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Sonoma County Sheriff Under Scrutiny for Not Enforcing COVID Violations

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The Sonoma County Sheriff’s commitment to enforcing public health orders is under scrutiny after public records revealed that the department has issued no citations for violations of a public health order since last summer.

Reporter Kevin Fixler with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat has been writing about a church in violation of county health orders, and the discrepancy between a sheriff deputy's report about a service at the church and those from county code enforcement officials and the newspaper.

Fixler was interviewed on "The California Report" radio program this week. He said the department has started an internal affairs investigation because the deputy's report claimed the service was attended by no more than 15 people who were all outdoors and following guidelines.

"Whereas the code enforcement department documented well over 100 people, many without masks, singing," Fixler said. "Things that even a recent Supreme Court ruling don't permit. Is this a systemic problem or is this an isolated incident? There are questions that are still out there and probably deserve some answers."

The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors has already removed the bulk of enforcement duties from Sheriff Mark Essick's department, Fixler says.

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Last May, Essick announced his department would no longer enforce the county's stay-at-home order that was then in effect.

“The curve has been flattened; hospitals were not overrun with patients; we have dramatically increased testing which verified the infection rate in Sonoma County is under control and decreasing,” Essick said in a statement posted to Facebook at the time. “Yet we continue to see successive public health orders that contain inconsistent restrictions on business and personal activities without explanation.”

After a back and forth on whether he would stick with that stance, Essick and the chair of the county's Board of Supervisors issued a joint statement saying the Sheriff’s Office would "continue to use its discretion to emphasize education over punitive action" for coronavirus-related public health violations.

Read Kevin Fixler's latest coverage from the Press Democrat here:

The California Report and Jon Brooks

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