Roughly 50 residents packed the Penngrove Community Clubhouse last Thursday to hear Petaluma school board trustee Joanna Paun and Cotati Mayor Sylvia Lemus spar over housing mandates, sewer costs and state ballot measures in a race that will send Sonoma County’s first new 2nd District supervisor to office in 16 years. The two are competing for a seat held by David Rabbitt since 2011, and the small unincorporated town of roughly 2,600 people used its moment in the spotlight to air frustrations that rarely reach downtown Santa Rosa.
The forum, hosted by Penngrove Cares, came as Sonoma County works to facilitate 3,183 new housing units in unincorporated areas by 2031 under a state mandate, according to The Press Democrat. The county has so far met about 37.5% of that target with five years left on the clock, and the approved units skew heavily toward above-moderate-income housing — 55% of the 982 units required in that bracket — while low-income, very-low-income and moderate-income categories lag far behind, at 23%, nearly 19% and 17% of their respective allocations.
For Penngrove, the abstract housing math collides with concrete infrastructure limits. Residents at the forum raised traffic, strained sewer capacity, rising costs to modernize that sewer system, and worries about water service. County materials also discuss traffic in Penngrove and intersection improvements along Old Redwood Highway.
Two Different Paths to City Hall
Paun and Lemus arrived at the stage from very different corners of public life. Paun, first elected to the Petaluma City Schools board in 2018 and unopposed in her second term, previously worked for two years as a foster and homeless youth education coordinator for the Sonoma County Office of Education. Lemus was appointed to her Cotati City Council seat and has never run for election before this race; she previously worked in Sonoma County human resources and served on committees including the county’s homeless coalition…