Fires overshadow election for some evacuees
By the time the power shut off on Saturday night, Sarah Bodner had had enough of the warnings and worry that her Sebastopol home would burn down.
She and her husband loaded up their daughters, 4 and 1, their dog and their cat into the car, tossed in the important papers — passports and birth certificates — and sped south to San Francisco.
What they didn’t pack were the ballots she and her husband, Cory Reuter, had filled out for Tuesday’s election.
Five measures are up for consideration across western Sonoma County, including four that would extend or create new taxes for fireprotection services in Occidental, Bodega Bay, Graton and Gold Ridge.
But with some 180,000 county residents fleeing the Kincade Fire, and many choosing to stay away from the smoky air even after mandatory evacuation orders were lifted, questions about taxes and who should serve on water district boards feel like an afterthought to many.
“When it came to grabbing things to run out the door in case the house burned down, it was not the ballot,” Bodner, 40, said, as she cooked up a pan of mac and cheese for daughters Hazel and Veda in the Pacific Grove (Monterey County) hotel where the family eventually landed.
Bodner had marked “yes” on Measure E, which asked if homeowners like her should pay an extra $200 a year per residential parcel to beef up Gold Ridge Fire Protection District services.
But Bodner’s ballot is sitting at home, 175 miles north. She and Reuter have no plans to return until the lights are back on and the air is again clear enough to breathe.
Which could be after election day.
That’s what worries political consultant Denny Rosatti of Sebastopol, who is running three of the campaigns for new parcel taxes, all of which need a hefty twothirds approval to pass.
The fire forced Rosatti to cancel several getoutthevote events that he says would have boosted support. And the usual army of enthusiastic door knockers never showed up to offer yard signs for the area’s mostly abandoned homes.
“We had to suspend all of that,” said Rosatti, whose own family was evacuated.
It might seem there’s no better advertisement for parcel taxes to improve fire safety than the massive Kincade Fire that destroyed at least 206 structures, including 94 homes, by Wednesday afternoon.
But Rosatti, a veteran of such elections, said he takes nothing for granted — especially since more conservative voters who tend to oppose higher taxes generally vote early, while more liberal voters may not have voted yet and might not ever get around to it. Also, mail service has been interrupted, he said. So the brightly colored campaign mailers that remind people to vote never made it to homes.
“My concern is, you’re thinking about your family, your pets and your heirlooms. You’re not thinking about the election coming up,” he said.
Gold Ridge Fire Chief Shepley SchrothCary said he’s concerned, too. Although no arguments have been submitted against Measure E, “I’m definitely concerned because our campaign efforts — knocking on doors and making phone calls — were all suspended. We’ve missed opportunities.
“A lot of people are displaced, and we still don’t have power, so folks may not come home for a while. But I just want to let everyone know that they can vote,” he said.
In fact, the county opened an earlyvoting place in the Rohnert Park DoubleTree Hotel, where the Sonoma County elections department decamped to. So if displaced voters can make it to the hotel’s Chardonnay Room between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. through election day, they can cast a vote — even if their mailin ballot is sitting in the den at home.
“The other would be voided,” said Deva Proto, the county’s registrar of voters.
Even so, her office has asked the California secretary of state if the county should postpone its election. There’s been no answer so far, Proto said.
“But we’re watching,” she said. “This is a very active situation.”