Helen Rudee, Board of Supervisors, 3rd Dist. : May 16, 2006

I'm Tony Hoskins with the Sonoma County Historical Records Commission. And I'm very pleased to be here to conduct our second interview of Sonoma County government aural history. And if I may start with our honored guest today, I'm Helen. Rudy. I served in the third District of

the Cinema County. Very good, Mrs Rudy. If I'm not mistaken, you were the first woman on the Board of Supervisors. Is that so? Yes. It was a great privilege. I didn't realize at the time, but I waas and many women then came and thanked me for

breaking what they consider sort of a spell of old boy network, you know? And then So it was a delightful position, I imagine. And very interesting. We'll talk some more about that. Okay. Shortly, if you would. Please, could you sort of detail the positions in Cinema

County government you had from the time you first came aboard with the government from first point to more recent ones? Well, I was just a volunteer, always until and I worked in the school system as a volunteer. And then it was suggested that I run for

the Santa Rosa City school board, which I did, and one and I am that was appointed there in 1965 and served 10 11 years till 1976. And then that was when I was elected to the Board of Supervisors. See? And so you went pretty much from

the schools to the Board of Supervisors? Yes. Was it a big leap to go immediately to the Board of Supervisors? Well, yes, it Waas and I am. I was going from an all area. Bored, bored, such as the center rows of city schools were five people

reelected. I think it's more now, but it was at that time to serve the city of Santa Rosa to a district election in which were there five supervisors who served together. On the other hand, they are elected from one of the district's and I was elected

from the third District, which is in the center of the county, the Santa Rosa Runar Park area. And so it had the most people. So my district was a smallest in area, but the light but the same in number of people. If I might ask, I'm

curious. What compelled you to make that effort right is not interesting. Well, I didn't serve on the board of invitation for 10 years, and people knew me. And then many people urged me to run at that time that the border supervisors was going through. Ah, but

about to moult, they had a recall. And, um, people annoying me then said You should do it, you should do it. And so I thought, Well, why not? My Children were through school. My husband, Dr Rudy, my husband urged me on. He said, Sure, you know,

making try. And I thought, You know, I have nothing to lose and a lot to win. So I ran and I want Well, that's great. You were responding toe public acclaim. Very good. And it may be that you've already covered this, but your most recent position

with the county government. What leads the Board of Supervisors? Yes. And the entire term that you were in the Board of Supervisors who represented the third District was 12 years, three terms in return. In return. What were the chief functions that you, as a commissioner, served

her well, actually, you know, you manage the government of the county is what you're doing. And of course, it's something that doesn't sound very large. But if you look in the telephone directory of the Blue Pages, you'll see the many departments, many things that the county

does. And so you sit as one of the supervisors. And of course, what you do is primarily the big job is to adopt a budget which funds all of the work of the county. We have some funds that we can use as we need on county

things. But some funds come down in which we do the states work, such as health, mental health and social welfare. Some those that money is not discretionary use for those programs. Aside from that, we serve in other capacities, such as I was served on the Bay

Area Air Quality Management District. There are two in Sonoma County. We have the North Air Quality District and the South because we are part of the bay. And then there is LAFCO. It's a local formation advisory on on areas to be formed in Annex two other

areas. There is a bag which is the Bay Area area of governments, and when else, then there is, of course, the the state's organization. That was my pleasure to serve on that. We had the group of counties to the north of us, including Lake and Cinema

County and the representatives, and we sat on what are area problems were, and that's primarily water. Of course, you know, on, I sat on that. So and then we have had lays on duties to departments in the county, and usually two supervisors sat on areas, and

Ernie Carpenter and I often had the pleasure of sitting on the Justice Department and the Health Department and such. So those were along with serving the needs of our constituents, which generally was regarding planning and sewage. And, you know, well, it's an accepted tanks and roads

and things like that, that the liaison role I was really not aware of. For instance, what typically would one of the supervisors do as liaison to the justice area? The justice very well are our job hit us frankly, just as we entered because our jail was

in a lawsuit at that time, and so we had to decide what we were. Well, what we do is the lait. Layers on sits with the department head of that understands more in more detail the problems of the department. And then we carry it back to

the five members of the board with recommendations a such and so we would sit with the sheriff and all the members of the Justice Department, probation officers and so on and see what their needs were particularly about the jail and the city and the courthouse. See

what the needs of the judges, what we're those kinds of things. Then you take that back to the border. Superb. The five boards Is that Is that a formally creative responsibility or may not? I don't know that exists anymore, but at that time we would decide

well, you know, and being a nurse, they always felt that I could handle the the human services better than health and social welfare and so on. And so I took that on and we watched that development girl that would seem to be a very healthy sort

of inter relationship between governmental agencies and entities. Will it? I think that that made the staff, um, feel closer to the board rather than always bringing everything to five members at a formal meeting. In this way, we sat with him at their meetings. Obviously, there could

only be two supervisors. Otherwise, it's, you know, three years can't be done because you'd be a majority, See, And so But I do think that it helped the staff to bring forward small problems that they could discuss. And the board? I was aware of it, rather

than then being too far removed from them. E I found it that way. You know, it was very interesting Touch back on the matter of budgets, which you spoke of a few minutes ago. I'm interested in the supervisors work with funds that are allocated by the

state. That's sort of part of it. Were you given a set amount of money that you had to? You know, I don't exactly remember. But I do know that there were certain funds that came from the state that we had to spend that way we could

not put them into the general fund and use them at our discretion. And it was amazing how much of that came from the state. I think certain. I think a certain part of the justice system came according to the judges and then certainly the whole welfare

system, and then they help the health systems to the particularly mental health. It was never enough money, but that's how it was. And so in that, um, we, you know, had to allocate that to take care of the the the health and social welfare problems in

the county. So essentially, the state mandated a certain amount of money and the actual dispersal of which was left him to you. For us? Yes. Interesting. Interesting. Um, what would you say the chief challenges of your role in government were? Well, if you can think back

to 1977 it was the first time that a general plan had to be passed as ordained, shall we say, by the state. And of course, that never it having happened before it created a lot of discontent, questions, arguments, Because always before people were pretty, um, free

to sell their land and haven't rezoned toe whatever they wanted. But now the state said you must set up a plan because before that, there was so much sprawl. If you remember what sprawl is that is leapfrogging from expensive city land to cheap agricultural in and

then building something and then leap frogging again well, this