public safety during the wildfires by maintaining the integrity of evacuated areas and in that regard I was doing my job,” Essick said Monday, referring to Hopkins’ inquiry into allowing residents into the evacuated zone to feed or collect pets and livestock.

Oppenheimer ultimately determined the sheriff’s remarks during the phone call were driven by political differences and public disputes, but not by a gender bias. However, Hopkins was one of three women who told the investigator they believed Essick treated women differently than men.

Hopkins told the investigator she called Essick “sexist” and “arrogant” during the phone call.

“I stand by the statements I made to him,” she said Friday. “I believe them to be true.”

Essick has denied any allegations of sexism and said he has worked successfully with women leaders and colleagues throughout his long law enforcement career.

In his interview with Oppenheimer, Essick said he remembered Hopkins calling him a “small man with a fragile ego who is afraid of women,” and said the comments drove him to further react during the phone call. Hopkins has denied that accusation.

Essick and the supervisor have not spoken directly since the phone call nearly two years ago, she said, and their staff have worked to coordinate policy.

The dispute with their boss has never trickled down to the rank and file in her experience, Hopkins said.

“The men and women who work for the sheriff’s office are consummate professionals and every interaction I’ve had with a sheriff’s deputy has been excellent,” she said.

Essick declined this week to say if anyone had assisted him in what was likely a costly legal campaign in efforts to protect the report from going public, with implications for sheriffs and elected officials statewide. No public funds were spent on his lawyers, he said.

County officials have also not yet disclosed how much was spent on the Oppenheimer investigation. The Press Democrat has filed a public records request for invoices.

The case wasn’t Oppenheimer’s only high-profile investigation in Sonoma County recently. Sonoma Academy hired the attorney to investigate sexual misconduct by a longtime teacher at the elite prep school.

You can reach Staff Writer Andrew Graham at 707-526-8667 or andrew.graham@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @AndrewGraham88