2021 was a pivotal year in the history of Windsor, seeing the town face issues around political scandals, the need for development, the structure of the town council and its elections and, of course, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. 2022 stands to be just as pivotal a year.
SoCoNews recently spoke with two of the Windsor Town Council’s longest sitting council members to gain perspective on this past year, and see what’s on the horizon for the coming one.
Sam Salmon became mayor last summer, replacing Dominic Foppoli by appointment after he resigned over sexual misconduct allegations. He has been on the council since 1994. Debora Fudge, currently the only council member to have been elected to represent a specific geographical area, District 3, under the new by-district elections system, has been on the council since she was first elected in 1996.
Salmon and Fudge, although they don’t always agree, sometimes on critical issues, have been on the council alongside one another for 25 years.
The Foppoli Scandal
Windsor residents don’t need reminding of the scandal that rocked the town last spring, and which left a vacancy on the town council, resulting in deadlock on several important decisions.
In an interview with SoCoNews, Mayor Salmon said that Foppoli had been effective in his role as a representative prior to the scandals, although he sometimes blurred lines when interacting with the public.
Salmon said the months-long scandal damaged the community’s trust in local officials, and through the experience, he learned the importance of listening.
“What I learned? Listening is the answer. Respect the feelings of others. Keep true to your personal values. Represent the interests of your constituents,” Salmon said.
Fudge said the issue was difficult to absorb for her personally, and for the community.
“It is still too much to absorb. The community still needs so many answers, and so much healing — not to mention for the women involved. It still confounds me how much collateral damage one person can cause to so many. Windsor will rebound, but it will take time.”
Fudge said she found what she called “incorrect coverage” in the news media “extremely frustrating.” She said the claim that she took no action when an initial email was sent to the town while she was mayor in 2017 was not true, as she shared the letter with the town manager and the Windsor Police Department, who investigated the issue, finding there was not enough evidence to merit criminal charges.
District Elections
Neither Salmon nor Fudge have been fans of the district elections system the town adopted under threat of lawsuit alleging the at-large system marginalized minority voters. But the two disagree on the future of the at-large mayoral seat, which Salmon said could allow Windsor voters to vote more often under the new system, but which Fudge has argued leaves the council vulnerable to vacancies requiring special elections, such as it did in its first use in 2020, when Foppoli abandoned his council seat to assume the mayorship.
“District-based elections apparently are here to stay whether I agree with the concept that they provide benefits to those most disadvantaged or disenfranchised or not. I believe the town will have to wait and see the results. I have to admit that at this point I support our current four districts and an elected mayor with the council seats being four years and the mayor up for election every two years. This provides every voter a voice every two years for the mayor position and every four years for their district council member,” Salmon said.
Regarding district elections, Fudge said following a recent demographic report on voting trends in Windsor, which showed district elections were appropriate to avoid marginalizing minority groups, Fudge said she is at “at peace” with the district system. Even though Windsor residents will vote less often in the district system, they’ll vote for a representative from their neighborhood.
Still, she supports a rotating mayor appointed among the council itself over the at-large position used only once so far in 2020 to elect Foppoli to the seat. Fudge said the rotating mayor would make sure “the (mayoral) seat is not perceived as more powerful than it is.”
Whether Windsor returns to an appointed mayor will have to be decided by the voters, after the council approves a special election. However, the item faced 2-2 deadlock last year and a special election will likely only be called this year if the winner of this April’s special election supports the idea of a rotating mayor.
Growth and development
The State of California requires municipalities to plan and remove barriers for the development of a certain allotted number of new units in eight-year cycles, in a process known as the Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA). Windsor is unlikely to meet RHNA numbers for the cycle ending this year, and will be responsible for 994 new units — a 126% increase — over the next eight-year cycle beginning 2023. The long and short of it is the Town of Windsor must facilitate development, and a lot of it.
Fudge referenced Windsor’s population declining for the second straight year and the fact only 28 units were constructed per year over the past 10 years, leaving the town far behind its 1.5% projected growth, as evidence Windsor is failing to provide housing to community members wanting to live there, even though some would like to see Windsor’s growth remain slow. She highlighted the 387-unit Bell Village multifamily housing project starting downtown in the spring as something the town needs.
She also said she was happy to see the town’s success in facilitating the construction of affordable housing, something the state is applying increased pressure on municipalities to develop.
“I’m very proud we’ve produced so many affordable units in the past few years — that’s been a concentrated effort on our part. We must still work to provide housing for the ‘missing middle,’ as those are the units we do not have now in our mix,” Fudge said.
Salmon, who was first elected in 1994 for his slow-growth stance, agrees with the need for more development, however, he is still skeptical of certain projects, which he called sprawl “in the path of fire.”
He agreed with the need for affordable housing, and while optimistic about eventual compliance with state housing goals, said he was worried about changing state housing laws to which Windsor could have to adopt, some of which could affect local control.
“I am concerned with the changing (state) legislative agendas, and we can anticipate that in future years the directives will change, and Windsor will be placed at risk for planning sustainably and reasonably to meet our community’s needs.”
Going forward
In leaving 2021 behind, Fudge lamented the loss of Town Manager Ken MacNab and Community Development Director Jessica Jones, the departures of whom she attributed to the Foppoli scandal and its resultant effect on community relations, and said that with two fires and the pandemic as well, it’s been “a few extraordinarily difficult years.”
She found hope in recent kindness expressed at difficult council meetings: “Let’s continue that. 2022 should be all about kindness, understand, and really, love and peace toward one another. The hate and false accusations need to dissipate. I’m hopeful 2022 can bring back to us the stellar, kind, loving and grateful town we’ve always been. Let’s work on a new start together.”
Fudge said Windsor is going to have to address the Civic Center project this year. Whether to move forward with the controversial proposal from developer Robert Greene, which would see a hotel and other business bordering the town in exchange for a new Civic Center complex to house public agencies including the town, school district and police, will not change the fact that the town still needs new facilities.
Windsor will have to stabilize the town, continue to plan ahead, replace lost staff and creating an environment to keep “the remaining excellent employees” and work on regaining the town’s reputation as “the pearl on the necklace of Sonoma County.”
Salmon said the lowest point of 2021 was the distrust the Foppoli scandal caused among community members. “Low point was the notion at the time of the prior mayor’s accused unacceptable behavior, that many in our community lost their trust in their council to some degree. I hope some of the mistrust is now gone but it can always raise its head quickly.
Salmon said working on the budget and a potential structural deficit will be challenging this coming year. The Windsor Town Council will also have to find common ground with the Sonoma County Fire District, which recently absorbed the Windsor Fire District. Similarly, Salmon identified the town council working with Windsor Unified School District (WUSD) to “assure Windsor remains a family-friendly town” as important to him.
“I believe our schools which are currently terrific may be the attraction to the type of families and people we would like to move here but more importantly remain here,” Salmon said.
