Journalists Resources - more emails ignored by elected officials

Today I'm emailing several people, expecting them not to respond. 

However, since their elected job requires them to respond - or at least read all the mail voters send them - their repeated nonresponses will come back to them some day. In fact, that is the whole point of sending them all those emails - creating a "paper trail" of their complicity in corruption.

This "paper trail" I have created over the years involves Embezzlement of Evidence, and an unsolved hit-and-run in a school zone crosswalk. While I have video evidence of both events, a veritable "smoking gun", former DA Jill Ravitch repeatedly turned a blind eye to the problem. Coincidentally, Ravitch's legal assistant Dava Kohlman is married to the police officer covering up the hit-and-run he eye-witnessed, suggesting a possible reason for not prosecuting the driver or the officers covering up.

Now, a reasonable person would assume that Santa Rosa's City Council would want to speak out against vehicular violence aimed against their citizens. However, Santa Rosa's City Council has seemingly approved of legalizing Vehicular Assault against peaceful protestors.

A year ago, just before the 20th Anniversary of the unsolved hit-and-run, I emailed everybody on the City Council, individually and collectively at citycouncil@srcity.org, asking for a quote for my article. Predictably there was no reply, not even one, not even from Mayor Natalie Rogers [(707)494-8378 and nrogers@srcity.org]. One would assume that the Mayor, at least, would want to be seen speaking out against Vehicular Assault - no matter the class of person who got run over.

I am encouraging Journalists to follow up with FOIA Requests (Freedom of Information Act) to obtain record of my emails to these elected officials, which is public record.

Today I sent emails with the header: "Santa Rosa journalist seeking quote on unsolved hit-and-run" to:

• the City Council as a whole at citycouncil@srcity.org
• Mayor Natalie Rogers at nrogers@srcity.org (707)494-8378
• Vice Mayor Mark Stapp at MStapp@srcity.org (707)328-7024
• Eddie Alvarez (District 1) at ealvarez@srcity.org (707)791-5282
• Dianna MacDonald (District 3) at dmacdonald@srcity.org (707)495-7599
• Victoria Fleming (District 4) at vfleming@srcity.org
• Chris Rogers (District 5) at crogers@srcity.org (707)543-3017
• Jeff Okrepkie (District 6) at JOkrepkie@srcity.org (707)531-0056
• City Attorney Teresa Sticker at caoffice@srcity.org (707)543-3040

To [name],

I'm a Santa Rosa journalist writing about an unsolved hit-and-run in front of Santa Rosa High School:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2OzOtoBxrw

My questions:

1) After viewing this hit-and-run video, do you believe SRPD responded properly to a car driving on the wrong side of the road through a crowd of people?

2) Santa Rosa City Council appears to have legalized Vehicular Assault against protesters, by repeatedly refusing to speak out against this hit-and-run in a school zone crosswalk. Can you think of any other way to describe the situation? OR, do you admit that's an accurate way for me to describe this Willful Blindness?

I will continue asking until I get a response for my article.

Thank you for your time,

Erik Jorgensen

Award-Winning Crime Reporter

In short: polite, professional, to the point, and no reason to brush off.

Furthermore, by continuing to ignore my requests for comment, they appear to engage in Willful Blindness - which is not a valid defense against Obstruction of Justice.

Maybe some day, somebody besides me will be bothered by cars running over citizens, and will follow up on my paper trail. And I only established this paper trail because I knew it would get ignored, would end up highlighting a pattern of corruption - with Embezzlement at the core. One would assume elected official would be motivated to expose corruption, not help cover it up or profit from it. Right?