Page 25 - Sonoma County Gazette December 2017

YOUNG Cont’f from page 24
The Carpenter era was different from anything that came before. Prop 13 reduced revenues for the county, but the 1980s and ’90s were times of great strides in the preservation of open spaces.
those are away from my district,” she concluded. “I love them and want
to work for them, but we’re in triage mode for the foreseeable future.”
To this day, Carpenter continues his work as a consultant on environment and government and to be a “political muckraker,” ready to call out what
population distrustful of the naked, hairy interlopers in their midst.
It was Carpenter who was able harness the energy and desire for change from that demographic that led to Koenigshofer’s slim victory four years before.
Where are they now?
Seven years Koenigshofer’s senior, Carpenter had recently graduated with a B.A. from San Francisco State and Master of Social Work from Berkeley in 1969.
“When we came here, it was
the old guard, but there was an attitude shift,” he said. “Before, (the supervisors) practically died in office and they were lawyers and bankers.”
he sees as attempts to undermine the spirit and intent of the General Plan.
He grew up in Pittsburg, California and was familiar with Sonoma County from his jaunts to a youth music camp in Cazadero.
He tried, and failed to create an historic district out of Wheeler Ranch, but his successes included creating
a community forum for the General Plan that was updated in 1989.
Koenigshofer has been vilified as a traitor to the environmental cause by some in the community, but Sonoma County overall and the Fifth District in particular, would be far different places were it not for his efforts to push environmental momentum and help shape the general plan.
Eric Koenigshofer in the late 1970s
Yet while many issues have been rehashed and continue to be under scrutiny, there is one thing different than before that will have an effect moving forward.
During the fires, both Hopkins and Gore posted information and updates as needed. Through texting, they were able to maintain 24/7 communications, even in parts of the county that had bad service because of crippled infrastructure.
“We found places of policy agreement and moved the Farm Bureau,” he said. “The Farm Bureau does not advocate for runaway development. It was a good outcome.”
“In 1966, I was living in the Haight, working with the Diggers, so I hitchhiked to Mendocino one day,”
he said. “I found Morning Star and decided to sleep in the woods. There were a bunch of naked people—90 percent of them were men—and what I remember the most was the noise and racket. Lou (Gottleib) was playing the piano and I heard gunshots. Nobody was getting killed, they were just celebrating something.”
“We’re seeing gross inequity like we’ve never seen,” Gore said. “We’re in a fluctuation point, which demands leadership.”
They have also been able to effectively work together when issues affecting both districts demand.
As to Preservation Ranch, Koenigshofer said the devil is in the details and that he took on the project to get the best possible deal for the county, a place that he has spent his entire adult life trying to protect.
He also developed a lasting relationship with Bill Wheeler and often picked him up hitchhiking. His turquoise Willie’s Jeep was one of the few hardy vehicles that could navigate the treacherous road into the commune at the top of Coleman Valley Road.
On a local scale, Hopkins helped guide Sonoma County Farm Trails through a tumultuous period and has also farmed along the banks of the Russian River in Gore’s district with her husband Emmitt. They moved to Forestville the year before Hopkins decided to run, which led to charges of “carpetbagger” among Evans’ supporters.
“Our biggest issues: housing, workforce and resource management, i.e. water, are regional issues,” Gore said. “And we are still dealing with them as jurisdictions. Which is dead wrong. So the fire, in a horrific way, reminded us that jurisdictions don’t matter.”
Carpenter jumped into the race in 2012 in an unsuccessful attempt to unseat former supervisor Efren Carrillo—who declined to be interviewed for this report—and again in 2016 against Hopkins.
It was after a failed run for
the Forestville school board that Carpenter met Koenigshofer and future supervisor Tim Smith. But his election to the board in 1980, where he served until 1997, was the seminal moment in his long political career.
Hopkins still won the district handily, many of her supporters charging Evans with carpetbagging as well.
In the wake of the firestorm there will be many challenges from rebuilding to the allocation of resources. While West County was not affected, resources are going to be needed in three other districts and housing is going to be a major challenge countywide.
Koenigshofer almost ran against Evans, who served as a Santa Rosa councilmember from 1996-2004 and ran unsuccessfully against Tim Smith for the third district seat in 2000. She also served in the state Assembly and one term as Senator of the Second District. Evans chose not to run for the Senate seat, which allowed another young Sonoma County politician, Mike McGuire, to ascend after serving on as Fourth district Supervisor before Gore.
“I was 37 when I was elected,”
he said. “Eric was burned out and not interested in running for higher office, but he didn’t want to be a curmudgeon on the board either.”
All politics aside, both Gore and Hopkins performed admirably during the crisis. While part can be attributed to the energy of youth, they also ably utilized modern tools not available to previous generations.
Hopkins cited fatigue as one of the problems going forward after the “feel-good spirit,” is past and the long slog towards rebuilding drags on for years, if not decades.
“We were committed to a forum
to maintain the rural aspect of our community.” Carpenter said. “We created the West County Trail and fixed the sewer and water systems, and preserved the Laguna by zoning by combining districts that morphed into restoration.”
Ernie Carpenter campaigning in Sebastopol
He also had a hand in redrawing the district map in 1976, removing Cotati from the fifth and consolidating the coast into one district.
The more things change ...
“The younger generation has the ability to work outside of government, but we are passionate about government,” Hopkins said. “We’re also social media savvy, although government is not quite ready to embrace and utilize social media. It’s going to take government awhile to get up to speed.”
As to why he has received such
a negative reaction, Koenigshofer cites forging a working relationship with the Farm Bureau and his work on Preservation Ranch, a proposed vineyard in West County that dragged on for years, but was finally killed, and 20,000 acres purchased by the county for open space.
Throughout the years, the issues faced by the county have not changed that much: the cost of housing; whether to expand the scope of development into open spaces and,
of course, the condition of Sonoma County roads.
That leadership is in the youthful hands of Gore and Hopkins and will be one of the biggest challenges to their political lives and the legacies they leave behind.
“James and I share when we see a need,” she said. “We don’t need an institution or bureaucracy.”
He is currently working to stop a large development in Freestone that
is “out of all proportion” for the tiny settlement on the Bohemian Highway.
Despite his relative youth, Gore brings national policy experience from his service in the Obama Administration as Assistant Chief of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service.
Which leads to a discussion about the structure of government in the future.
Both Koenigshofer and Carpenter dallied with a return to the board of supervisors.
“One of my concerns is, as much as I want to do for my district, I have to look at countywide needs, and
Koenigshofer instead supported Hopkins when she entered the race.
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