On May 21st, 2024, Sonoma County Parks management presented a proposal to the Board of Supervisors of removing the peace officer status from the Sonoma County Parks Rangers. Without peace officer Rangers, our parks will soon be compromised, where no enforcement can be done to keep park visitors safe. A link is provided towards the bottom of the page of that public meeting with the Board of Supervisors, where 4 out of 5 were in favor of the proposal (Agenda item #49A) despite little information given and the obvious devastating consequences that it would cause. Below is an outline of what was said versus accurate information on the matter. Our community has the right to know how this will affect them too, because safety in the parks will be jeopardized if this proposal passes. 

This is what's being told:

1) The local Ranger Academy closed, the closest ranger academies are now in Washington state or Colorado.


2) There was difficulty filling vacant Park Ranger positions, this will make it easier to get Rangers in parks.


3) There are only 8 Ranger vacancies.


​4) Park Rangers have made zero arrests in years. An arrest is putting someone in cuffs and transporting them to jail.


​5) Deputies will form a ‘Parks Bureau’ and will be better suited to handle all law enforcement in Sonoma County Parks.
.

6) Incredible training will be provided


7) Park Rangers will still be able to help in emergencies

This is what's actually happening:

1) While the Santa Rosa Junior College’s Park Ranger Academy closed in 2020, the Police Academy still exists and meets the qualifications to be a Sonoma County Park Ranger. 

Additionally, there is a Park Ranger Academy which is focused on unarmed Peace Officer Park Rangers (precisely what current Sonoma County Park Rangers are) in the South Bay Area (San Jose, less than 2 hours away). Interested agencies need only call to be added to the interest list. When enough candidates are interested, an academy class is formed. Santa Clara County Parks currently sends trainees there. Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District and San Jose Parks will be sending their trainees to this academy as well.

Ranger Academy - The Academy
Police Academy - Intensive | Public Safety Training Center (santarosa.edu)

2) Job postings halted roughly a year ago. More positions fell vacant in that time since, as existing highly trained Park Rangers began to worry for their jobs. Additionally, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors approved a hiring incentive to entice new Park Ranger hopefuls, but the department never initiated it.

3) Currently, there are more than 8 Ranger vacancies, some of which have been vacant for years because attempts to fill these vacancies were never made by the department. 

4) Any citation is by definition an arrest, or more accurately, a “cite and release”. The citation is a signed legal document ratifying a promise to appear or remedy in lieu of being taken immediately in front of a magistrate/judge (taken to jail and booked). Sonoma County Park Rangers cite/arrest numerous times every week for a wide variety of misdemeanors, infractions, parking and vehicle code violations which occur in their presence, to keep the parks safe. Additionally, Rangers adhere to the departmental policy of “low profile law enforcement”, encouraging Rangers to deescalate, when possible, cite when necessary. Rangers have never been able to transport an offender due to the lack of a secure cage in their patrol trucks; they have called partnering agencies to assist with transport when necessary. Lastly, Rangers have been explicitly directed to not arrest by the department in certain areas, including the Joe Rodota Trail, and instead directed to call a Sheriff’s Deputy. Ironically this trail was then used as an example of why Sheriff’s Deputies would do a better job with law enforcement in parks only a week or so before the proposal was brought to the Board of Supervisors. These deputies were not given restrictions with arrest on this trail, unlike the Rangers were by their department previously.

5) The call volume for Park Rangers in Sonoma County Parks is extremely high, even compared to a municipal law enforcement agency. The vast majority of these calls are handled quickly and professionally by Rangers and no outside assistance is necessary. Reducing Rangers to Public Officers, and then potentially further limiting their authority through a policy which has yet to be made public, would prevent Rangers from handling a majority of the types of calls that fall between “too dangerous to approach” and “not a priority for a deputy who might be an hour away”. Sonoma County Regional Parks already have non-sworn staff (Park Aides, Park Ranger Assistants, lifeguards and Operations Assistants) who routinely ask visitors to comply with park rules (which are all based on Sonoma County Code) and routinely have to call a Ranger who can gain compliance through the authority to cite (detain and arrest). With Rangers absent this authority, those frequent violations will go completely unchecked. Additionally, response time of deputies is double the time of Rangers, simply because they already have the entire county to respond to. They also do not work within the parks on a daily basis, and do not know the trail systems like that of the Rangers who can navigate through parks faster as a result of being experts of the parks.


6) Removing the law enforcement academy requirement will automatically reduce the amount of training Rangers will have by hundreds of hours. Further, the specific areas of training being cut will be those which teach individuals to safely enforce laws while keeping themselves and the public safe and doing it without violating an individual's rights. Instructing entry level employees to act as an authority figure without instructing/drilling/repeating these vital skills as a law enforcement academy does, is incredibly negligent. Coupling untrained individuals in positions of pseudo-authority with the removal of an in-depth background investigation is a recipe for disaster. 

​Currently, Rangers receive over 700 hours of training to be peace officers, and this is not including First Responder and EMT certifications, which they also all have. Taking away peace officer status will diminish the training immensely and will set future rangers up for failure. They will no longer be experts in their profession.


7) The removal of the red lights atop Ranger patrol trucks will instantly prevent any type of emergency response by Rangers. “Code 3 Response”, meaning lights and sirens, allows Rangers (who are EMTs and trained in wildland firefighting) to get to an emergency quickly and effectively. Without the ability to have Code 3 Response, Rangers will no longer be permitted to respond at a speed greater than the speed limit and would also have to follow all traffic laws despite the severity of the emergency. Park Rangers currently respond to an abundance of medical emergencies in parks where they are the first on-scene by several minutes, have routinely provided life-saving maneuvers, and have relayed critical location and disposition reports in the moment to other responding ambulances and helicopters. All it takes is a matter of minutes between life and death, and stripping Rangers of this ability vastly hinders them with emergency response.
Link to the May 21st Board of Supervisors meeting, Agenda Item #49A (when the proposal was first presented to the Board), starts at 7:51:00 of the video.   sonoma-county.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=1537&meta_id=502608
 Our community's safety will be compromised in Sonoma County Regional Parks! Reach out to your Board of Supervisors to express your concerns about this proposal before July 16th when they will vote on it again.