Santa Rosa council hopefuls stake out territory in candidates' forum

The candidates for Santa Rosa City Council started to show some areas of distinction among themselves on issues likely to be key to voters this fall during the most recent candidates’ forum Monday evening.

Most of the eight candidates who participated in the League of Women Voters forum at City Hall seemed to agree on the need to annex Roseland, encourage robust economic development, create more affordable housing and revitalize the downtown.

But important differences also emerged over a variety of topics, including amending Measure O, reunifying Old Courthouse Square, and requiring that businesses pay a living wage.

Measure O, the 2004 sales tax passed by voters to enhance public safety and gang prevention, was one issue that drew some of the clearest divisions among the candidates.

Tom Schwedhelm, former Santa Rosa police chief, seemed the least interested in amending the ¼-cent tax measure, saying the city would have to have a clear conversation about the impact changing the measure would have on police officers, fire stations and gang prevention services.

“For me, I heard loud and clear that 72 percent of voters voted for Measure O,” Schwedhelm said.

Others like Chris Coursey, former rail transit spokesman, said there is little doubt that the tax measure is eating a larger and larger portion of the city budget and needs to be changed.

“Measure O was adopted in a time of different economic reality,” Coursey said. “It needs to be adjusted for the economic realities of today.”

Others, like land use attorney Ashle Crocker and former Councilman John Sawyer, took more nuanced positions. Crocker said she supports “minor reforms” to Measure O but not anything sweeping that would have an impact on certain programs. Sawyer also said there might be a way the measure could be “clarified and simplified and changed,” though he said the “basic goals are still strong.”

On the issue of a living wage, Lee Pierce, a former councilman and current government affairs manager for a local recycling company, said he strongly supported paying up to $15 per hour.

“Yes, the economy has turned around somewhat and the unemployment rate has gone down, but people are still not earning a living wage,” Pierce said. “We have no middle class any more, people can’t buy homes.”

Blood bank spokesman Curtis Bryd said he’s also in favor of a living wage, as is Colleen Fernald, who said she’d “like to make it work.”

Sawyer, who has said a healthy economy needs a variety of job types, said he’s against it. So, too, is part-time teacher, Keith Rhinehart, who called it “basically socialism.”

Others, including Coursey, Crocker and Schwedhelm, said they either needed more information, had concerns about it, or thought discussion of raising the minimum wage made more sense.

The reunification of Old Courthouse Square got some support in theory but little backing in its current form as a $17 million project complete with light arbors and a water wall.

Coursey said he strongly supported reunification as part of an economic development effort, just not the current plan.

“I do support reunifying it and using that as the key stroke to revitalize the entire downtown,” he said.

Byrd took a similar tack, stressing the project is “super important” to the revitalization of downtown, just not the current proposal, over which there is “a lot of separation” among the downtown businesses.

“I think we need to pull away from that plan” in favor of one more business leaders downtown could support, Byrd said.

After the forum, east Santa Rosa resident Wes Silverthorne, 76, said he was pretty impressed with how most of the candidates came across.

“Most of them performed pretty well,” he said.

In particular, he said, he liked that several have the potential to “change the tenor on the council.”

He said he was particularly impressed with Coursey and Byrd, but hadn’t made up his mind about Schwedhelm. He said he “liked his background,” particularly his education and skills in “conflict resolution,” which he joked could probably come in handy on the council.

But he said he didn’t know if it was wise to elect a second police officer to the council given that funding of the department is a recurring source of contention on the council.

The questions asked of candidates were a combination of ones asked by the league, whose volunteers wore T-shirts that read “Democracy, it’s not a spectator sport,” and those submitted by the audience.

The ninth candidate, Chucker Sims, did not participate in the forum.

Video of the event will be available on the League of Women Voters of Sonoma County website, lwvsonoma.org.