Paul Erickson, former Sonoma County GOP chair, candidate for Congress, dies at 77

Paul Erickson, a happily transplanted New Yorker who sank roots in Sonoma County more than 40 years ago and whose fascination with politics led him to twice run for Congress, has died.

A former chair of the Republican Party in Sonoma County, Erickson worked in real estate sales before switching to land appraisal. He ran against popular and firmly established Democratic Rep. Lynn Woolsey in 2002 and 2004.

Woolsey defeated Erickson handily both times. But Erickson expressed some satisfaction that at least the incumbent hadn’t run unopposed.

Erickson died Jan. 19 after suffering heart failure while undergoing treatment for COVID-19. He was 77.

“He was a loud, funny, jovial man,” said daughter Lara Jean Erickson of San Francisco. She said that in addition to all that her dad did in business and politics, he sang with verve and “was an incredible piano player. He never looked at sheet music.”

Paul L. Erickson was born Aug. 11, 1943, in the village of Cedarhurst on New York State’s Long Island. His interest in politics showed itself early on. He was a student officer in grade school and was elected student body president at Lycoming College in Pennsylvania, where he earned a degree in economics in 1965.

At age 23, in early 1967, Erickson was drafted into the U.S. Army and sent to Vietnam. Upon his honorable discharge in the summer of 1968, he returned to New York and went to work as a claims representative for Aetna Casualty.

He moved a short time later to real estate sales, and in 1972 opened his own real estate office in New York City.

Lara Erickson said her father visited California in 1975 and was keen to see Santa Rosa because he’d caught glimpses of it in the 1943 Alfred Hitchcock film, “Shadow of a Doubt.” He liked what he saw of Sonoma County’s redwoods and rivers, beaches, hills and other attributes.

Not long after that trip, he met fellow New Yorker Dororthy Peltzer. They married in October 1977 and came to agree that Sonoma County was the place to be.

As newcomers to California, they started a family and Paul Erickson went to work as a real estate agent. He opened a brokerage office in Santa Rosa in 1982 and four years later founded Paul Erickson Real Estate Appraisals.

He became active in the local Republican Party and then waged the two election campaigns against Petaluma resident Woolsey. The incumbent prevailed both times by large margins and continued to go undefeated until, after 20 years in the House, she retired in 2012.

For years, Erickson was active on the Sonoma County Republican Central Committee and in the Mark West Chamber of Commerce, Sonoma County Board of Realtors and Sonoma County Multiple Listing Service.

He was a stalwart, too, of the choir at the First Presbyterian Church of Santa Rosa and, noted his daughter, was “excited about the singing Christmas tree every year.”

In addition to his wife in Santa Rosa and his daughter in San Francisco, Erickson is survived by daughter Bethany Joy-Alise McNally of Santa Rosa, sons Bradley David Erickson of San Francisco and Tyler Vincent Erickson of Long Island, and four grandchildren.

You can contact Chris Smith at 707 4521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.