Civil Grand Jury weighs in on evacuations, animal control and more

Two of the seven reports focus on emergency evacuation and the quality of animal control services in the County

The Sonoma County Civil Grand Jury has released seven reports on issues its jurors thought were deserving of close examination. The job of the Civil Grand Jury, according to its website, is to “investigate and report on the operations, accounts, and records of local government agencies.” Each county in California impanels a jury each year, and it usually consists of 19 members. The Sonoma County Civil Grand Jury reports for 2024-25 are now available here.

Photo by Kouji Tsuru on Unsplash

There’s nothing else like these impartial reports, produced by a group of jurors over the course of nine months or so. The Civil Grand Jury is not trying to make news — they purposefully avoid naming names. They decide which questions to investigate and then gain access to government officials to do their investigation. The Civil Grand Jury report makes recommendations for action, and agencies are required to respond to their recommendations.

Each report is a detailed answer often to a couple of simple questions, and the answer for most questions can be both fascinating and frustrating: “It’s complicated.” Sometimes the local agencies collect the data that could answer the question, and sometimes they don’t.

This year’s Civil Grand Jury tackled these questions in its seven reports:

1. Is the airport able to handle its sudden spike in growth? (PDF report)

2. Is Permit Sonoma negatively impacting the growth of housing in the County because of a slow or cumbersome process? (PDF report)

3. Are the emergency evacuation plans adequate for the next major evacuation? (PDF report)

4. What is happening when local fees suddenly rise? (PDF report)

5. Do the animal control services in the County meet standards for care? (PDF report)

6. Who can afford to live in Sonoma County? (PDF report)

7. What is the process for the County to evaluate use or sale of surplus property? (PDF report)

The jurors took 17 pages to address the issue of who can afford to live in Sonoma County. They write for 23 pages about dogs and cats and whether the patchwork of county’s animal services meet standards. The report on emergency evacuation plans goes for 20 pages. The point is that these reports are not an easy read. There’s a lot to digest, and if you care about the topic, it’s more than worth your time.

Evacuation Planning and Communications are Inadequate

The Sonoma County Civil Grand Jury concluded that “the County still lacks detailed, scenario-based evacuation plans and has not met new state mandates that require them.” This is despite having four major fire events over the last eight years (Tubbs, Kincade, LNU Lightning and Glass).

The communications infrastructure and the roads used for evacuation are among the key areas of vulnerability. The County has put off into the future trying to address many of these vulnerabilities.

One crucial lesson (from the 2019 Kincade Fire): widespread power outages of the sort initiated by PG&E during this fire mean crucial communications infrastructure may not work — so advance preparation of evacuation routes and alternate communications plans are an absolute necessity.

Here are the key findings:

• Infrastructure is the biggest vulnerability. Many roads and bridges cannot carry simultaneous outbound traffic and inbound emergency vehicles; choke points repeat fire after fire.

• Planning is "ad hoc." Unlike the City of Santa Rosa, which pre-assigns traffic control resources and shelter sites, the County relies on on-the-fly decisions during an incident.

• Technology gaps hinder readiness: Sonoma County lacks modern evacuation modeling tools used by peer counties. Zone-specific evacuation planning isn't possible without better tools.

• Cell outages are common, especially during power failures, and alert systems SocoAlert, WEA, and Nixle won't work in rural areas without cell service. Radio repeaters that would improve public communication during widespread emergencies haven't been completed. Community radio networks need stronger integration with the County's Emergency Operations Center.

The report specifically mentioned the difficulties of West County, citing traffic jams in downtown Sebastopol. In western Sonoma County, the main evacuation routes “all run roughly parallel to the predominant wind directions during fire season, and there are few places in the most dangerous areas where temporary evacuation points or traffic management buffers could be established on the main evacuation routes.” Also, if getting out is important, where do people go? The report said that “there are only a handful of places that are sizeable enough for, and prepared to be, evacuation destinations.”

The Civil Grand Jury found that the County leaders’ response to solving these issues, particularly the bridges and roads, was “somewhat disappointing.” Improving infrastructure has not been a priority, and planning “isn’t scheduled to be started until 2030.” The report added: “It is equally disappointing to learn that compliance with AB747 and other state mandates to develop and communicate zone-specific emergency evacuation plans are 2030 goals.”

In Sebastopol, emergency management used to run through the Sebastopol Fire Department, which also supported organizations like MYN and its efforts to build a radio communications network. Because of the consolidation of the Sebastopol Fire Department into the Gold Ridge Fire Department, the city has assigned responsibility for Emergency Management to the Police Department, which is doing the planning. With the City’s budget shortfall, its financial support for MYN ended with this fiscal year, while responsibility for MYN moved to the non-profit Gravenstein Health Action Committee last July 1. Officials are in the process of mapping out the future for emergency planning.

Do Animal Control Agencies Meet Standards for Care?

This report was instigated by a citizen complaint that asked the Civil Grand Jury to investigate Petaluma-based North Bay Animal Services (NBAS), which runs the Petaluma Animal Shelter. “This led to a broader study of county-wide animal services,” the report said.

Animal services are not centralized in Sonoma County. Sonoma County Animal Services (SCAS) provides animal control and animal shelter services to 66% of Sonoma County. NBAS provides animal services to 21% of the County through contracts with the Cities of Cloverdale, Windsor, Sebastopol, and Petaluma.

The Grand Jury commended SCAS, saying they made “steady progress” to comply with best practices, which means that most of the County’s animal services have been improving.

However, the Civil Grand Jury stated that NBAS “fails to comply with industry standards for animal care, shelter management, and maintenance.” The report said that the four cities that contracted with NBAS did not provide proper oversight nor did the organization’s Board of Directors.

Among the issues are that NBAS places unaltered animals in foster and ‘foster-to-adopt’ homes and that appointments for legally mandated spay/neuter surgery can be delayed for many months. NBAS also does not “facilitate rabies vaccination,” which is their responsibility to do by State law.

In short, the Grand Jury concluded that NBAS is extended beyond its financial and organizational capacity to comply with either its contract or applicable laws, a circumstance which, according to shelter standards, is unacceptable. It is surviving despite a perfect storm of underfunding, an aging facility, insufficient use of veterinary services, and a staff that is too small, lacking in continuing education and relevant certification, and wearing too many hats.

The four cities that contract with NBAS have largely ignored these problems and continued to contract with NBAS because it was the low-price bidder.

The report has many recommendations. One is that the County organize an Animal Services Task Force. A previous task force was organized in 2012, but it did not accomplish what it was supposed to do. Another recommendation is that each city that contracts with NBAS must “inspect and evaluate the shelter condition, and evaluate the shelter operation and animal control services, to determine whether NBAS is complying with legal mandates and other terms of its contract.”

The City of Sebastopol’s web page for Animal Control Services says that as of July 1, 2022, North Bay Animal Services provides “animal control services, dog licensing, and stray animal housing.”

This article covered two reports that impact our area. However, each report is worth reading for yourself if you’d like to learn more about how government works in Sonoma County.

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