Jane Goodall said, “What you do makes a difference and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”

In Sonoma County, there are many ways to make a difference and one is to attend the annual planning meeting of the Community Advisory Council (CAC) of the Independent Office of Law Enforcement Review and Outreach (IOLERO). The strategy session will be held on Saturday, Feb. 22, from 10 am to 2 pm, with the purpose of charting its course for the coming year. At this gathering (in-person only), CAC members, along with attendees from the community, will choose the topics for study by the CAC’s ad hoc committees. There
is also the option to apply to work with one of the committees on a topic which is important to you. The meeting will be held at the Rohnert Park Community Center, 5401 Snyder Lane, Rohnert Park.

In the months after Deputy Sheriff Erik Gelhaus killed thirteen-year-old Andy Lopez, community reaction, particularly from Latino students and Andy’s family, resulted in the formation of the CALLE (Community and Local Law Enforcement) Task Force by the Board of Supervisors. The Task Force was asked to create
recommendations for change in the County with the intention of reducing the likelihood of another such killing and improving the relations between law enforcement and the community.

The Task Force brought twenty-two recommendations to the Board. Only three were accepted.

The most significant recommendation was the creation of an auditor’s office, independent of the Sheriff’s Office, which would review the investigations of the most serious “incidents” involving Sheriff’s deputies. This would eventually become IOLERO, the Independent Office of Law Enforcement Review and Outreach.

But, included in that recommendation was a voice for the public. After all, it was public reaction to Andy’s killing that had forced the supervisors to act after years of ignoring activism on law enforcement violence going back well before Andy died.

IOLERO exists because the community did not agree with the Sheriff nor the District Attorney about appropriate behavior by officers. Audits of investigations are a great tool for accountability, but more was needed – the public voice. The result is the Community Advisory Council (CAC). Residents of the County apply to be a member of the CAC and are appointed by their County Supervisor. The role of the CAC is to study areas of concern and bring community expectations to the Sheriff’s Office in order to improve policy and reconcile those expectations.

The employees of IOLERO are one level of oversight of the Sheriff’s Office and the members of the CAC are
another. But there is a third level and that is you and me.

The CAC meetings are public and attended by the Director of IOLERO and a representative of the Sheriff’s Office. The public can attend and make public comment and the public must become involved if the entire oversight project is to truly fulfill its mission.

So many groups are likely to have more negative interactions with law enforcement – LGBTQ+, people of color, homeless, mentally ill, women and protesters, the incarcerated. The list is long.

These groups need voices at the table when law enforcement policies and investigations are discussed. You could be one of those voices. A member of your nonprofit could be one of those voices.

There is so much work to be done, Just as the food industry needs “outsiders” to guarantee that our food is safe, law enforcement needs our voices in order to be “the best that it can be.” Now, more than ever, communities will need to use their power and their allies. This is important work and, for some of our residents, a matter of life and death. You and your organizations could be those necessary voices.