Exercising the Co-Option: The Union
by Tom Durkin February 1, 2024
As a government reporter at all levels of city, county and state government, I’ve witnessed a lot of bizarre behavior – not from the politicians but from citizens.
“You’re not qualified to run a lawn mower!” screeched a very angry and ignorant resident of Colfax at a meeting to raise sewer rates.
She did not understand the city council had no choice. Either they complied with a state order to improve the city sewer system, or the state would seize the system and sell it to a private company that would raise city residents’ rates even higher.
Government just has to raise rates to the break-even point. Private companies must make a profit.
Lawn mower woman let her anger and frustration overrule her behavior. All she cared about was that her rates were going up. She couldn’t read the writing on the wall – or the articles I had so carefully written about the rate increase and the compelling reason for it.
She threw an adult temper tantrum. And accomplished nothing.
Failure to persuade
I wasn’t there, but from what I heard and read in the newspaper, I imagine the vitriol the self-righteous “patriots” spewed on supervisors and staff was even worse than lawn mower woman.
And no matter how well-organized, misinformed, obnoxious, and LOUD they were, they accomplished nothing (except for a few restraining orders). Just a group adult temper tantrum.
Adult? Perhaps I misspoke. Adults accomplish things. And they don’t bully people to do it.
Power of persuasion
Mindful of the “patriots” stunning lack of success, I approached the supervisors differently.
About this time last year, I was out in the parking lot before a supervisors’ meeting. I had asked people to come to Rood Center to petition our government for redress of the homeless/housing crisis.
The few people who showed up for the public comment heard me say repeatedly, “You will be civil, you will be respectful. You will not offer complaints. You will offer solutions.” No threats. No demands.
After the last of us spoke, Supervisor Chair Ed Scofield thanked us for being so civil. (He told me later he was scared about what we would do.)
Next week, Ed Scofield blindsided me by stating at the end of the 2023 Board of Supervisors annual goals-setting workshop that he wanted to talk to me about some of the solutions we had proposed.
Housing, Housing, Housing
Then this year, at the 2024 Board of Supervisors workshop, Ed blew me away again when he told his own staff – after praising their fine work – “I don’t think you guys are the answer.” (From memory; the video recording was removed from the county’s website.)
Ed then shared the ideas I’ve shared with him (and anybody and everybody at Rood Center who would listen) over the preceding months about alternative housing for people who have nowhere else to go.
Working poor, disabled, fixed-income and even “workforce” (apparently better off than working poor) people live in habitable but illegal housing because – say it with me – there is no place to go.
Ed was walking his talk. Last week, he joined us at Sierra Roots’ weekly lunch where he got to hear a homeless man speak his unfiltered truth to power about living at the Madelyn Helling Library parking lot at night. He thought Ed was just another church volunteer.
Heidi Hall was equally all-in at the Jan. 18 workshop, saying she wanted staff to “try everything.” During the break, she walked by and gave me a high five.
Lisa Swarthout and Sue Hoek also chimed in with Sierra Roots-influenced comments.
At the end of the workshop session, Supervisor Chair Hardy Bullock summed up the supervisors’ clear intent: “Housing, housing, housing.”
Crossing the rubicon
Something magic happened Jan. 18. After five years, almost to the day, the Board of Supervisors acted on ideas I first proposed in 2019.
It’s not that my ideas got any better. It’s that the Upstate Division of the California Creative Corps gave Sierra Roots enough money to hire me full-time to work on alternative housing and safe camps.
Within six months, the Nevada County Board of Supervisors resolved to explore the possibility of implementing some fairly radical and rule-changing ideas about housing.
Not only this a victory for me and the Sierra Roots/No Place to Go Project, it’s a victory for the California Arts Council, the Upstate California Creative Corps and the Nevada County Arts Council.
They invested $69,696 in us to prove we could effect [not affect!] social justice for homeless and unhoused people through creative arts of writing (e.g., this column) and personal, one-on-one friendly persuasion. And we did it.
The real thing is that we have crossed the Rubicon. The government has taken over. Of course, that doesn’t mean our job is done. Before, our job was to reason, pressure, persuade, and diplomatically cajole county officials. Now, the job is to work with them and simultaneously gain public support for them to exercise their political will to lead the state in making alternative housing legal and available for all the citizens who cannot find or afford a place to live in our community
Artful Justice
I came of age in the late sixties demonstrating for civil rights and an end to an evil war. While I did my fair share of marching, I avoided violence. Violence doesn’t solve the problem. It is the problem.
And that includes the emotional violence of lawn mower woman, “patriots” and even some of my colleagues who advocate for the same reforms as I do.
Insulting, disparaging and impugning the character and competency of the people whose cooperation you need is … counterproductive.
Some people might accuse us of kissing up to the supervisors. No. We’re practicing the delicate art of co-option – finding common ground with the people we need to work with to help the people we serve. What’s wrong with that?
Some artists paint lovely murals on the wall. I love murals. They are an essential part of public art and they evoke feelings that can’t always be put in words.
But for us at the Sierra Roots/No Place to Go Project, we’re all about opening doors in the wall. We want everybody safe and inside. And I believe Ed, Heidi, Sue, Lisa and Hardy do too.
Tom Durkin is creative director of the Sierra Roots/No Place to Go Project, which is funded by a grant from the Upstate California Creative Corps, a program of the California Arts Council. He may be contacted at tomdurkin@sierra-roots.org or www.project.sierra-roots.org. © Sierra Roots 2024
Editor’s note: All videos from the BOS 2024 workshop are on the county website and YouTube channel