Sonoma County supervisors to discuss protocol for farmers seeking access to evacuated land

The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday will consider three recommendations for how to handle future requests from agriculture and livestock businesses looking to access their properties during emergency evacuations.

The board meeting also will give stakeholders on all sides of the issue their first opportunity to tell county leaders how they would like to see evacuation access handled.

The discussion is expected to be a pivotal point in the local debate over evacuation access.

The county crafted an initial agriculture property access system amid the 2017 North Bay wildfires, but there has been discussion on improving the policy in the years since. The issue has also attracted more attention as a result of the advocacy efforts of North Bay Jobs with Justice.

The nonprofit labor group has implored supervisors to make farmworker protections, such as hazard pay and disaster insurance, a condition for employers who want special permission to bring their workers onto evacuated land. Stories from farmworkers, some who have reported working in dense smoke and in the vicinity of active fires in prior years, exemplify why such safeguards are necessary, the group says.

The local wine industry contends it is committed to creating a safe working environment for its employees. It supports a plan that would give on-site public safety officials the power to decide who is allowed to enter evacuation zones.

County staff previously tried to convene a community meeting where members of the public could discuss the issue, but logistical challenges nullified their efforts. Hundreds of people had been expected to attend.

Tuesday’s meeting “represents a public hearing to really dive in and not just look at the headlines, but look at the issue and really get an assessment on safety, and then the other impacts of operating through these tumultuous times,” Supervisor James Gore said.

The three recommendations before the board on Tuesday, made by a group of county officials tasked with examining the issue, include a program that would grant commercial livestock producers entry to evacuated areas under specific conditions, as laid out by Assembly Bill 1103.

Signed into law last year by Gov. Gavin Newsom, the measure gives counties the power to set up such a program.

Supervisors also could pass the responsibility of determining who gets access to evacuation zones to the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office, the agency responsible for issuing evacuation orders in unincorporated parts of the county.

In the third possible course of action, according to a summary report associated with the item on Tuesday’s meeting agenda, county staff would be tasked with creating an access program, which would need to be adopted by the board.

Two other plans — restricting all access to those types of businesses and granting incident-specific entry to businesses, as has been the case during disasters in recent years — were presented to the board but were not recommended by staff.

John Segale, a spokesman for the Sonoma Wine Industry for Safe Employees, an industry group formed in response to the efforts of North Bay Jobs with Justice, said his group backs the proposal for an agricultural pass program, overseen by the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office, that would determine who should be allowed to access property.

That policy mirrors existing regulations in other counties with similar, large agricultural industries, such as Napa and Santa Barbara counties, Segale added.

“The Sheriff’s Office has the knowledge, expertise and experience necessary to lead such an important effort especially given that we are already in the middle of fire season. This has worked best in the past to protect the public’s safety and preserve property,” he said.

Mike Martini, founder of Taft Street Winery in Sebastopol and the former mayor of Santa Rosa, believes the Sheriff’s Office option would be the quickest to implement.

“If the board does do that option … there is a program that is 90% ready to go,” said Martini.

He added that the policy also should be expanded beyond agriculture.

Evacuation zones typically are much larger than the portion of land under the immediate threat of wildfire, Martini said, adding that industries such as hospitality and construction are likely to be affected.

Davida Sotelo Escobedo, a North Bay Jobs with Justice spokesperson), said the labor group is opposed to having the Sheriff’s Office set the rules for how evacuation access is granted to agricultural employers because it would take transparency out of the process.

The group continues to advocate for the original set of worker protections it has been asking the Board of Supervisors to adopt as part of a formal evacuation access policy, Sotelo Escobedo said.

North Bay Jobs with Justice believes hazard pay would compensate workers at a higher rate for working in evacuation zones, while added protocols would guarantee daily wages for farmworkers who decline to work in evacuated areas.

The industry counters that it helps its workers when disaster strikes via such nonprofits as the Sonoma County Grape Growers Foundation and the Sonoma County Vintners Foundation, which provided pandemic relief assistance to furloughed winery and restaurant employees.

Last month, the Board of Supervisors set aside $1 million in the county’s budget so staff could explore a new program that would offer a type of disaster insurance for farmworkers and other front line workers affected by a mishap.

In May, Supervisor Lynda Hopkins spoke in favor of such a proposal. She believes it is an avenue to reach a middle ground in the debate.

Another proposal put forth by North Bay Jobs with Justice would require employers to ensure that workers who are brought into evacuation zones have been given evacuation and safety training in their primary language.

Supervisors have received proposed policy language for each of these suggested conditions ahead of Tuesday’s meeting, according to Sotelo Escobedo.

“You can’t separate the conversation of safety and income,” they said. “We still need very clear policy and funding streams around disaster insurance and hazard pay.”

On Monday, North Bay Jobs with Justice will hold a rally in front of the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors chambers, where farmworkers plan to leave notes about why they deserve protections such as hazard pay, Sotelo Escobedo said.

The action was organized because many farmworkers will be unable to attend Tuesday’s board meeting. It will give them a chance to share their ideas and opinions, prior to a decision by the board.

Because the meeting is scheduled for the middle of the work day, Sotelo Escobedo said, “it’s not at all accessible because workers have to go to work.”

You can reach Staff Writer Nashelly Chavez at 707-521-5203 or nashelly.chavez@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @nashellytweets.