Victoria Fleming elected to Santa Rosa City Council in close race

Victoria Fleming prevailed Monday in her campaign to become the newest member of the Santa Rosa City Council, defeating two other candidates in the final vote count released four weeks after Nov. 6 election.

Fleming, a clinical social worker, received 4,863 votes, or 45.1 percent, to win the District 4 seat representing north Santa Rosa in the city’s first round of district elections. Dorothy Beattie, a financial consultant, got 4,196 votes, or 38.9 percent, and Mary Watts, deputy director of Community Action Partnership of Sonoma County, got a total of 1,713 votes, or 15.9 percent, in final election results published Monday by the county Registrar of Voters.

“I’m very happy,” said Fleming, who previously led by fewer than 200 votes in the preliminary batch of results. “My initial plans are to continue to study up and learn as much as I can from my fellow City Council members and the tremendous wealth of knowledge that the city staff possess and the many engaged community members.”

Fleming reiterated that her platform included working on homelessness, housing and workforce development issues.

She said she was interested in looking at municipal banking systems and improving, incentivizing and supporting access to affordable child care.

Beattie extended congratulations to Fleming and said she had been planning to be active in public policy regardless the outcome of the election. Specifically, Beattie said she wants to work to connect progressive factions and business interests that can be at odds on issues such as homelessness and housing.

“There’s just so much contention, and we have to get past the contention,” she said.

Fleming will be the lone new face on the council. Mayor Chris Coursey is departing this month after serving a single four-year council term, including two years as mayor. Returning to the council are Councilmen John Sawyer and Tom Schwedhelm.

Sawyer won his fourth City Council term by prevailing over former Councilman Lee Pierce. Now representing southeast Santa Rosa’s District 2, Sawyer received 5,991 votes to surpass Pierce’s 4,539 votes.

Schwedhelm ran unopposed to capture the District 6 seat that represents northwest Santa Rosa. He received 96.4 percent of the votes, with 205 of 5,753 voters writing in a candidate.