Nomination period now open for 4 Santa Rosa council seats

The nomination period opened Monday for prospective candidates to qualify for the November general election, where a majority of Santa Rosa City Council seats are up for grabs.

Santa Rosa residents will elect a representative in Districts 1, 3, 5 and 7, though the races so far have been slow to shape up.

At least one newcomer is guaranteed to join the seven-member council as two hopefuls vie to succeed Chris Rogers in District 5, while three incumbents are seeking another term.

Rogers, a Democrat who was first elected to the City Council in 2016, will face Republican candidate Mike Greer in the general election to represent the North Coast in Assembly District 2.

Council hopefuls have a little less than a month to collect signatures and file candidate paperwork with the City Clerk’s Office.

Here’s an early look at the races and how to run for office.

Incumbents seeking second term

Mayor Natalie Rogers and Council members Eddie Alvarez and Dianna MacDonald are up for reelection.

Rogers, who was first elected to the council in 2020, is seeking a second term to represent southwest Santa Rosa in District 7, which spans the area south of Guerneville Road and west of Stony Point Road and has seen explosive housing construction and growth in recent years.

She is a licensed marriage and family therapist and became the first Black woman to lead Santa Rosa when she was selected as mayor in December 2022.

MacDonald, who was appointed in February 2022 to fill a vacancy in District 3 and was elected that November to serve the remaining two years of the term, is running for her first four-year term.

The district spans the easternmost Santa Rosa hills and as far out as Oakmont.

She is a fourth generation Sonoma County resident who grew up in Santa Rosa and is former president of the California State PTA.

Both filed statements of intention to run for reelection in early 2023 with Rogers kicking off her campaign last September and MacDonald hosting a campaign launch party in late May.

No other prospective candidates have so far pulled candidate paperwork in either district, potentially setting up uncontested races for the two incumbents.

Alvarez, who in 2020 became the first person directly elected to represent Roseland and a greater swath of south Santa Rosa, had long been undecided about making a run for another term in office but posted on Facebook on Monday that he’d pulled nomination papers.

No other hopefuls have indicated formal interest in running for District 1.

Familiar face, political newcomer eye District 5 seat

Two candidates have filed statements of intention to run for the vacant District 5 seat, retired U.S. Navy pilot Jeremy Newton and Caroline Bañuelos, a Santa Rosa Junior College trustee.

Newton, a pilot with United Airlines, has been involved with the local Democratic Party and is active with his labor union. He is vice chair of the Santa Rosa Housing Authority.

Bañuelos, a longtime community advocate, has served on the community college board for four years and previously ran for an at-large council seat in Santa Rosa.

She is co-founder of the Sonoma County Latino Democratic Club, founding co-chair of the Roseland Cinco de Mayo festival and serves on the board of KBBF, the nation’s first bilingual radio station.

How to run for office

New council members will be sworn in December and serve through 2028.

Council members earn $1,480 per month, or $17,760 per year, plus benefits. The mayor, who is selected by the council and not elected by voters, receives $2,220 per month or $26,640 annually.

To run, candidates must be 18 or older on the date of the election, a city resident and a qualified and registered voter of the district in which they’re seeking office.

The deadline to file nomination packets with the City Clerk is 5 p.m. Aug. 9. The filing deadline will be extended to Aug. 14 in any district where the incumbent doesn’t file to run.

For more information on running for office, contact the City Clerk’s Office by calling 707-543-3015 or emailing cityclerk@srcity.org or visit the city’s campaign website.

You can reach Staff Writer Paulina Pineda at 707-521-5268 or paulina.pineda@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter) @paulinapineda22.