Lake County’s opinions on local/state issues
Check out today’s editorial column, cartoon and columnist perspectives.
Recently I was made to remember an incident which occurred last fall in Kelseyville involving a Black newlywed couple visiting from out of the area and their less than pleasant encounter (from their perspective) with a LCSO deputy during a traffic stop in the wake of that summer’s racial unrest following the killing of George Floyd which stoked protests and demonstrations all over the nation, but also reignited conversations about racism in this country.
LCSO’s Sheriff Brian Martin said in a video posted on the LCSO page following the incident that traffic stops happen fairly routinely. The sheriff said there were 19 traffic stops alone on the day this specific one was made, but what brought this one to his attention was the response the incident received on Facebook and other social media networks.
According to a social media post (which was later erased) made by the vacation rental owner where the couple stayed, the pair of African Americans were stopped by a deputy for going five miles under the speed limit. The police car then followed them back to where they were staying and the lady who was driving was “trembling with fear and very stressed out.” (The deputy explained in the video that he made the stop after the driver made an illegal maneuver making a turn, leading the officer to suspect the driver was under the influence.)
Online reports from the incident did not corroborate the part where the couple was followed to their rental and the out of towners declined to tell their story in print, but they did state in a subsequent post on social media that the incident left them with a bad impression of Lake County and that they would never return. What surprised me most about the story at the time is that in the court of public opinion, more specifically Facebook, more people rushed to the aid of law enforcement, in some cases berating the couple for their feelings and actions regarding the encounter, outnumbering those who felt empathy towards the visitors.
Only three months prior, According to The Los Angeles Times, the City Council of Fort Bragg, named after a Confederate Army general and slave owner, decided that it would not place a town name change on the General Election ballot in November. Instead of a ballot measure Fort Bragg chose the action local government officials too often take when they want less transparency on a given issue or want to table a controversy so that it can disappear from the public consciousness: They decided the mayor would appoint an ad hoc committee to discuss options for the city’s name.
The agenda for that meeting included more than 350 pages of public comment on the issue. Some residents said they did not want the name changed and others suggested a name change would honor the Native Americans who lived in the area before the establishment of the city and the fort. Here we are nearly a year later and the city’s name remains unchanged and the issue has not been revisited.
A similar push to rename the city of Kelseyville was also making some waves last year in the wake of Floyd’s murder. KZYX radio reporter Sarah Reith at the time reported that a petition to change the city’s name was getting traction online.
Rob Brown, then supervisor in Lake County’s 5th District, which includes Kelseyville, was quoted as saying he was skeptical of social media initiatives. Brown said changing the name “would take a lot of hard work and dedication,” and changing the name should be up to the people of Kelseyville. Former Lake County Chamber of Commerce president Bill Kearney said he opposed changing the name for similar reasons.
Current District 5 Supervisor Jessica Pyska, who beat Kearney in the November runoff, said then, “Renaming Kelseyville is a decision that needs to be made by the community. I believe the role of the supervisor is to facilitate the process, but ultimately, the people should resolve this through a vote in an equitable way that is acceptable to all.”
Perhaps due to the efforts of a group of residents calling themselves “Citizens for Healing” who have been working behind the scenes to change the town’s racist name, the online petition continues to receive support, albeit at a snail’s pace. They have collected 1,835 out of a goal of gathering 2,000 signatures, with the most recent coming just a week ago. For the record, I don’t agree with former Supervisor Brown’s statement. Of course renaming the town would take a lot of hard work, most efforts for positive social change are hard. What if Rosa Parks or Cesar Chavez or even Martin Luther King had thrown up their hands and said, “We can’t do this, it will take too much work.”
Everybody remembers that racial unrest and law and order became prominent talking points during the divisive lead up to the 2020 presidential campaign. But as the recent protests in Sonoma County to denounce the horrific racism and attacks on Asian Americans throughout the region and the country have proven, the ugly face of racism can present itself too quickly and prominently if left unchecked. Racism isn’t just a political talking point.