Jason Walsh: Should city leaders take ‘direct action’?

It wasn’t your typical way to persuade fellow board members to a new line of thinking. Even Bill Boerum would have to concede that.

He’s the secretary of the Sonoma Valley Health Care District board who took to YouTube last week to accuse his board colleagues of illegally colluding “behind closed doors” to flip a valuable piece of district property in order to pay off hospital operating losses.

Just to be clear: That’s quite a charge.

“I’m speaking to you about a matter of public urgency, which could affect the future of health care in the Sonoma Valley,” began Boerum’s 3-plus minute video in which he outlines the health care district’s plan to send out a request for proposals to elicit offers on the 2.8-acre property at the corner of MacArthur and Fourth Street West.

Describing the decision to sell the land as “much too quick,” Boerum goes on to say, “it has not had public input and I think that the meeting is not only inappropriate, but perhaps in violation of the state statute, the Brown Act.” The Brown Act, for you gadflies keeping track at home, is also known as the “open meeting” law, which holds that if more than two elected officials are to discuss policy together, it must be done in a pre-announced public forum.

Boerum filed a Brown Act complaint with the County District Attorney’s office and DA officials say they’re looking into the matter.

Boerum’s board colleagues and hospital CEO Kelly Mather concede they’re weighing options regarding what to do with the property the district purchased for $2 million last Aug. 22. But they argue that seeking offers on the property is merely a method to evaluate the parcel’s market value – and doesn’t equate to a decision to sell. That being said, Mather said at the district’s Jan. 5 board meeting that real-estate consultants had already estimated the property’s value now at between $3 million and $4 million. They may not know exactly what they’d get for the property, but they already have a pretty good idea.

Did District officials prematurely make up their minds to sell? Perhaps not, but it could certainly have been interpreted that way.

Nevertheless, the YouTube card played by Boerum – who says he’d rather see the land kept for future healthcare needs of the District – seems to have worked. It effectively shed light on the possible sale of the property, inspired several district members to attend the public meeting and voice their opinions and, in a 5-0 board vote, resulted in the RFP being sent back to Mather for a rewrite that would elicit more options than just a direct sale. There’s some likelihood the property will ultimately be sold, the fate of the land is receiving the public vetting it deserves, and that’s a good thing.

In political terms, Boerum’s “matter of public urgency” video is what’s called “direct action.” Direct action is when one bypasses the orderly conventions of political process – i.e., attending a board meeting and awaiting a turn to speak – to instead bring immediate and dramatic attention to a problem with the intent of changing attitudes about the problem beyond the confines of conventional politics. Sit-ins, strikes and boycotts are classic examples of direct action. It’s been an accepted tool of activism for nearly a century, so a single board member making a song and dance about an alleged Brown Act violation is nothing new.

But what makes Boerum’s online-video style of direct action interesting is its use in small-town suburbia – and the swift and clear impact it made. Proselytizers on the internet are a dime a dozen – but most political pundits are aiming at a national audience, largely preaching to the choir, and their influence on events is practically nil.

Boerum’s audience, on the other hand, was specific (a healthcare district with an older demographic), was channeled to that audience’s primary local media (the Index-Tribune, natch) so that it could catch the attention of its audience’s small pool of “influencers” (locals who have a strong voice in the community).

It could be that the smaller the stage, the greater effect short video protests may have – forwarding a link to one’s email contact list could be all a politician or community activist has to do to get their message socially networked before the right eyes.

Whether more Sonoma town leaders go beyond Facebook and take to YouTube to make their cases remains to be seen. It takes a certain amount of panache. Boerum’s hospital-board video, no surprise, isn’t his first step onto the YouTube soapbox. He’s posted various clips ranging from travel segments promoting his work with the Sonoma Sister Cities to such political shorts as one shot at the state Electoral College and another encouraging the appointment of Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State. It’s Boerum’s thing.

But it would certainly be interesting if it became a “thing” for other Sonoma activists and leaders – many of whom surely took notice of its results last week at the Health Care District.

Email jason at Jason.walsh@sonomanews.com.