Marin will allow more time for public input on oversight of the Marin County Sheriff’s Office after civilians involved in the hurried outreach process said it could exclude many communities, including those in West Marin.
“We are really happy that we’ve gotten this great feedback from the community outreach working group,” said Jamillah Jordan, the county’s equity director. “And we’re demonstrating that we’ve responded.”
This summer, a civil grand jury found the county had lagged in implementing Assembly Bill 1185, which allowed local governments to form civilian oversight bodies with subpoena power over law enforcement.
A.B.1185 presents important choices for how to structure oversight, including a civilian committee and an inspector general. Last month, the county hired a facilitator and convened a working group of 15 civilians in an effort to educate and get community input. But three Zoom meetings this week were initially the only scheduled opportunities for public input in oversight structure before supervisors were set to consider the options next month.
Several community outreach working group members said the quick timeline and the lack of in-person opportunities would all but rule out participation for many. The county’s efforts to engage the community rang hollow and appeared perfunctory, they said. “They’re using our names to verify their performative actions,” Tara Evans, a Stinson Beach activist and member of the community outreach working group, said on Monday. “Validating the county’s box-checking without any true meaningful action.”
Some of the West Marin residents most vulnerable to unfair policing and misconduct, especially undocumented workers and the homeless, are less likely to participate in Zoom-only meetings, particularly if they haven’t been well-publicized, Ms. Evans said. In-person meetings help break down the barriers to participation that are heightened by limited digital access and a mistrust of law enforcement, she added.
Other local figures in the community outreach group echoed her concerns. Charles Dresow, a criminal defense lawyer who has represented Marin residents in cases involving police misconduct and excessive force, said he did not want to be a rubber stamp for an inadequate community outreach process.
“The county is essentially using our various reputations and networks to validate a process that appears to be predetermined with little or no real input from the community or committee members,” Mr. Dresow wrote in an email.
On Tuesday, Ms. Jordan told the group that its input had been heard. Instead of presenting options to a Board of Supervisors committee next month, the county will host five or six in-person meetings focused on communities of color and “system-impacted individuals” at as-yet undecided locations in Marin City, Novato, San Rafael and West Marin after the initial meetings this week. The results will inform a set of oversight options that could reach the board as late as February.
Ms. Evans, who was a plaintiff in an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit against former Sheriff Robert Doyle last year, pointed to the litigation as evidence of the urgent need for oversight. The sheriff had been sharing license plate data captured by automatic readers with out-of-state agencies in violation of California law. “Unless they’re checked, they will operate outside of the law,” Ms. Evans said.
Public data substantiates claims by activists that the office disproportionately targets people of color. Of nearly 10,000 traffic stops recorded under the Racial Identity and Profiling Act, roughly 18 percent of the drivers were Black, though Black people make up just 2 percent of Marin. Twenty-four percent were Latino, though Latinos account for 19 percent of the county’s residents.