In talking to Fourth District Supervisor James Gore about his aspirations for 2017, you’ll incidentally hear a lot about his plans for 2018, the year he’s expected to chair the Board of Supervisors and when he’ll be running for re-election. Gore has been on the job for two years now as a county supervisor, and his perspective has broadened, he said.
“When I got elected, I was still kind of running through and trying to do everything all the time, and I’m much more deliberate now in staging,” Gore said in a recent interview with the Healdsburg Tribune. “Plant a seed now for the future for what I need to get done.”
Gore described his plan for 2017 as a: “triple bottom line of economy, environment and our society.”
Environmentally, Gore spent a significant amount of time in 2016 on the Russian River confluence and he said that the flooding and storm systems slugging the region so far in 2017 have convinced him more than ever that: “We have to get to a area where we’re not just promoting policies, and projects and programs, but a one watershed plan,” he said.
“We have segmented off every area of our primary natural resource and so now those pieces, those different silos, fight amongst each other,” he said, adding that in several places, regulations actually conflict with one another. “If I want to save fisheries, I’ve got to do something that affects water quality. The only way to get to a clear point is to create a governing body and a ‘one watershed’ plan that guides our vision, because all we are doing now is acting. And that’s not enough.”
Gore said he wants to place emphasis on the importance of building ties and true integration of our Latino and our Anglo communities here.”
Gore said he’s working more with federally qualified health centers, such as Alliance Medical Center in Windsor and Healdsburg and Alexander Valley Healthcare in Cloverdale.
“The three of those are actually becoming the primary service area for not just the Latino community, but also a large percentage of our Anglo community, because of healthcare issues, and because everyone can’t afford Sutter and other things,” he said.
Gore said he had recently been elected to be on the board of the Latino Caucus of California Supervisors and that he plans to host a retreat for them in Sonoma County to discuss immigration policy and county responses.
“I look at community health and healthcare, and a back end of that is immigration and equality in our community,” he said. “I continue to worry about the Latino and Anglo communities forming bubbles, and there’s a lot of really good organizations that are changing that, and it’s a big part of north county and what we need to do, and I’m going to be a part of that.”
Economically, Sonoma County is “humming right now” Gore said. But it’s here that his plans seem to grow to encompass loftier themes.
“What I want to be a part of is an integrated approach with the community and, with us as public officials and our private sector partners, to develop Sustainable Development Goals for Sonoma County,” he said. “Here’s our goals on poverty, here’s our goals on living wage jobs, here’s what we’re doing, here’s how it all ties in to a – not just sustainable – but a vibrant community.”
Gore described himself as excited – exuberant, even – about 2017, though he talked about how he’s gotten as good at saying “no” as he was at saying “yes” in his first year on the Board of Supervisors.
“I have all these things I’m doing this year, but I’m really also laying the groundwork for next year to really try and be a strong strategic leader on a community led approach to envisioning the future and setting our policies to support that,” he said.
