Rachel Hundley to resign from Sonoma City Council

After six years on the Sonoma City Council and a one-year, highly visible stint as mayor during the 2017 wildfires, Rachel Hundley announced via Facebook on Dec. 7 that she will resign from the council effective Jan. 31, 2021.

In a live video, Hundley, 37, cited the ongoing challenge of balancing her responsibilities as a city council member and the responsibilities of her day job as a public law attorney. She said that since being elected in 2014, her council commitments have prevented her from working full time.

She said she has no plans to leave Sonoma.

“Being your mayor in 2017 was one of the greatest honors of my life so far,” said Hundley in the video, noting that “watching the community come together” during and after the fires has “profoundly changed me.”

“I am so proud of the work we’ve done together. I also recognize that there is still much work to be done,” she said.

She went on to express pointed criticism of the current council.

“And although so many of us have pulled together,” continued Hundley, “it saddens me to admit that our city council has only managed to grow further apart.”

Hundley said her council colleagues “reached a new low” this past August when Hundley filed a Ralph M. Brown Act violation against Councilmembers David Cook, Madolyn Agrimonti, Amy Harrington and Mayor Logan Harvey, alleging they held an “illegal meeting” about potentially furloughing City Manager Cathy Capriola.

The council eventually agreed to “cease, desist from, and not repeat" the alleged violation of the state’s open-meetings law.

“Unfortunately, the city council has continued down a path of reckless and, at times, disturbing actions to settle personal scores, grant favors and elevate only themselves,” continued Hundley. “It has gotten to the point where I don’t have the stomach for it anymore.”

As for timing, Hundley said that as she was next in line for mayor, “at least in the traditional sense,” referring to the convention of council members typically voting for the vice mayor to serve as the next year’s mayor.

At the council’s meeting on Monday, Dec. 7, the council was set to officially seat new member Jack Ding, who ran unopposed this November for the seat being vacated by outgoing Councilmember David Cook, and vote for a mayor and vice mayor to serve in those roles through December 2021.

Hundley said she “felt a duty to make this announcement before tonight’s meeting so that Mayor (Logan) Harvey could have the opportunity to nominate another council member to pass the gavel to.”

The Sonoma City Council in recent years has bucked the convention promoting the vice mayor to mayor as often as not - with Vice Mayor Madolyn Agrimonti being passed over for mayorship by the council in 2017 and then Vice Mayor Gary Edwards similarly being passed over in 2018.

Earlier on Monday, Councilmember Amy Harrington, posted on Facebook that she planned to nominate current-Mayor Logan Harvey to continue to serve as Sonoma’s mayor in 2021, with Councilmember Madolyn Agrimonti to serve as vice mayor.

“Rachel really wanted to be mayor again,” she said about Hundley’s abrupt announcement. But Harrington said she wishes Hundley well. “Good luck to her.”

Harrington expressed some concern, however, over the timing of Hundley’s resignation. “I feel like if she is going to quit, she should quit,” said Harrington. “We have a really busy January with appointments and votes and I’m not sure why she should stay for those.”

Longtime City Council watchdog Fred Allebach described Hundley to the Index-Tribune as “sincere, thoughtful and willing to be daring with innovative policy ideas.”

“It's unfortunate that personal animosities have risen to the level of precipitating a resignation,” said Allebach. “This is a signal for all of us to lay down the talebearing and vindictiveness and start each issue fresh and clear.”

Josette Brose-Eichar, another regular council meeting attendee, said Hundley “brought a fresh perspective” to the council, but regretted Hundley’s role in the council’s recent “no action” vote on licensing a cannabis dispensary, which found Hundley recusing herself over a potential financial conflict of interest.

Council watchdog and former City Councilmember Ken Brown -- who lost his seat on the city council in the 2014 election which saw Hundley win her seat - said he is “empathetic” to Hundley, but that “she dug her own hole.”

Mayor Harvey said he wishes Hundley “the best in her future endeavors” and told the Index-Tribune that he’s sorry to hear she feels she's leaving on a sour note.

“I, for one, am proud of the many important achievements of the council in the two short years I've been honored to serve the city,” said Harvey, who was elected in 2018. “We've passed a minimum wage increase, developed a housing trust fund, passed a climate emergency resolution, and approved an ordinance that will lead to the opening of Sonoma's first legal cannabis dispensary.”

He said that at the council meeting on Monday, Dec. 7, he’ll be focusing on “what we should all be celebrating: the historic election of Jack Ding, our City's first Asian American Council Member and the reelection of Amy Harrington without whom, none of the council's achievements would have been possible.”

Still reeling from the arrest of Sonoma Councilmember David Cook in early November on charges of child molestation, Harvey told the Index-Tribune that he is looking forward to a new council “and a new year full of stability and progress as we continue support our community through the ongoing COVID19 crisis.”

City officials said that after Hundley’s seat becomes vacant, the city council can call a special election or begin an application and selection process to appoint a person to finish the rest of her term, which ends in December 2022.

Email Lorna at lorna.sheridan@sonomanews.com.

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