State panel reprimands Sonoma County judge for upholding Analy High name change

A California judicial panel has publicly convicted Sonoma County Superior Court Judge James Bertoli of political misconduct over his opposition to a highly controversial effort by county school officials to change the name of Analy High School in Sebastopol to 2021.

Bertoli, an Analy alum as well as a former baseball coach and longtime play-by-play announcer, he emerged as an outspoken and sometimes caustic critic of the West Sonoma County Union High School Board’s effort to change the school’s name to West County High School.

In a decision released Oct. 30, the California Commission on Judicial Performance ruled that through postings, letters and comments to The Press Democrat, attending rallies and giving speeches, the judge engaged in improper political activity and “behavior inappropriate in social media that has demeaned the judiciary. office.”

Bertoli, whose last day on the bench is Thursday before a long-planned retirement, disputes any breach of judicial ethics. He provided the Press Democrat with a copy of the statement he made in a private hearing with the commission, in which he said he researched what actions he could ethically take in the matter as a judge and avoided any political speech or positions that would create the impression that they could not litigate fairly.

“There was no showing, not even an assumption, that I was unable to do my job as a family law judge impartially because I did not want to change my high school name,” Bertoli wrote. He added that when the rallies he attended turned political — the furor over the name change evolved into an ultimately failed effort to recall school board members — he would distance himself from the crowd.

Bertoli informed the Chief Justice of Sonoma County Superior Court, his supervisor, that he would oppose the name change but would not engage in any election activity and there was no objection, he wrote. The current judge, Shelly Averill, declined to comment Thursday to The Press Democrat.

But the judicial commission highlighted a series of Facebook posts Bertoli made slamming the school board and then-district superintendent Toni Beal, who eventually lost his job during the uproar.

“Judge Bertoli used the Facebook accounts to make derogatory remarks about public officials, engage in rhetoric that inflamed community passions, make profane remarks, and speak derisively of those who disagreed with him”, concluded the commission.

Bertoli cannot appeal the commission’s decision, his attorney, James Murphy of San Francisco, told The Press Democrat. But Bertoli has the option of filing a lawsuit in federal court alleging that his free speech was suppressed, which the judge is weighing, Murphy said.

Murphy described the dispute over the name change as “a matter of community interest,” not a political speech. “At what point does a judge in California, because of this decision, feel like they can’t talk about anything?” he said.

In his statement, Bertoli described himself as extremely passionate about the high school, citing a family history with Analy that spanned five generations. “For nearly 40 years, I was known as the ‘Voice of the Tigers,'” he wrote, “announcing football and for a time, basketball at home.”

The committee found that in Facebook posts, Bertoli suggested the school board was deliberately vague about meeting times and locations in an effort to limit public criticism of the name change. He described a board member’s comments as “short-sighted, analytical and self-aggrandizing,” and in another post wrote of the board: “This may be politically incorrect given the origin of the word, but what a bunch of bastards!”

The committee argued that he brought the weight of his judicial role to public discussion when he wrote in another post that “in my profession, a rush to an outcome without deliberation tends to get you overturned by the Court of Appeal.”

When a Facebook commenter accused him of “bullying and threatening” to get rid of him, Bertoli responded with “haters gotta hate bro,” according to the commission’s report.

Murphy and Bertoli argued that the Facebook account was a personal one and that Bertoli did not identify himself as a judge, although in a small town like Sebastopol, his position was well known. Friends on Facebook were quick to refer to him with the honorific “Judge” in comments, the commission pointed out.

Murphy, however, argued that the judge cannot control people invoking his title in what he described as “kind of a funny exchange.”

It was not the first discipline in Bertoli’s long judicial career. The commission wrote that this time it was swayed in its decision to issue public notice by a 2021 letter warning Bertoli not to tie his judgeship to his country music band — Court ‘n’ Disaster. In that case, the commission chided Bertoli for a photograph describing the musician as Judge Jimmy Bertoli and for Court ‘n’ Disaster marketing material as “your standard courthouse lineup.”

By promoting his band, which describes its sound as Rocky Tonk and has 1,300 followers on Facebook, Bertoli “abused the prestige of the judicial office,” the commission found.

You can reach staff editor Andrew Graham at 707-526-8667 or [email protected]. Follow him on X (Twitter) @AndrewGraham88