The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office has called a community meeting on what it calls quality-of-life and public-safety concerns in downtown Guerneville. It runs 5 to 6 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 14, at Rio Nido Station, 14770 Rio Nido Road.
The format, according to the announcement posted Monday night on the Sheriff’s Office Facebook page: deputies lay out what they’re seeing in the area and how the office is responding, then residents ask questions. A deputy division director for homelessness services from the county Department of Health Services will be in the room to field questions about services and resources. The office didn’t name the official.
Businesses already at the table
By Tuesday evening the announcement was making the rounds in a Russian River community Facebook group. Jenn Otten, who administers the Russian River Resources and Information group, wrote there Tuesday that downtown businesses have been working with the sheriff and the county on the problems, that progress has been slow, and that people should show up.
The announcement doesn’t say what prompted the meeting.
A summer assault on Main Street
One downtown incident the office did publicize came Aug. 15. Deputies were called to Main and Church streets about 11 a.m. A 74-year-old man had been walking across Main Street when a man struck him in the face without apparent provocation, knocked him to the ground and kicked him in the chest, the office said in a release.
Witnesses pointed deputies toward the Guerneville pedestrian bridge, where they found the man and identified him as Justin Hawkins, 27, whom the release described as a transient. He resisted, and deputies used force to take him into custody. He was booked into the Sonoma County Jail on suspicion of battery with serious injury, causing physical injury to a person over 65 and resisting arrest, and he had an outstanding warrant from Mendocino County, the office said.
Prosecutors charged Hawkins two days later with two felonies, cruelty to an elder and assault with force likely to produce great bodily injury, and a misdemeanor count of resisting arrest, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, citing Sonoma County court records.
Substation and county health already working together
At the Aug. 13 meeting of the Lower Russian River Municipal Advisory Council, Supervisor Lynda Hopkins described a partnership between the Lower River sheriff’s substation and the Department of Health Services on mobile crisis and behavioral health response, according to the council’s draft minutes.
She also introduced Lt. Dylan Fong of the Sheriff’s Office. Fong told the council he has served about 26 years and is now working in West County, where he described his job as an extra set of eyes and ears for the department: backing up the sergeants and deputies already assigned to the area and working directly with community groups.
At the same meeting, Guerneville representative Spencer Scott said he had received several recent complaints about the plaza and asked for an update on plans for it.
Not the advisory council’s meeting
Don’t confuse the sheriff’s meeting with the advisory council’s own session, which comes first: 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 8, at the West County Services Center, 16390 Main St., Suite B, and on Zoom. That agenda is about getting around on foot and by bike, with presentations on the county’s bicycle and pedestrian plan update and Safe Routes to School concepts for the Guerneville Elementary School area, including Armstrong Woods Road and Laughlin Road. Nothing on it addresses downtown public safety. The council’s next regular meeting is Nov. 12.
The Sheriff’s Office closed its announcement by saying it hopes for “an open and productive conversation about the issues impacting the Guerneville community.”