Sonoma County supervisors raise legal concerns in latest closed-door meeting with homelessness official

Amid mounting public pressure to decisively address the growing homeless encampment along the Joe Rodota Trail in west Santa Rosa, Sonoma County supervisors on Tuesday will meet with the county’s chief homelessness official behind closed doors.

Geoffrey Ross, the executive director of the Community Development Commission, will bring with him his blueprints for solving the public health crisis unfolding along the highly visible Highway 12 corridor.

But California’s open meeting laws make any substantive policy discussion of those plans off-limits for the Board of Supervisors while in a closed-session meeting.

Ross said he knows such talk is not allowed, and board Chairman David Rabbitt insisted he intends to keep the discussion centered on Ross’s job performance - the reason for the confidential meeting.

Asked if he could assure the public that no plan for addressing the swelling camp that’s taken over a segment of the Joe Rodota Trail or homelessness writ large in Sonoma County would be presented at Tuesday’s closed session, Rabbitt said, “Not if I can help it.”

Asked the same question, Sonoma County Counsel Bruce Goldstein, who advises the board on such matters, demurred. “As far as I know, that was not the plan,” he said, adding, “I’m not the one involved in that presentation.”

Goldstein, who said he planned to attend the performance review, said he understands the prevailing public concern - that the private meeting could deny the public from witnessing and weighing in on a hotly debated issue and the county’s plans to address it. To homeless advocate Miles Sarvis, the closed-door session smacks as improper and secretive “given the focused public eye on the topic.”

“We expect a plan to be presented,” said Sarvis, co-founder of the homeless advocacy organization Squeaky Wheel Bicycle Coalition, adding that his group stands ready to help forge public solutions.

The Brown Act, which governs public bodies such as the Board of Supervisors, allows closed-session meetings for certain sensitive discussions, including personnel evaluations, discussions of litigation and real estate negotiations.

Since July, the Board of Supervisors has had seven closed-session meetings on homelessness and the work of the Community Development Commission. One has dealt with Ross’ job performance, five have concerned ongoing litigation related to the homeless encampment and one meeting dealt with real estate negotiations. The agency is in the process of looking for future sites to accommodate a homeless services hub.

In each case, Brown Act provisions allowing for confidential meetings applied, officials said.

Rabbitt said via text message that Ross’ job deals with homelessness, so the subject will come up Tuesday in relation to his job performance.

Ross and Goldstein acknowledged that a fine line exists between personnel performance and policy direction. David Snyder, executive director of the San Rafael-based First Amendment Coalition, agreed.

“Some discussion about policy objectives is inevitable,” Snyder said in a phone interview. “But any new plans or new initiatives that staff is planning to recommend really need to be discussed in public.”

The Board of Supervisors has scheduled employee evaluations 13 times since the start of July. Aside from Ross, the only other department head in same period to undergo multiple reviews is the county’s law enforcement watchdog, Karlene Navarro, whose office has been swamped by a backlog in audits.

Goldstein said the number of confidential discussions for the Community Development Commission is to be expected.

“You happen to have a department that’s very involved not only in performance evaluation, but litigation and a real estate deal,” Goldstein said. “I don’t think, given the issues they’re involved with, that it’s that unusual.”

Four of the scheduled discussions on litigation came after a July 12 injunction. No new filings have come out of those sessions, according to federal court records.

The lawsuit in question is led by plaintiff Nicholle Vannucci, a resident of the Joe Rodota Trail camp. It was filed March 2018 in response to a planned sweep of homeless camps last year in Santa Rosa. The injunction is in place until next June.

Rabbitt said there are other issues “percolating,” including budgetary issues involving the Community Development Commission and the Department of Health Services, whose director, Barbie Robinson, also has a closed-door meeting with supervisors Tuesday. Health Services spokesman Rohish Lal said via text message Robinson’s meeting was part of her annual evaluation.

Ross is preparing to present publicly this month his vision for addressing homelessness in Sonoma County. The plan is inspired by a San Antonio, Texas, model called Haven for Hope that features indoor and outdoor living facilities and services for homeless people. It also will include a proposed quick fix for the Joe Rodota Trail encampment, said to be the largest in memory in Santa Rosa, at up to 200 people.

Goldstein said it’s not the board’s practice to use confidential meetings to preview plans before those plans make their way to the public. He said he attends most closed sessions and takes at least some responsibility for ensuring they don’t stray beyond the limited purpose of the meeting. But Goldstein also said he trains his fellow board members, department heads and the county administrator, so “everyone has a mutual responsibility.”

His advice to county leaders, he said, is to avoid even the appearance of Brown Act violations.

“There is kind of a fine line,” he said. “It is important to make sure that input or decision-making on projects or policies happen in open session with public input.”