Gary Edwards was recently selected by the City Council and past Alcaldes to be the honorary mayor of Sonoma, the 2026 “Alcalde” (Spanish for mayor). Anna Pier talked with the 66-year-old tireless volunteer about how he got to Sonoma, why he cares so deeply about it, and his understanding of the community.
When did you move to Sonoma? In 1994. I had made a connection with Ig Vella through my cheese marketing work, and he helped me find a home here, right near downtown. I wanted to come back to my roots.
Talk about your roots. Way back, my people first came to New York in 1646. They were Dutch. And there were Norwegians and English and others.They went from NY to Canada, then to Minnesota, and finally to California. I was born in Santa Ana, in fact delivered by the same doctor who delivered my father there. So I’m a second generation native Californian. My father was the director of the Vets Administration in Orange County. When he was growing up there, it was country, but it began to lose the agriculture which my father wanted for us…