Former state legislator Noreen Evans enters race for Sonoma County supervisor

Former state Sen. Noreen Evans has entered the race for 5th District Sonoma County supervisor, a highly anticipated move by a political heavyweight vying for the west county seat held by Efren Carrillo.

Evans, 60, who last month moved into the district, to Sebastopol - and out of her home in eastern Santa Rosa - is the second candidate to enter the race, with Carrillo still declining to say publicly whether or not he plans to run.

Evans’ move comes after she chose in early 2014 not to seek re-election to the state Senate, where she represented the North Coast for four years. Previously, she served six years in the Assembly before being termed out.

In leaving the Legislature, Evans, an attorney, signaled her wish to resume private law practice. She returned home last year after a tenure in Sacramento highlighted by her legislation staking out mortgage rights for homeowners, advocacy for parks and coastal protection and her ascent into leadership roles in the Senate.

But her time in the Legislature also was marked by public comments that suggested she was disenchanted with elected office, and early into her Senate term she applied for an appointment as a judge on the California Court of Appeal.

Evans, a Democrat, who previously served on the Santa Rosa City Council, said her passion for local politics has driven her bid for county office.

“Sonoma County needs some strong and principled leadership … I feel like I did some pretty important things in the state Legislature, but I got homesick and decided I’d rather be home running for supervisor,” Evans said. “Local government allows me to be involved with people and engage with them on a daily basis on the issues they care about and have a direct impact. That’s what I really love.”

Lynda Hopkins, 32, a Forestville resident and independent farmer, announced her bid for Carrillo’s seat nearly two months ago.

Carrillo, 34, has faced waning political support in the aftermath of two alcohol-fueled arrests since 2012. Last week, he was unanimously elected by his board colleagues as chairman, but he continues to be silent on whether he will to run for re-election.

Evans’ decision to enter the race, meanwhile, already has helped shape the June 2016 primary, just five months away. Three people who previously were considering a run said Tuesday they were no longer doing so. No longer weighing a run are Dennis Rosatti, executive director of Sonoma County Conservation Action, the county’s largest environmental organization, and Rue Furch, a longtime county planning commissioner who lost to Carrillo in 2008. Both Rosatti and Furch share political allies with Evans, who enjoys strong support among environmental groups.

Tawny Tesconi, the former Sonoma County Fair manager and recently retired General Services director, also said Tuesday that she would not seek the west county supervisor seat.

“I’ve decided my passion is with the fair industry,” Tesconi said.

One potential rival for Evans is Eric Koenigshofer, an Occidental attorney who represents the Ratto Group, the county’s dominant garbage hauler. Koenigshofer, 65, a close Carrillo adviser who represented the 5th District on the Board of Supervisors 35 years ago, said he is serious about running for the job if Carrillo doesn’t.

“If Efren is not in, I’m running,” said Koenigshofer, criticizing Evans’ recent move to Sebastopol, a relocation that allows her to run for the 5th District seat. “I believe the person who represents the 5th, with all these little towns and villages and communities, should be deeply rooted in the district so they have the ability to capture the pulse of these places. …People who know the area are better suited to provide the kind of attention and representation that is most beneficial to these rural parts of the county.”

The filing deadline for candidates to formally declare is in March.

Two other supervisors up for re-election, Shirlee Zane and Susan Gorin, already have launched their campaigns and begun raising money.

Evans was first elected to the Santa Rosa City Council in 1996, and in 2000 she ran unsuccessfully for county supervisor against then-incumbent Tim Smith. She was elected to the state Assembly in 2004 and served until 2010, when she won election to the state Senate.

She stirred a minor uproar among critics in 2011 when, in protest of losing her taxpayer-funded car, she suggested that she would resort to hot air balloons, llamas and other unconventional modes of travel to visit residents of her sprawling North Coast district, stretching from Sonoma County to the Oregon border. Evans said at the time that she was trying to be funny and poke fun at the decision made by a state commission on state-funded cars for legislators. Evans said the move would cost her about $1,000 a month but would ultimately hurt voters.

In early 2014, two months after being stripped of her leadership post on the influential Senate Judiciary Committee in a dispute with Senate leader Darrell Steinberg, Evans signaled she would not run for re-election. In May 2014, however, she was appointed chairwoman of the Senate’s Banking and Financial Institutions Committee, giving her a powerful platform to push a consumer advocacy agenda in her final year in office.

On Tuesday, Evans did not address the demands of her previous office and said only that she wanted to return to local politics.

“There is a real big difference in working in the capital, where you’re working on broader issues, and working in local government, where you can have a direct impact on the lives of people,” she said. “That’s why I’m excited to be running for supervisor. I’m working on getting as much support as I can, I’m looking for endorsements and volunteers, and I’m ready to start raising money and knocking on doors.”

Carrillo and others have questioned Evans’ move into the district, saying she has simply been “shopping for political office” since she left the Legislature last January.

“With nearly 100,000 people who live in the 5th District, I believe there are plenty of other viable candidates who could serve,” Carrillo said Tuesday. “I believe that voters, especially those in the smaller hamlets and villages of west county and those in Roseland, are going to care where their supervisor is from. … To think that she knows the district already because she served in the state Senate, I think is an entitled position.”

Evans two years ago was the highest-ranking elected official to call on Carrillo to resign in the wake of his acquittal on a charge of attempting to peek into a female neighbor’s apartment. Carrillo was arrested in July 2013 in the pre-dawn hours outside the woman’s home wearing only his socks and underwear.

Evans on Tuesday touted her 20-year voting record at the state and local level. She championed issues she contends she can be strong on, including creation of affordable housing, addressing homelessness, protecting open space and upkeep of roads and public infrastructure.

“I’ve lived here for 34 years, I raised three kids here, and I’ve got the experience on the issues that I have worked on for many years,” she said.

David McCuan, a Sonoma State University political scientist, said the 5th District race could become the most expensive in the county’s history. He cited Evans’ name recognition, a potential high-stakes political matchup between Evans and Koenigshofer and the possible influx of campaign money from across the state.

“Noreen Evans elevates the race,” McCuan said. “It could beat the (James Gore and Deb Fudge) spending record, and it steers the direction of the board into the future.”

McCuan also argued that Evans’ political ambitions could be buoyed by the influence county supervisors have on local politics, as well as other perks of the job.

Base pay for county supervisors is nearly $142,000 per year - more than $50,000 higher than the starting salary in the state Legislature, where office holders, unlike county supervisors, do not receive pensions.

Evans, who announced her supervisorial bid on the KSRO radio show “The Drive with Steve Jaxon” Tuesday night, said she’s re-hired her longtime San Francisco-based campaign manager, John Whitehurst. She currently is working as an attorney with the Santa Rosa-based firm of O’Brien, Watters & Davis. She said she plans to continue legal work throughout her campaign.

Some groups have already thrown their support behind Evans.

“We’re very pleased Noreen is entering the race,” said Jack Buckhorn, president of the North Bay Labor Council. “We feel that she will be strong on issues labor is very concerned about.”

You can reach Staff Writer Angela Hart at 526-8503 or angela.hart@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @ahartreports.