We got coffee at Retrograde. I ordered a cocoa with a surcharge whip. He got the same. I stepped out and stood, arms akimbo—to wait.
He did the same. Smiling, I suggested he was mirroring me because he was a politician. Smiling, he countered that it was because he was a Midwesterner.
Based on second and third impressions of the man—and the gentle and polite way the honorable Stephen Zollman officiates the business of Sebastopol’s governing city council—I would agree with him.
Seeking love and gay liberation, Zollman crossed the country to San Francisco. Unable to escape the complex trauma of a conservative upbringing, he found his mission as a passionate youth public defender. Seeking peace, he moved his small family to Sebastopol. Now a mayor for the Green Party, he holds an astonishing 21 seats in local and state committees, which maps the complexity of government and the breadth of his service.
CH: Sebastopol … has an image. What is a misconception about Sebastopol that informs its government?
SZ: (laughs) That we’re bougie and well off. That is not the case. Many are struggling. I have convened a monthly meeting of our nonprofits struggling to serve those in the gap. I believe the gauge of a community is the free services it offers its most marginalized citizens.
CH: To better conceive of your 7,500 citizens, you recently surveyed the priorities of your small city. What are citizen’s top concerns?
SZ: The number one issue was “safety.” The second was the state of city finances. The third was infrastructure—particularly the water and sewer rates. The state of our pipes is not great.
CH: Much ink has been spilled about Sebastopol’s “fiscal state of emergency” that you inherited and the city sales tax—now raised to the state ceiling. So tell me about “safety.”
SZ: I take that as meaning physical safety like fire and EMT—and mental health.
CH: I understand that your folding Sebastopol’s volunteer force into Gold Ridge’s professional force will cut EMT times and expand service as well as cutting costs. What about Sebastopol’s mental health?
SZ: I found that local providers of free mental health services lacked the funding and the licensed clinicians. So I had a meeting with [State Sen.] Mike McGuire because if you can’t find resources locally, you go up and shake the tree. We’re working on a pilot program modeled on Cere’s project that could get medical funding.
Contact Mayor Stephen Zollman via cityofsebastopol.gov/your-government/mayor-council.
