The SCC Board of Supervisors, ignoring the pleas of frustrated residents of eastern Santa Cruz County, voted unanimously, on March 21, to close the Sonoita Court. The Supervisors meeting was packed for the third time in a month with residents of Sonoita and Elgin who either asked that the Court remain open, or that a more detailed study be done about the impact of the closure.
County manager Jill St. John had requested that the supervisors abolish Justice Precinct 2, and consolidate all court proceedings into JP 1, based in Nogales. This measure eliminates four paid positions in Sonoita, Judge Keith Barth, Constable Art Hinker, and two clerks, which she believes will save the county $200,000 per year.
Chairman Manuel Ruiz opened the meeting by cautioning speakers to refrain from personal attacks. “I will not tolerate them,” he said, threatening to have people removed from the room by the deputies present. Many of the 20 speakers who addressed the supervisors focused on what they believe to be the inadequate decision-making process undertaken by the county.
Kat Crockett, of Elgin, said, “Today you must decide if your intent is to support the county manager, the only person proposing this measure, or if you are going to support the citizens on the east side.” She stated that there were probably other places in the county budget that could have been cut. “To me, the process is flawed,” she said. “There was no involvement from the senior leadership of the courts, there was no opportunity for citizen involvement… There’s no clear decision on how justice services are to be provided to our part of the county and there’s no information in the proposal on the impacts of this decision.”
Judy Neal, of Elgin, referred to “the inadequate process” that had been followed in coming to this decision. She felt that there had not been enough study of the effects of closing the court, and cited Pinal County, where a similar consolidation took place. “We are not advocating that the Sonoita Court should never be closed, but that it should not be closed for this election cycle, due to a late and inadequate process leading up to your decision,” she said.
Other speakers shared their feelings that the residents of Sonoita and Elgin had no voice in the county. Sue Archibald, of Sonoita, asked, “Do we really matter?” Dennis Connors, of Sonoita, echoed her sentiments, saying, “The county is taking more and more from us.” He cited the reduced hours and increased fees at the landfill, the loss of the courthouse, and the increases in his property taxes. “Our vote doesn’t count. We don’t count.”
Kurt Bahti, of Sonoita, addressed the board, saying that he suspected that there was a “hidden intent. The whole process was not transparent… Your vote will tell us whether you are representing us or not.” Other speakers questioned if the move was a personal attack on Judge Barth. “Why can’t you hear us, what is your reason? Collusion?” Meade “Doc” Clyne, of Rain Valley, asked the supervisors. “I’m going to try to be respectful but it’s hard when you treat us this way, like we’re not here and you ignore us.”
Gary Gilbert, of Elgin, referred to the closure as being perhaps a vendetta against Sonoita and Elgin. “Valuations of our property continue to escalate every year, and yet we’re getting nothing for this. There’s something really wrong here,” he said. “If you look at the employees of Santa Cruz County and all the managers, there’s an overproportion of Hispanic population in employment than there is Caucasian. Keith Barth is one of the few Caucasian employees here,” he said. “There’s a hidden agenda. Is there a vendetta that the county manager has against Sonoita-Elgin?”
Despite the opposition voiced in the public comments, the supervisors voted to close the courthouse. District 2 Supervisor Rudy Molera addressed the audience, saying he had done his due diligence and praised St. John. He stated that he was willing to have discussions about the issue of high taxation in the Sonoita area.
“Sometimes we have to make hard decisions,” Ruiz said, after voting to close the JP2 court. “We’ve looked at our budget, made a lot of cuts.” He promised the audience that the board would address residents’ complaints. “We heard what you said, and we see that there a lot of inequities in the way you perceive services are delivered. We will change that. I guarantee you.”
Bruce Bracker, the Supervisor for District 3, which includes Sonoita and Elgin, declined to make any comments to the audience.
In an email, Bracker wrote “It is very difficult to consider a decision in which livelihoods are at stake. Sonoita residents asked us to slow down the evaluation process so they could provide us with additional information to consider; we did. After receiving and analyzing the additional information there was a minimal variance between the analysis that the County Manager proposed and the analysis that was produced by the Sonoita group. I am confident that the courts will determine an appropriate level of service for our east county residents, and I will work to repurpose the savings into valued-added projects that benefit all the residents in Sonoita.”
“I’m completely baffled,” Barth said after the meeting. “The community spoke clearly, justly and completely with rational arguments.”
“I believe that this was done haphazardly and inaccurately,” Beth Barth said. “The right thing to do would be for the board to delay this vote and get the community to be part of this major decision.”