Remembering Walter Wong

I'm the dirty rat who shot the county environmental health director with a rubber band

News of Walter Wong’s death on June 29 kindled fond memories of a gentleman I’ll always admire as one of Monterey County’s great public servants.

Wong was for decades the county’s director of environmental health, and he was exactly the right person for the job. He was a fearless advocate for the public, the sort of health expert who ignored politics and the moneyed interests. He was a local kid who returned to Salinas after getting his education and who actively worked to make his hometown a better place.

Marc Del Piero, a county supervisor in the 1980s and 90s, called Wong “one of the greatest, most civic minded citizens of Monterey County of the last half of the 20th Century. His sincere commitment to the protection of the public health for all Monterey County residents made him a hero and a legend of Central California.”

Added former state Sen. Bill Monning, who advocated for pesticide safety in his previous life as a civil rights attorney: “He was a principled and ethical public servant who sought to protect the public health. He took some courageous stands to protect the rights of farmworkers.” 

Wong was 94 at the time of his death. He was hired at the county health department in 1955, and had been the chief public health director for 30 years when he retired in 2001.

For decades he was a ubiquitous presence, almost as famous around the county as most of the politicians under whom he served. He was a constant presence on local TV news, the go-to guy whenever there was a sewage leak, a toxic landfill discovery, a pesticide poisoning, or farmworkers living in filthy conditions. Notably he’s the guy who shut down Clint Eastwood’s restaurant temporarily for health code violations.

And he was always up front about what he did and why he did it. 

“Walter regularly rattled cages and was always available for comment,” said Larry Parsons, who regularly covered county politics for the Salinas Californian during the Wong era. “One editor of mine groused his type was ‘unavoidable for comment,’ but I don’t think Walter was in it for his ego, but for the public good.”

Indeed, some folks thought that Wong enjoyed the spotlight a bit too much. But he shrugged off the criticism. “I’m in the middle of all these things,” he once told Parsons, “mainly because the environment is such an important issue in the county.”

He took the hits from those who disagreed with him like a Fauci, with grace and good humor.

Wong was an heir to a pioneering Salinas family. His grandfather was one of the Salinas Valley’s earliest Chinese-American settlers and his father ran a restaurant and store on Soledad Street in Chinatown. His father died when Walter was 14, and Wong worked as a waiter and busboy at the popular Republic Restaurant while in high school.

And when he returned to Salinas after earning a degree at Cal and a brief stint in public health in Stanislaus County, he became a staunch advocate for his hometown. He served on chamber of commerce committees and launched initiatives to bring national recognition for the city’s positive attributes.

In 1985, for instance, he proudly campaigned to get Salinas named as an All American City by the National Municipal League. Salinas was ultimately awarded a runner-up certificate.

I also covered county government during much of Wong’s tenure, for the Monterey County Herald, and was struck by his dedication and by his professionalism. He was admired by his employees and his colleagues — always a good sign. You knew instinctively he was one of the good guys by the enemies he made.

He was direct, he was dapper and he had a great understated sense of humor.

Because he spent so much time in front of television cameras, I wanted to see if I could force him to break character during his interviews. Idiot that I was, I made it a practice during his press conferences to stand behind the KSBW cameraman and make faces and hop around like a monkey while Wong delivered some urgent message to the people of Monterey County. I was never able to get Walter to crack, at least on camera, but we always shared a laugh after the cameras shut off.

I also once shot Walter Wong with a rubber band. It was an accident, I swear.

It happened during a Board of Supervisors’ meeting at the County Courthouse one Tuesday afternoon. Wong was testifying about some important health issue at the speakers’ dais while I furiously took notes from the reporters’ bench about 10 feet to his left. As was my nervous tic at the time, I absently played with a rubber band with my right hand while taking notes with my left.

All at once the rubber band sproinged out of my hand and smacked Wong in the neck, a  direct shot that had to sting. Wong stopped his testimony, rubbed his neck and, looking in my direction, saw me try to hide under the desk in embarrassment. 

“Oh,” Wong said. “It’s only Livernois.” And then he calmly continued his testimony from the very point at which I had interrupted it. 

A couple of days later, the executive editor at The Herald received a hilarious letter signed by Wong and the county administrative officer at the time, Ernie Morishita. I can’t recall exactly what they called themselves, but they said they represented something like the Monterey County chapter of the League of Asian American County Employees’ Defense Against Journalists Committee. And in the playfully worded letter, they demanded that the editor reprimand me for assaulting Wong with the rubber band.

I wish I still had that letter. 

I also wish there were more public servants like Walter Wong.

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