Rohnert Park mayor looks to build on council’s progress in 2022

For Rohnert Park Mayor Jackie Elward, the motivation to run for a seat on the Rohnert Park City Council in 2018 was simple: showing her children, as well as other Black and immigrant residents like herself, that they were represented in the city’s government.

While her bid that year failed, she hoped her increased presence in the community paired with her desire to bring more voices to the city council would be enough to unseat six-term Rohnert Park City Councilman Jake Mackenzie in the November 2020 election, she said.

Nearly 57% of the voters in the city’s District 4 race would go on to mark her name on the ballot in that race, leading to Elward’s milestone appointment to the city council, which had never before had a Black woman among its ranks.

Elward made history again last month, when she replaced then-Mayor Gerard Giudice at the center of the Rohnert Park City Council dais, from where she’ll lead Sonoma County’s third largest city as its new mayor in 2022.

While it isn’t the first time the city has had a mayor who is Black, a woman or an immigrant, “I do get the honor to be the first (mayor) to be all three,” Elward, who grew up in the Democratic Republic of Congo, said.

The appointment, which was made in a unanimous vote by the City Council late last month and took effect Dec. 14, was one she took a moment to savor.

“We came together because something historical just took place in this chamber,” Elward said during the Dec. 14 City Council meeting moments after a packed chamber gave her a standing ovation.

In an interview last week, Elward said she sees her term as mayor as an opportunity to build on the steam the City Council generated this past year despite the majority of the council’s seats being made up of first-term members like herself.

Her priorities for the new year include making progress on the city’s long-standing goal of building a downtown core to following through on a series of police accountability measures approved by the Rohnert Park City Council in August, some of which have already started to take shape.

At the top of her list of priorities is the completion of an interim housing facility for the city’s homeless population, a project that last week was awarded a $14.6 million grant from the state’s Homekey program.

The 60-unit project is slotted for a city-owned lot on Labath Avenue less than a mile south of the Graton Resort and Casino.

“Housing is the key to many things, and for our city to do anything, we need a place to house our brothers and sisters,” Elward said. “This is a huge win for our town.”

Rohnert Park Councilman Willy Linares, who succeeded Elward as the city’s vice mayor and was one of three newcomers elected onto the Rohnert Park City Council in 2019, said he was proud to hold a leadership position alongside Elward.

He applauded her inquisitiveness during city council meetings, as well as the composure she maintained during heated public debate in early 2021 over the city’s fireworks ban. A topic that was at the center of a racist call Elward received in early March from an anonymous caller who told her to “go back to Africa” and hurled racist slurs.

“She’s a very passionate person and is caring, so with those two things combined, she ultimately has her residents at heart in everything she does,” Linares said.

In their first remarks as mayor and vice mayor during the Dec. 14 meeting, both Elward and Linares highlighted a desire to make progress on the formation of a downtown core in the city, though a project that promised to do just that appears to be in limbo.

Laulima Development, a San Francisco firm that was given the green light in 2018 to build a $400 million commercial and residential square in the heart of the city, has notified Rohnert Park officials that it intends to sell the 32-acre property where the project was supposed to be built, Assistant City Manager Don Schwartz said.

Elward on Monday said she had not previously heard about the owner’s plan to sell the property, though she said she hoped the change would help the city get a step closer to building a downtown core.

“Our constituents have been wanting this for so long, we’ve been waiting for a downtown,” Elward said. “We will do whatever we can to bring that wish to our constituents.”

Continued progress on a set of police accountability measures approved by the city in August, which include the hiring of an independent auditor to review public complaints against officers, as well as expanding officers’ training beyond what’s required by state law, was also on her radar, Elward said.

So far, Rohnert Park officers have undergone crisis communication, conflict resolution and use of force trainings this year, according to Rohnert Park Department of Public Safety Director Tim Mattos. A training manager with the department is also attending classes related to the LGBTQ+ community in Napa, he added.

Among the courses planned for the city’s officers next year include classes on cultural awareness, he said.

“We have to think outside the box,” Mattos said. “We try to bring training in that tries to recognize biases and how to deal with them.”

Rohnert Park City Attorney Michelle Marchetta Kenyon should have an update for the City Council on the next steps for hiring the city’s independent police auditor in late January, though he did not have additional details about what she’ll present.

Attempts to reach Kenyon, who was said to be out of the office, by phone on Monday and Tuesday for comment were not returned.

Mattos said he hoped 2022 would bring about the expansion of the department’s SAFE team, which sends civilian workers to mental health, homeless and other crisis calls that would otherwise be answered by his officers. Currently, the team operates 12 hours a day, though Mattos said an-18 hour service period was his goal.

Elward touted the group’s efforts so far.

“We actually have professionals that are going out there and are working with our unhoused people and giving the people the care that they need without escalation,” Elward said. “That to me is so important.”

You can reach Staff Writer Nashelly Chavez at 707-521-5203 or nashelly.chavez@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @nashellytweets.