Natalie Rogers becomes first Black woman elected to Santa Rosa City Council

Seventeen days after the Nov. 3 election, the last, undecided race in Sonoma County was resolved, and the result made history.

In her first run for office of any kind, Natalie Rogers won a seat on the Santa Rosa City Council. In so doing, the 39-year-old marriage and family therapist became the first Black woman to serve on that body.

Describing herself as “ecstatic” to break that barrier, Rogers expressed the hope that her victory will lead to “more diversity on boards and commissions” all over Sonoma County. She also vowed to mentor “young people and other people who may want to run for office.”

Running to represent the city’s newly formed District 7, which covers parts of west and southwest Santa Rosa, Rogers received 4,593 votes — 200 more than runner-up Eric Christensen, a local business owner who lives near the Joe Rodota Trail and vowed, if elected, to work aggressively to solve the city’s homelessness problem.

As of Saturday, only two more votes remain to be reviewed, said Deva Marie Proto, the county’s clerk, recorder and registrar of voters. That straggling pair of ballots — which had been dropped off in the wrong county, she said, and were being forwarded to her office — would not change the outcome of the District 7 race. All of the county’s races and measures have now been decided, even though the election won’t be certified until at least Monday, she said.

The county’s turnout percentage for this election — just over 90% — was exceptionally high, Proto said, but not a record. Some 93% of the county’s registered voters turned out for the 2008 election.

While waiting 2½ weeks to learn whether she’d won or lost did cause her added anxiety, said Rogers, she had no problem with the delay. To her, it proved the process was working.

“I loved that it was close, that me and Eric got there and shared our messages and let the people decide. It was democracy at its finest.”

Christensen did not respond to a request for comment.

Rogers grew up in Marin County, living for a time in public housing with her mother, a maintenance worker, and father, a unionized operating engineer, according to her campaign website. The death of her stepsister by suicide and her family’s response to the tragedy when Natalie was 15 inspired her to pursue an undergraduate degree in psychology at Sonoma State University.

After several years working in Texas, she moved to Santa Rosa and bought a home while working three jobs after the end of her first marriage. After earning her master’s degree and marriage and family therapy license, she opened a private practice and also works for the County of Sonoma. She remarried in 2017.

For several years, Rogers has been a member of her union’s bargaining team. In September of 2019, she attended a two-day candidates and campaign training program in Santa Rosa, hosted by the North Bay Labor Council, for people considering running for political office.

Among the program’s speakers was Santa Rosa Vice Mayor Victoria Fleming, whom Rogers sought out. Knowing that Fleming was a mother who worked a full-time job in addition to her duties on the City Council, Rogers asked her, “How do you juggle all this?“

“And I told her,” recalled Fleming, “Well, we work a lot.”

From the beginning, Fleming was impressed by Rogers. “Here was someone who already had a lot on her plate, asking, ’Hey, how can I do more for my community?’”

Fleming wants to see more working parents on the council, which was one of the reasons she encouraged Rogers to run. With Rogers’ help, she hopes to “do things like pass affordable child care initiatives, and hopefully get to a point where council members are compensated for the amount of work they do.”

Santa Rosa city council members receive $800 a month, plus benefits. While Rogers’ key issues are affordable housing, homelessness, police reform and reviving a pandemic-battered economy, she does intend to advocate for higher pay for City Council members.

One of the reasons the City Council has lacked diversity, it has been argued, is the fact that it pays so little. The nominal compensation “eliminates a lot of people that would otherwise be able to run, but can’t,” said Rogers. “That is something I want to see changed.”

Were it not for her husband, Aundray, she said, she would not be in a financial position to serve on the council. That’s why the first thing she did, upon getting the news Friday, was to thank him and the eight children in their blended family.

She expressed gratitude to them “for giving up their weekends, passing out literature, just hanging in there with me.”

“This is just the beginning of the journey,” she told them. “Now the hard work starts.”

You can reach Staff Writer Austin Murphy at 707-521-5214 or austin.murphy@pressdemocrat.com or on Twitter @ausmurph88.