The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors is once again preparing to advance a deeply misguided plan to shift the center of county government away from central Santa Rosa and into a privately developed office complex near the airport.
We strongly oppose this move.
This is not merely a real-estate transaction. It is a fundamental decision about where county government belongs, whom it should serve and whether Sonoma County’s own land-use and climate commitments mean anything when the county itself is making the decision.
County leaders have never openly asked the public whether we want our government center dismantled and relocated outside the urban growth boundary. Instead, they have advanced that outcome slowly and piecemeal, one lease, one purchase and one department at a time.
The Registrar of Voters has already moved to Brickway Boulevard. Other public-facing departments are expected to follow. The county has leased space at 400 Aviation Boulevard since 2024, and supervisors are now being asked to purchase that building for $49.5 million, potentially spend another $22.9 million on improvements and relocate hundreds more county employees there. Meanwhile, the future of the existing county campus remains unsettled.
This is how a major public decision gets made without ever being presented honestly as a major public decision. Rather than debate the future of the county government center as a whole, the Board has divided it into a series of smaller actions that gradually make the final outcome seem inevitable.
It is government by fait accompli, and the public deserves better.
A Bad Deal for County Workers
The proposed relocation would reportedly lengthen the commutes of approximately 75% of the SEIU-represented county workers affected by the move. These are the people who keep Sonoma County functioning: maintaining infrastructure, supporting parks, staffing elections, reviewing permits, managing emergencies and delivering essential public services.
Forcing most of these workers into longer commutes is not a minor inconvenience. It means more time away from their families, higher transportation costs, more traffic and more climate pollution.
It is especially troubling that the Board would impose these burdens while preparing for contract negotiations with SEIU Local 1021, the county’s largest employee union. The union has opposed this deal for nearly two years and has repeatedly raised serious concerns about its cost, transparency and impact on workers. Those concerns should be addressed openly, not dismissed or treated as obstacles to a predetermined outcome.
County Government Should Be Near People and Transit
There is an enormous public benefit to keeping county government in a city center.
The existing county campus is near established neighborhoods, public transportation, businesses and other civic institutions. It is considerably more accessible to residents who do not drive, including seniors, young people, people with disabilities and lower-income residents. Its central location also allows employees and members of the public to combine trips and reach county services without traveling to an isolated, automobile-dependent business park.
The airport area was not designed to function as Sonoma County’s civic center. Moving hundreds of employees and multiple public-facing departments there will make county government less accessible and more dependent on private automobiles.
That is the opposite of the future Sonoma County says it wants.
County residents have repeatedly expressed their preference for growth and infill within cities, where development can use existing infrastructure and support transit, walking and cycling. Urban growth boundaries exist for a reason: to discourage sprawl, protect agricultural and open-space lands and direct development toward established communities.
The county should be leading by example, not finding a convenient way around the principles it expects everyone else to follow.
The Price Cut Does Not Fix the Underlying Problem
Supporters are presenting the revised $49.5 million purchase price as a bargain because it is $6.5 million below the county’s earlier proposal. But a discount from an inflated price does not automatically make something a good deal.
The new price is still $3.5 million above the higher of the two previous appraisals obtained by the county. It also does not include as much as $22.9 million in potential tenant improvements or the estimated $1.5 million in annual operating, utility and insurance costs.
Before committing tens of millions of public dollars, supervisors should explain why this purchase serves the public better than reinvesting in a centrally located government campus. They should also explain why the county entered a lease containing rent increases intended to encourage the eventual purchase of the building.
The people of Sonoma County should not be trapped by negotiating decisions they had no meaningful role in making.
Who Is This Decision Really Serving?
The clearest beneficiaries of this plan are the private property interests that developed and control large amounts of office space near the airport.
American AgCredit gets a buyer for its building. The brokers get their transaction. The surrounding business complex gains the stability and prestige of a major government presence. A privately developed office complex that could not attract enough tenants on the private market gets filled with public employees and supported by public dollars.
But county government does not exist to rescue developers from excess office capacity. It exists to serve the public.
When the county spends tens of millions of dollars, its first questions should be: Does this improve public access? Does it support workers? Does it reduce pollution? Does it follow our land-use policies? Does it strengthen the communities where people already live?
On each of those measures, this proposal falls short.
Stop the Piecemeal Relocation
The Board of Supervisors should reject the purchase of 400 Aviation Boulevard and halt any further relocation of county departments until Sonoma County completes a transparent, comprehensive and public process for deciding the future of its government center.
That process must include county workers, labor representatives, transit users, neighborhood residents, environmental organizations, accessibility advocates and the broader public. It must compare the full costs of each alternative, not merely the purchase price of one building. And it must account for transportation, climate, public access, employee retention and consistency with the county’s land-use commitments.
Most importantly, supervisors must stop pretending that these are isolated facilities decisions. Taken together, they amount to the dismantling and relocation of Sonoma County’s civic center.
A decision of that magnitude should never be made slowly, quietly and piece by piece. It should be made openly, with the informed consent of the people whose money is being spent and whose government is being moved.
The supervisors serve the people of Sonoma County, not developers, brokers or private office-building owners. It is time for them to act like it.
