Four seek election to two Sebastopol City Council seats

Community Service: past president, Sebastopol Downtown Association; first chairperson of the Sebastopol Farmers Market; Sebastopol Rotary Club and co-chairwoman of the Learn to Swim program.

Four people seeking election to two open seats on the Sebastopol City Council largely agree on what the city’s priority issues should be: affordable housing, traffic and walkability, strong, sustainable local businesses and responsible spending.

But they are engaged in campaigns of distinct style and scale.

On the one hand is custom bootmaker Michael Carnacchi, a fixture at City Hall in recent years and an ultraminimalist candidate who is foregoing donations, endorsements, fliers and printed literature of any kind.

Carnacchi, 54, is engaged in city government and has met so many locals over 23 years in his downtown shop that if he can’t win election without lawn signs and knocking on doors, he says, then he hasn’t earned the right to represent the citizenry. Besides, no printed materials means, “I have zero waste,” he said.

On the other hand, political and cannabis-policy consultant Craig Litwin, a well-connected, former two-term council member who threw his hat in the ring this fall as a write-in candidate after the official deadline had passed, still has managed to collect high-profile endorsements and raise enough money to mount a robust campaign.

No one else had raised $1,000 when the first financial disclosures were filed last month, but Litwin reported more than $11,000 in cash contributions and more than $14,000 overall by Sept. 24, less than a month after entering the race.

Litwin, 40, said he can use all the help he can get: His write-in campaign needs to get his name in front of voters so they know what to do once they’re at the polls.

“I feel pretty hopeful about my chances,” he said, “but I’m also - what’s that called? - cautiously optimistic.”

Positioned somewhere between him and Carnacchi on the campaign spectrum, political newcomer Neysa Hinton is running a scaled-down campaign, while Jonathan Greenberg, who also sought election to the council two years ago, has cited only donations from himself and a nephew for $250 each.

Hinton has deep roots in Sebastopol and recent experience as manager for the unsuccessful June primary campaign of fifth district supervisorial candidate Tim Sergent. A former sales and marketing manager who now directs an elder care facility in Novato, Hinton said discussion of local political and community issues during the supervisor race inspired her to contribute more of her time to the city she loves. She has loaned her campaign $1,750 for the chance to do it.

“I’m new to politics, but I’m not new to Sebastopol,” said Hinton, 52, who grew up and raised two children in Sebastopol. “I‘m going forward. I’m not going backward.”

Greenberg, an advocate, writer and consultant originally from New York, found his political footing locally by immersing himself in grass-roots efforts to restore public library hours that were cut countywide five years ago, and in the bid to revamp and resurrect Palm Drive Hospital as Sonoma Medical Center West.

He values his independence from the political mainstream and views himself as a “change agent” inspired by the presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders. He wants to help the city embrace more transparent, responsive, engaging government, he said.

It’s unclear how much traction Greenberg will have with voters after a last-place showing in the four-way race of 2014.

At the time, he was derided as “confused” and “unqualified” in a mailer initiated by Litwin and signed by a variety of local political leaders.

Greenberg said he raises the subject now to point out Litwin’s willingness to make “local politics dirty,” and thus potentially deter others from seeking public office.

“Some people find me abrasive,” Greenberg conceded during a recent campaign forum. “Some people find me confrontational and critical, because it comes from this sense of we could do better, can’t we? And here is some vision for it.”

The candidates’ tone has been amicable during recent campaign events, where they generally have found common ground on a desire to boost city revenue through transit occupancy and other taxes without compromising livability and affordability. They also agree about the challenge of paying for sidewalks and traffic improvements with limited resources, and the need for local governments to ease cost and permitting restrictions to promote creative solutions for housing relief.

But each has pet projects and ideas.

Greenberg contributes to a variety of small, independent initiatives that promote his interest in progressive politics and civic engagement, and has often spoken of the city’s need to embrace participatory budgeting, in which voters would be invited to help decide how the city spends, for example, the $73,000 in community support grants budgeted this year.