Housing Group endorses candidates for Sonoma Council

The Sonoma Valley Housing Group finds there are two good candidates for city council in the November 2 election: James Cribb and Sandra Lowe. Both have qualities we admire. 

Both evince a willingness to push the edge to preserve, protect, or produce the housing types Sonoma needs to house its workforce. Both want to see the local economy pull its fair weight for essential workers. Both see town character as centered in people. Both embrace a sustainability triple-bottom-line point of view, in which economy, society and equity are all intertwined. 

Both replied in detail to our request for information on their candidacy. 

From Lowe, we like her calling out social stratification in the Valley and her desire for social change. We especially like that Lowe is open to discussing a City of Sonoma Valley to address Valley equity issues: “It’s time to have that conversation.” Lowe looks to preservation and protection of existing affordable-housing units, and to tenant rights. She also looks to protect mobile-home residents. We like Lowe’s union background and her state-level connections that could bring more resources to town.

From Cribb, we like his Planning Commission knowledge and experience, and specific details for affordable housing plans, like defining a potential project area, doing a programmatic EIR, and then doing an RFP so that the city can choose the housing it wants and not just take what developers propose. Cribb has bold ideas for affordable housing, 500 new affordable units, 50% of all new housing to be affordable. We like his smarts and gusto to pragmatically go after the new units.  

We can and will work with both. Our best regards go to the winner, and the one who doesn’t win we advise to run again next year. 

— Dave Ransom, Chair, SVHG