Q&A with District 3 town council candidates

2020 marks the first year that Windsor will be participating in district elections, and the first district up for election this year is District 3, which is roughly the area around Jensen Lane on the east side of Highway 101.
There are two candidates for this seat. One is Debora Fudge, 64, who is currently a Windsor Town Councilmember and is a small business owner of Wine Country Preserves. The other is Jeffrey Leasure, 64, and insurance agency owner and tax consultant.
The Times is offering this Q&A to hope local residents gain insight into the candidates and their beliefs and plans. Both candidates were provided the same questions to answer in their own words and the same time frame in which to answer them. Answers have been edited for grammar and style, and in some cases for length.
A similar, separate article will be produced for the mayoral candidates.
What do you see as the top two issues facing the town at this time? How would you see solving each of those issues? Give concrete examples.
DF: I can’t narrow our top issues to two, but here are my top four at this moment in time:
1) Wildfires. Windsor has done a great deal since the 2017 Tubbs Fire to prepare emergency plans for wildfires (and earthquakes). Our new staff is trained, our fire district has been reorganized and combined with other districts which provides us more resources. Our Emergency Operations Center was relocated three times during the Kincade Fire and operated flawlessly in support of Windsor residents. Still, we continue to refine our emergency procedures and wildfire mitigation practices (reducing the vegetation load in and near Windsor) as we learn from each subsequent fire like the Glass Fire. We continue to evaluate and update our procedures.
2) COVID. The town continues to help our residents and small businesses survive the impacts of COVID closures through our Economic Development department and through work by the mayor and councilmembers and the Chamber of Commerce. We have done videos to highlight restaurants and other business with takeout and pickup orders. We’ve helped with advertising and with creative outdoor dining. We work closely with the county’s Department of Health so that we can open up — safely — as soon as possible. We continue to work to protect our residents from the spread of the disease, so that our numbers remain low and we can resume normal life as soon as possible.   
3) The Civic Center and completion of the Town Green. I continue to work on this project which, if done correctly, would provide us with a much needed bigger library, bigger police station and new town hall (our current town hall is a 1970’s remodeled junior high), all without asking residents for any tax dollar assistance at all. This project is not a done deal by any means. The proposal needs a thorough financial analysis, which is currently underway, to make sure that a ground lease of land that the town owns will pay for the civic center buildings. The project also needs a redesign so that it fits more with our small town character and ensures that the Town Green remains as a centerpiece for those who live here, not as a playground for visitors. Windsor’s small town character is one I helped to create, and one that I will preserve.
4) Affordable housing. We need to create more housing that is affordable by design, such as smaller cottages, attached units that fit well into neighborhoods and can look like single family homes for example, more accessory dwelling units, housing for first time homebuyers and those who would like to downsize. Windsor needs more diverse housing types than we now have. We have made some progress along these lines but have more work to do.
JL: Lack of transparency/communication and an ineffective planning process by the council. To work on communication, I would request that each agenda with highlighted critical projects be noticed using more current communication options like robocalls, email and that each district would have its own website dedicated to their concerns, allowing frequent polling and discussion of their concerns and priorities. Transparency would be resolved by requiring that all contributions received by a council member, whether voting on a project or not, be disclosed and campaign reform implemented, limiting contributions to $250 maximum per person.
The planning process for priorities has been focused on what town council members want themselves and not what the entire town needs and wants. This is clear in the lack of affordable housing by design completed by developers and the Town Center controversy. We shouldn’t be planning a partnership with a developer who has neglected our waterways and built no promised affordable housing.
Even our garbage contract is full of ways for the provider to pass along their cost to the taxpayers of Windsor. We need better vetting of vendors, consultants, developers and never sign a contract without peer review by outside attorneys, not just the town’s own attorney.
What strengths would you bring to the council?
DF: I have been on the council since 1996. I have a degree in city planning and have been a strong voice on council that has created our small town character. I have shared my knowledge with other councilmembers and planning commissioners (some of whom have done the same for me) to create what we have now: the downtown, Town Green, the newer neighborhoods, the beautiful Russian River Brewing company and Oliver’s. None of that just happened, we had to work with the developers to work on the designs to make sure they were of the high quality that Windsor demands. I have been on the SMART Board of Directors since 2005 and have worked hard to bring the train to Windsor. It will arrive in 2021. In these trying times, experience is needed now more than ever. With the unprecedented challenges we are facing, now was not the time for me to step down.  
JL: Planning and financial background, knowledge of public and private contracts and budgets and ownership and management of a successful business for 28 years.
Where will you need to grow or learn as a council member if elected?
DF: I continue to learn through conferences and through the experience of other cities about creative ways to keep Windsor, while still a growing town, a town designed with small town character. This doesn’t happen by accident -— the way everything is designed and built needs to add specifically to our small town character, not take away from it. I continue to build upon what I have already learned and look for opportunities to learn more.  
JL: I will work on creating economic diversity by studying other successful towns and implementing a new Economic Redevelopment Board for the town. I will also need to be an active listener by discussing our current organizational structure for town services to enable us to work with the staff to be most cost effective and eliminate the need for more buildings and personnel with the pension costs associated with it.
What’s the most important thing the town is doing that needs more support, from both the citizenry and the council? 
DF: We need more people to become involved, to pay attention to what is proposed, to tell us what they need or want, and to speak up. We hear from a small group of the same people, but not from the general population. There was a survey that said that over 90% of the people here loved Windsor. So, I expect that they don’t feel a need to comment or speak up. But, I really want to hear everyone’s voices, whether they think we are on the right track, or not. This is your town.
JL: We need to Shop Windsor, support all the wonderful business here and communicate what we want that’s not available: furniture, electric /hybrid car dealers, Costco and even an In-N-Out Burger?
Describe your process for making a decision on a complex issue.
DF: I rely on my experience. I read thoroughly everything that is put before the council. I listen to the public. I survey the people I know in Windsor who don’t speak up and don’t like to attend meetings to make sure I am on the right track. The people who speak up are not always in the majority. Then I always go with my gut in the end. If something doesn’t feel right or I’m having trouble with the decision, then moving forward is not the right thing to do.  
JL: First I read the staff report, then I walk the property if it’s a project. After that I poll the people involved and impacted by the decision so I will make an informed and balanced decision. If it’s a town-wide impact, I would poll each area of my district versus the town and represent their ideas and concerns.
Describe the impacts you are seeing from COVID-19 and what you would do to mitigate them. 
DF: I am very worried about the closure of small businesses in and around Windsor. I worry about people’s livelihoods and their ability to provide for their families. I do feel that most people here are obeying health rules and remaining healthy and not exposing the people around them. The best thing we can do is to follow county and state health rules, wear masks, not gather in large groups and keep our COVID numbers low so that we can open up and get our local economy back on track. Otherwise, we are only hurting our friends and neighbors and businesses in Windsor.  
JL:  I see COVID-19 as an opportunity for us to look at how this changes our delivery of services, how we should pursue new revenue sources, and how to engage the citizens of Windsor to create better local jobs where they can stay close to home, reducing car emissions. Businesses and revenue generation that fits with our small town character and provides a more sustainable future for our people and the environment. 
With fire season now part of the new normal, name a single action that you feel would have the most impact on mitigating the impacts of fire season on Windsor.
DF: We need to deal seriously with climate change. We can remove the leaves from our yards and make sure that Foothill Park has excess vegetation debris removed (that was done this spring with goats). But it’s really about climate change. This is really my number one issue. We are taking the lead in Windsor to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels. We are trying to lead by example as a town, and now we need to assist residents to do the same thing. Fires are not a local issue. They are now an issue in the entire Western US as well as elsewhere in the world. Extreme drought caused by years of climate change has caused explosive wildfires, four affecting us in just the past 36 months. I’m proud that the town just installed 5000 floating solar panels on our wastewater pond to offset fossil fuel use in our wastewater operations and corporation yard by 90%. I plan in the next four years to help Windsor residents, individually and collectively, do the same thing in ways they are able. It will take all of us taking these steps and leading the way to make the difference that we need to make. We can’t go on like this, and it’s not fair to our kids to make their world more difficult.  
JL: We should support a new volunteer organization that clears brush all spring long in our neighboring parks and forested areas. If the brush is not there, it cannot burn into our town and destroy our way of life. The way we manage it today will not work if we believe climate change is here for good. We are risking our brave firefighters’ and police officers’ lives by not managing the risk and that is not acceptable to me, no matter what the reasons.