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Of the 4,400 employees in Sonoma County, the sheriff’s office has the lowest vaccination rate, with 73% of its roughly 600 employees fully vaccinated, according to the county. Overall, 88% of county employees have been verified as vaccinated. As of September 24, all unvaccinated first responders in Sonoma County are required to undergo weekly COVID-19 tests.
Junior said there is an agreement between various entities that have workers in the courthouse that if an employee is positive, that person’s employer is responsible for alerting other departments.
Valencia, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office, said he was unaware of the deal and that other department heads have denied that such an agreement exists. He said public health guidelines require the agency to notify only court administrators.
However, state public health regulations require that if an employee tests positive, their employer must notify all their staff who may have been exposed as well as alert “any other employer who has potentially exposed employees at the workplace. work ”within one day.
Sheriff officials did not seem clear on their obligations to notify other agencies with court workers in emails sent days after the potential exposures.
“Do you share this information with other justice partners? I want to make sure they know about it, ”said Sheriff’s Sgt. Pete Quartarolo in a September 21 email.
“I do not share information regarding non-judicial employees with” agencies affiliated with the tribunal, Junior wrote in response. “The sheriff’s office usually informs probation, DA, and PD (public defender) directly.”
The next day, Quartarolo sent an email to these department heads. “I also provide this information to court administration and recently learned that it is not disseminated to justice partners. I will provide the information in the future, ”he wrote.
Junior conceded that COVID-19 rules and regulations are still complicated more than a year and a half after the start of the pandemic.
“We have all been put in a position in this pandemic which has required a lot of training, education and skills,” she said.
“The sheriff seems terribly ill-prepared to communicate with the partners of justice,” she added.
Other emails obtained by The Press Democrat from multiple sources indicate that some of those who work and frequent the courthouse have still not been made aware of the extent of the outbreak and when and where they are. may have been exposed to infected judicial officers.
Local private defense attorney Walter Rubenstein said lawyers like him and their clients “always fall into the cracks, and we are the last to know.”
Lawyers were informed of the positive cases not through official notification, but through gossip from the courthouse. A local defense attorney who declined to be appointed to protect the privacy of others said sheriff’s deputies told him upon his return that they had contracted COVID-19. Some of them even reported persistent symptoms of loss of taste and smell, he said. He estimated the number of sick people to be over a dozen.
“I heard there had been an outbreak with the sheriff – the number was undefined, which meant ‘outbreak’,” Rubenstein said.
Private lawyers and members of the public do not receive formal notification in the event of an outbreak, as they are not employees of any of the courthouse agencies. They are supposed to be reached by a county contact tracer if there was any potential exposure, Junior said.
Contact tracing can be difficult when hundreds of people go through court every day, Junior said. But each courtroom has a log of lawyers and other courthouse employees who were present, which contact tracers can use to locate people potentially exposed to the virus.
More than a week before the bar sent out its email, the sheriff’s office sent out its first email notifying court officials of the outbreak. This September 21 email was sent to Junior and identified five affected courtrooms over five days, September 14-21.
A second email from the Quartarolo sheriff’s office arrived on September 22 and informed other law enforcement and justice officials of “potential exposure.” It went to Ravitch, Acting Public Defender Jeff Mitchell, and Chief Probation Officer David Koch. He informed them of possible exposures over a shorter period of three days, but in two additional courtrooms.
Lt. Andrew Cash, in a separate email the same day, said the department followed the outbreak to a sheriff’s break room, where employees took off their masks to eat and drink. The outbreak has not spread to correctional assistants who supervise inmates inside the prison or to inmates, Deputy Sheriff Eddie Engram said.
The emails gave no further details, including that several MPs had tested positive for the virus.
When Ravitch asked him that day to provide more information on the number of cases and whether his staff of lawyers, investigators and other judicial staff could be in danger, Quartarolo told him that the he epidemic included half a dozen MPs at that time.
Cash responded to Ravitch’s email that the department had worked with county public health and human resources officials to identify anyone outside of the department who may have been in close contact with an infected bailiff.
Ravitch said Cash and Quartarolo “downplayed the situation” in his email to Essick for better communication.
None of the emails between the sheriff’s officials and Ravitch mention advising inmates, private attorneys, court staff, or members of the public of their potential exposure.
Ravitch asked Essick to explain why the other county managers weren’t alerted to the outbreak so they could educate and protect their staff.
Ravitch said Essick did not respond to his email. “We haven’t gotten to the bottom of it yet,” she said.
You can contact editor Emily Wilder at 707-521-5337 or [email protected]. On Twitter @ vv1lder.
You can reach Editor-in-Chief Lori A. Carter at 707-521-5470 or [email protected]. On Twitter @loriacarter.
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