Chris Smith: Windsor reeling from accusations against Windsor Mayor Dominic Foppoli

Windsor still looks and feels like Windsor.

Parks and restaurants bustle in Sonoma County’s newest municipality, incorporated in 1992 as an intentionally livable, family-friendly town built on a rural patch between Santa Rosa and Healdsburg once disparaged as Poor Man’s Flats.

Set out by foot at the civic jewel that is the Windsor Town Green to ask folks how they’re taking the bombshell allegations against Mayor Dominic Foppoli and you hear a range of responses.

In an article published Thursday by the San Francisco Chronicle, four women provided detailed accusations of sexual assault by Foppoli, covering a period from 2003 through 2019. Though none of the women who has accused Foppoli of sexual assault reported the incidents to police, their reports were corroborated by friends and family members who either witnessed or had been told about the alleged incidents.

On a stroll through Windsor, I encountered people who hadn’t heard the news, or maybe know a bit about it but not enough to be directly impacted. A couple people said they resent and are troubled that accusations such as those leveled at Foppoli can instantly ruin a man’s life and render him a pariah.

“Leave the man alone and let him do his job,” Valerie Pritchard of Bodega Bay said as she finished a birthday lunch at KC’s American Kitchen at the west side of the Green. She made clear she’s suspicious of years-old allegations of sexual assault.

Scanning the heart of Windsor, Pritchard declared, “He’s doing a great job. The town is beautiful, there’s no garbage on the ground.”

Others approached in the center of the town of nearly 30,000 act as if they’ve been gut-punched and are hurting.

“Disappointed and embarrassed. I’m shocked,” Windsor resident Belinda Soto replied when asked how the allegations against her mayor affect her.

Soto said from a bench at the Green’s playground she finds credible the accusations lodged against Foppoli because of the similarities among them.

“I think he needs to do the town a favor and step down,” she said.

Soto said also about the issue that suddenly has Windsor in headlines and newscasts throughout the Bay Area and far beyond, “It’s not the conversation we want to have. But it needs to be had.”

Outside the 5-year-old Oliver’s Market, Laura Parker, who grew up in Healdsburg and lives now in Santa Rosa, lunched at a picnic table with a friend. She bristled at the mention of Foppoli’s name.

“This story was not surprising,” Parker said. “I used to be a bartender in Healdsburg. ... I had my own run-ins with him, and I had him on the other side of the bar, being creepy.”

A leader of Windsor’s business community, downtown jewelry store co-owner Laurie Shimizu, said from the sales counter, “I think we’re still all kind of reeling right now.”

Shimizu, who runs Mark Shimizu Design with her husband, said there is so much to sort through in the accusations against the mayor and the many calls for his resignation from the Town Council.

“It’s very complicated, intellectually and emotionally,” Laurie Shimizu said. “I think that’s what we are all trying to process.”

On the upside, she added in a nod to Windsor’s enduring of past firestorms, “We have a good track record for being strong and resilient, and we will again.”

Another civically involved town resident, Karen Alves, expressed how the current crisis has affected her by sharing what she posted on Facebook.

It’s the image of a green bowl bearing golden cracks. Below the bowl is written, “In Japan, broken objects often are repaired with gold. The flaw is seen as a unique piece of the object’s history, which adds to its beauty.”

A bowl mended that way “comes back stronger than it ever was before,” said Alves.

“I’m looking for the gold to fix our town, our community, my family and myself.”

You can reach Staff Writer Chris Smith at 707-521-5211 or chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.