At a lukewarm town hall last week, Supervisor Dennis Rodoni and Sheriff Robert Doyle offered two different perspectives on the sheriff’s decision to no longer patrol the Marin coast at night.
Taking turns to answer questions, the supervisor and the sheriff subtly criticized each other, but agreed that the staffing cuts at the Point Reyes substation should be temporary. The nighttime hours could be restored this fall after students graduate from the police academy, but at the same time, growing budget shortfalls are expected to make further cuts necessary.
“This is a change that has to happen because of budget changes, and I recommend that people take the necessary precautions and lock those doors and windows, and lock your cars, because it’s just a safer thing to do anyways,” Supervisor Rodoni said.
As of July 30, the sheriff no longer staffs the Point Reyes substation from 11 p.m. to 11 a.m., leaving the coast without a deputy on patrol at those times, when previously there were two. Deputies still respond to emergencies out of the nearest substations over the hill, and the San Geronimo Valley remains covered by deputies from the Kentfield substation.
Sheriff Doyle said his office strategically made the cuts because of the low number of calls for service. The coast averaged just over five calls a night for the past three years, he said. Supervisor Rodoni asked for more data about the nature of those calls and how response times are being affected by the cut.
The county is facing a budget shortfall, and at the annual budget hearings in June, the administrator proposed a rollover budget of current services to give departments more time to identify reductions. By the end of the month, each department must cut 5 percent of net county costs, so those that receive more out of the general fund, like the sheriff’s office, have to cut more.
In the past, Sheriff Doyle said public safety was a priority, and his office was asked to take a proportionally smaller cut. But this year was different. During the hearings, over 400 callers flooded the meeting with calls to shift funding away from police and toward mental health and social services. They asked supervisors to reduce the sheriff’s proposed budget of $76 million, a $3.2 million increase from last year due to negotiated pay raises, pension costs and overtime.
The sheriff and the supervisor disagreed on what was driving the public outcry. Supervisor Rodoni said people were not so much criticizing the sheriff, but suggesting that other county employees, like mental health professionals, would be better qualified for some tasks handled by deputies. Although a few loud voices steered the conversation, he said the board tried to identify the underlying rationale, and hence voted to grant the sheriff half of his increase, directing the other half toward racial equity initiatives.
For Sheriff Doyle, the calls for defunding were disrespectful attacks that were noticed by his staff, and they got under his skin.
“Two or three months ago, I felt like we were looked at as a well-run, well-staffed organization of men and women, and as we watched the budget hearings, we were disappointed,” he said.
He said he did hear the discussion about reprioritizing, but it went too far. “I also heard that I was a Nazi, I also heard that I was an institutional racist and I also heard that the men and women of the organization were those things,” he said. “I can’t emphasize how much I was disappointed with the board during the budget hearings for not stepping up and recognizing the men and women and the good work that they do.”
The supervisors’ cut—or partially denied increase, depending on whom you ask—is considered part of the 5 percent decrease that all departments must make by the end of the month. The sheriff’s office must cut another $500,000 to reach a 5 percent cut of $2.2 million.
Supervisor Rodoni said that when the board voted for the reduction, he was not aware that it would lead to staffing changes. Before the hearings, he asked the sheriff to voluntarily cut his budget by $3.6 million, and to describe what the impact would be. Neither of those things happened. The sheriff’s office did not notify Supervisor Rodoni of the night-duty cut before it announced the change on Facebook.
Last Thursday, both the sheriff and the supervisor agreed on the need to communicate better.
Besides cutting hours for West Marin, the sheriff also froze the hiring of four deputies, four dispatchers and one coroner’s technician. He looked at making staffing cuts in the jail, where the population has decreased by more than half due to a zero-bail initiative by the courts and suspended sentences due to Covid-19. But he decided after consulting with doctors that closing one of six jail pods and reducing staffing would be premature, because it is too soon to tell if the changes are permanent.