Humboldt County supervisors are considering creating a civilian oversight committee for the sheriff’s office.
Supervisors said they trust current Sheriff William Honsal but argued that now is the time to establish oversight, before any incident could undermine that trust.
Supervisor Steve Madrone introduced the idea during Tuesday’s meeting, saying some community members remain skeptical of the department because complaints are investigated internally.
“This is the avenue forward to improve that trust," Madrone said. "I believe that as we improve that trust, it increases the number of people that want to become deputies. Because for them, morale goes up because they're more trusted in the community by verifiable actions that involves people outside of law enforcement.”
Honsal pushed back, telling supervisors that existing oversight is sufficient.
“Why fix something that’s not broken?” he said. “I’ve yet to hear why, other than you have a small group of people that want to see this because of a potential future incident.”
An example ordinance would create a citizen-led committee to review complaints and make recommendations. The group would not have authority over daily operations or personnel decisions.
Supervisors said they want to establish the committee themselves, rather than through a ballot measure.
A group of citizens has considered gathering signatures to put the issue before voters. By creating the committee directly, supervisors would retain more flexibility to modify it in the future.
The board voted 4-1 to begin drafting an ordinance, with the goal of having it ready by September.
