In Sonoma race, grapes fuel wrath
A supervisors race between two liberal candidates in Sonoma County has turned into a good ol’ Wine Country brawl amid fear that the region is too quickly transforming into a pricey, water-sucking theme park for the almighty grape.
The tug-of-war over the seat being vacated by disgraced Supervisor Efren Carrillo is billed by some as a choice between forests and vineyards, farmlands and event centers, conservation and industry.
But the election pitting organic farmer Lynda Hopkins against former state Sen. Noreen Evans for supervisor of the Fifth District, which covers western Sonoma County, including the entire coastline, is more complicated than that.
Both candidates purport to want the same thing — to protect the environment, particularly the Russian River; create affordable housing to counter skyrocketing prices; improve roads and other infrastructure; and prevent the county from turning into a wine monoculture.
The argument over which candidate can achieve those things has turned into a mud-slinging imbroglio, mainly over the alleged influence of special-interest groups.
At stake, if you believe the two candidates, is the future of bucolic Sonoma County, which has seen an explosion of winery development and a population increase of almost 4 percent since 2010.
“The major issue is the influence of wineries and agriculture,” said Ernie Carpenter, a former supervisor who is supporting Evans. “We are having a corporate buyout of many old family vineyards and wineries.”
Evans and her supporters say Hopkins is bankrolled by mineral extractors, real estate developers, and dozens of vineyard and winery owners worried about the government restricting tourist-friendly projects that would, in turn, clog already over-tapped roads.
Hopkins, a 33-year old Stanford graduate who, with her husband, owns Healdsburg’s Foggy River Farm in the Russian River Valley, has raised about $440,000 in donations, much of it from the farming and wine industries, records show.
Among her supporters is attorney and former Supervisor Eric Koenigshofer, who once lobbied for Preservation Ranch, a development plan by Premier Pacific Vineyards to cut down hundreds of redwood trees and plant 1,800 acres of grapevines east of Annapolis. The ridgetop plan was thwarted in 2013 when the nonprofit Conservation Fund purchased the property.
Koenigshofer, who started an independent expenditure committee for Hopkins, said the complaints about wine industry support are ironic, given that Premier Pacific was one of Evans’ contributors when she was in the Legislature.
“Noreen took money from the wine industry like there was no tomorrow when she was in Sacramento,” he said.
Among the other supporters of Hopkins’ campaign are John Dyson, a former deputy mayor of New York City who owns Williams Selyem winery in Healdsburg, the Sonoma County Farm Bureau and the Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce.
Evans, a former state senator with 20 years of experience in state and local politics, has collected about $350,000, including contributions from the Service Employees International Union Local 1021, the North Bay Labor Council and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 551. She is endorsed by environmental groups as well, including the Sierra Club.
With more than 430 wineries and 60,000 acres of vineyards, wine is big business in Sonoma County. In 2012, TripAdvisor named the county — which produces 6 percent of all the wine in California — the best wine destination in the U.S.
The business gener ates 54,000 jobs and draws more than 7.4 million tourists each year, according to Moody Analytics. But the industry has come under fire in recent years for opening more than 220 event centers, where dinners, concerts, weddings and other events create traffic that jams roadways.
Use of scarce groundwater has also become an issue. Agriculture uses 32 to 55 percent of the groundwater in the county, depending on the area. The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, which Evans helped pass when she was a state legislator in 2014, would limit the use of groundwater and require farmers to measure and report the water they pump.
People in the wine business, many of whom support Hopkins, are pressing Sonoma County supervisors to give them a greater say in how the new law is carried out on the local level.
Evans said wine industry power brokers are “fighting against everything I stand for, and they are willing to put in big bucks to stop it.
“This campaign is about whether the real people living in Sonoma County will elect a person who will protect our river, our coast, our forests, or elect someone who is being brought to them by industries that could potentially ruin the county,” she said.
Hopkins, running her first political campaign, called Evans’ assertions “ludicrous” but effective in Sonoma County’s political climate. She said her email inbox has been filled with hate mail from people who believe the “misinformation” coming from the Evans campaign.
Misrepresentations were repeated so much, Hopkins said, that she was compelled to make a video in a field strewn with cow patties where she referred to the narrative from the Evans side as “bulls—.”
Hopkins said she opposes event centers on agricultural land and has fought against monoculture by, among other things, converting the vineyard she and her husband bought nine years ago into a food farm.
“We are very passionate about diversification of agriculture and believe that Sonoma County should be a food producer,” she said, promising to work to restore flood plains and habitat along the Russian River. Gravel mining, she said, will not resume on her watch.
On the whole, there are more similarities than differences in policies espoused by Evans and Hopkins, though Hopkins is set apart by her support for county pension reform.
Hopkins’ supporters, too, have been on the offensive, criticizing Evans for missing meetings when she was a member of the legislative oversight committee for the California Coastal Conservancy and for taking special-interest money, including donations from casino operators, during previous campaigns.
Evans branded the attacks a “smear” campaign. She noted she was not expected or required to attend the oversight committee hearings, which conflicted with some of her legislative duties.
“I have 20 years of fighting for the environment, fair treatment of workers, affordable housing, and have proven myself capable of enforcing regulations,” Evans said. “While she may say she believes the same things ... she has never done it and doesn’t know the first thing about doing it. Not only that, but she is being funded by the very people she is supposed to regulate.”
Hopkins, who started her run for supervisor with no money, said she was surprised to see how her campaign has taken off, especially against an experienced politician like Evans.
“I thought I would be the long-shot hippie farm-girl candidate, but I have been to every smalltown breakfast, crab feed and spaghetti dinner over the past year telling about my ideas,” she said. “There is a need to bring people to the table because so many people feel left out of the process. I think people saw that I can bring together diverse coalitions of people to get things done.”
Whoever wins will take over from Carrillo, who was recently sued for $2.5 million for allegedly showing up at a neighbor’s Santa Rosa home early one morning in July 2013 wearing only socks and underwear, hoping to have sex with her.
The 33-year-old supervisor was acquitted of misdemeanor peeking charges in April after testifying that he was drunk when he made the advance.