When the annual “state of the county” economic report and forecast focuses on the 3,600 lost hospitality service jobs instead of the interrupted travels of wine country tourists, we will find ourselves living in a better Sonoma County.
When the unveiling of an updated Portrait of Sonoma County health and wealth report gauges the well-being of our communities by real-life consequences instead of academic Health Development Index (HDI) numbers, we will find ourselves living in a better Sonoma County.
Recently, local elected officials and health care administrators congratulated themselves at a ribbon cutting ceremony for opening 16 acute mental health beds. If they had instead offered a concrete plan on how to replace the 60 psychiatric care beds lost here in recent years, we would find ourselves moving toward a better Sonoma County.
When our local jail inmate population ceases to be a near-majority of brown and black faces and their jailers cease to be a force of 75% white, we will find ourselves living in a better Sonoma County.
The Sonoma Health Action Council’s current work plan states that half of all Sonoma County families are living “paycheck-to-paycheck” where children’s well being is “at risk.” When this risk of childhood hunger, homelessness and illness is eliminated we will find ourselves living in a better Sonoma County.
Small farms, operated by families and worker cooperatives, want affordable land to grow food for the rest of us. When our local economy supports these micro enterprises we will find ourselves living in a better Sonoma County.
When our hundreds of nonprofit organizations that are dedicated to imagining, cultivating and creating a better Sonoma County can stop spending all their time on fundraising and, instead, do their actual work, we will be on a better course toward a better Sonoma County.
When millions of tax dollars aimed at ending homelessness, countering substance abuse and increasing mental health services can be spent on direct services and not on expanding bureaucracies, we could all be part of a better Sonoma County.
A better Sonoma County with less poverty and homelessness and more social justice and racial equity has been well framed by the seminal Portrait of Sonoma County reports of 2014 and 2021. The county’s Health Action Council and Upstream Investments targets (Invest Early. Invest Wisely. Invest Together.) — among other social and economic reports, strategic plans and road maps — all propose what a better Sonoma County looks like and must include.
But none of these plans on paper will ever get us to a better Sonoma County. We know this because 50 minutes of last week’s annual state of the county report presented by the Economic Development Board talked about the recovery of business activity for tourism, retail, manufacturing and construction. Less than 10 minutes focused on families or “at risk” children’s welfare. And no time was spent on the structural inequalities and social injustices that have been with us much longer than a pandemic or series of wildfires. Economics is not about numbers; it has to be about people.
A better Sonoma County will not come to us from within the current structure of local government, the network of nonprofits or social welfare programs. The necessary changes must come from the outside, from forceful and radical change agents and enemies of the status quo. History shows that poverty and social injustice don’t fade away or get eliminated only by throwing money at them. War must be declared on poverty. Protest marches and political organizing must rise up from neighborhoods and grassroots agitators.
We might continue to say — as county leaders did during last week’s release of the updated Portrait of Sonoma County — that we keep making progress and we have good plans and best intentions. But a better Sonoma County is not what we say it will be; it’s what a future mirror will show us.
