Windsor takes first step to get mayor out
Windsor residents’ effort to forcibly remove Mayor Dominic Foppoli from office formally kicked off on Monday with the filing of recall paperwork, the latest rebuke of the politician and vintner who has refused to heed calls for his resignation over sexual assault allegations from several women.
Tim Zahner, cochair of the United Residents for Recalling Foppoli Committee, said the organization had filed a “Notice of Intention” with the town clerk at a noon meeting, the first official step in the march toward a recall election. The filing starts the clock on California’s powerful but bureaucratically cumbersome process to unseat Foppoli, who has been accused by six women of sexual assaults ranging from groping to rape between 2002 and 2019.
“The sexual allegations against Mr. Foppoli are credible, corroborated and demonstrate the pattern of a sexual predator that cannot be ignored,” reads the notice. “The committee to recall Foppoli, believes and supports the women he victimized. Dominic Foppoli has violated the trust of the Town of Windsor residents
and can no longer fulfill his duties as mayor.”
Foppoli, 38, did not respond Monday to a request for comment.
In response to Chronicle investigations, more than two dozen elected officials and a slew of residents have called on Foppoli to step down in public statements, rallies and at Windsor Town Council meetings. But Foppoli has defied those demands. And because he was elected to his post, the mayor can only be removed by a felony conviction or a recall vote.
“We intend to see this through,” Zahner said in a statement. “Foppoli has shown he cannot lead the Town of Windsor, and since he refuses to do the right thing and resign, we will remove him thoroughly and completely.”
The campaign mailed Foppoli a copy of the recall notice demanding his “immediate removal from elected office,” Zahner said.
Foppoli, who has been mayor since 2018, has seven days to respond to the notice. Organizers must then design a petition and receive approval from the town clerk before they can gather signatures. Zahner said he expects to begin collecting signatures in midMay.
Organizers will have 120 days to obtain signatures from at least 20% of Windsor’s 16,879 registered voters — or about 3,376 residents — to force a recall election. The town has 30 business days to review the signatures and determine whether they are valid. Windsor officials will then have two weeks to set a special election for some time between 88 and 125 days in the future.
Given that timeline, Windsor residents are unlikely to know before this fall whether
Foppoli will face a recall. If the measure qualifies, the election is unlikely to occur before spring 2022; the mayoral seat is up for election in November 2022.
“Foppoli will be recorded in local history as the first per
son to be elected mayor in Windsor as well as the first one to be recalled by the people,” Zahner said.
The recall movement is the most recent fallout from Chronicle investigations detailing the allegations of the
six women. Foppoli has denied that he assaulted any of these women, saying at an emergency Town Council meeting earlier this month, “I know deep in my heart that I have done nothing criminally wrong and eventually will be cleared.”
Although Foppoli has “stepped back” from his mayoral duties, he has resisted calls for his resignation from his Town Council colleagues, the eight other mayors of Sonoma County, and the two U.S. congressional representatives for the North Bay.
In its letter to Foppoli, the recall campaign called his decision to “step back” unacceptable.
“Foppoli has a right to claim innocence until proven guilty, he does not have a right to maintain elected office when the people have found him unfit to serve,” according to the notice. “We have heard the voices of Windsor residents and the unrelenting pain of his victims and those who demand his resignation.”
First elected to the Windsor Town Council in November 2014, Foppoli was appointed mayor by his colleagues in 2018, and again in 2019. When the town opted to switch to an elected mayor role, Foppoli won the inaugural election in November 2020.
Foppoli’s Town Council colleagues have said they support the recall movement in the absence of his voluntary resignation. The council members have also proposed scrapping the elected mayor position, or establishing a charter that would allow them to remove Foppoli themselves.
A special election is scheduled for May 4 to fill the open council seat Foppoli vacated when he was elected mayor. Rosa Reynoza, one of five candidates vying for the midterm vacancy, ran against Foppoli in the 2020 election and lost.
“I wish Foppoli would resign,” Reynoza said, “but since he is not, I support the recall.”
Sonoma County Supervisor James Gore, who said he was friends with Foppoli before learning of the assault allegations, and who recently endorsed him for mayor, called on Foppoli to resign earlier this month. In an interview Monday, Gore said he will support the recall effort.
“I feel like I can’t just call for him to resign; I have to also support his recall because it’s not enough for me to just make statements,” Gore said. “Justice has yet to be served.”