With all precinct votes tallied and an unknown number of mail-in ballots left to count, the two open Cloverdale City Council seats are projected to go to Todd Lands and incumbent Melanie Bagby.
As of the latest update from the Sonoma County Registrar of Voters on Wednesday afternoon, Lands was leading the race with 1,491 (27.28%) votes and Bagby had 1,253 (22.93%) votes.
Trailing behind them is Jenny Candelaria-Orr with 1,045 (19.12%) votes, incumbent Mary Ann Brigham with 1,038 (18.99%) votes and Nicole Garcia-Hinchliffe with 638 (11.67%) votes.
While the deadline for the registrar to certify votes is Dec. 3, both Lands and Bagby said they’re feeling optimistic about their positions.
“I remember in the 2016 election, the third and fourth place flipped after it was certified,” Bagby said. “You have to be cautiously optimistic. It looks good, but I know it’s not final until Deva Marie (Proto, the Clerk-Recorder-Assessor and Registrar of Voters) says it’s final.”
Bagby has been on the council for four years and owns an IT consulting company. She’s a Sonoma County native and, according to the city of Cloverdale’s website, has lived in Cloverdale for 17 years. Prior to being elected to the council in 2016, she served on the city’s planning commission for eight years.
While Lands is new to the council, he’s been a representative on the Cloverdale Unified School District Board of Trustees for the past eight years and is a third-generation Cloverdale resident, as well as a local business owner. He started Todd Lands Construction, based out of Cloverdale eight years ago after being employed for 11 years at the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office.
“I’m excited for the change, to step up from the school board to the city. I feel like the voters took the opportunity to make it clear who they wanted to lead their city and I’m very thankful for their support,” Lands said.
Looking forward, Lands said his priorities are primarily focused around the city budget and hammering out what city growth looks like.
“My goals are to accomplish maintaining a stable budget — I want to look into the reason for the water rate hikes and what that will accomplish for us in the future. I want to look at our current plan for growth and our growth boundaries and how that affects or will affect us in the future, and I want to look at business versus residential growth to see how we can be more self-sufficient,” Lands said.
He’s also hoping to help quell some of the tension between the Cloverdale Unified School District and the city — something he says has gotten worse in the past year and a half.
“We’ve had major issues with the completion of projects and working together. It costs everyone money and, in a small town of mainly low to middle income, you don’t have extra money to spend for attorneys and things along those lines. Working together is an ultimate goal of mine and one of the reasons why I wanted to be on the city council,” he said.
For Bagby, her focus is on finding ways to help with economic recovery in the wake of COVID-19. Included in that, she said, is trying to seek appointment to the Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) Board of Directors. Cloverdale had representation on the board when Carol Russell was on the council, but lost its seat when Russell decided not to seek re-election in 2018. The spot then went to Healdsburg Councilmember Joe Naujokas. Naujokas didn’t seek re-election this year, so the seat will be up for grabs once again.
If Cloverdale were to secure a seat on the board, Bagby said that it wouldn’t only increase the likelihood of SMART coming to Cloverdale, it would also help increase the likelihood that Cloverdale could take advantage of the fiber optic system that SMART uses in partnership with Sonic, which would help Cloverdale get high-speed internet.
“I think that fiber backbone is really overlooked when we’re talking about the importance of getting SMART here. I think that’s really important that we bring that here so Cloverdale can be a 21st Century economy,” she said.
When examining Cloverdale, Bagby also said that the city needs to address its issues with infrastructure and deferred maintenance.
“I’ve worked really hard to lead on fiscal responsibility, and I think the water and sewer rate issue is going to be a big issue. It’s an example of the deferred maintenance that the previous council has really kicked down the road,” she said.
Continuing to defer maintenance on city infrastructure has led to mounting costs to Cloverdale citizens — such as the current proposed water rate hikes — which are partially the result of the city having to spend millions of dollars on water system repairs in the coming years.
“I’ve been sitting in council meetings for many, many years listening to two previous city engineers talk about the need to improve our infrastructure … I’ve watched as the council did not swing at the pitch,” she continued. “I’ve been beating the infrastructure drum since I was elected in 2016 and we cannot afford to (continue this) any longer.”
“We need to start getting real about our infrastructure and being honest with people, and get information out more effectively to the community,” Bagby said.
In his projected win, Lands is taking the seat of longtime council member Mary Ann Brigham, who has served a total of 18 years on the council.
“I’d like to thank Mary Ann Brigham for all the years she’s put in and all the hard work she’s done for our town and that she’ll be greatly missed,” Lands said. “Thank you to all the people who voted for me and are trusting me to make decisions for the city and I hope that I can do the best for them that I can.”
