Deputies at Bohemian Grove — for this year
The rich, elite and entirely male group of power brokers who gather each July at the Bohemian Grove in Sonoma County will once again have their secretive activities guarded by sheriff ’s deputies — quite possibly for the last time.
Sonoma County’s Board of Supervisors, with its first female majority, voted Tuesday to allow deputies to guard the gates to the 2,700acre redwood grove while the Bohemian Club of San Francisco holds its annual 18day encampment.
But the board’s three women warned that this could be the end of the cozy 14-year arrangement in which the Bohemian Club pays the county for the use of four off-duty deputies.
“I did not run for office to benefit an elite, wealthy, powerful group of men,” said Supervisor Lynda Hopkins, who represents the Monte Rio area where Bohemian Grove is located.
She said she sees no benefit to her constituents in having deputies guard the grove during
the elite retreat.
“I want to be very clear that this is the last time unless we see a clear benefit,” she said.
Supervisor Shirlee Zane first raised the issue last week when it appeared on the board agenda for routine approval. Times have changed, she said, especially in this era of heightened awareness of discrimination, pay inequities and sexual assaults against women.
“We wouldn’t even be up here having this discussion,” she said, “if someone said no Africans Americans allowed, no gays allowed, no Latinos allowed, no immigrants allowed, no Jews allowed.”
She said she was urged by some men “to let this go,” she said. “But it is important for women to have a voice.”
Zane said she supported Hopkins’ call to reconsider the use of deputies in the future. Withdrawing them from the gates this year at the last moment, Hopkins said, could cause problems, especially since the controversy drew international news coverage.
Zane also said she didn’t want to take away overtime pay that deputies assigned to the encampment may have been counting on.
Supervisor Susan Gorin said this was a good time to “have this conversation” on the merits of using county employees to support and protect a club that excludes women.
“The time has come for this all-male organization to stand up and say, we hear you,” she said.
Just one person from the public, Michael Filbert, commented on the issue, saying that the deputies might be needed if protesters attempted to block the entrance as they have in the past.
County officials have said that the sheriff already provides enforcement when needed and has two deputies staged in the Monte Rio area. The club also employs its own guards and an array of security devices.
Who attends the annual retreat, and what they do inside the gates of what has been called the world’s most powerful boys club, is confidential, mysterious and a matter of rumor and conjecture. Tales involve members stripping naked, urinating on redwood trees, sacrificing human effigies and building bonfires.
No one from the Bohemian Club addressed the board. The club did not respond to a request for comment.