Jody Purdom
Special to the Sun
Stanley Cohen’s meteoric rise in local politics began almost immediately upon his arrival in Sonoma. Moving here from Chicago with his wife in 1997, Cohen had barely gotten settled when he stepped up to the plate and became a board member of the Community Center.
“My wife told me to get out of the house and do something,” said Cohen, who is also a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) in town. “So I began attending City Council meetings in September 1997. Within the next year, I joined the board of the Community Center as treasurer.”
Since then, Cohen’s political career has blossomed. In addition to spending the last four years as an elected official on Sonoma’s City Council, Cohen is currently a member of Sonoma Community Center, Vintage House, and Sonoma Valley Hospital Finance Committee. In addition to his service on the board of the Community Center as treasurer, he ha also served on the boards of the WillMar Center for Bereaved Children and Congregation Shir Shalom. Prior to being elected to the City Council, Cohen served on the Community Services and Environment Commission for five years. Cohen also served as Sonoma Mayor last year.
It was while serving as the Community Center’s treasurer that Cohen met friend and colleague Ken Brown. Brown is Mayor Pro Tem and is currently serving his third, four-year term as a city council member. Many people also know Brown from his former role as the general manager of the Sonoma Community Center.
According to Brown, Cohen set the bar high on how to be a council member. “Stanley is very intelligent and took his job as councilman extremely seriously,” said Brown. “He is a fast responder to e-mails and phone calls and always makes himself available to other council members and the public alike. Most notably, he is always prepared for each of the multitudes of assignments he takes on.”
And there are dozens of such assignments. Always willing to jump in and do more, Cohen has an impressive list of organizations, committees and boards of which he has been a part. For Sonoma Valley Hospital, Cohen spent five years as both as an interim board member and chair of many of the finance committees. He was also an active supporter of all the different hospital bond measures.
Add to that, the past three years that Cohen has spent working on the League of California Cities Revenue and Taxation committee. Open to all California cities interested in participating, this lobbyist arm to legislators helps local governments tackle issues that will benefit cities throughout California.
Cohen has also been a member of the Sonoma County Transportation Authority, which is responsible for improvements on Highway 101 and other local roads. And for the past year, he has been on a sub-committee creating a strategic plan for using fewer vehicles.
As vice chair of the Sonoma County Water Agency’s Water Advisory Committee – among other related committees dealing with water – Cohen traveled bi-annually to Washington D.C., to assist in various capacities. He also spent time last year on the Sonoma County Health Alliance Committee, which recently reported back to the supervisors on ways those in Sonoma can live healthier lives.
As anyone can see, Cohen has been extremely busy. “My life for the past four years has been pretty non-stop what with all the reading I’ve done, the meetings I’ve participated in, etc. Overall, I think my political career has been enough to keep anyone busy. Now, I deserve a rest,” said Cohen.
When asked what his greatest contribution has been during his stint as a council member, Cohen replied his “sage financial advice.” He went on to state that his consistent approach to decision making – which includes doing his homework, understanding the facts and applying them to the problem – has helped him along the way.
Given his background in finance, Cohen has definitive remarks for the current economic climate in Sonoma. “As I’ve stated publicly before, I believe that the City will have a $500,000 budget deficit ending next June. If that number holds out to be true, and combined with other deficits that the City has already foreseen for the future, I think that Sonoma will have a shortfall to deal with that will use up its reserves. That’s my main concern,” said Cohen. “And this is totally related to the public’s physiological reconciliation of whether or not they are going to spend money and travel to Sonoma to stay over night.”
Speaking of traveling, when interviewed for this story, Cohen had just returned with his wife from a two-week trip to Central Europe that included stops in Hungary, Austria, Prague, and Budapest. He reports that the trip was “fantastic” and, as is his nature, he spent time learning about what the people were like in each country or city, how they lived and how their economics worked. A future trip to Israel is in the planning stages.
But first for Cohen, some projects around the house and classes in economics and finance. As he steps down from his official role, Cohen plans to continue to be an active voice as a citizen again.
“We all have a clock that we need to listen to when it’s time to move on,” says Cohen. “For many years, I was the only community member participating in budget discussions at City Council meetings. In that same vein, I will continue to attend all of the meetings I did as a council member. And I’m trying to find ways to be far more active as a citizen than I could as an elected official.”
