Infrastructure, climate change dominate 1st District Sonoma County supervisor race between Rebecca Hermosillo and Jon Mathieu

Climate change, Highway 37 and a puzzling reference to flying cars have colored the contested race for Sonoma County’s 1st District supervisor seat.

The race is guaranteed to bring a new face to the five-member board responsible for leading county government, overseeing its 4,300-member workforce and setting county policy. Supervisor Susan Gorin, who has represented Sonoma Valley and eastern Santa Rosa on the board since 2011, opted not to run for a fourth term.

She has endorsed Rebecca Hermosillo, a senior district representative for Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena. She lives in The Springs area north of Sonoma.

Hermosillo, 52, is running against Jon Mathieu, 70, a retired building contractor and political newcomer who lives in east Sonoma.

They are vying to represent a district confronted by widespread infrastructure needs, depleted groundwater, rising demand for affordable housing and an evolving discussion about annexing some unincorporated areas, including The Springs, into the city of Sonoma.

“The social fabric is changing,” said Gorin, a former Santa Rosa mayor and Oakmont resident. “And even though economists say happy days are here again, inflation is low, employment is high, we have many people struggling to survive.”

Sonoma County’s 1st District includes 97,853 residents and encompasses Kenwood, Agua Caliente, Glen Ellen, Boyes Hot Springs, Schellville and the city of Sonoma, as well as Santa Rosa’s Bennett Valley, Rincon Valley and Oakmont neighborhoods.

Mail ballots went out to the district’s 50,676 registered voters starting Feb. 7 for the March 5 election, which includes only one other contested race for supervisor. In the 3rd District, which takes in downtown Santa Rosa, the Roseland and Moorland communities and all of Rohnert Park to the east, Supervisor Chris Coursey is up against Santa Rosa City Schools Board President Omar Medina.

In the 5th District, spanning west county, Supervisor Lynda Hopkins is seeking a third term and is unopposed.

Why they’re running

Both Hermosillo and Mathieu grew up in Sonoma Valley and tout their family roots in the region. Neither have held elected office before.

But this is where the candidates diverge.

Hermosillo, a registered Democrat, has spent just over a decade in California’s political world as district aide to Congressman Thompson, including her latest post running his Santa Rosa office. Her work has equipped Hermosillo with a strong network of local and state leaders evident in her campaign finance filings.

She started with Thompson in constituent services as a district representative and was promoted in late 2020 to senior district representative.

Prior to joining Thompson’s team, Hermosillo worked as executive director of the Valley of the Moon Teen Center, which offers programs and mentoring for Sonoma Valley teenagers.

Hermosillo, who grew up on the Leveroni Dairy, where her father was a milker, places a premium on constituent outreach.

Discussing issues facing the 1st District, she is careful to couch her policy views safely in the context of her conversations with would-be voters and area residents.

"That's how you identify problems and that's how you can find solutions,“ Hermosillo said.

Though such interactions are a fundamental part of local governance, supervisors must, at the end of the day, make up their own minds about policy decisions that affect not just their district but the county as a whole.

Hermosillo, the front runner in the race, said she is confident in her ability to make the transition from constituent liaison to elected leader.

“I have never shied away from doing background work, researching and then pushing forward suggestions on different issues,” Hermosillo said. “Because I've historically been constituent-service driven doesn't mean I can only be constituent-services driven.”

Hermosillo would be the first Latina to sit on the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors. Speaking Spanish as an elected official would bring “comfort” and improve access for Spanish-speaking constituents, “where they don't have to think about what to say in Spanish and then translate it in their head to something in English,” Hermosillo said.

Describing herself as a “consensus builder,” Hermosillo said she decided to run for the 1st District seat to "serve the community in a different capacity.“

Mathieu’s interest in elected office stems from his time spent in Mendocino County where, while growing up, he helped out on a family ranch and where he eventually moved and started a family.

Mathieu and his family moved back to Sonoma County in the early 1990s over concerns about his son’s safety and exposure to marijuana in Mendocino County. (He shared with The Press Democrat an experience of chaperoning his son’s fifth grade dance and walking into a bathroom that reeked of weed.)

While in Willits, Mathieu served as a volunteer firefighter for the Brooktrails Fire Department, where he became a captain. In 2022, he ran unsuccessfully for the Schell-Vista Fire District Board of Directors.

Mathieu, a registered Republican, who worked as a building contractor and managed a Yardbirds hardware store in Sonoma County, said he originally wanted to be a county supervisor in Mendocino County but realized he “could do good” in Sonoma County while researching the board last year.

Since entering the race four months ago, he said he’s personally handed out about 6,000 of his campaign flyers in face-to-face meetings with voters.

“I've just been inspired to run by a lot of good people and by a lot of legacy projects or issues that really need at least a voice,” Mathieu said.

The future and the past

Mathieu, in advancing some of his ideas for tackling the region’s biggest challenges, including infrastructure upgrades and climate change, is prone to big segues.

After a 1st District candidates forum, where he raised the prospect of flying cars as perhaps the next great leap in transportation, The Press Democrat asked him to return to the subject in a recent interview.

He began by referencing the state’s high speed rail project, which eventually is meant to connect lines serving San Francisco and Los Angeles through the Central Valley.

“It's gonna take a while. But as we look at Elon Musk and inventors and people that are putting things out and especially drones, by the time that bullet or speed train finishes, we may be at the point where we have flying cars. I don't think it's that far away.

“Of course you know, they laughed at Jules Verne … a lot of it did come true. So when I mentioned flying cars I was sitting there going, well guess what, it could happen, so it may be in that point. Then again, the emphasis, the infrastructure was a road going east and west. You got the train going north and south. How are we going to get to that train? We've got to open up these roads, and we're going to have stations and people's drop-offs and people are going to have to get on and off that train. That infrastructure is going to have to be considered in the long run.”

He also referenced the removal of historic statues across the nation to introduce his thoughts on the Sonoma Developmental Center property in Glen Ellen.

In the case of the historic statues, Mathieu was thinking of SDC’s history. He said any development there should preserve the campus’ beauty and history.

Mathieu said he has not reviewed the latest redevelopment proposal for the storied state campus but would like to see any future project preserve nature trails, replenish water supply and create housing, using at least some of the current buildings.

“All those little buildings there can house people,” Mathieu said. “So having that restored or some of the doors open to help people, I think that's a necessity.”

In February, Eldridge Renewal, a corporation formed last April, submitted its formal redevelopment application to Sonoma County that outlined plans for 930 housing units, open spaces and businesses including a 150-key boutique hotel and conference center.

Mathieu said he had not heard of Eldridge Renewal.

Hermosillo, who has tracked the discussion about SDC’s future more closely, criticized how the redevelopment project was rolled out.

County officials last month took particular issue with the developer’s plan for affordable housing as a share of overall housing as well as the location of the proposed hotel.

“People feel like they gave input that wasn't taken into account in what the draft proposal is now,” Hermosillo said. “And so we need to acknowledge that.”

She said more “work needs to be done” on the project.

Addressing infrastructure needs and climate change

Infrastructure upgrades are needed throughout the 1st District, and as it faces the impacts of historic groundwater depletion and the onslaught of more rampant wildfires, climate change has become inextricably woven into the topic.

Case in point: Highway 37, one of the main thoroughfares serving the district. It is plagued by traffic congestion and under increasing threat from rising sea levels.

For Hermosillo, the most feasible solutions for the beleaguered highway are the interim ones that cost less than the billions of dollars needed to build a fully elevated causeway between Novato and Vallejo. She pointed to changing how the traffic light operates at the intersection near Sears Point/Highway 121 as the kind of immediate relief she sees as needed.

She cited the importance of working with a wide range of stakeholders on such climate-driven projects, including environmental experts on Highway 37 and local nonprofits when tackling fire resiliency.

Mathieu said Highway 37 was “not designed well,” and tied the congestion problem to “environmentalists” who stood in the way of widening the route. As for solutions, Mathieu said he wants to see a longer, separate entrance constructed to connect traffic coming from Sonoma, which he said will likely require building an overpass for motorists.

Hermosillo and Mathieu are similarly split on Measure H, a proposed half-cent countywide sales tax on the March 5 ballot to bolster fire services throughout the county. If passed, it would be the largest of several countywide voter-approved sales tax hikes supporting public services.

It is expected to raise $60 million annually. The funds would be distributed between 29 Sonoma County fire entities to put toward various needs including hiring new firefighters, covering infrastructure upgrades at fire stations and investing in brush management programs.

Mathieu said he does not support the proposal because of the burden it would place on taxpayers, noting “there’s already money given to the fire departments.”

“They've got all the equipment, they’re already taken care of,” Mathieu said.

During a recent candidates forum hosted by the League of Women Voters of Sonoma County, Hermosillo said she supported the measure, citing the string of catastrophic wildfires in recent years that have tested and at times overwhelmed local and state fire resources.

“It’s important we make sure our fire stations are fully staffed and fully equipped,” Hermosillo said during the forum.

Campaign finance

Hermosillo has a long list of endorsements from local and state elected officials, and a well-financed campaign funded by donors representing local businesses, labor groups and wineries.

She has been endorsed by all five Sonoma County supervisors, all five Sonoma City Council members, Reps. Thompson and Jared Huffman, state Senate President Mike McGuire, a Healdsburg Democrat, state Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, Sonoma County Sheriff Eddie Engram and Sonoma County District Attorney Carla Rodriguez.

Hermosillo carried $93,134 in donated campaign funds into 2024. She reported $19,728 in total contributions in February and a $53,898 cash balance after expenses, according to the latest campaign finance reports.

Notable donors include Duff Bevill, the Healdsburg vineyard manager, former supervisor Efren Carillo, Salvador Cruz, co-owner of Santa Rosa's Fruta Ice Cream, Jackson Family Enterprises, Sonoma Raceway, labor groups representing Sonoma County law enforcement and billionaire financier and winery mogul Bill Foley.

Sonoma-based developer and lobbyist Darius Anderson, founder and chief executive office of Kenwood Investments, covered $3,500 in expenses for a fundraiser held in the first half of 2023. Anderson is managing partner of Sonoma Media Investments, owner of The Press Democrat.

Several political campaigns and political action committees have also contributed to Hermosillo’s campaign including campaigns on behalf of outgoing state Sen. Bill Dodd and Assemblywoman Aguilar-Curry; the Santa Rosa Chamber Business and Community PAC, which names Peter Rumble, Santa Rosa Metro Chamber's CEO, as its treasurer; and Sonoma Alliance for Vineyards and the Environment, which has donations from local vineyards, ranches and farms.

Mathieu reported much smaller donations in his filings. He carried over $959 from 2023 and reported $4,046 in total donations this year. As of mid-February his cash balance was $4,158 after expenses.

His donors include Lawrence Ornell, a Sonoma County Superior Court judge, Michael Larbre, owner of Michael Larbre Automotive in Sonoma, and Charles Lamp, a Napa County real estate agent.

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