Page 24 - Sonoma County Gazette December 2017

Young supervisors continue 40-year tradition
Eric Koenigshofer (left) and Ernie Carpenter, Graton Day, 1970. Photo courtesy Eric Koenigshofer
By David Abbott
When Fourth District Supervisor
Koenigshofer eventually beat out popular Sebastopol resident Bob Theiler and joined Helen Rudy and Brain Kahn to complete the changing of the guard.
James Gore takes the reins as Chair of the Board of Supervisors this month, he follows in the footsteps of young Sonoma County leaders who have changed the face and complexion of the region from the coast to the inland valleys.
“Then it was settled,” he said. “We adopted the General Plan in 1978. It was an intense process and my seat was the swing vote.”
Gore, a Healdsburger and sixth generation Sonoma County resident, elected at the age of 36 in 2014, was joined on the board this year by Lynda Hopkins, who was 33 at the time of her election.
Although they were on different sides of the issues, Koenigshofer looks back on the pro-growth contingency with sympathy. It was a generation, after all, that survived both the
Great Depression and World War
II. They returned from the war to a completely different world, with a booming economy and relationships at home that were evolving, due to the wartime labor and sacrifices of women and people of color.
“The next generation of leadership is on the cusp,” Gore said. “I deal with a lot of people who fought the battles of the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s who bring that in as a prologue of how we can do better.”
But, he worries some people are still “fighting those same fights” from 30 years ago.
“They were not anti-environment, they just wanted a good life,” Koenigshofer said. “But I think the change came about because of the hippies, Nixon, Watergate and a universal desire to clean house by a group of outsiders.”
“The battles they fought and the scars they developed ... I respect the hell out of that.” Gore said. “But at the same time, my question is, ‘is it useful to achieve progress?’”
floods, fire, homelessness and I’m expecting locusts,” Hopkins said. “We had Saturday problems—the ones
we woke up with on Oct. 7—and on Monday there was a whole new set of them. And there will be a secondary wave.”
the name of Eric Koenigshofer was elected to the fifth district by a 368- vote margin.
Both Hopkins and Gore won by
“My win was a complete surprise to everyone, even me,” he said. “The only time I ever led was the final count.”
The general plan effort took a lot out of Koenigshofer who, on the night of his 1980 campaign rollout, announced he would not seek re-election. The decision sent a shock through his supporters, so in order to carry on the momentum, his campaign manager Ernie Carpenter was tagged to be his successor.
James Gore with CalFire First Responders
Thanks to the General Plan put
in place in 1978 after a contentious political battle that saw a change from the “old guard” to members of the budding environmental movement, Sonoma County may very well have looked like San Jose and its environs.
To top that off, two supervisors, local environmental legend Bill Kortum, who spearheaded the movement to kill a nuclear power plant on Bodega Head, and Chuck Hinkle, were successfully recalled in an election organized by the Sonoma County Taxpayers’ Association.
Carpenter came to Sonoma County in 1969, during the hippie migration to the hills of West County. Morning Star and Wheeler were at the height of the infamous run that pitted a handful of idealistic or idle refugees against a staid and conservative
healthy margins over longtime local leaders Noreen Evans and Deb Fudge, respectively. They see their mission as maintaining the integrity of what has been fought for and won, while addressing pressing issues—many
Youth and idealism takes over
of which are the same as those that have gone before—in a world that is rapidly changing, both within the boundaries of the county and without. Changes due in part to the accelerated intensity of the technological age.
The sea change began in the mid- ’60s, when a flood of hippies moved to the communes of West County from Haight Ashbury, and disillusioned youths from around the country flocked here in the “back to the land” movement.
The recall left a “pro-growth” majority on the board after a third supervisor, Ig Vella resigned to take a position as manager of the Sonoma County Fair, although Vella would have likely faced recall as well.
In the wake of the fires that destroyed entire communities and 5 percent of the housing stock in an already constricted market, their youth and vitality will be sorely needed in a region already facing daunting challenges.
Residents of Morning Star and Wheeler ranches began butting heads with longtime landowners and a multi-generational power structure poised to break the county into profitable parcels to sell off to a wave of immigrants from the Bay Area seeking asylum from a population explosion to the south.
The board was now comprised of men ready to undo hard-won progress made protecting the coastline and rural aspect of the county. They began what they thought would be a solid hold on power by slashing staffing and protections for the coast. In hindsight, they overplayed their hand.
“Since I came into office, we’ve had
But the political tipping point came in 1976, when a 26-year-old Navy veteran from Los Angeles by
“It was a regular election cycle, so they didn’t have to do it. They could have waited,” Koenigshofer said. “George DeLong replaced Kortum and immediately cut general plan staff and parks staff, which focused attention on them. They overstepped.”
Lynda Hopkins at the Sonoma County Conservation Action Environmental Hero Awards with Gavin Newsom, Lieutenant Governor of California
YOUNG Cont’d on page 25
24 - www.sonomacountygazette.com - 12/17
While maintaining agricultural land, greenbelts and open spaces
is a top priority for them, Sonoma County’s storied wildlands—and its emergence as a top wine growing region on the planet—might not even exist, had it not been for the youth and idealism that swept the nation in the late-1960s.
Koenigshofer came to Sonoma County to attend Sonoma State University in 1972 after serving a tour in Vietnam. He earned his B.A. in Political Science in 1974, and jumped into the middle of a very contentious and often confusing supervisorial battle that featured recalls and a Fifth District race that at one point had eight candidates.
Picking up the torch