In a letter sent to SoCoNews and posted to Facebook on Monday, Evan Kubota, one of three candidates in Windsor’s April special election to fill a long-vacant fifth town council seat, announced he will officially withdraw his candidacy in support of candidate Mike Wall.
“After consulting with my supporters, family, and in the best interest of the Town of Windsor, I have made the decision to withdraw from the council race and support Mike Wall for the April 2022 election,” Kubota’s letter reads. “I have spoken with Mike since we initially pulled our nomination papers and recognize that we share positions and values for the decisions currently facing the city. Should I have stayed in the race, (Wall) and I could have effectively split the voters and risked losing to a candidate who we know must not win.”
That candidate in question, of course, is current Windsor Unified School District (WUSD) Trustee Stephanie Ahmad, who Kubota and Wall have criticized for her “moderate” position on the controversial Civic Center project they both adamantly oppose.
The Civic Center project would involve a complex public-private relationship with the Robert Green Company, the developer behind the Montage Hotel in Healdsburg, and would see a hotel and business and convention center on the north part of the Town Green, where the town’s Civic Center complex, including town offices, the police station, the Huerta Gymnasium, Sonoma County Library and the WUSD district offices are currently housed.
Green would purchase the land and gift it back to the Town of Windsor, who would lease it back to him, with funds from rent, transient occupancy tax (TOT) and increased sales tax ultimately going, in part, towards the construction of a new Civic Center complex to replace aging and increasingly cramped buildings now in use. The project has been maligned by many in the community, who distrust Green and fear that development plans would change the character of the Windsor Town Green — some even saying it would constitute as the “sale” of the Town Green.
Local officials, members of the public, candidates Wall and Kubota and media outlets including SoCoNews have raised the importance of the Civic Center issue in the context of the special election, as a vote on whether to continue the exclusive negotiating agreement (ENA) with the Robert Green Company has effectively been delayed until after the election, when the incoming fifth council member could break or seal a 2-1 deadlock, with one council member abstaining.
The focus on the Civic Center issue in SoCoNews’ reporting is because of the short length of the fifth council member’s term, which will begin in May and end in December, and the immediacy of this decision, which was delayed specifically so that the winning candidate could weigh in.
“My energy, and that of my supporters, is best focused on making sure that an anti-Green Company candidate is successful, so that we can protect the Town Green against predatory development. Mike Wall’s position is steadfastly against the extension of the exclusive negotiating agreement, and I am confident that he will represent my positions,” Kubota said, claiming the position is backed by an “overwhelming majority” of Windsor residents.
Kubota, who Wall said was now working as part of his informal election committee, including Mayor Sam Salmon, Councilmember Rosa Reynoza, former Planning Commissioner Don Albini and Wall’s sister Jennifer Wall, said he will be working to “educate the voters of Stephanie Ahmad’s dangerous support of the ENA extension.”
Nov. 21 letter from Stephanie Ahmad to Windsor Town Council
In a four-page Nov. 21 letter to the town council, Ahmad expressed support for continuing the ENA and considering options with the Robert Green Company, arguing, as a private citizen and not as president of the school board, that it could be good for the town and economy. Ahmad told SoCoNews that the school board supports the project out of need for new district offices.
“If I were in your shoes, I would vote to extend the (ENA) with the Robert Green Company until the town has full representation (five seats) on the council and work in the meantime to move the project forward. If you want to retain a high degree of control and make sure certain aspects of the town are protected, you can and should do that. I believe this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity that is unlikely to present itself again, and it should be given serious consideration,” Ahmad’s letter reads.
Since she began her campaign, Ahmad has said her potential vote on the ENA would be conditional on gathering more information and talking to the community, and she has said on her website that she would vote no on the ENA unless Green agreed to certain conditions.
“The question that’s been asked is whether I support the Civic Center Project as currently proposed,” Ahmad says on her website. “If I were to vote on the project today, I would vote no.”
Ahmad and Wall on Kubota’s withdrawal and their campaigns
Candidate Ahmad, speaking to SoCoNews on Tuesday, said that while she has stated she is open-minded to continuing negotiations with the Robert Green Company in order to get more information, this would not mean the town would decide to adopt the current proposal, or even continue working with Green — only keep the option open. Beneath the controversy, she said there are important needs the project aims to address. She is open to addressing those needs in other ways, but she doesn’t think the Robert Green Company option should necessarily be thrown out without careful consideration.
“There are several different goals happening in the Town Green area — aging municipal buildings, recreational buildings, school district offices and the police department building is too small — so we really need a plan of what we’re going to do in the next 20-30 years. I think what’s happened is they’ve all been combined into one project, and the plan right now is connected to this hotel development, but it doesn’t have to be. We can separate it,” Ahmad said.
She acknowledges that the Robert Green proposal is risky, and her website contains alternatives the town could explore, such as issuing bonds to fund a joint municipal building and a new police station or approaching owners of buildings that could be sold to the town and district for use as offices.
While the project has received attention and ire on certain local online groups and among organized Windsor insiders, Ahmad said, it is not the only issue on voters’ radars. She said she has been canvassing door-to-door, in a COVID-safe manner, and meeting with residents to discuss what’s on their minds, including and not including the Civic Center project.
On her website, Ahmad raises other priorities in her platform, alongside her stated view on the Civic Center project, including tackling the projected structural budget deficit, to be discussed at the Feb. 16 council meeting, and hiring a permanent town manager to succeed Interim Town Manager Mark Linder. She also highlights housing affordability, investment in infrastructure, the well-being of the workforce and local businesses, community safety and preserving Windsor’s small-town character in her platform.
“Social media can be great in that it can magnify what needs attention, but it can also create a bit of an echo chamber,” Ahmad said.
Ahmad criticized what she called “demonizing language” in Kubota’s announcement, and defended her platform, which she said offered solutions to the problems raised.
“What I’m concerned about is the use of demonizing language, calling me dangerous and scaring voters. It’s this kind of demonizing language at the local and national levels that’s making people frustrated with government,” Ahman told SoCoNews. “Of all the candidates, I’ve shared my ideas quite extensively on my website and social media. I’m not hearing a lot of what other people are for. I’m going to be for things, because I want to get things done.”
Ahmad is an attorney and Windsor native who got into public service in 2018 when she was elected to the school board. She said her knowledge of the Windsor government is why she knows the issues behind the proposed Civic Center project must be addressed, as some of the public are unaware that town and district staff, including the police, are working in the facilities that will need to be replaced.
She said that she offers a collaborative leadership style that involves exploring all options and engaging anyone who could help, and said every current and past school board trustee she’s served with has endorsed her.
Candidate Mike Wall said of Kubota’s withdrawal that the pair had had several conversations since filing papers, and found that they shared the same values, including and outside the Civic Center issue. He said it really could have been either of them who stepped down, but his campaign had more momentum.
“Evan and I actually spoke a couple of times, and when it comes to the culture of Windsor and what we envision this town to be, we were very much alike. We’re trying to keep this a very friendly, safe town, and we’re adamant in our opposition to the Robert Green project,” Wall said.
“What we’re doing here with the campaign is a team effort. My role happens to be on the ballot,” Wall said about his campaign and its backers, now including Kubota. He said that although he has not served in public office, his team, including Salmon, Reynoza and Albini, are mentoring him politically.
Like Kubota’s, Wall’s campaign for the six-month term is built primarily around the Civic Center project. His Facebook page states no other issue other than his intent to vote against extending the ENA in May, while his campaign’s website says additionally he values Windsor’s family-oriented culture, supports responsible, risk-averse financial management and opposes affordable housing in-lieu fees for developers. Wall said, per Robert Green’s devices, the current proposal grew far from what the planning commission had envisioned through closed-door meetings between former mayor Dominic Foppoli and developer Robert Green.
“Robert Green and Dominic Foppoli — what could go wrong?” he said. Wall initially claimed that Green intended to put up a Montage-style hotel in Windsor for $800 per night. When SoCoNews questioned that claim, as Robert Green told the council in December that the hotel would be moderately priced to fit in with Windsor, Wall said he had been using “hyperbole.”
He then said, “The project is flawed for a variety of reasons. It’s the wrong project and the wrong developer. Robert Green seems to have a track record of environmental problems, being litigious with agencies he’s worked with and changing what he’s initially agreed to,” referring to problems with the Robert Green Company and environmental complaints levied at the Montage Hotel in Healdsburg.
Wall acknowledged the need for improved civic facilities, saying he was more concerned about the police department than the school district offices, and said, “I don’t think the answer when you have a need is to grasp at the first solution. Just because we have a need doesn’t mean the first solution is the right one. We need to work with the community in an open and transparent way.”
He said a new space for the WPD would mean the council would “plan, budget, prioritize, save and sacrifice to pay for it responsibly — we don’t sell out to a developer for a short-term risky fix that compromises our town center.”
Regarding Kubota’s language, Wall said, “I think (Kubota) is extremely well intentioned and passionate about the future of the town. ‘Dangerous’ is not the word I would have used.” He said he and Ahmad met and agreed to run a respectful, “neighborly” campaign. She said they agreed to run a “collegial and ideas-focused campaign.”
But Wall criticized what he believes is Ahmad’s stance on the Civic Center, saying “I think (Ahmad) supports the project. There are very long explanations she has out there, but she went on record in a letter to the town council. Anyone who reads that letter can be fairly confident she wants to advance this project.”
As mentioned above, Ahmad has since said publicly that she will vote against the ENA unless Green offers a good faith agreement to conditions.
Other issues the fifth council member could play a part in deciding are the question of the at-large mayoral selection process, the projected long-range structural deficit and selecting a permanent replacement for former town manager Ken MacNab.
Should the special election victor wish to remain in office longer than the current term, he or she will have to run for an open district seat or the at-large mayoral seat in the November general municipal election.
