Five candidates run for three seats on Sebastopol City Council

Sebastopol voters are set to elevate three political newcomers to public office in the Nov. 8 election, filling out a majority on the five-member City Council, where a trio of seasoned incumbents chose not to seek reelection.

The five candidates vying for the three at-large seats are Sandra Maurer, director of local nonprofit EMF Safety Network, which works to reduce human exposure electromagnetic fields and wireless radiation; Jill McLewis, co-owner of Eye Candy Chocolatier and executive director of Naturally North Bay, a nonprofit promoting food and natural products from local businesses; Oliver Dick, an technology business and management consultant; Stephen Zollman, an attorney representing youth and domestic violence survivors in Sonoma County; and Dennis Colthurst, a retired Sebastopol police officer and former Palm Drive Health Care District board member.

City Council members Una Glass, Patrick Slayter and Sarah Glade Gurney have opted not to run for reelection.

“It is an interesting time, it is not something that is seen with great regularity,” said Slayter, 54, noting that he, Glass and Glade Gurney share 40 years of experience between them on the council. “It’s going to be the institutional knowledge that is retiring from the council that is significant.”

The pivotal race comes as Sebastopol contends with pressing issues including: whether to consolidate its fire department with a nearby fire district like the Gold Ridge Fire Protection District; how to bolster local businesses and the city’s struggling downtown; and balancing City Hall’s budget amid pressing demands for housing and homelessness services.

“I think it’s going to be a big learning curve,” Glass, 69, said of her council successors. “And I think that whomever is elected they will find that solutions to our problems or our issues are not nearly as simple as they might have thought. All of these are really complicated.”

Sebastopol has 5,575 registered voters, according to Deva Proto, Sonoma County’s registrar of voters.

Zollman has built his campaign around the need for Sebastopol to access more resources by strengthening partnerships within the city and also with county, state and federal agencies. Zollman said he has always wanted to run and was encouraged by the number of candidates.

“I thought having a contested election is good,” Zollman, 60, said. “It was important to make sure you have a diverse slate of candidates to choose from.”

Dick, McLewis and Colthurst are running as a “loosely aligned” bloc — one they said would work well together on the council and focus on investing in essential services, namely roads and emergency services, and bolstering local businesses.

“We have the same platform,” said Colthurst, 71.

“We have a wide scope, we’re not walking into anything with any preconceived notions and I love that,” he later added.

McLewis and Dick have known each other for years and connected with Colthurst when he decided to run, Dick said.

“This is a huge opportunity for a refresh for the city of Sebastopol,” said Dick, 65.

Maurer has focused her campaign on supporting local businesses and championing climate initiatives and wellness, a nod to her work to reduce human exposure electromagnetic fields and wireless radiation, perennial political issue in Sebastopol.

“My goal will be to look for ways for enhancing community wellness,” said Maurer, 62.

Future of fire department

Sebastopol leaders have grappled in the past two years with whether to consolidate the city’s fire department with a entity such as Gold Ridge Fire Protection District which covers Hessell, Freestone, Twin Hills and rural Sebastopol.

Sebastopol’s department is led by outgoing Fire Chief Bill Braga, who is poised to retire, and staffed by a full-time fire engineer and volunteer firefighters who are paid a stipend. The department has a long list of needs, including equipment and stations upgrades.

Recently, the City Council hired a consultant, Bay Area-based Matrix, to study the issue and make recommendations. A report on the findings is due before the council in coming weeks, Slayter said.

Maurer said she opposes consolidation and believes keeping fire services in-house would be “the right way to go.”

“Talk to the firefighters, they’re the ones doing the work,” Maurer said, criticizing the City Council for hiring the consultant.

Zollman, a former volunteer firefighter in Guerneville, said he hopes the city can keep the fire department local but supports the council’s move to study the issue.

“In a situation where it’s so emotionally charged I think it’s great to step back and get somebody’s eyes on it,” Zollman said.

He noted that city leaders have to contend with tough questions, including the cost of maintaining a standalone fire department, at $1.4 million a year. The department could use a budget that’s nearly double that amount, according to the city,

“With everything, it’s a business and we have to make sure that we’re constantly looking at the bottom line and not continuing to overspend beyond our means,” Zollman said.

Colhurst, Dick and McLewis said they would need to read the report first before making any decisions.

“I need to read the report and I need to hear from the firefighters as well as the Gold Ridge folks,” Colhurst said. “That’s a very careful decision to make.”

McLewis raised a criticism similar to Maura — that city council needed to better include local firefighters in the discussion.

“They work very hard, they have a lot of lived experience,” McLewis, 51, said of the firefighters. “We need to honor that.”

“If I’m in council I will definitely be including our local fire service in those conversations,” Dick said. “And also the analysis of Matrix.”

Bolstering local businesses and revitalizing downtown

Like communities throughout Sonoma County and California, Sebastopol’s businesses struggled through the COVID-19 pandemic. All five candidates said doing more to support local businesses would be a priority if on the council.

“I personally would like to be a voice for them on the council, to help advocate for them,” McLewis said, referencing her experience working for the Sebastopol Chamber of Commerce.

Noting the empty storefronts downtown, some empty before the pandemic, McLewis said she wants to open conversations with local businesses and landlords.

Bringing more business to the city would help generate more revenue via the city’s sales tax.

“Increasing the tax base is important for us as a city and as a whole,” McLewis said.

It is another point McLewis shares with Dick, who also stressed the need to expand the tax base in order to pad the city’s budget and support spending on core services including roads, emergency response and water.

“We don’t really have enough revenue coming into the city to pay for our basics,” Dick said.

Dick criticized the city for focusing on projects he deemed less of a priority, including the bid to expose the Calder Creek running through the downtown.

While critical of some city spending, including on homeless services, Dick said he is not proposing funding cuts, but rather sees opportunity in boosting businesses.

“The plan is to try and get the local economy moving again by incenting the landlords, many (of) storefronts who have very high rents, to provide concessions to small businesses to open storefronts,” Dick said, The city ought to be more of a tourism destination, but not as big as Healdsburg, he said.

Colthurst, who received a $4,700 campaign contribution from The Barlow, the shopping and food district, raised the idea of utilizing shuttle service, coordinating with the chamber or commerce and downtown business association, and working with landlords to ease rent burdens as possible solutions.

“The businesses contributed nearly half of the revenue for Sebastopol and they’ve been hit really hard, as has the community, from the pandemic and inflation,” Maurer said.

Zollman said Sebastopol businesses have been struggling long before the pandemic. He sees a solution in strengthening partnerships between businesses and local groups like the chamber of commerce through co-sponsored events, and with schools to help connect students and businesses through a school-credit, mentorship program.

On city budget and homelessness spending

Sebastopol has a $12.5 million 2022-23 budget, with a $1.1 million operating deficit. The city is using reserves to cover the deficit, City Manager Larry McLaughlin said.

Dick, McLewis and Zollman all emphasized the need for the city to identify ways to grow revenue.

Zollman pointed to money available at the local, state and federal levels by way of grants and other avenues, as opportunities for the city to expand its budget.

“We are overspending,” Zollman said. “So in my mind, the way to deal with that is to figure out how to bring money in.”

He offered up the city’s use of grants to get solar for the local library as an example of successfully using partnerships to access funding.

Zollman also pointed to the city’s participation in Project Homekey, a state program that provides cities and counties with funding to developing housing options for homeless individuals, as another example of successful partnership. Sebastopol in Sonoma County to open a housing site through the program at the former Sebastopol Inn, now named Elderberry Commons.

“I think we have a lot to toot our own horns about because we have three avenues to help our unsheltered,” Zollman said, referring to the housing options in Sebastopol.

Dick and McLewis were critical of the city’s spending but said they were not interested in job cuts or raising taxes.

Dick and McLewis echoed their call to boost businesses and draw in more sales tax revenue. They also said the city needs to more closely watch where it spends money. The city’s homelessness spending is one area where Dick and McLewis were unconvinced.

Sonoma County’s annual homelessness report, based on the results of a point-in-time count, reported a 5% increase in the overall homeless population, to an estimated 2,893 homeless residents, the first reported increase since the 2017 fires. It also noted a dramatic 43% increase in chronic homelessness since 2020.

The report found the number of homeless individuals dropped in Sebastopol from 129 in 2020 to 78 in 2022.

Both Dick and McLewis the city should lean on the county to do more.

“I would say that I think that Sebastopol has been overperforming and that the county has been underperforming and I would like to see the county doing more,” said McLewis.

Dick said he would like to see more data illustrating the impact of local services in addressing homelessness.

“There are no key performance indicators for success or failures of various famous efforts in the city of Sebastopol and certainly not in the county,” said Dick.

You can reach Staff Writer Emma Murphy at 707-521-5228 or emma.murphy@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MurphReports.