Tiny Alpine County : These Jurors Must Wear Many Hats

The grand jury in Alpine County doesn’t meet during the winter, unless an emergency crops up.

In the spring, summer and fall, grand jurors from the county’s remote southeastern corner, home of the Bear Valley ski resort, can make the 33-mile drive to the county seat, Markleeville, in well under an hour.

But once the snow starts falling in the High Sierra and state authorities close California 4 through Ebbets Pass, the trip becomes a 185-mile, five-hour marathon.

“Yeah, and I’m the guy who closes it,” chuckled Dave Zellmer, 48, who served as foreman of the county’s 1985-86 grand jury.

Zellmer is also one of the local supervisors for the California Department of Transportation, which maintains--and sometimes shuts--the state highways across Alpine County.

Other Activities

In addition, he is an observation officer for the National Weather Service, a cattle rancher, leader of a country and western band, a member of the Fish and Game Commission, proprietor of a boot emporium--and Alpine County fire chief, one of the local officials whose work the grand jury is supposed to scrutinize.

With a permanent population of about 1,400, Alpine County is California’s least populous. As in other rural areas, its close-knit life style and far-flung geography pose special problems for the grand jury system.

“Many people have to wear many hats,” said Zellmer, a ruddy-faced man who perches a baseball cap on his sandy hair and, when the weather gets cold, throws a down vest over his worn blue work shirt.

Alpine County Dist. Atty. Henry G. Murdoch, for example, also is county counsel, school board attorney, public administrator and public guardian.

“And it’s a part-time job,” Murdoch allowed.

Conflict Problem

The biggest problem, of course, is conflict of interest.

“You know all the department heads. We fish together and hunt together. Everybody socializes with everybody,” Zellmer said.

But if the local judge excluded from grand jury service all who play a role in public life, there would be very few citizens available to sit, local officials said.

Zellmer thinks the citizens of Alpine County generally do a good job of separating their personal feelings from their grand jury work.

“We’re all human beings. Yet, I’m sure, too, that people are adult enough to say, ‘Hey, you know, this is black, or this is white,’ and ‘This is the way it should or shouldn’t be,’ ” he said.

Candid Position

“The day we organized this grand jury, I stood up and said, ‘Hey, now, lookit. You’re probably going to look into the Fire Department,’ ” Zellmer recalled. “ ‘And if this is going to be a problem, with me as foreman of the grand jury, now’s the time, no hard feelings here. I’d be glad to step down, whatever you’d like.’ ”

But, Zellmer said, his fellow grand jurors did not take up his offer.

Instead, he said, he answered their questions about the county’s four volunteer fire departments with as much candor as he could muster. “You know, I have nothing to hide, either,” Zellmer said.

Grand jury service was not a new experience for the fire chief. He has been the foreman three times, and sat as a member on perhaps 10 occasions. He can’t recall the exact number.

With only 680 or so registered voters, it just works out that way.