Foppoli berated in town meeting
Windsor mayor refuses to quit as sex charges fly
Windsor Mayor Dominic Foppoli told his Town Council colleagues that he would ignore their demands that he resign and then listened calmly as dozens of speakers strongly urged him to quit, some even cursing him, during an extraordinary emergency meeting held by the town Wednesday evening.
Foppoli, who was accused of sexual assault by several women in a recent Chronicle investigation, was positioned in a center square on the screen during the public Zoom meeting, surrounded by the same Town Council colleagues and employees who called the meeting to demand his resignation.
As mayor, Foppoli ran the first half of the meeting even though it was about his own alleged misbehavior, ushering speaker after speaker through the public comment segment, reminding people to unmute, only to have them unload on him after they did. They sobbed, hurled profanities at him, and called
him a “gross joke” and a “sociopath.” Several people accused Foppoli of additional sexual misconduct.
“I have experienced and seen some of this behavior firsthand and I have to say that I am so sorry,” said a speaker who identified herself as Carson Davis and said she had lived in Windsor for 10 years. “I have had my butt grabbed by him and I have seen some of the things that people are referring to. And we just should have taken this more seriously, I’m just so sorry to these women that it didn’t come out sooner.”
Foppoli called on the next speaker, noting the meeting was not “interactive.”
The virtual meeting — a confluence of the #MeToo movement, the pandemic and the staid machinations of municipal governance — is the latest development in response to a Chronicle investigation that detailed four women’s allegations of sexual assault against Foppoli. The alleged incidents range from groping to rape and span from 2003 to 2019, tracking closely with Foppoli’s rise to power in Sonoma County.
On Saturday, a fifth woman told The Chronicle that Foppoli sexually assaulted her dozens of times throughout a threeyear relationship that began in 2001 when they were both 19.
Without specifically addressing the allegations, Foppoli has vigorously denied any misconduct and has refused to resign his position. First appointed mayor in 2018 by his Town Council colleagues, Foppoli won Windsor’s first election for the mayoral seat in November 2020. Because he was chosen by voters, Foppoli can be stripped of his title only through a felony conviction or a recall election.
At the outset of the Zoom meeting, Foppoli reiterated his refusal to step down.
“I know deep in my heart that I have done nothing criminally wrong and eventually will be cleared,” the mayor said. “I am not without fault but I am not a criminal.”
Councilmember Esther Lemus, who has publicly accused Foppoli of sexual assault, recused herself from the meeting, in which the Town Council planned to vote to formally demand his resignation.
“This is very personal and traumatic for me thus I will not be in attendance this evening,” Lemus said in her statement, which was read by Town Manager Ken MacNab.
All three of Foppoli’s Town Council colleagues have told him to resign. Councilmember Debora Fudge — his chief ally on the council until last week — was tearful but blunt as she begged him to heed their calls on Wednesday.
“If you love Windsor as much as you say you always have, then you need to resign tonight,” she said.
“I feel like all of us were manipulated and betrayed, and I mean all of us, in different ways, depending on what our relationships were,” Fudge said. “The women who were physically and mentally hurt will be like that for the rest of their lives, and for that we grieve.”
MacNab said that town employees had expressed discomfort with being in Foppoli’s presence, virtual or otherwise, and that Foppoli had agreed not to come into Town Hall before first receiving MacNab’s permission.
Calling the allegations “shocking and appalling,” MacNab said the town had no knowledge of an employee being harassed or assaulted by Foppoli but that Windsor officials are providing counseling services to these town workers.
The Chronicle investigation also documented a 2017 email, sent to Fudge, in which a woman alleged sexual misconduct by Foppoli in 2013. The complainant — whose name was redacted by town officials — said Foppoli tried to remove the bathing suit of a woman who had rented the guesthouse at Christopher Creek Winery, among other allegations. Town councilmembers and employees defended their handling of the email, saying they did not contact law enforcement in accordance with the complainant’s wishes. Some speakers at the Zoom meeting said they were dissatisfied with this response, calling on Foppoli’s colleagues to resign, too.
Windsor officials first scheduled the Zoom meeting on Saturday when it became clear that, despite widespread condemnation, Foppoli would refuse to step down.
“Be assured that I will not succumb to any pressure to resign my office as I have done nothing to warrant your attacks,” he said in a statement released that evening.
In addition to his elected Town Council colleagues, more than a dozen elected officials have told Foppoli to resign, from the eight other mayors of Sonoma County cities, to both U.S. congressmen who represent the North Bay, Rep. Jared Huffman of San Rafael and Rep. Mike Thompson of St. Helena.
In his Saturday statement, Foppoli denied any misconduct, criticized The Chronicle investigation and lashed out at his critics: “To my fellow elected officials who have called for my resignation, your cowardly rush to judgment without evidence is a particularly alarming reflection of the state of our dwindling Democracy; indicative of your lack of commitment to critical thinking and logic; as well as an absolute collective failure to fully evaluate a challenging situation before making judgments and condemning a fellow colleague and citizen.”
In the statement and the days that followed, Foppoli and Lemus — who is also Sonoma County’s deputy district attorney — traded allegations about each other, which were reported by other media. The Chronicle continues to investigate those statements.
Unswayed by Foppoli’s response — and in some instances, spurred by it — dozens of speakers told Foppoli that he was no longer fit to lead Windsor at the Wednesday Zoom meeting. Realizing the discomfort he was causing some of the meeting attendees, Foppoli said he would leave the Zoom after a break at 9:10 p.m. At that point, not a single speaker, out of dozens, had supported the mayor. Foppoli’s move prompted Fudge to call for a vote on a motion to ask him to resign. After a brief argument, Fudge and Councilmember Sam Salmon voted yes and Foppoli voted no. The motion, which is mostly symbolic, passed. The meeting continued with more public comment after the deadline for this edition of the newspaper.
“When you put out statement like the one you did to defend yourself against these horrible things, you make every survivor in this country relive the horrible things that have happened to us,” said one speaker, who identified herself on Zoom only as “H.” “I have a little sister who works for the county, who works for the city (town) of Windsor, and I have to relive the fear every single day, not knowing if she’s going to be safe at the hands of any of you.”
Tyler Wilcox, the fiance of Allison Britton, one of the women who accused Foppoli of assault in The Chronicle’s investigation, spoke at the meeting Wednesday.
“It is a joke that a known rapist is running a meeting on his own rape accusations,” Wilcox said. “What kind of man calls his own rape victims a liar?”
Windsor residents said earlier this week that they were moving forward with an effort to recall Foppoli from office. Tim Zahner, chair of the Recall Foppoli Campaign, said on Sunday that the group was prompted by Foppoli’s “attempt to distract from the allegations against him with a strategy of blatant lies and misdirection.”
“This is part of a larger pattern of narcissistic and dangerous behavior from the mayor that not only harms his reputation, but also creates unnecessary strain on our community,” Zahner said. “Mayor Foppoli has to go. If he won’t resign, let there be no doubt that the residents of Windsor will remove him from office.”
Hours later, Joe Foppoli — the mayor’s older brother and fellow coowner of Christopher Creek Winery — said he, too, wanted Dominic Foppoli to resign. Joe Foppoli said he had asked his brother to step down as the chief executive officer of the winery, and that Dominic Foppoli “reluctantly” agreed.
On Tuesday, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors rescinded its approval of Dominic Foppoli’s appointment to the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District in a unanimous vote. Earlier this month, he had been appointed to the Board of Trustees of the district, to represent Sonoma County’s halfmillion residents in the operation of the bridge and the district’s bus and ferry services.
Last week, the League of California Cities also voted unanimously to remove Foppoli from a leadership post he held within the organization. Both the Russian River Valley Winegrowers and the Sonoma County Vintners announced they were cutting ties with Christopher Creek Winery.