photo credit: Noah Abrams/KRCB
Sonoma County 2nd district supervisor candidates (from left) Sylvia Lemus, 
Shelina Moreda, and Joanna Paun at Los Cien's candidate forum on Wednesday, 
29 April 2026, at the Petaluma Health Center.

Sonoma County supervisor David Rabbitt, who represents Petaluma and the 2nd supervisor district as the longest-serving current board member, is stepping down after four terms.

Three of the four candidates running to succeed him made their case at a forum this week hosted by Latino leadership nonprofit Los Cien.

There will be two new faces on Sonoma County's board of supervisors come next year.

Sylvia Lemus, Shelina Moreda, and Joanna Paun hope to be one of them.

The three women are facing off for the 2nd district supervisor seat, to replace David Rabbitt. 4th district supervisor James Gore has also said he will not seek reelection.

Each candidate faced questions about issues in the 2nd district, which spans a large part of southern Sonoma County.

The district is anchored around Petaluma, and covers Cotati, Penngrove, and much of Sonoma County's dairy belt.

One of the issues discussed at Wednesday's forum: wildfire preparation.

Current Cotati city council member Sylvia Lemus worked for the County of Sonoma for over three decades. She said she's concerned about disaster response in immigrant communities, and has first-hand experience in emergency response from her tenure with the county.

"I also supported in communications, our emergency department, and so they hold emergency drills in different communities," Lemus said. "I think we need to expand that."

Shelina Moreda, a professional motorcycle racer, dairy farmer, and animal rescue coordinator with NorCal Livestock Evacuation said, "I believe in building systems during emergencies."

"I think it's one of the most critical things for our community," Moreda said. "That system that I built in the Tubbs Fire is still the system that the county uses today. I haven't seen enough improvement, in my opinion, from the county for our emergency situations."

Joanna Paun, a member of the Petaluma City School Board and education coordinator for homeless youth, said, "there was an evacuation route study done and so we need to look at that and then partner with some of our first responders and community-based organizations."

"I would love to hear more from the community about where shelters should be strategically placed around the county," Paun said.

Another issue they discussed was housing, and the possibility of building more housing in rural areas of Sonoma County.

"We should build housing close to transportation, have more infill, near services," Joanna Paun said. "We as a school district have looked at building workforce housing. There are lots of models where this is very beneficial to not just attracting but retaining teachers."

"Let's make permitting easier to get good housing out on the ranches and let's use the housing in town near transportation for more dense housing," Shelina Moreda answered. "I think that that's the way that we ought to be doing it because it's the most efficient way for us. That's how you build a strong community."

Sylvia Lemus said, "in Cotati we have in the pipeline two and a half, almost three times our RHNA numbers."

"A RHNA is the number that's assigned to different cities and so that means we we only need to build 234 [units], but we have almost 900 houses in the pipeline," Lemus said. "So, why can't we transfer some of those units and agree with the county that we'll take some of those units like Santa Rosa did."

2nd district supervisor candidate John King did not participate in the forum.

You can find the full recording from the April 29th candidate forum at the Petaluma Health Center on Los Cien's Facebook page.