Healdsburg planner, council hopeful resigns, withdraws from race

Healdsburg businessman Mark Zimmerman has resigned from the Planning Commission and also ended his fledgling City Council campaign due to “residency issues” involving his voter registration address.

Zimmerman last month submitted a business address that is not considered a valid residence for voter registration purposes, according to Healdsburg City Clerk Maria Curiel.

The 48-year-old tire salesman, who had been living at his business on Grove Street, resigned from the commission last week. He made the announcement in a one-sentence email notification to the city clerk, saying he was forced to remove himself from the Planning Commission as a result of the “residency situation.”

Although he has served on the commission for four years, the city’s zoning apparently does not allow for Zimmerman to live in the warehouse where he has resided for more than two years.

He “appears to be living in a unit that’s not in compliance with zoning,” Assistant City Manager David Mickaelian said Wednesday.

Zimmerman did not respond to repeated requests for comment in messages left on his cellphone and at his business over the past week. But his mother, Jackie Zimmerman, said he was “devastated” by the turn of events.

“He was really looking forward to this,” she said of his City Council bid.

As a planning commissioner, Zimmerman presumably would be familiar with land use and zoning guidelines and city requirements for residential occupancy.

“He is a planning commissioner, held to a higher standard, because that’s what they do,” Councilman Gary Plass said Thursday. “I guess he didn’t have any place to live.”

“I don’t think his intent was to defraud anybody,” Plass added.

Jackie Zimmerman said her divorced son, who supports two teen boys, has been trying to make ends meet, but makes just a little too much to qualify for affordable housing programs.

“He can’t afford housing here,” she said in reference to Healdsburg’s elevated real estate market. At the tire shop, she said, “he has a roof over his head. He’s happy. He’s working.”

Zimmerman’s parents started a business on the Grove Street property more than 50 years ago, beginning with a trucking company and adding a fuel depot and the tire business.

Assistant City Manager Mickaelian said the zoning is mixed use, but the warehouse in essence is not considered a residential dwelling.

“It did not meet the criteria for what is allowed under that zoning,” he said.

Zimmerman’s living situation raised red flags when he went to City Hall last month to take out papers for the City Council race.

State law does not allow voters to register using a business address, or mail drop, according to Gloria Colter, Sonoma County’s assistant registrar of voters.

The intent, she said, is to make sure the people are voting on issues that are pertinent to where they live, where they pay taxes and that they also vote for their authorized representatives.

“You could be living in Georgia,” and using a local business address, she said. “I don’t know where you live, where you pay taxes as a homeowner, or who represents you.”

Mickaelian said Zimmerman’s past votes and actions on the Planning Commission are not being reviewed as a result of his living situation.

“No one was questioning his residency. Everyone was under the impression he was a resident,” he said. “In general, we don’t have any concerns with what actions were taken prior to the resignation.”