56° CLEAR, Former candidates named to key Santa Rosa boards
Last Modified: Wednesday, January 14, 2009 at 11:09 p.m.
Four former candidates for Santa Rosa’s City Council are among the newest appointees to two of the city’s most powerful boards and commissions.
The four include Caroline Bañuelos, a legal assistant and president of the Sonoma County Latino Democratic Club; Rick Meechan, an attorney and leader of Concerned Citizens for Santa Rosa; Michael Allen, former labor leader and current district director to state Sen. Pat Wiggins, D-Santa Rosa; and David Poulsen, an investment manager and former member of the Planning Commission.
Allen, Bañuelos and Poulsen were appointed to the planning commission. Meechan was named to the Board of Public Utilities where he will be joined by another new appointee, Stephen Gale, chairman of the Sonoma County Democratic Party.
The five are among two dozen appointments to 10 boards and commissions to which the council’s seven members each make one appointment.
Most of those serving on the various boards last year remain. But the election of three new council members in November — Gary Wysocky, Marsha Vas Dupre and Ernesto Olivares — opened the door for them to replace the appointees of the council members they replaced.
Wysocky appointed Gale and Allen, Vas Dupre named Bañuelos and Meechan while Olivares re-appointed current planning commissioner Patti Cisco and utilities board member Richard Dowd.
Councilman John Sawyer appointed Poulsen to replace Tom Karsten on the planning commission.
The four-year appointments cover a wide-range of boards and commissions, including the planning commission and utilities board, which oversee development projects and sewer and water rates; the Luther Burbank Home & Gardens Board; and the Bicycle and Pedestrian Committee, charged with maintaining the grounds of Santa Rosa’s most famous resident and making the city’s neighborhoods and commercial districts more pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly.
The new appointees assume their positions Feb. 1.
You can reach Staff Writer Mike McCoy at 521-5276 or mike.mccoy@pressdemocrat.com
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